Glorious Victory (2016 edition)

I am pleased to report that I have once again successfully completed the Nation Novel Writing Month, having written 50,000 words over the course of November.  Hurrah for me!

I have to say though, that I have not been as satisfied with this year’s effort as last year’s.  I was aware, even while I was writing that some of it was just filler to make up the word count while I tried to figure out exactly where to go next, and that it would be sliced out during the editing process.  This isn’t necessarily discouraged by NaNoWriMo, who cheerfully accept all sorts of nefarious word-generating ploys, and insist on the total primacy of quantity over quality when it comes to the first draft, but as someone who (arrogantly perhaps) actually believes that I’m a fairly good writer, it irked me.

There was much about the story that didn’t quite sit right.  The main character was supposed to be an authoritarian commander turned ruthless crime boss, but I struggled to make him quite as ruthless as perhaps he should have been simply because it would have also made him a rather unlikeable character.  As it was, he extorted money without a qualm, and took over a brothel without raising a hair, his only stipulation being that none of his men be sold a certain addictive narcotic.  Drunkenness, gambling, prostitution and extortion though were all accepted, and I found even this troubling.  The character needed to become a successful crime boss, and this requires committing and profiting from crimes, and I didn’t want him to become a Robin Hood-esque ‘good’ criminal but a genuine mobster, whilst keeping him relatively sympathetic and relatable.  The idea was that, later on he would take up the cause of the poor against the decadent rich, but only after having established himself as a genuine power within the criminal hinterland, not as a long-term altruistic goal to which crime was merely a means.  I certainly didn’t get that far within the 50,000 words; he’s still establishing and expanding his criminal empire, although see above regarding edit-worthy filler.

There were several times during the month when I wished I’d gone with the other option of working on my Zenith series.  Edmund Zenith at least has no intention of becoming a ruthless crime boss, but then he also hasn’t been betrayed by the country he serves (yet!), and he was certainly an easier character to pin down, in terms of personality.  With General Lucas, I found it hard to remain consistent.  He was supposed to be honourable but fairly ruthless, careful of his men and their wellbeing, but more for the sake of efficiency than benevolence, strict but not hidebound, and I found it hard to stick to this, or at least get it across in the writing.

Still, I succeeded in completing the word count, and I now have a (very) rough shape hewn out of the rock which I can build upon and refine later, although I suspect that for the near future I will return to Edmund Zenith and his rather more dashing world of airships and Imperial intrigue, and leave Guil Lucas in his muddy, violent slum for a while to brew and mature.

Glorious Victory, and Accidentally Starting Series Part Way Through

Thanks to the triumphal marches in capital cities across the world, the votes of commendation from both houses of Parliament, the American Senate, the European Council and the General Synod, and the letters of praise from the Dalai Lama, His Holiness the Pope, and Her Majesty the Queen, and the considerable publicity that these have all generated, you will no doubt be aware that I successfully completed this year’s National Novel Writing Month, and with a day to spare.  For someone of my naturally modesty, it’s all a little embarrassing.

This NaNo has actually not been terribly arduous.  Partially this is thanks to my tablet, which has allowed me to get a considerable amount of writing done on the bus to and from work every day (albeit riddled with typos due to the small ‘keyboard’ and the movement of the bus).  Partially, however, this year the story has seemed to flow extremely easily, and the story has gone a lot more slowly in terms of pacing than previous efforts.  I was twenty thousand words in before the plot proper really got going, and despite having hit the required fifty thousand words, there’s still an awful lot left to write.

However, something rather strange has happened.

 

Have you ever had the experience of seeing a book in a shop, reading the blurb, deciding that it looked rather good, started reading and, although thoroughly enjoying it, finding that it constantly refers to people and events as though you should already be familiar with them?  You then do some double checking and find that you’ve started reading the second or third book in a series without realising, and have to then go back and start the series again, or else read them in the wrong order.  It’s happened to me at least twice.

This is what's happened to me in the writing of this novel.  I found myself referring to people and events about which I had not the slightest idea, but that had occurred previously in the life of my main character, and even the title I’ve chosen suggests an earlier book.  I vaguely had it in mind that I’d like to write a series, complete with sequential and thematic (and somewhat pulp-ish) titles.  The current work is ‘Squadron’s Zenith’, to be followed by ‘Fleet’s Zenith’, ‘England’s Zenith’ and ‘Empire’s Zenith’ (seeds of the very vague plots for which are already germinating in the moist, manure-rich compost of my mind).  However, for the sequence to make any sense, surely it needs to start with ‘Ship’s Zenith’, and deal with my main character, Edmund Zenith as a junior officer, before being promoted to the captaincy that he has just achieved at the start of ‘Squadron’s Zenith’.

How on earth did I start writing a series at book two?  On the other hand, CS Forrester wrote the Hornblower books all out of sequence, starting with Hornblower as a captain, and then jumping back and forth along his lifetime at whim, as did George Macdonald-Fraser with the Flashman books (and didn’t fill in all the gaps before he died, to my considerable irritation), so I suppose that I’m actually in good company, not that I am actually claiming to be on any sort of par with these two eminent authors.

I’ve enjoyed writing this one so far, and hopefully I won’t lose too much momentum by taking a few days’ break after the frenzy of November, but after it’s finished, I think I’ll definitely have to go back and cover the exploits of Lieutenant Zenith on board the HMA Pendragon, which is apparently the name of the ship he served on, not that anyone informed me of this beforehand.

Having figured out where Edmund Zenith comes from, it may then help things make a little more sense as I continue the series, or at least I sincerely hope so.  I really don’t like reading a series out of order, and to find myself writing one isn’t much better.