Writing: Nanowrimo Unexciting Update

Posted by niaskywalk on Dec 7, 2009 in Personal Facts, activities |

This year, I attempted to do NaNoWriMo again. Although I didn’t win, I did beat all previous attempts combined and that has satisfied me for now.

Originally, the title of my novel was “Lady Mathilde Gabriel’s Abaddonian Knights” and it was supposed to be an adventure through my version of Abaddon. However, when Mattie arrived in answer to her Daemon Lord’s (Fenrisithian) ‘summons’ the story took a different turn. I found the dialogue and interaction of Mattie and Fenrisithian was too rich and dynamic. If I left her in the world, Fenrisithian and Mattie would’ve had too much happening between them (NOT romantic. Not ever.) and it would’ve ruined any story.

Instead, Mattie was sent to one of the ‘provinces’ Fenrisithian controls. Once there she is to work with locals to discover the whereabouts of a certain item, recover it and return to Abaddon. To keep up with the title, I changed it slightly and added a new dimension to Mattie’s universe. The new working title became “Abaddonian Knights: A Lady Mathilde Gabriel Adventure” I know, I know. Not a change at all it seems, until you understand that Mattie is merely the same character in all stories involving her, but not the Hero of the story. She falls into different situations and becomes a catalyst for various things.

Imagine if a world never heard of a vampire before? Suddenly, Miss Gabriel is there, only able to travel at night or swathed in a strange material. She looks mysterious and has a latent menacing aura. Then animals are found drained of blood, someone sees her snacking on a disgusting rat, or someone spies her as she brings down a buck or goat and carries the mostly drained carcass to a campfire. Rumors begin and thus the legend of vampires is brought to a new land. This is just one legend or idea she can initiate. She uses a variant of magic. In one world, she could be nothing special and in the next become the anti-god.

I am not good at writing. I don’t know/understand how to do an outline of events, though I know it should be done. I also know it isn’t neccessary to do an outline, but I have a feeling I would do better with one. I also can set up scenes pretty well, description, feel, scent, possibly even emotion… however, I haven’t successfully conceived and written anything plot-worthy. Yes, I know. Plot isn’t neccessary for NaNoWriMo. However, it is neccessary to carry my characters through my worlds.

All that doesn’t matter though. I have found I have one day a week I can write. If I miss it, I have to wait for another week. I can write during the day, but my thoughts get scrambled and I lose the story. I can write during work, in between tasks or on break… but well… Just LOOK at my blog, okay? It is obvious I lose track between one sentence and another. Then there are the times I start strong and end totally weak and dumb. Or have nice attractive subjects with no content worth reading.

… and I am not going to get into how whenever I write something I am happy with, something happens to it. Like an article I wrote up that was a complementary commentary to accompany a link to an interview of a favorite new author of mine on another website in regards to writing….

Anyhow, I figured since I mentioned earlier in the blog that I was doing NaNoWriMo I would give some kind of follow up, just in case anyone was interested. I certainly hope I have entertained someone today.