tikatu | Entries tagged with original fiction

I was rather hoping I’d go on doing a drabble a day until the start of NaNo, but something came up today that brought the drabble train to a screeching halt in favor of my novel. I’ll talk about it in a moment, but first, a recap of the whole drabble a day experience.

Writing time frame: September 16th through 28th.

Posting time frame: September 17th through 30th

Total writing time: 13 days

Days missed: 1, leaving 12 writing days

Drabbles written: 15, plus an alternate ending for one. Only one of these I thought was sub-par.

Drabbles posted: 14 as of today.

So, it was pretty good. I only missed one day of writing and the rest saw one or more written.

( Revelations )

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Keeper's Realm
Current Music: "One Last Letter" by Aviators and Bronyfied

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: here Nuff said
Current Music: the oscillating fan blowing in cooler air

Well, it's officially over. We had our regional TGIO (Thank God It's Over) party last night. It was really cool to see all these new faces - and sad not to see some of the old ones. My final word count: 61,084. I'll update the ML Wiki later on with the cookbook stats. I actually went through the entire affiliates list and counted those who weren't homed with Greenville, and those who were and didn't participate. Brought the number of 245 affiliates down to 74 active participants. Of those 74, 27 finished the course. That's 38.5% win ratio, which I think is pretty cool for our area.

My story is far from finished (but y'all knew that, didn't you?). I'm making a commitment - call it a pre-New Year's resolution - to write 1000 words of fiction a day. Whether it's on one of my WIPs, my NaNo novels or what, 1000 words should be a piece of cake - as long as there are no extenuating circumstances, like going away for the day or becoming deathly ill.

I'm also going to solicit concrit on this year's NaNo novel from my f-list. When I say this, I mean a tightly filtered list of my personal friends in a f-locked post. I really think this has potential to be a published work - as in printed on dead-tree products and sold in stores - but if I post it to somewhere public and digital, like Fictionpress, it's been published already, and that puts me in a bind. So I'll be posting sections here for constructive criticism, and if you want to help me with that, please let me know so I can add you to my concrit filter. Please don't ask to be put on the list just so you can read the bits and pieces; I need the honest feedback so I can polish this story to a fine sheen.

In other matters, Windows Live Groups finally made its debut. I created a group called Tracy Island just to see what the service has to offer. I'm still thinking heavily about creating my own website; it will allow for so much more creativity as far as webpages are concerned. I can use HTML in discussion posts, but I have to put up with their themes on the home page. No more caption games if I move it all here. I do like the photo upload function, and I can create albums. I'm asking the members at IR Central and Tracy Island IR to check it out and give me their thoughts. If it meets with approval, so be it. If not, Plan B.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: my chilly living room
Current Music: the humming of my tower

Your rainbow is intensely shaded white, indigo, and blue.

What is says about you: You are a tranquil person. You appreciate cities, technology, and other great things people have created. People are loyal to you and see you as a natural leader. People depend on you to make them feel secure.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

I have to admit, this NaNo has been a good experience, both as a writer and as an ML. I've hopefully learned from my mistakes, and I have the basis for a decent piece of children's/young adult fiction to work with during this next year.

There's still time to finish and win, those of you who are near the end. And for those of you who didn't or can't, there's next year. Please consider giving back to NaNo, even a little bit, by using GoodSearch, or by donating something. I'm going to check the bank balance and see what I can give... won't be much, but I've been given something valuable this year and it's only fair that I give back.

I still have the TGIO party for Tuesday, then it's over for the year.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: my desk
Current Music: boy #1 blowing his nose

Now what, you ask? Well, going back in with the large bucket of spackle and filling in all the holes, that's what! I made a list of scenes that need to be written and decided to start with a scene I had jumped from.

I had left Erasmus having a little chat with Owen, vicar of La Fontaine. So I needed to finish the chat, which meant coming up with a Burke's Peerage-type entry for Alain (and for Marcus, while I was at it). So, I spent the afternoon using the entry that Dorothy Sayers came up with for Peter Wimsey as a template, then creating educational backgrounds, figuring out how old they are, what they do for recreation (have to write something up with Marcus playing chess!), clubs they belong to... all sorts of things! Took me quite a while, but I think I got something workable.

