One of the fun things about Camp NaNoWriMo is that you have a message board where you can talk to the other people in your "cabin". The last few times I've done this I've been in cabins with friends, so I've written a lot. And one of the sad things about Camp NaNoWriMo is that, when the month is done, the cabin goes away and so does everything you wrote on the message board.
So this year, I copied everything I wrote to a file and saved it. I was planning to post it to my blog, and then I let it slide... until today, when I realized the thing I'd written that I was trying to search for was not actually written in my blog, but in my cabin posts. So now would be a good time to post all of that, so that I can search on it in the future. ^_^
Long, rambling collections of posts incoming! Some of this was duplicated in my blog here, and some wasn't. It's much more stream-of-conscious writing than my normal blog posts. Anyway, away we go!
7-3
I'm actually trying to do something very complicated... not only independent stories that link together in a chain, which is what I was working on in April, but now I've gone back to insert stories in between some of these other stories that involve a separate, concurrent plot against Grandpa Anarchy. I was just going to do them as short scenes but the first one is a complete story of its own. We'll see if I can keep doing it that way.
First story is "Opportunity of a Lifetime" and happens before the original first story of this collection, "Superpowered Self-Defense". Next up is, I think, a story that probably should have followed Superpowered Self-Defense, covering events that I kind of skipped over previously. There's no title or even a file on that one yet. Then comes Legal Eagle, and another of the concurrent interludes which also is untitled at the moment. Then Chaos and Order, which is a half-finished story I started in May.
I'm pretty happy with this one though. It involves the League of Former Sidekicks, who I haven't used in a long time, and I had to figure out some timeline stuff before I wrote it -- like exactly when Sam Solo, Two-Fisted Timmy, and Double Jester were sidekicks to Grandpa Anarchy.
And I think this is the very first time I've described Two-Fisted Timmy or had him appear on-screen. ^_^
Finished "Eclipsed In Time", the story that takes place directly between "Superpowered Self-Defense" and "Legal Eagle". Next up: the second interlude story involving the League of Former Sidekicks. Not sure I have an actual story for that one yet.
7-4
Finished "Status Report". Probably needs a better title. This is the second interlude story, and it's longer than I realized, but I *think* it works. Anyway that puts me nearly back on track for my goal.
Next up is Chaos and Order, which is partially written, but doesn't have an ending yet.
7-5
The problem with writing a Grandpa Anarchy story these days, especially when Kid Continuity is in it, is that I have her go off on a tangent about the writing quality of Grandpa Anarchy comics in the last ten years, and then I have to look up the history of Grandpa Anarchy comics, and I find several contradictions and errors, and then I have to locate the name of Grandpa's granddaughter from Russia who is not entered in the list of people, places and things....
So I have to find the story "The Eagle Has Landed" and I end up reading the whole thing again. I mean, I seriously could just spend the whole month documenting all the stories I already have written and correcting my timeline and history and master list of people to include everything....
I should read "The Eagle Has Landed" at writer's night sometime. It's a somewhat longer than usual story and doesn't have much of a twist ending, but I like it and I think it works.
7-5
Chaos and Order is coming along slowly. I may finish it today, but it's kind of long and I'm not sure the ending is that strong. I like parts of it. And I've started two more stories that take place after... and I think there probably should be at least one more, before we get to the next already written story.
Because the heroes are travelling through random dimensions, and three is a good number of stories to convey the sense that they've been through a lot of random dimensions. ^_^
Finished Chaos and Order. It's too long and I don't like it much, but there it is.
7-7
Finished a story called Above the Law. This one takes place after all of my dimensional adventures, but I had it in my head so I wanted to write it down. I like this one. ^_^
And now I'm working on three related stories at once that I plotted out a couple of months ago: Shadow Secrets, Complete, and X Factor. I've decided that Shadow Secrets can be moved up to the second or third story in this book, before all the adventures in other dimensions. But I need to write it then.
