Sunset Winterland

Sunset Post-Op, Part 2

2006-11-21T08:20:00.000-08:00

Comparison To 2004
I can't remember why I jumped into NaNo in 2004. I'm something of an addict to writing - but I usually let coding cobble most of that urge. I had an idea for a story and NaNo seemed to flush it out.

Greenscape was straight lit fic and Sunset was sci fi. Greenscape worked out pretty linear and in the end - is actually a fairly complete story. Sunset ended in a complete disorganized mess with about three different concepts all mashed in together, whole sections in duplicate to suit changes, etc.

Both, however, need complete rewrites for the most part. The difference is, I think, that Greenscape was a story about characters. Sunset Winterland is about premise and plot. Greenscape could meander about and make up the landscape as it went along. It didn't matter in Greenscape what a gas station was made out of or how it operated. With Sunset - all of those details added up to be part of the story.

So when I change a big sphere to be a giant alien girl ... everything gets jostled around. Sunset was more of a knotted rope - pull on one end and everything shakes.

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Sunset Post-Op, Part 1

2006-11-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

NaNo Lessons

Here's stuff I learned this NaNo to succeed at NaNo:

#1 - Don't go by the 1.6K daily estimate. You won't make it because it unrealistically assumes you'll never miss a day or drop behind. It's fine as a guideline for one way to make it to the finish line in time - but it's probably the most unprobable way to get there.

Instead, plan early on for what kind of schedule will work for you. I planned on a few minutes here and there at work, my lunch break, and the occasional hour after work. So I knew, for instance, that the lunch hour was a required block of hardcore writing because it was about the only time I could rely on. I tried to get about 2k out of each lunch hour.

#2 - Dive right in. Just go full steam into your story with little care for what might lie ahead with your characters or premise. I'm not sure what No Plot! No Problem! ... the un/official book of NaNo ... says on this matter (haven't read)... but for me it is more important to have word fodder to play with later when you get stuck.

#3 - When you aren't writing, try to imagine what you might be writing about. If you're stuck in traffic or brushing your teeth, picture mentally what's going on with your characters and what might they be doing. What might they be doing now? What were they doing a year ago?

#4 - When you get stuck, flashback. Go to one of those musings you wrote about and just start from there. Doesn't matter if the flashback is relevant to your plot or what the characters were just saying. Consider this research. You'd be surprise the kind of details that come out when you flush out moments which seemed irrelevant at the time. Suddenly your character might be carrying a teddy bear because it got one in the flashback and THAT teddy bear might end up saving the world.

Happened to an uncle of mine.

#5 - When you get stuck (again), retcon. Retcon means retroactive continuity. And it's a fancy way of saying that you don't respect the past. Did that character have two parents before but you're suddenly curious what it would be like if they were an orphan? Write em as an orphan. Rewrite an old section if they were an orphan.

Once again, this might jar stuff loose for moving ahead with the original plot or it might send stuff in a new direction. NaNo isn't about making a finished product - and if you have a couple of branches which later get chopped if you decide to edit the story - there's nothing wrong with that.

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50,000

2006-11-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

Teachers will tell their schoolchildren. Mothers will tell their wards.

They will tell of they days of the Earth Before. That once the greenlands spread past the lake - they spread farther than just the will of Freya.

Once the children of Freya lived away from her sight and still had her love. And then came the great wolf, Fenri. Fenri promised the great men of old power and insight - but Fenri was a trickster. Once he got all the great men of Earth Before in the same room - he devoured them whole. And so the wolf Fenri unleashed his ravenous hunger on the world. He devoured all the nations whole. He ate all the animals and the plants that he could see. He ate buildings. That was not enough for him. His hunger continued. He then ate the clouds in the skies. That was not enough for him. He ate the stars and the sun and the moon.

And so the world plunged into darkness. Fenri looked for us - the children of Freya. Her most beloved. Freya, however, would not allow harm to her loved ones. She approached the wolf as it wandered the world for its last meal.

"Great wolf," she said, "surely you must be full from your meal. Your belly is fat. You should sleep before devouring the last - this world itself."

