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...


It sounds like it's raining outside now... Maybe it'll be too wet for me to go to work tomorrow, heh-heh-heh...

what to expect from NaNoWriMo
I do have my outline, and also I've been working on characterization sheets, showing characters' relationships with each other, to each other, and even how some relationships evolve over the book. There are quite a few gaps still, but... well, it's in place enough that the gaps can properly be called gaps. Working from these two outlines, I'm still going to have to do quite a bit more discovery writing than I'm all that comfortable with, but which I am still willing to do. I'm apparently a plotter all the way. I need careful control of my bylines, and, yeah, a couple more weeks of prep would be nice. Erm-- still unsure at this time how extensive the task at work is, how long it's going to take; maybe if it doesn't leave me much time to do writing proper, those days will be spent doing prep.

But here's what I expect: writing, at least some writing, every day. Written, and posted. All 28 "scenes" of my plot outline so far, maybe ooh one scene up a day, with two days' worth of wiggle room to improvise seeing how there's some plotting left to be done. It doesn't even have to be the final (first draft) product up; a further delving into each scene, giving each careful time thought and attention day by day for however much time I'll have that day, couldn't hurt. Establish the flavor of the scene, what happens in it in detail, ready to be buffed up into the prose at any time. Maybe I don't want the days off; this idea rolls writing the book and outlining it into one.

what to expect from post-cold war spy fiction
Really awkward segue now, I'm sorry... Just thought of what else I wanted to say.

There's a reason that the thriller novel industry tanked hard in the 1990s. I'm not sure what it is, now that I think about it, but I spent a couple hours yesterday getting the groundwork figured out on the subject (figuring out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the genre), and most theories point to the idea that the best spy novels aren't about the symbolic conflict of Us and Them, rather using that as a backdrop against which to tell human stories dealing with some of the most basic yet complex human emotions: betrayal, paranoia, alienation... shaping your entire life around a lie; justifying acts you'd otherwise consider morally reprehensible; fighting against existential threats in every meaning of the term, both external and internal.

Take away a real-world threat there, and either there's no longer reason to have to live such a tight-strung high-wire life, or if there is, the threat is manufactured, invented by the author and several steps away from reality. And the more grounded it is, the more far-fetched it becomes as a threat (in my opinion...)

The Cold War, the commie enemies, we could relate to those people, man! If we couldn't, they wouldn't have made so credible of moles.

and yet on the plus side...
A post-Cold War pre-War on Terror time frame gives us several advantages, though. And by several, I mean, maybe one or two. The first is paranoia about the peace after the storm-- not that the Cold War was that much of a storm, but it's easy to say that in hindsight, as it is also easy to say that the '90s weren't that bad... we didn't know they wouldn't be that bad. Especially in the supernatural world, I guess... I was probably going somewhere with that... I'm so tired right now...

Paranoia, and, there's going to be a genuine conspiracy in the book here... so, spoilers? Anyway. Supernatural world paranoia is the greatest kind- it's an existential, metaphysical paranoia. Especially if you come from the non-supernatural world, like Agent Moone does. Politics in the supernatural world is very much tied in with the rest of the world, except conspiracies actually work here-- I'd say so, considering, yeah.

Point two about the post-Cold War time frame. Technology. Technology levels shot up in the 1990s like in no time in history up to that point. Cold War had nothing, and now, coincidentally booming right as that ended, you've got cell phones, internet, satellites, Tamagotchi pets... Magic, let's say, has maintained more-or-less the same "technology" level for the past few hundred years, and now finds that electronics are doing a better job at performing miracles than miracles are. That's got to create some interesting conflict right there. Oooh.

Third thing is... third thing is... can't think of anything... Shoot, yeah, I'm going to bed.