Prepping for Nanowrimo 2018!

It's been a busy year since last Nanowrimo, and very little of it had anything to do with fiction writing. I applied for and got accepted into a PhD program at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Then I severely downsized my possessions to less than a quarter of what I had at this time last year, packed the surviving stuff into a U-Haul trailer that was just slightly less than the total weight that a Prius V could haul, drove it from Alabama to California, shipped it, sold the car, and got on a plane. And now I'm living in Nelson, NZ. The shipped stuff should arrive next month, by which time I will hopefully be living in a flat big enough to hold all of it without having to rent extra storage.

Needless to say, I haven't thought much about fiction in the last year. I did start cabins for Camp Nanowrimo both times, but mostly just watched the rest of my cabin mates write lots of words and cheered them on.  I'm relatively settled at the moment however (up until I move again and sort in my shipped stuff at least), so I took a look at the situation here.

On the Nanowrimo site, Nelson is under "New Zealand - Elsewhere" - which is basically everywhere that isn't a big city. So far no one has posted from the south island except me, so I assume I won't be going to any write-ins. (And even if there were people on the south island participating on the forum, I still probably wouldn't be able to go - it's a big island and I have no car).

So. What to work on this year. The two leading contenders are to continue with the Celestines project that I started last year, or to do more work on Fortress Launne. I'm leaning in the direction of the latter. About a third of Amulet II is getting moved into Triangle II Part 3, so the obvious next step is to write a full coherent version of Triangle II Part 3. I'm not sure I'll have anywhere near 50k words by the time I'm done, so I figure I'll do like last year and continue the Celestines from where I left off (if I have time).

The synopsis I just posted on Nanowrimo:

Triangle II is a three-part story where I've written most of the first draft material for the first two parts as parts of previous Nanos and other writing events, though mostly with the idea that they would be parts of other things than Triangle II, which didn't exist as an entity until after I'd written them (and large amounts of other Fortress Launne).

In Triangle II Part 1, the story follows Janis as she goes deep into the swamps to find a mythical medicine man named Aliacorba, because the city of Fortress Launne has a severe plague going on. Aliacorba agrees to come out and help. In the process he becomes Thomas Cougar.

In Triangle II Part 2, the king of Fortress Launne finds out about Thomas. Due to various political complexities, Thomas is (more or less) kidnapped away from Janis, and the royal intention is that they'll never see each other again. Thomas then goes on to finish solving the plague with all the resources of the king and court.

Triangle II Part 3 goes back to following Janis, who is not happy at all about Thomas's disappearance. Up until last year I didn't have any good ideas of what she was going to do next. I knew where things were supposed to end up, but not how to get there. Last year while preparing to rewrite Amulet II, I noticed that a good third of the first draft material would work a lot better if it was part of Triangle II instead.

So, this year I plan to properly write up Triangle II Part 3. Like last year, it might not be 50k words long (if it works the same way as for previous novel parts, the final result will be around 20-25k). If I have time at the end and still need words, I'll tack in work on something unrelated.

Bottom of Day 20

23,291 words.

This is not turning out to be a very wordy Nanowrimo for me. At this point I'll be happy if I get to the end of Amulet II. Which is likely within the next 5k words or so. Of course, I thought that I'd be done by 20k words, and then ended up going off on lots of roundabout tangents, and that might happen some more...

I've written most of what I said I needed to write in the previous post at this point. Haven't got back to the lemming basket, not sure if I will or not. There was one snag in there, when I reread Amulet I to refresh my memory on what happened with the pearl, and noticed that Aliacorba had actually taken it with him back then. So I had to write about 300 words of Triangle II to get Janis to put it back, so that it would be in position for the mages to steal it.

Overall, this whole story feels like it's just there to bridge gaps between stuff that happened earlier, and stuff that happened later. I'll have to assume that when I come back to it again, after some time off, that I'll be able to figure out how to make it its own worthwhile tale.

Next up: writing out the fallout after the funeral, where Antoine leaves the city. The original point of the story was to get Antoine and Adrien out of the picture via clashing with Mindy. I no longer remember why they need to be out of the picture, but, well, it's what my master timeline says happened, so...

At the starting line for Nanowrimo 2017

I've managed to read Amulet II in detail and make some notes. Broadly, about a third of it is getting moved to Triangle II.

Specifically, the parts about land disputes that I was originally just going to cut for being boring. It turns out that in there was my perfectly plausible motivation for Janis to set up her culture center, which is what Triangle II part 3 is supposed to be about. I will probably still change the details so that they're less boring, but the general gist is that a real estate developer wants to turn portions of sacred native folk land into a suburb, and the native folk need to unite to stop that. It will also be a good time for Amato Bordoni to have met Mindy in the first place, since that's about when he first appeared in the area.

