Spent most of the weekend playing WAR, some EVE thrown in as well. But that matters little with the outlining I still need done! So, been handwriting it for the past few days, it seems I work faster and better that way–I guess it makes wanting to edit things a little more work, or it may just be my crappy handwriting is illegible. I need to get it all typed in, but so far I’ve redone my chapter one outline–the main plot was just a little too basic for what I wanted, so I’ve gotten a little complexity thrown in with the MC having visions of an alternate, insane him doing all kinds of bad things. The second chapter introduces the first secondary character and his POV, then the female MC’s POV, and wraps it up with the MC and another horrible vision. Now I’m debating chapter three, I have another completely unrelated secondary character that should provide some dark humor that I love, so I’m thinking of throwing him in first, then possibly switching to another secondary character around him for the rest of the chapter. Chapter four will likely touch base with the main plot again (the timeline’s will get sort of confusing for the reader I think, might be a big problem) then will likely lead off to another secondary character. I’ll have to decide how many I really want to use, or maybe just come up with plots for all of them and if I run out of things to write, grab one and use it. That should work.

…and I nearly hit all three. Talk about a busy morning commute! (by the way, I wasn’t trying to hit them, it was more they were trying to hit me, not even kidding.)

So, where do I stand thus far on worldbuilding for my NaNo story? I think I’m doing pretty well, over 6600 words written (not counting the generated info for secondary characters, which would likely be another 2000+). I should have enough background material to really get into the outline now and will start pushing that out as much as possible. If work wasn’t so tiring, I’d get more done at home! Thankfully Google Docs can solve most of that problem (breaks/lunch at work are excellent writing moments).

Have over 3500 words worth of background info written so far for the NaNo story. The outline is also started, with the first day’s worth written. I’ll be doing a detailed (think I’ve heard it used ‘Phase’ outline?) step-by-step outline, which should be the best for me with the work schedule I’ll have during November.

The story is Saryval, which I did have a sort of ‘intro’ written out and up on here before, but that’s been scrapped. The beginning is still similar, but starts while the MC is actually being transported to Saryval, leaving out the unnecessary Earth intro. The plot I’ve decided on (or haven’t decided on, it’s hard to say) is different from the original idea, and I’ve got some map making to do since I’ll be changing the original layout of regions. I do have names for my characters, the male MC is Markus and the female MC is Aisling. Other notes, hmmm, I’ve got–what I think is–all the races worked out in rough. There’s four of them: Seravya (what Aisling is, just a touch of vampire inspiriation in them–sunlight is bad for their skin, longer life spans, can feed on another being’s life force–in this case spirit/soul; most of this has to do with their region of origin which is heavily forested, they lived in the eternally dark lands beneath the canopy, their innate magical abilities are spirit based, both of those have lead to their increase in lifespan–as well as reproduction later in life), clockwork humans (for lack of a better name, think of a steampunk/clockwork fantasy borg and you get these guys. the society they live in is an empire, with an emperor that controls his people through different neural implants. while this sounds incredibly high-tech for some fantasy story, there is a reason! these people have an innate magic for metals allowing them to bend iron, steel, copper, tin and bronze to their will. what initially started as improvements to their military strength soon turned to controlling the entire population of the empire, it now works as a single entity, under complete control of the emperor. however, there are a few nobles and talented engineers that have been given a moderate amount of free thought in order to continue progression of machines and such), the Vernai (barbaric, highlandish, mystics and shape shifters. tribal society.), and the Nerot which are some kind of undead-ish, magically infused ancient beings that may still hold tremendous amounts of power (I don’t think they’ll be used much). Pretty happy so far with the progress, I really just have to come up with more secondary characters and sub-plots, then continue my outline so I’ll be able to just sit down and write when I have time.