NaNoWriMo 2026
This is the writing log. Read the novel as I write it, with daily updates until December 1st.
Monday, October 19 – 0 words (0) – Hey, it’s not Halloween!
Once again, we open this writing log by stating the obvious: It’s fall, days are getting short, temperatures have fallen, I’ve cleaned up what was outside the house except for the constantly-falling leaves and now my thoughts are turning toward writing a novel. My fourteenth, unless I’ve miscounted. The next few days will be-
–wait, you say, we know the routine by now. Every year (or so), you write a novel in November. Except that this isn’t Halloween! It’s twelve days earlier! You’re going to be a cheating cheater who cheats by starting your novel almost two weeks before everyone else! Ha! Caught you!
Wait. Normally, I would write the novel starting on November first and hopefully ending before December 1st. This year, however, is going to be different. Consider that the scope of this year’s novel is substantially bigger than previous years, it’s happening at a time when I can’t daydream at work due to piling responsibilities, and for the past few novels I’ve been focusing on improving the quality of my writing more than simply spewing words every day. Put all of this together, and it’s an excellent idea to aim for a biblical forty days through the novelistic desert rather than trying to stick to a calendar month. My goal is still to finish by December first, but an additional twelve days will help to make it to the finishing line in time, and without a mental breakdown along the way.
So, what is this year’s novel about? Acres of snow and blood started as a literary joke about the new genre of technothrillantasy, which actually seemed like an interesting thing to try. Then I got fascinated by the idea that there’s very little fantasy fiction inspired by French-Canadian history despite a vigorous number of French-Canadian fantasy novelists. Then my narrative somehow turned toward a colony being threatened of annexation by a much powerful southern neighbour and the rest of my top-level plotting took care of itself.
Which brings us to: In an effort to try something different this year, I’m writing a dragons-and-wizards fantasy novel that riffs on French-Canadian history with more than a few fantastical and historical twists, meaning that we get a 1750ish political environment with 1890ish technology and 2026ish threats. With arrogant expansionist southern neighbors and synthetic minds stealing intelligence from the population, my metaphors are not going to be subtle. It’s not meant to be a one-to-one mirror of French-Canadian history: in the Guy Gavriel Kay tradition, I’m voluntarily blurring and altering many elements of geography, history and technology in order to get to what I want to write. I can promise you dragons, railways, heists, multiple magical systems, murderous yetis, a deal with the devil, plucky heroes, a colony neglected by a capricious overseas queendom, weird magical tech and many other things I haven’t thought up yet. This one may be headed north of 100,000 words (but hopefully not more than 120,000) considering that it spans two and a half years, a dozen major characters, multiple geographical locations and nothing less than a not-so-quiet industrial revolution.
My goal is around 2,500 words per day, with a little bit more on the weekends and days off. My outline is pretty good at the top-level in that I know the broad strokes of the story, I’m very confident of my conclusion, I’ve got an interesting roster of characters and my world-building is not bad. However, my grasp of what’s going to happen to whom is not as rigid — that’s the discovery aspect of it.
Of course, there are about a hundred ways this could go wrong — from creative exhaustion to falling ill, losing motivation or having other things to do. If I had to pick a primary risk, I’m keeping a close eye on my day-job workload — the next few weeks are going to be busy, and that usually translates by a lack of daydreaming time at lunch or in-between files. Which, in turns, translates into more decompressing time after work before getting to writing. We’ll see.
But the house is relatively clean, I’ve managed to wrap up one big chunk of backlog-slaying yesterday, I voluntarily overdosed on video games (but found one that should give me short jolts of adrenaline every day during writing time), I completed a lot of household stuff over the weekend, and I have only one major outing before December first. The rest is up to fate.
It all begins tomorrow, with a man running over a snowy lake, leaving no traces.