Re: WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT NANOWRIMO????

[Areada]

HERE I GOOOOOOOO!!!!

[MozytheHealer]

127 words. I'll do the rest after I sleep. :{D

This is going to be awesome. I love my characters already. :{D

[MozytheHealer]

1957 words! Write or Die is amazing. It only took me an hour to do that.

[Nayaby]

Nice!

Thursday's my longest day xP Finally got home! Now I can finally get cracking!

[Nayaby]

The NaNoWriMo website is being extremely glitchy right now... I want to look at the format of how to submit it when done. A friend of mine got the one she wrote last year bound and mailed to her, which is pretty cool. I wanted to look around the website, but it seems to be receiving such heavy traffic it's down :/

I've reached the point where I need to stop writing for a moment and actually establish what my aliens look like. The format of my story (two people narrating together) makes it difficult to physically describe aliens without breaking character. Eh, I'll figure it out.

[Areada]

The NaNoWriMo site often has issues in the beginning of the month.

I am rather unhappy with parts of my beginning. I don't want to backtrack, but I've always had difficulty establishing one of my characters and it persists in being an issue. Oh well...

[Nayaby]

Sometimes characters need a hard shove before they fall in line, don't they? Good luck!

I've been editing my own beginning substantially :/ I realized that two narrators arguing with each other, while possibly humorous for a little bit, will just get old quickly, and confusing for the reader. I do have a direction though.

My "faster-than-light" travel method? Compressed space. Ships literally cut a slit into space and slip through it into a parallel dimension where everything is exponentially closer together. Matter has no physical properties in this dimension, allowing everything to pass through everything else without consequence (thus avoiding thousands of mid-air collisions). While the outside of the ship passes through everything, the inside remains solid through some sort of artificial energy field sci-fi jargon. Nonetheless, it's a very unpleasant (but necessary!) way to travel, and some people get slipsickness and vomit. The slit where the ship enters and exits compressed space closes up right away, but leaves a traceable "slip scar" that lasts several hours.

Tee hee, sci-fi!

[Areada]

There's a similar idea in Star Trek Voyager! It's not exactly the same, and it's super unstable (so it's only in a few episodes), but it's kind of a cool concept, I think. Sounds awesome

[Nayaby]

Of course somebody else did it first! Somebody else has always done it first! Ah well xD

Areada, what do you think is a good prefix for Commonwealth? Galactic is so... overused.

Galactic Commonwealth :/ It's iffy.

Edit: I enjoy creating slang terms. "Cut the cake" means "Slip into compressed space." The cake is not a lie. The cake is the fabric of reality!

[Nayaby]

Oh, one question about format.

It the story supposed to be separated into chapters? A 50,000 word story ought to be, I suppose. Chapter headings don't count towards the word count, I assume?

[Areada]

I didn't say it was the same thing, I just said there were similar concepts at work. xD

Argh, that is a hard question. Galactic Commonwealth sounds fine, I think, but if you are concerned about overuse-maybe try a prefix that isn't a sci-fi word? Not every sci-fi government name needs to scream 'SCIENCE FICTION'.

[Areada]

Nayaby, you can basically write whatever you want, in any format you want. Just get to the word count. There are really no rules other than you need 50,000 words. Preferably your story involves a beginning, middle, and end, but if you only get partway through the story, it's okay. There are even NaNo 'rebels' who are continuing a story or writing something really weird.

[Nayaby]

Oh, I see. The rules are really simple then! Thanks I ask because I'm usually a stickler for rules and structure. Heh.

Once I've gotten further into it, would you like to critique my ideas Areada? (And anyone else?). I'm still solidifying them as I write, so nothing's set in stone yet.

[Areada]

Totally! I'm going to post a synopsis sometime soon too and I would love some comments from everybody...

[Nayaby]

Huzzah! I'll definitely comment on your synopsis too. I'm actually really looking forward to it!

Apparently, my school campus has a thread on the NaNo forums too. I could meet other writers! This is exciting!

[Areada]

Must...fix...synopsis.

I just need it to flow better...

[Nayaby]

Aha! To enhance the mood, I changed my Microsoft Word layout so it's average "novel page" size. If anyone else using Microsoft Word (or any other program with adjustable page sizes) wants to make it "feel" like a proper book, set the page size to Statement 13.97cm by 21.59cm (5.5 x 8.5") and set the margins to Narrow (1.27cm all sides).

It's a minor aesthetic change, but it feels cool ^_^

[Areada]

I'm writing in Scrivener. FULL SCREEN WRITING FOR THE WIN.

Seriously. You can write and your ENTIRE SCREEN is blank for writing. No toolbars, no nothing. Just a beautiful, blank screen...

[Nayaby]

Personally, I'd find a massive white screen intimidating. But then, I like complicated screens. I always have two windows open, each taking up half of my screen. The right side (always the right side!) has my actual story. The left side has a dozen tabs I alternate, between research, my notes, and Spiced Toast.

I do the same thing with every written project. Project on the right side of the screen, research and notes on the left.

[Areada]

It's not really all white, it's more creamy. It's calming, somehow...

I posted my synopsis/teaser in the writing area...critiques? Comments? Anyone?

[MozytheHealer]

Alright. I need some help with these 138 words. I'm playing around with sentence structure and length to change the pacing and mood, and this is the first time I've done it so far.

'The device was heavier than she had expected and she found herself glancing over her shoulder for Bradon every couple of seconds. She didn’t see him so she made her way out of the transport as quickly as she could. She could see Lir waiting for her down the street a ways. She swallowed, still worried someone was following her, and licked her lips to wet them so she could rub her lipstick off. She got only a few more steps before she started getting woozy. She heard protesting through her com-link. It was very hard to understand and sort of all running together. Lir was yelling at someone as he supported her. She wasn’t sure when he’d gotten there. She could hear Ninian and Elisedd as well. Then there was a gunshot right as she blacked out.'

Does it work?

[Nayaby]

You know how I said I was going to bed to dream on things? I wound up writing more instead xD I'm really liking my characters! Particularly my spindly, pop-eyed lizard-alien, Vel Moosh. Just Moosh to his friends, since Vel is his surname. I'm just enjoying him and his paranoid antics. He's one of those characters that seems to do his own thing without me feeling like I'm telling him to.

You're writing sci-fi too? Yay! The pacing of your paragraph doesn't seem off to me. I'd get rid of "to wet them" because it's redundant though. And I might replace "couple of" with "few."

[Areada]

I love how you are caught up in the first few days of NaNo writing adrenaline. Use it to your advantage. Get ahead. *emphatic nod* Then, when mid-way-through-NaNo panic hits two weeks from now, you'll have an edge.

Me, I am doing alright. I couldn't quite hit my word count for the first day (but only by a hundred words or so) because I had an epic homework panic of awfulness but I should be able to catch up nicely today.

[Elfie]

I did not know you could format your page size like that! Cool! Now it looks more booky. I always wondered how I could make it feel more like a novel, instead of similar to the school project papers we had to do. xD

I need to figure out how to make the first chapter longer... and should I have a prologue to explain the past, or keep it secret until Seraphine, the main character, can figure it out? Maybe the priestesses can help her out there. Yeah! But why would her father send her away? To keep her safe from the war between the two kings seems too cliche and like I'm wanting to get her away from there to help the story. Which is true, but why let the readers feel that way? Hmm. I think I'm gonna post some snippets in the writing forum later for some comments.

[Nayaby]

I've finally settled on a format! This means I can stop editing my first chapter and move on xP

I'm a bit behind on word count :/ I think I spend too long perfecting what I've already written than writing new content. I've already lost my "edge" Areada :O

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