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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Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sunset Post-Op, Part 1
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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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
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.
technorati | nanowrimo
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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Saturday, November 18, 2006
Technically Insane
"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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"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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Friday, November 17, 2006
Struggle for the last 10K
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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"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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Thursday, November 16, 2006
Culture Of Ash
"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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"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
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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