Band Names

So, my story's about a band, and they don't have a name. Not because I can't think of one, but because they can't think of one.

The Band (names they've gone through and rejected in the novel)

• Mystik Spiral (is blatantly stolen from Daria and is what the lead singer's ex calls the band)
  
• Tyrano Society (Iwan's idea)
• Four-Letter Names (Alan's idea)
• MIKA (standing for Mike Iwan Kyle Alan, rejected for the obvious reason)
  

Other Bands (mentioned in the novel)

• Orient In Terest (a previous house band with a recording contract)
• Maneki Neko and the Cha'an Chu (suggested by @VOIDMunashii)
• Pinching the Nibble (suggested by @VOIDMunashii)

Names (not yet mentioned in the novel)

• Trailer Park Street (suggested by @VOIDMunashii)
• The Retail Therapists (suggested by @bazz_andreaus)
• Death Wind (not-quite-suggested by @theinfern0)
  

Dichotomies

Our story begins with the old Gallant Pantaloon finishing a story about Belted McFly, a modern day sort of superhero... or post-modern since we're post-apocalyptic.

We're contrasting him against the old-fashioned, stupid sort of hero in Vitis Trousers, who succeeds despite the fact that he shouldn't - he's mainly lucky.

I think the older girl, Polly Esther Leggings, is more into the Belted McFly stories. She's more realistic, and appreciates McFly's message of being able to accomplish whatever you like if you put your mind to it. The younger boy, Short Pants, prefers Vitis' more fantastical tales.

Where does this take me? No idea at the moment.

Script Frenzy Plotting

I was about to type this into my twitter box, then realised it was probably too long and better suited to be a blog post. And then I'll be able to find it later.

To get you up to speed I've decided that for Script Frenzy (which starts in 3 hours and thirty five-ish minutes):
1. I'm writing comic book scripts.
2. That they're about sentient pants.
3. The pants exist in a post-apocalyptic world. There are remnants of human society all around that aren't really discussed or anything in the words, but perhaps appear in the pictures. I sort of want humans to be a vague, indirect influence. I mean, they're pants, they wouldn't exist unless humans had existed and created them.
4. The stories will revolve around fables that star pants.
5. *new, and the point of this blog post* There will be an old wizened pair of pants that tells tales (i.e. fables) of pants before they came to have knowledge. Kind of like creation myths. Like how our world used to be this fantastical place where gods roamed around and now it's just this. Instead, it's the pants where people roamed around, and the pants now. But still, without any actual mentioning of people, because the story's about pants and not people. And besides, it's like pants were asleep, and now they're not.
6. I guess this is Sci-Fi and set in the future. Madness... I should make a title page or something... Nah, I'm too tired.

I don't know why I decided to write comic books instead of like a play or a tv show or something, but I think I'll give it a good whack. After all, I already know that I can pretty much knock out a whole script in two days. That's what last year's Frenzy taught me. It was not a good script, it is definitely not something I would give to someone else to read. Unlike my first script from Script Frenzy.

Please tell me I didn't unknowingly plagiarise this from somewhere else. It's too cool and weird and I like it too much (which is totally awesome because it means I'm excited to start).

Day Seventeen Total: 51,074 words

So, I didn't achieve my goal today. I got somewhat sidetracked and cheated on my story with a new one... which I would not dare even try to stretch out to 50k. It's a short story. I am cool with that.

Kids in Terry's Class

Their teacher is Mr Vispi. Why yes, I did steal most of the following names from my Gmail Spam.

Terry Archer
Hilary Cahill
Noreen Kyle (that was two different names that I changed the spelling of an chucked together)
Victor Orr
Jennifer Burgess
Jay Reba (a boy)
Chantelle Anabelle Lewis
Abraham (Abe) Cole
Michael Chrysler - known badboy
Jerome Bagwell - known badboy
Kenneth Roland

The other class is taught by Mr Ian Woon.
Nancy Cahill
Charity Cahill

Dancers

a.k.a. People likely to turn up at Terry's dance school (... I don't remember if it has a name)

Tappers
Terry Archer
Harriet Archer (though she quit)
Jess (Harriet's friend)
Marie Baxter (in Terry's class)
Brittany Morgan (usually paired with Terry)

Ballet Dancers
The Cahill triplets: Hilary, Nancy and Charity

Jazz
Jess (Harriet's friend)

Salsa
Jess (Harriet's friend)

Teachers
Miss Mary Anne

The Final Scissors Paper Rock Score Board

Name	Charity	David	Hilary	James	Jared	Katerina	Nancy	Sam	Terry
Charity		Charity	Hilary	James	Jared	Katerina	Nancy	Charity	Terry
David			David	David	Jared	Katerina	Nancy	Sam	David
Hilary				James	Jared	Hilary	Hilary	Hilary	Terry
James					Jared	James	James	Sam	Terry
Jared						Katerina	Jared	Jared	Jared
Katerina							Nancy	Sam	Katerina
Nancy								Nancy	Nancy
Sam									Terry
Terry

Totals
Charity: 2
David: 3
Hilary: 4
James:4
Jared: 7
Katerina: 4
Nancy: 5
Sam: 3
Terry: 4

Winner: Jared
2nd Place: Nancy
3rd Place: Terry, Katerina, James and Hilary.

