Boarders writing a novel, Part 11

[First of My Name]

This is the thread for boarders writing a novel, which you might have guessed.

Previous version: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/95932-boarders-writing-a-novel-part-10/page-1

[Frank Fitzpatrick]

I'm one of those boarders!

Still working on my third draft. It's taking a lot longer than I first anticipated.

[Ella Darklyn]

I am still struggling to get motivated on rewrites to the book I used NanoWrimo to get going on... I know what sections need to change but not how I want to change them yet. Sigh. So my current idea is just to cut everything I don't like and move on, and then when I am inevitably way short of publishable word count later get those add-detail and world building scenes back in. (I say current idea because at the moment I am /much/ better at playing video games or staring at the Olympics than sitting down and writing anything. At all. Ugh.)

[Starkess]

I applied for Clarion this year. So yeah, fun waiting til end of March for THAT notification.

Editing is going well for my novel, but it is somewhat disheartening to realize that what felt like was a good pace is actually really not quite so good and I'm only ~16% done. Lots of work to do to start querying by late spring!

[Myrddin]

I applied for Clarion this year. So yeah, fun waiting til end of March for THAT notification.

Awesome! I hope you get in.

It's something I always wanted to do, but when I had time, I couldn't afford it. Now with a family, I don't have time. Maybe one of these days I'll just take a personal vacation, ditch my wife with the boys for a week and attend one of the several good writing camps out there.

Keep us up to date on you entry.

[Selysin]

Words!

There are new words in my story after almost 2 months of not doing anything :D (turns out moving halfway around the world is really bad for your writing habits) It feels so good to be making progress again, I've being looking forward to the Dance With The Dead chapters for ages and now I'm finally writing them. Let the carnage begin. *happy dance*

[Shinrei]

Cool thread! I wish all you gals and guys all the best with your writing!

I tried to be a writer twice (that is i had 2 projects that went on for a while and got at least somewhere...as in 80-100 A4 word file pages)...but i just do not have the discipline it takes to keep on writing. I start with much enthusiasm and then it is downhill from there :D So i have the greatest respect for those of you who can keep the motiavtion up and who have the "stamina" to work hard on the book-to-be even if one is not superbly inspired at that moment.

Now if i can make a request: It would be great if we knew what you gals/guys are working on. Makes us (me at least ;) ) rooting for you even more. So pitch/blurb your book you are working on as if you do a back-of-the-book teaser or something similar.

[Starkess]

I think many of us have blurbed our projects in previous thread iterations, but I don't mind taking another stab at it. I actually just wrote a new blurb for myself, so let me know if this sounds at all interesting. I really hate writing blurbs, I can never manage to capture my voice and make a somewhat coherent summary of interesting points. Anyway. Here it is:

When an equipment malfunction kills her husband, Anna is determined to prove the Empire was culpable. What she discovers, however, is their culpability in far worse deeds. Decades earlier, a young teenager struggles to foil a plot of mass murder. Dane succeeds, but at the cost of himself. Anna pulls together the pieces of past and present, across the galaxy, and finds herself at the center of the worst crisis yet.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

I don't mind sharing the plot again:

I'm writing a science-fiction/fantasy genre novel series at present called Technology vs Beast. The name is subject to change. I wanted to share the plot with the community in order to get opinions, criticisms and advice in the field of writing. Any contributions to this thread are much appreciated.

Five hundred years before the start of the story, a group of religious scientists came together in the city of New Hope, the spiritual capital of the world. As far as the public knew, their aim was to come to an understanding on their differing beliefs in order to promote tolerance and enlightenment. But their actual goal was quite different.

Their actual plan was to create a God with their own hands. They thought that humanity needed this in order for all people to come together. The details of how to do it were unable to be agreed upon by the men, and they resolved to allow their creation to make that decision.

Secretly using government funding, they began to build a mechanized deity. The result of their labor was the super mech (or gundam if you will) Adrastos. Adrastos was instilled with a technology that allowed it to have the knowledge of everything that happened in the world up to the time it was created and every thing that would happen up until the time it would awaken.

