(no subject)

[aleathiel]

Okay, two days before I have to start writing, I'm having a bit of a re-think of my plans for my Nano novel.

Basically, I have to choose between the two plot outlines below. They're completely different types of novel and I'm not sure in which direction I'm currently leaning.


1.
As yet untitled. Parallel stories about a youth called Gareth, one being his first term at university, the other being his last Christmas vacation before his finals. It's about his family, his friends, his future. And yes, there are more than a few skeletons in the closet. I want to write this one because it's new and fresh, I've only begun thinking about it in the last couple of weeks. It's more personal, more realistic (obviously) than the other outline. But, it's underdeveloped, I'm not quite sure what it's trying to say and I'm worried about running out of plot because it isn't a plot-based narrative and I'm not sure how well I can sustain it under the write-every-day pressure of Nano. However it's probably the better of the two novels.


2.
Lighter hearted and less 'literary' than the above. This is the story of two characters, Raffael and Morgan, who I've had in my head for ages. It's basically a futuristic whodunnit, but not entirely futuristic in the laser guns and space stations way, it's set on a world afflicted by the changes of global warming and the affect that's had on the earth and it's people. It's plot driven and a little bit silly, which I suspect would make it an easier Nano project than a more serious novel. But, and it's a giant but, there are huge gaps in the plot. I don't really know what happens after about the first quarter of the outline.

So, what do you think? Which outline do I spend two days beating into shape to start writing on Wednesday?

Comments

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Ummm. OK, this is a really wussy response, but could you spend the next two days working on both of them, back and forth, and see which one shapes up better? [ducks] Seriously, though, I think they both have potential but it comes down to which one you think you can develop in a month's time. If two more days will give you a chance to either come up with a plot for the first one or spackle over the plot holes in the second one, or at least give you an idea of which one's more likely to firm up over the next couple of weeks, then it'd be worth it to dink a bit longer. Or maybe pick one and work on it for the next day and if you don't get an "Aha!" somewhere in that period, swap over to the other for the second day.

Some rambling about the first one -- you've got a protagonist, cool. What does he want? And why can't he have it? You need four years worth of plotline, even though (I'm assuming) you're not going to show every bit of those four years. So what does he want that he can't have? The reason he can't have it is the major obstacle, which he'll be trying to overcome during the course of the plot.

Since you plan on starting in two parallel timelines, one with him as a freshman and the other with him about to graduate, you have a decent idea of how he's changed over the course of his time at uni, right? How did he change? Are his goals at the end of school the same as his goals at the beginning? If not, how did they change and is he OK with that? How did he see himself at graduation, when he was just starting? Was that expectation fulfilled or not? If so, how did he manage it, and if not, why not?

Or maybe he didn't change, or at least not as much as he thought. Some people go to university with this expectation that they're going to be all smart and together and confident and cool and suave and whatever all else by the time they graduate and are ready to hit "real life," and then they're a bit shocked when it doesn't happen. That's part of growing up too -- figuring out that there's no point where suddenly everything's easy, where you've learned The Secret and it's all fun and coasting from that point on. Children think adults are in charge because they know the secret and look forward to finding it out for themselves, but a major point of maturity is realizing that everyone struggles, everyone's unsure sometimes, life isn't smooth and easy for anyone, that we just keep doing the best we can with what we have, forever.

This one might be doable because you have the beginning and the end (OK, I'm just assuming that the book is going to end some time around or shortly after graduation) and you just have to map out the path from Point A to Point Z. :)

Not enough info to ramble about the first one, but if it's just a matter of plugging holes in an existing plot, that sounds doable too?

Luck! :D

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

*g* Thanks for your wonderfully detailed response. You leave answers that rival some of mine in length!

With regard to the first outline, having the two timelines is to illustrate the changes that the character has experienced, and also the things that haven't changed. Partly it's about his nerves with regard to the new experience in the first one, as compared with his fear of leaving that life behind and leaving his home for good in the second one. He comes from a small village and is contemplating a job offer in London, so partly it's about his re-exploring his life in the village and thinking about whether that's how he wants to continue his life. The plot that ties in is about his grandmother, who has recently died in the latter of the two timelines and how he finds out about her youth and her experiences in the direct opposite of his - leaving London to come to the village in marrying his grandfather.

