mdk

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

Interestingly, '50k words of random nonsense' also pretty accurately describes my novel.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

Just when I needed a few extra words, my villain came up with a last-ditch plot twist. NAILING IT. 46k and small change. Now the only question is, will my new SSD get here in time to reinstall windows on my desktop, get at the old files, and pull everything together in time to validate the wordcount on NaNo's site? THIS IS MY NEW VERSION OF SUSPENSE.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

Weekend plans canceled due to major icing. VICTORY ASSURED!! ONWARDS WRIMOS!! ONWARDS TO VICTORY!!!!!

If you're within 10k of the end, you can make it. Yes, you can.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

I'm staying ahead of schedule a little, but maybe not enough..... had a big weekend planned in Oklahoma, but it looks like the weather might not cooperate. If that's the case, then I just stay home and write and cross that finish line easy-peasy. But if I do go, I'm losing like two whole writing days, so I need to like..... recover preemptively. The 30th would royally suck otherwise.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

As a note; I've failed this year's NaNoWriMo. While I could technically write 3.000 words a day to catch up by the 30th, I just don't feel it anymore. I tried really hard to get back on track, though, so I'm very proud of myself for taking on this challenge. Next year, I'll take it again (with an outline, character sheets and full worldbuilding beforehand, hopefully!) and freaking wreck the entire thing!

But 37k words written by a guy whose longest story before that was 6k words long? That means NaNoWriMo's helped me improve my determination by around 600%!

@Frettzo

It's absolutely an accomplishment. A pretty major one at that! What's cool is -- you can do that any time you want, and you just proved it. Don't worry about the 50k -- have some fun with the ending for the rest of the month, tie it all together, see what happens. If it's not "THE ENDING" ending, whatever -- just enjoy it. 37k is cool and all, but 40k? That's way cooler. WAAAAAAAAAAY cooler. You can hit that, easy, right? Right? DO IIITTTTT!

I just crossed over the day's target for the first time this year. 42k, theraboutsishly. My scene exploded and I'm happy about it, and also I spilled some bourbon on my keyboard but it's still working so I think I'm good.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

I'm at 40,159 now, and I'm definitely going with the parallels to the Refugee Crisis. You can't get much more blatant than having an MC say "We were forced out of our homeland because of power-lustful invaders" and having Earth on the verge of being overrun should they accept her people as refugees, with multiple politicians being quite outspoken about only letting ones who agree to denounce their own culture in or simply nuking them out of the sky. Now I've gotten to the point where I spend like ten pages discussing cultural differences and their affects on two societies completely alien to each other.

I'm literally the only person who would ever read this, aren't I?

@Keyguyperson

On your rewrite, throw in a sexy blue femalien love interest for each MC. I understand that automatically makes it hollywood-quality mass appeal?

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

39,186 -- might get some more in before bed, but I'm also kinda beat. Also, BOY WAS I WRONG about running out of material before the end. I've just discovered exactly how many characters I left blank in the TTL version.... the evil-doer's camp is chock full of somewhat-interesting people and two more of them just spontaneously came to life. If this keeps up, I'll be lucky to reach the climax of the story by the time the month is out. Tomorrow I get to do meaty dialogue with the Big Bad for the first time ever. Also, tomorrow is my birthday, so by the end of the night I'll be writing while plastered. This bodes well for the wordcount.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

light day. I got roped into a gaming marathon, but I got about half a daily wordcount in afterwards.... made it up to 37674, then deleted a word so that my total could also be a palindrome.

RPGC #6: The NaNo One!

36,863, but that *is* counting some notes at the end of various chapters telling future-me what to do when I edit. I think that's legal.... but anyway, this shit just came together. There was a lot of stuff that didn't make any sense at all in the backstory, and my characters just accidentally figured out how it all happened.

Read the synopses so far -- cool stuff. The Velt adventure sounds like a great premise, and although I'm still waiting for photographic proof that @keyguyperson can write hold off from destroying humanity, I've learned not to bet against him.

My story is based on a TTL entry I did for the Fourth Labor (which, I've since discovered, is also roughly the same premise as Uncharted 2, the multi-platinum AAA videogame..... darn.....) The TTL entry is huge, so here's a shorter synopsis. Basically, there's this history professor who gets a letter from an archaeologist, inviting him to come on a super-secret dig (set in 1925, so between world wars). Mackenny, the archaeologist, has found what he thinks is the entrance to a mythological kingdom called Shambhala. He wants to go inside and find the Cintamani Stone, an important piece of history and (according to religion) a magical boon that can grant immeasurable wealth. They're racing against the Vaerichs (which are based on the real-life Roerich expedition), who want to get it first and use it for their own weird purposes. The story is all about the characters -- you've got Mackenny, the Indiana Jones type; Doctor Cole, the history teacher and former Rough Rider; Benevici, the do-gooder; and the Vaerichs, Helena (based on real-life wonderwoman Helena Roerich) and Nikolai (based on real-life creepy genius Nicholas Roerich).

If I did it right, it's less about the magic rock, and more about all these different people interacting with one another (and some other characters) along the way.

The Thoughts of A Psychological Function

Regardless of what impressions you've gotten from the news, we did a bang-up job in Iraq from 2007-2008. Petreus' 'Surge tactics' cleaned up the country like night and day. It worked. It's easy to say "do bad things to bad people," fine -- it's just as easy to say "we can't win, we never had a chance." The truth is, we could have won, we had a chance, and we let it go. Packing up and leaving has damaged our ability to win -- we're about as credible as a red line in the sand, and everybody knows it, and we can't just make that go away. Now everybody knows -- just wait, and the Americans will walk away. Who in their right minds would work with us now? Iranian rebels tried, they're dead. Syrian rebels tried, they're nerve gassed. Iraqis tried, and they got beheaded for it. Libyans, Afghanis... We don't have the balls to finish what we start, and everybody who throws in with us, pays for it later. "How long is long enough?" As long as it takes. If we can't do that -- and we can't -- then we shouldn't get started in the first place.

So to reiterate -- no, I don't think we should just run over there and bomb people. It's a bad idea, but not for the reasons you're thinking. It could TOTALLY work, we could absolutely win the war and save lives in the process. These aren't boogeymen -- they bleed, they die, they get scared and go home. We've beat the shit out of them enough times, we can always do it again. Hell, the only reason we're talking about ISIS is that Al Qaeda is ashes. Damn straight, we can beat them.... except we can't, because the nation can't stomach it. So anything we do to solve the problem will only make it worse.