The Great Beer Flood...

​Back in 2018 I participated in an annual event called “NaNoWriMo”, short for “National Novel Writing Month”. The idea is to draft a novel in a month. You sign up, track your daily word count, add friends so you can keep track of each other, etc. Groups get together for writing sessions (I did one where we all spent an hour on the train writing furiously). I did it. 65k words in a month.
Total garbage.
Largely because it was my first attempt at writing a novel. The premise? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In Space. With beer.
After the month I took a break from it. But it never left the corner of my mind. When Covid hit and I had 3 months of teaching from home, I decided to make another go. This time writing a book for elementary school kids. I’d been reading my class “Sideways Stories from Wayside School”, which is one of my favourites. I decided to write a book about a kindergarten class on a starship off searching for a planet to colonize. I got a dozen stories written. I did the author thing. Block off a chunk of the day, go somewhere to just write. Which was great. Right up until my body said “Nope. No more writing for you.” I think it was the combo of writing on an iPad keyboard (great device for focus, but should have plugged in a full sized keyboard) and the volume of computer work involved in teaching from home, I overdid it.
My hands were a mess. I ended up spending a year in wrist braces most of the time. I spent a bunch of money on keyboards and mice to find one that wouldn’t hurt. But that’s okay, voice to text works, right?
Nope.
My voice went as well. I’d been using a lot of dictating already, but the way you talk to get the computer to understand is a strain. Add to that recording an hour of video a day for teaching and I ended up barely able to talk some days. 3 years later I’m still struggling, but I found a great vocal coach that got me singing again!
In the meantime, I couldn’t get the Beer book out of my head. I kept having ideas and making notes. My biggest hurdle is description. People, places, etc. World building and plotting I’ve got a solid understanding of. My background writing university papers prepared me for that. But giving characters depth during the story is tough. When I read, I skim the descriptions and mostly read the dialogue because that’s what moves the story along.
Then one day I was chatting with a friend who is also a writer and popped the question – “Do you want to write a novel with me?”. She’d talked about a story idea she’d had in her head forever that she couldn’t do anything with. She can do characters and description, but plotting and worldbuilding are her struggle. Perfect!
So that’s where that’s at. 5 years later we’re ¾ of the way through a new draft, currently waiting on life issues to get going again. But I can’t let go. I HAVE to finish this book. I’ve got a whole series planned in my head, but at the very least this one is going to happen. When? No idea.
Stay Tuned!