In the last couple months, I've compiled everything I've written related to Rumen into a single Scrivener file. Including all the parts from the original roleplaying game (What is it to be Human?). There was a lot, and it wasn't organized very well for copy-paste, but it was a lot of fun to go back and reread all that. In total, I copied about 90k words - nearly all of Rumen's scenes, all of Katrina, and the first night for Aaron. That's an entire novel right there, and of fairly publishable quality as-is. Actually doing anything with the original game is unlikely though, because there's no way I'm going to track down all of the other people who wrote for it, now that it's ten years later. I might go back and copy out all the rest of Aaron's scenes at some point (everything involving Samuel and Mariah, the second scene with Aniqa) but the point of divergence for my story was after the first scene with Aniqa, so it's not a high priority.
Organizing all of my own stuff was quicker overall. For Vengeance, the version that I had in the Jer's file was very well polished already, and I don't even feel like I need the earlier drafts for those anymore. The other two stories (Tragedy of the Hand, End of Rage) were more of a mess, but there wasn't as much of it, so it balanced out.
My plan for April's Camp Nano is to continue from where I left off. So far I've only done some minor tweaks to Vengeance while I was compiling, and managed to write about 300 new words to the Warehouse Ambush scene. They had broken out of the first warehouse when I last looked, and now they've broken into the second warehouse and found that it was a sidetrack. I have to come up with something to keep them occupied for another three hours so that they'll match up with the timepoint of what Aaron is doing. Then I'll finally get to the next "fun" scene: they break into the correct warehouse and find Alice, and watch Aaron's ritual with Thorme in progress.
I'm also assuming that by July's Camp Nano, Rumen is going to have faded back out of my mind again. He only seems to show up in winter for some reason. So my tentative plan for July is to take another stab at Cosmic Potato - my Nano 2013 failure, where I only got about 6k words into it before Battle Pirates distracted me. I have all sorts of fun ideas running through my head for what I could do with it, and I need to get around to writing it down.
Showing posts with label Hand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hand. Show all posts
2015/02/01
Going back to Rumen and Aaron
It's the beginning of February, and I've been ignoring fiction for nearly a month due to work-related writing commitments, that I'm finally done with, and can now get back into things. I don't really feel like working on Fortress Launne. For some reason, this part of the year seems to have become dedicated in my mind to Rumen's story. There have also been a number of recent events in my personal life that have set off a ton of strong emotions of all kinds, and aside from a sudden urge to write angsty poetry, I think a better outlet would be to get back to writing for Rumen.
It's been around 4 years since I even looked at anything related to Rumen. I think for starters, I'm going to assemble all the pieces of everything I've got scattered everywhere into a single Scrivener file - just like I did with Fortress Launne. That would be Tragedy of the Hand, End of Rage (which will become the opposite half of Hand eventually), and Vengeance Returns. A first glance tells me this is going to be kind of a pain - apparently I started lots of files with different names, and then didn't do anything with them, and then forgot I had them. :p
That'll be tonight's main task anyway. I'm sitting at a Panera, like I plan to do every Sunday evening from now until whenever Kristin gets bored and wants to stop. It was the regular Nanowrimo write-in time from last November, and we decided we should just keep going. She says she'll be here every week that she doesn't have to work. She's not here tonight, so I guess she's at work. Oh well, here goes some concatenating...
It's been around 4 years since I even looked at anything related to Rumen. I think for starters, I'm going to assemble all the pieces of everything I've got scattered everywhere into a single Scrivener file - just like I did with Fortress Launne. That would be Tragedy of the Hand, End of Rage (which will become the opposite half of Hand eventually), and Vengeance Returns. A first glance tells me this is going to be kind of a pain - apparently I started lots of files with different names, and then didn't do anything with them, and then forgot I had them. :p
That'll be tonight's main task anyway. I'm sitting at a Panera, like I plan to do every Sunday evening from now until whenever Kristin gets bored and wants to stop. It was the regular Nanowrimo write-in time from last November, and we decided we should just keep going. She says she'll be here every week that she doesn't have to work. She's not here tonight, so I guess she's at work. Oh well, here goes some concatenating...
2010/09/06
Labor Day Novel 2010
Yes, I did it again this year. No, no plan this time either. I didn't have any excuses for not cranking out a ton of words like I had the previous two years, but alas, it looks like a lack of plan does me in just fine anyway.
Day 1: 3677 words toward Vengeance
Day 2: 3861 toward Hand
Day 3: 266 words toward ... never mind. T.T
The first two days, I made a fair amount of good progress. The overall goal was just to write a lot, advance the amount of material to edit later. Well, I managed to accomplish that.
Day 1 was all about Vengeance. I wrote out yet another version of the planning in the park, then gave up on giving it a good ending and went on to the good part - getting them into the warehouse. That was a lot of fun. Lots of fast-paced action, and the writing went by really fast.
Then I got stuck on how they were actually going to get back out of the warehouse. It sank underground and now has a heavy metal plate over the hatch. My vision of things involves them doing something ingenious and complex going back out through the roof. This rules out any underground tunnels Hernando might know about in the area and tell Rumen about. Rumen could also call on his other underlings (Edward and David are still back home), but I'd like them to do it on their own. They have a ton of combat and trespassing skills among them, they should use them.
