Confessions of a Writer

You know you have a problem if you straight up forget the name of your blog. Well. Crisis averted, for just now, we have an INCOMING!

Thanks to my friend Maxwell of The Wandering Quille who tagged me in this wandering blog thing, you all get a blog post! Not only that, you get a HUGE blog post. 

Sit back, and enjoy the enigma that is the inner machinations of my mind.

When did you first start writing? Was being a writer something you always aspired to be? 

Hah, no. Compared to some, I’m a late bloomer as a writer. According to my parents, I’ve always been good at writing. They’ve always urged me to write, but as a child I never seriously considered being a writer. Looking back though, I think I still was a writer at heart. I remember now I created an epic fantasy romance story at the age of 8, to which I would add a little every day…in my head. I never had the guts to write it down, but the characters stayed with me.

Still, the first time I seriously wrote something was on one summer afternoon when I was 15. I was bored, so I thought, “I’m going to write a novel.” So I started writing about the first thing that popped into my head, which was a single light struggling through the darkness of space. That light turned into words of fire. I pecked away at a pace of only 100 to 500 words a day on average, but over the next year it blossomed into a rambling, incoherent, purple prose laden space fantasy monolith of over 100k. 

Which I never finished. My flash drive accidentally lost my draft, and with it, all will to continue. I tried to resurrect it several times from the older backups I had, but it never worked. It just wasn’t the same. The characters still stuck around in my head too. Sometimes I think my characters are smarter than me.

The second time I seriously wrote something was seven years later, when I decided to do NaNoWriMo 2010. I had heard of it before, but had never screwed up the courage to try. I gathered together some new characters, and ran off. I won. After that, I realized that I want to do this for the rest of my life. I haven’t looked back since.

What genre do you write?

I write a blend of fantasy, steampunk (ish), and science fiction. I think that was a foregone conclusion. The stories I love best were always about far off worlds, the wonder and danger of the future, the best and worst of humanity, magic and power from beyond time and space that humans can never understand, but seek to control. I blame Narnia, Lord of the Rings, pretty much anything Isaac Asimov wrote (but especially his robot stories AND his story ’The Last Question’), Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet, and Arthur C. Clarke’s stories, and many others for this. I think the best descriptor would be science fantasy. I love stories that read as one genre but are really another. 

Can you tell us a little about your current work in progress? When did you start working on this project? 

Oh man, here’s another one with two answers. Well, because it’s November, my work in progress is my NaNo novel, which I have previously described as Swan Lake in space. My NaNo novel has fragmented into two different stories though, so,  

Godlost is a time travel science fantasy adventure about a bitter Time Agent of the Dominion (think female James Bond with magic tattoos like The Illustrated Man), Caliiry ren Tandoraen, who’s sent to a planet that has dropped out of the universe to restore it and retrieve a precious Dominion artifact. When an accident with a kills her team, she's told to lie low and await orders. Having gone through a similar event in her past though, Caliiry knows that there's more to the accident than there appears to be. So against orders she puts together a crack team of rebels and locals (a.k.a. Biopunk Avengers) to journey into the heart of the paradox, find out what happened to the team, hopefully save them using the remains of her time travel allotment, and restore the planet before their world is wiped out. However, what she finds is an intricate conspiracy between the planetary races and the Dominion that has chilling ramifications for the future of humanity...and the key to unlocking it all lies in her own past. Can she face the nightmares that haunt her, and unravel the web of conspiracy that stretches across the galaxy and into the heart of time itself?

The Star Dragon is the story of my first characters that I'm finally writing down, although there are changes to get rid of the cheesy bits. It takes place in my main story world's far past, in a time that has sunk into legend. Dragons and humans have lived in uneasy peace for eons, with wars breaking out every so often. Ever since the coming of the Draderi, skilled mages who can journey to far off lands in the blink of an eye, the human kingdoms have been prospering, bolstered by the influx of foreign goods and magics. The kings of the realm hope to band together to finally defeat the Sorcerer, a dark force that has plagued the realm for ages.

However, it's a little known secret that the power of the Draderi on which it all rests is drawn from the dragons. As the humans get stronger, the dragons grow more angry, and mass to attack, drawing off the human forces from the sorcerer's citadel and scattering them across the realm to put out the fires. Empires turn on each other, and prepare for war. Dragon slayers again rise to prominence. The Draderi play the nations against each other. And the Sorcerer's shadow grows...

The story centers on the nobles Saanelaph and Vhíl, Saan's rejection of her rigid upbringing to join the ranks of the Draderi, her partnership and romance with the ex Dragon rider Vhil and his uncanny luck,  Vhil's struggle to balance the call of a deadly dragon speaking gift and his desire to rise above the petty tyrannies of his men, Anelaph's quest for the source of the trouble, Vhil's endeavor to reunite the kingdoms against their true foe, their conflicting loyalties between their life's calling and their kin, and their struggle to create a patch of order and find their rightful place in a world gone mad. The truth is, they can't win them all...  

What was your first piece that you can remember writing? What was it about? 

It was in fifth grade. There was one about a boy named Billy who woke up one night to find out that the world had been taken over by evil water people who mysteriously disappeared by morning, but they were still there. Lurking. Watching.

What's the best part about writing?

Once I would have said 'the thrill of creating something out of nothing,' except now that I'm more familiar with what a mess these things are. 

Therefore, I would have to say the best part about writing is revision: hacking the dead wood off my original draft, connecting the dots, and watching everything come together to become the beautiful, mad-eyed beast it was born to be. Making little connections on a reread that I didn't even know were there. Making a new layer of connections that flat out weren't there in the first place because I didn't know about them before, but well up out of nowhere. Chipping away at a scene, a story, a draft, adding  another layer of complexity and depth to it - and that moment of perfection when the gears all fit, and it sings, and it's way different from what I had envisioned originally, but it's also way better.

What's the worst part about writing?

Writing. Seriously. The first draft. The beginning. Hate those things. I write weird. I write in half sentences, random scenes, train of thought, random bits of worldbuilding, and generally rambling randomness. Then I assemble the story sentence by sentence, scene by scene, using those things as building blocks; I would say the story crystallizes layer by layer around a set of tiny plot grains rather than being written from start to finish. It's completely out of order and it takes forever, but I like the end result much better. This just means that the first draft is extremely difficult for me because it's the point where it's easy to fall into hate with the story because nothing is known yet and everything is a mess, and all the things that made me love the idea are as yet invisible. Yes, there are moments when I come up with a lot of ideas, but most of it is false starts and fighting uphill for me. I'm getting better at recognizing those, but for me the early stages are always the worst. 

What's the name of your favorite character and why?

I can't pick just one! I love them all. Some more than others, but not really one. One of my favorites, though, is one pain in the butt who calls himself Oscar Octavius Octodyne. He's a oneiromancer with the charisma of baby Lord Voldemort and the scruples of Darth Vader combined into one insecure package of doom, gloom, abandonment issues, and teddy bears. He was born when I dreamed about him in a fluffy hero adventure. Then I scrapped his story because it was going nowhere. Then I dreamed about him a second time and he came back with evil Vader powers and insinuated himself into another story. I cut him out again because he was creating plot holes around himself. Then I dreamed about him a third time, and he outright ousted the heroine from her place in his quest for a home, and made himself the villain. Needless to say, I shudder to think what will happen if I dare to cut him again. Probably he'll take over my brain. 

