Tag Archives: national novel writing month

NaNoWriMo starts Tuesday

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NaNoWriMo tag

So I did the good thing and contributed to NaNoWriMo (or the organizing group, The office of light and Letters.)   I am going to do this and so am moving forward with my planning/thinking.  It’s probably fairly obvious that 1700 words a day is not out of this world for me, but keeping the fingers fed with coherent story and words is going to be the trick.  We shall see…I still think Elgin’s going to get to go first, but the others all have a corner of my brain….

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Intro to :   Mage in Trouble…….(Working title to Fiona’s story)

Fiona MacWallachi stood on the deck of the skyferry and watched the clouds building to the west. The conductor had said they’d make it to Bodwady Bend before the storms came. She really didn’t want to spend another night on the ground watching for young bucks out to get some treaty booty.  Particularly Fiona didn’t like the possible option of having to surrender herself as treaty booty, or killing some plains bred teenage idiot who thought all white skin girls were squealing simpletons and easy as well. 

“Bodawdy Bend fine off the port bow!” called the navigator who’d been forward in the eyes of the skycraft.  Fiona moved to look, pulling her looking-glass from its belt pouch.  Bringing the brass tube to her eye she quickly found the town, spotting the towering spire of the Sky Father’s prayer house first. The town, spreading along the East bank of the Missippa river was typical of western Aural treaty towns, its streets and lanes organized on a grid pattern, the manufactories to the east, down wind, of the main living areas.  There were docks on the river for water craft, and on the bluff the shinning oval of a landing pond.  She turned to scan north, picking up the brown and green line that would be the wheeler road that led back to the Sweet Water Sea and the heart of the Aural Republic.

Looking down she realized that the lanes of the town spread out into the treaty platt and she could make out the outlines of Aural style farms, though there was a lot of open grass and scrub land as well.   On a knob of land to the North she could see a fortified great house, probably the Platt Sheriff’s home.

Breathing in a relaxing lungful of cool air Fiona turned and walked back to the second class cabin she had been sharing with a girl coming out to Nanny for the Sheriff’s daughter in law. 

Half an hour she was standing on the deck holding on to a grasp rail as the skyferry made its approach to the landing pool, like most it was near the center of town and as one could expect for a small, somewhat isolated community a fair number of people had come out to meet the biweekly Post Ferry.  Forward she could see bundles of periodicals ready for landing as well as leather sacks with the post offices seal branded every few hand spans to make sure they couldn’t be stolen and reused by enterprising, if dishonest merchants.

The tones of the airfans eased, then burped up to a roar, one pushing fore, the other aft, spinning the hull as they slid down out of the sky as the pilot let the charge bleed off the lift spines. In the last instant the hull was aligned with the vector of motion imparted by the wind and the engines.  Then the keel chines kissed the water and the hull was shuddering, slowing, the airfans splashed to a stop.  The slender hundred and some feet of hull settled into the wather with some groans and creaks, as the wooden planked frame of the hull reacquainting itself with the buoyancy of water rather than the focused lift of the spines.

The conductor had done an outstandign job, the skyferry coasted towards the dock with no need for the airfans.  The ferrymen and the dockers called out jocular greetings and ran about tossing ropes back and forth, belaying on iron pollards on the dock and hauling, brining the bow to a soft stop and swinging the stern up tight in a few moments.  They made it look easy and graceful, but Fiona knew that it was long practice that made it look easy, and layered grace on brute muscle and slightly dangerous work. 

The gangplank was thrust out from the ferry to land with a thump on the dock, a ferryman, a girl in this case, leapt across with the landing document, meeting a tall redbrown skinned man in the cream buckskins of a Fire Keeper tribal speaker, his feathered head dress said he was a sub chief.  The sub chief read the letter, handed to the man next to him, the post master by the long red jacket with the green pipping.  The post master read it and nodded, and the two mean, both gave it their chop with their quill pens. 

