Greetings and welcome to my NaNoWriMo LiveJournal. NaNoWriMo is a yearly writing event that begins and spans every November. The goal of every participant is to write 50,000 words for a novel. I have decided to start a blog to share my story and my experiences writing said story for 2007.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo only one year previously, in 2005. I did not meet the 50,000 word goal, but I have learned a lot about what it takes. What does it take, you ask?

Discipline. The nature of NaNoWriMo means that I don't need to worry about details that slow me down when I'm writing. All I have to worry about is putting my heart into 50,000 words. That leaves room for lots of discipline, and you sure need it. Depending on your creative output, getting that many words into a month can be a daunting task. In my opinion, the trick is making sure I get at least 2,000 words into my story every day.

Why 2,000? Well, it's just rounding up. It gives me a buffer. All the discipline in the world can't account for the fact that real life just happens sometimes. By putting in 2,000 words every day that I can, I hope to account for most of the time I will miss.

So what is my story? Poorly planned.

Just kidding (kinda). Inspired by a dream I had less than a week ago, Disasterstrike is a sci-fi/fantasy thriller. It tells of a young man who must face many demons. Some will be from his past. Some will come to him in the future. And many are very tangible and out for blood. Disasterstrike portrays a modern world being slowly torn by a mysterious series of murders that span the globe. How will a culture that finds value in safety and freedom reconcile this change? Well, hell if I know. I came up with this less than a week ago.

Everything I write here is for my own gratification. I am sharing it with you because I am gratified by attention.

    It was a tune he knew well. A melodious lure, it drew him into any state he needed. Calm before panic. Motivation in the face of sloth. When he hummed it, the tune came out nondescript and jarring, cacophonous and yet inspired. It twisted any sense of order into a perverse series of unexpected shifts in pitch, speed, consistency; rather, it lacked any of these things as it carried the listener away from the concept of mere sound.

Even though NaNoWriMo is focused on dynamically producing a story, there is something to be said for preparation. If I had given NaNo it's due pre-November thought, I wouldn't have such glaring plot holes (how did the police get involved in James and Kit's crime?) and Kit would have a last name by now. Hell, you might even get to know what he looks like.

In my future NaNo adventures, I will plan the stages of my story and my characters, while maintaining a philosophy of flexibility.

There are many tricks to maintaining an ideal writing environment. It's largely an individual matter. For me, I like to play music that serves as a soundtrack to my story. If I'm writing a peaceful scene, I need peaceful music. If I'm writing an action scene, I need music that is appropriately frantic.

It can get very specific. If style or pace of a fight is chaotic, the music needs to match. Not just any old rock song will work.

For Disasterstrike, I'm finding that I draw the most from Diablo Swing Orchestra. Their music is appropriately heavy in a prog-metal sort of way, but that "swing" element also gives it a certain amount of pseudo-jazzy class that I hope carries over into my story. The best example will be in the character of Walter Indigo.

Walter is a man of his work, though his casual nature makes him appear less passionate than you'd expect. He enjoys the pleasures of life and living, yet he's very capable, bringing an intensity to his work that doesn't show in his personality.

Another artist I've been utilizing a lot is Emilie Autumn. Her work is very gothic and beautiful. A talented singer and musician both. Her stuff can be quite intense in a more haunting sort of way. When I think of "the tune," I think of Emilie Autumn. Her music really represents the soul of all the characters in Disasterstrike. Since I will be delving into the nature of KIt's soul in the future, I feel that this is an important translation, especially since music plays a role in the story as well as out.