Integrity--BC's NaNo (WORDS OMG LOOK AT EM ALL)

[♥ Bre]

Sorry for butting into your NaNo, BC, as I don't really know you (I'm notorious for lurking on the NaNo thread and reading about everyone's writing---even if I don't know them ;-, but I just had to post because your NaNo just sounds like so much fun! =D

And the fact that you're already on 25K on the sixth day is just amazing! ^_^ *looks at puny 4.something* _{Hmm, I should get to work you ...}

Hope you keep up the good work and do well with your writing! =)

(Your excitement's contagious; I feel really pumped for my NaNo now! =3)

[Breakingchains]

Hi, Bre. You're not butting in. x3 And yes, it is fun. Good to hear my descent into insanity is motivational to you, as well. =D

DAY FIVE REPORT

I got another 6.5 k done, putting me at 31.5k going into day six. I got a slow start and expected to do closer to 2k, but I'm quickly learning that I'm terrible at predicting these things accurately, so hey.

The characters are breeding. I now have a huge mass of minor characters who just popped out of nowhere, including a gigantic french guy with super strength, a ditzy psychic with pink-dyed hair, and an obsessively-polite kid with water powers. (...I didn't think water powers were going to exist in this, actually...) But hey, it's a large international super hero team--tons of minor characters are kind of needed unless I want the cast to consist of Matthew + Stanley + 200 nameless dudes in capes and undies. Matthew has beaten a non-powered villain over the head with a chair and run into a collapsing building, people have been stabbed, Stanley has been knocked senseless, REMEDY HAS FINALLY SHOWN UP (sheesh man, y u not be faster), and Black Wolf is yelling at people. And fire. Lots of fire. =D

Now I am going to go get a shower, and then write until I pass out. :B

[Breakingchains]

DAY SIX REPORT

Some serious RL goings-on cut my focus and writing time today, resulting in about 4k total output for the day, leaving me with a current total of 35,500. Which is a good number, but I still can't shake the feeling I should have done better, especially since that makes this my first day with less than 6k. Still, I may just be naturally slowing down going into week two after my initial burst of lunacy. If that's the case, I may start shooting for 2k-3k per day for a while, and just cruise.

Some more (considerably wordier) character profiles:

SPOILER: Click to show

Edward Faust, Remedy
Edward Faust is actually the second Remedy; the first was an almost-unknown superheroine with psychic and healing powers from a city called Serenity Lake. She was also, for several years, his arch-nemesis. Faust spent a few years during his youth as a small-time supervillain, committing crimes out of a craving for wealth and infamy. Suffering from bipolar I that he refused to treat properly or consistently, he was in and out of mental hospitals and jails, refusing help time and time again. Worsening this downward spiral was his growing loathing for Remedy, who was continually thwarting the crimes he committed.

But when a much more competent supervillain and his group of lackies launched an attack on the city, Faust ended up working alongside Remedy in a temporary truce. He eventually came to understand that she had been trying to save him all along; this painful realization was the first step in the long, hard path back to normalcy. Several years later, as he struggled to live an honest life, the original Remedy was suddenly killed; and he decided to cement his path to redemption in a most unexpected way--taking up her mantle and continuing her crusade in her honor.

It's been twenty years since Faust began super hero work, continuing his new life despite the risk of getting arrested after the government crackdowns. He has fully grown into the role of a hero and is one of the few truly effective ones left, but lives a guarded life, wary of falling back into his old ways; he takes his medication religiously and tries to remain calm and logical, often seeming almost emotionless to others. He is distrusted by many of the original members of Integrity, but he has resolved to support their cause anyway--and has honed his powers to such a frightening degree, that they're lucky he's on their side...



