My nano novel Bakoun has been stalled for some time, as readers can see from my lack-of-progress meter. But that level of failure isn't good enough. If I'm going to fail, I want to do a good job of it! So I have the following plans:
1. Everything I have written so far is to be junked. Yes, there is a character or two I can keep--- well, one character, anyway. But all the actual word count is to be zeroed.
2. I'm changing the time in which the story is set. Well, actually, the story starts in the Victorian era and then goes to 1984, 1994, 2004 and so on until the actual near-future invasion starts. I'm thinking of setting the whole thing in the Victorian and or Edwardian era.
3. The setting gives me the chance to go all steampunky. Though anything I write could never be true steampunk. According to my sources (random internet sites) steampunk has to be correctly punk by being in rebellion against a prescribed list of things. I never rebel against the correct things in the correct manner.
4. My new plans require me to write up a brief timeline of Esperanto history, and of the eugenics/euthanasia movement. There are lots of cool quotes about the need for 'lethal chambers' which I can work in.
5. Another research requirement: I must throw together an outline of an alien invasion novel (Worldwar: In the Balance) so that I can see how a real writer handles a global story with multiple groups of characters, including alien ones.
6. The Korean characters I was planning to introduce will now be living in the American West, and running a Chinese restaurant (which serves Korean food, since Americans of the time can't tell the difference.)
7. There will be a boy named Alf from Linz, Austria who might be Hitler. There is a man who may be a time traveler who wants to kill him.
8. There will be robots. Big ones. And steampunky computers. Perhaps the result of alien technology being leaked? Perhaps also a steampunky 'blood-reader' machine that scans DNA?
9. Given these plans, by the end of NaNoWriMo, my word count should be around zero. Is it too early to think about National Novel Finishing Month???
