Cheklov's Stuff

So it's time once again for me to start screaming, primal, into the void as I figure out what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo. Before I get into that, though, I'm going to point out that NaNo has a new site? It's kinda neat when it works! You can find me here .  It's weird to think I've been doing this since 2004, but here we are. So this year, I'm going to work on the same story I worked on in 2014 and sorta 2018 - sorta because I got basically nothing re-written last year. It's Ghostlight! The idea behind Ghostlight is sometimes I get a bizarre craving for writing a Weird West-ish setting, but I also like Lovecraftian madness and fantasy too much, so I smushed it all together into one messy pile and got the base concept for this novel. Also I love trains? Because there are trains. I think my problem in my two previous attempts were I was humanizing the non-human monster-people too much. Yes there are non-human monster people, each...

And once again, I shift stories for NaNo. Hey, what can I say? I fell in love with the concept behind Scrimshaw again and am scrapping it and rewriting it from nothing but duuuuuuust. We'll see if I can finish it without being filled with hate this year.

Well, we're getting down to a month until kickoff, and of course I have a new NaNo rattling around. SO WHY NOT let's run with it and toss this out as another potential idea. First snippet of blah blah coming at you: Setting: Sci-fi masquerading as a fantasy western. Takes place on a planet with some odd attributes and a few native species. The planet has very limited ecosystems – primarily sea, plains, mountains, desert and temperate rainforest – other areas are usually fleeting for reasons covered later, except for arctic forests and plains. It is a very, very large planet, and highly rich in minerals, gems and metals, but there are a few problems. The planet received human settlers by accident. A colony ship got to close to it and went down on the surface; previously there had been warnings that the whole system was sort of a Bermuda triangle of space; sometimes you could pass through fine, other times you’d never be heard from again. The colony ship was attempting to outrun ...

So, I took a rabid detour into a different NaNo, so take a quick look at what might have been: At the moment, the characters are going to be split into two separate parties, which, for convenience's sake, are going to be labeled Team E and Team I, for reasons about to become obvious. Please note these are the end-story characters, and I plan to kill a loooot of people along the line. Team E Elke (before and after), Khosa, Durgin and Riktic Team I Inka, Iridi, Tannis and Vigil

Humans and orcs don’t have innate magic. Most sentient races have at least an affinity, but humans and orcs, except in special situations (like twins, who have a magic affinity for a lack of magic more than anything else), do not. If a human or orc (or one of the other races who is not strong enough innately) wants to be an “arcane” caster, they need to bond with a symbiotic, microscopic bacteria that changes the way their bodies react to magic on a molecular scale once it’s accepted. Because they don’t have innate magic to fend the magic-enhanced illnesses off, humans and orcs are very vulnerable to magic disease – like lycanthropy. Most common ways of picking up magic if you are human, orc, or not a strong enough magic user ~ Apprentice to a magic user. They can produce a blank strain to infect someone with, which is the most gentle way to go about it. Not generally the strongest in magic, they usually become wizards because wizards cast spells by yanking from the ...

So, even though I won with it, Chimera is a fucking mess and I hate every goddamn word of it. So, I'm recycling. The character images, at least. And names! Names from one older NaNo...no, wait, two of them. I mean, it's just for me right now, so what does it matter if I keep using the names I like? NOTHING. IT DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL. HAHAHAHAHA. Worldbuilding later.

Things have kicked off, and I find myself needing a place to make little notes, so WHY NOT HERE. Initiates in the Order don't get names. They are Initiate ____, wherein ____ is a modified finnish number which to them is their class ranking. They are further broken down by a class name. A class of initiates is only 7-12 people at a time, starting from around age 10. They spend ten years in training before getting a chance to become an Acolyte. They may change rank several times, and thus "name".  The ranks are: 1: Yuksi 2: Kaksi 3: Kolm 4: Nei 5: Viisi 6: Kusi 7: Setsa 8: Khadek 9: Yidek 10: Menen 11: Kysit 12: Kasit Each class has a prefix in order to tell them apart from one another. Like, the MC is Sa-Viisi, her classmate is Sa-Kolm, and a total moron who is barely able to wipe his own ass much less diagnose a child's illness is Tu-Menen. :D As Acolytes they get a nickname given to them by their master when they step up. The highest rank are Maes...

Magic! Ah, magic. Always a pain in the ass. Magic is broken up into a few subcategaories. Racial Magic: Racial magic is magic that is innate to all members of a species. Very few races have magic common to every member of a species – a good example would be harpies; every member of their species has racial magic enabling them to actually fly. Dwarves, too – they have sort of an earth sense. Personal Magic: Personal magic is magic that is innate to a certain person; they are born with the innate ability. This one is a bit odd – for example, 90% of all non-Covah humans are born with magic that makes them highly adaptable; that 10% means it’s not racial. Most people have two, maybe three gifts like this, and half the time, they don’t precisely seem like “magic”. For example, the naga in my NaNo – her special talent, in addition to the human adaptability, is a gift for languages – it takes her very little time to be able to be fully fluent in a new language. The dwarf, ...

