Doing that Nanowrimo thing

I wasn’t sure whether I was going to do it, and as usual I went back and forth over it. But I’m going to do it. I’m doing Nanowrimo this year. I’ve done Nano twice in the past, and completed both times. The first was a terrible experience, because I wrote about my past. I took my laptop into the bedroom of my tiny flat in north Manchester and wrote with tears pouring down my face for seven days, clocking up 55,000 in a week. I was writing the last few books of Amnar back then, and it was tough. The second year was slower and more exploratory.

This year I’m going to do something I’ve always wanted to do, and has been suggested several times. There are so many characters who appear incidentally in Book One that often I’ve wondered about writing their stories independent to the main series of books. This year, I’m going to be exploring Nenja’s life.

When I’m writing, I don’t like to have characters act as puppets, no matter how minor their appearance may seem at first. Each one has a story, a history of their own. Nenja is one of those people whose life is very interesting, because like Io she was raised steeped in the oppressive propaganda of the Tiomite regime and had the difficult process of learning the truth about herself and the world in which she has been brought up. Right now, she has an incredibly tough decision to make as to which side she falls on, and who she decides to believe.

There is an element of a love story to Nenja’s life, which is woven into the political and personal drama. Falling in love with the enemy is not a healthy thing, but then there’s also the effect of torture on Nenja’s appearance, her faith in herself. It’s about her survival against all the odds, and her determination, from thoroughly reluctant helper to the Amnari to dedicated fighter for the resistance. I’m going back to 4765 for this bit of fun, and I will post what I write, I think.

Trying to make a website more welcoming (without budget)

I was woken very early (or so it seemed) by the sound of Marla Singer. It took me by surprise, until I realised it was my new ringtone, and I answered the call to hear Dan on the other end asking if I was ready to be picked up for podcast recording. Considering I’d just been awoken from a strange dream about a knight errant wandering through a snow-bound Scotland with two flying hobbits and a squire who rode a mountain bike, I wasn’t. I asked for half an hour and hurried through the usual wake-up routine.

Visits to Dan’s house always mean time spent being attacked by the two puppies, who are, as all puppies are, exceptionally thrilled and excited by all things. Especially new people who smell of other places. After several of being accosted by a pair of creatures who want to eat everything (shawls, hair, twigs, you name it), we headed upstairs to work on the website.

The first order of the day yesterday was to do an interview about Amnar, which I’m gradually getting used to doing now. At one point, however, Dan had to answer the door, so I was left talking to myself. There is nothing more bizarre than being left alone in a room with a microphone and asked to talk at length about anything as though people are listening. And it’s even stranger when you run out of things to say and have sit there, being recorded, waiting for your interviewer to come back.

The website work was easier. I have a very clear idea of what I want, but of course I can’t afford a genius art designer and genius webdesigner with passions for Amnar to rival my own, so instead, we are working with what we can. I know that the website has been almost impossible for people to use, so we added a “mission statement” that describes Amnar, and over the next few days some links should go up that describe Amnar, the world, the good guys and the bad, and the main characters. If you want to take a look at how things are going, you can click here.

The plan eventually is to have a gateway page that will make it even easier for people to start off with Amnar without finding the website too confusing to understand. We’re using Drupal to do the work, partly because it’s free and partly because it’s very easy to use. So far my only sense of its limitation is that unless you’re very good with CSS style sheets, it’s incredibly difficult to get a really good theme to suit Amnar. Not to mention that I lack the artistic talent to really do justice to both the landscape and people. Hopefully, though, we’ll be able to show off something better.