3 Green Fish

Well, I added over 5 pages today, but it feels pretty rough. There’s some nice action in this section, and things are starting to get bad for my characters, so that’s all good. I need to go back and flesh things out here later, though, and add in more personal stuff about Adrianna. That’ll happen later, though, as I need to do some heavy rewriting in the earlier chapters first. The bad part about getting to know my characters better is that it means that my earlier stuff is less apt than it needs to be. Ah well.

Either way, the purpose of this draft is to get a solid sense of the structure of the story, and to flesh out the characters in such a way that I have a really good sense of them for my later drafts. Which isn’t to say that I don’t want it to be good to begin with, but a least I’m keeping things in perspective.

No excerpt today. Bedtime.

Wow! My most productive day yet, in which I added 5 pages to my manuscript (one previous Novel Watch was also +5 pages, but covered multiple days). This thing is really starting to gel, I think, and that helps it go faster. I’m still getting a better sense of the characters, and to a certain degree this section is driving itself forward. It also helps that I got started earlier and that I’m up almost until 4 in the morning.

My little book just moved up my top 15 list, too! Now it’s at #5, and will be staying there for quite some time, as you can probably tell from the following table. I’m rapidly approaching Official Novel Length, at 40,000 words.

Most of what I worked on was in Chapter 10. This section involves a trip into town, meeting new and interesting people, and visiting the local church. Bandolor got to make a dramatic speech, which was really fun to write, and then Adrianna got put on the spot.

Here’s how she feels about that:

With a magnanimous wave, Bandolor motioned for Adrianna to join him on the dais. The crowd eyed her with curiosity, much like that which she’d received on their way through town. Hundreds of pairs of eyes bored down on her, and she wanted to just shrink away. A few years ago she’d had a dream, almost the archetypal nightmare in which the dreamer goes to class only to discover that she’s naked, only in Adrianna’s dream, she’d been wearing normal clothes. It was everyone else who was naked, bare from head to foot, and shaved of all hair, even their eyebrows and lashes. She could still remember the looks those naked dream people had given her, the odd questioning expressions on their faces, and this situation right now brought that image rushing back. She felt like she was fully clothed in a church full of nudists.

Next up: Things get really bad. Yay!

I’ve always loved comics and comic books, but in the last ten years or so the availability of quality comics has declined. All of the superhero comic books I was reading got cancelled, one by one, and I came to realize just how seldom it is to find a funny joke on the newspaper’s funny pages. As things turn out, however, it’s not as grim as it seems, and the internet holds the answer. Webcomics, though they abound in quantities large enough to choke a webhorse, can fill that gap simply through the vast variety available — you’re bound to find something you like. So, today, I bring you one of the cream of the crop of the webcomics that I have discovered: Girl Genius.

Originally a print comic that has since migrated to the web, Girl Genius bills itself as a “gaslamp fantasy” — similar to steampunk, for those more familiar with that term. Three things stand out to me about this comic: first is the artwork which, while slightly cartoony, has a very consistent style that fits the never entirely serious storylines. With the exception of the first “issue” (which is a small portion of the archives at this point), each page is lavishly colored to boot. Second, the world and the characters are very well developed, and the story constantly reveals new details in the process. It’s a unique setting that really drives the story along. Thirdly, mad science. I love mad science, and this has it in spades.

There isn’t much to criticize here. I do occasionally feel like there’s too much going on behind the scenes, and would like to have a bit more backstory available. Also, it only updates three days a week — which is just never quite enough! Perhaps these two complaints go hand in hand. That’s not much to complain about, especially when you take into account the wonderful story filled with talking cats, airships galore, complicated lineages, issues of history and mythology, and a wonderful protagonist coming into her own as a spark, as these “mad scientists” are called.

