How My NaNoWrimo Was (+ P.2 of the Q&A)

                                                                          Click here to read part one 

                                             Greetings Adventurers!

I thought I should let you, the readers, know I recently did an interview with Elena Denver over at her new blog, Life is a Beautiful Ride. If you would like to check out my interview with her, you can do so here. 

But back to this post. Once again, thank you to everyone for sending in questions for the second part of the Q&A. And for those who participated in NaNoWrimo this year, I hope you had a good NaNoWrimo!  

Even though I will post a synopsis for those who don't know what my novel is about, I do suggest checking out this post about it. It will give you more info about my novel, The Mystery of the Body Thief, as it is the most up to date post about it. 

                                            Synopsis- 

 Genre: Fantasy | Murder Mystery  Series: The 1st book in the Lady Annabelle Mystery Series. 

Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Annabelle!" 

Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Lady Annabelle. Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all. 

             How My Writing Went this NaNoWrimo-  

So, my rewriting and editing went pretty well during this NaNoWrimo. I felt as if I made some progress on the story, and though I am far from being done with the second draft, it feels very good to have a part of it done. During this month, I worked partly on my novel in order to get more of it written, and in the second part of the month, I worked on writing a play for a contest. I usually focus on one project per month, but this month I decided to divide my focus. Since I'm not done with the play, I plan to continue working on it into December. 

In terms of world-building, I began working on the clothes of the officers in the police department...

Made using Hero Forge 

Ever since I figured out what the healers'/priests' clothes look like, I have been thinking about designing the clothes for the officers in the Dragon's Province Police Department. I have been thinking about what different officers in different positions wear. Currently, I am using Hero Forge to get the general idea of what they look like. In the future, I do intend to draw them, but I find things like these help. I had also been thinking about modifying the design of the uniform on the left, because I realize how impractical that skirt would be in situations like running after a criminal. Also, I was thinking about making it look a bit more like Tauriel's outfit from The Hobbit, design-wise. 

So, I decided to brainstorm some more and came up with a new design. Here is the modified version of the outfit from the left. It's still not the end product, but it is getting closer:

Made using Hero Forge 

I have also decided that different color schemes in the uniform designate status of the officers. Officers have different positions, which are shown by the color of clothes that they wear (among other things). 

At one point during this NaNoWrimo, my computer crashed, so, it made it very difficult to write. During that period, I spent a lot of time writing on paper and repeatedly using a prompt a writing teacher of mine had given me. At the time, I was struggling to rewrite a scene that I wanted to add more depth to. 

I've also found that writing on paper allows you to be a bit more social with people while you're writing. While I like sitting behind a computer to write (because it doesn't make my hand tired), I feel writing on paper while sitting around a table and talking can also be nice. You can talk about your story sometimes while writing your story or just intermittently engage in conversation. 

It also allows you to be a bit more thoughtful with what you're writing. Often when I am typing, I feel like I am not thinking about every single word as I am writing it. 

(My writing and The Six of Cups). 

The prompt I used, that my teacher gave me, was using Tarot cards to get inspiration. At the beginning of NaNoWrimo, I had used them to figure out which scene to write. But during the time without my computer I decided to use it to add more depth to a scene: in particular, what a character should be thinking of. I ended up getting Six of Cups, which means nostalgia and happy memories. The card really helped me add depth to the scene (which, without spoiling my novel, I can say was about losing someone you loved).  

                                  Q&A

                          Now here is the second part of the Q&A!

If you see any of these [] on a question, that is because I edited it, in order to make it make sense in the post.  (Except for Maya's question. That one I didn't edit). 

                                 Question from Roberta at Offbeat YA  

Like Greg [in the previous post], the "murders happening in multiple kingdoms" premise intrigues me. I assume that you meant different worlds (like human world, elf world, fairy world, etc.)...or did you literally mean "kingdoms"? I know the right word for "worlds" would be "realms", but it still got me wondering.

This is fairly complicated to explain, so I will do my best in describing it. 

There are realms outside the world of the story, and elves and fairies come from these. Elves are somewhat related to fairies, but they are less ethereal, because they are trapped in the physical realm whereas fairies can shift back and forth between the physical and nonphysical. (To outsiders they appear to turn invisible, but in truth they are actually in another dimension.) 

In contrast to elves and fairies, humans, dwarves, and dragons (among other beings too) are believed to have originated in the world where the story takes place. Over the centuries some elves began mixing and living amongst humans (which is the reason why the elves and humans believe in the same gods and goddesses), whereas the fairies tended to distance themselves from humans and other "earthly" beings. 

So, there are still elves, fairies, and otherworldly beings that live in different realms in the world of the story, but most of the murders take place in the "earthly" realm. 