Unfortunately, my current setup isn't very complex, and there's only one exit. So, well, I guess they need to either find or create another one in the roof that the Bad Guy somehow doesn't have covered (even though he was very well-prepared for their arrival; he didn't have intel on them in particular, just knew "someone" would likely show up).
Also, it occurs to me that the Bad Guy wouldn't just leave them to sit around doing nothing (and possibly coming up with escape plans). He'd torment them to keep them busy, fill up their time so they don't have time to plan anything about getting out or messing up the midnight plans with Aaron. So, I need torture ideas too. They would probably be generalized ones to cover a lot of different types of creatures since he didn't know who exactly was going to come.
Hmmm. I suppose some of the torture plans might provide openings on how to get them back out of there. Especially if there's only one way in or out. Any tormentors would have to go in and out the same way, right?
The other thing I did that I really like is a scene from Aaron's POV. I hadn't originally wanted to do anything other than Craig's, but Aaron wanted to be written. I started at just before he had to leave the bookstore, agonizing about how Craig had stood him up. It went until he got to the warehouse (of course he was going), and Thorme has proposed the partnership. Now he's demanding to see Alice. He wants to make sure she's all right, and he'd like for her to go home before he agrees to anything, but Thorme isn't going with that.
Unfortunately, when I tried to write him and Alice meeting up, that didn't go anywhere useful. So I have to rethink what Alice's role is going to be in this whole thing.
Day 2 was all about the Tragedy of the Hand. Since I was stuck at the warehouse scene, and the Alice scene had floundered, I figured I'd do something else instead.
Again, I liked the progress I made. I realized that the story actually starts back when the rogue vampire (the ancient retard) eats the Drunin witch. So I wrote that first. It sucked, but I can fix it in the rewrite. Then they were at the coroner, and then I touched on a whole lot of other minor plot points that needed to be introduced, and then I wrote the Council meeting. It turned out to be the best meeting scene I've written yet. I found it wildly entertaining, when normally my meetings tend to be really boring. So, yay. ;)
Then I stalled out when the meeting was almost over, on how exactly to introduce Cassandra's decoy subplot. Now that I've thought about it some, I might just delete that whole part out of the meeting and have it in discussion with Blaze instead. Or something.
I also finally got around to rereading the material from Labor Day 2008, when I first started this project. Gray's personality is completely different when he's talking to Cassandra. o.o He's also a lot more open about himself than I envision him now. Fortunately, I think the first scene, at least, is probably salvageable nearly as-is, and I can probably cannibalize large chunks of the second scene. Regardless, in this 2010 version, I haven't even introduced Cassandra yet. Though it should be only a scene or two away from the Council meeting scene.
As for Day 3 which is the end of today... not so good. T.T I didn't write anything meaningful at all, and not for lack of trying. There was lots of staring at a blank screen. I was stalled out on the warehouse ambush, stalled out on what to do next with Aaron (i.e. Alice), stalled out on how to finish up the Council meeting, and stalled out on what to do with the Jenya plotline. I tried to write some from the Rumen travel plotline - the part where he hands over Jenya to the Drunin - but it completely sucked, and I stopped after 226 words.
Which pretty much took out everyhting I had in mind to write. And so I sat there... and just had word constipation all day long.
In general. I need to get back to planning in regular fiction writing, in amongst all the freelancing I've been doing. Maybe one or two weekends a month or something. I've got three regular content-site gigs to juggle now though, so I don't know if I'll ever have time. I absolutely need to make at least $500 a month, absolute minimum. Until I can manage to do that and have time left over, fiction keeps ending up at the back of the line, and that needs to change.
Plus Nanowrimo is coming up fast, and I need to plan for it - both what I'm actually going to write (Triangle?) and how I'm going to do it and still pay bills without making it an all-savings month.
Day 1: 3677 words toward Vengeance
Day 2: 3861 toward Hand
Day 3: 266 words toward ... never mind. T.T
The first two days, I made a fair amount of good progress. The overall goal was just to write a lot, advance the amount of material to edit later. Well, I managed to accomplish that.
Day 1 was all about Vengeance. I wrote out yet another version of the planning in the park, then gave up on giving it a good ending and went on to the good part - getting them into the warehouse. That was a lot of fun. Lots of fast-paced action, and the writing went by really fast.
Then I got stuck on how they were actually going to get back out of the warehouse. It sank underground and now has a heavy metal plate over the hatch. My vision of things involves them doing something ingenious and complex going back out through the roof. This rules out any underground tunnels Hernando might know about in the area and tell Rumen about. Rumen could also call on his other underlings (Edward and David are still back home), but I'd like them to do it on their own. They have a ton of combat and trespassing skills among them, they should use them.
Unfortunately, my current setup isn't very complex, and there's only one exit. So, well, I guess they need to either find or create another one in the roof that the Bad Guy somehow doesn't have covered (even though he was very well-prepared for their arrival; he didn't have intel on them in particular, just knew "someone" would likely show up).
