Quis Leget Haec Crapus?

So, I have a really, really shiny, super-duper shiny shiny shiny new idea for a novel. All of the other ideas I've dabbled with while working on Necromancer Syndrome and Bloodhunter Rites, haven't stuck with me for very long, and didn't have that spark. I have to admit that I didn't feel that way in the very beginning for NS, but the more I worked on worldbuilding, the more I loved it.

The new idea has me a bit obsessed. I've been doing research on it, just a little, to see if it's feasible for me to do. It would take a whole helluva lot of research, and knowing how I shirk research, that might not be a good thing. Also knowing how I obsess over some little detail of research for longer than is necessary, that's also strike two. At least it's in an area I find interesting, and love to read about.

It would be a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy. Since I learned that I liked adding real places into NS, I decided that I could do it again. Where else have I lived? Humboldt county. Add in sailing ships and Napoleonic-era like sea battles, plus warring factions of strange races, plus a dash of magic, and my brain loves it. Loves, love, loves it. A lot. Like if I could marry an idea like this, I'd be the happiest gal EVAR. Then we'd have little idea babies that would grow into awesome grown-up ideas.

I guess it doesn't help that I'm reading one of the books in an awesome series, Commodore Hornblower by C.S. Forester. The character of Horatio Hornblower is one of my favorite characters of all time. I also just watched Master and Commander again!

Okay, so this idea actually seems to be a mutation of that space opera idea I had that just didn't seem to click. Now it does. WHEE!

Of course, I still have TWO OTHER books I'm working on right now. Sheesh, brain. So far, I've completely rewritten NS from scratch, and I'm still not done (though close). BR has stalled for now, because what it needs is a new outline and a big epic battle. BIG! EPIC! BATTLE! (Yes, it deserves all caps and the exclamation points).

Since I haven't done this in a while, here's where I'm at:

The Rewrite of Necromancer Syndrome:



The First Draft of Bloodhunter Rites is also:



It's neck and neck! Which one will win?

When re-reading the first draft of my 2YN, Necromancer Syndrome, I had a hard time with the setting and the feeling of community. I didn't know why, since I've lived near where it's set for most of my life. Although Sacramento didn't meet all of what I thought should be in the book, I decided to set it 40-50 years in the future. But the city is still near me...why did I have such a tough time with it?

After posting on FM about my problem, many suggested visiting the places that were similar to the ones represented in my book. Heck, why not just go there?

One of the important locations are various cemetaries throughout Sac, so I visited (with my sister in tow) the one closest to another important location, one of the richer neighboorhoods in the area,

I came back with a lot of fodder, and was pleased that my few sketchy descriptions in the first draft were fairly acurate even drawn from my poor memory.

Location: East Lawn Memorial Cemetary


I had no idea that this cemetary sported a neon sign and a fully-working clock. What a great detail! Who would've decided that a tacky neon sign to show the entrance location was a good idea? And even the living need to know the time...



The historical mausoleum built in 1926. I didn't actually get to go inside, because we arrived so close to their closing time. But I did get to peek inside. Plush seats with what looked like red velvet in rows in front.



This was a newer mausoleum, and we didn't stay in this area long, because an older gentleman bearing flowers sat with his head bowed in front of one of the areas. I didn't want to intrude.



This picture makes the place look way smaller than it is. It's actually huge. 40 acres huge.

From the entrance we walked down the adjacent streets to check out some of the suburbanite homes in the area. Almost everyone we walked passed eyed us suspiciously before they went about their business (and I had to wonder if we weren't young white girls, what they would've done). I have to admit, me taking pictures of all the houses in the area probably looked sketchy. When I picked up a real estate brochure for one of the "small" houses in this neighborhood, I nearly choked. It's was going for $899,000, and was one of the smallest there! Mostly BMWs, Mercedes, and Jaguars were parked in the driveways, and one middle-aged white man looked at us, and beeped his alarm on as we walked by.

A group of boys playing together in the front yard, asked each other if they should ding-dong-ditch some of the houses down the street.

But in our meandering, I found where one of my characters would live. The house is so massive I couldn't get the entire thing in the frame.



Now, on to the re-writes of my 2YN, and with plenty of fodder!

In preparation for my NaNo project, I've been doing a bit of research to create two of my important alien species. And what've I been researching? Ring-tailed lemurs and bioluminescent deep-sea squid. Sounds strange, I know.

When I took a primatology class a couple of years ago for my minor, we studied prosimians, and I was so intrigued by facets of their biology and family groups that I stored the information away for the day that I'd use it in a story. Now I'm creating an alien species, which relies heavily on scent and scent marking, and mates only a couple of days out of the year. How would their biology effect their culture? And would they communicate with scents as well as verbally? It's really fun trying to figure this out.

As my main character is an interpretor, I wanted to give her problems with alien types of speech. More alien than just trying to speak verbally with strange sounds, though there certainly will be that too. So, the ruling class of aliens are going to communicate via bioluminescence. Also, the idea that the dominant power in my universe looks like a glowing squid...entertains me.

As for my 2YN, I'm driving into Sac tommorrow to check out and re-check out some of the real life places where my story takes place. That means I'm going to check out a lot of cemetaries. And I'm taking pictures.

Since having my iPod stolen while on vacation in Auckland, New Zealand, I've realized just how much music fuels my occasionally recalcitrant Muse.

