This is not meant to the final story overview. At this point, I have a vague sense of what the story is. I’m trying to sketch out some ideas. It’s my stream of consciousness at this point in time.

I’ve been playing with a couple of titles for the novel. I have 3possible titles, "Life on the Run", "Running out of Lifetimes" and "Manon the Run". All 3 appeal to me and all 3 do a somewhat decent job ofhinting what the superficial and deeper story is about.

We begin with the prologue. It introduces us to the main character,Matthew. It is early in the morning and the alarm clock is ringing.Matthew wakes up and begins his preparation for the day. He is going torun a marathon in the next couple of hours. He mulls around hisapartment getting ready for the event (eating breakfast, psychinghimself up). We also get a sense of the life that Matthew has led. It’sa fairly successful life but we sense a tinge of regret in Matthew(hence the regretful protagonist). One of things I also need toestablish is why Matthew has decided to do a marathon.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of having Marco (an oldfriend) dying in a tragic accident. In all likelihood, I’m not going todo this. Marco and Matthew used to be the best of friends but have asomewhat estranged friendship now. This estrangement is mostlyperceived by Matthew. Marco still cares for his friend deeply.

At some point, I’ll take the reader back to the point of greatestregrets in Matthew’s life. The greatest regret of Matthew is hisfailure in a sporting event from his late youth. I’m not sure where Ishould introduce this. It’s sort of critical to the plot. It’s key tothe plot because Matthew cannot find his redemption and move on untilhe accepts the past and let it go.

Another of Matthew’s regrets is his inability to tell Marianne hisfeelings. Marianne is Marco’s younger sister. She is also Matthew’slove interest. Another factor in his perceived estranged friendshipwith Marco.

The marathon serves as a metaphor for Matthew’s life. I’m not sure how large parts of the marathon are going to get written yet.

One idea is that Matthew has lost the ability to finish things.Along the marathon, Matthew meets external and internal mentors to helphim face up to his regrets and help him regain his ability to finish.One internal mentor could be his younger self. Other internal mentorscould include fear, uncertainty and doubt. The marathon ends by Matthewconquering his regrets and finish the race. At the finish line, we seeMatthew reunited with Marco and Marianne. Matthew comes to terms withhis regret and is ready to move on with  life.

In the epilogue, we get complete resolution of the story. Perhapswhere he first had to deal with his regrets or a place symbolic of it.But rather than being a place of despair, it is now a place of triumph.We see him, Marianne and Marco together. The story ends.

Some friends pulled me into a fantasy basketball league last year. In my rookie season, I placed second in my league. I attribute that success to pure dumb luck. There is an element of skill involved but pure dumb luck can be an equal factor in success.

I had some good fantasy players on my team last year. My  1st pick, DWade, carried my team for most of the year and my 2nd pick, Y Ming,helped my team surge to the top during the second half of the season.The rest of my team was fairly unbalanced. I’ve been told that’s wherefantasy success lies. Everybody picks studs during the first 2 - 4rounds. It’s the middle rounds where a season can be won or lost. Theproblem with the Rabbit’s last year was an early season deficiency inrebounds and steals (we were playing a fairly standard yahoo rotisserieleague). A midseason trade for D Howard and R Artest proved to semidisaster with Artest being on the bench for large parts of the season.D Howard helped in rebounds but caused other categories to startdropping e.g. FT%. With the return of Y Ming from injury and himplaying the best basketball of his career helped propel the Rabbits towithin striking distance of  the championship.

This year the Rabbits have re-drafted a new team. I have one seasonunder my belt but that won’t necessarily translate to same amount ofsuccess (remember the blurb about pure dumb luck!)

The care I took with who I drafted this year had some thoughtfulanalysis put into it. In fantasy sports, thoughtful analysis can beyour own worst enemy. My strategy was to put together a team withplayers that I liked and had decent fantasy value. Enough of thisrhetorical thinking, time to dissect my draft results.

My starting five will look somewhat like this:
PF   Nowitzki
SF   R Jefferson
C    Diaw
SG  G Wallace
PG  Nash

After not watching basketball for a couple of years and starting upagain last year (because of fantasy basketball), the 3 players I reallyliked and hoped to draft this year was Nowitzki, Nash and Diaw. Ididn’t like them in that order but that was how they fell to me in mydraft. After the draft, I felt I might have taken Diaw a round earlybut I don’t think he would have been available in the 4th round. Ishould have balanced that thinking out with who was still available…TMac, Carter, AK47 and D Howard. This is definitely a pick I hope Idon’t regret. On the other hand, Diaw is center eligible. Howard mightget center eligibility but I didn’t want his FT% tanking my team thoughhis FG%, rebounds and blocks sure are nice. We’ll see how it turns out.

I was happy with G Wallace in the 4th and got lucky with R Jefferson beingavailable in the sixth round. That’s my starting five. Other players onmy team: Boozer, Iguodala, Bell, TJ Ford, T Murphy, D Gooden, Krstic,Delonte West, R Gay and Korver.

On first impression, my team might come up a little short on points andblocks during the season. I don’t think we’ll do badly but that looksto be my weakest categories statistically. I think we’ll be strong inFG%, 3ptm, assists, steals and assist to turnover ratio and we’llcompete fairly well in rebounds.

I think the sleepers for my team are going to be Diaw, Wallace andIguodala. Diaw emerged last season and seems to have great chemistrywith Nash. I hope with Amare back that doesn’t cut too deeply intoDiaw’s development. Having Diaw is also sort of an insurance policy forNash, I envision him being the secondary playmaker for the Suns if Nashis injured (knock on wood) or resting. Wallace might have a breakout yearif he doesn’t get injured (knock on wood). Iguodala might also have abreakout year depending on how well Webber plays.

Anyway there you have it, the Killer Rabbits Deux!

NaNoWriMo starts in about 10 days. It’s about time I started warming up for it. I’m putting in a little more preparation time this year. Not that much preparation is needed but I want to do it a little differently this year.

For this warm up, I want to reflect on the story, "Conflict OverAgamemnon", I wrote last year. I’ve always wanted to come back andwrite up my thoughts on it but I’ve never found the time. This is asgood a time as any.

David was the main character from last year. David is the classicreluctant hero. He has a dark past and is tortured by the misdeeds hehas performed. His apprehension towards the current conflict is drivenby it. He was (and still is skill-wise) a very efficient assassin. Theconflict gives him to opportunity to once again apply his deadly skillsbut ….. in the intervening years David has started to develop aconscience. The untold back story has David raised from a young age tobe the ultimate killing machine. However with the world at peace, he isquietly reassigned to a location where his deadly skills would not beneeded. During this time, like any intelligent person he has startedquestioning what he done. When the conflict starts, his training kicksin and his instinct starts taking over. David emerges victorious at theend when he overcomes this training (his script as Victor Frankl wouldsay) at the end and does opposite to what he has been trained to do.When he does that, the cycle of conflict that exists within him isbroken and his true self is able to emerge.

For some unknown reason, the reluctant hero archetype appealsgreatly to me. Why? I don’t know for sure. Maybe it has something to dowith the reluctant hero having to make the difficult choices to dosomething rather than nothing. It’s the Edmund Burke quote "Eviltriumphs when good men do nothing " rewritten as a novel.

The main character for this year will have elements of the reluctanthero but won’t be one. For this year ‘m going with a close relative,the regretful protagonist.

This was a good day.

After having a blog for the last couple of years, I have finally started using the category feature.

Yeah I know it’s lame!