So today was payday, I went to the Southcenter Mall and ate a Chicken Philly Cheesesteak sandwich, and I was thinking about my stories and about the character Kid Continuity, and a whole scene in which she talks to her brother came into my head... and when I got home I wrote a story called Muse, that takes place right after Above the Law. It's very different from a typical Grandpa Anarchy story, but delves into Kid Continuity's past a bit.
I did write the first scene for Shadow Secrets as well, and parts of the last scene for X Factor. All of these are Kid Continuity stories that delve into some of the really big secrets of Grandpa Anarchy's past.
But I'm only counting words for my total for stories I've completed.
The sad thing about some of these stories is that I've thought about them for so long that sometimes I forget to actually write the things down that I've come up with. Case in point... Shadow Secrets is all about discovering the true identity of Guy Shadow, Grandpa's crime fighting partner in the 1960's. And I knew exactly who it was but I never actually wrote that part down. So I was planning to go a different direction, when A) a better idea popped into my head, and then B) I realized that there was a clue buried in the timeline that fit my "new" idea perfectly...
...because it wasn't a new idea at all, it was my original plan that I had never bothered to write down. :P
Another note: went to update my writing blog, and the last entry talked about a story called "Happy Jack" that I finished in May. And I'm like, "What the hell is "Happy Jack"? Because it turns out it's one of those stories that popped into my head, and I wrote the whole thing immediately, and then two month later I don't remember a thing about it. So I just pulled it up and read it. ^_^
7-12
I only finished one story over the weekend, and that counts Friday too, but it was a longer one. Shadow Secrets wound up being 2,347 words. I'm not sure how much I like it.
Right after that I started on Prison World, which wound up being 1,091 words. I wrote a bit on it before I went to bed Sunday night, but it wasn't until the morning that I figured out exactly how I wanted it to go. I finished it right before work.
Now that I've written Chaos and Order, I've decided that two other stories -- Happy Jack (finished) and Doom (unfinished) -- should happen right after, because they both involve dimensional travel. So I'm moving more stories around. This really messes with my numbering system, because I try to number them in order, especially for a book like this where the order of the stories is important and things happen chronologically. For the moment I've given up reworking the numbering of the stories until I have more of them written -- so I have a 179a, a 179b, a 179c and a 179d at the moment.
Yesterday I got an idea for a new story that could potentially be placed as the leadoff story for my first book. I imagined it would be a great introduction to Grandpa Anarchy, and contain a few easter eggs for things that wouldn't happen until much later. I finished the story this morning, and now I'm at that point where I don't really know if it works or makes a good intro story after all. But eh, I finished a new story. I called it Short Circuit. It came out at 959 words.
If I go chronologically I'll need to finish up Doom next. I have a story back in the first book called Doomed, so I may need a different title for this one -- but it's a reference to the Doom Patrol, as this story deals with my world's weirdedst super group ever.
So I was going to work on Gloom and Doom (new title). But Interlude (working title) should probably come before it so I turned to that first. This is a story without much plot at the moment, but ostensibly moving things forward for Geothermal Jenny and the bulk of the League of Former Sidekicks, who have traveled into space on Jenny's Interstellar Saucer in order to deal a more direct form of justice to Grandpa Anarchy.
Then I started thinking, what are Sam Solo and Two-Fisted Timmy up to? The two oldest members of the League stayed behind. What if they broke into the Anarchy Mansion while Grandpa was away? Who might they run into? What if the shadow creature returned to earth to look for Grandpa Anarchy, and ran into them instead?
Before I knew it I was writing a story about this titled Meanwhile In Frosthaven. And I imagined them entering the mansion, perhaps for the first time in fifty years, or at least for the first time in quite a while. Grandpa never changes anything. How long has that picture of him fighting Doctor Zero Hour and his giant Atomic Zombie been hanging on the wall in the entryway above the stairs? For fifty years, perhaps?
And immediately Two-Fisted Timmy starts talking about the man who painted it (has it always been a painting? I think so). Old Romany guy who lived in New York's East Village. Grandpa saved him long ago and he was so grateful that he painted not one giant picture -- but several, maybe ten. He would give a new one to Grandpa every year or two on Christmas.
