I’m so excited to get started writing my project for this year’s NaNoWriMo. As I explained this is a complete revamp of my very first novel. At its core, it’s similar: girl wants to do this cool thing she’s dreamed of her whole, but can’t because magic sucks. But the world and magic are completely different.

Believe it or not, I was inspired by the Matt Damon’s movie, The Great Wall. While it’s no The Martian, I actually quite enjoyed it. The pageantry of the army was great and it was the crane divers that really started me off on my new idea–that and a segment on NPR about a woman who works as a scientific researcher, trying to cure her own neurologic genetic disease, which would cause her to deteriorate rapidly once she started showing symptoms.

I also used an idea I had years and year ago–I called it my flying world–where people flew to help them battle in a war because they were constantly being attacked by countries who wanted their magic. Those flyers had wings (and this was completely unrelated to my first novel starring Marla) but in this novel they don’t, they use magic that basically controls their relationship with gravity. But they do live in a country constantly battling to survive because the surrounding nations want their magic.

Skyfalls are what those who wield this magic are called. They use it to make weapons for the military to use. The book is her struggle to come to terms with the new direction to her life (and a whole host of other problems as well.)

I have more scenes planned than will take me to get to 80k words, which is my goal and I’ve only planned through Act II, so it might be a long one.