"I cannot sleep," Fenri replied, "I am restless knowing that food still exists. I shall eat the last - this world itself - and then I shall sleep."

"If I sang for you, great Fenri, could you then sleep?"

Fenri thought of this and decided that a song would be grand. And so Freya sang. And in her song was weaved in the grandiose dream of her song. Freya could not decieve the wolf - for it is not in her nature to decieve. Freya is love. And so she sang a song of such love the Fenri curled where he stood and fell asleep.

And so Freya's song gives Fenri such a dream that no wolf would ever want to awake. She has given him such a dream that Fenri may yet forget about this place and about us - the beloved fo Freya.

Thus is why the world outside Freya's Reach is cold and dark and evil. Because Fenri the Wolf ate all that was warm, light and good. And when we sleep, Freya grants up on us the same boon she granted her greatest foe. A dream of love and of the world that Fenri the Wolf devoured long ago.

Love Freya. Freya loves you.

OK - that's not the ending. It's the beginning. I thought I had hit 50K yesterday, but Google Doc's word counter was off by a few thousand. Even now, it's reporting over a thousand off from NaNo's official word count.

Technically, this was a successful NaNo - but it was a lot different than the other one I did. My first novel, Greenscape, resulted in something moderately novel-shaped. Sunset result in about five first drafts all mashed into each other. Rather than try and string specific plot elements into a cohesive narrative, I worried more about the actual themes and motifs of the story - beause even those shifted.

The above quote doesn't even really make sense with 3/4 of what's written in the story - but it might be closer to how the novel feels correct than what is in there right now.

That probably doesn't add up - but I'll have a more complete post-op later.

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Technically Insane

2006-11-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

"The Man ... oh - the Mobile Deconstruction and Universal Elimination Unit. Because it was repairable."

"The what?"

"A Mobile Deconstruction and Universal Elimination Unit was created by Nippon Industries in 1981. It's intent was to seek out all forms of life that were remaining and eliminate them from this Earth."

"I'm sorry?"

"A Mobile Dec..."

"No, I heard that. Why would anyone build such a thing."

"Nippon believed it would leave them as the last people alive during the end stages of the Third World War."

"Wouldn't it have killed them too?"

"Oh yes, sir. Nippon would not dare code any kind of safety into the Elimination Unit. To do so might invite someone to find a way to pacify the machine."

"So?"

"They assumed that by the time the Eliminator returned home - they would know how to defeat it."

"That's insane."

"Technically speaking, yes. I believe it is, sir."

"So why would you repair it?"

"Sir?"

All I can say about these last few thousand is - embrace the retcon.

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Struggle for the last 10K

2006-11-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

Here is a bad sign for success:

"Don't fret, gentleman. I'm not here to detain you," he said, "just to give you an overly convenient update. This story will end in about nine thousand words, give or take a hundred or so. Dreamhats are apparently failing all across the island. Nobody can access the Lucid. The Wasters have decided to take up shop in the Factory, hoping The Sphere will take them away from all this pain and sorrow. The arm of The Man In The Sea was observed moving and might be able to pull the giant humanoid robot hell bent on destroying us all within a few hours."

That's the equivalent of having the chorus come in during the stageplay and explain everything you can't see because they can't ... well, cram it on stage. Of course, there's no excuse for this in novel form. I don't have a prop budget to worry about or anything. It's just easier to cobble ideas down succicntly and moved on. Earlier this morning, I penned this beauty:

Elsewhere
...Some stuff happens...

Now that is pulitizer material!

Thing is - I really want to wind down and get to the finish line at this point. There is so much wrong with Sunset from a narrative and literary point of view that quality is simply not a factor anymore. I have a few scenes which are stuck in my head and I mostly just want to play them out. Problem is - I think these scenes will only account for about half of the remaining total, maybe 6k at most.

Now there are plot gaps the great Gonzo wouldn't dare try and drive past - and they could swallow up the rest quite easily. But i don't know what they look like or how they interconnect. And with an out of town guest this weekend and Thanksgiving next weekend - EEK

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Culture Of Ash

2006-11-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

"They thought this place was a weapon."

