Preparing for NaNo 2011

Every year I tell myself I'm going to do a better job preparing for NaNoWriMo. So far I've been able to do that, but each year I feel I should have done a better job. It is now the end of July and I've already started that agonizing search for this year's story.

I started with a short-short story called Panacea about the accidental creation of a mutagenic plague. (I wrote the whole thing with my thumbs on my iPod as a lark. :) It was intended to be a bit of back story for a far future post-post-apocalyptic story involving mutants, primitive tribal culture and lost technology. (Were not talking X-men mutants here, but more like Beneath the Planet of the Apes type mutants.) Unfortunately I don't have a handle on the main character, so that story really needs to sit and gel awhile longer.

I also wrote a potential first chapter for a YA zombie apocalypse told from the POV of a 15 year old girl who has to travel through a zombie infested metropolis to get her family back together. I think it has a lot of potential and the dramatic irony of the first chapter was a lot of fun yet, somehow--despite living with a 15 year old girl, the voice wasn't quite right. I may have to backburner that one as well.

I have lots of other stories rattling around in the back of my head (not all of which are apocalyptic) including a lovecraftian horror romance story I was toying with last year. I may even violate one of the basic rules for writers and write a sequel to an unpublished story.

I never really finished A Kingdom of Stone. I mean, I did--and it's a pretty solid ending, but there was a whole second part to that story that would have been included if I hadn't hit the 134k word mark. In Arthurian terms, part one deals with the rise of Merlin while part two deals with the rise of Arthur.

(No, this is not an Arthurian tale! I'm actually somewhat tired of those. I'm using Arthur as a metaphor here so I don't have to explain the actual story--though I will be borrowing from the Fisher King and other parts of the Mabinogion so there will be a resonance there. :)

The ending for part two is pretty well mapped out, but the rest of it is largely up in the air. That's because it's really the ending of the first book that's just been chopped off. That means I've got to craft a new beginning for part two and finish working out the middle bits. We'll see how close I come before October and the pre-nano panic kicks in.

Nanowrimo 2010 Postmortem

I know nanowrimo ended for most people in Nov, but for me it doesn't really end until I'm holding my proof in my hot little hands. The actual writing ended about April--yes I know most people finish in November, but then most nanos are only 50k or so long. This year, mine came in just under 90k, a little shorter than last year's. Each year's attempt gets a little easier and this year's was no exception. I think this goes to show, if nothing else, that I picked the right story after all.

Otherwise, nanowrimo was a bit of a bust. We didn't have the usual midnight kick-off write-in and I didn't go to any of the events which were almost all on the other side of town, so I didn't really feel like I was a part of things. In fact I barely even got on the forums. Though who knows maybe it actually helped me meet goal more quickly. :)

If all goes well, the free print should be arriving in about a week. Sometime after that I'll be looking for beta readers. If anyone thinks they might be interested in reading the thing or even just willing to help me out, I could use some fresh eyes on it. I'll be posting more info then.

Halfway There and Two Days Early!

It's been an odd week. Week Two is normally Hell Week for most nanoers. It's the point where the story's shiny newness has begun to wear off and the characters stop cooperating. It's also the point where people who didn't plan often find out that they don't really have a story in any meaningful sense.

Tuesday I had my first short day. I came in 350 words short. Strangely enough, it was followed by a record word count day on Wednesday and even more on Thursday. Then Friday I had another short day. That however was something of an accident. I was only about 100 words short and I had forgotten that earlier in the day I had penned a snatch of dialog that takes place near the climax of the story and so wrote in the back of my notebook. Had I remembered to add it, I would have (just barely) made quota that day.

My cast of character's is exploding! I have two and a half main characters and the two (full) main characters are each surrounded by more than a dozen supporting characters too many of which are developing personalities and expressing opinions unworthy of background characters. The character that I thought would be the main character's nemesis sort of redeemed himself. At least he's slight more sympathetic than he was. And a new character has arisen to make the MC's life miserable. Unfortunately my MC has just been yanked out of that situation into a better/worse one. Who knows if either of the earlier potential nemesis will reenter his life later.

I have enjoyed discovering unexpected facets of my main characters though. That sort of things always makes writing fun and really helps with the word count.

Having spent all day writing. I'm going to go stand up now (if my legs will still support me) and then go play some DDO to unstress my brain.

NaNoWriMo -- Week 1

This weeks went surprisingly well despite the usual attacks of doubt and a disappointing lack of involvement in the nano community. I haven't attended a single write-in function yet (I at least went to the last 3 kickoff parties--this year they didn't have one) and have barely made an appearance on the forums. As a result, I don't really feel like I'm in NaNoWriMode right now.

The only thing that's saved me so far is that (until now) the story is pretty well-tread ground (in my head.) I've had a good feel for what's going on up to this point, though that will change as soon as I bump up against the edge of my outline.