(I only know what two of the paintings are -- there's one of Grandpa and his former partner Guy Shadow fighting some villain.) Anyway, the moment I wrote "on Christmas" I suddenly realized that there's a Christmas ghost story hidden in this detail somewhere. ^_^
Aside from that I also plotted part of a story today involving the villain Death Medal and a sidekick named Butt Rock Boy, and during my walk an hour ago I listened to the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast and plotted another story in my head involving a weather-controlling undead creature called the Wuthering Wight. I haven't written that one down yet. ^_^
And I want to make a sidekick named the Pompadour'd Pamplemousse. But I don't have a story for that character yet.
But his powers come from his amazing hair, which is maintained with a grapefruit hair gel.
7-14
I finished Meanwhile In Frosthaven. I *think* it works....
I just want to add that my goal is 1/4 of the cabin's total goal, but I'm keeping up so far. The cabin's falling behind... >.>
7-15
I wrote a weird story with a pun ending. It's called "The Wight Stuff".
Did a little reworking on The Wight Stuff this morning, and also on Happy Jack, which I wrote before July but happens right before The Wight Stuff. Today's goal is probably to work on Gloom and Doom, or maybe try write a Circuit Girl story to happen before Remember This.
Started a new story called Meanwhile In Intersect, but while I have a jumble of things that happen, I'm not sure I've figured out an actual story yet. But it's a nice mirror to Meanwhile in Frosthaven, if I can just figure out what the plot is.
Also have in mind a Circuit Girl story that involves Happy Jack (John Haggard) but I don't know the plot to that one either.
7-18
I haven't written much this weekend. I have ideas but they aren't turning into stories in my head. :P
So I still haven't figured out how to make a story out of "Meanhwile In Intersect", but in the meantime I managed to turn my other idea I had over the weekend into a story. Originally I was calling this "Timing Is Everything" but I retitled it "Meanwhile On Planet Zorlthrax X9" which may not seem like such a great title but it follows "Meanwhile In Frosthaven" and "Meanwhile In Intersect" so I like it because the title itself works as a kind of joke. ^_^ You never actually know where the heroes are, except for what's in the title.
7-19
Finished up a second story called "Ripperology". It's a Jack the Ripper time travel story, and it involves Circuit Girl so it's designed to fit into the first book before she dies. Funny thing is, both stories I wrote today were brand new from scratch. I still haven't figured out what I'm doing in the two stories that I'd begun before this morning....
I lowered my goal because today was the last day I could do it, and I failed last time to make my goal because I didn't lower it in time. Still shooting for 30,000 words though.
I finally figured out the angle for writing Meanwhile in Intersect. See, I wrote about Grandpa and company hanging out at the bar in the dimensional city, and how the plan was to wait for others to show up so that they could use the portal in the bar to jump straight to the Anarchy mansion (because of course Grandpa has a gate to match the one that John Haggard has in his bar), and Grandpa's complaining that there aren't any strawberry pancakes, and his sidekick says, but you can just go home and get some mix, can't you? The portal's right there!
In my head they go home, and maybe just miss stopping Sam Solo and company stealing the Anarchy Saucer. Or they run into the Electric Bluejay and some of his helpers who are checking out the mansion because they got an alert that it was broken into. They talk, maybe Jay and company come back to Intersect... but that wasn't an interesting story. Nothing actually happens, and for days I couldn't figure out what *could* happen that would make it interesting.
And then I finally realized: the very fact that it's not an interesting story is why Grandpa would refuse to even try going home to get some pancake mix, because he knows something *different* would happen. He knows that something would happen that would turn it into an interesting story -- something horrible to him, no doubt. So he's not going to fall for that trick, no way: he ain't going.
After that the whole story fell together. ^_^ In the end still nothing happens, but it's funny now.
...and it's finished. I need to go back to bed.
7-20
Finished "Gloom and Doom" which is a more substantial story than I typically write for Grandpa Anarchy. It clocks in at 3,683 words. I've been plotting this story in my head for months but didn't really figure out how to write it until today. But I'm fairly satisfied with what I came up with....