"They thought this place was the weapon. The final solution. Capable of burning any target of any size to dust and cinder. Just think hard enough about it and BAM - it would be ashes. Anything from a person to a nation. They hoped they would use it defend themselves from the very Polaris missiles they had created."

"But it wasn't a weapon. It was The Dome."

"It was The Sphere. Something crashed. Long time ago. Nobody knew what it was - but a few of us had a pretty good guess. Knew it wasn't a weapon. Knew it couldn't actually hurt anyone. But we also knew that the government would never sponsor what we needed if they knew that. Especially with everything we needed. New age construction materials. Factories to convert basic elements into food. That kind of thing. Know what 99% of everything is around you kid? Ash. Not dust from buildings or rocks - the dead ashes of all the life that used to be on this planet. Pouris uses it. Everything you eat uses it. We knew it would be the most abundant resource around after everything went to shit - so we went about forming a whole culture that could survive on it."

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NaNo Tip

2006-11-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

Avoid heavy foods ... seriously. Sounds odd I know but I just had two mondo bean and cheese burritos and allI can think about now is how to sneak a decent food nap in during work. Hard enough to concentrate on tasks I actually get paid for - much less getting sentences in here and there.

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Now Fleeting

2006-11-14T20:04:00.001-08:00

Thomas stood, bracing himself against the wind which was now fleeting directly towards him and moaning a great and terrible warning. As he shielded his eyes from the storm that was quickly enveloping the fresh warm outlets of The Island - the light of The Dome blinked ... blinked again ... and then remained on. Warmth began to return to the space around his flesh. The air dropped its sudden assault and the snow merely fell harmlessly in lines to the ground.

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Several Icons

2006-11-14T06:40:00.001-08:00

Thomas had entered through Town Square - which often served as a kind of general meeting area for regulars and often an informational aid for people who weren't always getting their dream on. Several icons, figures which were permanent characters of The Lucid, would often hang around to help out people who had questions or wanted suggestions for what to within the dreamstate. Icons were not people - they didn't really have a normal personality per se. They were more like animated flipbooks with legs. To date, no shaper had been able to properly recreate an actual person within The Lucid ... much less affix them permanently. Largely because of this, icons were not necessarily human-shaped. In fact, it was generally considered more interesting and even less creepy to not make them humans. With a human face always came the expectation of polite conversation that icons simply could not provide.

It had been a panda that had recommended the new beachfront that Thomas was now exploring. While the forests and mazes were often the most popular location - Thomas never much cared for him. This was a fact he had always hidden from Lilah - lied about it in fact on numerous times in the past. Lilah's work had sometimes been considered somewhat "gothic" by some - a tone Thomas never fully appreciated.

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Oh right - Halfway Woohoo!

2006-11-13T07:25:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't be all doom and gloom - at least I've hit 25k a couple days ahead of the general deadline.

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Oily Mirrorlike Sheen

2006-11-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

The Sphere began to turn - it was imperpectible at first as it was nothing more than grey rotating on grey. Then shadows began to appear upon the surface like ripples within an ocean. The were pulled by the increasing rotation and slowly colors and flecks of light began to emerge. As The Sphere spun faster it seemed to split the skin around it asunder only to reveal new and more wondrous layers underneath that instantly bubbled to the surfaced and were also torn anew to reveal even more detail that would also cycle upon itself.

Eventually the oily mirrorlike sheen that Thomas saw every day of his life overtook the entire body of the sphere. The columns below it shook completely away and The Sphere simply stood precisely in space where it had always been for as long as Thomas could remember.

OK, so yesterday I didn't get nearly as much done as I should have ... considered I spent most of the afternoon on the puter.. I should have had a huge banner day that put things back ahead of schedule. Instead I played a lot of Ultima III. My brain and body were wiped from all night fun the night before - not to mention a pet related emergency Friday night. Checking the progress bar would indicate that I actually did more writing on Sat than it felt like and I managed to cap 25k over coffee this morning ... but I'd like to have a more productive week so that everything feels close to completion by this weekend.

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No time, no time

2006-11-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

Today will be a complete loss, word wise, unless I get some time during lunch.

