Seventeen and Counting
Day 17 is not quite over, and I have 29,234 words. That’s a touch over 1,700 words a day. With 14 days to go, if I keep up this pace I’ll have my 50k on the 28th, maybe?
It’s been a good journey so far — really good, actually. My wife is very supportive and except that the sound of my typing making her sleepy, it’s not created any hardship.
One thing that I think has helped is that this story — Thornwood Confidential — is grounded in D20 mechanics. The SRD is an amazing resource. And every spell that a character casts, all magical items, even how much lunch at Sharkey’s Bar costs, it’s all grounded in the reality of the D20 system. Wizards of the Coast basically made D&D 3.5 open source by stripping away to D&D specific aspects of the rules while leaving the fantasy mechanics intact.
This is both freeing and limiting. It’s nice to have someone else making up the spell components for casting the spell Identify, for example. It’s perfect with the crushed pearl and the owl feather, and I didn’t have to take precious brain cells to think that up on my own.
But, it’s also really limiting…. for example, as far as I can tell, only a Bard can cast a “forgetting” spell. Sorcerers and clerics can lower someone’s intelligence, but only a Bard can try to make someone forget…. and for a writer, that’s rotten! I don’t have a Bard in my story; I don’t want a Bard in my story (sorry to all you Bard lovers out there…). But if I want to magic someone into forgetting, I need a Bard. Or maybe a wand would work… hmmm, I need to read up on having a non-class character try to use a wand charged with other spells. I bet that possibility is covered in the SRD.
Our Hen House
Compassionate Cook