# What is your WIP?



## Kyle R (Dec 22, 2012)

Brag, fume, or make us salivate to read more. Tell us all about your current work in progress!


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## Sam (Dec 22, 2012)

My latest is a military thriller loosely titled _Chasing Shadows_. It's about a strike team who are given orders to terminate a drug lord operating in Black Forest, Colorado. The mission appeared to come from nowhere, was sanctioned far too quickly, and seemed to the soldiers to be wrapped too neatly in a big bow. Against their gut feeling, they go ahead with it, parachuting into the drop zone shortly after midnight to find the area devoid of activity. A half-klick through the forest stands what should be an abandoned house . . . except for the landing lights of a helipad shining into the night sky like a beacon. 

After securing the exterior, they enter in cover formation to find signs of an intense firefight but no bodies. They clear each room individually, arriving at the master bedroom, where a man bursts from a closet and fires a round into a soldier's flak jacket, and is summarily executed where he stands. Assuming this is their target, the commander overturns the body . . . and everyone realises they've just murdered the acting president of the United States. 

Within thirty minutes, the footage from the mounted cameras on their helmets is leaked and goes viral. Thing is, the part where the president bursts from the closet is deleted, and so every civilian, politician, and government official in the country believes the soldiers have murdered their commander in chief. Thus, they become the ten most wanted men in the history of the country and are forced to go on the run until they can clear their name.


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## moderan (Dec 22, 2012)

First, working on editing/formatting my first book, Crazytown:
Linked tales depicting the life and times of the residents of a fictional quadruplex.
 Two of the stories are brand new for the collection-the others have   been revised and expanded from previously-existing material, some of   which had been published elsewhere.
 Each story has both a title and  an alphanumerical designation. The  underlying, linking story is told on  several levels including the  metaversal and metafictional.
 Some of the stories feature beings and concepts from the late H. P.   Lovecraft's curio cabinet. Some don't have any humans in them. Some have   people who may not be (people) or (human). Some have multiple points  of  view, or multiple endings. That's how it is in CrazyTown.
 Crazytown  is of course in the middle of Midtown. It is two adobe  structures with  32 exterior doors that are at once Dhalgren, the House  of Doors, Arkham  and Arkham Asylum.
 You can walk in Midtown during the day, and  sometimes even interact  with people who aren’t from Midtown, but the  borders are fluid and you  don’t want to be caught out because you may  come back to a different  life.
 There is no not coming back. You are inextricably linked to Crazytown.
 The bus can take you out of town but you don’t always return to the   same life or during the same time as when you left. The distortion is   greater with distance. 			 		

After that the novels Blue Easter, about the takeover of the surface world by the forces of the deep, augmented by global warming, and Milk, my 2008 nanowrimo entry, which is a satire about the medical, insurance, and pharmaceutical fields and a possible dystopian scenario involving them.


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## Jon M (Dec 22, 2012)

Well now, Kyle, you shouldn't be such a tease, especially with that really awesome new avatar. Do tell.


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## Lewdog (Dec 22, 2012)

I haven't pitched or played baseball in about 10 years.  The last season I pitched I had pretty good control only have a walk per inning percentage (WiP) of 0.2.

Oh and I have been working on my realistic story in Kabul, that I know what I want to write, but can't be motivated to finish.


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## benluby (Dec 22, 2012)

Currently working on a mix of two of my favorite genre's.   Top secret Spec Ops team assigned to stop a radical group from unleashing hell on earth, but the plan is already in motion when they realize it, and are too late to stop the plague.  After the outbreak, they are forced to survive in a zombie infested apocalypse with the goal or restoring civilization, even though there are still those who want man eradicated, as well as those who LIKE the new society and the little feudal kingdoms they are all carving out.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Dec 22, 2012)

Oh you know... utopia/dystopia, love and totalitarianism, little girl lost. The usual, except [strike]better[/strike] [strike]worse[/strike] [strike]different[/strike] mine (at least one hopes).

Yes, Kyle, spill it.


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## the antithesis (Dec 22, 2012)

I'm still paralyzed by my own indecision and lack of motivation and my astute ability to demotivate myself. Even saying I need to start writing this weekend or I should just kill myself hasn't worked as I fail to do either.

