Avon Van Hassel

For the last 3 NaNoWriMos and 6 Camp NaNo’s I’ve worked on the Greenstalk Universe, running Alois and Sulat through their paces and getting them into all sorts of trouble, with very few pauses. Well, this year is different. This year, I’m revisiting a very old setting and introducing a whole new cast of characters. Welcome to Cosmopolis, the home of the 3 O’Clock Club.

Back in 2013, in July Camp NaNo, I wrote a superhero novel ripped completely off the Inredibles world from Disney Infinity. It wasn’t even subtle, it wasn’t meant to be; it was just for fun.

However, some of it was my original idea, and  I did come to enjoy the alternation of fanfiction and creation.

So this year is all me, as usual. The only connection to the other story is the city I invented, Cosmopolis, a cross between Kansas City (Missouri), New Orleans, and San Francisco.

 

Now, as for characters, I begged and pleaded, bargained and resisted, but the wand chooses the wizard and so the story the writer. I had no choice but to populate my modern urban supernatural adventure with teenage witches. It’s been a long, long time since I wrote Young Adult fiction, but apparently some dim and dark part of me thought the time was ripe to reconnect with the youth. Perhaps it’s the fact that I turned 30 this year, the last real threshold before proper adulthood.

Blech.

Moving on. So who are these prodigies? We have a set of twins, Stella and Chaz Rice, who are a psychic and beastmaster, respectively; Opal Rose Honeysett, a runewitch who uses words and sigils to work magic; Ryan Orellana Verdugo, a bard; Lauren Baxter, a healer and necromancer; Zadie Foster, an illusionist; and Adela Marzano, an arbiter and leader of the 3 O’Clock Club. Lastly, the new girl, Clem Lynch, must find her powers and her place in this new city.

The 3 O’Clock Club is a group of teens who meet at a downtown metaphysical supply store and meeting place of local witches, called the 3rd Eye Emporium in the heart of the historic Gaslamp Quarter. They meet after school at 3, but they also set their alarms for 3 am, the Witching Hour, to meet up online to study their craft or perform group rituals and spells.

Our story begins at the start of summer school, when Clem and her family move to Cosmopolis. She joins the summer school programme to make up for a class she failed at her former high school, but also to meet some friends and faculty members before the start of the school year. The first of 3 stories deals with Clem meeting the Club, discovering and accepting her powers, and cementing her place in the community.

The next two stories feature a fully incorporated Clem as she interacts with others in the community and helps the other members of the Club with a number of different situations.  I haven’t worked out all of the plotlines yet, but I know one will deal with a haunting.

Anyone else doing NaNo this year? What are your stories about?