The scientists programmed him to slumber for one hundred years and awaken in the future on the anniversary of its creation. On that day, it would decide the fate of all the worlds inhabitants. Shipped off into The Worlds Above ( story version of outer space), the scientists masked their work by introducing an army of mechs that were provided to any military willing to pay for them.

In the fifty years after the creation of Adrastos, mechs became so common to the point that there were theme parks where people could fight mechs for recreation and even sports leagues.

Eventually, the time came for Adrastos to awaken and so it did. Having slumbered for one hundred years, all knowledge happening on the Inhabited Spectrum was downloaded into its systems. It began to immediately undertake its purpose.

Adrastos resolved that the best thing it could do to lead humanity was to destroy it and repopulate Inhabited Spectrum with existences like itself, that all creation would be as God. A crystallized orb meant for serving its purposes was removed from its chest panel. It used those to create twelve powerful but lesser beings that were equal to each other and less than Adrastos.

Their purpose was to slumber until such time that twelve denizens on Inhabited Spectrum of pure heart, whether it be good or evil, came to exist. They would bond with those twelve chosen until such time that the bond was powerful enough to allow them to absorb them.

When all twelves bonds were realized, the bonded would come together and form one super weapon that Adrastos would use to destroy everyone and reanimate them as a mechanized Demi God.

Four hundred years after the awakening of Adrastos, a group referring to themselves as Acolytes arrived on Inhabited Spectrum from another world. They claim to have come because their world was no longer inhabitable. The Acolytes claimed they only wanted peace.

The Enlightened Brigade, a government organization that saw over all major world affairs, presented the Acolytes with two options: leave in peace or face mass extermination. The God of the Acolytes, Gerphalt, resolved to declare war on The Enlightened Brigade and liberate both Acolytes and Inhabitants from their influence.

Having come to know of the Acolytes arrival and the war on Inhabited Spectrum, Adrastos decided to use this to further his plans. This was made possible when the first of his twelve creations came into contact with its chosen one.

Adrastos began to search out the chosen ones remaining in order to bring them together with his creations, dubbed the Holy Flashes. If successful, Adrastos will use the war to bring about the end of all life as Inhabitants and Acolytes know it and usher in a new age.

[First of My Name]

Cool thread! I wish all you gals and guys all the best with your writing!

I tried to be a writer twice (that is i had 2 projects that went on for a while and got at least somewhere...as in 80-100 A4 word file pages)...but i just do not have the discipline it takes to keep on writing. I start with much enthusiasm and then it is downhill from there :D So i have the greatest respect for those of you who can keep the motiavtion up and who have the "stamina" to work hard on the book-to-be even if one is not superbly inspired at that moment.

Now if i can make a request: It would be great if we knew what you gals/guys are working on. Makes us (me at least ;) ) rooting for you even more. So pitch/blurb your book you are working on as if you do a back-of-the-book teaser or something similar.

I'm doing a planned five-book series chronicling the history of the fictional world of Ensekyrai. It spans roughly 300 years, so you watch while governments rise and fall, technology develops, religion changes, exc. Meanwhile the descendants of the last king kill each other over power and revenge.

I'm currently working on the first book, though parts of the latter books have already been written. In this book, the king of Ensekyrai is poisoned, and a conflict arises between his two sons, which gradually develops into a full-scale war featuring switching loyalties, bloody battles, and several wild cards. The sons - Litan and Ferys - were written to be each other's opposites in every way. The children of Litan, the eldest son, are the descendats I mentioned above. They wage a war which lasts 150 years.

[Shinrei]

Cool, thanks, all of you.

Those three blurbs all sound interesting to me. I keep my fingers crossed that i will be able to read those books someday!