Girl Genius, by Profs. Phil and Kaja Foglio, can be found at http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

Added another 3 pages today, and introduced some more townfolk like Bobby Hollowleg, the town drunk, and Herick Poorman, who hails from a long line of professional beggars. More importantly, I introduced Janekyn Smith, the son of the local blacksmith. He’s going to be somewhat important in part 2, if all goes according to plan…

Woo! I’m up to 47 pages and 30,762 words! That moves this book up my chart, two whole slots to #6!

Only 10,000 words more to go and this’ll be officially a novel. No worries there. The real question in my mind is how much longer than 40,000 words is it going to be? Can I keep it going at this seemingly slow but probably fairly fast pace? Hmmmm…. Well, the good news is that things are going to start going really bad soon, so that’ll keep things lively.

Bandolor is worried about the Tongue of Erskavit. Janekyn doesn’t know that. An excerpt:

Bandolor straightened to address Janekyn, who happened to be staring at Adrianna. She found herself sweating, wondering suddenly if he could see through her disguise.
“I would have a lock,” Bandolor said. “As hardy as thou canst make it.”
“A lock?” He smiled, both at Bandolor and Adrianna, and that put her at ease a little. Such a nice smile, he could hardly be suspicious of her, and if he was, she was comfortably secure that he wasn’t the type to go around telling everyone about it. When he spoke, it was with a voice both calm and measured, with the slightest hint of amusement. “Fear ye intruders, mighty Bandolor?
The sorcerer chuckled. “Nay, I fear them not. ’Tis for them I fear, in truth.”

I’m getting closer and closer to alien territory here. The farther in I get the less crystal clear I am about what exactly is happening next. Right now, I’m doing okay, as I’m just starting to introduce Adrianna to some of the townfolk. But I can see that horizon coming up, and I think I’d better plan for it.

I added 3.5 pages today! I think things are still moving along well. I like Chapter 9, and chapter 10 is going to be something of a monstrosity in terms of length, but I’m still happy with how I’m doing. Just gotta keep on writing!

Tomorrow I can introduce Bobby Hollowleg, the town drunk.

Bandolor is not a family man:

Sorcery came from within: it was a power that dawned on men of arcane knowledge, in much the same way that speech blossomed in babies. Bandolor planned to accelerate the process as much as he could, in much the same way that a mother might coo and babble at her baby to get the chubby parasite to start talking. Bandolor hated children.

As promised, here is a list of the longest stories and series I’ve written in my 15.5 years of writing fiction. I included series as well as individual works — after all, if this book ends up longer than my longest series, that will be quite an accomplishment, and will make me rather happy to boot. It’s high time I broke a personal record, and I think I’m well on the way towards that. We’ll see. Note that my current project has already moved up to #8! Woo!

I added 3 pages today, and wrote most of chapter 9. It’s kind of short, but it’s a single scene and I think it fit together well. I feel like my characters are starting to click in terms of their relationships and how they interact, which is good on the one hand, because it makes the writing easier, and bad on another, because that dynamic is going to change soon. Still, if nothing else it means that when I go back to revise I’ll have a better grasp of things. Adrianna, especially, is revealing a little of what makes her tick, to me, and that helps a lot.

Today Adrianna gets a haircut and makeover, a la Queer Eye for the Sorcerer … uh, Gal.

“Thy locks are far too long,” Bandolor commented from a stool in the corner of the kitchen. “Though the bachelors in Ynedering let their locks rustle ’gainst their shoulders, a boy in Itenin with such hair as thine would scandalize many. Mayhaps a maiden would as well.”
“I be scandalized myself,” Iggsle said with a sly grin, and vanished once more behind Adrianna.
The scissors bit down again. Adrianna winced. “Don’t you have any better scissors? How do you cut each other’s hair?”
“Elias Barber lives in town,” Iggsle said. “His hands be steady. . . .”
“But his tongue shakes at any provocation,” Bandolor cut in. “His slightest suspicion be common knowledge in Itenin. ’Twould have been too risky to have thee meet him ere thy locks be shorn.”

Added two pages, and promptly managed to bomb my computer — I think that’s the first time I’ve managed to do that on my laptop. Fortunately, it happened after I’d saved and backed up, so nothing seems to have been lost. I think it might have been my removing the drive that crashed it in the first place. Hm.