I had posted about two ideas I'd been kicking around, although I've since discarded one of them. The remaining idea is a generic fantasy story with a female protagonist, which may have seemed like a fresh idea in 1952, but I'm sure these days it's staler than my mom on a bread water ski. The main point of interest was trying to mess with people's expectations involving a prophecy that doesn't come true in quite the way the average person would think or on the face of it. The problem is that's kind of in the background and needs to be subtle if it is to work. So the problem is the rest of it. You know, all the rest of that pesky stuff happening until the (yawn) thrilling conclusion. I really don't know what I'm doing, nor am I much of a fantasy fan, so this exact story may have already been written twice and I am unaware of it because I am writing for a largely unfamiliar genre. The average reader is an enigma to me but fantasy fans are frickin' space aliens from the planet. I don't know what they want. Even if I did, I don't think I'm the guy to give it to them.

But other story ideas I've had are coming up again even though I had decided to choose between story A and B earlier because I just really don't want to write. one of them came rather strong in a dream the other night. It's a contemporary story but the opening looks like a fantasy story about a young boy whose father is a wizard. The reader doesn't realize this until the end of the prologue, which to my credit is an actual story as opposed to vague descriptions of people and thing. It almost works as a short story, I would say. But I don't want to just switch to this story because my enthusiasm will drain when I actually try to work on it and I'll think of or dream about another story. Then another story. Then another story. Then another story.

It's enough for me to think that I should give up on this writing business. Or maybe post threads on writing forums asking for someone to help reveal the great writer that I would be. At what point does it stop being just writer's block or hesitance and start being something I should stop pretending I even do.


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## Staff Deployment (Dec 22, 2012)

Basically.

A teenaged girl fights a lovecraftian monster god.
She doesn't do too well.

EDIT: Whoa whoa whoa antithesis.
Do not despair! Everyone feels horrible at some point in their life. But the best part about life is that with enough perseverance you can always improve things; think of a skeleton, not a cage.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Dec 22, 2012)

Antithesis, I wonder if it might be helpful to think about why you're writing in the first place. I don't mean this in a bad way, I don't know you or your writing, but maybe this paralysis comes from putting too much pressure on yourself right from the start, like expecting to publish right away or produce something really deep and meaningful or whatever. Might be worthwhile to just try writing whatever's closest to the surface, most present in your mind, and not worry about the most "worthy" or marketable thing. Maybe short stories rather than a novel, if you think the idea will burn out quickly. Try just doing it for yourself, don't worry about the audience or if there is one.

For me, when I started thinking about the writing itself as the goal and not publication or even necessarily completion, that was when I started to write again (after several years of doing nothing, because nothing I did looked like the Great American Novel I thought I was supposed to write).


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## benluby (Dec 22, 2012)

lasm said:


> Antithesis, I wonder if it might be helpful to think about why you're writing in the first place. I don't mean this in a bad way, I don't know you or your writing, but maybe this paralysis comes from putting too much pressure on yourself right from the start, like expecting to publish right away or produce something really deep and meaningful or whatever. Might be worthwhile to just try writing whatever's closest to the surface, most present in your mind, and not worry about the most "worthy" or marketable thing. Maybe short stories rather than a novel, if you think the idea will burn out quickly. Try just doing it for yourself, don't worry about the audience or if there is one.
> 
> For me, when I started thinking about the writing itself as the goal and not publication or even necessarily completion, that was when I started to write again (after several years of doing nothing, because nothing I did looked like the Great American Novel I thought I was supposed to write).



I've been reading some pages on previews as well as books along the lines of what I am writing, and found that what I'm writing on, specifically, doesn't have a lot of books in the market similar to it.  I used to do like you, and couldn't finish anything.  Discovering the serialized books helped me.  I hope to be done within the next few days with the story and edit and proof (got a friend who is proofing for me as I write further into it, so that helps), and then I'll be putting the serial up.  Not trying to be Tom Clancy, just trying to get it done my style.


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## tepelus (Dec 22, 2012)

Mine is a (Alternate) Historical Fantasy about the life of Vlad the Impaler's son, Vlad. Through his life, from living with peasants after he'd been left to die as a child by his father, through his tenure in the palace of Buda, then his marriage with the powerful Bathory family, a curse, so to speak, has followed him in the form of a blue-eyed black wolf. Always present, though most of the time unknown to him, the creature stalks him to the point of killing those he loves and driving him to madness. I wrote the original draft several years ago and decided a few years back to rewrite it, and though it is better than it used to be, it has also grown larger than I intended. I had originally planned for a trilogy, but now it's looking more like a series of four, possibly five books. I'm nearing the end of writing the first draft, though I have lots to fix once I get into the edits.


