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Nanowrimo thoughts
Oct. 23rd, 2004 03:29 amThe closer we get to start of Nanowrimo, the less I think Pride of the Endeavor (or Daughter of the Endeavor, for that matter) is the right way to go. Neither one of those books, nor Captain of the Endeavor which is supposed to follow them (it goes Daughter, Pride and Captain, respectively) is really meant for 50,000 words. I'm probably looking at 110,000 words, easily. And it's a novel of sociology as much as Hornblower.
Which raises the question of what actually to write. If I stick with Science Fiction, I can set almost anything in my Imperial Space universe (folks who're reading the writing page would recognize it as the place Theftworld is set in) and have plenty of consistent background to work with. The question is, what story to tell? Doing 50,000 words of Theftworld is cheating, as far as I know, and I think Gary would get peeved if I tried to write Esbat without him. And I'm not sure that can be done in 50k either.
I could do an action thing -- lower the bar significantly. I can do quasi-hard SF action in my sleep. Or I could do some "what if there were superheroes in the 30s, only a Pulpish Supervillain actually did take over the world, and now there are paranormal kids on the edges of society" thing. Hell, I could pull out some of the characters I've written for years. Hell, doing a neo-Superguy thing wouldn't even be hard -- I wrote a 12,000 word Novella that was actually pretty okay for the medium in 9 hours, once. But could such a thing be revised into something salable.
Okay. Let's assume we'd do an Imperial Space thing. Semi hard SF (it makes it sound like SF gelatin). I already have most of the technical bits ironed out, and if I make it mostly space based, I can probably get away without crunching numbers on a bunch of worlds.
Don't I still need a plot?
I could recycle the opening to Risk. The opening was entirely mine, and aside from Gary and maybe Frob, I doubt anyone even remembers it. And it was an excellent example of good old fashioned In Media Res
Or maybe I could go 180 degrees the other way, and do that Historical Fiction I've been planning since, oh, 1997. From Nottingham to Runnymede. I know exactly what would need to happen in that one, and it'd please my father to no end if I actually wrote the damn thing.
Sleep on it. It's 3:30. Tomorrow you can figure it out, and do planning from there.
I really need to spin Theftworld back into high, too. Maybe I need to build that into my evening plans. Schedule Websnark for morning/afternoons, then Theftworld for evenings, until the damn thing's done.
At the same time, I actually have an audience for Websnark. Does the world really need a political allegory disguised as a dystopic version of Star Trek?
Sleep, Eric. Your cynicism's showing.
Which raises the question of what actually to write. If I stick with Science Fiction, I can set almost anything in my Imperial Space universe (folks who're reading the writing page would recognize it as the place Theftworld is set in) and have plenty of consistent background to work with. The question is, what story to tell? Doing 50,000 words of Theftworld is cheating, as far as I know, and I think Gary would get peeved if I tried to write Esbat without him. And I'm not sure that can be done in 50k either.
I could do an action thing -- lower the bar significantly. I can do quasi-hard SF action in my sleep. Or I could do some "what if there were superheroes in the 30s, only a Pulpish Supervillain actually did take over the world, and now there are paranormal kids on the edges of society" thing. Hell, I could pull out some of the characters I've written for years. Hell, doing a neo-Superguy thing wouldn't even be hard -- I wrote a 12,000 word Novella that was actually pretty okay for the medium in 9 hours, once. But could such a thing be revised into something salable.
Okay. Let's assume we'd do an Imperial Space thing. Semi hard SF (it makes it sound like SF gelatin). I already have most of the technical bits ironed out, and if I make it mostly space based, I can probably get away without crunching numbers on a bunch of worlds.
Don't I still need a plot?
I could recycle the opening to Risk. The opening was entirely mine, and aside from Gary and maybe Frob, I doubt anyone even remembers it. And it was an excellent example of good old fashioned In Media Res
Or maybe I could go 180 degrees the other way, and do that Historical Fiction I've been planning since, oh, 1997. From Nottingham to Runnymede. I know exactly what would need to happen in that one, and it'd please my father to no end if I actually wrote the damn thing.
Sleep on it. It's 3:30. Tomorrow you can figure it out, and do planning from there.
I really need to spin Theftworld back into high, too. Maybe I need to build that into my evening plans. Schedule Websnark for morning/afternoons, then Theftworld for evenings, until the damn thing's done.
At the same time, I actually have an audience for Websnark. Does the world really need a political allegory disguised as a dystopic version of Star Trek?
Sleep, Eric. Your cynicism's showing.