In order to stay caught up with where I need to be for NaNoWriMo I have to write 1667 words every day. Yesterday was one of my normal weekdays where I have something scheduled in the evening. So I was only about to write around 1000 words. Fortunately, I got up this morning and wrote another 600, so in my mind I'm where I'm supposed to be. This evening and weekend I should be able to do a little extra and get myself ahead of the curve. I probably could have made the full amount yesterday, but Guitar Hero III arrived and we had to... uh... make sure it was working properly.

It was.

Anyway, Mrs. Kheldar started into her story. She got about 1800 words done, and she's pretty enthusiastic about it. So that's good. It looks like allyrapixie is off to a good start too.

I'm finding that my scenes are taking a little less than half the expected number of words to write. That means I'm definitely going to be able to go for the longer version of my plot. ...and I'll still probably run out of stuff to write. Ah well, all part of the fun.

Plot synopsis:

In the very first scene, Solomon has apparently tracked down a murderer named Flint. He talks to him briefly from hiding, and then kills him as justice for the murder.

In the second scene, we get a flashback and see Flint trying to get back some money he'd loaned. He gets a bit drunk and runs into the guy and kills him with his shotgun in front of a large group of witnesses.

I just started the third scene, but I haven't finished that yet, so I'll talk about it later.

As I told Mrs. Kheldar this morning, "Two people have been shot dead so far in my story. What about your's?"

She's writing a fun story about an 8 year old intended for kids, so her response was... "I think I like my own fluffy bunny story."

Which reminds me, perhaps I should kill some fluffy bunnies off... Of course, it's ok, because it'll be for food, not just for pleasure... :)

Well, NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow. I think I'm reasonably prepared. It looks like Mrs. Kheldar will be giving it a shot, as will gauntman, and another of my co-workers. So, it looks like I'll have plenty of people around to help me stay motivated. Of course it figures that now when this thing is about to start, I suddenly have all sorts of computer game related things vying for my attention. My Guitar Hero 3 preorder has shipped. A friend is picking up Hellgate: London, and based off my playing through of the demo, I'm seriously tempted as well. I have other games I'm playing and enjoying of the PS2 (Shadow of the Colossus serious rocks)... So many possibilities, so little time...

I think I'll update you guys every couple of days on my progress. I'll give you a summary of what new things I've written so that you can slowly "read" my story. After all, given the quantity over quality nature of this thing, I really doubt I'll be making it available to anyone anytime soon. So, to start things out, here's a little bit about my main character and setting...

His name is Solomon Price, and he makes a living as a Dawm Go'el (blood avenger). Essentially, he hunts down those who have murdered and kills them, collecting a bounty as a reward. He is good at what he does, and generally feels a strong sense of satisfaction over being able to bring a little bit of justice to the world.

The world is a post-apocalyptic setting. The common technology level is generally around the late 1800s. So, we're talking the American wild west. Steam trains, six-shooters, horses, etc. Most of the population lives in rural areas or small towns. There are a few larger cities in places. Banditry and lawlessness are somewhat common. Corruption in government is all too common, and might frequently makes right. The "fall" was a longer process precipitated by events that I won't go into at this time. For a period of time during the fall, Israel essentially was the world government. It is still common in this setting to see remnants of Jewish culture, particularly in the rural areas.

That should be enough to get started on.

Well, today I sat down and did a little bit of outlining for my NaNoWriMo story. I think I have a reasonable feel for what needs to be written in the first 3/4s of the story. I'm having some difficulty in figuring out exactly how to end things. I'll have to do a little more thinking and possibly rework some stuff tomorrow. I have to figure out how to provide a reasonable antagonist without expanding the scope of the story too much. The problem is that the "real" antagonist would require a huge scope, so I have to have a smaller antagonist who seems (for the purpose of this story) to be the real antagonist without shutting out the potential for a later story that expands the scope to the real antagonist. We'll see.

I really doubt I'll ever edit this into a shape where I'd actually try to publish it, but I'm planning on writing it as if that were my eventual goal. So, I've figured out a number of things about the setting including some history and ongoing events. Is anyone interested in me throwing out details here and there? Or should I just keep you updated as to my progress and not bother/spoil you with the rest?

Ok, raise you're hand if you're reading this. I want to know who's out there, but I'm too cheap to offer swag like sareth...

I might try to get back in the habit of posting here again (I did so well for longer than I initially thought I'd last). The event that's triggering this is that I'm planning on participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Is anyone else out there going to give it a shot this year? If so, let me know so I can set you as a friend on that account. I suspect I'll need plenty of encouragement. Anyway, I'm planning on recording my progress here on my blog. Hopefully the public nature of it will help encourage me to stick with it.

I've been doing some amount of planning over the last month so that I have a decent idea of what I plan to write during the month. Over the next couple weeks as I continue to nail things down, I'll post here so you can follow along. For now, I'll just say that I'll be writing a story with the working title of "Dawm Go'el", which is the transliteration of the ancient Hebrew term that is translated "Blood Avenger". This will be a post-apocalyptic setting that gauntman and I came up with. It's partially inspired by David Gemmel's "Jerusalem Man" books (part of his Stones.of Power series).

Let's see, what else has been going on...

My Greek studies are continuing at a slow but steady pace.

My wife and I got sufficiently hooked on Guitar Hero (I borrowed it from a friend for a week while my folks were in town) that we ended up buying a PlayStation 2. Instead of buying GH2, we decided to preorder GH3 since it was so close to coming out. To pass the time until then, I picked up some other games that we've been playing and enjoying. Fortunately, I have a friend here at work with a number of PS2 games who has been willing to loan them to me so we can try them out. I'm really enjoying paying only $10-$35 for games instead of the usual $45-$55. I think I'll get more play time out of the PS2 than I did my old XBox...

Other than that, life has been... busy... but then everyone's life is busy, so I guess that's not really news. More posts to follow...