Planning Ahead

I'm a planner. I mean, seriously, if I knew exactly what it took, I would be a Wedding Planner, I love to plan so much. But, oddly, one of the things that often requires a lot of planning for, I rarely plan ahead for, leaving it to be done as I'm supposed to be working. What am I speaking of? Yup, nearly a month early, but I speak of NaNoWriMo! I had the great pleasure of winning last year with this little (fanfic) baby (click here for link):

Usually, I don't plan for NaNo until a couple of weeks before Nov. 1st--the kickoff. And last year, I only had three chapters of Building Blocks outlined until a few days into November. In fact, I had not even planned on participating last year--long story, folks--so I didn't even have a story until Oct. twenty-something. But I participated and won.

But this year... this year, it's different. AD Spencer had made a banner and sent it my way, cementing what her choice for NaNo was this year. Because, let's say, we both had a lot of choices. I literally had a list that had both original fiction works that were both novellas and novels to three fanfic sequels. But after talking to AD it hit me. I want a novel done. One I can sell. So I went with this:

I've had the House of Roanoke series planned for forever! It started out as a series of Short Stories in my head. However, my number one fan for this series (yeah, it's AD) led me to believe that it could be a novel. After some thinking, I realized that, yeah, I love this story enough to make it a novel. And then I thought some more and came to the conclusion that it could be four novels. And then I talked to AD again and realized that an old story idea of my could be linked to this world. So, although it's not apart of the quartet, it's a companion to this world. And then I talked to her about a problem I had concerning one of the characters in the House of Roanoke... how I didn't know what to do with them at the end. I told her what I didn't want to do. And then she made a wonderful suggestion. And, once again, although it isn't to be apart of the quartet, it is definitely a sequel/companion novel to follow. Keeping count? No? Well let me tell you. That's six. Six novels in the planning for this world that so far has only been one unpublished short story--which is a very bad version of chapter one of Family Affairs, btw.

So what's the story to this thing? Well, I'm not willing to say at this moment, other than the fact that I draw upon the story of Roanoke, America's first attempt at a colony. It's a supernatural genre, and it's geared toward adults, though maybe not for the reasons that one might automatically think of when someone thinks "adult fiction," if you get my drift.

So outlining here I come. NaNo '11, your ass is grass, and I'm the lawnmower! (Yikes, I haven't heard that since I was five.) Now... to actually do some work.