Now the postal goods started to come off and the élite and first class passengers and luggage started to flow up the second gangplank.  Fiona sat on her duffel and watched this all calmly, she was used to being middle class, she saw it as a major step up from where she had started.

-o-

More on her memories later…its later than I thought, have to get back to this tomorrow….

NaNoWriMo Post something or other: Five and the Base

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Five opened here eyes and looked at the base spread out across the grays and browns of the asteroidal body it had been planted in.  She didn’t know which base it was, she was fairly certain that it was one she hadn’t seen before.

“We are shedding the kids Commander.” Mother said in Five’s head. A glance showed the twenty roughly similar pieces of rubble that had trailed behind the slightly ovoid blob that was Watcher Sixty five thousand, five hundred and sixty-five were diverging and forming up to make their way into the repair and update bay.

Five looked back at the base. she was looking into the side, though at first glance it was like a city of tall skyscrapers seen from directly above, all sharp edges and spires poking out of the asteroidal body.  The gravity generator spikes speared  ‘down’  from the asteroid.  Mother and Five continued towards the ‘sky scrapers.’  as Five wondered where the word skyscraper had come from, it tasted familiar, but it elicited no definition tag from the tac glossary. 

Mother’s target was now very obviously the ‘bottom’ of the structure, dark blocks with massive lattice structures between above and around them.  That was the BlankBank, like every BlankBank in every other base.  There Five would find her sisters and be able to exercise, eat maybe, think, even sleep, “Perchance to Dream?” a voice not her own or Mother’s seemed to whisper.

“Uh, Mother?””

“Yes dear?”

“Uh did you, hear something?”

“No dear.” 

They were both silent during final approach.  From what Five could see there were at least ten other Watchers docked.  That seemed a lot and if each of the Banks had the same number that would be a Hundred at this base alone, and several thousand more out on their long looping patrol orbits.  Seven minutes later Mother entered a bay and docking arms reached out to snag the camouflaged fighter. Continue reading →

“Here’s the problem: there are no grownups. “

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I have a new hero!  I love this line, maybe it was just a matter of right words at the right time on the right topic but it is perfect.  Bob Krum was discussing the euro debt crisis among other things (like stupid questions on ‘presidential debates’) in Stop Waiting for Superman.  

There are no grownups; there are just folks (blokes in Brit speak) like us, imperfect humans who are lucky to make a right decision (on issues more complex than whether to turn into the path of that oncoming Mack truck or not) much more than 50% of the time (and we don’t always make the right one regarding the Mack truck.) 

What does that mean? Many things but one of them is that overly complex political, financial, social, technical…etc constructs are asking for problems.  Stable systems are ones that are essentially self organizing, a pile of sand will settle into the same conical shape every time because its stable in its environment.  Small c capitalist, old meaning liberal economies, are self organizing and stable.  The euro zone is a complex web of overly constrained systems that like some cartoon Rube Goldberg steam plant is constantly threatening to blow a gasket and it requires a genius just to know where to apply the next tourniquet. 

In the last few decades we have made vast strides in understanding ourselves and our world (in a thousand different dimensions.)  Then we have often reacted to this increased understanding by thinking we can control more things and implementing more and more rules.  The effects of those rules are often individually complex and unintended but the interactions between them is (IMHO) utterly outside of our ability to cope with.  Among other things I rather suspect that every one of us (barring a newborn baby maybe) is technically a criminal, having violated at one time or another various laws, rules or regulations most of which we had no idea existed or had no way to follow.

Somehow we have become inured to the regulated world, see it as natural, but it’s probably reached its practical limits and is now in the process of imploding.  We have the tools to creat a more self organized – de-bureaucratized world but have not yet quite figured out what it really looks like and how to transition from where we are to where we need to be. 

