the deep moans round with many voices

( Ashes, part 3 )

1) I really need to do research on trees and flowers and other plants of Africa, India, and South America, because man, my botanical knowledge is both terrifyingly limited and also restricted like whoa to the Midwest and Northeast of the USA, and that is just boring, boring, boring. So I will be faking my way through here. Please bear with me.

2) Sular's basically a plot device. Does that show, or is she coming off like a real person?

3) I still fail at physical description. *headdesk*

4) Are my metaphysics at all clear and/or convincing, or am I making a muddle of things? Any feedback would be very welcome!

5) 1,600 words today, 4,200 total.

( Ashes, part 1 )

And that's enough for today.

A few notes:

1) I have no idea what the effective range of a heliograph is, nor precisely how one shapes the flashes of light, but I needed some form of non-electrical distance communication, and I happen to think fire and mirrors are cool. I may change that in December, when I do some proper research.

2) Funny how making a more detailed outline and doing some slightly less glancing world-building has stretched this introductory section out to over twice the length of my first proper attempt at this story. I promise Morgalen will appear without too much more delay.

3) So, Zalir. She did not exist at all in any sketch of this story I wrote prior to that first attempt in March, whereupon she appeared as a throwaway secondary character. A while later, it occurred to me that it would be really dumb for Riam and Morgalen to go off into the tainted lands and the Great Waste on their own. Plus there is no way Riam's sister would let him do that. So I thought, well, what if a guard goes along? And lucky me, I already have one here and named!

Then, of course, I had to figure out who Zalir was and what to do with her, the upshot of which is that she became a third main character, helpfully plugged a couple other plot holes along the way, and is also just a lot of fun (for me, anyway). Plus it means I have a questing party of two women and one man, of whom the man is the one who's always going to play the bleeding-heart compassionate role, in contrast to Zalir's practicality and Morgalen's coldness.

4) Man, I suck at physical description. You cannot tell from this section what anyone looks like, nor what the layout of the compound is, nor much about the geography and climate of Zerlon. One thing I usually do on second drafts is go through and try to insert sensory details to keep my stories from feeling like they occur in front of blank white screens, enacted by faceless manikins. But that takes time, and is more editing than writing, so you're going to have to suffer through my unfiltered blind spots for a month.

5) 1,825 words so far!

After much waffling back and forth (between "but I want to!" and "but I have so much other stuff I ought to be doing instead!") I have decided to attempt NaNo again this year. This time, I come armed with character sketches, proper world-buildng, and, most importantly, an outline. Thus armed, it is even possible I may make 30,000 words this year!

(I don't really hope to win. I know myself, and I am a deeply lazy and distractible person. But I think a thousand words a day should be doable.)

I will be attempting to write "Ashes," my original postapocalyptic fantasy epic thingy. It will not start exactly the same way as the excerpt currently available via my fiction directory; consider that a rough draft to the rough draft. But it's basically the same story and the same cast (albeit somewhat expanded, as I outlined and realized I needed people to make various incidents work).

Two hundred years ago, a handful of researchers got a little too ambitious with a magical experiment and visited the equivalent of nuclear holocaust on their world. Generations later, the survivors have settled into a tenuous equilibrium, but that cannot last forever, as the catastrophe is still in glacial process. Now a magician, a binder, and a swordswoman set off through the Great Waste on a quest to save their world. But the magician has hidden motives, her companions have secrets of their own, and there is no guarantee that their solution may not simply make the crisis worse.

...I think my back cover summary skills need work, but whatever; it gets the point across.

Anyway, in the interest of self-motivation, I would like to post each day's progress as I go. My questions to you are:

A) Would you be interested in reading said progress (including annoyed insterstitial author's notes, most likely), and if so,

B) Should I create a new NaNo journal or just hijack this one for a month?

All thoughts appreciated!

---------------

In completely unrelated news, JM, PM, MS, and I have decided to do themed costumes for Halloween, since we're the four people staffing the smoke shop on Sunday. We are going for the classic pirates-vs.-ninjas theme. :-) JM and MS will be pirates, while PM and I will be ninjas.

Tomorrow I will stop by the costume shop in the mall en route to the grocery store and see about finding some cheap plastic knives, shuriken, or what-have-you. I already have all-black clothes and a black scarf (though I may want a facemask, should I find a cheap and lightweight one), and the rest is basically attitude and remembering to take off my rings and not wear earrings, since jewelry is dangerous in a fight. :-D