Every year Nanowrimo is an adventure—that is, it’s miserable, uncomfortable, undignified, and I’ll get utterly lost at least once a day. I am comforted by two harsh realities: that I am going to explore new ground, and that the end result will be gloriously awful.
But, like a good camping trip, if you don’t come out of it with twigs in your hair and half a hillside worth of mud down your pants, you’re not doing it right.
This year I want to try a paranormal urban fantasy caper. I am inspired by my friend Rachel’s publisher, Carina Press. Looking at their back catalog, I realized that this is where fanfic writers go when they grow up. Want to publish a M/M erotic vampire/werewolf fantasy—in space? If it’s any good, Carina Press will give it a shot. Just, you know, slap a fresh coat of paint on that Farscape/Firefly crossover before submitting it [0].
My challenge is that everything I know about telling caper stories I learned from obsessively listening to the commentary tracks on my Leverage DVDs [1].
My other challenge is that in my head this book takes place in New York City. A city I have been to exactly once and decided I didn’t like very much [3]. All I know about New York City I learned by reading urban fantasy and watching Castle and Law and Order reruns.
I could do some research. Or I could just wing it.
I did mention that the results of Nanowrimo are supposed to be gloriously awful and messy, right? Imagine me as a five-year-old at the crafts table, covered in glue and glitter and tissue paper and bits of yarn, and in the end producing a random bit of scribble that only a mother could love.
[0] Ooh. Farscape/Firefly crossover! Aeryn and Zoe would take over the frelling ‘verse, man!
[1] Dear Leverage writers: please send me your research bibliography. For some reason my public library doesn’t have “How to be a criminal mastermind” as a subject listing in the catalog. [2]
[2] Also, I’ve been a very, very good girl all year and I’d like an episode where Eliot and Hardison go undercover as male strippers.
[3] I was there three days and had a migraine the entire time.
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