Year
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Title of Novel
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Words in November
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Words as of April '25
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How good is it?
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Will it be published?
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What's it about?
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How many talking animals?
|
Notes on the month
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Notes on the book
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2003
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Eva and the Killjoys
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35,000
|
41,700 out of 80,000
|
Pretty amateurish!
|
Mmmm, I could see it happening if I were to become very established.
|
Very
silly space aliens abduct an aging actress to serve as intermediary to
another species of aliens who are born yearning to die.
|
None, unless space aliens count!
|
I learned about NaNoWriMo on the
8th of November, 2003, from a fellow member of a writer's group.
Feeling quixotic and creatively daring, I decided to jump in and give
it a go, despite having even fewer than the normally appointed 30 days
to perform a miracle.
|
I was vaguely inspired to write a fantastical romp in the style of Rudy Rucker, perhaps with influence from The Little Prince?
|
2004
|
Edge Friends
|
50,000
|
125,600 out of 250,000 (oops too long)
|
Kinda cool but mostly embarrassing!
|
Some form of it someday, I hope!
|
A child's wish makes the world
flat and indefinitely colossal; traversing it safely requires
respecting the conventions of story.
|
Coatimundi, rainbow lorikeet, whitetail deer, skunk, golden mouse, pademelon.
|
I think I was still in that
writer's group, but I don't remember much contact with others while I
squeezed out my first NaNo victory. I was surprised at how little of
the plot I'd covered once the end of the month rolled around!
|
Inspired by a roleplay with a
former close friend over AOL Instant Messenger. I later encountered a
John Scalzi novella that was eerily similar, but of course much better.
|
2005
|
The Autobiography of Peter Mint
|
21,000
|
27,800 out of 80,000
|
Not very well thought out!
|
Maybe if I become popular and my fans are some combination of curious and forgiving.
|
A taxidermied bald eagle formerly
owned by the Philadelphia Mint discovers a corporate mystery hidden in
breakfast cereal web browser games.
|
One! And a lot of borderline ones that I haven't gotten around to writing.
|
I was working overnights at Target and feeling exhausted, plus trying to co-run a popular MUCK and host an out-of-state guest, resulting in my least successful NaNo.
|
Half inspired by a Philadelphia
legend, half by the mystique of breakfast cereal commercials. One of my
few first-person ventures.
|
2006
|
House of Harpers
|
50,700
|
50,700 (done!)
|
Very uneven, but great if you love house dreams!
|
I can see myself print-on-demanding this one.
|
A man is pulled off the street to judge an endless war between dozens of siblings in a magical, dreamlike mansion.
|
None! How did that happen?
|
My
swiftest NaNo effort by far!
I started on November 6th and finished the whole book on the 25th.
That's what research-free, dream-inspired fantasies get you! (I did
have to later patch up the beginning with its first/third-person shift,
though.)
|
Sets
a personal record for the most irregular chapters, since Chapter 2 is
20,000 words about Capture the Flag. Inspired by the home of a
childhood friend and a make-believe game I played as a teenager.
|
2007
|
Halloween Happiness
|
63,000
|
64,000 (done!)
|
The
pacing somehow came out perfect on the first try. The quality of
writing, not so much. But this book will be awesome someday.
|
I would like it to appear in a ragged, slim cloth-bound brick red book in people's attics and back rooms on autumn nights.
|
Trick-or-treating animal
children find a way to change the world so that door-to-door candy now
comes at a beautiful, horrible price.
|
Anthromorphs everywhere! And some non-anthromorphs just for fun.
|
I
was at a two-room coffeehouse listening to live jazz late on the 30th
and I got a flat tire while leaving. As a result, I was 45 minutes from
actually finishing the novel in November!
|
I somehow managed to lose the
text file! I have a physical copy from CreateSpace, plus I was able to
recover a text file containing about half of it and a PDF that I hope I
can extract the text from someday!
|
2008
|
What Is Best?
|
50,000+
|
142,200 (done!)