Maybe that’s just wishful thinking….fueld by a frustration at the idiocy that seems to have become institutionalized in so many places.  But change ‘is in the air,’ though it may still be some years away.  I just hope that the transition can be made relatively peacefully, there are far too many people on this orbiting rock (7Billion!?) for a major disruption to be anything other than catastrophic for far too many.

There is no utopia waiting over the brow of the next hill, and there was never a golden age that we have somehow lost (one man’s golden age was someone elses hell.) We can’t go back to a past that never existed, and refusing to live and work today because the day after tomorrow will be better is foolish and self-destructive.  Tomorrow never gets here, let alone the day after, and your vision of the world will never occupy a future today unless you work for it in the today you find yourself in. Live in the now with a vision of where you want to end up.

NaNoWriMo — Elgin

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Elgin was born in Beauty Wyoming, one of the more beautiful places one could be born in this world.  The name on his birth certificate was Elgin Campbell Chalmers IV, though there were no Elgin Campbell or for that matter Chalmers in his family history.  His father who may not have remembered his own real name, thought it was a great name and a bit of a joke. 

Elgin’s mother walked out when he was twelve, never to be heard from again.  From that time on he lived with his father in an old Airstream camper, on the Split S ranch during the summer and on the edge of Beauty the local ‘big town’ on the end of Black Sky lake, during the winter.  His father, one fourth Native American, was constantly fighting the local tribal council for ‘his’ cut of the tribes take from Beauty’s Casino and Tourist industry, spending most winters writing long rambling letters to various people, papers, officials, offices and NGO’s about his terrible plight. Never to any avail.

On Elgin’s sixteenth birthday he left his father drunk on the lean-to porch of the Airstream in the morning to catch the school bus.  He returned to find his old man dead of a massive coronary, his father had been a week less than forty.

After that Elgin was taken care of by an until then unknown network of cousins among the locals, quite a few nearly full blooded indians, among whom the blond, blue-eyed Elgin looked out-of-place.  He was never much trouble though he often hung with the local hooligans.  And though a ‘good looking boy’ and reasonably ‘common sensed’ he was never a good student or a hard worker, though neither lazy or dishonest. 

And so Elgin drifted into life.  At thirty two Elgin lived in the Airstream he’d ‘inherited’ from his father and worked at the ranch job at the Split S he’d also inherited.  He wasn’t exactly a drunk, or a pot head, but he wasn’t sober much of the time away from the ranch.  His only companion was a huge cat called Humphrey, who looked like a somewhat chunky Siamese grown to the size of a small German Shepard. Humf had an appropriate Siamese/GerShep cross bad-tempered arrogance that would have gotten him shot long ago except for Elgin.

Elgin knew he was a waste of oxygen most days and a disappointment to his family, such as it was, but didn’t let it bother him, unless he had a really bad drunk.  The November of his thirty-second year, in the grips of a particularly bad one, he rode into mountains on a Friday afternoon.  Ignoring the oncoming wall of clouds that promised an early snowstorm. 

Saturday, half-frozen and still drunk he drove his horse out of the safety of the cavern he’d camped in, out into the snow and ice.  An hour later the horse slipped and threw Elgin down a rocky precipice into a shallow stream.  Unconscious, with one arm and both legs broken Elgin drowned in six inches of ice-cold water.

It was only then that things started looking up.

Sorry…couldn’t resist, that’s the intro to one of the othe options….which is also a sci fi fantasy as I think you can tell…

 

NaNoWriMo the Countdown

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So the daughter likes the one about the swordmaid and the old mage, sounds like a bad joke in a MMOG. The good thing is that this story is based in the universe of a novel I’ve been working on for a year or more and ‘know’ pretty well.  It could be pretty interesting to work at developing that universe more, with its multiple parallel worlds with different levels and types of magic and different though related inhabitants. 

