Day 2: a plot?

So I'm obviously in this for the long haul now and I appear to not be writing the story that I had rather hoped I would be writing. A sheaf of marking for work has meant that the only time I've really had to think about what it is that I'm doing is as I've written the next tranche. Of course, this means I have made the word count for the day, which is nice.

On the minus side, I still don't really have an endpoint or even much of a conflict. These things tend to get more and more complicated in a desperate effort to find something on which to hang a plot. I hope that doesn't happen. I have, at least, gained one named character - Rebecca Collins. I think I may also have some idea where parts of this are going, it uses a concept I think I have already detailed on here called the 'Reality Gun'. Well, I guess we'll see.

If you really are a glutton for punishment you can read some more of this... thing after the line break.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Again!

So, here I am again to the party(?) that is NaNoWriMo and this time everything is different. I have done no preparation, I have planned nothing and I have no real idea where I am going. Even this blog has been fallow for a very long time after moving house sort of ate my life over the summer holidays and a new job (very nice by the by) ate my time since. I actually only managed to move less than a month ago and so the last few weeks have been punctuated with unpacking boxes and attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to get my lovely new home in order.

Anyway, this abomination just spewed forth from my brain, only 1,193 words so far and it's taken about half an hour. Read, if you dare, after the page break. It's pretty awful and based loosely on the Eurovision song by Margaret Berger Feed you my love. You'll find that after the line break too.

It's Psychological

Back in the saddle again, and not even side-saddle, but a new edit of those first paragraphs of the nano attempt from last year. I'm hoping this will help me get started again. There aren't many huge changes but I hope it's easier to read, has less run on sentences and fewer repeated words.

Analysis is intriguing and is from 750words.com as ever.


Rating: PG-13 (swearing, sexual content[?] and violence[?])

Feeling mostly Affectionate[?], and concerned mostly about Home - intriguing.

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Certain - Feeling

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Hearing; Us and Them: Them

40 minutes at 24 words per minute

The Space

I had an energy drink to help with the marking hell yesterday and then I had a business idea while out with my Boy getting chocolate on a walk whilst my Lovely took a driving lesson and the Girl to her own drama group.

Anyway, yes, I saw an empty building on the town high street, the business of people walking around, and heard the noise and the frenetic nature of the errands being run. And it got me thinking. What if you owned a business that was mostly automated doors, maybe a couple of private pods, and then simply sound-proofed them, removed signal for phones and wi-fi and charged by the minute for the use of the space? In somewhere like London, Manchester, Leeds, New York or Singapore you might get a bit of passing trade as people looked for somewhere quiet to be alone.

What would they do in there? How would you prevent abuse of the facilities? Well, CCTV, obviously, with monitoring. Wait! I thought, why CCTV? Why not a webcam to broadcast live to the internet? Then you could have a pay-per-view online. The rent for the space would cover the rent or lease on the building and the pay per view would provide a profit. Do it right and it would go viral too.

Then you could add another floor. What if you could rent beds by the hour? It may work out cheaper than a hotel in some of these locations. Add some cameras and you have a whole new area to exploit for money. By this point the beds would be pure profit as would any extra proceeds from the pay per view website. It would capitalise on our love of voyeurism and reality TV as well as play with the notions of privacy (people renting a space to be alone knowing that they are being broadcast on the internet but with no way of checking what they look like). And whilst it would probably work as a business idea I think it would be fascinating as a fiction project.

So, here I am planting the idea in my blog. I hope to start writing something to do with it soon.

If you use it for business or for fiction, let people know you got it from me, that's all I ask (though if you make money and want to send me royalties, that's nice too).

Rabbit in the Rain

The Old Road when it was new. Looking North.

Another section of post-apocalyptica. I don't think this is going to turn into a project just yet, I have too much on, and I've got side-tracked (as I do) by language and how it would have changed since my imagined apocalypse without making it too difficult to follow and understand. Also, trying to remember slang from places of my youth actually proved more difficult than I thought it would be. If ever I do something with these sections then I suspect I may need to revisit the setting and maybe change the Old Road to a route that crosses the Pennines and ends up somewhere in Yorkshire.

Anyway, I tried to write a proper discussion and I'm reasonably pleased with how the rhythm works even if the exact wording is a bit clunky, it is a first draft with little in the way of revision written solely to keep my hand in whilst I wait to be allowed to continue marking. Oh, and it may even help to pass the Bechdel test while not being overtly 'breaking the mould' in a way that would put people off.

The Old Road heading south when new, from the air.

As ever, analysis supplied by the brilliant www.750words.com


Rating: PG (violence[?])

Feeling mostly Affectionate, and concerned mostly about Eating and drinking - well, obviously.

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive - Uncertain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

29 minutes at 38 words per minute

The Old Road

This is something that just sort of... popped out of my head. I was musing about post-apocalyptic fiction, as you do, when I thought about the fact that most of what I know about it has a male protagonist. Also, it focuses on the very male aspect of survival. One thing that I tried to write with some friends at University featured my own character, a man who was obsessed with the need to avoid relationships with others to allow him to commit the unspeakable acts that would have him starting a war in the climax. All a bit Boy's Own Adventure really.

So, with that setting firmly in mind, I though about exploring the world differently. Writing a different kind of story within what I still feel is a pretty well constructed and well-known world. Well, well-known to me at any rate.

As ever, I am the queen of self-analysis and so I thank the makers of 750words.com once more (if you write, this is like word porn):


Rating: PG (sexual content[? - I do hope not])

Feeling mostly Affectionate, and concerned mostly about Family - well, it is a mother and daughter

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Uncertain - Feeling

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Sight; Us and Them: Us

22 minutes at 49 words per minute

Fire, wisdom and Bechdel

I confess that this entry was a hard one. It has been quite a while since I wrote anything at all, so it was always going to be odd coming back to it. Nevertheless, I return to my prehistoric story and find that I am writing something that I never planned. I wanted to write about music in the mountains and communities of itinerant men on journeys sharing skills and ideas but, instead, I found myself writing about tribes and women in nests.

Before anyone gets going, it's not about women being home-makers. At least, I hope not. It is centred on a meal though, because in my experience anything worth anything is centred on food. If I write about anything without food then that is when I am at my least realistic. It was partly inspired by reading some posts and blogs about women in history and how they tend to get ignored. How our perceptions of the modern era seem to inform what we consider to be realistic and authentic in SF and Fantasy novels.

I was also struck by Bechdel and that thing about women who talk together and don't talk about men. I have failed in that regard because the child of the piece makes reference to the male of the story in her petulance. This vaguely upsets me. However, I have, apparently, found a way around the female nomenclature - we have Falcon and Leaf on the Breeze as names. I dunno, they kinda work but I'm still not completely satisfied, they don't break the mould as much as I would like given my Moon Dancer and Shadow of the Stag names that came out of nowhere and instantly seemed to fit.

So, to the analysis provided by 750words.com as usual:


Rating: PG (violence[?])

Feeling mostlyself-expressive, and concerned mostly about food and drink - figures, given the setting

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive - Uncertain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

34 minutes at 43 words per minute