The rest of Amulet II then just becomes Antoine and Adrien collecting magical artwork, discovering that some of it is on Mindy's secret farm, and trying to convince Mindy to let them onto her farm. While they're doing that, they veer uncomfortably close to Nathaniel's north anchor point, which would be why he wants to get rid of them, which would be why he would've told Mindy about Antoine's dirty secrets from his past so that she can embarrass him in public and cause his superiors to recall and reassign him.

There are hints in there about how Mindy has problems of her own with smuggling rare artwork to please a faction in Myan. I was trying to come up with a reason why Mindy wouldn't've just handed over (or sold at exorbitant rates) the artwork she found on her farm. So that needs to get more fleshed out and will tie into stuff that happens in Birthright and possibly also Fall of Myan.

There are also character bits about Thomas and Jacob getting to know each other better, Felicia getting introduced in general and to Mindy, Chance and Sarabelle being friends, etc. Some of that needs to be reworked, but the general gist should stay the same.

There's also the matter of the portal into the fae realm that the mages discover, and whether they're going to do anything interesting about it at some point in the story. At the very least, this would've been when Felicia first saw the Golden Flame, which means in Temple she would've known about what and where it is (so, more revisions to Temple). I'm kind of thinking I can't just leave all of that hanging while the plot twists away from it and never goes back... is Amulet II the best place to reveal all the details about Arthur Glorian? I'm not sure. Maybe it's as good a place as any, since I'm not sure what else Amulet II is good for. At the moment it kind of feels like a filler story. It would probably have some strong effects on all the books that happen after it though.

Finally, my current thought about Triangle I from Antoine's perspective is that the poisoning of Frank was an accident after all. That would make things simpler than coming up with some sort of complicated plot about it. What he was trying to do was establish a secret control mechanism on Frank, unbeknownst to Frank and Henry, that he could activate whenever Frank was asleep. That would've been his way of fulfilling the assignment to gain a foothold on the king. Only, it went wrong...

I'm not sure how to proceed with all of that worked out. The obvious next step is more a matter of revision than writing anything new, and I'm not sure new writing is going to come anywhere close to 50,000 words. I might also put some more work into Triangle II this month to round things out.

General updates

I'm at 31,032 words near the bottom of the 21st. I'm a bit behind, but hopefully will manage to catch up over the weekend, assuming I can come up with things to write about. I'm kind of stalled out on just about everything at this point.

Amulet I - I caved and wrote down the entire backstory for the Demon part of the storyline, beginning with when Allen's mage circle summoned him in the first place, and stopping when they were in Aunlania. Amazingly, I'd never written any of this down anywhere before, other than bits and pieces in Light's Spiral into Blackness (an oWoD Dark Ages game I ran on RPoL). That got me 610 words. I suppose I should continue it in backstory mode to explain what the Sundering is, since at this point I have no idea how to tell that part of the story. This is what first drafts are for for most people, aren't they? To ramble on endlessly about backstory and info dump until I figure out what the info actually is?

As for James, I get the impression that the next scene to write is going to be set far in the future from the first scene, and it'll involve Charles coming home, and I won't know what goes into it until after I find out what happens with Charles and Felna.

Triangle II - well, I got past the part where Rebecca tries to eat Janis. There are now about 2600 words to a set of scenes that don't seem to have any purpose. And now I'm back to where I was before, with no idea where to go next.

Amulet II - I opened it and looked. I think what I'm going to end up doing is keep the main plotline about the Glorian artwork, the university vs. Mindy's farm, etc. and dump most of the other bits about land disputes. The land dispute parts were boring to write the first time, and as they say, the readers always can tell when the author is bored, so I might as well just dump it.

That means heavy revision moreso than adding new words. I'm not even sure how I'd continue from where I left off - which was, of course, why I probably stopped in the first place.

Temple - I suspect that I'm going to have to start working on this over the weekend. I need 9000 new words by the end. Probably won't make it, but it works better to aim high.

Myan - well, I have about 3000 words for the zombies demolishing Myan, then going to Fortress Launne, and attacking Lady Valdren's haven and the university. I stopped when I got the parts where I have to figure out who wins and who's going to be where to oppose them.

Passed 25k Today

Well, the theme of this whole Nanowrimo seems to be to do lots and lots of beginnings, and then stall out when I get to the part where plot needs to appear, and then move on to something else instead of trying to push through. So far I've done:

Amulet I - I wrote about 2200 words of James going back to the Duchene estate in Lagarnica, and meeting his current wife and new brother William. I'm not really sure where to go from there at this point. The new wife wants to kill James off so that William will inherit the estate. But I'm not sure if I'm all that excited about that storyline, not enough to actually write it.