The Church Group Kids

Because I keep forgetting their names. Although now, I'm nearly done with them so probably won't need them.

1. Charity Cahill
2. David O'Neill
3. Hilary Cahill
4. James Ellis
5. Jared Malubay
6. Katerina Malubay
7. Nancy Cahill
8. Sam O'Neill
9. Terry Archer

Also present are Harriet Archer and the group leader, Rowena Sarai

Timeline-ish thing

Start: The second last Thursday before school lets out for winter in early July.
July: School holidays for two weeks

• for one week there is a church activity nearly every day, mostly just hanging out movies, food etc.

August: Back to school. Thing with the mock council elections and how the Cahill triplets and Terry somehow end up in a group together. Harriet's last term of high school begins.
September: Triplets get suspicious. Election (mock and real). Bucket runs out of liquid.
The end.

Wow, there's really not much to my plot. Lol.

How the hygenie came to be

I don't really want to write this in properly (i.e. with the hygenie telling the story and Terry asking questions and whatever, so I'm just going to write it here and now and fix it up later). The good thing with doing your planning in November is that you can copy and paste it directly into your novel and it's not cheating because you wrote it in November.

Okay, so a long time ago, there was nothing and then there were people, and there were animals and plants and all the rest. And then there were genies. (As you may be able to tell, I haven't quite worked this out in an uncliched manner) The genies just appeared one day. And they found that they could do things that the other animals and so forth could not. And then they found out that there were a lots of things that they could only do if someone else asked them to do it.

But they weren't confined to receptacles until later in time. I don't know who does it or why, but they make them live there. Probably someone was jealous... perhaps they wished for it, and the genie in question didn't really think anything of it. After all a human can't do magic without a hygenie's help.

Genies are naturally giving. Sometimes they give too much of themselves, and then that's how they die.

Whatever, this is so not going in the novel like this.

More notes.

Okay, so I got totally distracted and now I don't remember what I was meant to note. Oops.

Edit: Ah, yes. Terry's mother isn't so much ignoring her son as just not knowing how to deal with him. She's giving him space, but he doesn't want or need it.

Oh yeah, notes.

Get the hygenie to "clean up" something the triplets are doing, like painting.

I don't want to put that into my doc because it'll make it take longer to check my wordcount. And I don't have a pen handy so I can't write it down. I've put pretty much every other tiny little bit of inspiration I've had into this blog, so why not that... except me explaining it has made this whole thing take longer than it should have.

Also, when Terry next meets the hygenie, he has to demand something that the hygenie can't give and then the hygenie explains that he can only grant cleaning wishes. But before we get there there has to be a dance lesson... probably the one that mum forgets to pick him up from. That would make sense.

Character Naming

I need names. I didn't really care before, but now time is running out and if I have to use the first name I can think of for my MC I don't think I'll enjoy writing it.

So I'm going through my Gmail spam box. I don't know who first suggested to look in the junk mail for names but it's an option that I love for naming characters who don't matter. I get the most spam in my Gmail account (hundreds per week) and most of them are from "people" with full names: Marceline Marlyn, Genaro Best, Shay Norma, Bernie Tor...

When I was trying to write at least 100 words a day I stole my inspiration from that spambox.

But it's harder to pick your main character when you've come up with a plain sort of boy who needs a plain sort of name that is somehow also not someone else's name. It's basically impossible. But actually, he doesn't need a plain name, just a one syllable one.

Now I've exhausted my gmail inbox. Le sigh. Using this now: http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm

• Rod isn't right, but comes close.
• Hal. No. I don't want to name him after Malcolm's dad... and no, I don't mind naming him after Rod Flanders.
• Vern. Troyer... or... Jerry O'Connell's character in Stand By Me.
• Reed. A girl I know is going out with a guy named Reed.
• Scot. Or Scott. Which might work because that's what you call a Nigel... not that you know what a Nigel is.
• Cole. Leads me to Charmed. And
  
• Brock. Pokemon. Or "Brock Peters" from that Matthew Reilly book, which actually comes from Peter Brock.
• Art. Could work. But it sounds arty and that's not what he is.
• Dick. Yeah right.
• Beau. As if.
• Cruz. No.
  
• Dirk. Hmm... no weird references spring to mind, but it just doesn't suit.
• Russ. Always makes me picture a dog.
• Zane. Too cool.
• Rich. Nah.
• Thad. Reminds me of Ghost Boy by Felicty Pullman.

