Well, I've been thinking of doing it with this blog for a time, so I may as well make my intentions public.
The ultimate goal is to create a number of articles and essays on this blog which can be leveraged in a work of non-fiction related to my faith. To work toward this end, I've imported the existing articles in to Scrivener. At a later date, I'll work on importing partial drafts.
Since I'm going public with this intent, I'll probably do a little proper outlining so I make sure I cover what I want to cover. Scrivener makes this easy, and will allow me to easily tell when I have a larger article (which can be split for multiple posts) as well as allow for easy rearrangement and restructuring of the book.
The existing posts currently amount to about 10k words. Truthfully, it is more than I expected. I expect it to go fairly smoothly once I get an outline in place.
Showing posts with label distractions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distractions. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
November was a success
November was a success. I wrote a 50k word YA Fantasy novel that needs a lot of editing, but does include a plot, character development and (surprising to me) a fairly solid theme.
While this blog is important, I'm going to drop to twice a month, as I had a lot of fun writing fiction and I want to make more time for it.
Other than the occasional mentions of it, this blog will remain focused on non-fiction.
I was hoping for a real post today, but alas my weekend was filled with other things. I'll have at least one real post this month, and I'll be shooting for two.
While this blog is important, I'm going to drop to twice a month, as I had a lot of fun writing fiction and I want to make more time for it.
Other than the occasional mentions of it, this blog will remain focused on non-fiction.
I was hoping for a real post today, but alas my weekend was filled with other things. I'll have at least one real post this month, and I'll be shooting for two.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The November plans
The plan was to write double-posts during October so that I could cruise through November without care.
I've failed that pretty severely -- as one week I even forgot to write anything. (I got a post out that day, but it was an "Oops, I forgot." post, so it doesn't really count.)
I think I'm going to accept what many bloggers accept: I'm going on hiatus for the month of November for NaNoWriMo. As this is the last Monday in October, this means my next post will be December 6th.
At this point, my planned story is a YA Fantasy. The basic premise is that magic is a consumable resource that was all used up during the early days of mankind. An eccentric hermit finds a way to replenish magic in the world. He hires a family of four, and madness unfolds. Well, not madness, exactly, but certainly excitement.
It is a variation of the idea that things were somehow more magical in the past and that for some reason all of the magical creatures went elsewhere. It is nice to think that they could just go elsewhere, but it is also possible they all died off.
For the story, it means it can start off like an urban fantasy -- totally real-world with just a promise of something magical -- and as the magic unfolds around them the limits of it are less confined to the "and no one else is the wiser" thing you generally see with urban fantasy.
The core idea is one that is backed up with stories like "Sleeping Beauty" where once the spell is broken the castle itself disappeared. To last that long, it laid waste to the area where the castle once stood. As the magic dried up and disappeared from the region it drew with it the very firmament itself.
While there are fewer restrictions on what magic can do, there are still restrictions. This is a world where magic has near limitless potential, but it can't reach the potential if it gets used up on vulgar affairs. Using magic for cleaning house? It will take longer to restore the magic used than it would to just clean it up by hand. Flashy transformations are extremely ostentatious, as after you transform there may not be any magic in the area to do anything else with.
This means that in the story world, magic needs to cause the least amount of change to produce the desired results. That said, since scrying works without a particular abundance of magic, in an area with more magic it works much better.
The device I'm using to restore magic in the world is essentially an orgone transformer. It takes "orgone energy" and transforms it in to magical energy. Instead of an orgone accumulator shaped like a box and designed to focus the orgone energy inside, we have a board composed of layers of different substances. It gathers the orgone energy, transforms it, and the magical energy exits. I call these boards "magic doors" -- which is also where the (current) title for the book comes from.
So that's what I'll be doing with my November. I'm excited. It will be my first novel, so I'm going in to it as a learning experience -- I know the quality only gets better with practice.
I've failed that pretty severely -- as one week I even forgot to write anything. (I got a post out that day, but it was an "Oops, I forgot." post, so it doesn't really count.)
I think I'm going to accept what many bloggers accept: I'm going on hiatus for the month of November for NaNoWriMo. As this is the last Monday in October, this means my next post will be December 6th.
At this point, my planned story is a YA Fantasy. The basic premise is that magic is a consumable resource that was all used up during the early days of mankind. An eccentric hermit finds a way to replenish magic in the world. He hires a family of four, and madness unfolds. Well, not madness, exactly, but certainly excitement.
