NaNoWriMo frenzy ahead

Untitled: a novel about demons and demon hunters

2008-01-21T23:40:56Z

Untitled is my NaNo novel 07. The complete draft was over 63 000 words. I need to get the work count to at least 80 000 words to make it a proper length. It should be easy because I skip on description a LOT when I speed-write. So, I'll try to keep myself on track and post edited chapters as often as possible. Once the padding and plot-tweaking is done, I'll see what to do with this.

Summary: Jace didn't believe in the supernatural. That was before he found out he'd slept with a demon and that his adorable little sister is a demon hunter. Now Jace is trying to start a new career as Mr. Knight in Shining Armor in order to protect these two women from their enemies--and from each other.

-Chapter 1-

Halloween parties were Jace’s favorite parties. At no other time was it considered correct for a man to wear a skirt or a woman to dress in flimsy fabric and call herself Scheherazade. Costumes made everything more entertaining and Jace liked being entertained. He’d settled for something simple: he was Caesar, wearing a white sheet as toga and something green on his head that may or may not have looked like laurels. Plain sandals completed the cheap look.

All parties were good for one thing: meeting girls. Of those, there were aplenty. Everywhere he looked, he saw bared flesh, flimsy costumes, intriguing masks. He’d already been shot down twice in half an hour, but that was normal: the secret to getting laid was to smile and approach as many girls as possible. One of them was bound to say yes and he would not let her regret it. He did not share his secret: friends and colleagues thought he had a magic touch and he liked letting them believe it.

He’d come with a friend, but said friend was nowhere in sight: perhaps he’d gotten lucky first. Determined not to waste the night, he swept the crowded room with his gaze, searching for his next target. One girl in particular caught his attention: she wore little more than fishnet, a skirt, twisted horns and contacts that made her eyes glow in the room’s relative darkness. She was not the prettiest, but short blue hair gave her a wild air and her wicked smile as she met his eyes across the room was too attractive for him not to try his luck.

Abandoning the couch to a drunken couple, Jace moved in her direction just as she moved in his. They met near the staircase, smiling easily. Jace thought it a good sign.

The loud and cheesy Halloween music forced everybody wishing to have a conversation to either scream or talk in each other’s ear. The girl was already moving for the latter, her lips brushing his ear deliciously.

“Hi. I’m Krista,” she said.

“I’m Jace,” he answered cheerfully. “Nice costume.”

Krista’s smile widened. “I’m a succubus.”

His own smile widened in answer. Direct girls were attractive. “Are you hungry, little succubus?”

The party was still young, but it was with no regrets that he led Krista outside, where they might hear each other and flirt properly. A cold wind greeted him: the night felt positively freezing compared to the warmth of the house, which prompted him to revise his plans.

“My car is over there,” Jace suggested, pointing over his shoulder. “It’ll be warmer if we want to talk.”

She agreed without hesitation, following him down the street toward the battered old Nissan car he called his.

The sky had clouded over during the time he’d spent at the party, the full moon now entirely hidden from sight. Rain seemed imminent, prompting him to hasten his steps. The wind stole his laurels as he fumbled for his keys: he grumbled but did not attempt to recover them, far more interested in shelter. Krista wore less than he did, yet she did not seem to mind the cold as much as him, waiting patiently with her arms crossed over her modest chest.

Once the key had been jammed into the ignition, the engine warmed the air inside the car within minutes. Jace turned, meaning to start slowly with friendly chatter, and found himself interrupted.

“Your place would be best,” Krista said. “I live with my brother.”

It was more direct than Jace expected, but what could a normally constituted man say? “Alright. It’s not far anyway.”

It wasn’t: ten minutes were sufficient to drive to his apartment building at this time of the night. Only the older trick-or-treaters were still outside at this hour, racing to collect a few more pieces of candy before the sky gave them an unwanted shower.

Krista was quiet and unresponsive to his attempts to start a conversation, watching him drive with her brows lowered just so.

“I haven’t had more than one drink,” he said, guessing that was her concern. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m a little uneasy with cars.”

Jace nearly asked whether she’d been in a car accident before, finally deciding it was too much of an indiscreet question to ask someone he’d known for a whole fifteen minutes. He chose a safer topic. “Where are you from? You have an accent.”

