Wow, I just won {Nanowrimo|Camp Nanowrimo} for the twenty-third time!
For readers of this blog who have missed, like, 75% of my posts over the years, National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a new novel in the month of November, and Camp Nanowrimo is its sister challenge in April and July. I adapt this to write 50,000 words on top of whatever I’m currently working on, and have been doing it since 2002.
This is my 25th Nano or Nano-like attempt, and my 23rd victory. (Interestingly, my two failures were times that I tried Nano on my own, without the motivation of the Nano “Validate your Project” button).
This month, because of friggin’ March, man, I started out pretty far behind, compounded by my robot work and the fact that I was working on JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE. This is less a novel than a series of loosely connected novellas, each slightly different in setting and tone, and has been my most research-heavy project to date. But, nevertheless, I got back on track and climbed the mountain.
Interestingly, a couple of the days in there were my most productive writing days ever – 7,000 and 8,000 word days, right up with the 9,014 word day that I did once on the last day of Nano. I didn’t want to do that again – I wanted to take today off – so I powered through 8000 words on Saturday, finished with 2,600 words on Sunday, and leisurely wrote 2,000 words today unpacking a few of the ideas I had that were still fresh.
And now, the traditional excerpt:
“So,” General Weiss said, sitting down. “You desire to become one of my acolytes?”
Jeremiah glanced over at him, trying to contain her glare. “I desire to learn, sir.”
“What I have to teach is not easy to learn,” Weiss said, patting her leg. “It requires long-term commitment, supreme dedication, self-sacrifice—”
“Are …” Jeremiah felt her brow furrow, tried to control it. “Are you aware of—”
“The nature of your injuries?” Weiss said. “Yes, I heard you were reckless.”
“No, sir,” Jeremiah said. She hit the switch to raise her bed until she could look the man more closely in the eye. “I have been injured, repeatedly, because I have been sent into the line of fire without adequate support, repeatedly, and I did my duty, repeatedly.”
“The story goes is that you tried to leap across a city street, four stories up.”
“No, sir,” Jeremiah said. “A monster that had killed dozens was about to make its escape, and I leapt for it, sir, dragging it down to the street, possibly saving hundreds more lives—well, that’s debatable, but I definitively stopped it, at least that is not in dispute—”
“No, no, you’re quite right about the outcome of the operation.” Weiss rubbed his hands together. “And whether I think you’re reckless in the large, I would never dispute the actions of a operative in the clinch. But do you know why the enemy exposed itself to you?”
“I …” Jeremiah said. “But it didn’t. We caught it, and tracked it—”
“Yes, yes, and let’s not dispute that either,” Weiss said, leaning forward. “A hypothetical. Imagine you had two operations running, physically separated, one large and important, one … less so. To protect them, you can run recon missions looking for the enemy, but the enemy might find them. You can run ten recces in the operation period. Where do you put them?”
“Er, well,” Jeremiah said. “Proportionally on the more important—”
“No,” Weiss said. “You run five. All around the least important one. Why?”
“Er …” What clues had he given? “The larger force, is well, larger. It can defend itself.”“Yes. And?”
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. “You want the recces caught?”
“No, not really, but I do, yes.”
“But the smaller force, exposed—”
“And overwhelmed,” Weiss said, “by a mass mobilization of the enemy. Away from my primary force. Now the other five recces probe ahead of the main op, clearing the way while the decoy fights for its life. If done properly—if the decoy force is given both a true objective and the best chance of success, their fight for their lives will only attract more enemy forces. If they win, you have a true two-front victory. If they fail, you don’t even need to send reinforcements—the moment the main force engages the enemy, the enemy will naturally pull back.”
Jeremiah’s brow furrowed.
“Yes, yes, there are many specifics which would make this kind of plan succeed or fail,” Weiss said. “To truly instruct you, we’d need to work through many more patterns, then make them concrete for the kind of forces you will end up commanding—”
“All of them,” Jeremiah said.
“What?”
“I’m going to command all of them,” Jeremiah said. “My aim is to be Minister of War.”
“Oho,” the general said. “Then we have a lot of work to do. Tell me why the thing exposed itself to you. Quick, now.”
“They’re—” Jeremiah’s mouth fell open. “The things are wearing us down.”
Sounds like they have a lot of problems on that boat. The first of the stories in THE MACHINERY OF THE APOCALYPSE is already out: A Choir of Demons, at Aurora Wolf. For the rest … well, you’ll have to wait a bit. Enjoy!
-the Centaur
