Ah, 2020... The year that seemed to last forever... and ever... and ever... Especially if you lived in one of the lockdown capitals of the Covid-19 world. I was lucky, the worst part for me was boredom, but it gave me time to write and look at my publishing options.
I had never really taken part in Camp NaNoWriMo before. I had, a long time ago done NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month) but never camp and I had an abundance of time on my hands as it coincided with Melbourne being locked down. Our first lockdown of 2020 (and we had about six over the course of the next two years) started on 31st March, 2020 and lasted until 12th May, 2020. 43 calendar days of.. Well, home. Luckily for me, the April Camp fell smack bam in the middle of this.
Though before Camp, to help everyone deal as the world shut down to try and halt the progress of the virus, the staff at NaNoWrimo started #StayHomeWriMo and I used those prompts to dive in to some of my side characters in the Saga of Toserra Sorose universe, such as Ziva Jensyn, Brigitta and even grumpy old Master Berfelen. I learned many thigs
about hem that I had not realised, some which changed the intended direction for certain characters. While several of these stories probably won't see the light of day because (As River Song would say) "Spoilers, Sweetie!" Ziva's story, "Spellbound" which you can read at "The Creative's Journal," details her meeting with Sidawi Harmeet (I don't think he's mentioned by name in Wild Hunt, but he's an important character in the upcoming second book.) I called them Short Sagas and later in the July Camp of 2023, I would return to do even more Short Sagas, looking at even more of the characters of the Toserra Sorose universe.
Then for Camp, I continued and finished Saga of the Wild Hunt, using what I had learned from my #StayHomeWriMo prompts to alter the ending and the characters to fit the way I now saw them, rather than what I thought I had intended. Overall, I think what I learned from those small stories (some of them, only a single paragraph) altered the trajectory of the whole series because for one character in particular, I totally did not expect "THAT" of them (refer to River Song for the answer to your questions of "Who?" and "What?")
Of course 2020 didn't end with Camp Arpil, but went into Camp July, but I'll go into the July Camp and 2020's NaNoWriMo in my next post. For now, you can find Saga of Toserra Sorose on Amazon!
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