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After Morning Coffee at The Galley Cat Grill

Ugh. Must write something prosey.

Upward Charma heard the bay of Melon’s Flitworks creak even before she heard the nautical chime of the Pit’s wakebell sound. The two sounds were close together so she steadied for a substantial surge.

“Ma’am, grab hold.” Charma pointed her only shopper of the morning to one of the stanchions that held her stall’s green canopy aloft. “Quick.”

Charma scanned the Pit to see that her fellow stallmates around the Pit were directing the few early morning patrons likewise. Unsurprisingly the crunkle of the aluminum deck began at the north corner and waved rapidly underfoot till it concluded with a watery slap at the Pit’s south corner.

“Oh, my! What was that? I thought we were safe out here,” the touri said.

“We’re safe, ma’am. Nothing to worry about there. But the Pit,” Charma flicked her finger from north to south across the Pit, “The Pit isn’t moored like the rest of Benhá. We’re only tied on. It’s how you get these great prices.”

“Ahhh,” the woman responded but Charma could see she didn’t understand.

“Like a boat.”

“Ohhh, now I see. So that was a wake?”

“Yes. A pretty big one too. Look over here.” Charma guestured around to the southeast where you could see out into the river’s upper delta past The Galley Cat Grillery. “Should be a cruise ship coming by in a moment or two.”

Indeed in a moment or two a cruiseship’s triangular prow slid into view. It was so close that it nearly seemed to exit The Galley Cat after coffee with friends.

264 words on day 703

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Magic in Terminus

I should have noted yesterday that the 700 mark cruised past 1000 Days somewhere in the Texas Panhandle between San Jon, NM and Amarillo, TX. The 70s era Chevy still mounted the original engine but donned a new paint job. And, while it took a bit to get up to speed, it eventually out paced us and shrunk over a hill-assisted horizon. Yes, West Texas has hills.

I haven’t given much thought to the magic of Terminus—nor the size. I think it’s time to get serious about that oversight.

What I know: magic helped to swap the indigenous people with folks from Earth [I need a story suitable reference for that], that there are still some magicians remaining in Terminus, and that the way the boats hover and fly may be some branch of that magic if not directly that magic. I feel as though magic should be diminished in this place. Maybe the only way to get big magic is to have lots of people gathered and focus their energies, or maybe the skip event used up loads of magic that can’t be gotten back or need to be refreshed over a long time.

Minimal Magic Requiring Groups – gives some built in restrictions on magic use so that you can’t just run out and conjure a unicorn if you need a ride to town. I like that collective magic imposes a need for charismatic leaders or despots able to gather folks into a crowd, or that a crowd needs to have it’s own collective purpose. This supports my thinking that Terminus needs to have factions and cultures and societies all at each other throats. Assuming I keep the practitioners at a low headcount or that I keep the full headcount in seperate factions conflict will arise in many forms. SOme groups will try to recruit members, some will try to enslave them, some will try to eradicate their foes, other will try to convert them. If any one group attempts to do magic more substantial than it’s numbers allow they’ll be punished with wearriness and become vulnerable.

Post-Skip Diminished Magic – would set a slow pace to the rise of powerful magicians in Terminus. It would help focus efforts on more mechanical endeavors because people wouldn’t be able to rely on their handy poof-unicorns to get them around. GAH, I JUST GOT SCREWED BY MY KEYBOARD LOCKING UP AND REPEATING A BACKSPACE KEY STRIKE. But I’ll press on instead of trying to recreate those thoughts. An entirely different tack might be that use of magic is highly sanctioned so that they might bring it back to full power, thus only a few special people in power are able to weild it and all others are punished. Somethign like this might take generations and by the time there was enough magic, the use of it would have changed significantly.

Conversion of Magic into Other Resources – I left the title vague, but I specifically am thinking magic might end up in these flight rods I’ve not put much thought into. Before the skip magic was more ethereal and available to all who desired it’s use; after the skip magic has been concentrated in the form of a mineral-like substance that can be forged into these flight rods. In a very tangible physical form, magic would be easy to fight over and hard to obtain without a foe knowing. Plus it would be easy to regulate and might even be easy to forget it was formerly magic. Depending on the circumstances of the conversion ‘miners’ might not even be aware the substance was converted magic—they might just think it was some artifact of the skip.

615 words on day 702

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Plotting the Writing

Yes I wrote on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I worte in my paper journal and in all cases did better than nothing and in all but one case did not too bad. On Saturday I thanked the gentleman who gave me the grammar book I use to keep me honest.

I’ve gotten a little off the mark on this plotting thing and I need to get back on, but I’m not going to do that tonight except to brainstorm some thoughts on how I ought to organize those efforts. Maybe it’s too early to start creating a process for my writing style but I’d like to at least consider some guidelines for getting from here to there.

I know I need to limit my time, but I don’t know what amount of time is too little or too great. I don’t have a definitive list of tasks required. Let’s start with that list. Then push on to at least percentages. And then maybe talk overall amounts.

Plot Point Plotting – this is the 4 act structure overview of the story I’ve embraced.

Storyline Plotting – this is the next step of driving a needle through the eyehole of all the beads to get them aligned and positioned. It includes filling in the gaps of the above.

Character Maquettes – I’ve been doing these at 1000 Days for some time now. The idea here is to create a stand alone character description which models his or her traits and emotions. It’s not an inventory of quirks per se.

Writing – Selecting the scenes from the Storyline Plotting phase and writing them bitches up. I expect the bulk of the work to occur here. This is the work I am dreading and have been avoiding with meta like this.

Editing – I’ve got a sense that I ought to anticipate two rounds of editing. I don’t know where I developed this sense. It pays heed to my neophyte skills but doesn’t drag me too far down any ratholes of churn and despair—at least not for too long or too far. More worrisome than the number of edits is the technique of editing. I’m thinking I’ll need a macro effort devoted to whole chapter rewrites and that sort of thing and a micro edit focusing on word choice, sentence flow, and grammar.

Along the way I’d like to use tools like Scrivener, but I’d like to avoid getting used by them. I’d like to avoid getting caught up in the tool and not doing the writing.

424 words on day 701