S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 212

Midweek NaNo Post

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

-- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Three reasons why I considered throwing in the towel on NaNoWriMo this week:

Losing my cat. My head knows Jak is at peace, which he absolutely deserved; my heart thinks my head is a stupid cold bitch who should shut the hell up. Neither one can sleep.

Accepting the latest bounce. A snotty no-thanks came in on a referral pitch (when one editor sends you to another.) I knew going in it would probably result in some sort of slapdown, so my bad. It's so beautifully snide, though, that I might have to frame it for posterity.

Plowing through my latest read. I made the mistake of picking up a critically-acclaimed novel from the remainder bin and thinking, Oh, why not? (Can you hear Jesus weeping? I didn't.)

These and other challenges have made like leeches on my creative energy, and naturally the writing has suffered. I know I'm cranky -- I had to edit this post five times before it stopped singeing off my eyelashes -- and every morning I start off in combat meditation mode: I will find my center and embrace my grief and not utter a single whisper about how much this towering heap of unadulterated critically-acclaimed crap I'm reading stinks. Most days I still want to kick an inanimate object, so the easiest thing would be to quit now before I explode. Before I break a toe or dent the dryer. Before I fail.

I'm sure many of you are dealing with issues that make mine look like a stroll through the park on a fine day; maybe some of you are thinking the same thing. So we can all go lock ourselves in a dark room and stay there watching soap operas and game shows and wondering if we should invest in Mister Steamy, The Wonder File, or that bracelet that is supposed to give you energy (preferably in the next ten minutes, so we can get an extra one for free if we just pay shipping & handling.) We could stay there until December 1st, when the chubby lady breaks into song. So much easier.

Only if we do that -- if we bail on NaNoWriMo -- we'll miss a rare opportunity. Times like these are when we're allowed to spit in the eye of the universe. When we reach this point, we're permitted to flip off fate, and tell bad luck to take a hike. This is when we can look at the yawning abyss avidly eyeing us, and say: No. You're not taking a bite out of me, or sucking me in, or swallowing me. I say when I'm finished, not you.

The abyss never knows how to respond to this because the abyss has never had to work for it.

I don't know if I'll make 50K words by December 1st, and frankly? I don't care. When I finish editing this post (for the sixth time), I'm going back into that room, and open my NaNo file, and write my story. And I'm going to keep writing my story, whenever I can, however I can, right up until midnight on November 30th.

The damn towel stays where it is.

Image credit © Ilya Genkin | Dreamstime.com

Writing Gremlins

I considered not posting anything today, but that seems cowardly. And seductive, because once you stop writing for one very good reason it starts breeding and suddenly you're buried under a small mountain of Reasons Why I Can't Write tribbles.

I have other writing gremlins, too, and I thought I should give them all proper names:

Bouncing Boogerat: Feeds on nasty rejections from snotty editors and piddles on any attempt to get over them by writing something new

Cast Crusher: Squashes the life out of characters one by one until the cast falls apart

First Line Fumbler: Scrabbles and scratches at the first line of a story while demanding it be rewritten a few thousand times

Happily Ever After Harpy: Screeches in outrage over any logical story conclusion that does not imitate an animated Disney flick finale

Plotwrecking Pouncer: Slithers out from unseen holes to hoot over the slightest inconsistency

Series Sniveler: Whines incessantly for prequels, sequels and spin-offs and is never satisfied

Title Trasher: Demolishes every potentially decent title by insinuating that there is a better one just waiting to be thought up

I'd like to say that I've developed a way to exterminate these little pests, or at least neuter them, but no such luck. For every story I write a whole new swarm of them pop into my head; sometimes they cross-breed and produce even uglier gremlins (the first line fumbler and the HEA harpy have spawned a whole slew of little chapter crashers and scene snakes.) So I've learned to live with them, and not to feed too much of myself or the work to them; most of the time that keeps the damage to a minimum. Unless the Depression Demon shows up, at which point I hide under the bed.

Your turn: in comments name one of your gremlins (writing or otherwise) and how you've learned to manage them.

