Attempting Nano?

I’ve been working on a book for nearly a decade now.

That sounds insane, I know.

The problem is that I have world builders disease.

Every time I sit down to write something, I would get distracted by some aspect of the world that my book is set in. For example, I would be writing a scene where they eat something and then find myself wondering why they would use forks. Surely, something else might have been invented. Then I spend a few hours pondering what food they eat and what might have inspired their creation of tools, and then I create a whole new utensil for my world. Less than a paragraph written for the actual book, but a page or two for the world book.

But after nearly a decade, I now find myself with a world that is nearly completely flushed out. I have multiple religions, mythologies, languages, and all of the big things a world needs. But I also have an encyclopaedia’s worth of notes on the small tangible things that make the world feel real.

I also have over two hundred years of history plotted out - none of which matters to the book. Like I said, it’s a disease.

So now that my world feels real to me, it’s easy to figure out what small supporting characters would do or say. It’s simple to know what roles within a village would have the most power or be at the greatest risk of corruption. There is no more need for world building. It’s time to actually write the thing.

Which brings me to a whole new problem.

I have to figure out how to connect all these little bits and pieces of a story that I have written over the years. I have to put them in order and figure out what’s missing. In my head, they are part of a larger story, but I’m fairly certain they would be absolute gibberish to anyone else who attempted to read them.

So, my plan is to spend the next week organising what I already have into an outline and then using NaNoWriMo to help motivate me and keep me accountable.

With any luck, I’ll finally have a full first draft of my book by the end of November.