So the conversation is continuing. At dinner, I came up with the way that Elise and Alain met (though it's kind of corny perhaps - it would be kind of nice if they met while she was on her world tour - then again, that's how she met the Shaunessy family). I've figured out (I think) how her first husband died, and where MacLeod ties into that. I have a background for Alain's divorce and his separation from his daughter, though Owen doesn't know all the details (such as Mary Suzette not wanting to care for a cripple).

So though I haven't done a lot of writing today, I have been doing a lot of planning for the rest of the book.

Boy #1 has just reminded me that I have to publish this thing and become a best seller. Hey, if Stephanie Meyer could do it, so can I.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: La Fontaine
Current Music: "Bist du bei mir" by the Swingle Singers

The novel validator is up at NaNoWriMo, so I did a few find/replaces on my validation file (to remove those pesky contractions I'm so fond of), then slapped it up there. I thought I'd have over 40K - after all, by my own calculations I was nearing 41K last night.

The result? 39351. Not cool. So, to verify this, I went back and actually used a, y'know, calculator to add up my word count, chapter by chapter, as per Open Office's word counter. Now, mind you, I didn't get rid of my contractions there; I won't want to have the stilted language of "I have not" etc. when I publish the novel. I've seen it happen before: an author writes without contractions to up their word count, then forgets to go through and change the "have not" to "haven't" - making their dialog stilted and stuffy.

My final count with the calculator? 39137.

I think I'll take the validator's count, TYVM. And realize once and for all that math is not my bag.

In other matters, we had a hard freeze last night. Very cold even when I got up this morning. The dog's outside water bowl was frozen solid, and the temperature drop made the trees in the back yard let loose tons of their leaves. Boy #2 had spent some time on Sunday using the leaf blower to clear the carport and driveway as far as the extension cord would let him. Now, if you look down in front of the carport, you can't even see what he did. The driveway there is once again carpeted with leaves.

Okay. Enough with the procrastination. I have 400 words to make 40K, and nearly another 1000 to make it where I was yesterday. Then onward beyond that. Fortunately, I'm in a spot that's full of action, and it should flow well. I'm going to finish off my coffee, and get to work!

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: La Fontaine
Current Music: "I want to be happy" by the Chenille Sisters

Didn't really take much to make 35K, really, only around 1300 words. But I did it before dinner, and I think I can continue once I get some baked goods into the oven. Pumpkin bread this time.

I now know how my villain made his money. I also have an idea how my two telepaths are kidnapped, and by whom (but I just this very moment realized a possible problem with this... the House itself!) The aviator has arrived, fallen flat on his face, and is attracted to one of the telepaths. I have soooo much backstory still to do as I jumped from the priests talking to the second ghost showing up. But the plot is threading its way along, and amazing me with its continued growth.

One other thing I have to do is highlight the villain more. He's in the story, some of his background has been brought out, but he hasn't shown his face since chapter 2. I have to give him more motivation, show his workshop... lots of things to bring out. There is no way at all that this story will top out at 50K, but I can see it as a whole, now, I think. The worst part will be my ending - right now it doesn't look to be a terribly happy one, with some events and their aftermath being an ongoing problem. We'll see when I get there, I suppose.

But now, the pumpkin bread awaits. Be back later, if the muse allows.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: my kitchen
Current Music: hubby listening to Nero Wolfe on the laptop

cross posted (to a point) from

lj_nanowrimo

I've been floundering around for the past week, trying so very hard to come up with more of a plot than I'd already had tucked away in my brain. Basic story: magic vs. technology; magic wins - yay! But I only had one really stirring event planned, and had ended up with a whole ton of character development tucked into 30K - and no sign of the big event yet.

But last night I hit http://nine.frenchboys.net and powered up the plot twist generator. Some of them made me laugh, some of them made me shake my head, and a few made me go, "Hm." One of the latter was "Suddenly, a clumsy aviator arrives, from nowhere." And in that little statement, I began to see the glimmerings of some more plot. As those glimmerings took hold, more plot started clamoring for attention.

So, now I have my plot, and it's falling into place. I even was channeling my healer character on the way home from today's write-in, in a scene from the BIG EVENT, where she actually gets to use her power to get some righteous smackdown. Need to start taking my digital recorder to bed, and to the bathroom as those are the places I get a lot of my inspiration.

