Since November I have been rolling around the idea of a new novel, and I started working on it in earnest about a month ago. Last week, I finished the rough draft. I haven’t posted about it yet because I wasn’t sure until recently if I actually wanted to write it, but then it all came together much more quickly than I had expected.
The novel started as my first NaNoWriMo project. NaNoWriMo is basically a worldwide challenge encouraging writers to finish a novel in a month (November). Of course, since I finished the rough draft in February, I failed dreadfully at NaNoWriMo, but that was the kick I needed to get started on the book.
Originally the book, which as of right now is still untitled, was conceived as a roman à clef, a novel based on real-life experiences. It was to be based around my own freshman year of college. However, as I progressed through the outlining stage, it moved away from autobiographical to simply a novel about college students’ experiences that strives to reflect reality, without actually recording any real events. Ultimately, it is an honest book, without being a true story.
The book is told in a semi-episodic format. In some places it works as an epistolary novel, with the story being told through fictional journal entries, emails, text messages, and blog posts. It’s told from a variety of perspectives of different freshmen. None of the main characters are directly based on real people, just as none of the events are based on real events.
Working on this book was a stretch for me in a variety of ways, mostly because it is my first book that isn’t science fiction or fantasy. Because of that, I had to pay extra attention to representing the real world as it really is–from a variety of perspectives, because of the variety of narrators. Getting the different voices accurate was and is the most difficult part. I wanted all of the different narrators to sound like real 18-20 year-olds, and as distinct as real individuals. Though at times a challenge, I enjoyed the writing process.
I don’t have a release date in mind, yet. Only the rough draft is finished, and there are many steps that need to be taken before I think about releasing it. Next week I will begin the editing process, and once I have an idea of how much I need to edit, I will start planning for the future. As I know more, I’ll continue to post updates!