Triangle I - I haven't done anything with this since the first day. 2200 words about Frank getting installed into his new body. It'll get broken up into individual scenes and put into appropriate places in the rest of the story later.

Triangle II - I have the most words on this one so far. 17.5k following what happens to Thomas in Jacob's house, getting the cure done, and then they and Josephine went off to Wild-hunt foodbeasts under the full moon. Meanwhile, Janis has a bunch more conversations with her grandmother. It stalled out where Janis was headed to talk to the city Eenin. She ran into Rebecca, who wants to eat her. Unfortunately, I'm not actually sure how exactly the protection on Janis works, because, once again, I need to figure out what the heck Aliacorba and Iorli agreed to, and it's stuck until I do. It has occurred to me, though, that Aliacorba would've had to give Iorli something in exchange during the pact, and I don't really know what that could be.

Amulet II - so far I haven't even opened this one. It's the farthest from my mind at the moment.

Temple - nothing on this one yet either. I'm assuming that this is going to be a huge project, and might be procrastinating starting on it until I've run out of all other, smaller things in the series to work on. This is probably going to be soon though, if I continue to be stuck on all the stuff I've already worked on.

Birthright - this was where I focused today. I wrote 3300 words covering what happens after they open the magic box. They ended up on the plain with the lamp post and met Arthur Glorian, and had a lot to say to each other. Then I tried to write about what happened after that scene, and I'm not actually sure what needs to happen next, without doing a lot of rereading of past material.

Myan - 1100 words so far. I started writing the attack on Myan from one of the zombies' point of view. They went through the center of the city, and then to Fortress Launne, and now they're about to attack the anchorpoints of Nathaniel's spell. The zombie that I'm following is headed over to the old art museum. Since zombies don't do a whole lot of thinking, or observing, of basically anything, I can almost freewrite what happens. Basically I'm just trying to get an idea of what actually happens, and I'll probably have to revise most of it later when I redo it from the point of view of actual characters. Once I figure out which characters that'll be.

Top of Day 12

17,937 words.

I'm basically stuck pretty good on Triangle II at the moment. Things have reached the point where before anything else can advance, Janis needs to decide that she wants to open a history/culture center. So far that thought has not occurred to her. She needs to go visit the city Eenin again to find out that they could really benefit from such a center. And that it would help the outlanders understand the forest Eenin better also, instead of being mired in all the misconceptions that they have about the native folk. Especially since the city Eenin don't, themselves, have a good grasp on their own heritage.

Unfortunately, that means I have to invent the city Eenin. Or re-invent them, rather. I had stuff from 2006, and maybe I can even figure out a way to use some of it, because there were some compelling scenes out of it. The whole context for their existence has shifted a lot, though. And now I'm kind of stuck on how to go about it.

On the other hand, while I was digging around in my notes from over a decade ago, back when this was still a WoD setting, to try to find the original inspiration behind why Janis wants to open the culture/history center (there basically wasn't anything specific), I stumbled across notes for the Myan end of the storyline. And now I kind of want to go work on that instead.

I wrote in this blog back then (2009) that the biggest problem was a lack of viewpoint characters. At this point I've decided that those are going to be Suunja Henderson and Martha Bernice Carlson to start with. That's going to be revision work though, not new work. What I need to write is the actual battles that destroy the city (or cities).

It occurs to me that it might actually work best to write that from the viewpoint of one of the zombies. Or, by extension, from the viewpoint of the Demon.

So far the Demon has had no screentime at all, no character development, nothing but a name. His role for most of the series is to be asleep. But I need to write him anyway because he's going to be in the third part of Amulet I. So why not get some glimpses into what he's like, what his motivations are, etc. as filtered through the eyes of a zombie?

I need 3000 words today. I think that's what I'm going to try next.

Late into Day 9

15,679 words so far. Most of them are in Triangle II.

I seem to be seriously stuck at the moment. Basically all of the plague parts of the story are done, and Jacob now knows that Janis and Thomas are related to each other in some way, and that she should stop trying to find him. He's still waiting for Thomas to try to escape from his house, which hasn't happened yet, because at the moment Thomas is set up pretty well there - he has standing social agreements with Asher Veren and Karai'nown, namely to teach them what he knows about the swamp plants, and he only just finished getting the age reversal ritual to Karai'nown. He has as much garden space as he needs, he was able to build himself a shed, etc. Basically he has a pretty good home and there's not really any good reason to want to leave it behind, other than that he's not allowed to go anywhere else without Jacob.

