Call me a clumsy athlete, because I dropped the ball. Last year for NaNoWriMo, I announced I would continue to work on Incinerate. Well, I did, but I didn’t post any updates AND I fell short of the 50,000 word goal by a lot. At the end of the month, I only ended up with 2900 words written. I could come up with a litany of excuses, but ultimately it all comes down to me being lazy. (Though, I will say that Incinerate now sits at over 77,000 words, so that’s cool.) The last time I reached the 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo was way back in 2014 with a Young Adult novel called Ghost (currently unfinished), and I had reached the goal the year prior with a Thriller called Serienmorder (also unfinished). I came close to the goal in 2015 with a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Western called The Desert Towns of Felorjia where I wrote just shy of 34,000 words, but have since failed to crack 14,000 words.
Nine years is a long enough drought, don’t you think?
This year for NaNoWriMo I’m doing something a little different. I had considered continuing to work on Incinerate, but my interest kept going to a dusty folder in my Google Docs. I have mentioned it here before, but over a decade ago I wrote a novella called The Blade and the Bullet. A supernatural tale, it followed vampire Daniel Cross as he sought answers for mysterious deaths in Seattle. I’ve posted a link to it over on Booksie before, but after rereading it recently I cannot recommend it. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown so much since I originally wrote it, but sweet baby Jesus it is terrible. Cringey dialogue, tryhard edginess, shit that just doesn’t go anywhere or make sense… it had it all.
That said, Daniel Cross has always been one of my favorite characters since I first used him as a roleplay character back in the Myspace days. (Those were dark times, friends. Dark times.) After writing the original novella, I had started on another story with him, but like so many other projects it was eventually shelved. In 2015, I rebranded The Blade and the Bullet and its sequel as The Cross Chronicles. NaNoWriMo 2016 was dedicated to that sequel. And now, in 2023, I have decided to return to Daniel Cross’s side of the world.
Over the course of the past week, I have reread the original novella from a decade ago. I’ve made a whole new outline for the story, extensive notes on what to change or replace, and a side document solidifying lore and rules of the world. Now, I’m not going to lie, I have kinda already started my rewrite. The Cross Chronicles: Homebound is set to be a far superior story compared to the dumpster fire that The Blade and the Bullet was. I look forward to sharing it with you sometime in the future.
To help with accountability, you can add me as a buddy! I also plan to post updates every Sunday with my progress for the week. I’ll be taking the first week off from work (except for Monday) to help give me a head start.
Good luck to all my fellow NaNoWriMo participants!
Tyler Gohde 