>My 2009 NaNovel *Magic System*

>

I should write up some sort of *magic system* so I know what magic can and can not do in my universe? I don’t want the answer to always be that magic can solve everything – there’s no real challenge for my characters if I did that. More like magic is there, and people who know how (have learned/studied) can use it to varying degrees, but most people just don’t know how to do anything with it – so it’s like, only a few “magical person’s” really know how to use it – Jack Frost for example – only Jack Frost has gone power crazy with it and is using it to freeze everything, sort of just because he can and no one knows how to stop him – which he sees as making him the most powerful person alive.

I still haven’t worked out how Jack goes from ordinary magical person who creates winter, to megalomaniac magical person gone mad. Or who it is that is going to step in to stop him, or how. It seems like it should be another *magical type* but than again, it might be better if a regular, non-magical type stops him – possibly using some sort of weird ice-melting steampunk gadget? Not sure yet.

My world has to different races: Humans and Magical Beings/Elementals (which are sort of like the ancient *gods* or immortals- heavily influenced by Norse mythology, at this point.)

My Humans *can* become magical in a Jedi Knight sort of way, but are unlikely to do so as it’s an ancient nearly dead art.

My Magical Beings rarely associate with the Humans, live among themselves, and are controlling the weather/seasons anonymously, so the Humans pretty much are unaware that without the Elementals, the climate and weather would go all to hell. (Which is just what is going to happen – Jack Frost is going to take over and the rest of the elementals are for whatever reason not going to stop him – maybe they go on strike because the Humans forgot about them?)

I’ve divided my magic system by seasons and elements as a result: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Frost/Wind/Snow, Rain/Water/Fog, Green/Plants, Fire, etc.

In any case, I definitely need to build up laws for my magic system, I forgot to do that.

I need to answer the following questions:

What IS magic?

Magic is the ability to do ordinary things by extraordinary means.
It is also the ability to do seemingly miraculous or otherwise impossible things, using methods that deify explanation.

What can magic do?

Magic can help or harm. It can be used for good or evil.

Magic can alter the state of things -

In Humans this means strength of will power – think Jedi Knight – using the force around you not grab a wand and shoot (Harry Potter style).

In Magical Beings this means and Frost Being can enhance the wind to make it colder to the point of turning water into solid ice instantly, or freezing a person solid, etc. and a Green Being could cause plants to grow faster or cause vines to wrap around a person to tie them up, while a Fire Being could make wood burn by touching it. That sort of thing.

What can magic NOT do?

Magic is not the answer to all life’s problems. You can not just snap your fingers and toys march themselves to the toy box. Magic is limited. Magic is not all powerful. Magic does not defy the laws of physics – it can seem like it is doing so, but it’s only making it look that way.

Magic can not turn something into something else – a person into a newt, a copper teacup into a gold brick, etc.

Who can learn magic?

There are two types of magic in this universe:

1.) The type mentioned above, which is a flow of energy throughout the world that every one has access to, but almost no one knows or believes they do. These are ordinary Humans, not unlike us. They are not born with “mutant powers*. Some of them are just more spiritual or psychic than others. They have the same physical limitations as us. They can not do *Harry Potter* magic. These that do harness the magic energy do so in much the same way Jesus did.

2.) Magical beings and immortals are born with *magical gifts*, which they can either choose to develop and use or not. Due to their species they are born with *special powers*. They are a race of *super beings*, somewhat akin to super heroes and super villains from comic book universes. Their powers are in controlling elements of nature – the weather, for example. They are thus referred to as Elementals.

These elemental powers do not just appear at random – they are specific species. For example, a being who can harness, control, cause, and create ice, wind, and snow, would have been born from parents who could do the same. One that could control water, fog, and rain would have had parents with the same powers. A child of Ice parents wouldn’t develop fire magic, for example.

These are specific species – like cats and dogs and goats and chicken they do not cross breed one with another and create “half breeds”, because it is not physically possible. They are not Humans, they do not think or act like Humans. They do not live with Humans. They can not breed with Humans and create Human/Elemental cross breeds.

How does one learn magic?

Everyone has magic in them to some extent, but few people are away of it and only rare individuals ever discover this fact or try to use it. The ones that do discover it are more spiritual or psychic. Once they discover they can tap into this *magic energy*, they must learn how to use it, otherwise it is useless to them. Their studies are very much in a Jedi Knight sort of way, with them tapping into mental energies. Magic in Humans is more of an enhanced karma thing – again – think Jedi Knight style magic.

Magical beings have it at birth and can use it to some, minor, insignificant extent, usually when angry. But they require years of training to learn how to really use it to a great advantage. As such, most Magical Beings are just somewhat different from Humans, most Frosties have a tingling cold handshake, but can’t turn you to solid ice, for example. While only those, like Jack Frost and Mother Nature, who made a career out of using magic, became really powerful.

Why would someone want to learn magic?

Usually to help the world, the people, but sometimes folks have selfish motives.

Why don’t more people know how to use magic?

It requires many long years of hard training and most people are either too lazy to bother or can not afford more than a couple of years of basic training.

Let’s see if I can add to that by answering these now:

So how does magic work in your world?

I think it’s like an energy force field for the Human Magic. But for the Elementals it’s like a natural ability, so not really magic per say, but seems like magic to Humans because Humans can’t do it.

Can everyone use it, or just some people?

All Humans *COULD* tap into the energy field and use magic if they knew they could and tried to, but almost no one knows they can and only few that know about it actually try it.

All of the Elementals use their elemental magic to some extent, but mostly in minor ways. Only a few really go all out with it.

Are you born with the ability or do you need to be taught?

Elementals are, but Humans are not.

Where does it come from, how does it exist, and how is it harnessed?

The magic Humans use is the energy given off by the earth, and they can harness it through psychic training.

The Magical Beings, elemental powers are natural abilities, and not really *magic* to them.

Is your magic similar to any other author’s ideas?

The Human magic is very Japanese Mythology and Star Wars – so, yep.

The Elemental Magic is very Norse mythology and Celtic, so, yep again.

Do you explain magic in your book, or do you hope your audience will accept it for what it is?

not sure yet – I guess we’ll find out once November rolls around.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

Writing about snow (A NaNoWriMo Post)

Back again, from the NaNoWriMo forums to copy my post from there to here. Today’s subject: Snow.

[quote=PearlRose]Snow! Tell me about snow!

So, I would like to write some snow into my novel this year. It’s taking place in a fantasy realm, but still snow would be commonplace in some of the areas. Some of my characters come from places that have a lot of snow.

I, however, live in Florida, and have for my whole life!

So, tell me about snow! What does it feel like? What do you like to do in the snow? Can you tell when it’s about to start snowing–kind of like when it’s about to rain? How hard is it to walk in snow? Ice? What about different kinds of snow?

Um, enlighten me. I’ve never seen snow before.

[/quote]

Outsiders, are usually taken by surprise, when they see their first Maine snow. They are rarely prepared for how deep it gets and how fast it falls. Most come here thinking they’ll see an inch or two in December. They come early planning to spend a few weeks in October looking at fall foliage. They don’t expect the first snowfall to hit in September or the fact that by October we may very well already have 4 or 5 feet of snow on the ground. In February 2005 we got hit with a 9 foot snow fall, which fell in less than 3 hours. Around here – doors open in not out, you keep your shovels indoors, you have a wood stove and case loads of candles, and you have a food supply of no less than 5 months worth of food on your selves at all times. You plan on going weeks on end with no electricity, no roads, no contact with anyone, and this in a town with 12,000 people, 15 miles from a town with 64,000 people.

It shock tourists when the reality hits them, that they could and often are, trapped in a place without electricity or phones (and forget about cell phones working). Why? Because snow is heavy and it topples 200 foot tall pine trees, across roads, lines, and rooftops. Very few people who come vacationing in Maine, stop the really think about just how harsh winter in Maine, really is.

Places that get a few inches of snow a year, are far different than places that get a few feet of snow a week. People that seeing only a dusting of snow (in Maine a dusting is any snowfall less than a foot deep), often view snow as fun. They look forward to it, as though it was a novelty. Maine gets snow 11 months of the year. In my town, Old Orchard Beach, the only month I have not personally seen snow was August.

In a place like this, we plan our entire year around the snow. We have to. It’s a fact of life, that if you want to live in Maine year round you have to be prepared for snow at a moment’s notice and without warning. (about two-thirds of the locals are not 12 month residents, living here only from May to October)

What does it feel like?

Depends on the weather.

If the temperature is warm (40F) than the snow is wet, slushy, and sticky. It’s like a snow cone or slush puppy icy drink falling from the sky. This type of snow hits the ground in a watery mess and can cause major flooding of rivers, streams, brooks, creeks, etc. Along swamps and marshes, roads wash out. This type of snow fall is very, very, very, very heavy – it topples pine trees, caves in roofs, collapses roads, washes out bridges, and over all creates havoc. Warm wet slushy snow is the least welcomed of the snow falls. It’s too heavy to shovel, too wet for snow-plows (I believe they are called snow throwers in the south, because that’s what our Florida tourists always call them.), too slippery to walk in. This type of snow is rarely seen in forested regions, and is most often seen in urban city regions, especially in places with lots of tall buildings (which give off heat that melts the snow as it falls). Rarely do these slushy storms ever get more than 6 inches tall and usually they melt away in a week or snow. They tend to fall in late spring (March – May here in Maine).

Snow that comes below 30F is soft and light and fluffy. It is called “Cold Snow” due to the fact that it only occurs when the temperatures are really, really, really cold. This is the best type of snow in every way. It does little if any damage, it’s easy to shovel, it’s easy to walk in, and the storm itself rarely is an issue. This snow, can however, come in huge waves – because it is light and fluffy, it is easily picked up by high winds, causing “white out conditions”. These storms can also sit in one spot and last for days on end. Around here, snow drifts are 10 or 12 feet tall, even if only one or two feet of snow fell. In mountain areas these drifts can reach in excess of 20 feet tall. Because the snow is so light weight it drifts like the sand dunes of Egypt and even when it is NOT snowing, you can have a white out, simple because high winds, blow the already fallen snow back up into the air. This is the type of snow most often seen during a blizzard, and is more common in mountain regions, than in urban or coastal regions. It is rarely seen in cities, due to the buildings giving off so much heat. These storms can happen any time of the year, providing the temperature is cold enough (less than 30F or 0C).

In between these two temps comes what we call “snowman snow” – which is a cross between the wet slushy stuff and the light fluffy stuff. It’s not as heavy as the slush type, but still heavy enough to be difficult to shovel. It’s light enough to drift, but because of it’s sticky nature, it packs in tight and freezes into huge blocks of ice, which are sometimes impossible to shovel through. This is the snow that children look for, because it’s the one that usually results in school closings, and it’s also the ONLY type of snow in which you can build snow men and snowballs, or go sledding. This type of snow, is often seen in blizzards and a single storm can dump 4 or 5 feet or more in just a couple of hours.

Than there is “black ice” a strange sort of snow fall that happens, when the temperature fluctuates during a storm. Usually black ice occurs when the temps are really cold and a lot of light fluffy snow is falling, than suddenly a warm front comes in during the storm, causing the snow to turn to rain. This warm front usually only lasts a matter of minutes – quickly followed by another blast of cold winds, and a sudden instant temperature drop falling to below zero, instantly freezing the rain, on top of the snow. The end result has one of two effects, depending on how mush snow fell before it started raining. If a lot of snow fell, say a foot or more, the end result it a hard crusty snow which cuts through flesh causing deep wounds and nasty gashes in hands, legs, and knees, should you fall down. The problem is you are so cold that you don’t start bleeding until you go indoors, and often, you do not know you have cut yourself until you go inside again, and suddenly feel a sharp piercing pain. If the ice on top of the snow is deep enough, you can walk on top of the snow, just as if you are walking on solid ground. Beware though should your foot find a thin patch and go through the ice, because it will slash your ankle and leg to ribbons, like razors. This snow is near impossible to shovel, and most locals, take to stomping down paths, instead of even trying to shovel it. This type of black ice storm, takes months to melt, because the ice itself, can be up to 10 or 12 inches deep, due to it having soaked into the snow rather than melting the snow. This type of snow usually falls in late winter (December – January here in Maine)

The second form of black ice, is by far the most dangerous type of snow storm there is – death tolls stager after a black ice storm of this type. In this one, only an inch or so of snow fell, before the temp rose and rain took over. Because so little snow fell, usually all of it is melted away by the rain in a matter of minutes. Than the deep freeze blows over and freezes the ice, and this is where black ice gets it’s name from – because of the strange shift in temperatures, the rain freezes extremely fast into a mirror smooth finish, which is nearly invisible to the human eye. On trees, plants, and blades of grass it is called hoer-frost, but on tar roads, it is called black ice, because the roads appear just as black as ever, and drivers have no idea there is anything wrong with the roads, until they suddenly lose complete control of their car and are sent speeding faster and faster down the road until they finally come to an instant, and usually fatal halt, by hitting something. Most black ice storms around here, see a dozen or more deaths per storm, always from car crashes. Also, walking on black ice roads and pathways in impossible unless you are wearing cleats. This type of black ice, usually melts away after a day or two of sunshine has beat down on it, leaving just as quickly as it arrived. We can see this type of snow during any of the 12 months of the year, here in Maine, but usually see in hit us every single day in February, every single year. When black ice hits every day, day after day like that, it is than referred to as an Ice Storm. See Ice Storm 98 for more detailed info on the biggest storm to hit not only Maine, but most of NorthEast America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_ice_storm_of_1998

What do you like to do in the snow?

Around here – it’s not a question of what you LIKE to do in the snow, but rather, HOW can you do what you like to do in the snow.

Can you tell when it’s about to start snowing–kind of like when it’s about to rain?

The first thing you will notice before a snow storm – is dead silence. It is like every single bird suddenly dropped dead. They all go silent all at once, usually within an hour of the storm. That is quickly followed by a sharp, blast of cold wind, and the sky suddenly going completely grey, with huge low, foggy, silver grey clouds rolling in all around you. It’s like a tornado or a hurricane is about to strike, but instead, it’s a blizzard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I too am writing a snowy winter story. I started my NaNoWriMo planning on August 1st (just as I do every year.) My problem, as always when I start a new book, is that as soon as I get an idea and start researching it, while I’m researching, other ideas pop up and I end up planning several books at once. This can cause problems with NaNoWriMo, because with a timed contest like this, you have to write at the seat of your pants, non stop break neck speed, which means once the contest starts, you really can’t stop your novel and start a second, third, or fourth one dead in the middle! In my early years of NaNoing this has been a problem – heck, it was a problem last year too!

Anyways, in order to give myself time to change my mind about my plot 10 or 20 times, I start my NaNoNovel plotting in August instead of October with every one else, and it’s a good thing I did. This year I ended up with 13 plots between August 1st and September 30st!

