I won't go home without you

Wow so I had a major breakthrough yesterday. I was having major problems with Dane and Marly (previously Malory), because they were both super-boring, and I couldn't figure out their character-arcs or anything. But THEN! I realized that I was trying to force them to be the main 2 of the main 5, and they really weren't, and then Will piped up and said the story was really all about him. And I was like "duuude yeah it is!" So I still have the 5 main peeps, but centering around Will now, and everything makes soooo much more sense.

I love it when things like that happen. :D

The Mossinae (made up species from Nano novel)

The Moss-men are sentient creatures living most in the woods and sometimes the swamps. They look like humans only covered with moss and with green skin. The moss is short and fine like hair on their faces, necks, hands, under their arms, and between their legs. The moss is thicker and more tangled (like real moss) everywhere else, in particular on top of their heads and down their back like a mane, and on the front of their torso. Their eyes are various shades of green, with no whites. Females are slimmer and more graceful than males, but otherwise they look the same. They're herbivores. They're very shy of humans, but some of them are very comfortable in cities. In cities, they act as interpreters for their kind, as well as traders. They only wear clohes when around humans.

AGHHHHH A WEEK UNTIL NANOWRIMO!!!!!!! WARNING! WARNING! ALERT!! GO INTO DEATHCON! EXECUTE!

Hi. I....am having problems. I am rapidly losing inspiration for my Nano idea, which I have still not planned out completely. I DID go to the coast today and was a little rejuvinated by seeing a mossa under every tree. I'm still excited about my mossa character, who has at last been named Agmin. He'll be great. OH Chester has been renamed Cheron, and Fenwick is a completely different character. I forgot to say that...at whatever point that happened.

I have a copy printed of HHNF, and I've done a lot of research, so I'm kinda prepared to dive back into editing that. The Stranger will go on a hiatus next month. :( Sowies. I wish I could've gotten myself to write ahead enough. Alas.

kthxbai

So I love how I didn't work on any of my writing projects during the summer (except the Stranger, a little, in July) but now that school has started I'm working on no less than three, simultaneously: Hell Hath No Furies (editing second draft), Nano 08 (planning and prewriting) and The Stranger.

I still need to finish my Nano outline but I finished the rest of the researching I needed to do for it today. So I'm plunging headlong into the second draft. It's scary in there. O.o

I've got ep. 8 for the Stranger done, which is good, as I posted 7 on Friday. I'm partway through 9. But I'm scared that I'm going to get really stuck soon cuz this whole Atlantean story arc is kinda tricky and messy and lots of things will be different.

Nano 08 planning is really turning nasty. I need to sit down for a couple hours and force myself to bash out the rest of the outline. Maybe if I told it aloud, like I was telling a story, that would work. Hm. Hmmm.

"Final count: 42." "Not bad for a pointy-eared Elvish princeling!"

I myself am sitting pretty on 43. ;)

But no. Final count is 20. The Stranger episodes, that is.

I finished figuring out what I'm cutting and adding for the rest of the series, and if all goes well there will be 13 more episodes in all. I'm not reposting the Pip meets the LS, and there will be five episodes after the current "ending" episode, where they have the showdown with King Rufus. The original series had 13, so I'm feeling pleased. I'm also guesstimating the entire thing will be about 25,000 words when all is said and done. Anyone want to preorder a Lulu? :P Jk. 

"He doesn't work by the usual rules, and I don't think you do, either."

Friends, Romans, countrymen! Tis a mere two weeks until the epic adrenaline-fueled catastrophe known as NaNoWriMo begins! :D

I'm about halfway through my outline, but I haven't worked on it for almost a week. Eesh. I keep toying with the idea of simply deleting Mal and Dane (basically melding their characters with Chad and Alice) but I decided the pros do not outweight the cons of that plan. So five teens it shall remain.

There should be a new Stranger episode up today. It will happen. I mean, it's written, I just haven't edited it much at all. Also, new DAMDLs? Hopefully. I'm several episodes behind with those.

Good luck with Nano-planning!

[title quote from Eight Days of Luke]

Cover-licious

So I was going to show you my new-and-improved Nano cover and realized that I had improved versions of the other two covers I made, too, so you get all three again! :P Btw, I'm an expert on making and messing with silouhettes now, so.....fyi.

Wyrd (all stock)

Calamity's Child (copyrighted images to Square Enix and Shiroinekosama)

The President's Secretary (copyrighted images to Square Enix)

Tonight's Big Question

"You're missing the Big Question."

"What's the Big Question?"

"Will you get a drink with me?"

-Billy and Sally, "Blink", Doctor Who

No, actually, the Big Question is:

Should the world in my Nanovel be called "Evo" or "Altera"? I like Altera better but it reminds me of a LOT of other worlds, especially Terra, the be-all end-all name for Earth, everywhere. "Terra" is Latin, btw, for "earth."