[Melphis Amekia]

I'm writing a 6 book series set in a world that more or less mirrors our own in terms of tech, cultural etc. developments, the first book set during the 'Taurie Republic'(obviously analogue to the Roman Republic), hugely inspired by Spartacuses rebellion; the second book set at what would, in our world, be the start of the Arab conquests, main character being the worlds Mohammed; the third book would be set in the steampunk era during my worlds 'Boxer rebellion', the fourth book would be set in our time, the fifth cyberpunk themed, and the sixth set during space exploration. Magic is very important to the characters of the world and how they influence the world, even though those 'Enhancements', as I call the magic, are rare and costly to use. The actual blurb for the first book, the one I'm currently writing would be something like this:

Cast off by his own kin. Betrayed by the person he most trusted. Enslaved by the Taurie, who are set on conquering the world. Made to fight in their blood-thirsty games. It would seem Kor'alis would never enjoy life the way free people do.

Then, in a fight to death, he starts displaying powers, powers terrifiying and fragile, for they depended on him to work. He decides that the Taurieans have gone too far, and so he and others of his kind rebel. But leadership starts to change Kor'alis, and with the Tauriean Senate freightened, leading them to call their legions from afar and to create a new legion under Vario Rask, the richest man of the Senate, he finds himself alone against the whole world. On his shoulders rests the fate of nations, the fate of millions... his own fate. And something dark is lurking, seemingly around every corner...

As spoiler free as I could put it here, without easily spilling out the biggest mysteries I'm making in the novel.

[siknes]

Starkess:

I'd replace equipment- (tech)

Edit: "is their culpability in far worse deeds" It is not clear in meaning.

I'm guessing, from your blub, it's a time travel story.

Change "pulls" together-"ties" or Pulls together- dissects

Put in- Dane, a teenager- so it is clear between the two sentences.

"worst crisis yet"- "a possible apocalypse"

These are just suggestions, I've been going to writer critique groups since June, story(first novel in a long planned series) was/is there, but writing was crap, I knew it. They have helped and like the story, even though average age is 70 and they don't read/like SF/F.

I have a new Flash Fiction(under 1000 word count) story I'm about to submit for a local(Florida Writer's Association) award "RPLA."

Please, whom ever reads, let me know what you think.

Story of a Time Traveling Tech

In 2083, time travel is publicly thought of as, "On the cusp." In Truth, a few Scientific World Dominating Super-Corps have their own version of such a machine.

Burton happens to work as the lab tech on, A beauty, of magical possibilities. He's referring to "Wellstein."

At twenty, Burton's a mechanical genius, with a Master's from MIT. His mother talked about how his father worked on the early TT-Tech's. A fatherless boy's dream to finish his father's work drove Burton to where he stands, next to a TT-Tech machine. I can really go back. I just need an hour. He sets the digital timer that maxes out at three hour. Wellstein vibrates, and generates an undulating whomp sound.

"I can't believe I have access to you, Sweetheart." He disturbed by himself. I'm about to save my father. What's with this TT-Tech boner? He shakes his head and smirks, then steps in.

Inside is a black void.

A blinding light erupts and Burton's head migraines. He's in the same building twenty-two years in the past, and two hours before his father's car lost control down a mountainside. I've got to find him. His father's office is two floors down.

The elevator opens and spaced out every five feet are Symbiotic Chambers. Burton steps out and grabs his head. They never said anything about side effects. His knees wobble and he sees the entire floor is nothing but Sy-Chambers. My father never worked on TT-Tech. He was a mad scientist working on these Sybs. In each chamber floats a genetically engineered child.

***

It started in 2025 when a world-wide law passed for eighteen year old to donate their seed, twice to be sure the scientists had enough valuable genes. The junk DNA was severed away and discarded. Females donated two eggs, "While at their peak of fertility," was the propaganda then.

Truth is, the men's sperm was analyzed, along with physical and mental attributes. the undesirables happened to get tagged on their second visit and never father a child after, unless their woman got pregnant on the side, or she went to the S-Banks to be inseminated by seed different from their man's.

The Corp owned eggs were analyzed, with the dominant specimen inseminated with enhanced sperm and grown in Sy-Chambers. The other eggs were used in Stem-Cell experiments growing organs.

***

Burton's conflicted over what these "new humans" end up being used for. Please don't tell me you had anything to do with this atrocity, Father.

He knows his father's face from his mother two happy-couple pictures.

