NaNoWriMo Progress, Day 24

[kaasirpent]

I'm charting my daily progress on NaNoWriMo. Since you may or may not care, I'll kindly hide it behind a cut. Thanks for taking the time. :)

NaNoWriMo Progress: These Are the Dreams that Keep Sleep from Me
	Actual	Required
Progress
New Words Today	2351	1667
Daily Average	4434	1667
Remaining Req'd Daily Avg	2262	1667
Expected Total	120000	50000

Notes:

• I had to go to the Scrabble Dictionary site to get a list of words beginning with X. The ones I could think of were few and specific and not conducive to making into a story anyone would ever be interested in reading. When I saw Xenolith, I knew that was it. And since it needed to have a phrase that rhymed with 'waste,' I selected "X Is for Xenolith, Deliberately Placed." But that sort of gives away the story. I couldn't think of a way to tell a story using it. And then I hit on the idea of telling it not as a narrative but to make it a series of news articles and interview transcripts written about an unfolding series of events in the near future.


• "X Is for Xenolith, Deliberately Placed" is incomplete at 2351 words, but I don't think it'll be much longer once I finish it. It turns out it's harder to write news articles than I thought. :)


• Xenolith pretty much literally translates into 'foreign stone' and refers to a piece of rock of different origin from the igneous rock in which it is embedded. So, where could a rock of non-Terran origin be located that we wouldn't have discovered before now? And how would we discover it?


• Character names: A crap-ton of names, but the main two scientists associated with the discovery are Dr. Xara Coleman and Dr. Alexander Marx. I elected to go with a name that would contain 'x' instead of beginning with 'x' because, honestly, how many men named Xander or Xerxes are there? Xara or Xaviera or Xan(dra), I figured I could get away with.


• Interesting things I had to look up: Antarctica, including geology, geography, ice sheet facts, how long it's been covered by ice, what might be under there, how thick it is, a history of its plate tectonics to know where it used to be before it was at the south pole, gravitational anomalies on Earth, science articles, scientific research papers (to get a template of how they're written), the GRACE satellites, the World Archaeological Congress, climate change, how many animal and plant phyla exist, and probably some stuff I've left out. Stuff I still need to look up: mining techniques, high-pressure construction, pathogen survival in ice.


• Genre: Science Fiction

This table shows each story and how many words I have written on it, regardless of the daily count. Titles or letters in red ("tomato") are ones where I'm not sure, yet, what the story will be.

A Is for Anchor 10574	B Is for Bard 10092	C Is for Clowns That Creep Through the Yard 5719 (complete)
D Is for Dragon 6369 (complete)	E Is for Egg 4975 (complete)	F Is for Fangs That Are Sunk in Your Leg 9039 (617)
G Is for Gravesite 2204 (complete)	H Is for Haunted 5309	I Is for Investigation Unwanted 6627
J Is for Jackpot 3069 (complete)	K Is for Kiss 3191 (complete)	L Is for Lucky For a Hit or a Miss 3219 (complete)
M Is for Moons 3378	N Is for Nocturnal 4151 (1527) (complete)	O Is for Oath of Service Eternal 2101
P Is for Prey 3630 (complete)	Q Is for Quest 1557	R Is for Ritual Performed as a Test 4599 (complete)
S Is for SkullCosm 3872	T Is for Talents 3622 (complete)	U Is for Unicorn Imbalance 1826 (complete)
V Is for Vanish 1959	W Is for Waste 1053	X Is for Xenolith Deliberately Placed 2351
Y Is for Y_____ 0	Z Is for Zombie 0