Saturday, December 21, 2013

Brink book two information


I haven't touched my first National Novel Writing Month story in years--not since I didn't get very far beyond the original 50k words for the challenge.  I wrote it back in November, 2011, completely from scratch.  New characters, new world, new everything.  I'd hoped it would be a way back into the writing I'd done during college and before, but, like I said, it didn't get very far.  It proved to me I could still write, however.
I started printing it off for a family member to read since he was incarcerated back in 2012, and recently received a letter from him (and a friend of his he'd been sharing it with) saying how much he liked reading my stories.  I hadn't sent him story pieces in a while because of my move and my printer refuses to be on speaking terms with my new computer.  I went home this week to do laundry in anticipation of bad weather, and borrowed my parents' printer to get the boys some more.
That led to me re-reading Brink as a whole.  I still feel it is definitely not my finest work (really, really not my best writing), but there's decent storyline there.  I got to looking around, and noticed I'd only posted the NaNoWriMo parts here, not the bit I'd written beyond (I actually have some of the ending written...somewhere...too).  I knew I'd posted the first part of book two somewhere, and found it on my LiveJournal.  Given I locked all of my LiveJournal posts due to someone telling me they were going to take my ideas for their classwork for examples, with or without my permission, no one is able to see them but me.
Given the guys' interest--interest and excitement over my work from readers is a huge part of inspiring me to continue to write, even on pieces I haven't touched in years or don't particularly like--I've been debating picking it up again.  So I've decided to post what little I still had from the original attempt.  To understand it, a reader will have to go back through the archives to the earlier posts (each is labeled) and read Book One, but it's a good way for me to keep tabs on my progress.  This way, too, if I get a system crash that takes out computer, thumb drive (it's on at least two), and external hard drive, I still have a copy.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

100 Words Challenge reminiscent review


Today I was feeling a touch nostalgic, and found an older file folder on my external of a challenge project I was doing with a friend and three of her friends back shortly after I graduated from college.  We started it November 2007 (I graduated in 2006).  My last addition was in June, 2011.  I was up to 82.  I have part of 83, Smoke, written somewhere, but never finished, as enthusiasm for the project had pretty much died off by then.  The challenge was: we came up with a list of 100 words, then had to write short story clips that embodied each of those particular words--100 total.  What we wound up with was a list of 102, as other words suggested themselves as we went along.  I did 82, and the next-nearest was my friend at just over 50.  On a whim tonight I decided to amble through my contributions; I had some good stuff in there, turns out.  It's been fun to go back.
Some of my stories were inspired by music, or games, or even events earlier in my life.  Some I used from other writing I'd done, because they just fit too well.
The project was great exercise, and I may eventually finish the list--only spirit, agony, war, strike, blindness, evil, psychotic, ancient, frustration, pity, soft, window, heaven, oppression, smoke, light, loss, differences, ripples, and natural to go.
I'm thinking of posting some of those old pieces here. Haven't decided which ones.  I will probably leave out the fan fiction ones...I love Transformers, and was writing a Generation One-loyal and -accurate story based on that old original '80s cartoon series.  I did a lot of fun little blurbs from it as words, but to enjoy them, you really had to be a Transformers geek like me.  Others ranged from my entire gamut of stories--science fiction and fantasy works I've been working on my entire life, and some that were spur-of-the-moment created just from the impressions a particular word left me.
I guess we'll see what comes of it.