Monday, November 22, 2010

Real Life Creeping Into the Storyline...

Day:  22
Time: 9:30 p.m.
Expected Word Count: 36,674
Current Word Count: 30,825

It occurs to me, that two themes have recurred in my chapters for the last week:  sleeping and travel.  I'm only now noticing that because I had to have there be a time skip during travel, so I had Beata Lorio falling asleep while their driver/guardian/host on the Underground Highway, Kate Burroughs, takes them to the Encampment in Champaign, Illinois (they don't know that's where they're going yet.)  I noticed that the characters had been doing lots of sleeping and travelling over the last few chapters and I wondered if it was because they are two themes that are prevalent in my own life the last few weeks.  Sleep, because it seems I'm running short of that lately, and travel because I'm doing a bit of that with more coming up this weekend.

So, real life has a funny way of sneaking into the writing, doesn't it?  Are you finding that happens with your writing?

Just to update you, they've left Ollie in Denver, and The Loader disappeared, but not before revealing himself as "superhuman" in some ways (ie. Mia can't read his mind and he can run super-fast).  I still haven't decided for sure if he's going to end up a villain or a hero in this piece.  I'm leaning towards "hero with a villain's reputation" right now.

An update on some U.S. cities in my NaNo world: 
  • Major cities in Southern California were destroyed by the humans who evacuated them in order to leave nothing standing for the invading Megari.
  • Chicago is knee-deep in anarchy (suggestions have been made that most large cities in the midwest have succumbed to the forces of human chaos).  Gangs of folks have taken over high rise buildings, and the most enterprising of criminal bands has taken over the El train system, running it for loot.
  • Many smaller towns and cities, if they have survivors, are rife with bandits who lie in wait for any travelling humans in case they have non-perishable supplies.

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