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## Leyline (Dec 22, 2012)

Antithesis --

This (slightly sanitized to fit WF rules) is something I posted somewhere else earlier this week, that might spur some thought: 

_Had a weird epiphany early yesterday morning. I've been pulling up and re-reading a bunch of my older stories (some over a decade old) and realized something: I'm a technically better writer now, but I was a much braver writer then. I considered why and came to the conclusion that it's because for years I've been concentrating on writing to sell, not writing to tell a story. I've been writing to a market rather following the ideas that I feel need to be explored. I realized I'd never write a story like WAKE (an exploration of women dieting by a skinny dude) or ROUND EYES (which tried it's best to be an optimistic, close to joyful story about what war means to the survivors) or MONKEY (which was a sheerly gonzo piece of madness about Gods and the people who worship and fear them, and how each of those things create each other in a never ending cycle) any more because 'nobody would buy that.' 

 Well, quite frankly, that's kind of a stupid reason to not write a story. And I doubt it even helps to sell the lesser stories that result, because the market for short fiction has shrank so much and become so rarefied that no one bothers to buy 'marketable stuff' anymore. It's only the crap that slaps them in the face with its strident demand to exist that the dwindling numbers of gatekeepers are going to pay attention to.

 So, early New Year's resolution: take what I've learned (and I've learned a lot) about the technical aspects of story construction, and use it to write stories that I simply want to tell for the sheer joy of telling them, and give to my friends as presents, and that say something about myself and how I see the universe. That will be read for the finest and most noble reason of all: because I'm by God good enough to make you want to read them after that first sentence sets the hook.


_And since I made that decision? I've been cranking out copy at a crazy rate. As if, for years, all the held back ideas just collected and -- seeing a chink in the wall -- proceeded ahead at ramming speed.

And it's _good_. The best stuff I've written in ages.

Don't give up hope. And if you need to talk about it, that's what this community is for. 

Best,

-G.


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## Mutimir (Dec 22, 2012)

the antithesis said:


> I'm still paralyzed by my own indecision and lack of motivation and my astute ability to demotivate myself. Even saying I need to start writing this weekend or I should just kill myself hasn't worked as I fail to do either.
> 
> I had posted about two ideas I'd been kicking around, although I've since discarded one of them. The remaining idea is a generic fantasy story with a female protagonist, which may have seemed like a fresh idea in 1952, but I'm sure these days it's staler than my mom on a bread water ski. The main point of interest was trying to mess with people's expectations involving a prophecy that doesn't come true in quite the way the average person would think or on the face of it. The problem is that's kind of in the background and needs to be subtle if it is to work. So the problem is the rest of it. You know, all the rest of that pesky stuff happening until the (yawn) thrilling conclusion. I really don't know what I'm doing, nor am I much of a fantasy fan, so this exact story may have already been written twice and I am unaware of it because I am writing for a largely unfamiliar genre. The average reader is an enigma to me but fantasy fans are frickin' space aliens from the planet. I don't know what they want. Even if I did, I don't think I'm the guy to give it to them.
> 
> ...



Just write, stop thinking. Open up a word document and jot down some words.

"A story about love, betrayal and inescapable violence."

Then build off of it. Got a setting? Need some characters? above all, inspire us!

My current WIP is about a girl who decides to write a play so her father, an out of work actor, can play the lead.


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## Vertigo (Dec 22, 2012)

Been working on a fantasy novel. Working title is The Chronicles of Darwin, which sucks (the title does) and I really need to get a new one but I have yet to really settle. In terms of what it is (aside from, you know, a fantasy novel), it's an attempt to take a lot of the stuff we've seen dominate YA fiction recent years (i.e. Harry Potter and Twilight) and subvert it as brutally as possible by putting more shall we say _normal_, screwed-up people into the roles of the heroes. The protagonist is a jerk (whose parents are alive) with a friend which friend falls for a girl who's a magician and starts to teach him (the friend) and then the protagonist gets in on it and eventually all end up going to a school for magic together. And of course there's a prophesy about a Chosen One who'll come and fight back the darkness and all that.

I'm doing my best to give it the most cliche start imaginable, plot wise, followed by a barrage of mind-screws and aborted arcs leading up to a final act where a third of the cast dies.


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## wehttam (Dec 22, 2012)

I've been writing the same story for ages. It changes faster than I can think about it, but it always comes back to the same thing. I want to deconstruct as many things as I can, while still telling a compelling story. Society, human nature, morality, mortality, free will, determinism, time, love, growing up, growing old, and everything in between. I've written hundreds of thousands of words. The story has been set in places ranging from downtown Atlanta all the way to a galaxy on the other side of the universe. I've had dozens of protagonists, and about half of them got far enough along in their own stories to become the villan. I've yet to finish it, though.

I would tell you what my most recent version is like, but it's only a few thousand words long, and just today I decided to scrap it and start fresh again.


