It’s my favorite time of the year. NaNo is approaching. Everything has potential. Everyone wants to write all the things. Even the NaNo 2.0 crew is furiously writing down ideas, plot points, maybe a character sheet or two. Some of us are flying by the seat of their pants, but we all have the littlest spark of a story idea.
So without further ado, here are a few of the projects the NaNo 2.0 crew is working on for November.
Ashley Baker
- Goal: 10,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: A breezy little fake dating story, low stakes and cozy
- Logline: Her options are an overbearing ex that her parents would prefer, or a mime who seems to never break kayfabe. At least the mime is quiet and keeps her ex off her back. (Her parents are another story.)
- Why this project? I decided this was my NaNoWriMo project in 2014; I don’t remember what my actual project was supposed to be, but at a prep event with the local group someone said “A Beautiful Mime” and the idea got crowdsourced. I did not get much mileage out of it and stalled out around 20K. Now 12 years later, I’m significantly sillier – and also haven’t written meaningfully in over five years, since before my last pregnancy. I have some serious and heavier stories I’d love to be writing these days, but I think perhaps a small and simple story could be the thing to get me back into the practice.
Chris Baty
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: Adventure Time knock-off
- Logline: Two best friends run the only baked potato bar in The Goth Forest. When their sentient potato benefactor goes missing, they must head out on an epic quest to find him.
- Why this project? I just came up with it two minutes ago, and can already tell it’s going to fall apart. I do really like the idea of two friends running a baked potato bar in a goth forest, though.
Coral Sands (on Bluesky and Instagram)
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: heart-wrenching, contemporary, older cast, all about love, Beaches, the movie Aesthetic
- Logline: To grant her dying best friend’s final wish, a devoted woman must outmaneuver a controlling family to track down five people from their past, forcing her to confront her own guarded heart when an old flame re-enters the picture.
- Why this project? I’m trying something different by stepping away from my supernatural/ paranormal crutches to attempt to write a heart-achingly good love story about different kinds of love throughout life and how it can impact the people around her.
Drew Patty
- Goal: 15–30,000 words of a new novel
- Project Vibes/Aesthetic: Swords, humor, fantasy, flurgling
- Logline: The main character is a Sword who talks nonstop. Her handler barely grunts. They’re the heroes no one needs. Or wants. Or probably even deserves. But heroes aren’t born; they’re forged.
- Why this project? I’ve had the idea of a story about a talking sword stuck in my head for years. I have no idea how the story will go. But I guess I’ll find out once I start writing.
Emily Hasham
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: Progression fantasy, art magic, vibrant visual world, impending disasters
- Logline: The journeys of key Artists whose imagination, craft, and strength will help the world through impending collapse.
- Why this project? I’m obsessed with the genre, and want to try my hand at worldbuilding and storytelling
Gertrude Daly
- Goal: Editing my Murder Mystery Novella and probably starting some new side project so I can participate in word wars.
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: British countryside cozy mystery. Agatha Christie vibes.
- Logline: A new American-born Earl visits the estate he just inherited from his estranged great-uncle. Maybe the Estate Manager just had a heart attack…. Maybe it was poison intended for the Earl.
- Why this project? My friends and I are spending a year working on a novella to submit to the Black Orchid Awards.
Kathy Kitts
- Goal: 50K in 30 days
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: When I was eleven years old, I was part of a government study on ESP. No kidding. Think The Men Who Stare at Goats level of goofiness. I’ve always wondered what would happen if decades later a black SUV with darkened windows showed up at my workplace, looking for the girl who blew the doors off the test?
- Logline: If you have ESP, then why didn’t you know we were coming?
- Why this project? I write Spec Fic and love the big “what if” questions when they apply to average folk.
Kristina Horner
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: Enemies to lovers with a side of magical catastrophe
- Logline: A celebrated magical researcher helped create the system that identifies who is vulnerable to a magic-stealing sickness. Now she’s been sent to a secluded retreat as its newest patient. The childhood rival who lost his magic because of her work knows better: the system doesn’t predict who will lose their magic. It chooses.
- Why this project? Enemies to lovers is hands down my favorite trope, and it occurred to me recently that I’ve only ever written fanfiction using it. So, this year I am challenging myself to step outside my comfort zone and play with this trope using my own world and characters!
Lucie Lane
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: fun, banter-heavy, enemies-to-lovers romance
- Logline: While trying to investigate a rumored haunting at a themed bed and breakfast, a famous paranormal investigator falls for the tour guide who can’t stop getting in his way.
- Why this project? I need so desperately to write something fun and self-indulgent. This project is just an excuse to write about all of my favorite things all at once.
Paige Anteau
- Goal: 100,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: Near future/alternate present late-stage capitalist dystopia and gritty urban realism
- Logline: A teenager finds himself on a quest to revive the arts in a world that can no longer afford them.
- Why this project? This will be a rewrite of my first-ever NaNoWriMo project from twenty years ago. Back then, I was a seventeen-year-old edgelord, and “cringe” doesn’t even begin to describe the final copy of the original project. However, I believe in the characters and the overall premise of this story, and I believe it deserves a second chance with a tripled word count, especially to celebrate my 20th NaNo-versary. In these past twenty years, there have been so many changes in the world, especially with social media, technology, and AI. This project will be a good opportunity to explore these topics.
Thomas A. Knight
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: A young adult drama/dark fairy tale about mental illness and depression.
- Logline: Book 3 in the shattered series, Broken, follows my main character Angela as she struggles with depression and an overwhelming university experience.
- Why this project? I wanted to capture the depth of my own experience with depression, and show the world that there’s a way out. Even when times are darkest, there is always light.
Peter Kerr
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: Harsh realities and loss
- Logline: The author of a world-renowned series goes on a writers’ retreat to try and finish the last book. He has to deal with procrastination, clingy fans, and a deadline that might be all too real.
- Why this project? They say write what you know, and a writer struggling to write their magnum opus and failing is something I for sure know all about.
Rachael Waldburger
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: JAG meets Leverage, with enemies-to-lovers
- Logline: US Marine Lindsey Fox has been framed for the murder of a Romanian diplomat. With the help of two French florists, an art thief, and his childhood best friend-turned-hitman, Lindsey must fight to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, his prosecutor, Commander Victoria Masters, knows Lindsey is hiding something. In her search to find the truth, she may discover more than she bargained for.
- Why this project? This is the first book of a spin-off series that I’ve been planning to write for a year. I wanted to explore an enemies-to-lovers relationship that involves a man who is outranked by his love interest, while continuing to dig into the friendship between Lindsey and the main character/s of my current series.
Tim Yao
- Goal: 50,000 words
- Project Vibes/ Aesthetic: a new-world mythos, with heroes and demi-gods
- Logline: A ragtag group of adventurers comes together to save the kidnapped daughter of a lone woodsman.
- Why this project? I am inspired by Tolkien’s Silmarillion, The Mabinogion, Arthurian legends, and wuxia stories like those by Jin Yong. But I am woefully unprepared, so I will be world-building as well as writing in November.