Thursday, October 2, 2008

Saving the world from killer oranges!

I spent two solid hours scraping gummy old linoleum glue off the dining room floor in my mom's new house, because rather than put new tile down she wanted to showcase the house's original stone tiles. We got some paint stripper stuff that smells sort of like oranges...oranges that would kill you if you ate them. It works, but only with a lot of scraping (with gloves on, to negate the oranges' evil powers). Oddly enough, the activity seems to have helped my leg, even though it hurt like the dickens at the time. Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight.

Pretend I put a clever transition here. I'm stuck about what to do with my Nano book. Maybe you all can help me decide which project to choose!

Project #1, crappy working title Strange Beasts from the Fabled Lands or some such.
Quenton last-name-not-chosen is the king's retired animal handler; in his youth, he captured African animals for the king's menagerie and raised them successfully. Now he's looking forward to his first grandchild's birth and wants nothing more than to spend his remaining days breeding fancy cockatrices. But the new king drags him out of retirement to sail on a newfangled (yet apparently haunted) steamship to the fabled lands, to gather animals--and information.

Project #2, Charmed Circle
Set in an alternate-world 1920s Britain. Twenty-year-old Grace lives with her uncle, the noted lepidopterist, and spends her time playing lawn-tennis with her friend Dottie. When Dottie falls for a social activist and chases after him to London, where she takes work as a kitchen general to prove herself to him, Grace is aghast. She follows her with the excuse of a job at a company owned by a wizard friend of her uncle's. Nefarious plots ensue, with jazz.

Project #3, untitled fourth book in the Weredeer series
Weredeer Kristof contracts a terrifying disease called the ruin, which stops him from being able to control when he changes bodies. His adopted brother Gabe, an apprentice healer, is convinced the disease is magical in nature, and they head into the high mountains in search of magical herbs. When they find the person who seems to be responsible for the ruin, though, a magical accident throws them into the clutches of a powerful enchantress--400 years in the past.

I could easily work up an outline for any of these three. Which of them sounds like the best Nano project to you? ETA: Or I could just wing it this year and see what happens! Hmm.

5 comments:

Cate Gardner said...

Ooh, I can't choose between 2 & 3. I'd guess you'd find no. 3 easier to write because you're so familiar with the characters but no. 2 sounds so enticing.

K.C. Shaw said...

I've already started 3 so I probably shouldn't work on it, too, although I do love it. 2 was originally going to be my Nano project but 1 got me all excited when I thought of it.

Unknown said...

I am all about #1! That sounds really really good! And #3 as a runner's up, because its 4th in a series, and a developed story that you feel the need to continue.

Carrie Harris said...

I'm all about number 2. You had me at alternate-world 1920's. Or you could write about saving the world from killer oranges...

K.C. Shaw said...

Golly, guys, you were supposed to agree on one! Now I still can't decide, although I am leaning toward choice #2. Except that I have no idea what the nefarious plots are.