Also, it occurs to me that the Bad Guy wouldn't just leave them to sit around doing nothing (and possibly coming up with escape plans). He'd torment them to keep them busy, fill up their time so they don't have time to plan anything about getting out or messing up the midnight plans with Aaron. So, I need torture ideas too. They would probably be generalized ones to cover a lot of different types of creatures since he didn't know who exactly was going to come.
Hmmm. I suppose some of the torture plans might provide openings on how to get them back out of there. Especially if there's only one way in or out. Any tormentors would have to go in and out the same way, right?
The other thing I did that I really like is a scene from Aaron's POV. I hadn't originally wanted to do anything other than Craig's, but Aaron wanted to be written. I started at just before he had to leave the bookstore, agonizing about how Craig had stood him up. It went until he got to the warehouse (of course he was going), and Thorme has proposed the partnership. Now he's demanding to see Alice. He wants to make sure she's all right, and he'd like for her to go home before he agrees to anything, but Thorme isn't going with that.
Unfortunately, when I tried to write him and Alice meeting up, that didn't go anywhere useful. So I have to rethink what Alice's role is going to be in this whole thing.
Day 2 was all about the Tragedy of the Hand. Since I was stuck at the warehouse scene, and the Alice scene had floundered, I figured I'd do something else instead.
Again, I liked the progress I made. I realized that the story actually starts back when the rogue vampire (the ancient retard) eats the Drunin witch. So I wrote that first. It sucked, but I can fix it in the rewrite. Then they were at the coroner, and then I touched on a whole lot of other minor plot points that needed to be introduced, and then I wrote the Council meeting. It turned out to be the best meeting scene I've written yet. I found it wildly entertaining, when normally my meetings tend to be really boring. So, yay. ;)
Then I stalled out when the meeting was almost over, on how exactly to introduce Cassandra's decoy subplot. Now that I've thought about it some, I might just delete that whole part out of the meeting and have it in discussion with Blaze instead. Or something.
I also finally got around to rereading the material from Labor Day 2008, when I first started this project. Gray's personality is completely different when he's talking to Cassandra. o.o He's also a lot more open about himself than I envision him now. Fortunately, I think the first scene, at least, is probably salvageable nearly as-is, and I can probably cannibalize large chunks of the second scene. Regardless, in this 2010 version, I haven't even introduced Cassandra yet. Though it should be only a scene or two away from the Council meeting scene.
As for Day 3 which is the end of today... not so good. T.T I didn't write anything meaningful at all, and not for lack of trying. There was lots of staring at a blank screen. I was stalled out on the warehouse ambush, stalled out on what to do next with Aaron (i.e. Alice), stalled out on how to finish up the Council meeting, and stalled out on what to do with the Jenya plotline. I tried to write some from the Rumen travel plotline - the part where he hands over Jenya to the Drunin - but it completely sucked, and I stopped after 226 words.
Which pretty much took out everyhting I had in mind to write. And so I sat there... and just had word constipation all day long.
In general. I need to get back to planning in regular fiction writing, in amongst all the freelancing I've been doing. Maybe one or two weekends a month or something. I've got three regular content-site gigs to juggle now though, so I don't know if I'll ever have time. I absolutely need to make at least $500 a month, absolute minimum. Until I can manage to do that and have time left over, fiction keeps ending up at the back of the line, and that needs to change.
Plus Nanowrimo is coming up fast, and I need to plan for it - both what I'm actually going to write (Triangle?) and how I'm going to do it and still pay bills without making it an all-savings month.
2008/09/28
Preparing for Nanowrimo 2008
Well, we're just over a month away, and for the life of me I can't convince myself to think about anything other than the Rumen stories. This looks like it'll be the first year where I don't work on something in the Fortress Launne setting.
A lot of things are horribly broken about the Fortress Launne setting. Lots of inconsistencies and contradictions that I'm not sure can be explained away. The way it got set up originally was with several individual stories around the timeline of one character's life. As the worldbuilding went on, other characters became important - and they have their own stories. It turns out that not all of these stories fit peaceably together with each other in the same setting. But all of them have equal weight. I can't very well negate one story in favor of another, so I'm not sure it's fixable. And thinking about it just makes me tired and not want to work on it.
The Rumen stories, on the other hand, aren't as fleshed out - and the details aren't as set in stone. There's also only one actual story - and I have a good grasp on which parts of it are story and which are merely details. Inconsistencies have come up, but I can still just change whole swaths of the setting to accommodate. It's much easier to work with overall.
So for Nanowrimo 2008, the plan is to add on to what I started at Labor Day 2008. Technically it's against the rules to work on something that's already been started. But this is the one that really wants to be written, so who am I to argue?
The End of Rage story has four main characters, each with their own subplots. So far I've barely mentioned the one surrounding Rumen himself. For Nanowrimo, I'll just start at the beginning of that one and work my way forward until I run into the parts I've already written. It probably won't last 50,000 words, but I'll figure something out by the time that comes up... >.>
A lot of things are horribly broken about the Fortress Launne setting. Lots of inconsistencies and contradictions that I'm not sure can be explained away. The way it got set up originally was with several individual stories around the timeline of one character's life. As the worldbuilding went on, other characters became important - and they have their own stories. It turns out that not all of these stories fit peaceably together with each other in the same setting. But all of them have equal weight. I can't very well negate one story in favor of another, so I'm not sure it's fixable. And thinking about it just makes me tired and not want to work on it.
