NaNoWriMo Year 4 Win

And I thought I was delusional to think that I could write 50,000 words this past month with work, a new baby and little sleep. Once again, my goal-oriented self won out. I'm happy to report that I've won my 4th NaNoWriMo (I skipped last year's).

This year, I decided to write science fiction, a cousin to my usual genre, fantasy. I had no plot and only the vaguest sketch of characters. While I wrote 50,000 words (actually 57,656) I didn't finish my story. I did end up with an outline of scenes to sketch my way to the end of the story so I guess I can finish it up later. This was the first year that I started with no plan - 'pantsing' as it's termed on the NaNoWriMo forums, short for 'writing by the seat of one's pants.' It was a little intimidating and I think it made for a more roundabout first draft than my pre-planned ones. I also think I didn't manage to flesh out much more than caricatures out of my characters. If I did go back and edit, I'd like to know more about who they are and what the heck they think they're doing in my story. I also spent a lot of time having my characters expound on the technology of the story as I tried to figure it out for myself. I'm not sure I was that consistent and there were plenty of spots that I had to sort of hand-wave or else it would bog me down. Still, the story evolved as it went on, but there were size-able stretches where I plunked down words while I tried to figure out what happens next which makes for boring reading. On the flip side, I think I did a better job of switching between different points of view within the story without rehashing what happened in between scenes to the umpteenth degree. Refreshing. At any rate, here's my synopsis. Read more to get a very short excerpt. I'm still trying to think of a title for it.

Synopsis:
When the leading MMO game company hired neuroscientists, the world was thrilled to welcome the ability to control their games and computers with thoughts. But the picture behind the scenes tell a more sinister tale. Brilliant scientist Penelope Redding inadvertently opened the door to TsunamiCorp.’s new tech but she scrambles to undo its darker ramifications when people start disappearing, trapped in the machines they play. Will she be able to destroy TsunamiCorp’s secret labs before it's too late or will she become a victim of her own breakthrough research?


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Penelope was still poring over the data on the screen, "If they did it the way I would have, the only thing the consciousness that transfers would have is the knowledge that their body is breathing, their heart is beating, all of the autonomous stuff. You don't actually need to transfer the signals that actually carry out those processes. They wouldn't actually be controlling anything so they might mess up actual systems in the new consciousness housing but the consciousness would need to 'know' that these things are happening or else it would believe itself dead and actually die. The readings here have the correct profiles that would match that behavior."
"So the body left behind would retain enough autonomous function to keep the flesh alive?" Gabriel completed.
"Yes. If they did it right. That way you can reverse the process and download the consciousness back."
"Seems like there would be some loss somewhere. Epsilon radiation isn't the most precise of technologies," Gabriel said.
"Upload is theoretically easier than downloading. Thanks to Sally, we can communicate with the brain matter and impose new pathways, but the download after an upload of a consciousness isn't making any new pathways, just turning them on again."
"Sounds like that would be easier?"
"My theory is that epsilon radiation is far less efficient at that than creating new pathways. It's a more nuanced communication that I've just started to contemplate. There's no way they have that sort of nuance perfected."
Gabriel waved his hand around the bank of equipment, "They have a little more resources available to them than you do. Maybe they might have gotten ahead of you?"
"Obviously they have gotten ahead of me," Penelope said as a look of irritation crossed her face. She adjusted her glasses. "My point is that they can't have done it right. That level of nuance can't be done methodically. It's not a linear calculation that you can just canvas over. You tend to miss things. When has the human brain looked like a nice, neat grid you can methodically march through?"
"I don’t often get a look at the human brain, but the few times I have it looked pretty organically laid out."
"Exactly,” Penelope scratched her temple. "Somehow, they did upload a consciousness though. And it wasn’t an accident. This most recent pass was their most successful, but this isn't the first time they tried." She stabbed a finger at the display. "See these other files? Similar profile but they get simpler the farther back in time they go. It's trying to do the same thing. They just keep forgetting some bit of information that's key to a functioning consciousness."
"Do you mean to tell me that they've killed as many people as they've tried?"
Penelope’s lips narrowed to a line, "Not dead exactly, but comatose. Vegetables. Unless they perfect their download process, they'll stay that way."