Welcome to 2011 one and all 
NaNoWriMo 2010 drove me onwards to produce my first Fantasy novel. At 96,000 words its a little light for me and in truth the job feels half done. The Healing Truth is part 1 of a 2 part story. Eventually I will have a single novel of around 200,000 – 250,000 words which I believe is respectable for this genre.
I hesitate to say too much here (spoilers!) about it so will focus, like always, on the process. NaNoWriMo felt to me to be quite like studying for exams. There’s this deadline which is fixed and you simply must meet it or else the entire world will collapse around you. Maybe not, however that is the feeling of it and I drove hard at the goal, harder than I have ever worked before.
I slammed out 70,000 words by the end of November and some of them were a bit rough around the edges. The story is quite involved and I found the characters wanted to keep drawing me away from the main, linear, timeline sequence of events. They all have backstories and I had to fight to keep the wheels moving in the right direction. Now I’ve written the ending I find I want to revisit these friends I have gotten to know, like putting on a favourite jacket before going out. Breathe further life into them.
For anyone who is interested PDF format, this is the first scene. We meet young friends Rohan and Mattias as they are hard at work, learning the art of sword and bow.
The Healing Truth is also why I failed to post in December 2010 as I simply had too much to do…
Enjoy!