The Rumen stories, on the other hand, aren't as fleshed out - and the details aren't as set in stone. There's also only one actual story - and I have a good grasp on which parts of it are story and which are merely details. Inconsistencies have come up, but I can still just change whole swaths of the setting to accommodate. It's much easier to work with overall.
So for Nanowrimo 2008, the plan is to add on to what I started at Labor Day 2008. Technically it's against the rules to work on something that's already been started. But this is the one that really wants to be written, so who am I to argue?
The End of Rage story has four main characters, each with their own subplots. So far I've barely mentioned the one surrounding Rumen himself. For Nanowrimo, I'll just start at the beginning of that one and work my way forward until I run into the parts I've already written. It probably won't last 50,000 words, but I'll figure something out by the time that comes up... >.>
2008/09/02
Labor Day Novel 2008: Day Three
7685 words to end the weekend.
This story has turned out to be the kind that's not written in the order it will be read. Basically, Rumen and Jenya have scenes now, but they aren't intro scenes, they're middle scenes. At some point I need to come up with stuff that leads up to these middle scenes, so I can explain who they are and how they got where they are. I'm not sure at this point which types of early scenes are going to be important enough to put on stage, however.
The main middle scene was where Jenya finds out that Rumen is a vampire. That was basically my whole day. The next scene with Rumen as viewpoint character is going to be during the battle, so I have to write everything else leading up to the battle first. And give Jenya viewpoint so I can show off parts of the plot that Rumen wouldn't get to see (he's now in a jail cell, and nobody sees any reason to actually talk to him about anything other than "omgxorz you're a vampire").
The next time I pick all this up, it'll be to figure out what Cassandra's quest is. She's going to have some kind of part in the battle, but it can't be as the leader of the whole shebang because the point is to prove she can do it, and they wouldn't put someone unproven in charge. Also, Gray can't be in charge (even though he's the most obvious guy to run it), because of possible loyalty conflicts; even though he's bound to the Crown, he still has a "dangerous" amount of wiggle room between following the letter of commands and following the spirit. I'm not sure who's going to run the show. Maybe the Crown himself.
It has also occurred to me that the quest assignment has to happen fairly early on - well before the battle - so she can prepare. So although I have a number of Hand scenes, and they're roughly in chronological order, there turns out to be much wider timegaps in between them than I originally thought, and I'll have to fill those in.
I've also decided that this is the End of Rage part of Rumen's timeline. This version of Rumen is still fairly young, not so powerful, not so experienced, and not suffering from the pain of losing Alec, whom he hasn't met yet. This means that I'll need another story to fill in End of Vengeance was about. Eventually. Maybe. No real hurry though since there's plenty of stuff to write at the moment already. I could just end up synopsizing it in flashbacks during Vengeance Returns.
This story has turned out to be the kind that's not written in the order it will be read. Basically, Rumen and Jenya have scenes now, but they aren't intro scenes, they're middle scenes. At some point I need to come up with stuff that leads up to these middle scenes, so I can explain who they are and how they got where they are. I'm not sure at this point which types of early scenes are going to be important enough to put on stage, however.
The main middle scene was where Jenya finds out that Rumen is a vampire. That was basically my whole day. The next scene with Rumen as viewpoint character is going to be during the battle, so I have to write everything else leading up to the battle first. And give Jenya viewpoint so I can show off parts of the plot that Rumen wouldn't get to see (he's now in a jail cell, and nobody sees any reason to actually talk to him about anything other than "omgxorz you're a vampire").
The next time I pick all this up, it'll be to figure out what Cassandra's quest is. She's going to have some kind of part in the battle, but it can't be as the leader of the whole shebang because the point is to prove she can do it, and they wouldn't put someone unproven in charge. Also, Gray can't be in charge (even though he's the most obvious guy to run it), because of possible loyalty conflicts; even though he's bound to the Crown, he still has a "dangerous" amount of wiggle room between following the letter of commands and following the spirit. I'm not sure who's going to run the show. Maybe the Crown himself.
It has also occurred to me that the quest assignment has to happen fairly early on - well before the battle - so she can prepare. So although I have a number of Hand scenes, and they're roughly in chronological order, there turns out to be much wider timegaps in between them than I originally thought, and I'll have to fill those in.
I've also decided that this is the End of Rage part of Rumen's timeline. This version of Rumen is still fairly young, not so powerful, not so experienced, and not suffering from the pain of losing Alec, whom he hasn't met yet. This means that I'll need another story to fill in End of Vengeance was about. Eventually. Maybe. No real hurry though since there's plenty of stuff to write at the moment already. I could just end up synopsizing it in flashbacks during Vengeance Returns.
2008/09/01
Labor Day Novel 2008: Day Two
5672 words.
