The Coffee House -- celebrating five years of caffeinated companionship

Yay! The site is back up!

The site's back up! The site's back up!

*grins* Wonder for how long? :P

How long indeed!

Are the other posts all gone?

Yeah, there was a crash, followed by a relaunch.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3005470

But we're back now. Hoorah!

::sheepishly plods in:: Hi.

I have a checkered history with Nano... I got to 10k in '05, about 2.5k in '06, and I think I *might* have registered last year. But this is my first year living away from home and I have a lot more free time (My parents subscribe to the "idle hands are the devil's playground" theory and we live in a rural area, so there's always something to do. :P), plus I now hang out with a couple of veteran Nano winners, soooo... I'm gonna go for it.

::brews some berry tea:: Yesh. Now to come up with a plot. ^_^

Good to meet you, Mister Green! And good luck with the new situation. We have a bunch of *very* prolific writers here in the Coffee House, and very encouraging, to boot!

And yes, it is nice to be back!

Hello, I'm back. Checked here a few days ago, and found... nothing. Checked last night and found the forums. For those who don't know me, the pronunciation of my name is in my signature, but the problem is my signature doesn't show in my posts. The name is Thekherham (that's Tee kee' rahm) and I write mostly science fiction, but this year I was planning to do something different, something more down-to-Earth, so to speak. I have a title and some characters, but that's about it. I still have some time, but what worries me, in the previous five years I already had the novel pretty well mapped out.

*huggles Mr. Green*

Glad it doesn't appear that I'll have to be driving down and forcing you to novel this November. ;)

*supplies a new cheesecake, as the last one was apparently lost in the crash*

So anyhow. I'm registering for the GRE today. Has anyone here taken it, and is it terribly hard?

And last night I actually got a PLOT EVENT for my idea. It doesn't seem quite as exciting now, in the daylight, but it's there and I'm snatching it. ^_^ However, I can't tell if the snippets of time manipulation that keep trying to work their way in are supposed to be there, or if it's just me trying to make things more complicated/interesting.

*Erin wanders back in and reclaims a squishy chair*

I'm glad things are back up and running, although I admit I was unaware of it until logging on this morning. I spent yesterday running all over creation and sitting at the hospital for a CAT scan. Stupid kidney stones. At least I've gotten it over with early, rather than in the middle of November! :)

As for NaNo, I've settled on my topic, I just need figure out what is going to happen now. Or maybe I'll wait and see what the characters decide, since they will likely change the entire story on me, anyway. :D

A new face wanders into view, exploring through the streets of this odd city, where so much pencil sharpening can be heard. But at this building the face's owner stops. Here he has been halted by familiar perceptions: the smell of coffee, the sound of good conversation, and the feeling of friends. Time to step inside.

--

Hello, everyone! I tried to do NaNoWriMo last year, but didn't connect with the community enough. This year I'm even more worried about how much time I have available, but maybe with more friends and competition I'll make better use of the time I have. I'm a huge coffee lover (Tobie, I'd love a cup when that's ready, if you don't mind), and if it weren't for the fact that Boston doesn't have even a single 24/7 diner, I know exactly how I'd be getting NaNoWriMo done: at 3 AM in a Waffle House, with unlimited coffee refills; just like I used to write, back in Georgia.

Any here into home-roasting coffee beans? I grind my own, a pot at a time, but haven't gotten into roasting yet, as much as I'd love to.

Hiyas, again! *waves at everyone*

Well, I thought I would have a tough time doing NaNo before... now I'm spending all of October looking for a new apartment and packing because we have to move suddenly (long story), and November will be spent moving in, settling down, and job-hunting like mad because of the sudden change in where we live. :-P

Blegh.

*digs around for the cocoa and marshmallows*

*comes in bearing more cheescake, ice cream, and brownies and a bottle of wine*

Greetings all.

Welcome, Mr. Green! You can do it this year.