The biggest piece still missing from the story is that Janis needs to spend more time talking to the city Eenin, so that she can eventually have the brilliant idea to build a cultural center so that they can learn about their own culture and heritage without having to go all the way to the forest. I have no idea how to get this started or where it fits into the overall timeline. I tried rereading what I wrote in 2006 about it, but it's so dramatically overwrought and filled with parts that I can't use, that there's not really an obvious way to continue from it.

I suppose I could just skip ahead to where she already has the idea and is pitching it to Collins.

Or maybe I should look at other parts of the timeline for a while.

Hmm.

End of Day 4 on Nanowrimo 2014

Well, I seem to be at a stall point. That means it's time to update ye olde blog.

On Day 1, I wrote 2,374 words toward Triangle I. Basically I wrote out all the parts about Frank getting installed into his new body. That's pretty much all I had planned for Triangle I.

Then I started working on Triangle II. So far, there's been a scene where Jacob and Janis talk to each other as college professor and student, and he doesn't know who she is yet. He's assigned for his mentee, Mark, to accompany Janis on her next trip to visit the Eenin. That's actually the next thing I need to write - Janis showing Mark around Branitel before leaving him there (because he's not allowed to go farther than that) while she visits her grandmother to tell her what happened with Aliacorba.

Meanwhile, Thomas is at Jacob's house, plugging away at making a cure. He's set up his garden again, built a shed, and has just finished sending a sample plus instructions to the king (via Jacob). I'll need to add in later that he should've sent in some of the ingredients also. I haven't decided if I need a scene where Jacob talks to Henry, or if that would just go about completely uneventfully with nothing new introduced. I might try to write it to find out later.

At the moment, Thomas is in the garden talking to Asher Veren and a life shaman from the forest. That scene is kind of stuck at the moment. So I'll probably start tomorrow with Janis.

5535 total words so far.

My original plan was to do 4000 words per day that I don't have anything else to do (weekends, Thanksgiving) and 2000 words per Wednesday, and not plan anything for M, T, R, or F due to work. So far this isn't going according to plan. I didn't write nearly enough over the weekend, partly because I ended up doing a lot more socializing than I really should've - two write-ins where one was the kickoff meet and I wrote 87 words for the discard pile, and the other I managed about half normal speed. Hopefully the rest of the write-ins will be more about writing and less about talking, so that I get stuff done. And tomorrow (a Wed) if I focus, I should be able to knock out 2000 words in the morning before I have to attend a work-related webinar in the afternoon. That would only leave me about 4k words behind. :p

Second Draft: The Second Drafting ...

So far my second draft process for Fortress Launne seems to be:
1. Assemble all the drafts into one big file.
2. Skim them while compiling them into the one big file, but don't edit anything.
3. Make a duplicate copy of each draft to actually work on.
4. Do detailed rereads of each one. Make an outline of what the story looks like it's supposed to be.
5. Iterate. Rewrite the older stuff, write new stuff to fill all the holes.

I haven't done #4 for Amulet II or Myan yet, but it's certainly been a helpful exercise for the others.

The Flattening of a Temple

This was the one I wrote first (2004), and it has by far the most setting holes. It was also highly melodramatic - I can definitely tell that my writing skills improved as the years went by. The ones from 2007 forward are very readable as-is. Temple on the other hand, I think I'm basically going to have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

I'm probably going to keep the original structure idea, sort of. Start the story with the epic battle scene. Then have the king start an investigation into why that happened. Once the background is laid out, go back to the battle and cover all the parts that the king isn't going to find out about. End with Pedro. Of all the parts of the original draft, I really like the last few sentences with Pedro and Sarabelle.

The outline I made has pointed out a number of important holes in the story, too. Notably with Felicia. By the time I figure out how to fix that, I'm hoping it will also help with figuring out Antoine and the rest of the mages.

Other than that... well, I tried to reread my notes from all the tinkering I did between 2004 and 2006 or so. But I'm probably going to ignore most of it. It was a useful exercise for something, I'm sure, and all part of the process.

Amulet II

It basically has occurred to me that Triangle I -->Amulet II --> Temple is a story arc about the Reiter House. The tower gets built in Triangle I and demolished in Temple. So this one will likely make more sense from Antoine's point of view when I figure out what his point of view was in Triangle I - and also what Felicia's goals were in Temple.

Triangle II

The outline for this one turned out to be straightforward, much to my surprise. The first half is going to draw heavily on the Janis draft of 2006, where I basically wrote everything Janis is going to do and why, but didn't have the scenes in the right order, or the right setting elements pinned down yet. Then in the middle will be the court scene from Taint. And then there's a whole other half I haven't written yet, which will be from Jacob's point of view.