[members-only cut]
I now have a ton of different plot threads started:
1. Cassandra's plotline. She's the princess that has just come of age, doesn't at all want to be stuck with the normal fate of princesses, which is to get married off to a neighboring kingdom as an alliance exchange. Her father, the king, has noticed that she would make a better ruler than either of his sons, who are both morons. But she needs to do something to prove her worth to the Council, who are going to balk because she's a girl. So, little does she know that there's some sort of quest in her future, just as soon as I figure out the details...
2. Meanwhile, the city of Trincal is about to go to war against the druids. They've discovered a "secret weapon" in the form of an old, powerful, yet retarded vampire who is really spectacularly good at sucking the lifeforce out of everything. They have no idea what he is, other than "some sort of lifeforce sucking demon", and they've been carefully herding him in the direction of an underground passage that leads straight to Duuniain, the druid's main village. And they're planning to coordinate an attack at the same time as he arrives to there.
For his part, his mental capacity is basically on the level of "braaaaaaaiiinnnsss..." - and the lifeforce energy on druidic lands is extra delicious, and he really really wants to go there just as soon as he finds a way. He's been bumbling around in the Trincal sewers while the rest of the city coordinates.
Cassandra's quest is probably going to have something to do with all this.
3. Meanwhile again, Rumen is a powerful vampire, and he has been living among the druids for the past 16 years. Trincal doesn't know about him, and the druids don't know he's a vampire either (otherwise they would've evicted from the lands by now, as they hate vampires). He was just going about his business eating a random Trincal resident, when he overheard the battle plans. He's going to rush home to tell them, only to find that they've discovered he's a vampire, so they're going to lock him up until they figure out what to do with him. After all, even though he's a vampire, he's also been an honored guest for 16 years and has helped them out a bunch during that time.
Since vampires are telepathically aware of each other, he knows about the other one, doesn't like him, but doesn't have any idea that the other guy is the "secret weapon."
4. Jenya is a young girl whom Rumen adopted as an infant, 16 years ago. Her dying mother placed her in Rumen's care, not having any idea what he was. For some reason he actually honored her dying wish and brought the baby to her people, which are the druids. This whole story is also supposed to be about Jenya discovering that her "revered grandfather" is actually a vampire in disguise, and coming to terms with that. I haven't figured out how to introduce her yet.
That's the Beginning, anyway. My thoughts for the middle so far:
1. Trincal attacks Duuniain. They fail, because Rumen is in there to defeat their secret weapon.
2. Cassandra, who was involved in the attack, ends up stranded in druid lands. So does Gray, who has been charged with teaching her how to be leaderlike instead of merely ladylike. Gray was raised by the druids, so once he's cut off from the Crown and the oath that binds him to Trincal, he can start going unhinged about everything that's happened to him in his life.
3. Lots of high minded philosophical existentialist debates on what to do about Rumen. This will go on until the battle, at which point he proves that he's on their side, which then complicates the debates. Eventually, it's up to Jenya to decide his fate. I'm hoping she'll decide to let him go, preferably in peace. (Because if she decides that she hates him, he'll be sad. He'll still go - it's not like they can actually lock him up for real or kill him unless he lets them, which he won't.)
4. I haven't decided what part of Rumen's timeline this is. It could be right after his first rampage when he was mad at the world for having become a vampire. Or it could be the rampage after Alec got killed by a hunter, when he killed the hunter's entire family line. If I'm hoping to match all this up to the Sacramento story with Craig, it would have to be the latter. See, Craig comes into it as the one member of the hunter's family line that Rumen missed, who has been trying to hunt down Rumen ever since... On the other hand, the whole setup with Trincal could also make sense as when Rumen first met Alec in the first place.
5. I also have no idea whether the Trincal MCs are going to run into Rumen and Jenya, and what will happen if they do.
And now I'm going to head off and brainstorm up a proper intro for Jenya. Her story starts right at the point where she discovers he's not who she thought he was, and I need to set up the circumstances for that....
[members-only cut]
I now have a ton of different plot threads started:
1. Cassandra's plotline. She's the princess that has just come of age, doesn't at all want to be stuck with the normal fate of princesses, which is to get married off to a neighboring kingdom as an alliance exchange. Her father, the king, has noticed that she would make a better ruler than either of his sons, who are both morons. But she needs to do something to prove her worth to the Council, who are going to balk because she's a girl. So, little does she know that there's some sort of quest in her future, just as soon as I figure out the details...
2. Meanwhile, the city of Trincal is about to go to war against the druids. They've discovered a "secret weapon" in the form of an old, powerful, yet retarded vampire who is really spectacularly good at sucking the lifeforce out of everything. They have no idea what he is, other than "some sort of lifeforce sucking demon", and they've been carefully herding him in the direction of an underground passage that leads straight to Duuniain, the druid's main village. And they're planning to coordinate an attack at the same time as he arrives to there.
For his part, his mental capacity is basically on the level of "braaaaaaaiiinnnsss..." - and the lifeforce energy on druidic lands is extra delicious, and he really really wants to go there just as soon as he finds a way. He's been bumbling around in the Trincal sewers while the rest of the city coordinates.
