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SiteTackling NaNoWriMo
One of the more recent topics to flood the World of Warcraft blogosphere has been the impending arrival of the National Novel Writing Month. Otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, this yearly event invites peoples to embrace literary abandon and write a 50,000 word novel within the course of thirty days. Whole communities have embraced this annual event, while other individuals are left scratching their heads in confusion.
While the novels can entail any universe — even one of your own devising! — many fellow bloggers have contemplated writing stories specific to the World of Warcraft environment. Others have elected to write, but not about World of Warcraft. Vonya at The Egotistical Priest wrote in “NaNoWriMo” claiming that she’d managed to drag both Hannelore and Bre of Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick into the project. She went one step further to create a World of Warcraft community on the official site called World of Wordcraft. Matticus of World of Matticus wrote “7 Cliche’d Ideas to Jump Start Your WoW Related NaNoWriMo.” At Bringin’ the Wood, Jive explains more about NaNoWriMo in “We interrupt this WoW-ing for RL!“ And this morning Megan of Out of Mana announced her interest in writing this year in “Readers, Riters.”1
I’m sincerely considering attempting to do NaNoWriMo this year. I have tried so once before, but a family emergency halfway through the month made it difficult to complete. Like many other bloggers, I’m interested in penning a story regarding World of Warcraft, specifically about one of my many characters. As an amateur writer and a roleplayer, the idea of finally getting my stories written down2 appeals to me a lot. In particular, there are two ideas in my head that would work admirably for NaNoWriMo:
- The story of the undead mage Cili, but before she was Forsaken. The novel would follow the final adventure of Mariska Stormborne as she meets an eclectic group of characters, attempts to reconcile her devotion to the Alliance with the “new” Alliance that has evolved following the fight at Hyjal Summit, and crashes headlong into a new amorous pursuit that may be a bit more serious than she had originally hoped.
- Or, I could follow the adventures of independent contractor and blade for hire Tzigane Thistledown3, a young gnome rogue. Unfortunately, Tzigane’s prowess with lockpicking leaves something to be desired and she’s captured while performing a task for one of her occasional employers. This technophobe and her dwarven ally — a man with more muscles than grey matter between his ears — are coerced into performing a task for the Stormwind guards that leads them into the heart of Horde territory and might cost them their lives.
At the moment, despite the appeal of roleplaying Tzigane again after disregarding her for so many years, I’m leaning more towards writing Cili’s story. The story is more or less complete, in that the main body of events occurred during a tabletop roleplaying sessions almost three years ago. On the other hand, I know how Tzigane’s story would start and how it ends, but everything in between is fluff for now. A whole lot of things occur, but at the moment I have no clue. Furthermore, Tzigane’s story revolves around her quick wit and occasional brash attitude to progress, while I feel that Cili’s is a little more deeper. At least that’s how I’ve always visualized it in my head — it may be an entirely different matter when if I were to start penning it.
My only concern is that I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to pursuing any type of creative endeavor. I reread constantly, correct, change, and rarely progress as much as I’d like due to my obsession with getting everything just right. In this, the definite deadline of NaNoWriMo could be both a blessing and a curse: while I’d be forced to write regardless of its unpolished nature due to the impending conclusion of the month, I very well might explode before then.
I think that I’ll get together my notes from that roleplaying session and plan things out. I might also post a short story or two just to get the creative juices flowing a bit before November. Any preparation that I can get done ahead of time to help ease the process would make success that much more likeky!