Rose, the GRE isn't that difficult if you study for it. My main problem was the math since I hadn't had anything since my freshman year. The English part you should have few problems with. Congrats on the plot event!

Yeah, let the characters decide, squirrelly. It's more fun. :)

Welcome, Jay! As for coffee... can't stand the stuff, though it smells good.

*winces* Good luck with the packing and moving. I'm actually somewhat in the same boat- our lease on the apartment runs out November 1 and we need a place that accepts dogs. And, yes, I am job-hunting as well. >.<

Welcome!

As for me, my characters are driving me insane. I spent over an hour yesterday figuring out the inheiritance pattern of my MC's telepathy. When I finished, I even made the pedigree on the computer. Just before bed, when I was looking at it, she informed me it was wrong. It took me less than five minutes to figure out the new pattern because it's a dominant trait, not recessive like I had originally thought. *headdesk*

Hello, Coffee House friends -- so glad to be back! I'll just head back behind the counter and find my favorite mug, and the Darjeeling, and the ground cardamom seeds to sprinkle in it. Although the other day I discovered Moroccan mint tea with PINE NUTS floating in the glass!!! Maybe I'll switch to that for this NaNo....

-- Laura

2007 -- Mud and Glass (winner)
2008 -- ? (?)

Now I'm not the first poster anymore! Oh well, -sets down new cheesecake- white truffle raspberry again, I honestly couldn't find anything else.

So how is everyone?

*sigh* I'm losing faith in my plot. I mean, I never thought it would be a masterpiece or even mildly readable. But now I'm not even sure how well it would pan out if I was to just write it for the heck of it.
Maybe I'll just write another spy novel...

Whoo hoo! The Coffee House! *samples cheesecake*

I'm getting really excited about nano. I just hope the kinks in my science fiction novel smooth out before nov 1st. I'm writing a sequel to my Nano 2006 novel, the Shadow of Greed. I like sequels. They make me feel all cozy and warm, like I've been reunited with old friends. Hopefully this one will be just as fun and exciting as the first one! I'm going for 80k this year.

I think I'm going to go to a write-in for the first time this year. I've finally got my driver's permit, but I still need my mom or dad to go with me. Hopefully I'll be able to convince one of them to take me to a write-in.

I'm so excited!

Thekheram: Guess what! I remembered how to pronounce your name just by looking at it the regular way (i.e. without the explanation). Good luck with doing something more down to earth.

Rose: I took the GRE, but it was *counts* 9 years ago. At that time, they had a logic section instead of the writing section, and I did the worst on that section because I'm too darn meticulous, and I read and thought about each question before answering, so I ran out of time :(. That said, I still did quite well overall, so I wouldn't say it's too difficult if you read up on it and do some practice exams.

Also - congratulations on the plot event!

Erin: Congratulations on picking a topic, and good luck fleshing it out!

Jay: Good to meet you! And yes, community really does help, especially super-prolific and encouraging company as you can find here! I haven't tried roasting or, for that matter, grinding my own beans. I'm quite happy with ground Gevalia.

Mara: Ooh... I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck with the move and job hunt!

theanab: Brownies! And Greetings in return.

Indy: Good luck with your job hunt and move also! And, perhaps more importantly, good luck dealing with the insanity your characters are putting you through!

Laura: Cardamom in darjeeling sounds divine.

Transience: Don't lose faith yet! It will turn out better than you think.

Evergreena: Good luck smoothing out the kinks! I also hope that it is as fun as the predecessor. Also - good luck with the 80k goal! That's great!

As for me...
I actually have a coherent plot. This rarely happens. Oh, I've outlined before, but it was sort of like taking a bunch of random events and trying to make them go somewhere they didn't want to go, and then getting frustrated, and writing something else entirely (well, not last year, but there's still no real progression in the story). This year - I started with 0 plot, and just a few beginning scenes leading out in the deep, dark, murky sea of the unknown... And I had a flash of insight, which then turned into a complete plot with a perfect 3-Act structure and three main crisis points. I swear, I've *never* had a 3-Act Structure with 3 crisis points. And usually, if I do have things I call crisis points, the second one is the biggest, which makes the climax, well, anti-climactic.

