RogueBelle

Goal: 14666

Achieved: 12527

So, chipping away at my deficit. Over 1500 words today, despite my busy schedule and despite not really starting till after 10pm. Could be worse.

Goal: 13334

Achieved: 11009

Still behind, but gaining ground on what I lost over my long weekend. We’ll see what I can manage, since my next nine days are going to be truly ridiculous with work and rehearsals - but I should still have most of my evenings. Or late-evenings

Found an interesting character thing to play with today, so, that’s nice.

Goal: 10666

Achieved: 9456

So, I have fallen behind, but that was to be expected this weekend. I’m less than a full day behind, at least. I should be able to make that up — even with all the work and rehearsals I’ve got going on once I get back to Staunton.

Here, have a snippet from tonight that I really rather enjoyed writing: 

“I do find it curious, Monsieur le Marquis,” Marguerite said, a teasing light in her eyes, “that you take up so strongly with we of overtly republican sentiment. Is it not a conflict of interests for you?”

Adrien thought for a long moment. It did not escape his attention that Marguerite had potentially vested interest in his answer, however lightly she posed the question. The presence of a Marquis at her salons could be a boon in some ways, a detriment in others. If he were a mere dilettante — or worse, a saboteur — there would be many of her circles who would not wish to attend, or, if they came anyway, they would keep their conversation consciously away from political matters. Marguerite, a woman of intelligence and acumen, would never suffer her assemblies to be watered-down, and he would never wish to cause her to suffer the insult of snubbed invitations. Therefore he was grateful that this was a matter on which he could speak honestly. “The old ways are dying, ma’amselle,” he said. He gestured at the surrounding buildings with the back of his hand. “Paris is changing, and so is all of France, a great deal faster than many would like. Too many aristos, like my father and his friends, are determined to dig in their pretty silk heels and cling desperately to the world that they know. I do not wish to be left behind. I value the future I might have by embracing the changes that are sure to come much more than I value a birthright which is rapidly losing its efficacy in the modern world.”

Marguerite was silent a moment, absorbing this. It said much about Adrien de Chauvelin, she thought, that he neither loved nor despised his inherited title, but appeared to consider it an obsolete tool. “It is funny, is it not,” she said at last, “how quickly things become ‘what we have always known.’” When Adrien tilted his head at her, she shrugged, her shoulders moving prettily beneath the sheer fichu. “France has not always been as it is now. It has not always had this shape. Aquitaine was once owned by England. The Normans and Burgundians once called themselves princes. We have had French popes, and the blood of Huguenots has run through these very streets. We have had our own Pope, and a papal seat at Avignon. When Louis Quatorze reigned, we called him the Sun King, thanked him for weakening the power of the aristocracy, and defended his prerogatives as divine rights, handed down by God Himself. Now his great-grandson sits the same throne, lives in the same rooms at Versailles, and we resent his power and wonder how any just and righteous god could allow such disparity of fortune.”

“Your point, ma’amselle?” The question was not piqued or impatient; rather, Adrien de Chauvelin was curious to see the route that Marguerite’s mind traced through the brambly forest of history.

“My point is — those men, those aristos such as your father, who want things to be as they always have been — the only shape of the world they know is what their fathers and grandfathers have told them. None of us knows much more of the world than that, and most much less.” She was no longer looking at him, but out towards the fading sun. It cast a golden glow on her cheeks, brightening the green of her eyes to radiant emerald. “Therefore, from a dispassionate and logical standpoint, there is little to cling to. The world is mutable, even in France. Change is the natural state of things, and therefore, it is irrational to value the status quo so greatly.”

“And are you so dispassionate and logical, Mlle St Just, as to view things in that manner? After all,” Adrien said, in the slightly arch tone he used purely for intellectual debate, “following that line of reasoning along, it hardly matters what anyone does, since everything is transitory, and the nature of the world so mercurial.”

She blinked, then laughed, shaking her head. “No, I am afraid I cannot go so far. While I do believe it wrong to adhere to tradition merely for its own sake, I also think it matters a great deal what sort of changes we make to the shape of our world. I simply wonder what our grandchildren will make of it, and of this time we live in now. I wonder what stories they will tell — and what matters they will dig their intractable heels in on, and claim they do so because that is how it has always been done.”

