NaNoNaNoNaNo

NaNoNaNoNaNo!

Please say that as if you were in a conga line. Chugging along.

I am up to 4500 words on my NaNo novel which is a bit behind, but I fell asleep last night at something like 8:30 and this morning I have some business correspondence I have to take care. Of course I fell asleep last night thinking of the Regency Era-- the beginnings of steam, the era that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, and the inventions that changed our notions of what was to be expected of the future.

Pretty much until the Georgian and Regency Eras things had been done by hand. The Georgian Era was the beginning of the machine age. The cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the new application of steam came during the reign of George III. William Radcliffe invented the dressing frame that used steam to continuously operate looms and patented it under the name of Thomas Johnson in the year 1803. The Regency Era started in 1811.

So I have had this swirling of ideas that have gone through my mind about this novel and places it could go. Last night when I fell asleep with the computer resting on me, I wandered through a kind of imaginative limbo between being awake and being asleep. I dreamed of steam operated ornithopters and frigates lifted by spheres that were lighter than air. I dreamt of family recipe books that were not only documenting the harvests and production of estates but contained the magic spells of powerful families. I dreamt of subtle magics to coax new varieties of apples and roses, cure sickness, and cause infatuation. I dreamt of power to rob the world of color and animate a drawing to produce water.

How do I layer all of this into a novel? So many ideas and images. So many things that pull me in delightful directions!

I worked on the plot outline. Does that count?

I now have an outline with chapters to write. If each chapter is about 4000 words I should be good. Two sex scenes, an almost duel, a hint of sailing ships, magic, murder, and mayhem are on the plan.

Countdown to NaNoWriMo

Currently I live in the United States in Colorado which means US Mountain Time. It is almost 8 pm, which means that in four hours it is NaNoWriMo time!

Friends in Australia, Germany, and South Africa have already begun. In two more hours friends in Michigan will start their quest to write a novel.

Because of another friend and his brilliant suggestions I have a better sense of a plot and I get to write sex scenes! And duels! And ship voyages! And card games!

inkling of a plot

I have been researching Regency and Victorian Era courting etiquette and marriage. I have this idea for a plot that involves a society teetering between magic and technology and the balance of power is slipping away from the magic users because guns are being developed that are quicker to load, more accurate, and more reliable. Think of the brown bess that was the standard musket during the expansion of the British Empire. The wikipedia article for the brown bess is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bess

I need to do some more brainstorming on all of this but I am thinking of a plot along the lines of a young woman with aristocratic blood and the ability to do magic is introduced into society at what is a dangerous point in time. Her father is of the merchant class and wealthy and his marriage to her mother elevated him socially to some degree and saved the mother's aristocratic family from the poor house. The merchant, his wife, and the daughter who is of age to be introduced into society return to the capital city of the mother's origin. But things are stirring in the city and unpredictable even for one blessed with the ability to see the future.

I need to brainstorm more, but this is kind of where I am heading.

No Idea of a Plot

Next Sunday is the start of NaNoWriMo and I have no idea of a plot for the 50,000 word endeavor that I will be beginning in less than a week. I have been reading and researching things about the Regency Era because I decided that this is a time in history that I find interesting and I would like to know more about the Regency Era. Also, I have been playing around with ideas in a larger fantasy world that is set somewhere between the Hanoverian and Regency Eras. I am a little fascinated by the rise of technology, the widespread proliferation of written information, and the invention of credit. There was a shift of mind set that these innovations are just a cross sample of. I have written a couple stories within the setting of this fantasy world that were just to get a feel for the world, but I want to delve into it further.

However, I don't think NaNoWriMo is the time. The ideas around the fantasy novel that I have are a wee bit too precious and I think that the fantasy novel that I have in mind would actually get in the way of completing the 50,000 words.

So I am in search of a plot. I have a file with about sixty various plot starts in it that I have written. I think I will probably begin reading through them and see what ideas I can generate.

"Under A Closed Sky" Hub Fiction's Hub Fiction Contest Winner

A friend of mine, Colum Paget, who has a great deal of talent has a story entitled "Under A Closed Sky" that won Hub Fiction's Hub Fiction contest. It is published in the 100th issue of Hub Fiction which can be found at www.hubfiction.com.

Congratulations to Colum on being the contest winner! Congratulations to Hub Fiction on the publication of its 100th issue!

Check it out!

Olympia by Manet

In 1865 at the Paris Salon a painting was first exhibited. Some such as Emil Zola declared it a masterpiece. Others thought it a vulgar, immoral abomination and there were repeated attempts to destroy the painting as it hung on display.

It was not such a remarkable painting. Certainly there is a long tradition of artists painting naked Venus lounging supine, eyes drooping with satiation.

But Olympia was different. Manet chose not to create a representation that idealized feminine sexuality. Rather he painted a woman revealed. The painting proclaims both the power and the brutality of her nakedness. It greatly offended many people in the time period, but moved art in a different direction. Manet has been quoted as saying that rather than correcting nature and idealizing women and the female form, why not paint the truth?

So, he took the symbols of the day and changed them. Rather than including the black dog that symbolizes fidelity in paintings, he included a black cat to symbolize prostitution. Olympia lies on an oriental shawl, she wears pearl earrings and an orchid in her hair, and a black maid brings in flowers from a man--flowers that Olympia does not bother to acknowledge. The image is of a woman who stares out from the canvass and she has power within her circumstance. She has wealth and sensuality and is not beholden unto a man. The style of the painting is such that Olympia is not bathed in the golden tones of lowlight but rather a harsher, more illuminating and direct light is inferred. This reinforces the message of the painting.

The painting echoes and reverberates with ambiguous meaning. Olympia is powerful. Powerful because of her naked sensuality. Powerful as a woman. But there is a brutality to her situation that is as mean as the direct gaze that emanates from her eyes. She stares potentially across the room at the face of a lover who has entered her chambers. She stares at her present but where is her future? The flowers that the maid holds will wither and die. Is Olympia's power only because of those who gaze upon her? Or settled behind her eyes that gaze out onto the world?