What I Have Been Doing

I am missing the NaNoWriMo novel at the moment. I started this novel with all intentions of having fun and writing about duels, sailing ships, and spies. And magic. I am derailed. The derailment is a good thing because I am writing biographies for paid freelance work. Money is a good thing. And the biographies are interesting.

Tonight I learned all about immunotherapy to help in the treatment of cancer. It started with metastatic melanoma and taking the white blood cells from tumors and altering them to attack the cancer. Now the researchers are further specializing the genes inserted in the white blood cells so that they will attack other forms of cancer. Dr. Steven Rosenberg who is the head of surgery at the National Cancer Institute began examining how the patient's own immune system could be used to fight cancer after he treated a patient whose cancer had gone into spontaneous remission and he wanted to know why. That was over thirty years ago and he had been treating the gentleman in question for gallstones and there was no evidence of his cancer.

I also learned about Burger King who currently has a CEO who is criticized for "not having ketchup in his veins". John Chidsey, the BK CEO, was named CEO just prior to the company going public which is very unusual. Under his tenure as CEO so far Burger King has created the freaky "The King" commercials and tried to appeal to a hipper, young, male audience that eats fast food with abandon.

Tomorrow night I have to work on the biography of Leilani Munter who is trying to green up NASCAR.

I do learn cool stuff while I am doing these biographies. It might only be useful on Jeopardy though.

Remiss in posting

I have been remiss in posting lately. Too much going on. It's probably better that I don't post because I forget my good humor at times and post the most incredibly boring or whiney stuff imaginable and who on the planet wants to read that.

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.