Burton searches for him weaving between Sy-Chambers and their translucent-green glow. Everywhere white-coat scientist study data, but no sign of his father. Only forty minutes left. Shit!

He spots a profile. That could be him. Burton charges forward, before spinning the man. He's taller with the same wavy brown hair and green eyes as Burton, and wears thick-lensed glasses which magnify his eyes.

"Get your hands off me!"

It's him. Uhm... Sorry, sir. I need to talk to you."

"Excuse me! I'm busy right now." He had been typing on a Sy-Chamber keyboard.

So it's true. You're working on Sybs. "I have to talk to you. Now!

"I have to be going soon. Where's your badge? You don't belong here!"

"I"M YOUR SON!"

His father twists his head looking Burton over. "Are you saying the crazies on the tenth floor, or someone else actually did it? Made the machine?"

Burton somberly nods, disgusted by belief in his mother's lies. "What are you doing here?" He points to the Sy-Chambers.

"You're asking me what I'm doing here, in my laboratory? I think you have that backwards."

"You mean , you started this hubris crap!"

His father smiles. "My boy! You've TT'ed here, and you question my hubris."

"Do you know the future plans for these "new humans"? That they will be no more than slaves with a life span of forty years, if lucky."

"What are you talking about? These specimens are for the super-soldier programs."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me. Your super-soldier specimens, as you say, will be adjusted to zero gravity in these tubes." Burton slaps the closest Sy-Chamber. "And downloaded with whatever they're destined to do. Two years in one of these things, and coming out the size of an eight year old. Does that sound about Right?"

"Yes, those are the same procedures we run here. The flawed are used for organs and testing."

'You're fucking sick! In the future these Sybs are immediately sent to either Moon or Mars Stations where they do God knows what. They don't live long because of cosmic radiation."

"You're serious? It's actually been done?" his father says, face lit-up.

"So you do know. Tell me it wasn't your idea."

"No, not mine alone. There were five of us in the beginning. Son, we must go the other star systems to survive. It has to happen."

"People say they're being brainwashed to go live where our bones waste away, but they're nothing but Corp-owned cattle for you."

"I'm sorry you feel that way about my work--"

Burton's watch beeps. Shit, one minute left. "I don't have time to talk humanistic ethics with you."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"I came to tell you not to leave her tonight. Stay with you work. In my time your car goes off a roadside cli--"

His father watches him vanish.

***

Burton's back in his lab and luckily no one's there. Let's see if he understood. Damn, I almost wasted the trip arguing over Sybs.

***

"Mom!" Dad "Dad!" Burton calls entering his kitchen.

"Excuse me!" What are you talking about?"

"Mom?" What's wrong with my voice?

"I'm your Aunt Betty."

"Aunt Betty? Who's my mom then?"

"Your mom is Valerie, my best friend. Do you have amnesia, honey?"

Burton turns to a mirror, and her face purses in surprise.

""Rachel, honey. What's wrong?"

Rachel? "Fuck...me!"

[Ella Darklyn]

On my fantasy novel (keeping it short!):
The last heir of a conquered kingdom finds herself embroiled in a plot that threatens to bring war to the empires once more. A mysterious man unleashes a power long thought to be lost, but if he is who he says than there is a greater power that will follow him... one that is still desperate to seize all the empires for itself.

I've also just started a mystery-thriller that I'm working on while giving my batteries a chance to recharge for the fantasy stuff... hopefully my motivation will get itself back together! This one I don't really have a blurb for cause I'm not entirely sure what's gonna happen yet, just that it primarily takes place in a theater and will involve a lot of fun running around in the dark.

[Starkess]

Starkess:

I'd replace equipment- (tech)

Edit: "is their culpability in far worse deeds" It is not clear in meaning.

I'm guessing, from your blub, it's a time travel story.

Change "pulls" together-"ties" or Pulls together- dissects

Put in- Dane, a teenager- so it is clear between the two sentences.

