Thou shalt have no other girls before me!

I may try to reboot “The Teacher Will Appear” for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, formerly known as “November”) this year. Possibly before, if the urge grows too strong – it is still over a month left, and a month is enough to write 50 000 words, as I have shown occasionally. What I consider is to merge it with my dream a couple years ago about working for the Norse gods.

In my original (and stalled) attempt, there is a decidedly oriental flavor, ranging from Japanese names to Chinese Qi-Gong and Daoist immortals. Which is also OK, I guess, but as a Norwegian I have a competitive advantage writing about the Norse pantheon or derivatives thereof. I can draw on a great body of lore, quite a bit of it in my head. I know the locations and the images associated with it. And I just think they have a greater potential for wacko fun than the more refined Eastern traditions. (This is quite likely because I don’t know the Eastern traditions well enough, though!)

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Blurb-style plot introduction, updated with pantheon changes etc:

MC is a Norwegian high school boy, showing up to the first day of his senior year. He finds that he has gained a new classmate and a new teacher. The teacher is young, beautiful, strong, intelligent, ignorant about contemporary subculture, and seems to hate him with a passion from the first time she lays eyes on him. This all turns out to stem from the fact that she is a second-generation Norse goddess, and Odin, the Allfather of the Norse pantheon has decided that MC is her fated husband-to-be, and it is her job to teach him the ropes of immortality.

The young goddess is not too pleased. And neither is MC, once he realized that the privilege entails a couple decades of celibacy until he has qualified for immortality or died trying. To ensure his compliance in this matter, the goddess’ younger sister has enrolled as his classmate and proceeds to defend his chastity with excessive measures, both in school and on his supposed free time. Over time his weekends are increasingly filled up with cosmic Viking raids to Utgard, Svartalfheim, Niflheim etc: alternate dimensions that seem like badly designed role playing games filled with monsters and loot, in the company of wacky Norse gods and immortal (or at least resurrectable) warriors, valkyries, and superpowered animals of varying intelligence and generally unpleasant temperament.

At least his mother is happy that he has finally found some friends, although she is a little worried about his overly attached girlfriend…