Feel free to laugh at me.

[burntcopper]

Convention hotpants diet day 1. Stopped snacking last week, jogging at weekends is up to 3 fields, now trying the special k 2-weeker to get rid of the summer podge. If you hear me constantly moaning about being starving, ignore me.

nano ideas did come up, after the panic, and what research I'd have to do :

1) Alistair/Joe. it's like Notting hill but with spy life in the background.
2) Jafar-Eustace, VotD time, continuation of the 'verse where the Pevensies stayed. er. er. er.
3) Circle village - early 80s mining village cut with the first years of settlement, possibly some Roman. Vague horror-ish? - settlement times for northumberland, when mining started, and some on the 80s strikes
4) pirates?
5) smuggling saga between stairs edwardian? - lifeboats, upstairs-downstairs, that photographer couple on indeedsir
6) cornish exploring officer psycho girl? - 18th/19th c, exploring officers, girls employed by the army. places of training.
7) girl in Wellington's army - see above, but with added girls who disguised themselves as blokes.

1) Alistair is a werewolf in MI7, the Weird Happenings branch. Joe is a rather famous american movie star. They hit it off and have a habit of shagging when Joe is in the country. Less angst than Notting Hill, with added spy life in the background.
2) Jafar is the scholar son the Tisroc married off to Edmund, thinking that an alliance with the legendary nutjobs who rule narnia again is good, and an alliance with the favoured of a god (Bacchus) even more so. (no concerns about issue since the general opinion is that succession will pass down through Peter and Susan/Caspian) Add Eustace. mostly a 'gaaaah, they're fucking nuts!'
3) Circle village verse, intercut between a mining town in Northumberland during the 80s' strikes and the settlement of the village, so you get the reactions of present day of the coppers and Union versus scenes of 'oh fucking hell we have *elves*?' (Blame Billy Elliot)
4) Pirates. Um, no, there is no plot for this one...
5) upstairs downstairs romance between the second son of a rich cornish family and the valet of relatives who come to visit them on occasion. Add in that the cornish lot have the rep for being dodgy due to being smugglers (well, *duh*) and the son's on lifeboats for bits of drama.
6) One of the daughters of a naval family turns out to be a psycho. They do a deal with Wellington to channel her tendencies into being an assassin exploring officer. Add the regiment of soldiers that often gets stuck with her.
7) Girl disguises herself to go off and be a soldier. Ends up in the Rifles. And of course she sodding well seduces her cute Irish captain, what do you take me for?

Opinions? Ideas? which one sounds most viable for a novel or interesting?

Comments

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

I like #1 and #6

#7 would be interesting if I were a girl and into 18th century Irish riflemen. I'm not and I'm not.

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Something approaching a combination of #3 and #4? - the decades 790-800 and 860-870 would have seen any number of OMGWTF moments in the kingdom of Northumberland.

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

This notion has my approval. Horrible foreigners coming to take oor wimmin and land, and all that. Or at least, the sort of strife encountered at different times, and how it's influenced people.

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

I want all of these *____*

I think my favorites are 3, 6, and 7. 3 because I love any kind of horror tied into local folklore/history, the ghosts of the land, etc. (yes, Heather was right when she tried to get me to watch SPN on those grounds so many years ago). 6 and 7 because...with all the years we've been friends, do I really have to explain to you why I would choose 6 and 7?

Looking at it again, I also love 5. Knowing you, I feel like you'd have the most fun with 5/6/7, and IMO that's the real question of NaNo, so I'd recommend one of those.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

5/6/7 are ones I've previously written notes on that have a basic story attached, problem being expanding it (especially psycho!girl) and, er, finding those old notes for 6 and 7.

3 is... argh. plotting the story would be a bloody nightmare. oh well. time to start the research and notes, see which is most viable. though this year, I have a resolution : WRITING CHRONOLOGICALLY CAUSES LESS HEADACHES.

I really need to start watching SPN again. Haven't watched it aside from the occasional ep since v. early S3.

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

3 would definitely require a lot more work in terms of research and actually building a story; I'm inclined to suggest 5/6/7 (7 especially, since as I understand it was basically 6 with a couple more female characters?) because those would probably be a lot more fun, and during nano that is pretty much necessary. But I am biased, because, again, ladies being violent nutjobs in historical settings? YES I AM SO THERE WHEN DO WE START.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

6 and 7 have only one main female character, (though yes, there would almost certainly be other girls, just not soldier girls. 6 has the added fun of confused sexuality and the officer swallowing the fact that he now has the rep of a boy lover.) I need to find my old notebooks that have the details and character and so on for them so I can see what has more viability. I can remember and plot out most of the upstairs downstairs off the top of my head, but 6 and 7 kinda need a plot.

Violent nutjob historical females? US?

(the fact that there is a scene in one notebook where Faith and psycho-girl walk into the officer's mess and Wesley and the officer of the regiment she's often attached to tell everyone that running away is a good idea IS BESIDES THE POINT. As is the bit where the other officers are convinced that said Wes and him have a death wish just from hanging around the girls, let alone Wes shagging and other officer rumoured to be shagging (undecided on truth of this).)

[bunnyk.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why, but 2 has me feeling vaguely worried!

I do like 3 & 4 :D

and 4 *needs* a plot? :-p

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

re: 4 - sadly, for 50,000 words to happen, a plot needs to exist. if only to propel you from one fight scene to another. I've tried without it, and even immense amounts of sugar will not help.

2 : really, everyone should be worried. it's mostly Jafar (poor mild-mannered scholar who thought he was out of politics getting married off and sent to the really bloody COLD, WET northlands. inhabited by bloodthirsty barbarians out of legend. AND THERE IS NO LIBRARY.) going 'augh! Help! Nothing makes sense! And I'm finding myself falling for my husband due to Stockholm Syndrome!'
While Eustace is his usual self from VotD. his cousins ran away from home and spent the last few years playing despot dictators somewhere near Spain, with people willing to support this delusion, they won't let him off this bloody boat, and they insist that Susan - who seemed to be the most sane of them - is married to this Spanish nutter. And they've turned into bloodthirsty bastards. Also, will someone get this rodent away from him?

[peterjevans.livejournal.com]

My choice would be (6) although, because I'm somewhat predictable, I’d feel the need to spice things up with supernatural / horror / conspiracy elements. Eg, what happened to the protagonist to drive her psycho? How does her gift / curse make her useful to Wellington? What is the connection between whatever broke her brain and the conspiracy Wellington actually needs her to deal with (as a pawn, obviously). You could have madness, war, sex, death, mystery, exotic locations and tenticular nasties all in the same story!

As for snacks, try raw carrot cut into little sticks and cubes. I chew through a box of that every working day, and it’s great for steering one away from the more calorific alternatives.