In August, my goal was to write about a creepy circus. I love creepy circuses, always have, always will. Throughout the month of August all my Tweets chattered about my circus history research, but as the month wore on, more ideas popped up and my circus idea changed and evolved many times. From Steampunk to Horror to Romance to Fantasy and than back and forth between them all, my NaNoNovel has yet to settle down into a genre, but it’s plot, has become more clear.

So hot sunny August quickly went by, followed just as fast by September. No, almost. Something happened this year, something rarely seen. Something that threw a plot right in my lap, complete with characters. You see, I’m a farmer in a tourist town on the North Atlantic coast. That means winter comes fast, and summer is fleeting, our growing season is short, barely a 100 days long even in our best years, and when tourists hit the beach, they hit it all at once on one of the few days that we get each year without snow.

We start planting in May (providing the snow has melted that soon) and we hope we can get everything harvested before mid October when the first blizzard season of the winter starts. (Our “big” 9 foot blizzards of February, make our much smaller four foot blizzards of October look like a dusting.) Our town has a strange meteorological phenomena caused by the extreme cold winds that blow in off the Gulf of Maine and get trapped in Saco Bay. While the rest of the Southern Maine’s growing region is listed by the weather services as zone 5, here in Old Orchard Beach, we have a zone 4 growing season most years, and a zone 3 season in the colder years. Our summers rarely reach 70F and our winters commonly dip to -20F. Wind chill factors bring our temps to -40F from December to February. It’s like somebody cut a piece out of Alaska and dropped in next door to Portland just to be funny. (Yes, mini icebergs have formed on the shores of Old Orchard Beach – it’s rare, but it has happened.) Why we get this extreme cold while the rest of Maine does not, has been explained by weather men as having something to do with the way Saco Bay is shaped. It’s shaped like a horseshoe with a very small opening, which let’s the wind in off the ocean, but than traps it there holding the cold air in, all year long.

This year, has been abnormal, even for us. In 2009 our growing season started late – it was the first week of June by the time the ground had thawed enough to plant – a result of heavy rains the fall of 2008, getting frozen deep in the ground just before a blizzard than hit us in mid October that same week. By May 2008 we still had snow well over a foot tall covering most of our garden plot. This was highly unusual, because by May first we usually have the ground tilled and planted. Our growing season lost a whole month this year.

Usually when we have a late spring, we also have a late winter, so our growing season stays about the same. That is what we expected. Therefor, in August when I started planning my NaNoNovel, I did not plan on an early winter to take us by surprise. Second week of September 2009, after a night of Tweeting about my circus ideas, we awoke to find an alarmingly early frost had snuck in during the night and decimated our crops nearly 4 full weeks before harvest time!

To make things worse, the early cold, drove fish deep into the sea to escape the cold blasts on top of the ocean – meaning not only did farmers lose their crops, but fisherman lost their hauls as well.

To go one step farther – in mid-September our tourist season is not yet over. Palace Playland (the beach side amusement park) is still open and running, ice cream and pizza shops are still open, bikini clad tourists are still shopping, – the early cold front chased all the tourists out of Maine, forcing the rides and shops to shut down early.

As is normal for winter in Old Orchard, shops are boarded and shuttered, buildings are empty and the few of us that stay in this cold icy town year round, are once again living in a ghost town – a full two months earlier than normal!

And while normally I would complain at this early arrival of winter killing crops, chasing away tourist income, and driving me indoors to flee the harsh cold ocean winds – this could not have happened at a more perfect time! I had my creepy circus to write about, but no reason to write about them, no reason for them to be creepy, and more importantly, I had no characters to write about. November is fast coming upon us and I still had no clear idea what I wanted to write – and than this happens, and suddenly, riding in on an ocean breeze, everything makes perfect sense to me now – the story, the plot, where the circus came from, why they are here, what they want, and more importantly – who my main character is whom is leading my creepy circus onward: Jack Frost.

Of course, weird way our seasons are, this freak frost only lasted 2 days and than our weather went back to normal for this time of year. It came just long enough to kill crops, ruin fishing, and chase away tourists, leaving our town a ghost town. Oh well. In any case, it lasted long enough to give me a plot idea. And I thought it might be of interest to you for your own story, since I haven’t seen anyone mentioning frost yet. (frost usually sets in a few weeks before the first snow fall, so you can be sure that once you’ve had a frost, snow will soon follow.)

One thing I have not seen mentioned is the snow plows -

You don’t have to go too far South to find a big difference between out of state snow plows, and Maine snow plows. It’s not uncommon for people as close away as Massachusetts to ooggle at the size of Maine plow trucks and ask – Do you really get enough snow to need a plow that BIG?!? Around here, it’s not pick-up trucks with dinky litt;e snow pusher plows on the front; around here we have trucks that are specifically built with one purpose in mind – to be tall enough, wide enough, big enough, and heavy duty enough to drive single sweep through a 12 foot snow drift.

If you are talking about a place that gets a lot of snow, you’ll want to consider the size of their snow removal equipment. Most towns in Maine have at least one, and places that get the big storms have an entire fleet, of them. They vary in size from dump trucks to giant land movers.

Here’s one of the land-mover plow trucks without it’s plows on it:

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/mark_simiele/2005/aug/file0006.jpg

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/macneil/2008/10-20/sander.jpg

Here’s a few pictures of these trucks in action:

http://tinyurl.com/yzojp4d

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/andy_bruchey/2005/dec31/dot-plow.jpg

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4665686/snowplowtruck-main_Full.jpg

Another thing to consider is that, in spite of the huge size of these plow trucks, it takes a lot more than one of them to get the job done. Here’s a picture of a full plow team in action: http://colledun.com/gallery/albums/TowPlow/TowPlow.sized.jpg Notice how they stagger the trucks.

Don’t forget that in the north country where you find a lot of snow, you also find a lot of trains. For many months of the year, the roads are too icy for tractor-trailer-trucks to get through, thus necessitating the use of freight trains to get deliveries through. Here in Maine, you either got logging trucks, land movers, plow tucks, or freight trains. However, snow will derail a train in seconds, and huge 12 foot drifts will cover a track in a matter of minutes (whether it has snowed recently or not – the wind moved the snow, even weeks after the snowing has stopped). For that reason, there are snow plows, even bigger than the plow trucks themselves. These plows are attached to the fronts of the train and gobble up the snow as the train moves. Here are three different types of train plows:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2706699401_b75da2ebb9.jpg

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/mow/plow5.jpg

http://www.ovar.ca/Railfan/cn/cn55550_caboose_plow.jpg

WOW! I just realized how big my answer got – it’s almost a novel in itself! LOL! I had better stop writing before I overload NaNo’s servers with this one post!

Well, in any case, I hope that helps you out some. Good luck with your story!

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>Writing about snow (A NaNoWriMo Post)

>

Back again, from the NaNoWriMo forums to copy my post from there to here. Today’s subject: Snow.

[quote=PearlRose]Snow! Tell me about snow!

So, I would like to write some snow into my novel this year. It’s taking place in a fantasy realm, but still snow would be commonplace in some of the areas. Some of my characters come from places that have a lot of snow.

I, however, live in Florida, and have for my whole life!

So, tell me about snow! What does it feel like? What do you like to do in the snow? Can you tell when it’s about to start snowing–kind of like when it’s about to rain? How hard is it to walk in snow? Ice? What about different kinds of snow?

Um, enlighten me. I’ve never seen snow before.

[/quote]

Outsiders, are usually taken by surprise, when they see their first Maine snow. They are rarely prepared for how deep it gets and how fast it falls. Most come here thinking they’ll see an inch or two in December. They come early planning to spend a few weeks in October looking at fall foliage. They don’t expect the first snowfall to hit in September or the fact that by October we may very well already have 4 or 5 feet of snow on the ground. In February 2005 we got hit with a 9 foot snow fall, which fell in less than 3 hours. Around here – doors open in not out, you keep your shovels indoors, you have a wood stove and case loads of candles, and you have a food supply of no less than 5 months worth of food on your selves at all times. You plan on going weeks on end with no electricity, no roads, no contact with anyone, and this in a town with 12,000 people, 15 miles from a town with 64,000 people.

It shock tourists when the reality hits them, that they could and often are, trapped in a place without electricity or phones (and forget about cell phones working). Why? Because snow is heavy and it topples 200 foot tall pine trees, across roads, lines, and rooftops. Very few people who come vacationing in Maine, stop the really think about just how harsh winter in Maine, really is.

Places that get a few inches of snow a year, are far different than places that get a few feet of snow a week. People that seeing only a dusting of snow (in Maine a dusting is any snowfall less than a foot deep), often view snow as fun. They look forward to it, as though it was a novelty. Maine gets snow 11 months of the year. In my town, Old Orchard Beach, the only month I have not personally seen snow was August.

In a place like this, we plan our entire year around the snow. We have to. It’s a fact of life, that if you want to live in Maine year round you have to be prepared for snow at a moment’s notice and without warning. (about two-thirds of the locals are not 12 month residents, living here only from May to October)

What does it feel like?

Depends on the weather.

If the temperature is warm (40F) than the snow is wet, slushy, and sticky. It’s like a snow cone or slush puppy icy drink falling from the sky. This type of snow hits the ground in a watery mess and can cause major flooding of rivers, streams, brooks, creeks, etc. Along swamps and marshes, roads wash out. This type of snow fall is very, very, very, very heavy – it topples pine trees, caves in roofs, collapses roads, washes out bridges, and over all creates havoc. Warm wet slushy snow is the least welcomed of the snow falls. It’s too heavy to shovel, too wet for snow-plows (I believe they are called snow throwers in the south, because that’s what our Florida tourists always call them.), too slippery to walk in. This type of snow is rarely seen in forested regions, and is most often seen in urban city regions, especially in places with lots of tall buildings (which give off heat that melts the snow as it falls). Rarely do these slushy storms ever get more than 6 inches tall and usually they melt away in a week or snow. They tend to fall in late spring (March – May here in Maine).

Snow that comes below 30F is soft and light and fluffy. It is called “Cold Snow” due to the fact that it only occurs when the temperatures are really, really, really cold. This is the best type of snow in every way. It does little if any damage, it’s easy to shovel, it’s easy to walk in, and the storm itself rarely is an issue. This snow, can however, come in huge waves – because it is light and fluffy, it is easily picked up by high winds, causing “white out conditions”. These storms can also sit in one spot and last for days on end. Around here, snow drifts are 10 or 12 feet tall, even if only one or two feet of snow fell. In mountain areas these drifts can reach in excess of 20 feet tall. Because the snow is so light weight it drifts like the sand dunes of Egypt and even when it is NOT snowing, you can have a white out, simple because high winds, blow the already fallen snow back up into the air. This is the type of snow most often seen during a blizzard, and is more common in mountain regions, than in urban or coastal regions. It is rarely seen in cities, due to the buildings giving off so much heat. These storms can happen any time of the year, providing the temperature is cold enough (less than 30F or 0C).

In between these two temps comes what we call “snowman snow” – which is a cross between the wet slushy stuff and the light fluffy stuff. It’s not as heavy as the slush type, but still heavy enough to be difficult to shovel. It’s light enough to drift, but because of it’s sticky nature, it packs in tight and freezes into huge blocks of ice, which are sometimes impossible to shovel through. This is the snow that children look for, because it’s the one that usually results in school closings, and it’s also the ONLY type of snow in which you can build snow men and snowballs, or go sledding. This type of snow, is often seen in blizzards and a single storm can dump 4 or 5 feet or more in just a couple of hours.

Than there is “black ice” a strange sort of snow fall that happens, when the temperature fluctuates during a storm. Usually black ice occurs when the temps are really cold and a lot of light fluffy snow is falling, than suddenly a warm front comes in during the storm, causing the snow to turn to rain. This warm front usually only lasts a matter of minutes – quickly followed by another blast of cold winds, and a sudden instant temperature drop falling to below zero, instantly freezing the rain, on top of the snow. The end result has one of two effects, depending on how mush snow fell before it started raining. If a lot of snow fell, say a foot or more, the end result it a hard crusty snow which cuts through flesh causing deep wounds and nasty gashes in hands, legs, and knees, should you fall down. The problem is you are so cold that you don’t start bleeding until you go indoors, and often, you do not know you have cut yourself until you go inside again, and suddenly feel a sharp piercing pain. If the ice on top of the snow is deep enough, you can walk on top of the snow, just as if you are walking on solid ground. Beware though should your foot find a thin patch and go through the ice, because it will slash your ankle and leg to ribbons, like razors. This snow is near impossible to shovel, and most locals, take to stomping down paths, instead of even trying to shovel it. This type of black ice storm, takes months to melt, because the ice itself, can be up to 10 or 12 inches deep, due to it having soaked into the snow rather than melting the snow. This type of snow usually falls in late winter (December – January here in Maine)

The second form of black ice, is by far the most dangerous type of snow storm there is – death tolls stager after a black ice storm of this type. In this one, only an inch or so of snow fell, before the temp rose and rain took over. Because so little snow fell, usually all of it is melted away by the rain in a matter of minutes. Than the deep freeze blows over and freezes the ice, and this is where black ice gets it’s name from – because of the strange shift in temperatures, the rain freezes extremely fast into a mirror smooth finish, which is nearly invisible to the human eye. On trees, plants, and blades of grass it is called hoer-frost, but on tar roads, it is called black ice, because the roads appear just as black as ever, and drivers have no idea there is anything wrong with the roads, until they suddenly lose complete control of their car and are sent speeding faster and faster down the road until they finally come to an instant, and usually fatal halt, by hitting something. Most black ice storms around here, see a dozen or more deaths per storm, always from car crashes. Also, walking on black ice roads and pathways in impossible unless you are wearing cleats. This type of black ice, usually melts away after a day or two of sunshine has beat down on it, leaving just as quickly as it arrived. We can see this type of snow during any of the 12 months of the year, here in Maine, but usually see in hit us every single day in February, every single year. When black ice hits every day, day after day like that, it is than referred to as an Ice Storm. See Ice Storm 98 for more detailed info on the biggest storm to hit not only Maine, but most of NorthEast America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_ice_storm_of_1998

What do you like to do in the snow?

Around here – it’s not a question of what you LIKE to do in the snow, but rather, HOW can you do what you like to do in the snow.

Can you tell when it’s about to start snowing–kind of like when it’s about to rain?

The first thing you will notice before a snow storm – is dead silence. It is like every single bird suddenly dropped dead. They all go silent all at once, usually within an hour of the storm. That is quickly followed by a sharp, blast of cold wind, and the sky suddenly going completely grey, with huge low, foggy, silver grey clouds rolling in all around you. It’s like a tornado or a hurricane is about to strike, but instead, it’s a blizzard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I too am writing a snowy winter story. I started my NaNoWriMo planning on August 1st (just as I do every year.) My problem, as always when I start a new book, is that as soon as I get an idea and start researching it, while I’m researching, other ideas pop up and I end up planning several books at once. This can cause problems with NaNoWriMo, because with a timed contest like this, you have to write at the seat of your pants, non stop break neck speed, which means once the contest starts, you really can’t stop your novel and start a second, third, or fourth one dead in the middle! In my early years of NaNoing this has been a problem – heck, it was a problem last year too!

