Wednesday 30 November 2011

Your clothing is still downloading... done.

This morning, 'Your clothing is still downloading' crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line with over three thousand words to spare.  I've managed to put down 53,500 words over the last month and I'm pleased with the result.

I'll be aiming to add this title to my free downloads by Christmas, with Lulu print and Smashwords ebook versions soon after.  I'll be doing a speedy readthrough later today and then getting myself done a personal print version so I can proof-read it properly (I always do this better when reading from paper).  Once that's done, I'll be updating the book into a second draft and getting it up online for anyone who's interested to read.

Here are the last two paragraphs of the novel.  There are no major spoilers in them, but you might want to skip them if you plan on reading the full novel when it becomes available.
It occurred to me in those first few months that the story of me and Cath was always about me wanting something I had no entitlement to. Is love ever actually any different? To want a person in that way is to want them in a way that just isn't possible; however connected two people can be – whatever metaphors we concoct – they are still two people, two minds, two realities, two separate visions of the world and its meaning. You cannot ever take a person completely from their reality. But that's just the overview. On a moment-by-moment basis, the connectedness it is possible to feel is extraordinary, astonishing, unfathomable. In these moments, the impossible becomes possible; it is life's greatest illusion that they are experienced only as the exception to the rule. 
Douglas Adams once wrote about a whole world parallel to our own, accessible by turning your head through the billionth part of a billionth part of a degree. Very few things are actually impossible. In most cases, it's just a question of how you're looking at them at the time.

Saturday 26 November 2011

Your clothing is still downloading... 90% update

This is it, folks; the final stretch.  Today, 'Your clothing is still downloading' passed the 90% mark of 45,000 words.  Whilst I'm still well ahead of schedule (I'm expecting to pass the 50,000 word mark by Monday at the latest), there's still a fair bit of story to be told and I'm anticipating writing all the way up to the 30th and possibly a little beyond.  This might well end up a 60k novel.  In any case, here's the paragraph that moved me into the last 5,000 words to the NaNoWriMo goalpost.
Lying. More lying. It occurred to me that in all probability I'd just stumbled across the very plan that Ben himself was forming. “I've told her,” he would say, perhaps in a telephone call. “And I told her you didn't know who she was when I introduced you. So she thinks you have no idea. I thought it through last night and decided this would be the best way. It's obvious, really. Think about it: the key deception involved her not knowing it was you, and that's now out. You don't have to pretend you don't know her any more. You're free to explore each other however you want. That's all that really matters. There's no reason to own up to having known before today: that would satisfy only your conscience, Gerry; that would be about meeting your needs and not hers.” Yes. A white lie to the benefit of all, easily justifiable in the name of discovered happiness. In the months that followed, these three days would come to appear a tiny misdirection, he would reason. A minuscule absence of truth of negligible actual consequence. Your clothing is still downloading. Others can see you normally.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Long live text

Here's my November column for AVENUE magazine.

November marks the five year mark for me in Second Life®, although it wasn't as Huckleberry Hax that I first entered the metaverse.  That avatar – born, as it happens, as a work avoidance strategy to the task of writing a fifty thousand word novel in one month (National Novel Writing Month, or 'NaNoWriMo,' will be well in swing by the time you read this; either I'll be on the way to adding another hastily written book to my collection or exploring some other new virtual world) – is long ago retired.  Needless to say, the metaverse was a different place back in those days.  The thing you rezzed into broadly looked like a human being insofar as it had all the limbs in the right place, but that was about as far as the comparison was valid.  Clothes looked like they'd been spray-painted on by a novice graffiti artist (who was drunk).  Hair looked like discoloured modelling clay.  And so on.

Your clothing is still downloading... 75% update

Still two days ahead of schedule, 'Your Clothing is still downloading' passed last night the 75% completion mark of 37,500 words.  This year's NaNoWriMo attempt, I will now reveal, concerns an SL/RL love triangle.  Here is the section that put the novel into the final quarter of its writing.
The couple I was watching appeared to have said absolutely nothing to each other for the entire duration of my brief interchange with Sarah. The woman had her back to me. The guy seemed to be looking at some vague point over her right shoulder. Sarah's bra disappeared. She wrote about throwing it in my direction and, dutifully, I entered a few words in reply. What does one do with a bra thrown at you that's witty, intelligent and slightly insecure (but not in a sexually unattractive way)? I wondered. I wrote that I contemplated putting it on my head as makeshift neko ears then thought better of it because I thought nekos looked ridiculous. Somewhere in the world, Sarah's driver typed in a laugh and told me she was making a mental note never to put her tail on when I was nearby and in a tipping mood. The guy on the table I was watching said something that looked like it contained about seven words. The woman opposite him nodded.

