twoflower

The first scenes of a03 are now available.

I haven't actually dug into the plot of a03, nowhere near the dilemma posed in my last blog update. But the initial scenes were just too juicy not to dive into. Muwahaha.

Okay, gotta get to bed early. Cousin's wedding to attend tomorrow. This entire weekend's largely sucked up by family gatherings -- which is cool, I like seeing my relatives, even if I'm not really that talkative in huge groups. Watching vacation slides is not torture when I've got awesome relatives like my uncle, who does awesome things like racing experimental cars in France. Wicked.

(a02 still needs finalization -- I won't let it linger in draft status much longer. I was just eager to start the new material, is all.)

Made a minor (well, in terms of immediate scope) change to anachronauts 02 today.

In the Scout/Graves scene, Graves now says he's encountered Scout's "kind" before. This plays into something upcoming in a03.

Assembling a03's outline has been tricky. The problem is I have two locations, two largely unrelated situations I want to use -- a hospital dispensing unusually miraculous cures, and a zombie-esque siege upon the Mall of America.

Linking the two has been a chore. You can't chase the cast from one location to the other, not with zombies, even the runnyrunny ones like in 21 Days Later. They're 14 miles apart. You need the cast at the Mall already for some purpose, and THEN the zombies show up... and even then you need a way to get them there that makes some damn sense.

I toyed with various ideas, notably with the Winter Fae, who will have a stronger presence in this one since we're visiting Minneapolis-St. Paul. I pondered some government Men in Black type group that secures Fae artifacts. I even pondered some crazy teenage melodrama breakup revenge.

In the end, it was a simple solution that made it click -- and one that solved another problem, one of the cast vehemently objecting to something happening at the hospital on ethical grounds. By changing the nature of the threat and the origin of it, everything simply worked.

I'm being vague. You'll have to find out more when I write it. The outline's not done, but the backstory for a03... the doctor, the deal, hypertech in the hands of Quicksilver Security, and even the nature of the smuggler and his relationship to the Orbitals... it all makes some sense now. I just need to work a plot around this.

Oh, and add more fan service. Because you can't have a horror movie threat without having those naughty, naughty teenagers going off and having naughty fun and being eaten alive for it.

EDIT: I seem to have written myself into a corner. Maybe you can help. Spoilers will follow, but I would appreciate assistance. ( ZOMG SPOILERS )

EDIT #2: Thanks to tudhalias for using the topographical layout of the place to create a Crazy Scheme That Just Might Work. (I really should've mentioned this was at the Mall of America; I've talked about it before on twitter and such and forgot to detail it here.) I'll be going with that since it'll play into a terrific character moment afterwards.

Depending on how the day goes, I may have some a03 written for y'all tonight. I have the middle and the finale outlined, and a flashback. It's very piecemeal, and I need to do a beginning, and somehow fit Una In Exciting Underwear in there for strictly legitimate and serious character development related purposes, and not at all because she's hot, honest.

EDIT #3: That is, assuming that this'll work the way I want it to. Gonna discuss with Jen tonight (she knows aquariums) and research online. Egh. I hate realism in my stories. A lot of authors will do months of painstaking research to ensure that what happens in their books is physically possible and sociologically probable and so on... I just wanna write fun stuff.

My action item list for promoting anachronauts, now that we have some solid chapters worth promoting...

* Submit it to StumbleUpon under "books". Well, I submitted it, but I can't figure out how to tag the damn thing. I've never used SU before. Anybody wanna help there?

* Join the Bookaholics Blogring. App's in the mail, code's on the page.

* Join some blogcatalog groups on reading and writing. I'm iffy on this. I'm in enough damn social media networks as is; I don't want to have to worm my way into another and spend time participating long enough to gather the ethos needed to advertise there. I could learn more as a writer, yes, but I only have so many hours in the day here.

* Submit to webfictionguide.com. Done. Hopefully they'll approve it. I kinda floundered at having to write a 50-100 word summary of the series.

