Late to the game, but certainly not out.

It's looking like this year's NaNo has taken me by surprise. In fact, I don't think I really thought about it until I saw someone post about NaNoWriMo sometime before Halloween. So when November 1st reared it's ugly head I really had no clue what I was going to write - plus I was passed out on the couch fighting a cold. Yuck!

It's now November 7th - one week into the whole affair and I think I'm finally ready to start writing (i.e. I have a plot and some idea what I'm going to write). I know I could have started writing on the fly, but if my first attempt in 2006 taught me anything, it's that I can't really write without a plan.*

So what's the story?
The working title is "The Importance of Being on This Side of Paradise" - a combination of one of the most popular novels of the 1890s and one of the most popular novels from the 1920s.

Why? Well I've decided to write my Steampunk/Comedy set in an version of the 1890s that is infused with elements of the soon to come 1920/30s - prohibition, jazz, the age of innocence, gender-confusion, etc. My favorite music to write Steampunk novels to is jazz/swing music, so it seemed perfect to actually let my characters have a bit more pizzazz than their Gilbert & Sullivan loving counterparts. I call it the "Roaring 1890s". Not the most drastic combination, but it will be a fun one.

Alright, alright...the plot:
In the alternate time of the Roaring 1890s, a young illusionist on the rise to fame falls in love with a fake princess whose hand already belongs to an American "Duke". With the assistance of a formidable traveling theatre troupe and their motto of "Love Above All Else", these star-crossed bohemian lovers will find a way to start a new life in paradise (wherever that might happen to be).

I'm not going to go into more details about the characters today, but I'll post a few profiles, excerpts and sketches over the duration of NaNo.

Wooo! Let's get this party started!


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*Now to be perfectly honest, I did start writing on November 1st, but it was mere gibberish and plotting to keep me roughly in line with the numbers for NaNo. And I hated the idea of a blank Word document until I was ready. I was writing ideas on every surface/text editor I could find, so it should count for something.