I still get surprised by my characters, though. For example, my main character (the mage who accidentally defeats a giant and gets recruited in a mercenary warrior guild) was supposed to acquire a minor nemesis from within the guild. In fact when they see that he's not the usual big and strong type, many of the older students will take great delight in beating up the "giant killer" in practice. As I'm setting this up, I introduce a character that I thought would be his friend. Another new recruit that can at least sympathize with the MC while they go through this brutal training, only he's turning out to be quite the jerk. The MC has just met his romantic interest and this guy is making all kinds of rude suggestions as to why he shouldn't be interested in her.

I think he's found his nemesis, only it wasn't who I thought it was.

Anyway, if I can keep my motivation up, I should be Ok, but things will definitely get tougher over the next couple of weeks. The only good thing is that I'll have some time off coming up, hopefully I can use that to put some more numbers on the board (I do expect things to slow down a bit).

Unfortunately, you won't be able to follow my day-to-day progress that well on this site. The old widget, the one that showed the daily totals, no longer works and the new one only gives a running total. I don't know why that is. It's a little disappointing, but I've got other things to worry about right now.

Commit or be Committed

I want to thank everyone on facebook who posted their comments on which story I should write. I like all three and hope to write each of them eventually, but I think I've chosen my poison—so to speak.

I had all but decided on the Hell gate story which a majority of you seemed to prefer, and had even done some pre-writing, but eventually decided against it. Those characters just weren't ready to be written yet. I ended up going instead with story #3. Digging through my notes, I'd already written two short stories pulled from this story idea (though I had swapped the characters around and changed their names) so it seems my subconscious just felt there was more meat there to work it. (Yeah I know it probably means I'm committing myself to another 100k work. Yes I should be committed.)

I've tweaked my synopsis and even worked up some cover art for the curious. You can see them both at my writer's profile page on the nano site at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user%252F200847 just click on the Novel Info tab.

Wish me luck. The roller-coaster is nearly at the top of the first hill. The anticipation is already killing me.

Preparing for NaNo 2010

I need help. NaNoWriMo 2010 is right around the corner and I need help deciding what I'm going to write.

I know I haven't posted on this blog much (and yes ddo going free to play is part of the reason and yes I'm afraid/excited about Lord of the Rings Online goes F2P--who doesn't want to go running around the shire, or the mines of Moria, or Helmsdeep, or Minas Tirith, or...) but I have been working on the writing...some. I've even received my proof copy of The Ascent from NaNo '09 which I'll post picture of here in a bit.

But back to my problem. After writing two 100K+ novels and not having any time to edit them, I thought I'd write a YA novel in the 50-65K range. (I'm trying to buy time here.) I've got three rough ideas to choose between and I'm putting it up for a vote. (I realize most of the replies will be on facebook, but you can also reply on this blog.) I'm working on more detailed synopses, but until then, these are the thumbnail sketches:

Story#1 Good girl must do bad things to rescue family after zombie apocalypse.

Story#2 Boy must take over his eccentric family's vocation guarding one of the seven Hell-gates to save cursed girlfriend.

Story#3 Rejected apprentice discovers plot to infiltrate mages' guild and develops knew form of combat to stop half-dragon shapeshifters.

I refer to #1 as The Breakfast Club meets Dawn of the Dead. It would probably be the easiest to write.

#2 I sometimes refer to as the Adams Family story. Much more character driven and harder to get right but could be very fun. It was originally intended to be a horror romance (horror more like Poe and Lovecraft than modern slashers and romance more like P.G. Wodehouse than common bodice rippers.)

#3 is a pretty straight-forward fantasy story. The thumbnail synopsis doesn't really do it justice since a lot of it involves the main characters trying to track down a mysterious group assassinating mages. This one would probably require more work to plot out than the others.

So which is it--or do you have a better idea? I'm open to suggestions, but I've got to decide in the next four weeks and start marking out scenes as soon as possible.

NaNoWriMo 2009 = 51329

I had a nice thoughtful post mostly written all about this year's NaNoWriMo and lessons learned and all that and, quite frankly, even the idea bores me.

In some ways this year went better than last. I certainly felt more prepared. In other ways it was a little more of a struggle. I think I'll go back to gritty hard-core fantasy next year. I also think I'll do more pre-writing so I can hit the ground running even faster.

Including the stuff I wrote before NaNoWriMo, I have somewhere around 80,000 words so far. This means I only have about 20,000 left to finish the story.

At this point in the story, I've adapted everything in Xenophon's account up to the greeks' journey through western Armenia. Next I have to decide how much of their wanderings through the Greek frontier and the political machinations that follow I can squeeze into the space I have left. I also have to figure out how they find out about the aliens' plan (in my adaptation) to attack the now defenseless Earth.

(Yeah, I decided the story needed to end with more of a bang. Xenophon's account just kind of trails off with the break up of the army, it's partial reformation and his hand-off of the troops to the Spartans. I decided to make his little excursion where he captures the rich Persian a little more significant though it will, unfortunately, lose all the humor Xenophon had in his version.)