This is the first time I've actually made an effort at promotion, honestly. I prefer to just Do My Thing and let the chips fall where they may, hence my reluctance at going beyond "submit a link to site foo". I'm not a singing, dancing marketing agent here to jump through firey hoops to make the public interested in my thing. My job is to write the story because writing is a lovely experience for me, and that is typically the end of my involvement.

What can you do to help? Get word out any way you want. Tell friends, twitter it, blog it, post it to various wacky Web 2.0 sites, do whatever you like. Generally I rely on word of mouth, since this is not a moneymaking enterprise and paying for ads would be silly.

Thanks for your ongoing support. This should be a fun ride.

Aaaand I'm spent.

Got some action scenes for y'all, and some wrapup. I also implemented tweaks based on your feedback in this here blog.

Gonna break for the night. Tomorrow I have SL work to do, and this weekend it's my cousin's wedding and lots of relatives hanging around. I'll have some a03 for you sometime next week, odds are. It needs a LOT of outline work; I have some vague ideas but no solid plot yet.

Well, no, I won't, because some of you crazy fanboys who have stalked me since my Ranma days would probably show up smeared in chocolate sauce and wearing nothing more than a ribbon and bow.

(I would not object to this if you were A) hot and B) female, but since odds are good that's like 0.0000001%, meaning essentially just, like, a severed thumb, it'd be headed straight for Silent Hill territory. I'll pass.)

Point is: House! I can has. My sister Jen and I tossed in on a home and we've got it 95% locked down, pending final home inspections and such. I'm laying claim to the basement (gonna finish it off as a sweet pad) and she and her growing family of horrible zerglings are going to take the top half.

Downside is, with the cost of the house itself and the cost of the renovations and getting furni and paying taxes and eventually adding a deck and so on, it's ridiculously pricey and will do a huge dent in my savings. Second Life has pretty much enabled this to happen, but yow, bonk. Also, it's no better or worse for my commute than my current shelter is, ie 'lousy'.

Upside is, it's not like the cash vanishes into thin air; one day this thing will be sold and with the upgrades sold at or around what we paid for it. It's lousy for the commute, but I have a decent telework plan in place, anyway. Plus, I get to help my sis expand her brood in comfort and security, my credit rating and general ethos with the world goes up as I enter the ranks of "homeowner", and everything is perfect forever! Plus, HOUSE!

I'm greatly looking forward to this. Of course, it's going to take time to renovate the place for my needs -- the seester can move in right away (once her apartment lease is up in September) but I'll probably be November, maybe December before I can drop in and set up shop. I'm a patient guy. I can wait. House, dammit. It's not lupus

More a02 tonight, possibly. I'm almost done, it's all over but the fisting and crying. I need to sit down and jot out notes on a03, which may or may not involve hospitals, shopping malls, zombies, and vikings.

Some new scenes. Where we left our heroes in Dire Peril, now we see 2/3rds of them ready for some Righteous Payback. Lock and load! We got company! I'm getting too old for this shirt!

We're nearing the end of a02, if it wasn't obvious. It's definitely longer and more involved than a01 was, which is a Good Thing for making this experience last and be nice and thick and meaty. I have considerable revisions to do on a02 even when done -- I haven't soaked in the grammar/spelling/word choice/flow feeback from the last few posts yet. I also have a LOT of work to do on a03's plot, deciding if it's going to be Silent Hill or Left 4 Dead. We'll see. For now... a02 buttkickery.

Feedback welcome.

More scenes in a02. Oh, and plenty of fan service!

I fall back on my favorite literary device, "Two characters having a philosophical debate that exposes much of their personalities and backgrounds while doing some totally boring and mundane thing that's not interesting in and of itself." Like sitting in jail in a01, or eating burgers in a02. I loves that stuffs.

Feedback thread ahoy. Responses welcome.

EDIT: Since this is the second load of scenes in one day (granted, last batch came in late, LATE at night) I'll just keep using this LJ post for feedback on the new material.

I am a very bad person for ending the writing where I did. I acknowledge this, and steeple my fingers in a very evil way.

Y'know, I wonder why I insist on using lowercase letters. Feels more stylish.

