Nanowrimo

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo. Most of the material provided to motivate you also seems like a good way to whittle away the time. I think I'll avoid it most of the time. In any case, the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, that's 1666 words per day. On a good blogging day I've done over 800 words per hour, but 400/hour may be more reasonable. I'll see what I average.221 in 15 min. A decent start.

Project Woolly Coelodont is what I'll be working on, and I won;t count what I've written so far, since I'll be rewriting most of it with changes in characters I've been thinking about. Notably, I need a butler.

1566 words

Good to attack Woolly Coelodont again. Now at 1566 words.

The short story contest idea I had needs to percolate, perhaps it'll be ready for next year's contest. For now still concentrating on this project, completing the Wheel of Time blog, and a laying the groundwork on a collaboration with a friend for another longer term project.

Which means slow progress. Sigh...

It begins!

This blog chronicles my progress writing my first full-length novel, code-named Woolly Coelodont.

Every project NEEDS a code-name. Code names used to be assigned to military projects somewhat randomly to prevent spies from knowing what they were about. Over time, secrecy became less important than branding, so you get code names like Desert Storm. For my purposes, secrecy and coolness dictate the code name. Yes, I think Woolly Coelodont is a cool code name. SOOOO COOOL!

It was a heart-wrenching surprise to find that I first took a crack at this novel in 2005, writing only a prologue to establish the concept. Eight years later, it is a far more vibrant idea with much detail filled out in my head. I suppose the idea first came to mind after reading the excellent Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy by Crawford Kilian. In this book he questioned the basis of a well-used science-fiction plot, and I came up with what I believe to be a very original answer. I certainly haven't seen anything like what I am planning in any previous work.

What kept this idea alive over all these years was a quiz we held at Theoryland.com, yeesh, must have been between 2003-2006. The relevant factoid was that William Taft was an immensely fat President. It struck me that I wanted someone similarly large, no, even larger, as my hero. I may or may not keep the name Rodney Randolph, but whatever his name, he is the fattest world leader ever. And he belongs to Canada.

So there it is, an original answer to an old science fiction plot, an atypical and identifiable hero, and the story now has some pillars to rest on.

Current progress: 168 words. (I started over, today)

Targeted completion date: June 30, 2013.