Blog Migration

Well, after much pondering, I’ve finally decided to have this blog migrate to a more “private” place for good.

I like the WordPress system, whether hosted on my own server or through WP.com, but there are things that I need to keep private, when it comes to my writing. I’m not that much frightened of plagiarism (who am I kidding? My writing sure isn’t the best in the world!). I’m way more frightened of accidentally shooting myself in the foot in terms of first print rights. Therefore, privacy is the way, and since posting passworded entries will likely end up a hassle (not mentioning that I’ll sooner or later forget to send said passwords), I’ve finally moved the old entries to my writing LJ, where I can hand out access to those who, er, ask me.

Let’s not be mistaken. I do want to share my writings and progression, but I don’t want them to land in Google archiving service or any other place that could one day be waved in my face as being a case of first publishing. I’m not sure yet of what exactly I’ll try to have published, so maybe it’s best if I don’t plaster everything right where everyone and their dog can see it. What I’ve posted here so far isn’t the problem; what will be a problem is what I’ll be posting in the future, since at times I want to share more than just a word count… but not share it with the whole world, without any control on it.

I’m sorry for my readers who don’t have a LJ account, and perhaps don’t want to create one. If WP.com had had such a system (being able to allow chosen accounts only to access my private posts), I’d have likely stayed here. Alas, it doesn’t seem such an option is available here. Besides, I don’t have much time during the school year for blogging in general, and it seems a little stupid to keep two blogs where I basically post the exact same thing anyway…

I’m also aware that LJ isn’t the most professional-looking platform. On the other hand, maybe I can worry about really looking professional when I’m actually, you know, a published author!

This said, for the moment, I am not deleting this blog nor its existing entries. Consider them as archives only.

Tags: Livejournal | writing

End-of-the year update: Over Yonder & Wall of Silence

It was high time I posted here again, now that my exams are over for the semester, so here it goes.

In the upcoming weeks, I’m going to work alternatively on Over Yonder and The Wall of Silence, since I’d really like to further the advancement of both stories. I’ve just proceeded to get rid of half a chapter of the latter, deciding that what I had written in it so far not only bore me, but also kind of left me puzzled regarding how to put an end to the scene. I really don’t like information-dumping chapters, and I’m afraid this one was definitely veering in that awful direction. So there it goes for the lengthy talk supposed to happen during two days, the reader really don’t need to be reminded every three lines how the difference in their languages is a problem and yadda-yadda. In the next chapter, the party will enter Calan, and I’ll be rid of the travelling part (did I ever mention not being too keen on characters travelling for several chapters?).

Why do I want them to be in Calan so much? Because in Calan, there be dragons… er, some more plot. In Calan, Kheril will haveto fulfill his diplomatic mission. In Calan, Kittin and Ren will experience their first real contact with Llenan people from all social classes, and be confronted to a hostility much more different, but no less dangerous, than the one displayed by the villagers of the previous chapters. In Calan dwell Ari the half-blood thief and her friend Domio the swordsman, and a trio of Kellenim who have a hand in many political matters. In Calan, inquisitors and guards devoted to the Church abound, and it’s not easy to escape them once one has been spotted for the ‘wrong’ reasons.

Come to think of it, I realize that I, and only I, am the one who put that whole ‘travel’ part in it, and sometimes, I wonder if this was a mistake. I very much doubt though that I could have pulled that whole crash thing with the ornithopter ending up closer to the city; I need my characters to be able to wander somewhat freely at first, because soon enough anyway, they will realize how easy it is to become an outlaw in a place as extreme as Calan, Tir Maragh or Runne. Besides, if I have them thrown in jail from the start, they’ll have to do everything by themselves to get out, without any external help (since they don’t know anyone there), and… well, no. Calan is a city in a medieval-like setting, but it’s also a city in which everyone too different gets labelled as “demon” or “sorcerer”, and consciously beaten to a pulp until they can’t move nor be a threat anymore. After all, why worry about prisoners escaping when one knows they’ve already had their ankles and fingers broken.

Therefore, I’m keeping my first version for the moment, and I’m going to spend the next days after Christmas putting the story back on trail in order for the core of the plot to finally be unveiled. There. I’m seriously tired of Act 2, I want to start working on Act 3, for Eien’s sake!

Tags: novel | over yonder | wall of silence | writing

Phew…

I’m afraid I’m really through with NaNo this year. I’ve been too busy, and then too tired, to even write a word in the past two days. I guess this says it all.

Regardless, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t rewrite everything from scratch later on. I can’t decide. I envisioned the story told at the first person, because it seemed logical at the time, but the more I was writing it, the more it started to feel somewhat wrong. I’m not sure if this is a right impression though, or if it’s unconscious laziness on my part (I seldom write first person POV, so of course this was going to be harder!). Maybe I could achieve the same effects with a limited thrid person POV, and by still keeping one viewpoint character, that is. Maybe.

Heck, I’m too tired to properly think of these things now anyway. I’ll see once the exams are over.

Tags: NaNoWriMo | novel | over yonder | writing

Day 16 - No shit, Sherlock, I’m still here!

Okay. I gave in. I reverted back to my good old chaotic method of writing. In the end, it seems it’s what works best for me. And I’m ready to resort to such methods now.

You see, for NaNo 2006, I didn’t consider myself as especially well-prepared. I had a bit of an outline for a few chapters, a global idea of my story, and a somewhat good enough idea of its atmosphere. In fact, the two things I was pretty much sure of were the beginning and the ending–it’s good, in itself, because at least I knew where I was heading to! However, being aware that what was to lie in-between was a big chunk of nothingness and vague concepts, I had decided to follow a linear way of writing. Chapter after chapter, in the normal order of reading. In the hopes (and conviction) that this would allow me to develop my story, world and characters in a better way than what I had done in October.

Boy, was I wrong.

It doesn’t work for me. It just doesn’t. Whether I have an outline or not, whether I have plenty of notes/snippet/post-its or not, the truth is, I thrive in chaos, and chaos usually thanks me of this by rewarding me with a chapter or two. This means I’m not that talented at writing exactly in the right order.

So I bit the bullet, and started a chapter that takes place further in the story. A chapter in which Althea and Edric (I really wasn’t fond of the ‘Idan’ name anymore for him, sorry) consider sneaking into the Library’s reserve to find out more information about another mage who may hold a couple of revelations about… certain things. And Althea wants to know more about him, so that she can tell her mother afterwards.

I’m not sure if I’ll post a word count tonight (although it’s certain now that it WON’T be a big fat 0 like in the past few days!). If I fail to do so, I’ll update more precisely tomorrow morning or afternoon.

Tags: NaNoWriMo | novel | over yonder | writing | word count

First day!

I’m not going to post any excerpt or update the word count, since the day isn’t over yet (and due to school work, I haven’t done *that* much in itself anyway). However, here’s already the radio.blog, the one on which I’ve uploaded my little NaNo playlist.

This is only but a glimpse of the songs I’ve gathered so far, of course; adding more than that would put too much of a strain on the server, and there’s no way I want to do that. Still, I hope you’ll enjoy it.