#spes super sydera

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Finished my first draft of Spes Super Sydera today! 114000 words and absolutely no notes for it whatsover! I'm proud of myself for managing but now I've to figure out how to unravel the mystery part of those plot because I only discovered what it was while writing it.

But that's for later!me to worry about. Current!me gets to celebrate finishing the first draft!!!

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I am absolutely terrible when it comes to writing anything about my own WIPs on this blog despite making a specific writing side blog for this purpose. So I thought I'd share a list of some of my favourite quotes from Spes Super Sydera--out of context, of course! Spes Super Sydera is my sci-fi WIP centring on the main character, Eloise, and her struggle to unravel what exactly happened to her dad after he went missing on a deep-space mission about a year before the book starts. It involves heists, kidnapping, potential aliens, and adventures on spaceships.

Here beginth part one of the quotes:

(They were all going to go here but I started reading the earlier chapters and discovering more and more bits that I enjoyed so I'm splitting it up. I've currently got 42 chapters and counting. Don't know how that happened!)

Ch. 5: “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t done anything illegal—personally, anyway."

Ch. 6: “I vote for breaking the door down.” Charlie bounces on the balls of her feet and rubs her hands together far too gleefully for Eloise’s tastes. “I’ve always wanted to have a go with an axe.”

Ch. 7: Not that she expects to find many vases down here. It’s not the sort of thing that a space exploration company tends to keep in their important archives that are off-limits to most people. Unless it’s a vase from space, perhaps. An alien vase would be worth keeping.

Ch. 7: “I’m delegating like any good leader does. Hop to it, peasant.”

Ch. 10: Eloise gives up on thinking and climbs onto her bed so she can scream into the pillows. It’s cathartic.

Ch. 12: With a sigh, Eloise kicks her heels against the desk drawers from her position atop the desk. “Am I supposed to do all the talking now? I’m not sure I like the sound of my own voice enough for that sort of commitment.”

“I’m thinking,” Rebecca snarls, catching one of Eloise’s feet in an iron grip. “Something that would be easier if you could sit still. We’re not children anymore.”

“Don’t I know it. I never had to deal with international security secrets or conspiracies when I was a kid. It was usually just low-level bureaucratic bribery and incompetency.”

“My, aren’t you hilarious.”

“One of us has to be.”

Ch. 16: Charlie kicks one of her feet up to bop Eloise on the nose and she scowls, batting the offending foot away before the smell of sweaty feet overwhelms her. “Give over, Eloise. My feet smell of daises and lavender if they smell of anything at all because I actually remember to shower regularly, unlike some people.” She glances around the circle and everyone stares right back, utterly unbothered by her accusations.

Ch. 18: "For someone who’s supposed to be our leader, you don’t seem to be paying much attention,” Dom drawls, reaching around the back of Charlie’s chair he can jab Eloise’s shoulder—hard.

Rebecca scowls. “I contest that. Eloise is not our leader.”

“Seconded.” Eloise sticks her hand in the air and reaches for her coffee mug. Someone pushes it out of the way. “Hey! Seriously, I don’t want to be in charge of you lot. I can barely stay in charge of myself.”

Ch. 18: Benedict folds his arms across his chest and leans back in his chair, managing to look remarkedly intimidating for a short and rather gangly man wearing a fluffy dressing gown and dog-shaped slippers. It’s a skill Eloise would pay to learn.

Ch. 19: Not, of course, that Eloise is actively planning to try. But if the opportunity presents itself? Well, who is she to stand in the way of the universe?

Ch. 20: A sudden crackle in Eloise’s ear makes her jump. She almost claps her hand over the earpiece, barely managing to turn the gesture into smoothing other a non-existent errant strand of hair.

“Are we going for full-on lies now, Eloise? Careful it doesn’t come back to bite you on the ass,” Rebecca says in a sing-song voice, sounding strangely chirpy. It’s disconcerting.

“Oh, we’re being a proper peanut gallery then, are we?” That’s Charlie and her words are fainter, as though she’s further away from the microphone.

Muffled rustling fills Eloise’s ear. “No. We’re here to listen. And provide useful comments.”

“Useful. As if anyone has ever had any of those.” A burst of bright laughter fills Eloise’s ear after Benedict’s grumbly words and she winces again, cringing at the too-loud noise.

Ch. 22: “The hell is wrong with you? Not everything requires a kidnapping.” Charlie shrugs as Dom cards both hands through his hair, restyling his artfully tousled curls into something resembling a particularly unkempt bird nest.

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I'VE DONE IT!!! I'VE COMPLETED NANOWRIMO FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!

I'm so proud I can't even put it into words. 50,000 words in a month. It's amazing. Last time, I didn't even get halfway and this time I absolutely smashed it and even finished a day early. Woo!!! I did it!

So it turns out that writing a project without any notes whatsoever is a really good idea for me. On my previous two items, I had all sorts of outlines and plans and character details--two notebooks full! But I didn't win with those. I won by having a vague outline that I keep in my head, seeing where the hell the plot takes me, and just going along for the ride. Apparently, it works. My word count has been fairly consistent: a couple of big spikes, but always over 1.2k words every day.

Had quite a few surprises in writing this. Spes Super Sydera is a sci-fi story but there weren't any aliens in my original brain-plan for the plot. There weren't so many twists and turns. There wasn't a disgraced ex-astronaut with a grudge, or a midnight heist, or an old friend hiding out in a mostly forbidden hangar. A vague comment in the first chapter as part of a character's introduction turned out to be an important part of the plot. One character turned from an off-hand mention to an important side character. There's a harkening back to the very first chapter when my main again sits across from three people who will decide her fate. So. Many. Surprises.

I'm not looking forward to editing it. But that's a few months off because there's still a good 20000-30000 words to write. Probably. If I keep going with this pantsing thing, who knows what it'll end up as. All I know is that I'm definitely in the last third of the book. The ending will be in sight...eventually.

Either way, I'm probably going to ride this high for the rest of the week. Hell, for what's left of the year! I've done the thing. And it feels amazing.

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NaNo day one:

Managed to hit my target for day 1 so here's hoping this good start keeps going (I'm not expecting it to but I'm allowed to dream, right?).

This'll be my third time doing NaNo and the first time that I'll be working on two projects for NaNo: One Small Step and Spes Super Sydera. One has lots and lots of notes and outlines and two previous drafts to draw from. The other has nothing at all. Nothing. Going full pantser with Supes Super Sydera at the moment but I might start writing some notes up for it this month. I've never written anything entirely pantser-mode that wasn't less than 7000 words. So, it'll be interesting to see how I do because I am more of a plantser, somewhere in that middle ground between having a meticulous outline and keeping it all in my head.

I'm not sure if I'll end up working on one WIP more than the other and I don't know if it's even a good idea for me to work on two things at once. Will it help or hinder? Honestly, it might even end up being three things because I write anything for my shot fiction series, The Adventures of Lara and Theo, then I'm definitely counting them for NaNo. I haven't won NaNo yet so every word counts. Every word.