A waltz down memory lane...

I spent the night going through a stack of about thirty of my old floppy disks. It's been a while since I'd even thought about them beyond a "What are these doing on my desk?" and they brought back a few memories.

Group Fics from two messageboards I used to hang out at were on there. I found a copy of _Friends without Faces_, a poem that one of the people over at the Breeding Ground wrote a few years ago. I still like it, look for it in a future entry. I found a copy of _Out of Exile_ from right before we started the latest round of revisions. [I also found and old copy of Milcha's character description, it may be one of the oldest. It was last modified in Febuary of 2002, which was about the time that I started writing in it. She started life as a manuscript illustrator. Although I notice that, if this document is really as old as I think it is, M&M's father had always been K.I.A.]

I found a Ronin Warriors fanfic that I wrote sometime in middle school. It's incompleate, and well on its way to Mary-Sue-dom, but there are elements of the character and the transition I was using to go from scene to scene was kind of cool. Wayani may be making an appearance in my original work soon. Maybe I can put her somewhere on Nariell.

There was a smatering of old school projects, including my summer reading project from my sophmore year of high school. I guess I'm saving it in case it might be useful someday. I also have at least two copies of the Evil Overlord List. You know, just in case something horrible happens and everyone else on the Internet looses their copy. Or something.

The real gem however was on a disk with a yellowing label. "[MY REAL NAME]'s Disk" is written on it in my Dad's handwriting. Underneath it, in my best 5th grade handwriting is the word "script". I remember thinking at the time that it was so cool that I had *my own 3.5 inch floppy disk* because it was a *computer thing* and Dad was letting me *use the computer*. This document was written in an old version of Word Perfect, which means that to open it I have to use notepad, and at the begining there is a good chunck of what appears to be wingdings before my writing occurs. More gobbeldy gook and random spacing follow (or I may have discovered the TAB key, who knows) throughout. But if you bear with it, this file, over a decade old now, is the oldest attempt at writing a story that I still have. I remember at least one older one (from fourth grade possibly?) but if any copies still exist, my Mom's the only person who would have them. It's certinaly not in any sort of digital format.

As I said above, I wrote it in 5th grade. I got the ideas from my friends -- we'd sit at lunch and talk about it -- but I was the one who did the actual writing. The plot was something like this: aliens bent on world domination (and aren't they all) land at our school and start with the making of the chaos. The heros, who were thinly disguissed versions of ourselfs, when on to defeat them. I can't remember how exactly they were going to do this; like so many of my writings, it is incomplete. It was going to be a movie script, and I was going to be the next George Lucas. Here's an excerept:

Alien Teachers From Outer Space
Prologue: Exterior school: a giant spaceship wrapped in "Kevlar'lands on the roof of the school. The words "Alien Teachers FromOuter Space" appear on the screen.

Opening Scene:
Interior front office: Lester and Stephen are inthe office on the way to detention, when Mrs. Reval walksin,:"I'm here to cheek out."
She chechs out, and leaves the school.
When she walks out the front door she sees a shadow andlooks up. An alien spaceship wrapped in "Kevlar" hovers overhead. A light shines on her and she turns into an alien.
Einstein(from the side):"I always knew she was an alien."
Inside the space ship:
Alien 1:"Take a look at the gasmeter, and tell me what you see."
Alien 2 looks at the gas meter which reads empty.
Alien 2(screaming): AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!WE'RE GOING DOWN! WE'RE GOING DOWN! ABANDON SHIP! ABANDONSHIP! BAIL OUT! BAIL OUT!"

The only thing I've changed to this was rentroducing line breaks that were lost when I changed formats. Everything else, painful typos and all, is the original document. If I ever get around to relaunching my website, look for this thing in its entirty. Wow, "Alien Teachers from Outer Space" what a name.

Till later,
Yami

The end is near...

My last final is tomorrow. Less then 24 hours from now I will be at home, and in all likely hood, I will be asleep. I've heard sleep is nice.

So because I'm leaving school tomorrow afternoon, the process of packing my stuff is well underway. I was sitting at my desk a few minutes ago, and I got an idea for a story that I wanted to write down, so I yanked open the desk drawer where I keep all my notebooks... and it was empty. I packed my writing stuff earlier today, so I had to get up and go through the back of binders on the other side of my room before I was able to write my idea down. *pouts*

My goal is to spend the rest of this week typing Out of Exile, with an eye towards finishing my bits and getting it back to Genesis before I leave for Colorado in a week. We'll see how it goes. If I finish OoE before I leave, then I'm taking Die Complex with me, otherwise just OcE stuff gets to make the trip. In either case, I'm leaving my dictionary behind and taking my copy of Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank with me. I want to spend the summer working on my German reading comprehenson. I don't feel that I'm quite at the level I should be and I want to fix that before I start advanced classes next semester.

