This year I’m going back to straight up Fantasy. ‘The Empty Throne’ is the story of what happens twenty-odd years after an Evil Overlord is defeated. It’s based on what I’m calling ‘The Princess Peach Scenario’ – what if the ‘Evil Overlord’ wasn’t that bad? Evil sure, but a gentlemen. ‘The Empty Throne concerns The Hero’s two sons, the return of the empire, and dark family secrets. I also discovered while outlining that it really solidly wants to be a duology – it breaks very neatly in half, with two complete story arcs.

My toolbox this year is more or less the same as last year, with a few notable additions that I wanted to share.

The Necessary Programs -
RoughDraft – for the actual writing. I find it minimalist and non-distracting. The notepad sidebar feature is infinitely useful, from quick notes about character descriptions to quick math after word wars, all without leaving the program.
OneNote – I don’t know how I lived without OneNote. It has all my story bibles in one place.
iTunes – *shrug* That’s where I have all my music loaded and sorted into playlists.
Spotify – Imagine iTunes injected with rocket fuel. Sit through the occasionally add and listen to just about any song you want for free.
Dropbox – There is no excuse for not backing up. Especially during NaNo.
F.lux – A simple little program that adjusts the color of the screen, reducing eyestrain and making sleep sounder. Extremely useful for nightowls like me.
Write Or Die – I’d never read 50,000 without it! The Online EditMinion is equally useful for quick edits.

Also, for the month of November I’ve set myself a mini-challenge. As I’ll be at Kaladi a lot during the month, and steamers are both one of my favorite things and one of the cheapest things there, I’ve decided I will not have the same flavor combination twice during NaNo. Last Saturday at the kickoff I had a blackberry/cinnamon steamer – better than you’d think, though it left an odd aftertaste.

7 days until NaNoWriMo. 27 days until Skyward Sword comes out. We’ll see who wins this November. :3

Exhibit A

The House that Miyamoto Built knows how to play us like harp strings.

The Game Developers Conference was this week. Somehow I managed to miss that fact until yesterday – certainly examples all the nifty news that’s been coming out. I’ve been tossing around ideas for in depth examinations of video games, but this week I think I’m just going to go down the newsbits that caught my eye.

First off – there are new screenshots of the 3DS remake of Ocarina of Time. The game was looking pretty terrible for awhile there, but these are lovely.

Speaking of the Legend of Zelda – The new Skyward Sword trailer is looking pretty intriguing. I engaged in some wild guessing over it at my livejournal.

Netflix on the 3DS – in theory I LOVE IT. In practice? We shall see.

Beyond Good and Evil was released on XBLA this week. I have it on Gamecube, but I’m tempted to get this version for the Achievements. And so I don’t have to use a wired controller. >_>

The english trailer for Catherine. The most whacked out game I’ve seen in awhile. I am looking forward to the Let’s Plays.

Lastly, gameplay footage for Ms. Splosion Man came out this week. Initially I was looking forward to this game, but after the seeing that footage I feel disgusted. The character’s sound bites are so cliche and off putting – a caricature of vapid ‘girl’ that offends me on a deep level. “Who left the toilet seat up?” “Do I look fat in this?” REALLY?! And I imagine those statements are going to get real inane real fast, repeated as often as they where in the example footage. Dear Twisted Pixel – this is one sale you have lost.

(Link)

I also discovered Google Sky today, which is simply amazing. I could waste hours with it. Google Mars is also worth a note here – an excellent resource for sci-fi writers in my opinion.

After dragging my feet through the week I got all caught up on Friday and Saturday at the write-ins. I’d probably never make 50k without the write-ins. I was somewhat stuck on my story until I brought the Heroine’s brother in and started the book on it’s downhill path to the climax.

A couple of links, because I don’t have much else to write about today. First off, I’ve been getting the code I use for my word count meter here. Using code instead of images is better for both my internet karma and bandwidth in general. The other thing, that I discovered just this Thursday, is Write or Die, a nifty in-browser program that like a portable word war. The word counter in the corner is probably the most helpful aspect of it.

27038 / 50000 words. 54% done!

A while ago, over at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers, Marie Brennan blogged about writers and ranks. I like the apprentice, journeyman, master metaphor. It’s one that resonates with me, perhaps because I like the concept of ‘leveling up’. But in any case it got me to thinking about my writing and where I was in my development of it.

I will freely admit that I am an apprentice. Though I’ve been writing for about ten years now I’ve only been writing seriously for four years, most of which were spent working out emotional upheavals in my life and simply getting a sense of what it was to write. Now I feel like I’m on the verge of something. Not the transition to journeyman, but on the verge of being able to see what it is I need to do to reach that next level and my way will be clear, if challenging.

I’m working on a short story right now. The idea of it hangs clearly in my mind’s eye and I know that there is something different about this story. This is the first short story that I’ve ever written without purpose – not for a contest or anthology submission – and it’s the first that came to me as a short story, and not just a story. Something about it feels right, like this is the sort of thing I need to be doing more of.

I’ve also shifted Covenant Cross to the back burner for the first time since I started working on it. About the same time the short story idea hit me I realized that my pet project was becoming just that – a pet project. I loved playing with it too much and it was swiftly becoming an Unfinished Project. I needed some distance, and to work on something else for awhile.

While I’m linking to stuff here are a couple other good posts I was linked to this last week – Six Friends Every Writer Needs. A list that is both sweet and true.

Also, 15 Step Program for Good Writing Habits. Good advice, especially with NaNoWriMo coming up in just over a month.

50 years ago Congress voted in favor of making Alaska the 49th state of the United States. The greatest day in Alaska history. Watching the news tonight they showed a bunch of file footaged and I was amused, but not surprised, to see that the old Alaska/Texas rivalry was alive and kicking from day one. Some things never change, eh?

Tonight on the news one of the anchors left. John Tracy. It’s a strange feeling because I pretty much grew up listening to his voice. It will be weird to watch the news from now on. I’ve had that feeling a lot recently, as all the voices I knew as a child are growing old and either retiring or dying. It makes me feel old and that’s not fair! I’m too young to feel old.

Appropriate words from the crew of the space station. I came across this while surfing youtube and just had to share. Video embedded after the break. Huh, can’t do that. Well, just click the link provided. :)

Halfway through the month and 2,000 words into my script I’ve found a new respect for script writers while at the same time learning it is not for me. Usually I work well under limitation, but in this case the boundaries are too binding. On the plus side I’m going to come out of this with a new set of characters, a interesting story I’d like to explore more, and, most importantly, fingers itching to get back to work on other projects.

On another note, I missed Blog Like It’s The End Of The World! I didn’t even realize it was going on until it was over. Late to the bandwagon as usual. Oh well, I’ll definitely be on board next year, in the meantime the collection of links to BLITEOTW entries is tripling my list of blogs-to-read.