In general, the structure reminds me of Amulet I because it's in three parts (sort of). Only, the middle part with the king's court is actually quite short - only about 3 chapters or so. Whereas Aunlania is the longest part of Amulet I (so far, anyway). Also: the Janis part of the story, which will be around 20k words long, just like the Edward part of Amulet I ... can in fact actually be a completely complete story with all loose ends wrapped up and etc ... just like Edward's story would be if Lucien's spell actually worked.

I still find it kind of amusing that I had no idea that there was going to be a single coherent book in this part of the timeline until after I'd finished Nano 2006. Of course, on the other hand. I have a sneaking suspicion that what I'm writing isn't actually 7 novels. It's more like 15-20 novelettes, where each segment is 20k words long....

Amulet I

The broad outline for this one is relatively straightforward ... probably. I sort of plotted out a sensible order of useable scenes from the 2006 and 2007 attempts. And then there's huge new blanks to fill in again for what happens after I run out of outline, that explains why the Duchenes and the Eenin are talking to each other.

I don't know why I have so much trouble with this one. I'm starting to have doubts about whether the Duchenes are even supposed to be in the Fortress Launne series, since, as noted, the Edward part of the story could be its own completely independent story. Plus the random scene about Charles and a tree and a prophecy and etc. I kind of wish I'd gone with it now, just to see where it went, because the only other time a scene like that randomly appeared (Thomas and Arrun fleeing Edward in Amulet I 2005), it was because I was doing the whole rest of the story wrong.

The Fall of Myan

So far I've reread the first draft and reread my notes from this blog. The rough outline I'd figured on before is probably what it'll end up being - where it starts out by following Suunja, then he eventually runs into Martha, whereupon it then goes over Martha's storyline about Endron Oil, and then moves Suunja and Martha forward together until they run into the zombie storyline. Then it would cut back to the Rouge Rogues. Something like that.

Eventually I run out of both outline and draft, though. I haven't written what happens after the zombies start their attack. I stalled out on what specifically the attack strategy was. At some point I'm still going to have to figure that stuff out.

Birthright

This one also has a three-part structure. It starts with scenes of Janis and Felicia at the Culture Center, and ends with Jalai in Mindy's house (along with others). The whole middle is a mobster story where they fight over possession of the magic box. I don't think I should intersperse anything in between - better to just let the readers immerse in that one for the whole go. I have a fairly detailed outline for the mobsters. The biggest problem is that it needs some kind of satisfying ending, where everything gets resolved to the mobsters' satisfaction. I can't just suddenly take the box away from them and leave them all hanging.

Triangle I

A lot of this one is ready to go as-is. The biggest problem is a complete lack of motivation for Antoine. I need to give him either a really good reason to try to kill Frank, or, he was trying to do something else and poisoned Frank by accident. Either way, there needs to be more to the character than what I have at the moment. And have it somehow also be related to everything else the mages do in the other books.

I guess that's it for where things currently stand.

Day 15

34,498 words and I have no idea what I'm doing next. So, obviously, the thing to do is blather about it in a blog post...

Triangle I

Well, the triangle is coming along nicely. The forest point is arranged and ready to go, more or less. They're in the middle of working out the details of the actual ritual, but I don't think there's any need to put any of those parts on screen. The next time I mention it, it'll be them carrying out the ritual itself.

The chaos mage has been arranged to claim the southwest point. Very straightforward how it worked out, too - it was actually her suggestion to come to Fortress Launne. Basically the southwest point is going to become a portal for the Drunin (which I mentioned during Fall of Myan I think it was), and so it was simple enough for her to a) want there to be a portal, and b) suggest it as payment for making Frank's new body. All that's left is details, which I don't think needs a whole lot of on-screen time either. She just has to see the spot and then choose it, and she's not all that picky so she'll just go along with Nathaniel's suggestion (since Nathaniel knows that Antoine would prefer the southeast point).

Then of course, Antoine is basically going to get stuck with the southeast point. He's turned into a more minor character during all this. Which is certainly not how I envisioned things when I started, figuring he'd be the main POV character. Oh well? Anyway, again, boring details I don't really feel like writing up.

I guess I just need one short scene to say which gets which spot. I've decided not to let Antoine and Lady Valdren meet each other, as I can't see that going anywhere useful.

So where do I actually go from here anyway? I guess I'm basically done with setup? I should just go ahead and write the ritual? Oh, and the ritual to install Frank into his new body too. And initiate the spirit wolves. Hmmmm.

Triangle II

Well, Thomas is about to enter the city for the first time. The obvious first thing to write about is his reaction to a city, especially after spending so long alone in the swamps.