I'd like to be over 25k by the end of this weekend and finished by the end of next week. Not sure that will happen now.

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Animated Teapot Defenestrating

2006-11-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

"A coffee maker can make coffee. A coffeepot can only hold coffee. This might make it envious."

"Doesn't that seem a little silly?"

"Sir?"

"That the coffeepot would have emotions, I mean."

"Sir, you are the one you came in here with a story about your animated teapot defenestrating itself in a murderous rampage."

"Good point."

"I am trying very hard to take you seriously, sir."

"Yes, I get that. Look - maybe we should start over."

"OK."

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Rounding 19K

2006-11-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Feels good. Feels like there is enough wind under the feet to keep going.

Problem is - not sure if there is enough wind under the story to keep going. I have more than 5k before I can arithmetically stop thinking about rising action and moving towards falling action. I need more layers of content to work from before I can even think about resolving anything. Greenscape had a similar problem - just about 30K it almost felt like the story had been setup and ready to simply be executed. By executed I mean swiftly.

Sigh.

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More Decorative Than Emblematic

2006-11-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

What did The Snow have in it? Apparently stupid black teapots that like to destroy perfectly good coffee makers. She had just gotten to like that coffee maker too. It was easy to use and made pretty decent coffee. Pretty decent coffee was about the only reason Lilah could find to get herself out of The Lucid - outside of Thomas himself, of course. There were times she wished Thomas would save up enough time in The Lucid that they could simply sleep there for a night - having a marvelous dream within a dream together and then waking up the next wonderful morning to two cups of absolutely perfect coffee. In her mind, of course, there would be a unicorn involved somewhere. Unicorns were a wonderful symbol of The Lucid, Lilah felt. It wasn't as though horses weren't already only real as a dreamthing - but a horse with a horn? Delightful. What a better way to show the power of The Lucid but not only bring about something which once existed - but something which in all likelihood - never existed.

If this teapot were merely some kind of abstract notion of The Lucid, Lilah could have already dismissed it by now. She might have turned it into a beautiful little planter with some daisies in it. She was quite fond of daisies as well - although she loved them on a more decorative level than emblematic in the way that unicorns could he held.

But no - the teapot had to wandering around the outside world doing Mother knows what.

Momentary Pause

2006-11-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

I just scanned this negative review of NaNo from the Sycamore Review Blog via the Writing Sya blog via retentivewrimo.

I've never honestly understood any reason to knock NaNo at all. The common critique is that it "won't make you a real writer." Oh, well, darn. I lurk the NaNo forums off and on and I gotta say - I don't see a lot of delusion that it will. It's like complaining that carving a Jack-O-Lantern won't make you a "real artist". Well, thanks there Mr. Art Person. We were all confused about the distinction. But I still get to play with knives, right?

Anyone who is actually conflicted about anyone else spending more time having fun writing rather than not writing really needs to put their ego back into check. I would say they're overly concerned with the motivations of people who don't really concern them.

Sycamore Mark goes into a lengthy parable about what it means to say, "I'm a novelist."

Well, here's something I was told once by a real novelist - if you want to write, just write. Personally most of my writing energy gets misdirected by my real job and other coding related hobbies. So NaNo is a great time to clear the decks and ... just write. That's why I don't really blog anything or code anything I don't have to while I'm trying to hit word counts. Mark notes that if "you're writing to show off how tortured or eccentric you can be, you're probably writing for the wrong reasons."

Well, if you're just writing to be known as a novelist - I kinda pity you. But again, it's not my concern.

I gots writing to do.

Long And Flesh-Like

2006-11-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

Something in the dirt moved. Writhing, it slithered across Thomas' palm. He shrieked - but doing so heard nothing audible. He dropped the dirt and shook his hand clean. He stared down at the fallen clump to see something slimy, long and flesh-like ... like a finger which had fallen loose from the bone and retained life itself ... disappear into a hole of its own making. Thomas started to poke after it when he heard more voices.

