Tag Archives: Novel November

December 1, 2025 · 6:00 am

#NovelNovember has ended, my book isn’t done, and once again, I’m clueless #writing

Today is the first day of December 2025. Over the last 30 days, I have written more than 50,000 words to finish the plot of a novel that is ½ of a duology. The story is too big and would make a giant doorstop of a book, so I am splitting it.

Book one is a complete first draft and desperately needs revising, but book two has barely begun. Here is the screenshot of my ProWritingAid’s NovelNovember dashboard yesterday, after I added my final wordcount for November.

I feel good about this experience, and I’ll probably do it again if they offer it next year.

As to my novel, I know how this story is supposed to end, as it is canon. The history mentioned in the series tells us that my protagonist is the founder of the Temple, and the College of Mages and Healers. The story told in these two books will end once my lovebirds clear the final hurdle to achieving those goals.

I have written the first draft of six complete chapters. It’s a good start in the main manuscript, so that is now at 16,010 words. I am now brainstorming the middle section in a separate manuscript. As of the time I am writing this post, that involves 39,112 words of thinking aloud and going back to the other books to ensure I don’t contradict myself.

Since I am rereading the main series that was published in my early days as a writer, I have found much that needs re-editing. Because I am an Indie, I can (and will) re-edit the entire series. I will do that whenever I am stalled on my current manuscript.

Unfortunately, the results of my written thinking aloud are good ideas that often don’t work for what I envision as the final product.

But they may become short stories set in that world. In the meantime, I have to make the answers to these two questions drive the plot:

This is a continuation of the story that began in the previous book, so what do the characters want now that some of their goals have been achieved?
What stands in the way of their achieving the final goal of defeating the Bull God’s stolen champion?

Thus, the background writing is moving along. I now have two major events to choreograph plot arcs for, and then I can connect the dots between my chosen scenes and give it an upbeat ending.

I do my mind-wandering in a separate document until I have concrete scenes. That brainstorming is productive because some of those rambles will become chapters.

The premise of books set in this world is that the gods are at war, and the world of Neveyah is the battleground. The gods cannot interact directly with each other or undo another god’s work, so the people of their worlds are the playing pieces, albeit pawns with free will and the option to struggle against their fate.My heroes and villains both see themselves as the protagonist because the fate of their world is at stake. There must be one god for each world, and the Bull God has imprisoned his brother in an attempt to steal his brother’s wife. He can’t kill Ariend but intends to claim Aeos and add their worlds to his. That was the Sundering of the Worlds, a catastrophic event nearly destroying three of the eleven worlds.

Now, a thousand years have passed and he is once again on the move. If the protagonist wins, the Goddess of Hearth and Home will retain control of Ariend’s prison and the world Aeos created. Conversely, if the antagonist wins, the Bull God will claim it all, and the imbalance of the worlds will once again threaten the stability of their universe.

So, now I’m plotting the midpoint crisis. An important festival and a council of elders is held. My protagonist must work to sway the skeptics in his direction. In their personal arcs, he and his wife must overcome their own doubts and fears and make themselves stronger.

Then I must work on fleshing out the enemy. This mage is not a terrible person. Once a devoted follower of Aeos, he triggered a mage trap and was forcibly converted to the enemy’s side.

Now he is under an unbreakable spell and his loyalty is given to the Bull God, the Breaker of the Worlds. The god manipulates him. My antagonist’s motives stem from his imposed conviction that the Goddess is weak and that the tribes have strayed from the traditions that made them strong.

My antagonist is featured three times briefly in the first half of this tale. That story is devoted to the protagonist surviving several events that give rise to the tales that turn an ordinary warrior-shaman into the legendary hero the children’s books say he was. Now, I must write my antagonist with empathy because his fall from grace was a tragedy and a terrible personal loss to our protagonist.

Both intend to prevail at any cost. What is the final hurdle, and what will the characters lose in the process? Is the price physical suffering or emotional? Or both? This is an origin story, so history tells me who succeeds. But what is the personal cost of that success?

I know my protagonist and antagonist will meet in a large battle, face to face. Several people we love will die, enabling the desired ending. I know who must die, and I have an idea of where that will happen, because whenever I have a thought about any aspect of this story, I write it down.

By the end of this book, all the threads that began in book one will have been drawn together and resolved for better or worse.

In real life, people live happily, but no one lives a deliriously happy-ever-after. Thus, the ending must be finite and wrap up the conflict. The future must look rosy for my protagonist and his companions.

Thank you all for listening to me rant about my work. What is your project and how is it progressing? What has been your greatest struggle?

Sometimes writing is a lonely craft. It helps to have a writing group to talk to. They help me reframe ideas in a way that works better than my original plan. And when it gets to the beta reading stage, they will be there with good suggestions.