Then he has to go solve the plague. I'm thinking he'll visit Janis's friend Michael in the Temple of Healing so he can see it firsthand. How exactly he'll come up with a cure though, with no labspace or anything, I'm not sure yet.

And after he solves the plague, that's when Stranahan will haul him into court and it can go on from there. I'm not actually sure there's a "The End" to this anywhere...

End of Day 10 / Start of 11

23,530 words at the moment. I'm way behind where I need to be for a 100k month. On the other hand, the stuff I'm writing for Triangle II is outstanding.

Back when I first made Thomas for the IM game in 2002, I tried to write his story as a novel. It involved his great-granddaughter Janis coming into the swamps to bring him out, and him telling her his story. Well, I got about four pages into it. It was the best writing I could do at the time, and I really liked it - but the GM of the IM game that inspired Thomas's existence didn't, which basically stalled me out on the whole thing. It probably isn't very well-written either, I'm afraid to go back and look right now...

Anyway, here in 2010, after an enormous amount of continued character, setting, and plot development on all of Fortress Launne, I've gone all the way back around and now that whole thing is completely rearranged and a part of Triangle II. What I wrote on Day 7 was the first part. At the end of that scene - with one pivotal sentence from Janis - was when Aliacorba transitioned into Thomas Cougar.

And tonight I finished the transition. At the beginning of the chapter I was still calling him Aliacorba, because that was his name - but it didn't feel right to write it that way anymore. I wanted to write "Thomas" instead. But it wasn't his name until the middle, where he actually picked it out.

And now I'm like ... wow. I did it. And it's right. It worked.

To put icing on the cake, somewhere in the middle of the scene, I also worked out how exactly to continue forward in Triangle I. I'd stalled out on how exactly Antoine was going to get to Frank, managed to write that yesterday (they went back and forth across town in a carriage together, and I figure maybe there was something about the air in the carriage - I never spelled it out and don't really intend to). Then I wasn't sure how exactly to carry out the next part, where Nathaniel finds out about it, Frank gets looked over in detail and diagnosed, etc.

Well. Here we have this legend about Aliacorba the medicine man made immortal by the gods. And I need to mention this legend elsewhere, because so far I have Edward where he's just a normal regular guy, and then I have Triangle II where he's back to being just a normal regular guy, who's going to believe me about there being a legend if it's never on-stage?

Thus: mention the legend in Triangle I - which is the only novel I have in between those two. In particular: the Stranahans are going to fail to figure out how to cure Frank via standard Aunlanian medicine, so Frank goes to ask the native folk, whose legend it is. They then diagnose him, all the while talking about the legend, and voila, two problems solved! And furthermore, Frank can run into Allen in the woods while they're passing each other on separate agendas, Allen can get a close look at Frank too, which is how Nathaniel would find out about it. Third problem also solved!

So that's what I'll be writing next. :)

End of Day 7

17,587 words. I only wrote 1215 words today, but they were very important words for an extremely difficult scene that was absolutely pivotal to all sorts of things. So all in all, despite the low wordcount, a good day.

Basically the scene was the one where Aliacorba decides to leave the swamps and go with Janis to Fortress Launne. Before that could happen, he had to decide it was a good idea, which mostly depended on Janis showing him why his reason for being in the swamps in the first place doesn't actually apply. Most of his thoughts were internal, which means most of it was completely over Janis's head (and if I ever want to explain it more explicitly, it'll have to be explained in Edward). But she did her part extremely well. All it took was one line to completely blow his mind and make him reassemble his entire worldview.

End of Day 6

16,372 words.

I went to a write-in this afternoon. It turns out that they're much better attended here than back in Savannah, with people coming and going and taking turns getting access to the outlets. They were also relatively serious about actually writing at the write-in, with much less chatter than last year in Savannah. I wrote 1200 words while there, and found out that I was actually in 3rd place for wordcount for Bloomington. Now I'm only a thousand words away from 1st, which hopefully I'll manage to come up with before going to bed. But it's a pretty close pack, with lots of other people with similar wordcounts.

At the moment, I've started on both Triangle I and Triangle II. I'm lumping all the words together, since they're in the same big document, though I should separate them out at some point. I've also switched back to using Jer's Novel Writer. Scrivener's lack of margin notes was starting to become a serious problem, though I hear it's a planned feature (that they may well already have, and I just need to upgrade).

Anyhoo.

Triangle I:

I went back and wrote intro chapters for both the Stranahans and Nathaniel, which are set before my original chapter that introduced Antoine. Basically I needed a way to get the phoenix from the Stranahans to Nathaniel. Well, it's been seen in the story now. The actual transfer hasn't happened yet, and I'm not sure when exactly to set it up for, but basically Nathaniel is going to track down some native folk art and trade for it.