How much time a day/week do you get to write? When is the best time for you to write (morning or night)?

I write when I can. It's difficult for me on weekdays because I have a full time job. I'm not at all a morning person so writing early in the morning is out of the question. I can't concentrate if I have to think about other things anyway. The ideal time for me to write is between 11PM and 4AM, but that's pretty much impossible with a day job (even on weekends because it disrupts my sleep schedule), so I shoot for evenings. I'm usually drained when I get home, but sometimes I manage to get in about 300 words before I sleep. Weekends I put in some grunt work in the afternoons when it's quiet, and maybe before I sleep. I love waiting until it's dark, dimming the screen until I can just barely read my words if I want, turning off all the lights, closing my eyes, and then typing blind while blasting music.

Did you go to college for writing?

Nope. My major was information science with a computer science minor.

What bothers you more: spelling errors, punctuation errors or grammar errors?

All of them, but I usually notice spelling first. That's not to say that nothing else bothers me though. I could write an entire post by itself about all the things that drive me up the wall, but I would really have to also put incorrect word usage (like confusing affect, effect, and effecting) as being right up there with the rest. 

I don’t really watch TV, as such. The only thing I’m really watching is Doctor Who, because it’s on right now. Every weekend, I catch up on the newest episode. It counts as writing homework because something or other always sets my muse off, right? Right?

What is the best writing advice that anyone has given you? 

Write every day. 

I never said I was good at it. Oops.

What advice would you give to another writer?

Don't compare yourself to others. There will always be those who claim that their way is the best and only way, but for every one of those, there will be someone else who works completely differently. Well, it's just what works for them. I'm not saying that trying new things is bad, but forcing yourself to conform to other people's methods and then worrying about why you're not where you "should" be can be at best a waste of time chasing shadows and at worst a blow to one's confidence. Yes, this means that everyone will develop their craft and stories differently and at their own pace. Some people can post readable excerpts of their first draft as they write it, and some will have rambling utter nonsense for the first three drafts. Neither is wrong. Figure out how your unique brain works, try a method that works with it, and play with that. If you find you're never reaching your goal, you might be letting the tool get in the way of forward motion.

What are your favorite writing sites or blogs that you turn to for help, tips or encouragement?

TerribleMinds is one of my favorite blogs. If you don't mind bad (but absolutely hilarious) words, it's a great place for practical advice, motivation, and butt-kicking.

AbsoluteWrite is another great place. It's got a wealth of information about what not to do, how to get published, and has a huge community of fellow writers to hang out with, and exchange help and tips.

Besides writing, what else do you enjoy doing? What are your hobbies?

I love baking. Death by chocolate is the way to go. I also enjoy drawing, and hope one day to create a web comic of my own. That's a long way off, though. I'm also currently trying to learn how to play the guitar. I suck and I can barely play a few chords, but I love music. It's never too late to learn a new thing, eh?

What’s the best thing you’re watching on television?

I don't watch much television these days, because I can't do that and write and keep up with my reading. That said, I am catching up on the new season of Doctor Who at the moment, although after next weekend it'll be on hiatus until Christmas. Does it count as writing preparation if every single episode inspires me somehow?

What’s the best book you’ve read this year?

I'd have to name a series that reads as one story, which is the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. It's the stories of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White retold as one single science fiction adventure/thriller/dystopian series. Those who know me will know that I absolutely love retold fairy tales with a science fiction angle, so this is right up my alley. Well worth reading!

What is the best movie you’ve seen this year?

The Martian. Usually I don't go for survival stories because of a huge rant that I won't go into here, but I loved this one for its wit, humor, and geekery, the fact that it didn't go for the usual stereotypes, and that it had other believable plot elements besides the usual survival disasters. I haven't read the book, but the movie was great. 

What is your favorite book or series of all time?

Of alll time? Hard to pick just one, but one of my constant sources of inspiration, thus one of my favorites, is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. It's science fiction, fantasy, and world hopping all rolled into one seriously epic story that I never get sick of reading.

Who is your favorite author?

Again, it's hard to pick just one, but one of my biggest reasons I write the stories I do is because of Isaac Asimov. His robot stories are the greatest thing, as is also his short story 'The Last Question,' which is hands down my favorite short story of all time. So epic.

What are your plans for the rest of the year in terms of your writing?

Well, given that there's only one month left of the year, not much. I had originally wanted to finally finish a draft of something...anything...but it's too late for that. Instead, riding on the heels of the realization that NaNo's exuberant imperfection and manic pace just doesn't work for me anymore, I'm just going to keep working on my draft and focus on writing slowly and editing more as I go.

Where else can we find you online?

I'm on Twitter @Bobo_the_Bard, and I'm Agent Double Oh Zero on the NaNoWriMo website, but I only check those periodically. The one place I haunt, though, is my writing group - Steve the WriMo Forum. We're gearing up for NaNoFiMo over there! Which...is technically what I'm supposed to be working on now. Dang. 

Well, that brings me to the end of the segment where I talk about myself. Now it's time to talk about you guys! More specifically, IT'S VICTIM LIST TIME. 

Siana Blackwood!

Lillian Altair!

Darkshines!

I tag you!

If anyone else wants in, please leave a comment here with a link to your blog, or contact me on Steve.

To make it easier, here's a list of the questions below: 

Just to make it easier on you, here are the questions:

When did you first start writing?

Was being a writer something you always aspired to be?

What genre do you write?

Can you tell us a little about your current work in progress?

When did you start working on this project?

What was your first piece that you can remember writing? What was it about?

What’s the best part about writing?

What’s the worst part about writing?

What’s the name of your favorite character and why?

How much time a day/week do you get to write? When is the best time for you to write (morning or night)?

Did you go to college for writing?

What bothers you more: spelling errors, punctuation errors or grammar errors?

What is the best writing advice that anyone has given you?

What advice would you give to another writer?

What are your favorite writing sites or blogs that you turn to for help, tips or encouragement?

Besides writing, what else do you enjoy doing? What are your hobbies?

What’s the best thing you’re watching on television?

What’s the best book you’ve read this year?

What is the best movie you’ve seen this year?

What is your favorite book or series of all time?

Who is your favorite author?

What are your plans for the rest of the year in terms of your writing?

Where else can we find you online?

NaNoMongering 22: The Long Dark Winter of the Soul

I suppose that since NaNoWriMo is now over, I should do a wrap-up post about what I learned, and stuff. Well, that's in here, but fair warning: there is a fair amount of fluff. The last few days were...eventful. Thus, you all get another word vomit post about things that happened to me.

In no particular order:

Yesterday, I finally got a job! I start in about a week and a half. So...yes. That. And...