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## voltigeur (Dec 22, 2012)

I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I started working on a story about the cold war. It incorporates the stories that I heard from fellow servicemen during the 80’s. Hopefully it can still scare the hell out of readers when they realize how close we came to World War 3 and didn’t even know it and have some laughs at incidents that were just this side of antics. 

The first story line didn’t survive research and now I’m working on a revised outline.


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## Leyline (Dec 23, 2012)

A few days ago I shoved every project I had going onto the back burner and started something new. I finally thought of a story to go along with a title I've been trying to use for years, one I made up as a joke and became ridiculously attached to. I'm about 6,500 words in and I'm guessing at about the halfway point. It's long, weird, deeply personal, funny, sad, and almost painfully intense. And probably unsaleable.  But at least it's _brave_. And I hope it's beautiful.

It's called *The Boy Who Was Raised By Wolves Who Were Raised By Bears*.


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## egpenny (Dec 23, 2012)

Leyline:  I'd read it just because of the title.

My WIP is editing my NANO novel.  It's about two related men, one is set in 2011 and the other in 1871.  They have lost their families (wife and one child) to murder/rustlers and the story is about them hunting down those responsible.  The modern day section is set in the Central Valley of California.  The 1871 part is set in Western Texas.  It turned out well, at least I think it did, especially for being written in a month.  And I'm enjoying the editing process...add a little, subtract a little.   The title is *Time After Time*, for now.


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## Leyline (Dec 23, 2012)

egpenny said:


> Leyline:  I'd read it just because of the title.







> My WIP is editing my NANO novel.  It's about two related men, one is set in 2011 and the other in 1871.  They have lost their families (wife and one child) to murder/rustlers and the story is about them hunting down those responsible.  The modern day section is set in the Central Valley of California.  The 1871 part is set in Western Texas.  It turned out well, at least I think it did, especially for being written in a month.  And I'm enjoying the editing process...add a little, subtract a little.   The title is *Time After Time*, for now.



Sounds rather intriguing. Planning on sticking a chapter or so into the Workshop?


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## egpenny (Dec 23, 2012)

Hadn't thought of doing that, but when I finish editing I just might.  Each chapter alternates for instance chapter one is 2011, c. 2 is 1871.  It worked out pretty well, but I don't know if... well, I'll wait and decide when I'm finished.  I only have about 50 pages more to edit.  Thanks for the suggestion.


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## popsprocket (Dec 23, 2012)

At the moment I only have two.

The first is 'that' project. The one that I have always wanted to write but can't make it work. It's closer to working now than it's ever been, but I still need to put a lot of thinking into it. It's a fantasy that follows a young man as he gets put through the ringer and comes out the other side harder than nails and with a vision for the world that he intends to impose, even though it will require him to burn pretty much everything to the ground... which he successfully does. He's not a nice dude if you aren't aware of the full story.

The other is a terribly trashy YA action/supernatural book that is taking up a disproportionate amount of brain power to think about. I didn't so much underestimate how a YA book should be written so  much as how much I'd like the story. It will definitely be a bit of fun to write so I kind of want to do it justice and think it through properly. It's almost an ode to being edgy and people with no morals. There's no better way to explain it.


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## garza (Dec 23, 2012)

The first draft of _A Missionary's Tale_ is complete and set aside to make time for a commissioned project on national unity. 

We have many ethnic and cultural groups in Belize - no one agrees on exactly how many. Belize' official language is English but almost no child born in Belize speaks English as a first language. First languages include Spanish, Creole, Garifuna, three different kinds of Mayan, Hindi, two kinds of Chinese, German, Arabic, and some others I've probably forgotten. We have Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, Baptists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, as well as practitioners of traditional African, Caribbean, and Mayan religions, and others I've forgotten. Political tribalism arose during the drive for independence in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, with the country today divided mostly between the two major parties, the People's United Party which leans a bit to the left and the United Democratic Party which leans a bit to the right and is currently the part in power. We have a large and growing ex-refugee population that settled here during and just after the Central American civil wars. They, and many people in the Mestizo community want to see Belize turn from its English-speaking, British, Caribbean, and African roots and become fully integrated as part of Latin America. 

All of that in a country physically the size of the U.S. State of Massachusetts and with a population of about 320,000. 

The  goal is to produce a draft document for Belize that will provide a  framework for mutual respect and co-operation amongst all the disparate  elements in Belizean society. Peru's Consul in Belize is a friend and recommended I start with a study of Peru's National Accord, Acuerdo Nacional. U.N. archives contain many similar documents which serve as good idea starters. An unsuspected treasure has turned out to be my own collection of reports I've written and interviews I've conducted over the past 18 years since settling in Belize. I anticipate spending two years to produce a first draft.