Thomas Fierro, Black Wolf
Thomas Fierro is a former marine from a small town in Texas, who discovered he had remarkable electrical powers when he accidentally electrocuted an enemy combatant. At first he was terrified--no one had ever heard of such a thing, and he wasn't sure he could control it. But after returning home from the military, he decided to put these powers to use in his crime-ridden hometown--and unbeknownst to most, was actually active as a vigilante almost a year before Flashpoint. Rather than showboat, he would strike with lightning from nowhere, injuring and stunning criminals without ever showing his face; then when Flashpoint suddenly skyrocketed to fame, Wolf realized there were others like him out there, and decided to come out of hiding and meet with him. With this, the floodgates seemed to open, a superhuman community forming almost overnight.

After the US government cracked down on vigilante heroes, Thomas left in disgust, returning to his family's roots in Mexico. He fought crime there for several years, once again striking only from the shadows, and saved untold lives with his work there; but inside, he was growing more and more depressed, isolated from the community he had grown to depend on and bitter at those who had caused the end of Integrity. As the crime rates in America grew and supervillain attacks became a common occurrence, while the Superhuman Division sat on their laurels and grew more corrupt by the day, he finally decided he had had enough, and he returned to the American southwest, to once again call the superhuman community to arms.

Thomas is fierce, but smart and methodical, often the best man to go to for a battle plan. He is determined not to let his fledgling organization fail, and is often overbearingly rigid about protocol and procedure. He takes the tone of a drill sergeant when speaking to his team's newer members, leaving no doubt in their minds that this is not a game, a hot trend, or an episode of their favorite action cartoon; some of them have come to despise him for his harsh manner, but at the end of the day, Thomas would take a bullet for any one of them.



Marilyn Strong
Marilyn Strong is a member of the Superhuman Division of the national guard. She once idolized her aunt, Eliza--also known as Snowshine. But when Eliza inexplicably went rogue on the rest of Integrity, Marilyn felt crushed and betrayed, and began keeping her connection to Snowshine a closely-guarded secret; she came to see the entire concept of superheroes as dangerous and flawed, making little distinction between them and super villains. She later found that she, too, possessed Snowshine's ice-based powers, and joined the National Guard right out of high school, honing her powers in the SD and working her way up through the ranks.

In recent years, however, Marilyn has become disillusioned with the SD as well. Surrounded by backroom deals and corruption, she struggles to maintain her moral compass, determined to use her powers for good; but she can do little from her position as a low-ranking officer. But now she, her small platoon, and several of her superiors have all been assigned to one job: bring down this new band of nutcases that has shown up, calling themselves New Integrity. She's not sure who has decided this group is such a high priority or why, but as she lives with a deep shame brought on by her aunt's actions, the assignment carries an emotional charge for Marilyn that she cannot admit to anyone--and in the hopes of getting promoted to a rank where she can actually do some good, she is determined to carry her mission out, at any cost.

Incidentally, the more I have to stop to go, "Uhh, I need a bit-super here," the lamer their names get. xD Which I suppose in a real-life hero team, some names would be dumber than others, so... I'm not running out of ideas, it's just realism. Realism!

Oh, and just hit my first onscreen character death! A villain who just got brutally fried with a lightning bolt by a fellow villain. Ouchies. Meanwhile, Matthew ran into a burning building and had his leg fall through the floor, then jumped out a second-story window and broke his arm and shoulder in at least a couple places, then the little kid he saved doing so started hitting him with rocks. =D I'm a mean author.

[Breakingchains]

DAY SEVEN REPORT

Aaaaand end of week one!

I did most of my writing for today overnight, getting just about 5k done. That puts me at 40,500 going into week two.

Week two is notorious for being the part where people lose steam and enthusiasm. I know in previous years, it's basically been the bane of my existence. At this point, I do feel a little less enthusiastic; but that is probably because I've just gotten past a really big, climactic scene, and I'm feeling a little drained. Depending on how things go, I've got plenty of leeway at this point that I can take a day off to plan and recuperate if necessary.

