quote:Welcome to this week's Novel Support Group. Anyone can join. If you're new, tell us a bit about who you are and what project you are working on. Feel free to update the NSG Work in Progress thread with your current projects. Although we can report on any number of things, here is a list of suggestions (suggestions welcomed).
What were your goals last week and did you accomplish them? Describe what you worked on. Set goals for next week. Did you learn something during this week?
Here is a list of things that you can do each week as we work on our novels (suggestions welcomed).
Writing on a novel Characterization World Building Relevant research
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As for me:
Last Week's Goals:
DUAL MAGICS SERIES: As time permits, go through the x-ray listings for the Dual Magics boxed set and THE BARD'S GIFT. This is here to remind me that eventually I need to get back to this.
BECOME SERIES: Promote through social media. I now have two books on social media marketing. So . . . I need to schedule some time to read them. I do have something scheduled for next week--the 18th. Well, not as much for this series as for DUAL MAGICS. Author interview here.
MAGE STORM: Continue the rewrite. Try to build up some momentum. Yes. Finally making some real progress.
DUAL MAGICS SERIES: As time permits, go through the x-ray listings for the Dual Magics boxed set and THE BARD'S GIFT. This is here to remind me that eventually I need to get back to this.
BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING/BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM: Promote through social media. I now have two books on social media marketing. So . . . I need to schedule some time to read them. Also, the author interview above will go live on Facebook in the Fantasy and Sci-Fi Readers Lounge group on Sunday.
MAGE STORM: Continue the rewrite. Keep up the momentum.
posted
Here we are: World Building. Why now, why not wait until I’ve gotten my plot sorted out? After all, I was on a roll. Here’s the thing: up until this point Susan has been travelling through a basically peasant, agrarian society, developmentally at about the cusp between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This part of society in this world is in the first stages of transitioning to a broader based economy revolving around trade and commerce rather than a hand to mouth, manual labour etc. existence. They don’t want to know what is going on, they don’t want to be involved despite the fact they are preyed upon from time to time. Who can really understand people?
At this point in the plot, Susan is bumping into the middle class and the lower levels of the nobility. In order to find Tommy, let alone rescue him, she must climb the social hierarchy until she is in a position to ask difficult questions. Questions no-one should, or would, ask. How could I develop this part of the plot unless I have a framework Susan can climb and an intimate knowledge of the pitfalls she is likely to encounter and the missteps she might make?
So, a new post to update my slow progress with Sunshine; due mainly to inclement weather. I really can’t believe my last meaningful post about this story was almost three weeks ago on August 1. It was then that I posed this question: What single thing has driven every aspect of all human civilisation throughout time: what has united its development, its discoveries and its advancement?
My answer? It has always been the acquisition and accumulation of wealth. Notice I used the word wealth and not money. Wealth comes in all shapes and sizes. Before the invention of currency wealth could be knowledge, land or anything people regarded as having value. Imagine the first person to work out how to make fire instead of having to wait for it to happen naturally. Think they would have just given that knowledge away? Oh, no, not humans. In this, our world, it is the accumulation of money: cash, moolah, the folding stuff, which drives the wheels of our civilisation ever forwards.
You may not agree with my not-so subtle observation on the motivations of humanity, but that’s not the point. The point is, coming up with such a question (and answer) prompted me to find the binding idea which holds together the world Susan now finds herself in. In this world, instead of money it is the acquisition and accumulation of honour which motivates and constrains people’s actions and ambitions.
This realisation prompted the following ideas. Yes, I know, there isn’t a lot here, on paper, but it provides such fertile ground with which to develop the plot. It also changes my thinking about the staging of everything that has come before. In a world where ‘honour’ is everything, how would someone act if they caught a thief stealing eggs? Is there any honour for Susan here?
August 1
Society emulates feudal Japan.
An honourable man would NEVER touch money; that was for lesser subordinates to worry about.
The symbolism which represents each honour’ accumulated. What & how?
How to commit dishonourable acts while keeping your honour intact?
August 15
People display the honours they have accumulated in symbols tattooed on their skin.
If you should loose your honour these symbols would be burnt off your skin with hot irons.
Find a term for this ‘burning off’ of honour.
Today is fine and sunny; about 16 degrees in the sunshine. Long range forecast for the week to come: windy, wet and freezing cold. Probably won’t make much headway but you never can tell. It seems 13 degrees and above works for me--just.
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