I have stalled. I feel like the story sucks (despite positive feedback!) and am sabotaging myself. Trying to get back on track, I have flung another 350 words of monkey poo at this insane venture, now in its second chapter.

(More below). more...

Posted by: JohnL at 10:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 357 words, total size 2 kb.

I am now up to 1789 words. Which means I am basically two days behind the pace.

I think I have completed my first chapter. I went through and added some text to what I had already written, so I am just posting the whole thing in the extended entry.

Glad to hear any feedback, positive or negative.
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Posted by: JohnL at 11:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ouch. Only 354 words tonight. I'll need to do some major typing in the next couple of days to get back on pace. Chapter One (started yesterday) continues below the fold:
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Posted by: JohnL at 10:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 389 words, total size 2 kb.

NaNoWriMo, or the National Novel Writing Month, has started.

For some insane reason, I thought I would give it a go this year. Fifty thousand words in thirty days? Ha! Piece of pie. Easy as cake. (ed. - avoid cliches, especially getting them wrong).

Actually, I have had a juvenile science fiction novel bouncing around inside my brain for a few months. It will definitely show influences of Heinlein and Kim Stanley Robinson, though I hope it has some of my voice, too. I've sketched out a few (three) main character treatments, and written a very rough plot outline, so I'm hoping the thing will write itself. (Ha!)

I posted a dialogue exercise from the pre-novel here a while ago. I probably won't be able to use that, as the "rules" require new prose. I may have to bend the rules a bit, though, since that conversation never went anywhere and I never wrote more than a couple of hundred words.

Even though the goal is a 50,000 word novel(la) by the end of the month, I may write more or less. I'm just trying to write every day, though.

If you want, you can check out the first 982 words of the next great American juvenile science fiction novel below the fold. I will accept constructive criticism, and look forward to suggestions about naming the thing (Jake's first name is based on my dog's name, and the last name pays tribute to the Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Caruso, and the author of one of the best Martian SF trilogies ever written, Kim Stanley Robinson).
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Posted by: JohnL at 09:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I'm no expert on writing fiction, so I'll just say it's good enough to get me interested and looking forward to its continuation.

Posted by: Boyd at November 02, 2005 08:48 AM (7lQ54)

2 Dig it! I'm glad you're doing this -- I am too and are we insane?!?! lol. You're off to a great start (I saw the second part to this -- I'm hopping over to read that next!), and keep it up!

Posted by: dawn at November 03, 2005 03:55 PM (jFpDX)

3 Sounds like a good beginning. Esp. like the "mears" for Mars-years. Good touch. One thing Heinlein did so well was to be able to drop a detail into a story (best examlpe: "The door dilated") w/o explanation & let context establish it. (Few cowboys ever paused to explain their Colt .45's, after all...) Might be a good idea to have some sort of sealant sprayed on those lava-tube walls... cut air loss via fractures as well as avoid silicosis, etc. Don't forget to take care of the atmospheric water vapor (w. dehumidifiers) - don't want to waste water, after all... Do they really need an elevator in 0.3G? unless heavy equipment is coming up & down, I'd think a ladder more than adequate. Best of luck w. the story!

Posted by: JohnW at November 04, 2005 06:28 PM (TcqDH)

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