Nanowrimo 2013

So I guess the last time I really did any serious writing was back in early 2011, and the last Nanowrimo was 2010. I then got a job, faded out on most of the freelance writing, and got sucked completely into Battle Pirates on Facebook. My iMac G5 blew up, so all I have left of it is the hard drive, which is now in an external case that I can plug in by USB to my Macbook Air. I sure hope I have backup copies of everything I've ever written since 2004... somewhere.

What are the choices for things to work on this November?

Fortress Launne: I'm basically still stuck where I was before - have to get Edward figured out. The whole series is at the beginning of Second Draft mode, so not really a good fit for what Nanowrimo is supposed to be about.

Cosmic Potato: Not sure if I've ever mentioned this one on the blog. Basically it was an idea I had while writing astronomy articles for Bright Hub. I got seriously engrossed in mentally working out how planets, moons, stars, etc. might orbit each other and how it would look if one was standing on the planet's surface. Eventually I came up with a small habitable moon around a gas giant, which has its own little asteroid moon that is shaped like a potato. Then, what kind of people might be on there and what would they think of their cosmology - especially if they are still stuck on the notion that their planet is the center of the universe and everything else revolves around it? Sort of a takeoff from the kinds of debates going on in the times of Copernicus, Galileo, etc.

Later on I came up with some ideas about a race of people descended from cliff-dwelling birds, that would live on the far side of this moon, and have no idea that they're living on something orbiting a gas giant. On the side of the moon that faces the gas giant: not real sure yet, but so far my ideas seem to be very plant related. Because of very low light during most of the year, they would need very large light-gathering surfaces, and there would be a lot of competition for what light is available.

I guess I need to dump all those thoughts into the wiki at some point.

Anyway, that's a possibility for a first draft project. It would start with some guy getting into a boat to find out why the Cosmic Potato's orbit is really weird, suggesting that the "planet" is not as big as they think it is. He'll sail around until he can see the gas giant, be super weirded out by this, then discover the sentient species that lives on that side which have no idea what clear space with stars looks like.

Rumen: So basically there are two stories going. One is Vengeance, which I probably should look at again at some point and see where I left off, but I've not really thought much about it in a while. Then there's the Tragedy of the Hand / End of Rage story. That one has four separate parts: Rumen's story where he carries the kid to Drunin lands, Jenya's story 14 years later upon finding out what Rumen is, Grey's story, and Cassandra's story.

(I really don't understand other people's problems of not having enough plot. I always seem to have way too much plot.)

So the possibility for Nanowrimo is to try to write Jenya's story. I'm just going to give up on the first part of Rumen's story where he carries the baby across the continent, at least for now. Bits of it can just show up in little flashback vignettes during Jenya's story.

So far, aside from the setup that caused Rumen to get discovered and put in jail, I don't really have any solid ideas about how it goes. That could pose a problem, since I am going to need at least a barebones outline. But there's 20 days before it's time to start, so maybe I'll come up with something.