A traditional fantasy setting / pseudo-medieval world.

The pantheon is full of demi-gods (half god/ half mortal). They are all the equivalent of 8 years old. They find they suddenly have more of the divine power than they used to.

What would an 8-year-old do with that power? Suggestions?

So I decided, after my writing group had a workshop on names, that I was unhappy with the names of my characters in Divine Madness. Of my 5 main characters, 3 of them had names starting with "C." After some looking around I found the nifty table I'd done earlier (nanoweylyn.livejournal.com/53281.html), and decided to revisit some of the names I had when I was dealing with the original creation concept.

My quintet went from being:
Darah, Sebastian, Cail, Chandra and Chase
to:
Darah, Sebastian, Kail, Chandra and Garret

Honestly, I'm still a bit iffy on Garret (Garrett?), but that's the one that made the biggest impression on me.

Deciding to rename those characters and choosing new name was the easy part. Not so easy: Renaming the 2 pantheons of gods (now complete) and renaming the countries (my current task at hand).

I don't think I would have had such a problem with the gods, except that I was looking a renaming all the child gods (both from the living pantheon, and the pantheon that were destroyed in the Purge). That was a total of 40 gods. There were a few names I particularly liked, and was able to reuse, but for the most of them / the big picture I figured my best bet was to come up with some sort of criteria for each pantheon of names.

Both pantheons consist of 10 sets of twins. Each pair of twins consists of one male, one female. I did some adjusting as to what their titles were (getting rid of Theon's Scent in favor of Theon's Generosity - to pair with Theon's Greed - formerly Fury), then decided that each pair of gods would start with the same letter, and have the same number of letters (this was really a hard choice, and I'll tell you why in a minute).

I decided to end names in a vowel for the female gods, and end with a consistent for the male gods. Finally, I decided that the first pantheon of gods I'd use 4 letter names, and for the second pantheon (the living gods), I'd use 5-letter names.

As I previously mentioned, I had some names from the first draft that I really liked, and fit the new criteria. Some names got reassigned to the opposite pantheon (for length) or to a different god, if the gender was wrong. I was able to take one or two names I liked that were too long and adapt them to shorter names that fit my new criteria.

The only problem was that I was dead set on the eldest male of the first pantheon being named Krys. It was a non-negotiable name, and part of the reason behind some my my criteria decisions. I also really liked his twin sister's name as Leal. But that didn't fit the criteria. I struggled with it for a while, so much that I almost considered leaving it, and setting the criteria for the 38 OTHER gods, An exception to the rule it because it was the first set of children born to the father-god, and perhaps HE didn't have a naming scheme then. I finally came to terms with how that would weaken what I was trying to do, and decided on Kyra for her name. It means light, and is appropriate to the character, though I still lament the loss of the name Leal. (I retired the name, rather than see it on some other god of her pantheon.)

After naming 40 gods - 2 pantheons of 10 sets of twins, you must think the hard part is over. I did. Then I realized it had hardly begun.

Naming characters is a cake-walk when compared to naming countries.

Break-down. 10 countries existed when the gods were born. In the current time of the story there are 7 countries (after wars, royal marriages, natural influences making lands uninhabitable, etc). Part of the challenge for my questers lies in the fact that they don't know much about the 3 countries that are gone, so those countries which no longer exist still need names.

I had 10 names, 3 of which are passable, I think, as country names. The other 7 stink.

I mean, I named one of the countries Bort.

I have been agonizing over renaming these countries for over a week. I give my self headaches trying to figure out what makes a good country name - should I base it on geographical features (if yes, then I'd better flesh out my map); names of rulers past (founders); names of the gods which were born there (each country has 4); or something else entirely?

With my sister's help, I have a new map - one which does not make me cringe, and it even has some topography (though, admittedly, it needs more). The biggest help was the country lines - past and present. Once I had those, I was able to sit down and start doing brief descriptions of the different countries - which ones failed and why - who go their lands, etc. All with the hope those would lend themselves to names.

So far I have 3 countries named - one which is no longer in existence called Prativ, and two current countries: Grenul and Ardway.

Only 7 more to go - and I've set Sunday as my deadline to get them done.

Let's hope I still have hair on Monday.

I just penned the last lines of Dogs of Pompeii. One week after NaNo WriMo finished, the (first draft of the) novel is done.

I've been really bad at posting this November. Chalk it up to a combination of my writing my story by hand in a trusty spiral-bound notebook (thus not being on my computer as much), and all the fun events we had going on in the Gainesville Region for NaNo.

