National Novella Writing Month

 This is the first, unedited, line of my NaNoWriMo project this year titled More Canals than Giza.

 It's only tangentially related to the rest of the novel, as the story begins with workaholic Tonina Lagoria breaking out of her work groove as an illustrator in the wee hours of the morning.

 After that point, she is swept up in a story of aliens coming to Earth and running into a cute guy.

 My inspiration for this story was based entirely around my irrational worry that a pale face will pop up outside my window in the dead of night.

 Or rather, considering the somehow less terrifying thought of a dark skinned face popping up outside of that window.

 Attached to a person, not just a disembodied face. It's not like Idris Elba's visage decided to go for a post midnight walk without the rest of him.

 (In that instance I'd still scream like it was a pale face, but I'd also be charmed. He's very handsome.)

 So this entire plot was born of coming up for a legitimate (as in logically consistent and not crime based) reason for someone to be in your back garden at two o'clock in the morning.

 All I could think of was running away from some threat, and my brain supplied giant alien cats as said threat.

 Which I am so glad my brain supplied because writing this story was a lot of fun.

 I'm both seriously looking forward to January to begin revising the story, and dreading it, because I've never edited anything this long before.

 For my sins, this is the first finished draft of anything longer than a short story I've ever managed. Even though it's only about 35k long, it's still an intimidating length for a novice like myself.

 So, with the writing relatively fresh in my mind, here are things I want to address in the edit:

1. Giving currently nameless characters names.
2. Improve the romance
3. Improve the humour
4. Improve the deeper social commentary (that there is. It's not much, tbf)
5. Improve the ending
6. More descriptive detail for Tonina and other characters
7. Drive home Stephen the Newsreader losing his goddamn mind
8. More horror elements

 I'm pretty satisfied with the first draft and keeping these points in mind to improve it for the second.

 I mean, honestly, if it had been a white guy in her back garden, Tonina probably would have assumed he was a ghost and left him there to die.

 I know I would.