Days 1-9 in NaNoLand

I'd meant to post everyday this month for NaNo but I ended up moving on the 1st this month and have been neglecting my writing. Plus, since I just moved to this new house the internet didn't get set up until today.

My mom and dad have decided to try getting back together and see how things go so we've moved into the house dad has rented. So far so good. I've already got most of room brought over and set up except for my books and book cases. Me and my dad are going to build some custom walnut bookcases this weekend to fit around my closet. They're going to be awesome :D And my room is finally a decent size so that I can fit a coffee table and armchair in here. It's really great, and my parents seem to be getting along fine. There hasn't been arguing or anything so far.

I only got to write about 1400 words at midnight on the 1st. I was writing on some story that was from the POV of a dog but I have since given up on that story. I just wasn't feeling it and had no solid direction to go in.

The day before yesterday I was thinking about what story I should write on, if I should start on the Chronicles or The Journalist or Sun Touched again, or if I should start writing on one of two ideas I came across while digging through some old documents searching for something new to write. They were some pretty good ideas too, one of which I was kinda excited about but when I opened a fresh new page and it was time to start writing, something completely and utterly different popped into my head.

It only started out as a couple sentences but as I kept writing the story evolved into something more solid, with a direction. I've since gone with it.

I've written a total of 3342 words on this story so far and am still intrigued by it. It is unlike anything I've thought of so far. It's about a woman named Emily who marries a man she doesn't love and her husband becomes increasingly resentful of this fact over the years until he abandons her in a foreign country with little money. Emily, who has lived in luxury all her life and believes herself to be the most beautiful and wealthy of women, now has to learn to make a living for herself and ends up dirt poor and living on the streets.

So far so good I think! I hope this idea turns into a good story. I imagine the world that she comes from similar to Victorian but the country she is left in is something completely different. A different language, a different culture, she'll have to relearn everything.

And there's going to be magic in here somewhere. Probably not as dominant as it usually is in my stories but I have some ideas for things that happen in later.

 So, I'm painfully behind on my word count, only 4772 so far, but I plan to catch up!! I can do this! :D

Nano Day 5

So today was great! I went to another write in and wrote about 5k words today. I've got a total of 14,441 words, 10k of them in my story Sun Touched. Things are going pretty awesomely with Sun Touched really. I didn't know how far I'd get with the idea before I got stumped but ideas are popping up like crazy and the general idea of the plot, saving the world from a dying sun, is coming along nicely.

I'm really glad I switched from the Chronicles to Sun Touched because when I had been writing the Chronicles I was getting stumped and I wasn't even 5k into it yet. With Sun Touched? Bring. It. ON!

I'll go ahead and explain a little bit more about the characters (because I can).

Dalon Av Baen is 159 years old and lost his power a century ago when the sun began to die. His outlook on life is predominantly negative and memories haunt him. He's pessimistic, sarcastic, and I like writing him :) I view him as the main character of the story even though his POV time is split with. . .

Nara Belvene. A sun-touched around 20 years old. She is rather optimistic and this irritates Dalon to no end. She thinks she might be able to save the world and drags Dalon from place to place as she tries to figure out how to do this.

I like writing about both of them because while Dalon is very negative, Nara is more positive and I like the contrast between their POV's.

Anyways, I'm getting to a part of the book that will be exciting. I think I may be getting close to the first plot point. They're about to come upon the ruins of a sorcerer city. There will be some rather nasty surprises there, and some good ones too. But for some reason I can't wait to write about the nasty ones. I almost feel bad for my characters, they have such a cruel author. *evil grin*

My grandparents are coming to visit tomorrow (Sunday) so we'll see how much writing I get in. If I wake up early I might be able to get some writing in but somehow I don't think that will happen. Seeing as I'm writing this at 1 o'clock in the morning. Cause that's how I roll.

Goodnight everyone! Have happy dreams of making things unbearably difficult for your characters! :D

ROW80 Update 8/10

Things are going great so far. I keep trying to world build and keep up with camp nano (which my wordcount is a bit behind at the moment). And I keep hitting world building snags that I need to work on like, why do they were clothes like that? And why do their houses look like that? And stuff like that.

