Tuesday, November 29, 2016

The Final Days of NaNo

Right now I'm pulling a Lord of the Rings and having my story end over and over only to reveal another ending. Epilogues upon epilogues, and post-epilogues and post-post-epilogues. Basically Des is filling us in on things that happened after the end under the guise of talking to Celeste once a year up on the water tower all alone. It's dumb, I know, but it's words.

Speaking of which, I have to get back. More words to write.

I'll see you Friday, when I'll have a little more time and maybe something interesting to talk about. Universes, maybe. Universes within universes.

Stay tuned.

Friday, November 25, 2016

Murder Isn't Working, and That's All I'm Good At

Not a lot to report on today. I'm still way behind and I've been killing people.

I'm still determined not to give up, even though I only have five days left. I'm convinced that some amazing idea is going to come to me and it will all be okay.

Killing off Celeste was actually way harder than I thought it would be. I had actual emotions. I just wish I could do the same to my readers. But they don't have any reason to get attached to these characters. They haven't been living in anyone else's head for the past few weeks.

So here's a question, readers. What makes you get attached to a character?

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Famous Last Words

Well, it's about time to kill someone off. I didn't want to do it, but it's happening, and I can't stop it.

Poor Celeste is going down.

I've been saying for a while that if I was going to kill someone, it would be her. Then for some reason at my local NaNo Write-In, I was talking about luna moths, and how they have no mouths. Like, they spent their whole larval stage being a very hungry caterpillar, but once they reach their adult stage, all they do is get it on and die. They only live for about a week as adults.

Can you imagine, the tragic tale of a caterpillar, looking longingly up at a beautiful delicious leaf or whatever, saying to itself, "One day, I'll have wings, and I'll fly up there and eat that leaf." And they grow up and… aww… no mouth.

Friday, November 18, 2016

The Devil's in the Details

Have you ever heard or read something that just sticks in your head because of how messed up it was? Like, it's sickening and you can't get it out of your mind? I wrote something like that. I think it was Wednesday. It might have been Tuesday. Either way, I'm still thinking about it. Part of said I shouldn't write it like that. Another part said I definitely should, because that's how messed up the situation was.

So, a bit of context (because I have to make you read it now too). It's a bit of backstory about how Des became a vampire. That involves a horrific plane crash that he alone survives (and not for long). This is what happened to his punk band, Winter on Venus. They met a horrible end.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Just a Sprinkle of Weird

The story is starting to make sense. I'll have to go back and fix some things and move some things around, but it's looking promising. Like, it might actually turn as good as I make it sound in my summaries.

I've been adding more characters. I realized that Des is doing a terrible job of trying to fit in with human society if he never interacts with any humans. So this happened:

Yes, this was it. This was what normal people did. They talked to people with similar interests and they made friends. I could be normal.

Was this paragraph a little autobiographical? No, this paragraph was entirely autobiographical. So Des made a friend. Me, well, that remains to be seen. But you didn't come here to hear about me.

And then there was the Sprinkle Tax.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Tales Told by Dead Friends

This post is way late, but I suspect that I'm the only one who actually cares about that.

My characters are not cooperating. The ones who are supposed to be interesting aren't, and the ones who are supposed to just take up space are actually doing things. I'm beginning to think the whole thing was a terrible idea. Everyone was right, and I should have listened.

There is one piece of this story that I actually want to work on, but I haven't had much of a chance because it doesn't contribute meaningfully to word count. See, Des was in a band. They had songs. Two of which I've already mentioned by title. Only one of which I have actual lyrics for, and they're not even complete. I also have part of the first one he's written since the whole "friends died and I became a vampire" thing. And that hasn’t even come up in the story yet.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Lagging Behind, but Gaining Ground

I'm still behind on my word count, but I think I'm slightly less behind now. Nobody panic, there's still time.

A thing I always struggle with is narrative voice. I've talked about this before. Basically, I find it hard to maintain the same voice throughout, especially when I'm aiming for it to have a little more personality than "They did this. They went over there." But I'll yoyo between flat/boring and pure sarcasm/breaking the fourth wall. I think I've finally found the right voice for Des. Because he needs to be all sarcasm and a little breaking the fourth wall. We are spending a lot of time in his head, after all.

Right now, I have a few plot points that need to happen, and I'm trying desperately to have them not all happen at once, but I had to let the story move forward a little, and hope that I could fill things in later. That's where we are now. I'll even share a little excerpt. If anyone's coming into this adventure late, it's relevant to note that Des is a vampire.

Friday, November 4, 2016

A Tale Told Too Quickly

It looks like all posts will be posted in the evening until the end of November. I just don't have the time (between work and NaNo) to get them out in the morning. Sorry to let everyone down.

I'm already behind on my word count. I made my quota the first day and then never again. On the bright side, I have basically all of Saturday to catch up.

I actually have a sort of outline of things that need to happen. My problem is that I tend to just go straight from one plot point to the next, with no extra stuff to fill out the in-between. I need some subplots going. I kind of sowed the seeds for one that's also going to bring in some punk rock backstory, and I'm looking forward to that.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Naming Names

When I start this post, it's 12:44am. So yes, NaNo has officially begun, but I haven't started on the ol' novel yet. I'll be doing that after work. If I start now, I may never go to bed.

I was going to do some outlining on Monday, but, well, the internet came calling and who was I to ignore it? I did finally name the girl. I said to myself, she's an ordinary down to earth girl, and she should have a name that reflects that. So somehow she became Claire. And then she needed a last name, and for some reason those can be tricky. I mean, you can name a child anything you want, but a last name tends to reflect a bit of heritage. You pick a name, and a whole bunch of history comes with it.