Yesterday was an extremely busy day! Much more than I was expecting. I probably would have accomplished more with a better plan and more self-discipline, but it was a good day. However, there were a few things I didn’t do–like write.
I think things are still going well, though. The day before, I wrote 1,300 words. I want to get to a certain part of the story before nanowrimo in November, because we’re probably going to do something for that contest as a writing group. Several people have voiced interest, and I would also like to participate.
For those of you who don’t know, “nanowrimo” stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s basically an informal worldwide (despite the name) contest, where the goal is to start and finish a novel of 50,000 words within the month of November. The idea is to focus less on editing and rewriting, and more on actually finishing something.
I would personally like to do this, since I’m so bad about finishing any of my stories. Also, there has been some interest in the club, and I think this could really be an awesome writing group activity as well. It takes place during an extremely hectic time, but I think we can do it–if we really want to.
Of course, it wouldn’t make sense for the writing group to do it if the leader of the writing group wasn’t doing it as well, so come this November, I’ll probably end up putting aside The Lost Colony for a while and focusing on the nanowrimo project.
I think that my story needs a lot more work than just writing the stuff down. There are some things that I’m going to need to think through a little more carefully. I watched a movie today in my Middle Eastern Geography class, about pastoral nomads in the Zagros mountains. It made me ask some questions about the nomads in my own story. I’m patterning the culture of the people of the lost planet loosely off of Middle Eastern cultures, and I’m getting to the point where questions about this culture are becoming more and more important.
As I watched the movie, I started thinking about the nomads that Ian runs into in the second chapter. Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Why are they nomads? What do they produce? Do they have any flocks or herds? If not, what else do they do? Why do they travel with their women and children on their raiding forays? How do they migrate? What are their relations with the villages and kingdoms in the more pastoral lands? World building questions like this.
Fortunately, this is where half the fun is. If I didn’t invent worlds like this in my mind for fun when I don’t have anything else that I have to think about, I probably wouldn’t want to be a writer. It does take a lot of thought, though, and that takes time and effort. Probably I’ll be spending most of my time between classes thinking these things through–you know, when you’re walking from one part of campus to another, and don’t have to think about anything.
But still…one month…and I’ve got a lot of ground to cover! This is where I either start getting serious or where things putter out. But this time, I’m going to be serious!