I also decided that Nathaniel's problem needs to be on-screen, so his intro chapter is about the giant spell he's trying to plan. I've thought up more details that ought to be mentioned since then, so there'll have to be more Nathaniel-centric chapters in the future. There will also have to be more Allen screentime, since he's the only one in Nathaniel's camp that can actually talk freely with the native folk. Eventually there's going to be a big meeting where Allen, Nathaniel, Pedro, two shamans and a matriarch figure out a ritual to do with the cave. It'll seal up the leak into the Abyss, and it'll cleanse the cave, and (unbeknownst to the native folk) it'll also set up the spot as the anchorpoint for the citywide spell. Coordinating it will take some work on Nathaniel's part, since the whole thing has to happen in a single circle walk, which means the other two spots have to be ready to go too.

So I guess the next scenes to write will be: more exposition about Nathaniel's problem, a trade of native folk art for the phoenix (followed by / concurrent with Allen examining the phoenix and figuring out what it's good for), and Antoine... doing... something. Antoine is the part I'm stuck on at the moment. His planned actions in the story are pretty clear but I don't know how to get him there. Basically he has to complicate what Nathaniel wants to do in a major way, then get mad enough to hex Frank. I'm having some trouble with motivation at the moment.

Meanwhile, for Triangle II:

I basically went straight to the middle part, assuming that everything I wrote in Janis actually happened. There's a plague on, Janis has a friend who is dying from it, and she's been put in a position of wanting to help the native folk of the city.

So I opened with her grandmother telling her about the legend of Aliacorba, medicine man made immortal by the gods. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten some of the original details of this legend and I'm too lazy to look them up at the moment, but I remember all the important parts. Grandmother tells Janis about him, Janis goes looking. I racked up a lot of words describing her journey in the swamps, and then she found him, they had a fun intro conversation, and then she got to bumble around his house while he wasn't there. Now she's waiting for him to get back and they'll do a second fun conversation (I hope). I'm a bit stuck on how to get it started. It'll probably be the next thing I write, though.

After that, eventually they'll journey back out of the swamps and she'll take him to the city, and he can find a cure for the plague, then get in trouble with the king and so on. Still not sure whether that part is actually part of Triangle II or if it belongs in Amulet II yet. I might write it if I need the words (which I probably will) and move it later.

That's the plan anyway. I'm aiming for 20k by the end of the weekend. Hopefully more, since 20k would put me a bit behind for a 100k month. We'll see what happens. :)

End of Day 2

I have 5426 words at the moment. It was 5256 at midnight and then I kept going for a bit longer.

Antoine and Frank have visited the southeast site, which will end up being the actual site of the chantry eventually, but Antoine doesn't want to put it there. Now he wants to visit the forest to figure out where all the highly-pure energy is coming from.

Meanwhile, Allen got a look at the cave that Edward had been in. He reported on its condition to Nathaniel, and they were walking back to the city when they ducked into a cave with a bear in it. I now have to figure out what Allen's capabilities are before he can escape.

I also tried to start on Triangle II. That didn't get very far. I figured, start by having Janis's grandmother tell her about the legend. But the story isn't coming out the way I'd hoped. I'll probably have to scrap the whole thing (only about 200 words though, no big loss) and start over later.

I could've written more words today than I did, but procrastination set in with a vengeance. Tomorrow I'd like to be somewhere around 10k, so I'll have to actually focus. It can be done, though. I've written 5k words in one day before. Just have to make sure I know what I'm writing.

End of Day 1

3557 total words so far.

Day 1 was a cakewalk. I got the first 1890 words within the first three hours (after midnight), then wrote another leisurely 700ish words in the afternoon, then finished up the rest in the evening. I could've written more but I was lazy and played lots of Facebook games. If it stays this easy though, I'd have time to write Triangle II too and aim for 100k words and possibly even reach it this year. That would be cool.

So far Antoine has arrived in town, met the Stranahans, met Nathaniel, and visited one of the two possible sites for his future chantry. Meanwhile, Nathaniel has gone up into the woods to talk the Speaker of the native folk into letting him use their most sacred place for his ritual. So far he's not having any luck, but give it another scene or two. Without interference from Antoine, at least, but Antoine is going to be making his own proposal soon (just as soon as he finds out about the place) to complicate Nathaniel's plans.

Next up: Antoine visits the second site and then I have to give him more key places to wander past and somehow get him to know about the native folk's.

And since all of that came out so smoothly and easily, I also started thinking about what to do with Triangle II if I do write it this year. A whole lot of Janis would be part of it, so technically it's already started. For this year's additions, I'd start with having Janis's grandmother telling her about the legend, and then go on from there to getting her to look for him. Depending on how things go tomorrow with Triangle I, I might start it tomorrow. We'll see.

