So, far I’ve been keeping up with my word count for NaNo. You need 1667 words per day minimum to make the 50,000 words by the end of the month. I’ve got about 7000 words right now.
My previous two books were lighthearted YA fantasy complete with princesses. I still have to finish editing both of them but I’m getting closer to a final draft on Hyacinth’s story.
This new one is also YA, but a touch grittier and more on the scifi end of things. My working title is ‘The Median’. (If anyone’s got a better idea let me know.)
In an overpopulated future Earth, where everyone’s chipped in to the mesh and creds buy chip/society privileges, 16 year old Jian is the lowest of the low: a basement dweller, a null. With nothing but basic subsistence–the algae slush that passes for food, and the narrow sleeping shelf she’s allocated in the stacks–she must scrabble to survive.
While hunting for crunchies (cockroaches) she witnesses what looks like a gang murder, except that they brutally remove the victim’s chip and neuro plug. She flees into the tunnels and sewers to avoid becoming the next victim and while looking for a place to hide, she stumbles on the Median–the last wildlife preserve on the planet.
Formed back when the last of the National Parks were bulldozed for housing or industrial parks, the Median is made up of thin strips of force field protected land between the aerways. Jian must adapt to this new world and the creatures it contains, and stay alive as she learns the gang violence she witnessed isn’t as simple as it seems.
The wackier the better at this point.