OwlManAtt’s Blog

As of October 1, my biggest concern is the yearly novel. The NaNo website is back up and refreshed, ready for the ‘06 novelling season. They (finally) put up an appropriately-sized button for blogs, so I updated the NaNoWriMo ‘05 button I had made. The new (and official) button can be seen on the right nav menu.

So. I have some pretty lofty goals this year:

• Write 100k words instead of 50k.
• Beat Colonia as far as wordcount and speed go.
• Write something meaningful that doesn’t completely suck.

On the technical front, I have the usual wordhack up, with a few improvements. Through a nifty little script called nanoget, I interface with the wordcount API to get wordcounts. So it will know when I’m slacking off, and it will know when Colonia is slacking off.

I’ve also set myself a daily goal of 3,400 words per day. Not a big deal, I’d say. If 2,000wpd was such a walk in the park last year, an extra 1,400 won’t kill me.

I also stumbled across a kickass AbiWord plugin called AbiCommand. My biggest issue last year was saving the .abw, .doc, .html, and .txt by hand every night and pushing them to owly.homelinux.net. With this plugin, that will no longer be a problem. I’ll check the .abw into subversion and a script will check it out, export it, and move the files into the appropriate folder for public dissemination.

A lot of old faces have been showing up in the NaNo IRC rooms (yes, plural, no, I can’t talk about why I pluralized that). Most importantly, DJ Phil has shown his face and will once again be gracing us with the gentle (or not so yasashii) melodies of his massive music medley.

Ah, but…IRC! What an excellent way to get on to the real purpose of this entry!

So I’m writing a novel. The biggest question everyone has is this: What the fuck is that clown OwlManAtt going to be writing about /now/?

The premise is a bit more complicated than last year’s. During and after Mind War’s writing, Uberuser asked if I’d write a book about our home channel. (Backstory: I’ve been part of one certain channel for several years, and we’ve a pretty rich history.) I thought that that tale could make a pretty fine scifi story. It also doubles as a tribute to Wendy’s tale, Knighthawk’s Tavern (forever lost to the web, alas). But I digress…

The premise is this: There is a tavern full of people. The story is set ~130 years into the future, where the world is kind of run-down and bleak. We do have hovering cars/motorcycles, cool guns, androids, supercomputers, holograms, and other assorted useful technology.

The conflict? A classic man-vurses-man and perhaps man-vurses-himself (depending on the narrarator’s PoV) story about the trials and tribulations of the ‘regulars’. I’ve identified five people who I can use as characters that cause a good deal of drama. I’m not sure if I want to do the first-person perspective or not, though. If so, the MC/narrarator can have some kind of internal struggle going on as a subplot.

My overall goal is to express something about community, loyalty, and consequence. And hot damn, that almost sounds like I’m a real author, doesn’t it? Haha.

I have a rough idea of what I’m going to do. The book will open on an interpretation of The Great Split, in the twilight hour of NixSec. We’ll have some action, and I think that ultimately, ‘Talon’ will either flee, never to be seen again, or outright be killed in the fight over the ‘pruning’. I realize that maybe three of my readers really understand what I just said, but it’ll make sense when I write it.

From there, I think introduct our setting, The Tavern, and begin pulling together the cast. A lot of people who are still active in the channel today are refugees from The Great Split, and some of them came in around the same time (or later) through different circumstances. Four of such ‘latecomers’ will be the source of great conflict (or at least, they’re on the table to be such).

Once the cast is in-place, there will be several of these ‘conflicts’ I keep talking about. Mainly, they’re strife between The Tavern and factions associated with certain patrons of The Tavern. For example, NeSa hijacked Uberuser’s nick back in the day. I’ll interpret that as NeSa stealing something from The Tavern, so we have to get it back, etc.

Each of these conflicts will cause more and more trouble. The last one needs to be some kind of doozy (probably involving Ryan) where when we resolve it, the book can find some closure.

In between and during these conflicts, there will be little ‘projects’. NukuNuku was the first major project (yes, ladies and gents, our favorite AI from Eron will be coming back!). The bots have been a long-term project maintained by three seperate people. We have the formation of the Yasashii Syndicate. We’ve got the Eron migration. We’ve got people getting shells here and there…the list of things goes on and on.

