Files and Records

Tag: NaNoWriMo

  • #23in13 – Second-Hand Hero, Introduction

    As an aside before I drop the introduction in here…  This is a post for 23 in 2013, a project detailed here.  It’s my NaNoWriMo project from 2012, a year I failed to complete the 50,000 words.  It’s also the first draft – there will be typos, inconsistencies, mis-named characters and all of the other things that plague a first draft.  The comments are there both for you lovely readers to post words of encouragement, point out “but he said… in the last chapter, that contradicts…” and keep me straight, and for me to bash ideas around.  File this one under Urban Fantasy | Edinburgh | Parallel Worlds, as they might one day say on Angry Robot.

     

    Introduction.

    Life is like coming in to a movie 20 minutes late.  you cannot be sure who the major characters are, what they are doing or why.  Who’s that?  Where are they?  Why is she carrying a log?  Your best bet is just to go with the flow and hope it all makes sense eventually.  You quickly pick up a few facts that might – or might not – be important.

    Firstly, a book has been stolen. Since the theft it has changed hands several times.  The authorities have been informed but because those who were looking after the book do not entirely trust the Authorities to do their job, they have taken matters into their own hands.  The book is being tracked by other means.
    Secondly, the Authorities are investigating several murders that have occurred since the theft of the book.  They have yet to determine whether the incidents are connected or not.  At present the investigations are being conducted by two separate teams.

    Thirdly, three years ago a woman was kidnapped and taken to London.  She is now coming back.  Her kidnap did not go unnoticed, nor was it simply forgotten.  People have been looking for her.
    Fourthly, the world as you know it is not as unique as you might have hoped.

    Armed with these basic facts the following events should make a little more sense…

    Just a short one this week, to whet your whistle. 7 days from now and Chapter 1 will land right here.
    Now. Head over to John Anealio’s blog and see what else is going on in 23 for 2013 – I know for a fact there’s a new piece of music over there.

  • Back to Normality – ish…

    Phew! What a blast NaNoWriMo was! I know regular visitors here will have seen the protected posts kicking around, they’re the temporary storage for the project now formally known as Script WIP. NaNo didn’t so much provide me with a novel as 50,000+ words of basics for a script that I now want to polish up as a TV series for CBBC. There’s a ton and more of work to do on it before it’s anywhere near ready so if I’m not around as much as I could be, that’s what I’m working on.  On top of that there’s still 2 of us doing the work of 4 at work, split across 2 sites and the usual chaos that Christmas throws our way.

    Christmas, in fact, is now taking up a lot of time.  And it seems to be taking up more time the more the kids grow up.  We’ve got our eldest in her Primary 7 pantomime on Wednesday, somehow having to juggle 6 of us into the 3 seats allocated – and knowing the space they’re putting on the show, this is going to be interesting as most of the other families going will be doing the same.  Last weekend we had 3 parties in 2 days, just about getting the kids tired of seeing Santa.  And if I hear “Merry Christmas, Everybody” one more time I’m going to hang the DJ.  Aaaaargh!  And all of these parties required presents!  Not content with the pile of stuff we’ve already bought, we needed an extra set of presents for each kid for each party!  Man, our local toy shops do well out of these things!  I’d love to say that we’ll be more organised next year and get some presents in advance but my better half hates having stuff clutter the house – and pre-bought presents apparently fall into the category of “clutter”.  I’m seriously considering going completely Sheriff of Nottingham next year and banning Christmas.

    Several of my favourite Apps have had upgrades whilst I’ve been more offline than usual.  Tweetdeck has gone all blue and shiny and I don’t like it.  Fortunately, the CSS hacks I wrote about previously still work and I’ll be posting a complete CSS file to replace the one they’ve given us here as soon as I’ve worked out how I’d like my Tweetdeck to look.

    Anyway.  Stuff and things are happening.  I’ll be back to the usual rounds of Galleries, Silent Sundays, Recpie Sheds and Reasons to be Cheerful for the forseeable – doubly so if I can get ahead of myself and write some stuff to go out automatically over Christmas.

    Meanwhile, kick back, open a home brew and put on the new Arena album.  It’s very, very good.