My NaNoWriMo Idea

Yesterday, I signed up to do NaNoWriMo also known as National Novel Writing Month. This is where thousands of people attempt to write a complete novel of at least 50,000 words within 30 days. It starts November 1st and I can hardly wait to begin. It should be fun. It’s unfortunate that I will have to put my current novel aside for the entire month of November to work on a new project, but I think that it will be a great writing exercise to have my sole goal to be quantity instead of quality. I know that sounds like nonsense, but sometimes when I am working on my current book I get so wrapped up in making each sentence beautiful and lyrical that I forget to focus on moving the story forward quickly and the beauty of simplicity. I know that an entire month of hammering away at the keyboard is exactly what I need to inspire productivity in my current project, because rereading and rewriting every sentence is not leading me to a conclusion any faster.

Since I am determined to do this new distraction, I need a great genre/subject to start creating my plot. I’m could do action, adventure, horror, mystery, humor, romance, or science fiction, but I’m not sure if I really fit into any particular genre. I want this book to be half way descent, but I keep coming up with the most ridiculous ideas. Right now, I was thinking about doing a novel about yetis. The anthropologist in me wants to create a false ethnography about yeti culture and how they are so much more technologically advanced than humans are. Maybe, yetis evolved from humans and they are a new breed called homo sapiens sapiens sapiens, and the yetis view us regular homo sapiens sapiens as an abundant species of gorilla.

I think these yetis shall live underground in the Himalayan mountains in a giant city that extends a thousands miles into the earth’s core. However, the yetis’ underground safe haven is starting to get overpopulated, so they are forced to look for ways to expand or to come to the surface. A very important election will decide if the yetis will expand deeper into the Earth’s core, if they will find another mountain range such as the Alps to occupy or if they come to the surface to conquer/live with humans.

I’m trying to decide how I want this all to be introduced to the reader. Do I want one of the yeti’s to be forced to capture a human, and let that human become the narrator of the story, or do I want there to be one kind-hearted yeti who disagrees with the yeti government and sends a message to the humans that they need to prepare for a yeti attack? It’s a tough decision, but I think it would be better told from a human perspective. Okay, I got! Since my yetis are going to be very big into space travel, I’m going to have one of my yeti’s returning from space travel, walking up the Himalayan mountain with his abominable snowman space suit on. He wears this suit because space is cold and inhospitable and he needs the extra warmth. Plus, it scares the shit out of any human he may see and makes it easier for him to overpower them because of their fear. My yeti space traveler will be spotted by a journalist from Weekly World News trying to get footage on the abominable snowman legend. Since the yeti code says that if a human sees a yeti that the human must be captured and taken back to the underground city, my space traveler will be forced to take the reporter lady back with him. The reporter is horrified because she thinks this big abominable snowman looking thing is taking her back to his cave to eat her, but she will be surprised when she sees the truth. Once the yeti gets to the entrance of the underground city, he will remove his space suit to reveal his true form.

So, how does that sound? It’s a weird combination of adventure, action, horror, mystery, science fiction, and hopefully a little romance if I can fit it in there. I know it’s ridiculous, but do you think you would enjoy reading a story about yeti culture and yeti’s taking over the world. Let me know, because if no one cares then I surely shouldn’t bother spending a month developing it. Also let me know if there is something that you want to read. If you always wanted to read about the secret life of silk worms, let me know. I might be able to weave that into some type of adventure.