Tad. Ty. Teal. Tar. Tak. Ted. Tom. Tot.

*checked Google notebook of names* Nothing.

Ray. Ralph. Ry. Ran. Rug. Rut. Rat.

Mig. Marty. Mal. Maul. Matt. Mike. Meg. Mart. Marth.

Grant. Greg. Gary. Gale. Garth. Grab. Gad. Gat. Gam.

Blake. Blade. Blair. Blythe. Bruce.

Carl. Roy. Keith Kevin Al.

This boy will remain nameless forever.

Random Snippet

You know how magpies like to peck people's eyes out? And how people say that the way to combat that is to wear a hat with eyes painted on the back of it? Lol, yeah.

And um, if you don't know that, that's where the random plot comes in.

Which is: person from overseas comes to visit and to amuse themselves, the family takes them on a walk through magpie territory acting as though it is common knowledge to possess and carry a hat with eyes on the back of it.

This doesn't actually have anything to do with the plot, but I figured I'd better write it down before I forgot it for when my wordcount is woefully low and I can't be bothered to come up with something that fits.

I wonder whether magpies would like, or feel threatened by a hygenie...

Link: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie)

Characters (sort of)

So I still don't know whether to give my hygenie a name, or if his name is Hygenie... again, like Genie in Aladdin, now that I think about it.

Him aside, the main characters are:
A boy aged somewhere between 10-12 who is having trouble with his identity because his father died when he was really little so his main influences are:
his mother - a forty-something running for local council
and his sister - 17-18 years old, sensible arty type who probably has a less than sensible boyfriend that her mother does not approve of

I don't think I'm actually trying to write anything other than a cliche. I think the hygenie stretched my imagination to the limit.

The mother probably has a love interest too, who is probably either a construction worker or a police officer.

The sister knows what she's doing, even if her mother doesn't think that she does. But that leads to conflict and the boy getting worried and eavesdropping on them sometimes. He's possibly a hypochondriac... or OCD which is totally why his best friend would be a hygenie.

And I've decided that this story is for young-ish kids so nothing too bad is going to happen. So I probably won't deal with the complicated issue of OCD which if I wrote it would probably offend someone... not that I'm censoring myself, I'd just rather not.

I still don't have a plot, or an idea of how he meets the hygenie and I don't really care. This year I'm winging it... ish.

Hygenie!

Here is my finished Hygenie picture. Or as I like to call him: bald man with Mario moustache and crazy fashion sense happily mopping the floor.

I used Picasa to upload this. I haven't done that in a while, and I don't think I will. Manual uploading is fine.

P.S. Yes, that is the bucket he lives in.

P.P.S Yes, his bucket is full of wishing liquid.

Wishing Liquid

I am clearly having too much fun with my hygenie. I'm in the process of mocking up a picture of the hygenie and I've discovered two things:

1. He lives in a bucket. Y'know, instead of a lamp.
2. The number of wishes he can grant is proportional to the amount of wishing liquid he has in his bucket. Insert pun about wishing liquid/washing up liquid. When you get the hygenie, the bucket fills with wishing liquid. And it can spill and stuff. If you want a bigger thing cleaned, it takes up more of the wishing liquid. Smaller things = less wishing liquid used. Then when you run out of wishing liquid the hygenie goes away. =(
   

I don't care if it doesn't make any sense

That's it. I've decided to write about a "hygenie" for NaNoWriMo. I think what I write will turn into what is known as a PWP (Plot? What Plot?). I don't care.

I think a hygenie looks like a scary military-esque man, with huge biceps, a very thick brown moustache and sunglasses so that no one has any idea what colour his eyes are. Mostly because I think that's pretty much the opposite of what one expects a genie that can only grant cleaning related wishes to look like.

Last month, when the time for council elections came around, I started formulating my fictional plans for my fictional campaign (since I'm not ready to start my political career yet, and may never be). Suffice to say, someone's running for local council and I think (s)he is definitely going to be putting my plans into action.

Meanwhile their child is probably the one who is actually in control of the hygenie.

So there you have a not-completely-outlined plot for NaNoWriMo 2008. I think I like the idea enough to roll with it. I refuse to not go with it, actually.

The hygenie probably carries either a mop or feather duster of doom which he uses as something like a magic wand to carry out his genie-ing. And he can grant as many wishes as he likes, kind of like in that tv show "Genie from Down Under", except for being confined to the cleaning variety, of course.

Other genie-related sources of inspiration are: Kazaam, Genie from Aladdin, and ... I've forgotten.

The picture of the hygenie is so clear in my head that I wish I was home so that I can start drawing him out before I forget what he looks like. I haven't been inspired to draw pictures for any of my other NaNo plots so far, so I have a feeling that this one is going to stick. Yay!