Her wicked smiled returned. “I’m from Hell. Where are you from?”

“The Roman Empire,” he replied on the same tone.

A last red light turned green and allowed him to enter a bleak underground parking lot and take his allotted space, number seventeen. They were alone in the elevator as they waited to reach the last floor. Krista decided to make use of this apparent privacy to act rather than talk. Jace vaguely wondered whether there were cameras in the elevator but could not bring himself to care about such a thing when a cute girl was nibbling on his neck so hungrily.

They reached his apartment with all their clothes still on, but this changed dramatically behind the closed door. Thankfully, his bedroom was only a few steps away from the front door. Otherwise they may not have made it. Clothes flew and bodies met roughly, over and over.

Jace did not regret leaving the party before he’d even had time to get drunk: he might not have been up to the task otherwise. Some women knew what they wanted, and this one wanted more than most. She murmured and laughed all along and though his brain couldn’t quite keep tracks of what she said, he couldn’t answer anything but ‘yes.’

He was given no respite and male pride prevented him from begging for a break. When Krista finally relented, curling up on his chest like an innocent kitten, he was so exhausted that sleep captured him before he knew it.

Morning came and was viciously ignored. Noon was acknowledged with a grunt. It was only by mid-afternoon that Jace consented to regain consciousness. In his opinion, the afternoon was a perfectly normal time to rise on any day, not only when he found himself assaulted all night by a female of his species. Working evening shifts allowed him to stand by his policy.

He was now awake, but something was wrong: he was not alone. Rolling over, he found the girl—Krista, right—curled up on a pillow, watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. Somehow, her fake horns hadn’t fallen off during their enthusiastic athletic activities: they must have been glued in place. He wavered between renewed interest and annoyance: when girls brought him home, he had the courtesy to leave quickly to avoid awkwardness.

“Morning,” he said politely.

“Hello.” She rolled her shoulders but otherwise didn’t move from her provoking position, the sheet barely covering her ass, the rest exposed to the sunlight flowing in from the window.

He lumbered to the bathroom for his morning routine, which did not fit its name as it never occurred before noon. Fifteen minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom wet and truly awake. Some needed coffee: he only needed a cool shower.

Krista was still lounging on his bed, though she had bothered to dress with the scraps of fabric she called a costume. He groaned inwardly: he had never been good at putting girls out.

“Look—Krista. I need to go to work soon.” He could have spared another hour, but it was the best excuse for this kind of situation. “Do you want a bite before you go?”

“I had enough, thanks.” She smiled wickedly.

“Uh huh. What about some toasts?”

She declined but followed him to the kitchen, a few steps away. The apartment was small and centered around a space that served as the dinning area, a bedroom, a bathroom, a living-room and a kitchen arrayed around it. Jace could have afforded something bigger, but he had no need for more space and bigger only meant harder to clean. He always made a valiant effort to keep the place in an acceptable state of cleanliness, yet there always seemed to be books or clothing items lying where they did not belong, not to mention towering piles of dirty dishes that may or may not have been breeding behind his back.

Jace made himself toasts, adding butter and jam before washing everything down with a glass of apple juice. He eyed his watch and made for the door, grabbing jacket and keys on the way.

“Should I call you a taxi?” he offered Krista.

“I’ll be fine.”

He ushered her to the elevator and down to the lobby so she could exit through the front door. She watched him all the while with her cat eyes contact lenses, seemingly evaluating him. He nearly fidgeted under her gaze.

“Look, yesterday was nice but I’m not interested in dating,” he told her flatly.

She titled her head, seemingly confused by his words. “I am not either.”

Relieved that she understood, he stepped back in the elevator and jammed the button for the underground parking. “See you around then.”

“Yes.” Between the closing elevator doors, he saw her step outside without showing any sign of being self-conscious about her costume.

Gutsy girl, he thought, shaking his head. Krista was reasonably attractive and more than interesting in bed, but even if he’d had any interest in dating her, he would only have had to pull out the picture in his wallet to change his mind. Girls were lovely things with which to play, but if you gave them half a chance, they made your life hell. It would be a long time before he let a woman mess with his head again and it would take more than good sex to trap him.