As you can see, I have a pretty good idea of what the novel will contain, I just haven't managed to work out how a lot of it happens, and how he finds out about his grandmother - I don't want it to be a diary, but something more complicated. Also, her life isn't as straighforward as I've suggested above.

I think what I'm partly afraid of with this plot is that because there's no 'plot' elements moving it forwrd, in the sense that I can't make a bullet-pointed list of what happens when and I'm worried that that will lead to my stalling while writing it. I'm also concerned that I might be too clumsy with the writing in trying to get the wordcount up when I'm not quite sure where I'm going.

Maybe I'm just frightened to commit this novel into words, but maybe it's simply that I should write it under my own steam rather than under the pressure of Nano. Conversely, of course, without the pressure of Nano I might give up on it when the going gets tough.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Well, the Want => Can't Have => Tries To Get Anyway thing is the basis for every plot, so if you've got that, or can work it out, then that'll give you something to flesh out and turn into that bullet-point list or however you organize things.

So he's close to graduation and he's got this job offer and he's trying to figure out whether to take it or not, right? So the baseline of the story, the "Before" version of the character, for the course of the main plotline is the near-graduation version, then. This is who he is, and he's going to be flashing back to his earlier life at university and in his village before, and the things he finds out about his grandmother, for the purpose of... figuring out who he really is and what he wants, so he can decide about going to London or staying in his village, right?

So what he wants is to know what to do. To get to know himself well enough to know which is the right decision for his future, "himself" in this case including the influences of his family and his home environment. He wants to know what's the right choice to make. And he can't have that because... despite being technically an adult and possessed of a university education, he hasn't been focusing on what's important for this career-and-moving decision. He's lacking some knowledge, some insight about what he wants and what's important and what's likely to matter in years to come? He's missing some information or a point of view or a telling comparison or something like that, right?

So assuming I'm at all close to being right with all that, what you need to know is what his decision's going to be, and how he gets there, and your bullet-point list will be a list of what information he discovers, what he figures out, what realizations hit him, that sort of thing, in order, to get him to the point where he knows what to do.

Sound at all useful?

And yeah, the pressure is actually part of the attraction. I'd feel better if it weren't in November, which (for Americans anyway) is second only to December and about equal to whatever month Easter's in on any given year for being a Really Bad Month to Be Busy In [flail] but I'll manage. But without that pressure I probably wouldn't do anything but fanfic for however many more years. I like fanfic, really, but I do want to get back to writing original stories.

I'm not really expecting to finish a book in a month, or even necessarily hit 50K words, but just getting a large chunk of something down in pixels would be a major triumph, you know? Then I can take a look at it and add and fiddle and get out the sandpaper, but at least I'll have put in a month of concentrated... concentration on it, LOL! I haven't tried to do anything this long in almost twenty years, so just jumping into the deep end of the pool again is a goodness. :)

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Thanks, you've given me a lot of good ideas to think about, and I can see what you mean about the wants-tries to get way of looking at a plot. That might be exactly what I needed to try and give my vague amorphous plot a bit of shape!

With the exception of a 2500 word novella, my original fiction has always been short stories. I do think that the attraction of Nano is the pressure, and I agree that my novel certainly won't be 'done' at the end of Novemeber, nor, to be honest, is it likely to be 50k, although I'll try and hit that mark. But it's a target and a deadline and I think that might be what I need to get myself moving again. I hardly wrote anything at all in my final year at university, simply too busy, and I'm feeling a bit rusty but very keen to get going again. It would be very easy just to fall into writing fanfiction again, but I feel like I need to push myself to restart writing more independently.

I really appreciate your thoughts on this. I think I was being a little bit whiny and sorry-for-myself and I just needed someone to tell me to go back and sort out my plan! :)

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Happy to help. :D I love talking about writing and helping people work stuff out. Dissecting stories and story ideas and plotlines and poking at the pieces and getting them all inventoried and sorted out is fun. Yeah, I'm weird, but that's why I'm a writer. [grin]

Now if only I could work out my stuff. [facepalm]

My main problem is that I have a prior obligation -- a fest story that should've been posted in early August. [hides under keyboard] But my mom went into the hospital and then the day after I got home from that the husband and I went away to a convention and by the time I got back from that the deadline was so far past that it just didn't feel urgent anymore, and I really need urgency to write. [headdesk] I've promised myself that I will get this story done and posted before NaNo starts, and I'm almost done, yay! But I only have this vague idea of what I'm going to write for NaNo, and actually I still have a couple of possible stories I guess, and I can't put any serious time into it until this other thing's done.