We finished up things with the TGIO party / potluck on Friday night, and as some of the participants left, thanking me for the past 3 years, knowing that most of them are graduating and not going to be in Gainesville for next Nano, I almost started crying.

A great group again this year, and the TGIO party was lots of fun. *sigh*

So, on Sunday, Nov. 30th I reached and passed 50,000 words - validated, and then set back to writing - as I had not yet finished the story. I just stopped keeping tabs of how many words were on each line and doing mad-math at the bottom of each page to keep my running total.

When I stopped on Sunday, I had 3 and 3/4 chapters left to write. I met my regular writing buddy on Tuesday and knocked out 1 and 3/4 chapters. Same with meeting her on Thursday, knocking out the last short-story chapter, and starting the epilogue chapter. Since that one goes back to first person, and back to the characters I had in the first chapter/prologue chapter I stopped writing to read that first chapter written oh-so-long-ago. Today, (she says hopefully) I finish the novel.

Then I just have to see about inputing it in to my computer - combination of speech recognition software and typing, I'd wager. I'll post the story here as I get it in the computer.

Plus, my mind is already spinning with other writing projects, and all I can really think is *good*

Well, I'm a little behind where I want to be on word count - I'm at 14,973 words currently, and chapter 7 seems to be dragging on. The problem is that I finally got to the main climax of this short story, and I am bored. I enjoyed it much more when I was doing the character development for the story. I hope to knock out the story tonight and get started on chapter 8. If I'm really on my game, I hope to get to 18,000 words tonight.

I've also started to worry that Neal is more cardboard than he his, because of how I'm telling the story, or rather, how HE is telling HIS story. But I will overcome. I won't let my insecurities stop me now.

As for local events, lots of good turn out, and I'm generally pleased. I wonder, though, if I have enough energy to get through the month.

Friday night, while hanging out at a Halloween party, I finally arranged the index cards of chapter ideas into what I considered a workable order. Perhaps the enlightenment gained by my costume helped. I was dressed as a NaNo WriMo Muse.

Saturday we hosted two write-ins, one from 10 - 2, during which we also held a word war vs. our sister region, Peoria Il. They won the war by average words per person, we won in sheer volume of participants (16 to their 5). 

The second write in was from 9 pm until just after 2 am (the second time)  - taking advantage of the change from daylight savings time to standard time, we wrote the hour from 1 am - 2 am twice. I got 16 more words when I wrote the hour a second time.

At the end of the night, I had two chapters done, and started the third. (I was originally planning once a day). My pre-midnight word total was 2088 words, and I am now hovering at 3714, but am just sitting down to write for the evening, hoping to knock out chapter 3 (which takes place in the Netherlands) and then move on to chapter 4, in Denmark.

Gainesville vs. Peoria, baby.

So, the outline for this year is going. Slowly, but going. I started it 3 times, but finally found a format I think will work (each chapter on index cards).

I guess it is due to everyone who may be following along with this year's novel to tell you a bit about it, and a bit about how I am writing it.

1) I am writing this year's novel by hand, and then inputting it into my computer using often frustrating really awesome speech recognition software. The result: I WILL be posting my story here, and I will start posting it in November, but I will be writing much faster than I will be able to post, therefore, if you are reading along, there is a good chance the entire story won't be posted until sometime well into December.

2) Once again I am friends locking my story, so if you want to read along, drop me a comment, and I'll friend you.

3) And now, for the story: (I.E. the ideas I have so far)

My main character, Neal, finds himself going on a long-anticipated trip to Europe alone. Which was not his plan. Neal, who has always considered himself secondary to, well, everyone else in his life, is now in a situation where he is the main character of his own life. Only, he doesn't see himself that way.

The format: most of the story will be told in the third-person, by way of Neal's travel journal. My hopes are 28 stories (caped on either end by a first-person segment). One story a day, trying for 2000 words (or there-abouts) per story, to get to the 50K goal. And note I did say "stories" not "journal entries", for Neal, the only way he can conceive of relating his adventures abroad are in a removed, third-person story telling kind of way.

Really, this year, my big challenge is with writing the outline, and with the format. Can I develop my main character through his stories? If you'd like to find out, feel free to follow along. Oh, and also fictionalizing some of my own travel experiences to act as a base for Neal's travel, of course changed, altered, beat into submission of my story line, and sprinkled generously with events that DIDN'T happen, in order to make this Neal's story, and not my own ;-)

Oh yes, and the title of this year's masterpiece?  Dogs of Pompeii

It has gotten to be that time, again. National Novel Writing Month is coming up, and once again I am participating. Once again, I am taking on duties as Municipal Liaison for the Gainesville, Fl region.

