NaNoWriMo: Excerpt Two

Well, the second week of NaNoWriMo wasn't as successful for me as the first week.  I got bogged down in the middle of the week with family commitments, then my wife attended an out of town conference from Thursday through Sunday.  That didn't leave me much time to write, although I can't complain.  Hanging out with my son for the weekend was worth the missed writing hours.

I should be at 25,000 words today to meet the 50,000 word "finish line" or 30,000 to meet my self-imposed goal.  I'm at just over 19,000.  I think I can catch up if I don't miss too many days.  I knew I would fall behind during the first part of the month when I started and planned on catching up over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Here's the second excerpt from the novel.  The storyline concerns the crew of a starship who wake up from coldsleep on a planet.  They don't know where they are or how they got there and have to survive.  I'm alternating chapters between three viewpoint characters, who are on different parts of the planet when the book opens and whose storylines progress more or less simultaneously.  At the end of each major section, there will a flashback chapter involving a fourth character, the captain of the starship.  Where the captain is and what happened to her is going to be one of several mysteries the other characters will be dealing with.  The flashbacks featuring the captain will not be chronological, but instead will give a different perspective on events and discoveries in the section of the book each flashback concludes.

What follows is when we first meet the captain.

NaNoWriMo: Excerpt One

The first three days of NaNoWriMo have been productive.  I wrote 2,000 words the first day, a little over 2400 yesterday, and just under 1600 tonight, bringing my total to slightly over 6,000.  This is a good pace, and it will come to a screeching halt tomorrow.  I've got commitments tomorrow night which will keep me away from the computer.  There's always the weekend to try to catch up and gain a little cushion.

I've written what amounts to three chapters introducing three of the main viewpoint characters.  I'll introduce a significant fourth viewpoint character later in a flashback, whose present whereabouts will be a mystery for a while.  None of the three characters I've introduced have any idea where they are or how they got there when we first meet them, nor do they know anything about the nature of the planet they're on.  Discovering that will be a major portion of the storyline.  I don't have a working title yet, still kicking a few ideas around.

Anyway, here's what will probably be the first chapter, in rough draft form with little to no editing.

Lieutenant Jacob Vasquez dangled over the river, trying to convince himself to let go of the branch he was hanging from.  There were enough rocks below, and the drop was high enough, even with this planet’s slightly lower gravity, to make such a course of action potentially fatal.

He looked back down at the base of the tree for inspiration.  Three creatures from a nightmare clawed the trunk.  They were as tall as large dogs and just as wide.  Short black fur covered their backs and eight legs, fading to grey on their undersides.  Square heads protruded from the bodies, connected directly to the torsos without benefit of necks.  One looked up at him, opened a mouth filled with needle sharp fangs, and gave what Vasquez could only think of as a cross between a yodel and a whine.

The call was answered from within the forest, and two more of the things scurried from the trees.  They moved incredibly fast for their size. 

One of the newcomers made a threatening noise at one the creatures already there, and received bared fangs in response.  The one that had yodeled ignored the arrival of the two and began clawing its way up the trunk. 

NaNoWriMo Starts in 2 Days

National Novel Writing Month, usually called NaNoWriMo, starts on Tuesday.  It's a month long project in which aspiring writers attempt to write a novel in a month.  For the month of November, I'm going to be focusin on my personal writing.  That's not going to leave a lot of time for blogging, reading, or much else.  From time  to time I'll post about how the writing is going as well as provide an excerpt or two.  I'll still be doing some blog posts on both Adventures Fantastic and Futures Past and Present, but they'll mostly be devoted to short fiction or brief news or opinion pieces.  I'll review the novel I'm currently reading, and that will probably be it as far as novels go for a few weeks.

In case you're wondering what my novel is about, it's a sword and planet adventure with a lot of hard science thrown in.  Think of a blend of Leigh Brackett, Robert E. Howard, and Larry Niven with a dash of Jack Vance.  At this point, I'll be focusing on two or three different characters from the same space ship trying to survive at different places under very different circumstances on the same alien planet.  Of course, I could change my mind and give each character their separate novel.  I'll just have to wait and see. 

Fifty thousand words is the minimum required to "win" NaNoWriMo.  I know I can write that much; the thing that will be hard will be writing that much in one month.  Thankfully the Thanksgiving holidays should allow me some time to catch up if I fall behind.