That's my current work in progress.


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## Staff Deployment (Dec 23, 2012)

Garza, that is legitimately one of the most interesting things I've read this year. I'm hoping this project of yours works out really well.


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## WriterJohnB (Dec 23, 2012)

I'm on the last few pages of my second "Shadow Fletcher" novel, WENDIGO (The first was WOLFWRAITH.)   One-handed, Native American, Marine Veteran, Shadow Fletcher has just been assigned as a park ranger in The Breaks Interstate park, in the rugged mountains between Virginia and Kentucky, when a young girl goes missing. Everyone assumes she got lost in the wilderness, but Shadow senses an ancient evil. Months later, when he finds the remains of the girl, he knows he is up against a Native American spirit, the cannibalistic Wendigo. How can he hope to find the creature in a vast canyon known as the Grand Canyon of the South? He searches as other children goes missing, but only succeeds in confronting the creature when his own daughter is taken. But how can he vanquish a supernatural, immortal demon to save his daughter?    I'll be editing for a couple of months and will be self-publishing in Feb. or March.    JohnB


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## Jeko (Dec 23, 2012)

A book about zombies who defend the world from demons.

Yeah, you can guess my target market.


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## the antithesis (Dec 23, 2012)

egpenny said:


> Leyline:  I'd read it just because of the title.
> 
> My WIP is editing my NANO novel.  It's about two related men, one is set in 2011 and the other in 1871.  They have lost their families (wife and one child) to murder/rustlers and the story is about them hunting down those responsible.  The modern day section is set in the Central Valley of California.  The 1871 part is set in Western Texas.  It turned out well, at least I think it did, especially for being written in a month.  And I'm enjoying the editing process...add a little, subtract a little.   The title is *Time After Time*, for now.



Interesting idea. Rather Cloud Atlas, if I understand the concept of both you story and that movie correctly.

FYI there is already a novel called Time After Time that was made into a movie involving HG Well who has a real time machine who follows Jack the Ripper to modern (70's) New York. The novel may not be set in New York. I haven't read it. 

Even if there wasn't already a novel by that same title, I would urge you to think of a different title that does not include the word "time." Stories involving time travel, or in this case, time jumping tend to have titles that have the word time in them. It's cliched and kind of silly, with the possible exception of Timecop. That title actually tells you something about the story. It's simple, direct, and bone stupid so it must be a JCVD action piece. But "Time After Time" tells us nothing about the story. Would you have guessed the plot of the novel and movie from the title? Of course not. It's an utterly generic title. It's a common saying that means again or repeatedly. The title means more to your story than the previous novel, but is that enough?

Maybe it's just me and my irrational bias against using the word in titles for such stories. Particularly if it's just a common phrase that appears to be a clever play on words because of the involvement of time travel, but it really isn't clever at all.


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## Lewdog (Dec 23, 2012)

the antithesis said:


> Interesting idea. Rather Cloud Atlas, if I understand the concept of both you story and that movie correctly.
> 
> FYI there is already a novel called Time After Time that was made into a movie involving HG Well who has a real time machine who follows Jack the Ripper to modern (70's) New York. The novel may not be set in New York. I haven't read it.
> 
> ...



One of my favorite authors wrote a book where she says she closed the case of Jack the Ripper, Patricia Cornwell.  Through DNA testing they supposedly matched enough markers to connect Ripper with a family, but not a specific person.  The took one of the Ripper's envelopes and compared it to the letters of a man Cornwell suspected.


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## garza (Dec 23, 2012)

Thanks, Staff. In a few weeks I'll have a draft summary, sort of an expanded outline of what I expect to be in the final document. I'll post that in Non-fiction.


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## Jon M (Dec 23, 2012)

Been doing a lot of research on transhumanism and creating a sci-fi world around that, and a couple days ago decided to take a little slice of life piece (~1,000 words), re-write it as a novelette length piece, and finish it in the next ten or so days, before New Years. Just kind of a final hurrah for 2012. I keep track of every story I finish on a yearly basis, and I'd just like to add another point to the score, so to speak.


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## Leyline (Dec 23, 2012)

Jon M said:


> Been doing a lot of research on transhumanism and creating a sci-fi world around that, and a couple days ago decided to take a little slice of life piece (~1,000 words), re-write it as a novelette length piece, and finish it in the next ten or so days, before New Years. Just kind of a final hurrah for 2012. I keep track of every story I finish on a yearly basis, and I'd just like to add another point to the score, so to speak.