If nothing else, NaNo is making me finish this fest story. [bemused smile]

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

*g* I know what you mean. I'm much better at organising someone else's plot than dealing with my own!

I'm a deadline-needer too. Sometimes a self inposed one works, but quite often it doesn't. I'm best if I'm writing for someone's birthday or another fixed point. And, as you've just experienced, life has a nasty way of getting really hectic at just the wrong times!

Good luck with your Nano plot! I'm happy to give as much encouragement as is required :P

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Finished my ghost story, yay! :D I'm reading it over and will probably post later today. [pantpantpant] Over seventeen thousand words, and that's another reason I didn't get it done on time -- I'm lousy at estimating how long a story's going to be.

If I start blathering about my NaNo plotlines in my journal once this story's up and posted, feel free to jump in and blather with me. [grin]

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Well done - and that's a pretty hefty length. Was it ever intended to be a 'short' story or was it just write it as it comes and it ends up however long it ends up?

I'll be happy to make comments, probably some a lit less helpful than others, when you start working on your nano. Are you intending to post it as you go along? I thought I'd make a friendslocked journal for mine, because if I insist to myself that I post it then it will be further encouragement to work on it :) Problem is I don't have a title yet. Okay, small problem in the great scheme of things, but still bothering me.

I'm making some headway with my outline now, thanks to you. I might well stick with this one for Nano if I continue making progress.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Journal, right, need a journal. :P I'll probably just call it AngieNaNo or something like that -- that way I can use it again if I ever do this a second time. Also I'm awful at titles and rarely think of one until I'm well into a story, so....

What I'm thinking of doing is posting the raw verbage to my NaNo journal (open -- I don't Flock stuff, never have) for anyone who wants to wade through the unpolished roughage. Then if it turns into something worth continuing/finishing/polishing, I'll post the polished chunks to my regular journal later. That way, people who want to crawl into my writerly brain as I frantically pound out wordcount can do so, and people who are only interested in reading stuff that's actually, like, fit to read :P can wait for the final version.

Hopefully that makes sense. [laugh/glance]

It also lets me post whatever I've got at the end of each day without committing to where to actually do chapter breaks until I have more of a handle on things. The online habit of thinking a chapter is "Whatever I feel like posting today" is one of my pet peeves; I'd rather give my structure a bit more thought than that and it'll be easier to do if I can just bang out pages now and actually post in chapters once I've finished and know what I've got. :)

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with the posting of whatever's done attitude. I'm well aware that it's going to need a hell of a lot of work after Nano's over. However I think I am going to have my Nano journal locked (I pretty much never lock posts on this LJ) because I'm not quite brave enough to let everyone see the outpourings of my brain. That is, I'm happy to let people read them, but I'd quite like to have an idea of who is reading them!

And yeah, I can see my journal being AleathielsNano or something.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that if people are watching I'm less likely to wuss out and give up. :P The more public it is, the more likely I'll actually do this. I need all the kicks in the ass I can get, especially since I'm going to have to go at least a few days without writing much of anything because of Thanksgiving. My mom'll have me baking cookies and making stuffing and helping decorate her house and I won't be able to get out of it for at least three or four days there heading into the holiday. So that means I need to write more earlier (or later [blanch]) rather than just trying to keep it up at a steady pace all through.

So the more people who wander through with baseball bats, the better, LOL! Although I have a feeling most people won't want to. I'm pretty fanatical about editing, and since I'm an edit-as-I-go type what I post probably won't be totally sucky from a mechanical POV, but still, I have no clue how this is going to turn out as a coherent story and I doubt many people will be interested in sticking around for the whole thing. Which is probably just as well, but.... [headdesk]

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Ah, I understand the audience-as-motivator thing. It's one of the reasons I stuck with fanfic for so long (with the exception of Rubies, which somehow got left along the wayside even with people asking for more) however, I'm just as likely to write on the motivation of one reader as twenty five. Actually, maybe more likely, because I get the the feeling I'm letting that specific person down when I don't update!