It is a variation of the idea that things were somehow more magical in the past and that for some reason all of the magical creatures went elsewhere. It is nice to think that they could just go elsewhere, but it is also possible they all died off.
For the story, it means it can start off like an urban fantasy -- totally real-world with just a promise of something magical -- and as the magic unfolds around them the limits of it are less confined to the "and no one else is the wiser" thing you generally see with urban fantasy.
The core idea is one that is backed up with stories like "Sleeping Beauty" where once the spell is broken the castle itself disappeared. To last that long, it laid waste to the area where the castle once stood. As the magic dried up and disappeared from the region it drew with it the very firmament itself.
While there are fewer restrictions on what magic can do, there are still restrictions. This is a world where magic has near limitless potential, but it can't reach the potential if it gets used up on vulgar affairs. Using magic for cleaning house? It will take longer to restore the magic used than it would to just clean it up by hand. Flashy transformations are extremely ostentatious, as after you transform there may not be any magic in the area to do anything else with.
This means that in the story world, magic needs to cause the least amount of change to produce the desired results. That said, since scrying works without a particular abundance of magic, in an area with more magic it works much better.
The device I'm using to restore magic in the world is essentially an orgone transformer. It takes "orgone energy" and transforms it in to magical energy. Instead of an orgone accumulator shaped like a box and designed to focus the orgone energy inside, we have a board composed of layers of different substances. It gathers the orgone energy, transforms it, and the magical energy exits. I call these boards "magic doors" -- which is also where the (current) title for the book comes from.
So that's what I'll be doing with my November. I'm excited. It will be my first novel, so I'm going in to it as a learning experience -- I know the quality only gets better with practice.
Monday, September 27, 2010
I missed a week!
Well, that was unintentional.
I still think once a week is realistic. However, particularly as the holidays and NaNoWriMo approaches, I may have to evaluate switching to every other week.
I'll let you know if things change, but right now I am calling the missing post an anomaly.
I still think once a week is realistic. However, particularly as the holidays and NaNoWriMo approaches, I may have to evaluate switching to every other week.
I'll let you know if things change, but right now I am calling the missing post an anomaly.
Monday, August 30, 2010
NaNoWriMo 2010 and shorter posts
I'm planning on writing a novel this November. I don't think the characters will actively be practicing any form of paganism or polytheism, but some of my ideas will definitely spill over in to the story.
It's a Young Adult Fantasy story centering around the idea that magic is a natural resource that was consumed when humanity was young. An eccentric hermit believes he has discovered a way to replenish magic in the world. The main characters are children whose parents were hired by the hermit.
It's a new way to think about magic in a story. It also allows for a very modern day setting that can get stranger and stranger as the story goes on.
We'll see how the writing goes in November. I wanted to warn people that while there will still be regular Monday posts, they may well be less in-depth than some of my recent posts. (If they get as long as some of the recent posts they'll be split up.) I plan to double-up my writing for the blog in the coming months, so part of the October and all of the November posts will all be written well ahead of time.
I'm less interested in preserving the remaining ancient natural places than I am about reclaiming spaces for nature and setting them aside for the future. Plenty of folks want to preserve. Fewer want to transform the refuse and waste of human civilization and turn that in to something that will one day be mighty, ancient, and filled with potent magics. This is really the foundational idea for my story.
Now, whether this idea is related in any form through the story is another matter... ;)
It's a Young Adult Fantasy story centering around the idea that magic is a natural resource that was consumed when humanity was young. An eccentric hermit believes he has discovered a way to replenish magic in the world. The main characters are children whose parents were hired by the hermit.
It's a new way to think about magic in a story. It also allows for a very modern day setting that can get stranger and stranger as the story goes on.
We'll see how the writing goes in November. I wanted to warn people that while there will still be regular Monday posts, they may well be less in-depth than some of my recent posts. (If they get as long as some of the recent posts they'll be split up.) I plan to double-up my writing for the blog in the coming months, so part of the October and all of the November posts will all be written well ahead of time.
I'm less interested in preserving the remaining ancient natural places than I am about reclaiming spaces for nature and setting them aside for the future. Plenty of folks want to preserve. Fewer want to transform the refuse and waste of human civilization and turn that in to something that will one day be mighty, ancient, and filled with potent magics. This is really the foundational idea for my story.
Now, whether this idea is related in any form through the story is another matter... ;)
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