Failed Attempt At Art

2006-11-07T12:37:00.001-08:00

The West Lake Ferry was one of the few boats in operation on the Island. Few people saw the need to cross over the glassy clear waters any farther than they could swim. A few Islanders had requisitioned the occasionally outboat which they used to wander around the lakes in search of lost or hidden artifacts - but they rarely found anything of note or merit. The Ferry itself was generally only commissioned to take people to view The Man In The Sea. The Man was a large dark figure visible just towards the western edge of The Dome. He was enormous in size. If it was at some point a walking humanoid structure, it would have dwarfed the top of The Dome - although it is difficult to know how deep the water was whenever it might have tread through. Most Islanders assumed it had been some failed attempt at art that collapsed under its own weight.

Every year or so - the Committee On Technology or the Committee On History would decide upon a petition to try an exhume The Man. Even during the years that such a petition would garner popular support, it never went far past the planning stage. A group of devoted Yetis spent several months uncovering it's hand - the topmost portion of the figure which was directed as if to reach out from the ice - but even most of that had been now reclaimed by The Snow.

What's Real

2006-11-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

"I'm sure if she had there'd be a damn ice sculpture in every corner. No, I had some shaper apprentice handle it. Someone who wouldn't go yabbing about the crazy guy and his snow maps. And I wouldn't tell her either. If she knew this a place this cold was attached to her precious Lucid, she'd probably petition to come in here and make it into a rose garden."

"So why make it cold anyway? What's wrong with a rose garden?"

Yates walked up next to Thomas. He waved his hand past one of the sheets and past the bulletin board itself. He held it next to one of the ice walls. He formed a fist with his hand and knocked against the wall. Once. Twice. Three times. It echoed just a small amount and that whisper reverberterted around the small cave.

"Cause in here," He finally responded, "I need to remember what's real."

Essentially Dead

2006-11-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

"Your finger has definately been damaged," she responded.

"Damaged?"

"Yes. It should not be black at the tip there."

"I was thinking that myself."

"Any loss of feeling in that hand?"

Thomas thought back to the waiting room and responded with a slow, "No."

"Then perhaps it is nothing."

"Perhaps?"

"I wouldn't really worry unless you start to feel numbness in that hand or arm. Or if the black area grows significantly."

"How significantly?"

"Like your arm or hand."

"And numbness."

"Well, if the your arm has turned completely black you will likely not have any feeling in it. Nor will it be of much use to you."

"Not much use?"

"It will essentially be dead."

Pressure Contest

2006-11-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

Which there wasn't, Thomas assured himself. He felt fine. Even his finger felt fine. It was just a little discolored. Even just a little. There was just this one spot and thing to worry about. Thomas rubbed his index finger. It felt fine. There wasn't a slight bit of numbness along the side, was there? Maybe there was. Wasn't it more sensitive before? Or was it? It wasn't like he really paid attention to these things. There wasn't a lot of opportunity to really challenge his fingers to a pressure contest. Unless he poked himself with a tool or something - he didn't really keep track.

Special Surgery

2006-11-03T16:05:00.000-08:00

Thomas hated The Clinic. Everyone hated The Clinic. It was easily the most hated place on The Island. It was practically legendary in how much it was loathed. There were stories of bad children being taken to The Clinic for "special surgery" that mothers would tell their kids. Surgery which would make kids like tankveggies. Surgery which make it so that they could only speak when spoken to. Surgery which would lop off an ear - just to make them look funny before school. Even in their twenties, people knew that friends might go to The Clinic and simply not return. This wasn't myth and everyone had a missing friend to show for it. No place housed more death than The Clinic.

Cog of some kind

2006-11-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

"Maybe there is a button," Yates pondered, "And we can turn it on. And it would tell us what it is."

"Oh sure," Thomas quipped, "Hey teapot - who are you?"

"Well, funny smartman - what do you think it is?"

"I don't know," Thomas shrugged, "It seems like it is a part to something. Doesn't that look like it should screw in somehow?"

He rubbed his finger along the bottom of the teapot to outline a series of jagged grooves.

"Maybe," Yates agreed, "Maybe this is just a cog of some kind."

"A shame," Thomas said, "I would have rather like to try some tea."

Rounded 7k - but I would like to be closer to 9k right about now. I don't expect to get much done this weekend - so my lead will quickly get sucked away.