Anyways, in order to give myself time to change my mind about my plot 10 or 20 times, I start my NaNoNovel plotting in August instead of October with every one else, and it’s a good thing I did. This year I ended up with 13 plots between August 1st and September 30st!

In August, my goal was to write about a creepy circus. I love creepy circuses, always have, always will. Throughout the month of August all my Tweets chattered about my circus history research, but as the month wore on, more ideas popped up and my circus idea changed and evolved many times. From Steampunk to Horror to Romance to Fantasy and than back and forth between them all, my NaNoNovel has yet to settle down into a genre, but it’s plot, has become more clear.

So hot sunny August quickly went by, followed just as fast by September. No, almost. Something happened this year, something rarely seen. Something that threw a plot right in my lap, complete with characters. You see, I’m a farmer in a tourist town on the North Atlantic coast. That means winter comes fast, and summer is fleeting, our growing season is short, barely a 100 days long even in our best years, and when tourists hit the beach, they hit it all at once on one of the few days that we get each year without snow.

We start planting in May (providing the snow has melted that soon) and we hope we can get everything harvested before mid October when the first blizzard season of the winter starts. (Our “big” 9 foot blizzards of February, make our much smaller four foot blizzards of October look like a dusting.) Our town has a strange meteorological phenomena caused by the extreme cold winds that blow in off the Gulf of Maine and get trapped in Saco Bay. While the rest of the Southern Maine’s growing region is listed by the weather services as zone 5, here in Old Orchard Beach, we have a zone 4 growing season most years, and a zone 3 season in the colder years. Our summers rarely reach 70F and our winters commonly dip to -20F. Wind chill factors bring our temps to -40F from December to February. It’s like somebody cut a piece out of Alaska and dropped in next door to Portland just to be funny. (Yes, mini icebergs have formed on the shores of Old Orchard Beach – it’s rare, but it has happened.) Why we get this extreme cold while the rest of Maine does not, has been explained by weather men as having something to do with the way Saco Bay is shaped. It’s shaped like a horseshoe with a very small opening, which let’s the wind in off the ocean, but than traps it there holding the cold air in, all year long.

This year, has been abnormal, even for us. In 2009 our growing season started late – it was the first week of June by the time the ground had thawed enough to plant – a result of heavy rains the fall of 2008, getting frozen deep in the ground just before a blizzard than hit us in mid October that same week. By May 2008 we still had snow well over a foot tall covering most of our garden plot. This was highly unusual, because by May first we usually have the ground tilled and planted. Our growing season lost a whole month this year.

Usually when we have a late spring, we also have a late winter, so our growing season stays about the same. That is what we expected. Therefor, in August when I started planning my NaNoNovel, I did not plan on an early winter to take us by surprise. Second week of September 2009, after a night of Tweeting about my circus ideas, we awoke to find an alarmingly early frost had snuck in during the night and decimated our crops nearly 4 full weeks before harvest time!

To make things worse, the early cold, drove fish deep into the sea to escape the cold blasts on top of the ocean – meaning not only did farmers lose their crops, but fisherman lost their hauls as well.

To go one step farther – in mid-September our tourist season is not yet over. Palace Playland (the beach side amusement park) is still open and running, ice cream and pizza shops are still open, bikini clad tourists are still shopping, – the early cold front chased all the tourists out of Maine, forcing the rides and shops to shut down early.

As is normal for winter in Old Orchard, shops are boarded and shuttered, buildings are empty and the few of us that stay in this cold icy town year round, are once again living in a ghost town – a full two months earlier than normal!

And while normally I would complain at this early arrival of winter killing crops, chasing away tourist income, and driving me indoors to flee the harsh cold ocean winds – this could not have happened at a more perfect time! I had my creepy circus to write about, but no reason to write about them, no reason for them to be creepy, and more importantly, I had no characters to write about. November is fast coming upon us and I still had no clear idea what I wanted to write – and than this happens, and suddenly, riding in on an ocean breeze, everything makes perfect sense to me now – the story, the plot, where the circus came from, why they are here, what they want, and more importantly – who my main character is whom is leading my creepy circus onward: Jack Frost.

Of course, weird way our seasons are, this freak frost only lasted 2 days and than our weather went back to normal for this time of year. It came just long enough to kill crops, ruin fishing, and chase away tourists, leaving our town a ghost town. Oh well. In any case, it lasted long enough to give me a plot idea. And I thought it might be of interest to you for your own story, since I haven’t seen anyone mentioning frost yet. (frost usually sets in a few weeks before the first snow fall, so you can be sure that once you’ve had a frost, snow will soon follow.)

One thing I have not seen mentioned is the snow plows -

You don’t have to go too far South to find a big difference between out of state snow plows, and Maine snow plows. It’s not uncommon for people as close away as Massachusetts to ooggle at the size of Maine plow trucks and ask – Do you really get enough snow to need a plow that BIG?!? Around here, it’s not pick-up trucks with dinky litt;e snow pusher plows on the front; around here we have trucks that are specifically built with one purpose in mind – to be tall enough, wide enough, big enough, and heavy duty enough to drive single sweep through a 12 foot snow drift.

If you are talking about a place that gets a lot of snow, you’ll want to consider the size of their snow removal equipment. Most towns in Maine have at least one, and places that get the big storms have an entire fleet, of them. They vary in size from dump trucks to giant land movers.

Here’s one of the land-mover plow trucks without it’s plows on it:

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/mark_simiele/2005/aug/file0006.jpg

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/macneil/2008/10-20/sander.jpg

Here’s a few pictures of these trucks in action:

http://tinyurl.com/yzojp4d

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/andy_bruchey/2005/dec31/dot-plow.jpg

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4665686/snowplowtruck-main_Full.jpg

Another thing to consider is that, in spite of the huge size of these plow trucks, it takes a lot more than one of them to get the job done. Here’s a picture of a full plow team in action: http://colledun.com/gallery/albums/TowPlow/TowPlow.sized.jpg Notice how they stagger the trucks.

Don’t forget that in the north country where you find a lot of snow, you also find a lot of trains. For many months of the year, the roads are too icy for tractor-trailer-trucks to get through, thus necessitating the use of freight trains to get deliveries through. Here in Maine, you either got logging trucks, land movers, plow tucks, or freight trains. However, snow will derail a train in seconds, and huge 12 foot drifts will cover a track in a matter of minutes (whether it has snowed recently or not – the wind moved the snow, even weeks after the snowing has stopped). For that reason, there are snow plows, even bigger than the plow trucks themselves. These plows are attached to the fronts of the train and gobble up the snow as the train moves. Here are three different types of train plows:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2706699401_b75da2ebb9.jpg

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/mow/plow5.jpg

http://www.ovar.ca/Railfan/cn/cn55550_caboose_plow.jpg

WOW! I just realized how big my answer got – it’s almost a novel in itself! LOL! I had better stop writing before I overload NaNo’s servers with this one post!

Well, in any case, I hope that helps you out some. Good luck with your story!

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>NaNoWriMo 2009 – What shall I write about? – recap -

>

What shall I write about? – recap -

Okay, reposting these questions again. This time to see where I’m at and find out how many questions I’ve got answered.

What should I write about? Answer thus far = Jack Frost and a ghost circus taking over the world, more or less.

Where do I find inspiration? everywhere, esp outside, and in the cold weather

What’s at stake? uhm — the world? on a big scale, that is; on a smaller scale, the main character’s hometown; so basically, stop Jack on a small scale = stopping Jack on a big scale; right?

What are the obstacles? Jack’s army of ghosts are already dead, so it’s pretty hard to stop them, seeing how you can’t really hurt a dead guy, right? How does the town fight back? Can they fight back? What if they can’t fight back? What happens if they do NOT defeat Jack? Will Jack win and freeze the entire world? Do I have the makings of a series as a result of them not defeating Jack and the world is sent into a new ice age? I can see there is much to work out in this area still.

Who has the most to lose? Everyone – if Jack wins, there will be no more sunny days, no more warmth – and how the hell would Jack pull that off? What can he freeze the sun too? WOW! Never thought of that point before – new obstacle for Jack – How does he stop the sun from melting his frozen handiwork?

What is everybody’s motivation? The Humans don’t want to live in a world of ice and snow or worst freeze to death, and be turned into one of Jack’s ice clown drones. The Frost Ghosts are like zombies with no minds of their own, and have no motivation other than to obey Jack’s will. Jack has been around for centuries getting more bitter as each year passes, he’s got a lot of pent up anger to unleash on the world.

What needs to change by the end of the scene/chapter/book? ???

What do the various characters need to accomplish? Jack needs to raise an icy hell over the world. The Frost Ghosts need to do what Jack tells them. The Humans need to survive long enough to defeat Jack. Has Hell frozen over? Is that what’s going on here? Is Jack like a frozen cousin of Satan? Need to work on these ideas some more.

How do I actually get on with writing? Who knows?

What am I passionate about? Jack Frost?

Can I see myself immersing in, researching and spending my morning, days, weekends and evenings writing this? Yes, I can.

What do I know about? What am I an expert in? What knowledge can I share with the world? How does that help my novel? need to come back to this one

How many broad headings can I come up with to describe my plot? How can I turn them into 12 to 30 chapter headings. Haven’t done this yet.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

Why is my plot trying to become a YA Harry Potter rip-off?

I’m going good – my plot is moving right along, ideas and characters are snowballing into all sorts of plot snow-bunnies, everything is going great – and than today my plot does all sorts of weird things.

Quick recap – my plot revolves around this megalomaniac super villain who comes in and takes over this small town, planning to make it his “secret headquarters” for his bigger plot of global domination. He figures, no one will think to look for his HQ in a little hick town on the edge of nowhere, everyone will expect him to have some huge fortress in plain sight (because that’s his style). He also figures, no one in “a little hick town in the sticks” is going to be smart enough to defeat him or thwart his plans (yeah – this guy has a big ego problem).

Okay – so the town in the book, is in fact the tiny town in the middle of nowhere that I grew up in – so I know every nook and cranny and can really get into writing up the setting. I also know the locals pretty well and know that they just HATE outsiders barging in and will not stand for this guy’s attempt at taking over and setting up HQs here. They are NOT the backwards idiots he expects them to be.

So far so good. My problem is, I’ve yet to figure out WHO my hero is. I don’t have a main character or any of his side kicks yet. My story as I’ve planned it gets pretty dark and bloody, and is very much a horror story. Too horror to be considered a Young Adult novel. So I’ve been planning on an adult aged hero team (hero plus two friends).

Than this morning rolls around and I’m working on my plot and suddenly out of no where I’ve got these kids (about 16 years old -ish) and ideas about all sorts of ways they can defeat the bad guy, and I’m going – this is great! And than it hits me – it’s starting to sound an awful lot like Potter and crew going after Voldemort. Than I’m like – “Wait a minute! I wasn’t writing YA, what are these teenagers doing battling the villain?”

I need to steer clear of having Harry Potter-type personalities for my heroes. I think that’s the problem right there – it started sounding like it was Harry, Hermione, and Ron doing all these things. It was like they jumped out of the Potter books and into my plot. Not so much the plot itself being Potter-ish, but the characters acting like they were Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I don’t want to sound like I grabbed them, gave them new names, and set them in my plot, but just the way I was writing about their character bios – it seemed like that’s what I had done.

Of course maybe I SHOULD write YA, because tat’s what I read, and doesn’t every one always say to write what you read? What do I read – well, Harry Potter of course, and The Three Investigators, Bunnicula series, Jane Eyre, Edgar Alan Poe, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Lemony Snickets, Alfred Hitchcock’s Young Reader series, Bruce Coville, Betty Ren White, Kieth Laumer, James Blish, lots of random assorted single title books off the YA paperback rack of my local library – I rarely ever read adult fiction. . . uhm, yeah, YA books is all I ever read, maybe I should try writing YA after all?

It’s odd, I read one and write the other. All my books have always been adult books, usually very adult M rated books, not once have I written YA. It never occurred to me before that I am writing the complete opposite of what I’m reading. Weird, actually. Writing YA is so very not my style. I’m thinking now though, maybe I should give it a try seeing how this one is trying to go that road.

So my question is, SHOULD I go with it and let my teenage characters jump right in and battle the villain? or should I continue searching for older heroes for my book? Should I change my focus and make this a YA novel? And how do I come up with ways for my characters to defeat the villain, without making my readers think – “This is soooo Harry Potter”?

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>Why is my plot trying to become a YA Harry Potter rip-off?

>

I’m going good – my plot is moving right along, ideas and characters are snowballing into all sorts of plot snow-bunnies, everything is going great – and than today my plot does all sorts of weird things.

Quick recap – my plot revolves around this megalomaniac super villain who comes in and takes over this small town, planning to make it his “secret headquarters” for his bigger plot of global domination. He figures, no one will think to look for his HQ in a little hick town on the edge of nowhere, everyone will expect him to have some huge fortress in plain sight (because that’s his style). He also figures, no one in “a little hick town in the sticks” is going to be smart enough to defeat him or thwart his plans (yeah – this guy has a big ego problem).

Okay – so the town in the book, is in fact the tiny town in the middle of nowhere that I grew up in – so I know every nook and cranny and can really get into writing up the setting. I also know the locals pretty well and know that they just HATE outsiders barging in and will not stand for this guy’s attempt at taking over and setting up HQs here. They are NOT the backwards idiots he expects them to be.

So far so good. My problem is, I’ve yet to figure out WHO my hero is. I don’t have a main character or any of his side kicks yet. My story as I’ve planned it gets pretty dark and bloody, and is very much a horror story. Too horror to be considered a Young Adult novel. So I’ve been planning on an adult aged hero team (hero plus two friends).

Than this morning rolls around and I’m working on my plot and suddenly out of no where I’ve got these kids (about 16 years old -ish) and ideas about all sorts of ways they can defeat the bad guy, and I’m going – this is great! And than it hits me – it’s starting to sound an awful lot like Potter and crew going after Voldemort. Than I’m like – “Wait a minute! I wasn’t writing YA, what are these teenagers doing battling the villain?”

I need to steer clear of having Harry Potter-type personalities for my heroes. I think that’s the problem right there – it started sounding like it was Harry, Hermione, and Ron doing all these things. It was like they jumped out of the Potter books and into my plot. Not so much the plot itself being Potter-ish, but the characters acting like they were Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I don’t want to sound like I grabbed them, gave them new names, and set them in my plot, but just the way I was writing about their character bios – it seemed like that’s what I had done.