The Long Dark Winter Of The Soul

On the 26th, I did a mad 4k dash, and won NaNoWriMo.

I am very happy about this. I have won NaNoWriMo before, and with higher word counts, but this was a different sort of victory.

This is the first OLL event for which I wrote every day, without skipping a single day. There it is, my beautiful graph! No ugly plateaus!

This actually makes me feel so much better than any number ever did. Even on those days when all I could squeeze out was 100 words, it was like a pat on the back from my Narrator, as if he was telling me that he's still there, and isn't going to go away any time soon.


If there was one thing I learned from this, it was that perseverance pays off. I can feel my novel existing in the aether, ready to be defined on the page. The pieces slowly click into place, snap by snap, gear by gear, slowly turning. One day the beast will awaken.

I don't expect it to happen for a while yet, but it doesn't matter. What I need is not a higher word count in less time; when I push that hard, I get burnt out, and I take a break that ends up lasting for months, during which time I lose all connection with what I started. I need my novel to stay alive, and that it will, with time, patience, and perseverance. Since I won, I have been writing a little every day, at a slower pace, one that I can keep up. Just a thousand words a day, until this thing is done.

A finished draft. I don't have it yet, but I will soon.

So thank you, OLL, for making it possible for writers like me to push themselves to start. I know I often blame Doctor Who for Dark Arcana's existence, but it was NaNoWriMo that really pushed me to come up with an idea in the first place.

Key word from the first sentence: start. Of course, my goal now is to finish Draft 1, but after that, there is still more work ahead. I will probably leave Draft 1 buried in soft peat for a month or two, but in the mean time, I will start working on a new project, maybe Deus Ex Machina, or the second book of Dark Arcana.

So, to sum up, the Fall Rush to start is done, and now comes The Long Dark Winter Of The Soul, and hopefully the Spring of Completion. This is the long, slow road to polishing the turd I have into something that more nearly resembles the shining vision I have in my head. Write Draft 2. Revise. Edit. Rinse. Repeat. My life is basically one long tunnel at this point.

Dark Arcana: The Amber of Time.
It sounds grand.
This is going to happen. It's going to happen, isn't it?

By the way, all this vomit I vomited just now? Chuck Wendig says it far better than I do, in Here's How You Flush Your NaNoWriMo Efforts Down the Crapper. (Language warning.)

Random Dark Arcana Related Word Vomit

Yes, there is more word vomit. During the past few days, I also "discovered" three new plot bunnies, and two plot segments! I'm only putting in hints here, because I have yet to flesh these things out.

Bunnies:
Religion.
Readers, Characters, Reality.
The Tunnel.

Segments:
The Cave. Dreams.
Shopping as an extreme sport.


On a side note, I discovered an interesting subplot for Dark Arcana. Okay, interesting is putting it mildly.

This was sheer mindfuckery, of the sort that makes one write it all down.
And then go vomit in the trash can.
Poor Ethan and Caliiry. I'm afraid that they are in for a rough time.

Speaking of rough times, my other little terrors have been acting up too. Yesterday, they all started scaring the crap out of me by having a surprise Disney cosplay party in my head. The worst part is that these characters actually don't look at all like the characters they chose. Just like a real cosplay, they are different people, but...it worked.

The Cast:
Aurana: Belle. *prances around imaginary library*
Ethan: The Beast (He hates his costume. Ethan: YES. In the name of Chaos, Author, WHY?)
Caliiry: Maleficent (She loves her costume. Caliiry: No I don't! What is this Vickie nonsense? Frag you, author. Me: (whisper) She secretly does like it.)
Hermeticus Octodyne: Frollo. (HO: *smirks* Why yes, I AM enjoying this. Me: ...Why, Hermeticus Octodyne, why?)
Oscar: Cinderella (He loves messing with me.)
Wei Lao: Mulan. (Really, Wei Lao? Just because you're the one Asian girl? Isn't that a bit... WL: ...You mean, because Mulan is awesome, and so am I? Then yes.)
Claire: As herself, because she's too cool for this foolery.

On a more sober note, these are both songs that I haven't listened to in forever. Yet, they remind me of a certain tragic stage in Ethan and Aurana's plot. *Sad silence*

Hinder - Lips Of An Angel

The Offspring - Gone Away

Speaking of songs that I haven't heard in AGES, this one sort of reminds me of Ethan...sort of.

Hoobastank - Crawling In The Dark

The Battle of the Battlestar

Backstory: My sister and I are polar opposites. I could make a long list, but the relevant point is that literature and TV-wise, my sister doesn't like science fiction AT ALL. She's even iffy about fantasy. Anyway, I have been trying to get my sister to watch Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica for months. Doctor Who is a lost cause. She just flat out doesn't like it, even after the first three episodes of 9. Inconceivable! But, well, marching to the beat of a different drum and all that, she managed to subvert my mission for a while.

Then yesterday, tragedy struck. For her.

Sister: Want to watch The Office?
Me: Okay.
Sister: ...Aw, there's no new episode! Must have been because of Thanksgiving.
Me: MUA HA HA HA HA, NOW YOU ARE WATCHING BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
Sister: *internally groans* -__________- *resigns herself to it, because she made the mistake of not having a back up program, and now there's nothing else on*
Me: Challenge accepted! *gleefully starts up the first episode of BSG*

Episode 1, 15 minutes in:
Sister: *bored, texting on her phone, and vaguely glancing at the TV*
Episode 1, 30 minutes in:
Sister: *occasionally forgets to look bored, only checks phone half the time*
Episode 1, 60 minutes in:
Sister: *computer and phone utterly forgotten, leaning forward in chair*
After Episode 1 over:
Sister: "That was better than I thought it would be."
Sister: "And...OMG STARBUCK! She's AWESOME!"
Me: ^___________________^ "Told you."

My work here is done.

NaNoMongering 21: Hey Hey You You Get Off Of My Back

There is an OCD gremlin on my back. It clings to me with little slimy toady arms, and it's got spurs on its boots. It's biting my ear, and presenting to me an impossible writing plan, in triplicate, in three tiers.

Nine hells. Ugh.

Unfortunately, the only way I will get it off my back is, of course, if I do one of the impossible plans.

The goal: 50k.
Present state: 44.7k.

300 words away from 45k. Being that close is the strongest annoyance. The first step is to attain 45k, and reach a round thousand and 5k number mark. The next step is to finish at least 2k words today, which is a daily goal. More OCD gremlin kicking, because that would put me at 47k, and I prefer even thousand number marks, like 46 or 48k. Of course, I can't stop at 46, though, because that would mean writing less than 2k today, and also leaving me 4k away from 50k, making it harder to catch up. Time wise, I have no excuse not to finish today. Even if I hit 48k, the 50k mark adds another layer, because again being that close but not getting there will annoy me. It doesn't help that 50k is where I should have reached today.

But it means that I need 5.3k written today in order to completely silence the demon gremlin, AND get it off me. Everything else will quiet it, but it will still be there, telepathically nagging. I want this thing off me NOW.

Then again, I shouldn't complain.
It could be worse.