My only problem is that the rather taciturn butler character, who I was going to make into a villain, is turning out to be more of a sympathetic hero type. Now I have to figure out a way for my two telepaths to be kidnapped which doesn't involve him... sigh.

More plot!! Yay!!

And in other news, Lacey went to the vet yesterday for the first time since puppyhood. She was relatively well-behaved, very inquisitive, but ended up with a muzzle since she growled at the vet. The vet suggested this flea medication called "Comfortis", which basically kills the fleas from the inside out, and keeps killing them and the eggs for a month. I also got flea meds for the cats, Capstar to kill what is on them now, and Advantage to continue killing them. I'll have to do some poking around to see how much Comfortis costs online.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: La Fontaine

The kids had a great time over the weekend in NC. The boys both brought back bags of soggy clothes as they'd braved the camp's cold creek and gone tubing. The Girl said it was the most fun she'd had at that camp in the three or four times she'd been there. Boy #2 excitedly described his turn on the land trolley. Boy #1 brought back two stick bugs - he has a bug report due in mid-December (uh, science teacher? The bugs are dying off?).

I managed to hit 20K last night. It felt good, so good that 22.5 is my goal for today. I'm already nearly halfway there; my feet woke me in the wee hours and my mind - with the next scene from the story whirling through it - kept me awake until I got up, fired up the laptop, and wrote it down. I'm kind of concerned because though I'm racking up the word count, I'm not getting along with the plot. I've spent the past four chapters just introducing the characters, with a lot more exposition than I'd really like. I need to get down to the nitty gritty of the plot - which at this rate, looks rather skimpy compared to the world building and the character introduction.

Write-in at Spill The Beans tonight. I've saved out a bit of money to buy something while I'm there; it's always good to patronize the places that provide the venue. We'll see how many turn up.

Need to get some lunch, and get on to writing!

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: La Fontaine
Current Music: "Scheherezade" by Rimsky-Korsakov

Yeah. The kids have all gone away for the weekend. Up to NC, to a good camp there. The Girl's friend invited them all - sort of under her siblings' names - and so they won't be back until Sunday sometime.

The house is very, very quiet, with the dog mourning her boy going away, and the Demon Cat deciding that I'm her surrogate mother (she's been doing this for a couple of weeks now, actually).

It might help me with my NaNo novel to have the quiet, though tomorrow I have a write-in, which will help even more.

Speaking of that, I'm looking for 15K today; just making the bare minimum will put me over. The story is flowing, but I'm sort of caught between delineating things too much, and not delineating things enough. And Siobhan is at the forefront right now. I need to catch the other characters and get their backgrounds filled out.

In another, totally unrelated note, the Girl's friend's father ran a write-in campaign for Soil and Water Conservation board, and won. This is cool, because he had a stroke a few weeks ago and is undergoing rehab. I'll be sure to have the local news on this evening; the NBC affiliate wanted to do an interview. Congrats, Dave!!

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: La Fontaine
Current Music: "DNAngel-White Night, True Light" from the anime

And I thought I'd ask my f-list - among other places.

I have a character in my fantasy, my MC in fact, who has a small grouping of magical powers. For one, I'm using the definitiion of "seer" as in "s/he who sees things". This refers to her seeing the past or future of a person who touches her, and seeing ghosts. But there's another power that I wanted to call "soothsayer", basically taking the word apart and using "sooth" in it's archaic definition of "truth" and adding "sayer" - not because she speaks the truth, but because she makes others speak it.

The problem is: soothsayer has the same connotation as seer - someone who sees the future, a precognitive. I think I can get away with seer, but soothsayer isn't fitting. Are there any other ways to denote this "truth-speaking"? I'd like your ideas/opinions, please. Many thanks in advance.

Crossposting this to the NaNo Forums, and

lj_nanowrimo .

ETA: I think I've finally worked this out. The character has an aura that makes people speak the truth, if they speak at all. So I'm taking a hint from

lassarina at

lj_nanowrimo and giving it a Latin name: aureola veritas. I'm also considering a suggestion from the fantasy boards at NaNoWriMo, and Chromatic there, and making it unique to her or very rare.

Thanks, gang, for your comments! You all really got my thought processes going!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: my desk
Current Music: the bubbles from the air stone

NaNoWriMo starts in less than six weeks, and until now I've been wracking my brains as to what to write this year.

