First WriMo of 2023! | The WriMo Blog, with E. H.

Welcome to The WriMo Blog where I share my monthly writing goals, project progress, and more! Today's post is all about my first WriMo project of 2023. If this interests you, keep reading!

Calling all Outlander fans! This month, I am dedicating my time to writing a time-travel adventure romance in honor of my friend who really loves the story, but doesn’t appreciate the R scenes. Hold on now! There’s more to this story.

It was December 15th, 2022, and I had gone out to brunch with my sister and 2 of our friends. We’ve known them forever and we try to do something together every month. Anyway, after eating, we went to a couple of malls and ended up in a bookstore that had just opened up. In Puerto Rico, majority of all bookstores are in Spanish, so we were scouring the very small English section where Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series was holding a big shelf hostage.

I got into talking about my aunt and how she ADORES Outlander. I’ve only seen pictures of the costumes and the cast in passing, and I have never read nor watched the series. One of my 2 friends brought up the content of these books and the TV series, my goodness! I am sure many of you already know what R scenes I refer to and truth be told, we know what we like. So this friend mentions wishing there were a series like Outlander, but without all the dark, explicit scenes. Very boldly, I said “I can write you one. I will totally write that.”

I spent most of December trying to regain some sort of routine because in November I got sick and lost a week of everything. Thanksgiving week, no less! Why do I mention this? Because of this short conversation with my friend, I’ve had non-stop inspiration to write this story!

I don’t want to say too much about it just yet, but I have spent the better part of my holiday stay-cation writing down every idea I have for this story. I’m not actually outlining, I’m just putting down what I would like to see happen in the book, but ultimately I will be discovery-writing and outlining as I write. Which is, yes, the “Writing Into the Dark” method from Dean Wesley Smith. I will never stop talking about that book, it has changed the way I look at my writing.

Now, I honestly do not know what my title will be or what pen-name I will put it under, but all that will come as I find my way through this story. Something I plan to do is upload each chapter as an “episode” on Kindle Vella so I can work toward publication in the near future. Because that is the ultimate goal of every story and book I write, publication.

[This graphic is one I made back when I thought the series would be 4 books, to showcase some cover art mock-up.]

Fun story, I had a similar experience to this happen in the end of 2019, when I had my original idea for The Xiphis Saga. I spent the latter part of December 2019 outlining the first book and some of the overall series. Ended up writing, a good portion of the first book before the new year, but the goal was very similar to this one: First new project of a new year.

Anyway, that’s what I wanted to share. If anyone else is working on a new first project for this new year, comment below! I’d love to know what you’re working on!