At this point, I'm wondering about what the editing is going to look like. I'm doing no intentional padding, but my first-draft prose always tends toward the wordy side. But it also tends to lack any vivid or meaningful description, which makes it kind of unpredictable whether the word count will end up higher or lower in the final piece. I honestly cannot seem to gauge whether this is going to be a novella, a novel... or more than one novel. ;

I do know I definitely want to write more works in this world with these characters, because they are epic and their personalities are just bouncing off each other so perfectly. The banter is funny and the drama is dramatic and I feel like I've just hit inspirational paydirt here.

...which is weird, because before maybe June or July, I never would have said I wanted to write super heroes. Sit and watch Batman for six hours? Aw, heck, yeah. Write something in the same genre? P'shaw.

[M is for Morphine]

This is a good thread, but it needs more excerpts.

/hint, hint

[Sabre]

/hint hint. :3 What I've read looks good!

[Breakingchains]

:3 Hints taken. I don't have anything right this instant, but I shall dig for an except shortly.

DAY EIGHT REPORT

*hides title with hand* Guess how many words I have. Guess. =D

...Yeah. I'm only 3k away from hitting the 50k challenge. My previous record for getting 50k was liiike... 25 days?

Yup.

So! I think when I hit that 50k, it's break time. I'm past some big scenes and I want to take a breather to read over what I've got and see where I'm heading. I'll take a day to recharge, reassess, and consider a route to the end from here. Again, I'm bad at gauging these things, but I think I'm at or around the halfway point storywise.

[♥ Bre]

*100K-planned story morphs into quartet of epic* Well ... it was only to be expected with BC's unpredictability. XDD

But seriously, 47K?? You're an absolutely crazy-fast writer! D: And your story sounds like a heap of fun, but with seriousness and depth mixed in ... So just belughauye amazing! ;-;

It really sounds like you're going in the right direction, BC. Congrats!! ^_^ <3

[Breakingchains]

Thanks Bre. x3 I am aiming for a combination of fun and serious (there's quite a bit of intentional "mood whiplash", in fact, just because I like mood whiplash.) I'm not usually half this fast at writing, though. ;

And speaking of which, bah. Cruddy day + very hard scene to write = work is going slooowww.

Whatever! Here's an excerpt. (The prose is still annoyingly rough, but hey.) Remember Priscilla, the shapeshifting blob of nanotech? Yeah, Stanley met with her earlier as part of the recruiting process, but as she usually does with strangers, she took the form of a small child to avoid completely freaking him out. Now he and Matthew are heading for the group's headquarters, driving down a road in New Mexico in Stanley's old convertible and arguing, WHEN SUDDENLY

SPOILER: Click to show

“Oh, God! Brake! Brake!”

Matthew’s head snapped back around. For just an instant, he saw her, standing right out in the middle of the road—tiny and blonde, dressed in pink. He slammed his foot down on the brake so hard it hurt, turning the wheel, laying on the horn.

Then the car slammed into something, jolting him, spinning hard with the screech of tires on the road and the screaming of Stanley in his ear; it whirled around, slowing, tipped on its tires—then righted itself, coming to a stop with a thunk. The car had spun a full 180 degrees. Matthew’s hands trembled as he grasped the wheel, staring into the white leather of its grips, too frightened to raise his head; he heard his own voice speaking, embarrassingly frail:

“Did we… Stan, what did we hit?”

Silence. The seconds ticked by; then he heard Stanley’s door open and close. He looked up weakly to see Stanley standing in the road, turning his head, gazing out over the landscape with a look of bewilderment.

“I… I don’t see ‘er,” he said. Matthew took a gasping breath and fumbled to open his door, forcing himself to stand; he looked back and forth, walking shakily around the car, scanning the road in both directions.

“Well… well, I… I mean, you saw her, right? She was there, right?” He asked stupidly. Stanley could only nod. Then something nauseating occurred to him. “Is she underneath the…?”

“…Check.”

“You check.”

“Dude, you’re the one who wants to be a paramedic! You check!”

Matthew felt a wave of anger on top of his nausea—but he stifled the reply he wanted to make.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll check.”

