Thursday 9 October 2003

Pic of the day: You may barely be able to pick out the slender microphone in front of me here. Let's hope I won't need to use it daily.

Nano(wrimo)tech

It is that time of the year again. November is fast approaching, and with it National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Actually it is very much international now, but I guess the name has kinda stuck. "Innowrimo" sounds a bit too innocent, perhaps. Not that you can't be an innocent writer, although I think that is a rare combination. Writing tends to go along with introspection, and it is hard to remain innocent in your own eyes after that. Or perhaps that's just me. ^_^*

As my (two?) long-time readers will know, I entered the NaNoWriMo creative stampede last year, but failed halfway through. There were two reasons for this. One was in my arm/hand, which did not stand up to the sustained extra writing (I do after all write my journal too). Speech recognition software at its current level (edit every sentence at least twice, more likely five times) disrupts the creativity too much. So I could use some good ideas for NaNo-tech here!

The other problem, which did nothing to help, was that I became disenchanted with my story. I liked it for a while, and reading it again I think it was pretty good and might even have jelled in the end. (I had some ideas.) But one of the story lines in particular was simply too indecent. Well, not by contemporary standards, but I don't hold myself to them really. I don't want people to read my stories and get seriously tempted to sin. Admittedly you would probably have to be a lonely teen boy to react like that, but there are always some of them too ...

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I have several ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo, if I am in any shape to join by then. A couple of them are simply restarts of other series that I feel have potential: "Lost in Magic", and "MoM2000". Also a couple paladin stories, which would be pretty decent. And now another story has landed in my head, but it is too vague. I cannot say where it is leading unless I start to write it down. But there is definitely some romance in it, and possibly some mysterious powers as usual. Other ideas could show up as the event approaches, especially if I feel more energetic.

My writing is entirely character driven. Plot? What's that? Actually, plot is pretty simple when you know your characters; it is all about them, after all. You need to challenge your characters. A novel is like a role playing game with a live game master, except you never see the GM. First, the characters are created and there is a convenient excuse for them to assemble. Then you give them some minor tasks to see how they react. The minor tasks then turn out to not be so minor, but the beginning of the Main Quest. As things progress, the scope of the Main Quest grows even bigger. You realize that it is your fate to save the world or marry the good-looking stranger, except the world does not want to be saved and the stranger does not want to be married. Now comes the obstacle course. Each time you seem to have succeeded, a new challenge is thrown at the hapless character. Finally, there is the Character Test. You have to overcome everything in yourself for what you really want. The hero must die to save the world; the lover must say goodbye because the beloved's happiness is more important than your own. Anguish, loss and somber reflection follows. Then, deus ex machina (except it was actually foreshadowed from the start): The hero returns victorious from what seemed like utter defeat. The loved one realizes that they cannot live without you. Happiness ensues, story ends, and people are motivated to buy the next book. How hard can it be?

Well, plenty hard. I think my problem is that I go to easy on my characters. They want to goof off and have fun instead of doing the obstacle course. Since I have the same attitude in my own life, I tend to give in and let them have their fun all too often.

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Speaking of obstacle course and character test, there's the actual writing. How am I possibly going to write 50 000 words in 30 days (over and above my journal, e-mail and message boards)? My arm is permanently damaged; even if I treat it nicely, it will still begin hurting again when I begin writing again. Even if my other health conditions should magically resolve (and why not?), I still have the problem of actually writing that much.

I plan to do some of my writing on Cassie, perhaps some with Dasher, and then combine it with the rest of my writing on my home PC. I hope I won't have to resort to speech recognition again. I am currently using a program called "Dragon naturally speaking 5", which I believe is approximately five years old. The current version of the program is 7.0, and is supposed to be 15 percent more accurate than the previous version. It's a good bet that the previous version was 6 rather than 5, but I have no estimate of how much more accurate that version was compared to version 5. I have ordered the home user version of 7.0 from Amazon UK and expect it to arrive within the month. I cannot imagine using it for creative writing, but perhaps I can use it for the journal and then spend my wrist on the novel...

The problem with Dasher is much the same as with speech recognition: The process of text input gets in the way of the text itself. Dasher is a videogame-like method of text input, in which you collect letters that run across the screen. Unlike video games, however, the letters are pathetically eager to be caught, and preferably in the right order. That is, after "th" most of the screen is filled with "e", "a" and "i", while the "s" is scarce indeed. This makes it really hard to make stupid spelling mistakes like ths. Dasher can be trained to your vocabulary, or it will pick up your style as you go. It is quite fun, but I find it hard to concentrate on what I try to say while keeping up a reasonable speed. My brain switches into game mode. ^_^*

Speaking to which, one difference from last year is that I have become used to playing Master of Magic with my left hand. This means that time spent playing this game is also time spent resting my right hand; always a good thing. Perhaps I should go do that now...

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Animoticon of the day: ^_^* Smiley face + sweatdrop! In Japanese culture, the sweatdrop is a symbol of repressed emotions. Japanese are good at keeping their face, but the emotion leaks out in the form of sweat drops. This can be portrayed "realistically", like in the anime "Hikaru no Go" where the players sit by their Go boards. A player that has problems is portrayed with a sweatdrop residing on the side of his face, clearly visible to the viewer but somehow not noticed by anyone else. In more comical anime or manga, huge sweatdrops will jump from the person's head when they realize they have said something stupid and still try to keep their face. Also ::sweatdrop::.