Camp NaNoWriMo, Day 5

[Picture removed]

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I was procrastinating by searching for inspirational pictures, for Dark Arcana. There are actually several planets in the Elemental Alliance (real name TBD), so the number of scenes I could show would be numerous. As it is, none of the pictures I found were right. This one was the closest, and at that, it is more symbolic than anything else. It sort of looks like a combination of places from the planets Hydron, Erebus, Acheron, Helios, Kairos, and Meervane (names TBD).

In other news, The Fires of Ozan sort of barged into Dark Arcana. I tried splitting them back up again, but it didn't work. It seems that the revolution that was brewing in the Fire Palaces of Hydron was really engineered by Khronos, and that it was all really a front for his invasion... I do believe that the huge project that the scientists on Helios are working on, ostensibly for the Hydronian rebels, is really funded by Khronos... 

Oh, and, unbeknownst to Khronos, the scientists have an insidious little side project going on themselves, which is to upset the balance of the elements, and release the Big Scary Evil Thing that lies at the center of the universe. Of course, like all story scientists, they do it in all ignorance, because they think it is for the good of humanity. Silly scientists! :-) And, of course, Oscar, Hermeticus Octodyne, and the governments of the Alliance hear of it, and of course they think that naturally, Khronos must be behind it too! Little do they know that while Khronos enjoys power, he doesn't want destruction. He's quite an enlightened Darth Vader!

Character-wise, it will be interesting to see Ozan and Oscar butt heads. Ido have to change Ozan's name, however, because it is too similar to Oscar. In terms of cast, I now have a pirate princess out for revenge against Khronos and Hermeticus Octodyne (Claire), Khronos, Ozan, Big Evil Thing, Hermeticus Octodyne, and the demons inside Oscar, who sometimes act as Oscar's multiple personalities. Much stepping on each other's toes should ensue!

A city in either Amberian or Dark Arcana...or both.

I found this picture too. It was on some random site, so I have no idea who made it. That tower looks like a Nocharen Sideas incursion station from the Amberian idea. Okay, so that has nothing whatever to do with Dark Arcana, being a different story altogether. However, Dark Arcana and Amberian are actually set on the same worlds, so it could work. The spaceship and the guy are too futuristic looking for Dark Arcana, since Dark Arcana takes place before the Amberian stories. ...And if you are familiar with Amberian, and especially with my temporal paradoxes from hell, you will know that this is a loaded proposition, since Amberian has a LOT of time travel! 

In terms of the stories themselves, the city looks a lot like Erebus...specifically, it is almost as if Khronos made Erebus by stealing bits from 19th century Engleter (and various other places and times), welding them together, and transplanting them to Erebus...

In fact, I almost feel like Khronos and his works were part of an early effort of some huge project that will be revealed in Amberian...

Khronos...not really.

And this guy seriously reminds me of Khronos....even if he looks nothing like him. Khronos is a giant brass robot. This one is too futuristic, but...I think it is the face, and the theme. Khronos also has no face, and he is one of the most powerful elemental manipulators in the world. Some even say he can spawn new worlds...

Key inspiration words to remember: sacred key, talisman, spirit matrix, Nocharen Sideas Queen/King

Camp NaNoWriMo, Day 4

Again, short entry.

At about 3k now, and that includes 200 rebel words that I wrote for Amber, another idea I have. Now...need 300 more words to hit Day 2 goals. I am going to have to do some heavy writing tomorrow to catch up! 5.3k behind.

In other news, I combined Dark Arcana and Ozan. Very different stories...should be interesting!

Cold war/revolution on a water planet, new cold fusion technology, plus Dark Lord robot/magical items...and Amber keeps creeping in too, with the aliens as the servants of Khronos (the Nocharen Sideas). I am wondering how these are all intertwined...

Camp NaNoWriMo, Day 3

This will again be a very short entry.

I am pretty sure that the stiffness in my thumbs is due to tendonitis. The symptoms fit. Well, the only thing to do now is to just relax the affected areas, and wait until it goes away.

In other news, life happened, which is why I have, so far, written nothing today. By tomorrow, I will be 5000 words behind. I'm going to have to produce them somehow. Previously, in these situations, I would just have an all day typing marathon, and I would rely on Write or Die to push me along. Currently, neither of these is a feasible option.

It looks like I am going to have to spend a long time talking to myself…

And, possibly, go for the Bronze Fingertips badge…

Camp NaNoWriMo, Day 2

It is getting late. My hands still hurt too much to type, so I am hunched over my phone, whispering into it like a prisoner in a story, trying to write down his memoirs in the dead of night, when the guards are not listening.

This will be a pretty short entry.

Nothing much has happened. I have so far crossed 1700 words, which is on track…for day one. :-) I'm going to have to do some catching up tomorrow.

Plot-wise, I still have no semblance of one. Dark Arcana is an entire trilogy, and I have no idea where one book begins and the other ends. That is not a problem. That is what Camp is for. Therefore, what I have so far is basically a bunch of scenes. The pattern for me is that I keep writing, and I keep writing, and gradually, a plot arc images. That is not to say that I write in any sequential order. I do not. It is almost guaranteed that almost everything I write this month will be thrown out. However, hopefully, at the end, I will have some sort of skeleton for the story.