I updated the blog with a pure CSS version of a progress bar since the one I was using had it's bandwidth maxxed out. Anyone who wants to steal the code can click the "steal this code" link under it and copy the code from the textbox.

Big huzzah goes to docs.google methinks. It is so convenient to keep a browser window open, type a sentence or two here or there and know it will be accessible from nearly anywhere without really trying. So much handier than constantly FTP files so that I can work from multiple computers. I really want to get Greenscape into it and then I'll probably just publish both stories from there as a work in progress.

I'm not terribly concerned with publishing rights just now.

Keenly Aware

2006-11-02T06:39:00.001-08:00

Thomas stared at the spot for a undetermined amount of time. He was keenly aware that this discovery was really bothering him and it bothered him that he was so keenly aware of it. This thing was some kind of intruder in or on his body and he couldn't be sure how long it had been around. He might have been missing its presence for days - even weeks. He was trying to tell himself that it was really some kind of bruise. It was normal. It was just one of those things that the happens to the body that you don't notice and simply goes away. He worked with his hand plenty - so he probably jabbed it against a spoke or gear or pricked it against a metal sliver or something. Surely it couldn't be anything strange or dire because he felt completely fine.

Completely fine. Except, of course, for the haunting sense that he was being tormented by bells. There was that.

Day 1: NaNo sluggish, me not so much

2006-11-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

nanowrimo.org appears to be taking a beating. I suppose that's a good thing in the sense that perhaps it means there's a lot of interest in it this year. Course, it's bad because we're about to head out, The Girl is on the phone and I'm was hoping to update some profile stuff.

I'm at 2,557 now - a very decent start. My philosophy is that the 1,700 daily mark (1,667 precisly, IIRC) is a bit of a tease. You gotta figure that you'll hit a dry spell and probably skip out on at least a day a week - and in my case the weekend is probably going to be hard to squeeze time out. Plus, the end of the month is holiday season. So I was actually hoping for a 3,000 figure - but there was real work at work to do.

Ambiguous Nightmare

2006-11-01T07:35:00.000-08:00

Thomas couldn't imagine getting back to sleep - especially not to some unthinkable ambiguous nightmare state that apparently awaited him back in bed. He slipped some trousers back on wandered his way into Lilah's kitchen. The span from her bedroom to the coffee machine was slightly larger than his entire place combined. Not to mention that Lilah had her own coffee machine. It was a good one too - with a lot of chrome instead of the standard pouris mold. For a few weeks, the machine kind of freaked him out. The idea of leaving something plugged in to heat up while you walked way seemed contrary to everything Yates had ever taught him about fire. Mostly that it burns. And kills.

The Factories

2006-10-31T13:04:00.000-08:00

The Factories are responsible for generating and recylcing all the pouris on The Island. Working at The Factories is considered to be relatviely low merit work, although all product designers are ex-factory workers and enjoy high merit ratings.

Snowdust

2006-10-31T12:50:00.000-08:00

The perpetual snowfall around The Island is a combination of ash, dust and actual snow. It's often regard by Islanders with a mixture of wonderment and fear. The Snowfall, a sliver of snowdust that falls on The Sphere, is considered quite the attraction, although the job of clearing the snowdust and taking it the The Factories is one of the lower merit jobs on The Island.

Lilah

2006-10-31T12:38:00.000-08:00

Lilah is Thomas' long term housemate and significant other. She is a Shaper ... and a good one at that. She's considered extremely high merit and her and Thomas have enjoyed some bonuses because of this. Lilah is vibrant almost to the point of giddy - occasionally distracting and almost constantly distracted. It's sometimes said she is more at home in the Lucid than she is in the real world.

Yates

2006-10-31T12:32:00.000-08:00

Yates is pushing fifty - practically ancient for an Islander. He is a true Yeti, spending most of his time outside the dome searching for lost artifacts. He's gruff and a bit of a drunkard - but clever and wise in a way most Islanders don't understand. It's hard to get anything past Yates and despite his brash manner - most Islanders give him plenty of respect for his age and the kinds of artifacts he has returned from The Snow.