Jace arrived to work earlier than usual, but others from the evening crowd had come in even earlier: the desk beside his was occupied by a man who seemed to have more freckles than hair. His other neighbor was a big potted plant that looked in dire need of water. There were several such plants scattered through the room in a futile attempt to brighten the drab workplace. Jace did not understand why they bothered: none of them worked there for the decor.

“Hey, Jake,” he greeted his colleague. “You’re in early.”

The redhead never looked away from the computer screen. “Hey. I’ve got a date tonight.”

“Again? You need to know when to give up, man. All girls are impossible to live with. I brought one home last night and she just wouldn’t leave.”

Jake grunted and gave him a half-hearted glare. “There’s no justice in this world. You don’t want a girl and they chase you. I want a girl and they flee me.”

An older colleague walked by, gingerly holding a steaming mug. “Jace, stop bragging and start working. We’re a bit late with this game. We’ve got more bugs to fix.”

“Bugs are a pain,” he groaned, nevertheless settling in front of his computer to begin. He liked programming games but hunting down errors was not one of his favorite activities.

He delayed the inevitable by checking his personal email first. There were five new messages. Three of them were spam trying to sell him Viagra, which he wouldn’t need any time soon: his performance with Krista proved that. Neither of the two remaining messages was from his sister. He frowned at the screen: Samantha’s last email had come in seven days ago. She knew she was supposed to email him at least once a week. How else could he make sure his wandering sister hadn’t fallen off a cliff somewhere?

As far as he knew, Samantha was still in Quebec City to practice her spoken French: she was a freelance translator and always complained that not being able to practice her spoken French made her forget how to speak the words even if she knew how to write them.

After a moment of hesitation, he sent her a brief email asking what she was up to. She would certainly call him overprotective, but he was entitled to worry about his younger—and only—sibling, especially one who insisted on traveling across North America all on her own.

At last, Jace turned his attention to his work. Uninteresting as he found the task, hunting programming bugs was nonetheless absorbing. Between reading the testers’ bug reports, trying to recreate them and then trying to figure out what caused them and how to fix it, he was too busy to see the time pass.

He checked his email inbox a last time before leaving, satisfied to find his sister’s reply. She was still in Quebec but promised to visit sometime soon.

It was therefore with contentment that Jace returned home, thinking of a quiet end of evening spent with either one of his unread books or a favorite movie from his collection.

Emerging from the elevator, he found a blue-haired girl sitting cross-legged in front of his apartment door. She wore jeans and a sweater and both horns and cat eyes were absent, but it was still Krista.

He frowned down at her. How had she entered the building without a key? Someone must have let her in. “What are you doing here? I told you I’m not interested in dating.”

She looked up, displaying blue eyes that were presumably natural. “Oh, I just want sex.”

It was flattering but not enough to lift his annoyance. One-night stands were exactly that: one night only. “I’m not interested.”

She did not try to follow him inside or argue with him: he was able to close and lock the door and go about his business. When he peered outside ten minutes later, she was gone. Forever, he hoped. Her behavior was too strange for comfort.

He hadn’t realized it could get stranger. The next day, he came home to find red roses bouquet at his door. This earned him a strange look from a passing neighbor. He wasn’t sure what the flowers were supposed to mean, but he was insulted regardless. The bouquet went to the garbage. He’d planned to try to pick up girls in a bar: he gave up on it and spent the evening playing a first-person shooting game.

The day after that, he found chocolate and a phone number. He got a stranger look from his neighbor. He almost tossed everything in the garbage, eventually talking himself into picking up the phone to dial the provided number.

A man’s voice answered. “Hello?”

“Is Krista there?”

The voice turned curious. “No, she’s out. She gave you this number?”

“Yeah, look, can you pass on a message? Tell her to stop it. She’s been leaving flowers and chocolate at my door. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing but it’s pissing me off.”

The man on the other end burst into laughter. “Flowers? Sorry man, she’s not from here. She’s good at misunderstanding. I’ll let her know.”

Not from ‘here’? She must have come from some tiny backward country not to know flowers were for girls, not boys, but he chose to take the man’s words at face value. It had been a misunderstanding and it was now solved.

It should have been the end of it.

It wasn’t.

