My Writing's Really gone to Hell this Nano

This year for National Novel Writing Month, I'm working on a project called 'Famine of the Heart' which is a dumb title since it sounds like a romance novel, and the actual story is a steampunk novel featuring sideshow freaks.

It's meant to be a lighthearted romp but the main theme seems to be.... hellfire. Specifically, the main character's mom is not saved (not in a state of grace) when she dies (killed while rescuing a child from a rampaging elephant.)

The main character Kerenza is quite sure her mother went to hell because: her mother had been guilty of the sin of adultery, when she is mortally injured she calls for a priest, but the priest who comes is actually an actor in a Roman collar, who cannot legitimately give absolution and also does not know how to encourage the dying woman to accept Christ.

The Christian theme of the story seems to be about forgiveness. Because Kerenza feels there is virtually no hope that her mother is anywhere else but in hell, she cannot forgive her father for having lured her mother into a life of adultery, and yet she knows that as a Christian she must forgive.

I know it's beginning to sound all boring, but there are also a lot of steam-powered machines and clockwork robots and stuff. And Kerenza is the only one who knows that an inventor's brother is Not To Be Trusted, and she really likes the inventor but they can't get involved because he's Jewish....

And then there are the conjoined twins, one of whom wants to be baptized and the other who doesn't want a drop of baptismal water touching him....

Which reminds me--- shouldn't I be working on my Nano novel right now? (I'm doing some outlining work for the next two days to figure out where the story is headed...)

My page at the NaNoWriMo web site.