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| QEFIBOWEFWEFOBWEEVOWUBNEFO;WDVO;NWGWEB That is your brain on 20,000 words in a week. Or, I guess, it's my brain on 20,000 words in a week. Also, for the record, going through two years of DMs on Twitter to find any information you might have forgotten for development in your story (including exactly which tattoos your writing partner gave the scary, over-baked cinnamon roll Russian man that is our male MC)... is a lot like what it's like to go through the Official Records of the Civil War for your senior thesis, i.e. scrolling through THOUSANDS OF MISSIVES LOOKING FOR THE ONE YOU NEED TO CITE. I knew my degree would come in handy eventually. *sigh* Laras is going to kill me for calling him a cinnamon roll. It's over-baked, Laras! It's hard and crunch in the middle, too! |
| One lady here can write 20K in a day! She is amazing. I can't remember her name. |
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| Rig and Lucky are giving me serious heart eyes right now. They just met and the partnership is already right on track. This bodes well for Anya's eventual return. Lucky doesn't know it yet, but his predecessor left all his memories of her intact because he couldn't bear to forget her. And to think I originally planned for Lucky and Anya to be exes. Not acrimonious, or anything, just exes. He was going to end up with Z, the New Firm Enforcer, but no... Anya and Lucky protested. #relationshipgoals 2152 words and one chapter down! (Well, nine. But I can't count the other eight chapters because I wrote them before NaNo.) |
| I am officially writing something about this. A play, maybe. I'm really trying to get into playwrighting. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bluestockings-feminist-magazine-japan-sassy... |
| So the lady who makes my perfume has a new set of scents based on Romeo and Juliet (called Montague and Capulet). I got so excited, I added a sample of Montague immediately. This based entirely on the fact that I like Romeo better than Juliet in my novel. I will also be wearing it to see Romeo and Juliet at the beginning of September. It smells like incense. I love it. |
| Sometimes me word good: Lucky thought he might have been screaming, but there was no proof he wasn’t laughing. Or maybe it was both, and neither. A phantasmagoria unfolded before him, a kaleidoscope of sensations too many and too loud to explain or pinpoint. His mind exploded and reformed a thousand times, going mad and exulting in the heights of genius, realizing they were one and the same. Fear paralyzed him. Fierce, unexpected courage turned his bones to steel. He burned, he drowned, and he flew. Caution warred with reckless abandon, and both won. He was all of it. Everything. He was mortality writ large and small, the monumental and the quotidian, each one part of the narrative of human existence. And he loved it. |
| So, worldbuilders of Writing.com! Are you looking to build a realistic religion, but don't plan on having the actual gods running around (aka living gods)? Or maybe you're not even a worldbuilder and just want to read a really cool blog on how you can eventually create a realistic religion down the road? Well, look no further! Because my friend--aka my oldest friend in the world (almost 17 years) and historian/writer doppelganger--has decided this is exactly the blog you need! https://voidwalkergame.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/how-to-build-a-realistic-but-uni... Read it! It's good. Also, share it if you can. My friend is attempting to build a writing platform and I'm trying to help her. Because, somehow, I've managed to become mildly Twitter famous. |
| For the record: The Civil War as it happened was inevitable from 1850. But a conflict over slavery (which is at the heart of the Civil War regardless of what Southern revisionists tell you. That States Right they were talking about? DEFFO the right to own slaves.) was inevitable from the beginning of western expansion. Why? It invited the question of whether or not slavery would expand West with America. Why was this question necessary? The War of 1812. What happened during the War of 1812 to make it necessary? Because the War of 1812 cut America off from its manufacturing partners. We'd tried to stop trading exclusively with Britain, but all of our trade involved crossing the Atlantic, and most of our goods came from overseas. Being cut off forced America to start developing its own domestic trade, which moved us away from the agrarian nation we'd been. These developments happened almost exclusively in the North (both b/c their goods were seasonal, unlike Southern staples like cotton and tobacco) and gave rise to the concept of Free Labor (as in wage labor done by free men). Free Labor