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Tagged as Novel November, plotting a novel, writer life, writing

November 17, 2025 · 6:00 am

#NovelNovember: writing in the blender of life enables world building #writing

I have said this before, but life is like a blended margarita from the ice cube’s point of view. Every now and then, Ice Cube gets a little cocky, cruising along, thinking “The s**t-storm is over! Everything is going to be fine.” Invariably, that’s when the powers-that-be turn on the blender.

Let’s be honest. This is real life.

The s**t-storm is never really over. It’s just paused and lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump-scare you, turning the blender of life on … then off. On – off. The powers-that-be love a good blended margarita, so buckle up, Ice Cube.

This is why I write fantasy. Reality can be processed more easily when it’s set in a mythic alternate universe, one where the fundamental laws of physics allow the chaos to be tamed through perseverance and a light application of plot armor.

My personal plot armor has worn thin lately.

My husband suffers from late-stage Parkinson’s, with the accompanying dementia and myriad other health issues, and last week, emergency surgery. All is well for now, but the underlying problems are not going away.

The last two weeks have been difficult here. I spend three hours writing first thing in the morning. At nine a.m., I put on my “leaving the house” clothes (as opposed to my “hanging around the house” clothes) and don my raincoat. Then I make my way around town, accompanied by driving rain and clogged drains, getting groceries and taking care of other obligations. Daily, I drive through the gloom and poor visibility, visiting my husband, whether he is in the hospital or at the Adult Family Home.

During these two strange and chaotic weeks, I have written 27,318 words, according to the word counter at ProWritingAid’s Novel November challenge. Some of those words might even advance the plot, but I suspect most are just mental fluff.

For the writer of any fiction, real life provides fodder for world-building. Look around you and take what you know, and reshape it into the world of your imagination. Take the time to write a paragraph or two of description and save it in a file for random world-building. You might not use that environment today, but a story may come along that needs it.

If I were to write a page detailing the November weather in my town, I would open a new document and write what I see as a journal entry. I would title that document Scenes_from_November_Storms2025. That title tells me what is detailed, so later, when I need ideas for a day filled with blue skies over a wide field of daisies and birdsong, I don’t have to open file after file and get frustrated.

What would I write? I would write it as if it were a conversation with myself.

The streets everywhere are lined with brown, soggy, windblown cairns built from the corpses of leaves. Wind and torrential rain have stripped many trees naked. The tattered remains of their finery cover the sidewalks, making walking slick and a bit tricky. They fill gutters to the curb, blocking street drains and forming long, soggy, decomposing ridges down the centerline of streets and alleys.

The above paragraph is true. The street-sweeper trucks can’t keep up with the leafy onslaught.

This, I suppose, is the downside of living on the lush green side of the continent. Storms roar across the Pacific and stop here, heavy black clouds blocked by the high Cascade Mountain Range, dumping rain on the lowland cities.

One must be careful when traveling, always alert for surprises. Your vehicle “gets a bit loose” when you hit that innocent-looking puddle at 60 miles per hour. Jack-knifed semi trucks shutting down the freeway during each storm give evidence of that truth. Pooling water on the interstate, combined with the actions of inexplicably stupid drivers, has caused many wrecks over the last month.

I drive the slower city streets as I have no need to take the interstate. Even there, at speeds slower than the posted limit of 25 mph, driving through a surprise puddle can liven things up. The adrenaline almost counteracts the dark, depressing scenery.

Pumpkin Soup with Garlic Croutons

Once I am home and nursing a cup of hot tea, the rain pounding on my windows feels a little cozy. Pumpkin soup with garlic toast for supper pushes back the gloom, cheery comfort food made better when followed by an evening spent with a good book.

Sometimes, that good book is the one I am working on. Some evenings I feel rested enough to make a second stab at writing, adding another 700 to 1,000 words to my daily word count.

Currently, I have no need in my novel for a world covered in moldy leaves or parking lots ankle-deep in water. But someday I might, and I will have that brief description to boost my memory. If needed, I’ll use it to create the scenery and atmosphere that will serve as the backdrop for a short story or novel.

For now, drier days are on the horizon. Spells of sunshine will return, and despite the worry, darkness, and gloom of these last few days, life is good.

I will continue to write my fantasy stories and draw inspiration from the real world. And I will continue to log descriptions of the world around me for later use.

And I will leave you with an image of the beautiful mountains that halt the storms over the lowlands. This scene was found on Wikimedia Commons and is titled Sunset at Image Lake on Miners Ridge in the Glacier Peak Wilderness by Ron Clausen, August 2001.

It’s hard to justify complaining about the dreariness and storms of November when we of the Pacific Northwest are surrounded by such beautiful scenery the rest of the year. It’s times like these that make us appreciate the bounty that lies a few hours’ drive away.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Screenshot of ProWritingAid Dashboard © Connie J. Jasperson 2025.

IMAGE: Pumpkin Soup and Garlic Croutons © Connie J. Jasperson 2025.

IMAGE: Sunset at Image Lake on Miners Ridge in the Glacier Peak Wilderness by Ron Clausen, August 2001. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Image Lake Glacier Peak Wilderness.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Image_Lake_Glacier_Peak_Wilderness.jpg&oldid=484627222 (accessed November 16, 2025).

