Easily Distracted by Shiny Things

I've been doing NaNoWriMo, part of the reason I haven't been posting. It's been overall a different experience from last year.

Last year I was plunging through the rough draft of a story where I already had around 40k words written and had been thinking it through and working around the idea for a few years, had revised and rejected any number of alternates and options in the daydreaming, plot summary, and planning stages. So while it was raw text, I retained a pretty good idea how it ought to go. AND, it's in a secondary world of a sort that doesn't require a lot of research I didn't already know. (The very very last thing I looked up during the revisions of it sticks out for me; the air dates of certain Doctor Who episodes. Not exactly what one would call deep research...).

This time I'm doing the zeroeth draft of a story where I have only the vaguest outline of what will be coming, have been thinking about the plans and characters for months at best, many of which months were eaten creatively by Labyrinth's revisions. I have a total of 3700 words of plot summary and character sketch (And some of that added after I started NaNo), and already know I need to do multi-book intense research on some very basic aspects directly related to the plot. And no time now as I pour on words, so this time it's fake it with the most shallow Wikipedia glance, write, and research later. Meaning that I might end up realizing whole sections simply need to be scrapped or replaced wholesale because the Boat/Surgery/Arachnid Doesn't Work Like That. (It helps to have a couple of relative kids on board. They get to not know stuff.) But it feels a lot more like wading through fog and mud with a hand-drawn map whose ink is running from the wet, with a dying flashlight. In the company of strangers.

Just starting a story with no plan beyond a neat idea is something I did in my teens a lot, but while my style of laying down prose is Still closer to pantser than to planner, and while I still tend to store more notes in my head than on paper, I tend to leave a lot of stuff churning in the backbrain a lot longer. For instance, I have a whole chunk of the third book of the Serpent Prince series wholly unwritten - but I started the first draft of the Serpent Prince itself back in 2002. I've lived with even the newest characters for a few years now. When i turn to that project, *even though* there are some key plot things in the climax I haven't figured out (There were for Labyrinth, too), it's not going to feel this lost. I'll be heading there WITH Ketan and Rosor and Teo and Jes, and I KNOW them.

The last, closest thing to this I've done was probably that first draft of the Serpent Prince, in fact. Which, again, 2002. And that was with medieval daily life as the key not-researched enough area, which is one where my knowledge, pre the rest of the research, was already at least enough to make it unlikely I'd fall into the worst "you learned that from Hollywood" pits.

So this feels alien, outside my comfort zone a bit, in a way last year's NaNo wasn't, because even Labyrinth as an idea that dates back at LEAST to 2010 (That's the last saved date relevant to it I can find in my files. I'm pretty sure if I scoured LJ I'd find evidence from 2008-9).

So I'm not enjoying pouring on the words quite the same (Tonight I'm ahead enough I opted for a break to write non-fiction, IE LJ posts, instead. In part because I actually do know some of the next scene, which means I'll be able to add words at a good clip.)

Also, as I confessed already, I had one night where I was so frustrated and stuck on the next scene that as I sat there, thinking, "I don't know what to do now, I don't want to write this, I'm horny but Colin is off to bed and his MOTHER is in the house..." and I switched to a new file and ended up awake far too late, with 4400 words of extremely naughty PWP (With unrelated unnamed characters). Which, since the next day I managed to pour on the words on the real project quite happily, I think was useful in unjamming the story itself, and EVERYONE to whom I've mentioned it said Go ahead and count it as NaNo Words, it's fiction and 4400 is a HUGE single-day word count, which fits the spirit... but still feels half like I cheated.

Well, if I make 54400 words at month's end, I can stop fretting it. If I just make 50k, well, then I can worry.

This is purely self indulgence, written because it interests me. It's the first time I've had to do this much intensive almost ground-up worldbuilding since Labyrinth was first started (Because Labyrinth is set in a wholly different world). Every other story I've had to *refine* extant worldbuilding, do further discovery, but the basic sketches were MUCH more firmly set.

( Cut because seriously this goes on a long while. )

I have now officially managed to put actual word count on four different projects in the last month, three of them within just over a week (One near drabble might be finished, at least for this draft.) And have contemplated others.

So I think it's time I picked a project. Or two. But not more than that.

Options:
( For length )

I Really need to buckle down on this stupid book if I really intend it to be done before the baby makes an appearance.

Of course, things were complicated by going back to make a POV change for several major scenes. I had to go through the scenes a couple of times to be sure where I should have the changes, which I can't do easily on the Dana, so the usual solution of "Run off to the library to type without distractions" wasn't as feasible as it should be.

