NaNoWriMo

I'm writing this on my Droid since I already shut my computer down for the night and this is something I need to say.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. I've never done it before, but I've wanted to do it for years. I figure that, now that I'm done with school, I have enough time to really have a chance.

I've given much thought to what I wanted to write. It would need to be something that I can write a novella about, not just some random one-sentence idea. It would need to be something I could really care about, so I wouldn't get bored and drop it halfway through. It needed to be something good.

I'm going to rewrite Star's Light, a story I've been trying to write for about four and a half years, now. This is the story I, for lack of a better word, need to write. This is the Dark Tower to my Stephen King. If there's one thing I need to accomplish creatively in my life, it's to write this story. NaNoWriMo might give me the chance to finally finish it, at least the first story.

Star's Light began in freshman year of college. I was sitting on the Astro Lounge couch, surfing the internet, when I had one of those sought-after moments of epiphany. I imagined a man, some kind of space pilot, relaxing in the flight chair of his empty starship. And I felt consumed by a need to know this man: to know why his ship was empty, to know how he got it, to know why he even existed, somewhere out amongst the stars. Why his was a story worth telling. I began the first words of the story of Christopher Hayes and his female companion Anara Seline, almost immediately. That story has grown into a 63-page, single-spaced Word document that I've been writing and editing on-and-off for four and a half years.

Come November, I'm going to scrap that draft and start entirely anew.

There are a few reasons for this. As it is, the story is a bloated mess that combines a number of different writing styles, and would not look too good to the average reader. My writing style has gotten much, MUCH better up to now, and I think I can give the story the justice it deserves. I've also mulled over the setting quite a bit by now, as opposed to when I started writing, so hopefully the universe won't seem so haphazard and slapdash.

It also gives me a hell of a lot of incentive to write for NaNoWriMo, and I have a base to fall back on which should help me a bit in writing the new story. I don't think it's against the rules; I don't intend to follow the old story exactly. It'll be more of a guideline, more like a glorified outline.

The basic plot of Star's Light is that Christopher Hayes, wandering space thief, meets an attractive bartender, Anara Seline, after a successful job. As he heads back to his ship, the Star's Light, she runs into him as she's escaping from some angry, and armed, debt collectors. She's able to convince him to let her stay with him on his ship, and they quickly come to find out that they don't like each other very much. Hilarity and space thievery ensue.

It's basically a love letter to all the space sci-fi media that has captivated my imagination for literally my entire life. All that good shit from the late 80s to the early 00s, from Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop, to Andromeda and Firefly, to Star Wars and Star Trek; that kind of lighthearted, quirky feel, the kind that wasn't so obsessed with deconstruction and realism, before that became the mainstream. It's also my attempt to write an engaging, thoughtful relationship, not to mention a strong, believable female protagonist, things that I feel are handled too poorly on far too widely a scale.

Again, this is the one story I need to write. I won't ever be able to call myself a writer if I leave this unfinished any longer. NaNoWriMo might finally be the thing I need to get this done.

To whoever reads this (and I'll be posting this to Facebook to make sure people do read it), help me actually write this thing. Force me to finish it, in the middle of November when I hate myself and question why I'm even bothering. Remind me why this stupid little tale means so much to me.

I owe it to myself, after all the shit I've been through, to see Chris and Anara finally have a story. Even if it turns out to be shit. But I don't think it'll be too bad.

Not sure about the title, though.

Ruins in the Desert

I do a lot of thinking when I'm traveling. Then again, I do a lot of traveling, so I guess you could say I just do a lot of thinking.

Thinking is really all I can do. There's nothing out here in the desert; nothing I've seen, at least. Sure, there are probably ruins and ancient strongholds deep in the dunes, maybe even little trinkets half-buried in the sand, but you just don't see all that when you're walking in the desert heat. You just see the dunes, and when the entire world is just one big desert, you start to stop expecting something new over every crested hill.

I've been told the world hasn't always been this way. They say that there was a Fall, eons ago. They say that things actually used to be pretty good, that there were oceans, forests, gleaming cities. I find it hard to believe. When you spend your entire life living in desert, only sand and rock, the only hint of something else existing solely in your imagination, you begin to think that there was always desert. When you can only see the spindle forests, the vapor farms, the fortresses built in empty husks and hollowed-out mountains, it's really hard to imagine that there could have been anything else.