Badges Earned

Goed Begonnen

I had meant to color these in, so that I would have pretty pictures to post here, but that ended up not working out. I will be posting pictures, as I earn badges. So far, I have earned one badge, for starting.

Camp NaNoWriMo, Day 1

It is Day 1 of Camp NaNoWriMo, and I am already feeling too lazy to write.

This is my list of excuses: I have been writing JavaScript instead of fiction, I need coffee, I can't decide what to write, my hands hurt too much to type, I'm hungry, and I haven't yet built a tent.

All in all, a rather crappy start to the month.

However, since the time I wrote down that sentence and now, at least one of those excuses is no longer applicable. As for what I am going to write, it has come down to two stories:

• Dark Arcana: This is a trilogy idea. I know it is fantasy, specifically, steampunk. However, other than the fact that my hero is a guy named Oscar, who has multiple personalities, and that my Dylan is a half android half human creature called Khronos (basically, a steampunk Darth Vader), I do not know much else about the story.
• The Fires of Ozan: Dark Of The Sun: It started off as fanfiction based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I found that I liked the direction in which it was going. Also, I found that I was using far less of the original material than I had thought I would. Basically, the only thing which I "borrowed" was the idea of bending, and the names of the Four Nations.  Given that, I decided to just write it as original fiction. However, the result of that is that I know even less about this story than I do about Dark Arcana. Now that I can no longer use bending, and now that I have to remove all references specific to the world of Avatar, it leaves several big huge gaping plot hole- in my story.

… And it seems, based on that, that my decision has already been made for me. Might as well write the story that I know more about, right? Good. So something productive came of this blog post after all. :-)

Of course, knowing myself, it will bother me that I have to Come account, but that I am working when only one story (for one account). I may be working on Dark Arcana in the beginning, but it is almost guaranteed that somewhere along the way, I will be taking a shot at the other one also. :-)

Alright. No more excuses. Time to write!

… Right after I painstakingly create new Scrivener projects, customize them exactly the way I want, eat dinner, clean up the kitchen, find some scarves to build a tent with, finish designing the Winter skin for my plotting forum, do the laundry, put together a playlist for Dark Arcana, and design a new scoring system for determining plotting progress for my plotting forum.

This is a picture that I made in Photoshop a few years ago. I was procrastinating by searching for inspiration came across it today, and realized that it looks almost exactly like Erebus, the planet ruled by Khronos – the steampunk Death Star, as it were!

Total Word Count: <100 (Invoking Luddite Clause–had to hand write because I'm still going easy on the typing–haven't yet made final count).

Speech To Text, or Artificially Intelligent Freudian Slips?

Note: I apologize in advance to those who are on the same writing forums as I am. Some of this may be redundant. And now back to our regularly scheduled blog post...

I was going to write about what I'm going to do for Camp NaNoWriMo, which is right around the corner,  but Siri (a.k.a. the epitome of sarcastic artificially intelligent sadism innocuously encapsulated in a glossy, user-friendly –read: smartass– interface that would give HAL palpitations) rapidly subverted that.

Some of you (you know who you are) may know that I text like a drunken monkey on hallucinogens. This is partly because I lack any type of coordination, but also partly because the keys on the iPhone are meant only for squirrel fingers. The end result is that my iPhone's notoriously evil autocorrect has a field day with me. Who could forget such unintentional classics as 'shit your piehole?'

Turns out my phone's speech to text feature, which I've been using a lot due to hand pain, is a whole lot worse. There are times when I start wondering if Siri is a manically depressed human, because it thinks it knows better than me. A few golden samples...

Said: Avengers fanboys and fan girls
Wrote: Avengers fanboys and send girls
My response: So how come 'fanboys' is a recognized word, but 'fangirl' is not?

Said: Game of Thrones
Wrote: Game Off Clothes
My response: That would indeed be an interesting TV show. This calls to mind a certain scene from Doctor Who:

Thank you, Captain Jack.

Said: I am ready for Camp NaNo. I have a fresh supply of notebooks, and pens.
Wrote: I am ready for Camp Nano. I have a fresh supply of notebooks, and Depends.
(For those of you who don't live in America, Depends is a brand of adult diapers.)
My response: That right! Camp NaNoWriMo is right around the corner! Now I don't need to dig a toilet outside my tent anymore! Thanks for reminding me, iPhone speech to text!

Said: Hakuna matata.
Wrote: Acuna my Tata.
My response: I don't know what it means, but it sounds dirty.

Said: Hummus goes with everything.
Wrote: Thomas goes with everything.
My response: Actually, both those statements are correct.

Very much correct, indeed.

So thank you, Siri, for knowing what I meant to say before I said it. You have reminded me of what my life is all about...

Nah. Siri's just evil.

Book Review: The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was okay. I was expecting a time travel adventure/action story. This is actually more of a character study than anything else. Rather than dropping you straight in the middle of the action, the main character is actually not the one who is at the center of things. Rather, he is just associated with those who are. He's actually kind of detached from the action, though, and the story is really about the bleakness inside his own mind, and his shifting perspective on life, rather than about the external war. Personally, I prefer stories where you are told about interesting things while they happen, and not just told after they happen, in a couple of sentences. Other than that, it's a pretty easy read, and worth reading at least once.

View all my reviews