But speaking of names of things, my Nanovel is called "Wyrd." No, it's not a respelling of "weird." No, I did not rip that off from Christopher Paolini's Ancient Language. And no, it definitely does NOT mean "magic (an annoying definition of the word which I have seen popping up more and more frequently)."

"Wyrd" is an Anglo-Saxon word for "fate" and fate is a big theme in the novel. Plus I love dead languages. :D

I said I'd post my full synopsis here when I wrote it, so here ya go (I use Evo here but whatever):

What is fate? What is destiny?

Five teenagers are about to find out, as they are launched from present-day of our world to another world entirely.

It is called Evo. The king has just died. Crops are failing. The weather and the animals are acting bizarre and dangerous. The mossinae say the earth trembles, and the Changers say their powers are becoming unpredictable. Most important, the Seers say the teens’ presence is what is causing Evo to unravel, because their wyrds (fates), do not belong there. But how did the teenagers come there, and why?

Finding themselves unwelcome by almost all of the inhabitants of Evo, Dane, Malory, Will, Chad, and Alice not only have to learn how to survive, but also discover just what their fate is, in time to keep both worlds from ripping themselves apart…

So yeah, comment with your preference: Evo or Altera?

they say that a hero can save us

So I managed to spend a couple hours this weekend pre-writing for Nano. :D I was pretty productive, although I mostly worked on the "other world" and its characters. If I haven't mentioned it, the main story revolves around 5 teens who get launched into another world. No one knows how, or why. Yeah, it's been done. But I'm gonna do it DIFFERENTLY! Plus I've always wanted to, so it should be fun. :D But yeah, I've got a cool other-species that I'm pretty proud of, called the mossinae.

The real world characters will have to wait for a spare moment this week, or this weekend. But that's okay, because they've had more work done than the rest. LOL sounds like plastic surgery.

Here's the soundtrack as it sounds now (Chester is still in here cuz I'm still trying to figure out what to do about him.....names in parentheses means it's that person's themesong):

It's a Disaster by Ok Go
Anywhere Is by Enya

Uninvited by Alanis Morrissette (Malory/Chester)

Ways & Means by Snow Patrol (Chester-omg this song fits him so well, it's SOOO creepy!!!)

Hero by Nickelback (Will)

Butterflies and Hurricanes by Muse (Dane)

How Far We've Come by Matchbox 20

"Hates you with the fires of a thousand suns. And that's a direct quote."

I put up more DAMDL reports (YES! I actually did what I said I'd do, and immediately! :P) as well as the next Stranger episode (ep. 5). Enjoy.

I also made a fanfiction LJ account, because I hate hate HATE FanFiction.Net. So. Much.

Anyway the link is here. Calamity's Child will probably end up on there soon.

Included in the LJ's first post is my "FanFiction Statement of Faith" which I'll put on here for you:

I believe Good Fanfiction should:

1. Be well-written, without (for the most part) spelling and grammar errors, and possess good mechanics.

2. Keep consistent to the world and characters of the fandom, unless it is AU (Alternate Universe).

3. Be interesting and, if not unique, have a special twist or different facet/perspective on a character, plot, or other aspect of the fandom.

4. Be entertaining! :)

"Always" is the Greek word for "Always."

So I really need to put up more DAMDL reports. I apologize for the lack of them. But know they're my #1 writing priority right now, even more so than planning for Nanowrimo.

Speaking of Nanowrimo, I think I'm cutting Chester. I wanted to put him in the novel because he's been stalking my brainwaves for a month or so, but the roles I wanted him to fulfill are kinda having problem because a dude with his.....er....hm...talents? and personality just can't really do what I want him to do.

SO his plot-roles are being replaced with Fenwick, a character I cut earlier and am now putting back in. :P The prob with Fenwick is his personality is a total 360 from Chester's so I'm trying to reorder my brain now. :P But it'll work out.

Now I g2g do homework...and then DAMDL!

towers they may crumble, dreams may not come true

Soooo the Stranger contest didn't work out too well. Despite having a large-ish show of interest, I ended up getting only one entry. ;) The one entry was by my excellent friend, Snazel. The story is up on her deviantART. :D Go give her some love, it's a fun story. I'm going to try and give her an honorary sort of prize. Just not sure what. As for the contest, perhaps I'll try doing it again sometime. Or not.

In other news, two of the characters in my Nano 08 novel are IN MY MATH CLASS! It's a truuuue story. Really freaky, actually. I have a set of twins in my novel that are princes, actually, and their father has just died so no one really knows who the heir is. Something like that. Anyway they're only like tier-3 characters, but the guys in my math class look JUST like them! Crazy.

Ok must go work now.