It’s what one might call a QuantFunk universe where magic works because of differences in the ‘Quantum fabric’ of the universe.  All of my Fantasy is of this type, not because I have a philosophical thing against supernatural magic, but because I cannot come up with a supernatural magic ‘system’ that makes sense to me.  I’ve read plenty of good novels where the author creates good ones, but I just have a mind block, comes from being an engineer I guess.

I had been working on the Five concept, have some settings, characters and plot elements laid out.  All of which Fiona and her Mage lack but that’s not stopped me in the past.

So to Fiona’s universe:

  • I happen to have loved Victorian times long before they became tres chic with CyberPunk, so think of: dress, furniture, buildings, towns, politics and much else as ‘looking’ Victorian.
  • Fiona’s home world is essentially similar to Earth as it might have been if  the tectonic plates had moved slightly differently.
  • In general this is a world where males and females are more equal than not. Sexual dimorphism in size & strength is less pronounced in a world of magic (don’t make me explain why, I can probably do it) Equalitarian systems exist but Patriarchies are common and there are some matriarchies.
  • The world is ruled by the King of Kings, an Elven warrior. The Elves come from a parallel universe. Thousands of years ago they lifted Man up from barbarism but have often regretted it since. The Elves find themselves constantly having to get between factions of Men who want to kill off each other.
  • There is a large faction of Elves who want the KoK to just leave Men to kill themselves off. There are several small political factions of Men who want to exterminate the Elves.
  • There are also Trolls, Goblins and Dwarves. They kind of play the roles you’d expect. With some differences, Dwarves aren’t that small and are engineers and scientists as well as sorcerers and fighters. The Trolls are not only big and mean they can also be brilliant scientists and powerful sorcerers. The Goblins come in two types, one aligned with the Trolls, the other essentially unaligned. While Goblins can be pretty frightening to a human, they can be extremely attractive.
  • All of the races, Elves, Men, Trolls, Goblins, Dwarves are genetically related and can interbreed but its not terribly common.
  • Even with the King of Kings there is no ‘World’ gov’t as such. The KoK tries to control at the international level have a basic rule of law, human rights and fair trade.
  • Local gov’t varies from place to place, from Democracies to Despotisms and the KofK does not interfere unless its egregious and or he is asked for help by the subjects.
  • Firearms never evolved because all forms of gunpowder are too easily triggered by sorcery. 
  • Swords and knives are the standard personal weapons, with ‘carry’ laws varying from country to country.
  • Bows not crossbows are used again because a crossbows too easily messed with. 
  • They have heavy weapons that compress air into glowing ‘meteors’ that can be tossed around but they are relatively slow firing and slow moving, the weapons are electrically powered. 
  • They use kerosene (essence) that is converted in directly to electricity plus H2O and CO2′ in a form of fuel cell for powering most of their technology. 
  • They have essence / electric horseless carriages though they are fairly rare. 
  • Their aircraft are lifted by a form on contra gravity and propelled by fans powered by essence fueled generators, they are mostly wooden and lightly built but can be hundreds of feet long.  Aluminum and other light metals are not commonly available due to lack of industrial infrastructure.

So enough for tonight, more thinking to be done.

 

Ideas for a NaNoWriMo Novel

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Anybody got any ideas regarding NaNoWriMo, still not firm on my basic approach or genre or anything….probably should keep it simple and the ideas I have even a flicker are all SciFi  or Fantasy:

  • Elgin Hampstead Chalmers, the down and out cowboy in spectacular north Wyoming who finds out that there is more to life than he had ever imagined.
  • Fifty, the living trigger of an interstellar IED left to wait long after the war she was created to die in has ended in extermination for her creators and their enemies.
  • Jason DoubleHammer, the son of heroes who just wants to be an ordinary boy and sail his boat in the big race. When he finds an odd friend hiding in a tree and quickly finds himself running for both of their lives across a world in turmoil.
  • Finna the swordmaid bodyguard of an elderly mage lord, she just wants to keep out of trouble for a year or so. But mage lord has found a gate into a strange new universe and he needs his bodyguard to come along on his last adventure. 

