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Alluring Swiper realised now that attacking an entire crew of pirates had been somewhat ambitious.
Sankmarray: Clouded Hearts (section two of about five). © 2009 Herm Baskerville, all rights reserved.

In other words: Part Two is complete, yay!

Brrrr. I'm either ill or just vaguely run down after this week, which has been kind of a doozy. Last night I was completely out of it, and I mean unable to talk, let alone do anything else; symptoms that, when I flipped back through my mental notebook, I found next to a pencilled annotation reading "←Stress?"

I hope taking it sedentary over this weekend will get me back on my feet, but the cold weather isn't helping. I don't want to go for walks or do anything but huddle with hot water bottles. I definitely hope I won't be ill-definedly sickish all this winter, because the novelty there wears off fast, I can tell you from experience.

NaNoWriMo writing has completely stalled. I won't make the 50k, that's a given, but I'll easily get to 30k over the weekend. Heck, just writing up what I've handwritten on my tram journeys should take care of that.

All that's still to go on Part Two, after transcribing my own handwriting, is some wrapping up on Taupeshank's side. Taupe needs to realise in what ways pe's been rather silly, while Alluring… well. Let's face it. Alluring Swiper isn't learning any Important Moral Lessons any time soon. Alluring considers nerself far too fabulous for Important Moral Lessons.

Lest anyone accuse me of writing only heroes I agree with 100%, this section features binge drinking, the afore-alluded ass-headedness and a downright fist fight. Part Three features FIRE! Also bribery, but mainly FIRE. (Could fire really be a problem on a planet that's 95% water? You bet.)

As of tonight, I've finished rewriting the short story I wrote last year, which is forming Part One of Sankmarray-the-Novel. Yep, the cheaty part is over. We're now in uncharted waters.

And to prevent myself from being show-stoppingly nervous about continuing to write in said uncharted waters, I made sure to write the first bit of Part Two before I stopped.

I'm now at 11,938 words. *writerly glow*

I'm aiming for roughly 2000 words a day, i.e. a 60k word book (because I hate messy numbers like 1667, and anyway Mews turned out at just over 60k, so there).

By that projected total and my current word count, I should be a fifth of the way through the story now. Since I've only just reached the end of Part One, and I don't know how long the other parts will turn out (or even how I'll end up dividing the rest of the plot outline into sections yet), I have no idea if this is accurate. It feels awfully odd that my 'short' story, with a lot of crap taken out and only a couple of thousand words added overall, is technically a fifth of a novel. But, well, to be honest, I suspect this is going to be a rather long book.

The first of two books, I remind myself…

I'll shortly be contacting the people who offered to alpha read and probably have no idea what they're letting themselves in for (er, well, Anke and Vespers probably do, so they really do have no excuse whatsoever). For the rest of you, there's a second excerpt up now at my NaNoWriMo profile. This one shows a little more of the worldbuilding, and a tiny bit of Roseeye, the piratical first mate, of whom I'm rather fond.

Let me warn you now that I may not keep up with friends' blogs, Twitter etc this month. If you need me for anything and aren't sure I've noticed, drop me an email or wave.

First day of writing went OK…ish. I'm not sure. To begin with I'm rewriting a short story I wrote last year, which is forming the opening stages of the book. This is difficult (because details have changed and the nuances of the characters likewise), but also ought to be easier than staring at a blank page. What I'd really like is to burn through this part and get into uncharted waters.

Excerpts may be posted up, or there may be some kind of closed alpha reader scheme. I haven't decided how I'm going to work this yet.

So, it's official: I'm doing NaNo this year (my profile), and it happens I have next week booked off from work (having had a lot of leave days to use up) to get a good head start.

My outline is shaping up but there are huge blank areas, and I'm no good at changing plots on the fly; in order to write easily, I have to have a rough outline nailed down. By tomorrow night. This is where you can help – and all you have to do is fill in the blank:

Well, Herm, knowing that you're going to write a very silly novel about pirates and ninjas (and dinosaurs and robots), I would be very disappointed if _____________ doesn't happen at some point!

When I finalise the outline, I'll make an honest attempt at working in all of your ideas that don't clash with what I've already decided. If they don't fit in the first book of the duology, they still might get into the second (particularly if they're ideas related to the dinosaur-men and the robots).

This is your chance to weasel your silly ideas into the Sankmarray Duology! You'll be doing us all a favour: me, by helping with the plot and giving me a challenge, and yourself and the rest of the world, by making it more fun to read.

Read the rest of this entry »

I've just caught a half-hour meeting (off the clock, of course, because I'm working a bit later this afternoon before Magers meeting) with a work friend to bounce some ideas off her for Sankmarray, my NaNoWriMo brainfoetus.

I think that went well. Ex…cept that she's persuaded me that what I have here is TWO books, not one.

She's right, I can see she's right, and at a stroke she's taken it from one not-really-ready book to one ready book and one not-ready book, but… two books is two-thirds of a TRILOGY, and… that makes you a real writer, and…

Wait a minute! That sneaky coworker! She just wants more books!!!

She also likes Taupeshank very much from my brief sketch of pim (both literal and verbal). This is good.

First sketch of Sankmarray ninja and pirate (crewpir, not king)

I'm not happy with the pirate — pe needs to be a bit more doggy as well as chimpy — and I still have no idea about head hair growth on either of 'em. Luckily you can't see the ninja's hair anyway, thanks to ner headscarf.

Petpet Park load test = slashdotted. There's a surprise…

Today's Thing That Has No Right Not To Exist Any More is the Saro Princess.

The Saunders-Roe Princess was a British flying boat aircraft built by Saunders-Roe, based in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. The Princess was one of the largest aircraft in existence. (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

This is the Saro Princess prototype. Here it is on its test flight. Here it is again in some more newsreel clips.

Three of these things were built. Only one flew, a series of test flights. They were overshadowed by the rise of jet aircraft and general falling out of fashion of seaplanes. Though they weren't used as passenger aircraft there was talk of using them to carry troops. This wasn't to be, and all three were broken up for scrap in 1967.

I am asexual and I don't much like vehicles. I would, however, hit that with the force of a drunken polar bear on skis. It is absoballylutely beautiful. Look at her!

Brought to you by the idiot who is writing flying pirates. Taupeshank's boat, the FPS Errant Buoy? Oh yes. Replace the cruise liner with galleon and you've got it.

(I know someone's about to mention the Spruce Goose. That tub couldn't flaming well fly and I'll have none of it. :P)

Here's the thing I've been waffling on about. It's the first in what is threatening to be a series. Still rough, but it may be as polished as it gets for now.

Sankmarray 1: Contact

You'll quickly see why I was shy about showing it. It is very silly.

Gentle feedback is welcomed, the more specific the better. If more of this appeared, would you want to read?