Doctor Who, Turn Left, Donna Noble

Doctor Who, Turn Left, Donna Noble

What? Someone once said that this was going to be a serious writing blog, with no more pointless word vomit and random pictures? No? I don't remember this at all.

Time to crank up the word machine. I have Cradle of Filth's Cemetery and Sundown stuck in my head, out of which I got two good titles for possible stories: When Waking Worlds Collide, and Dawn of the Underworld. It reminds me of all these scary caves I see in my dreams, and makes me wonder if they're  all really part of one giant cave, and I just see different bits each time...

But first, pie.

NaNoMongering 19: Blog Hop - The Next Big Thing

Introduction:

I almost forgot about this. I know, right, bad Agent Double Oh Zero! Well, it's still November 21st in my time zone, so I guess I haven't technically missed the mark. Anyway, I volunteered for a blog hop. This one is called The Next Big Thing, in which the participants answer questions about their Works In Progress. I was tagged by fellow NaNoer NicoleT.

And now, without further ado, let me introduce you to my baby holy terror of the seven hells Plot Hydra novel series, Dark Arcana.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

1. What is the working title of your book?

The title of the series is Dark Arcana. The current book, the first, is tentatively titled The Amber of Time. For the rest, I am throwing around possibilities, such as The Octodyne Inheritance, The Clockwork Monk, and The Wells of Acheron.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

It is almost entirely the fault of Doctor Who that this idea exists. In October of 2010, I suddenly decided to do NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I immediately knew I wanted to play around with time travel. I started off with certain concepts from Doctor Who which piqued my imagination, and started expanding them. The idea of an agency that sat outside of time, where the members played with timelines, was fascinating. My initial plot bunny started off as a short historical science fiction time travel story with an element of romance. The main characters were an arrogant scientist and a spunky smart-mouthed heroine, and the enemy were a race of alien gargoyle-like beings who went around changing past events for their own ends. It was supposed to be a quick throwaway thing, but over the course of November, it developed into anything but. Now I have an entire hulking Plot Hydra on my hands.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Science Fiction. Fantasy. Steampunk. Can anyone say genre patchwork quilt?

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ethan Brooke (MMC) - No clue. He has green eyes, and dark blond hair. I guess someone who looks like that, but not just anyone. I sort of have his face in mind already.
Aurana Lockhart (FMC) - No clue. She has medium toned skin and curly red hair. An actor who looks like that, I guess.
Oscar Tenebrous - Matt Smith
Jonas von Drachenmire - Tom Hiddleston
Madam Pulovski - Eva Green
Caliiry ren Tandoraen/Ante ark Helain - Milla Jovovich
Pergator - No clue. Maybe voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, maybe not.

There are a whole bunch of other characters, but the list is too long to include here, and I don't know who would play them anyway. Although...it is kind of sad that I have no idea who would play my main characters.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

In a sentence? Impossible. Well, here goes...

Everyone in the universe is after a maguffin called the Amber of Time that will allow them to have complete mastery of history.

Complete crap, I know.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am thinking of publishing this the traditional way. I want a paper copy, and I want to see this in actual bookstores!

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Oh, am I supposed to have finished? ...I haven't. Two years and counting. Well...that is, if you include all my first drafts, most of which I have abandoned. The latest first draft... 21 days and counting.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

To my knowledge, there really is no other series which is exactly like this one. That is, there is nothing I could point to and definitively say 'if you like this, then you WILL like my series.' Mind you, I think this is a good thing! However...

In terms of certain subjects and recurring motifs, Dark Arcana reminds me of the His Dark Materials trilogy, by Phillip Pullman, most especially the last book, The Amber Spyglass. Dark Arcana has a similarly diverse cast of both human and non-human characters, all of whom are battling for dominion, some for survival. His Dark Materials also has multiple universes.

In terms of plot development, Dark Arcana subtly follows the Hero's Journey archetype. Certain characters go through a transformation from human to superhuman (sometimes metaphorically), as they gear up to face the Big Bad. In that respect, it's reminiscent of such stories as Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars.

In terms of conflict, I suppose... A Song of Ice and Fire. The genre is completely different, but like ASOIAF, none of the characters in Dark Arcana really fit into 'good guy' and 'bad guy' categories. Each person has their point of view, and their motive. Each is capable of being a great hero, but also a great villain. That's not to say that they are all equal. Some are more villainous than others, while others could almost be heroes...in different circumstances. Basically...there is no telling who will win. However, in terms of actual content/genre, Dark Arcana actually more steampunk/science fiction than high fantasy.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Doctor Who. I absolutely love that show. At the time I came up with the idea, I had just finished the 10th Doctor's episodes, and I absolutely loved the vast variety of worlds, ideas, cultures, and philosophical questions that came up. The things that struck me the most in this case were the parallel universe, the fact that the Doctor was the last Time Lord, and the Weeping Angels. In the show, time travel was mostly restricted to just the one universe. The Doctor was a lone god. The Weeping Angels were mere monsters.

I thought: What if, instead of just the one universe, there was a whole mess of universes with different laws linked together into one huge multiverse, and changes actually spawned a new timeline, rather than changing the old one? What if there were a whole group of beings (human or otherwise) with the power to mess with the multiverse like gods, and whose job it was to guard history from...harm? What if there was a race of sentient beings who were biological time travelers, and natural predators of the stream of causality, and thus needed time travel in order to survive?

From there, my imagination exploded, and...Dark Arcana was born.

I suppose, after that, my characters inspired me to continue writing. Dark Arcana, though born almost entirely out of Doctor Who concepts, was never Doctor Who fanfiction. Although I freely admit that I based my MMC, Ethan Brooke, on the 10th Doctor, he soon took on a personality of his own, and pretty much took over the entire series. The same happened with Aurana Lockhart, my FMC.

Now I have to tell their story.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The story is actually multiple genres, depending on whose point of view it is, and what world it is. To Oscar, a peasant child, everything appears as fantasy. To Ethan, who is familiar with science at least up to the 19th century, everything is steampunk. To Caliiry, a Time Agent from the far future who is familiar with advanced tech, everything is explained in almost hard science fiction. To Aurana, a slave with mental blocks installed, magic and tech don't exist. To still others, the use of magic and tech do exist, but are both gross blasphemy against their religion. In this sense, Clarke's law applies: that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

However, it goes beyond that. The story logic allows for different worlds to have different laws of physics...or not physics. In some worlds, magic exists, and science flops, and in others, science dominates, and magic is impossible...and every shade in between. The resulting discrepancies in perception fuel conflict between the characters.

I realize that in all this, I have mentioned precious little about what the series is actually about, so I will attempt that here. There are actually multiple levels of conflict.

The backdrop conflict is between the Time Agents and the Nocharen Sideas. The Time Agents make up a group called the Guardians. They are just regular humans, but they have been pulled out of their own natural history and placed in a facility outside regular time, in order to serve and protect the existence of all sentient species in the multiverse, as well as preserve all the scientific knowledge therein discovered. The Nocharen Sideas are a group of shapeshifting extra-universal aliens, who travel up and down the time streams of the multiverse, and who feed on the energy of temporal paradoxes. Being so at odds in their natures, the Guardians and the Nocharen Sideas are locked in a perpetual time war that has raged through all of known history. The repercussions are felt even within the worlds...