"worst crisis yet"- "a possible apocalypse"

These are just suggestions, I've been going to writer critique groups since June, story(first novel in a long planned series) was/is there, but writing was crap, I knew it. They have helped and like the story, even though average age is 70 and they don't read/like SF/F.

Thanks for the advice! I hate writing blurbs and am really not happy with that one, so it's nice to get some feedback. It's not exactly a time travel story--the first section alternates between POV characters in 2 different time periods. The timelines end up converging later. Hard to try to make that clear, think it's back to the drawing board for me.

[Frey Pie]

Sounds good everyone

I've been working on something for a while but never wrote a description. Guess it would be like

Anders was the second son of an impoverished but proud house. After clashing with his father Anders is sent away to be fostered in the North, with the Lord Reaper. Here Anders befriends the heir to Reapers Hold, Castor, and they begin a friendship which will bring them through fire and blood. For there is an invasion on the way and King Rian is calling his banners.

Probably should make it a lot longer but it's a planned trilogy with an option for some form of supernatural creatures appearing in the last of the series. It mainly follows Anders story and progression within the political and military structure of Eleu, and how they deal with an invasion from a foreign empire looking to enslave them all

[The_BlauerDragon]

I'm one of those boarders!

Still working on my third draft. It's taking a lot longer than I first anticipated.

If I could just get off my @$$ and start writing, I'd be one of those boarders!

I get fits and starts every now and then, but what I am hoping someone here can help me with is the staying on schedule and actually writing part of the equation. Anyone have something that REALLY works?

ETA: I think it might help if I can just stay focused on one story long enough to write it. I know that my writing will be utter crap at the beginning (one does not simply get on a bicycle for the first time and become a BMX freestyle expert). It will take practice, and lots of it. I think part of what keeps me from writing is the idea that a really good story I have had pass through my hands will get murdered by my lack of writing skill and suffer an unjust, and untimely, death. It is a vicious circle. Have ideas that might be good, afraid to write them down and fail to do them justice, cannot come up with lesser ideas to violate for practice.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'm working on my second novel (I'm trying to make it as standalone as possible so I don't put too many eggs in one basket if my first novel doesn't find an agent/publisher). It's from the POV of the elder sister of my first protagonist.

[Zoë Sumra]

If I could just get off my @$$ and start writing, I'd be one of those boarders!

I get fits and starts every now and then, but what I am hoping someone here can help me with is the staying on schedule and actually writing part of the equation. Anyone have something that REALLY works?

ETA: I think it might help if I can just stay focused on one story long enough to write it. I know that my writing will be utter crap at the beginning (one does not simply get on a bicycle for the first time and become a BMX freestyle expert). It will take practice, and lots of it. I think part of what keeps me from writing is the idea that a really good story I have had pass through my hands will get murdered by my lack of writing skill and suffer an unjust, and untimely, death. It is a vicious circle. Have ideas that might be good, afraid to write them down and fail to do them justice, cannot come up with lesser ideas to violate for practice.

If it's a good idea but you aren't good enough for it, you can always go back to it later. In a few more decades when I'm bored with space opera I may well revisit the epic fantasy I started when I was twelve.

For getting it down and getting it going... lack of self consciousness rather than self belief, I think. You're an explorer in your world, in it to see what happens. That touch of having fun plus a sufficient dose of investment in your characters (obsession in my case, but it doesn't have to go that far) will get you a long way into it.

Endings are a cow whatever you do, though. By that stage you should be into the whole process enough to stay there.

RBPL - wise move. :D

[Starkess]

An agent I follow on twitter posted a #MSWL that fit my last book perfectly. I couldn't resist dusting it off and sending it in. Breaking out the agent spreadsheet made me realize that one, it's been ages since I've queried (2012!), and two, lots of agents don't reply at all. Seriously, that is so frustrating. Send me a damn form rejection, just let me know that you wasted even a millisecond reading my query!

I've been reading a lot of statistics lately about the volume of queries that agents receive (it seems to be in the hundreds per week for even smaller agencies), and that's just all sorts of depressing. Eh, well. Them's the breaks. I'll just keep writing. :) (Or editing, as the case may be, right now.)