Thomas

2006-10-31T12:25:00.000-08:00

Thomas is a crafter, specifically a bicycle repairman. This is rather medium merit work as most people have bicycles for transport but many consider the task to be rather easy to learn. Thomas learned his craft from his mentor Yates before Yates became a Yeti. Thomas is about to turn thirty and while rather quiet and stoic on the outside - has many fears and concerns about the years to come. Not the least of which are his dreams - which he can never remember anything about other than the feeling of falling.

The Fathers And Mother

2006-10-31T12:23:00.000-08:00

Specifically, this refers to a picture of five men and a woman, seated, which adorns nearly every home on The Island. It is believed to be the only photo of the Founders of Committee and the Builders of The Island. The phrase "Fathers and Mother" works it's way into Islander swearing and other vernacular speech.

Pouris

2006-10-31T12:14:00.000-08:00

A sort of ubermaterial made from recycled elements from the snowdust. The Factories can make pouris lightweight and flexible or heavy and resistant. Additives can turn pouris into a kind of easily malleable puddy and others return it to a rigid state. Properly treated pouris can even have a high electric current and used as a power source.

The Man In The Sea

2006-10-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Man In The Sea is a huge humanoid shaped statue visible under the west lake of Winterland. Its origins are not a matter of history and in modern day its one of the few tourist attractions.

Dreamhat

2006-10-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

A dreamhat is actually a necklace with a port. The port plugs into the wall and the Lucid is broadcasted to the wearer. The term comes from the original design, which was a huge fishbowl style helmet.

Committee Of Merit

2006-10-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

Winterland Island is run by a handful of anonymous committees. Citizens are nominated by lottery and revealing their role in the committee is grounds for dismissal. The COM maintains the meritocracy of Winterland. They track each citizen's merit and authorize resource requests based on that merit.

Shaper

2006-10-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

A shaper is someone who has mastery of The Lucid to the point where they can alter the environment and create new object in a realistic way. They're highly prized residents.

Whisperterms and Subcomputers

2006-10-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

Winterland has a network of computers which allow for most of the communication on the island. Whisperterms are public terminals for sole puporse of telecomunication. Subcomputers are handheld terminals which can download data from the mainframes, alter it and upload it again.

Snowmen (And Yeti)

2006-10-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

Some residents of WI venture into the arctic wildnerness in search of artifacts to bring back for study. People who do this occasionally as a hobby are called "snowmen" while people who spend most of their free time in the cold are called "Yeti".

The Roberts

2006-10-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Roberts are tiny, shin-high, clockwork robots that perform basic maintainence around the island.

The Lucid

2006-10-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Lucid is a shared dreamstate generated by The Sphere. It began as a virtual recreation of memories the original scientists had of their hometimes. As more people have shared The Lucid, however, more people have learned how to control it and even shape it. Shapers are highly revered in WI society and Lucid time is strictly ration by The Council Of Merit.

The Sphere

2006-10-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

The Sphere was the result of Project Blossom. It consists of three parts - one is the Dreamtron ... a computer which store and maintains a memory of 1950's America as a kind of virtual time capsule. The Dreamtron is capable of broadcasting this memory to sleepers. Winterland residents refer to this memory state as The Lucid and while the basics of it remain, have also adapted it in many ways. The second is the Fieldtron - which generates the 200 mile radius force field that surrounds Winterland Island. Finally is the Motiontron, a perpetual motion engine which maintains both of the other functions.

The Sphere hovers in the air towards the middle of Winterland Island. Most WI citizens are unaware of it's role in their daily life and consider it largely ornamental.

Premise

2006-10-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Winterland Island is the last outpost of mankind, built during the apex of a global nuclear war that took place possibly as an alternate to the Cuban Missle Crisis. In this alternate history, a group of scientists were charged with making the ultimate answer to Mutually Assured Destruction under a project named Death Blossom ... but instead constructed a device capable of housing a relatively abnormal version of a time capsule and capable of generating a force field to withstand any attack and maintain it nearly indefinately.

The story picks up decades after the Earth has been irrevocably changed into a nuclear winter with the remnants of humanity surviving under the biosphere of the force field.