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Post by Strife on Oct 16, 2010 15:34:10 GMT -5
A lot's been going through my mind as I sit here with Leoness at the hospital. One of the things I've been thinking about is how much I want to get back into writing. I was really good at it in school and in college, but ever since I graduated and started focusing more on game development, I've pushed my pen to the side. Sure, I've been roleplaying a little in the Guilds section, but roleplaying is more of a light exercise than something that pushes my imagination to its limits. I've been wanting to get my writing skills back into shape for at least a few years, and with a daughter coming into my life, what better time to practice than now? :3
Of course, as some of you probably know, the tricky part is deciding what exactly I should write about. As a novice NaNoer, I need to go with an idea that has plenty of potential, but that isn't too developed. Something that will allow me to write whatever comes to my mind first so that I can keep up with the daily word count.
I'll probably think of some ideas over the next few days, but in the meantime, feel free to suggest. ^_^
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Post by friday on Oct 16, 2010 17:10:26 GMT -5
Um, this might sound like a load of complete rubbish, but...what if you wrote something for Cookie? :3 Or maybe something about her? It's just an idea I had and it would be so cute, and you could write her bedtime stories, and
*cough* Yup. Just an idea I had. >>;
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2010 20:14:04 GMT -5
Floating Spe Cookies!  Teehee, but Strife luv, mae sure you don't spend too much time writing this. The first few months will require most of your attention, I'm afraid.  |
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Post by Rikku on Oct 17, 2010 22:49:58 GMT -5
Yeah, this might not be the best of ideas for you at this time. xD; What with everything.
... But if you do manage to, best of luck! =D
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Post by Strife on Oct 18, 2010 1:53:15 GMT -5
That's the thing. If I work on NaNo, I would basically use it as an alternative to my existing computer projects. I would basically put all of my other work on the side during November and focus exclusively on writing. It requires less "focus" than programming, so to speak.
On the flipside, though, deadlines are deadlines, and adding another deadliine to my schedule prolly isn't the best of ideas. xD; In any case, I have another 12 days or so to figure it out.
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Post by Chao on Oct 18, 2010 11:26:20 GMT -5
Floating Spe Cookies! Teehee, but Strife luv, mae sure you don't spend too much time writing this. The first few months will require most of your attention, I'm afraid. Strife, you'll simply take the Cookie-Isabel nightshift and while Leoness catches some sleep you spend time with Isabel and get your story written in no time. That's one of the fun things about NaNo: nobody will complain if suddenly sentences like 'The robot was just about to capture the evil Doughnutman when suddenly the timer rang and reminded me that the bottle for Cookie is heated.' happen. ;D |
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Post by Strife on Oct 18, 2010 14:54:15 GMT -5
Floating Spe Cookies! Teehee, but Strife luv, mae sure you don't spend too much time writing this. The first few months will require most of your attention, I'm afraid. Strife, you'll simply take the Cookie-Isabel nightshift and while Leoness catches some sleep you spend time with Isabel and get your story written in no time. That's one of the fun things about NaNo: nobody will complain if suddenly sentences like 'The robot was just about to capture the evil Doughnutman when suddenly the timer rang and reminded me that the bottle for Cookie is heated.' happen. ;D xDDDD Epic. It would seem that most NaNos turn out to be comedies for this reason. Or at least lighthearted. Writing a serious or dark NaNo would probably take a lot more effort. |
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Post by Strife on Oct 28, 2010 16:37:39 GMT -5
A few months back, I started working on a sci-fi computer game called Time Heroes, which borrowed the platform engine from Jade Phoenix and added time-travelling gimmicks. I haven't worked on it for a long time, though, mostly because I'm not sure where I want to go with the story. So, the way I see it, perhaps NaNo would give me a chance to flesh out the game's characters a bit by writing about them in novel form. ^_^ At the same time, I also won't hesitate to expand the plot beyond what I'm capable of building into the game. With an event like NaNo, one can't afford to be picky, eh? In any case, here's a quick summary:
Stardust. That's where it all began.
Since the dawn of time, stardust has helped planet Eco grow from a desolate rock into a beautiful world filled with life and color. It is a magnificant source of energy that powers Eco's cities and protects its people from darkness and chaos. To this day, no one understands where the stardust came from. Some say that it came from the Gods. Others say that it came from a distant solar system.
The origin of the stardust remains one of Eco's greatest mysteries... and it also remains one of its greatest sources of conflict. Wars have been fought over it. Blood and tears have been spilled in the ages of the past, all in an effort to harness the stardust's true power.
