Blade Archer ~ Afterword
Jul. 4th, 2013 09:43 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annarti.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
yrae
FRIKKIN YEAH.
Blade Archer was my first ever attempt at NaNoWriMo, way back in 2004. That's nearly 9 years ago you guys. LONGEST NANO EVER I THINK. The original intention, with Raykin being so brand new and me having very little idea about the place, was to map out army training. Since picking it back up again, I've realised how stupid the said training schedule has been, which I think I didn't realise before because my main character (I'm talking Nimay now) is a swordie who picked up the said sword at the beginning of second year, and secondary character of the archer (Nol) has been learning from the best since he was about 7 and was therefore kind of disdainful of army archery training anyway.
Along comes Kael, who is normal, and for some unknown reason doesn't start blade archery, which is his weapon of choice, until fourth year. THREE YEARS he has to go through before he can start on his glorified dagger tossing. Ditto for the poor palumen. So~ army training will be revamped so that instead of everyone progressing on the exact same weapons, they start out with what they signed up for and learn the others as they go along. Year one still the basics of 'don't get hit' and camel riding, but then year two they're straight into their weapon of choice. Year three, pick up swords and archery if they haven't already, and year four palu and blade archery, again if they haven't already. The rest can stay as is.
ALSO. Restricting the healers to being lovely ladies is sexist and that's going. Mens can be healers, too, now. In Raykin, at least. Kazin wouldn't let dirty man hands near the poor injured/sick sods.
So I've learned something from this endeavour, and not just how to finish a stupidly old story!
And now, because NaNo is all about the numbers, have some numbers:
total days: 3168 so only about three and a half thousand days over budget, then.
total chapters: 50 which sounds planned, except of course it was originally supposed to be 30 (I didn't know how to chapter-by-chapter plan at that stage, so I just had his year-by-year outline instead) and then when I finally DID plan out the last of it it came to finish at 48. Two extras snuck in there and rounded it off to 50.
total words: 83 792 because I didn't understand the importance of planning back then. It could have stood being longer but I was over it by then.
average words per chapter: 1675.84. Being as NaNo is supposed to average 1667 per chapter, that's pretty freaking awesome planning* there.
average words per day: 26 and a bit. HELL YEAH BABY. I don't know what this actually averages out to if you ignore the intervening 8 years between the opening burst and the final 35 chapters.
So that's two of the years WIPs now relegated to the finished folder. Two to go: another unfinished NaNo, which DOES have a chapter-by-chapter plan, and a short story. I do, however, have a story to write for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
talechasing anthology, so I'll knock that one out first.
BUT IN THE MEANTIME, I have a glass of my traditional celebratory Baileys, so I'm going to sit here and bask in the glow of finishing a novel for the next 15 minutes before bed time. THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT!
* I so didn't plan that.
Blade Archer was my first ever attempt at NaNoWriMo, way back in 2004. That's nearly 9 years ago you guys. LONGEST NANO EVER I THINK. The original intention, with Raykin being so brand new and me having very little idea about the place, was to map out army training. Since picking it back up again, I've realised how stupid the said training schedule has been, which I think I didn't realise before because my main character (I'm talking Nimay now) is a swordie who picked up the said sword at the beginning of second year, and secondary character of the archer (Nol) has been learning from the best since he was about 7 and was therefore kind of disdainful of army archery training anyway.
Along comes Kael, who is normal, and for some unknown reason doesn't start blade archery, which is his weapon of choice, until fourth year. THREE YEARS he has to go through before he can start on his glorified dagger tossing. Ditto for the poor palumen. So~ army training will be revamped so that instead of everyone progressing on the exact same weapons, they start out with what they signed up for and learn the others as they go along. Year one still the basics of 'don't get hit' and camel riding, but then year two they're straight into their weapon of choice. Year three, pick up swords and archery if they haven't already, and year four palu and blade archery, again if they haven't already. The rest can stay as is.
ALSO. Restricting the healers to being lovely ladies is sexist and that's going. Mens can be healers, too, now. In Raykin, at least. Kazin wouldn't let dirty man hands near the poor injured/sick sods.
So I've learned something from this endeavour, and not just how to finish a stupidly old story!
And now, because NaNo is all about the numbers, have some numbers:
total days: 3168 so only about three and a half thousand days over budget, then.
total chapters: 50 which sounds planned, except of course it was originally supposed to be 30 (I didn't know how to chapter-by-chapter plan at that stage, so I just had his year-by-year outline instead) and then when I finally DID plan out the last of it it came to finish at 48. Two extras snuck in there and rounded it off to 50.
total words: 83 792 because I didn't understand the importance of planning back then. It could have stood being longer but I was over it by then.
average words per chapter: 1675.84. Being as NaNo is supposed to average 1667 per chapter, that's pretty freaking awesome planning* there.
average words per day: 26 and a bit. HELL YEAH BABY. I don't know what this actually averages out to if you ignore the intervening 8 years between the opening burst and the final 35 chapters.
So that's two of the years WIPs now relegated to the finished folder. Two to go: another unfinished NaNo, which DOES have a chapter-by-chapter plan, and a short story. I do, however, have a story to write for the
talechasing anthology, so I'll knock that one out first.BUT IN THE MEANTIME, I have a glass of my traditional celebratory Baileys, so I'm going to sit here and bask in the glow of finishing a novel for the next 15 minutes before bed time. THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT!
* I so didn't plan that.