Wednesday 5 September 2007

Pic of the day: One trackball. Two keyboards. Three dice.

Dicey writing

The Wheel does turn, does it not? Even last month, I was reflecting on how I no longer feel like writing fiction. (Unless you count my fictive diaries, which are really more like scenarios than novels or short stories. They are only fiction in the sense that they are not true and not meant to deceive either.) I was tentatively concluding that this must be a sign of my spiritual progress, that I had found a better way for my spirit than to hang out with imaginary muses in my head. Of course it could just be that I am growing old, but that is not quite what my Brain Training tells me. According to it, I am still in my early 20es…

Anyway, an old idea has come back to roost. Back in 2001, I wrote about daydreaming with dice. This is basically the same thing, except I am not daydreaming about myself but some other guy, a high school senior whose psychic powers are just awakening. At the beginning of a chapter, I roll one ordinary 6- sided die. The values 2 to 6 are assigned each to one particular psionic power, and I then try to work that power into the chapter as a main focus. Not necessarily THE main focus. For instance in the first chapter about healing, the main focus is on his female teacher who shows up drunk at his apartment. (He lives alone, but this is purely for plot reasons and has nothing to do with me moving out from home early. Teens without parents are very common in manga and anime, and not unheard of in real life either. This story is so not about me.)

In addition to influencing the content of the chapter, I use the dice to deal with the fantastic elements in the story. (Unless you count drunken teachers as fantastic elements, but I was thinking of the psychic powers.) When the boy attempts some psychic feat, consciously or subconsciously, I roll three 6-sided dice and compare the result to his skills. (I keep track of his skills offstage, so to speak, and the powers which gradually grow with use. They start out very modest: For instance when he first discovers his clairvoyance, he can see through playing cards but not through a wall.) Basically I use the rules of GURPS Psionics, as in Generic Universal Role Playing System. I was pretty into that in 2001. The Wheel does turn, eh? A fairly small wheel too, if it makes a turn between 2001 and now…

Obviously this story can't be used for NaNoWriMo, since I have already started. The rules clearly state that you cannot use NaNoWriMo to continue an existing novel, even if you write 50 000 words on it. You can rewrite it from start, which is sometimes a good idea, but I don't intend to do that. Perhaps I'm fed up with fiction again by November. I would not really mind. Being 3 weeks behind on my journal is quite enough writing opportunity for me, don't you think? But it seems like I have not entirely outgrown my tendency to write fiction yet. Perhaps later.