The other day, when I was talking to Hubby about books, writing, and maybe NaNo (I can't exactly remember what), it came to me that some of my favorite writers write in the first person (d'uh!). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse, Rex Stout - they all write in first person, using one person to tell the tale. Dr. Watson, Bertie Wooster, Archie Goodwin - all have very distinctive voices, and through their eyes, you see the story unfold. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but the problem with my first stab at an original novel was having too many people. I had at least nine characters, all telling their part of the story through their eyes - but very few of them had a strong, compelling voice. There were just too many characters all talking at once.

I've always thought they were good characters, with interesting backstories and powers. Marcus and Julio especially were especially interesting to me, especially with Marcus being disabled and trying to look at the world as he did. With him, the whole coffee shop business was fun. I enjoyed Elise when I roleplayed with her.

So, I decided to take these characters, put them in a less modern, more magical setting, and tell the tale in the third person. The problem lately, though, has been the setting. Somehow, this evening (at IHOP, of all places) the phrase "the house on the corner" popped into my head, and with it, a vision of the outside of the house - from the street. That opened up a whole lot of ideas. I think I'll be working to develop the setting, add the new characters needed, and write some backstories. I'm very tempted, too, to make this a sort of magical steampunk. Been reading too much Girl Genius, I guess. Not sure if I can pull it off, though.

All this while taking care of Hubby, the house, the kids, the cats, the dog, and trying to make progress on my WIPs. At least I got the grocery shopping done.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: my desk
Current Music: whatever Hubby is watching on the laptop

The prompt is #149 "Torture" from

all_unwritten

( Torture and Temptation )

Current Mood: grumpy
Current Location: in front of my computer screen, where else?
Current Music: the bubbles from the air stone

I saw this particular layout in a different color at

modly_advice and liked it so much I thought I'd use it myself. I had to adjust the page length a little; the default is 80% and to fit my daughter's art in, I had to go with 90%. I wanted to use a different color, but the colored text I have on some of my entries just didn't show up very well. With this color, the text will show up nicely, and it's still pleasant to look at. The Girl will like the fact that it's blue.

I read a "Fermat's Mother" fic the other day. Not badly written, though I felt that the author set the mother up to be rather a straw villain... no one liked her at all, and somehow, that doesn't seem like Brains. He knew enough to stay away from Transom, after all, so he has some discernment in women. Though this one was supposed to be beautiful, and a social climber, she was nasty and snide... kind of a stereotype.

All this to say that my muse kicked me in the pants to start work on my own "Fermat's Mother" story - which, I might add, I'd planned to do long, long ago, long before this new fic showed up. The character gave me her last name, but not her first, and I've come up with a list of names I like, and have been asking my friends for their votes. Miranda is tops right now. I've written up a prologue, and will be jotting own ideas as they come to me. Rhea piped up, too. Now if only Lou and Co, or Alan and Fermat, would speak up! I need to finish those stories! NaNoWriMo is only a month away!

If you'd like to make your opinion known, here's my list:

( The names )

Current Mood: crazy
Current Location: in la-la land
Current Music: Yo Yo Ma playing something classical

As of January 1, 2007, I have over 1,000,000 words published on the web.

This does not include the 50,000 words of my NaNoWriMo novel.

This does not include the God-only-knows how many words I've written in RPs.

This does not include words written in my blogs.

This does not include reviews I have written.

This does not include the story "Chow Sing Bing and the Forest Dragon", which was written by Boy #1, and posted under my name at fictionpress.com. (I gave him full credit in the author's notes as he was only 10 1/2 at the time and couldn't publish it on his own.)

All that this includes are the stories I have published online at fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, ficwad.com (since there is one story there that is not on fanfiction.net), and 30_beverages (since there is one drabble there that is not on fanfiction.net) It also includes author's notes, and in some cases, reviewer responses attached to those stories.

The breakdown:

30 Beverages - 100 words - 1 story
FicWad - 830 words - 1 story
FictionPress - 13,420 words - 6 stories
Fanfiction - 985,820 words - 26 stories

Are they all good words? Are they all good stories? Probably not. But they are mine.

I am gobsmacked.

And thrilled.