Of course, I have a lot of research to do, because I'm doing 18th century pirates and slaves, and know absolutely nothing about that period or those cultures in that period. It's so bad, I can't even find good names for my characters, nor do I know if they would have had different names in different environments. So, October is going to be very busy.

But I really love my idea!

There are so many new faces since I saw this in September...Nice to meet you all!

I think I've suddenly gone more insane than usual. Out of the blue I've decided I'm going to try for two NaNovels this year. One of them is to go with the plot I have going, and the other is to cram as many dares as I can and to have fun with. I don't know exactly how I'm going to write that many words in a day (I've never really written more than 3k in one day before), but if I need to, I can always drop my extra one. I hope I don't have to though...

Hee, thanks Raven. :-)

Ooh, a dog, Indy? That's gotta be more difficult. We don't have any pets, although I want a kitten desperately... we've got a few places lined up and as luck would have it, the cheapest is the one that says no pets. It's a privately owned apartment, though, so we're gonna try and bargain for a kitty. ;-) *crosses fingers*

It suddenly got freezing cold here in LA (well, I don't know if it's literally freezing, I just now that I'm really cold and don't wanna get out of bed).... Brrrr.

My plot's basically stuck. I've got my characters figured out, my one... two-ish main characters and the main supporting characters. Yay for Greek names in a completely sci-fi-ish setting, but hey, they practically worship Plato. :-P

*wanders in, looking for coffee--and people to spazz with 'coz she's caught the NaNo fever really, REALLY bad*

xcerpted desu! I've caught the NaNo fever SO bad but the problem is, members of my home region (with the possible exception of our ML) don't start getting into the spirit of things until November/very late October.D= I've been wandering around the forums all day but most of the threads consist of an OP containing a question and a trail of replies with very little discussion/interaction--which is what I'm looking forward to in my home region except, yeah, most of our wrimos haven't caught the fever yet. And then I stumbled into this place and--yeah, I'm probably boring you to bits and not making a very good first impression with my whining here.~_~

Um...right. Again, xcerpted here, and I'm a fantasy writer...though I'm thinking of dabbling into one of the other genres this year (but probably won't). It's only my second year and I'm expecting it to be a lot harder than last year since I have thesis and joined another writing challenge, both of which will eat up loads of writing time. Especially the thesis.x_X Coffee please...

Thanks for the welcomes, Raven, Independence, others.

Those of you with story ideas are definitely ahead of the game. I'm still figuring mine out. Did a bit of genre & subgenre brainstorming last night, but most of my ideas seem like things I'd be into but no one else would. Any of these seem interesting to people?:

----Some kind of entrepreneurship story. Modern(ish)-day. Not necessarily a rags-to-riches story, but more a 'struggling office worker breaks out of the rat race and finds fulfillment' story. Like Neo in the Matrix, but without the Matrix. Children of Men meets Catch Me If You Can. (what?)

----D&D adventurers story. Fantasy setting, high-adventure, but with way more of a focus on character development than these books usually have. Treating the adventurers like real people. They're together for a reason, they've shared all these experiences, come close to death who knows how many times... there are relationships there, and they're interesting. The Thirteenth Warrior meets Band of Brothers.

----Star Wars / Steampunk. A dark-side artifact has fallen into the hands of a Corporate Sector general. He goes AWOL with a few warships and some valuable stolen technology, and starts carving out his own little sector of space. Able to mass-produce war equipment, staffed by conscripts. The artifact draws and binds other darksider's to him, giving him powerful, lethal bodyguards and troubleshooters. Good guys can't win on quantity, have to rediscover how to hone their best ships / skills / people into champions.

