Journal #1 - Introducing Begin Again

So, I think I overdid it a little.

My Camp Project for July is a Walking Dead piece called Begin Again.

Synopsis reads:

He’d been given a second chance. Another chance to get it right, to save his family from the walking dead. But it didn’t come without strings attached.

There were genies who regularly possessed him.

A pack of Werewolves up for six counts of murder.

And a Detective Dixon in Atlanta who knew a startling amount about the magical world he’d just entered.​

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Let me be honest here: this fic is kicking my ass. I started it back in the Fall of 2015 and it currently rests at 96k words. That’s a lot, right? And I know what you’re thinking: why isn’t it done?

See, when I started the project I didn’t know much about the different elements of the story, from a writer’s perspective. I could locate them in other people’s writing but I couldn’t figure out how to convey it in my own. When I re-drafted the plot to include pieces I figured would help convey the character development that I wanted I ended up adding something like 26 scenes to round the project out to around 139k words.

I imagine at least 15k words will be lost in editing.

Want an excerpt?

“You’re thinking small, Rick Grimes, and you’re only playing with some of the rules.” She sat up from her indolent lounge and pinned him where he stood with mismatched unaligned eyes. “You’re right and you’re wrong at the same time. The Game is simple; the Genie must survive. To survive they have to get stronger and you can only get stronger two ways. The first is to gain more …tenants, I suppose, and the other is to absorb the power of other Genies. My territory is far enough away that I don’t have to worry about Dgpemostfgish for awhile yet, if ever. However, it benefits my long term plan to screw with hers.” She lightly hopped from her seat to circle him. “So I ask again, do you know what they call you, Rick Grimes?”

“No.” He eyed her, twisting to follow her fluid and seductive movements. “What do they call me?”

“They call you the Fate Breaker.” She leaned in close and sniffed at the bare skin of his neck. “By all accounts, you were supposed to die from a gunshot wound to the chest before the Game even began. And some of you, between the thousands of realities, do die of a gunshot to the chest on a primitive highway in the boondocks of Georgia. But most of you don’t.”​

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Tune in tomorrow to find out how I prepared for Camp NANOWRIMO and what the most difficult parts were.

Are you preparing for NANOWRIMO? What do you think the most difficult part of writing is?

Any opinions on the excerpt? Feel free to comment.