what to 'spect from NaNoWriMo '17

Ahem. 
It's been awhile since I've posted on here, but it's NaNoWriMo finally, and I've decided I'm totally ready to participate; took me long enough it's only been a few years geez. I've got a 28-point outline plotted, planning on covering an average of a point a day. The idea is to get wordcount out first, and then we can worry about quality; I'm not sure how I feel about that but I will proceed (I don't think I've even posted up an outline for book 1 on this blog yet, preferring to work on it behind-the-scenes; the twists at the end are too good or something, and so as much as it pains me to let anyone see unpolished draftage up to said ending, I'm, totally gonna do this thing this year finally, because bad writing is better than no writing at all.)

Would have started it today, but circumstances (read: Halloween The Simpsons marathon) prevented me from working on my Halloween short story I do every year. That's the writing I did today. It's got a wordcount of 2,790 words, more that 1,000 over the minimum recommended NaNoWriMo requirement, so I feel like it totally makes a canonical contribution to the cause. It's called Head Cheese and I am immensely proud of it (though fair warning it is not even remotely for the weak of tummy.)

http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/2017/11/head-cheese.html

6/28/2016, 6/29/2016, 7/4/2016- misc notes

What follows are some notes I found written in last year's At-a-Glance, unabridged and unformatted except for headings. I've already discussed the first idea on the list with you, but as for the rest: I'm not sure what I meant by some of it, and I seem to confuse Cancer with Gemini on July the fourth (maybe Cancer's the next link in the chain, and it goes through all twelve star signs?) 

And I'm pretty sure I write deeper things about coin-based vows elsewhere in my notes, but I can't find it. Something about how the Tooth Fairy's touch nullifies coins, unless they're counterfeit, or maybe the other way 'round...? I think it was something like, you can't vow on a pre-vowed coin, and so it's safe from the Tooth Fairy, but I'm not sure if that's it either... Flipping through my notes, I also find entries of interest on 19 Mar and 15 Sept, though maybe we could save those for a later date, and see if we can find the Tooth Fairy thing to toss in there as well.

1/22/2017 9:30ish - 10:30ish pm

I'm skimming Wikipedia for all the different vampire myths/variations in the myth, and there are a grazillion of them, even just sticking to Romanian folklore. The traditional boundary between vampires and werewolves is a lot blurrier than modern lore would have you believe, especially with this silly notion that werewolves and vampires are natural enemies, which is just as dumb as it is stupid, and I'm not very fond of it, and, the Google Docs processor corrects inch marks to quotation marks; what's the deal with Blogger? Sometimes it bothers me a lot more than others, but it's not something that can be ignored indefinitely.

1/8/2017 9:45 - 10:45 pm

Chip at this a little at a time, I guess. Even if it's a good idea to take intrinsic motivation and make it extrinsic, there's gotta be a better way than a writing blog, for one who is not a pantser. Maybe a blog that says, hey guys I wrote something, but I'm not telling you what? For pantsers, it's as perfect a format as any: Andy Weir wrote The Martian as a series of blog posts, which was collected into an e-book, became a best-seller, bought by Houghton-Mifflin to distribute, became a best-seller, turned into a Ridley Scott film, became a blockbuster.

Because Andy Weir is a pantser. He loved getting Watney into trouble he didn't think anyone would have been able to get out of, and then, with the trouble already established and his readers awaiting the consummation of the cliffhanger, he was forced to come up with something awesome and clever for Watney to do to get out of it. The perfect format for this kind of thing: nobody really ever doubts Watney's ability to survive, but read on to discover how.

6/19/2016 7:30 - 9:00 pm

It's been more than three months here since last writing, and I've got no idea where to begin of all the things I've figured out in that time.

