Thank you
Just a newbie question: it doesn’t state it in my brief but what if the characters (or some of them) do not survive by the end of a chapter or turn out to be some alien cannibal frogs (thanks for that image, by the way, it won’t leave my head now) - is it overstepping too much?
Unless I’m dreaming, which, truth to tell, is quite possible, Mr. P. Fender has changed his avatar.
Why?
And how have so many finished already?
And why is it comptroller not controller?
And…
You can kill, maim, or send off to university any character you’ve invented (invent as many as you like!), but if they were provided in your brief, they’ll likely be needed in later chapters, so should only die / lose a limb if the chapter brief says so!
They should only be revealed actually to be alien cannibal frogs in skin covered robot exoskeletons if the frogs are happy to spend the rest of the novel back in disguise as normal humans.
(starting to wonder what I put in all the briefing packs now)
(or more to the point, what’s in this tea)
There are a bunch of first time participants so I’ve changed my avatar – JUST FOR TODAY – to make it easier to associate responses on here which are from “the dude what sent the packs out”, especially now that they come from a niad rather than a pigfender email account.
Well the first ones were in very early, but actually I’d say we’re a little behind versus normal.
They’re similar jobs, but a comptroller is typically working in a public sector setting, looking after taxpayer interests (as opposed to shareholders, etc).
I don’t know. That’s not a lot to go on to formulate an exact answer. I’ll take a guess and say… “sixteen”.
Got my brief at midnight… sleepily read the ‘brief’ and got VERY excited as the brief was literally read like an idea I had already planned out!!!
Then spotted the 'this brief is an example of Keith Blount’s brief in the 2012 NiaD “Lunar520" 
Must read that one afterwards to make sure i’ve not duplicated his idea!!! doh!!!
Then I went to sleep, and got in a few hours before waking up and starting… !!!
So far it’s going well… may not be later on!!!
Good luck everyone!!!
Wow – close one! Actually, I really enjoyed Lunar520. I might go back and re-read that one next week! 
Hmmm
I didn’t think I was a robot. But that box is damn hard to click.
Done. Can confirm my JD was only partially helpful, as I got it 21 years after the setting of this novel.
You got 2020 tea. It’s a weird, unpalatable and confusing blend; half-bodied, but the wrong half.
haha!
Can I ask about political allegiance of Mr. Cole? Could the Mayor have switched to Republicans?
OK finished at 11:30pm in Australia. I hope I haven’t subverted the story too much by promoting Tom Bennett to eminence grise.
Note to Rog. Can we give US politics a rest for a while? I’m really sick of having to cut Trump out of my first draft. Next time, how about setting it in Romania, or Tibet, or why not Australia?
In an effort to explain my very early completion of NiaD X I need to tell a short story.
Back in the early days, when Piggy was a wee lad, when NiaD badges were a single mug of pens, a certain pair of miscreants huddled in a dark corner and whispered about how much fun it would be to do a NiaD someday. One of the miscreants and his multiple personalities wasn’t confident in his skills, the other, and his multiple personalities, was not confident in his ability to endure the trials of NiaD. They hatched a plot; one would sign up for NiaD and they would work it together. They would share ideas and the entered one would draft a story. They had fun and in the months before and after would chuckle over their NaiD.
It wasn’t long until one of them was no longer able to play an active role. The draft was shared. The writer aways put the silent partner in a cameo in an effort to keep the game alive. The writing was no longer about NiaD but about making his former partner in crime smile. A short email acknowledging an inside joke or suggesting a tiny change or even “this one is the best one yet” was the only point of NiaD. The effort wasn’t about reliving memories or paying a debt. There was only the acknowledging of a friendship that spanned an ocean, decades difference in ages, and entirely opposites views on the universe.
In NaiD 9.5 Victor Kite was very quiet. I wrote as I always have hoping to make him laugh. He told me at the beginning that he was not well. He hadn’t been well for a number of years, but like everyone who is faced with uncertainty, I assumed he would be fine. Then it happened. I was suddenly alone.
Vic had been my sounding board for writing and life. He helped me deal with a number of personal concerns just like a wise old uncle. Forgetting the timezone problem, I called him one evening. It wasn’t until the end of the call that he chuckled and said “you should have a clock set to London time. Although I am seeing the sun come up…” For my son’s 14 birthday, we went to Manchester for a week. Vic arranged trips to London, Conwy Castle, and Blackpool. He planned a birthday for Joshua (my boy) and a special trip to the theater. For no other reason than “I can”. Ange (his wife) later told me “it has been years since he has been that active, I miss that part of Vic.” Vic had been sick for years at that point.
Earlier in this thread, Nom said “this one is for vic-k!” It was hard to write this year. My heart was not in the story knowing that the +3 has not not only faded form the forum, but from life itself. For me every NiaD has been for Victor Kite. This one is my goodbye to him.
Goodbye my friend. You will be forever present in my memories, in my heart, and in my writing.
quick message from new Matt (never trust the newbies- we’ll leave holes all over the best books and plans). Second draft review done. Coffee, shower, then will have it to you after the third.
Thanks so much for this opportunity.
It’s been muchly much fun.
Just produced an audio file running my writing through a text-to-speech app, and revelling in the sonic experience.
Managed to find a way to minimise legalese and maximise literary pleasure.
I am sure he is still with us in spirit and with you.
Thank you for reminding me…
Yes and no. There was no web-based internet, but there was the internet - the technology behind the World Wide Web. There was no graphic anything - it was all text-based. Email existed, but none of this send it and they have it there immediately. No, It was designed to allow communications and information to move even in case of nuclear disaster so there was a lot of ways an email could be routed around - I remember in 89 my boss being upset because I sent him an email and it took 3 hours to get to him. (and some emails came quickly.)
From Wikipedia: (comp sci developments by year)
1988
November 2 – The Morris worm is unleashed on the Internet.
November 17 – The Netherlands becomes the second country to get connected to the Internet.[citation needed]
The first version of the Photoshop graphics software, devised by Thomas Knoll, ships with Barneyscan image scanners.
The NeXT computer is released.
1989
March 12 - Tim Berners-Lee submits a memorandum, titled “Information Management: A Proposal”, to the management at CERN for a system that would eventually become the World Wide Web.
June 8 – GNU Bash is released.[4]
July 26 – A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer virus, making him the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the United States.
1990
February – Adobe Photoshop 1.0 graphics software, devised by Thomas Knoll, is released.
May 22 - Windows 3.0 is shipped by Microsoft
November 12 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a more formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
November 13 – The first known web page is written.
Approx. November 22 – Satoshi Tajiri begins creating the first Pokémon game.
Prior to 1991 there was
Email
FTP (File Transport Protocol)
Usenet
BBS
IRC
Here are some references if you need them or like to waste time geeking out on tech history…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_file_sharing
https://www.zdnet.com/article/before-the-web-the-internet-in-1991/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computing_1980–1989
So, it was not the graphic driven highspeed source of information - it was more like a two lane dirt road with a lazy flowing creek along side… but there were always trolls.
Well, I’ve just sent mine in. Vic would probably immediately recognise it as mine—he always called me “young-un” or some such, even though I wasn’t that much younger than him—as he’d immediately recognise the accent and the not-terribly-novel-like language!
Good luck to those that are still at it!
Mr X