NaNoWriMo Week 4: Infinite Mountains · 8:22pm Nov 27th, 2016
Good day, folks!
I hope you all have had a lovely Thanksgiving, even if you aren’t in the US. And I hope you’re a good person who didn’t shop on Thanksgiving. Because there’s a special spot in Tartarus for those who shop during Thanksgiving.
...okay, no. Not going to go into a rant about retail. After 12 years, I am free of retail. Have been for two and a half years. But some things… they stay with you.
Anyway, you’re not here to hear about retail. You’re here for words. And I’ve got words.
Believe it or not, I’ve been continuing my quest for NaNoWriMo. How Not To Use Your Royal Prerogative (Nope, still can’t spell it) is actually coming along quite nicely. To my surprise, the story didn’t need a total reboot. In fact, I picked up just where I left off. It’s turning into a nice comedic mystery and stuff tends to make a lot more sense now.
Best part? I’m actually having fun with it! It’s nice to do something light-hearted but still a good solid story (I hope). Not only that, but I’m having to be really creative in my approach to this mystery, though it’s far less complex than what’s going on in Alchemy, thank goodness. The twisted plots of Alchemy still confuse me on occasion, believe it or not. But there is a reason for everything that happens in Alchemy, on all sides.
Keeping those straight is hard.
But back to Prerogative!
I promised you a cover this week, didn’t I?
Well, feast your eyes upon this!
This is probably one of my favorite covers. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it’s perfect for Coco Pommel and Coloratura. I may play with the text a bit more. I haven’t decided entirely yet. But yeah. I like it.
(It doesn’t hurt that Coco is always adorable).
Okay, let’s hit some numbers!
Apple Bloom worked really hard on them.
Title: Wavelength Theorems & How Not To Use Your Royal Prerogative
By: Novel Idea
Current Word Count: 50,571
Daily Average: 2,661
Word Count Total by Day
Day 20: 51,720
Day 21: 53,848
Day 22: 55,516
Day 23: 58,369
Day 24: 58,899
Day 25: 59,469
Day 26: 63,523
That’s right folks, I cracked 60K for the month and I’m aiming to crack 65K today. If only Thanksgiving hadn’t been so blasted exhausting. I drove 300 miles in 48 hours for two Thanksgivings. While that sounds great, driving all that was hard. So I let myself off easy on Thursday and Friday with 500 words a day.
Now, what’s next on your mind is, of course, the next chapter of The Alchemy of Chemistry. We’ve got four chapters left and the next one is probably the hardest hitting one. Ironically one of the easiest to write, though. Huh, I wonder what that says about me as an author. Don’t worry, Concept Application is almost twice as long as Developing Theories. I know the last chapter was a bit shorter than usual, but I tend to follow my instincts for pacing. Sometimes a chapter is going to be longer.
Ironically, in my traditional books, these wouldn’t be chapters. They would simply be scenes in a single chapter. But I usually aim for the 3K mark or until the story tells me it’s time for a break.
The chapter after this though… well, let’s just say I’m glad you guys don’t know where I live.
I want to mention that I have a new editor/beta-reader! Beltorn, who’s been absolutely amazing at leaving insightful and simply magnificent comments has kindly agreed to help me out! He’s going to be doing it rather uniquely though… he doesn’t get the full story. He just gets the chapters a little ahead of time so I can tighten things up, fix the missed words or the leftover words from edits (that happens a lot). More than anything, immersion is of paramount importance to me. If you are knocked out of the zone because of some glaring error… well, that simply won’t do!
I actually don’t have a lot else to say this week! I’m very happy to finally be done with National Novel Writing Month, but I talked all about that last week. Eight-year champion. Not too shabby, not too shabby at all. So my goal next year will be to finish the 50K even earlier, even if I have to write during BlizzCon (I go every year). I don’t know if those will be pony words. I’m not sure if the Wavelengths Timeline will be complete by then.
And yes, I do have a definite beginning, middle and end for Wavelengths.
In fact, to my total surprise, yesterday, I pounded out 2,500 words writing the enormous finale to Wavelength Theorems itself. It just came to me while listening to a remix of “The Pony I Want To Be” while in the shower (seriously, a ton of ideas come to me in the shower in the morning. It’s weird).
God, I love EVERY FREAKING SONG FROM THAT EPISODE. Best episode ever.
The scene is heartbreaking, one of ultimate sacrifice, complete loss, total failure… but more than anything… it’s about hope.
I’ll confess something to you all. In every story set within the Wavelengths Timeline, I’m setting up story hooks and placing Chekhov's Guns for Wavelength Theorems itself.
Finally, I have two bits of news.
I have a major announcement for Gardens of Equestria coming this Thursday. You’ll definitely want to check it out, even if you’re not a fan of Fallout or Fallout: Equestria… because it means if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, you might get to meet me (and several other members of The Manehattan Project including Ebon Quill) in-person!
Lastly, as a game designer (for Gardens of Equestria), I follow many big names in the gaming industry. Gaming developer legend Chris Metzen, formerly Blizzard’s Senior Vice President, Story and Franchise Development, recently retired from Blizzard after an awesome time of over twenty years.
Now, a lot of video game designers put on the official Twitter stuff saying how wonderful the team was and how they’re leaving to pursue a new direction and you’re always left wondering what really happened.
Well, with Chris, you don’t need to wonder. I listened to this… and found myself. More than I want to admit. I suffer from severe panic attacks, to the point of actually having seizures. To find out that a man I’ve had mixed feelings about (okay, fine, I just don’t like Thrall. 
, I don’t actually have any mixed feelings about Chris himself) suffers from the very same thing as I do…
Okay, enough from me today!
Time for a Sunny fix and I’ll see you all tomorrow for Concept Applications!
(Yay! It just started raining! God, I love the rain!)
Thank you for inviting me on board, I'll do my best!
) secrets you've put in your stories.
I look forward to working on anything you have for me, while unraveling (a reference