where his civilizations, including our own

Well now I've got to actually write a synopsis for my Nano, because they're picking from novels with synopses to get a free professionally-designed book cover, and that would be cool. Only trouble is, every story sounds really stupid when you summarize it. Um, there's this guy, and he sees the ghost of his dad, and it tells him to get revenge on his uncle...

Maybe I'll go the movie trailer route, people seem to like that. IN A WORLD!

Oh, and. I changed my location and started getting emails from the leader of Vermont Nano participants, who has a very... interesting tic in her typing.

Th' site - nanowrimo.org – is back up and running, th' forums are starting to pick up pace, th' team in California has already begin losing their yearly allotment of sleep, and I, for one, am looking forward to joining in. ... We have a bunch of new ideas for this month – there's a Facebook page in th' works that Celestihel is finishing up as I type this – and we're gearing up for th' kickoff party by figuring out what kinds of fun schtuff we can pack into th' goody bags for everyone.

I'm not sure what to even say about this. I mean, it's obviously insane. It's also sort of funny, but sort of sad. And frightening. Once in a while maybe it'd qualify as cutesy, but it just doesn't STOP. After reading a lengthy email or post of this, I feel like I have to lie down with a cold compress.

Time to sign up for NaNo! If you're doing it this year, feel free to buddy me, though I don't think it actually does anything.

whee!

This is revised material from my Nano from last year, which took place in a world where humans have genetically engineered anthropomorphic animals, and sort of reflected my opinions about how horrible that would be for everyone involved if it actually happened. This particular section was written late in the month, when I was going on a lot of loony tangents. It provides background on one of the antagonists of the main plot -- I think it could fairly be characterized as fanfic of the actual novel I was trying to write. Yvega is the antagonist in question, and as an adult is a very scary and fucked-up person that you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

I dunno man, this was a rough week. I started a lot of shit and couldn't finish it. This is what I got.

The Happy Slaves is the title of an opera by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga.

++

( The Happy Slaves - original characters, ~5500 words, adult subject matter )

I won. And muridae_x won!

Writing one consecutive novel length story in a month proved to be too hard, but at least I have 50k words of material about the characters and world I was attempting to write about. This is fairly exciting, as the original ideas came to mind maybe ten years ago, and before I started Nano what I knew about them could have taken up a few paragraphs at most, all very vague.

I hope the lessons of this will stay with me. When you have an idea, even an idea that seems stupid, write it. The next thing will come if you actually try. Just "thinking about it" for some reason does not work.

In December I look forward to... drawing. Many times I wanted to stop and draw my characters instead of writing about them, but I couldn't because there was no time.

I slacked today because I am very tired, but I have tomorrow off. That's the last day. Um finally.

I'm glad I got my writing done early in the day, even though I was completely uninspired and felt downright depressed about doing it. I would feel far worse if I didn't finish, though, believe me. There are only a few days left after all.

And tomorrow I'll be working on black friday. Yyyyyyyay.

I logged Wednesday's words after midnight, but I'm going to write again in the morning, so it'll just look like Thursday was huge. 1892 words per day to win.

I didn't even attempt to make an excuse for why I'm not going to my dad's house for Thanksgiving. I have enough going on that whatever he thinks of me is really not high on my list of concerns. Since he clearly does not hold me in high regard no matter what I do, why bother trying to influence it? He certainly doesn't bend over backwards trying to make excuses for his callous behavior towards me. Caring about his opinion gives him more power over me than he deserves. I don't say it in an angry way, just resigned.

So instead of putting myself through all that, I'll stay home and write.

I was probably as tempted to quit today as I've ever been. I had absolutely nothing, no notes or ideas -- I didn't take lunch today -- and I'm very stressed about unrelated things. The last thing I wanted to do was sit down and pull 2000 words out of my ass. But I did.

I guess it was my mood, but somehow I ended up writing a fictionalized version of a horrible romantic rejection I suffered as a teenager, applied to the villain of my story in his respective youth. I think if I rewrite this to be a proper story I have to make him less pathetic. Getting messed around by a girl is a pretty good reason to be depressed, but it's kind of lame as a motivation for killing people.

Now I have to write 1958 words for each of the remaining days to win. Thanksgiving Day, I am so counting on you.

+

_hannelore, here's my favorite version of I Crush Everything. It was recorded in a studio, but broadcasted live in Second Life... I think, or something. I dunno anything about that game. Anyway, it's legal to download this.

Jonathan Coulton - I Crush Everything

For the rest of you, this is a song about a giant squid who hates himself. Or is it? Well, yes it is, but it's also about other things.

Nano: 38075. I haven't caught up but I made a dent. Now I "only" have to write 1988 words for each remaining day. Fortunately I'm on a bit of a hot streak. For a long time I went on a huge tangent about the villain's parents, followed by a tangent about their employer's grandfather who was the author of fantasy novels, from which I was writing excerpts. No kidding. I also wrote his biography, in the form of a Wikipedia article complete with [citation needed]s. (Blame _hannelore for this.)

Now I've somehow gotten back to the central three characters. Hopefully I can do that for like six more days.

At the end of each day I just feel like I can't possibly imagine what else to write. Yet every day I actually tried to write SOMETHING, I succeeded, so I just have to keep telling myself the next day will work that way too.

Nano total: 35442. This means I have to write 2080 words each day for the next seven days to finish.

wheeeeeeeeee