Mad Dogs and Englishmen

So I've joined a games club at last, and have spent the last six months finally satisfying my love for RPGs. Week after next I start a new game, a Savage World settings time-travelling game where we're encouraged to take a character from any point in human history. For the fun of it, and because I do want to get back into the story when I finish my MA, I picked Mirek post-war. I have a headcanon (that never shows up in AIoM) that Mirek is actually an incredible shot, so I gave him a kalashnikov and made him team sniper.

But, just for the fun of it, I haven't told anyone but the GM what Mirek's actual history is. All I say is that he's a German guy who doesn't talk about his past. So all of them have assumed he's SS. Which is going to be fun and make for many lulz, but I am kinda concerned that seeing as I've given him the usual heroic Mirek build, they might start thinking I'm so kind of Nazi sympathiser. I don't think it'll come to that, when I give them Mirek's physical description it'll be pretty clear he's... not exactly nazi material. For one thing, he's something like 18.

Still, I am hoping one of them is going to screw up and call him a Nazi, and Mirek will go completely apocalyptic on his arse.

5 –If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether your "muse" or not, what did you do about it?

You know, I'm not sure if that's ever happened. I suppose the closest it came was when Fistandantilus decided he needed a bigger role, dammit, I realised it solved a lot of the trouble I was having with I&E and we went on from there.

Oh, I remember! Yes, it happened once when I was first scratching out AIoM, two characters I had previously made short stories for, Karl and Heinrich Schwartz, decided that as they were historically correct, they wanted in. Karl ended up dead and Heinrich became the bad guy (such as is). No one's asked since.

( cut for questions )

Is over. I wrote the final words "The world has ended and the only thing that could be worse would be going through it alone." a few minutes ago.
Of course, now comes the ton and a half of editing and re-writing, but it's over, for the first time I actually have finished a story. A self contained story done and dusted and over.

Final word count, for the first draft at least, 99,418 words.

Now for the champagne we've been saving. An early celebration.

I wonder if my father would agree to call my new brother Mirek?

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Crawled a little closer to finishing AIoM. Fingers crossed it'll be done by December, or at least January 25th ;-). Today was writing down in longhand in my notebook a summary of everything I'd written so far so I could reference it while brainstorming what to put into the blank months between October 7th (Sonderkommando rebellion, pretty much last mass killings in Birkenau) and late January in which everything that's left (which isn't much) hits the fan and the story's all over bar the epilogues. I've already written October, and I know exactly what's happening in January, but I'm left with this kind of limbo between the two in which nothing really happens and there's nothing for Mirek to do except scrounge food, dodge guards, dismantle barracks and try not to get deported just yet.

Oh well, I'm up to 86,000 words now.

In other news, I now have an ebook reader, it's actually a sony, which is more flexible and has touchscreen, and finally won me over and never mind the Kindle.

To break a winning trend, I think I will abstain for Nano this year. Yes, I still have AIoM to finish, but to be honest I don't think there enough left to write to justify a full Nano. I've dragged the story to roughly November 1944, which only leaves me two months to write until Auschwitz gets liberated, prompting the whole endgame sequence and the last chapter, which I've had written in my head for the last two years. Then bomchakalaka, its all over bar the editing. Which fucking hell there will be a lot of.

One nice thing, after all the editing I've done so far, I discovered that bar a rather rubbishy sub-plot that served no purpose and was eliminated to much rejoicing, the story was a lot better than I remembered. The whole OMG I'm writing a holocaust soap-opera I hate myself was probably just the writing blues. I cut out a few superfluous things about the characters (a shame, I was getting quite into them) to keep the story focused, and eliminated any use of Mengele's actual name. There was one part in which the characters dwelled dangerously long on him, but it's to be expected and since they didn't do it again, it was ok.

So yeah, no Nano, I need to focus on this, then hopefully I can free myself for something else, like that really warped story about me if I was a witch and evil, or that one about zombie and tanks. Or just a Sherlock Holmes fanfic because I really need a new fanfic project.

I'm re-reading and editing the old chapters of AIoM to get it ready for NaNo again this year. The later chapters especially need a lot of editing, I started a completely usless subplot which need to be thrown into the crematoria and burnt with the rest. Pile of pointless shit.

It's odd, because with the first few chapters its gotten to the point where there's not much I can do with them now. They've been raked over, steamrolled, hashed out in front of fellow students and tutors alike and finally dropped in that state where I can't change much. Which is good, yeah, but its a bit weird. I write flat out until the plot falls over, then backtrack, rewrite, try again, and hopefully end up going a bit further than last time. Last NaNo, for all its issues, at least got me within spitting distance of 1945, and I hope the next one will allow me to push once and for all to the end. The middle was always the hardest part of AIoM, the end was one of the first things I plotted. It reeks of 2008 depression time, but I don't think I could change it now, its become too integral to the story.

Fingers crossed, I'll finish it this year.

Having the usual Wrimo panic of 'god I'm writing a load of crap!' moment now. Afraid I haven't made Mirek's family strong enough to act as counterpoints to Karl, but it's bloody hard because Mirek does not make human connections very well and in this fucking setting it could be constituded the wrong way. God I hate my story right now.

"You know the punishment for. Thieves in the camp. Johannes?”

Schwartz calling him by his first name. Johannes can’t help but swallow this time. His fixes his gaze just behind Schwartz’ cap, staring at the wall. “Loss of privileges sir.”

“For inmates. Dieter. Not guards.”

His stomach clenches. “Death sir.”

“Just as well you. Are not an inmate. Yes Johannes?”

“Yes sir.”

“See that it remains that way. Your leave is cancelled. Dismissed.”

Dear Schwartz. You are evil even for an SS. Case dismissed. You are probably the most fucking evil person I have ever written, simply because you are so human.

Brrr.

Getting there :) Thanks to massive history fail (not my fault. How many ex- Death camp SS write their memoirs anyway?) this is basically meshing a lot of 1st draft and second draft. Fortunately I've nearly finished the rewriting and will be writing straight. Rewriting is very hard to do to a wordcount because if I cut words away I have to make them up to get a positive difference to the wordcount. Fortunately there are enough changes for me not to have to waffle too much, but I still have to cover a lot to make up full 2,000 count.
But rejoice! I have a new full scene to write tomorrow, a Schwartz and Johannes forshadowing conversation where the Morowitz Kommandant would like to know why he saw a certain inmate coming out of Johannes' quarters when he supposed to be on leave. Heinrich's practically foaming at the jaws at this moment, and Deiter's pretty much trying to walk a really nasty tightrope. Chop chop.
I love these characters. I only hope I can do them justice. I mean, they're my first real, fully fleshed characters who could go toe-to toe for realism against any of my fanfic characters and still come out heads up.
I'm actually confident about this :) :) :)

October is now officially DON'T PANIC month. Waaahhh!
Especially so since this year I have decided that the standard 50,000 word limit is just too easy (done it twice after all) and I'm going for 60,000.
It's a nice round figure, it means a straight 2,000 per day.
But now I'm running around trying to iron out the last kinks in All Instruments of Measurement. Does anyone know, beloved friendlist, where the SS in Auschwitz actually lived, as in, slept? Were they in communal living quarters or had they hijacked local Polish houses? I have no idea and it's becoming a real problem becuase I don't know for certain where Johannes is living.
PANIC