Sketch of a Golden-haired Girl

Some sort of an adventuress.

I think it took a couple of hours to draw.  I really need to pay attention to my start time when I draw things.

I want to come up with a name for her, but I don’t have any ideas.  I’m considering starting some sort of art practice project with her.  Something where she’s exploring a forgotten land, encountering magic, cool stuff like that.

But I really need a name for her beside Golden-haired Heroine.  Or a name for the land she will explore.  Maybe Autumn?  Because Fall colors.

I need some sort of creative project to work once NaNo is done, because…eghhh, The Desolation of Kaldoa is nowhere near done being written and I can’t possibly start drawing it when everyone’s faces will be that probably with slightly mismatched eyes and noses that are ALWAYS too long.  Cuz that’s a thing I do….

So, basically, my poor ginormous sci-fi story will need to wait to be shown to the world, though I’ll probably still give some sporadic updates or snippets of art.

But what story can I do with messy looking people with shiny hair…?

Grumpy Desmond

You know what’s fun?

Teasing Des about feeeeeeeeeelings!  As it turns out, a conversation spurred me to action and I have finally drawn some concept art for my story.

Enjoy.

Armor is really hard to figure out.  Even though I have vague images in my head when I envision scenes, actually drawing it can prove difficult.  So I just pretended it was good enough and thankfully it’s dark so it hides indecisive lineart.

He has some sort of hybrid rifle with lasers and bullets.

NaNo Report for Week 3

57,555 words as of November 22cd.

The week has been tired, and messy, and with a couple of gold square days.

As you can see, I have a little Triforce from it.  At least that’s something.  If I absolutely must have another yellow day, I guess it should be next monday, and then it can be a flower.  But otherwise, no.

Besides, the Triforce is way better.

Anyway, proper news now.

For the NaNo Dare Squad goal, I decided to up my word count a bit ago and try to write 75,000 words (I feel like I said this already?  But it might have just been in other comments?).

Right now I have a one day buffer for that goal.  I need to write 2,500 words each day to keep up with it.  But I wrote 2k words today (yesterday by the time I post this, it’s just after midnight), so I should be able to do it.

Because I’ve been forcing myself through the sloggiest parts of the story, and in the very least, I am allowing myself to write random fun scenes with side characters when Sheyla gets to tough to write.  One paragraph of her, one scene of somebody else.  Just gotta do what it takes to get through.  But I think while Sheyla’s scenes will be hard right now (spoiler, she is surrounded by enemies and recently witnessed deaths of her countrymen), I’m getting back to my original outline just a bit, so YAY!

And then all the new stuff will come and bust it up again, but thematically it might work better?  Except how in the world does Sheyla meet Rob now?  It just isn’t happening.  Rob is a main character, but he hasn’t shown up since the prologue.  Whoops.  (I really need to figure out his timeline of events, he got sidelined by a lot of other heroes doing stuff while he was stuck in high school, doing nothing but grumping at society and trying to become a pilot. :P)

So, it’s messy, but it’s feeling like productive mess right now.

My only consolation for feeling like I’m still in the beginning of the story, is that this is now more like writing a whole series all at once.

Except I really need to make the final battles of the first war their very own story/book, because Sheyla isn’t quite the center focus.

I have a lot of main characters now.  Ugh.  (This should be obvious given my list of POV side characters from my last post.)

At some point I’ve got to draw some concept art for them all, but…that and Nano sounds like a problem.

Des has a fun story arc.  I mean sure, he nearly died right there, but that’s fun cuz it’s dramatic. (Except the timeline is potentially inconsistent and won’t work…?  *Other side of brain shushes self*)

I need to post some random line from the last week.  Hmmm….

“But Name of Guy In Charge of Things Here, has kaldoans,” he said.

Bravo.

Action 111 Stuff and who cares.

My thoughts about this right now. Like, what happens to the train and meeting Malverran?

That was the earlier part of the week.  The Action # was part of my outlining/scripting process which I used consistently at the start until everything derailed (I was supposed to write about it at some point…), and then I saw that line in my outline, and yup, that’s what I felt.  I knew the apathy would turn on.

Oh drat! Young Soldier thought. We’re another contrived couple!

This is what I do when I can’t write Sheyla.  Because this is what her scenes are like:

Mz. Murdervulture rose up, crossed around her desk [and] thrashed Sheyla with her cane.