Of course maybe I SHOULD write YA, because tat’s what I read, and doesn’t every one always say to write what you read? What do I read – well, Harry Potter of course, and The Three Investigators, Bunnicula series, Jane Eyre, Edgar Alan Poe, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Lemony Snickets, Alfred Hitchcock’s Young Reader series, Bruce Coville, Betty Ren White, Kieth Laumer, James Blish, lots of random assorted single title books off the YA paperback rack of my local library – I rarely ever read adult fiction. . . uhm, yeah, YA books is all I ever read, maybe I should try writing YA after all?

It’s odd, I read one and write the other. All my books have always been adult books, usually very adult M rated books, not once have I written YA. It never occurred to me before that I am writing the complete opposite of what I’m reading. Weird, actually. Writing YA is so very not my style. I’m thinking now though, maybe I should give it a try seeing how this one is trying to go that road.

So my question is, SHOULD I go with it and let my teenage characters jump right in and battle the villain? or should I continue searching for older heroes for my book? Should I change my focus and make this a YA novel? And how do I come up with ways for my characters to defeat the villain, without making my readers think – “This is soooo Harry Potter”?

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>My NaNovel 2009 – What genre is it?

>

What genre is it?

I’m calling it Steampunk. I think, what I’m planning to write, will classify as Steampunk.

I think it is going to be Steampunk-Horror, but at this point in the planning it’s too early to say. It could go more into straight Fantasy leaving Horror behind, and it could go more modern than Steampunk. We’ll see once November gets rolling around, which way it turns out, but for the time being, I’m calling it a Steampunk-Horror until it tells me otherwise.

Is it bad that I have never read or written Steampunk before?

I’m a huge fan of Edgar Alan Poe and H.G.Wells, and I want to create a story that combines both of their styles, in the same sort of setting/era as their stories, but at the same time taking place in the present day. You see, I want to use a real town, which is utterly perfect for my novel to take place in, and was in existence in the 1800′s, but was wiped out by a fire in 1964, so the town today is nothing like it was than – none of the original buildings are left, though most of them were *rebuilt*. A lot of stuff that is in the town today (the amusement park rides, for instance) did not exist in the 1800′s, but I want to use them in my novel. I want to story set in the 1800′s, but I want all sorts of modern things too. My answer to that, was to throw everything in the pot together and write an alternate version of this town. So, what I ended up with, was a novel set today, in a real town, but in an alternate reality where it’s like most of the 1800′s lifestyle (cloths, theology, technology, etc.) is pretty much still here too. From my understanding of what Steampunk is, I think, my novel is going to be very much what could be classified as Steampunk.

Is it?

But my question is whether Steampunk is Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Adventure?

Admittedly, I’m somewhat new to Steampunk as a genre (if you don’t count the fact that I’ve read nothing but 1800′s sci-fi and horror for the past 30 years, that is), so my thoughts on this could be a bit skewed. I’ve never really thought of Steampunk as a genre in and of itself, but rather as a setting, in which any genre could be set. In other words, my feeling is that there are such things as: Steampunk Fantasy, Steampunk Horror, Steampunk Adventure, Steampunk Science Fiction, Steampunk Romance, Steampunk Murder Mystery, etc. etc. etc. I wonder, is there such a thing as Steampunk Chick Lit too?

I think any genre can be done as Steampunk, depending on which direction you want to take your story.

Personally, when I think Steampunk, I think of a modern day world, that for whatever reason, still lives predominantly in the lifestyle of a historical era. Sort of an alternate reality sort of thing, I guess. As for timeline, maybe I’m lose-er than others, but I see it as from the mid-1700′s to the 1940′s. I guess that goes a bit before and after the “steam era”, but that’s the way I see it anyways.

That’s what I meant earlier, about not being sure if I’ll stay strictly in Steampunk once I get started writing. You see, I’m setting my novel in the present day, but I’m also assuming that in *this* present day, things are quite a bit similar to what they were in the 1800′s. So, it’s not like I took things from our time and stuck them in the 1880′s, but rather, I took the 1800′s and stuck them in our times. Things like cars, I don’t think will exist in my world, people will still be using horses for the most part, or walking. On the other hand, I plan on having an airship of sorts (still designing it and trying to figure out it it’s the *only one* or if they are like cars and everybody has one. Not sure how that’ll go yet)

I think the ship, most likely, will be an actual ship – you know, like a pirate ship; only it can leave the water and fly through the sky as well. Not sure how it’ll do that yet, but I’ve always wanted a flying pirate ship, so I’m going to try it out and see what happens. I think, in the end, it sort like a space age science fiction time, but as though it was science fiction written by a person living in the 1850′s. You know, before cars and rockets were invented, so the *author* would be thinking in terms of water ships in the future. That sort of thing.

And zeppelins, I want to write about zeppelins. Is that weird? I’ve always wanted a zeppelin or a blimp, or some sort of big funny lightweight ship I could fly around town in. Ever since I was about 4 years old and I saw a blimp, I’ve wanted one. It’s one of those things, you know, when someone asks you: “If you had a million dollars what would you buy?” and my answer would be: “Why a zeppelin, of course!” Yep, I’m weird. I know. I was a weird kid and I grew up into a weird adult. It helps that I grew up in an almost Amish family, and have never NOT worn 1800′s cloths too. My clothes scare people, I never understood it, because it was the way my family dressed. I was 27 years old, before I had contact with people outside of my family, so I wasn’t aware that my clothing style had gone out of style some 200 odd years earlier. It was quite a bit of culture shock for me, but, you can see why I find it so very difficult to set anything I write, in a modern world, that does not live as the 1800 world.

I have a few odd idea running around in my head right now, things I would *like* to use, but am not sure yet how they well fit in my plot, so not 100% sure I’ll use each of them yet.

First off, I have this idea about an air ship, that is sort of part seafaring pirate ship and part zeppelin, so that it can go by air or water. I’m not sure yet how it is powered, but it has the ability to freeze solid every thing it passes over – turning the ocean to ice and such. Well, I suppose since it’s Jack Frost’s air-ship-boat-thing, you could say it was magic powered to some extent – though I still haven’t worked that all out yet. Maybe I should write up some sort of *magic system* so I know what magic can and can not do in my universe? I don’t want the answer to always be that magic can solve everything – there’s no real challenge for my characters if I did that. More like magic is there, and people who know how (have learned/studied) can use it to varying degrees, but most people just don’t know how to do anything with it – so it’s like, only a few “magical person’s” really know how to use it – Jack Frost for example – only Jack Frost has gone power crazy with it and is using it to freeze everything, sort of just because he can and no one knows how to stop him – which he sees as making him the most powerful person alive.

I still haven’t worked out how Jack goes from ordinary magical person who creates winter, to megalomaniac magical person gone mad. Or who it is that is going to step in to stop him, or how. It seems like it should be another *magical type* but than again, it might be better if a regular, non-magical type stops him – possibly using some sort of weird ice-melting steampunk gadget? Not sure yet.

In any case, I definitely need to build up laws for my magic system, I forgot to do that.

I have another idea for a merry-go-round which I want to do something really creepy and scary, but I’m not sure yet what it does. Maybe it freezes time? Maybe people get on, but don’t get off? Maybe it’s a portal to another dimension? Maybe it’s a time machine? I haven’t decided yet what it’ll do or how I’ll use it. I can just see clouds of dry ice wafting off the floor as it turns, filling the park grounds with an icy fog that freezes those who walk through it.

I also had an idea about a weird flying motorcycle, that is somehow powered by ice.

I was also thinking about this frozen ghost train, that crashed during a blizzard and everyone froze to death, but now years later it comes rolling through town in the dead of night, all coated with ice and snow, and instead of clouds of black smoke, it puffs out clouds of dry-ice fog. And all of its passengers are these sort of frost-ghost-zombies. The train was my first idea. Last August I kept thinking “I’m writing about a ghost circus train this year” but that’s all I had. Just the ghost train, nothing else. I think the ghost train is probably going to be a big part of the story, and the other stuff more background side things. I seem to be putting most of my focus on the train than the other things. I kept seeing the ghosts as very cold and icy, and one thing lead to another.

You can tell I’ve got this whole ice theme going here right? I want all my thingys to be powered by ice or to give off ice or turn things into ice. I guess mine will be more Icepunk than Steampunk. LOL! But hey, ice turns to steam as it melts right? Ice turns to water as it melts… yeah, but where does steam come from? Evaporated water!

So, I’m calling it Steampunk Horror for the time being. Of course, than I’ve got the whole Horror bit going too. I’m still calling it Horror at this point, but I wonder if maybe, it’s really, more of a Dark Fantasy instead? Maybe I should change my NaNoGenre setting?

Hopefully, I’ll have everything worked out between now and November.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

My NaNovel 2009 – What genre is it?

What genre is it?

I’m calling it Steampunk. I think, what I’m planning to write, will classify as Steampunk.

I think it is going to be Steampunk-Horror, but at this point in the planning it’s too early to say. It could go more into straight Fantasy leaving Horror behind, and it could go more modern than Steampunk. We’ll see once November gets rolling around, which way it turns out, but for the time being, I’m calling it a Steampunk-Horror until it tells me otherwise.

Is it bad that I have never read or written Steampunk before?

I’m a huge fan of Edgar Alan Poe and H.G.Wells, and I want to create a story that combines both of their styles, in the same sort of setting/era as their stories, but at the same time taking place in the present day. You see, I want to use a real town, which is utterly perfect for my novel to take place in, and was in existence in the 1800′s, but was wiped out by a fire in 1964, so the town today is nothing like it was than – none of the original buildings are left, though most of them were *rebuilt*. A lot of stuff that is in the town today (the amusement park rides, for instance) did not exist in the 1800′s, but I want to use them in my novel. I want to story set in the 1800′s, but I want all sorts of modern things too. My answer to that, was to throw everything in the pot together and write an alternate version of this town. So, what I ended up with, was a novel set today, in a real town, but in an alternate reality where it’s like most of the 1800′s lifestyle (cloths, theology, technology, etc.) is pretty much still here too. From my understanding of what Steampunk is, I think, my novel is going to be very much what could be classified as Steampunk.

Is it?

But my question is whether Steampunk is Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Adventure?

Admittedly, I’m somewhat new to Steampunk as a genre (if you don’t count the fact that I’ve read nothing but 1800′s sci-fi and horror for the past 30 years, that is), so my thoughts on this could be a bit skewed. I’ve never really thought of Steampunk as a genre in and of itself, but rather as a setting, in which any genre could be set. In other words, my feeling is that there are such things as: Steampunk Fantasy, Steampunk Horror, Steampunk Adventure, Steampunk Science Fiction, Steampunk Romance, Steampunk Murder Mystery, etc. etc. etc. I wonder, is there such a thing as Steampunk Chick Lit too?

I think any genre can be done as Steampunk, depending on which direction you want to take your story.

Personally, when I think Steampunk, I think of a modern day world, that for whatever reason, still lives predominantly in the lifestyle of a historical era. Sort of an alternate reality sort of thing, I guess. As for timeline, maybe I’m lose-er than others, but I see it as from the mid-1700′s to the 1940′s. I guess that goes a bit before and after the “steam era”, but that’s the way I see it anyways.

That’s what I meant earlier, about not being sure if I’ll stay strictly in Steampunk once I get started writing. You see, I’m setting my novel in the present day, but I’m also assuming that in *this* present day, things are quite a bit similar to what they were in the 1800′s. So, it’s not like I took things from our time and stuck them in the 1880′s, but rather, I took the 1800′s and stuck them in our times. Things like cars, I don’t think will exist in my world, people will still be using horses for the most part, or walking. On the other hand, I plan on having an airship of sorts (still designing it and trying to figure out it it’s the *only one* or if they are like cars and everybody has one. Not sure how that’ll go yet)

I think the ship, most likely, will be an actual ship – you know, like a pirate ship; only it can leave the water and fly through the sky as well. Not sure how it’ll do that yet, but I’ve always wanted a flying pirate ship, so I’m going to try it out and see what happens. I think, in the end, it sort like a space age science fiction time, but as though it was science fiction written by a person living in the 1850′s. You know, before cars and rockets were invented, so the *author* would be thinking in terms of water ships in the future. That sort of thing.

And zeppelins, I want to write about zeppelins. Is that weird? I’ve always wanted a zeppelin or a blimp, or some sort of big funny lightweight ship I could fly around town in. Ever since I was about 4 years old and I saw a blimp, I’ve wanted one. It’s one of those things, you know, when someone asks you: “If you had a million dollars what would you buy?” and my answer would be: “Why a zeppelin, of course!” Yep, I’m weird. I know. I was a weird kid and I grew up into a weird adult. It helps that I grew up in an almost Amish family, and have never NOT worn 1800′s cloths too. My clothes scare people, I never understood it, because it was the way my family dressed. I was 27 years old, before I had contact with people outside of my family, so I wasn’t aware that my clothing style had gone out of style some 200 odd years earlier. It was quite a bit of culture shock for me, but, you can see why I find it so very difficult to set anything I write, in a modern world, that does not live as the 1800 world.

I have a few odd idea running around in my head right now, things I would *like* to use, but am not sure yet how they well fit in my plot, so not 100% sure I’ll use each of them yet.

First off, I have this idea about an air ship, that is sort of part seafaring pirate ship and part zeppelin, so that it can go by air or water. I’m not sure yet how it is powered, but it has the ability to freeze solid every thing it passes over – turning the ocean to ice and such. Well, I suppose since it’s Jack Frost’s air-ship-boat-thing, you could say it was magic powered to some extent – though I still haven’t worked that all out yet. Maybe I should write up some sort of *magic system* so I know what magic can and can not do in my universe? I don’t want the answer to always be that magic can solve everything – there’s no real challenge for my characters if I did that. More like magic is there, and people who know how (have learned/studied) can use it to varying degrees, but most people just don’t know how to do anything with it – so it’s like, only a few “magical person’s” really know how to use it – Jack Frost for example – only Jack Frost has gone power crazy with it and is using it to freeze everything, sort of just because he can and no one knows how to stop him – which he sees as making him the most powerful person alive.

I still haven’t worked out how Jack goes from ordinary magical person who creates winter, to megalomaniac magical person gone mad. Or who it is that is going to step in to stop him, or how. It seems like it should be another *magical type* but than again, it might be better if a regular, non-magical type stops him – possibly using some sort of weird ice-melting steampunk gadget? Not sure yet.

In any case, I definitely need to build up laws for my magic system, I forgot to do that.

I have another idea for a merry-go-round which I want to do something really creepy and scary, but I’m not sure yet what it does. Maybe it freezes time? Maybe people get on, but don’t get off? Maybe it’s a portal to another dimension? Maybe it’s a time machine? I haven’t decided yet what it’ll do or how I’ll use it. I can just see clouds of dry ice wafting off the floor as it turns, filling the park grounds with an icy fog that freezes those who walk through it.

I also had an idea about a weird flying motorcycle, that is somehow powered by ice.