Cassandra's quest is probably going to have something to do with all this.
3. Meanwhile again, Rumen is a powerful vampire, and he has been living among the druids for the past 16 years. Trincal doesn't know about him, and the druids don't know he's a vampire either (otherwise they would've evicted from the lands by now, as they hate vampires). He was just going about his business eating a random Trincal resident, when he overheard the battle plans. He's going to rush home to tell them, only to find that they've discovered he's a vampire, so they're going to lock him up until they figure out what to do with him. After all, even though he's a vampire, he's also been an honored guest for 16 years and has helped them out a bunch during that time.
Since vampires are telepathically aware of each other, he knows about the other one, doesn't like him, but doesn't have any idea that the other guy is the "secret weapon."
4. Jenya is a young girl whom Rumen adopted as an infant, 16 years ago. Her dying mother placed her in Rumen's care, not having any idea what he was. For some reason he actually honored her dying wish and brought the baby to her people, which are the druids. This whole story is also supposed to be about Jenya discovering that her "revered grandfather" is actually a vampire in disguise, and coming to terms with that. I haven't figured out how to introduce her yet.
That's the Beginning, anyway. My thoughts for the middle so far:
1. Trincal attacks Duuniain. They fail, because Rumen is in there to defeat their secret weapon.
2. Cassandra, who was involved in the attack, ends up stranded in druid lands. So does Gray, who has been charged with teaching her how to be leaderlike instead of merely ladylike. Gray was raised by the druids, so once he's cut off from the Crown and the oath that binds him to Trincal, he can start going unhinged about everything that's happened to him in his life.
3. Lots of high minded philosophical existentialist debates on what to do about Rumen. This will go on until the battle, at which point he proves that he's on their side, which then complicates the debates. Eventually, it's up to Jenya to decide his fate. I'm hoping she'll decide to let him go, preferably in peace. (Because if she decides that she hates him, he'll be sad. He'll still go - it's not like they can actually lock him up for real or kill him unless he lets them, which he won't.)
4. I haven't decided what part of Rumen's timeline this is. It could be right after his first rampage when he was mad at the world for having become a vampire. Or it could be the rampage after Alec got killed by a hunter, when he killed the hunter's entire family line. If I'm hoping to match all this up to the Sacramento story with Craig, it would have to be the latter. See, Craig comes into it as the one member of the hunter's family line that Rumen missed, who has been trying to hunt down Rumen ever since... On the other hand, the whole setup with Trincal could also make sense as when Rumen first met Alec in the first place.
5. I also have no idea whether the Trincal MCs are going to run into Rumen and Jenya, and what will happen if they do.
And now I'm going to head off and brainstorm up a proper intro for Jenya. Her story starts right at the point where she discovers he's not who she thought he was, and I need to set up the circumstances for that....
2008/08/31
Labor Day Novel 2008
I'm 3925 words in to Tragedy of the Hand. Well, actually some of it is still technically called End of Vengeance (as opposed to the later half of it with Craig, which is Vengeance Returns) (although, actually, that back half might end up being End of Rage which is similar and yet completely different. I haven't decided yet.).
Uh, anyway. Most of the words is one chapter with four scenes in a market. It introduced Cassandra, the main MC who was originally going to get most of the viewpoints, and Gray, the second MC who is the tragic Hand. I'm only a paragraph into the second chapter.
Then I also wrote a small prologue-like opener to the Rumen half of the story, which happened sixteen years earlier. I'm not sure where I'm going with that part of the story yet - whether to continue from in that timeframe or jump forward to the "present."
And the third thread that I could continue, and have it still count since it's technically still all the same story, is Chapter 4 where Craig meets Aaron. I might end up doing that if I get stalled out on both of the other two too long.
I have no illusions that I'll end up with a finished novelette-sized story by the end of this weekend. Basically I'm just declaring the time Fiction Top Priority, and getting as much fiction written as I can.
After it's over, I'll have to switch to nonfiction (mainly eHow) for the next two months before Nanowrimo. Robert mentioned an excellent idea: I can write about stuff that writers will care about (how to attach lasers to the heads of sharks, etc.), and pimp them all on the Nanowrimo Q&A board. The obvious corollary is that I can get article ideas by reading the Q&A board as well. Writerly subjects might only be popular for two months per year, but there are a lot of writers...
Uh, anyway. Most of the words is one chapter with four scenes in a market. It introduced Cassandra, the main MC who was originally going to get most of the viewpoints, and Gray, the second MC who is the tragic Hand. I'm only a paragraph into the second chapter.
Then I also wrote a small prologue-like opener to the Rumen half of the story, which happened sixteen years earlier. I'm not sure where I'm going with that part of the story yet - whether to continue from in that timeframe or jump forward to the "present."
And the third thread that I could continue, and have it still count since it's technically still all the same story, is Chapter 4 where Craig meets Aaron. I might end up doing that if I get stalled out on both of the other two too long.
I have no illusions that I'll end up with a finished novelette-sized story by the end of this weekend. Basically I'm just declaring the time Fiction Top Priority, and getting as much fiction written as I can.
