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Wednesday, November 09, 2005

NanoWriMo Progress Report (Day 8)

I've past the 10 000 mark. Meaning that I have written nearly 4000 words since last night's progress report. I was stuck for a while, having difficulty rediscovering my rhythm, but once I did, it just went pretty smoothly. Some dialogue between characters have sorta elevate my novel beyond conventional fantasy bindings, I think.

On the other hand, I found this site which keeps track on the largest message boards and forums in the world. Rankings were done based on the amount of posts, but you can also view them based on the amount of members. Forum administrators might have to use the top-ranking message forums as a measuring stick. It might not be entirely accurate, and I'm sure some major forums aren't listed, but it's worth a look.

Now, some excerpts.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

NanoWriMo Progress Report (Day 7)

After working on my Shakespeare assignment for days and submitting it (the lecturer seemingly loved it) I am now returning my attention to Nano-ing. Unfortunately, the three day break had broken my rhythm, and I found myself having more and more doubts while writing today's part. It's not actually writer's block, more like myself questioning whether what I'm write is really good enough, or is it going to suck?

I did write a little. I have 6345 words now, meaning that I've added nearly 800+ words from before. But I am still 8000 words behind. Which is kinda bad. Think I'll need to have some caffiene-aided writing sessions.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Parallels Between Terminator 3 And William Gibson's Neuromancer

An essay written for my Popular Literature, Sci-fi & Cyberculture class last week. Still busy working on my Shakespeare assignment, so you gotta make do with this.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

NaNoWriMo Progress Report (Day 4)

Excerpts:


He plunged his hand into the pregnant woman's stomach, ripping out the fetus, squirming and oozing with blood. Laughing sadistically, he tossed the fetus into a cooking pot and started cooking.

It was going to be a fine night indeed.

The woman let loose a high-pitched scream, crumbling onto the floor like a rag doll, her stomach a gaping hole. Annoyed by her, he picked up a sledge hammer and bashed her head repeatedly until it was reduced to nothing more than a bloody pulp. Laughing in amusement, he licked the bits of brains and skulls off his hammer.


Junichiro Tanizaki - Naomi

Naomi by Junichiro Tanazaki
Description from amazon.com: Naomi is the first English translation of Tanizaki's first important novel (originally serialized in Japanese in 1924-25). It is a subtle adaptation to a Japanese setting of the basic story in Maugham's Of Human Bondage . Joji, the narrator, finds Naomi, a girl half his age, working in a cafe. He takes her to live with him, tries to groom her (with English and music lessons), indulges her whims, encourages her ``Western'' ways, and eventually marries her. She becomes a torment to him, but he is so obsessed with her that he tolerates even her infidelities as long as she will stay with him. The recurrent theme in Tanizaki's novels of the danger in sexual fascination may here represent a self-criticism of his youthful preoccupation with things.

Friday, November 04, 2005

NanoWriMo Progress Report (Day 3) Trying a Fantasy name generator

I managed to write 2200+ words, which brings my total to 5636, I'm still almost 400 short. I realized that many NanoWriMo writers from Malaysia are writing fantasy stuff, which is quite a surprise considering that just eight years ago, when I was form 1, my oral presentation about the fantasy genre was scoffed at, with most people being amused, or awed by my good looks, than really listening to what I said. Guess Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have helped many in jumping onto the fantasy bandwagon.

Well, for me, coming up with names is always the hardest thing to do whilst writing fantasy, thus I use the Fantasy Name Generator. Great thingie to abuse. Hah!

More excerpts from what I've written thus far.

Eliar applauded when the man finished his poem by intoning the numerous ‘x’s, (twenty-three of them, Eliar counted) unfortunately, he was the only person clapping his hands. The other patrons were barely paying any attention. Lloyd was busy drinking his beer, while the other two, a young couple, were busy flirting and giggling.

“Seriously, I can never understand his poems.” Lloyd whispered.

“I don’t either.” Eliar agreed.

Thanking Sanford graciously for giving him a small bag of gold coins, Justinius got off from the table he was standing on and moved over to sit near Lloyd and Eliar.

“Ah. Eliar Swiftfire, I didn’t expect to see you here. What do you think of my poem?” Justinius asked, grinning.

“It’s great.” Eliar nodded while desperately finding words to praise the poem, but finding himself at a loss for words. He KNEW he was a MIGHTY wizard, but not a wordsmith nor a poet, so he could only settle for something simpler. “It’s really deep and stuff. Totally cultured, man.”

“Aye.” Lloyd added nonchalantly before ordering another mug of beer.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

NanoWriMo Progress Report (Day 2)

3400 words written. 600 short from my target. As you can see by now, I'm targeting 2000 a day. I'm rather disappointed.