Anyway, I have concocted a method for extending the experience AND still producing creative material, and it is quite amusing to me on many levels. I've also been pondering the plot... how I can leave it open ended so I can do short stories or other series alongside it and even after it finishes. So, uh, spoiler alert, I do not in fact blow up the world and kill everybody, sorry.

Also new today, our first fanart, by anonylurker LondonIvy. Go scope out yon DeviantArt page for more. I've decided that even though I've consigned official character art, nobody should feed straitjacketed to it -- interpret the characters however you want. I know when I read a book, often I'll get a picture in my head that's totally different from what the author expected or what other fans had, and that's okay. It's imaginaaattiiooooon.

Gonna take the night off from further story tinkerings. Gotta pace myself. As I said in comments on the last thread, I want to let the fun last as long as I can... the fastest I ever wrote an entire series of stories was a single week for Slayers Chaos. Banging away, dawn to dusk, seven days, done. Rushing through things means more stuff for the readers ASAP, but it means I can't enjoy the first solid creative writing I've done in years. I wanna bask, dammit. Awwyeah.

I need an anachronauts LJ icon. I'll make one later. I've got an idea.

Three more scenes.

I am concerned I'm writing too fast, that the series will be 'over' in short order. Granted, if I do one episode a week, and that's a VERY rapid rate, it'd still be 8-10 weeks total. Surely I'll hit a writer's block at some point, or simply take longer to do a chapter due to other life concerns. It's just hot and piping right now because it's so new.

Either way, I'm looking into ways to extend it without making the plot actually padded to the point where it's clear there's padding -- maybe side stories, too. We'll see.

I finished this up last night, and posted it earlier this morning with links from Twitter and RSS, figured I'd give them an early head start. This is the official feedback post for the first scenes of a02. Also be sure to check out the bloggeration from last night about the site updates and artwork and such.

Edit: The artwork page is up, with submission details and designer notes.

Some quickie notes.

a01 final is posted. My final copies are rarely that different from the drafts, they just take into account suggested word tweaks, spelling fixes, things like that. So, no need to reread the whole thing. One major change is I added a title; it's now officialy "a01 anachronisms". You'll notice that and these other changes at the official anachronauts site:

Titles for future chapters! Well, tenatively. Looking at them, eight chapters kinda seems like slim pickin's, but that's my story roadmap right now. It's subject to change, of course; I've had projects with more chapters than originally planned, some with less. UE, for instance, had like 20+ planned, but I ended up jettisoning a lot of the purely world building, non-character-developing fluff I had no real plot for beyond a vague idea like "Mallory and a TV talk show?" and other such pearls of genius.

RSS feed! As suggested by this very blog. Building one of these by hand is a pain in the ass, especially since I've never worked in GMT before, and I wanted to add the previous 'updates' backdated to the feed to make it look vaguely interesting. Lemme know how this works for you, RSS junkies, I can tune it if I messed something up or it has usability problems.

Mysterious links like "artwork" and "the book"! Which have nothing behind them yet. Not until I have, y'know, ARTWORK, and some details on my plans to release a purchasable book copy once the series is finished. I welcome fanart, if any of you are of a visual nature. If you want to wait for official character designs to show up, I contracted a friend to do them after Otakon, but frankly, she doesn't have any more details than you do except maybe the color of Emily's hair (red).

Various sundry social media links! Owing to the fact that it's two thousand and damn nine, links to this blog, my twitter, email, and the "coda" are there. I need to add this project to the coda. I need to check that thing for dead projects and such, too. There's a lot of embarrassingly old material in there.

Gonna work on a02 next. Later.

anachronauts is unfolding remarkably fast. I've said this before, but it bears repeating.

It's been years since I wrote fiction. Partly out of fear that I'd "lost it", partly out of massive obsessions with other mediums like games, partly because I had no workable ideas. None of those stories really wanted to be told and had to be forced out.

My last effort, i am ikon, sort of piffled out... felt like an experiment that had gone out of control and that the uberplot I was leading towards was sour and unpleasant. When the writing's not feeling right, when it's awkward and clumsy and looking like it had a few before showing up to work, it's time to let it go. The thinking here is that the RIGHT stories will come eventually, if you have patience. The ones that want to be told. The ones that when you say "I have no good ideas for what to do next with this thing" they say "Okay, here's what you do" and it all falls into place perfectly and you're fresh and ready to go. anachronauts is, much to my ongoing surprise, doing exactly that.

