Status Update September 2012

Work is about to get pretty crazy, basically for the next two weeks.  My twitter followers are likely to hear me complain about lost parts of my feed, as twitter isn't very good at maintaining a timeline longer than 11 hours.  There are some things that need to get done soon, and my lack of free time is going to force them ahead, though all non-essential functions are obviously still subject to my whims, as my creation is to my muse.  

I'll also say this now:  Barring some highly unusual circumstance, I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this year.  The idea that I had won't be served by NaNoWriMo any more, and I haven't had time to flesh out anything else.  I've learned from previous years that I basically won't be able to finish a novel without a thorough outline, so this year's is at a loss.  I'll use the time instead to catch up on a few personal things, and also to work on a few other creative endeavors.  

Oh, and there's going to be Halloween and Thanksgiving and eventually Xmas and stuff.  At least a few of those require me to plan ahead of time.  Buh.  

Recent and Near-Future Reading (and Writing)

As you might know from my most recent post, I just finished A Storm of Swords.  This puts me at least a whole season ahead of HBO's Game of Thrones, which should help me to avoid spoilers.  Now, I can get back to the business at hand:  reading planetary romance, starting with the John Carter of Mars books.
... except that my plans have changed.
You see, I set out to read planetary romance as a form of research in preparation for NaNoWriMo, but my thoughts on the novel that I was to write have transformed it from throw-away adventure into magnum opus. It feels as weird as it sounds.  Anyway, that means that I'm shelving it until I get more practice at this whole novel thing.  So, what do I do now?
Thanks to cthulhuchick on twitter, I've discovered that one John Maddox Roberts wrote a series of mystery novels that take place in ancient Rome.  Throw-away comment about vampires in ancient Rome?  You're becoming a throw-away novel about vampires in ancient Rome.
New problem:  I know nothing about ancient Rome, and it's about the end of August.  This is not enough time to learn about ancient Rome and fully outline a novel!  What do I do?
I'm basically looking at two options now:
1.  I re-attempt last year's novel.
2.  I skip NaNoWriMo this year.
Unless I get a story idea about a subject with which I'm already familiar, these are my two options, and they're both looking about equal right now.

So, my reading schedule, at the moment, is some SPQR, some Barsoom, and some H.P. Lovecraft.

Goodbye LEGO Universe, Hello Again Minecraft

So, I gave up Minecraft for NaNoWriMo, and then I stayed away from it up until now because LEGO Universe was ending in just two months.  Well, those two months are up.  I tried connecting to the servers, but couldn't, with text explaining why.  So now I can get back to Minecraft (and also TF2).  I think that the biggest challenge will be remembering what I was going to do.  I remember what I was planning overall, but I'm not sure at what step I was.  For instance, I was working on a runway, but I went over to my other base.  I may have been planning to work on my dry dock.  There's only one thing that I know for sure:  I need more iron!

Vampires?

Well, I didn't manage to win NaNoWriMo this year, but I've learned some things, and hopefully I can do better next year.  Speaking of that, one thing that I'm considering doing is something about vampires.  The main reason for this is that vampires have been getting some odd treatments lately, most notably in the form of Twilight, and I thought that it might be nice to take vampires back on the ancient magical beings route, rather than the mutant/nanotech/retroviral stuff or the, y'know, sparkly romantic stuff.
One idea - not thoroughly developed, mind you - had to do with vampires in the Roman senate - or, since they would probably meet during the day, manipulating the Roman senate from afar.  Though, if I wanted to do that justice, then I'd have to learn about ancient Roman politics and the like - SPQR and all that.
Whatever it is, I'd like to choose my NaNoWriMo 2012 idea before Xmas, so that I can start researching and outlining and all that.

On NaNoWriMo 2011

Well, NaNoWriMo is nearly over, and unless some sort of miracle happens, I'm not finishing my novel on time.  I'm still going to write with what moments I have, but 50,000 words it won't be.
Still, it's not the end of the world or anything.  The whole point of this is that it's essentially practice.  I've learned some things, though, that should help next year.  I think that the main one is that I should make a much more detailed outline before the month begins.
Before NaNoWriMo began, I set Steam to not start on boot-up, and I turned it off.  That meant no TF2 for me, among other things.  So, I've missed several weeks' worth of item drops, but I don't feel worse for wear about it.  In fact, I'm considering leaving it off through December, too, especially considering that I'll be using December and January to play the very last of LEGO Universe, which is sadly ending. It'll also help me to avoid the annual temptation to buy XMas-related stuff (i.e., winter keys for festive crates, or whatever).
Meanwhile, I just need an idea for next year's novel....

NaNoWriMo 2011

I figured that I'd mention that I'm planning to do NaNoWriMo this year.  Last year got kind of screwed up.  I don't remember the details, but I recall that I didn't have an idea until NaNoWriMo had already started, and I didn't get a chance to write until later, so there was no way to make it.  Instead, I figured that I'd save the idea for this year.  I've been doing some reading and a bit of outlining, so I should now be ready to do the actual writing this year.  Here's hoping.

NaNoWriMo 2009: maybe

OK, so, a while back, I got convinced that it might be a good idea to use NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to finally get a full draft of that one novel done. This is the novel containing the story that I was trying to write by putting up here. Since I only have 1 or two not-full-chapters up anyway, I figure that I can just start over with what's going to end up being a rough, yet full, draft of the novel. It's going to be rough because that's how NaNoWriMo works. It's 30 days (specifically: November) of trying to get a 50,000-word novel written. That's about 1,666 words per day, so there's no time for editing and fine-tuning. Assuming that I even finish, I have no plans as of yet to publish the NaNoWriMo version of it, freely or otherwise. I'm just going to write, and fine-tune it later, like next year or something.
Actually, this is assuming that I participate at all. I saw some good ideas floating around, including making an outline of a 30-chapter novel, and dedicating each day to a chapter of roughly the right length. However, due to my being sick for most of last week, and my computer's dying Thursday and not getting replaced until Sunday (btw: Windows 7 is pretty good so far), I'm way behind on stuff, and haven't had a chance to make such an outline yet. I'm still catching up on things, and November is only 2 days away. I've made a NaNoWriMo account, so that's ready if I am.
The big thing for me is that I don't want to make a half-assed attempt at this and only get part way through, since the next best opportunity is next year's NaNoWriMo, and I'm not supposed to start with a partially-written novel.
Before I forget: Fair warning to anyone who actually reads this: The story segments that are up here may or may not end up being canon or other weapons (get it?), and will almost certainly be re-written, since I'm not planning to use those words, since NaNoWriMo is supposed to start from a blank slate. I know, I'm betraying my loyal fan, right? Frak, I don't think that anyone even reads this blog.
Well, that's it. To summarize: I might do NaNoWriMo 2009, and if I do, I plan to do the same story that I've been failing to do for however long.