Got a big loooooong scene coming up, but that’s the last major thing that has to happen in part 1 (well, okay, more like the second to last. But the other one isn’t as major). I could still finish part 1 by the end of August! Wow.

Okay, that’s all. Tired. I sleep now.

Last week I compared the 3 current-generation video game consoles by looking at differences in the design of their controllers. This week I’m going to continue my video game Versus Mode series by looking at the power of the three systems — after all, controllers aren’t everything, and computing power has a great impact on how games run. Along with the CPU, I’ll look at hard drive size while we’re at it. Let’s go!

Xbox 360

The 360 sports a nice 3.2 gigahertz PowerPC tri-core processor, 512 megabytes of ram shared by the CPU and the Graphics Processing Unit, plus 10 bonus MB in a special frame buffer to help reduce issues with graphics. The GPU runs at 526 MHz. Depending on the configuration, the Xbox 360 may come with a 120 GB hard drive, a 20 GB hard drive, or no hard drive at all. Hard drives may be purchased separately (say, by those who bought the cheap version and then realized that yes, they really did want a hard drive).

Playstation 3

The PS3 also has a 3.2 GHz processor, the Cell. which has 7 sub-processors called SPEs. These allow a certain division of computing tasks not possible in a regular processor, and theoretically kick the pants off of the 360’s tri-core processor, 204 gigaflops to 115.2 gigaflops. Granted, the value of this depends much more on how well the architecture is used by programmers than anything else, but it does present the possibility that the PS3 might reach a level of processing power that the 360 cannot. The PS3 has a total of 512 MB of memory, half of it high-speed XDR memory connected to the CPU, and the other half graphics memory. The 550 MHz GPU can access the CPU memory if necessary, but the PS3 lacks the extra 10 MB frame buffer of the 360. As for hard drives, the PS3 is currently available in the USA with either a 60 GB or 80 GB hard drive, with all models including hard drives.

Wii

Poor Wii. Unlike its brothers, it doesn’t get many handouts when it comes to power. If the Xbox were America and the PS3 Japan, the Wii would probably be a nomadic tribe on the African savannah. Still, its 729 MHz processor and 243 MHz GPU are a healthy step up from the GameCube and most of the previous generation of consoles. The Wii sports 88 MB of RAM, plus 3 MB of frame buffer memory. It has a whopping 512 MB storage capacity. With the exception of the larger hard drive, the Wii clocks in around the original Xbox.

And the winner of round 2 is…

Next week: it’s all about the dough. Oh, and maybe Mario.

I added 3 whole pages today, which is good — it means I’m catching up!

Today was fun. I think my characters are starting to coalesce a little, which is great. I’m getting a better handle on Adrianna, which is extremely important. I know I’m going to have to go back and strengthen her early on, but that’s okay. This is rough draft land — right now I’m just moving ahead and discovering new things.

My word count stands at just over 23,000 words — officially in novella territory, and over halfway to the usual designation of novel (40,000 words). It’s #9 on my personal list of longest stories/series written, by word count. Just recently passed ThatPlace: The Joining in length, which is amazing considering how much happened in that story! (I’ll post the full Top 10 list as soon as I get a chance to format it)

Today Adrianna got her first “lesson,” if you can call it that, and then she got to meet Bandolor’s thesaurus:

The creature was watching her eyes move back and forth between Bandolor and her palm. Adrianna leaned in to get a closer look at it, and it raised up a long-fingered paw towards the side of her face. Such a strange animal, and almost creepy in its chimerical composition, but it had the most innocent expression on its face. In the end it wasn’t Bandolor’s command that led her to raise it to her cheek, but simply the fact that it was, despite its mismatched limbs , quite cute. It climbed up on the side of her face and held itself there with its sticky feet. One set of long fingers curled around her ear, the other rested softly against her temple. The cool temperature and sticky appendages of the creature sent itchy tingles across her face.