November? Ah!!

NaNoWriMo? Ah, yes, that lovely part of the year where I write like a maniac. I love November! And...



IT'S ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY!! AIEE, I'M NOT READY!!

AHH!

*frantic running around my 10x10 room, hopping over the bed every three steps*

Wait...
I do have something...

Combine:

Just-for-fun 3d model of anachronistic town....

Doodling-in-class character sketch...

Selected parts of a never-completed short story...

Potential Halloween costume...

That normal NaNo craziness...

And Viola!

I give you Railway*; my pretty much totally unplanned, steampunk/fantasy adventure I shall embark on a little over a fortnight.

We shall see how it goes. :) Some time ago I would have frowned at myself for doing something this crazy... but I'm in college now.

Just kidding.

See, the first time I did NaNo, I had a pretty good plan, and stuck fairly well to it. The next year I whipped up a magnificent plan that was even better than the last... and scrapped it three days in for a insistent idea involving an abandoned circus, a talking tiger, fighting robots, a bunch of 'gifted' ex-convicts who battled those fighting robots in death matches every night, and a completely normal young man called Alen.

The story that came out was one of the best I had ever written.

So I've since come to discard many of my beliefs in doing things 'by the book' (pun very much intended) when it comes to writing. In many cases, letting the book write itself (especially in those cases where you're not allowing yourself to forget about it) is the best possible option. At least for me :).

So there's my two bits of wisdom tacked on to a unorthodox NaNo 'announcement'. Hope it makes you smile. Or at least quirk an eyebrow.

Anyways, if you're looking for "mo' info", head over to my NaNo page and check out whatever I happen to have up! And while you're there, buddy up with me! I enjoy seeing how good my friends are doing! (or bad >:) he he)

Now then.... to make up some sort of cover without photoshop....



*If you've been around a while, you might have seen the title Railway pop up elsewhere here; it was a placeholder for that short story I mentioned above. I really liked the title, but didn't have a story it fit with. Now I do. :)

What now?

So... now that finals are over... and summer is here... I must decide...

What should I work on for writing?


And this is where I need your help, dear readers. Since I have multiple novels/stories underway (all in various stages of completion), I am at a loss as to which project to focus my attentions on. My options are thus:

Freeborn and Freegiven: Deep in the land of shieldsfell-ruled Quartorlen, the last of the freeborn must conquer their fears and journey into the heart of enemy territory to break the invader's hold on both their country and their countryfolk once and for all.

Stats: NaNo 2010 Novel
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 51,342
Project: Rewrite

Feather and Fang: Twenty-two years after the events of Freeborn and Freegiven, the freeborn of Quartorlen have split into factions, each vying for supremacy in the vacuum of power left when the shieldsfell withdrew their forces. When an assassin from one faction and a bounty hunter from the other are trapped together in the deadliest place in Quartorlen, they must work together or perish. And if they make it out alive, they will bring information that could change the face of the war.

Stats: Sequel to Freeborn
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 18,319
Project: Finish

The Truth/Trust Hole: In the heartland of a country much like ours, there is an arena. An arena where criminals with special abilities work out their life sentences fighting robots for public sport. These Games attract citizens of all ages, races, and walks of life, all come to see their favorite fighters cheat death again and again against a pitiless enemy. But when a young boy named Alen is thrown into the Hole, by chance, it would seem, everything begins to change.

Stats: NaNo 2011 Novel
Genre: Sci-Fi
Word Count: 52,973
Project: Rewrite

Deep Red/Crimson Streak: Somewhere in the Cluster an out-of-work headhunter sets out on a mission to find the greatest commodity in the markets of the Core: something he has heard is called 'Hope'. But when he enlists the help of a young boy who can apparently see the past and future, things go in a direction he wasn't planning.

Stats: Short Story
Genre: Sci-Fi
Word Count: 3,272
Project: Finish


What do you think? All of them have a lot of potential as far as ease of completion goes (unlike the other dozen or so which I could have listed), all of them get me excited when I think about them... so I'm in a pickle!

Help me out, and give me your opinions! And rest assured, one day I'll get to all of them, I just need to know which one to work on first.

Thanks in advance!
Farjag

Writing to the world

I recently let one of my coworkers read the preliminary draft of Trust Hole, and just the other day she finished. I didn't get a chance to ask her what she thought of it that moment, but a few days later I worked up enough courage to ask, "So? What did you think?"

Now, The Trust Hole is blatantly Christian, (though hopefully not in a bad way). In other words, I preach Christ Jesus and Him crucified pretty hard, but in a way that makes sense to the story. I.e. my main character does not go to a church where he hears a pastor talking... etc. He hears about Christ through those around him, and slowly realizes his need of this Savior his closest friends seem to rely on so much. The way I see it, I exaggerate things in my stories, blowing up small things into bigger things. And when dangers become bigger, worlds stranger, surviving harsher, Christ shines through all the more. People feel no need for a Savior when their lives are going pretty well. It it only when they realize their own inability to cope and their great and utter need for someone to rescue them that they begin looking for someone to turn to. So I blast my characters through the worst I can imagine, sucking my readers (Christian and non-christian) into this roller coaster of a story, and then tie them so strongly to the characters and their journeys that they cannot put the book down, even if I am saying something they do not agree with. In the end, God-willing, it will have effected them in a way they weren't expecting.

So, naturally, I was a bit nervous about hearing what my non-christian co-worker had thought of the book.

"I really liked it! Couldn't put the book down when I first started reading it. Your writing is really clean and moves along nice. I kept thinking as I was reading it what a good movie it would make."
"Any suggestions?"
"Well, the pacing was really fast up to about the last third, then there were about four chapters of Christianity, and then it picked back up again. So maybe work on the pacing there."
"Thanks! That's really helpful"
"Well, you're welcome. Oh, and someone else was wondering if he could read it too. I told him, 'There's the words Jesus Christ in it! You might get saved!'"

We both laughed. But her critique was true, and I went back and checked the story. It could definitely use some pacing around those four chapters; it's a lot of character development, Gospel, and not much action. So I'm going to work on that. I want to "Show, not tell," but at the same time I don't want to be afraid to hold back the truth. It's a fine wire to walk, just as most everything in this life is.

I pray to God that He grants me the ability to craft a story worthy of telling His ultimate Story.