All in all, a great first day. :)

An Overview of my Fortress Launne series

Well, it's a few hours before Nanowrimo 2010, so I guess I should update on what I've been doing and what I plan to do this year. As usual, it's yet another book in the Fortress Launne series which I started in 2004. I think I have seven books in the series at the moment, and they weren't the 6-7 I'd originally envisioned when I started, but hey, progress is like that. :)

A few weeks ago I finally made an updated outline for the whole series. Now that I'm about to work on the 7th book, a whole lot of past pieces have fallen together into something that actually likes like it might end up making sense. Woohoo! I'll post it in a password-protected area of SFFMuse if anyone wants to look. It's 2000 words long and I don't really want to put that much detail in public (even un-searchindexed public like this place is).

Anyway, so this year's is called Triangle. It's about Nathaniel, Antoine Reiter, and the Stranahans planning the layout of their new city. Disagreements occur, and Antoine ends up hexing one of the Stranahans with a supernatural illness that kills him ... eventually. But the city gets built to everyone else's satisfaction, especially Nathaniel's, whose prime concern is binding a demon by laying down a city-wide spell that dictates the locations of various buildings.

Other plot points to cover: one of the things Nathaniel does for the local native folk is cleanse a cave, using a golden phoenix statuette he happened to have. Igniting the phoenix sparks sentience in the local spirit wolves, who have a major role in Temple and Birthright 60-65 years later. The illness that Antoine devised, meanwhile, becomes a plague 40 years later as the main plotline of Triangle II - which I'd started writing in 2006 as something called Janis before realizing what it was for.

So, at the moment anyway, the books in timeline order are:
Edward (aka Amulet I) - 2005, 2006, and 2007
Triangle - 2010 (this year!)
Janis (aka Triangle II) - 2006
Amulet II - 2005
Temple - 2004
Birthright - 2009
The Fall of Myan - 2008

I also have a glimmering of an idea in mind to write another book set some time after Myan, not as part of the Fortress Launne series but using the same setting, which will star Janis and Arthur Glorian. Arthur was the guy whose actions had a huge influence on the course of Fortress Launne's overall history, but he hasn't been seen since about a hundred years before Edward. He was also the guy that made the magic box, whose pieces appear in Triangle, Amulet II, Temple, and (especially) Birthright.

Top of Day 8

Wrote another very long scene for the Janis/Felicia storyline. It was a tour through the Culture Center, and they went past three places that are going to be relevant later in the story - the Hall of Trees exhibit, where Felicia saw the pearl part of the box sculpture; a legends and myths exhibit where Janis talked about the Legend of Aliacorba (but Felicia didn't make the connection to Thomas); and the spirit wolves exhibit, where Felicia got her first glimpse into some of the consequences of her actions in Temple and also talked about the Golden Flame (that is, the phoenix part of the box sculpture).

I'm not sure where I'm going next with this, but those were awesome to write. I got to explain tons of stuff out of my backstory notes in an organized way, through Janis. ;) Which will be helpful later when I go back to figure out how to rewrite all my previous Fortress Launne material. I incorporated some of the changes I have in mind for Temple already. And while working out the timeline for the rise and fall of the spirit wolves, I figured out when they came across the Golden Flame in the first place - during Triangle (Nano 2010 maybe?). How they came to have it, no clue yet, but now I know when.

Next? Well, I have vague ideas about going into the details of what exactly Janis lost, and also introducing Felicia's main motive (revenge against another high-ranking Tainted mage). That could be a problem, because I'm still not sure what Janis lost.

The basic idea: It was something Aliacorba set up after his own tainting. It was something that could only be broken by Aliacorba himself. It was broken by Thomas at the end of Temple because the only way to save Janis's life was to destroy who she was.

From Janis's view, she can describe what she was like before and after, at least to Felicia. That might be good enough to continue the story. At some point I'll need to figure out the details, though.

Then the other part, how to introduce Felicia's revenge motive, well, so far I'm not sure what would cause her to mention it.

Meanwhile, back at the mobster plotline, the Louies street gang are about to recover the dragon and the box from the smoldering remains of a warehouse that got burned down with the Italians in it. I'm planning to work on this part at tomorrow's write-in, since it shouldn't require a huge amount of angsty emotional involvement. Should be fairly humorous, if anything. The dragon, which has never done anything magical before (at least not in Aunlania) is going to activate. What's it do? Well, I haven't worked out all of the details yet, but it'll be an offensive weapon. I'm kind of imagining it as a phantasm.