Longer than in that time, actually. Quarter of a year whatevs, but half a year (beginning of NaNoWriMo) when I figured out the plot for book 1, and then just, kind of, didn't reveal any of it...  I've figured out a lot of stuff, and have a lot that I haven't told you. The first book I'd been meaning to reveal the plot of day-by-day over the month as I hashed out each point of my 28-pointed plot per day over the month, having a much fuller more detailed outline. Failed there. Totally unprepared for it, with a lot that I still hadn't figured out yet, a lot that couldn't be forced. Like I said. I am very very very much a plotter over a pantser. I've figured out more since then, but...

I'm still not sure where to begin. Even get around to that? Tell what I've figured out so far of Book 2? And just of that, with more than three month's work on it (but with the last few weeks being especially instrumental) I couldn't tell you where to begin.

Though I do have some ideas.

3/13/2016 8:00 - 9:00 pm

I seem to recall mentioning something, the last time Daylight Savings came around... I seem to remember writing this big old thing, but I must have deleted it. Reasonable. It's so dark here... I want to be able to look at my notes, but I can't... I suppose I could bother to get up and turn on the light, but pshaw.

It was the fourth lightswitch I tried... the wiring in this apartment is so messed up...

Okay, now that I can see my notes... I did way much less research on alchemy than I thought I did. I still have loads of stuff to talk about, got a lot of great ideas about, stuuuff, but I don't feel like writing very much right now...

35 minutes later
Apparently, I've got access to JSTOR here through the college library. Which is awesome. JSTOR has access to Penn State University Press's journal Preternature, which... which is a useful resource to have, certainly. I've been skimming ideas just from the publically available article abstracts up till now, but now I can actually... read, the articles, in it.

Preternature provides an interdisciplinary, inclusive forum for the study of topics that stand in the liminal space between the known world and the inexplicable. The journal embraces a broad and dynamic definition of the preternatural that encompasses the weird and uncanny—magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, occultism, esotericism, demonology, monstrophy, and more, recognizing that the areas of magic, religion, and science are fluid and that their intersections should continue to be explored, contextualized, and challenged.

 So. Ending here for the day? Short post, inserting a jump break would be cheap, so I won't.

3/6/2016 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Continuing our exploration of the research done at the library, gobbling up facts and info that's useful to know regarding both covert operations and the occult, well, "occult" has the exact same meaning that "covert" means-- secret, hidden. I'n't that far out? So continuing that conversation, let's talk a bit about the magics.

2/28/2016 7:45 - 8:45 pm

I did a bunch of research on Tuesday afternoon last week, before heading in and checking out the Animation Workshop we've got here on campus. Heading into the library, seeing the shelf of Encyclopaedia Britannica, swimming through all that information to find the knowledge I want regarding the topics I want. It's absolutely perfect for this kind of thing; the information you need is right there, while with like Wikipedia, because they can get so in-depth, you have to slog through a lot to find things that are workable. It was a glorious hour and a half. I took notes.

I don't have nearly enough time to spin off on what I learned and how it applies to TTDECBA, but I figure I can touch on one or two subjects this time...

2/21/2016 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Watched The Last Witch Hunter this week like I said here, or last week I suppose since this is a Sunday and is thus the first day of the week instead of the last technically.

There was enough witchy hunty goodness there to turn my mind back to the adventures of Finn Moone, which I'd been thinking about in the interim but figured I finally had enough material to post regarding, for the first time in, shoot, four months? Three, I suppose. A quarter of a year, on a blog that had initially been supposed to be daily. But we saw how well daily blogging worked out for me last year... I could probably get this back up to weekly again, or even tri-weekly, like I'd toyed with as an idea in my DVD post The M/W/F Supremacy.

11/08/2015 7:45 - 9:00 pm

One week after posting about what to expect here from NaNoWriMo, I have lived up to none of those. That's me, always defying expectations. Heh heh, heh. Bleh. Missing the first couple of days, I could have made that up during the third or fourth, but by now we're going to need to change our tack. Or not. I honestly don't mind writing for an hour on Sundays, but daily, well, I knew how crazy that would be. I've brought this up before, but I'd rather write about the adventures of Agent Officer Moone, rather than write the actual adventures.