Freely Ten

Ten Things You Can Have for Nothing

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Dramatis Personae 2 is "the second version of an app designed to track the personalities and information used by authors in writing fiction novels/short stories" (OS: Mac OS X)

Escaro is a "personal organizer. In fact it's much more than that - it's a complete organization solution! Escaro has been designed to be fun, simple & efficient, while still giving you all the power features you need, so you can do what you want, when you want, with the minimum of fuss. Escaro enables you to quickly organize and access all your important information (including time-critical & date-critical events, todo items, contacts & bills) in a streamlined package that helps you get the most out of your life" (OS: Windows 98/ME/XP/Vista/7)

Mendeley is a "free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research." Features: "Automatically generate bibliographies; collaborate easily with other researchers online; easily import papers from other research software; find relevant papers based on what you're reading; access your papers from anywhere online; read papers on the go with our new iPhone app" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

Someone out there (you know who you are) asked me if there was a freeware program available to help calculator mileage for tax purposes. I found this one, which looks like it might be of some use: The MMC (Monthly Mileage Calculator) "stores Locations, Dates, Times Visited and Cents per mile for totaling at the end of the month" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

NaNoWriTool gives users "the ability to edit plain text files, much like Notepad; a real-time word counter in the status bar; the word counter exactly matches the counting algorithm of the NaNoWriMo website; showing the word count target for the day in the status bar (assuming you write the same number of words every day); a timer for word wars that also counts the number of words you have typed during the word war; a full screen mode that eliminates all distractions; changing of the display font to suit your preferences
changing of foreground and background colours for maximum readability; simple formatting features, in particular: chapter headings and emphasis; a wide margin that makes text easier to read and can be clicked and dragged to select lines of text" (OS: Windows with .NET platform installed, Linux and Mac OS X with Mono installed)

The next incarantion of Papel is almost here: Romanzo, an "open source software project currently in the requirements planning phase. When completed, it will offer much of what Papel promises but with several key advances." In the meantime, Papel is still available for download at the Romanzo developer's mirror site.

sqlDesktop "can help you organize documents, WEB pages, database queries, multimedia data on CD ROM or DVD, etc..as easily as in an ordinary office environment. With sqlDESKTOP you can place related documents in the same binder even if some are computer files and others INTERNET Web sites or database queries . . . Information is easy to find because you don't have to remember the exact name of the document or where you put it. Visually locate what you are looking for in a familiar office environment and click on the selected document. sqlDESKTOP will take care of all the tasks: launching the right program on the right data file, pointing the browser on the right URL etc.. It's easy because sqlDESKTOP works the same way your mind works" (OS: Windows (All) / Linux)

Story Surfer Integrated Writing Environment is "an application to write almost anything: magazine articles, short stories, or novels. It will handle creating and modifying the writing project's series/story information, as well as the story's characters, character/familial/organizational relationships, locations (from metaverse on down to local site information), items that need description, timelines, manuscript submission tracking, and a ToDo list. It will also be able to handle extraneous research (mostly html, rtf, or text files) to be integrated and searchable" (OS: unspecified other than independent/portable, probably Java-based)

Looks like Suvudu has revamped their web site to make it look snazzier, busier and as a result even more difficult to navigate, but while wandering around like a lost lamb I did find a free e-book, Star Wars Lost Tribe of the Sith Pt. 5 ~ Purgatory by John Jackson Miller.

taskTome is a "personal information manager which allows you to maintain a list of events, diary entries, tasks, notes and financial information. It is light-weight program that displays the information that you need to keep track of without cluttering it up with un-needed features and controls, while still allowing you complete control over the information - including the ability to search, format, print, export and customize data" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

Jak

Our cat Jak has been ill for a while now, but today was his time to move on to the next place. He passed away in my arms, all wrapped up in his favorite quilt.

