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lls_mutantSo. It's December 1. Thanksgiving is over, November is over, NaNoWriMo is over, and I'm finally okay with Christmas music being played. It's sort of a let-down day here at Casa de My Place, what with the holiday being done and Dad not only going back to work, but going on a trip, leaving me with the kids, one of whom (Toby) is sick (just a cold, I hope).
So. First of all, according to The Chicago Tribune, BSG webisodes start on the 12th. I was pretty much expecting that, because that's 5 weeks before the preview, and I figured they'd post 2 a week at this point. I was disappointed anyway, because apparently to me "mid December" means "any time after 12:01 AM December 1" and I was hoping that would be one of the "clues" tomorrow, but oh well.
I have to admit, the reason I'm so excited is pretty obvious. Given that we know Gaeta is in this one and it's called "The Face of the Enemy", I've got a pretty good guess that it might deal with his alliance with Tom Zarek. And if you can't figure out why I'm excited about that, you might just need to re-read the headers of that frakking 80-page fic I wrote. If that was the case, it would make me SO happy.
However, at the same time, one of the reasons I wanted to avoid getting involved in fanfic is I know I tend to get invested in the plot. I got part of my wish- we do know that Gaeta is officially gay, and if they don't have it that he was ever interested in Baltar then I'll smack them upside the head, because to me, that's the big plot point of Gaeta's sexuality- that he loved this person and then was so completely let down and betrayed by him. But if Tom and Felix don't really like each other, I can't pretend I won't be a little sad. I keep thinking Tom looks firm but sad in that trailer when Felix grabs him and shouts that it's murder, like he doesn't want to force Felix but he totally will, but who are we kidding? I'm seeing what I want to see.
Oh well. I'm just hoping that I'm write that the revelation of Gaeta/Hoshi means that there's a lot of screen time for the two of them and they're two of the big focal points of the webisodes. (And that the webisodes don't end with Hoshi on Adama's side and Gaeta on Zarek's and them bitter and angry and not speaking.) Please let Gaeta be happy for more than five minutes, writers?
Oh, and just for the record (and this is not a spoiler- I've been thinking it for a long time), although I like my Cavil-is-the-fifth-and-he-created-the-other-Cylons theory, my REAL guess for the Final Cylon is Ellen Tigh. It was Gaeta until D'Anna said the fifth isn't with the fleet and Gaeta's eyes didn't flare red at the end of Guess What's Coming to Dinner, which is right where the Gaeta reveal should have gone, and now I've switched over to Ellen. I really don't believe the identity can be a shocker- I think the shocker will be something like she knew she was a Cylon from the second Adama brought her aboard the Galactica, and the reason she encouraged Saul in his drunkenness is that she hoped it would somehow override his programming or something and he'd remember, too.
Argh. First Monday of the month- nuclear powerplant is testing its alarm system. Great.
Anyway. BSG aside, NaNoWriMo. I'm really, really glad I did it this year. It wasn't so much about the word count for me (I wrote both He That Believeth Me and Youth's Final Luxury in less than one month each, and I'm pretty sure they're both over 40,000 words. HTBIM is, for sure. TFL is close.) For me, it was about getting invested in my original fiction, so I have a drive to work on it.
I was not disappointed in that regards.
I did find it interesting, however. Going in, I knew what I thought my plot was. However, I also knew that it was missing some chunks, and that the lack of those chunks was going to require subplots, and I was worried about them being filler. Well, what happened was I ended up creating a co-plot that takes place in a different location. And that was exactly what the story needed. Not in terms of length, but in terms of substance. See, to give you a tiny bit of background, there was a revolution in a city that was tantamount to 9/11 and is really much more politically driven than the surface suggests. The original plot focused on a group of people who were fleeing the city, and that's where I was feeling like it was a journey story, which I didn't really want. I mean, I like that aspect and it's necessary, but it's not the whole story. So when I started NaNoWriMo, I ended up writing about the people who want to take the city back as well.
It was neat, because all of a sudden these characters started coming to life for me- characters I didn't know existed 30 days ago. One rapidly rocketed to favoritism (Gesh Tharamis, a journalist/activist who used to be dedicated to helping the slaves until their revolt killed his wife), and there are a few others that are headed there quickly (including Gesh's potential love interest, Annah Mervine, a young woman who was pretty wronged by her family and betrayed her own people and actively helped the slaves revolt, and yeah, she's a little crazy.) The HP people on my list know this but the BSGians don't- I LOVE OCs. Sure, I'll run screaming from a lot of them in fanfic, but let's face it- OCs done right are fun. And let's also face it- characters like Alphard, Caradoc Dearborn, and the Longbottoms? They were as close to OCs as you can get.
I did find myself repeating what I'd written a lot, just from another person's POV. And I'm positive I told more than showed, although that's something I've been getting a bit better at these days. I'll be very interested to see how many of those 50,000 words remain after a good hard edit.
