NaNo pondering

[tephra]

Peter S. Beagle spoke at Anthrocon about how he did a set of stories based on the seasons, each story used the same characters and advanced one year and one season from the one before. I thought that was a very cool idea. So I tried to think of other things that came in "sets" like the seasons so that I could use them as a theme to link stories/chapters/scenes together that way.

One of my old art idea files had an entry about using the names of full moons for a set of drawings. So that's the set I've been poking at, thirteen named moons. Each section of my NaNo would be about four thousand words built around the name of a full moon, progressing in order.

After visiting Wikipedia for a list of full moon names, I tried picking out which names I wanted to use. That has turned out a bit harder than I had expected. I don't want to repeat names, and I prefer the names be somewhat poetic (Moon Before Yule is not making muster). At the moment I'm contemplating two names per moon for most of them, and I haven't decided which moon to start with nor what season to place the blue moon in. I have a loose idea of trying to make time pass in the story so that it takes a (lunar) year and a day.

As you can see, the idea is very vague.

So, anyone have some ideas to toss into the mix? Or a suggestion of something else that comes in a "set" that I could use rather than full moons? I considered astrological signs and think the Chinese would be easier to work with than the western but writing twelve animal themes might be a bit monotonous.

Comments

[joisbishmyoga.livejournal.com]

If you stick with moons, I'd think the start of your calendar would depend on your story's mood. Starting in March is a very different feeling from starting in October, or in December, after all.

If you wanted to do something longer than a year-and-a-day, there's always stretching it over the 19-year Metonic cycle, which is roughly analogous to a human generation. (It was moreso before the 20th century -- pre-20th generations are counted in 20-year groups, modern generations are counted in 25.)

Sticking with the moon theme, you could use the maria instead of the fulls for a set.

[tephra]

Ever notice how if you look at one page on Wiki you end up with about a dozen tabs open to different pages? Your suggestions left me with a lot to poke and play around with. Thank you. :)