Breathing deep, he gripped the edge of the car door. He bent down, quivering, and peered underneath the edge of the car, sure he was about to see a bloodbath. He stared in disbelief; a puff of dry dust rolled lazily underneath the car, flattening against the wheel.

Absolutely nothing.

“She’s not here.” The words came out with a rush of pent-up air as Matthew stood up straight, his heart still pounding in his chest. Stanley looked shell shocked for a moment, then fell backward over the closed car door, landing with a thump in the back seat.

“Oh, maaaaan! I bet it was a—”

“Listen, if you’re about to say ‘ghost’… then don’t.”

Stanley sat up, giving him an annoyed look—then his jaw dropped. Matthew felt a twinge of alarm as he realized Stanley was no longer looking at him, but somewhere behind his back; Stanley raised his hand slowly, pointing down and to the left, not saying a word.

And then Matthew heard a tiny little voice behind him, saying:

“It’s quite good to see you again, mister Beckett.”

Matthew whirled around, and stared down in utter confusion. There she was, not a hair out of place—a little chubby-faced girl, perhaps four at the most, holding a clipboard. His mouth moved faster than his brain:

“I… I thought I just freaking ran you over…”

She cocked her head to one side and looked up at him skeptically, then looked back at Stanley.

“Mister Beckett. Who is this?”

“This, uh, this is…”

“You know her?” Matthew asked. Stanley coughed nervously, ignoring him.

“This is a friend of mine. Matthew Skeates…”

“I see.” She scowled. “And does he have a letter of recommendation?” She talked like an English teacher, each word painfully measured and precise.

“W-well, see, that’s a little bit…”

“Sure, he does!”

“Very good. You will both need to present these letters at the front gate,” she said. “I will show you the way.”

With that, she walked right by Matthew, circling the car as it sat idling in the street. Matthew and Stanley gave each other a sidelong glance… then she opened the driver’s side door and stepped in, sitting down with her head barely over the wheel. Stanley froze where he sat, staring.

“Uh, whoa, there, kid—”

“Get in, please, mister Skeates.”

Matthew rushed toward the car, hopping over the passenger’s side door.

“Hooold it, there, kiddo. How about you just take your hands off the wheel and let me—”

Then the car jerked underneath him. He lost his grip on the seat and rolled over the backrest, falling hard at Stanley’s feet as the car spun hard. Now he was scrambling around the floor, accidentally planting his face in a pile of Stanley’s candy wrappers and shouting over the roar of the engine:

“What the… how can she even reach the pedals!?”

“Priscilla! Priscilla, stop!”

“We are almost there, gentlemen. Please remain seated.”

Stanley plastered himself to the seat, holding on for dear life; Matthew reached up to grip the backrest, peering up over it to see objects on the landscape roaring by at frightening speed. She had taken the car offroad, rumbling over rock and sand without a moment’s hesitation—all with the same serene look on her little face. He boosted himself up, trying to find a stable position.

“Kid! Stop it! Stop!”

“It’s quite dangerous to stand up in a moving car, you know. Please remain seated.”

This had to stop. Matthew leaned way over the backrest, feeling the wind whistling in his ears as he stretched his arm out hard, shouting above the noise:

“Lady, this has gone far enough!” He toppled over the backrest and fell into the front seat floor, knocked her feet away, and slammed one hand down on the brake. The car squealed to a stop, and he reached up blindly, feeling for the gearshift—his fingers found it, and he put the car in park. For a moment, there was silence; he sat awkwardly there slung over the seat, his head butting up against a half-open change drawer and his heels somewhere in the back around Stanley’s face.

Then Priscilla’s little voice spoke—through clenched teeth, it sounded like.

“Excuse me, mister Skeates.”

A tiny hand grabbed the back of his collar and yanked with astounding force—he gagged from the sudden pressure on his throat as he was thrown into the back seat, right back on top of Stanley. He looked up in disbelief to see her standing in the seat—did she look taller?—with her hands firmly on her hips, staring down at him with an expression of anger that looked just outside the bounds of what a face was meant to look like.

