Saturday, November 5, 2011

Nanowrimo info

So not sure how many of you have heard of National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org) where you get 30 days to write a 50,000+ word novel, but I'm entering again. :3 I completed 3 nanowrimo novels so far... in high school, the Novembers of 2006, 2007, and 2008. It'll be interesting to write again after a few years off. I want to write one more novel while I'm still a teenager! XD Teenage bucket list? I turn 20 on December 29th.

So this is the first Science Fiction type story I'm doing. The other three were kind of romantic/comedy stuff, the first two being high-school set. Also the first time I plan on telling the story from multiple viewpoints.

It's hard to give an accurate synopsis since I didn't plan much but the premise I'm starting with basically there's a company that developed low level android/shells that people can transfer their consciousness into. They never developed the software properly and the shells are only temporary ways to extend life. Each time you transfer to a new body/shell some of you gets left behind and circuits kind of fill in the gaps till eventually you're just low level software for the machine. Not all minds are strong enough to survive the initial transfer so there are IQ tests to apply for a shell. The company also semi-secretly manufactures a semi-illegal drug that has similar effects to transferring too much/makes people dumber/number so they don't think too much. People start to reject the idea of becoming stuck in a machine and live it up crazily. Others get afraid they'll die before being able to transfer and do it too early, having a lot of regret at the missed sensations later in 'life'. Etc. It's kind of hard to summarize, but the whole general theme is an emptiness/numbness. Tentative title being "Empty Tomorrow"

Stylistically I'd like it to be set in the future but the culture kind of stagnated around the 90s. (People still have beepers but they can send texts, no internet is widely available, shoulderpads galore!)

Anyway some rough doodles from the sides of my novel notes:




Ever entered nanowrimo? :D It's never too late to start! I'm a bit behind the 1666 words a day goal and have 2220 but haven't written today yet. I do most of my writing at the end of the month and during Thanksgiving break, typically. One year I barely had 10,000 words by week four and wrote the last 40k at the pace of just under 10k a day! Crazy stuff. Maybe it's because I need the rest of the month to really get a feeling in my mind of how I want the book to be. I keep writing snippets of things that I keep in a notepad file and on paper for later in the book that I can't use yet! If I counted all that, I'd probably be at about 4 to 5k at the moment. I find it easiest for smaller novels like these to work out the ending of it first so I know whatever I write just has to get the characters to that point.

Have you ever written a novel? :3

1 comment:

  1. This sounds as daunting a challenge as the three-day novel-writing contest in my neck of the woods. I know you'll be up to the challenge, and the doodles look fantastic. :)

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