COMPLETE: The LibriVox NaNoWriMo Novel

Post by **ezwa** » November 2nd, 2006, 10:32 am

Can't wait for the next one!

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » November 2nd, 2006, 12:24 pm

It occurs to me that this would be an interesting way to run a normal collaborative project. Pick a little-known but interesting PD novel, get one reader per day, and podcast the whole thing, one section each day.

a.r.dobbs · Post by **a.r.dobbs** » November 2nd, 2006, 12:41 pm

Oh! That's a VC (very cool) idea, Gesine!

meanwhile...
Hey folks, particularly writers,
here's more food for thought... from the wiki page
http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/nanowrimo2006chapteroutlines#preview

Rough outline of the plot so far:

Chapters 01 to 02 -- (I'll expand this later. -Anita)
[Note: chapters may be written in third person narrative or told in first-person from any character's point of view. Chapter 1 is told in Trevor's voice; chapter 2 will be in his sister's voice.]

It rained. . . . Uncle Geoffrey Aimes, mysterious world traveler, leaves inheritance to nephew, Trevor Aimes (named after his world-traveling grandfather [1]): Trevor can fly for free anywhere, anytime, on ConWorld Airlines [2] -- as arranged for by the uncle before his death [3].
. . . . . At the funeral, ConWorld executive, Gerhardt Grayson, delivers the uncle's letter, which explains that Uncle Geoffrey wanted the young Trevor to become like his namesake [4] (who had traveled the world over), with the ominous statement: "I have had to take certain steps to make that happen." [5] To Trevor, the strange inheritance is moot, because he hates flying. His sister (name?) laughs when she hears of it.
. . . . . Trevor dives into an online forum, LibriVox, when he returns home from the rainy-day funeral; he exhibits symptoms of forum addiction. LibriVox appears to be about public domain audiobooks, and Trevor is intrigued by a new solo project called The Mystery.

[1] But...to twist it...it's his mother's father, Trevor Myssous (pronounced "misses"), not his father's father, G.T. Aimes. So why is Geoffrey Aimes so proud of Trevor Myssous? And what is the connection between Trevor's two grandfathers and Geoffrey? [4]

[2] Why ConWorld and not another airline? What does Con stand for? And why exactly does the ConWorld executive authorize this lifetime of free flights? We'll swallow the rationale that Trevor's Uncle Geoffrey made a big donation (we're gullible). And where does this airline fly to, anyway? Did (Grandfather) Trevor Myssous fly on ConWorld or ... on a competitor?

[3] Geoffrey wrote: "As you might already know, I am dead." Did Geoffrey really write this letter? Isn't that pretty peculiar sentence structure for an eccentric scholar? Will Trevor or his sister be able to compare this to other samples of Geoffrey's writing? If Geoffrey wasn't the author, then who ... and why?

[4] Yeah, whatever became of good old Trevor Myssous, anyway?

[5] Let us assume that "certain steps" involves more than free flights. Ahem.

I'm also suggesting an alternative title, although The Traveling Man is beautifully set up in something Trevor's sister says:
"...you're not exactly the traveling man, are you?"

I love the co-protagonist idea we'd had before (brother-sister), and I think we keep options wide open with something like
The Traveling Mystery

We've got a month to think about it, eh?

raezel · Post by **raezel** » November 2nd, 2006, 12:48 pm

Wow Anita, you are really feveloping this into a wery interesting story. I'm really looking forward to reading/hearing you chapter.

As far as I'm conserned, the title can be changed to whatever fits the story better.

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » November 2nd, 2006, 1:01 pm

Anita's on a roll... :)

Yes, let's consider it a working title. We could just go with The Mystery

Bit of LV NaNoWriMo trivia: The first ten chapters claimed are boy girl boy girl!

raezel · Post by **raezel** » November 2nd, 2006, 1:43 pm

Here's the recording of the first chapter. http://phoebe.mediamaa.com/~raezel/nanowrimo2006_01_jf.mp3

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » November 2nd, 2006, 1:46 pm

raezel wrote:Here's the recording of the first chapter. http://phoebe.mediamaa.com/~raezel/nanowrimo2006_01_jf.mp3

Super! I'm on it =)

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » November 2nd, 2006, 1:47 pm

Thanks, raezel. Has this been proof-listened yet?

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » November 2nd, 2006, 1:48 pm

Ah. Cross-posted with thistle. Thanks.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » November 2nd, 2006, 2:35 pm

Perfect recording! Love it!

Gesine, do we have an archive.org project page for this yet? Since I have a local copy, I could upload it from here... let me know if you'd like me to handle that =)

Also, I have a couple of minor editing notes/suggestions as follows (these don't effect the recording... just the text):

exiting -- find and replace with exciting
"It read The Mystery..." -- add italics or underline to title throughout and add colon in this sentence ("It read: The Mystery...")
"...The Mystery of the Lake, or The Mystery at the Vicarage, but no, this was just The Mystery..." -- add italics or underline to the titles
Gutenberg -- change to Project Gutenberg throughout for clarification (so as not to be confused with the person).
"I proceeded to check the status of the projects I was involved in." -- change syntax to: "...projects in which I was involved."
“Oh hi, Trevor,...” -- start new paragraph

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » November 2nd, 2006, 3:04 pm

Hi thistle - I'll PM you about the upload, thanks. Will look into these edits, too.

jimmowatt · Post by **jimmowatt** » November 2nd, 2006, 4:19 pm

The xml file has been updated so feel free to update your podcatchers.
The link, for any new subscribers, is
http://librivoxpodcast.googlepages.com/nanowrimo_podcast.xml

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » November 2nd, 2006, 4:50 pm

thistlechick wrote: Also, I have a couple of minor editing notes/suggestions as follows (these don't effect the recording... just the text):
exiting -- find and replace with exciting

"It read The Mystery..." -- add italics or underline to title throughout and add colon in this sentence ("It read: The Mystery...")

"...The Mystery of the Lake, or The Mystery at the Vicarage, but no, this was just The Mystery..." -- add italics or underline to the titles

Gutenberg -- change to Project Gutenberg throughout for clarification (so as not to be confused with the person).

"I proceeded to check the status of the projects I was involved in." -- change syntax to: "...projects in which I was involved."

“Oh hi, Trevor,...” -- start new paragraph

Changed 1., 2. (without colon), 3., 4. (first mention), 6.
5. should be left IMO - it's the first person narrator's way of speaking, and people rarely speak in a grammatically correct way :)

Juho, hope that's all right. Feel free to change back/make other changes.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » November 2nd, 2006, 5:05 pm

Gesine wrote: 5. should be left IMO - it's the first person narrator's way of speaking, and people rarely speak in a grammatically correct way

Ah, yes... good point =)

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » November 2nd, 2006, 5:43 pm

I'm loving this and getting into the swing.
Thank you everyone for making this easier and easier...

I still think it's too soon to fix the novel's title.