And so it begins again.

That’s right, dear friends, it’s #NaNoWriMo time, and I’m excited to say that for the first time since launching this blog in 2015, my NaNo project is one that exists outside my Alteria universe. The time has come for some new characters, a new world, and some new magic.

The story I’ve decided to work on as I take a break from Still the Stars and co. is one I am currently calling Conjure the Night, and my pitch for it is simple—a CHARMED meets FIREFLY adventure with witches in space, but make it queer.

I wrote up a very, very brief pitch for it on my NaNo project page, and it reads…

Nyx is the princess of a star system kingdom where elemental witches, healers, and enchanters reign. Thea is the captain of the INFINITY, a spaceship with a rag tag crew of teens just trying to make a living on the fringes of the outer rim. When Nyx escapes the palace with her younger sister Orin, a powerful omnimancer, the two girls embark on a quest to find and save their eldest sister, Mena, who was banished by their wicked uncle. The only ship that will harbor them is the INFINITY, and despite Thea’s worry that helping two princesses could put her crew in danger, she knows it is the right thing to do. But along the way, Nyx and Thea fall for one another, and together they must fight the star crossed forces that seek to tear the two of them, and the kingdom, apart.

The idea for this story came to me earlier this year, and I’ve been jotting down ideas here and there about it between working on other writing projects and attempting to be an adult and stuff. But after submitting my latest draft of Still the Stars to PitchWars last month, there has been a surge of ideas, and I think I may be ready to tackle an actual draft of this thing. We’ll see how that pans out.

It feels quite scary if I’m honest, to venture outside the comfort of a story that I’ve spent so much of the last four years being 100% immersed in, and whose characters had been in my heart since I was 14. With Conjure, I am just getting to know who these new characters are, figuring out the heart and mechanics of their magic systems, naming their spaceships, and exploring what I’m trying to say with it all.

But that’s part of the joy in this. I’m back to first drafting, which I love as a process. For the first time in a long time, I get to free the madwoman and write with the kind of uninhibited, reckless abandon that made me fall in love with NaNoWriMo all those years ago in the first place.

Will do my best to keep y’all posted about progress as I go, but can’t make any promises as time does tend to run the heck away from me most days, especially during NaNo. But whether I post one more update or a dozen, I just know that right now, I’m excited as heck. I’m feeling good about this month and this idea and this new direction. I feel like I’m ready for something new.