Problem is, it's pulling me ahead faster than I'm ready for it. The web page sucks. It's minimalist, and that's pretty normal for me, as I love the style of stark and clean black on white, but I'd like to at least get SOME sort of cast picture up and arranging art takes time. I also get the feeling that it's a story being written for at most 10 people right now, the blog hardcore, and I need to spread word around more somehow -- but how to spread it, and SHOULD I spread it before the thing is anything more than an unfurnished office with some coffee-hyper executives ready to kick ass, loitering around waiting for the ergonomic desks to be installed? Presentation is key. Timing is everything.

On top of this, there's the worry that it's gonna take a sharp left and go off a cliff, like some past efforts have. In college, I never posted anything until it was done and in the can; that meant the failures, even ones that went past the halfway mark, didn't see light of day. This could fail. I don't think it will, I've got a good road map and it's looking solid, but you never know. A spectacular wreck when it's still this niche thing is one matter; a spectacular wreck when I've got dozens and dozens of people waiting around is a disaster. I ended a Slayers fanfic series over halfway through once because it just wasn't working and the ending would've been perplexingly awful, and wow if that didn't cause problems.

Still, full speed ahead it is. I am not gonna deny a muse that, after years of mumbling and shuffling off to the bathroom after waking up and then sitting down to watch game shows for hours before crawling back to bed is now suddenly doing daily exercises and bouncing up and down on her toes eager to get INTO the thick of it. On we go.

a02's outline is done. Know how I said I had no ideas? Well, I have the ideas now. The sticking point I'm playing around with now, like a kid playing with the salad fork before the meal arrives at a fancy restaurant, is how far to take the Break the Cutie trope. It's early in the game, but Una's far too excited and thrilled with Earth to have that last for long, not when they're gonna be in life or death action scenes every chapter. I have a good opportunity to dump some cold water on her head today. Question is whether I put electric eels in the bucket as well. It all plays into the bigger picture question of her character arc, as it relates to her companions. I think the answers are here already. I just need to find them under the couch and pocket them before continuing.

That didn't take as long as I thought it would.

I had some doubts about how to handle the next scene, but it flowed pretty easily. The rest sorted itself out well, and didn't end exactly how I thought it would, RE: the final fate of the Bad Guy... but it worked. Good.

It's been a long time since a-rock 'n roll I wrote anything that really worked. I'm quite happy with this. Some editing, some polishing, some planning, and I'll be able to work on a02.

Feedback welcome.

I really need some artwork for this project. I'll have to arrange for that.

Edit: It occurs to me I have no ideas for a02 beyond "mercenary type dude gets his hands on hypertech", "make it a Scout focus episode", and a few loose ideas for getting-to-know-you character moments. Don't expect the next draft to launch in rapid order.

And the saga continues.

After all that balls to the wall action and mysterious character after mysterious character, it made sense to sit down and just hash things out. It's a standard writing style for me... frenzy punctuated by characters sharing their thoughts with each other. I love writing both, because both show your characters in different ways.

I can't claim I'll have new draft content up every day, or on any sort of schedule. Even if my writing usually follows a webcomic-y style of regular updates, the muse sometimes bumrushes me (as she is now) and sometimes wanders off for awhile until I can find inspiration. So, I may be spamming you with hopefully-awesome things now, but no promises, y'hear?

Feedback welcome on the new section of the story -- and on past sections, if you've got anything you haven't talked about yet.

It's up here.

For those of you unfamiliar with my writing process, I post rough drafts as work in progress to the web. I gather feedback here in the blog, I use that feedback to streamline and polish, to work out the oddities. Then next time I update the draft, I post here again, and the process repeats. Once the draft's done, I collect final comments, do a final editing pass for word choice and flow, and the chapter's in the bag. On to the next one.

It's a very living process, very much direct and interactive with you guys. If you like the story, I welcome your help in getting it off and running to a good start. Be aware that any suggestions you make legally are donated to me for free use without your own copyright claim, though. And in the end, I have to go with Artist's Original Vision, if I disagree with a suggestion because I feel it'd go against my intentions with a piece.

