NaNoWriMo 2019. Part Two. My project is…..

The decision has been made,

It’s that time of the year again; when everyone who is participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge starts to announce their projects.

You might recall that a few weeks ago, I was agonising over which one of my ideas to base this year’s challenge on. In case you missed it, here’s the link to the post.

NaNoWriMo 2019. Part One, Preparation.

Anyway, I’ve been considering the possibles and have decided that the one I will be attempting this year is…

The Hitman and the Thief.

Here’s the cover concept,

It was a close-run thing, I will still be doing the others at some time, but this one has caught my imagination and I can see a few of the early bits of action in my mind.

The story actually grew from an exercise in my world-building course, where I asked students to come up with a couple of short paragraphs to include action and backstory. I was trying to illustrate the point that backstory could be put anywhere, that it didn’t need to be a dry and boring list of facts. Anyhow, this is what I actually wrote as my illustration.

The shot rang out and concrete was chipped by my head.

“Come on,” gasped Lydia, grabbing my arm, “run!” 

I was dragged down the street, in and out of the shadows cast by the flickering lights, “keep your head down Dan,” she said.

“It’s just like on Gallix,” I managed to wheeze as, bent double; I followed her around a corner. Out of sight for a second we dodged into a dark alleyway. There were no more shots, but we could hear running feet and shouts.

“When we had to get away from Kalindra and her boys,” she finished while I tried to fill my lungs. “I had to save you then.”

“I thought that I saved you?” I replied.

“In your dreams.” We stood in the dark and tried to get our breath back, shrinking into the darkness as two men, guns held in front of them, ran past us. The blatant show of weapons reminded me that I was out of my depth here, far from my old stomping ground. They probably had the local law in their pockets, we were the outsiders.

 I was getting angrier and angrier with Fliss Bauer, back on Gallix. ‘It’ll be easy,’ she had said, ‘just get in and do this for me, it’ll wipe your slates clean’.

And we’d believed her.

I never gave it much thought, but someone later suggested that it could form part of a bigger story.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually start at the beginning and write a linear story. I don’t do scenes out of sequence. For me to work backwards and forwards from the middle would be a new departure, I had to envisage a start that led me to that scene; and where I would go afterwards.

Of course, the whole idea is to do 50,000 words in November, so apart from a brief couple of paragraphs, I’ve just got the outline so far

I must admit that I’m excited about doing NaNo this year, I’ve had some success with previous attempts and with luck, this year will be no exception.

Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

I’ll be back on Thursday with another Indie Showcase, see you then.