For many decades, the world has remained in a state of relative peace, but all of that will soon change. The Fog is about to descend on planet Eco, and it will be up to the heroic resolve of a single group of time travellers to stop it: The Spectrum Force.
* * *
Time Heroes follows the surrealistic adventures of Violet, a young girl who is a professional gravbike racer in one of Eco's largest cities. Violet has always been gifted with exceptional strength, speed, and agility, and her parents encouraged her to focus her talents into sports and athletics. Eventually, she set her heart on stunt driving and became something of a celebrity in her home city, earning the nickname of Violet Star.
For years, Violet wondered where exactly she inherited her abilities, since no one in her family looks or acts like her. When other people asked, she blamed it on her unusually large feet, but she always felt that it was more complicated than that. In time, she would come to realize her role in the things to come when a mysterious warrior from the future chases after her...
 Violet StarThe protagonist. Because of her background as an athlete, Violet has grown to be very determined at what she does, and she is never afraid to push herself to her absolute limits. Sometimes, of course, she's so determined that she becomes oblivious not only to the dangers around her, but to the consequences of her actions. On a personal level, Violet is extremely kind, caring, and free-spirited, though she has a tendency to lock herself away from other people at the worst times.  Indigo SunIndigo is the leader of the Spectrum Force, a small group of time-travelling warriors. They were sent from the distant future to stop a mysterious alliance of aliens known as "The Fog" from invading Eco and harvesting its stardust for their own nefarious purposes. Indigo was appointed leadership after the original leader, Felix Red, was killed in action, but Indigo himself is not very happy with the responsibilities bestowed on him. He often feels isolated from the rest of the group, and he feels terrible about some of the tough decisions he has made under his command. On a personal level, Indigo is assertive, logical, and fairly impatient. He prefers to hide his emotions, and it takes great effort or stress to get him to open up. Most of the time he is very direct and succinct about what he says, but when his Hispanic-esque accent starts to slip out, you can tell that he's exposing his deepest feelings. Other possible Spectrum Force members:Forrest Limelite - Engineer Rick Yellowstone - Engineer Scarlet Cunnington - Combat Support Dr. Emanuel Cyan - Chief Medic Ivory Moon - Mission Control William Tan - Security Copper - Security Stilll thinking on this one, so feel free to suggest names with colors in them somewhere. :3 I think the best thing for me to do is to arrange the novel in an episodic format, not unlike your typical Saturday morning cartoon. I think this would help worry less about connecting expanded plot lines and such, and I could base each "episode" around my current feelings at the time. xD; |
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Post by Rikku on Oct 28, 2010 21:50:58 GMT -5
=D I like this title. It sounds so ... um. Heroic.
And this sounds fun in general, what with Spectrum Force (so cool-sounding! =D And. And colourful) and the characters and stuff. And names ... you could have a Burgundy? Burgundy is good, I'm fond of Burgundy.
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Post by Strife on Oct 29, 2010 6:03:05 GMT -5
xD; Thank yous. ^^ As for a burgundy character, how about Alice Burgundy? :3 After more thought, I've fleshed out a few other things as well:
The Spectrum Force uses the Time Station as their base of operations. It is a large and magnificant space station that contains a large variety of resources, including food, weapons, medical services, training arenas, and more. It is also the source of their ability to time travel, and as long as there are no immediate disruptions in the timeline, they are able to use it to rest and relax from their journies.
At times, crew members who travel to the surface of planet Eco have returned and found that the Time Station has been almost completely revamped. The advantage of having a time-travelling space station is that upgrades and adjustments can be made on a whim, so long as the new additions don't stretch beyond the Time Station's "bubble."
Not much is known about The Fog, hence their name, but what is known is that they are a loose alliance of aliens who operate under the command of a single mother ship. The mother ship has the ability to warp through time and space, and they have been using it to counter the Spectrum Force's efforts at every possible turn.
The reason for their ruthlessness is yet to be explained, but the Spectrum Force wholeheartedly believes that they intend to destroy planet Eco and harvest its stardust for themselves, to expand their already dangerous level of power.