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Tagged as Novel November, world building, writer life, writing

November 3, 2025 · 6:00 am

#NovelNovember – the quest has begun #writing

As many of you know, every November I set a writing quest goal for myself. Some years, it is to write the skeleton of an entire novel in 30 days. Other years, the goal might be to write a complete short story every day.

This year, my goal is to write the skeleton of a novel that is the second half of a duology. I can’t publish the first book until the second book is finished, as I intend to publish the two halves of that story simultaneously.

Also, I need to source the proper cover art for a different book that is ready for the final stage of the publication process. I have found some good candidates, but none are exactly what I am looking for.

Writing 50,000 words in thirty days has never been a problem for me. I just sit down and let my fingers spew random stuff that sometimes turns into a usable novel, so getting a desired word count has never been a problem.

Unfortunately, meeting the goal of writing a complete story arc for a novel in only 30 days is, and always will be, a struggle. Thus, I work from an outline. That helps rein in the randomness.

Writing for at least an hour every day without fail for an entire month takes determination.

Meeting that goal builds discipline.

I do have some strategies I developed during my 12 years as a municipal liaison for the now-defunct organization, NaNoWriMo.

Set aside time to write every day, at least one hour.

If you need quiet time, make that hour inviolable, an hour during which you are NOT to be bothered unless an amputation has occurred or the house is on fire. When I was still working, I found that by rising an hour early, the kids were still sleeping and the house was quiet. I also wrote while everyone else was watching TV.

The most important thing about developing a writing process is to find one that works for you.

Give yourself permission to try different things until you find something that works.

Do you work best in short bursts?
Are you at your best when you have a long session of privacy and quiet time?
Or is your process something in the middle, a melding of the two?

What if my style changes? What if the way that worked last month no longer works?

Give yourself permission to change and find a way that works best for you. Be willing to be flexible.

I have my best ideas when I’m about to leave the house. That’s no joke. If that is a problem you also have, do as I do and write those thoughts down. I keep a notebook in my bag just for those moments.

You will be productive once you find your best style.

But first, you must give yourself permission to write.

Go to a coffee shop or the library to write. You might find the place packed with other writers!

My regional NaNoWriMo group had over 250 writers. Your region may have had that many or more. We have evolved into a more diverse group, one that is not focused on achieving word count in November. Your local region may have also reformed with a new direction.

As a group, we old hands are nurturing budding novelists, playwrights, poets, and songwriters. We hold in-person write-ins at coffee shops and also virtual write-ins via Zoom. New and aspiring writers in our area can find us through our Facebook group and also through our Discord channel.

Sit your backside down and write your ideas as they come into your head. Don’t delete and don’t cut anything just yet.

Don’t worry about story arc, or worldbuilding, or anything like that. Get the characters and the plot on paper. Once you begin writing those characters, their story and their world will take shape. You can worry about info dumps and issues like that later.

The exposition you put into your first draft is your brain doing the worldbuilding and character development that is necessary to take the story from the opening page to “the end.” You will trim back the exposition and expand on the important things after the first draft is finished and revisions have begun. Right now, you need the info your crafty mind is dumping into the story.

To be happy, we must have a balanced life.

Writers and other artists must make sacrifices for their craft. It’s just how things are.

But you don’t have to sacrifice your family for it. Sacrifice one hour of sleeping in, or something ephemeral and unimportant, like one hour of TV.

That is why I scheduled my writing time when I had to hold down a job. I had to cook and clean for my family and ferry them to their various after-school activities. They helped with the housework if I nagged long enough, but sometimes it was easier to admit defeat and do it myself.

I take comfort in the fact that they are raising their own teenagers now.

(Insert evil laugh here.)

Give yourself small rewards for every milestone, writing or otherwise. It might be a batch of cookies or an afternoon of binging on that show you love so much.

I’m a grandma now and living alone, as my spouse has late-stage Parkinson’s. He is being well cared for in an Adult Family Home, one staffed by wonderful people who are trained to care for patients who require that much assistance. I visit him every morning without fail, and I schedule everything, including my writing, around his needs.

Nowadays, I have to force myself to do the ordinary household tasks (like laundry, my least favorite of all). My reward for doing that is an hour or two of reading or writing, whichever I am in the mood for.

However, for the month of November, my afternoons will be spent writing.

I will reward myself for achieving my writing goals. My self-indulgence is rewatching my favorite episodes of “The Brokenwood Mysteries.” Smart dialogue, wildly creative plots, great cast, and lovely New Zealand scenery.

Whatever your writing goals and however you choose to reward yourself, I hope you have a great and productive November.

If you are looking for something similar to the old NaNoWriMo (before it went off the rails) ProWriting Aid is running a Novel November quest, with a wordcount counter and plenty of ways to connect with other writers. I have signed up for this, just to see if it’s a good fit for me.