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Green Arrow: Year One (Andy Diggle and Jock)

This comic is four years old, nigh on five, so not exactly new, but I decided to pick it up because I always liked Green Arrow, and a Year One story, being a retelling of a character's origin, is going to be a newcomer-friendly entry point. (Not, I grant you, usually a major issue with your average superhero, but I've read enough other comics of other genres, especially manga, where that isn't the case, I'm allergic to reading too much out of order).

Anyhow, I recall the Green Arrow origin story always involved him being stranded on a random island with a bow and a need to survive. I don't recall if it always involved discovering criminals on said island, and beating them to get off, but it sounds like typical super-hero stuff, and that twist didn't feel new.

This version of the story is well written considering how much was crammed into its length, and the usual restrictions and assumptions of comic-book heroism (this version of Green Arrow is right back to maiming rather than killing people, and devising trick arrows to prevent needing to shoot deadly bolts at anything other than animals), but falls right into the obnoxious, noxious and undesirable territory of "What these people need is a Honky" when the current incarnation of criminals on the island turn out to have enslaved the local population (Those they didn't just murder and dump down a well -- that particular discovery scene was... effective), to grow their massive secret poppy crop. Of course, they're helpless to save themselves until some blond guy comes by and does it for them. I *don't* recall the original story being one of these, so if I'm right, that's a regression.

On that basis, I'd dismiss it as an uninteresting entry. But there's *one* character who does interest me, because in a story whose base narrative type was a bit less pernicious, she could have been a lot more. Taiana first appears as a helpless slave, heavily pregnant. She looks like a wide-eyed innocent with the only note of interest being her willingness to approach the site of a helicopter crash and try to help the men therein. Classic lovely native waif stuff, also classic set-up for the person who draws the Honky in to the local culture if anyone does (In this case, there's no time for that step in the mini-series, so they skip nigh straight from "White man meets natives" to "white man saves natives".)

However, on her reappearances, it turns out that Taiana is a fully-trained doctor, even if one forced to work with primitive tools, and a calm leader of her people. When Green Arrow is slow getting back to rescuing the slaves, she makes her own attempt to free them, which GA mostly aids and abets by creating a distraction to keep her from getting shot in the back. She's the one who gets the slaves to a boat, and finds them guns. Ultimately, she saves his life at least once by pointing a gun at someone (But not shooting, of course. The only people who kill are bad guys.) And, if certain hints in the last pages are to be taken, is doing the last section while in early labour (She gives birth pretty much instantly once her people are free).

I'd call that a thoroughly awesome character, and I would totally read a book just about her and what she does then and afterward (Opening a free clinic, or a series of them, wrangling to get adequate medical supplies against the odds, turning over assumptions about what her people, and particularly a woman therefrom, can do, all while raising a toddler alone) ... except that she spends too much dialogue telling Oliver Queen he's important and he's special and he made all the difference. Because that's the narrative voice of the "What these people need is a honky". (To some degree, it's also a part of this mini-series being Green Arrow's story, and partly a flaw in superhero comics that the super-hero must always be the most important person). But it doesn't matter how awesome the woman who does it all backwards and in high heels while heavily pregnant is. The guy has to be that little bit better -- or at minimum, she has to think so.

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There are times I really want to write the story of Therien Damina.
The gist of the story idea is, he comes to the New World with the Hudson's Bay Company (And yes, there's a background story behind someone with a French name ending up with a British company -- but I don't know that one), and starts to talk to the native population. But then Therien, in his eagerness to help and his too-shallow understanding of the Cree nation, makes some severe mistakes and screws up royally, causing the actual central problem (the only part of which I really know at this point is that it involves a very angry Bear Spirit, which he reads as A Bad Guy, something to be rid of, when it's nothing of the sort). Things only get better when he gets out of the way of the Cree people and lets them fix what he made wrong. The actual heroes I rather intended to be the elders of the people, with some hope that, with sufficient study, I can be sure the ultimate hero is a woman.

Then there are all the times I know why this story is not for me to tell. At minimum, not yet. No chops, no research, no research discipline, not nearly enough grasp of the history or the people. Not nearly enough of the actual story nuggets (Most of which would need to come from the research - even the bear spirit thought popped up due to an essay read for another subject - so won't hit spontaneously the way that the Serpent Prince plot kernels did, which only required looking at an extant story sidelong and asking a stupid question.)