Current Mood: shocked
Current Location: home sweet home
Current Music: "Route 66" by the Manhattan Transfer

I mentioned in my last friends-locked post that I had written something for the 1000 Word Battle Arena forum at Lunaescence. I thought about whether or not to post it elsewhere, and finally decided to post it here, publically. (After all, I've been accused of using my blogs for pimping my fiction. Might as well fulfill expectations... **evil grin**).

Title: The Dare
Author: Tikatu
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Fandom: none; original fic
Summary: A special young man takes a dare and finds himself in a sticky situation.
Notes: Originally posted in the 1000 Word Battle Arena at Lunaescence.com. Winner of the battle with three votes.

( The Dare )

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: somewhere on the Internet
Current Music: "The Winner Takes It All" by ABBA

But that was okay. I needed the sleep and not the car. I got up around 8, ate, checked my email, and went back to bed around 9:30 to sleep until nearly noon. I was really tired.

Got to Resolutions early and posted it this afternoon. the reviews have been good, but none of the heavy hitters have weighed in to comment. It's okay. Two more chapters and I'll be done with it. I'm not quite sure where to go with chapter five, but I know it will come. Then I can focus on Turnabout and Serendipity and maybe even get my first chapter of Elise's story up. Still not sure what title to give it, "The Micheax Legacy" doesn't seem to fit. Maybe I can find some bit of poetry or some famous saying to cull for the title. That one will take a long time to complete but I want to do it and if I get good reviews on it, then maybe I'll shop it around. If Hubby could illustrate The Lazy Boy and his Cat, I'd shop that around. We talked about it the other day. He's been working so hard and such long hours that he's just totally wiped out when he gets home and doesn't have the energy to draw. Somehow I have to cut him some slack.

Well, I'll need to take a trip to the store for bread and milk. And C. just signed in! want to talk to that girl! Later days!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: none

The other day I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn't get writing; there were too many ideas and they were all crowding around, demanding release.

Well, I released some of them yesterday and today.

Yesterday I:
wrote a post for The Magician
wrote a post for CIR
wrote two posts for Thunderfan
wrote a post for IR:TNP
posted the first chapter of Serendipity to fanfics.org

Today I:
finished chapter 15 of Turnabout
posted said chapter to both fanfiction.net and fanfics.org

Now, on to chapter 16 of Turnabout and finishing chapter 4 of Serendipity. Plus trying to do a collaboration with Frankie for IR:TNP. I could probably come up with something for Daria's TB RPG, but I feel no compulsion to bail it out again. And I still have the novel to write on as well. I get butterflies in my stomach when I think of that undertaking. But it's got to come out.

On top of all this writing, I've actually managed to get a head start on supper. A pork roast is in the crock pot and all I have to do is a veggie and company rice. Hey, I might even do plain rice so that Hubby can enjoy the gravy. That's even easier.

Now, if I can only get the kids to stop picking on each other.... sigh.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: "Ghost Riders In The Sky" by Rider in the Sky

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tikatu

As My Muse Moves

November 2016

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Page Summary

Well, the experiment has come to an end.
A wordle from my long-suffering NaNo Novel
NaNoWriMo wrap up.
Because theweasleyboys dared me... again!
I made 50K! Now what?
Why yes, I'm procrastinating...
Dancing with 35K!
Plot bunnies! Send me plot bunnies!!
The kids are home, and I'm at 20K!
sans children for the nonce
Need a bit of advice
Stirrings of NaNoness...
Another short bit
Yeah, time for a change.
1 Million words
An original offering from my muse.
Well, I didn't get up.
From drought to deluge....

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Base style: Crisped by timeasmymeasure
Theme: Sea the Flowers by forests_of_fire
Resources: ColourLovers pattern by amethystfirefly & OldeAuntieRae

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Tikatu's Travels Through Time

Cats, coffee, chocolate ... life is good

Entries tagged with original fiction

Well, the experiment has come to an end.

A wordle from my long-suffering NaNo Novel

NaNoWriMo wrap up.

Because theweasleyboys dared me... again!

I made 50K! Now what?

Why yes, I'm procrastinating...

Dancing with 35K!

Plot bunnies! Send me plot bunnies!!

The kids are home, and I'm at 20K!

sans children for the nonce

Need a bit of advice

Stirrings of NaNoness...

Another short bit

Yeah, time for a change.

1 Million words

An original offering from my muse.

Well, I didn't get up.

From drought to deluge....