Elfstone

nanowrimelle @ 2004-07-08T15:17:00

2004-07-08T14:16:39Z

FYI, I am now putting my writing stuff up at mounthelicon.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-12-04T16:58:00

2003-12-04T15:59:02Z

FYI, I am still working on finishing Elfstone, but with November over and done with, I've decided to not type in anyrthing for now, probably until I've actually finished. After that, i'll just post in large bacthes as I get it typed in, rather than in semi-daily instalments

In other news, it appears that in a fit of madness, I registred for NaNoWriYe, which means this journal will now (hopefully) remain active throughout the year. currently, my schedule looks like this:

Session One (Jan/Feb/Mar; 100,000 words): Finally write/finish Strange Love. It's about time, I'd say. Also, if I come to the end of the novel before I get to the end of my word count, some longer fanfic stories.
Break One (1-14 Apr)
Session Two (15 April/May; 50,000 words): Write that goddamn Destiny Bunny (HP, H/D) that's been bugging me since April this year. Yeah, I know.
Break Two (Jun)
Session Three (Jun/Jul/14 Aug; 100,000 words): Rewrite of Elfstone into something semi-decent.
Break Three (15-31 Aug)
Session Four (Sep/14 October; 50,000): Semi-autobiographical thingamajig about families and writer's block.
Break Four (15-30 Oct)
Session Five (Nov; 50,000 words): NaNoWriMo. Whatever I can come up with, really.
Break Five (Dec)

For Strange Love, I'm thinking of using the Snowflake method of plotting/planning. Will let you know how that goes.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-27T23:52:00

2003-11-27T22:52:45Z

Current word count: 20,187, and I have the next two chapters plotted almost entirely. The next few days will be intense, if I want to get to the end of the story before Sunday evening, but I definitely think I will make it to 30,000 words. W00t.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-27T22:52:00

2003-11-27T21:53:21Z

Right,caught up on typing things in from previous days, and another backdated entry here. Total word count: 19,456 words, which means I'm likely about to breach 20,000 words right now. Woo!

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-27T18:03:00

2003-11-27T17:04:35Z

Finally typed up what I wrote on day seventeen, backdated here. Current total word count: 18,741, plus whatever I've yet to type up.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-21T22:17:00

2003-11-21T21:21:56Z

Point one: I've about 1,000 words I wrote on Monday, which I've not yet been arsed to type up. Watch this space, I suppose.

Point two: Considering that, at this point, I'd have to write about 3,500 words a day, I don't think I'm going to make it. Timewise, I probably could, but I'm pretty sure my wrist(s) couldn't take it. Actually, even time-wise, between work and sleep and various other things, I'm not sure it'd be humanly possible. (Well, maybe humanly, bt not Melle-ly, which is what we're going for, here.) More to the point, I don't think I have enough story to cover that many words.

Which isn't to say I won't try to still make it, because I will, but right now, a more realistic goal would be 30,000-35,000. That would still be fice times as long as anything else I've ever written, and the first semi-epic thing I'll have finished. Right now, the most important thing to me is to finish this, not so much the word count anymore. And another 10,000-15,000 words will give me just enough time to get the boys together and get the three of them to the Emperor, effectively wrapping up the story, though not exploring this world as well as I'd like.

But that, I think, is something I can do at another time. I need to write a lot of fanfic drabbles and stories, and finish Strange Love, but once I'm done with the immediate projects, if I still like this story and this world as much as I do, I can spend some more time worldbuilding and plotting, and then I can rewrite this into what i'd like it to be.

The main goal I had in mind by participating in this was to finally finish something of (semi-)epic length, which is, as I said, well within the realms of possibility.

No novel here, just some haikus

2003-11-17T15:58:45Z

Someone started a "Sucking, in haiku" thread on the NaNo forums, and well, I got carried away. Behold!

My plot does not move
I plod through darkness and mud
No one heeds my cries

I know where I am
How to get where I'm going?
Not a goddamn clue

Perhaps I should just
Make the boys kiss? Sudden, yes,

But it would please me

I have found the key!
Pardon me, may I borrow
Fantasy cliche?

Typing word by word
With only one goal in mind:
Get me to the smut!