I'm doing pretty much the same with my current project. If successful, it will bring this year to a grand total of (ugh) _three_.


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## Lewdog (Dec 23, 2012)

I seriously have an idea for a psychological thriller that would be unreal if done by the right author.


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## Jon M (Dec 23, 2012)

Leyline said:


> I'm doing pretty much the same with my current project. If successful, it will bring this year to a grand total of (ugh) _three_.


... but three _novels_, or three _novellas_ wouldn't be so bad. In fact, that'd be darn impressive.


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## Lewdog (Dec 23, 2012)

Jon M said:


> ... but three _novels_, or three _novellas_ wouldn't be so bad. In fact, that'd be darn impressive.



I thought novella was just french for novel...:shock:


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## squidtender (Dec 23, 2012)

A Novella has a word count between 17,500 and 40,000. But, you might be right, LD, it's probably French or Latin. Then again, what doesn't have roots in one of those two?


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## Lewdog (Dec 23, 2012)

squidtender said:


> A Novella has a word count between 17,500 and 40,000. But, you might be right, LD, it's probably French or Latin. Then again, what doesn't have roots in one of those two?



No, novella is actually Italian.  Coincidentally, Lewdog is french for dumb donkey.  True story.


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## Staff Deployment (Dec 23, 2012)

When I was a kid I thought French for spider was "spidora."

Later on I thought it was "arachide" but turns out that means peanut.

This is completely off topic.


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## Leyline (Dec 23, 2012)

Jon M said:


> ... but three _novels_, or three _novellas_ wouldn't be so bad. In fact, that'd be darn impressive.



Ha. True, but sadly, it'll be one piece of flash, one short story, and one novella. (I don't count my judge entry in the December LM -- that's more a piece of pure catharsis than a story) However, if the novella comes out as well as I'm hoping, I'll count it as a worthy year.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Dec 23, 2012)

The word _novella_ for a fictional work is originally Italian. First used in reference to the stories in Boccaccio's _Decameron_. 

I completed some lengthy academic things this year. In fun/real writing, only very short little bits. But progress was made, so it's fine. Feel like I should try to write medium-length things for practice and the satisfaction of starting something I can finish, there's one little idea I could play with, and I may if the novel's not playing nice.

In any case, finishing three things is impressive to me.


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## egpenny (Dec 24, 2012)

The Anti...
I did a search for the title last night and found it used for several different things; a book, movie and a song...  Oh well, back to the think tank for that.  I don't know about Cloud Atlas, I'll have to check it out.  txs

Checked Cloud Atlas, not like my story at all.  Probably way better than mine, but what the hey.


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## garza (Dec 24, 2012)

squidtender - There are thousands of commonly used words in English with no roots in Latin or in any of the languages directly descended from Latin, including French. Most of those words are of Anglo-Saxon origin and they are the core of the English language. 

The derivation of novella is as follows:
Latin - novus - 'new'
Latin - novellus - 'new'
Italian - novello -new (masc.)
Italian - novella storia - new (fem.) story
Italian - novella - (new)
cf. Concise Oxford Dictionary, ninth edition, p. 931


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## Bilston Blue (Dec 24, 2012)

After Christmas I'll be starting work on a story which may be turn out novella length or longer, but I'm not sure on that. It's provisional title will be _The Lonely, Happy Man. _I'm planning a metafictive element to run alongside the main narrative, which will reveal some of the protagonists motives as the story progresses.

From a personal point of view, the style is experimental. The plot will hopefully be simple but still powerful at the same time.


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## squidtender (Dec 24, 2012)

Hmmmm . . . I wrote a 100k novel and two 3k short stories this year. I felt like I should have done more, but after reading this thread, maybe that's not too bad.


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## moderan (Dec 24, 2012)

That's plenty. I composed/performed/recorded 53 songs, wrote three novels and eighteen short stories, working six hours a day on the average. That's overkill.


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## squidtender (Dec 24, 2012)

moderan said:


> That's plenty. I composed/performed/recorded 53 songs, wrote three novels and eighteen short stories, working six hours a day on the average. That's overkill.



Between my full time job, life and sleep, I could never do six hours a day . . . I'd love to though


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## moderan (Dec 24, 2012)

'tis my job. Not quite as much fun as I thought it would be...but largely that's the forced disability and not the occupation. My boss is pretty cool though


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## Lewdog (Dec 24, 2012)

moderan said:


> That's plenty. I composed/performed/recorded 53 songs, wrote three novels and eighteen short stories, working six hours a day on the average. That's overkill.



