I see that I have already managed to break one New Years' Resolution: Updating this on a regular basis. Still, I do have an excuse, having succumbed to what I have dubbed as the 'February Fever'; a particularly nasty cold which lasted over two weeks involving all kinds of weird and not so wonderful symptoms, including fever. That one lasted A WHOLE WEEK. My writing from that period, is, um, interesting, to say the least.

In other news, I have started a new novelly shaped project. You know, to go alongside the other three. This one is inspired by, of all things, Icewinddale II, specifically my frustration at the fascinating power structure presented in the game, which the plot will not let you do anything but hack apart. DO NOT WANT. So therefore I am writing my own icy-flavoured politics/ conflict novel. So there. That said, IWDII isn't that bad, provided it is combined with Domi's IWDII NPC mod. Which adds a surprisingly compex cast of joinable characters to the game.

And finally, a February update for GYWO. I am at 56,353 words, which is a much larger amount than I'd expected to be at by this point. Hopefully this should go some way to covering the May Meltdown brought on by AS exams.

Victorian/Gothic/Parody novel has grown, lurking at almost 8,000 words now. i think that it will be the sort of novel that once finished, will be put in a black box and never opened again. So far, as well as ticking the usual Gothic cliches of spiritualism, asylums, Highgate Cemetery and Sinister Nuns!, we also have a Bridget Jones style of friends, making snarky comments on the plot, which doesn't exactly help in keeping the tone consistent. OH WELL. Eliza (the MC) is very, very fun to write. Not least because she seems to have  very definite alcohol problems. I do not know how this happened.

Other Novel is also progressing well. It is about Pirates. Magic Pirates. Dead Magic Pirates. Tentatively titled Pages: A Hundred And One Days, it is, in part inspired by the mid books of The Odyssey. The idea of exploring uncharted seas, filled with isle full of withes and monsters and strange cities, was too appealing to resist. Narrated by all of the main characters, in first person, with the Circe character pulling all of the different narratives together, it is very, very fun to write.

Finally, Third Novel has appeared, based on some comments in my Jewish Scriptures class; that of Court Prophets. These are the likes of Samuel, Nathan and so on in the OT, who seem to possess considerable influence over the various Israelite Kings. A plotbunny came when I asked my tutor about possible rivalries within the courts between prophets. His answer: yes, but the only ones we know of won so completely, the others' names are never mentioned. I want to write this so much, a bitter struggle between prophets in a shifting society, to gain the ear of a king. I'll need to research other ANE cultures, plus Greek prophetic traditions, at some point. But, yes. This will be full of win.

Finally, the cello is awesome. Screw weedy violins and violas, cello is where it's at. It's only taken me six years of playing to realise this.

Nano is, so far, going very well.  I've not yet ran into many problems with regards to writing 2k a day, with 5/6k over a weekend.

I'm currently ahead, i think, with 15, 242 words, and I'm aiming to get to 20k by midnight on Sunday. This is good, as the end of this month is going to have so much happening, I'm not going to have the time to write much, if at all.

I think this one flows, for me, much better than my other novel, for jonowrimo. the structure is much more flexible, being told from the PoV's of two women, a Norse Witch, and a Roman Prophetess (or at least analogues of those cultures), as well as occasionally the Pov of the witch's guide; a witch herself, the goddess incarnated as the prophetess, the journal of another noblewoman, and a female captain on a very strange journey, slowly being stripped of herself. They are intentionally female,  and, unlike my other novel, all have a relevant role in the novel, and actually do stuff, instead of always being pushed into doing something for someone else.

The styles are also all very different, so If I get too bored, i can just switch VP and go off on a wild flight of verbal fancy.
Valente has really affected my writing style lately, I'm going to have to be very careful of that.

In other news: Very, very happy Obama won. Much less happy Proposition 8 got passed.

So after deciding I wasn't gong to do Nano this year, I am now doing Nano.

I only discovered this yesterday, so I have absolutely no plans or notes, or hell, even a clue what I'm doing with my novel. Should be, ah, interesting. 2,019 words so far, with a planned 2k for today.

Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is surprisingly good, so far, though it looks like its going to have the usual bland hero (Is this a staple of YA or something? Every YA book I've read with a child/ teenage protagonist has been entirely unremarkable.)  Still , some lovely ideas and worldbuilding so far (I particularly like the Lady on Grey)

Started playing this on Halloween. There is a staggering amount of content in here, most of it top quality (Tiberius69's entry was a particular delight. ChaosWielder's was really quite disturbing. ActorOfVeil's bothered the fuck out of me). Though there are a few weak entries, I'm not sure what the point of Stinkeen's is. But on the whole, well worth playing, and reinstalling NWN2 for, even for just a few hours.

Adam Miller's entry was, as per usual for Miller, all style and no substance, and more than a little pointless. but I must confess I have quite a strong dislike of Miller's work, mainly due to the fact the females in his mods are always bisexual, but the guys? Are always straight. This bothers me on two levels 1) the reduction of female/female relationships to male titillation and 2) The complete absence of homosexual men (probably because as we all know, they're icky, right?) In the readme for the first Dark Waters mod, I remember him saying there was no m/m undertones in the sidetrip to the showers because "It's a family-friendly mod". That pisses me off on so many levels.

Anyway, back to Nano!

I've decide to drastically cut back on the amount I'm writing for jonowrimo . I really can't cope making myself write 1000 words a night. I don't want my writing to become a chore. I also think I need to spend some time over half-term sorting out world-building notes, character lists (I've lost count of several name and people), and a few plot issues, which I don't have time too right now.

On a happier note, English Lit has drastically improved since one kid dropped it.  I was surprised to find I'm doing better in the class on Romantic Poetry and use of Narrative, than I am in the Death of A Salesman class. (A* to A I think). Which is odd, as I'm already bored with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Keats' rampant misogyny is really stating to irritate me. Though trying to argue that La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a feminist poem is fun.
History remains, at least in one class, dull and full of idiots (the idiots are in the other class but they just sit there in stupefied silence in that one. Why, hello there intellectual elitism!) But still 3 and a half out of 4 subjects being enjoyable is good.

Oh, oh. I have found (well, been recommended), a Victorian cello-rock band! And they are mighty!

Entered jonowrimo . Having rather a lot of fun so far, I've only written 800 words, but I've mangaed to establish two of my four viewpoint characters, and set some of the plot in motion. And I'm writing in a lovely, shiny new notebook *Squee*

6th form is less good at the minute, History is a little bit shit, both the class and some of the subject matter. English Lit also has a pretty crap class (if you have to ask "Why is the poem so long?", maybe you shouldn't be doing English Lit). It would've been so much better if I could've swapped to the other groups, but because I do RE, I can't without dropping history, whuch I really don't want to do. Still, talking to people in the other English group, and the rather wonderful head of history made me feel a bit better. I'll give it a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

Are two words which accurately and concisely describe NWN2. Of course my computer could do with a new graphics card and me deleting some stuff, but really, NWN2 isn't really pretty or smooth enough to justify either the high specs or the bloody ridiculous 16 GB of space it takes up. Playing the wonderful Dark Avenger Series  is almost impossible, especially chapter 2 with its more crowded areas. Though I'm determined to complete it, as currently it has no equal in terms of roleplaying, story, NPC interaction and development (7 companions so far, 1 more to come, with a working influence and roster system) and general awesome. Despite the cheesy name it is very well written. Of course both Howls in the Dark and Harp & Chrysanthemum  also focus on story and character development, but are a little too linear and not quite up to Dark Avenger's high standard. Asphyxia looks very promising as well.

Promisingly, Storm of Zehir looks like it will have companion interaction and development. Though not to the same extent as MotB. Still, I'm more optimistic now than I was. Also, I am impressed by the fact that Obsidian responds to its fan base and answers direct questions with a direct answer. Unlike Bioware of course.

Finally, I've been going through The Whisper Queen's Daughter, and while it has viewpoint issues, an abrupt change of tone, a rushed ending and some flat dialog, I am quite happy with it, I like most of the description, I think that my characterisation is better than I'd thought (especially Primrose and Lilith. Alex needs work, and Justin's rather dull), and I like a lot of the imagery I use.

Summer Shorts Progress Report

Title: The Whisper Queen's Daughter
Words Today: 1000
Words Total: 5,307
Summer Shorts Total : 5307/ 5307

Finally finished this. I'm quite happy with it. Obviously there are things that need to be improved, and I want to expand the ending a little, but that can wait til when I start typing and editing in a day or so. Also, I am never ever ever writing anything of this length on paper ever again/

Summer Shorts Progress Report

Title: The Whisper Queen's Daughter
Words Today: 1,037
Words Total: 4,307
Summer Shorts Total: 4307/ 5000

Favourite Sentence: "A golden amber glow swaying in the growing darkness. They had lost the moon in the marsh."