Jak was the sweetest and most affectionate cat I've ever known. He loved to cuddle so much that the minute anyone sat down he would jump in their lap. Every night for the last twelve years he slept curled up somewhere around me, usually next to my heart, like this:



I don't know how I'm going to fill the space he's left behind, but I'm glad he's at peace now. Safe journey, my angel.

Endweek NaNoPost

Today I'm playing with images as I put together a cover for my NaNo novel. Making your own cover art is not a requirement of NaNoWriMo, but I think it's good exercise for your imagination. Your vision of your story probably includes what you think would make a suitable cover, and if it doesn't, figuring out what would work is fun.

It's also excellent practice for that day when someone else provides your cover art. While most pros have little to no control over what our publishers put on our books, occasionally we are consulted for input and ideas. Sending a mock-up of a cover is a great way to show your editor what you have in mind. Here are a couple that I put together and sent to my editor earlier this year to illustrate my ideas for the cover of After Midnight:

   

For the purposes of this post I'm going to discuss making cover art for a book that will not be for sale. In other words, this is cover art for a free/no-cost edition; when you get into cover art a for-sale edition we'd have to hammer out buying licenses and copyrighted images and what you can and cannot do for it. The cover I'm talking about today is just for you and whoever you give a copy of the book to for free.

The best images to use for this kind of cover art are those you take yourself, or those that are available online for non-profit use. I use images from Dreamstime.com's free image archives for PBW all the time, so there's one source for you (always be sure to read the terms and conditions of use at any free image site to make sure your work complies with them.)

Here's a shot I took of a lake at dusk that would suit my NaNonovel:



Now we need title and byline. I use a photoshop program that is no longer commercially sold, but most Windows computers come with a similar/simple program now, and simple is really all you need. To my image I add a top and bottom dark background bar, where I type in the text for the title and byline in an interesting but easy-to-read font (and no, this is not my novel's title; I'm keeping the real one under my hat until I decide what I'm going to do with it):



Of course if you're more talented at photoshop than me (which means you're probably at least a fifth grader) you can get much fancier and more complicated with your design. If you're an artist and can create your own artwork for your cover, that's even better. Personally I like simple cover art because I think it has more visual impact than designs that are crowded, ultra-detailed or have a lot of text on them, but if you want to do a Where's Waldo type cover, go for it. The whole idea is to give your novel a cover that expresses your vision, not mine.

Some other links that may be helpful:

If you're drawing a blank on ideas for your cover, go over and play with the fake French book cover art generator to get some inspiration (I don't recommend actually using the fake covers it produces as it borrows the images from Flickr, and making use of them for anything other than playing with the generator could involve obtaining permission from the original photographer, signed release of lien, etc.)

Dreamstime.com does have a pretty sizable, searchable archive of free photos donated by photographers for non-profit use. I think you do have to create an account in order to download them, but signing up is free (and the terms and conditions regarding their use can be found here.)

Except for those that belong to other artists and photographers, all of the images on my photoblog are free for anyone to use for non-profit purposes. A credit line with a link back to PBWindow would be appreciated. I'm just an average photographer, and I take pics mostly of ordinary things; if your book is about art, birds, bugs, dogs quilting or nature you might find something. Oh, and spiders -- lots of spiders.

Upload your cover art to The Feng-Gui attention analyzer and (for free) it will create a heatmap simulating where the human eye is most likely to linger.

The Tiltshift Generator takes a normal photograph of a location or object and manipulates it so it resembles the photograph of a miniature scale model.

If you find a particular image online that has interesting colors you'd like to use for your photoshopped art, try feeding the URL to DeGraeve.com's Color Palette Generator, which will give you the HTML palette.

Want to see some of the covers that other NaNo'ers have created for their novels? Check out the current cover art posting thread here in the NaNoWriMo forums.

Are you planning to make (or have you already made) cover art for your NaNo novel? Want to share any resources, tips or tricks? Let us know in comments.

Image credits:

Raven midnight image © Ales Nowak | Dreamstime.com; horse rider on the beach image © Maroš Markovič | Dreamstime.com

Hold the Apps, Please

Today a nice young man helped me get my daughter a new mobile phone. It's an early 16th birthday present, plus she dropped her old phone during band practice and it now displays everything only in virulent shades of green and pink.