Of course this year, like every year, is a bit different from the last. With regards to being an ML, this year is different in that we have already arranged for locations for all our events, baring the TGIO party, as  we are planning to poll our participants about what kind of event to have.

We also have a webpage for our region - chock full of information: gainesvillenano.wordpress.com And we have a sister region - Peoria, IL. We will be competing against them in regional word wars, matching up buddy/enemy pairs, and other fun stuff.

For myself, I have a personal challenge this year, and that is to write from an outline. That means writing an outline. I am traveling for the first half of October, and plan on crafting my outline on the planes and trains were we will passing a lot of time.

I have an idea, and will try to stretch my writing fingers by making 30 chapters, one for each day of the month, and a minimum 1,667 word count expectation for each chapter (round up to 2k for giggles). We'll see how well I manage to plot out the story, and character development (which has me most worried) in advance.

And finally, I'll be writing Dogs of Pompeii (working title) by hand. Yep, good ol' pen and paper pad. Once written, I will transcribe my story to my computer via speech recognition software. Why all the hulla-balloo you may ask. I'm having problems with my hands, arms, fingers, again. I still want to write, but I need to do so in moderation, and wisely. So, wish me luck, and lots of icepacks.

Once my story is transcribed (and cleaned up from the speech-recognition version - first draft of those is always entertaining, to say the least, if not what I intended to write), I will be posting it here - friends only. So, while it might not all go online in November, if you'd like to read my story, drop me a line, and I'll friend you.

We just had a Worldbuilding workshop with the Gainesville Fiction Writers, and though it ran a bit late, I think it was a lot of fun, and very productive. Giving Rick a ride home, I got to chat with him some more about Divine Madness, which I have been editing and working on world building for. Have a lot of great ideas swimming in my head, and I only hope they manifest in the story. Oh, and it looks like I've got a lot more to consider about the world before I really work on editing the story. Even had the suggestion to just start writing over, which I may take. Overwhelming, maybe, but excited about the story again!

I am working with my sister-in-law to arrange a summer of writing exercises for myself and my 9-year-old niece.  We will talk on a weekly basis, and have an assignment each week. The idea is that we are each creating a character the first week, and then our characters will be presented with challenges to write about (that can then weave together into a longer story).

bookshelf_elf was kind enough to give me a shorter character development worksheet (than the normal 100 question interview) I use.  Below are the results of my character creation. I will probably update weekly with the "assignments" that I've written for my character. I was going to put my story, and Tessa's on my webpage, but she is worried that if it is on the Internet, people might see her idea, and steal it.

Her are some images that Alison and I made for our characters early on in the story using the eLouai's Candybar DollMaker 3

I think we have some later ones, but I don't have those readily available to post.

As a bonus to the Simon and Millie story, here is the playlist I created to use when I wrote Simon's letters. It runs about an hour, which is the length of my normal writing sessions.

Always On My Mind -  Pet Shop Boys  
Go Home  - Barenaked Ladies    
Somebody's Miracle - Liz Phair   
Today - Smashing Pumpkins     
It had to be You - Harry Connick Jr   
Closing Time  - Semisonic   
Just My Imagination - The Cranberries   
Free To Decide - The Cranberries
My Doorbell  - The White Stripes 
Who Needs Sleep? - Barenaked Ladies
Baby Got Going - Liz Phair 
I Can't be With You  - The Cranberries 
The Emperor's New Clothes - Sinead O'Connor  
One Last Time -  Veruca Salt  
Learning to Fly - Tom Petty   
Dry Your Eyes - The Streets   
Bullet With Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins   

Well, some or many of you may know that I participate in the Gainesville Fiction Writers group. Sadly many of our members have moved away from the Gainesville area, and our group has grown small (or rather, has refused to grow beyond the steady number of 4 members). I am happy to say that this morning at our meeting we finally came up with an action plan. We are going to hold an "open house" type event here in Gainesville to see if we can drum up more members from the region interested in participating in the group.

Also, we are going to move a bit more online with our work. We have created a Yahoo group for the group, and use it to announce meetings as well as post stories and chapters of books for critique, and discuss what our next anthology will be. Since we have such wonderful tools available to us, we have decided to turn our attention a bit more to the virtual world. We are reaching out to our former members who have since moved away, and to other interested writers, and try to provide a place where they can participate in a writers group, receive feedback for their work, and provide a place for them to talk about their writing woes. To that end, I have posted a link to those who are interested in joining our writing group. Please feel free to sign up directly, or you can leave any questions for me here, and I'll be happy to answer them.



