What’s Coming in 2025?

I know, I know. Nanowrimo 2024 is long gone! So why I am posting this now? First, because I didn’t get to it earlier, and I still felt the need for closure. Second, and more importantly, this is an intro, of sorts, to what’s coming in the weeks and months ahead here on my blog. So stay tuned!

I hit 50,000 words before the end of November, but not without more difficulty than I’ve felt in my history of participating in the NaNoWriMo madness. Perhaps it was a function of too many other things on the go, or maybe I just wasn’t as into it as I usually am. That being said, my plan was to work on a fiction idea I’ve had rattling in my head for a very long time. It’s about a group of international high-achievers who get coerced into a life and death survival game by a billionaire recluse.

Let’s be honest. When I first had the idea, I was excited about it, but in retrospect it feels like something that’s been done already… We’ll see how it goes, but after only managing around 1300 words, I’d say I have a long way to go before it amounts to anything.

Instead, I got side-tracked by writing mostly memoir. I blogged about living at Crystal Lake, Saskatchewan last summer and those posts got some of my best responses. It got me thinking I could write about all the interesting places I’ve lived. So, I started with my memories of Churchill, MB, the polar bear capital of the world, and went from there. The Yukon, the NWT, moving west to BC… Then I branched into some of our family trips like our seven-week trip across Canada in 2002, and our five-week trip to the US & Mexico in 1998 which turned out to be a pivotal point in our lives. (It was a catalyst for going into ministry.)

Since I was on a memoir spree, I also wrote about some of my childhood memories, special family relationships, and various milestones in my life. This led to rewriting some of the things I’ve learned from doing personality tests, spiritual gifts surveys, and recently crafting a “Writers’ Manifesto”. I wrote book reviews for books I’ve read recently. I even copied some reflections out of my journal!

Because I was desperate for words to meet my word count, I also wrote all my upcoming blog posts in my Nano document, as well as the script for our church’s Sunday School pageant. Is that cheating? Maybe, if one is a purist, but everything I included was my own writing, so I figured it was fair game.

I’m actually pretty pleased with the outcome now that it’s all said and done. I have a lot of material I can repurpose for blog posts. And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll write a memoir that includes all my travels!