#NaNoWriMo Prep

Today, I’m spending the afternoon wrapping my mind around NaNoWriMo, hoping to empty out a 50,000 word bare bones rough draft this coming November that’s been buzzing around in my head for the last few months. I’m a newbie to the event, and I’m liking what I see as I continue to snoop around the website for the umpteenth time this week.

I’ve been taking copious notes today on the plot I plan on drafting. It’s loosely based on the horrors of my 1980s high school experiences that I can freely laugh my tush off about now. As I’m pulling together information on the various characters and scenes that are essential to my story, I’m realizing something about the category I thought I was aiming for… though my novel will be set in a high school, this will not be a Young Adult novel. Just because the characters are teenagers, that does not mean the novel is meant for a YA audience.

I am decidedly targeting the forty-somethings who regard the glory days of their dayglow turned pastel youth with fondness—like me. It’s also going to be a comical love story, of course, because romcoms are my thing.

Would a YA or NA person enjoy the novel—absolutely… the 80s are back in a huge way, and our youth are obsessed. I see 80s terms on graphic t-shirts at least once a day (I’m an English teacher), and they’ve ALL watched at least a half a dozen 80s movies because their parents were 80s teens and have made them. Who doesn’t love that era right now?

As far as my plans go for the novel, I’m naming it Breaking Rad because it pulls in the 80s generation with the term Rad that’s hot right now, plus it’s a pun-tribute to one of my favorite TV shows that will hook adults, and yes, there will be a breakdancing dance-off at a Sadie Hawkins Dance which is the location of the climax of the story. –But that’s all I’m going to reveal for now. I just wanted to stress that I’d mentioned in my previous blog that I was considering tackling a YA novel for NaNoWriMo, but alas, I’m targeting Adult again with my writing in tone, voice, heat-levels, and whatnot, but I’m sure anyone who loves a bitchin 80s throwback story is going to enjoy it, fer-sure.