I won NaNoWriMo!

[baratron]

I have written 53,563 words this month.

Despite being broken and sick the whole time.

I haven't managed to combine this with College or earning money, but that's as much due to the way I've been ill as anything else. It's hard to go into College when you're too exhausted and anxious to move.

I do wish I hadn't been quite so utterly introverted this month, since I've been neglecting some of my friends terribly - but again, that's been due to the way I've been ill :S I should be a little more sociable now my meds have kicked in.

I'm fairly sure my stats page isn't actually right, but you can see the progression fairly well, anyway.

The scary thing? These 53,563 words, or 72 pages of A4, represent about 40% of the story. I'm not quite at the level of DualKatanas and his 532,640 words, but I'll definitely have written well over 100,000 words by the time I finish. Huh.

Is anyone very, very bored? I need some beta readers. I want to start publishing this on Archive of Our Own a couple of chapters at a time, even before it's finished, since I know exactly how it's going to end (have already written the ending!). Do realise that you'd be committing to reading 72 pages of my dreadful rambling - or rather, Alix, my main character's dreadful rambling ;)

I looked at the races of my characters. So far I have:
Humans:
8 Bretons - small pale people, red or brown-haired, part-elven, high degree of magical ability. 2 are main characters, another 3 have a lot to say.
19 Imperials - the dominant race in Cyrodiil, average height, olive skin, brown or black hair, based on Romans. 1 is THE main character (i.e. the Emperor).
5 Nords - tall pale people, red or blond-haired, large and physically dominant, generally distrustful of magic, good warriors. None of them are terribly important to the plot.
8 Redguards - average height, dark brown skin, black hair, the best warriors. Every single one of them awesome, 3 of whom are main characters who kick arse.

Elves:
7 Altmer/High elves - very tall golden-skinned elves. Including 1 awesome alchemist, and all 3 of the bad guys.
3 Bosmer/Wood elves - titchy "white"(pink)-skinned elves.
2 Dunmer - average height grey-skinned elves.
0 Orcs - tall green-skinned elves (yes, orcs count as mer in the Elder Scrolls universe - Orsimer). I AM PREJUDICED AGAINST GREEN PEOPLE LOL. Mostly it's because most of the characters fall into 3 categories: Blades (the Emperor's bodyguards & spies), Mages, and Priests - and there are bugger all in the way of Orcs in any of those roles.

"Beast" races:
4 Argonians - the lizard race. 3 Mages and 1 Priest.
3 Khajiit - the feline race. All of which are bandits. I do have a Mage Khajiit that I'll add in later in the storyline.

The two main characters are a male Breton and a male Imperial. The story has a definite bias towards humans but that's in part due to the world itself, e.g. the fact there are no non-human Blades. Alix (the narrator) actually ponders this at one point, and is likely to take it up with Jauffre (the Grandmaster of the Blades) before the end of the story.

Gender:
Of characters who actually get to speak:
11 female, including 4 Strong/Awesome women.

24 male, of whom 7 are main characters. It doesn't help that by virtue of the main friendship/relationship being M/M, it's men doing the vast majority of the talking. Still, Alix shows his admiration for several awesome women during the story (and because of their ability, not looks - he's really not able to judge the attractiveness of women).

Comments

[yoyoangel.livejournal.com]

Well done!
(Am not offering to beta read because a. am spending all my spare time asleep and b. it's taking me months to read anything.)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And don't worry about not being up to beta - the reasons I'd expect people to want to do it are either because they like me A LOT, or have a lot of spare time, or because they have writing of their own which needs beta-ing. Frankly, I'm more worried about your health. If this current excessive fatigue isn't normal for you, then you should get some blood tests done for thyroid and vitamin D levels, and anything else your GP suggests *hug*.

[yoyoangel.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure this is 'just' post-viral fatigue - but thanks for your concern. If it continues for long, I'll see my GP.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Hmm--I'll trade you beta readings? I suck at self-editing. You've seen my writing--I generally don't write more than 1k words at a go, but I do want to get back into writing. It'll be all over the place for a while until I settle on a larger project (which may not happen for a longish while). I'll gladly beta read your story, especially since it might make me want to get back into playing Skyrim and/or writing in that world again!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

That would suit me nicely! Email me: use the "for emergencies" real name email address (http://baratron.livejournal.com/663943.html), since it's the one that alerts me when I receive emails. Really, I want to make sure the story flows and is comprehensible to someone with minimal knowledge of the world. Finding Elder Scrolls nerds isn't so difficult, but finding people who haven't played Oblivion but are still interested is.

I wanted to pick your brains about Argonian biology and body language in any case, since you seem to have worked it out pretty well :)

[maniackatie.livejournal.com]

Congrats, H-L! That's an awesome accomplishment, especially considering how you'd been feeling throughout this month. I'd never be able to do that. XP

Good luck with the rest of the story, assuming you plan to finish it 100% someday! :)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You know, until 5th November, I was saying "I'd never be able to do that". Then I looked back and realised I'd already written 4,000 words that month, and thought "I wonder...?". So it's not actually as difficult as you might think.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Well done!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I missed seeing this before. Well done!

[jhaelan.livejournal.com]

Likewise, by virtue of the end of my week being somewhat excessively busy! nicely done h-l

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I haven't talked to you in so long! I don't even know what country you're living in right now!

Thanks for the congratulations :)

[jhaelan.livejournal.com]

Back in London now! All very exciting, but need to re-calibrate :)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And it means more from you, seeing as you're *already* A Writer :D

*hugs* to you & K.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Very cool!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[aphroditemf.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on meeting your target word count for NaNoWriMo!

I am happy to be a beta reader, and hopefully my familiarity with the Elder Scrolls universe would be a bonus.

[aphroditemf.livejournal.com]

I'm a numpty... I just realised you said you have little trouble finding Elder Scrolls nerds, it's people unfamiliar with the universe that are proving hard to come by! In that case, I hope that I can still be of use to you as a beta reader, given that I'm familiar with the universe, but have only played Skyrim, and so am not aware of the events in Oblivion.