The process of buying the new phone took almost three hours, during which the nice young man did his best to sell me more services and gadgetry. This included something that wirelessly recharges all your gadgets; evidently putting a plug into a wall socket has become too much work.

"Along with your mobile, you can charge your iPod, eReader, game controller, and your [Netbook or laptop. I can't remember which] all at the same time," he assured me.

I politely refused. "I don't own any of those things." I've been thinking about getting my daughter an iPod for Christmas but I'm not crazy about the potential damage it might cause her hearing. If I do, she can certainly plug it into the wall to recharge it.

He gave me the usual weird Huh? look but recovered quickly and moved on to the final phase of the purchasing process, when he explained the features of the new phone. When we got to the apps, of which there were apparently several million that could be downloaded, he asked which ones I happened to use on my own phone.

"None," I told him. "I don't use any."

Now he stared at me. "You don't have any apps on your phone?" In the same tone someone might ask, "You don't have any panties on?"

To show him I wasn't lying, I took out the disposable cell phone I've been lugging around for the last four years. It still has nearly all of the 1300 minutes I got for free when the disposable phone company forced me to give up the original phone I bought (seven years ago) because their equipment no longer supported the clunky old thing (they also gave me a newer, slimmer phone for free.) P.S., it also has another 1200 free minutes I've collected over the last four years when I renew my airtime.

The nice young man examined it with the awe of a Egyptologist discovering a lost king's tomb. "What does it do?"

"It sends and receives phone calls." I thought for a minute. "And it rings. That's pretty much it." Before he could launch into the "But don't you want a phone that can take pictures, check the internet, play music, access Twitter and Facebook, realign the Hubble" speech I added, "That's all I need it to do."

He wasn't giving up. "I could transfer this line over to your existing plan with us for $9.99 a month."

"Sorry," I said. "It's thirty bucks cheaper to buy a year of airtime from them in advance. Plus every time I do, they give me another 400 free minutes I'll never use."

He was speechless.

"It's okay. It's a great phone, and it does exactly what I need to it to do: it sits in my purse in case of an emergency while I'm on the road. Plus it costs me less to use for a whole year than I will pay you guys for my daughter to use her phone for a month." I smiled. "Isn't technology wonderful?"

I think he was still muttering to himself when I left the store.

When you pursue publication, you can be persuaded to invest a lot of money in a whole pile of gadgets and special software, all designed to make storytelling easier. I'm sure they even have how-to phone apps for writers now. You can also pay to attend conferences, workshops and seminars; you can join writer's organizations and guilds and subscribe to indy rags and what have you. For every bell and whistle out there, there is someone to convince you of how much you need it. This is because their priority is to get you to buy it.

I won't tell you what to do with your hard-earned cash; what writing stuff we buy is something we have to decide for ourselves. If it weren't for the Dragon, I know I couldn't write my novels, so there's one example. Another is the AlphaSmart Neo, which other writers tell me is as helpful as it is durable. It's only logical that some other products out there are equally worthwhile.

But before you whip out that credit card or write a check, just ask yourself: Do I need this, or am I being sold this?

True Publishing Tees

My mother gave me this T-shirt as a Christmas gift a few years ago, and every time I wear it someone asks if I'm really a writer. Instead of answering I just smile mysteriously. Mysterious smiles get me out of a lot of dumb conversations.

As long as I could write the logos, I wouldn't mind going into the Publishing T-shirt biz. I think we need some more truthful tees for writers and other industry folk, though. What would really be great is if everyone had to wear a T-shirt identifying who they really are. Wouldn't that save everyone a lot of time, misunderstandings and headaches? Imagine going to a writing conference where you saw writers wearing these:

Better Agent Hunter
I'd be a bestseller by now, if not for that last idiot

Competition Backstabber
I've got a 1-star Amazon.com review with your name smeared all over it

Cookie Cutter Novelist
What, Me Have a New Idea?