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A thought I mentioned in passing a few times, but which I think is worth chewing on.

When shopping for baby clothes, I looked at what i have so far, and the question "what if we're all wrong and this turns out to be a girl?" popped up.

My conclusion on the spot, and which still seems true looking at what I have, seems to be that there's not a thing clothes-wise that i wouldn't also put on a girl, no problem. NO shade of green or blue that screams boy to me, though some will to other people, no depiction of animals, or dinosaurs, or rocket-ships, that couldn't be put on a female body. The only one that felt even fractionally iffy was the one with the construction trucks, and that one I probably wouldn't have bought for a boy, either, left to my own devices (mom did. And it's pale blue and fuzzy, so I decided it was acceptable.)

The reverse would not have been true. There are still some colours (and I include colours I like, like lavender, not just the pinks I often don't) and some subjects that I would have bought for a girl and hesitated about using if surprised by a boy.A girl can wear blue, dammit, and who cares if she's taken for a boy by random strangers, but a boy can't wear lavender with flowers. Gasp. He might be *mistaken for a girl*. And that would be awful.

Fortunately, I don't seem to have this same sticking point, so far, about picture books (The only children's playstuff I have already in the house besides the everygender-safe stuffed animals), whose stories might actually influence the growing mind, or about most toys (The majority of baby toys and many toddler toys I've seen are pretty gender neutral. This changes as they get older, and turns into a whole different ball game. But the worst examples of female-gendered toys, the ones I would consider the least suited to give to a boy, are the ones *I* didn't much play with as a child and wouldn't buy -- like Barbie.)

But I do see this as a hint of what has been pointed out about current attempts to address gender equality - girls can be more masculine than they used to be and still be girls, but woe betide the boy who is feminine.* Even though the latter takes (at least) as much personal courage.

(Random side point. I've always thought I'd take "men's rights" groups more seriously if, rather than wanting to reclaim already-masculine things from those grubby female hands, they wanted entry into traditionally female spheres. If, rather than wanting to have men-only gaming groups to counter womens' desire to occasionally game with each other instead of always pushing into a male-majority space, men's rights advocates wanted to have men's nights that involved giving one another manicures, or learning embroidery and crochet, instead of being the minority, if present at all, at famale-majority get-togethers of this kind. And that's before you get to the "Men's Rights" types who are effectively rape apologists, a group for whom I have two words.)


* Transgender and genderqueerness add piles of complication on both sides. This point, however, is mostly about the cisgendered cissexual boy who still likes 'girly' things, or the cisgendered cissexual girl who likes "boy stuff".

I noticed that I never did blog about the event two weeks ago. Not that it’s likely of much interest to anyone else, and it feels too late now. It was low-key but good – I missed more of it than I’d have liked.

Still working – they keep extending my hours one week at a time, while they look for a permanent receptionist. I am NOT minding much at all.

I had another plot kernel pop the other day.

I’ve been trying to figure out a basic problem in the Labyrinth story. Heather is bisexual; she goes into the maze to save her estranged wife. The problem is, the character she gets help from, and ends up attracted to, is male.

Happens in real life, of course – but in fiction, it’s very easy to make this feel like it’s saying “She’s not really bi, she just played a bit in college”, or other attitudes that similarly trivialize alternate sexualities. The fact that she cared enough to marry this person didn’t feel like enough, since they’re already pretty broken up by the start of the story.

And, of course, since the wife was stuck in a tower in the middle of the maze. I had been thinking she couldn’t do terribly much to protag, or to show up at all until late. Which meant that if I wanted to establish the relationship as just as real and just as valid, I had begun to think I’d need to do flashbacks to Damina-Earth instead of the broken world of the maze, because even Heather thinking so wasn’t quite holding up its end. (It also seemed to me to be really unfair to have a living breathing person act as a macguffin, with no part to play in her own fate and no actual need for a personality – it’s the thing I dislike abut Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, that Aurora is an object, not a person, and the plot is ABOUT Prince Phillip and the Fairies.)

Until it finally twigged: it’s a maze of illusions. The spouse might be effectively trapped in a tower. But does she know that?

Turns out, she doesn’t. I thought abut this a while, trying to figure out what she could possibly be doing that wasn’t either a near-identical run through the maze, or otherwise unrelated and effectively useless?

About a week ago, I went digging through my LJ archives to find the place I’d first summarized the plot for the Labyrinth story, back when Heather’s rescue was her sister, not her spouse. Alas, it wasn’t on the tag I first thought it was under, so I had to search more intensely. In the process of skimming through several possible files, I tripped over one of my old dream-records. And of course, I just *made* a new, if brief, such dream commentary, which also brought the older ones back to mind.

