Day Three Of Writing My Novel, Meiste.

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Day 47 (1:23) of rewriting my novel

I finished Part 3 today! Like all the others, I'm sure it's a hot mess that doesn't quite fit together, but it's a first draft and that makes me proud of it.

I've reached about ~57k words, and that's actually the most I've ever written on a single thing, which I'm also proud of.

Today was literally just filler scenes. Mind-bendingly drivelous filler scenes. Well, they weren't just incoherent babbling from me, Somehow, I have to plan out Part Four tomorrow, but I have a big drive tomorrow, too, so I may take a day away from writing. I dunno, yet. Stay tuned.

Usual suspects: @quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot

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Day 40 (1:13) of rewriting my novel

I hit 50K today! For that I'm very excited.

Some liked my previous Low Zeneth translations, so I'll share another here.

Hior bv puw ijsonvn bivq

IPA: [ˈhi.or.ˈbə̃.ˈpuː.ˈiː.so.nə̃n.ˈbjə̃t͡ʃ]

Lit. Translation: wish.PRES.SMP 1ST.SNG 3RD.SNG is good.

Translation: I hope you enjoy it. (Literally: I wish it is good.)

Some notes on this: ijsonvn /ˈiːsonə̃n/ is a dummy verb for non-predicative adjectives, like the word bivq /ˈbjə̃t͡ʃ/, which can be "good," or used independently as an NP to mean "goodness."

Syntax in subordinate clauses switches to SVO, as you saw in the example above. A grouping of it might look like this.

[VP [V hope] [NP I] [VP [NP it] [V' [V is] [NP good]]]]

Maybe one day I'll get around to making a syntax tree to describe what's going on, because that grouping isn't quite accurate, but it's good enough for right now.

me when the plot won't plot like it should

This but it’s about a series you’re writing that’s not even published yet

I may fill out one of these later… be prepared for some spoilers!

Character Info - Template

General Info

Name:

Nicknames:

• Most prominent (by X other character)

•Less relevant (by X other character)

Pronouns:

Age:

Gender:

Sexuality:

Species:

Place Of Birth:

Current Home:

Read more here

Appearance

Paragraph or two describing appearance

Personality

Paragraph or two summarising personality

Likes:

• Like 1

• Like 2

• Like 3

Dislikes:

• Dislike 1

•Dislike 2

• Dislike 3

Known Abilities

• Ability name - Character can use X ability due to Y reason

• Explain briefly how the ability works and their skill level if it’s relevant

• Character can also use X weapon or has knowledge in Y area of skill

Relationships

Family:

• Character name (connection, other connection; expand on connection if necessary)

Friends/Allies:

• If a section isn’t applicable (put N/A)

Enemies: N/A

Backstory

Write here

Fun Facts

• Fact 1

• Fact 2

• Fact 3

Dear Tumblr,

Today I finished my novel. I don't mean that I got the first draft done. I mean that I, recently sixteen, finished the novel that I've been working on for as long as I can remember. I did it.

I am very happy and I just wanted to share it with all the weird little freaks that inspired me to put my blorbos down on paper. I don't care if nobody sees this. I did it. I am a writer. I finished my book.

Love,

Avi

Day 35 (1:05) of rewriting my novel

Today was a "bridge the gaps" day.

Yesterday, I wrote about Vimir. The day before that, I wrote about Taguchif. In order to bridge those scenes with what I already had, I wrote for, like, 4 hours and about 2,100 words piecing it all together. Now, Part Three is like 12,000 words, and I'm probably just over 1/3 of the way there? I'm staring down the barrel of probably 40,000 words necessary for Part Three.

To be clear, in no way is Meiste meant to be consumed in four parts. Later, I plan to block off chunks as chapters. But not until after I've gotten all four parts to places where they can reasonably be split off into chapters.

Part of what I mean by that is this: Part One was really rushed, comparatively. My "alpha" reader pointed out that the pacing is really rushed in Part One, and that's been on my mind this whole time, but that was really so I could work up the motivation to get through Part Two.

Part One is even, comparatively, short compared to parts Two and Three: it stands at just 12,000 words. And mostly as an introduction to the other three parts. That was a critical flaw in choosing what has become, essentially, in media res to start a fantasy novel.

I plan on adding a scene at the end, once this is all said and done, where Izi, Vimir, and his boss are all at church. With that I can do several big things:

Lay out Zenestian religion. While the Constitution of Zeneste is inherently a religious document, Zenestian government has strayed so far from its original intents to suck power from its citizens that the religion has almost become a sort-of government worship. This was one of the big reasons my "alpha" reader was confused in the first chapter by everyone just accepting that "the Constitution said Izi is Emperor, so Izi is Emperor." It's a level of Orwellian brainwashing that is crazy deep.

Lay out what Izi's world even looks like. At this point in the story, he's just an eighteen-year-old worker in a rice farm taking a single evening of rest to go and worship with his community, including his best friend and most loyal ally.

Set up the windows scene in Part One. In Part One, Izi's astounded by the lack of designs in the Old Chapel of Zeneste, and when he finds the old windows in the attic, he hires somebody to come and replace the windows for him. Since the reader doesn't have context for this, it might make Lozerief's outburst even more confusing.

Foreshadow his mom being the Hero of Life. Like, the Hero of Life appears everywhere, and I don't wanna give away Izi's mom being the Hero of Life too early, but I can afford to drop more hints.

This, alone, would add probably 2,000-3,000 words.

In addition, she recommended changing the pacing so Izi has more like a month in the palace (instead of the 3 days that I wrote in originally.) I definitely could use this to illustrate what the Zenestian government is like: a bunch of corrupt politicians figuring out how they can get more power (Lozerief is an exception).

This has mostly become me ranting about novel plotting, and what I have to do later, but feel free to let me know your thoughts! I'm always open to hear other peoples' opinions (except when they necessitate the disenfranchisement of others.)

I was initially skeptical because, honestly, some of these are only plausible w/o the Great Vowel Shift (e.g. grope, game > grapple, gamble) but yes, it's real.

Indeed, it's a no-longer-productive grammatical process dating back to Proto Germanic, where *-ilaz was an adjective suffix.

But anyways, some of these make sense with the great vowel shift. E.g. with game ~ gamble:

/geɪm/ "game" < /gaː.mə/ < /ga.mə/

/ˈgæm.ˌbl̩/ "gamble" < /ˈgam.ˌlə/ < /ˈga.mə.lə/

Note with gamble: an epenthetic /b/ is inserted after /m/ to preserve the distinction between /m/ and /l/.