The mid-level conflict takes place in 19th century Terra, where both tech and magic coexist...if not quite peacefully. A few powerful nations have suddenly made striking advances in both. The exception is technophobic Engleter, where the use of both is strictly regulated by the Lord Protector. However, when a power-hungry diplomat from a hostile neighbor tries to overthrow the Lord Protector,
Suddenly, world war looms on the horizon, as nations battle for religious and political supremacy...

Ethan Brooke is a self-titled disciple of chaos and brilliant mad scientist, whose only quest is higher learning, and whose passion is for justice. In the midst of a superstitious society that censures the arts he loves most, and makes them downright illegal, Ethan secretly works on his pet project, a lens to reveal truth. When Ethan uses his invention to acquit a wrongfully accused criminal, the country erupts in chaos. Ethan has always longed to prove that not all those who seek knowledge are necessarily greedy for power. His powers fully exposed to the world, he finds he's unwittingly given the would-be world dominators the perfect weapon with which to quell the dogs of war: himself. Unless he agrees to help develop a superweapon that will protect Engleter's future, Ethan Brooke faces punishment for his unsanctioned practice of the sciences: death.

Aurana Lockhart is a slave of the diplomatic but dictatorial Lord Protector of Engleter II. Provided with wealth and comfort, she is still at the blind mercy of her master's whims. Subconsciously aware of the chains, she still fears to escape, for it means death. Then, a foreign diplomat attempts to overthrow the Lord Protector, and reestablish the forces of tech and magic in Engleter. Seizing her chance in the chaos, Aurana escapes by the skin of her teeth, unknowingly taking with her the AWESOME MAGUFFIN that is the source of all Engleter's blocked magical power. All she wants is to live quietly, but the price of freedom is dear when one's very existence threatens the balance of politics. Thus begins the Hunt...and she is the prey.

Sorry about the crappy vague summary. One day I will nail down just what this book is about, so that I can write an AWESOME synopsis without giving away the whole plot.

Unfortunately, regarding other blogs, I suppose this is a bit of a dead end. I'm not a huge blogger, and most of the ones I know have been linked already. I will update as and when I do come across some others.

Anyway, to those who actually made it through this giant block of text: thank you. To those who didn't...I apologize. I am far better at word vomit than I should be. XD

NaNoMongering 18 - Holy Guacamole

I wrote 4.5k words today.

Whew. Talk about unexpected word vomit!

I hardly dare even to cross my fingers at this point, but...guys...I might have the beginnings of some semblance of a plot! Scenes might just be starting to clump together!

Of course, it's the beginning, and the writing is crap, but...maybe if I hang in there long enough, something will emerge.

Maybe.

Ok. Must cut this off here. Literally falling asleep in the middle of words.

Signing off with a photo of a tube of rolled up paper.

NaNoMongering 17: The Correlation Conundrum

Dark Arcana. The clock of the world ticks, setting the wheels of the spheres in motion. 

I'm listening to Disturbed.

That means I'm really bored.


This is the phase where I absolutely hate my novel, because it's drivel. Either the scenes are all worldbuilding, or they're all conversation.

Currently, Ethan decided that instead of running around in hallways in the afternoon, he'd rather run around on the rooftops at night trying to both evade and meet aliens. I'm not sure what he's after, honestly. He's taking Aurana along, and while she's with him, she could not be more of a wimpy weepy damsel in distress if she tried.

When she's alone, all she does is walk along an infinite street, looking for something, but never finding it. Well, it's ostensibly a Tor Qveth meeting, but even though she keep panicking about being late, she seems to think it's okay to stop for tea and a bun (with jam), read a newspaper, and get oddly hypnotized by seven dots in an advertisement for no reason whatsoever.

Oh, and then there's Oscar. He needs to cross the bridge in order to get to the gate house or something in order to get an Arcaen knife for a little stunt he plans on pulling soon. Knowing Oscar, he'll go above and beyond what is required of him.

Except I have no idea how to get him past the guards. They won't let anyone through at night, but Oscar can't go during the day because he has to work. His powers are useless.

On top of that, I am having some worldbuilding issues. A couple of my spheres are starting to resemble each other. However, each still has its own unique flavor, and taking away one of them would take away an important element of the story. Maybe I'm just making too much of it. Maybe it's okay to have two tiered cities where it's really hard to travel between different levels, especially when the architecture is so different, they're in different countries, and one stratification is more metaphorical than the other.

What's really driving me up the wall is that I have two princes of two different magical nations who are running around as civilians (Iain as a ranger, and Ozan as a monk) who both want to build an empire. However, both the magic systems and culture are so different that putting one in the place of the other would quite defeat the purpose. Or am I worrying about too much too early? I mean, what's the use of building an empire if there is no one to contest the conquering, right? Maybe the fact that they're both equally right. After all, Ozan and Iain are both princes of nations which are highly developed centers of magic and culture (each of which are vastly different for each). They would both fear that one would subsume the other.

...uh....oh.....oh............dear...................

But still, can I really include two princes in disguise? Or is this just a sign that the situations are only similar on the surface, but that further complexity will surface as I keep going? In that case, it would mean I'm doing something right.

Or drastically wrong.

I'm getting quite tired of it.

I know how you feel, facepalming Loki.

Time to go scrounge up some food.

NaNoMongering 16: My Mind Palace Is Full of Oompa Loompas

I should be writing. Supposedly some nice motivational pictures should get me moving.

Instead...I am procrastinating by looking at a whole list of them.

Richard Castle 'You Should Be Writing' Screensaver

In fact, what is happening is this:

Then this happened.

Uuuuugh. /Shudder/ You. Get out. I need to go to my mind palace.

Off to write!


Edit: I am now at 33,333. Excellent.

NanoMongering 15: The See-Saw of Hero-Villain Symmetry

NaNoMongering

Let's get this out of the way first, so that I can finally stop procrastinating on writing. Currently, I am 700 words away from 30k. Hopefully I can at least make that tonight.

I found a song that is oddly applicable to Ethan and Aurana's relationship, inside the Dark Arcana setting. (Memento Mori by Kamelot)

I'm afraid that there is a whole lot of darkness in store for them. :-(

The See-Saw of Hero-Villain Symmetry

This is a thought I had after watching Avengers and the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. Note: Please feel free to call bullshit on me at any time. The idea is that a hero and a villain are two sides of the same coin. Same background. Same characteristics. Same history, with the same traumas. Sometimes they even look the same. Same or highly similar powers. Same fears. They could almost be the same person, but for a single personality trait that is different for each of them, and which drives the choices each makes. 