“I asked you to remain seated.” Something in her voice was chilling—a slight warping in her tone, a lack of humanity. “And I expect you to comply.”

Stanley coughed nervously. Matthew glanced at him to see a look of barely-restrained terror—and realized it wasn’t just him. There was a moment’s silence, then he scrambled into the seat beside him, buckled his seat belt, and stared at the floor. Stanley promptly did the same. Priscilla stood staring down, casting her eyes from Matthew to Stanley, then back again; then her expression reverted to an ordinary, serene little smile.

“Good. Away we go, now!”

She turned and plopped back down in her seat, and put the car back in drive. Stanley looked up at Matthew with a miserable stare, his voice barely audible:

“We're both gonna die, aren't we?”...

...Wow. Um, she's a nice girl when you get to know her, honest...

[Breakingchains]

Just a quick note that I hit 50k just before midnight, making this officially the most productive 9 days of my life and sending my previous record screaming for it's mama.

Now to finish this scene... and then think some heavy-duty plot stuff over. And maybe get some sunshine. And air. And an ice pack for my wrists. Let's see if I can hit "the end" in the next 21 days.

Whoo-hoo!

[Sabre]

This is awesome. I seriously hope you try and get it published.

[Breakingchains]

^ *gleetwitch*

Eeee. =D Thank you! I've actually been considering publication since the idea occurred to me. So that just made me unreasonably happy that you said that.

...First I have to finish it. And edit it. And find a good publisher that does super hero sci-fi. And brush up on self-marketing. But yes, ideally, that's where I'm going with this. *hero-pose*

[Breakingchains]

DAY TEN REPORT

What? I didn't skip a day. You're imagining things. :B

Plotness. I've figured out the next big nasty thing to throw in Matthew's way, which is coming soon. >=D WORK FOR YOUR HAPPY ENDING, CHARACTER! WORK! AHAHA! Virtually no prose writing today, but I've taken time to work out where I'm heading, and I think it's gonna be cool. It might take me a little while to get back up to speed in terms of prose output, but I'mma do my darndest to get this draft finished by the end of the month.

This concludes our complete non-update. =D

[Breakingchains]

DAY ELEVEN REPORT

Got a solid 3k today. We're at a more quiet, pondering moment between some high angst and high action.

Y'know, it's kind of interesting--Matthew has proven to have some rather startling skeletons in the closet. Looking back over the entire book so far, I can see where he became oddly emotional at unexpected moments, was guarded and gave oblique answers when certain topics of conversation came up, etc.--and I didn't even really realize it. Then some interesting stuff came out of his mouth and all that, along with the very basis of his personality as the cynical guy, made sense.

In other words, my subconscious is playing sleight-of-hand games with me, and that's awesome.

[Breakingchains]

DAY TWELVE REPORT

Blargh.

Remember how week 2 is supposed to be the part where you start whining about how bad your story is and how horribly you're doing? Yeah, that seems to be an issue ATM.

The thing about "week two" as a stage of the game is that it isn't strictly week two chronologically, though that seems to be where it usually falls. As for me, it seems to have only hit full force today. I've been second-guessing scenes, feeling my plot structure was about to fall apart any second, and generally getting hit with a sense of impending doom; especially since I had such a great start, and now that I'm fully invested in this I'm afraid I'm going to watch it explode.

So yeah, I got about 1700 words today. I know, intellectually, that that's a pretty good amount, especially compared to my usual fictional output. But compared to the craziness that has been 6k/day, I can't help but feel disappointed. Combine the general quality-anxiety with wrist pain and a severely messed-up sleep schedule, and... well.

So yes, this is a whiny post of whiny, whiny doom. That whines. I have no doubt that with careful planning and a clear head, I'll get over this stage--but while I'm here, it's not fun. >_>