Erotica Writer
Yes, I am imagining you naked

Pathetic Poser
Why write when I can talk about how much I suffer when I write?

Promo Queen
Here, have a bookmark while we chat about my new release

Publishing World Weary
You think Home Depot is hiring?

Quote Slut
If you've got a pulse, I've got a blurb

Self-Published and Proud
Say one word about how crappy self-published books are and I'm beating the snot out of you

Title Snatcher
I've got a novel for every great title you publish first

We'd also have to have some T-shirts for the editors and agents, too:

Anti-Pitcher
Too many acquisitions, not enough TUMs

Aspiring Allergic (editor version)
If you don't have an agent, get away from me

Aspiring Allergic (agent version)
If you don't have a contract offer, get away from me

Author in Disguise
Here, have a bookmark while we chat about my debut release

Bestseller Snob
If I don't know who you are, I don't want to know who you are

Habitual Dumper
The minute you stop making money for me, out you go

Indifferent Idler
Yeah Uh-huh Whatever

Kindly Liar
It actually wasn't that nice to meet you

Secret Vacationer
I'm just here for the shopping and the theme parks

Way Overworked
Where's the damn Tiki Bar?

All right, it's your turn: what sort of true publishing tee would you like to see? Tell us in comments.

Midweek NaNoPost

I am not going to jump on the bandwagon intent on running down this year's nominee for Biggest NaNoWriMo Basher. I had a choice this morning of reading this nitwit's opinion of me and all my fellow NaNo'ers, or making an apple pie for dessert tonight. The apple pie easily defeated the nitwit.

I love to think about story when I'm cooking, especially when I'm baking apple pie. The oven warms up the kitchen, and the apples add a nice tart scent to the air as I peel and slice them. I add cinnamon and get a little reckless with the nutmeg; I love the smell of nutmeg.

They should call it baker's cocaine, my protagonist tells me as she invites me to walk with her through her next scene. And as I'm rolling out the pie crust, I'm also standing in an orange grove with her spying on her nemesis, who is doing laps in his heated pool. We both hate him, but we also both think he's got a killer bod. The mix of her feelings stirs along with my spoon as I toss the apple slices and consider the outward/inward manner in which she'll react when half-naked Nemesis discovers her lurking around his place. In the process I learn something new about both characters.

Finally my pie is constructed, and I take a photo of it before I pop it in the oven. It's not going to win any pastry beauty contests, but the taste will be a luscious, not-too-sweet delight. I know from experience that my guy and our daughter will demolish at least half of it after dinner. They aren't expecting it, either, so it'll be a nice surprise. Now it's time to get back to writing; I'm relaxed, happy, and mentally ready to put this scene on the screen. I have a couple of hours to work, then it's off to do school pick-up, homework patrol and get dinner rolling. Right now I feel like I could wrestle a couple of bears, too.

That's how I work, and I couldn't do it if I was busy running around the internet reading trash written by bashers. I knew as soon as I heard about this disgruntled little soul that if I read the piece, I'd get offended and depressed and pissed off, and probably spend another hour trying to detox from it before I even tried to write. There would probably be a couple of TUMs involved in that process. I wouldn't feel like cooking, so no homemade apple pie for my family, and no time to spend with my protagonist or walk through the scene with her. I wouldn't have discovered anything new about my characters, and the chapter and the story would have suffered for it.

As important as your writing time is, what you do during your non-writing time also has an impact on the work. Baking a pie is work, but it's also magic. It's like creative alchemy; it gives back a dozen times what it requires in effort. Just the aromatherapy benefits alone (my house will smell wonderful all afternoon) are worth the trouble. It also gave me time to wonder, and relax, and indulge in some imaginary choreography. As busy as my life is, that kind of time is unbelievably precious.

Living the writing life means making a lot of choices. You can spend your non-writing time immersed in contempt, and hatred, and cleverly-worded tantrums, and waste your energy going after the people who live for that crap (who could care less what you think, btw.) You can let it sour you, make you bitter and discontented, and eventually burn up whatever talent you have feeding the high-octane engines of your perpetual anger.

