Purple Monster

Where to place my Aquatic Empires three!

As a geologist by training and knowing what I know I can not just dump them anywhere on a map there happens to be room. I need to think about this one seriously.

I think that I need to do a bit of hunting around the legends of Atlantis. There was also a place I visited in Greece that was thought to be an origin of an Atlantis myth so I will need to check out the volcanics of that area.

That’s part of the problem you see - it is based on volcanics so it is actually going to be limited - why am I bothering with this? No one other than a hand full of geologists and archeologists will realise if I’ve fluffed it?

In order to write this story I need to believe it whilst writing and if there is somehting I know to be wronge and it is based in this world in this universe - it destroys that and I simply would not be able to write it.

The location of these islands will affect many aspects of the Elf culture too - the climate and how far from which land masses etc….

It’s another huge lot of research to bundle ontop of an already research heavy project!

Actually I don’t mean Optical Electronics I mean Optronics. This is a branch of ‘electronics’ using basically light. It also tends to be made from glass and lasers!

This is so perfect for my needs for the story I can not believe it.

I have mentioned this before but it gets better - becuase not only is this somehting you could have computers and the like in but it makes the components undetectable if your looking for our traditional type of electronics.

The components could also potentially survive intact for the sort of time lengths I need and is made of glass which the sea empires had in plenty being volcanic in origin. The laser pen that the Punk carries her only relic from her child hood in Babel is a key that will allow her to access the hidden components in things like the onyx ocelot.

I have quiet a bit to learn about this field still - part of my issue is that we have come upon this technology once we already have conventional electronics and so we mix it with that and need ‘normal’ electronics to make it work but if a civalisation never had electornics then the componenets may well be different.

This both restricts me and gives me more freedom!

Oh and off course they are not affected by EMP’s electromagnetic pulses from things like nuclear explosions or pulse weapons! I put this in the story intuatively and then had to panickally check it was the case!

I am enjoying the alternative tech aspect of these books muchly I have to say

Yep another of EelKat’s Surveys for character building! I really am starting to get a solid picture of who the Punk is - I’ve know what she looks like for a while but this gives depth!. The origonal is here.

In her spare time she likes to soop up her bike, research into her past, spy on the elves, learn new skills, chill with geeks, greece monkey and emos (even if she does feel like shouting at them).

When she’s left alone she has many hobbies - generally carving stone and the like and micro electronics, mucking around with science, engeernering and tech in general.

Her skill set from being a batched raised child designed to learn is high so everything is a rehash to some extent of something she’s done before. Left to her own devices the hobbies expand to fill the budget she has though often projects remain unfinished as the Elves catch up with her.

The premise of this film was that the Queen bordering on the menopause is given one more chance to marry a French royal. Public opinoin prevent the marrage and her lovely Dudley is banished for marrying behind her back and trying to sabatarge the royal engagement.

There are plots and counter plots and mainly I took from this the issue that the under toe of religous upset was cuasing actual wars in Europe and that tortures could turn traitors into their spies.

I think it was orginially a TV series or something as it seemed to be about three stories and went on for a long time! It also ended with a ‘coming next’.

This film is dramatic with interesting cimatography, its a 1998 film containing loads of stars - it opens with protistants being persecuted by the Catholic Queen Mary. The 16 yr old Elizabeth is imprisioned in the Tower of London - I hadn’t realesed that Elizabeth I had spent any time in the tower so it is very fortunate that I am watching these films!

The film is bueatiful and brutal and I found myself very engaged with it.

It contains a posioned dress which was actually the inspiration for the Fire Storm mentioned in one of the future chapters of the Punk in Pink.

I liked this film even though I don’t really do historic films. But it does make me realise that The Punk being Elizabeth is going to provide far too much material to write about!

Haven’t entirely decided what to do about that.

There is also the prospect that the Queen had a relationship with Dudley this means that my character Matthew may definatly have to come to a sticky end - I had already decided that something was going to happen to him in order for the Punk to be happy to pretend to be Elizabeth in the first place.

The film showed the young queens uncertainty as well which added a depth that is often missing. Apparently there is a sequel which I should add to the love.film list - Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

The main thing I noticed though was that it contianed Dr Who (The one from 28 Days Later) and James Bond (the rough one that everybody but me finds attractive).

Another of my husbands suggestions - this book leads you on with intrige with some interesting twists and it covers some interesting nanotech ideas which is always good because though the Elves/Aquatic Apes do not have nanotech the humans in our future do.

The book also had contained human computer interactions in away that has helped me form the sorts of links I want to have in The Punk books.

Itself it reads very old dective novel - the sort where the guys been framed and needs to piece it all together.

Mnemosyne’s Kiss like the Nueromancer books contain the beginnings off humans moving into space as well - again this is something that is going to appear in the Punk books so its interesting to see how others approach it

It’s by Peter J Evans and I recommend it. He’s done some other stuff which I think I need to get hold off to read too

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And what are my nano plans for 2010?

Quiet simply I now have basically half of the Punk in Pink written and feel that NaNoWriMo this year would serve well to write the remainder - I know this will technically be cheating as its bringing a half done manuscript into it - but hey! This whole thing started as a nano project and thats how its going to finish!

I still need to do alot of research for this novel and the series it nessels inside of! So that is what most of this year is going to be devoted too - research for that last 75 000 words!

So until November I will be sending the odd bits of story live plus the notes and stuff! I’m also still sending live all the notes and things I constructed in Novemeber and December but didn’t get aroudn to sending live!

Good Luck all with your endevours!

Well it’s the end of 2009 and I feel that I have definatly achieved something with doing the Nano - without it I wouldn’t have discovered the many interesting facts about my own country 500 yrs ago, nor would I have been able to meet the fantastic people I met at the write-ins.

I hope very much that 2010 is even better - anyway I’m off to celebrate

Mostly these are character and world building but I’ve found them quiet useful

http://www.squidoo.com/CharacterProfiles

http://www.squidoo.com/The13StepMethod

http://gothnowrimo.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rulesguidelines&action=display&thread=8

http://www.squidoo.com/WritingVampires

http://www.lazette.net/Free%20Stuff/NaNo.htm

http://www.squidoo.com/CreatingFantasyRealms

This is a story that was also in the Atrocity Archives book by Charles Stross - I didn’t actually realise it wasn’t all one story as it contains the same people and is based in the same world and is somewhat foreshadowed in The Atrocity Archives.

And I think for anyone who has lived, worked or had to just visit Milton Keynes it is a must!

What was really interesting for me though was the other chunks of writing at the back of the book - there were discussions on thrillers and horrors as he swapped authors and genres of those classic texts that had inspired him. I have my own theory that setting and type of book are seperate and that ‘genres’ don’t really exist. What we would think of as a genre are end points on phase diagrams etc…

To be I’m not even sure if Science Fiction as such exists anymore becuase any story set in say two three years or decades down the line will have to include technological developments that would have frazzeled the brains of authors 50 years ago and been the realm of pure scifi. Fiction that contains science - hmmmm.

This has also lead me to question some things about the Punk stories but I’ll not go into them here.

Anyway basically I really liked this story - no where near as dark as the Atrocity Archives but conveys alot about the governance of this country as far as I’m concerned.