Hit the halfway point in my nano last night. It's still possible that I might meet the 50k mark before the end of the month-- I'm going to hit the last few chapters and then go back in and fill out what I skipped over. Going to have a lot of world building to do once I get the rough done though!

So I'm at about 7,200 today and have realized I'm not quite in the right head space for this story yet. The characters are not reacting correctly and I'm not giving them the chance to tell me why because I'm apparently too distracted by things. So for the next two weeks I'm going to just "tell" all the remaining chapters so I have a complete outline by the end of the month and then get my characters straightened out. All in all not a bad start and a very good learning experience-- it tells me what my weaknesses are (which I couldn't see in last year's nano since that was technically a fanfic) and what I need to know before jumping into a rough draft.

(And if nothing else it's woken up a few other bunnies!)

...and the dreamworld isn't what I thought it was. Hmmm. That changes things.

This story idea fist popped into my head back in February while I was listening to "Kimberly Glides" by Robert Downey Jr. These were the notes (and a scribble I did) that I wrote down. The idea has changed quite a bit and it'll be interesting to see what it turns into during November!

( And it started with this... )

So October is rolling around and I'm gearing up for this year's NaNoWriMo. I've locked down last year's NaNo and hopefully will start posting it sometime in 2010. Since this year's novel will be an original story, I won't be posting full chapters but will just be putting the occasional word count, complaints, and snippets. Wish me luck!

Managed to hit the 50,000 word mark around 10am today! The first draft is, at the moment, a bit crappy and full of holes, I have no idea what I wrote in the last 20,000 words, and I figured out a major piece of the backstory in the last 2,000 words. *laughs* Now I need to figure out what I do have, how to get all the points that popped up late to fit the whole story, and straighten out the rotten grammar; but I know I can do this now, and that was the most important thing! (That, and it was kind of fun!)

EDIT: And I will be fixing the formatting on what has already been posted soon!

A few how-to books say to visualize your novel.
( Visualizing 'A Place Among The Stones' )

I've been playing around with where to start the story, and it seems to have dropped firmly into the realm of fantasy. I was playing out how to have O'Malley find out about the fatal fall Daniel-- his former lover-- took, and suddenly a little black critter ran up to O'Malley and huddled against him all upset about something (it was like a flying squirrel but not quite.) Apparently only O'Malley, and Daniel can see them. (Later, when Sean Brennan (Tobey Maguire's character), who looks like Daniel) comes to the monastery, he also had the ability to see them.) Well, that lead to having the Wild Hunt passing over Ireland at the beginning of the 'year of the slaughter'-- the Irish Famine of 1740-1741-- and I figure O'Malley will also be able to hear the banshees during the Famine.

I also discovered that there were priest hunters in Ireland during the time of the Penal Laws in Ireland. Found this on Wikipedia--

A Priest hunter was a person who, acting on behalf of British forces, spied on or captured Catholic priests during Penal Times in seventeenth and eighteenth century Ireland. A 1709 Penal Act demanded that catholic priests take the Oath of Abjuration, and recognise the Protestant Queen Anne as Queen of England, and by implication, Ireland. Priests that did not conform were arrested and executed. This activity, along with the deportation of priests who did conform, was a documented attempt to let the catholic clergy die out in Ireland within a generation. Priests had to register with the local magistrates to be allowed to preach, and most did so. Bishops were not able to register.

Priest hunters were effectively bounty hunters, and despite some opportunists, in most cases the men were criminals who were arrested and forced into the position by their police force. The reward rates for capture varied from £100-£50 for a Bishop, to £20-£10 for the capture of an unregistered priest; substantial amounts of money at the time. The work was dangerous, and some priests killed in defence. The men were outcast from their communities, and were viewed as the most despised class. Often when a gentleman informed on a priest, locals would effect revenge by burning his house and farmyard. The Penal law made fugitives of the remaining clerics, and they were forced to conduct ceremonies in secret, and in remote locations. Night time worship at mass rocks became common, although the attending priest would usually wear a veil, so that if an attendee was questioned they were able to truthfully say that they did not know who had said the Mass.

I'm thinking the bad guy in the story will be a priest hunter-- just to make poor O'Malley's life especially miserable. The hard part now is how to write O'Malley under the conditions the Catholic clergy lived with in the 18th century. (I'm not paying too much attention to accuracy in the rough draft, but would like to avoid having to rewrite major portions of it.)