Ready for Camp!

 

 

So Camp NaNoWriMo launches in a few days, and I think I'm ready.  I have the marshmallows, the graham crackers, the chocolate bars. 

Wait, I'm suppose to be writing? 

Oh crap. 

Umm... maybe not quite as ready as I thought I was.  

Well, I am. I think I'm actually going to be participating as a rebel this time, since I have about four really good WIPs that I need to work on, and I don't have any fresh ideas for camp. I've got a couple, but they're just tidbits of ideas.  The one I'm really wanting to work on is Heaven's Bounty, my (2008?) NaNo. It's actually pretty good. I love the characters, and their interactions, my only real problem is I'm a little stuck on the ending.  I don't quite know how I want to end it!  I think I'm getting close, but I don't know. See, I have a little confession to make: 

I suck at endings. I mean, I tend to start and not finish so many novels that I have far less practice finishing them than I do starting them. So maybe that's what I need to focus on for a while. Either way, I'll be writing 50k during camp, and I hope you join me. We're launching this week, and I've had the pleasure of poking around on the new site in testing all last week, and it's so pretty and simple and awesome. I hope you like it! 

So in the interest of a Camping theme, let's talk toasting marshmallows. Do you like yours on fire, or lightly toasted until golden brown?  Do you like to eat off the outside that's been cooked and re-toast the innards? How do YOU like your marshmallows?

My, how far technology has come

Right now I am testing my bluetooth keyboard link with my iPod. I think that if I take this with me to write-ins, I can actually do some mobile writing. I Just need to find a fold-down keyboard, because the mac keyboard is nice, but not exactly easily portable. I've heard that portable options exist. Now, my iPod is official Da Bomb. Mark 2. I decided about halfway through to post this to a blog, and realized that this is just perfect. As long as I have wireless (hey, it's not an iPhone) I can do anything my computer can do. Why do I own a laptop again? Welcome to the future, folks. This is reality. Next step? Those projected screens you see in all the sci-fi flicks.

Look ma, another plot bunny

While I was working on my novel, I actually had a plot bunny. You see, the magic system is based on an elemental sort of thing, you know, earth, air, fire, and water. As I'm writing the climax, though, I'm finding some weaknesses in the system, namely that the antagonist has an opposing element to the female protagonist. Now, for the confrontation, it's fine, but it's left me some holes in the rest of the system that I need to plug.

So I plugged in elemental magic to Google, and started getting some ideas to work around it, and I think I've figured out which way I want to go.

I think I'm going to go with a revamped elemental system based on the Chinese elements; fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. I don't know if I'll keep that exact pattern, but the flowing nature of it, and the way some of it opposes the rest fits the story as I'm writing it better then the traditional european four elements.

It also gives me more potential for side plots and additional character classes/races. AND it gives me more ideas for the sequel to this one, possibly breaking through the block there.
I love it when progress is so profound.

Now, the children have gotten disturbingly quiet, so I'd better go make sure they haven't managed to finally kill themselves in their room.

A milestone reached

Last night I accomplished something truly great. See, if you remember from posts past, I like to write by hand, and purchased a journal-sized notebook to write in.

Well, as of last night, I've officially filled it up.

That's right... It's DONE. Well, not the story, I'm still moving forward on the story, but the book itself is very full, and I've started on a second.

Just LOOK! Look at the beautiful, and so very full pages!

Umm... ignore the chicken scratch.

So with that done, I've got a backup book on hand, that I've already continued on. I removed the handy THIS IS MINE ribbon from the red book and moved it to the brown.

I'm even continuing the page numbering from 249. I'm at the climax of the novel, just at the beginning of the big confrontation, and I've got FORWARD MOTION. I can't wait to write tonight.

I think I'll go do that now.

crossposted to heatherdudley.com

BLARGH! I hate domain name propagation.

Okay, so as you may have noticed in the previous post, I've decided to activate my parked domain name, and set up a word press blog there, and importing everything from here to there.

Everything seemed hunky dory, until, of course, I realized that a wordpress.com installation lacks a very key feature: plugins. As in, all those pretty, customizable wordpress widgets? No go. It also lacks some other key features I kinda need.

So I decided I'll activate a true hosting account with my other hosting service (used for other websites) that will cost more than $1 a month, but will allow me ultimate power.

Only problem with that? DNS propagation. For the uninitiated, this means I have to wait anywhere from 1-3 days for the entire world's nameservers to catch up with the change.

So heatherdudley.com is currently offline. However, you can access the plain wordpress blog at heatherdudley.wordpress.com until propagation completes. Hopefully, it won't take too long. It's just annoying me because the wordpress installation I set up on fatcow points to the domain name, so they have to catch up with the fact that I'm already pointing to their own nameservers. Sigh.

So, to pass the time, and hopefully leave you smiling, and waiting once again for my infrequent posts to show up on my pretty new domain, I leave you with a kitten attacking a puppy.

You're welcome.