A good part of my free time is spent writing. It is sort of a therapy, and I began this hobby at the tender age of ten. I've been writing since (granted, with breaks inbetween). What draws me to writing is the fact that you have endless possibilities, and you can explore characters and scenarios. You can watch your babies characters grow. They can disappoint you, or they can make you proud. No matter what, you will love your characters, and that is something only writing can do. If you've read some of the other pages on this site, you'll know by now that I love dramatic material, and I make no exception in writing. I am no George RR Martin, but quite a number of my beloved characters don't make it through until the end. Oops!
To make sure I keep on track with writing, I usually use NaNoWriMo as an excuse for a month of crazy writing, and then I write whenever I have some time on my hands throughout the year. Naturally, most things get accomplished during NaNo, so here's a look at my stories of Nanos past (Bah! Humbug!).
2005 Getting Over It I had discovered Nano sometime in early 2005, and decided to attempt my first Nano at age 14. It went very well, and I hit 50k around 20 days into the event. The story focused on a character recalling events from his youth that eventually brought him to where he is in the present day story: his brother's funeral.
2013 Wings is a story I ended up hating because it got too romance-y halfway through, so I rewrote it from scratch and turned it into a much more mature version later on, titled The Beauty of Symmetry. Now, I pretend Wings doesn't exist. However, it has a prequel, The Dark Man, which is most likely my favourite piece of writing.
2014 Familiar Stranger is another piece of awful writing I attempted after a long writing break. I finished Nano successfully, but the story died soon after because it was utter crap. Much like Wings, I have plans to rewrite this, but it won't remain the same story. The project I have planned for someday in the future will tell the main character's story, but it will be set before the events of Familiar Stranger (that I will pretend never happened).
2015 The Formula I loved one of my main characters, but I didn't love the story enough to turn it into something longer. I enjoyed working with the idea--a scientist discovers a formula to eternal life; however, it affects people differently and destroys the world she knows--but I tried to explore a fantasy world, and that's not something I'm very good at. This story is quite alright, but not one of my favourites.
2016 The Haunting Tale Although this was the first Nano ever that I didn't finish, I surprisingly fell completely in love with this story and its characters, mostly after Nano 2016 and during Camp Nano 2017. The Haunting Tale is the legend of a curse people believe their gods bestowed upon them. This book tells the story of one of the "cursed twins" after the other has died. A bit Hamlet-y when the main character finds out (spoiler alert!) that his uncle had his father murdered in order to become king. I'm hoping to complete this project during Nano 2017, and have plans to turn this story a trilogy, only because I cannot get enough of the pool of characters and all the confusion I've already created in the first book.
2017 The Haunting Tale ctd. Coming soon! Hopefully I will be able to finish this during Nano 2017.