Meri's Monthly Musings - Fall & NaNoWrimo 2021

Welcome to the latest Meri's Monthly Musings! Which has turned into a twice a year musings. With NaNo, though, I'm trying to get back into writing, so here's an update.


2021 Creative Summary:

It's been a difficult year and my writing progress has been minimal, so I haven't had anything much new to share on this site. I did share this little thing from my book 1 antagonist's POV. This was the first story writing I'd done in about three years, so it's incredibly rusty, but any writing is productive writing since it's been so long. Otherwise I've been brainstorming books 1 and 2, which unfortunately isn't really able to be shared since it's all notes. I'll talk a bit about book 2 in a moment since it's my NaNo, though!

What I have been doing this year is art. I decided that I want to finally learn how to draw and paint, so my creative energy has largely gone into that. When the brain fog is thick and energy is low, it's easier to draw/paint something from a reference photo or tutorial than it is to work on writing or blogging. That's honestly why I've done so little with my series and this site this year-- it's been hard to think.

These are some of my favorite artworks from this year. I have been keeping my art Instagram updated as I finish things, so if you're interested in seeing what I'm creating, check it out or give me a follow. When I remember to, I also share my art and writing updates to twitter.

NaNo Plans:

This is exciting because I'm working on a first draft! I haven't written one of these in about six years, because I spent several years working on drafts of what were book 1 and book 2. About a year ago these two merged into one book around the fourth draft of each. I've got a pretty good idea of what's going to happen in that book, but didn't want to spend NaNo working on it. This is partly because I wanted something new, partly because I think the few plotholes and gaps in it will be filled in by writing the book that follows.

So that brings me to Flashover, the new book 2! Here's the summary:
The dorks have uncovered who is indirectly responsible for the thefts in their home city, but the problem goes much deeper. A plan is made to infiltrate suspect locations using fake identities and the less-than-lawful background of the least reliable dork. Dray, who agrees with this assessment of their character, starts to dig for information with Adair's help while the others investigate a surge in illnesses all too near the pair for this to be coincidence. The careful plan veers off course when mistaken memories of the past collide with visions of an alternate present. Now the clock is ticking on finding what and when things went wrong. Dray needs to find a way to stop the flashovers and regain their correct memories or else the identities of the dorks will be exposed. Dray has avoided jail this long, they'd rather keep that trend going. And keeping the people affected by illness and the reality split safe, that's probably important, too.

Basically this book is a bizarre cross between political intrigue, the paranormal, and a parallel universe. It's going to be a lot of fun to write!

Right now that's what my writing looks like: a binder filled with notes. Before I start the draft, which may happen this month or it might not, I'm going to put together a detailed outline. Previously I'd used a whiteboard (which I still am-- that's at the top of this post), index cards, and post it notes to outline. This time I'm using a binder because I have five sets of characters with their own story arcs, so it's easier to keep track of all this in tabbed sections.

The other fun thing I've been using? Tarot cards! Those are also in the leading picture as a peek, but I'll talk more about them in a later post because this has become a big part of my brainstorming process.

I'll wrap up here for now and hopefully I'll be able to start updating this site again more regularly. I do post little writing process updates to my main Instagram and likely I'll start using my Twitter and my author page on Facebook in case you want to give them a follow.

I wish good luck to others who are doing NaNo this year!
~Meri

CONVERSATION

3 comments:

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  2. Good luck on NaNoWrimo, your story sounds awesome. :) I enjoy reading stories told from the point of view of antagonists and anti-heroes.
    -Quinley

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    1. Thanks! It feels really good to be regularly working on writing again. Funny you say that because I realized this week that my antagonist gets pov in the series. He may or may not get a redemption arc, that's up to him lol. I adore Dray, though, and they're the most fun character to write. They definitely get a lot of character growth.

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