Sunday, November 2, 2008

NaNoWriMo MoJo

So just what am I writing about?

I'm totally winging it and have no idea where I'm headed. I've written 3548 words so far for two chapters. The name of the thing is My Untitled, Unplotted Space Opera.

Here's what's happened so far. We've met our protagonist, Ensign Lizbet Cumber. She's on her first cruise...on the exploration ship Archemedes. Interstellar travel has been going on for 11oo years and guess what folks? There ain't much out there. Mostly uninhabitable planets or planets occupied by hostile life forms. They've really only found a very few planets to colonize and only one with a sentient life form that is willing to share their planet...and that seems to be because the Zorks, the native species perceive their surroundings in ways that we can't understand. In fact, since meeting the Zorks 300 years ago, man still hasn't figured out how to communicate with them. The good news is that most of the species man has encountered, hostile or not are far behind us technologically, so at least they're not going to chase us into space. However there are a few species just as far along as us; some beyond us. So even exploration ships travel armed.

Anyway, at the beginning of our story, Archemedes encounters another ship. It dwarfs them in size and attempts to communicate are not reciprocated. They have no idea who the other ship could be or what their intentions might be. The Captain sounds General Quarters and Lizbet heads to her battle station in Engineering. Although she's the only officer there, she's smart enough to defer to the Chief in most instances. The Captain's various announcements seem...uninspiring. As time goes on, there seems to be some unease in his voice.

Ultimately, he panics and engages the ship's auto-destruct. Since the mechanism for this is based in Engineering. Lizbet and her crew are the only ones with any real warning. With 20 seconds to spare, they leave in their escape pod. But not before Lizbet is able to override communications and warn the rest of the ship. She doesn't know if she got the warning out in time, but at least she tried.

Ultimately, they're taken aboard the "enemy" ship and discover that only one other pod managed to escape. And the "enemy" is clearly human. Except that they're all albino and all deaf. No wonder efforts to communicate were unsuccessful. Could this group of "humans" be the descendants of one of the exploration missions that never returned however many centuries ago? Oh, I'm sure they are.

But I'm not sure of anything else.

Oh BTW, 1.) I promise I'll find things to write about other than what I'm writing about. That'd be boring as hell for all of us, wouldn't it? 2.) I watched The Legend of the Seeker last night. It's a new show based on a Terry Goodkind series. The two-hour premier was pretty good. Hopefully, they'll keep that up for a while.

3 comments:

Some dude stuck in the Midwest said...

I didn't know if the Seeker was worth watching, and how close are they going to stick with the books.

On the other hand I stopped reading his books after a fifth one i think. It seemed every time something different happens to the heroes, just as they are about getting ready for some R&R. And women get raped a lot.

Goodkind has lost his ways.

Nathan said...

I've never actually read any of Goodkind, but I figured some of you guys might have, so that's why I mentioned it. I have a feeling they're going to travel from village to village saving people all by themselves. I'd guess they can get at least three seasons out of it without getting boring.

Anonymous said...

I like reading what you're writing about what you're writing about so that I know what I'll be reading when you self-publish your book in final reading form after you're done writing it. For us readers.

Go Nathan!