|
Pretty cool to very cool, depending on your attitude!
|
It's already self-published! I didn't think the publishing houses would want something so unorthodox, so I didn't try.
|
Creator wants you to determine the ultimate goal of life! You can choose which walk of life to explore and get into a lot of motley and wild adventures.
|
All the tetrapods in the world!
|
This month was lots of fun! NaNo
was in full swing locally and I dared to attend the 24-Hour Writing
Tour, but my time with them was cut short by freezing rain, resulting
in my being stranded overnight with acquaintances.
|
An interactive novel! I finished
in June of 2009 and decided to self-publish it; it's for sale! I made
more charts and records by far for this book than for any other.
|
2009
|
The Kaliko Shelf
|
60,000+?
|
143,200 out of 300,000 (holy moley)
|
It's truly amazing, if you like incredibly bizarre structures and premises!
|
...No? Maybe? Yes, definitely, in a perfect world.
|
A mink is trapped in an impossibly large shopping mall beneath the South Pole. He wants to find the top of it.
|
See above. There's a giraffe in it.
|
This year the writing tour was
28 hours and I was there for most of it, pounding out 15,000 words! The
height of my NaNoWriMo experience.
|
A sequel to What Is Best?!
But weirdly specific and stunningly esoteric. I'd love it to appear
someday in a big hardcover textbook format with lots of fun riddles,
illustrations, bonus features, and sidebars.
|
2010
|
Reba Sets Sail
|
50,000+
|
78,000, once I later decided where to end the book!
|
It's lots of fun, but a little sloppy. Reba is my favorite character ever.
|
Reba's original timeline needs rewriting, so there's no saying how much of this book will be left by the time I get to it!
|
A purple anthropomorphic
raccoon lady who hops between dimensions with magic mushrooms meets
someone even weirder and more powerful than herself.
|
Raccoons, chickens, horses.
|
The live side of NaNo was still
going strong, but I may have been busy with work, as my involvement was
flaky. It was definitely exciting to finally try and novelize a
cooperatively run roleplaying campaign I'd been in for a couple of years, though!
|
The
beginning of my Reba of Rivermill series! These epistolary books wound
up becoming semi-historical fantasy. I eventually jumped back to my
protagonist's first diary and worked forward, rendering this book
somewhat obsolete.
|
2011
|
A Meerkat in Equestria
|
50,500
|
50,500 out of what would be 100,000 if I ever revised it
|
If I'd paced it right, it would
have been a fun read for fans of The Lion King and MLP: FiM. Otherwise,
it's pretty much pointless.
|
I probably should have pubbed it
daily on fanfiction.net while I was writing it. Now, it's the only
novel I pretty definitely won't ever be publishing. (Never say never,
though!)
|
A Lion King-style meerkat goes
looking for his zebra friend, encounters the world of My Little Pony,
and falls in love with the derpy mailmare before she gets possessed by
an evil spirit.
|
Only a handful, because ponies are people, not animals. Right?
|
I
felt exhausted as I slogged
through write-ins this month. I also paced myself very poorly, not
making it through even half the planned story before
month's end, when I rushed through the rest of the plot like a scared
jackrabbit. Really, I was getting tired of NaNoWriMo, since I had too
many unfinished manuscripts. Thus began my seven year hiatus!
|
The main character belongs to a
(former?) MUCKing friend of mine, and the story is based on a
passionate AIM roleplay we had that made me cry for 45 minutes. This
was my only NaNo writing fan fiction, and a weird crossover to boot.
|
2019
|
Welcome to the Party: Canis lupus
|
50,000
|
135,000 (done!)
|
Trust me, it's very cool.
|
Oh heck yes.
|
The world's wolves suddenly gain human-level intelligence. That's all! That's the whole premise.
|
Woofies. And perhaps more to come!
|
I'd been excited all summer and
fall to return to NaNoWriMo after a long hiatus (roughly, my fan
fiction period). It was disappointing how the scene had contracted.
