Call Me Something Other Than Ishmael

So it's fairly obvious that I never finished NaNo. I'm not too concerned about it. I've discovered that unless i am absolutely obsessed with a project (to the point of willingly shutting out my friends and associates) then I am not going to achieve a massive word count in any given day. To do that I must love my project.

I guess the real problem with the Embassy, which started cute, but got melancholy too quick, was that the tone was far off, and I just couldn't get any emotional latch to any character. Now, three months later I couldn't even name any single character in the draft.

Mur Lafferty (http://murverse.com/) spoke recently on her podcast "I Should Be Writing" that she was going to use a word count goal of 200 words a day. This seems very small, especially if you're trying to bang out a novel, but it's a real easy goal to reach, it builds a work ethic, and at the end of the year even if you're only half trying you should have at least a 60,000 word/200 page book. It isn't great, but darn it, it's a book.

Maybe this is why Martin and Jordan take/took so long to release their epic (read epoch) fantasies...

Current prompt: Take a story from the Bible and set it against a sci-fi background.

Answer: Liberal theft. I'm modifying some of Barsoom (I love flying ships and the ability to still have sword fights), and throwing a fantasized version of Israel from the Book of Judges into an alien world. The story will follow a version of Jeptha from Judges 11, and be told from the POV of his chronicler, a man named Irin (which means Watcher, apparently.) So yes, there's more theft, since it's meant to "pay homage" to Melville. If you don't get it, that means "Call me Ishmael."  If you still don't get it, read Moby Dick or watch a bunch of Star Trek.

So, if you read this, wish me luck.

--ZG