Archives for November 2010

Just about a year ago, I made a big mistake. It was a simple mistake, anybody could have done it. But in the midst of all my research, I forgot to check one thing that invalidated everything else . . . Sorry, too vague. Here’s what happened.

A year ago, I started work on a Steampunk retelling of George Orwell’s amazing work “1984”. Same basic story, but told as an adventure, with daring escapes, dirigible explosions, submarine battles, giant cities built on moving railroad cars. The ideals behind Steampunk lend themselves well to the concept that each man is a cog in a huge machine.

Whister pulled out Cliffy’s chair, and said, “This way, if you would, sir.”

As Cliffy jogged up to walk beside him, he asked, “Howzit all those lads know the wherefores? Did they get special schoolin’ on the way out?”

The metal man gestured at the boys around them, “Many of the young masters have been here for some time. The school runs all day and all night, throughout the year. New students join every day.”

Cliffy thought it sounded strange, but he’d never been to been to school before, so he just wrote it off as normal. Then a thought struck him, “How’s a body graduate, if none start at the same time?”

While we’re not quite halfway through the month, we are at the end of the second week of NaNoWriMo. By this time, we’ve identified three groups.

1. People who have way too much time on their hands. Devoted individuals who are already over 30k, and asking on Twitter what they should do with the rest of the month. Let’s not dwell on these bastards.
2. People who have put in the extra effort every day, but carefully meted it out so that they didn’t burn out. Now they are watching the little black line on the NaNo Stats page, making sure that they can keep up with the pace.