You are a text book example of an underachieving overachiever.  You had 54 songs in you and I know it.  Slacker.


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## moderan (Dec 24, 2012)

I gave myself the holidays off but I didn't pay me.


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## Lewdog (Dec 24, 2012)

moderan said:


> I gave myself the holidays off but I didn't pay me.



Well you are definitely a socialist then, a capitalist makes his workers haul twice the hours on Holidays and lays them off when they need the money to drive the economy.  Haven't you heard?


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## Kevin (Dec 24, 2012)

Contraire, moan-ah-me...the union man makes 'double-time' on Sundays and holidays, time and a half on Saturdays.


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## moderan (Dec 24, 2012)

Lewdog said:


> Well you are definitely a socialist then, a  capitalist makes his workers haul twice the hours on Holidays and lays  them off when they need the money to drive the economy.  Haven't you  heard?



Yes. I am a slave to the whim of the bourgeois. Set the table, politicize the proletariat, replace the decadent _bourgeoisie_.


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## Kyle R (Dec 26, 2012)

Jon M said:


> Well now, Kyle, you shouldn't be such a tease, especially with that really awesome new avatar. Do tell.



 I'm glad you like it!

To avoid spilling all the beans, I'll just give the nutshell premise:

_In an oceanworld where machines are disappearing from the skies, a young airship captain searches for her father. Her quest takes on new purpose, and peril, when she discovers a stowaway._


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## chipmonkrocks (Dec 27, 2012)

I'm writing a graphic novel about these 40 "seeds" that are found that grant the imbiber immortality.  They are distributed by their finder to different countries, and make it into the hands of the military complex.  The seeds become these godlike creatures that embody aspects of the cultural zeitgeist.  Set 25 years in the future, these godlike creatures are tended to by scientific "pit crews" while the majority of humanity is subjugated.  America's seed is this ultrapowerful soldier.  Eventually, vanity takes over as the world spirals downhill, and these superpowered vane humanoids embark on battles with each other.  A sort of futuristic ragnarok.


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## chipmonkrocks (Dec 27, 2012)

@ antithesis



> "I had posted about two ideas I'd been kicking around, although I've  since discarded one of them. The remaining idea is a generic fantasy  story with a female protagonist, which may have seemed like a fresh idea  in 1952, but I'm sure these days it's staler than my mom on a bread  water ski. The main point of interest was trying to mess with people's  expectations involving a prophecy that doesn't come true in quite the  way the average person would think or on the face of it. The problem is  that's kind of in the background and needs to be subtle if it is to  work. So the problem is the rest of it. You know, all the rest of that  pesky stuff happening until the (yawn) thrilling conclusion. I really  don't know what I'm doing, nor am I much of a fantasy fan, so this exact  story may have already been written twice and I am unaware of it  because I am writing for a largely unfamiliar genre. The average reader  is an enigma to me but fantasy fans are frickin' space aliens from the  planet. I don't know what they want. Even if I did, I don't think I'm  the guy to give it to them."




Why does this prophecy and woman need to be in a sci-fi setting?  Rather than doing all that world building, why not try a verite modern version.  maybe all the women of her family die at 33 and she fears that she is next, now that she just turned 32.  You would be exploring the same shite, and if it the prophecy doesn't come true then it's a comedy.


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## the antithesis (Dec 27, 2012)

chipmonkrocks said:


> Why does this prophecy and woman need to be in a sci-fi setting?



The same reason Star Wars wasn't a western, I suppose.


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## Lewdog (Dec 27, 2012)

the antithesis said:


> The same reason Star Wars wasn't a western, I suppose.



You do understand that Star Wars is nothing but a Sci-Fi metaphor for Jesus and the Bible right?


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## the antithesis (Dec 27, 2012)

I prefer to think of jesus and a metaphor for Luke Skywalker.


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## allyson17white (Dec 27, 2012)

Well I've been working on a "book" or I guess you could call it a book that is a fantasy about two kids, David, and Abbie who are what are called Green Eyes a mix between humans and The Zola people who posses the power to manipulate elements. I'm really trying to decide on a name (even though I'm not near done and will probably change it a lot) Right now I am titling it _Mixed_ but I'm thinnking about hanging it because of everything that's going on in the story and just that I'm not sure how well the name fits the story. Oh well ether way it's going good I'm on chapter 7 my second draft (but I didn't finish my first draft because I got board or it wasn't going where I wanted it to and started re-writing it) so I still don't know how it will end but I'm trying to figure it out.