And while I was thinking, this came to mind – and – BANG! Plot Kernel exploded. And triggered two more nasty-dream recollections to join in, as for the first time, I had a way to string them together into an actual coherent storyline. I’ve scribbled down enough notes – and then some – to be sure it works. And it does link up with Heather’s after a while. And works to not make this new protagonist an object, as well as to detrivialize their relationship.

It showed up just in time, too. I don’t actually know the next couple of things that happen to Heather once I finish the current scene (Even though I have already written part of what happens to her in a few more days – since she loses and regains a companion, I can’t *quite* just skip the in between.) So I can go back and start lacing in the other character.

Lots and lots of writing to come. Yay!

A business language "what not to do":

Strategic, I understand, is a happy business buzzword, so I can understand (Big Company X, a vendor for the company I work for most these days) wanting to use it for a customer service e-mail address, even if I think it's silly. And "Customer Associate", their chosen term for customer service rep, does naturally shrink to C.A.

However, the net result is an e-mail address starting with:

Castrategic

Which just makes me wince. And I'm not even male.

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This last week, I ended up at two reception jobs with a lot of time on my hands. The result was a LOT of writing time (The first place was set up ideally for hiding the Dana from visitors/casual viewers, and the staff I worked with didn't mind. Especially as I got the odd jobs they found for me done in very short order first, as well as picking up the phone in a timely, friendly fashion.)

It went... oddly, though, as writing can. It's all officially on the same project, which is called the Ginevre books in my brain, but which I usually called "my only heteronormative traditional mediaevalesque fantasy trilogy (with dragons)". Except it's not a trilogy anymore, it's a four book series; The Serpent Prince, Soldier of the Road, the Poisoned Word – which title is based on the name of a dragon, and is thus an epithet as well, to match the other three – and the last book, which is either called the Dragon Queens, or Dragonchild.) And I'd like to think I do enough things to subvert all of the above or at least have thought through what they mean. (To my chagrin, the story has no overt lesbians. Ketan spends too much time in virtually male-only company. To *his* chagrin, as he's about as straight as you get.)

Except that, I started out picking away at Soldier of the Road, which I've been worrying at for a good couple months now when writing at all -- then, the next day, out of some whim, opened the file on the Dana for the Serpent Prince, which I'd almost removed as not needed.

Since then, the two have been running neck and neck – which one I pick up in a given writing session, or whether I trade off halfway through, changes each time. Admittedly, some of the new stuff in Serpent did inform how the very next scene in Soldier goes – as a book should do to its sequel – but it makes a strange synergy to cope with the same people at different moments..

I've been thinking a lot, though, over the age of the main characters. Ketan is 16 for the majority of the Serpent Prince, and Theo's 19. Pomal is probably within a year of Ketan, though she never specifies. Rosor is 18 (actually, her being two years Ketan's elder also goes virtually unmentioned, come to think of it). Vess is 15 for most of the book, and barely 16 when she marries Theo.

Yet by the end of the Serpent Prince, Ketan has already been faced with marriage, wars external and civil, political dissent, blasphemy (in a world where the gods have a lot to say directly about same), betrayal, and judging in trials for murder and high treason. (Also nepotism, stupid behaviour about girls, arguments with dad, doing the right thing for the wrong reason and the wrong thing for lack of experience, but those go with being a teenager. Although, granted, arguments with dad are a lot different when you have to be extremely careful not to accidentally cross the line into treason just for saying you don't like his rules.)

I keep wanting to flinch on this. I keep thinking, nobody would bat an eye if I quietly added two years to everyone. The thing is, I want to face the fact that they're a bunch of younglings. I want there to be a subtext about how fast you grow up when the consequences for failure aren't social embarrassment but murder, or a curse from a god. About how to act when age isn't considered an excuse for not knowing, when you can't say "But I'm just 16!" and expect anyone at all to pause for anything, be it asking you to act as judge or slaughtering you in battle.

About irrevocable life-altering mistakes you make when you're nine, or 15, or 20. Because while these are not impossible to do in our world -- where you could end up in an unskilled labour job because at 16 you weren't thinking seriously about the fact that you want to be a doctor but can't afford University without a scholarship, or a dislike of condoms or a missed pill could make one's future VERY different indeed -- we now consider these bad things, and have a number of steps and means that such a person can get support so they can try again. A change I DO approve, compared to the world I write in. ***

The thing is, I'm not trying to MAKE that point. I'm not trying to have that debate about better or worse. Indeed, I suspect that that aspect of the books will go under a lot of radars, and hope it will; it's not even a theme, just a thing.

