Do the Banks or the Stock Market Go First?

Banks, apparently, though it might do me well to brush up on the 1929 crash and subsequent depression.

Washington Mutual becomes biggest bank to fail in US history.

Is it too early to run around screaming, "the Great Depression, v. 2.0?" Or too early to start running around screaming at all? Appropriate times for running around like a beheaded chicken and shrieking "bloody murder" aside, this is history in the making. My. We live in interesting times indeed.

I feel a strange urge to write a high fantasy story set in post-apocalyptic America: the economy of 21st century United States has collapsed, and people are papering their walls in hundred dollar bills. The idea is hideously under-formed: I'm imagining a return to the fashions of the '20s - contrasting the modern technology no one can no longer use - cities abandoned and closing in on themselves, communities growing up around the ruined townhouses people have taken for themselves and turned into dwellings that resemble the Hooverville. The heroine and her parents wander America in a Mercedes Benz that runs on corn oil (courtesy of the mad genius mechanic kid that lived in the house beside theirs, before they had to flee in the middle of the night to avoid a messy eviction) until some misfortune obliges them to sojourn with a community of odd and eccentric individuals (of course, x3 Conventions of fantasy, no?). And because the atmosphere of gothic horror has become a fixation of mine, gothic horror, in all it burlesqued glory, shall make its appearance, =D

Maybe I'll write that as my NaNoWriMo practice, just as Beautiful Agora was practice for my 2006 NaNo. It would give me a reason to pay closer attention to current events - and stop mangling my poor NaNo idea with overcomplicated ideas, x3

Quick Update the First: Trip to Germany didn't go through. Perhaps next year.
Quick Update the Second: I want to slap Eragon. So. Very. Much. I'd slap him a second time for good measure. A third time, just to make sure. And then a fourth, because backhanding fictional characters is good for the soul.

Feelin' Good

A librarian asked me how I was doing a minute ago. I was tempted to say, "Brisingr is out and I've just managed to snag a copy against the odds (80+ people reserving the book at the library, the fact one or two are no doubt lost already - you know. The usual). The NaNoWriMo forums are shut down for the remainder of September, and will open with the dawn of October - that month of mad, midnight novelling is nearly upon us, and I have my novel idea. I am doing so well that the feeling defies this language."

But I just say, "Oh, good!"

So yes. NaNoWriMo is right around the corner and I'm wild to start writing (until then, I plan to research my subject matter until I'm blind - inconvenient, as eyesight is no doubt useful when one is novelling, but a necessity for the greater cause! ::sparta::) My idea is at best fluid, like water in a jar - its skeleton is basic and its inner parts are unformed - but I know, from the horror that was last year, that fluid is a thousand times better than rigid - I about died during NaNo'07, trying to work with a story that had been shaped months earlier and choked off any spontaniaety as a whaleborn corset chokes its mistress (O.o). And besides, 08's NaNo is going to get a good deal of its energy from dares off the NaNo forums.

My goodness, I cannot wait! 8D

As to my second fix, Brisingr - I'm delighted it's in. I was hoping to read the book first, but I received my audio copy just now, and I might as well listen to it while the book makes its way through that 80+ fan crowd into my hands. Good times are ahead, x3

I hope there's more Murtagh than Eldest gave us. There had better be, ;_;