Two days later, as he returned from work with his friend and coworker Jake, he saw her sitting cross-legged on the picnic table in the park across the street, reading a book. Even from afar her blue hair was unmistakable. He groaned aloud, prompting his passenger to inquire about what was wrong.

“It’s that girl again. The one I told you about. On the picnic table.”

Jake glanced to the right as they drove by. “What girl?”

“The one with blue hair.”

Jake shrugged. “Didn’t see anyone. Sure you’re not having hallucinations? Lay off the beer man.”

Jace looked into his rear-view mirror: Krista hadn’t moved from her position. He hummed something noncommittal and dropped the subject.

He was not bothered again and found nothing else by his door, but, twice more that week, he noticed Krista reading in the park across the street. Coincidence, or another step in the stalker process? Now, now, he was getting paranoid. Just because one of his exes had turned out to be crazy didn’t mean he attracted them. On the contrary, the odds were now with him. Nobody had to suffer through two crazies in the same decade.

Though, speaking of crazy… Mrs. Connor, the lady of the 202 who spent her time on her balcony watching what people were doing, professed there had been no blue-haired girl in the park, because she would have noticed. Mrs. Connor had then gone off on a rant about disgusting youths with their disgusting hair colors, at which point he’d made his escape.

On second thought, a stalker girl wasn’t as troublesome as the possibility that he was raving mad and hallucinating said stalker.

Feeling silly, he took his digital camera to the window and snapped a picture. He pressed the review button and eyed the picture: she was there. Hallucinations didn’t show up on pictures, did they? Unless he was hallucinating the picture too.

He sighed and slipped into jacket and shoes to go meet the girl outside. She did not look up from her book as he sat beside her and demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to apologize,” Krista said, turning a page still without looking at him. “Vin told me I made a mistake. The poster did say flowers were the perfect vowing gift: it didn’t say they were for girls only. Vin also informed me that bonding with someone who doesn’t understand a bond is inappropriate. I apologize.”

“A bond?” he repeated. “What are you talking about?” Perhaps English wasn’t her first language?

“I thought it was fun. I wished to do it again and I thought you wanted to as well. I did ask and you said yes. Multiple times, as I recall.”

Krista gave him a ‘this is all your fault’ look. He refrained from explaining that he hadn’t been listening to anything she’d said. Hell, he could have agreed to marry her without knowing it.

“Now I understand that you don’t want to, so I have to wait for the bond to dissolve,” Krista went on. “It doesn’t affect you. I just feel the need to be near you while it holds.”

What was she talking about? Shouldn’t his own hallucination make some sort of sense? He stared and looked confused, waiting for the world to make sense again.

She raised an eyebrow and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I did tell you I’m a succubus. Didn’t you believe me?”

“I suppose that’s why my neighbors can’t see you?” Jace shook his head, wondering aloud, “Are you real or am I crazy?”

Krista blinked over her book as if he were the one making no sense. “I’m quite real. They can’t see me because I’m veiling and they don’t pay attention. You can see me easily because we’re temporarily bonded. It’ll stop soon. Vin thinks it should only take another few days.”

“Vin?” he finally asked.

“My brother.”

“The guy I spoke to on the phone?”

She inclined her head.

“So he’s a demon too, I suppose,” he said, playing along.

“Shapeshifter,” Krista agreed.

“I see. So that far away place you came from, that’s actually Hell? Is it hot? How’s old Satan?”

Looking insulted, she conceded to explain. “Hell is what we have always called home. Humans are the ones who decided it was an evil place. There is no fire or anyone called Satan. Humans can’t go there anyway so how would they know? Only demons can go in the demon world.”

“That’s pretty unfair,” he jokingly protested. “Demons can come here, and we can’t go over there?”

“Only some can cross the barrier,” she answered, seemingly perfectly serious. “Mostly the least powerful ones. That means shapeshifters, succubi/incubi and vampires.”

“Vampires are demons?” Who was he to argue with crazy? His or hers: one of them was clearly mad. “Right. So you’re a demon visiting the human world and you’re reading Harry Potter?”

“Vin took my romance books away,” she said, absently tapping the book’s cover with her fingertips. “He said they were very bad to understand humans. I think he’s right. You’re not acting very much like a man from one of those books.”

Jace was torn between laughing and smacking his face in his hand. How naive could Krista be? “Those books aren’t meant to portray real men. They exist because men aren’t like that.”