This story I'm writing now was meant to be a bridge between my unfinished novel and my Blogathon story (check my August archives, for crap's sake), a pseudo-prequel to the former and a pseudo-sequel to the latter, however, to really do that can be pretty restricting, My Blogathon story good enough as a standalone, leaving everything else to my readers' imaginations, while my unfinished novel is a product of my teenage fantasies, and writing style, so it is not good enough for me to use it now. Elements can be borrowed, but I can't based everything on it. What I write now HAS TO BE a standalone.

This means that I'm not working with a preexisting template, and without proper worldbuilding and planning. And also, in a way, creative collaboration fucked up my own vision, because I didn't really have any idea what was it that I was trying to write back then, an epic storyline about WHAT??? I had to frequently compromise some of the stuff I wanted with my partner (and he had to suffer the same fate as well). It was all bits and pieces of his ideas, and then mine. I was unable to reach the 4000 mark last night because I was so confused with the main plot that I had to visit Justin and try to spill out my original plan to him. Not because I wanted reassurance, but more like I wanted to articulate my ideas. It was something I used to do with my little sister in the past. Not being the type of person who keeps a note for stuff, this is my own method of remembering story ideas.

And this kinda brings me to an amusing incident with Kyels last night, when I sent her what I've written for NanoWriMo thus far, and immediately within five seconds, she told me it was 'cool!' and 'it has a cool storyline'. My jaw almost dropped open. I guess due to the fact that Kyels herself wasn't really into creative writing, she didn't really grasp the concept of me sending the story to her. And thus when I said "I need a reader!", it became more like I was seeking reassurance for what I've written.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

NanoWriMo Progress (Day 1)

2122 words thus far. Two seemingly unrelated plot threads that take place in a world that is a fusion of fantasy and science fiction, where my imagination is boundless. It always sucks that so many fantasy writers out there allow themselves to be restrained by D&D rubbish, and not go further than that. And seriously, there are too many Pratchett wannabes out there whose smug and condescending prose style annoy more than amuse, but then, I was even worse than a Pratchett wannabe (since I've only read ONE Discworld book, and Good Omens, which he did with Neil Gaiman), I was a Pratchett wannabe wannabe whilst writing fanfics.

I was a fan of such writing, but when every Tom, Dick and Harry and their moms and grandmothers started praising praising Pratchett as if he were a god, not to say emulating his writing style as well, it was impossible for me not to feel mildly annoyed. It's not as if Discworld's the only fantasy series out there anyway.

Some excerpts of what I've written.

The sorceress muttered and groaned in her sleep. Despite his annoyance, Erik remained silent, carefully searching for an inn. She was heavier than he had expected, and he was soon bathed in sweat, panting and gasping for air. Above him, flocks of dragons flew past, accompanied by dozens of witches in brooms, laughing and singing.

“Damn. Another one of those illegal races again.” A man nearby grunted, looking up into the sky. “Can’t even get a good night’s sleep these days because of them.”

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Joining NanoWriMo, here's what I'm going to write

And thus, I ended up joining NanoWriMo. Why? Because there is a story that has been floating in my mind for eight years and I intend to use this as motivation to finish it, or at least make something out of it. I'm not getting any younger (a strange phrase from a guy who's only 21), and if I let this wait anymore, I'm afraid I will outgrow this story, and all the efforts I've put in preparing it will be for naught.

What do I plan to write? Sorry, gotta keep this under wraps, let's just say that it's linked to this unfinished novel of mine and my Blogathon Story (go check out the August archives). It's a risky thing to do since I have a Shakespeare final assignment due next Monday, and also a take home exam for Popular Literature and Sci-Fi due on the 24th of November.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

My SPEED mailing list is dead, I guess. Long live the SPEED mailing list.

The age of mailing list is over, message boards and forums are perhaps the best way to build a community these days. Or is it?

THE PREPOSITION

Despite being in Australia for almost a year and a half, I have yet to see an Australian film in the cinemas (but then, I haven't seen a Malaysian film in the cinemas at all throughout my entire life...). The fact is, hell, Hoyts (what it is in Australia is what TGV or Golden Screen are in Malaysia) don't bloody show Australian films much, just Hollywood. Well, there were some lame-looking comedies, and a Delta Goodren film during the first half of the year, but that's it. I could've seen the Delta Goodrem film if her goddamn duet with Brian McFadden hadn't made me hate her so utterly.

Anyway, I decided to remedy this drought of mine by checking out the newspapers, finding places where I can see a damn Aussie film. And voila! Turned out that there's actually a cinema at Fremantle which is hidden at the corner thus never really grabbed my attention throughout the thousands of times I've walked past it.

One Australian film I was looking out for was 'Little Fish', which isn't related to Tim Burton's 'Big Fish', but has Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in it as recovering drug addicts. Galadriel and Elrond as recovering drug addicts, perfect.