Or you can shut it off, walk away from the wolves and the sheep, and use your non-writing time to accomplish something personal that has meaning to you. Something that fills you with warmth and satisfaction (we do call it refilling the well for a reason), boosts your self-esteem, renews your sense of creativity and makes you and those who share your life happy. Something that gives back more than what you brought to it.

I know which one makes me a better writer, how about you?

24/7 Story

If you have a camera to play with, you can challenge yourself as a writer by going out and in 24 hours taking at least seven pictures of the people and things you see that would make up the elements of an interesting story (and don't worry if what you photograph is painfully ordinary. Most of us rarely see knights in shining armor on a daily basis.)

Here's a 24/7 collection I composed over the weekend to use as an example for this post:

Begin your photographic story project by finding a setting that appeals to you. This lake here has inspired not one but three novels for me, so when we had a particularly spectacular sunset I thought this shot would make an interesting beginning. It's lovely but it's also a little eerie. Everything is very still, almost as if it's waiting for someone to arrive. So it can eat them? Or deliver them from the past into our time? Something to think about.

The next day I ran into . . . all right, all right, so occasionally I run into knights in shining armor when I'm out and about. Sue me.

This dazzling gentleman really epitomized for me the element of the hero (or protagonist) in the story. As archetypal characters go, you don't get any more classic than this. He's on the move, and definitely geared up and ready for battle; I feel sorry for anyone or anything that gets in his way. At the same time the big guy is also holding up a rose instead of a lance or a sword.

One flower, a million interpretations. He could be looking for a lady to give it to, or maybe a lady just gave it to him. It could also represent the sort of life he wishes he could live; perhaps he's tired of being a knight and now simply wants to settle down somewhere and putter around in the garden. What if he happened to be caught in a storm, and took refuge under those dark trees by my eerie lake, and woke up the next morning to find himself in 2010?

Wherever there is a knight hero, there is also milady heroine (or another protagonist.) It's a given, trust me. She's lovely, mysterious, and she has a thing for sideways glances and beseeching come-hither looks. Is she the Lady of the Lake, or La Belle Dame Sans Merci? What if she's a little of both?

I think she's hiding from something that wants to make sure she never receives the rose. Maybe it's the same thing that drove her down to the eerie lake, where she follows Sir Big Guy into the future (option #1). Or walks down by the lake to find him in her time of 2010 (option #2.) In my story I'd probably go with option #1, because if I wrote this heroine she'd have a spine to match Sir Big Guy's; I'm an equal opportunity writer. I also know that no matter what era they live in, very few women in real life are helpless or stupid. We may not wear the shiny armor or get the fancy titles, but we fight just as many battles as our guys.

What would a novel be without a motley crew of secondary characters? Deadly dull, I think. Secondary characters are fun to write, don't have to try to fill the hero or heroine's shoes, and can be the most malleable (and therfore valuable) story element. At first sight I'm almost convinced the guy on the left is my hero's younger brother. The handsome, harmless little bro who just wants to have a good time, but then has to grow up in a hurry when Sir Big Guy vanishes.

This trio of friends or lovers were obviously having a lot of fun, and amazing story power just radiated from them. I stared more than was polite because their open happiness fascinated me. That's not a dynamic you often see happening with 2 guys + 1 girl. Who are they? Should the lake toss them through time, too? Or are they going to be the ones who help my protagonists return to the past?

Wherever there's a hero and a heroine and a likeable bunch of friends, there's always someone who would very much like to ruin that forever, aka the villain (or the antagonist.)

Very often my antagonists turn out to be heroes waiting to be inspired to give up their wicked ways, and this guy is no exception. But until I figure out if/how I'd reform him, I won't believe a word he mutters. He may tell me he's just going to knock the apple off someone's head, but I still watch his aim -- it will always be lower. He's definitely from 2010; maybe a renegade scientist who turned the lake into a time portal so he could go back in time and steal Sir Big Guy's fortune, legacy, lady . . . or set himself up to take the place of an important king so he can change history (in his own favor, of course.)