After it's over, I'll have to switch to nonfiction (mainly eHow) for the next two months before Nanowrimo. Robert mentioned an excellent idea: I can write about stuff that writers will care about (how to attach lasers to the heads of sharks, etc.), and pimp them all on the Nanowrimo Q&A board. The obvious corollary is that I can get article ideas by reading the Q&A board as well. Writerly subjects might only be popular for two months per year, but there are a lot of writers...
2008/07/21
State of My Life: Mid-2008
Well, basically, I'm doing almost no fiction writing.
Roleplay load was exceptionally light in the past six months, after I mothballed my game. It was so light that I reached a point where I missed all my players, so I started it back up again a few weeks ago, right on July 1st. I'm also still technically helping with another game (though in practice I don't have to do much, just a couple posts every two weeks or so), and playing in three others. Grand total: playing 6 characters in 4 games, running one game with 9 active/semi-active players. Everything moves slowly. I'm allegedly trying to join a 5th game, but it might've already died.
Oh, and What is it to be Human? got deleted. Line hasn't been seen on RPoL since last June or so, so he wasn't around to undelete it, and then they purged it from the system entirely, so it's gone for good. :(
Aside from roleplay posts, my fiction writing is nonexistent. I did finish off Chapter 10 on the bus story, but it turned out to only need another 41 words. The lengthy scene I'd been thinking to write turns out to be superfluous, and so I'm going to skip some travel time and start Chapter 11 at the bus stop in Clarkston. So far I haven't figured out all the details of the setup to that yet.
I also figured out that the back part of Vengeance and Tragedy of the Hand are actually opposite sides of the same story. Which, well, should've been obvious, considering that I was using the same setting for both. That makes a lot of things easier overall. At the rate I've not gotten started writing any of it, though, it'll probably end up being my Labor Day 2008 project.
In nonfiction news, I've been writing articles on eHow. It's a website for how-to articles about anything and everything, and they have a program where you can get royalties (sort of). It's an ad-revenue-share scheme. Robert has had a bunch of art articles up there since last fall, and he's getting a lot of money off them, so I know it's legit. He also has a few articles up at HubPages, which doesn't have quite as restrictive a format, but he's not been there long enough yet to see whether it's worth writing for for me. I write extremely slowly, and he's highly prolific, so it works best if I just watch what he does instead of expending tons of effort personally. ;)
As for life in general. I took up yoga in January, quit the takeout job in May, rearranged my work schedule at the main job in June, and try to get offline more nowadays than I used to. I use the apartment complex pool more often than before (which was never), and have gotten to know some of the neighbors - including a rambunctious 5-year-old who is totally fearless when it comes to talking to strangers.
I also have a number of small potted plants - chives, basil, and tomatoes, and I've once again begun thinking about starting up my 20-gallon fishtank. Maybe this summer I'll actually do it...
Roleplay load was exceptionally light in the past six months, after I mothballed my game. It was so light that I reached a point where I missed all my players, so I started it back up again a few weeks ago, right on July 1st. I'm also still technically helping with another game (though in practice I don't have to do much, just a couple posts every two weeks or so), and playing in three others. Grand total: playing 6 characters in 4 games, running one game with 9 active/semi-active players. Everything moves slowly. I'm allegedly trying to join a 5th game, but it might've already died.
Oh, and What is it to be Human? got deleted. Line hasn't been seen on RPoL since last June or so, so he wasn't around to undelete it, and then they purged it from the system entirely, so it's gone for good. :(
Aside from roleplay posts, my fiction writing is nonexistent. I did finish off Chapter 10 on the bus story, but it turned out to only need another 41 words. The lengthy scene I'd been thinking to write turns out to be superfluous, and so I'm going to skip some travel time and start Chapter 11 at the bus stop in Clarkston. So far I haven't figured out all the details of the setup to that yet.
I also figured out that the back part of Vengeance and Tragedy of the Hand are actually opposite sides of the same story. Which, well, should've been obvious, considering that I was using the same setting for both. That makes a lot of things easier overall. At the rate I've not gotten started writing any of it, though, it'll probably end up being my Labor Day 2008 project.
In nonfiction news, I've been writing articles on eHow. It's a website for how-to articles about anything and everything, and they have a program where you can get royalties (sort of). It's an ad-revenue-share scheme. Robert has had a bunch of art articles up there since last fall, and he's getting a lot of money off them, so I know it's legit. He also has a few articles up at HubPages, which doesn't have quite as restrictive a format, but he's not been there long enough yet to see whether it's worth writing for for me. I write extremely slowly, and he's highly prolific, so it works best if I just watch what he does instead of expending tons of effort personally. ;)
As for life in general. I took up yoga in January, quit the takeout job in May, rearranged my work schedule at the main job in June, and try to get offline more nowadays than I used to. I use the apartment complex pool more often than before (which was never), and have gotten to know some of the neighbors - including a rambunctious 5-year-old who is totally fearless when it comes to talking to strangers.
I also have a number of small potted plants - chives, basil, and tomatoes, and I've once again begun thinking about starting up my 20-gallon fishtank. Maybe this summer I'll actually do it...