This seemed to be a source of great confusion. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Now you understand.”

“Beside,” Krista went on, “the women in those books also act very strange. Who would want to find something called a one true love and spend their whole life mating only with that person? That’d be very boring. It might be useful for alliances, but I don’t see the appeal. And sometimes,” she said with a nearly scandalized voice, “they don’t even want to mate and have children.”

The conversation went on until Jace realized that it was dark and even colder, the wind biting at his face and his glove-less hands feeling numb. He’d just spent most of the day talking with either a crazy girl or an hallucination. But, either way, it had been an interesting conversation and more fun than he’d had in an outrageously long time. Without getting drunk anyway.

He stood up, rubbing his cold hands together. “It’s getting late. I’ve got to go. Talk to you later?”

“If you don’t mind,” Krista said politely.

“Later then.”

It was too dark to read, yet Krista’s eyes returned to the book. They seemed to be glowing again.

Jace whistled as he returned home, feeling strangely peaceful about his possible insanity. He had to verify whether Krista existed as soon as possible. If he were to speak with an hallucination, sure, why not, but he had to know she was one.

There was a blinking light on his answering machine: he pressed the play button to hear the new message.

“Yo, Jace. I’m in town for a few days, just as I said. Do you have time for your little sister? I’m at mom’s right now and she’s driving me crazy, like usual. Pick me up tomorrow. I’ll cook you something good in exchange.”

Samantha was already in town? He calculated quickly in his head: it had indeed been many days since she’d told him she was coming. She hadn’t been in town in over two months: it was about time she showed up. Though she did send him an email every week, it wasn’t the same as seeing her in person.

Samantha would be the perfect person to tell him whether he was insane. He was the one who liked fiction and video games while she was a purely practical girl. If she read anything, it was likely to be survival guides, and poker was her idea of a good game. Yes, she would know what was real and what wasn’t, and she wouldn’t be delicate about telling him either way.

--

FYI, this chapter is posted unlocked but the others will be under lock. If you care to follow along, you'll have to friend this lj. I actually own this story and every word in it so I want to keep it all mine.

NaNo 06 - project presentation

2006-09-23T00:47:42Z

I'm going to try to lay out the important bits. Feel free to ask questions or ask for details. If I don't have answers, it might mean I overlooked something.

Quick species guide

Kashin - Think faeries with butterfly wings, but human sized. One subspecies has wings huge enough to fly, the other not.
Galash - Think werewolves or anthro wolves.
The rest is not important right now.

Concept and conflict

The human world (Earth, our era) and Kalista (post world-devastating war, they're back to medieval-like ages) are two neighboring dimensions. The veil between them has been growing unstable in recent years, tears becoming more and more frequent. When a tear occurs, it opens a doorway or portal between the two worlds. The focus and most of the characters are from Kalista. They know little of humans, but enough to be afraid of what might happen if these doorways keep multiplying, especially since all signs point to this phenomenon becoming so severe that the fabric between the world might tear entirely, and cause both worlds to collide. The source of the imbalance is actively sought and some have a more radical approach than others, blaming humans all together and trying to convince other nations that the key is retaliating until the humans back off. Others oppose this idea because they are concerned that the theory is faulty and that such an attack would only provoke an all-out war that would seal their extermination at the hands of the technologically superior humans.

Plot overview

Due to the alarmingly high number of portals showing up, the King of the Kashin decided to spend his time traveling all over his kingdom to close the portals, since he is one of the few magicians able to do this. When he accidentally disappears in the human world, his children create a team of volunteers to attempt to rescue him, even if it sounds impossible. Several years later, they have not found the king, but they've found something shocking: children who are of their own people hiding among humans. From then on, their mission is to track all and any lost Kashin to 'save' them from the human world with the help of said children, Kristan and Viper. They soon find out there are humans trying to track them down any of their kind to kill them. Meanwhile, in Kalista, some people want to kill humans, others don't want them to do this and yet others are unsure what to think. There also seems to be another mysterious group at work but who knows what they're after. A war is imminent. Only one thing is for sure: if nothing is done about those portals, everybody is doomed.

