Day Before the Madness

First Three Months:


All right, so tomorrow my Ultimate Writing Challenge starts. Woohoo! Anyhow, here's the information on the first novel.

The Nefarious and Evil Tale

Current length : 43,177 words (yes, I'm starting with an easy one)
Expected length at finish : around 65,000 words - 70,000 words
Total words to finish : 21,823 - 26,823

Words remaining for month : 23,177

So, I've got at less words to finish this one, but more words to make up elsewhere. I think it'll be an even balance for my first month which should make this goal more workable.

What is already finished on this story is posted here, on my FP account.

National Novel Writing Year?

First Three Months:


So, in my infinite insanity, I've decided that starting June 1st, I'm implementing my very own National Novel thing. I don't require any other participants, the only one accountable is myself and there are no prizes for this accomplishment besides my own sense of pride and amazement.

What does this entail precisely? I'll tell you. I will write 50,000 words per month. In that there will be one finished novel per month. This could be a project that's been sitting fallow, a brand new one, one you've been putting off, whatever. But after looking through the host of projects I've got sitting around, I realized I had to do something. I had to finish them.

So, I'm implementing this schedule. If a novel is finished short of that extra 50K, I'll start on another one. The word count is mandatory, the amount of projects worked on is flexible, but one of them must be finished in that month, and it must have at least 50K words to it's credit. This does include packets of shorts stories. (RELATED TO ONE ANOTHER), but not poetry. Unless it's a 50,000 word epic poem, in which case, you are awesome.

My personal schedule will be as follows, based on projects sitting around for the longest amount of time. If a novel is completed ahead of schedule, then I will move on to the next one on the list.
Novels on the list that are there for heavy rewriting have a companion novel listed as well. An attempt will be made to finish both.

June : A Nefarious and Evil Tale
July : Blood Lines + Black Moon
August : Legion's War
September : Vampirism and You
October : Deaths Children
November : NEW PROJECT (As I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month)
The Ghost King
December : When Angels Cry + Dusk Moth
January : Legion's Wake
February : Let the Good Times Roll
March : The Bridge
April : The Hatter's Son
May : Gryphon's Kiss

If I finish all of those before May, I'll move on to my secondary list of a further twelve projects. Part of this project will be trying to remain focused on these particular stories, and not starting a bunch of new things.

Of course, new ideas will be written down and played with a bit, and if something new is on a roll, I'll work on it. But I hope to complete at least my first list, and some of the second. If you'd like to join in with me, for solidarity, I'd appreciate that. Just comment after this post to join in. I'll be keeping track of my own work in this blog, and on LJ. Updates to stories will be made on FictionPress (obviously) as things are completed.

It's an honor system, mostly, but trust me on this, I have very pushy friends so...I may just make it on this. Words counts will go up weekly, because I'm not very good at posting, but I'll try my best for weekly.

I may go mad before this is all over, just as a heads up, but these projects really need to get done so. . .yeah. So join in, watch me crash and burn, cheer me on, whatever you like. Starting tomorrow, all hell breaks loose.

The News

The news has been depressing recently. Not because of the news itself, which is somewhat depressing but I'll admit to being rather jaded so, no, that's not the real problem. A news article gives you the information with a slant from a singular source and is to some extent unbiased. I'm not naive enough to say it's completely unbiased, I know that's not true.

What really bothers me is the comments these articles receive. With the age of the internet we are given the ability to comment on just about everything in a way that leaves us anonymous. I have never seen such violent, crude, ignorance as I have on those comment boards.

Obviously, one can ignore the comment streams and focus solely on the story itself, but it does highlight the amount of ignorance rampant in the US. It's not just ignorance, it's willing ignorance. Not just a lack of education, but an unwillingness to become educated. You can't say, "I didn't know." You can't say, "I had no chances."

Guess what, if you have internet access, you have an opportunity to learn. It's the internet! There are websites chocked full of science, math, art! Google has free digital books you can download. Free!

Not just the internet, but there are these things called libraries, where you can check out books, for free! There are community centers, volunteers, and adult education centers willing to help you, and some of those are free. Education is the only way to combat ignorance, and the cycle of ignorance needs to be broken.

I have no illusions that anyone actually reads my rantings, but I had to say something.

Gail Carriger's Changless - A Review

So first off, I'd like to explain something. I first read Soulless because I'd read all my books, was bored and figured it would the nice thing to do as my roommate rarely recommends books to me.

I proceeded to read said book in a single sitting, in the dark, by the light of my I-Pod while stifling laughter so as not to waken my sleeping roommate. I was exhausted the next day, slept through a lecture but...damn, that was a good book.

Thusly impressed, I read it a second time--and a third.

So when I arrived back in the US after months in Italy, I waited impatiently for funds and access to a bookstore so I could purchase Changeless. Thus, once I had said funding, I purchased the book--and then put off reading it until a flight. I'm not a fan of flying, it doesn't appeal to me at all, so I wanted something fantastic to distract me.

This was indeed fantastic. A whirlwind combination of adventure, intrigue and emotion, Gail Carriger delivers vibrant characters and an intelligent story line full of well-timed sarcasm. The addition of Lord Maccon's old pack and his scathing grand-daughter Sidheag helped set the pace for the climax and Madame Lefoux was...simply delightful. The overall story was inspired, and the further expansion of the mythology of this alternate world's already rich mythology keeps it apart from similar works. The incorporation of Egypt was well done and in keeping with the historical period Miss Carriger is drawing from.

I love the careful focus on side characters like Lyall and Biffy, pushing relationships in new directions without devoting an over-abundance of time to them or losing track of the central story line. I am rooting for Lyall and Biffy, I really, really am. Although, I wouldn't want Akeldama to get hurt. I have a feeling that if he went maudlin his clothes might get less fantastic--and that would be a shame.

The ending, oh that ending. I was upset, angry and I was on a plane. And as I was on a plane, I had to keep my emotional responses to a minimum. I dislike people giving me funny looks. So I swallowed my urge to chuck the book (not because I didn't like it, but because it was the only way I could think of to injure a fictional character), and took deep breaths.

I've placed Blameless (book 3) on my wishlist and will pre-order it as soon as I can.

All in all, it was a damn fine read, took up most of my three and a half our plane ride (not an average reading time), and left me wanting more.

I give it five stars.