Every story needs a conflict, or a problem for the characters to wrestle with and/or resolve. As a storyteller I'm attracted to both the dark and light sides of story conflict, and the ones I find most interesting are those that can't be quickly or neatly resolved.

Conflict comes with choices to be made by everyone in the story, and can be summarized by the image of the two bottles here. They could contain anything from a dark beer and a light ale to root beer and cream soda. Or poison and an antidote. Or something else. My characters won't know until they take a swig. Or perhaps they're permitted to try only one, so which one do they choose, the light or the dark? What if the choice my characters make decides which time they'll be stuck in? Some nice possibilities here.

Once we find out exactly what the eerie lake does, and the hero explains his armor and his rose, and the heroine likewise comes out from behind her fine feathers, and the motley crew do what they can to liven things up while the villain adjusts his aim and we discover exactly what is in the bottles of conflict and how they're going to change things for everyone, we come to the time when we have to shift into resolution, so we can solve the problems, wrap things up and finish the story so everyone can go home.

Or not, at least, not entirely. I'm a series writer, so every ending is an opportunity for me to see what happens next. Rather than let the characters vanish on the last page, I'd rather follow them somewhere else, see what they go from here. For me the characters really are what drives every story, and I like to take more than one journey with them. And that eerie time-shifting lake obviously isn't going anywhere.

The next time you'll be out and about for a day, take your camera with you, and snap some shots of your corner of the world. You never know who you'll run into, or what story they're waiting to tell you.

NaNoStuff Ten

Ten Things for the NaNoWriMo'ers

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Artificial Planet is "a virtual world for artificial intelligence. The environment has water, land, suns, moons, and atmosphere. Plants, animals, fish, and insects can be added to create a dynamic ecosystem. Clouds, rain, wind, lightning, rivers, and icebergs naturally arise from the sun and other influences. You can explore your planet from outer space, by walking around, by tracking creatures, or by controlling a robot that interacts with objects. Artificial Planet is an OpenSource project built with GLScene" (OS: Windows 98/2000/XP)

AutoRealm is "a Free GNU mapping software (a "cartographer") that can design maps of castles, cities, dungeons and more. AutoREALM is generally used by Role-playing Game practicants who enjoy doing their own maps. But it could fits the needs of other people. If you are a Role-Playing gamer or else, you are cordially invited to join the AutoREALM community: fellows gathered around a free hobbyist map tool. Originally made by Andrew Gryc (say "grits"), AutoREALM is now Open Source, creating a unique opportunity for the RPG world to mix graphics and computer programming" (OS: Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; Runs under Wine on Linux systems)

CreateSpace is offering a free proof copy in paperback book form of every NaNoWriMo winner's manuscript. All you need is to sign up for a free CreateSpace account, and use a promotional code that will be issued to all winners on the NaNoWriMo site (available beginning December 2, 2010, valid through June 30, 2011.) For more information, read the details from Chris Baty here.

Get an occupation, a personality insight, and a nicely detailed physical description for a random character over at Serendipity with the Detailed Character Generator. Also for all those interior places and spaces in your story: a room description generator.

Want a free off-site backup space for your novel? A basic DropBox account is free, and comes with 2GB of space for as long as you need it (this one is also recommended by our blogpal Charlene Teglia.)

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Need to liven things up with your characters? Try FutureIsFiction.com's Let's put your character in a sticky situation generator.

Sweet Home 3Dis "a free interior design application that helps you place your furniture on a house 2D plan, with a 3D preview" (OS: Windows, Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.6, Linux and Solaris)

If you need to create a timeline for your novel, you can try the free level of TimeGlider here.

Jeroen Kessel's Word Generator creates artificial random words in your choice of seven languages. The helpful thing about this particular generator is that it produces words that look and even sound real; it also gives you sixty words at once, which gives provides a nice selection to choose from versus the one-word generators out there.