Main characters

Kristan & Viper Daggers
Kristan is the impulsive happy-go-lucky battle lover with red hair. Great guy, usually, but he has sadistic tendencies when he gets angry. He will not be the better one and let an enemy go, but he might cook him a great last meal, because he happens to like cooking. Kristan is also a self-proclaimed bisexual slut. Viper is Kristan's dark-haired younger sister, who likes to cross-dress as a boy (she's probably gender queer but let's not get into that). Very much Kristan's backup and protector, because he needs it, while she holds her own perfectly well. She is rather quiet, with a bit of a snarky personality and a taste for mocking her brother's various idiocies. The Daggers siblings are fully-blooded Kashin but were found in the human world with a shapeshifting spell on them that keeps them in human-looking forms. It is yet unknown who cast this spell and why they wouldn't rather use their magical abilities to find a portal to bring the kids home.

Maryn
Half-human and half-Kashin. Possess minor magical skills, which got him noticed and recruited by a group of religious fanatics who devote themselves to protecting the world from demons (the so-called demons are of course creatures from Kalista). Maryn almost literally tore off his wings and hopes to find his salvation through religion, praying that he will not become evil if he does God's will.

Derian
Brother to the Kashin's current queen. He does the biggest part of the work and does his best to conceal the fact that despite her competency at leading a country, the beloved queen is, shall we say, batshit insane. The disappearance of their father did nothing to help his sister climb out of her problems and Darian is scared of the day his sister will snap. So far, their position is to leave the humans alone, as they do not think fighting will help anything.

Kian
Well-meaning king of the Outsiders, he believes the theory that it is the humans that are threatening their world's very survival. He refuses to stand idly while these "humans" monsters prepare to destroy his people. He is doing his best to convince others to join him for their common good.

Ryu & Ken (or Ryuken)
Galash from the Council. They're twins and sons of a prominent member of their society, which is the reason they are often the messengers when communications happen between their people and the Kashin. Their path will often cross the Daggers' and they will befriend each other even if they cannot tell if they will be on the same side of the upcoming conflict, their people being still undecided on the issue.

Day 30 - the end!!

2005-12-01T01:44:44Z

Today: 1, 400 words
Total: 90,000 words
(Plus 2,500 words of fanfics, at least.)

Yes! Done! Now I go do happy lazy things! Wee. A shower or a long bath, which to pick... And reading afterward, yess. Too bad my sister isn't here to be a reading pillow. Oh yeah, and food. Haven't eaten yet... I'll eat while I read. Double lazy. Bwee.

Day 29

2005-11-30T05:23:02Z

Today: 1, 850 words
Total: 88, 600 words

Eee, so close! Another day, another 1,400 words and then FREEDOM. *glee* I kind of like writing to the very end, makes me feel more like I suffer along with everybody else. And the end is sweeter after 30 days than it is after 10 days, which is why I never stop at 50k. Anyone can go on a writing rampage for a few days, it's writing for the whole month that's really hard.

Day 28

2005-11-29T06:28:29Z

Today: 1, 250 words
Total: 86, 750 words

Um, kind of ran out of time there. Ah well, I'm going to get in that other 250 words anyway. *stretch* Two more days. It'll feel great to run away from this for some time. I'll go back to Apocalypse and fanfics with much glee. At least with those I know where I'm going!

Day 27

2005-11-28T05:40:15Z

Today: 1,500 words
Total: 85, 500 words

Almost done, just three more days and 4,500 more words... Bit of reading right now, then sleep. Exam tomorrow, yesh.

Day 24

2005-11-25T05:36:36Z

Today: 1, 500 words (plus um, maybe 1,500 words of fanfics.)
Total: 79, 555 words

Kay, sick of this. Come on, end of the month, hurry up! Spent most of the day doing fanfic editing and feeling very content about it. I'm such a freak over writing...

Day 23

2005-11-24T05:14:50Z

Today: 1,000 words (also 500 words of fanfics.)
Total: 78, 055 words

I was a bit busy today. >.>

Day 22

2005-11-23T05:31:24Z

Today: 1, 505 words
Total: 77, 055 words

Um, okay, fine, let's downgrade my goal from 100,000 words to 90,000 words. I can at least do that one. I can try to best myself next year.

