Plastic Lions & Fantastic Phantoms

I have a few ideas brewing for the long fic for the writerverse Phase 5 Table of Doom challenge. The prompts I thought I wanted to use straight away were "diary" and "Blitz" with "mystery" and "lies" following close behind.

Now I have begun to write a character's diary but rather than being the diary of someone who might be about to witness the Blitz, it's the diary of Nell, my main character from my Nanowrimo novel from around 1954/5. I might also write diary for members of Nell's family during the 1940s. That might give me a chance to revisit Erica, the flyer stuck on the Channel Islands during last year's Nanowrimo, as, at the point where I've started her diary, Nell has just met Erica's sister and presumes she is going to find out all about her mother and her mother's family.

( Rough possible beginning - Nell's diary )

Inspired by this list at stayintheroom and writerverse's Quick Fic prompt "Automated Romance" and very much encouraged by wytchcroft. <3

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I think I'm beginning to climb out of my post-nanowrimo writing slump. This is definitely due to a new phase starting over at writerverse and therefore brand new challenges to sink my teeth into. So far there's the first "Weekly Quick Fic" and the return of "the Table of Doom".

The "Table" is actually four lists of 25 prompts this time round and you choose one of those lists to try and complete. I've picked a list which has among its prompts "style: diary", "genre: mystery", "lies" and "event: The Blitz", so there's plenty for me to go at even out of just that lot. The main goal for this challenge is to write as many stories from the 25 prompts that it takes to add up to 10,000 words. One of things you can get bonus points for is writing one story that's 10,000 words. I'm thinking of challenging myself to that. 10K over three months seems a lot less daunting than nano's 50K in a month, but then there's all the research, planning and editing to do over the three months for this one as well.

I'm also on the lookout for prompts from other places as well. There's one from stayintheroom that I've had my eye on for a while:
( It's a list of words that have me thinking 'steampunk' every time I read through! )

There's also plenty of the start with/end with prompts at the same comm that I'd like to try my hand at as well. Hopefully I'll be able to make some brain storming and planning posts once I've finished sorting out my room. (I've just finished moving all my stuff over so it is a lot of sorting out!)

Blimey, where did the last month go? Where did the last year go?

On the other hand, I've just won nanowrimo for the first time. I think I need to sleep for about a month now.

38,549 words and two days to go. Can I do it? I'd like to think I can. I've still got my old room to finish clearing out (I've moved to my landlord's other house, yay!) but if I try and get that all done tomorrow then I suppose I have all of Friday to be a wordcount zombie.

I can tell there's loads more of this novel left so it's just a matter of finding time to sit down and get nearly 12,000 words of it down over the course of two days. I'm only up to January 1965 of a story that was going to go up to somewhere between 1967 and 1973. Then end of what I'm going to call 'Part 1' is approaching and it looks like it's going to involve Ian and Nell deciding to get together and get married and the band releases it's first single. I've had that in note form at the end of my document for a week or more now, so that's the point I'm going to aim for.

And then maybe I can start writing 'Part 2' at some point in December. It's quite addictive this writing lark, isn't it? :-)

Title: The Carnival is Over
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original
Word Count: 1678
Pairings (if any): none
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/etc): none
Summary: Nell finds a book of folk ballads that sparks off her creativity.

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Title: The Carnival is Over
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original
Word Count: 727
Pairings (if any): Steven/Mary Anne
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/etc): none
Summary: Nell, Steven and Mary Anne decide to visit one of Nell's regular folk clubs.

( Read more... )

An extract from "The Carnival is Over" at precisely the point where I decided to go ahead with linking Nell to Erica, the female flyer from my previous Nanowrimo novel. I remembered I needed to get an extract up from a mandatory check-in challenge over at writerverse.

This is taken from a much longer day in the novel (a day I am still writing) but the section here is relatively self contained.

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In tonight's writing I've made (or revealed that) my main character Nell is the daughter of the main character(s) of my nanowrimo novel last year. I had been considering this for a while and I suppose that's why I left Nell's background vague this time round. It means a bit of jumbling round of dates in what I've written so far but that isn't really a problem. I just have to remember that Nell is 23ish in 1964 rather than 18/19ish. She herself was quite self-concious of acting like a teacher towards her housemate/bandmate Steven's 18 year old pregnant Scottish girlfriend so Nell actually being several years older is not out of the question.

I am amused by how Nell's back story (which wavers between vaguely and more specifically connected to the other novel's characters) has just completely ploughed straight through the middle of the scene I was intending to write. I've both excused it and steered back to the actual scene by saying that the three of them have been deep in thought while drinking tea and chomping biscuits. Adding this aspect to Nell's back story also helps shape her views on adoption a lot more three dimensionally. She knows that it can be a good thing because she's had a settled life with her 'Auntie' Lydia but she has also been left with a lot of questions about her parents. Nell is worried that Steven is going to end up marrying too young (he's probably about 19 or 20) but she can't bear to think of him, his girlfriend, Mary Anne, and their child spending the rest of their lives being tortured with questions similar to those she had growing up.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this aspect of Nell's character and the novel develops, though I'm also curious about how it will affect my perceptions of last year's novel when I pick it up again to finish the first draft. I love the surprises and challenges that nanowrimo writing throws my way. :-)

So, Nano marches on. As of tonight the on par word count is 20,000 and my own word count is just under half that at 9,881. I'm happy though as 600-800 word days are much better than zero word days. I've only had one zero word day but that was the first Tuesday of nano and my night was spent gaming rather than scribbling. This Tuesday, I'll try to get myself out into town early in the day and spend as many hours scribbling (all right typing) as possible and see if I can get a little closer to catching up.

The Coffee Evolution write-ins in Huddersfield work well for getting my words down and a lot of the time make me able to carry the motivation home and write at least the same amount again. That's not always possible with one of my housemates thinking he can be downright rude and intimating towards me and speak to me the way he talks to his kitten, who he smacks and tells to disappear. His attitude is making this house a really bad environment to live in.

I'm trying to keep my head up and focus on the nice things here, like the size of my room and the wall of slightly wonky mirrors at one end of it, and I love my other two housemates. My only quick option for moving at the moment is to one of my current landlord's other houses but the only room he's got at the moment is smaller than the one I'm in (about the same size as the one I had in this house before which got messy far too easily) and it's a wonky shape because of a chimney breast and fire place. It would be a lovely room though, if I was not a chronic hoarder and therefore did not have a ton of books, CDs and LPs to try and figure out how to fit in there.

This other house is also way over the other side of town, which would lead to changing doctors (and not in a regenerating sense unfortunately!). Considering my current doctor has just put me on antidepressants, going to another doctor right now is not ideal.

On the other hand, if I did move there and got all the things I'm worried about sorting sorted, I would be living opposite and abandoned pub. Depending on how long I stayed there I might be telling a ghost story for my next nano! ;-)