Milestone 1

Something incredible has happened. Something monumental. Something so incredible it will blow your mind.
I have run out of printing ink.
And why have I run out of printing ink?

BECAUSE ELECTROSTATIC FANTASY IS DONE!!

Picture courtesy of Jared Davidson
freerangestock.com

That's right, my first manuscript is finally beta-ready. I tried to print the whole thing as the first copy but my printer disagreed with that.
After 3 years I've finally gotten to this stage. And it actually feels a bit weird.

What did I expect to feel? Untold enthusiasm; infinite excitement; incomparable success? Well, honestly I feel a bit sad. This project was something I had with me for three years. It was something comfortable and familiar, and now it's finally over. But I am glad, especially about how the ending is now solidified into something definite rather than being a vague mesh of concepts. I'm also happy that I finally know what happens to my characters, and that when I tell people 'I've finished my novel', I'm not lying. I'm not even telling an extended truth.

And there's plenty more where that came from!! The next mission lies in choosing which of my stories to finish and edit next.

Funny thing I found out is: the first time you write the final line of your novel (as a first draft that may still change) is the most satisfying time. Even when I edited a bit off mine, I still didn't feel nearly as much joy and achievement as when I first wrote it.

Funny that.

Inspiration Please!

Right, so everyone is settling into the Christmas spirit and the fact that holidays have/are starting. Time to relax and take a breather. You're probably looking forward to enjoying that game/movie/book/thing you've been meaning to play with/watch/read for weeks/months but have been kept from by work. Yes, I've got a (few) games I've been meaning to get to. However, I shan't be getting to them.

This holiday season for me is more about getting a break from college work so that I might have time to work on hobbies instead.
On my agenda for the next two weeks are the following:

• Edit Electrostatic Fantasy (preferably to completion).
• Finish writing Electrostatic Nightmare.
• Finish two tasks for my volunteering place.
• Finish reading about ten books or so.
• Oh yeah, and do some drawing.

There's probably more but I can't recall it right now. But actually, I'm really happy that I have a long list of stuff to do. Even though people at my college might think I'm bluffing, I've got quite a bit of trouble with laziness. The moment I know no one will be expecting me to show up on time, get up early or finish anything by X date, I turn into quite the lolling lazy chimpanzee, hanging out my monkey cave all day stinking of bananas and Fanta. Heh, well not quite that bad, but during holidays I might certainly not be the saint of hard work. And no matter how much I think I will be industrious during the holidays, I tend to be beset by the monster known as laziness.

Hence I am in need of inspiration. Not the "I'm out of ideas" kind of inspiration, but the "get off your butt and work now!" kind of inspiration. Otherwise I know, come January, I'll be completely out of the working mood and I will start off my assignments again with notable difficulty. The "I don't wanna work again" kind of difficulty. The "I don't wanna get up at 6 in the morning, me sleepy" kind of difficulty.
So this season shan't be the kicking back and relaxing all the way kind of season. It shall be the getting up at 6 anyway and working on hobbies kind of season!

Besides the above I've had some ideas for short stories. Now short story writing has been an area that has been a weak spot to me for a long time. I just seem to struggle to fit my plots and ideas into something as small as 3000-5000 words. But lately I've been reading short stories by Pu Songling and it's given me ideas on how to make this impossible task more possible. Still tinkering with thoughts but hoping to plot something down soonish.
Assuming I get any of my other tasks worked on, hah!

Wishing a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone out there!

Monkey_With_Fanta

Mid-NaNoWriMo 2011 -- ELDA

Okay, so have to get out of the habit of having three month breaks between posts! -_-

Oh well, New Years coming up. Suppose we know one of my resolutions already.

Ok! Sitting here sipping my home-made latte, listening to a Japanese internet radio station and trying to concentrate enough to get something done worth calling 'production.' What else to do but to update my long-forgotten, no scratch that, just partially left unattended, blog.

I'm finally going to post that summary of Elda that I've been promising, and here it is!

"It's been thirty years now. Thirty years since the hundred-year rule of the wicked witch Elda ended. And peace has returned to The Land, her cruelty being all but a lingering memory. Those memories, legends speak of her evil and her power. Yet not a one tell of how it all ended. In all accounts, she simply vanished.
But this cannot be so. For one so horrible and god-like cannot simply disappear.