Could we really have screwed up enough to turn our entire world into this? Sometimes I don't think so, that humanity couldn't really be that cold, but then I remember the things people have done to another simply to survive, the things I've done just to see another sunrise.

But I know that there was something that came before. I just came from a village formed in an old fallout shelter, buried deep underground. I stayed in the ruins of some kind of building only a few days ago, ravaged by the sands and the passage of time, still holding some old relics of the past. I walked the halls of the place, its original purpose long-forgotten, and through the sounds of my footsteps and the lonely moan of the desert wind, I could almost hear the murmurs and shuffling of long-forgotten people, back when this place was still alive.

As I strode through the ruins I began to think of what had happened to it. What it had seen, in all the years it stood silently watching over the sands, a lonely reminder of an ancient people. Was it really important enough to have had to endure these countless years? Or was it simply just some twist of fate that allowed it to survive until I came? I wanted to know the story of this place, and yet I knew I never could. All I could add to its history was a night or two of rest, silently moving through its corridors and letting my imagination run wild, like I have done so many times before, as it had seen so many others do before me.

I guess you could say that this is why I keep traveling. I live for places like this; I immerse myself in them, losing my sense of the present as I try to learn whatever I can about the past. By thinking about why these buildings are still here, I wonder why I'm even here to see them in this state. If there had really been an End, why were there still survivors? If everything was always like this, who had come before to build this lonely place in the endless dunes? Smarter people than me have said that we can look to the past to understand ourselves, why we are, who we are. As I wander through these ruins, I know exactly what they mean.

Maybe I'm just looking to define myself here. Maybe that's all anyone ever wants to do: understand and define themselves. They just go about it in different ways. Exploring these places is really all I can do with my life. Nothing else could ever seem to compare.

-----

Another Rachel Aensland story. I read an article about the appeal of post-apocalyptica, and got inspired to write about why my favorite wasteland-wandering gunslinger is wandering in the first place. I imagine this takes place while she's still traveling to Dahn.

The High Provost's Morning

Adam Quinn was a man who enjoyed his routine

He awoke at precisely 7:03 A.M, every day. No earlier, no later. He rose in a smooth but slow way, like a stone sliding down a path of moss. His bed was always an otherwise empty one, and while this left a sort of a tugging sensation at the back of his mind, one that almost seemed to urge that this was a thing not quite right, it was something that Adam often forgot.

He went about his morning routine always in the same way: dressing in his favorite midnight velvet dining robe, grooming himself, and taking his morning tea (with exact amounts of mint and lemon) in his oaken chair, next to the big window that displayed the lovely garden outside. He often relished these brief moments of relaxation and quiet contemplation, though he never got much contemplating done.

Right at 9:46 A.M., one of his aides knocked on the large, mahogany door that led into his room, and Adam put down his almost-finished tea and went outside to his duties. It was convenient that his place of work was in the next room over, where his councilors and viziers were always waiting for him, dressed in their colorful and exquisitely-ornate robes of office.

Adam Quinn much relished his career as His Altitude the High Provost, Sovereign of the Republic, Defender of All that Lies Within. The list went on, of course, and it was all said whenever he entered the room, all nine pages, each page representing a year of his reign. Adam quite enjoyed thinking of new titles to give himself in preparation for his awaited tenth year.

Once the Reading of the Titles was complete, Adam sat down on his beloved blackwood Chair of Office and set to work managing the realm. Magistrates and advisers pelted him with all sorts of queries, complaints, and suggestions, and Adam took them all in, fingering the seam of his dining robe as he listened and didn't listen, waiting for the chance to speak.

"...and it is for this reason, Mr. Quinn, that we are in dire need of new sources of iron production. As it stands, our own supply is most exiguous..."

Adam brought up a hand, silencing the room. "'Exiguous'?"

The councilman, a smaller, stockier man, looked at him quizzically. "Y-Yes, sir. Exiguous."

"Whatever could that mean, dear legislator?"

The poor magistrate's left eye twitched, fearing the wrath this would undoubtedly bring. "I-I apologize profusely, High Provost, it was not my...my intention..."