Loki and Thor. Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Frodo and Gollum. James Bond and Silva in Skyfall (this one is certainly arguable, I included it because it was while watching this movie that I thought of the symmetry). Voldemort, raised in a muggle orphanage, and his rabid fear of death and love of power due to insecurity. Harry, raised by muggles, but kind and loving, but also protective of those he loves, also because of insecurity. Yet, though Harry and Voldemort are so far apart in deed, Harry is still aware of how close he is to becoming the evil that is Voldemort, especially in the fifth book. What keeps him safe is the power of love, which sets him apart from Voldemort. Even Voldemort might have been redeemed, had he defeated his fear of death (which Harry defeats), and learned the power of love.

The surface actions are different. The gut fear is the same. This is the heart of the story.

Their fates are so tightly bound that when one gains, the other loses. Same skills, same fears, but two different driving forces, two different world views. There can only be one triumph in each area (physical, emotional, etc.) A hero may win the war, but a villain can gain enlightenment, etc.

That deep mirror symmetry is what makes the conflict memorable. Actions are forgotten. On some level, both characters know and fear what they could become, at any moment. Any villain can go 'MWA HA HA HA!' and blow up a town, and any hero can kick them in the pants. What readers remember is the emotion, the personal stake that both have.

In a moment of truth, the villain gets inside the hero's head, accesses their shared deepest fears, and tempts him to come to the Dark side. The hero does the reverse to the villain. Being cut from the same cloth, they begin to understand each other. They both could turn. They stand on the edge of the knife. It draws the hero straight into the "long dark night of the soul," where all is dark and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It is the turning point, where one choice determines everything, and that choice hangs on the single strength that sets apart the two characters. We see just how thin the line between good and evil is, because it all depends on the one thread of difference between the hero and the villain.

This is the ultimate conflict, where the hero has to draw on the personality characteristic which he alone possesses, in order to defeat the thing that the dark Lord could not. This is where Lord Voldemort falls to dark magic, because he fears death, but where Harry triumphs, because he does not fear death, and also knows the power of love. Yet, the victory is all the more poignant, because at the moment he triumphs, the hero understands the villain more completely than the villain himself. He wins, then, not out of the hatred which started off the story, but only with the deepest sadness for the twisted thing which he almost became. In killing the villain, he also kills himself, and the darkness within.

At the same time, the villain also faces a choice. Just as the hero can choose to defeat the darkness, the villain has a chance to let go of the weakness which drove him, and embrace the light. Thus, the symmetry. In Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort failed to do this, and dies, unable to face his doom. However, in Star Wars, even as he dies in defeat, Darth Vader does manage a personal triumph of his own, where he acknowledges that Luke was right.

Thus, the most complex stories in the world boil down to this. The heart drives the theme. Love can defeat even death. Change is inevitable, but even a small creature can shape the direction it takes.

Sorry about the word vomit. I have edited this thing so many times that I'm going nuts. I know I have probably left something important out. It's still not the way I see it in my head. It sounded so much deeper there. I have probably cluttered up the point with a bunch of unnecessary worlds. If only I could remember what my point was in a way that doesn't make it confusing.

I need to stop typing now, don't I?

Dark Arcana

Now if only I could find the symmetry in mine. I know I have at least two sets of hero-villain pairs in Dark Arcana. One is Aurana and Caliiry. (I know I said her name was Ante, but it keeps getting stuck as Caliiry, so it's staying that way.) Another is Ethan and Oscar.

As for Caliiry and Aurana, both of them were poor children ripped out of their world, who ran off in pursuit of greater things, and were bitterly disappointed by what they found, both by circumstance, and other people. They both cope by going off in self-destructive cycles. However, while Caliiry copes by aggressively trying to shut out other people and letting her fear force her to make other people fear her, Aurana longs for other people, but her timidity and fear makes her withdraw within herself.

For Ethan and Oscar...different backgrounds.

Actually, now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the pairings ended up being Aurana/Oscar and Ethan/Caliiry.

Aurana and Oscar are...very similar people.
And Ethan and Caliiry have similar faults.

In a purely random thought experiment, I wonder what would happen if I tried to combine Caliiry/Aurana and Ethan/Oscar.

...Nope. World would explode.

NaNoMongering 10: Brevity Is The Soul of Shit

Nope. Not gonna stop with the crappy puns.

Anyway, another short post, because it's 3AM and I'm too tired for word vomit.

Word Count: 16699
Body Count: 1.5
Chapters: 4

I'm still writing utter drivel, and complete crap, but today's pep talk on the NaNoWriMo site was exactly what I needed to hear. Exactly!

In any case, despite the shitty and clipped writing, things still seem to be happening.

Oscar scares me. Like many empathetic human beings, he wants to help people when they feel bad. Like many children, he doesn't fully understand the implications of his actions, nor does he see it the way others do. Except his methods of helping are...er...

Simile With a Kid:

Woman: "I'm dirt poor and miserable and all alone. My son has gone off to war. I think he's dead. I just want to see him again."

Kid overhearing: *hugs* "It'll be okay! He'll come home! Oh, and I got you a Christmas present!"
*Everyone goes awwwww about how cute and sweet this is*

Now, Oscar:
Woman: "I'm dirt poor and miserable and all alone. My son has gone off to war. I think he's dead. I just want to see him again."
Oscar: *buys her poison so she can commit suicide, and makes a hallucination for her where she meets her son to hide the agony of her dying, knowing that no other gift he could get her would make her happy, knowing that she's a crazy old woman who lives a miserable life which is only going to end in more misery...and wonders why no one else understands that this is what she wanted most. Wonders why no one else did what had to be done. He can't cure her depression, or her kleptomania, or bring her son back from the dead, but he can ease her pain. And did.*
*Everyone shudders in horror, even more so when he says, 'I was just trying to help! How can making people happy be wrong?'*

O_O What. The Hell. Oscar. 

NaNoMongering 9: This Title Is Longer Than The Actual Post, Because Week 2 Blues Suck And I Am Tired

14141 words. Palindrome. :-)
ROTTING plot fell apart! :-(
Week 2. BLEH. >:-P
Iteration 1 meltdown done. -_-

NaNoMongering 8: A Stinking Turd. And This is the PLEASANT Title.

I am finally caught up! Of course, this is according to the NaNo calendar. Since I'm going for 60k in November, I still have more work.

End Day 7. Total word count is 12,001. Body count is 1.5. Number of chapters is three. Behind by 2k.

I am still writing utter crap. There is not one bit that is suitable even as a passable excerpt. The story is not at all grounded in my characters. I circle around them. It takes place in a void, because of the zero worldbuilding I did. People keep forgetting where they are, so there is a LOT of illogical teleportation via plot holes, where people walk off in one direction, and end up in a place that lies in the opposite direction. People meet each other for no better reason than that something needs to happen.

So far, I have kept brains from exploding with copious amounts of handwavium.

Oh, and plot? That's the strange thing. For once, the slightest semblance of one is developing. Author Above, I even have chapters! UNFORESEEN. That's about it, though - a laundry list of events, the implementation of which are actually so wishy-washy that no one even realizes that something has happened until after it's happened. If only there was a prize for unconsciously avoiding every single important event in the story, only to have 12k of characters running through the streets, running through the sewers, running across the Flatlands, stealing bootlegged liquor, and describing their surroundings at the exact WRONG moments...