Due to The Fog's nature, the actual names of their supporters are never disclosed, so the Spectrum Force makes up names for them.  DraegonDraegon is one of several temporal agents who were trained to counter the Spectrum Force. He believes that it is his duty to fix what the Spectrum Force supposedly screwed up and feel they have no right to mess with their fate by altering the timeline. Draegon also seems to know something about Violet Star and what she will become, and most of his actions revolve around trying to kill her. He is dangerously genre-savvy, and he seldom lets himself get defeated the same way twice.  BodeBode is the most humanlike temporal agent discovered so far, but he is no less mysterious. He feels that The Fog has enabled him to become something far greater than he ever could have become on his own, and when possible, he will try to persuade others to embrace their power as well. He seems to possess telekinetic abilites, and he will often use underhanded tactics to defeat his enemies, rarely playing by honor or rules. He also seems to know something about Indigo Sun and has repeatedly tried to torment and confuse him. |
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Post by Strife on Nov 1, 2010 11:18:05 GMT -5
So NaNo begins. ^_^ Appropriately enough, the first thing I started writing about was a gravbike race that Violet participates in. I could hear the countdown of the race in my head as I was waiting for the clock to strike midnight my time. xD
I can already tell you guys one thing about NaNoing that might help out: If you get bored writing something to the point where you struggle to continue, just end the scene abruptly with something that interests you more. Idle conversation between characters not going anywhere? Have someone's phone ring with an urgent message. Trouble writing a fight scene? Have the combatants fall through the arena and continue in a different location, or have an outside party interrupt it. That sort of spontaneous stuff may help you keep your interest alive, and if it doesn't make any sense, you can just omit or change it once you reach the 50k mark. :3
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Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Nov 1, 2010 12:27:35 GMT -5
I was just browsing through the Nano's thread and saw yours. I'm wondering, are you still looking for characters? If so, I could probably give you some.
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Post by ♥ Lulu on Nov 1, 2010 12:30:14 GMT -5
XD That's the wonderful thing about NaNo; anything goes, as does nonsense. Good you discovered it so soon - it took me until my second year to (at which point, ferrets invaded the Earth and my MC got run over).
This does indeed sound awesome! I like the sound of a gravbike race; I'm thinking a drag race but with hoverbikes? Anyway, I look forward to seeing more from this <3 Love a bit of sci-fi! You'll have to let us know, too, how it is juggling NaNo and looking after Cookie!
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Post by Celestial on Nov 1, 2010 12:40:03 GMT -5
=3 Ooh, epicness! It does sound like a Sci-fi TV show premise so arranging it into episodes would make sense. I can't wait to see what you make of this and how you'll manage to balance life. But here's to a successful NaNoWriMo and to the completion (or a satisfactory bit done. xD) of Time Heroes!
That is a great tip. <3 What I love about NaNo is that anything you can imagine goes and you've certainly reminded me of that. Thanks, Strife!
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Post by Strife on Nov 1, 2010 13:32:53 GMT -5
I was just browsing through the Nano's thread and saw yours. I'm wondering, are you still looking for characters? If so, I could probably give you some. Not so much characters, but catchy names that have a color in them somewhere. If you want to, feel free to suggest some, and if you do, thanks! ^_^ XD That's the wonderful thing about NaNo; anything goes, as does nonsense. Good you discovered it so soon - it took me until my second year to (at which point, ferrets invaded the Earth and my MC got run over). This does indeed sound awesome! I like the sound of a gravbike race; I'm thinking a drag race but with hoverbikes? Anyway, I look forward to seeing more from this <3 Love a bit of sci-fi! You'll have to let us know, too, how it is juggling NaNo and looking after Cookie! Yeah, definitely. xD And that's also the reason I think an episodic format would work well, so that I can have a bunch of nonsensical plots in between thinking about the serious twists in the story. As for gravbikes, they're basically futuristic motorcycles with antigravity modules, which means that they can ride across any wall or surface. The race I'm writing about takes place in a tower-like stadium, and the track twists and curves upwards in all manner of crazy roller coaster-like directions. As for balancing NaNo and Cookie/Isabel, I think it's coming along smoothly so far. ^_^ I find that I have enough free time as long as I focus on only one thing at a time, so I'll have to put my FableQuest project to the side while I write this. I shall definitely keep you guys posted, of course. =3 Ooh, epicness! It does sound like a Sci-fi TV show premise so arranging it into episodes would make sense. I can't wait to see what you make of this and how you'll manage to balance life. But here's to a successful NaNoWriMo and to the completion (or a satisfactory bit done. xD) of Time Heroes! That is a great tip. <3 What I love about NaNo is that anything you can imagine goes and you've certainly reminded me of that. Thanks, Strife! Thanks, Celes! =D And good luck with yours as well. I didn't get very far the last time I tried NaNo, so I'm hoping I can get farther this time by writing the story to be more flexible. I don't think it helped last time that I was basically rewriting a classic fairy tale. xD Sooo, original works FTW! |
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