I was also thinking about this frozen ghost train, that crashed during a blizzard and everyone froze to death, but now years later it comes rolling through town in the dead of night, all coated with ice and snow, and instead of clouds of black smoke, it puffs out clouds of dry-ice fog. And all of its passengers are these sort of frost-ghost-zombies. The train was my first idea. Last August I kept thinking “I’m writing about a ghost circus train this year” but that’s all I had. Just the ghost train, nothing else. I think the ghost train is probably going to be a big part of the story, and the other stuff more background side things. I seem to be putting most of my focus on the train than the other things. I kept seeing the ghosts as very cold and icy, and one thing lead to another.

You can tell I’ve got this whole ice theme going here right? I want all my thingys to be powered by ice or to give off ice or turn things into ice. I guess mine will be more Icepunk than Steampunk. LOL! But hey, ice turns to steam as it melts right? Ice turns to water as it melts… yeah, but where does steam come from? Evaporated water!

So, I’m calling it Steampunk Horror for the time being. Of course, than I’ve got the whole Horror bit going too. I’m still calling it Horror at this point, but I wonder if maybe, it’s really, more of a Dark Fantasy instead? Maybe I should change my NaNoGenre setting?

Hopefully, I’ll have everything worked out between now and November.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>NaNoWriMo 2009 – Your Thoughts on Where This Could Go . . .

>

This post is to ask for ideas, but also for any one else to ask questions on, if you have got some sort of evil ice villain, winter wizard, ice king, snow queen, etc, lurking around in your novel.

Okay, my novel this year is a horror story about Jack Frost. However, my research of Jack tells my that 99% of the time, he’s a cute cuddly not really so bad – bad guy destined for children’s stories and Saturday morning cartoons. And I can get ideas from all that, sure, but cartoon character Jack’s are never “bad” enough and suffer from the all too cliched bad guy suffers change of heart and turns good.

Well, my Jack is along the lines of a psychotic comic book super villain type bad guy (influenced heavily by Batman’s, Joker.) You know, the type that DOESN’T turn good at the end of the story. The type that isn’t defeated once and for all, just defeated for now and threatens to return worse than before.

I’m not sure yet who the other icy folks will be, but for my story, Jack Frost is like an evil Ice King of sorts. The way I see Jack (my version of him), he’s this evil frozen overlord with a troop of frosty evil minions, and these bad guys take to killing people in “chilling” ways. I’ve already made a NaNo thread to throw around ideas for how to kill off characters: a>30 Ways to Kill 30 People in 30 Days but here, I’m not looking for ideas on how to kill folks.

What I’m looking for on this thread, is, cold, icy ways to make Jack and his minions spine tinglingly chilling. So, are you writing about icy-frosty-snowy-wintery characters? What ways are you using to make them more evil? How do you make characters who are usually seen in nursery rhymes seem prime evil and how do you make them terrifying?

What would you find most terrifying if you were to meet an ice villain face to face? What would scare you and why?

What would you find most terrifying if you were to meet an ice villain face to face? What would scare you and why?

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

NaNoWriMo 2009 – Your Thoughts on Where This Could Go . . .

This post is to ask for ideas, but also for any one else to ask questions on, if you have got some sort of evil ice villain, winter wizard, ice king, snow queen, etc, lurking around in your novel.

Okay, my novel this year is a horror story about Jack Frost. However, my research of Jack tells my that 99% of the time, he’s a cute cuddly not really so bad – bad guy destined for children’s stories and Saturday morning cartoons. And I can get ideas from all that, sure, but cartoon character Jack’s are never “bad” enough and suffer from the all too cliched bad guy suffers change of heart and turns good.

Well, my Jack is along the lines of a psychotic comic book super villain type bad guy (influenced heavily by Batman’s, Joker.) You know, the type that DOESN’T turn good at the end of the story. The type that isn’t defeated once and for all, just defeated for now and threatens to return worse than before.

I’m not sure yet who the other icy folks will be, but for my story, Jack Frost is like an evil Ice King of sorts. The way I see Jack (my version of him), he’s this evil frozen overlord with a troop of frosty evil minions, and these bad guys take to killing people in “chilling” ways. I’ve already made a NaNo thread to throw around ideas for how to kill off characters: a>30 Ways to Kill 30 People in 30 Days but here, I’m not looking for ideas on how to kill folks.

What I’m looking for on this thread, is, cold, icy ways to make Jack and his minions spine tinglingly chilling. So, are you writing about icy-frosty-snowy-wintery characters? What ways are you using to make them more evil? How do you make characters who are usually seen in nursery rhymes seem prime evil and how do you make them terrifying?

What would you find most terrifying if you were to meet an ice villain face to face? What would scare you and why?

What would you find most terrifying if you were to meet an ice villain face to face? What would scare you and why?

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

Villain as a PoV characters? Can it be done?

I’m having a character and plotting problem. I have an idea (not really a full plot yet – but November will fix that), and I have a place (the town I grew up in, of which I know every nook and cranny of), I have the backdrop people (nameless folks in the sidelines who’s sole purpose is to be killed off by the villain), and of course I have the villain (a nursery rhyme character gone comic book megalomaniac) and his evil minions (a traveling side show-circus of frozen ghosts).

My villain is well planned (I spent years creating him) and is life like and three dimensional. I know what he wants and what he’ll do to reach his goals. I know he’s about to land unannounced in this town and pretty much turn it upside down. I know that somewhere, somehow, someone (my hero/main character???) will come along and figure out how to defeat him.

And there’s my problem – I have no main character! I think I want three main characters (three best friends who for whatever reason take it upon themselves to defeat this guy), but I’ve yet to figure out who they, what they look like, or more importantly HOW they will defeat the villain.

I think as it goes now, the villain is going to be the point of view character, but than I wonder – CAN a villain be a PoV character? Stories should build up around the MC right? But does the MC always have to be the hero? My story is building up, but it is building up around the villain and as yet, no hero has come forward. Does that mean that my villain (and not my hero) is the main character?

Traditionally, the bad guy gets defeated at the end, and is no longer seen in the last chapter of a novel; the last chapter being reserved for tying up loose ends and showing the heroes living happily ever after (more or less). Can the novel be written through the eyes of the guy who will be defeated at the end? (He’ll still be alive at the end, the hero isn’t going to kill him off, just stop him from succeeding in his evil plan.) Can a novel end, not showing the hero riding off into the sunset, but rather showing the villain going off to sulk in his lair instead?

I know publishers always want the HEA (Happily Ever After) endings, but I’m just really not a HEA writer! It’s been the major stumbling block to my getting published, actually. Editor’s are constantly telling me: “This is great, but could you change the ending?” Are you crazy? Me? Change the ending? I’m not your sunshine and happiness writer! I don’t let my heroes get everything they ever wanted – heck, they are lucky if they are still alive by the time the book ends! I love Poe’s morbid endings, and I love writing Poe style morbid endings. I get sick of every book I read, ALWAYS having a HEA ending. I get to the end and I wish – just once, why can’t the bad guy win? Just once, why can’t the hero give up and say “To heck with it, save yourself.” Just once I’d like to see a stumbling block fall in front of the hero and he has to end his quest WITHOUT reaching his goal! ACK! Why don’t more publishers give us this? I mean, it’s not like us writers are not writing this stuff. Sure we are, we just can’t get publishers to publish anything without an HEA ending.

End rant.

Okay, back to my NaNoNovel of the year. Well, my novel this year, I’m planning to get published. By December I want to have a draft worthy of editing and polishing, so that by next summer I’ll have an MSS I can send out to publishers. Here’s my problem – I’ve done this before, but my endings are always either hero dies, bad guy wins, heroine dies and hero goes mad with grief, or some other such ending of gloom and despair. I LIKE writing endings like that, but publishers don’t want to publish those types of endings. So, I’m torn between writing what I’m good at or writing what publishers want.

Well, this year, my story, as usual, revolves heavily around the villain. It’s very likely that he’ll be the MC and the PoV character. It’s also very likely that he will defeat the hero and gain global domination. As it’s going right now (in this early planning stage) it looks like my hero is doomed to fail on his quest, and me the author is going to sit back and let it happen. In other words, I WANT MY HERO TO FAIL! No matter what he does or how hard he tries, I’m just not going to let him win. Is that bad?

Anyone ever seen the movie “Quarantine” (It’s a zombie movie that well, let’s just say does not go quite the way the hero expected.) or “Saw”? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Those kind of endings. Bad guy wins. No matter how many loops the hero jumps through – bad guy still wins – game over – hero loses. I like to call them *Twilight Zone Endings* because it happened so often, that the bad guy wins in The Twilight Zone. So, that’s the way my story is going.

Of course, it also looks like my plot is turning into sort of a zombie apocalypse here too. Whoops! I didn’t plan on that!

Can anyone recommend any books where the villain/bad guy is a PoV character? I’d like to read some to get an idea of how others have handled writing from the PoV of the bad guy, but so far I can’t think of any books writing from the villain’s PoV. Preferably stuff that makes you think: Quarantine, Saw, Poe, Joker, or Twilight Zone (since this is the way my story is leaning quite heavily at this point.)

I know Batman comic books are somethings written from the villain’s PoV and it’s not uncommon to see Gotham through the Joker’s eyes or to see the Joker taking the lead in the stories while pushing Batman into the sidelines. And of course, though he’s defeated in the end of the story, the Joker is never fully defeated, he always comes back a few issues later. But this is the only example I can think of, of a villain taking the lead, and a comic book is not exactly the same as a novel. Are there any novels that do this?

Is there any one else who has or plans to write using the villain/bad guy as their MC and PoV character?

So many questions, I know, but it’s just that I’ve never seen a novel written from a villain PoV before and outside of comic books I don’t know of any villains ever being used as a main character before. Let me know if you know of any, please.

Also I need to find my heroes (main characters???) but so far they are doing a good job of hiding from me. If any one has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>Villain as a PoV characters? Can it be done?

>

I’m having a character and plotting problem. I have an idea (not really a full plot yet – but November will fix that), and I have a place (the town I grew up in, of which I know every nook and cranny of), I have the backdrop people (nameless folks in the sidelines who’s sole purpose is to be killed off by the villain), and of course I have the villain (a nursery rhyme character gone comic book megalomaniac) and his evil minions (a traveling side show-circus of frozen ghosts).

My villain is well planned (I spent years creating him) and is life like and three dimensional. I know what he wants and what he’ll do to reach his goals. I know he’s about to land unannounced in this town and pretty much turn it upside down. I know that somewhere, somehow, someone (my hero/main character???) will come along and figure out how to defeat him.

And there’s my problem – I have no main character! I think I want three main characters (three best friends who for whatever reason take it upon themselves to defeat this guy), but I’ve yet to figure out who they, what they look like, or more importantly HOW they will defeat the villain.

I think as it goes now, the villain is going to be the point of view character, but than I wonder – CAN a villain be a PoV character? Stories should build up around the MC right? But does the MC always have to be the hero? My story is building up, but it is building up around the villain and as yet, no hero has come forward. Does that mean that my villain (and not my hero) is the main character?

Traditionally, the bad guy gets defeated at the end, and is no longer seen in the last chapter of a novel; the last chapter being reserved for tying up loose ends and showing the heroes living happily ever after (more or less). Can the novel be written through the eyes of the guy who will be defeated at the end? (He’ll still be alive at the end, the hero isn’t going to kill him off, just stop him from succeeding in his evil plan.) Can a novel end, not showing the hero riding off into the sunset, but rather showing the villain going off to sulk in his lair instead?

I know publishers always want the HEA (Happily Ever After) endings, but I’m just really not a HEA writer! It’s been the major stumbling block to my getting published, actually. Editor’s are constantly telling me: “This is great, but could you change the ending?” Are you crazy? Me? Change the ending? I’m not your sunshine and happiness writer! I don’t let my heroes get everything they ever wanted – heck, they are lucky if they are still alive by the time the book ends! I love Poe’s morbid endings, and I love writing Poe style morbid endings. I get sick of every book I read, ALWAYS having a HEA ending. I get to the end and I wish – just once, why can’t the bad guy win? Just once, why can’t the hero give up and say “To heck with it, save yourself.” Just once I’d like to see a stumbling block fall in front of the hero and he has to end his quest WITHOUT reaching his goal! ACK! Why don’t more publishers give us this? I mean, it’s not like us writers are not writing this stuff. Sure we are, we just can’t get publishers to publish anything without an HEA ending.

End rant.

Okay, back to my NaNoNovel of the year. Well, my novel this year, I’m planning to get published. By December I want to have a draft worthy of editing and polishing, so that by next summer I’ll have an MSS I can send out to publishers. Here’s my problem – I’ve done this before, but my endings are always either hero dies, bad guy wins, heroine dies and hero goes mad with grief, or some other such ending of gloom and despair. I LIKE writing endings like that, but publishers don’t want to publish those types of endings. So, I’m torn between writing what I’m good at or writing what publishers want.

Well, this year, my story, as usual, revolves heavily around the villain. It’s very likely that he’ll be the MC and the PoV character. It’s also very likely that he will defeat the hero and gain global domination. As it’s going right now (in this early planning stage) it looks like my hero is doomed to fail on his quest, and me the author is going to sit back and let it happen. In other words, I WANT MY HERO TO FAIL! No matter what he does or how hard he tries, I’m just not going to let him win. Is that bad?

Anyone ever seen the movie “Quarantine” (It’s a zombie movie that well, let’s just say does not go quite the way the hero expected.) or “Saw”? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Those kind of endings. Bad guy wins. No matter how many loops the hero jumps through – bad guy still wins – game over – hero loses. I like to call them *Twilight Zone Endings* because it happened so often, that the bad guy wins in The Twilight Zone. So, that’s the way my story is going.

Of course, it also looks like my plot is turning into sort of a zombie apocalypse here too. Whoops! I didn’t plan on that!

Can anyone recommend any books where the villain/bad guy is a PoV character? I’d like to read some to get an idea of how others have handled writing from the PoV of the bad guy, but so far I can’t think of any books writing from the villain’s PoV. Preferably stuff that makes you think: Quarantine, Saw, Poe, Joker, or Twilight Zone (since this is the way my story is leaning quite heavily at this point.)

I know Batman comic books are somethings written from the villain’s PoV and it’s not uncommon to see Gotham through the Joker’s eyes or to see the Joker taking the lead in the stories while pushing Batman into the sidelines. And of course, though he’s defeated in the end of the story, the Joker is never fully defeated, he always comes back a few issues later. But this is the only example I can think of, of a villain taking the lead, and a comic book is not exactly the same as a novel. Are there any novels that do this?

Is there any one else who has or plans to write using the villain/bad guy as their MC and PoV character?

So many questions, I know, but it’s just that I’ve never seen a novel written from a villain PoV before and outside of comic books I don’t know of any villains ever being used as a main character before. Let me know if you know of any, please.

