ieva melgalve

So. After my initial worldbuilding of Keir, I realized that I was going to do the same mistake as with my previous NaNo novel, namely, making a very complex world with protagonists that are extremely tricky to write while following at least two storylines.
Which is a breathtaking idea, but not at the speed of 2000 words per day (yes, I take the off-days in account; it’s not 1666 words a day).

So I have to whip up another idea for NaNoWriMo 2009, leaving Keir for when I’ll have the time, and writing it at 300 words per day as a base value, not 500/700 as it is now with Vega.
This far, my “another idea” is a serialized novel written in 1st person POV (these seem to be easiest to write for me). Bear with me while I ponder aloud about what I need for a serialized novel and Nano and my protag and so on. (Or don’t bear. I am not going to attach a secret gift code or anything at the end of this post, I promise.)

What I need, specifically, for NaNoWriMo (considering I’m a rather slow writer; 2500 words a week minimum is the best pacing for me):

• a story that doesn’t bore me to death in the middle. Hence the serialization: I figure that if I get to write several different stories then it’s pretty easy to jump to a more interesting one if I wish plus very little middle swamps or large-scale endings that require actual thinking instead of typing away,
• a POV easy to write (as I said, 1st person)… and I’ll probably switch it around as I go, because in a serial novel, you can easily have a mini-story told from somebody else’s POV.

A serialized novel in my interpretation: something that could be more readily named “a heap of separate short stories in the same world, with continuous character development and single underlying drive, with an asterix*”.
*Asterix: feel free to disregard one of these elements, e.g. a story set in different world (alternate reality of some kind), with no mention of the underlying drive, or discontinuous character development (eg change that undoes itself by backwards time travel, demonic possession or similar device) is allowed.

What I need for the serialized novel, in planning stages:

• main protagonist with a really strong drive instead of my usual slackadaisical “ahh, I could have spent this whole time wandering around, why the hell do you want me to fight for something of even *care* for it or anything at all, for that matter?” protagonists. I don’t know why they come out this way, my secondary characters usually are strong-willed and determined,
• at least one antagonist (for the first story) developed well enough to resonate. I tend to shift antagonists around all the time so I doubt that this time, I’ll be able to figure out a cool single antag for the whole piece. (Btw, I keep writing “villain” instead of “antagonist”, so perhaps this will be something with villains. Yes, I don’t know the genre yet.)
• ahem. A genre and some setting. I think I will brainstorm/mindmap this one, to see what elements to I want to have in there, ie the stuff I’d be happy to write for a month, a map where I can poke my finger anywhere and say: “Now THIS shows up in the next story!” Oh well, screw the genre, setting/story elements will be enough.
• a lot of secondary characters: allies, friends, enemies, family and whatnot. Also for poking purposes,
• some story ideas (my feeling is that I could write 20 stories since my short stories usually are 2-3 K long, but that’s not something I could really plan).

And maybe more, but that’s it for the beginning. Secret gift code is… oh, right, I promised not to tell. Well, no secret gift code then.