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So November is National Novel Writing Month, and since I'm a writer and I've never actually participated before, I decided to give it a try.
But what to write about? I've already finished writing the third novel in my science fiction space opera trilogy (it's in editing right now) and I'm starting another series of short stories in partnership with my best friend. What else could I do?
I decided to revisit my short story The Stalker which was about a fictional pro Starcraft player, John "Heart" Wolanski. It is set in a parallel universe very similar to our own in the present day. I figured it might be neat to tease that out into a full-length novel and look at some of the consequences of what happened in the short story.
The novel is called The Last Bonjwa. It's set a few years after the events in The Stalker. The last expansion, Legacy of the Void, has been out for a couple of years, and Heart has had a successful career and even won a few tournaments. However, he's thinking about what to do next as his best days are probably behind him.
I'm about a third of the way writing the novel. NaNoWriMo requires a 50,000 word novel which means 1,667 words per day. So far I've been sticking religiously to that schedule. I actually find writing every day to be the best way of working. You never have to worry about deciding when to write, or spend any time thinking about when you should. You just write. It becomes a habit, and a pleasant one.
The novel isn't all about Starcraft, though. There are lots of other things happening, like artificial intelligences, government agencies, spies, and kidnappings, and that's all just in the first third of the novel!
I'll be writing more blogs as I get closer to finishing, and a big one when the story is complete and ready for sale. The short story will always be free, but a novel is a bigger investment, so I'll be pricing that at $2.99. Trust me, it will be well worth it. 
EDIT: Here's the link to my blog post about the free short story "The Stalker" and where to get it:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=412894
 
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I see your novel isn't free-to-play.
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The technology just isn't there yet.
Jokes aside, I'll be sure to give it a read once I get some free time on my hands.
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Heh, you joke, but in the brave new world of independent publishing there are a lot of people trying various revenue models, including free books. Amazon has a program called KDP Select where you can make your novel free for five days a year, which some people have had some success with, although to take advantage of it you can't sell your (electronic) version of your novel to any other retailer. I don't use that myself because I like selling on Smashwords, which distributes to the iTunes iBookstore iThingy, and to Barnes and Noble's Nook Store, and Sony's store, among others.
There's another model where you have a trilogy and the first book is free but the next two cost money. The idea is that people get hooked on the first installment and want to see it through. This is the same "shareware" model that the original DOOM used back in the day to great success. When my third novel in my trilogy is released, I'll be trying this approach.
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Read the first few sentences of your free ebook. But first thing that I noticed is that its unreadable for a non-sc player. I dont know anything about this national novel writing thing but if your intending to write to an audience outside of sc then your obviously going to fail (unless you explained the context somewhere).
Nevertheless. Thanks for your work. Ill be happy to read it all when i have time.
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Well, the primary audience for this work is people who have either played Starcraft or have heard about it, or are just avid gamers who don't mind a gaming-heavy language. It's not the same as my other novels which are for a more general audience. I don't mind targeting a more niche audience for this.
Nevertheless, it's valid feedback, so thanks for that. Hope you enjoy the story.
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EPT