Ikkoris, a young boy from an IroKai tribe, is obsessed with stories of her. Though his curiosity and mischief are but the pain of the village. Until one day he finds a mysterious young girl in the mists known only as White Wolf. And she seems to know something of Elda.
Along with his new friend, Ikkoris sets off to find the past. But with a strange white knight out to resurrect Elda and these two trouble, and the village people wishing to silence him, a journey of intrigue soon turns into a battle to keep the evil and good at balance in the world around them. And now it is a race against time between truth and lies. They must succeed, or risk plunging the world back under Elda's control."

So there we go! Three agonising weeks but I finally managed to type one out. ^_^ My progress so far is about 28 thousand words, meaning a little above target. I'm quite pleased with the way it's turning out as well. Needs editing for sure, but it's not a bunch of gobbledy-goop.

I haven't had a chance to go back and read over any of it yet. But soon as I do I'll post an excerpt onto the Novel Info page!

How are my fellow NaNoWriMo participants doing?

Simian City News -- Full Update

A good afternoon to all our viewers from Simian City News, your favourite update crew of crazy apes right here on the Monkey's Fanta World Blogspot channel!

Since our host, Monkey with Fanta, has been absent from the site for some time we are happy to announce that Simian News will be fulfilling necessary updates while the Monkey is away.

Today's broadcast will cover a full update with the Monkey's novels as well as what's scheduled for the future!

Tune in for exciting announcements about rising stars, salvaged survivors and new arrivals...as well as some sad news about a death in the Monkey's family of stories.

Let's begin!

Electrostatic Fantasy

The little first-born darling is darting fast through edits and is halfway to beta-reader stage. Nine out of the fourteen chapters have been edited to near-completion and the Monkey has recently been sighted randomly disturbing customers frequenting cafés, keeping the underwater adventure rolling! The target for completed edits on E.F. remains end of May, but our ape analysts remain sceptical as a previous estimate said the story would be completed in March. Stay tuned human friends, this promises to be a thrilling race to the finish.

Arkanos (Book One) Memorycatcher

...Has seen no progress whatsoever. However, a good few months of separation have definitely improved the relationship between this pesky story and our novice novelist and I am happy to announce that they are on speaking terms again. Our sources tell us that the Monkey won't undertake Arkanos while she's still working with E.F. (as this baby is 'quite a handful'), but once E.F. is complete the Arkanos project shall resume!

Through Glass

This particular story had to be rushed to the ER after a bout of high fever and a severe limp. We've been informed that the plot doctors are doing their very best to locate the source of the problem, but they are not expecting a rapid recovery. Our on-site reporter Craz E. Gibbon did his best to get an explanation out of them, but the only statement they gave was that it was something to do with lack of tension and the absence of an antagonist. Rest assured that the good monkeys at Simian City News will keep you updated on the situation as it develops.

The skAI Butterfly

We are sad to bring you the news that there has been a death in our literary family. It seems that this butterfly flew too close to the planet PANTS and had it's pretty little wings burned. We contacted the Monkey for a statement and she said,

"The pantser approach for me is more about beating writer's block and instilling inspiration that it is about creating a masterpiece. The day that a pantsied novel does not make the bin-and-rewrite list will likely never rise. The plot-problem monster attacked my house and swallowed my laptop whole. Now where's my latte?!"

Being the youngest addition to the team, The skAI Butterfly will have to wait a while to be addressed and as such will not be returning into our ranks soon. However, the funeral has not been arranged yet and the Monkey is reportedly working on an evil spell to rise it from the dead. This to be continued.

Tick Tock WonderWood

And just a week ago a story which was thought lost overseas was rescued and returned to its place in the random pile of budding novels. It's rumoured that this new story is centred around elves from the distant past, rebellion and the dangers surrounding revenge. The WonderWood won't be added to the site just yet. But the loyal Simian News gang will keep their eyes peeled and ensure you are right at the edge of the action.

There have been rumours floating about that the Monkey is thinking of adding another snippet from Electrostatic Fantasy to the Excerpts page in the near future, as well as E.F. art.

Thanks for watching and tune in again for more excitement from your favourite show...

Simian City News!

Maybe It's Time...

...To get out of the slump.

Man, I thought employed life was supposed to improve your writing production, not reduce it. But hey, guess I read the wrong manual on my way to the interview. It's really been a long time since I blogged. A really long time. And it's also about time I got up and out of it.