and Slavery are antithetical to one another. So, when we started expanding West, both sides were fighting to expand their economic system and, by extension, way of life. Both could not exist together. Especially because, as manufacturing spread in the North, the North started gaining more power in Washington, often at the expense of the South (who'd been the power center until then). Essentially, Southerners believed they were under attack. They probably were. Because slavery, besides being horrific, also makes no sense in a manufacturing economy. Ugh. /rant Edit: Andrew Jackson died in 1845. No, he couldn't have prevented the Civil War. Maybe he could have influenced the nature of the conflict, but no. You know who probably couldn't have done anything, but should have at least tried? James Buchanan. Which is why he's ranked 44th on the list of Presidents. Out of 44. Because, though we all know where he'll likely end up, Trump hasn't been ranked yet. |
| You misunderstood my meaning. At no point did the North go to war to free the slaves. In fact, some of the deadliest race riots in American history occurred in NYC in 1863 because northerners felt like they were being sent to die for "darkies". The war was over slavery because slavery was an economic system at odds with the system as it developed in the north. The states rights issues and limitation of federal power all comes back to the fact that the North wanted to establish Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men (the original motto of the Republican Party), which required the cessation of slavery as a matter of course. They began passing laws to achieve this, which the Southerners (again, probably rightly) interpreted as an attack on their way of life. Also, the north made slavery illegal within its boundaries by 1804. Not because they believed black people were equal or any of that modernist tosh, but because their economy simply didn't need slaves the way the Southern system did. So by the time slavery became an issue, slavery was done in the North. The cornerstone of the Confederacy was slavery. Plain and simple. I use the word cornerstone because of the Cornerstone Speech given by Alexander Stephens (VP of the Confederacy) in 1861, which and out and out said slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy. The war was fought with slavery at its heart. Everything else is just window dressing. The states rights argument would have far more legitimacy if it didn't come down to the ownership of people for economic success. |
| I want it to be known I'm not refuting that Northerners owned slaves up to the ratification of the 13th Amendment, just that the northern slaves in existence at the time had made slavery illegal by 1804. It wasn't as important to the northern economy, so losing slavery wasn't as big an economic deal. Apologies if I was unclear with that point. |
| Oh, and thank you for your very considered points. I think we're saying the same thing, just using different terminology. Slavery is, as you said, the specific dispute at the heart of what was a much larger existential conflict. And, of course, I think we can both agree it's a bit sad our President has such a... poor grasp of history. |
| Hey, guys! If anyone here is into world building the way I am, this is the first in a blog series about world building from the POV of a historian/archaeologist. It's written by one of my oldest friends (we've known each other for almost seventeen years) and history buddies, and it's the kind of advice that anyone looking to build a world from scratch really needs to think about. So, you definitely should check it out and follow. As you can see from the first blog alone, she is very knowledgeable and will lead you down the very awesomest of paths. Also, as someone who's seen her world building binders, both physical and on-line, you'll definitely not be led astray by adopting some of my friend's thought processes. https://voidwalkergame.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/how-every-single-civilization-st... (No, I'm not getting paid for this, lol. She's as broke as I am.) |
| Three chapters down on Liar! Lucky is such a snarky mofo, it's really easy to write for him. Basically, if I would make a pop culture reference, he makes a pop culture reference. Makes the spice words flow! |
