November is just around the corner, which means that writers everywhere are gearing up for the month of noveling insanity that is National Novel Writing Month! Many of you know that Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and now Heartless all started life as NaNo novels. I’m a huge fan of the draft-now, revise-later mentality. On top of that, this is the first year in which I’m participating in a slightly more… official capacity.

Because the lovely folks at NaNoWriMo have asked me to be a part of their author advisory board! What does that mean? I’m not entirely sure. I suppose I’ll be advising, with whatever wisdom and peppiness I can offer.

Plus—next month I’ll be starting a brand new writing project!

Working title: Levana’s Tale: A Lunar Chronicles Novella

Summary: The story of how Levana, princess of Luna, came to be Winter’s stepmother, tried to kill Princess Selene, and ultimately became a queen with her eye set on being an empress. It will also offer some insight into why she’s so friggin’ crazy.

The twist here is that, as a novella, this story is not going to meet the NaNo 50,000-word requirement. I suspect it’ll be somewhere in the 30,000-35,000 word range. So I’ll probably rack up the extra wordage by continuing on with Winter revisions.

You know, all in a month’s work.

When will you all be able to read Levana’s Tale?

You will certainly be able to read this novella someday. My publisher is aware that I’m writing it and they’re very excited. We’ll most likely use it for some sort of promotion next year, when we start to gear up for the release of Winter. But I don’t know at this point when or where or how it will be released. I may post some fun teasers throughout NaNo though… we’ll see. 😉

Check out my NaNo profile here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/aliblade22/novels/levana-s-tale

And fellow novelists, feel free to add me to your buddy list, or post your NaNo plans in the comments!