Okay, that said... enjoy, and lemme know what you think. Thanks!

EDIT: The overall theme of comments so far is "I'm confused" and "It's too fast". Problem is, it's fast and perplexing by design, to tease you with mystery and action and not provide the answers up front. Still, they're legitimate concerns, and I think I have a solution -- introductory diary entries by the Witch for both sections, which couch them in some context, and give them a framework to hang from. Not to give away the answers in advance, but to point out where and when each thing happens, and why.

I'll have that draft up later today, when I have some time to work on it, and will start a new blog post -- but keep sending Teh Feedbacks, because I'll still be taking them into account in my next revisions.

EDIT #2: Since the content I've added is minimal... just the diary entries at the top of each section... I'll keep this feedback thread open rather than start a new one. I'll do a new blog post when I have a genuine whole section to add to the mix. Anyway, changes are now posted.

EDIT #3: Really not happy with the diary-context framework. It's too heavy handed, makes things TOO obvious. I'm asking someone to cold-read it without those introductory bits... someone who hasn't read the world doc or any previous drafts. If they can follow it, if they don't give up, then I'll nix them and just... I dunno. Accept that some people will be turned off by the mystery factor. I don't wanna dumb it down to the point where it insults the audience. This is SUPPOSED to be a bewildering mashup.

EDIT #4: Alright, cold read was a smashing success. Even someone a bit fatigued after a day of work and distracted could follow it, following extremely minor tweaks. I'll remove the diary bits and good riddance. LAST edit from me, honest -- the next update will be a full blown additional scene update. I swear my drafting process is smoother than this, usually... I just wanted to make sure I got this right out of the gate.

Documenting the creative process and getting feedback has been incredibly fulfilling for me, and no doubt for those of you eagerly waiting for years for me to write a damn story. (I have mixed feelings on that; I like to go to whatever medium my muse takes me and people who demand I backtrack to something I'm done with for now make me go eeeh, but... honestly, I do appreciate all fans of all stripes, so it's all good.)

The vingette I posted has fulfilled its purpose -- to be a VERY rough draft of a 'typical' story within the anachronauts concept. What I had in mind when I wrote it was the precursors to the Powerpuff Girls... the shorts that Gennedy did for Cartoon Network to sell them on the idea, incredibly rough and tumble animations with clearly unfinished concepts. And heck, even before those scratchy first shots at the idea, there was the "Whoopass Stew!" version of PPG. Or if you want another metaphor, my vignette :: what anachronauts will be as The Spirit of Christmas :: South Park.

That and the world document have given me a starting point. From here, I tweak, I tune, I explore, I try to make it all click before I dive into chapter 1. I want to make sure I have the gears lined up so the whole mechanism turns. It may eventually turn from a cuckoo clock into a grandfather clock or even an eggbeater by the time I'm done -- Unreal Estate certainly didn't end up in the shape I was thinking it would -- but that exploration process inevitably leads where it needs to go.

Today, my primary concerns were the characters, and their motivations.

( Cut for length and spoilers. )

Building a plausible fantasy world is tough.

Building a plausible fantasy world on the smoking ruins of Earth is a LOT harder. No matter how many years you remove yourself from present day, you'll always get something wrong in your armchair sociology... ether factually wrong, or wrong by interpretation. "X couldn't have happened in Y manner because of Z," and all.

So when I sat down to write this whitepaper about the world of anachronauts, I decided not to worry the finer details and just sketch out some crazy-ass fantasy future. I can never claim to get the kind of exacting detail that leads us from A to B as was done in great books like World War Z, and by and large, most of this isn't even going to come out in the story itself. It just provides the backdrop, the launching pad to go from.

Hope it works. Read on if you're curious. Some spoilers ahoy, but I've cut out portions that relate to the overall series plot that's currently in the works. At the very least, most of this would be revealed within the first three chapters, easily (particularly since jetpack girl would be talkative).

I'll be making a full website with this and the earlier vingette at the link above later.