Click to join gvwriters

Simon and Millie
~2 hours last week
1/20   1.5 hours
1/27   45 minutes
2/3      1 hour 10 minutes
2/3      30 minutes
2/7       40 minutes
2/14    1 hour 10 minutes
2/21    40 minutes
2/23    1 hour

-- 9 hours 25 min for first draft (minus epilogue) 1st edit

Oversight
time?
    - to completion for draft

Final Exam
Original version: 1 hour
re-write version:
    2/2    4.5 hours

Divine Madness
2/24    1 hour 15 minutes

Moleskin Project story
~15 min re-write

This year I have decided to seriously undertake editing as part of the writing process. I have several editing goals this year. These include:

Edit a Nano novel (most likely Divine Madness)
Edit my two Mr. Smith stories for the GFW anthology
Edit the Simon and Millie story with Alison
Participate in NaNo EdMo in March, logging in 50 hours of editing in March
Read books on writing and editing interspersed with my "for fun" reading

I have edited and resubmitted one of Mr. Smith stories, and made a fair start on the second.

Tonight I worked an hour and a half on some formatting and spelling (and correctly spelled but wrong word) errors in the Millie and Simon story.

I think I might start a log for hours towards editing, maybe set a goal for each week (which would be adjusted during March, of course).

But it's only the second week of January, and I feel I've already got a good start.

And thanks to Allie for switching one of our regular writing days to an editing day. It'll help keep me on track, I know.

Now that November is over I’m falling back into the routine of sitting down to write 3 times a week with my writing buddy in Arizona. We hop online into a chat, and set a time limit to how long we’re going to write based on how we feel.

 It took me a few sessions to get back into the swing of things, and the first two days I journaled, as well as turning out a single 500 word story. The last two sessions, however, I have gotten back to my current work-in-progress, Fallen. Aside from managing to accidently delete what I had written on Sunday, and have to re-type it (luckily I had managed to print it before deleting the file), it has been going well (Is it too early to say that?)

 To the ends of trying to make my characters consistent, I have been re-reading what I had written before November. I had managed to jump back in okay, on a quite emotional scene for me to write, actually. Last night was a little harder, but I found that my characters are at a point where they have their lives, and I just need to pick a time frame and observe.

 Other works-in-progress that I have include the Simon and Millie letter project. We are 4 letters from the end (including the epilogue) and one of those is already written. I am waiting for the next Millie letter so I can write the last Simon letter of the main story. Part of that is waiting for the author I am collaborating with to also recover from National Novel Writing Month, and find her “Millie-voice” again.

I am also long over due in writing a letter for one of my friend’s D&D characters from one of mine. These are characters that are pretty much retired unless we meet with members from our old gaming group for epic level games; but there was a storyline going on between her and my character, a problem which to resolve, and her character sent her apology. It’s up to my character to reply (long over due, like 3 years in real time) and finally resolve the situation.

 Aside from that I have decided that I am going to try to read books about writing, or technique, or other things from my personally extensive writing library. I say extensive, but in reality takes only a shelf and a half of the 6 book-cases we have filled. But I have only read about 3 of them, and referenced a few others. My goal is to read what others have to say on writing, and summarize the parts that I think are valuable in my journal – ready reference, if you will. But I will read other books, fiction, fantasy and so on, in between the writing books. I don’t want reading them to seem like a chore, but I figure I have the resources, so I might as well see what these authors about writing have to say.

 Oh, and I think I’m going to try to sign up for NaNo EdMo, whenever it may be, try to get some editing in on a previous NaNo WriMo novel. I just have to pick which one. So that is a brief “here’s where I’m at” about writing.

Well, here it is. The end. A different end than I had (sort of) envisioned. I didn't have a clear idea on how it would end, actually, but I feel like once again my characters stopped being characters - stopped being themeselves, near the end.  But then maybe that's just how I feel after 30 days of writing mayham.






4352 words today
Grand total:  78,192 words

I had to stop writing in the middle of a scene, so I'm omitting that scene from this post, and will start the next post with it.





4529 words today
73,840 words total

I got a load of suggetions tonight - makes up for some of the quieter sessions, I'd say. And makes for one insane dream :-)






2903 words today
69,3111 words total