Gah. This semester is barely over, I can't start worrying about next fall yet.

There will probably be nothing from me until school starts again in September. The 56K at home is to slow for updating this thing to be at all worth the time. As a checklist for me once I come back, I present the following goals.
By the time I leave for Colorado, I will have finished typing my changes to OoE.
By the time I come back Colorado, I will have at least one location thought up for Blue Devil's open call.
By the time school starts again, I will have finished at least one German book, not written for small children.
By the time school starts again, I will have finished v.2.0 of DC.

Wish me luck, and see you in three months.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

It's 5:00 a.m. I have six pages of a reasearch paper that has to be 12-15 pages long written. This paper is due at 9:00. I don't think I'm going to be sleeping tonight. Have I mentioned how much I detest Mondays? If I havn't, I dispise Mondays because I never seem to be forced to go without sleep on any other day of the week. There are other reasons too, to be ranted about as they occure(sp?).

I'm finnaly getting the inspiration to finish Die Complex, now I just have to finish typing Out of Exile so my co-writers don't kill me first. I have to force myself to get that done, so I can force myself to finish DC. I'm already starting to gather notes and insperation for my next three projects, I wonder how many things I could balance concurently.

On the other hand, none of that matters if I don't get this paper done.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: I got no sleep, but I finished this paper. I have my grade back, got a B on it, too. I also managed to get all my other papers done and in as well these past few weeks. Go me! Now all that remains is to finished OoE.

Ending Radio Silence

First, take a moment to say a prayer for Pope John Paul II. The world lost a good man today.




On a more personal note (and one related to my writing which is ultimatly, why I started this blog):
Knock on wood, as of about five minutes ago I am done writing all my parts of Out of Exile. Now all that remains is the typing. Genesis, I'll get it to you soon, do you read me? Soon.

Die Complex is still plodding along. I got my application for the open call at Wizards of the Coast in (I payed something like 15 bucks to have that thing overnighted, the Post Office had better have gotten it in on time), now I have to finish the darn thing. Aihan and Sashinka are fighting my efforts to finish the story every word of the way. On the other hand, my roomate edited the first three chapters for me, and about a week later we were watching a movie and she said something along the lines of "I could see Sashinka doing that to Aihan." and I agreed. Whatever it was (curse my memory) would have been compleatly in character for me. I must be doing something right if someone other then me can get a grip on Sasha's characterization after such a limited exposure.

Speaking of Sasha's...
This is a plug for a shameless plug for a website run by a couple of friends of both Genesis and mine. [Something is wrong with the syntax in that last sentince. How do I fix it?] Refracted Light is a site devoted to sci-fi and fantasy book reviews, from a Christian perspective. I agree with their analysisesessss opinions for the most part, and their friends, so if anyone is reading this, you should also go give their site a look-see.

That's it for now.

Hello Again

Well, its been a while since I last posted, hasn't it?
Let's play catch up. Since I last posted, I failed completly to win NaNoWriMo. I printed out everything I had written, then attacked it with the pen of the editor. [Insert thunderclap and ominous-sounding music here.] I started a rewrite, and am now about 1/3 of the way done with it and when I say rewrite, 'drastic changes to plot and setting' is probably more correct. For starters, its no longer an AU version of our solar system, its set in a whole new place that is still searching for a decent name. Wizards of the Coast has an open call for any and all sci-fi, fantesy, or horrer novels, and I am hopping to be able to submit something to that. *knocks on wood* The longer I work on this story the more I like it. Even if nothing comes of this open call, I still hope I'll be able to go somewhere with this thing.

Speaking of stories I want to take somewhere...
I have been writing a novel with some of my friends from high school for oh, four years now. We are in the process of putting together a final draft. I have the book now, and I'm still having trouble ajusting to the fact that there is only one sceen left for me to write, and after that, everything I do will just be cosmetic changes. When we started this, I don't think I really thought we would ever come close to finishing.

If you add to the the different RPGs I'm writing in, and all the school work I have (schools been in session for three weeks and I've already had two papers due) , February is going to be a very busy month for me.

An excerpt to melt your heart.

I got to go to the Christ Batty book signing last Saturday! \/\/007!
Right now I am sitting at 24,906 and I'm aiming for at least 26,672 by the end of the night but I have to stop and share this bit. It made me cry when I wrote it.

