The Next Camp Is Coming

by syaffolee

I’m sorry I haven’t posted very much in this blog lately. All I can say is that most of my activity has been on Twitter and aside from that, I’ve been very busy with work (as always).

Anyways, the July session for Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up in a couple of days. I’ve been invited to do @NaNoWordSprints again, so expect prompts to be posted here in the next month. I’ve also been invited to an ML cabin (basically a mini-chatroom on the Camp NaNo site where all the other members are municipal liaisons) and I’ll see how that goes. Hopefully it will give me motivation to finish the July project, unlike the April project.

As for the April project, unfortunately it’s still not at a stage where I feel that I can finish at least a rough draft of it in a month. Sometimes ideas are like that. They stall out and you either have to plan some more or wait until you get a second wind.

The idea for July’s writing project struck me out of the blue earlier this month. The basic premise: what would it be like to live in a city which was built as a giant astronomical instrument, where the streets disappeared and reappeared from a different dimension depending on the movements of the heavens above? Here’s the vague blurb of the idea I put up on my Camp NaNo profile:

When the Stars Are Right

The streets of Venzza disappear and reappear according to the celestial movements. The inhabitants of the city use the Almanack to help guide their daily movements in their home. But so do those who want to hide secrets until the time is right for their reveal…

This is a science fantasy where science underpins everything, but I’m making a conscious effort to make it sound like fantasy. The title is a not so subtle hint that there will be Lovecraftian influences. The name of the city is also a hint that this will take place in an alternate reality Venice. About four years ago, I attempted to write another story set in Venice, but it stalled out after three or four chapters. I’m hoping that this second try will go better.

Unlike many of my previous stories where the characters came to me fairly early, the characters for this story were far more difficult to suss out. I came up with the basic plot even before I knew who they were or their names. I don’t want to talk too much about my characters right now, but what I do want to say is that I came up with scientific reasons for their existence and they aren’t random creatures I’m throwing in there just for the heck of it.

I’m still working on the outline. Let’s hope I finish it before July 1 rolls around.