Welp, my world is huge. The funny part is, for the most part, I'm only going to be focusing in on one tiny little piece, that bit in the top right corner.  Specifically, the island there, the big one. That is where the majority of the action is going to be. Let's get a little more detailed: The salmon-colored continent is where the first two arcs of the story take place. The gray area hemmed in by mountains is the black desert where the last arc will take place. That little continent is called Covah by the inhabitants, and Tirlar by the rest of the world. The reason behind the two names? People on the outside don't realize it's actually inhabited, and most people on the inside are taught that the rest of the world is a blasted godless wasteland, and thus have their own language. Quick note on languages: There was one original language, and all the others are the result of a couple millennium worth of language breaking down and reforming. Covah a...

Chimera is the working, maybe permanent, title for this year's NaNo. Oddly enough, there actually isn't (to my knowledge - who knows what will actually happen) actually a chimera in the story. No, we're using it the way it was used in Fullmetal Alchemist - a creature that is fused from two or more others. Warning: The following won't make sense to anyone but me. Now, chimeras are made by one of the five orders inhabiting this closed off little nation - we'll call their order the Blue order for now. Yeah, look at them alchemical symbols that have nothing to do with the order other than looking awesome. These folks are, to the common man, healers. A major ability they have to be taken for this order is that they can more or less shape flesh. They take a lot of biology, anatomy, etc classes as acolytes, but their magic makes a huuuuuge percentage of their actual success. They more or less can reform and adjust a body as they will - it's really an actually...

 So, I'm at this point completely resigned to the fact that I am incapable of maintaining a blog. So. Yeah. Just gonna post whatever, whenever from now on. Now: NaNo stuff, since it's that time of year - in this case, it's the covers for all the NaNos that I bothered making covers for. Fancy! The exception being this year's, which just links to my profile on the forums - and has the cover image there. 2012 - Chimera (Fantasy) 2011 – Scrimshaw , Winner (Fantasy) 2010 – Fingerprints in the Dust , Winner (Science Fiction/ Fantasy) 2009 – Until Sunrise , Winner (Fantasy) 2008 – Deus Ex Machina , Winner (Urban/Superhero Fantasy) 2007 – Dance of Ashes {Obligatory Zombie Apocalypse NaNo} 2006 – Shifter {Obligatory Shapeshifter/Lycanthrope NaNo} 2005 – A Month Spent Drunk; How I Lost NaNoWriMo {Utter Crack} 2004 – {Pitiful Nameless Novel} That is a lot of words, you guys. This is my ninth year of NaNo. Nine years of committing my November to massive angsty...

So, screw this blog being a writing blog. It is 100% not working. Instead, I will focus on stuff that I actually, can, you know, be informative and helpful about. Also this happened:

Soooo....I'm back. Ish. Backish. Yeah, it's been a while, but since this is mostly for my own entertainment...eh, whatevs. So. Yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this things now, maybe more of a discussion than crawling around on my high horse and trying to make my opinions on how to write shit sound less pretentious than they feel. Since, you know, I really can't write for shit. But the shit I do write makes me happy, so, once again, whatevs. And yeah, Katz is still around. Surprisingly, Zappa (the black and white cat) did not horribly maim him. Katz: Fuck. Yes. Epic Mount. Me: You know you gets those at like, level thirty now. And you can play to level twenty for free. Katz: ... I said: FUCK. YEAH. EPIC MOUNT.

So, I, uh...got distracted. And haven't updated in a while, you'll notice. But good news, if you were following what I was talking about back in October! I did manage to pull off NaNo! Anyway, with that over for now, I think I'm going to be focusing mainly on...well, whatever the hell I want to talk about. I'd love input on what people want me to babble about, though. I think next time I post, I'm going to talk about how goddamn awesome my stepdad is. But for now, Christmas! Katz: Yay Christmas! Me: Stop humping the tree, Katz. Katz: I'm not humping this time! Me: Why are you climbing the tree? Me: Katz, what are you doing! Katz: Yay!  Me: Great. Now I can't reach you. Katz: Ohgod. I hate heights. I feel sick. SAVE ME! Me: BROTHER! Katz: BUTBUTBUT TREEEEE! STAAARRRR!! Me: YOU SAID YOU HATED HEIGHTS! Katz: But tree! CHRISTMAS! Me: Thanks bro. Katz, behave. Katz: ... Brother: Present time! Katz: YAY! PRESENT! ...

18 days and counting until NaNoWriMo kicks off! Today, I'm talking about clichés. A cliché is defined as an idea that has been used so many times that the power it originally had is gone. Clichés are a massive worry for a lot of writers, and one of the things that might get in your way when you're trying to plot something up for NaNo this year. A lot of websites try and tell you all these ways to avoid clichés, or how to phase them out of your story. It's a little strange, but I, personally, don't think going out of your way to avoid clichés is a good idea. I can give you the reason in two short little lessons right here: LESSON ONE: Everything is a cliché. Yes, as far as I'm concerned, EVERYTHING is a cliché, or takes off from a cliché. You can't avoid it. Even if it seems new and original, someone, somewhere, can find something it is apparently derivative of. The secret is to accept it and embrace it, and know that you can give these clichés back their...