Actually, the writing is going really good. I'm finally getting to the meat of the story where the things start to happen and I didn't rush it like I usually do when I start writing. I'm usually so anxious to get to the part where the MC goes places that I just skip the other important things. But I didn't this time.

There's still so much I have to figure out though, even though I've started writing. Like I still don't know how the magic should work, really. I mean, should they use wands or staffs? Not need those? Is it ritual like? Do they have to say certain words or no? Movement?

And then there's the laws  of the magic I have to figure out. What are the limits? I don't have a clue. But I'll just have to figure it out somehow.

I'm trying to look around at mythology and - believe it or not - science to get ideas for the magic in my books but so far I've still got nothing.

But otherwise, thing are going great. :)

To find other ROW80-ers, go here.

ROW Update 5/29

Ugh, I totally missed Wednesday! And Friday! I'd nearly forgotten, but my cousin was getting married on Saturday and I had to find a dress and pack and everything, and then had to spend 10 hours in the car to get there (oh my gosh, it was nearly unbearable) but it was worth it. And now that I got back home (only a few hours ago) I'm so tired but relieved that I made it back without hurting someone. (Five people in a compact car is not fun. At. All.)

Anyway, I did manage to get some writing done while I was gone, only a little though, and by a little I mean less than 1k. But there wasn't much time to write, I'm a bit proud that I even found the time to do so.

I'm also switching back and forth between The Chronicles and The Journalist now. I've had some interesting ideas on how I could fix some plot holes in The Journalist and have been eager to work on it, and it gives me a break from The Chronicles when I get too frustrated with it, so it's a win-win I guess.

As for  how it's going with my goals for both of my challenge thingies I think I'm going to utterly fail the May Madness, and still have to try and keep up with the Round of Words. I admit I'm not pushing myself too hard on either challenge but I don't want to turn my writing into something that isn't. . . fun, at all. I mean I know that there will be bad times but I think it'll be more detrimental than anything else if I work myself to the point that I don't enjoy it anymore.

How do you guys feel about giving yourself a goal? Helpful or harmful? I lean towards helpful myself, but sometimes I wonder. . .

Here's the linky for other ROW80 participants.

Magic

I've been working on my magic system and, though I've been doing well, I am beginning to wonder if I can really do this at all. I mean, magic is such a vast realm I don't think I would ever be able to explore every corner of it, even for just my world. I am thinking that I will plan the general rules of the magics that will appear in my books, and probably a bit further, but there will be much that I won't be able to touch on. Some will just have to be left to the imagination.

I mean, take Harry Potter for example. The magic in there is very ambiguous in my opinion. But it still works. The reader is given just enough rules and structure for this magic while leaving a vast majority of it to the imagination. Some fans who write fanfiction for Harry Potter have come up with detailed amounts of rules and structure to explain how and why the magic in their fanfic works the way it does or even how magic exist and all that. They give more depth, more possibilities, whole new realms to build on what are already in the books. And, well, lots of it are viable ways for magic to work, even in the Harry Potter books themselves.

And this is because J. K. Rowling left a lot to the readers imagination.

Maybe she does have detailed descriptions for exactly why and how her magic works in a journal of hers somewhere, but if she does I haven't heard anything about it and so it gives fans something to fill in with varying theories. And that's fun. That is something I would love to give to my readers, heck, even to myself.

I mean, if I were to give rules and structure to every little single thing there would be no flexibility, no ambiguity, and without those I believe the whole appeal of magic kinda goes away. Cause where's the magic in that? At that point, it would kinda be reduced to science, I think.

So I'm going to plan what needs to be planned, keep blank what can be left to the imagination and give space for there to be many theories and ideas abound to any reader who comes across my book.

What do you guys think about this? Do you think that some stuff about magic should be left to the imagination? How far is too far when it comes to planning magic, in your opinion?