                                                Question from Anonymous: 

What is the weather like in these kingdoms? Is there a connection between our world and theirs? Is it distant in time or place or planet or dimension?

Dragon's Province (the kingdom the characters are in most of the time) goes through all the four seasons. However, there are kingdoms that don't have four seasons and tend to stay either warm or cold most of the time. 

As to whether there is a connection to our world, it isn't an older version of our world (unlike Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), though in the first draft of the story it was...kind of that. (I wanted an excuse to quote Shakespeare.)  But in its current state, I would describe it as being another realm or planet. Because it is a whole different world from where we are, the politics, the religion, literature, and everything that comes out of it is very different. 

                           Question from Grace Thomas at American Girl Dolls Chat Club 

How does Lady Annabelle look like? Are you going to draw a picture of her?

My drawings of Annabelle from 2017 to 2021.

I have actually been drawing Annabelle since 2016, because that was when my first attempt at writing the series started. (But the drawings of her start appearing on my blog in 2017.) If you look in the archives of my blog, there are a lot of drawings of her. 

I've also dressed up as her... 

Me posing as Annabelle (for the profile photo you see on the sidebar). 

I've also made some avatars of her using this Lord of the Rings doll maker, which unfortunately doesn't work anymore because Flash got removed from browsers:

Because I've shown you what she looks like, her appearance is pretty self explanatory, but I'll describe it anyway. Annabelle has red hair that is a little bit past shoulder length, brown eyes, pale skin, and a beauty mark on her left cheek. 

                                             Question from Maya at Pretty Little Scribbles :

    What are some difficulties you've faced (character-wise or plot-wise) while writing your book?

 

I think writing in the third person has been difficult for me. I don't intend to change to first person because I feel it wouldn't work for this particular story, and I feel I need to get better at writing in third person. 

I have been facing two other difficulties in writing. The first is giving each of the characters in the story a unique voice. So far I am succeeding in that, but I worry about the reader blending the characters together if they sound too similar. 

And the second difficulty is the fact that I don't have names for the types of spells in the world and for the gods and goddesses in the pantheon. This will be changed in later drafting partly because this isn't the last draft. But still it is a bit frustrating to have to put stuff down like "fire spell" or "earth goddess" if I do not know what the names of the spells or goddesses are. 

   Approximately how long have you taken to write your book (and where are you now as of NaNo 21?) [ps. it's been really fun reading about your book so far!] 

I'm going to guess that I came up with the idea in 2017 and began writing in 2018.  

(This is because I tend to come up book ideas a year before and take the time to plot before I write). 

I finished writing the first draft on November 5th 2020 and have been working on the second draft since sometime in 2021. (I believe I began rewriting before Camp NaNoWrimo.) 

As for NaNoWrimo 2021, as of right now I have gotten to my word count goal. 😃

 

                                                           Question from Anonymous: 

                              How many kingdoms are there? What lies beyond their borders I wonder??

At the moment, I am still working on the geography of the kingdoms in The Lady Annabelle Mystery Series. I plan to make a map for it eventually; I can't give an exact answer right now but I will have one in the future. 

There are multiple continents in the world, which are each divided up into kingdoms. But the kingdoms  in this story are in a single, large continent (which can be traveled across by horseback, carriage, etc.). 

(Image from Wiki Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Henri_-_The_Reader_in_the_Forest_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) 

As for what are beyond some kingdoms' borders. Often (but not always) forests form the border of a kingdom. These forests are usually full of untamed mystical creatures: some are gentle, but others are dangerous.  

Once I create a map for the different kingdoms in The Lady Annabelle Mystery Series, I will do a follow-up post about it. 

                                                    

                                                           Questions from Don:

           Does Annabelle as a detective use Sherlock Holmes techniques to solve crimes?   

While Sherlock Holmes is an awesome detective (and I'm sure she shares some (unintentional) similarities with him), Annabelle has her own ways of solving crimes. 

However, there are two similarities in their practice of solving crimes. They both use deduction and disguises. 

                                    Will [Annabelle] and Horatio be more than friends?

It is possible that they were more than friends. I cannot answer (for spoiler-related reasons) whether in the future they will be more than friends. Horatio believes they were just friends (but given that he has amnesia, he cannot be completely certain). However, other characters in the story have thought at different times that Horatio and Annabelle could have been secretly in love...

                    What if Horatio and Annabelle are brother and sister separated at birth?

That is a possibility too. However, Horatio would have to be an illegitimate half brother of Annabelle if that was true (because Horatio is an elf, and Annabelle is half elf half human). This is a possibility, but I can't really give you a direct answer, because that would remove mystery from the story. 

...And that's the end of the second part of the Q&A. Thank you to everyone again for sending in questions. They were really fun to answer. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

             How was your NaNoWrimo? And do you like to draw pictures of your characters? 

-Quinley