“I suggest you swallow your words, or I will make you regret them for the rest of your short, pathetic life,” she snarled in her face.

Sheyla backed away from her, but she was too distraught to do anything.

Like, apt filler name, Mz. Murdervulture.  Now for a proper line:

You…You have magic. Real magic, not this barren world, but a different world, filled with true magic!

This galaxy is full of magic snobs, apparently.

Shall I keep rambling, or is this enough of a report?

And it is Thanksgiving now, so Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Edit: I just realized that I hit 57k today and that it is significant since it was my original goal for the Nano Dare Squad! Yay!  *Gets back to writing so I don’t have to do the Dares of Doom*

Further Edit: I should have mentioned that I read Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis on the 18th, and man, that was a bad idea because I was done with it at night and hadn’t written anything that day and my emotions were all in turmoil and I had an hour and half to write the necessary daily wordcount.

Bad idea, people, bad idea.  Don’t read powerful fiction when you’re on a writing deadline.  It will cream you.

 

NaNo Report for Week 2

What has happened this week?

Messiness.

Broken outlines.

And 21,567 more words.  Which is pretty good, though a little slower than the first week.  I’m almost to 50k and maybe I will manage to hit it before midnight and have 25k weeks each time (except I’m a day or two late for that already…whoops!).

Except.

It has been messy.  I got the beginning out of my outline well enough, but the middle was in some ways too vague.  And then the Cool Villainess came in and wrecked the whole thing.  Or at least wrecked in such a major way that I’m going to have to carefully think through the next stages of this story, the story that already felt kinda vague to me, and…I feel Doom closing in on me.

I also had a yellow day, not a green day.  I only wrote 1,280 words on the 13th.  Sadness, sorrow, despair, it’s not a green square on my nano calendar widget!  (Though Kenzie told me I must not disparage its uniqueness nor crush its dreams, so I shall leave it be now.)

But.  My outline.

It’s just a little bit dead and I’m slowing myself down by sometimes rewriting scenes (not deleting old scenes, just adding more bits to them), and now my story feels like a slog and it’s terribly inefficient.  And dang it I need this story written in a way I can work with in the future!

But trying to clean it up sounds just about impossible at the moment.  My mind keeps screaming for more wordcount (at least I’ve written 1,111 words so far today!), so it’s hard to pause and slow down and go off to a notebook or other document for story notes.

I feel like I keep flinging my story’s theme and focus to too many different places and it’s getting all confused, especially because of the villain and side-characters-with-POV count.

Protagonists: 2, Sheyla and Robert (who hasn’t been truly introduced yet).

Major Antagonists: Alien leaders, Cool Villainess, Void Lord, at least 3 national/galactic leaders, Evil Villainess, a few more antagonists over there I am not at liberty to discuss…So, like 10?  Oh, wait, maybe 12 ultimately.

Minor Antagonists: Mz. Murdervulture, Mz. Malverran, all their associated staff members Sheyla must deal with (this is where the confusion happens, probably two major ones for each), two bullies…Okay, that’s only 8.

Side Characters with POV: Dale, Des, Astarta, Naomi, Andra, Ryan…Potentially a ginormously wide assortment of other soldiers with bit parts here and there.

See, I have too many characters and I always view my story cinematically, so hopping around everyone’s view doesn’t seem that strange, and yet…it’s getting busy.  Way too busy.

Also, the Void Lord and his voiders seem far too nice to Sheyla and they need to step up their villain game.

I just can’t tell what the problem is with the story’s focus, so it’s nerve-wracking to head into the second half of Nano without this sorted out.

Help.

I want to feel like I’m making progress on this story, but now I feel like my road map has been stolen from me.  Now wherever I go it might mean I’m moving forward, or it might mean I’m driving in circles and getting lost in a rainy, misty day and I’m doomed.

TALK TO ME, THEMATIC ELEMENTS OF THE STORY!  THIS STORY IS TOO BIG TO RISK STALLING EVEN IF I’M AT 47K ALREADY!

Angry Snail

The other day of Nanoing looked like this for a while:

An angry snail staring at the screen because I didn’t want to write multiple scenes in a row of poor Sheyla feeling doomed.  Thankfully once I wrote the first scene unexpected things happened to make it all cooler.

Current word count: 39,292