NaNo Musings
(1) A high-fantasy novel in a hollow world consisting of nine concentric orbs, each ruled by a corypheus: the Maiden, the Avenger, the Sage, the Warmonger, the Trickster, the Guardian, the Lovers, the Undertaker, and the Artisan. The coryphei are members of the ruling race, the avatarchs, who dwell in the center of the world and ignore the human slave-race that lives on the rings. Our Hero is a justicar, a condemned criminal whose punishment has been to be mentally linked to one of the coryphei — who can take the justicar over at any time — and travel the orbs acting as judge, jury, and executioner. His quest is (maybe) to help a seraphim whose wings have been bitten off and used to decorate the throne room of the member of the ruling race, and he is being aided/frustrated by a young man who seeks to become his eromenos. I don’t have a clear idea of plot yet, but the idea has been slowly evolving over a couple of years. I’d want to spend a lot of time pre-plotting it out if I went with this one.
(2) An expansion of my “Dead Horse” story, which is already an unsellable 10K words long. It’s the one about my Cislunar Royal Navy ship’s sorceror, who ends up forging an alliance with the transient that has, apparently, served the Cappadocian branch of his family for generations as a sort of familiar before they were all wiped off/driven from the island by their fellow islanders in revenge for their evil ways. I don’t honestly know if I can add another 50K to it, though. First, I’d need to figure out where to go with the plot after the alliance is forged, which is where I’d stopped the story. Something naval involving pirates, I suppose. And second, I’m trying hard to write it in a kind of Patrick O’Brian/C. S. Forester style, which is not easy. I’ve done an insane amount of research just trying to find out simple things, like where officers piss and the name of objects like, say, the mizzen-top. However, I know the setting and characters pretty well now, so other than figuring out where the next 50K of story would go and surrounding myself with Age of Sail reference works, this wouldn’t be too hard to move forward.
(3) An expansion of a story I’ve been working on but haven’t been able to complete, “Ruined,” which is a Regency-flavored romantic fantasy revolving around a noblewoman who offers to sell herself to a debauched nobleman from a neighboring country in order to save her family from debt — to be “ruined” — only to discover after he accepts her offer that he’s not at all what he seems; his real “ruination” of her is to turn her into a crusader against social injustice. Of course he has a Big Secret and of course she’d end up tempering his drive for justice with a sense of mercy, etc. 
I’d tried to write it as a short story and failed; too much to cover to do it right.
Heh, probably I’ll end up writing something completely different. But, anyway, that’s where my head’s at right now. Votes/comments/suggestions welcome! 
drupagliassotti @ September 20, 2007