Wrist whimpers sadly
"Please, misstress, no more, no more!"
Still I continue

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-17T00:55:00

2003-11-16T23:56:05Z

I had to take Friday and Saturday off from writing due to family duties, and my wrist protesting. According to my calculations, in order to write 35,000 words in the remaining 15 days, I have to write 2,334 words per day. That's still more than doable. I'l still try to catch up on weekends, but I'm not going to push myself during the week, if only because I cannot afford to wreck my wrist when I'm working. So, 2,334 words a day, and I (slightly) exeeded today's quota, even. Current total word count: 17,664. Hopefully, I'll make it to 20,000 tomorrow. Hopefully.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-14T02:34:00

2003-11-14T01:40:22Z

Current total word count: 15,081. I rock my socks, man. :DOf course, I definitely feel it in my wrists, but hey, that's what I bought these braces for.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-13T21:45:00

2003-11-13T20:50:41Z

Some notes:

I have to type up the latest few pages, but I think may have just crossed 14,000.
Assuming I can get in at least another hour after dinner, maybe two, I'll be crossing 15,000 and maybe even 16,000 (*crosses fingers*) tonight.Go me!
Tonight, barring some major disaster, this novel will officially become the longest thing I've ever written, either alone or with someone else.
It will be twice as long as the longest thing I've ever written on my own. (That would be In The Name of Justice, which is 7,600 words, took me most of school year to write, and sucks worse than this does.)
Despite the high(ish) word count, the main part of the plot has yet to start. Er.
Jonathan gets all flustered around royalty, apparently. This amuses me. A lot.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-13T01:25:00

2003-11-13T00:30:14Z

Total wordcount: 11,102 words. Still behind, but dude, this is already twice as much as I've ever written on my own, and that was Sin, which took me three to four months to write. I believe I can say that I rock the cashbah.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-12T22:21:00

2003-11-12T21:25:22Z

Total word count: 10,036. Booyah!

ETA, 23:58: 10,684 and Jonathan has jut informed me he may already be in love. Awwwww!

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-12T21:13:00

2003-11-12T20:17:14Z

Today's word count: 1,866. Current total word count: 9,519. Barring some major disaster, I'll break 10,000 this evening. Um, wow. That's only about 4,000 words less than VRStory in total, and that took two of us an entire school year to write. Well, I'm impressed with myself. :D

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-12T07:39:00

2003-11-12T06:42:54Z

Total word count: 7,653. Sleep now.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-12T04:21:00

2003-11-12T03:25:15Z

Have just written almost 3,000 words. My total word count is now 6,663. I'm currently debating if I want to go on and try to hit 4,000, and finally get Jonathan into the goddamn novel, or go to bed so I can wake up at something approaching a decent hour tomorrow.

Watch this space, I suppose.

So.

2003-11-06T23:19:30Z

Have written about three hundred words in three days. None of them typed up.

All I'm saying is, it's a good thing tomorrow's the last day of work for nine days for me. And hey, at least I wrote a little bit every day. Right.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-04T00:55:00

2003-11-03T23:55:57Z

Word count is at 4,173. I'm 828 words behind schedule, which means there's still only 200 words per day to catch up so I'll be back on track by Friday. Wooo!

Chapter one is finished, and I've surpassed the total word count of last year's failed attempt already. Go me.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-11-03T13:02:00

2003-11-03T12:01:33Z

The bad news is, this is all I wrote last night, due to a terminal case of vegetate-itis, and also a minor fever.

The good news is, this still only puts me about 1,000 words behind schedule, and I fully plan to catch up on that before Friday. That's only a little more than five extra words a day. I can wing that. And then, I'll have a whole week off with nothing to do but write. Yay!

nanowrimelle @ 2003-10-27T13:06:00

2003-10-27T12:07:02Z

Things I need to buy for NaNo:

Food. Enough to restock my cupboards, lots of coffee, nibbly things, fruit, etc.
Some sort of "avater" for Breckin (that's my muse, for those of you just tuning in.)
New printer (if possible).
Digital kitchen timer or some such, to mark fifteen-minute periods when I'm writing somewhere in public, so as to not drive people insane with the sound of my kitchen timer.

The plan for this week is to work out first characters, then rough plot, then a new version of the map (and possibly a slightly tweaked version of the history), while moving my sleep cycle back two hours, so I'll go to bed at 22:30 and wake up at 04:30. That'll give me two hours before work to write, plus of course the two hours on the train. If that works, I'm hoping I can keep that schedule up from then on.

If I follow the schedule I have in mind, I can write for about 2-4 hours on weekdays, four hours on Saturday, and six on Sundays, and on the weekdays during the second week, which I have off work, I ought to be able to write about eight hours, either at home or in coffeeshops, pubs, or wherever. That would put me at about 100,000-120,000 words at the end of the month, and crossing the 50,000 line around the 15th.