It was also interesting because I found myself falling back to a trick I used in Pern fandom, which is celebrity reference. I'm not at all saying I base characters on celebrities, but rather "if this was a movie, who would play this part?" And it was weird where a few of them leapt out at me from. For example, that Gesh character I mentioned? Goldberg, from Schindler's List. I have no idea why that occurred to me as I haven't watched Schindler's List in years, but that's exactly what he looks like in my head. If I ever publish, feel free to play "spot the actor" and see how many you can get :)
I'm also finding that I've been pretty influenced by both HP and BSG, which is no big shock. And let me tell you, when you squish those two influences together, it ends up very interesting. Magic and suicide bombers. (Seriously.)
The one thing it really forced me to work through though is a big weakness I've seen in myself that's derived from writing fanfic. Now, I personally think anyone who thinks fanfic isn't "real" writing needs to read some of the good stuff, but I do have to concede that there are some negatives to writing the stuff. Aside from not being able to get paid for it, there's the huge disadvantage that you get used to playing in someone else's sandbox. And that's made me very... shaky on some things. I used to think it was things like setting, but that's not totally true. Yeah, I didn't do much of in YFL, but if you read AIL I take you to all sorts of places we never see in canon- Sirius's flat, Dearborn's lab, Turkey and Russia, the MWPP houses.... I can do setting. I've also started skipping over character appearance, especially in BSG, but it's not because I can't do it. I think I painted a very vivid picture of Caradoc pretty quickly. But what I find suddenly I'm shaky on is the creation of a world and a plot and a conveyance of that vision.
In the end, what I have feels like a good beginning, but I have to admit by the time I hit the 50,000 word mark I was feeling like I'd just really gotten the story going. And I think there's a lot of truth in that, and when I go back and edit and rewrite I'll find a lot of stuff getting cut. Oh, there's some good stuff in there, but there's a lot of stuff where I'm just feeling my way around, too.
Now that we're done, I'm going to insist on 1000 words a day from myself, with the only writing taking precedence over it being MRFH. I'll still probably write some fanfic (Dee and Hoshi are chomping at the bit, although I'd really like to see if we're going to learn Hoshi's real name), but I have to do my 1000 words original first on any given day.
So, other news... we had a good Thanksgiving, although it was hectic. I made turkey with bacon, dijon and herb butter and cider gravy, which was amazing, and we had Toby's birthday cake for the family on T-day. We had Toby's birthday party yesterday, which was a major endeavor and went quite well. We had four little boys here with their families, and it went for two hours. The kids just played and we ate lunch and the cookie cake I made (and OMG- YUM!), but it was still exhausting. I think (hope) that Toby's got the bad day of a cold today, so napping is essential and I think we'll just watch a movie after naps. And figure out what we're doing for Trevor's birthday, which is in two weeks.
December 12, huh? SciFi, you're killing me.
So. First of all, according to The Chicago Tribune, BSG webisodes start on the 12th. I was pretty much expecting that, because that's 5 weeks before the preview, and I figured they'd post 2 a week at this point. I was disappointed anyway, because apparently to me "mid December" means "any time after 12:01 AM December 1" and I was hoping that would be one of the "clues" tomorrow, but oh well.
I have to admit, the reason I'm so excited is pretty obvious. Given that we know Gaeta is in this one and it's called "The Face of the Enemy", I've got a pretty good guess that it might deal with his alliance with Tom Zarek. And if you can't figure out why I'm excited about that, you might just need to re-read the headers of that frakking 80-page fic I wrote. If that was the case, it would make me SO happy.
However, at the same time, one of the reasons I wanted to avoid getting involved in fanfic is I know I tend to get invested in the plot. I got part of my wish- we do know that Gaeta is officially gay, and if they don't have it that he was ever interested in Baltar then I'll smack them upside the head, because to me, that's the big plot point of Gaeta's sexuality- that he loved this person and then was so completely let down and betrayed by him. But if Tom and Felix don't really like each other, I can't pretend I won't be a little sad. I keep thinking Tom looks firm but sad in that trailer when Felix grabs him and shouts that it's murder, like he doesn't want to force Felix but he totally will, but who are we kidding? I'm seeing what I want to see.
Oh well. I'm just hoping that I'm write that the revelation of Gaeta/Hoshi means that there's a lot of screen time for the two of them and they're two of the big focal points of the webisodes. (And that the webisodes don't end with Hoshi on Adama's side and Gaeta on Zarek's and them bitter and angry and not speaking.) Please let Gaeta be happy for more than five minutes, writers?
Oh, and just for the record (and this is not a spoiler- I've been thinking it for a long time), although I like my Cavil-is-the-fifth-and-he-created-the-other-Cylons theory, my REAL guess for the Final Cylon is Ellen Tigh. It was Gaeta until D'Anna said the fifth isn't with the fleet and Gaeta's eyes didn't flare red at the end of Guess What's Coming to Dinner, which is right where the Gaeta reveal should have gone, and now I've switched over to Ellen. I really don't believe the identity can be a shocker- I think the shocker will be something like she knew she was a Cylon from the second Adama brought her aboard the Galactica, and the reason she encouraged Saul in his drunkenness is that she hoped it would somehow override his programming or something and he'd remember, too.