My 2YN started life as a terrible short story based on the song, "The Nurse Who Loved Me," by A Perfect Circle. I'd been listening to it obsessively, for no reason I could identify. It wasn't super catchy, and it was about drug problems. It did however have a great atmosphere to the song, a sort of childishly innocent sound to it at odds with the content of the lyrics.

So I wrote a short story about a nurse who accidently kills a patient, covers it up, and then sees his patient's ghost and kills himself. Okay, it was my first real attempt at a short story and I wanted it to be weird, like Edgar Allen Poe weird. When I received feedback from the writing class that critiqued it, I was crushed. It didn't make any sense, the profound imagery I was shooting for was completely lost. Oh, and my college roommate poked holes in all of the medical inaccuracy, because both of her parents work in the medical field. Yeah, can we say lack of research?

I decided to re-write it as a murder mystery. A detective takes a drug in order to see ghosts of the victims of a murderer. Again, I aimed for the weird and (to me) profound imagery. My writing class seemed to see the murderer from a mile away. But what they were intrigued by was the worldbuilding and all the questions I'd left open about the manner of the drug, and the way the ghosts were portrayed.

Taking their advice, but still a little hurt, I shelved the overall idea. Until Zette's 2YN class. I'm now still obsessed with the idea, more than two years later.

And it's multiplying into several stand-alone sequels. In my head at least. Part of me thinks outlining sequels before I'm even done with the first one is silly. Even if they are stand-alone. Still, I've been expanding my worldbuilding...just in case I want somewhere larger to play with...say with a sequel.

NEW GOAL: Finish the rewrite of my 2YN by the end of the year. No, by DEC. 31, 2008. There. It's a goal.

For the Story-A-Day challenge, I was obsessively listening to "Where Is Home?" by Bloc Party. Many of the lyrics disturbed me, since it was about a young black kid who was killed in Britain, and how his relatives were mourning him. How as a minority, the singer didn't fit in mainstream white culture, or in his parent's culture. So, I wrote a short SF story with a similar theme. And I really liked it. I'm still not sure what to do with it.

I also had many different playlists to evoke a certain mood. I now lament the lack of my Depressing Songs list. I had almost six hours worth of sad music stored up. How am I supposed to kill off important characters without it?

Oh, and I know it's early, bu I'm thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year, as I've been too scared to do it before. Yes, too scared. I've made all sorts of excuses not to do it in the previous years. I'm in the middle of another book! I'm rewriting! I don't have time!

Shesh. So, I've decided I'm doing it this year. I just have to decide which idea I'm going to work on.

1. As an interspecies translator and peacemaker, Nym, a woman hiding from her past as an illegal human experiment, inadvertantly communicates with a stolen piece of living technology--the secret to the ruling alien species monopoly on faster-than-light stardrives.

OR

2. Exiled from the alien controlled communities, the former slave Varik chooses to form an uprising against the human's captors, the canine-like Rhanir. But as the planet's native species start a worldwide system of wholesale slaughter of both humans and Rhanir, Varik must unite opressors and opressed to save them from a foe neither can understand.

I like both ideas, even though the first one has been swirling in my brain for a bit longer, fermenting, and getting all boozy in there. The first is definately Science-Fiction/Space Opera. The second is actually more Science-Fantasy the way the rest of it goes in my head. The two story ideas could actually be part of the same fictional universe if I tried to unite them.

NEW GOAL: Decide on an idea, do some prep work for NaNo (outline, worldbuilding), then start it on Nov. 1st.

Oh, and anyone else who has HBO, are you watching "True Blood"? The vampire series based on Charlaine Harris's books? I have to admit I've been meaning to read the series...but every time I see the main character's name, I cringe and die a little inside. Sookie Stackhouse? Seriously? Why not Cookie Brickhouse? Why not Kiki Shesmightmightyletin'itallhangout?

Aside from that, I'll probably give the show a chance and a half before I decide I don't like it. And maybe I'll pick up the first book in the series...if I can get over the main character's striper name.

I recently received rejection numero four for "To Reign in Purgatory" from The Town Drunk. I don't know why this rejection bothered me while the other ones I managed to brush off. Maybe it's because I'm getting close to the bottom of the barrel as far as places I plan on sending it, and it'll go back in the drawer after that.

Maybe it's because I was horribly sick this week and my mood was already not so bueno.

It's hard to remind yourself that rejection is just part of the process to publication when you're hacking up half a lung and your abs feel like a ninja monkey has kicked them repeatedly from coughing too hard.

Oh, and being heavily medicated probably didn't help.

Right, so fuck it. On to the next place.

As far as the 2YN goes, I think I've fixed some character motivations, filled in a few plots holes, and am very pleased with the two characters I combined into one. I also moved around the order of a good number of scenes, and it seems to have picked up the pacing a good bit. So, all in all, I'm still pretty happy with this project.

I still think I need to write something new. Just for fun. Maybe Justin's exercises might give me a boost.

Right, off to write!

So, the first time I read the section in Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook about combining characters, my brain rebelled.

"But, but...I need those characters! All of them! Combining them together will destroy them!"

Now I'm starting to see that combining them may in fact make them stronger.

I'm in the rewrite phase of ze 2YN and I've been having a big problem with my MC's love interest (who happens to be a ghost). She just didn't seem to come to life (pun very much intended). If anything she was just kind of there, urging him on when he needed a nudging. My MC has a former FBI partner (also a ghost), who is way more important to the plot, has many more scenes, and is more emotionally involved and causes tension.

Why not combine them?

It seems so simple now. You know, after rewriting about a third of it from scratch.

Of course, I might think this is a terrible fix and change it again...