Adam could hardly tolerate it. He would not permit such an errant word, enigmatic and strange. "Summon the Royal Dictionarian!" One of the aides bowed and quickly left the room.

The mood of the room changed in an instant. Most of the councilors let out soft sighs, some having experienced such an event before, others because it made no sense that there would be a Royal Dictionarian when there was no royalty. The newer councilors, oft-placed on a rotating schedule of administration, as per Adam's decree, were mostly oblivious as to what this could mean. The magistrate who first uttered that mysterious word was one of the experienced members, and moved to stop Adam in his tracks. "My dear Mr. Quinn, surely there is no need..."

He was interrupted by the opening of the main door to the modest assembly chamber, a young man of college age striding in. He was dressed in the official trappings of the Royal Dictionarian, which Adam had declared to be no different than that of any other young man of college age. What differentiated him from his peers, however, was that he carried a large leather-bound tome under his right arm - much larger and grander than any other book that young men of college age bore on city streets - which was labeled very clearly in golden calligraphy, "Royal Dictionary." The Royal Dictionarian walked over to Adam's right side and saluted. "Y-You have need of me, H-High Provost?"

Adam looked on the Royal Dictionarian fondly, reminded of how he had always wished he had held the office when he was that young, despite the fact that the position had only been brought into existence when Adam took office, much later in life. Still, he was envious of the young man's opportunity. "Royal Dictionarian, define for me the word...however was it pronounced?"

One of the younger aides, likely in an attempt to curry favor, enthusiastically spat, "'Exegesis', sir!"

An older aide, with lines of storm-cloud gray in his luxurious facial hair, groaned, "It was 'exeunt,' High Provost."

The original word-utterer, who was resigned to his inner prison of reason and logic until now, raised a stopping hand and sighed, "'Exiguous'. The word was 'exiguous'."

The Royal Dictionarian nodded excitedly and set the tome onto the large redwood Table of the Assembly, making a large slam that resonated through the nearby hallways. He deftly searched for the word, scanning through entries like a navigator plotting a course. The mood was tense, at least for Adam, as he watched the young man work, always afraid that the grand Royal Dictionary would not hold an uttered word, an event that would require either the marshaling of the entirety of the Republican military and a declaration of extreme emergency, or a summoning of the Grand Transcriber who would then add the word and its likeliest definition into the seemingly-ancient compendium. Adam found himself holding his breath, refusing to let it go as a matter of dramatic principle.

"I have found it!" The Royal Dictionarian declared, and Adam did indeed resume the act of regular respiration. The aide continued, "Exiguous, a member of the His Altitude's Adjectives..."

"A most noble group," Adam added.

"...defined in this most majestic guide as 'scanty in measure or number.' It may also be synomized as 'extremely small, diminutive, minute. So ends the definition."

Adam nodded in understanding. "I thank you for your services, Royal Dictionarian. You have once again provided me with the enlightenment that only you may provide. You may consider yourself relieved, and I bid you return to the Stacks, before they find themselves too lonely of your presence."

The Royal Dictionarian smiled and closed the Royal Dictionary. "I wish only to serve, High Provost," he said, bowing. He was then given leave to exit the room, doing so with the same stride as he entered with. Adam watched his departure, a hint of longing in his bright hazel eyes.

"That man holds more power than any other in this room. He has been given the authority to define all our language's vocabulary, whether it is as mundane as the common cobblestone, or as significant as Death Itself. On a whim, he could subtly redefine any word, and I would trust him implicitly. His is an office of honesty and truth, and yet it could bring down the very foundations of this world." Adam clasped his hands together. "A fascinating position, to be sure."

"But," Adam said as he returned his gaze to the assembled councilors, "where were we?"

-----

His Altitude the High Provost Adam Quinn is a character I originally planned for a steampunk campaign that I ran this past summer. Unfortunately, I had to cut out because I couldn't manage to fit him into what meager sessions I wound up having. I based the character mainly off of Auberon Quinn and Adam Wayne from G.K. Chesterton's fantastic The Napoleon of Notting Hill, hence the name. I loved the character too much to simply let him go, so I decided to write this little story. Hopefully there will be more to come.