And I understand about Novemeber not being a good month. It's the reason I've never done Nano before. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving over here (well, my Mum's American, so we do have a dinner, but not much more than that. Some years we have a gathering of displaced Americans we knoe in the area!) so at least I don't have that on my time, but November isn't like August in that it's likely to contain a holiday or anything. In the last few years it's always been a melee of deadlines pre-Christmas. This year that isn't true, so I thought I'd have a go at Nano, although I am working three part time jobs which leaves next to no time off! However, my perhaps not terribly cunning plan is that while I'm working this job (it's in an academic bookshop) I'm often not really busy (as you might have noticed today) so I might use my time at this job, interrupted as my concentration will get, to write my novel. We shall see how well that works out! But it also means an unbalanced spread of time through the week - I'll only be writing when I'm on this job as opposed to the others. And hopefully at the weekend.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Ack! Good luck with your writing at work plan. I'll keep a set of virtual fingers crossed for you that you don't get a sudden run at the shop or something like that.

Holidays in general aren't a problem for me, but I spend Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas up at my mom's, a week or ten days or occasionally two weeks at a shot. I can write up there, especially since I got the laptop, but Mom seems to think that if I'm going to fly a few hundred miles to see her, and since I only do it three or four times a year (sometimes I go up to visit in the summer, too), I should spend a lot of my time up there actually doing things with her. [wry smile] I know I can write there, I just don't know how much. [biting fingernail]

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

*g* We shall see what happens. It being an academic bookshop it isn't usually too busy at this time of year - most of the students have bought what they need for this semester and don't have their reading lists for January yet.

I can see your Mum's point about you spending time with her - not a problem I have because even when I am at home, as I am at the moment, both my parents are at work all the time. If we're lucky we all eat together in the evenings. Are there times of day when she has something she likes to do? When we go on holiday everyone in my family (if we're not out specifically doing something in the evening) likes to spend the evening reading. In that time I've always taken to doing a bit of writing. Or first thing in the morning when everyone is faffing about having showers and breakfast before we leave to go out for the day. But I guess I'm still at the point where I'm used to having my parents dictate some of my time (although when I was at univesity I used to hate it when first came home for the holidays, always made me feel like a child again, although I know they were trying really hard not to make me feel like that) and when you are used to organising your own life and dividing your time as you want to I can imagine it's difficult to have an extra demand on your time, even if it is a valid one.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, I see Mom's POV too, although she takes it to extremes at times. [wry smile] I have no problem spending time with her if we're actually doing something, but she's grouched at me for going upstairs in the evening to get on the computer for hours at a time. Except that during that time she's downstairs with the TV on and a book. I don't watch most of the shows she watches and even if I did and if I were down there, we wouldn't be talking or anything anyway, so I get frustrated with her desire to have me there occupying space in the universe a few meters nearer to her when we're not actually interacting. [headdesk]

My mom's retired so she doesn't go to work, and she doesn't go buzzing around shopping or visiting friends all that much while I'm there and when she does she wants me to go with her. I don't always but you know the guilt thing parents can do? :/ She has arthritis in her hands and when it flares up she can't do much with them, so she doesn't crochet or paint anymore. We hang out and talk sometimes, or we spend a lot of time in the same room reading, although I can't read with the TV on so that's a limitation there.

It's just that she likes to have me within sight whether or not we're doing anything together and I get impatient with that. [sigh] She doesn't usually treat me like a child anymore -- and thank whomever since at forty-three I'm quite sick of it :P -- and we do manage well enough for a week or maybe ten days. Longer than that and I start wishing very hard to be home again.

I'm just trying to figure out exactly how much writing time I'll be able to carve out while I'm there without triggering the Guilt Attack of Doom, LOL!

Angie

[(Anonymous)]

Oh dear, that sounds like a lot of fun! Can you write on your laptop when she has the TV on or is it too distracting? I guess you just have to find the balance, which I imagine is something you've been trying to do for years...

Right, I get to go home now for a whole half hour before I have to go to my evening job (I keep reminding myself that I'm doing this for travelling money, otherwise I'd be curled in a ball in my room). It's pouring with rain and dark and it was so beautiful this morning that I don't have a raincoat with me. Oh joy. :)

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

No, unfortunately I can't do much of anything when the TV's on, at least nothing that requires concentration. If I'm cooking or something then I don't care but for reading and writing having the box babbling in the same room drives me nuts. :P

Have a fun, umm, half hour and try to stay dry! [wave/hugz]

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

That was me obviously. For some bizarre reason it appears to have signed me out of my own journal!

