the deep moans round with many voices

I am not technically doing NaNo this year, but I am attempting to use the challenge framework as a source of outside motivation to work on the story I am writing for the upcoming Narnia Big Bang... which is, of course, the sequel to "Out of Season" that I rather spectacularly failed to write last year. This year, though, I have already written the prequel ("To Every Thing There Is a Season") and thus have a better understanding of Ilgamuth, his home and family, his relationship to Rabadash, and how Rabadash's companions work.

It is a lot easier to break something if you know the shape you are shattering. :-)

Anyway, "A Change of Season" is currently at 550 words. That's not very much, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, etcetera, etcetera.

And now to bed.

Confirming my general lack of sense (not that it needed confirming), I have signed up to write a story for the Narnia Big Bang. I am going to attempt a sequel to "Out of Season" rather than the LWW genderswap.

I wanted to write some variation on this story pretty much from the moment I finished "Out of Season," but I was leaning toward writing the genderswap just because that story, at least, I knew how to approach. This one was being recalcitrant. I had the damndest time trying to come up with a plot and theme for Shezan, mostly because she already resolved most of her issues in "Out of Season." That meant her perspective on the sequel events was just one thing after another with no real point or arc -- far too much like real life. *wry*

But! If I make Ilgamuth the POV character, things magically fall into place. His whole life turns upside-down after HHB, because while I will give him a get-out-of-death-free card courtesy of Lucy and her cordial, I won't give him a completely free ride. I have decided his opponent severed fingers from his hand, forcing him to drop his sword and leaving him open to take his "mortal" wound. As PC and Reepicheep prove, Lucy cannot regrow lost body parts. Therefore, Ilgamuth can't be a soldier anymore and is going to be forcibly shoved into politics in a way he never was before, particularly since a number of Rabadash's other close friends and supporters really did die at Anvard.

Anyway, I will be tackling that story as my NaNo project this year, since it will have to run longer than the 20,000 word Big Bang minimum just to fit in all the plot threads. I mean, I have Ilgamuth adjusting (often badly) to his new disability and position as Rabadash's de facto chief advisor and court representative, I have Ilgamuth and Shezan's ongoing romance, I have lots and lots and LOTS of court politics (...hey, you know, I can get some of Rabadash's siblings into this story! I couldn't shoehorn them into "Out of Season," but it would be beyond weird for at least Prince Ilragesh not to show up here), I have some kind of empire-wide politics to showcase how Rabadash cannot just ride out and quash people militarily anymore, and I have international politics with Narnia and Archenland to the north, various countries I've invented to the south and west, and maybe, if I run the timeframe long enough, the initial fallout of the Pevensies vanishing into thin air roughly a year after the Battle of Anvard. There is no way that can compress to anything under, say, 25,000 words, and I am pretty sure it will run longer. (I am trying to be honest with myself this time, you see.)

...

Of course, if that doesn't work out, there is always the chance of grabbing something else from the prompts post and writing 10,000 words for a Mini Bang. But hopefully I won't need to fall back on that.

( Ashes, part 12 )

1) Or maybe that should be the end of chapter one. I dunno -- I kind of like the abrupt "keep reading!" of the previous section's end, but this is a more natural transition point. Oh well, it's not like I have to decide right now at gunpoint.

2) Finally I got Zalir and Riam on-page for a private(-ish) conversation that wasn't all about Immediately Important Plot Developments (TM). Zalir is, to my annoyance, still the least developed of my three main characters, but she will be appearing more during the trip to the taint-house and during subsequent events. Also, in December I must remember to go back and flesh her out more in the opening scene.

3) So, the council. They exist because Tir ought to have a council, and they ought to be present to hear Morgalen's story, but they are totally unimportant to the plot, which is why they remain largely unnamed and also largely silent. Does that work, or should I either get rid of them or try to make that meeting a bit longer with some more dialogue?

4) 1,800 words today, 16,550 total.

---------------

And now, like my characters, I am off to bed.

( Ashes, part 10 )

1) Right, so, next chapter I will -- using Morgalen as a mouthpiece -- explain the plot. But not tonight. Tonight I am going to review my life history via the lens of my identity as a Unitarian Universalist, in preparation for talking to the middle school group at church tomorrow morning. That will be more than enough thinking for me.

2) Geography, geology, and climatology are not my strongest points. If I'm being obviously stupid here, please tell me and I will do my best to fix things in December.

3) 1,025 words today, 13,850 total.

( Ashes, part 8 )

1) Well, that conversation went in a completely different direction from what I expected! I was trying to get Riam and Sular to explain the mechanics of binding in more detail, but instead we get cultural differences between Shani and Zerlon, plus backstory on Morgalen and Riam. Oh, whatever -- that information needed to come out sooner or later, and this works as well as anything, I suppose.

2) About the saltwater thing: I realized at some point that in order to make the world-building backstory work, the miasma needed to be deadly relatively quickly, in order to depopulate the south... but that would make travel between protected areas next to impossible. Hence the idea of low-tech gas masks, or the equivalent thereof. They must be damp to keep working, so travelers have to carry not just drinking water but also saltwater to keep refreshing their facemasks so they won't, you know, die of a combination of oxygen deprivation and miasma-poisoning. My handwave is that a few people in a seacoast town used to use that trick when dealing with, I dunno, the stink of gutted fish or a sulfur-heavy hot springs or something, and someone tried it as a desperate remedy against the miasma that turned out to actually work.

3) slowmercury pointed out that Riam told Morgalen that Sular was a binder, even though Tir had previously told him not to do that. Internal continuity error for the lose! (This is what happens when I write without editing. *headdesk*) Anyway, I decided to make Riam's slip a character point and see what happens.

4) 1,825 words today, 11,150 total. (That means I'm over 5,500 words behind on aiming for 50,000 words, but still on track for my more realistic goal of 30,000, which I will take as a conditional win. *wry*)