Any takers?

Aliens in the Belfry

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In Sci Fi aliens serve a myriad purposes, but most often as humans in bad makeup.  One reason for this is so that the author can tell an allegory without having to worry about being considered racist, or misogynistic, anti immigrant, anti american, etc. Also, if they act/react like humans but are described as ‘Other’ the reader has a much easier time relating, we can understand their motivations and like, or dislike, them.  This makes telling a complex story much easier and makes it more enjoyable to read.  

They also make better class of zombie, vampire, elf (don’t tell me Spock’s not an elf), gods (small g), etc.  In other words they let us retell stories again and again just changing the protagonists and antagonists, the setting and the point of view, creating an endless array of potential stories to tell ourselves. 

As a dilettante in the sciences my current expectation is that life at least at the level of microbes is fairly to extremely common, but life at the level of complexity/sophisticated seen on Earth is rare, possibly to the point of singularity.  My expectation is that if life will probably come in many forms but from a terrestrial world you will get terrestrial looking creatures that, to the citified might just be one other weird ass racoon, or chicken, etc, they are unlikely to look like Predators etc.  Would an intelligent dinosaur or wolf be horrific? Leaving aside the potential they’d consider us good eating or a lower class of pest that is.

And while a Non – Terrestrial world’s environment could easily produce creatures we have a hard time relating to (maybe they’d even be horrific in appearance.) They’re unlikely to want to interact with us except on a purely business matters since its unlikely we’d be of much interest to them.  Though again empire builders might not care about having to live in domed cities while the locals mine the tar pits.

So having wandered all over the topic, what is my point you ask?

I don’t really have one I guess, I was thinking about the Post a Day challenge and then decided to post about what I would write if I take up the NaNoWriMo challenge and wandered off from there.  Am I going to write Sci Fi again, I think so.  Will it have aliens, again I think so, though perhaps not obviously.  Am I going to try to do NaNoWriMo…who knows…if a big job hits at work then certainly not, 1,700 words a day and 80 hour work weeks do not mix. But the aether appears clear at this time. So Maybe.

 

NaNoWrMo…What to write, and how

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My daughter sent me a not regarding the National Novel Writing Month.  Since I’m in the middle of a lot of stuff right now, including trying to get Under Siege cleaned up and into Smashwords I figured that I’d just comment on it and move on.  But there is something about the idea of taking a whack at it, the opportunity it would offer to get a bit more visibility to my writing alone is very attractive.  I’m just not sure I can do 50K words in 30 days. ~1700 words a day? That’s nuts! Except I know I’ve done that and better in the past, when I was just slapping the keys and not thinking too much. 

And I’ve got a couple of stories, more really, flapping around in the belfry. It would be fun to just let rip with new story rather than having to work on edits like I have for the last several months.  I’ve never (purposely) written comedy, I’m not a funny guy, but maybe I could take a crack at it.  What about a historical novel instead of Sci Fi.  A western, a mystery or a romance?  Though I doubt I could keep it on the straight and narrow I’ve never been able to before.

Maybe I’ll post it online, on a subsidiary blog, as someone at blog a day suggested, that might be interesting if possibly embarrassing.

Anyone out there interested in commenting?

National Novel Writing Month

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November is National Novel Writing Month.  They are sponsoring an authorship marathon, write a novel in a month, 50,000 words (175ish pages) between November 1st and 30th. That’s a lot of words for a non professional, and they press you not to struggle with editing or any of that other hard stuff, focus on quantity and not quality.

This is (for good reason) in line with advice by novelists of note S.King and J.Pournelle that you simply have to sit down and write if you ever expect to be a writer.  There may be some people who are natural authors but most of us have to write a lot of words (in my case ~ a half million) before it comes reasonably easily most of the time.  Which in the days before the computer and word processor was an even larger investment in time and effort than it is now.