Writing... is... tough. What I'm doing here, technically writing, but not the book itself, more like having a conversation about the book that happens to be in glyphic format. Writing about, rather than writing. As different as studying about and studying.

11/02/2015 7:15 - 8:15 pm

I had plenty of time to write today! With the weather the way it is (it rained all last night, all day today... so much precipitation, it must be [insert ludicrously small volume here, as ill-advised humor about living in desert and consideration of "a lot" of rain]!),  there wasn't much to do at work and I want sent home early. Plenty of time to write, plenty of time to do additional research as well. Not much writing, mostly researching... figured I had an extra day for that before the 28 scenes-in-a-row, getting down one scene / the gist of one scene a day (depending on writing time available) before the end of the month.

I did research today. I guess my post will be about that. Mostly trying to figure out the opening scene, which introduces the world and conflict (which is, after all, the first scene that I'm writing and honestly had no idea before today where to go with it.) Spy stuff, right? I'm so glad that I put in the minimum 5 seconds that I did doing research on it, because there's so much you'd never guess (as well as a bunch that you would, but, seriously-- did you know that "Agent" Moone isn't even technically an agent?)...

11/1/2015 8:15 - 9:30 pm

November 1- here it is, the first day of NaNoWriMo! I spent the last couple of weeks preparing for this moment, and, though it feels like I could spent a couple weeks more doing that, I'm jumping into this. It's a lot easier to be lazy and put it off, but no more of that, now. I suppose I should use this time to explain what I expect this blog to turn into this month...

I say expect because I'm not sure what things will be looking like. I'd been meaning to take this month off from work, but, well, have you ever made money? It's totally far out. I still plan on writing every day this month, ideally for 6-8 hours, but with a job and things to do... No excuses. I'll do my best. It looks like I've got a project to work on, for however long it lasts, at least, and then we'll see what kinds of things will need to be done from there, and if I can get work off then...

10/25/2015 8:15 - 9:45 pm

I spent not-as-much-time-as-I'd-meant-to but still a massive load of time this week (note to self: find some cleverer way to phrase that) figuring out and implementing the plot outline for, honest-to-goodness no kippering you the FIRST Finn Moone book, and not the third like it had turned out I'd been planning all along up to this point.

So, good news: plot outline, totally in place-ish in time for NaNoWriMo.

Also good news: the lesson we're learning about in class this week deals with procrastination, and how to put off doing it. New life goal: no more procrastination, ever. With a 20-30% margin of error, of course. Figure that would be, acceptable. Not procrastinating is all (POSITIVE ADJECTIVE) and (SECOND POSITIVE ADJECTIVE), but lack of procrastination means nothing if you don't have things to do with your time, and that means setting goals and having priorities.

Great news, though: exactly the kind of thing we went over in class, last week.

But, the plot outline for book one, enough in place that I can finalize it this week, and have it by November, anyway.

7/29/2015 8:45 - 10:30 pm

Drilling further into research on therians, otherkin, and the difference between them, I've finally seemingly come up with some answers regarding definition, and what those are and aren't. I think.*

Whether on a spiritual, or metaphorical, or whatever kind of plain, both regard their souls as being... different, from normal people's. Like being transgendered, only this is more transspecies -- though those who believe that their souls literally aren't human are few and far between, and who knows, maybe even those guys are just, starved for attention, or something. (Maybe not, but, maybe. Lots of people believe lots of things.) So, really, no, I guess it's nothing like being transgendered. But, yeah, exactly like that.

What we're talking about are therianthropes and otherkin. I've mentioned how interchanged the terms are, and how I don't believe they refer to precisely technically the same thing, and how I'm probably right because they're really not precisely technically the same thing. There are some great resources to look into this kind of thing, though, and how it looks so far: therians are more, souls-of-animals, people, while otherkin are souls-of-mythical-and-legendary-races-and-stuff kind of people. Blurry lines still, especially when dealing with dragons, and you do see a lot of intercourse between the (fandoms? subcultures? countercultures?)... but it's all wholly distinct from space aliens. Which is good to know.