Yes, when I get home from work it's so much easier to slump down with a good video game and think four things: Can Not Be Bothered. At first this was my preference. I was tired. I'm not used to standing for 8 hours on end, and the mere thought of thinking once I got home was too exhausting. But it's surprising what it takes away from you, the not writing at all that is. Life becomes...sort of empty, and less colourful. I didn't really notice it until I was reminded of the

thought of exciting adventures in fantasy worlds and sitting for hours in the same spot at a café typing away at your laptop. :D With a good cup of tea and...

Okay, straying off the subject a little. You get what I mean though. :)

Alright, I wanted to thank everyone who has voted on the poll in the top right-hand corner of the page. Looking at it I see photos/pictures for the blog as well as writing techniques are on the wishlist. I will definitely work on getting some more photos up here. Mind you they might be random photos I've shot sometime whilst half-asleep. I'll have to ask you to excuse that.

I'll also add a writing techniques related post as well, now that I'm at the computer. I'll post it separately though.

But E.F.'s edits are moving. At last they are moving! And boy am I happy. :D

And it's good to be back in business. Or blogging...whichever fits better.

It Begins Again

So my experimentation with these writing contests is advancing and I'm assuming at the moment that after a month long writing contest one requires about three weeks of off time. I've come to this conclusion from the fact that though I entered National Novel Finishing Month and said I'd finish off my Arkanos Book One, I've written a measly 1K during the whole of December. However I won't call it "epic fail" because it's 1,000 words of that final chapter of Electrostatic Fantasy that I never wrote! :)

But New Year's is fast approaching and so are two new contests. JanNoWriMo as well as Writing Year. And sadly yes, the "I didn't do any writing" does extend to plots as well, for my January novel is but the first few sentences planned. This cloud has a silver lining though.

After working on something as intricate and complicated as Arkanos, I yearned to write an epic fantasy which was a bit more...oh what's the term?...linear and straight forward. I mean for the love of pie Arkanos has enough plot twists to tie half my brain into a bow, I need some distance after enduring 50,000 words of it! Don't get me wrong, Arkanos is my baby and I intend to see her to the end, whether that be a fine or a bitter one. But I don't think I'll be writing a story as massive and complicated again any time soon.

This is where Through Glass comes in. That's the story I'd mentioned before: "Through the Looking Glass". I'll be writing that in January and updating the My Novels tab about it too. Although the plots are...nonexistent...the plot is far less tricky and meticulous that my previous project. I've already got a basic idea of how the whole time line will play out, I just need to work out a few fine points. I should be able to pull through okay even without exhaustive plotting...hopefully. ^_^

I have no idea how Writing Year (WriYe) will turn out. It's a big jump, I'll admit, to go from planning a word goal for a month (when you've written nothing before) to planning one for a whole year (when you've written 130K total). My initial target for 2011 is 510,000 words, but we'll see how that changes during the year. ^_^

Well I better get plotting Through Glass before I dose off. Wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good night of writing. Ha ha!

I'll post again before the new year to send you guys holiday wishes properly. ^_^

The Den of the Mad Monkey

Hello and kudos to anyone who has been brave enough to wander into the den of this mad monkey. I'm sure if you'll pry your ears open and keep listening intently, you can hear that crazed typing emanating from somewhere within this dark lair. There is but the faintest glow of light and the scent of Fanta wafts on the air.

Yes, that is me! Monkey With Fanta (or just Monkey, affectionately). Indeed, I am another candidate who has chosen to dive into that whirlpool of novelists all doing their best to claw their way to the pedestal of the published. I have never kept a blog before, but I thought it was high time to at the very least take a swing at it, the purpose for it being mostly monosyllabic: I want to make spiffy notes along the road as I try for that pedestal myself.

Monkey is hardly versed enough in sciences and such to educate people. But Monkey likes to make people laugh :) It's great if someone should find it fun to follow along. I hope I can give others a few giggles with my musings. With luck I might even inspire someone or pass on a tip or two.

In part it will be fun to leave notes elsewhere than just the ancient school books which get lost in the numerous house-moves anyway, to see later on where one started off.

So here I state the challenge I'm embarking on: to become published.

Details----

Time allotted: Difficult to pick because I don't have any idea how long it might take to find an agent. So I'll draw "two years" out of the hat and let's go with that for now.

Primary Genre of Choice: Fantasy

Agent? Preferably since I'm relatively new to the publishing half of the writing business.

Target: To finish 3 manuscripts to final draft and then start querying agents.

Plan: Type like a mad monkey?

Here I go! ^.^