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## Lewdog (Dec 27, 2012)

allyson17white said:


> Well I've been working on a "book" or I guess you could call it a book that is a fantasy about two kids, David, and Abbie who are what are called Green Eyes a mix between humans and The Zola people who posses the power to manipulate elements. I'm really trying to decide on a name (even though I'm not near done and will probably change it a lot) Right now I am titling it _Mixed_ but I'm thinnking about hanging it because of everything that's going on in the story and just that I'm not sure how well the name fits the story. Oh well ether way it's going good I'm on chapter 7 my second draft (but I didn't finish my first draft because I got board or it wasn't going where I wanted it to and started re-writing it) so I still don't know how it will end but I'm trying to figure it out.



Sounds kind of like the movie, "Big Trouble in Little China."  It's a Kurt Russel and Kim Cattrall movie from the 80's.  It's about Asian warriors with special powers and one man's pursuit of a green eyed woman of Asian decent to use to gain ultimate power.  It might be a movie you should watch.


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## moderan (Dec 28, 2012)

the antithesis said:


> The same reason Star Wars wasn't a western, I suppose.





Lewdog said:


> You do understand that Star Wars is nothing but a Sci-Fi metaphor for Jesus and the Bible right?



It's that. It's also a western with rayguns. Star Wars is based upon the subgenre Space Opera, which is based on westerns. Way back in the day, the pulp days that inspired some of Lucas' creation, they used to call those kind of stories "oaters". Guys would write both and spit mysteries out too. They called it "earning a living".
Luke Skywalker, as said somewhere else on this website, is a poor man's Paul Atreides. Muad'dib is a Jesus surrogate. But it isn't that simple. George Lucas certainly knew he was indulging in mythopoeia and played with the archetypes a bit.


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## allyson17white (Dec 28, 2012)

Lewdog said:


> Sounds kind of like the movie, "Big Trouble in Little China."  It's a Kurt Russel and Kim Cattrall movie from the 80's.  It's about Asian warriors with special powers and one man's pursuit of a green eyed woman of Asian decent to use to gain ultimate power.  It might be a movie you should watch.



I've never seen that. Actually I got the original idea from a dream I had but almost nothing stayed the same. That might be good although I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the 80's. I have given lots of thought into my story but I'm worried about one thing your comment makes me think about. My stories are based off of manly dialogue and not as much description as I would like. It just makes me think that it would be a better movie then book. Just a crazy thought but I'm just not sure it sound like a book of course the people I've shown seem to like they say the amount of talking makes it better to picture, I don't know maybe.


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## Kyle R (Dec 28, 2012)

Moderan said:
			
		

> George Lucas certainly knew he was indulging in mythopoeia and played with the archetypes a bit



Yup! I read something similar--that Lucas was actually friends with, and being mentored by Joseph Campbell, the man who introduced the modern world to the Monomyth, also known as "The Hero's Quest."


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## Lewdog (Dec 28, 2012)

Simply put, there are only so many basic plots that can be made.  If you break down almost any modern movie to its core, its going to favor a movie or even of the past.  The idea of Good/The Jedi and Evil/The Darkside it pretty simple to understand.  Yet when you start breaking down a lot of the other things, like the idea of mentors, and super natural powers, it gets even more complex and in-depth.  Some people enjoy breaking down movies and analyzing them for similarities like this.  Personally I either just enjoy a movie or I don't.


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## Etherus (Jan 1, 2013)

I am just polishing off a romantic drama centered around a damaged family who live at an ecluse on the French canal system in the Champagne district of France

Central character is a young girl who has gone through pubescence and has transitioned into womanhood becoming at first involved with an older artist visiting the district and then through a series of events, falling into a relationship with her disturbed father. The story culminates when the artist becomes involved with the mother and the girl on finding out reveals to her mother that she has been having an affair with both the artist and her own father at which point the mother confronts the father.


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## Circadian (Jan 1, 2013)

I'm currently working on the first draft of an otherwordly fantasy novel about multiple planes of reality and the possible turning-inside-out of the universe while editing a science fiction about five teenagers living at the edge of the universe with no memories of their home planet.  I'm in the early planning stages for a fantasy turned sci-fi about people who live in a world that isn't real.  All mysteries of the universe will be revealed.

Busy, busy, busy...

~Circe


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## FridgeOtter (Jan 1, 2013)

I'm working on a mystery taking place towards the beginning of the Greco-Persian wars. A junior officer goes missing during the Battle of Salamis. Everyone assumes he dies in battle, but when returning to the city, his men/friends see his house has burned down and family is dead. Basically this guy's friends are trying to find what out happened to him and his family, while also dealing with the pressures of the war. Though, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with this idea for now; I might have to put it off until summer when I can put more time into research.


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