Nice! But I think I’ll let the RCC off the hook this time. Hmm. Since we’re in the New World, how about some Indian relic? With magical power, that can be used by the possessor, for good OR evil. Always depending on how you define it of course. 
Sounds creepy…going in the notebook. Thanks!
Beautiful! You ought to market this service to other struggling writers. Thank you. 
Aha - awesome, will check it out.
Ah, wasn’t sure if you wanted to go for a supernatural angle or not, and I’d already trotted out a magic McGuffin in the previous post.
Hm. The Finger of Halugra? No, that’s been done. Little-Eagle-Who-Gets-What-He-Wants’ shield? Not really suited to a thriller. Ah…the Ghost Dance, perhaps. With a twist, of course.
A small faction of Native American activists–mostly young and hotheaded–are alarmed at the strident strain of racism rearing its head in the news. It hasn’t been directed at them, in particular, but they expect to be caught up in it. Indeed, one of them claims to have had a vision of great danger to their people, claiming that Wovoka’s visions had been true, but that he had been shown a time much farther ahead than he knew, and that time has come. He tells them they must recover the Ghost Drum, an artifact that was present at Wounded Knee, but was never played. It will call an army of spirits, truly bulletproof this time, to begin the war that will end the world.
The young man with the “vision” is (or is controlled by) an evil spirit trying to stir up trouble, but the Drum will do some of what he claims, wrenching the dead from their rest and forcing them into battle. One of his would-be recruits, however, sees through him; he believes, but is horrified at the idea of treating ancestors like cannon fodder in a needless war. He–and any allies he can convince–set out to stop the evil spirit from getting his hands on the Drum. In the final confrontation, the spirit of Wovoka (who actually preached peaceful coexistence) blesses the hero and his efforts to prevent a war, and helps him banish the evil spirit.
I don’t know. This is kind of touchy material to work with. A further complication is that most of the opposition aren’t actually bad guys; in fact, at least some of them will be the hero’s friends and relatives. That’s what came out this time, though.
Tcha. This is the easy part. Actually doing the writing, that is hard work.
Man, you are awesome.
So, word counts? How are people doing? Going to any write-ins this weekend?
I’m at 6969 by the Nano count and 6984 by OpenOffice. I have ten pages done for issue one (I’m doing comic scripts), with the ending written, and seven pages for issue two. I’m looking forward to finishing issue one so I can write about ferrets robbing banks. Yes.
Planning on going to a write-in Saturday afternoon.
Heh. About 1200 words in this thread, not counting badinage. Fortunately, I’m only participating vicariously.
And they come with built-in masks!
Well done to everyone in the thread who’s on track! I added a few buddies from your names here tonight and noticed that several were at 8K already. You’re ahead of the game, and that’s awesome!
I didn’t write at all yesterday (the 3rd, that is) so I had to cram in some extra writing tonight in order to stay on target. I’m at 7257 according to the NaNo wordcount thingy, and a marginally more impressive 7302 according to Word. But of course the one that counts is NaNo. I do like their stats that tell you when your projected end-date will be. Right now mine is November 27… I should be so lucky!
(Speaking of Nano technology, what is with the lack of progress bars/widgets? They need to get on the ball already, yeesh! I ended up using this one from my community and adjusting the language (from WeSeWriMo to NaNoWriMo) as necessary.
Already managed to get in a gory/creepy prologue and a brief sex scene, and we’re still only in chapter one. Still, I’m over 14% through and I haven’t gotten my characters back to the century to which they need to be traveling, so there’s gonna be some serious trimming necessary once this is over! (I find writing marathons encourage being lax about writing economically… especially since you want so badly to reach 50K that you end up padding sentences with repetitious language.)
Well, now that I have another character in action (our protagonist has now met one of the the kitsunes) and three more picked out, I’m happier with the idea to the tune of 9200 words. I still have no idea what the major plot will be. I mean, it’s important that the protagonist learn that she’s just there as an example for the other kids, but they have to do stuff, you know? Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Or today. Dammit, why am I awake at 3 a.m. again?
How about a creepy sex scene next?
I’m at 8,832. I probably won’t get to write much today because I’m going to a delayed trick or treating with my niece and nephew (their town got hit pretty hard by the Nor’easter last Saturday, hence the delay). So, anyway, I made sure to get ahead for this reason.
I’m well behind schedule at 4621, but I got nothing done yesterday because of other distractions. Working on catching up this morning. (Assuming I can quit browsing the Internet long enough to work… :()
Problem is I’m in the “main characters are meeting for the first time” scene so there’s a lot of introduction and character description going on.
I’m well behind as well at 5500. However… I got sucked in by the Breeder’s Cup race today and I still have to walk to the store. Plus, I have to name the dog in my story. The name of the dog has held me back since yesterday morning :smack:
The dog’s name is Ebenezer (assuming you don’t have any other characters named Ebenezer in the story, in which case, it’s Zebadiah). This has the advantage of being easy to use find and replace on when you eventually pick another name.
Guilt ridden, I keep saying I will start ‘today’. As of this ‘today’ I’m 10k behind.
Still can’t add writing buddies, I just keep getting a ‘page not found’ error - and this is going from the link on their home page, so it’s not a spelling issue.
At the moment, I’ve got two short story ‘hearts’ (the scene/line that will blossom into the whole) and they’ll be lucky to hit 8k for the pair…
I’m at 11,144, and moving right along. I’m having fun writing, though I don’t think I’m getting things off the ground fast enough. I’m shooting for 100,000 words, not 50 (not all this month, though!) so I guess it’s okay that things seem to be moving a little slowly.
The issue is actually called ‘Bandit Masks’ because, y’know, I have to. And the cover is the White Knight getting attacked by ferrets, which probably isn’t going to happen in a literal fashion, but again I have to.
I’m not sure how much I’ve written today since I haven’t typed it up (I can’t come up with long stretches of fiction on the computer). Most of it is for the porn story that wasn’t supposed to have much plot, but developed one anyway. Managed to squeeze another page into the preview issue of the White Knight, and added three more short, but important, pages to issue 1.
And did laundry, and cleaned the bathrooms, and bought groceries. Yay me and yay everybody else.
When I woke up today I had about 3,500 words; I just put down the pen (figuratively speaking) and am relieved to say that I am now back on track with 10,133 words, according to the NaNoWriMo count.
It was a bit much to do in one day, and if I’ve learned anything it’s that you just can’t let yourself get behind in this thing. You really have to write every, single day…which I guess is part of the point of it, right?
Novel’s going pretty well. The characters are defining themselves, and if I’m still not sure exactly how the plot is going to play out (even with some of the tremendous help I’ve received courtesy of this thread!) at least it’s kind of moving along.
This is at once an encouraging and a humbling experience. Encouraging because hey, I’m writing a book! Humbling because it really makes you appreciate anew just how good professional writers are at their craft.
Managed 4,625 today, so I’m almost back on track at 9,750.
That said, I’m amused at the wide discrepancy in how various programs track word count.
NaNoWriMo’s official counter says 9,750.
Google Docs (where I’m storing the thing) says 9,925.
The editor I’m using says 9,957.
Why such a discrepancy? How hard is it to count words?
Hey, it works for Squirrel Girl. Don’t underestimate the power of a villain who can control small, furry animals. 
I’m about 500 words behind. Wrote a ton Saturday, didn’t write anything today but got it typed up, probably won’t write much tomorrow. On the other hand, I’m going to have a writing buddy on Tuesday so we’ll see what happens.
Went to a bookstore today and bought a bunch of reference books, among other things. Going to have to resist temptation to read them. (That’s mostly what killed today.)