I'm pleased at how well this is going. The plot's a little contrived, the viewpoint and the characterisation need work, and the style has to be kept in check or it becomes purple, plus I'm not sure shortening Alexander's name works. But still ,for a first draft, I'm quite happy with it.

In other news, Storm of Zehir is looking a bit less exciting.
Mainly this quote:
"In Storm of Zehir, we intend to take interaction to a new level. One way we are doing that is reducing the amount of lengthy un-interactive scenes and adding maximum reactivity to conversations. Cohorts help us to achieve this goal. Though they lack complex conversations of their own, and none of them will be love interests, they offer special responses in conversations that the player can choose, or not. The end result is that cohorts always give you more choices rather than sometimes “hijacking” and taking away choices. Because my meager explanation may not be clear enough, here is a specific example of this"

I'm not quite so interested now. I hope Obsidian prove my fears wrong and I'm misreading this. I really hope we're not going to see Dungeon Siege-esque  pack mules for companions.

Summer Shorts Progress Report

Title: The Whisper Queen's Daughter
Words Today: 653
Words Total: 3,270
Summer Shorts Total: 3270/ 5000

Favourite Sentence: "Oh, well done, Alex. Why don't you just invite the whole bloody forest along with us!"

I think I may have to kill Primrose, I'm far too fond of her.

Summer Shorts Progress Report

Title: The Whisper Queen's Daughter
Words Todays: 682
Words Total: 2,617
Summer Shorts Total: 2617/ 5000

Favourite Sentence: "Twice Alex stepped upon a corpse, bones aching and cracking, rotten flesh clinging to him like an unwanted lover. Corpse-lights drifted up, ice blue and murderous. Cold hearts set against his racing own."

Summer Shorts - Progress Report

Title: The Whisper Queen's Daughter
Words Today: 809
Words Total: 1,935
Summer Shorts Total: 1935/ 5000

Favourite Sentence: "Ice cold it  shimmered and shivered in the silver glow of the silent moon"

This one is so much fun. Forests and faeries and fun imagery. Oh my!

Summer Shorts Progress Report

Title: Whimsy of the Whisper Queen
Words Today: 678
Words Total: 1,126
Summer Shorts Total: 1126/ 5000

Favourite sentence: "She came to him in a susurrus, shattering the silence. As she whirled through the grove, he could hear the trees howl to attention whilst the wind blew a hideous fanfare."

I'm really having fun writing this. I still have no idea where it's going or what's going to happen, but I'm enjoying the journey.

Also, Joanne Harris' "Sleep, Pale Sister" is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I much prefer her more dark books like this, "Holy Fools" and "5 Quarters of the Orange" to the likes of "Chocolat" and "The Lollipop Shoes".

I'm still struggling with Guy Gavriel Kay's "Lord Of Emperors". Despite being the second and final book in "The Sarantine Mosaic", it's still not hooked me. It has a wonderful cast, a fascinating setting and the prose is very good, despite being a little too melodramatic at times. I think it's the fact there isn't much of a plot as yet. Much better than Tigana though, and Alixana is on a par with Dianora I think.

I haven't updated this since December?  Wow. I fail.

Anyways, I recently entered sora_blue's Summer Shorts Competition in the hopes of getting something written after GCSE enforced inactivity (and incidentally, the GCSEs were a huge fucking waste of 2 years of my life). After rewriting the same 3 paragraphs of one story 5 times, I finally realised it wasn't working. I've discovered that if I know exactly what's going to happen in my stories and to which characters, I lose interest. With my now dead story, the problem was I wasn't enjoying writing, I was just getting from Plot Point A to Plot Point B by way of Exposition C. Not good. Still some of the ideas and characters I might reuse for my Nano.

I am now writing something entirely different and have no clue whatsoever of the plot or characters, and am enjoying writing it a hell of a lot more. Pity I wasted 4 days on the now mercifully dead first story. I shall now go and bury it at the crossroads with a vampire through its black heart.

BTW Bonekickers is possibly the bestest thing on TV. Ever.