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

LJ's been doing that, apparently at random, for a few months now. I hate it. It makes me want to fly up to their office and kick them all in the shin. [glare]

Angie

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I was initially thinking short story, like four to five thousand words, maybe ten thousand, somewhere in there. But it was only a fuzzy idea and that's just as well. I usually just start writing and keep going until I'm done and whatever length it turns out is what it is. Hopelessly disorganized, I know, but I've never had any luck with doing enough advance planning to really get a handle on how long something was going to be. The only time I ever did a full outline for a novel it came to a screeching halt and I was never able to do anything with it. :( I don't outline school papers either -- even upper division history papers with fifty-some pages and over a hundred footnotes. I just surround myself with books full of bookmarks and scribbled notes and photocopies of stuff with hilighter all over it and start typing. It works, too; I got As on almost all my papers. I've never been able to push it so far as a finished novel, though. :/

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm both impressed and completely horrified! Most of my fiction is in the 5-10 thousand words area and while I can sustain something of that length without to much of an idea where I'm going with it, I know that something 50000 words long would become too rambly and lost if I didn't at least have reference points to aim for.

As to the academic stuff I am completely amazed. The one thing I did always do with my work was write a solid outline. Sometimes that took almost as long as writing the paper itself. I had that (not literally!) beaten into me at Cambridge. We had one 3 hr exam where we weren't supposed to start writing more than notes for the entire first hour. And my dissertation? If I'd got myself better organised with structure and argument in the first draft then my third re-write wouldn't have involved cutting it into pieces and rearranging it spread out on my floor!

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

I know that something 50000 words long would become too rambly and lost if I didn't at least have reference points to aim for.

See, that's kind of what I'm afraid of. [nod] I mean, I can manage quite a lot by the seat of my pants. Outlines are counterproductive for me; I do better without one and always have. When I was in high school and we had to turn in our outlines, I struggled for a while, then hit on the idea of writing the paper first and then the outline. [wry smile] Ridiculous but it worked.

I loved essay exams -- I always did very well on them, once I got the hang of it somewhere in high school. I never scribbled an outline, although a few professors encouraged this, but sometimes I'd just sit there and stare at the wall for a few minutes and get my brain organized. Close enough, especially for such a short piece. :)

But I've had two novel-length stories just peter out on me, not counting Hidden Magic which I started working on again while I was off cruising. [crossed fingers] The one I mentioned a couple of comments back, I'd written about twenty-five chapters and had worked my way into a corner but I knew what I needed to do to fix it. I'd have to start over but I had more of an idea of what I was doing and where I was going and I was optimistic that the second start would work out. I decided to be prudent and do an outline first, so I did. It was like... fifteen or twenty pages long? Something like that. With notes about what was happening on which day so I didn't trip over my calendar, and which characters appeared in which scenes so I could identify and eliminate superfluous characters (I had too many and did end up cutting a few, merging their story-functions in with other characters) and by the time I was done it was a thing of beauty, perfect. Anyone could have written that novel. Anyone except me, because I apparently wrote the damn thing completely out of my system. I sat down to write my second draft and nothing would come -- not a word. [headdesk]

I really liked that story, too. My second novel was a prequel set in the same universe a few hundred years earlier (the first one was SF, the second contemporary) and I'd planned on doing a bunch of stories in that universe, sort of like Robert Heinlein or Gordy Dickson. That one story was dead, though, once I'd outlined it.

It's been long enough now that I might be able to try again. I don't have anything of it, my first draft or the outline or any of my notes, and there's not all that much left in my head except a general storyline and a few character names. I'd be pretty close to starting over so maybe it'd work. It'd be cheating to do it for NaNo, though, so if I want to see I'll have to wait. :)

But anyway, I know that I can do just fine with shorter stories (and papers) without an outline, and even longer pieces. But at some point I will write myself into a corner, or at least I have in the past. I don't know where the dividing line is, though. :/ I suppose it's possible that if I just tried a few more novels I'd eventually get the trick of it, be able to write all the way through by the seat of my pants (I've known pros who work this way) or at least write until I crash and then start over with a new draft but without an outline. Hopefully NaNo will be the beginning of finding out.

Angie

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, it's a delicate balance. I have one novel that I've been working on for years - it's got complicated multiple storylines and I keep coming up with new things to add into the mix. I wrote about 30 000 words of it at one point, before scrapping that entirely because the writing by the seat of my pants approach really wasn't working. I think I then over analysesd the plot and got myself so thoroughly fed up with it that I've put all the notes into a box and not looked at them for approaching two years. That might, as with yours, now be something I can face reappraising. But it might take longer!