Oh yeah, and for some reason, my villain has decided to manifest himself as holographic Jabba the Hutt, and seems determined to prolong every scene by popping up at inopportune moments to irritate Oscar with obscure demands that make no sense, and then refusing to clarify what he means, instead launching off into circuitous arguments that beat about the bush. Examples? Repeatedly asking Oscar to deliver a message...when he hasn't given him any, because, if you please, Pergator doesn't trust Oscar. Then he threatens Oscar about what he'll do to him if Oscar doesn't deliver this message (which he still hasn't given Oscar)...except Pergator is a hologram, and can't do shit to Oscar or anyone.

Except be really, really, annoying, and screw with his mind.

Oh yeah, and Pergator calls himself the Empress.

Oscar is a paper character who just goes along with the flow, and has absolutely no reason whatsoever to get involved in the story other than the fact that the villain chooses to talk to him...and even that was a bit of a deus ex machina.

I had to bring Ethan in to be a douche bag just so that someone would say something interesting.

/Facepalm/

Oh well. Looks like I'll have to wait until I edit to make this thing just a little bit less crappy. I am going to hold onto the hope that once I finish the story, and once I write some of the other characters' POVs, that maybe this will start to make more sense.

P.S. Now I know who the spy from Dojong is!
P.P.S. I am slowly getting better at using voice dictation to write. I actually wrote 3k that way today. The words are still not as numerous or as good as with typing, but...I hold on the hope that my hands will be better when it comes time to edit.


Listening To:

Design Your Universe By Epica	Fiction By Dark Tranquillity
Silverthorn By Kamelot	Ragnarok By Tyr

NaNoMongering 7: Warm Up The Fat Lady

Because it ain't over till she sings -- and boy, is she singing. President Obama won both the electoral college and the popular vote, though leading the latter by a hairline margin of a million votes. Talk about close. Still, after a long evening of being glued to the TV, closely following the results of the election with the rest of the nation, I am relieved. Now I don't have to move to Canada for the next four to eight years.

Since I am in the eastern time zone, it was the middle of the night before the results came out, and all the speeches got over. And, of course, Florida is the only state still counting! Why am I not surprised? I think at this point everyone just dropped down from a combination of exhaustion and lack of alcohol.

Anyway. NaNo.

I am STILL behind. Of course, it is really hard to write in the midst of all the excitement, but I think today of all days was a valid excuse. Currently, my word count stands at 9000. Tomorrow, I will have to write 2667 words in order to catch up. Then, after that, I will have to write either 3000 words a day for two days, or 2500 words a day for four days, and catch up with my original goal. After that, it would be back to 2000 words a day.

The biggest challenge I'm facing is the voice dictation. When I type, my ideas flow better. Also, the prose is a lot better, and I find it easy to quickly generate a lot of words and flesh things out. When I use my voice I have to get over the severe mental block I have. Everything comes out much more stilted and awkward than it would have with typing, and it takes me four times as long to write the same material, and that material gives me fewer words. However, I have no choice. Between looking like an idiot talking to myself and writing stuff that is a lot crappier and shorter than it would otherwise have been, and completely busting my hands, I will choose looking like an idiot. Eventually, I think it will settle down, and I will learn how to write by talking also. After all, I learned to type on a Dvorak keyboard. That learning curve was much worse! It is just a matter of teaching the Muse how to work both ways.

Alright. I cannot stay awake any longer. Now I must crash…

NaNoMongering 5 - It All Started When, Or, The Reading List

Guess what made me want to write? That's right, reading. In school, I was the quiet, shy girl who usually sat by herself, and always had a book. I've been a bookworm all my life. My favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy, but I do occasionally read other stuff. I usually read three or four books at the same time, sometimes even more. Most of the time, there is one fluff book that I'll finish very fast, one 'regular' book (usually a science fiction/fantasy novel), and then one that's taking time for whatever reason (long/complicated/ponderous/outside my comfort zone).

That said, I have lately been neglecting this favorite pasttime. Bad writer. Bad. So: in an attempt to guilt myself into getting into gear, I am posting my reading list.

Currently Reading:

• The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene (Nonfiction/Physics) 
• False Colours by Georgette Heyer (Romance)
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Fantasy)
• No Plot? No Problem! By Chris Baty (Nonfiction)
• Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (Fantasy)
• Ringworld by Larry Niven (Science Fiction)

Here is where I hang my head in shame. The reason this list is so long is that three of these books are ones which I started a long time ago, and never finished. One of them was a reread. Hurr durr. Now I get to finish ALL of them before I start anything else! 

I've lately acquired a TON of books, and my bookshelf is a godawful giant messy book pile. It's gotten so bad that I sometimes am at the bookstore and can't remember if I bought a particular book already or not! RED ALERT. Given that I'm the neurotic type who must group everything by awesomeness, by genre, by author, by size, by whether I've read it or not, and by cover style, this chaos is making my inner librarian (who is also my Inner Editor, Frankie) acutely uncomfortable. Oh, and don't even mention all the horizontal books. A book placed horizontally on a bookshelf is an unforgivable offense.

It's worse than a misused semicolon; Q.E.D.

Once I clean out my bookshelf, I'm chasing out the tumbleweed on my Goodreads account. I don't particularly need it as motivation, but the smartphone app has a handy little feature that lets me scan in a book's bar code, and thus automatically add it to my collection. It's a pretty neat way to easily track them...and if I actually muster up the patience to do this, no more racking my brains at the book store to see whether I already bought something!

...And there is a reason that the word NaNoMongering is in the title, isn't there. Well, end of Day 4. Word count total is 5,767, which means I am now 900 words behind. 

NaNoMongering 4 - Of Shoes and Shit and Sabotage, and Carpal Tunnel Things

These slippers are so comfortable, like bunnies made of bubbles on my feet.

And that's it for shoes.

They say, No Pain, No Gain. In fact, it was no gain, all pain. I had meant to hit 6000 words today, but my hands are acting up again, and I cannot type. They do not hurt exactly, but I just know that I cannot push it. I have mostly been staying off the forums because of this. For the rest, I have just been dictating on my phone. I managed to do about 500 words today that way. This brings my word count for November up to 5000. I suppose I can't really complain, since that is where I am supposed to be at the end of Day 3 anyway.

However, my hands are not the root of the issue, nor even the fact that I feel intensely self-conscious speaking the words out loud. Those are all things I can defeat. The real issue is dithering. That is what I spent all day doing. I dithered in the afternoon by reading a book. Then I sat at the computer and stared at the screen. Then I got up, and made myself a sandwich. And then I ate the sandwich, and had to put off writing, because I could not speak and eat at the same time. Then I paused, stared at the screen again, and made myself some tea. Finally, I managed to eke out a few words, although even then, I kept switching to my Internet browser every few seconds, to refresh every single forum I am on. A few minutes later, I had to leave. In this way, I managed to somehow go the whole day by neither doing other things to entertain myself, nor getting any writing done. At best, it is inefficient. At worst, it is self-sabotage.

