A Day Before Next Month’s Insanity

by syaffolee

Well, it’s a couple more hours until the start of Julnowrimo.  Part of me thinks I should just go to bed early, but it’s not like I get that much sleep anyway.  Besides, there’s the excitement of starting the month-long project at midnight.  For some reason, this never gets old for me.  I guess it’s because I’m not writing the same thing over and over again.  It’s always different.  And different stories bring different challenges.

After mulling it over a couple days earlier this month, I decided to set the story in a Victorian-esque setting, in a county in England that is known to be influenced by the Vikings.  This fits in perfectly with my intentions to incorporate Norse mythology into the story.  If you’re curious as to how I came upon these settings, it was all due to my obsession with BBC documentaries.

Windermere – a location for a proposed fight scene
(Inspired by BBC’s Great British Railway Journeys, Windermere episode Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

Carlisle – proposed location for a character’s home
(Inspired by BBC’s Great British Railway Journeys, Carlisle episode Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

The only thing different I’ve done in planning this time is to have “blank” characters.  Oh sure, I have a list of characters that I’m including, but I have literally no description on them other than the correspondences they have to Norse mythology.  For instance, a major character in the story is the Wyrm, Jörmungandr the Midgard Serpent.  But other than that title and a motivation, I have not written down in my notes what he looks like or even what his personality is.  Is the Wyrm dangerous, angry, mysterious, silly, sarcastic, or something else?  I have no idea, although I suspect it will be fun discovering exactly who any of the characters are once I start writing.