The entire point, indeed, boils down to, "This isn't our world. They don't make our choices or have our assumptions." A point which is lost if I do add even two years. Because while that still feels uncomfortable, it downplays it. It asks that it sneak under the radar for fear of troubling sensibilities. To not be different enough from 21st century first world ideas, gods and unquestioned monarchy**** notwithstanding, to bother those who like it here.

I think I fail too much as it is; I'm sure the boys have attitudes that give away the writer's 21st century assumptions. And I don't want that. But it keeps whispering.

I can't quite tune it out entire. There are times it's legitimate to ease the way of readers, and isn't a case of abandoning a vision; Bear chose to write the Stratford Man not with complete Elizabethan dialogue, but with something between that and modern idiom, that people might actually make it through the splendid book.

I don't think *this* is the time to listen to that voice. But to silence it whole it is to lose a possibly useful editorial tool in the future. Which means it gets to annoy me now, whent he decision is made.

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** Not sure why I did the last two: Soldier should be a viable entry point for the series if I had to sell it separately, but I'm dubious that the other two could stand or sell alone.

*** Conversely, there is something to be said for the arguments against overprotection, or for how little we allow our teenagers to accomplish or experience. Everything is, after all, a matter of balance, and as often as not, more information and less protection might have *prevented* some such bad choices being made. But I will never say it's wrong to try and mitigate the effects of a bad choice made young.

**** Ketan actually does fail to consider the idea that a patrilineal monarchy is bad. That surprised me; he really does end up questioning so much else, right up to the decrees of Gods - though he *also* never considers the idea of not worshipping something, even in the face of the fallibility of deity.

* there is no single star footnote because, feeling too lazy for html, I used single stars framing a word for emphasis.

Stuff:

( housecleaning and such randomness )

Between that and a rather nice girl's night (which resulted in me getting very pretty, if somewhat pale, henna on my leg), I've been mostly in a pretty good mood.

Mostly.

( Work woes )

Somewhat more positively again,

( Writing progress )

So. Bird of Dusk's current draft is finished. (See my last post for the whole call for critiques thing. Yes, I did that first. I figured that revisions to chapters 30-35 could be done while I'm sending out chapters 1-6. Turns out I caught an error in chapter 4 and tweaked a thing or two in 5 anyhow, oops. But no harm done yet)

130,000 words (Actually, I think it ended out at 131k). Two characters got squished into one, chunks of text near the end went away. I hunted down and destroyed all instances of certain words in the wrong contexts. I still feel like there must be something in the closing sections to reduce, but I figure it can wait for crits.

Also, the story I've been pecking at on the Dana is going to get thrown back into the dark pit of my psyche. (It's not the good kind of dark pit of the psyche, that involves facing your demons, making yourself uncomfortable and stretching as a writer. It's the other kind, the kind that seems exploitative and in it for the bad thrills. And which, if you feed it too much, turns off the parts of you that think about the consequences of exploitation.)

I know my *very* next projects (2), but both are short fiction and shouldn't take long.

So now I'm thinking about what to work on. It seems like I've been reading a lot lately that involves entourages (modern and older) and how they tend to surround celebrity and royalty, and I've been wanting to work some of that into the Serpent Prince, etc. (There are reasons neither Prince nor Duke have much entourage during some parts of the story, but there are places I glossed it over; partly because I'm in first person and Ketan wouldn't think to comment on it, but more often because I didn't think about it enough.)

However, of all projects, the Labyrinth/DWJ pastiche has been kind of sitting in my mind. And I'm thinking that one might be a good one to move onto the Dana. It certainly has the "This is a raw draft" effect. It also has the "this should be fun" effect.

I'm also finding that the current course; editing and writing one more advanced project at home and doing crazy first-drafty work on the Dana at lunch hour really works for me. Being in totally different geographic locales, It's easier to keep the editing monster and suck monkey away from the first draftiness, and it's easier to corral them to work when i need them at home.

But I'm considering a few other things, too; between projects, my mind tends to recall and cling to bits from all over in a desperate effort to shake off the last project. because it's *real* easy to end up thinking more about Bird of Dusk. That's what I had my brain trained to do for the last month, after all. So. As good a way to decide as any. Let me know if anything sounds good:

( First lines )