Goal: 5333

Achieved: 6000 (on the nose)

Which means I’m averaging 1500 a day! I know I’ll fall behind this weekend, since I’ll be in Dallas with my gentleman, but I’m happy that I’m doing well so far. It’s all still extremely scattered, but that just means there are a lot of snippets to work with.

Goal: 2666

Achieved: 3339

And I probably could keep going but a) save something for tomorrow, and b) I want to go read my book now.

Today’s work would’ve gone faster if I hadn’t had to keep pausing to look up things like Anglo-Ottoman relations in the 18th century or William Pitt’s birthday. (This is what I get for writing in an era I am not more totally conversant in. Seriously, why do I ever try to write outside of late-Republic/early-Imperial Rome or the 16th century? My knowledge there is nigh-encyclopedic. And I can make a fair stab at most of medieval Europe and at least glance at the Restoration, but seriously, everything after 1700 gets really, really blurry around the edges).

Goal: 1334

Achieved: 1507

This despite working 9-5, spending until 6:30 editing a friend’s thesis, and hanging out with the Greys and getting my hair dyed from 7:15-11.

Hours and hours to write during a weekend with nothing to do: write ten words.

One hour left in the day to achieve goal or else my little graph won’t be aesthetically pleasing: bang out over 600 words in about 20 minutes

This is why Nano is good for me.

akljsdflkjadkljsdfkljadsf Camp Nano starts tomorrow and I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

• The League - Scarlet Pimpernel retelling with more focus on secondary cast members and greater equity in gender representation
• The Antares Project - steampunk adventure I’ve been working on, sort of, for, like, five years now (which I did not realise until I recently found a drawing Meg did for me of two of the characters dated 2008; yeesh). Would basically scrap everything but the world-building and start over, since clearly the plot I’ve been going with would never work, but I love the characters.
• Untitled Red Riding Hood script or YA novel. (Untitled because I can’t think of anything clever that doesn’t make them sound like either communists or prostitutes). Elite cadre of spy-assassins in Fairy Tale World, at war with werewolves. Involves some very nonheteronormative relationships. (aka, my secret plan to write the first lesbian and bisexual Disney princesses). The trouble here is that I have literally no plot whatsoever, just a vague desire.
• Quicksilver/Goldheart novel or graphic novel. Literally my oldest story in yet another new form. Star Wars universe, the adventures of an Alliance special ops team wreaking havoc across the galaxy.
• Fairly standard Regency romance.
• Less standard Restoration romance. Or late Victorian. Or Georgian. Or something.

Any thoughts? With the caveat that, y’know, they may or may not make any difference to my ability to write. :/

I’m only aiming for 40k (since Camp Nano this year is letting you set your own goals) as a concession to the fact that I’ll be in Dallas for a few days and very, very busy with work and CBH rehearsals the rest of the month. But still. I’ve been very lax about writing the past few months, and I need the kick in the pants.

Boom.

Snuck across the goal line tonight. 50015. (Though on Nano it says 50525 because I overhighlighted, but oh well whatever).

The project as a whole, incidentally — meaning both books plus all the excess material that takes place after the end of book 2 but which I have not yet even begun to organise into its own divisions — is over 250,000 now. That’s since November 1st, 2011. In 13 months, I have written 250,000 words on this same project.

And I’m pretty damn pleased with that.

Goal: 45000 / 50000

Achieved: 49143 / 50000

Within striking distance! Honestly if I was willing to keep pushing till midnight or a little past, I could probably get there, but — I need sleep. And if we don’t have a terribly late night tomorrow, I should be able to cross the 50k mark!

Incidentally, this was the day I finished last year, so despite having felt like I was going so much slower, I wasn’t really that far off the mark.

Goal: 43333 / 50000

Achieved: 47228 / 50000

Closing in! If I don’t get there tomorrow (which would be unlikely though not truly impossible), it’ll probably be Thursday, so, not terribly early, but still, well within reason. It would be Wednesday except that I have the murder mystery that night, so I can’t imagine I’ll have much time or energy to get many words.

I’m definitely running out of steam, though. I need to return to my outlines and unsnarl some things before I can really continue. Getting to 50k is mostly going to be an effort in expanding what scenes I already have, not adding anything new at this point, because my plot’s coming a little unraveled and I need to do more work than Nano allows the time for before I can make significant progress.