Also I need to find my heroes (main characters???) but so far they are doing a good job of hiding from me. If any one has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>Jack Frost – A History – NaNoWriMo Research

>

Look out! Look out!
Jack Frost is about!
He’s after your fingers & toes!
~~Cecily Pike
I’m going to bore you a bit with some random history of Jack Frost and my own connection to him. Why? Well, because this blog is for brainstorming for my NaNovel and what better way to do that than to randomly chatter about the history of my main character?

Jack Frost and How I Met Him

My obsession with Jack started early. I only attended school for 3 years, being pulled out of school at age 8. However, in my short time at school, one thing went over big with me, and that was stage acting. Our school had 4 plays staged each year, and I made it my goal to be in every one of them – and I was. My photographic memory meant I had the highly unusual ability to recite pages of lines from memory after only seeing them a couple of times, and this unique talent got me cast in major roles of every play.

My preference however was always to play villains. Unfortunately for me, villains rarely had long lines, and my memory skills put me in roles where I had to do a lot of talking (strange considering my selective mutism in later years.) Only once, did I get to play a villain, and I was chosen for that part, not for my ability to remember lines, but rather due to my outlandish clothen style, which meant I had access to the proper costume for the part. For this silent mime style acted part, it was all about costume and an actor who could pull off a lot of glitter and glam. Boy can I do that. I scare people, not just today as an adult – but way back than in first grade – my chosen style of dress always scared people. But that year – it was my outlandish outfits that got me the part in a play that would forever change my view of book and movie villains and influence much of my later life.

I was 6 years old and the villain was Jack Frost in a reinterpretation of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant.

Jack Frost has long been my favorite character, be it a holiday character, a fairy tale character, a book character, or a movie character. 

For those of you who don’t know me well, I’m a big Liberace fan. To say I was a huge Liberace fan, is an understatement. One look at me tells you, I’m more obsessed with Liberace than any other obsession. There is a reason people walk on the other side of the road on what few occasions I leave my agoraphobic state and step out side in public. I’m a HUGE Liberace fan. I started dressing like Liberace at around 4 years old. I started my fandom very young.

So here was this teacher, with this idea of what she wanted her Jack Frost to look like and here was this student ready made for the part. Remember, when I was 6 years old, Liberace` was still alive and well and prancing across the stage on TV every morning, and I was glued to the TV never to miss a single episode of the Liberace Show. My clothes mirrored his. Liberace was than and still today, my eternal idol, and I always did dress like my hero. The teacher whom had written the play had this vision of a silver sequined Jack Frost, and who better suited to playing the part, than the school’s biggest (and only) Liberace fan? I had almost no lines at all, but boy did I have a costume!

I guess you could say, like nearly everything else in my life, you could blame my Jack Frost obsession on my love of Liberace. In any case, the cloths make the man, and I love a guy dripping in sequins. Since my first introduction to Jack Frost was to see him as an evil fairy tale version of Liberace, it was instant love at first sight.

The Jack Frost as I played him in the school play, was a Winter Faery, who came to the gardens to tuck in the summer Faeries, under a blanket of snow, and tell the flowers it was time to sleep for the winter. This Jack, loved children so left quickly, telling the Spring Faeries to awake the flowers so the children would have a place to play.

One winter, while tucking the Flower Faeries in, he sees a Giant chasing the children away. The terrified children no longer dare to come out of their houses to play, so the angry Jack unleashes his wrath on the land, with a blizzard unlike anything the world had ever seen. Buried in his castle the Giant who loved to garden, no longer can tend his flowers. Winter lasts for seven years, and darkness swept over the land, freezing everything in it’s path. Jack chases away the sun, the Spring, and the Flower Faeries, allowing only Wind and Snow to enter. Together Wind, Snow, and Jack torment the giant. Only after the giant repents and allows the children to play outside again, does Jack allow Spring to return.

This is one of the oldest stories of Jack Frost, though there are stories older, and no doubt is the story that inspired C.S.Lewis to write his Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, which tells a vaguely similar story of the White Witch casting eternal Winter across the land. In any case, this story was the first Jack Story I ever heard, and I got right into it, by playing Jack himself in our school play version of it, so it was this version of Jack that I came to think of when I think of Jack Frost.

Over the next few years, I looked for every story, picture, poem, book, and movie I could find about Jack Frost, and I was faced with something else: this guy is hard to find. Mentions of him anywhere are few and far between. When he does show up, he’s a minor character with barely a cameo role.

Liberace

Wladziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987), better known by the stage name Liberace, and known to his friends as Lee, was a charismatic American entertainer. Liberace` was one of the world’s greatest entertainers.

Jack Frost the Cartoon Villain

The next time I saw Jack it would be in the claymation movie The Year Without a Santa Claus, where he is portrayed as part of the evil Miser Brother duo. This movie opened my eyes to all new possibilities for my beloved Jack – namely that now I saw him as some sort of an ice god who rules over winter from a frozen castle of ice hidden deep in the North Pole.

Next time I found Jack it was in Keenan Wynn’s Winter Warlock version of him, from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, another claymation movie.

This interpretation of him, brought to light the fact that this guy was damn mean, but that, he wasn’t always mean – long ago he had been a mortal human who had only wanted love and friendship but was meant with cruelty and unkindness, and so turned his heart cold to the world and set out to freeze it, than created the North Pole as his hide out. This of course would result in him playing a roll in Santa Claus having a place to escape to and thus how Santa Claus was able to build a magic village and toy shop that no one could see.

So, now I had new ideas about Jack – who I now saw as not only having power to control the weather, but also, a wizard of sorts with other strange powers as well.

NOTE TO SELF

Once upon a time Jack Frost was known as Odin . . .

From Odin to Jack: A Short History of Jack Frost

As the years came and went, I would find Jack Frost hiding in many places, but only in the two movies mentioned above, was he ever found to have any sort of leading role, and even in those two movies his on screen time was minimal at best. (Okay, yeah, I know, he’s in other kids movies and cartoons, but the other ones always show him as a good hero figure and I’m looking for bad guy versions of him.)

My luck with books was not much better, outside of The Selfish Giant, Jack Frost was rarely seen in books, and usually only ever mentioned in passing and not actually seen at all.

A few assorted winter poems and Christmas songs mentioned him now and again, but as usual, it was nothing to write home about – so to speak.

Frustrated with fruitless searches for Jack in books and movies, I turned my search elsewhere and found that folklore, myths, and legends are where you find the real stories about Jack.

As it turns out Jack is an ancient character from Norse mythology, who once upon a time was known as Odin. In his early days Jack Frost was Odin, a fearsome god of winter whose servants were the Frost Giants and Ice Giants and prime contender was the black hearted trickster, Loki. His early incarnation was your basic viking warlord complete with big long bushy beard, huge weapons of war, and big Conan muscles. He later became known as Woden and was given a day of the week as his own personal festival day: Wednesday.

By the Celtic times Odin/Woden began to be called Jokul Frosti which basically means The Icicle King or The Frost King. During this time he was sometimes called the son of the Nordic wind god Kari. He also had a change of appearance, looking less fierce viking god and more Father Christmas Druid Wizard. The name Jack Frost is a direct English translation from Jokul Frosti and where his current name comes from, but this still is not the Jack Frost we know today. Jokul Frosti The Icicle Frost King, was more wise man than god. He had become a less scary warrior and a more friendly father figure. He was now looked upon as, and often called: Old Man Winter. This version of him was the old man whom Baby New Year had turned into by the year’s end. He died the last day of each year, and was born again the first day of the next year.

In later Celtic times, he would change once again, due to the arrival of the Christian invaders. Inspired by romantic stories of martyrs and saints, most especially a recently killed gift bearing Turkish Saint named Nicholas, followers of Odin turned Old Man Winter, began to call him by various versions of Saint Nicolas, most common among them to rise out above the rest would of course be *gasps* Santa Claus.

Through studying the history of Jack Frost it was an amazing discovery to learn that, the two men, seen so often as bitter rivals in Christmas movies, were in fact one and the same person! Santa Claus IS Jack Frost! It was in colonial times that we would see the rise of Father Christmas, a man robed in blue with brown fur trim, fur skin cape, body coated with ice, long white beard flowing to the ground, and a bag of toys on his back. From here the story splits and evolves depending on which culture/country is telling it.

It’s not until the Victorian times, do we see Old Man Winter separated into two unique individuals. At some point, it seems around the 1850′s, Saint Nicolas became Santa Claus, the toy toting jolly old elf wearing red furs; while Father Christmas became Jack Frost the smaller and much younger, blue clad sprite who turned everything he touched to ice. From this point on we see the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde side of the Old Man Winter stories, with Santa Claus being the infinity good Dr, Jekyll to Jack Frost’s infinity evil My. Hyde.

And that is how Odin went from Norse God to a duo of Christmas fairy tale characters, which brings us to the Jack Frost as we know him today – a little, cold hearted, blue guy who spends his time painting ice on windows, freezing blades of grass with his breath, and plotting his revenge against the infinity more popular Santa Claus .

Jack Around The World

The whole Odin to Jack Frost version of him, is of course the English version of him, but Jack possibly predates Odin, and it questionable whether or not he actually was Odin or whether he served Odin. Stories are not clear on this issue, because well, Jack as we know him today – the elf-sprite-faerie being, was not around back than anyways. The elfish version of Jack really was not seen before Thomas Nast drew a picture of him in 1864.

And even in Nast’s drawing he is called “General Jack Frost” and depicted as a war lord riding a frozen ice horse and wielding an icicle sword. He didn’t really go all pixie until much later when Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. got a hold of him in the 1950′s – 1970′s and made all those Christmas claymation movies, nearly all of which featured Jack Frost as a minor character. One of the Rankin and Bass movie, Jack Frost, stared Jack Frost as the leading roll. Thanks to Rankin and Bass Jack is now in constant competition with Santa Claus or working with or for Santa Claus.

But outside of the English versions, Jack Frost, takes a different roll. Traditionally Jack has nothing to do with Christmas at all. Jack is all about winter. While modern American tales have him an artist painting ice on windows and making plants look pretty and glittery, old folklore of Russia shows us a very different Jack. The Russian tales of Jack are ancient and no one really knows when or how they got started. This Jack was usually see with a wife. He was cold and blew terrible icy windstorms when he was angry. She was made of snow and scatted feathers to earth (which turned into snowflakes) in order to sooth her husband fierce temper. Blizzards came about when they were both angry. Together they controlled the weather and used wind, ice, hail, and snow to control and enslave humans. This version of Jack was not a friendly painter, but a terrible destroyer who brought down food crops with a single breath, froze men to death during storms, and trapped travelers in blizzards. When he is not killing humans with his cold breath, he id a blacksmith who builds chains out of ice and wraps them around plants to pull them down.

Russia’s version of Jack is typical of nearly all non-American versions of him – fierce, spiteful, cruel, destructive, and taking great delight in causing pain and suffering. Traditional Jack is not well liked, he is feared, people do not look forward to his visits.

“General Jack Frost” by Thomas Nast

Jack Becomes a Disney Villain

I think my favorite interpretation of Jack was when Jack Frost became a Disney Villain as portrayed by Martin Short in Santa Clause 3 The Escape Clause.

Everyone who knows me, knows I’m an uber major Disneyaniac. Yes, that IS a real word – it has the same meaning as Trekkie (a Star Trek geek) or Whovian (a Doctor Who geek).

A Disneyaniac is a person who suffers from server Disneyania (Disney mania and yes, that’s a real word too), and obsessively collects and hordes Disney memorabilia to the point of utter insanity. Disneyania is an actual, though uncommonly mentioned, psychological illness, that you can be diagnosed with – it’s a form of OCD which involves uncontrollably hording Disney memorabilia. My Disneyania is somewhat monumental in that it’s nearing the point of breaking a Guinness World Record – yep, I’m not going to stop until I break that record either. That is my goal.

Of course, Jack Frost being my favorite character and me suffering from diagnosed Disneyania, means I nearly went through the roof when Disney announced they were turning Jack Frost into a Disney Villain! And to top it off, after years of cartoon characters – Jack Frost was at long last going to be a live action villain. YAY!

Martin Short was already one of my favorite actors, due to his early roles as Franque, the Fairy Godfather, and Mab’s elf assistant. His later role as one of my all time favorite book characters, The Mad Hatter, boosted him way up the line, to making my top ten list of the best actors, but it wasn’t until his portrayal of Jack Frost as a Disney Villain, that he became top on my list sharing rank with Vincent Price, Johnny Depp, and Alan Rickman – all 4 of these guys tying for first place as my favorite actors of all time.

A character long condemned to the cartoon sidelines, Martin Short brought Jack Frost to life in a leading role, that surprisingly mirrored everything I had long thought Jack to be: a stuck up, sneaky, pompous, well dressed, bad guy who’ll smile, win your trust, and make you think he’s your friend only to stab you with an icicle and pelt you with frozen snowballs the moment your back is turned. Of course, being a Disney Villain, means Jack could only get just so evil, because no Disney Villain is ever allowed to be truly all evil. That’s just the way Disney Villains have to be, which of course is why it’s so easy to love a Disney Villain. And in the end, we saw our evil Jack Frost have a change of heart and a change of ways, and we watch the end of the movie and ask: Is this the end of the cold hearted Jack Frost we came to know and love? Needless to say, I did not like the end of the movie – though that didn’t stop it from becoming one of my favorite movies ever made.

Jack Frost vs EelKat on NaNoWriMo

Okay, so there you have it, my observations on Jack through out history and the media. As always, I love all the interpretations of Jack, however, I am disappointed that there are remarkably few instances where Jack is not seen a children’s story book character.

I only know of two instances when Jack Frost was seen in media NOT aimed for children or teens: Jack was once the serial killer in a slasher movie, and once Jack was found among the pages of a Harlequin romance novel as a winter love god. In both instances, the Jack portrayed could hardly be recognized as being anything other than a bad guy whose name just happened to be Jack Frost. Both the serial killer and the winter sex god, where based on Jack Frost, without really being the actual Jack Frost himself, a fact I found quite disappointing.

And so that brings us to now, the last day of September 2009. I write. I write a lot. I write every day. Every year I compete in the National Novel Writing Month writing contest. Oddly, though I write as much as I do, and though I obsess constantly over Jack Frost, I have never written a story about him! I can not explain it. It defies all logic. Logic would seem to indicate that I should be writing Jack Frost stories left and right, and yet, here I am, a compulsive writer whose completely obsessed with Jack Frost, and whom has not a single word of prose devoted to the guy! Mr. Spock would raise an eyebrow and call it illogical and I would agree with him. I plan to correct that.

For this year’s NaNoWriMo, Jack Frost has been picked to be my main character. Only, my Jack is not trickster style goody-two-shoe Jack. My Jack is mean. My Jack is evil. My Jack boarders on Joker style insanity. Oh yeah, did I ever mention that the Joker is another of my obsessions? I have a lot of obsessions, you can tell.

