The WriMo Blog: Open Novella Contest 2024 & The Journey of Legends | Entering a 2nd Writing Challenge

Welcome to The WriMo Blog where I share my monthly writing goals, project progress, and more! Today's post is a bit of a shock to the goals I've already set. If this interests you, keep reading!

I know, this is probably going to shock those of you who know I made a commitment to myself that I would not start any additional projects or challenges during the Open Novella Contest. However, one in particular has caught my interest. Allow me to elaborate.

I made this first decision when I was my 2024 writing plans. Putting my focus on the ONC2024 was the only way I could foresee this far into the new year. However, I have been open to the possibility of taking on a second project, depending how well my novella was doing.

THE GIRL WITH SCARS is climbing in word count and I fully expect to reach 20,000 by mid-March. With this in mind, I am going to attempt to enter this new contest...

The Journey of Legends is a new contest, created and coordinated by the official Wattpad Fantasy profile, the Ambassadors and volunteers. One of my Wattpad supporters shared it to her conversation board, and upon reading through the announcement guidebook, I was intrigued.

The goal of the contest is to "Write the first 15,000 words of your fantasy story. No prompts. Just you and your creativity."

The best of it is I can write any fantasy story I want! It's possible I can even pull out stories I've already started and use the contest to further the story along.

I have 3 fantasy stories in mind that would benefit from this challenge. And yes, I full intend to share them with you.

Up first is my Little Women inspired fantasy, ALLURING STARLIGHT. I tried writing this book back in 2022 for a personal writing challenge that crossed into Camp NaNoWriMo that Summer/July, but I was under a lot of stress and ended up setting it aside. My desire to carry my ONC2022 success into my next project didn't really work out. It doesn't mean I put the project on the "Not Worth My Time" shelf, because I have opened it from time to time and enjoyed what I did write. And I have been working on an outline for it recently. Additionally, it is set in the same world as THE LARK'S PEARL and THE GIRL WITH SCARS. Yes, it is!

In truth, even though I do want to work on ALLURING STARLIGHT, the next two potential projects are already halfway drafted. What projects are they? I'm glad you are curious. They are the first 2 books in my planned, 6-book fantasy series, THE SIX KINGDOMS OF KURII.

This series is a collection of standalone Bible retellings that I started planning back in 2019. Both of these novellas have 15,000+ words already, but there are some details I have been meaning to change.

I can't remember how much I was sharing at the time, but when I was drafting these two books, the words were flowing. Especially for KINGDOM OF LOVE, my fantasy retelling of David & Goliath, but more closely following the brotherhood between David & Jonathan.

And because these 2 books are already beyond the 15k minimal requirement, all I would have to do is submit them as a "new book" on Wattpad and work toward writing the rest of the story. However, because they are already 50%-ish drafted, it puts me at a crossroad. Because the Rules & Guidelines require the entry to be written specifically for the contest. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I know that the main thing to remember is to make sure my entry book is created/drafted on Wattpad no earlier than March 1st. That just means creating the Wattpad book on that date and it shows up as a "new" book.

One of the things I want to work on in KINGDOM OF COURAGE (Queen Esther) is how I tried to write my book in a similar manner to R. J. Larson's Books of the Infinite Trilogy. If you are not aware of this series, I highly recommend it. I won't dive too deeply into what those details are, but I will say it is because of this hiccup that I stopped writing the book in the first place. It doesn't work with the story the way I'd hoped. That's a whole thing I would have to edit soon but I don't have the time to do that yet.

As I am writing this post, getting my thoughts down has helped me think it it over and I know what I want to do. I'll share more in a new post once the challenge begins, so... after March 1st.

Thank you for being here. I hope you're doing well in all of your creative outlets. Stay safe, and stay awesome. See you in the funny papers!

Add THE GIRL WITH SCARS to your reading list!

When Prince Oskar decides to disguise himself and goes out into the village to see what the people are like, he is met with a shocking sight. There are orphaned children in the streets, beggars at every corner, and people fighting for their next meal. The kingdom of Unara has never seen poverty and the royal family looks out for the people. Why is this village struggling?

As Oskar returns every day, he befriends one of the village's deformed members. A young woman with multiple scars on her face. Taking pity on her, the prince gives her one of the rings on his fingers, intending for it to bring her a better life. However, the woman is soon arrested for being in possession of this ring and Oskar knows she is innocent. Until he discovers she possesses a ring with the Unaran royal crest. This is not the ring he gave her.