Day 21

2005-11-22T05:23:08Z

Today: 2, 030 words
Total: 75, 550 words

2, 000 words late now. -_- I'll never make my 100k like this! Okay, fuck it, I'm skipping ahead. There will be a war beween the Galash and Malash somewhere in the future, so I'll go and write out the battle.

Let's compare with last year, for fun.
04 05
Week 1 - 30k 37.5k
Week 2 - 16k 23.25k
Week 3 - 15.5k 14.75k

Arg, week 3 is lame. Must do better! Must!

Day 20

2005-11-21T05:04:43Z

Today: 1, 988 words
Total: 73, 520 words

So I'm even later now. 1,500 words behind. Without a plot, I'm stabing at nothing. Grr. Will think about it tomorrow, in class..

Day 19

2005-11-20T08:28:37Z

Today: 2, 014 words
Total: 71, 532 words

Am now 1,000 words late. It's not a biggie, but I REALLY need to put my plot together, or at least find enough scenes to carry me to 100,000 words. I have a bunch of elements but they are not bound together properly and I lack some important elements that would make everything more coherent. For now, I've gone on a new limb, adding in a third group. I say that magic in the human world is very weak because it is sucked by the veil, since the veil needs magic to sustain itself, but 'weak' does not equal 'inexistant'. The human magic users can do some little things and they most certainly can feel auras, even if they may not be able to read them. So I've created a group of humans who think that people with 'tainted' auras are demons from the underworld. They will be religious nuts of some sort of sect. I will NOT make up some bullshit about them being linked to the Vatican. I will not, got it, self? *attempts not to crack up* So yeah, that will be interesting. Mayhaps I should create a new character that is a member of that sect. I mean, from his point of view, he'd be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fighting evil and monsters, so he's a nice guy, even if he's not doing the nice thing. I think it'd be very interesting.

Still think I should break up Krista, Viper and Marian. Triplets is too special still. It pains me, but it would be best for the story. Maybe I could make Viper and Krista twins, and Marian their younger sister. That would be a little better. But then, would Marian have the same genetic anomaly as Vip and Krista have? I need to think more about how half-breeds work.

This story is a MESS, but I have to say I enjoy many of the new ideas that are surfacing. One day I'll make something good out of all of this.

Day 18

2005-11-19T05:05:25Z

Today: 2, 012 words
Total: 69, 519 words

Eek, falling behind a bit. Come on plot, wake up! This isn't funny! >_

Day 17: Loathing Myself Day

2005-11-18T05:13:55Z

Today: 1, 500 words
Total: 67, 507 words
Today fanfic: 1,000 words
Total fanfic: 2, 500 words

Today, I found out I have a whole new plot. Well, not whole new plot, I can keep most of what's already written but it needs to be cut in pieces, reassembled and heavily edited. I want to kill myself. How many times am I going to rewrite this story??? I don't know if I should get to 75,000 words and stop or just keep writing in this new branch and do all the editing later. Not even sure this new idea will hold as far as 100,000 words, might still run out of ideas/plot before. Arg, this story needs way too much plotting, it's not working out well for NaNo.

Day 16

2005-11-17T05:21:54Z

Today: 3, 004 words
Total: 66, 007 words

I've run into a wall again. Ack, ack, ack. I milked all the words I could out of a very long and boring conversation about what Duoderian thinks of the veil problem. It pretty much goes 'humans are fucking everybody over, we're so doomed, here's my proof, here's the countdown to the veil falling and our DOOM. Also? DOOM.' Dear plot: SHOW UP ALREADY. NEED HELP HERE.

That aside, did some nice relaxing things today. Went out to eat with somebody, wasted time surfing the net, watched some stuff on tv. Yay.

Day 15: half-way point

2005-11-16T05:09:37Z

Today: 2, 252 words
Total NaNo: 63, 003 words
Total fanfics: 1, 500 words

Today was incredibly busy. I hardly had a minute for myself and only two hours to write. Did well, all considered. Will catch up tomo- today. Really, really should do something for myself. Maybe more than a movie. Maybe I even deserve to drag myself over to the Chinese buffet. Think dad's busy today though and going alone isn't as interesting. Mmm. Will whine at him anyway, try my luck.

Day 14

2005-11-15T05:08:23Z

Today: 2, 236 words
Total: 60, 751 words

Also 500 words of fanfiction written or so.

