NaNoWriMo Intro
Welp. Here we are. This post, unfortunately, needs to be written - the first one. The one that conquers the blank page, the empty blog.
So. Let me do what (I think) I do best and paint you a word picture.
I'm sitting at my kitchen counter, where I've got soup on one burner and stock on the other. My tea kettle, a gift from my grandmother that matches all of my grandmother's plates and cups and bowls but none of mine because mine have been slowly accumulated from various sources over the past four years, is recovering from my most recent cup of tea. Milk oolong, if you were wondering. (You probably weren't, but now we're at that point in our relationship. Hi!) I really ought to be working on my homework, like most other students out there. When they say that grad school is a lot of work, they are not lying. I'm so tired. Anyway, just down the counter from me is my husband's pet project, an electric typewriter that takes your picture and types it. We're going to present about it at a hacker conference next month.
Right. Next month. T-minus four hours.
National Novel Writing Month is about to begin.
This is where this story starts. Well, more or less - I've been mulling over this idea since April. My husband (all right, you've made it to here, we're on first name terms now, his name is Keiran) and I were driving from Minnesota to Michigan and we were trying to think of stuff to talk about. It's not like we were having problems, we just wanted something interesting to discuss. I'd been poring over one of my textbooks and thought of an image of kudzu I'd seen. You may be familiar with it: kudzu is a vine thought to have originated in Japan that was introduced to the US around 1875. Unfortunately, like most foreign species, kudzu has no natural predators or thinning mechanisms, and it grew out of control. It's present from Texas all the way to the Atlantic and up as far as Pennsylvania. There are a lot of issues surrounding growth of kudzu, mostly that it can grow quickly and shade other plants to death. I'll let you read more about it on your own. At present, though, kudzu is considered less of a problem than was originally thought, as it can be used for biofuel, cattle feed, and fertilizer.
Having learned this information, a seed of an idea began to grow in my mind. I wondered what life would be like if kudzu suddenly mutated and exploded in growth, expanding to basically cover the entire terrestrial globe. I imagined a world where kudzu and animal products were the only food, all other plants having been lost. Life could go on, although an incredible amount of biodiversity would be lost. Humans would survive, but at a cost: the abrupt advent of a kudzu mega-growth would cause a global collapse and severe thinning of the human race as the world scrambled to find alternative food sources. Eventually, technology would be developed to harvest kudzu and turn it into foodstuffs - Kudzu Technologies, rising up from the vines. With the country and the world in crisis, the US government declares a government-enforced monopoly where Kudzu Technologies (or KuTech) is the sole producer of kudzu foodstuffs and other materials (textiles, etc.). Slowly, the world rebuilds. The KuTech monopoly continues, as other smaller companies are unable to keep up with KuTech's growth. And so on, the repercussions of the kudzu mutation eventually leading to a stable system, which is where we meet our heroine, and where the story actually starts.
I'm very excited to give this project a try for NaNoWriMo! I've tried starting this a few times, but every time, I run into a block. I'm no stranger to writer's block; I've been a writer ever since I could lie, and sometimes you just can't convince a tough crowd (Mom and Dad). Some of the stuff on my flash drive dates back to when I was in the fourth grade, and man it is terrible. Anyway, this project has more or less been on hold since June, so I'm excited to finally get back into it! I've been spending the past few months editing (and editing, and editing, and editing...) my project from last year's NaNoWriMo in the hopes of publishing it. That one is a YA fantasy I've been working on for about 3 years titled - the TL;DR is "people do bad things and then there are repercussions." Maybe I'll write more about that one later. My original plan for NaNoWriMo this year was to write a basic sequel to last year's project, but I had a lot of internal struggles with that. I have a strong idea of where those are going, but this one was just calling me. I've got vines on the brain.
Well, there you have it. I hope you'll be back to check in with me again, and mad props for making it all the way to here.
My soup is ready, and my tea is cold, so if you'll excuse me.
So. Let me do what (I think) I do best and paint you a word picture.
I'm sitting at my kitchen counter, where I've got soup on one burner and stock on the other. My tea kettle, a gift from my grandmother that matches all of my grandmother's plates and cups and bowls but none of mine because mine have been slowly accumulated from various sources over the past four years, is recovering from my most recent cup of tea. Milk oolong, if you were wondering. (You probably weren't, but now we're at that point in our relationship. Hi!) I really ought to be working on my homework, like most other students out there. When they say that grad school is a lot of work, they are not lying. I'm so tired. Anyway, just down the counter from me is my husband's pet project, an electric typewriter that takes your picture and types it. We're going to present about it at a hacker conference next month.
Right. Next month. T-minus four hours.
National Novel Writing Month is about to begin.
This is where this story starts. Well, more or less - I've been mulling over this idea since April. My husband (all right, you've made it to here, we're on first name terms now, his name is Keiran) and I were driving from Minnesota to Michigan and we were trying to think of stuff to talk about. It's not like we were having problems, we just wanted something interesting to discuss. I'd been poring over one of my textbooks and thought of an image of kudzu I'd seen. You may be familiar with it: kudzu is a vine thought to have originated in Japan that was introduced to the US around 1875. Unfortunately, like most foreign species, kudzu has no natural predators or thinning mechanisms, and it grew out of control. It's present from Texas all the way to the Atlantic and up as far as Pennsylvania. There are a lot of issues surrounding growth of kudzu, mostly that it can grow quickly and shade other plants to death. I'll let you read more about it on your own. At present, though, kudzu is considered less of a problem than was originally thought, as it can be used for biofuel, cattle feed, and fertilizer.
Having learned this information, a seed of an idea began to grow in my mind. I wondered what life would be like if kudzu suddenly mutated and exploded in growth, expanding to basically cover the entire terrestrial globe. I imagined a world where kudzu and animal products were the only food, all other plants having been lost. Life could go on, although an incredible amount of biodiversity would be lost. Humans would survive, but at a cost: the abrupt advent of a kudzu mega-growth would cause a global collapse and severe thinning of the human race as the world scrambled to find alternative food sources. Eventually, technology would be developed to harvest kudzu and turn it into foodstuffs - Kudzu Technologies, rising up from the vines. With the country and the world in crisis, the US government declares a government-enforced monopoly where Kudzu Technologies (or KuTech) is the sole producer of kudzu foodstuffs and other materials (textiles, etc.). Slowly, the world rebuilds. The KuTech monopoly continues, as other smaller companies are unable to keep up with KuTech's growth. And so on, the repercussions of the kudzu mutation eventually leading to a stable system, which is where we meet our heroine, and where the story actually starts.
I'm very excited to give this project a try for NaNoWriMo! I've tried starting this a few times, but every time, I run into a block. I'm no stranger to writer's block; I've been a writer ever since I could lie, and sometimes you just can't convince a tough crowd (Mom and Dad). Some of the stuff on my flash drive dates back to when I was in the fourth grade, and man it is terrible. Anyway, this project has more or less been on hold since June, so I'm excited to finally get back into it! I've been spending the past few months editing (and editing, and editing, and editing...) my project from last year's NaNoWriMo in the hopes of publishing it. That one is a YA fantasy I've been working on for about 3 years titled - the TL;DR is "people do bad things and then there are repercussions." Maybe I'll write more about that one later. My original plan for NaNoWriMo this year was to write a basic sequel to last year's project, but I had a lot of internal struggles with that. I have a strong idea of where those are going, but this one was just calling me. I've got vines on the brain.
Well, there you have it. I hope you'll be back to check in with me again, and mad props for making it all the way to here.
My soup is ready, and my tea is cold, so if you'll excuse me.
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