Sashinka and Aodhan are on their way back to the car after the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve:

“Oíche chiúin, oíche Mhic Dé, Cách 'na suan dís araon. Dís is dílse 'faire le spies Naíon beag, leanbh ceansa 'gus caomh. Críost, 'na chodladh go sámh. Críost, 'na chodladh go sámh. Oíche chiúin, oíche Mhic Dé, Aoirí ar dtús chuala 'n scéal. Allelúia aingeal ag glaoch. Cantain suairc i ngar is i gcéin. Críost an Slánaitheoir Féin. Críost an Slánaitheoir Féin.” Aodhán sang the song quietly on the way out to the car.

“Was that Silent Night?” Sashinka asked.

“Yes it was.” Aodhán responded.

“Was that Gaelic you were singing it in?” The elf answered.

“Yes, it was the first song I ever memorized. My mother taught me the Gaelic before she died. It is one of the few things I remember about her. Every year on Christmas Eve as we went home from church she would sing Silent Night in Gaelic. I can still hear her voice when I close my eyes, floating through the cold night air like an angel’s song.” Aodhán was glad of the darkness in the night; it hid the tears welling in his eyes, which he blinked back stubbornly.

Right. I'm going back to work now.

Now we're gettin somewhere

I dragged a 6 x 9 steno pad with me yesterday and wrote on that. I just compose faster when I write by hand then when I type, although I can type what I have written as fast as I can read it. On one sheet of this pad I can fit about 300 words, which means that 11 pages is about two days worth of writing. If I can keep up this pace, I will be caught up in a week.
Yesterday's efforts brought my word count up to 9,559.
I just might win.

Tuesday

Today's word count is 4,243, which lands me almost to the end of Chapter 2. I am so far behind its not even funny.

Here's a quote from Chapter 2:

“The guild does not care about what happens in twenty years. They care about what happens this year. Since you left more of us have died at the hands of one of our so-called colleagues than our supposed targets. Not all of us can leave like Goerauslein did.” Sashinka shook her head as she spoke.

Scientific Progress Goes Boink?

I have made it all the way to 3,173 words so far, and I am hoping to get some more in tonight. I realized that I don't know any good Gaelic phrases for Aodhan to toss in to his conversation. A thread in the NaNo forums and a goggle search have not produced much, although I did learn how to say "May a pitiless bureaucrat destroy your ill-gotten wealth" in Gaelic, and surely that counts for something.

The genre is now Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Alternate Universe Earth. My short summary is Odyssey meets the Godfather in a solar system on the brink of war, with an Irish assassin as the protagonist. The male MC (said assassin) is Aodhan Kelly. There ought to be an accent on that 'a', but the alt+ codes hate me. The female lead is Sashinka Taumaril, an elf from Pluto sent to find Aodhan and bring him back to the city of Styx-Acheron-Plethegeron with her. Absolutely no hilarity ensues, this is a serious novel.

So I decided to take it in a bit of a different direction...

I wrote about 1,500 words, decided that I didn't like where things were going and started over. This is a bad way to meet a deadline. I wouldn't advise it. Anyway now I'm just about to where I was when I decided to restart, and I only lost a week, including those three days when I didn't do anything.

As it stands now, I'm keeping the title and two of the characters from the old plot and I'm going off in a different direction. And I have the proper background music to write this to, now -- between what the Chef and I already had and what the Leprechaun let me borrow I have 25 and a half hours of Irish/Celtic Music. Now if I had a day straight just to write (and no Internet access to distract me ^_~) that would be great. As I said above, I'm caught up to where I was when I restarted (OK, so Sasha quoted a Tennyson poem verbatim, but she had a good reason and it was one of his shorter ones). With a little bit of luck I should get another chapter in tonight.

For now, I leave you with this quote from Chapter One:

The cold November rain was drizzling down again when Sashinka and Aodhan emerged from the pub. He led the way quietly down the street and Sashinka followed him, the four-inch heels of her boots clicking on the sidewalk. They
strolled along in silence, turning first one corner, then another. The elf looked about her, it had been years since she had last visited and the years and the rain and the night did the town no favors. Buildings that she remembered as holding thriving businesses stared out at her through empty eyes lidded with "For Sale" signs. She sighed, not for the last time, her breath hanging before her in a little cloud that was snatched away by the wind and the slow rain.

Good Night Everyone.

NaNoWriMo has started

It's about 4:30 local time, and my NaNo is 24 words long. My goal for today is 1667 words, plenty of time left.
Let me say a little about my story now. The (working?) title is Die Complex, and as it stands now there are eight named characters who live in the same apartment complex (hence the second word of the title). Six of them run a detective agency, one is a carpenter at the Opera house, and the last is a free-lance computer programmer. All eight of them are part of a D&D campaign (hence the first word). The action takes place in my cities of Styx-Acheron-Plethegeron (or SAP to the locals) and Meerhaven.

And oh yes, everybody vote!

Post the first

This is my NaNoWriMo Journal. Look for updates here as the month progresses.