Camp NaNo July '24: Dawn of D.R.U. (WIP)

Yayy!!! Excited to get into my first nano event!

Comments are very welcome, whether it be encouragement, suggestions, questions, etc!

WIP - [Raiden] Dawn of D.R.U.


(enjoy this collection of random art I did of my MC because I don't have a cover yet)

Plans:

• Write 10k words this month.
• ”book” cover for Raiden
• Edit/finish Raiden intro video.
• Begin companion videos for upcoming chapters.
• Write audio logs for each chapter.

What’s done?
Planning of plot events, characters and character involvement, and some art for the story has been finished!

Story Info

I am currently in rough draft mode and 2k words into my story thus far. I am considering this a rough closer to “arc 1” of a continuous story I have been working on in the background with the outline of stories I am currently releasing.

This includes…(in timeline order)

• (FINISHED,not posted) - World of Maga
• (FINISHED,posting in progress) - Plague of The Desert
• (FINISHED,posting finished) - Shattered Gravity
• (FINISHED, not posted) - Architect of Control
• (FINISHED, not posted) - The Council of Terras
• (Current WiP) - Dawn of D.R.U.

Like all my other stories, I usually create a cover for my works, this is still in the works, but know I am pretty close to finishing!

Thus, I am trying to make this bigger and better than previous projects! I have a parody-like intro for my series that I have become quite fond of, but I wanted to update some of the art, so that encompasses one of my goals.

I also plan to have some chapters that lack any written portion, and are instead videos that I either film in live-action, or try to do a rough storyboard of. (Live-action video is much more in my wheelhouse in terms of expertise)

I also have some audio logs to go along with these stories adding some worldbuilding. I plan for there to be a short audio log narrated by one of my characters at the beginning of every chapter.

Of course, the #1 goal is the writing portion! Realistically, all these other goals are more *sub* goals. By the end of the month, I would like to add 10,000 words to my WIP. This would mean I should’ve reached about 12k words by the end of the month!

About the story

Elevator pitch
Raiden, a girl who was born in a space in between dimensions, is found by the Dimension Regulation Unit and registered as a “glitch”. Glitches are the trash of the dimensions, with no real place or home. Raiden is assigned to a team of other glitches to keep the dimensions under DRU’s watch safe from danger, where she discovers her place in the struggle for control over dimensions is deeper than she expects…

For those who frequent my account, this will mean the main characters from earlier stories will essentially become side characters in a “team” of four characters that takes place in my verse. Don’t worry, prior reading is not required, because plot elements that are important are always explained for the reader!

Additional info

I may keep plot info a bit lax because I do plan to post this later after I am finished, so I likely won’t be sharing any big twists or plot spoilers, however, I am still early in the story process, so that likely won’t be much of a worry.

I don’t know if there is a “proper” way to do Camp NaNo, so I think I will stick to weekly updates on my progress and such. (I may share multiple times a week if it’s a busy one!)

I love your main charrie's hair!! Also, having chapters that are videos or storyboards is so cool?!? :0 Can't wait to follow along with this project!

Also, there's no proper way to do Camp NaNo! You can share updates whenever and in whatever format you want (or not at all, if you wish xD). The goal is just to write and have fun :] You got this, noah!!

Welcome to NaNo!! Camp is a perfect way to start because truly anything goes
What a cool world and series of stories you've created! And the fact that you create so much art and videos and media for your work is so so cool. Best of luck this camp <3

Day 2 of 31

Progress

Between my first post and July 1st I had made a bit of progress, but I will only be counting progress in July towards my final goal of 10k words! The draft is currently at 5k words, so I will be shooting for 15k words by the end of this month! (today I only wrote 285 words, but I started on chapter 3!)

Summary…

-finished book cover
-finished chapter 1 and 2
-started chapter 3

Chapter 1 and 2 are basically setup chapters, so I am excited to go forward with upcoming chapters since I will be getting into character setup yayyy!!

Thank you for checking in!

Hi!! I love your art, specially the butterfly one. I totally relate to the guy's face XD
Good luck with this Camp Nano!!!

WOW. Finishing two chapters in a day??? WONDERFUL!

Good progress so far! And I love your butterfly with your characters in it.

Day 7 of 31
(this is technically day 6 but it is midnight lol)

Progress

Finally had a free saturday so that meant I could go all out on writing today! Proud to say I had a grand total of 2690 words today!

Today still felt like one of those days where I was very off and on. I get into these spells where I really want to write but it still feels like I have to push myself to focus and actually get typing…While I am happy with my result, I felt a bit sporadic with my progress throughout the day.

Summary

-finished chapter 3
-started chapter 4

Characters

This goes more in depth about what I wrote about, if you are just stopping by to see my progress feel free to skip!