----Modern-day mystery / Lovecraftian horror. Private Investigator forced by supernatural forces to confront the truths of his past and personhood. As we discover, through his eyes, the evils of our world, he discovers the evil within himself.

**cackles evilly as he reaches for a slice of cheesecake** ...sorry, cheesecake does that to me.

Welcome back, Laura!

Plot will happen, transcience. Just have faith.

I hope you're able to go to a write-in, evergreena! They're usually a lot of fun. Good luck on the 80k.

Congratultions on a coherent plot, Raven! Lunas knows a lot about pirates and the Age of Sail, so you might want to ask her for resources. And thank you- I'm going to need it.

Good luck with the dual novels! I'm going for a 100k on a single one. I'm not insane enough to do two.

Yup- she's eleven to boot. It's making the process difficult indeed- Mom's frustrated because of it. I hope you're able to get a kitten! And I further hope your plot works itself out.

Welcome, xcerpted! It's still fairly early on- many people don't start getting into things until later. I wish you the best of luck with your thesis.

It's Indy. :) As for story ideas, all I can say is write for yourself- write what you want. Though I have to say, both the middle two sound interesting. And what era precisely would the SW one take place in? (Star Wars geek here, though my main fandom right now is Lord of the Rings.)

I need to organize my notes on what I need to research. I have a list, but some of the topics are vague (ie- technology in a century), so I need to clarify exactly what I want and what I can ignore.

@Jay
That's...wow. Like, you know, totally different stuff. They all seem very interesting...though if I were you, I'd choose which of them I'd use by assessing what I know/am good at. I think I'm a fantasy writer mostly 'coz I'm not really good with real world science and have a wild imagination. Something like that. Though of course you might be the kind that's good with everything, or likes research and stuff.^^;;

@Independence
Thanks much!^_^ May I steal brownies whenever?<3

fab, good luck with your two-novel attempt. 100k in November is certainly possible. I know many people - including Indy and Lunas ;) - who seem to do it on a regular basis!! I never have, and I don't forsee my idea this year taking me that far, but it would be pretty cool to have such an accomplishment. :)

xcerpted: *pushes some brownies and coffee in your direction* Help yourself. :) What is your thesis on? I can definitely sympathize with your stress, ugh. Myself, I'm attempting to apply to grad school and finish my bachelor's whilst doing this, as well as edit a litmag. Crazy stuff. But crazy's what Wrimos do best, eh? ;)

transcience: good luck with your plot. :( I know the feeling. I kind of feel that way about *my* plot, which is kind of ... um ... nonexistent. :-P Except for the one event which came to me.

Now I need more conflict, or ... something. Maybe I should throw in mythical creatures. (I *do* have statues. An angel and a gargoyle at least. ^_^)

Thanks for the GRE encouragement, Indie and Jay. I'm pretty sure there are practice tests online, so ... I'm registering today, anyhow. :) My parents are paying the fee as my birthday present.

I definitely want to be personally satisfied with anything I put a month of effort into. :-P But I want to write for an audience, too, not just myself. The Star Wars one would take place right at the end/just after the Yuuzhan Vong war. I kind of think of it as a replacement plotline for the Killiks trilogy, which I felt was kind of lame. If anything were to really threaten the galaxy after the YV invasion, it would be post-war opportunism. A dark-side-backed militocracy that's going to turn the outer-rim into a war material power-house.

Absolutely. "Write what you know" and all that. My last attempt at NaNoWriMo was a 'Anne McCaffery low-tech future meets steampunk' story, which was constantly getting bogged down by me trying to figure out what a low-tech-by-choice, no fantasy magic, colonized world would be like. This time, the less research the better. Which may actually be a reason not to write the Star Wars one, because even though I know SW really well, it's a curse of knowledge kind of thing; I get really fixated on looking up the name of that person that I know runs that place on that planet, so I can stay true to as much existing canon as possible.

Fabi60: Good luck on the two novels! Sounds like a lot of fun, too. I might have to try that sometime - I've never gotten into the dares (although, one year, I wrote a bunch of them down just in case).