EDIT: I should emphasize... this is a VERY rough draft. It's almost literally my mind poured out on paper, just jotting things down as I came up with them. I'm also considering alternative pitches, which run in reverse -- the Pandora Event dumping humanity on another world, instead of dumping inhumanity on our world, or something completely different. The closer we are to Earth the more research I have to do and the more holes people can poke in the concept, so we'll see what this eventually shakes out as. Consider this a first attempt and feel free to leave comments on what's nonsensical and what's intriguing.

EDIT #2: Okay. I've figured out how to make this work with minimal changes. Even if I get some details wrong, even if someone armchair's a theory that my ideas are implausible, it'll all work in the end. I can't say WHY, though.

I'll also note in bold edits after each bit where I'm rethinking things.

EDIT #3: If you're reading this right now, you should know that I've jettisoned a good portion of this and revamped other bits and will probably rethink along the way. Don't expect anything here to actually resemble the final product, especially the stuff about Westusa and the Orbitals. Still, it serves a purpose as a historical document, a first draft.

( Here Be Dragons )

That could do it. Whaddya think? It's also the name of an obscure team-up of Marvel villains and a surf band, but if books needed totally unique titles, "twilight" would've never been written. It's also not officially trademarked and there's no URL registered for it.

Edit: Watch this space.

This is not the opening chapter.

It's just an exercise. I needed to know I could do this, that I had it in me, and that the elements were in place. I had to try on the characters for size and make sure they could work together the way I want, that they had distinct voices. I also had to make sure I was capable of writing an action scene.

This still doesn't have a title. I'll think of one later. Let's give this a go. Here's the rough draft. Comments are welcome; what worked for you, what intrigues you, what doesn't work for you, any suggestions. By posting replies you legally give me right to use your ideas without copyright contest, however.

Let's give this a shot.

( And along a forest road, we find... )

Haven't blogged in awhile. It's 3am, I really should be sleeping, but I'm gonna do a quick posting to get me in a writing mood for reasons which will be apparent.

By and large this week has been about adjusting to my new work schedule and dealing with things. The new schedule's VERY nice, in that I'm working from home far more than before (due to the office now being an hour and change away, across nasty as hell back roads). Working here is quite comfy cozy. I'm slightly more removed from the peeps I work with, but even when I'm in the office I only see a face now and then. My biz is primarily the email thing.

I've got some actual fan letters in my mailbox I need to reply to soon. I always seem to delay replying to them. Never sure what to say beyond "Thanks, glad you like my stuff!".

We need to get off our ass and do some SL work. There's three big projects in the works, maybe four if you count one as big, and hopefully it'll help stave off the downturn we're seeing due to the gorram frakking Lindens and their damn chat bugs.

Still waiting on COH Issue 15. I wanna write again, and I only had two hours of fun with Issue 14 before I filled my slots and could do nothing more. Wahoo.

...and I'm pondering a writing project.

It's REALLY vague right now. I have ideas. Character sketches. A world concept. But it doesn't feel right, yet. It doesn't have the combination of factors I want... characters which complement each other in terms of motivation and ability. A logical and cohesive power structure. Or, well, a PLOT.

But the primary problem is the scope -- if I do this the way I'm thinking it's gonna be another one of those, the epic fantasy RPG journey from yon humble village to overthrow the Dark Whoevers. I'm not sure I have it in me to tackle something that large in scale. I haven't done a major writing project in awhile, other than the semi-half-baked iai project.

Still... this one keeps eating at me, nagging. It wants to be told. It just needs to be given enough of a rough shape to get off the ground and see where it ends up. It's not like Unreal Estate or Sailor Nothing were 100% planned from start to finish when I launched those (which explains the occasional Episode One Doesn't Mesh With The Rest continuity flub). So, we'll see. if anything comes of this, you'll hear about it first here.

I'll tease, as is my nature. I've got a sort-of title. It needs a better one; Sailor Nothing and Unreal Estate worked GREAT because they had snappy titles that encapsulated their concepts. This one encapsulates but is not snappy.

The working title is "Broomsticks, Jetpacks, and Kalashnikovs."

Now, back to bed.