7-20
After finishing "Gloom and Doom" I had one story left to write, the last of the "Meanwhile" stories, and then I also needed to make the connection from "Gloom and Doom" to "Strike the Worm" which is the start of the outer space adventures (as opposed to the earlier cross-dimension adventures). So today I came up with this bridge story, called "Blessed and Cursed". It's 1,696 words. I also renumbered all of the stories in book six, so now they're in order. ^_^
7-21
So today, while I have yet to finish up "Meanwhile In Zendeth Sector", I started reading through and tweaking/reworking the stories I wrote in April. The first of these was Strike the Worm, followed by The Nonhumans and Painted Into A Corner. The others were fully-formed ideas that I had not yet completed -- or so I thought.
One thing that I had changed was that in The Nonhumans, I had had The Split Second quit as Grandpa Anarchy's sidekick, and Grandpa then made Quantum Uncertainty Boy his new sidekick, and I'd referred to him that way in subsequent stories. But in July I'd decided from the beginning that The Split Second was a plant from the League of Former Sidekicks, so this is finally revealed in Prison World, and Grandpa fires her as his sidekick, and hires Suck It Up Buttercup instead. So I had to fix all the parts where Quantum was called the sidekick.
Another change was that Legal Briefs was no longer with the team, but instead Dog Is My Copilot is there. I had to go through and write Legal Briefs out, and Dog is My Copilot In.
As I was going through making these and other changes so that things made sense, I started working on Bombs Away, which I've mentioned in my writing blog as an unfinished story, although I knew I'd written a lot on it. In fact, I'd written so much on it that it was a complete story... I just didn't remember.
But I did so much rewriting of 4-5 stories that I decided I can count all of Bombs Away as a new story I wrote today, seeing as I apparently never counted it as a written story before.
I also managed to finish off The Intergalactic Order of Space Babes, which I retitled Daughters of Anarchy. First, because there is no Intergalactic Order of Space Babes, instead it's the S.I.B.S. - Society of Intergalactic Space Babes. Second, because the story isn't about them at all, it's about the Daughters of Anarchy, so that should be the title.
So that two stories finished today, more ore less.
7-25
Wrote nothing all weekend, then wrote two stories this morning, "When We Last Left Our Heroes..." and "Girl Gravity". :P
Finished another story, Green-Skinned Alien Babe.
I'm not sure how good these stories are but some of them are ones I plotted back in April, so it feels good to be finishing them finally. I still need to go back and write "Meanwhile in Zendeth Sector" but once I do I'll have an unbroken string of 23 stories for this book that kind of tell an overarching story, or at least happen in a clear sequence.
Not to mention the two stories I wrote to insert into book 1.
Also finished "The Further Adventures of Grandpa Anarchy" although I'm not sure I nailed the ending. But hey, four stories in one day! I think I've only done that maybe once before.
7-26
I already validated, but today I finished "Llahna's Girl" which clocks in at 1,552 words. I think I've also at least half-figured out how to approach the Secret Crisis story.
7-28
I've actually been writing a whole bunch the last 2 days. I'm working on my Infinite Secret Crisis Wars story, which now that I'm into it, is going to be a single story but quite long. I've got a few scenes left to write and stuff to clean up, and I'm already at about 8,500 words. So that puts me over 40,000 total. ^_^
7-31
I came soooooo close to wiping out everything I've written this weekend, which was a good 6,000 plus words...
(I was working on the file on the thumb driver rather than the file on my computer... and didn't realize it until I'd almost copied over it.)
Anyway for what it's worth, Infinite Secret Crisis Wars the novella (apparently) is nearly done. Not sure how great a story it makes, but it clocks in currently at 19,047 words, so I've added that to my total. Still need to finish a couple of scenes.
And even though I haven't finished the three stories that lead into it, I've already plotted three stories that follow it. :P
Aaaand... Infinite Secret Crisis Wars is finally done, although I'm sure it needs a lot of editing and rewriting. But the finished story is 20,645 words long.
No comments:
Post a Comment