I think that you should go back at some point and have another go at your other novel. Without a previous draft or anything you wouldn't be going back over anything that was stale and you'll probably find that the experience you've had with writing in the intervening period means that it naturally is better now than it was the first time you wrote it. Either that or you just write it off to being a good experience and helping you develop and you never look at it again (which is kind of what I think might happen to mine, fond as I am of the characters).

I think Nano is a test for me too, to see whether I can actually get a novel to work as opposed to filing it in with all the other outlines for which I wrote about the first third before becoming disenchanted and giving up. I naturally find short(er) stories easier, I weave them tighter and I have a better idea of what works and what doesn't. I hope that in Nano I learn how to put together a novel, or at least begin to find out what doesn't work and learn from it that way!

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

I probably will -- maybe some time next year. [nod/ponder] There was a lot I could do better now, definitely, but there were some bits I liked a lot that might be worth keeping. :)

Angie

[chaosmanor.livejournal.com]

If it helps, I'm going for the rollicking-adventure-that-doesn't-stand-up-to-close-inspection route myself.

Road trip! With an infant! Across Australia! Watch out for the bad guys!

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Heheheheh, sounds absolutely wonderful! I remember having a hell of a November (two maybe?) years ago and checking every morning for more of you Wheel of the Year (which I still miss now that it's gone and am waiting to hear what you are going to do with it!). With participating myself I might be a read-it-all-at-the-end reader this year, rather than a follower along, but either way I look forward to your wild road trip chaos with great anticipation!

[chaosmanor.livejournal.com]

It was two years ago for Wheel.

The current incarnation of Wheel is a doc called Wheelhack.doc, as an indication of the kind of surgery I'm performing on it whenever I find the strength. It's not a solid novel, and probably isn't actually saleable. featherfeet, however, I have hopes for. I've applied for a grant to finish Featherfeet, since I can't really justify taking the months off writing romance that Featherfeet needs. A grant would be a good thing.

And this year's nano is far stranger than that short summary would indicate. I'm not going to be posting it on a wide filter, because I'd really like to sell it, but let me know when you have time to read it, and I'll add you to the filter for the duration.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Oh! I'd forgotten Featherfeet. I read that too. I really hope that the grant is successful because I'd love to see what you end up doing with it.

While I can see what you mean about Wheel, because it didn't have the structure or overall cohesiveness of many of the things you've written, I'm truly sorry to hear that it's languishing neglected ;) I really adored it and I hope that at some point you find the time and inclination to rewrite it to your satisfaction. Alternately, if you decide it isn't saleable, can you just put it back so I can read it again? :P

I'd very much appreciate going on your filter for the new nano, probably at the beginning of December when my own nano, if not complete, will at least be winding down or given a breather.

[chaosmanor.livejournal.com]

what's your email address? I'll send you Wheel.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Oh would you? I'd love that! It's aleathiel@gmail.com. Thanky you so much.

[julia-goolia.livejournal.com]

i like the idea of the first one a lot. that one intrigues me more than the first. and, i know nano has a lot of pressure, but isn't that kinda of the point of nano to just write wrtie write for the sake of writting? it might be helpful to follow this new story line without the pressure of it being an amazing thing, and just get it on the page. there's always a second draft, and you might find that the plot unravels as you go, without having to strategically plan it out before hand.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it seems that everyone agrees with you. I think I'll just have a go and see what happens.

[julia-goolia.livejournal.com]

good luck!

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I like both, but for the purposes of nano the first sounds better. With that one, you will be mining your subconscious, not checking reference books.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Yup, I think you're right. I think I'm just a bit frightened about jumping off into the deep end with a story I've not really had time to think about yet. but I guess that doesn't matter. I can re-draft to my heart's content later. It is a more interesting novel than the second one I think. I just have to go for it.

And that is a very cute icon.

[nitw1t.livejournal.com]

I quite fancy the second one... but i guess it's down to what you think you'll enjoy writing most.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

It's not an either/or, I fully intend to write both. It's just which one I write for nano that I'm trying to decide.

I'm glad you like the sound of the second one. It needs a lot of work, but that characters have really got personalities in my head and I want to write about them. :)