| So. Turns out a story I thought was going to be one of my smaller ones has, in fact, turned out to be so much deeper than I thought. It's tight, so it's not sprawling, but there's so much depth I have to deal with. I mean, that's not to say the novel itself won't be long, but... Middlemarch, guys. This novel is, like, 1/3 Middlemarch. And here I thought it was a bit of Brigadoon and a bit of Jane Eyre with some light sci-fantasy elements. Nope. Turns out it's Middlemarch with a *dose* of Brigadoon and Jane Eyre. And I did not develop the town of Leyton nearly enough for it to be fricken Middlemarch (the town, not the novel). So I have to go back and create every single townsperson and figure out their beliefs, what they do, how they contribute to survival, how likely they are to gossip, etc. And I never had any intention of having Metageophysics play such an important part in the worldbuilding. This was always meant to be fantasy-light, but now... Nope. Now I need to come up with a lot more rules... and figure out how it's actually done. *sigh* On the plus side, I'm breaking ground on Esmeihiri. And I just created the cutest gay couple ever. I'm really sad there's a good chance one of them is a bad guy... |
| And then there are the pronoun issues. Sorry I wasn't around to grapple with that with you last night! |
| That's what happens a lot of the time. Have fun with that, and let me know how it goes. I do great on plot and dialogue but the deeper stuff is harder, a lot harder! |
Happy Mumsy Year!  - On the plus side! I have the cutest gay couple now. And I love them. Vasil is the cutest. I do feel bad about not being able to make the gender neutral pronoun thing work, but I need to have clarity. The singular 'they' really doesn't work when I'm writing about twins and they always come together. I assuage my guilt by remembering this is the coolest, most un-white male world, ever. LinnAnn-Cookie Baker - Thank you for the offer! I think I'll figure it out. It's just a lot more groundwork I need to lay before I can write the story. |
| Guys. GUYS. GUYS!!! Rogue One is. SO. GOOD! It's the war movie we all wish the original Star Wars movies could've been. (Well... I always wanted them to be a bit more war movie-esque. Then again, I always wondered why it was Luke who had to be the hero when it turned out Leia would've been the perfect bad ass heroine all along. While Luke was whining in the desert, Leia was fighting in a damn rebellion. And yet it's the boy who gets Obi Wan to protect him? Pshh. Leia as a Jedi would've been the coolest thing ever. Vader would've been redeemed in five minutes and the Emperor would have leapt to his own death! But no... Leia gets rescued and falls in love. Gag.) Anyway. IT'S SO GOOD. But maybe... don't take any young kids. It really is a war movie. |
| I'm not one for giving a pass to Star Wars because it was the 70s. The 50s, maybe. But the decade of Wonder Woman? Of Ripley (though, granted, this one came two years after what we know as A New Hope now)? No. Lucas had a chance to be progressive, but instead created a character that was little more than a stand-in for his own yearning to be a hero. I actually prefer parts of The Force Awakens to the original Star Wars (not the trilogy, just the movie). Hated Luke. Wanted him to die so Leia could step in and take his place. Would've been the Ned Stark dying of its time. Darth Vader, Leia, and Han Solo were the things that kept me watching. I mean, not much really needs to change in Empire to have Leia replace Luke in that movie. Same goes with Return of the Jedi. Luke's boring. Leia had spunk. She totally should've been the Jedi to save the universe. |
| You have to remember that Star Wars is basically a Shinto-Jesus story so you can't have Shito-Jesus be a woman, right? Plus, it's in the tradition of the classic fantasy stories of a rag-tag band of heroes versus an evil empire. I mean, he was digging into traditional story-telling so I'm not upset that a guy wrote a story about a guy that saves the universe. It's the actual world he built that I love, sometimes far more than the characters themselves. |
| Why can't Shinto-Jesus be a woman? Just because the Hero's Journey is usually a man doesn't mean we can't turn that on its head. I'm not interested in traditions for the sake of tradition; they should have a purpose. And, frankly, if you're going to follow tradition, you should at least make sure your hero isn't the least interesting character in the bunch. If Luke weren't the hero, he'd be pretty much entirely forgettable. Mark Hamill has spent the rest of his career being evil to make up for it, lol. Also, I'm convinced all Leia needs to do is use Kylo Ren's full name in an accusatory tone, and he'll stop pretending to be some bad ass evil guy and come on home. The world is pretty amazing. I wish the movies would take the time to delve into the problems inherent in the light side good/dark side bad dichotomy. There's so much in the EU, but the movies seem to want to stick with Jedi are good and Sith Lords (although, technically speaking, the Sith are not just people who use the Dark Side) are bad. I mean, the Jedi talk about balance but essentially want to destroy all Dark Side users, which isn't really balance at all. The books have been so good about addressing this, but... alas. Part of me is hoping Ben Solo *is* the hero of the new trilogy (I know, I know... seriously?) and he brings balance to the Force by balancing light and dark within him. At the very least, I'd like to see Rey and Ben balance one another instead of continue with the bad-guy-in-black-gets-redeemed thing. And then Poe and Finn get married and fly off into the sunset together. But that's just personal. |
| HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Picture the Louise Belcher laughing in front of fire .GIF) I WON! I WON and I never wrote more than an hour a day! AND SOME DAYS I DIDN'T EVEN WRITE! I have sanity. I have clarity. I have a very bloated 1/4 (maybe) of a completed manuscript, but I have sanity. And I FRICKEN LOVE MY MAIN CHARACTER! Henrietta René Warwick (yes, I used your full name, shut up for a minute, Hedy), you are the greatest currently-nine-year-old on the planet and, if I ever have kids, I want them to be like you. Also... no, I am not inebriated. I'm just fricken hyped! I WON! *HIGH FIVES SELF* |
| congrats. I use real peoples names in my books all the time--if they say I can. what was your word count? |
| LinnAnn-Cookie Baker -- Hedy isn't a real person or a real name; I'm just insane and talk to my characters like they're real. I verified my word count at 50,567. |
| So, my decision to rely solely on sprints to get my word count this year has worked wonderfully. I write for 30 mins a day at most and knock out my 2k. It has also, however, caused this MS to become very... rambly. The first section of the novel should be no more than 25k, maybe 30k (aiming for a length of 100k total, with part 2 being 20k and part 3 being 50k/55k as, arguably, the most important part of the novel)... but it is currently sitting at nearly 30k and only halfway done. At this rate, I'll have a MS of 200k words when I'm finished. Well, at least most of my editing will be cutting words out. And that'll be easy since sprinting leads me to weird, Faulknerian places where my characters engage in stream-of-consciousness. Also... I'm beginning to wonder if this novel shouldn't be a screenplay. It's almost magical realism with how light the fantasy aspects are, and I barely explain how the science of Metageophysics works... and it's really lending itself to conversations between characters. I wonder if a camera mightn't be better for showing the deterioration of Leyton. And I hate describing physical settings. |
| OK, folks! I need your help. So... if you could kindly answer this question and then, like, re-post it on your own Newsfeed with a link to me, I'd really appreciate it. I am creating a fantasy world from scratch. It is called Esmeihiri. You can read a bit about it here:
What I am attempting to do with this world is address a lot of the representation issues I have with fantasy. I figure... I can't just complain about the preponderance of Western European (especially Medieval) worlds out there and do nothing about it. I'm a writer... I have a duty to create the stories I want to see. So... here's the question: What societies would you like to see represented in fantasy? Since I'm creating my own world, it wouldn't be a literal representation but would certainly borrow socio-cultural and genetic norms from whichever societies I choose, but anything that isn't another Celtic world is good, right? Right. (There's nothing wrong with Celtic worlds. I have an alternate history set in a Celtic world and I'm quite fond of it.) So... yeah: What societies would you like to see represented in fantasy more often? (Examples include the Khmer -- whom I'm already using -- Filipinos, Kurds, etc.) |
| Shanachie - I don't actually have any deserts, at least of the sand variety, on this planet. But the Bedouin culture gets a look-see in the City. Since it's the size of the USA, groups of people travel from north to south with goods. So they're sort of... urban Bedouins... Whistling Pixie  - I'm looking to find a place for them, though their relationship with their gods (especially the Aztec) wouldn't work on this planet, so it'd be mostly a aesthetic thing. |
| Holy crap... I just realized that next month marks 15 years on Writing.Com. I usually let the site tell me how old I am since I'm one year younger than it, but it just hit me that I've been on this site for over half my life. Whew. |
| Congratulations on a very impressive milestone. May your anniversary be special and I hope to see you around for another 15! |
Phoenix McKnight  : Thank you very much! Here's hoping we can keep W.com going that long! SB Musing : High five! Our ports are teens! And, like all teens, full of embarrassing childhood stories... |
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