I hope.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-10-20T11:56:00

2003-10-20T09:57:14Z

Meh. haven't done much (or any, really) worldbuilding since last entry, because of getting sidetracked by Raymond E. Feist. Bastard.

I've come to the realisation that I need to work out at least the basic plot first of all, then work out details of the characters and the map from there. Fun times! Except not. I'm also tweaking a lot of the societal things I'd built before, because of brain-gears set in motion by the NaNo forums. Grrr. And now I'm thinking about changing the basic plot, or at least adding to it, because the NaNo forums made me start thinking about the elven society and the tension between the Enclave elves and the Empire elves, and hmmmm ...

This is becoming less and less the Unapologetically Cliché Fantasy Novel I had in mind, but hey, still catering to my own kinks and preferences, so that's all right.

Less than two weeks 'till November. Pardon me while I run around like a headless chicken.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-10-10T11:32:00

2003-10-10T09:33:06Z

I've been too sore and aching to do much worldbuilding this week, and too busy devouring various books ^*, but I did manage to take on two dares and decide on an "emergency first line" to use if I don't come up with a better one in time.

The dares:

Shati: "Include a Sword Of Power that IS powerful and capable of insane amounts of carnage, but isn't a sword at all, but is instead some rather unlikely (or ignoble) weapon like a broken bottle (or metal stein) or a pillow, or maybe a very bitter gnome (who must be swung by the feet at people.)"
Me: "I want my protagonist, in the middle of a particularily harrowing fight for the Fate of the World, to suddenly grab a gnome and whack a baddie on the head with it. And then get chewed out by the gnome for doing so. Hee!"
Shati: "Have someone say, 'I kind of love you.'"

The first line: "Once upon a time," because isn't that how all great fairy tales start?

nanowrimelle @ 2003-10-05T23:17:00

2003-10-05T21:20:11Z

So I said in this comment that this novel is really "fanfic about a genre instead of just a single author." The more I think about that, the more it rings true.

I love fantasy. I adore fantasy. And this is going to be a novel in which I gleefully indulge in each and every one of the fantasy clichés I, secretly or not, love. I know a lot of people dislike the "classic" fantasy, high fantasy, whatever you want to call it. Sure, it's cliché. I don't care. Give me the etpic quests, the battles, the magic, the royalty, the smartass sidekicks, the battles, the fate of the world depending on Our Heroes. I live for it. And this? This is going to be my ode to the genre, in a way. More that probably, no one but me will even remotely like it, but I'm going to have so much fun writing it I won't care.

And in other news, I have a title. :) Elfstone: a perfectly cliché title for a completely cliché novel.

nanowrimelle @ 2003-09-23T13:24:00

2003-09-23T11:25:36Z

Mostly for my own reference, things I need to do re: worldbuilding:

Create at least enough of a language so I can name places and people in what I shall refer to as "The Eastern Kingom" for now, as well as spells, etc. later on. Or pick an existing language to use. (Latin?)
Draw a map of the part of the world the story will be taking place, as well as a more detailed map of just the Eastern Kingdom. </p>
Come up with a rough version of the Eastern Kingdom's history.
Work out a magic system.
Work out a government system.
Do a shitload of research on midieval life.
Index card the info I'm likely to need at hand on a semi-regular basis.
Not have my head explode.

(More possibly to come under the filters.)

nanowrimelle @ 2003-09-22T10:51:00

2003-09-22T09:02:35Z

So I've decided to go with the fantasy bunny, which means I'm going to be doing a lot of worldbuilding in the next month or so, and I've decided I want to keep anything that might be spoilery behind (a) filter(s). I'll use different filters for entries concerning:

Worldbuilding;

Plotting;

Characters;

General blathering will be public, and come November, I'll post the novel in a general friends filter, so if you want to just hear me babble and read the story, you're good as long as you're on my friends list (friend me and I'll add you back), but if you want to know more about the world the story is set in, or whatever, let me know and I'll add you to the filters.

That is all. :)

nanowrimelle @ 2003-09-17T19:12:00

2003-09-17T23:04:10Z

Addendum to this,specifically the fantasy bunny:

I think I have an idea for what their quest is about. I rather like this bunny, because it allows for near-endless plot meandering and twists. So right now, that one's on number one of my list.