Sunday 13 November 2011

Your clothing is still downloading... 50% update

Two days ahead of schedule, 'Your clothing is still downloading' passed the 50% mark of 25,000 words on its way to NaNoWriMo completion.  Here's the paragraph that took it across the halfway lime.
Did the internet, I asked myself, really expose hidden, but pre-existing identity? Or did it create brand new identity that would never have happened without it? Or was its ultimate function just to take whatever identity you'd managed to build and to tear it into tiny, unexaminable pieces? Was Benjamin Burton just an evolution of his younger self – the guy I'd met at university who'd once told me he regarded marital fidelity as one of the most important pillars to the meaning of life – or was that man no longer in existence, replaced by a new human being who only happened to share a few of his memories? It was hardly the case I disagreed that opinions should ever be revised; it was hardly the case I thought that before the internet no-one had ever come to change their mind about something – the psychological literature was replete with suggested explanations for that process long before the first email got sent. But the degree and the speed and the totality of the change was overwhelming. Were we built to absorb such change? Was it possible to sustain it indefinitely? Was there a limit to how far we could travel from ourselves before we looked back at the distant shore and realised we had no idea who we were any more?

Monday 7 November 2011

Your clothing is still downloading... 25% update

'Your Clothing is Still Downloading', my 4th SL novel and National Novel Writing Month attempt, passed the 25% wordage mark today.  Yes, I measure my progress by quantity.  Here's the passage that pushed me into the second quarter - coincidentally, the first to mention the novel's title.

I rezzed as a floating purple cloud. “Your clothing is still downloading,” the message box told me. “Others can still see you normally”. 'Normally' is such a vague term. If 'normally' means 'not as a cloud' then presumably that could include naked. Since, realistically, naked's what most people are likely to be worried about when they see a message telling them their clothes haven't yet arrived, you'd think Linden would be at pains to put their mind at rest on the issue if nakedness is definitely not occurring. “Your clothing is still downloading, but don't worry - others don't see you naked” would seem a much more appropriate statement. But no. The absence of non-nudity assurance strikes me as distinctly suspicious. It's like a question answered with the reply to a different question. “Your clothing is still downloading.” “Jesus Christ, am I naked?” “What? Oh don't worry, others can see you normally.” It's like a subtle form of misdirection. Whenever I read it, I get that back-of-the-mind feeling that someone's just tried to pickpocket me.

Sunday 6 November 2011

InWorldz Huck gets born

Just as Second Life was originally a distraction from my first ever NaNoWriMo, it seems Inworldz has become the distraction for this year's attempt.  InWorldz Huck is pleased to meet you...

UPDATE - 7 NOVEMBER

So it turns out you can transfer money from SL to InWorldz.  And that Redgrave have a skin store in InWorldz.  Thus ends my period of definitely-not-going-to-spend-any-money-on-my-avatar-this-timeness.  I knew it wouldn't be long.

One purchase later, and InHuck is looking pretty much identical to SLHuck.

Except for one detail... a freakishly pointy chin...

It's a measure-by-measure copy of my bespoke SL shape I'm wearing (by Scarlett Rhea of Harlot, incidentally), so I'm assuming this to be some sort of InWorldz quirk.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

NaNoWriMo 2011 kicks off

1 November sees the start of National Novel Writing Month 2011, the insane 30 day dash to write a 50,000 word novel.  My attempt this year will be my fourth Second Life novel and is called, "Your Clothing is Still Downloading".  Here is the opening paragraph:

I was sitting in Persky's with my sixth coffee of the day and the first two lines of an ad for a price comparison website scratched out across the back of a napkin, when Benjamin Fisher – aka Maximus Manchester – fell into the seat opposite me as though dropped through a trapdoor in the ceiling.  “I need you to log on as me tonight,” he said urgently.  “I can't talk now, I have a train to catch in five minutes.  Did you touch your coffee yet?  I've not drunk a thing since eight-thirty.”
That's all for now, folks.  If you fancy joining me in my writing quest, I'll be spending most of my time inworld this month in The Nancy Redgrave Building, my three year old building named last year in memory of the first person ever to read my first ever SL NaNo, AFK.  I've kitted out the building for the month to be a NaNo writers' hangout, which I have no doubt Nancy would have appreciated.  Here's the SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Varano/65/198/1000