Nanowrimo: Endings and new beginnings

Well, I’m full of great news today. After a few days of not being sure if I could scrounge up any kind of an ending to ‘The Snow Job’, I managed to end it at the Williams Pier write-in last night. The ending is a little abrupt and a downer, but it fits with the rest of the book.

One of my main characters, Ryan, ends up in jail, taking the fall for a mission he completed for the Orbitals undercover agents. His boss gets the data that Ryan was sent in after, but Ryan got caught by a security agent and his sidekick security-bot. Ryan’s ex-girlfriend Scarlett comes into the Police precinct to talk to him, doses him with a hypno-drug and gives him instructions that prevent him from testifying against her, the orbitals, or blowing anybody’s cover.

So that was fun. And I’ve started my next project, as yet unnamed, inspired by Gale’s missing gnomes, which is the Hamilton regional challenge this year. That’s going pretty well too. My main character is a young boy living on a medieval farm, who made friends with an adolescent (35 years old, only!) gnome, despite neither of their families approving. Kinwer, the MC, is starting to realize that the entire community of gnomes is missing, the mound that they were living in is empty, and there are signs of a battle in the main hall – including a mysterious scrap of black fabric with a bloody knife embroidered into it. Where will that clue lead him? 🙂

I’m not going to finish the gnomes story in November. Ideally, I’ll have some sample pages that I can revise quickly and send off to the CSSF Novel writer’s workshop in Kansas for this summer.

How’s your Nano going? Have you reached any endings or exciting beginnings yet?

Six Sentence Sunday: The Snow Job

Hey! I’m very grateful for all of the great comments I’ve gotten from this series of sixes from my Camp Nano unfinished novel “The Witches of Arion”, but I felt I needed to do something different this week. Before Sunday is over, I should reach fifty thousands words on my November Nano, “Snow Job”, so I’m going to share six sentences from the beginning:

Ryan caught sight of the snow drifts piled up against the dome wall, higher than he was tall, shuddered, and hurried down the street to the Smith’s house. He didn’t remember to knock until he’d already opened the lemon-yellow front door.

“Who’s… oh, hello there, Ryan,” Mrs Smith said, hurrying into the living room. “Scarlet isn’t here – I think she has classes at the college until seven.”

“I – well, I wanted to drop by and talk to you about a birthday party for her.”

Mrs Smith shook her head slightly, and made eye contact over Ryan’s shoulder – he took a quick look out of the corner of his eyes and realized that Mr Smith was standing on the front stairs, behind him.

Thanks in advance for any comments!