My Jack has been around for centuries, he’s had a long time to learn to hate, he’s had a lot of practice being mean, he’s had plenty of time to become absolutely down right evil. He also, for some odd unknown reason, seems to have been heavily influenced by Davey Jones of Pirates of the Caribbean, I guess because what with me living right on the ocean like I do, I got this thing for creepy pirates with flying ghost ships, too. You know, it looks like I may over the years, have taken all the worst out of every comic book, movie, and cartoon villain and rolled them all into one hell of a cold heart bad guy, which somehow I mixed together with all the stuff I’ve learned about Jack over the years, and in the end, Jack Frost, my Jack, seems to have become a new incantation of Jack Frost fit for manga. Oh well, so now I’ve got my theme, my plot, and my main character – now all I got to do is wait for November to get here so I can write this all down.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

Jack Frost – A History – NaNoWriMo Research

Look out! Look out!
Jack Frost is about!
He’s after your fingers & toes!
~~Cecily Pike
I’m going to bore you a bit with some random history of Jack Frost and my own connection to him. Why? Well, because this blog is for brainstorming for my NaNovel and what better way to do that than to randomly chatter about the history of my main character?

Jack Frost and How I Met Him

My obsession with Jack started early. I only attended school for 3 years, being pulled out of school at age 8. However, in my short time at school, one thing went over big with me, and that was stage acting. Our school had 4 plays staged each year, and I made it my goal to be in every one of them – and I was. My photographic memory meant I had the highly unusual ability to recite pages of lines from memory after only seeing them a couple of times, and this unique talent got me cast in major roles of every play.

My preference however was always to play villains. Unfortunately for me, villains rarely had long lines, and my memory skills put me in roles where I had to do a lot of talking (strange considering my selective mutism in later years.) Only once, did I get to play a villain, and I was chosen for that part, not for my ability to remember lines, but rather due to my outlandish clothen style, which meant I had access to the proper costume for the part. For this silent mime style acted part, it was all about costume and an actor who could pull off a lot of glitter and glam. Boy can I do that. I scare people, not just today as an adult – but way back than in first grade – my chosen style of dress always scared people. But that year – it was my outlandish outfits that got me the part in a play that would forever change my view of book and movie villains and influence much of my later life.

I was 6 years old and the villain was Jack Frost in a reinterpretation of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant.

Jack Frost has long been my favorite character, be it a holiday character, a fairy tale character, a book character, or a movie character. 

For those of you who don’t know me well, I’m a big Liberace fan. To say I was a huge Liberace fan, is an understatement. One look at me tells you, I’m more obsessed with Liberace than any other obsession. There is a reason people walk on the other side of the road on what few occasions I leave my agoraphobic state and step out side in public. I’m a HUGE Liberace fan. I started dressing like Liberace at around 4 years old. I started my fandom very young.

So here was this teacher, with this idea of what she wanted her Jack Frost to look like and here was this student ready made for the part. Remember, when I was 6 years old, Liberace` was still alive and well and prancing across the stage on TV every morning, and I was glued to the TV never to miss a single episode of the Liberace Show. My clothes mirrored his. Liberace was than and still today, my eternal idol, and I always did dress like my hero. The teacher whom had written the play had this vision of a silver sequined Jack Frost, and who better suited to playing the part, than the school’s biggest (and only) Liberace fan? I had almost no lines at all, but boy did I have a costume!

I guess you could say, like nearly everything else in my life, you could blame my Jack Frost obsession on my love of Liberace. In any case, the cloths make the man, and I love a guy dripping in sequins. Since my first introduction to Jack Frost was to see him as an evil fairy tale version of Liberace, it was instant love at first sight.

The Jack Frost as I played him in the school play, was a Winter Faery, who came to the gardens to tuck in the summer Faeries, under a blanket of snow, and tell the flowers it was time to sleep for the winter. This Jack, loved children so left quickly, telling the Spring Faeries to awake the flowers so the children would have a place to play.

One winter, while tucking the Flower Faeries in, he sees a Giant chasing the children away. The terrified children no longer dare to come out of their houses to play, so the angry Jack unleashes his wrath on the land, with a blizzard unlike anything the world had ever seen. Buried in his castle the Giant who loved to garden, no longer can tend his flowers. Winter lasts for seven years, and darkness swept over the land, freezing everything in it’s path. Jack chases away the sun, the Spring, and the Flower Faeries, allowing only Wind and Snow to enter. Together Wind, Snow, and Jack torment the giant. Only after the giant repents and allows the children to play outside again, does Jack allow Spring to return.

This is one of the oldest stories of Jack Frost, though there are stories older, and no doubt is the story that inspired C.S.Lewis to write his Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, which tells a vaguely similar story of the White Witch casting eternal Winter across the land. In any case, this story was the first Jack Story I ever heard, and I got right into it, by playing Jack himself in our school play version of it, so it was this version of Jack that I came to think of when I think of Jack Frost.

Over the next few years, I looked for every story, picture, poem, book, and movie I could find about Jack Frost, and I was faced with something else: this guy is hard to find. Mentions of him anywhere are few and far between. When he does show up, he’s a minor character with barely a cameo role.

Liberace

Wladziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987), better known by the stage name Liberace, and known to his friends as Lee, was a charismatic American entertainer. Liberace` was one of the world’s greatest entertainers.

Jack Frost the Cartoon Villain

The next time I saw Jack it would be in the claymation movie The Year Without a Santa Claus, where he is portrayed as part of the evil Miser Brother duo. This movie opened my eyes to all new possibilities for my beloved Jack – namely that now I saw him as some sort of an ice god who rules over winter from a frozen castle of ice hidden deep in the North Pole.

Next time I found Jack it was in Keenan Wynn’s Winter Warlock version of him, from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, another claymation movie.

This interpretation of him, brought to light the fact that this guy was damn mean, but that, he wasn’t always mean – long ago he had been a mortal human who had only wanted love and friendship but was meant with cruelty and unkindness, and so turned his heart cold to the world and set out to freeze it, than created the North Pole as his hide out. This of course would result in him playing a roll in Santa Claus having a place to escape to and thus how Santa Claus was able to build a magic village and toy shop that no one could see.

So, now I had new ideas about Jack – who I now saw as not only having power to control the weather, but also, a wizard of sorts with other strange powers as well.

NOTE TO SELF

Once upon a time Jack Frost was known as Odin . . .

From Odin to Jack: A Short History of Jack Frost

As the years came and went, I would find Jack Frost hiding in many places, but only in the two movies mentioned above, was he ever found to have any sort of leading role, and even in those two movies his on screen time was minimal at best. (Okay, yeah, I know, he’s in other kids movies and cartoons, but the other ones always show him as a good hero figure and I’m looking for bad guy versions of him.)

My luck with books was not much better, outside of The Selfish Giant, Jack Frost was rarely seen in books, and usually only ever mentioned in passing and not actually seen at all.

A few assorted winter poems and Christmas songs mentioned him now and again, but as usual, it was nothing to write home about – so to speak.

Frustrated with fruitless searches for Jack in books and movies, I turned my search elsewhere and found that folklore, myths, and legends are where you find the real stories about Jack.

As it turns out Jack is an ancient character from Norse mythology, who once upon a time was known as Odin. In his early days Jack Frost was Odin, a fearsome god of winter whose servants were the Frost Giants and Ice Giants and prime contender was the black hearted trickster, Loki. His early incarnation was your basic viking warlord complete with big long bushy beard, huge weapons of war, and big Conan muscles. He later became known as Woden and was given a day of the week as his own personal festival day: Wednesday.

By the Celtic times Odin/Woden began to be called Jokul Frosti which basically means The Icicle King or The Frost King. During this time he was sometimes called the son of the Nordic wind god Kari. He also had a change of appearance, looking less fierce viking god and more Father Christmas Druid Wizard. The name Jack Frost is a direct English translation from Jokul Frosti and where his current name comes from, but this still is not the Jack Frost we know today. Jokul Frosti The Icicle Frost King, was more wise man than god. He had become a less scary warrior and a more friendly father figure. He was now looked upon as, and often called: Old Man Winter. This version of him was the old man whom Baby New Year had turned into by the year’s end. He died the last day of each year, and was born again the first day of the next year.

In later Celtic times, he would change once again, due to the arrival of the Christian invaders. Inspired by romantic stories of martyrs and saints, most especially a recently killed gift bearing Turkish Saint named Nicholas, followers of Odin turned Old Man Winter, began to call him by various versions of Saint Nicolas, most common among them to rise out above the rest would of course be *gasps* Santa Claus.

Through studying the history of Jack Frost it was an amazing discovery to learn that, the two men, seen so often as bitter rivals in Christmas movies, were in fact one and the same person! Santa Claus IS Jack Frost! It was in colonial times that we would see the rise of Father Christmas, a man robed in blue with brown fur trim, fur skin cape, body coated with ice, long white beard flowing to the ground, and a bag of toys on his back. From here the story splits and evolves depending on which culture/country is telling it.

It’s not until the Victorian times, do we see Old Man Winter separated into two unique individuals. At some point, it seems around the 1850′s, Saint Nicolas became Santa Claus, the toy toting jolly old elf wearing red furs; while Father Christmas became Jack Frost the smaller and much younger, blue clad sprite who turned everything he touched to ice. From this point on we see the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde side of the Old Man Winter stories, with Santa Claus being the infinity good Dr, Jekyll to Jack Frost’s infinity evil My. Hyde.

And that is how Odin went from Norse God to a duo of Christmas fairy tale characters, which brings us to the Jack Frost as we know him today – a little, cold hearted, blue guy who spends his time painting ice on windows, freezing blades of grass with his breath, and plotting his revenge against the infinity more popular Santa Claus .

Jack Around The World

The whole Odin to Jack Frost version of him, is of course the English version of him, but Jack possibly predates Odin, and it questionable whether or not he actually was Odin or whether he served Odin. Stories are not clear on this issue, because well, Jack as we know him today – the elf-sprite-faerie being, was not around back than anyways. The elfish version of Jack really was not seen before Thomas Nast drew a picture of him in 1864.

And even in Nast’s drawing he is called “General Jack Frost” and depicted as a war lord riding a frozen ice horse and wielding an icicle sword. He didn’t really go all pixie until much later when Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. got a hold of him in the 1950′s – 1970′s and made all those Christmas claymation movies, nearly all of which featured Jack Frost as a minor character. One of the Rankin and Bass movie, Jack Frost, stared Jack Frost as the leading roll. Thanks to Rankin and Bass Jack is now in constant competition with Santa Claus or working with or for Santa Claus.

But outside of the English versions, Jack Frost, takes a different roll. Traditionally Jack has nothing to do with Christmas at all. Jack is all about winter. While modern American tales have him an artist painting ice on windows and making plants look pretty and glittery, old folklore of Russia shows us a very different Jack. The Russian tales of Jack are ancient and no one really knows when or how they got started. This Jack was usually see with a wife. He was cold and blew terrible icy windstorms when he was angry. She was made of snow and scatted feathers to earth (which turned into snowflakes) in order to sooth her husband fierce temper. Blizzards came about when they were both angry. Together they controlled the weather and used wind, ice, hail, and snow to control and enslave humans. This version of Jack was not a friendly painter, but a terrible destroyer who brought down food crops with a single breath, froze men to death during storms, and trapped travelers in blizzards. When he is not killing humans with his cold breath, he id a blacksmith who builds chains out of ice and wraps them around plants to pull them down.

Russia’s version of Jack is typical of nearly all non-American versions of him – fierce, spiteful, cruel, destructive, and taking great delight in causing pain and suffering. Traditional Jack is not well liked, he is feared, people do not look forward to his visits.

“General Jack Frost” by Thomas Nast

Jack Becomes a Disney Villain

I think my favorite interpretation of Jack was when Jack Frost became a Disney Villain as portrayed by Martin Short in Santa Clause 3 The Escape Clause.

Everyone who knows me, knows I’m an uber major Disneyaniac. Yes, that IS a real word – it has the same meaning as Trekkie (a Star Trek geek) or Whovian (a Doctor Who geek).

A Disneyaniac is a person who suffers from server Disneyania (Disney mania and yes, that’s a real word too), and obsessively collects and hordes Disney memorabilia to the point of utter insanity. Disneyania is an actual, though uncommonly mentioned, psychological illness, that you can be diagnosed with – it’s a form of OCD which involves uncontrollably hording Disney memorabilia. My Disneyania is somewhat monumental in that it’s nearing the point of breaking a Guinness World Record – yep, I’m not going to stop until I break that record either. That is my goal.

Of course, Jack Frost being my favorite character and me suffering from diagnosed Disneyania, means I nearly went through the roof when Disney announced they were turning Jack Frost into a Disney Villain! And to top it off, after years of cartoon characters – Jack Frost was at long last going to be a live action villain. YAY!

Martin Short was already one of my favorite actors, due to his early roles as Franque, the Fairy Godfather, and Mab’s elf assistant. His later role as one of my all time favorite book characters, The Mad Hatter, boosted him way up the line, to making my top ten list of the best actors, but it wasn’t until his portrayal of Jack Frost as a Disney Villain, that he became top on my list sharing rank with Vincent Price, Johnny Depp, and Alan Rickman – all 4 of these guys tying for first place as my favorite actors of all time.

A character long condemned to the cartoon sidelines, Martin Short brought Jack Frost to life in a leading role, that surprisingly mirrored everything I had long thought Jack to be: a stuck up, sneaky, pompous, well dressed, bad guy who’ll smile, win your trust, and make you think he’s your friend only to stab you with an icicle and pelt you with frozen snowballs the moment your back is turned. Of course, being a Disney Villain, means Jack could only get just so evil, because no Disney Villain is ever allowed to be truly all evil. That’s just the way Disney Villains have to be, which of course is why it’s so easy to love a Disney Villain. And in the end, we saw our evil Jack Frost have a change of heart and a change of ways, and we watch the end of the movie and ask: Is this the end of the cold hearted Jack Frost we came to know and love? Needless to say, I did not like the end of the movie – though that didn’t stop it from becoming one of my favorite movies ever made.

Jack Frost vs EelKat on NaNoWriMo

Okay, so there you have it, my observations on Jack through out history and the media. As always, I love all the interpretations of Jack, however, I am disappointed that there are remarkably few instances where Jack is not seen a children’s story book character.

I only know of two instances when Jack Frost was seen in media NOT aimed for children or teens: Jack was once the serial killer in a slasher movie, and once Jack was found among the pages of a Harlequin romance novel as a winter love god. In both instances, the Jack portrayed could hardly be recognized as being anything other than a bad guy whose name just happened to be Jack Frost. Both the serial killer and the winter sex god, where based on Jack Frost, without really being the actual Jack Frost himself, a fact I found quite disappointing.

And so that brings us to now, the last day of September 2009. I write. I write a lot. I write every day. Every year I compete in the National Novel Writing Month writing contest. Oddly, though I write as much as I do, and though I obsess constantly over Jack Frost, I have never written a story about him! I can not explain it. It defies all logic. Logic would seem to indicate that I should be writing Jack Frost stories left and right, and yet, here I am, a compulsive writer whose completely obsessed with Jack Frost, and whom has not a single word of prose devoted to the guy! Mr. Spock would raise an eyebrow and call it illogical and I would agree with him. I plan to correct that.