Argh. First Monday of the month- nuclear powerplant is testing its alarm system. Great.
Anyway. BSG aside, NaNoWriMo. I'm really, really glad I did it this year. It wasn't so much about the word count for me (I wrote both He That Believeth Me and Youth's Final Luxury in less than one month each, and I'm pretty sure they're both over 40,000 words. HTBIM is, for sure. TFL is close.) For me, it was about getting invested in my original fiction, so I have a drive to work on it.
I was not disappointed in that regards.
I did find it interesting, however. Going in, I knew what I thought my plot was. However, I also knew that it was missing some chunks, and that the lack of those chunks was going to require subplots, and I was worried about them being filler. Well, what happened was I ended up creating a co-plot that takes place in a different location. And that was exactly what the story needed. Not in terms of length, but in terms of substance. See, to give you a tiny bit of background, there was a revolution in a city that was tantamount to 9/11 and is really much more politically driven than the surface suggests. The original plot focused on a group of people who were fleeing the city, and that's where I was feeling like it was a journey story, which I didn't really want. I mean, I like that aspect and it's necessary, but it's not the whole story. So when I started NaNoWriMo, I ended up writing about the people who want to take the city back as well.
It was neat, because all of a sudden these characters started coming to life for me- characters I didn't know existed 30 days ago. One rapidly rocketed to favoritism (Gesh Tharamis, a journalist/activist who used to be dedicated to helping the slaves until their revolt killed his wife), and there are a few others that are headed there quickly (including Gesh's potential love interest, Annah Mervine, a young woman who was pretty wronged by her family and betrayed her own people and actively helped the slaves revolt, and yeah, she's a little crazy.) The HP people on my list know this but the BSGians don't- I LOVE OCs. Sure, I'll run screaming from a lot of them in fanfic, but let's face it- OCs done right are fun. And let's also face it- characters like Alphard, Caradoc Dearborn, and the Longbottoms? They were as close to OCs as you can get.
I did find myself repeating what I'd written a lot, just from another person's POV. And I'm positive I told more than showed, although that's something I've been getting a bit better at these days. I'll be very interested to see how many of those 50,000 words remain after a good hard edit.
It was also interesting because I found myself falling back to a trick I used in Pern fandom, which is celebrity reference. I'm not at all saying I base characters on celebrities, but rather "if this was a movie, who would play this part?" And it was weird where a few of them leapt out at me from. For example, that Gesh character I mentioned? Goldberg, from Schindler's List. I have no idea why that occurred to me as I haven't watched Schindler's List in years, but that's exactly what he looks like in my head. If I ever publish, feel free to play "spot the actor" and see how many you can get :)
I'm also finding that I've been pretty influenced by both HP and BSG, which is no big shock. And let me tell you, when you squish those two influences together, it ends up very interesting. Magic and suicide bombers. (Seriously.)
The one thing it really forced me to work through though is a big weakness I've seen in myself that's derived from writing fanfic. Now, I personally think anyone who thinks fanfic isn't "real" writing needs to read some of the good stuff, but I do have to concede that there are some negatives to writing the stuff. Aside from not being able to get paid for it, there's the huge disadvantage that you get used to playing in someone else's sandbox. And that's made me very... shaky on some things. I used to think it was things like setting, but that's not totally true. Yeah, I didn't do much of in YFL, but if you read AIL I take you to all sorts of places we never see in canon- Sirius's flat, Dearborn's lab, Turkey and Russia, the MWPP houses.... I can do setting. I've also started skipping over character appearance, especially in BSG, but it's not because I can't do it. I think I painted a very vivid picture of Caradoc pretty quickly. But what I find suddenly I'm shaky on is the creation of a world and a plot and a conveyance of that vision.
In the end, what I have feels like a good beginning, but I have to admit by the time I hit the 50,000 word mark I was feeling like I'd just really gotten the story going. And I think there's a lot of truth in that, and when I go back and edit and rewrite I'll find a lot of stuff getting cut. Oh, there's some good stuff in there, but there's a lot of stuff where I'm just feeling my way around, too.
Now that we're done, I'm going to insist on 1000 words a day from myself, with the only writing taking precedence over it being MRFH. I'll still probably write some fanfic (Dee and Hoshi are chomping at the bit, although I'd really like to see if we're going to learn Hoshi's real name), but I have to do my 1000 words original first on any given day.
So, other news... we had a good Thanksgiving, although it was hectic. I made turkey with bacon, dijon and herb butter and cider gravy, which was amazing, and we had Toby's birthday cake for the family on T-day. We had Toby's birthday party yesterday, which was a major endeavor and went quite well. We had four little boys here with their families, and it went for two hours. The kids just played and we ate lunch and the cookie cake I made (and OMG- YUM!), but it was still exhausting. I think (hope) that Toby's got the bad day of a cold today, so napping is essential and I think we'll just watch a movie after naps. And figure out what we're doing for Trevor's birthday, which is in two weeks.
December 12, huh? SciFi, you're killing me.