2008/04/14
Things I'm allegedly working on
In no particular order:
1. Edward. Need to move forward with what happens after the ritual. Either that or rewrite the ritual from Charles' point of view.
2. The Emerald Sword story from last September. I'm five chapters into it. It's on the backburner at the moment, with some inspiration going into it from the (currently defunct) Dragon Cave game.
3. Vengeance. I started chapter 3, where Craig is standing in Hernando's main audience chamber, meeting the MOC for the first time. I sort of faltered to a stop when I realized that I don't understand Hernando's motives clearly enough - namely, why don't they just kill Craig off and be done with it? (And perhaps more important, do I actually need to have a motive worked out in advance or not?)
4. Tragedy of the Hand. This is the one I haven't started yet, just have lots of notes drawn up. It's inspired by the Within Temptation song. If my current level of procrastination keeps up, maybe I'll just do it for Labor Day novel next September...
5. Stranger on a Bus. My 2005 Labor Day novel. Ten chapters done, two or three left to do. I've been stalled a bit because I have to come up with some kind of coherent wrap-up ending, instead of just continuing to make stuff up off the top of my head ad infinitum.
6. At this point I haven't the foggiest idea what my 2008 Nanowrimo is going to be about. I might take another stab at Birthright. I tried that last November but then got very focused on Edward, and never really got into Birthright at all.
1. Edward. Need to move forward with what happens after the ritual. Either that or rewrite the ritual from Charles' point of view.
2. The Emerald Sword story from last September. I'm five chapters into it. It's on the backburner at the moment, with some inspiration going into it from the (currently defunct) Dragon Cave game.
3. Vengeance. I started chapter 3, where Craig is standing in Hernando's main audience chamber, meeting the MOC for the first time. I sort of faltered to a stop when I realized that I don't understand Hernando's motives clearly enough - namely, why don't they just kill Craig off and be done with it? (And perhaps more important, do I actually need to have a motive worked out in advance or not?)
4. Tragedy of the Hand. This is the one I haven't started yet, just have lots of notes drawn up. It's inspired by the Within Temptation song. If my current level of procrastination keeps up, maybe I'll just do it for Labor Day novel next September...
5. Stranger on a Bus. My 2005 Labor Day novel. Ten chapters done, two or three left to do. I've been stalled a bit because I have to come up with some kind of coherent wrap-up ending, instead of just continuing to make stuff up off the top of my head ad infinitum.
6. At this point I haven't the foggiest idea what my 2008 Nanowrimo is going to be about. I might take another stab at Birthright. I tried that last November but then got very focused on Edward, and never really got into Birthright at all.
2008/03/02
New Plot Bunny: "The Hand"
Well, it turns out that the song I mentioned in my last post was inspired by a trilogy someone else already wrote - Farseer by Robin Hobb.
However, that didn't stop my brain from munching on it anyway, only not as something that has to do with Moraina and James, but as a completely different story. I think it'll be the same overall fuzzy setting that everything else is in, because I keep borrowing setting elements back and forth between them all - but the characters are all-new, and the story is based on the song lyrics. (Well, the backstory of one of the characters is copied from a snippet of backstory to something I wrote for Rumen... still, no reason why I can't use it twice...).
So far I have three key characters, a whole lot of political setup and background worked out, the opening scene, some fuzzy middle plot twists, and two elements of the ending. I've heard that for a lot of other people, that's enough to start doing the actual writing.
Guess I'll give it a go and see what happens. :)
However, that didn't stop my brain from munching on it anyway, only not as something that has to do with Moraina and James, but as a completely different story. I think it'll be the same overall fuzzy setting that everything else is in, because I keep borrowing setting elements back and forth between them all - but the characters are all-new, and the story is based on the song lyrics. (Well, the backstory of one of the characters is copied from a snippet of backstory to something I wrote for Rumen... still, no reason why I can't use it twice...).
So far I have three key characters, a whole lot of political setup and background worked out, the opening scene, some fuzzy middle plot twists, and two elements of the ending. I've heard that for a lot of other people, that's enough to start doing the actual writing.
Guess I'll give it a go and see what happens. :)
2008/02/27
Moraina
Last Labor Day Novel, I wrote the beginning of a story which looks like it wants to be the prequel to the Duchene saga. It was inspired by Emerald Sword by Rhapsody of Fire.
Tonight I may have found the theme music for something else. Hand of Sorrow by Within Temptation may be my inspiration for what comes after - either Part III which will focus on the story of James, or a sequel to the entire saga. The song could easily be about the story from Moraina's perspective.
I'm going to let it bake in the back of my mind until next September and see what happens by then.
UPDATE: Never mind. Apparently it's based on the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb. I can't exactly rewrite that...
Tonight I may have found the theme music for something else. Hand of Sorrow by Within Temptation may be my inspiration for what comes after - either Part III which will focus on the story of James, or a sequel to the entire saga. The song could easily be about the story from Moraina's perspective.
I'm going to let it bake in the back of my mind until next September and see what happens by then.
UPDATE: Never mind. Apparently it's based on the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb. I can't exactly rewrite that...
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