(no subject)
I've decided to keep track of my NaNoWriMo progress on this journal this year, so if you don't want to hear about it, now is the time to tell me. I'll set up a filter or something. It's important to note that this will pretty much never be actual snippets from the novel, because I am trying desperately to turn off the inner editor for the month, but I can't bear to let people read my unedited attempts at writing. So what is going to be here is basically a lot of whining about how this thing or the other isn't working out like I planned with the occasional plea for help. If I'm really lucky there will also be the occasional post of how things are going very right.
I'm going to try to post at least once a day with an updated wordcount if nothing else. And I want you, my friends, to yell at me if I'm not writing. I've set a personal goal of 90,000 words for the month, so 3000 words a day, people. If I'm behind, feel free to berate or otherwise try to goad me into catching up. Thanks.
I feel extraordinarily unprepared, because I haven't been working this idea for too long and I don't have my usual crutch of a notebook filled to bursting with research/character profiles/worldbuilding exercises/timelines/etc. So hopefully this is going to be at least a little coherent.
Less than a year ago, I wrote a short story. A quick check tells me it's not up here so I might put it up in the next couple of days. Anyway, the premise of the story was that at some amorphous time in our not-too-distant past, probably during some war or another, someone did a very stupid thing. Magic could always be found and tapped into if you had the training and were in the right place. It dribbled through to our world through teeny-tiny cracks in the fabric of reality. It wasn't common and it was unpredictable at best, but it did exist. Somebody got the bright idea to try to use that magic to win the war. It didn't work, but it did manage to rip a huge hole where there had once only been small fissures that would heal themselves in almost no time at all. Magical beings, but more importantly magical energy poured into our world and changed it fundamentally before we managed to mostly close the hole. Now, some people are born with their own source of magic, they're called talents, and pretty much anyone can tap into the other magic that exists in the world, but it's never quite as powerful as what someone with their own magic can do. It also takes a significant amount of study to become proficient as a Caster. Anyway, that world came to be from the short story, which I adore, but I seriously need to research more before I can write the rest of Dahlia's story. I'd toyed with doing something closer to home, but set in that same universe and the NaNoWriMo idea was born.
Anna Devlin is a Private Investigator and Talent for Hire. She's also a single mother of two small children. Her eldest is Dayita, age 4. Her youngest is Shanti, almost three. The story starts with a friend of Anna's sending her a client, a woman who believes she is being stalked, but does not know by who or why. Anna takes the case and things start to get wierd when she first sees the stalker. The hair is different, but aside from that he could be the twin of her ex, the father of her children. Which is probably as good of a time as any to mention that their father, not quite human. He was one of many magical beings who were trapped here after the attempts were made to close the rift between worlds. Anna wonders everyday if they're going to exhibit any of his special abilities, or maybe her own.
Anyway, that's the set-up for the story. I'm hoping it works out alright. There's a touch of Hindu mysticism in here, and hopefully the research I've done is sufficient. Also, it's the first time that I've written a mother and children, so I hope I manage that, but the kids are important, really they are. They aren't just an excuse to insert the personalities of my two darling little nieces into a story. They're not, I swear. I've done some playing in photoshop to make pictures of the adults. I can't find any pictures to use for the girls, but once I finish fiddling with them, I'll post those here as well.
I'm going to try to post at least once a day with an updated wordcount if nothing else. And I want you, my friends, to yell at me if I'm not writing. I've set a personal goal of 90,000 words for the month, so 3000 words a day, people. If I'm behind, feel free to berate or otherwise try to goad me into catching up. Thanks.
I feel extraordinarily unprepared, because I haven't been working this idea for too long and I don't have my usual crutch of a notebook filled to bursting with research/character profiles/worldbuilding exercises/timelines/etc. So hopefully this is going to be at least a little coherent.
Less than a year ago, I wrote a short story. A quick check tells me it's not up here so I might put it up in the next couple of days. Anyway, the premise of the story was that at some amorphous time in our not-too-distant past, probably during some war or another, someone did a very stupid thing. Magic could always be found and tapped into if you had the training and were in the right place. It dribbled through to our world through teeny-tiny cracks in the fabric of reality. It wasn't common and it was unpredictable at best, but it did exist. Somebody got the bright idea to try to use that magic to win the war. It didn't work, but it did manage to rip a huge hole where there had once only been small fissures that would heal themselves in almost no time at all. Magical beings, but more importantly magical energy poured into our world and changed it fundamentally before we managed to mostly close the hole. Now, some people are born with their own source of magic, they're called talents, and pretty much anyone can tap into the other magic that exists in the world, but it's never quite as powerful as what someone with their own magic can do. It also takes a significant amount of study to become proficient as a Caster. Anyway, that world came to be from the short story, which I adore, but I seriously need to research more before I can write the rest of Dahlia's story. I'd toyed with doing something closer to home, but set in that same universe and the NaNoWriMo idea was born.
Anna Devlin is a Private Investigator and Talent for Hire. She's also a single mother of two small children. Her eldest is Dayita, age 4. Her youngest is Shanti, almost three. The story starts with a friend of Anna's sending her a client, a woman who believes she is being stalked, but does not know by who or why. Anna takes the case and things start to get wierd when she first sees the stalker. The hair is different, but aside from that he could be the twin of her ex, the father of her children. Which is probably as good of a time as any to mention that their father, not quite human. He was one of many magical beings who were trapped here after the attempts were made to close the rift between worlds. Anna wonders everyday if they're going to exhibit any of his special abilities, or maybe her own.
Anyway, that's the set-up for the story. I'm hoping it works out alright. There's a touch of Hindu mysticism in here, and hopefully the research I've done is sufficient. Also, it's the first time that I've written a mother and children, so I hope I manage that, but the kids are important, really they are. They aren't just an excuse to insert the personalities of my two darling little nieces into a story. They're not, I swear. I've done some playing in photoshop to make pictures of the adults. I can't find any pictures to use for the girls, but once I finish fiddling with them, I'll post those here as well.