This happens, in some form or the other, every day.

Time and time again, I have reasoned it out. Either I must write, or I must do something else instead to keep busy, and not worry about it. It sounds simple, in theory. But it is not.

Why do I do this to myself? What is holding me back?

It is not the blank page. I do not actually fear the blank page. I used to, at one time, but I conquered that by simply flying by the seat of my pants. Now I can fill a blank page with anything. This might be my answer.
The blank page could be ANYTHING.

More often than not, it is utter crap, and it scares me. And how is that? Because one crappy page is not so bad. However, an entire draft's worth of crap is daunting. The story is still in there, waiting to meet excavated like fossil. However, the worse the draft, the more complicated the fix. Plot holes are not always easy to resolve, not to mention the innumerable stylistic changes that will need to be made, the scenes that have to be moved around, the things that must be cut, the things that must be added, the things that must be rewritten.

So, do I fear hard work? In a way, yes. Excavating the fossil is a long, hard road. Progress will be slow, and halting. There will be times when I wonder I am moving forward all, or if I am even moving backwards. How do I know that at the end of the road, I will find what I'm looking for?

And that's it. I fear failure. I am so afraid that I will never finish, that I feel like giving up at every step. I am afraid that I am doing all of this for nothing. In short, I am doing my very best to ensure that what I fear will come true.

I sabotage myself.

Well, shit.

Yet, much as I would love to know for sure that the story will be what I want it to be in the end, the truth is, the only way I will ever know is to see it through. Sounds like it's time to head back to the Chasm of Despair.

And here is where it gets nuts. Even in the deepest, darkest chamber of the chasm, I haven't lost all hope. There is still the insane part of me that tells me that I can do it. It is the part that made me start doing these writing competitions in the first place, and the part that makes me want to write at all. It is the part that will not let the story inside of me die unborn, but instead keeps prompting me to go sit at that computer.

It's my Muse, and she has spoken. It is up to me to do the rest. Where there is a will there is a way. I know that once I open up Scrivener, I can stare at the screen, and then fly off to Google, to look for motivational websites and pictures. However, that kind of motivation is a crock: at best the truth, at worst, entertainment, and in all cases procrastination. It can make me think. It can even inspire me. It can't give me will, though. The truth is, nothing can make it easier. Nothing on the Internet can finish my stories for me.

Only I can do that.

One word of time.

And I will.

NaNoMongering 3: A Ray of Light in the Chasm of Despair

End Day 2. Currently, I am at 4,030 words.

A small measure of progress. I think I have finally figured out what Dark Arcana means. I found myself using the words "dark" and "arcane" to describe the use of magic and technology, which, currently, all the citizens of Engleter fear. In fact, it's the job of the Lord Protector to guard against it.

I found out that Dark Arcana refers to any knowledge which people fear, and which they would almost prefer not to know. At first, it refers just to magic and technology, but later, to knowledge of the ways of other "alien" cultures, and finally, to the big unanswerable questions in life, the answers to which are in the "dark," so to speak.

I also found out that my opening scene totally fails. I am going according to the "Hunger Games" opener rules I saw in this blog post. I shall paraphrase.

1. Show what your character cares most about, by showing them overcoming an obstacle because they care.
2. Threaten to take away the thing the character cares about, and thus pitch them into the story.

Yeah, I did neither. It's like Oscar is really hard to write about, and I feel like I have to ease myself into his story by circling around him through other characters. The first scene is really about Mrs. Penicott, the mistress of the ramshackle orphanage where Oscar grew up...and whom we will probably never see again! I know that fantasy epics (to which my story is most similar) tend to take their time about these rules, but this is pushing it.

Oh yes, and twelve year old Oscar is pretending to be a necromancer, just because he can, to scare people. Then he goes and stuffs his face with too many peppermints. One minute he's tiny Lord Voldemort, and the next, he's a scared little kid who wants to go to the circus with his taxi fare.

That's all I know. For all my 4k words, I've spent precious little time actually inside Oscar's head. It's all been Mrs. Penicott. It's like every time there is someone else in the room, I just write entire scenes of dialogue from their POV, and avoid having them DO anything, and avoid Oscar's POV. I need to work on having more action in between the dialogue, and showing where the story is taking place, so that not everyone is a talking head in a void. Oh, and I should probably write ABOUT Oscar at some point.

The worst it can do is to give me more words, after all. :-)


Listening To:

Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin

Theatre Is Evil by Amanda Palmer

No World Order by Gamma Ray

This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) by Chevelle

NaNoMongering 2: It's All Downhill From Here

Story Status:

This just in, straight from the Chasm of Despair!

From the Mouths of Morons, Part I: Me: "You don't wait for the words to come. You just have to force them out one by one." Sister: "Just like poop." Brother: "That's why you sometimes write shit."

Sage words, and appropriate. Sorry for calling you morons on the internet, brother and sister. I sacrifice your intelligence in the name of alliteration.

In that vein, I tried to tell my sister what Dark Arcana was about. This was the result:

"Um, it's...character driven. Uh. So there's Oscar, who is a boy with the ability to manipulate reality with his dreams. I mean, he has no control over it. He dreams it and it turns real. And he can't control it, so his nightmares turn real too. And there's Ethan. He's a scientist. He's a genius. And...well, okay, first, there's this time agency that watches over history. And Ethan finds them, so because he found them, they try to recruit him. Except Ethan doesn't believe in destinies and prophecies, so he's all "...No." Then there are these aliens that keep messing with history. The time agency and the aliens are in a time war. Uh."

Major fail. Yeah, there's a third moron in the room also.

I didn't know what my own story was about. All the happiness I felt at finally having a synopsis done just drained away like warm deflated soda trickling down a rusty drain. It means that the only thing holding my plot together is some time war that takes place outside the universe. I have nothing actually happening in the world itself.

This manifests as talking heads: either people are having trippy dreams with no transition between them and reality, or they're just having conversations.

Everything is virtual.
There is no action.
There is no sense of place.
This is why I'm trying to stuff in all this political stuff with all the different plot lines, even though I have no idea how it will work. My bunny cries out for some foundations.

Aaaargh!

Don't get me wrong. I will figure out what this story is about eventually. I am going to take the shitty road, and force it out one word at a time. Just expect a lot of ranting and raving this month. I finished my 1,667 words for the day. I know what is supposed to happen, but not much of it turned out that way.

In the meantime, let's just say that the Chasm of Despair knows me so well that they have a cave with my name on it.

Nice to see you again, fellas. The usual.

Listening To:

Warp Riders by The Sword	Across The Dark by Insomnium
By The Light of The Northern Star by Tyr	Darkness in the Light by Unearth
Van Halen by Van Halen	1984 by Van Halen

From the Mouths of Morons, Part II: Me: *starry eyed* "So Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day. Every day. He said-- what's so funny?" Sister: *is trying not to laugh* "I'm still thinking about poop. And I know he's thinking about poop." Brother: *nods* Sister: "So while you're talking, we're having a telepathic conversation about poop."