For this year’s NaNoWriMo, Jack Frost has been picked to be my main character. Only, my Jack is not trickster style goody-two-shoe Jack. My Jack is mean. My Jack is evil. My Jack boarders on Joker style insanity. Oh yeah, did I ever mention that the Joker is another of my obsessions? I have a lot of obsessions, you can tell.

My Jack has been around for centuries, he’s had a long time to learn to hate, he’s had a lot of practice being mean, he’s had plenty of time to become absolutely down right evil. He also, for some odd unknown reason, seems to have been heavily influenced by Davey Jones of Pirates of the Caribbean, I guess because what with me living right on the ocean like I do, I got this thing for creepy pirates with flying ghost ships, too. You know, it looks like I may over the years, have taken all the worst out of every comic book, movie, and cartoon villain and rolled them all into one hell of a cold heart bad guy, which somehow I mixed together with all the stuff I’ve learned about Jack over the years, and in the end, Jack Frost, my Jack, seems to have become a new incantation of Jack Frost fit for manga. Oh well, so now I’ve got my theme, my plot, and my main character – now all I got to do is wait for November to get here so I can write this all down.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>My inspiration comes home: Winter in Maine

>

So hot sunny August quickly went by, followed just as fast by September. No, almost. Something happened this year, something rarely seen. Something that threw a plot right in my lap, complete with characters. You see, I’m a farmer in a tourist town on the North Atlantic coast. That means winter comes fast, and summer is fleeting, our growing season is short, barely a 100 days long even in our best years, and when tourists hit the beach, they hit it all at once on one of the few days that we get each year without snow.

We start planting in May (providing the snow has melted that soon) and we hope we can get everything harvested before mid October when the first blizzard season of the winter starts. (Our “big” blizzards of February, make our much smaller four foot blizzards of October look like a dusting.) Our town has a strange meteorological phenomena caused by the extreme cold winds that blow in off the Gulf of Maine and get trapped in Saco Bay. While the rest of the Southern Maine’s growing region is listed by the weather services as zone 5, here in Old Orchard Beach, we have a zone 4 growing season most years, and a zone 3 season in the colder years. Our summers rarely reach 70F and our winters commonly dip to -20F. Wind chill factors bring our temps to -40F from December to February. It’s like somebody cut a piece out of Alaska and dropped in next door to Portland just to be funny. (Yes, mini icebergs have formed on the shores of Old Orchard Beach – it’s rare, but it has happened.) Why we get this extreme cold while the rest of Maine does not, has been explained by weather men as having something to do with the way Saco Bay is shaped. It’s shaped like a horseshoe with a very small opening, which let’s the wind in off the ocean, but than traps it there holding the cold air in, all year long.

This year, has been abnormal, even for us. In 2009 our growing season started late – it was the first week of June by the time the ground had thawed enough to plant – a result of heavy rains the fall of 2008, getting frozen deep in the ground just before a blizzard than hit us in mid October that same week. By May 2008 we still had snow well over a foot tall covering most of our garden plot. This was highly unusual, because by May first we usually have the ground tilled and planted. Our growing season lost a whole month this year.

Usually when we have a late spring, we also have a late winter, so our growing season stays about the same. That is what we expected. Therefor, in August when I started planning my NaNoNovel, I did not plan on an early winter to take us by surprise. Second week of September 2009, after a night of Tweeting about my circus ideas, we awoke to find an alarmingly early frost had snuck in during the night and decimated our crops nearly 4 full weeks before harvest time!

To make things worse, the early cold, drove fish deep into the sea to escape the cold blasts on top of the ocean – meaning not only did farmers lose their crops, but fisherman lost their hauls as well.

To go one step farther – in mid-September our tourist season is not yet over. Palace Playland (the beach side amusement park) is still open and running, ice cream and pizza shops are still open, bikini clad tourists are still shopping, – the early cold front chased all the tourists out of Maine, forcing the rides and shops to shut down early.

As is normal for winter in Old Orchard, shops are boarded and shuttered, buildings are empty and the few of us that stay in this cold icy town year round, are once again living in a ghost town – a full two months earlier than normal!

And while normally I would complain at this early arrival of winter killing crops, chasing away tourist income, and driving me indoors to flee the harsh cold ocean winds – this could not have happened at a more perfect time! I had my creepy circus to write about, but no reason to write about them, no reason for them to be creepy, and more importantly, I had no characters to write about. November is fast coming upon us and I still had no clear idea what I wanted to write – and than this happens, and suddenly, riding in on an ocean breeze, everything makes perfect sense to me now – the story, the plot, where the circus came from, why they are here, what they want, and more importantly – who my main character is whom is leading my creepy circus onward: Jack Frost.

Of course, weird way our seasons are, this freak frost only lasted 2 days and than our weather went back to normal for this time of year. It came just long enough to kill crops, ruin fishing, and chase away tourists, leaving our town a ghost town. Oh well. In any case, it lasted long enough to give me a plot idea.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

My inspiration comes home: Winter in Maine

So hot sunny August quickly went by, followed just as fast by September. No, almost. Something happened this year, something rarely seen. Something that threw a plot right in my lap, complete with characters. You see, I’m a farmer in a tourist town on the North Atlantic coast. That means winter comes fast, and summer is fleeting, our growing season is short, barely a 100 days long even in our best years, and when tourists hit the beach, they hit it all at once on one of the few days that we get each year without snow.

We start planting in May (providing the snow has melted that soon) and we hope we can get everything harvested before mid October when the first blizzard season of the winter starts. (Our “big” blizzards of February, make our much smaller four foot blizzards of October look like a dusting.) Our town has a strange meteorological phenomena caused by the extreme cold winds that blow in off the Gulf of Maine and get trapped in Saco Bay. While the rest of the Southern Maine’s growing region is listed by the weather services as zone 5, here in Old Orchard Beach, we have a zone 4 growing season most years, and a zone 3 season in the colder years. Our summers rarely reach 70F and our winters commonly dip to -20F. Wind chill factors bring our temps to -40F from December to February. It’s like somebody cut a piece out of Alaska and dropped in next door to Portland just to be funny. (Yes, mini icebergs have formed on the shores of Old Orchard Beach – it’s rare, but it has happened.) Why we get this extreme cold while the rest of Maine does not, has been explained by weather men as having something to do with the way Saco Bay is shaped. It’s shaped like a horseshoe with a very small opening, which let’s the wind in off the ocean, but than traps it there holding the cold air in, all year long.

This year, has been abnormal, even for us. In 2009 our growing season started late – it was the first week of June by the time the ground had thawed enough to plant – a result of heavy rains the fall of 2008, getting frozen deep in the ground just before a blizzard than hit us in mid October that same week. By May 2008 we still had snow well over a foot tall covering most of our garden plot. This was highly unusual, because by May first we usually have the ground tilled and planted. Our growing season lost a whole month this year.

Usually when we have a late spring, we also have a late winter, so our growing season stays about the same. That is what we expected. Therefor, in August when I started planning my NaNoNovel, I did not plan on an early winter to take us by surprise. Second week of September 2009, after a night of Tweeting about my circus ideas, we awoke to find an alarmingly early frost had snuck in during the night and decimated our crops nearly 4 full weeks before harvest time!

To make things worse, the early cold, drove fish deep into the sea to escape the cold blasts on top of the ocean – meaning not only did farmers lose their crops, but fisherman lost their hauls as well.

To go one step farther – in mid-September our tourist season is not yet over. Palace Playland (the beach side amusement park) is still open and running, ice cream and pizza shops are still open, bikini clad tourists are still shopping, – the early cold front chased all the tourists out of Maine, forcing the rides and shops to shut down early.

As is normal for winter in Old Orchard, shops are boarded and shuttered, buildings are empty and the few of us that stay in this cold icy town year round, are once again living in a ghost town – a full two months earlier than normal!

And while normally I would complain at this early arrival of winter killing crops, chasing away tourist income, and driving me indoors to flee the harsh cold ocean winds – this could not have happened at a more perfect time! I had my creepy circus to write about, but no reason to write about them, no reason for them to be creepy, and more importantly, I had no characters to write about. November is fast coming upon us and I still had no clear idea what I wanted to write – and than this happens, and suddenly, riding in on an ocean breeze, everything makes perfect sense to me now – the story, the plot, where the circus came from, why they are here, what they want, and more importantly – who my main character is whom is leading my creepy circus onward: Jack Frost.

Of course, weird way our seasons are, this freak frost only lasted 2 days and than our weather went back to normal for this time of year. It came just long enough to kill crops, ruin fishing, and chase away tourists, leaving our town a ghost town. Oh well. In any case, it lasted long enough to give me a plot idea.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>NaNoWriMo Relaunch Today!

>

The NaNoWriMo relaunch is just hours away – about 2 hours give or take a time zone. The 2009 NaNo forums should be live this evening or early tomorrow morning! YAY! I can’t wait. Clean forums – no threads- nice empty white pages just waiting to be written on. It won’t last long though – The first week of October is the time when thousands of posts start flying in faster than ever. Love it, love it, love it!

I’ll be there, posting with every one else. If you need a writing buddy, your welcome to add me to your list. Here’s my NaNo Buddy Page. Hopefully it’ll still be there after the relaunch (unlike NaNo 2005 when they lost the archives along with most of the member accounts and I had to start a new account – thankfully I was able to get the same user name as I originally had!)

This year I’m planning 2 books, one horror (which I’ve got outlined already) and one romance which I have no plot for yet, except that I will be writing it with the intention of sending it to Harlequin after it’s finished. I’m planning on 75k for each (150k by the end of Nov.).

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

NaNoWriMo Relaunch Today!

The NaNoWriMo relaunch is just hours away – about 2 hours give or take a time zone. The 2009 NaNo forums should be live this evening or early tomorrow morning! YAY! I can’t wait. Clean forums – no threads- nice empty white pages just waiting to be written on. It won’t last long though – The first week of October is the time when thousands of posts start flying in faster than ever. Love it, love it, love it!

I’ll be there, posting with every one else. If you need a writing buddy, your welcome to add me to your list. Here’s my NaNo Buddy Page. Hopefully it’ll still be there after the relaunch (unlike NaNo 2005 when they lost the archives along with most of the member accounts and I had to start a new account – thankfully I was able to get the same user name as I originally had!)

This year I’m planning 2 books, one horror (which I’ve got outlined already) and one romance which I have no plot for yet, except that I will be writing it with the intention of sending it to Harlequin after it’s finished. I’m planning on 75k for each (150k by the end of Nov.).

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

>Jack’s Revenge – My NaNovel 2009

>

NaNoWriMo 2009 is upon us. We are now counting down the days to the contest start, and everyone’s novel plotting antics are well under way. All across Twitter we see novel plots, character bios, and story outlines being cast left and right. First time NaNoNovelists are figuring out how to juggle the ropes, while long time NaNoer’s are pointing out things they did in years past that’ll they’ll either do again or avoid like the plague. And it’s not just Twitter, every where you go, from FaceBook to MySpace to blogs galore, the impending 11th anniversary of NaNoWrimo is on everyone’s tongues.

As a long time NaNoVeteran, I too am making the return to the NaNoForums and getting ready for the November start date. My main character this year is Jack Frost. My goal is to build a story around him. So, I have updated this blog – a new icy blue layout to match my icy Jack Frost. You’ll be seeing lots of various Jack Frost and Jack Frost type pictures floating around my posts this year, as usual, for the fifth year in a row, this blog is going to be my brainstorming spot for my National Novel Writing Month contest entry. YAY!

So, lets see where we are at at this point. It has a working title *Jack’s Revenge*, but I don’t really like that title, it’s just the first thing that popped into my head, so it’s just there until I can think of something better. I don’t really have an outline yet, and my plot is basically limited to this: Jack Frost builds an army of frozen minions, decides to take over the world, freezing everything and every one in his path, and somehow someone comes along and figures out a way to stop him. I have no idea who my main character is or how they will stop Jack, or if maybe Jack IS the main character. Basically all I’ve got are lots of ideas of ways Jack can destroy the world and not much else. I’m open to ideas and suggestions  if any one has any offers. My plan is for this to be a Steampunk Horror Ghost story of sorts, but it could switch genres on me once November gets going. So, let’s see if my random brainstorming on this blog can flesh out my idea more.

And no, that picture there is not the cover art for my book, obviously. It’s a scan of a cereal box, which I find inspires my plot and will help me to write.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-

Jack’s Revenge – My NaNovel 2009

NaNoWriMo 2009 is upon us. We are now counting down the days to the contest start, and everyone’s novel plotting antics are well under way. All across Twitter we see novel plots, character bios, and story outlines being cast left and right. First time NaNoNovelists are figuring out how to juggle the ropes, while long time NaNoer’s are pointing out things they did in years past that’ll they’ll either do again or avoid like the plague. And it’s not just Twitter, every where you go, from FaceBook to MySpace to blogs galore, the impending 11th anniversary of NaNoWrimo is on everyone’s tongues.

As a long time NaNoVeteran, I too am making the return to the NaNoForums and getting ready for the November start date. My main character this year is Jack Frost. My goal is to build a story around him. So, I have updated this blog – a new icy blue layout to match my icy Jack Frost. You’ll be seeing lots of various Jack Frost and Jack Frost type pictures floating around my posts this year, as usual, for the fifth year in a row, this blog is going to be my brainstorming spot for my National Novel Writing Month contest entry. YAY!

So, lets see where we are at at this point. It has a working title *Jack’s Revenge*, but I don’t really like that title, it’s just the first thing that popped into my head, so it’s just there until I can think of something better. I don’t really have an outline yet, and my plot is basically limited to this: Jack Frost builds an army of frozen minions, decides to take over the world, freezing everything and every one in his path, and somehow someone comes along and figures out a way to stop him. I have no idea who my main character is or how they will stop Jack, or if maybe Jack IS the main character. Basically all I’ve got are lots of ideas of ways Jack can destroy the world and not much else. I’m open to ideas and suggestions  if any one has any offers. My plan is for this to be a Steampunk Horror Ghost story of sorts, but it could switch genres on me once November gets going. So, let’s see if my random brainstorming on this blog can flesh out my idea more.

And no, that picture there is not the cover art for my book, obviously. It’s a scan of a cereal box, which I find inspires my plot and will help me to write.

Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

———-
Editing and Drafts
Create a Fantasy Realm
Advice For NaNoWriters!
Creating Character Profiles
Are You A Renegade A Writer?
How To Become a Better Writer
The Top 5 Tools For NaNoWriMo
What Genre Is My Vampire Story?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Improving your writing with what you read.
Have You Written Your Author’s Interview Yet?
How I Reached 50,000 in 30 Days and You Can Too!
———-

. . .

————-