Have a liiittle bit of plot right now. The only reason I didn't make my daily word count (2,500 words) is that I didn't have time, I spent my afternoon doing homework, went to class, and only had two hours to write when I came back. Now, I study for tomorrow's exam. Tomorrow afternoon will be for finishing the Jap homework for the Jap class in the evening. And, once more, I will only have two hours to write. I hope to catch up Wednesday. Blessed be days without class. If there are no write-in on Wednesday, I totally will do something relaxing, like rent a movie. Batman is out on DVD, I might like to see it again.

Day 13

2005-11-14T05:18:10Z

Today: 1 507 words
Total: 58 515 words

Wha, lowest day to date. Late. Stressed. Must figure it out! Actually, I spent quite some time editing fanfics since I was so bummed for the novel and I got out a 1,000 words there, so yay bit of productivity.

Now, let's finish homework. School is such a pain.

ghdjihkfg

2005-11-13T22:22:31Z

I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'M STUCK. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

58% of my goal done and I'm stuck. I have Krista and Viper with the Galash, and the blue guys came and say they should join them again the bad humans who are clearly planning to kill them all. Marian is somewhere in the north with two cubs she rescued and is trying to bring back home. Okay. Okay. Then what? THEN WHAT. *spins in circles* All I have as 'plot' from here on is something about the two sides fighting each other for posession of the portals to the human world. I don't even know WHY the veil is breaking yet, I just know that side A thinks it's kinda their own fault while side B is blaming humans. How am I going to solve this? What's happening? I can hardly just write 'so then Side A and side B fought. One side won. The end!'

New recuring problem: Holy hell, self, what is it with the sibling obsession? Everybody has siblings! Consider cutting down on that. I've got a pair of triplets, a pair of twins and two pairs of normal siblings. Damn, I don't know who to cut...

Maybe I should take it easy tonight. Rent a movie, flop on the couch, do a bit more poking at homework. But it's annoying to do it alone. I'd rather have somebody's lap to flop into while watching said movie. Hermit life has downsides. -_-

Day 12

2005-11-13T05:18:21Z

Today: 4, 450 words
Total: 57, 008 words

We had our biggest write-in yet tonight! We were seven, one couldn't come and the two others seem to have dropped out, or at least I haven't heard of them since the first write-in. Oh well, if the eight of us make it to the end, I'll be proud. It was pretty nice, I wrote 2,000 words and did that thing where you say words to people and they say words to you. Conversation, I think it's called. Some jounalistic student came and asked questions, that was neat.

About the novel...damn, I'm so running out of plot. I have this vague overall plot but it's like if Tolkien had nothing but 'so there's this ring that the Hobbit has and the bad guy wants it but the Hobbit would rather destroy it' to work with. May begin to panic tomorrow. Also need to think some things through. Modifications may be needed.

Day 11

2005-11-12T05:08:11Z

Today: 2, 537 words
Total: 52, 558 words

Slept half the day, so only made the minimum writing today. Hopefully I can pull out more this week-end. Wri-in tomorrow at the uni. Some journalists coming to ask questions. We be famous!

Day 10: NaNo is pwned

2005-11-11T04:35:42Z

50,000 / 50,000
(100.0%)

Today: 4, 502 words
Total: 50, 021 words

A winnar is me. The winnar is going to bed now. Tomorrow, I can look at my second goal, to get a total of 100k by the end of the month. That's just 2,500 words a day, should be able to make it.

Day 9

2005-11-10T06:05:27Z

Today: 4, 516 words
Total: 45, 519 words

Can I reach 50,000 words by midnight ~~tomorrow~~ today? We'll see.

Day 8

2005-11-09T06:14:24Z

Today: 3, 461 words
Total: 41,003 words

Tired. Is all. *goes to bed*

Day 7: One week mark!

2005-11-08T05:22:43Z

Today: 3, 773 words
Total: 37, 524 words

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Two classes. Not much time to write in between, mrr. I'll try to reach 40k then. Sleep now.

My history of week 1 of NaNo
NaNo 2003: 50k
NaNo 2004: 30k
NaNo 2005: 37.5k

So I did better this year, woo! It's probably because last year I had classes during the first week, but still. Go me.