Spoiler

I am happy to say that I got into personifying my main character. She was raised by wolves in a desert as a child, and now lives with cats in an abandoned convenience store within said desert. Chapter 3 delved into her being forced to leave the desert and therefore being forced to join the Dimension Regulation Unit!

One thing I added that made me sad was a scene where her pet cat (the first one she ever found) was killed before her very eyes by a scientist. I am getting a little worried if the story is too violent to start out so if anyone has any opinions I would be curious. I think the the cat death serves a double purpose that 1. These scientists do not value life and 2. Raiden (the mc) is put into a state of grief and panic starting at the beginning of the story. This eventually leads to the activation of her powers.

Thank you for checking in!

Love a free Saturday for getting lots of word out!! Nice work so far!!

OH NO. EVIL SCIENTISTS??? (Though like... I get it. Lord knows, I've heard lectures about the bioethics involving experimentation on animals, lol.)

Is there any particular reason why they're experimenting on cats? It's not a very common animal to use...

Without revealing too much…there is a project involving mass soul experimentation. These guys need cat bodies to make clones of so they can implant stray Kitty souls into these new bodies!

Day 15 of 31
(this is just an overall combonation of my process from day 7-15)

Progress

Work was BUSSIN last week, so I felt a bit suffocated. But with some freetime I did get some words in. 1462 to be exact!

I wrote a good bit on the 9th and 11th and wrote sporadically until today. I introduced an important character into the story who will serve as an alternate pov to the protagonists. She is a more personal character, so I wanted to introduce her right!

Summary

-Made some progress on chapter 4

Characters

This is a little quote from the introduction of one of our antagonists, Maga! (no relation to any political movement, she's just weird like that •⩊• )

I like Maga's introduction, but there is a sequence where she and the main character face a threat together. I think some pieces are interesting, but the action and buildup to a fight feels rather bland, so I might just rewrite some of the mission from the ground up...

After fourteen years of waiting, there was a knock against her cell door. Someone addressing her directly. “Maga. Jackie requests your presence.”

As the DRU agent walked Maga through the cafeteria, many glitches got excited.

“Maga’s out?! There’s hope for us all!”

“Hope you can still shoot lightning after all those years, bitch!”

“Did you hear Captain Jackie had to personally arrest her?”

“I heard she belongs in a damn loony bin. She’ll kill all of us if she hears.”

Thank you for checking in!

Day 18 of 31

Progress

Today I got to sit down and write a chapter focusing more on my side characters. It’s essentially one chapter with a bunch of mini-stories spread across. Word count was 2868!
This essentially serves as buildup to all these characters meeting up together…But I think looking into their lives before everything happens is important.

Summary

-Finished chapter 4
-Finished chapter 5
-Did a revised character design for one of my main characters!

Characters

So yeah…I also revised a character design because I thought their old design was a bit too…edgy? Here’s a little looksie.

New design:


Old design:


Thank you for checking in!

Day 28 of 31

Progress

-GOAL REACHED!
Overall, I wrote 11,387 words in July. My current draft stands at 15,767 words. Which is slightly past where I wanted to land. Overall, I am pretty happy with the turnout!

-Revisions for chapter 5
-New chapter inserted between 2 and 3 expanding on Raiden’s (my MC’s) motivations.
-Progress on chapter 6

Yes…Now chapters 5 and 6 are actually 6 and 7.,.

Plans from the beginning of the month:

• Write 10k words this month. (FINISHED)
• ”book” cover for Raiden. (FINISHED)
• Edit/finish Raiden intro video. (PROGRESS MADE)
• Begin companion videos for upcoming chapters. (NOT STARTED)
• Write audio logs for each chapter. (EH, I DON’T REALLY WANNA ANYMORE)

Summary

Now that I am coming up on the end of the beginning of the story, I feel like I want to do more work on fleshing out my character’s journeys. I am used to dealing with one main character and other side characters, while this story essentially has 4 main protagonists (with Raiden’s journey being center-stage). I want to focus on fleshing out the other protags stories with personalized mini-stories that fit their character arcs. Over the end of the month I’ve been writing less and adding to my planning.

How do I feel?

NEW Plans:

• Take a break from DoD to write some shorter stories
• Work on a bit more planning. I want to make sure character journeys are fleshed out.
• Finish Raiden intro video. (PROGRESS MADE)
• Begin companion videos for upcoming chapters. (NOT STARTED)

Honestly my main goal is to 1, take a little break to recharge, and 2,“relax” by writing some short stories similar to another I posted on here titled You Are (Not) Wonderful. They are simple character-focused A-B plots with some interesting stuff thrown in. I want to focus on my writing structure, so what better way than to flesh out my rhetoric by writing some other, lower-stakes stories?

Even though my goal was reached, perhaps I will add one final update on July 31st!

Thank you for being here with me!

WHOOOOOOO awesome job achieving your goal, noah!!