NaNoWriMo 2021 About Face

Well, that didn’t go as planned. I had decided against participating in NaNoWriMo due to having too many irons in the fire. I have no one to blame but myself. My wife and I were talking about the latest book that will be going live on November 15th, a book that has grandsons 1, 2, and 3 as named characters. I had mentioned about giving those boys, now young men, each a copy of the book. The main character is grandson number one and he was fine with the story line and the “naturist” aspect of the story. No secrets in our family. My wife worried about grandsons 4 and 5 who might feel left out. And that is where the wheels started turning.

Grandson number four is the most sensitive among these five grandsons and I wondered how he would take it and thought of a plan to have him not even think of being left out. Why not write a novel with his name as the main character.

On November 1st, I called him and asked if he would read a brief [1,100 words] intro for a story I was thinking of writing. If I was going to do this story for NaNoWriMo, I had to find out quickly if he was in favour of the story idea. The intro used his name and established the setting. He agreed and we arranged to have a text chat in the early evening. Through the discussion, a few conflicts were suggested by him, as well as the existence of two supporting characters. A villain was also suggested, an evil flying squid alien race.

Now, this is an eighteen year old who grew up with me telling tales each night before bedtime when he was at my place or vice-versa. As well, all of my other books are in his house so he has some inkling of what my writing is like, including my naturist fiction novels and the illustrated Naked Poetry series. I wasn’t surprised with his response to potential sensitive issues “ya you do you man”.

I then asked about including grandson number five, his younger brother. His response: “Add him at the end of the novel to introduce another novel, his story.”

And so, NaNoWriMo 2021 had to happen. Three days in, I had passed 6000 words. I am trying to fit in as much writing as possible as the other obligations haven’t disappeared. I still have final editorial touch ups to take care of before November 15th when Aliens Among Us, a naturist novel goes live. This is the story that uses the first three grandsons as main and supporting characters.

As well, I am just about done a rewrite of my Golden Anniversary non-fiction book. Left somewhere in the dust is a story that I hoped would have been my NaNoWriMo effort for this year, a project delayed because of two separate family visits during the month of November. Oh well, maybe the powers that be will grant me enough years to finish all of my projects.