Photo by Dave

So what, or rather, who is Tsukiyomi? I’ve named my blog after him and more than a few people visit this blog to learn more about him. I haven’t written about who he is before, even though I’ve wanted to, because he’s just so gosh darn difficult to encapsulate. Since there’s so little (in English) about him, you need to fill in the gaps a little.

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I’ve ignored my blog since NaNoWriMo started, and I’ve got words to show for it. 51,400 words by the end of Friday the 25th, in fact. I was thinking of writing a blog post each week on my experience, but that apparently never happened.

However, I did learn four things about novel-writing in general.

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NaNoWriMo starts Tuesday. This year, I’m starting with an actual outline. Not a complete outline, but something more than the usual basic concept. Before now, I never thought I was a pantser… but… This year will be different!

In addition to the outline and basic character sketches, I’ve been researching.

Ten random things I’ve learned about the Victorian era

1. Jane Austen never took afternoon tea. Not through personal distaste or social deviance, but because afternoon tea was invented in the Victorian Era.
2. Subsequently, Jane Austen did not live in the Victorian Era. She lived in the Georgian/Regency Period, and died twenty years before Queen Victoria took the throne.
3. Most houses in London had running water (pdf) by the end of the Victorian era.
4. Rooms for entertaining were on the second floor, not the main floor. So, as soon as guests entered, they would be led up to the stairs to a drawing room.
5. The higher the room in the house, the less likely it was to be richly decorated (even bedrooms of nobles!). Rooms higher in the house were less likely to be seen by visitors, so the family did not need to spend the money to impress. Female servants generally lived in the attic.
6. Bedrooms were small, since Victorians spent most of their time in other places.
7. The Victorians had a lot of sexual slang. The idea was to keep it as vague as possible so that only people in the know would know what a person meant. This would avoid embarassment when talking to an actually proper woman.
8. Musical chairs and charades came from the Victorian era.
9. Women, after debuting at 17, used their fans to code  messages, like “come hither” or “stop approaching.”
10. Gentleman should learn self-defense, usually by way of a fencing school. Sword canes were ill-advised as a weapon, since young men would more likely draw it in hot-headed quarrels rather than to defend themselves against ruffians. Blackthorn cane (real, not the imitation that most city shops tried to sell) was better suited.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts in two weeks. This month is the highlight of my writing year, or also known as the month I actually do some writing (this year, of course, I’ve been writing all the way through).

Every year I’ve entered NaNoWriMo, I’ve won it. It continually surprises me, but when I flex my will power, I usually achieve my goal. This year, though, I don’t want to just win it. That’s not really achieving anything anymore. This year, I want to push myself further.

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Title: Soul Sister

Genre: Steam Punk Urban Fantasy (Based on Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series)

Word Count: 1129 Words

Summary: Well, what is a vampire stranded in America supposed to do, to court a beautiful young lady who would rather compete in roller derby than be courted? Based on Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate cosmology, but using my own characters and taking place in contemporary times.

Photo by heanster

“You’re crazy.”

“Hmm?”

“I never understood why vampires assume roves are crazy. They never seemed crazier to me than the hive vampires. But now I know why.”

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