This was a very difficult victory because of all the research it
required!
|
The first book in a series of
five, I hope! I'm almost done revising it and intend to look for agents
soon. One might call it urban fantasy, but I'd prefer to call it social
speculative fiction.
|
2020
|
The Body of Braden Townborne
|
50,000+
|
105,000 out of maybe 120,000
|
It's very unique... and it will be excellent when I piece all the chunks together.
|
Yes, eventually. ...When the world is ready.
|
A
vulpine professional with an unusual spiritual practice heads into an
enchanted forest to fulfill the insight quest of his kind.
|
Everything except insects.
|
Writing a novel while waiting
for a CoVID vaccine was kind of dark, but in a satisfying way. Lots of
people wrote novels during lockdown! My foxbook will have to remain
locked down for a long time.
|
There is deep philosophy in this book, but also something else. The nature of Braden's profession and spiritual path will remain secret.
|
2021
|
City of Devilry
|
52,400
|
53,400 out of 100,000
|
Clever and atmospheric, if rough as of yet.
|
I sure hope so someday! It's about half done, and I have a sort of outline for the rest.
|
An
ex-mob chemist, a kingpin, an heiress, an urchin, a crooked cop and a
night-flier become entangled in a dark urban tale about addiction.
|
A bat, a steer, and scads of anthropomorphic Tazmanian devils.
|
Still no in-person events, so writing it felt a little dreary. Luckily, that fit the book's theme pretty well.
|
I was walking home along a
bridge over a river one night and imagined a bat sweeping over the
city, watching its machinations and deciding when and how to involve
itself. This setting-based book was the result!
|
2022
|
Reba Burns the Midnight Oil |
50,000+
|
98,800 (done!)
|
It may be my best novel ever.
|
It had sure better be!
|
Reba heads south to Louisiana to locate a missing relative, and nothing bad comes of her new opium-smoking hobby whatsoever.
|
Raccoons, horses, and a yellow anthropoid jackal.
|
It was exciting to continue what
was now my main Reba of Rivermill timeline with this, the fourth book.
I'd been waiting for months!
|
The first of my now-mainline
Reba books to be started for NaNoWriMo. I'm currently reading it aloud
in installments to an internet friend.
|
2023
|
Reba Head Over Heels (working title)
|
50,000
|
124,300 (done!)
|
Maybe a little long, but really good!!
|
I may need to trim it slightly, but absolutely!
|
Reba
is hired to locate Ptosania, the legendary Land of Lost Things, but
winds up accidentally ordering a baby and falling for a delivery stork.
|
Raccoons, storks, dolphins, cuttlefish. |
Write-ins were happening
in-person again, but getting more than five people together at once
proved challenging. During this month, NaNoWriMo had a multidimensional
scandal and the forums were shut down, forcing us to rely on Discord.
|
This latest Reba book introduces a couple of characters from her
long-known future past. Inspiration drawn from Gödel, Escher, Bach's Tumbolia and an abandoned Thunderstone Quest expansion design called The Ultimate Whirlpool.
|
2024
|
Dragons, Dolphins, and the Harmonic Convergence of 1987
|
50,000
|
76,800 out of perhaps 130,000 if I'm sparing
|
Somewhat scrambled at present, but I have faith that revisions will make it sparkle!
|
Definitely hoping so. It's more
of a "milieu" book than I normally write and I imagine it with a
wraparound illustration on perfect binding.
|
The Age of Aquarius is dawning
and everybody wants to profit from picking the Harmonic Messiah!
Intrigue in a tourist island nation.
|
Dragons, dolphins, octopuses, squid, kobolds, pelicans.
|
Another long-anticipated
project. The dissolution of NaNoWriMo left me a little bereft when
writing this month, but I took advantage of a Discord started by locals
and it went decently, if messily!
|
Based on a text-based Discord
campaign I've been running for three years. I vaguely remembered the
Harmonic Convergence and thought: wouldn't it be cool if there were
actually something to this?
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