All of that said, I realize that this story is going to have to be a shitload more character-driven instead of plot-driven, as I normally produce. But such is so when I’m trying to convery community instead of ‘hay guys lets save the world k?’.

The TODO list:

1. Pick & develop character profiles.
   1. Pick ‘villians’.
2. Contemplate these ‘conflicts’ further.
3. Put together a rough outline of conflicts and projects.
4. Figure out how I want to end it.
5. Do some stuff about the setting. Worldbuilding FTW!

I may or may not snowflake this. At this point, I’m almost leaning against it, because the character development is so much more critical than plot crap. I’m not sure…

The notes will be available here. I’ll be updating them from time to time, so it may be worth checking, even if I don’t write an entry up.

Reliantfc3 just showed me this article on Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method for writing novels.

Yes, folks, it’s time to start thinking about the horror of horrors again…it’s almost NaNo!

So, readers, NaNo ‘05 is drawing to a close, with only three days left in the month. Site registrations have been shut down until October 1, 2006, when thousands of fresh noveling newbies will pour in, ready to go head to head with their wordcounts come Nov. 1.

Final wordcounts are pouring in, and the title ‘WINNER’ is now commonplace on the forums. The first-years ramble on excitedly at their achievements on the boards, while us hardended NaNo veterans simply roll our eyes and mumble “thank god that’s over, my idea sucked…maybe I’ll do better next year” to ourselves.

With over 2010 winners verrified (and THREE DAYS LEFT to validate!), just over half of a billion words written in total, and more money in the NaNoWriMo coffers than ever before, all of us authors are ready to jump off of a bridge.

So we wrote a book. Big deal. Can we do it again next year? And what’s between now and next year?

Editing this manuscript, for one. We have March for that. Then editing the second draft.

Then publishing…oh dear god. I think I’m going to go with self-publishing, just so I can show the damn thing off. My first book is not going to be bookstore-worthy, so I have no intention of actually mucking around with agents and publishers.

Yep. It’s Lulu for me.

I also need to comission a cover. Gah.

Then comes NaNoWriMo ‘06. I need to come up with an IDEA (a Mind War sequel is a possibility, but at the moment, I’m not particulalrly inclined to write it. I have a whole year to think of something better, though.), then CHARACTERS and a SETTING…and oh my god, writing another fucking book, except this time I want it to be 75,000 words…

I shall now pause to sigh deeply.

There. Why do I do this to myself every year?

But at least there’s the TGIO party in December.

Ladies and gents,

I am an official National Novel Writing Month WINNAR!

I wrote the final 3,000 words and set myself up for a sequel (meaning I don’t have to think next year) today.

My loyal readership, I present to you the first complete work of Nicholas ‘OwlManAtt’ Evans - Mind War

Now I just need to edit it and comission a cover…

I have something important to say to all of you tonight, something so profound that it will shake the very foundation of your souls. And no, I will not beat around the bush with it, or bore you with it. I will say it bluntly and in an exteremely immature fasion. All the same, it will shock, amaze, awe, and astound you, my faithful readers.

I. FUCKING. WIN.

It’s that simple. I fucking win. I have surpassed the fifty thousand word mark, and I will be forever immortalized as somebody who won NaNoWriMo by the internet archive sites, such as the Way Back machine and the Google Cache.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, normals and teeps: Mind War is at 50,020 words. And damnit, that feels good, especially after last year’s pitiful 28k-day-17 dropout. I now realize how close I was to finishing last year, but I let that slip away. And thank god I did not let it put me off trying NaNo again.

Now, the question that is on all of your minds (no, not ‘is this fucking loon on crack?’ you wiseass, the other question): Is Mind War over? Is it done? Can I print it knowing that Owl will not be adding anymore?

The answer to that is simple: No. It is not done. While I may have won the NaNo, I have yet to win the war. For this evening, yes, I have finished my work. But for the month? Nay! It is only day 13, and there is are still lives that must be taken, prophecies that must come to pass, and destinies amongst the stars to fufill.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I have won a tremendious victory this year. I now know that 50,000 words is an attainable goal in under three weeks.

And oh boy, I can’t wait until next year.

Mind War, at a victorious 50,020 words.