Mara: Your setting sounds very fascinating - science fiction, but worshiping Plato! Very unique!

xcerpted: I think you'll find it's very sociable here, and also very encouraging! Glad to meet you! As for genre, go with what is drawing you most, even if it's not your comfort level. Up until my first NaNo (2004), I pretty much only wrote fantasy, but in 2005, I wrote my first mystery, and last year, I wrote literary fiction. And - good luck with the thesis! What is it on?

Jay: Well, you could be totally crazy and try to do all of them :P. As for which I'm most drawn to? Probably the last one. I love crime noir, and even more, love internal conflict where protagonists are forced to deal with the darker parts of themselves. So, yes, that one sounds absolutely fantastic! The others sound great, too. I'd be intrigued as to how Star Wars and steampunk would go together, and I also really like your D & D idea. The first idea calls to me least, because, well, I'm just not as much of a realist as others. It sounds like it would be *good*, just not my favorite type of story. As far as a recommendation as to which one to write? The one that intrigues you the most, and the one you think will obsess you most easily.

Indy: Good luck organizing your notes for research. I've done that, but now I have no idea where to find the information.

Rose: Good luck figuring out conflict. Statues turning into real mythological creatures sound like a great idea!

As for me, I'm only two chapters away from finishing the novel I started in March! This will be the first time I've *ever* finished a novel that was NOT written during NaNo, so I'm very excited!

Never reached 100k before, Rose. 87k and 75k yes, but not 100k. So it's going to be somewhat of a challenge this year. As for the GRE, check your library for books. That's what I used so I wasn't tied to a computer.

Ugh- Vong. Sorry, but I never finished the second book in NJO. It somewhat ruined SW for me. And, yes, from the little I know, your idea makes more sense than what happened in "canon." Yeah- that would be a reason not to write fanfic. When I do so, the source material is next to me at all times.

Thanks. A major problem is that this is the first "hard" scifi novel I've written, so there's technology I have to extrapolate and I have no idea how to do that!

Aaargh!! I'm still thinking, thinking, thinking. I have... what? 25... 26 days.

Think think think!! Ow, my brain is hurting.

Maybe I'll write a sequel to my novel about this teen who is part human and part horse, or if I get real desperate I might write a sequel to my Thekherham autobiography (that's Thekherham, the alien, not yours truly. (I picture him as 25, with a mate, and three cubs, but the autobiography ends with him at 17, and there is so much more to tell...)

But I will do that only as a last desperate measure.

Think, Thekherham, think. Can somebody get me an aspirin or something?

Indy: Looks like DH and I got a place, and we're even most probably going to get a kitty! :-) It makes me happy. :-)

Jay: Star Wars/Steampunk? What's not to love? Especially if you're re-writing NJO stuff (I avoid them like the plague and don't acknowledge their existence)... ;-) Awesome ideas though, but yeah, write what you can write the easiest. Of course, I'm a biased Star Wars geek... not that I haven't broadcast that everywhere yet, haha!

Rose: GARGOYLE?!? Ahhh!! That makes me so happy. :-D A flying gargoyle? ;-) Yay for ScriptFrenzy!

Raven: The idea came to me after studying Plato's Republic in my Philosophy and Ethics class. He promotes a race of philosopher-kings, but he seems to promote it at the death of free will, and I think that free will is what makes us human. So it's something I'm exploring in my novel. The gist is that this society is fine-tuning this genetically-engineered race of philosopher-kings - the perfect race and what they want to ascend to. A young girl, about 14ish, is on a tour of the museum/laboratory/whatever with her school group but the windows (they let you see into the exhibit, but the philosopher-kings have no knowledge of anyone outside of their society) malfunctioned and she fell into the exhibit. In response the director has the memory wiped of everyone who knew her, and leaves her there. She herself always idealized the philosopher-kings... but does she find what she expects? ;-)