NaNoWriMo2016: Week 3 Recap!

 

Summary: Holy buckets! I will be honest with you, I almost didn’t make it. Week 3 had a rough start of it—I hit so many of the difficult transitions all at once, PLUS work kind of ramped up on me, since we’re leading into the Thanksgiving holiday, coming up here soon. But, by jingo, I made it! I survived—and I AM STILL AHEAD!! For The Win, I’m not even kidding!

Tuesday: Grrr—Blah! Busy day, only about 500 words written, which is the smallest amount I’ve had all month! But, let me tell you, that 2-day lead is STILL in effect, and I’ve STILL got a bunch of time to make up for these rough days, and stay ahead so that I can STILL finish early! Today on the “Conflict Radar” is not only the difficulty between Ben and the Amazon Neyri—building up to when she reveals about the Japanese soldiers trapped in the space with them—but also earlier in the story, where I need to finally paint the picture of the brewing split between Ben and his dad—due to fictional schedules and timelines being what they are, I need to find some way to keep the characters from absolutely taking off at each others throats until the NEXT day, when reality surfaces—but how to take a phrase like “they avoid each other” and actually write it out so that the characters DO seem like they are passively (or actively) avoiding each other—how to do this? I mean, there are only so many places they can go. I do have an idea of how to make it work—now I just need to keep myself motivated enough to write it!

Wednesday: YESS. Successfully achieved tomorrow’s word par, so now all that remains is staying ONE day ahead, until the Write-in on Saturday, when I can really let loose and do my best to have a fantastic “make-up” day like I did last Saturday. Still gunning for being able to FINISH NaNoWriMo in the 5-day break I have around Thanksgiving! (Which will likely be more of manically writing on alternating days over that whole time, since I know for sure Thursday and Saturday I will very likely not have ANY time to write!)

Thursday: Still a day ahead! I made it to 30 thousand words by the skin of my teeth, let me tell you. I just feel like I need to get these chapters 4-7 DONE so that I can just move to the furthest point I’ve written and just continue on from there. The skipping around really worked back when I had a BUNCH of words to make up, but anymore it’s just making more tedious work, since I’m finding more and more places where references to previous events would really develop the characters in the conversation—but they are events and conversations they haven’t had yet, because I haven’t reached that point in the earlier chapters. Good grief! These characters are ending up wonderfully unique and very distinct, though, which helps a LOT in crafting a scenario with multiple perspectives. Ben is really inquisitive, but also obsessed with reconnecting with the rest of his group, Edith doesn’t entirely trust Justin, but at this point he’s the only familiar thing she has, so she’s kind of showing her “weaker” side by clinging to him more and constantly second-guessing herself. As for the parents, Hank is more interested in the wealth of exploration this (apparently) deserted corner of the world affords, while Frank is just mad that he’s so dependent on his two “inferior” friends, and Janet is just more irritated, the longer they wander. Of course, it won't be long now till the moment at which they won't have to wander--because the Amazons will take them captive and force them to march to whatever kind of area they use to keep prisoners in. (I still have to decide what it will be... On the one hand, a cage is always highly useful, and rather public so they might not like that very much; on the other hand, I'm also picturing kind of a deep pit... but how to get Frank and his wounded leg into a pit...)

Friday: Tee-hee… So this was not a very “productive” day, per se—but I was already a day ahead so in my opinion, any amount of progress I made on this day would still be contributing just as much to finishing early as ever. I reminded myself that the more I wrote today, the less I would have to write to get MASSIVELY ahead on Saturday! I’d planned on getting all my chores and stuff done in the morning, or at least soon enough that I would be able to actually arrive earlier than 2 o’clock, so that would give me plenty of time to just write for at least a minimum of two hours. My goal is to have chapters 4 through 7 DONE by the end of Saturday. As long as I can manage that, I’ll be good for the rest of the book. Here goes nothing! I am so excited to be so close to finishing!

Saturday: HALLELUJAH. I had seriously the BEST day of writing I’ve ever had this WHOLE month! THREE THOUSAND WORDS just in this day ALONE! I finally finished that bothersome Chapter 4, and while the middle got a little muddled, as far as finally getting Justin, Ben, and Edie all together while sending their parents off in separate directions, it all culminated in that one shell-shocking scene where Janet discovers exactly why Justin looks so familiar… PLUS in the later series of chapters, most notably Chapter 10, which was originally devoted to Ben being revived by Neyri and she would be very forthcoming about the Japanese platoon that is trapped along with the mermaids… You know, I tried stretching that scene out as long as I could, I tried coaching Ben with obvious leading lines and pressing questions, but Neyri didn’t bite. So then there was that part that was originally on Chapter 9, where my notes just said “adults are captured by another tribe”… but the way that chapter turned out, Edie and Justin kind of took up the whole word count with their own issues and whatnot, so I couldn’t exactly transition as well as I expected to… BUT turns out it fit so much better at the end of chapter 10 because Ben kept mentioning and wondering about the parents anyhow, so to then transition to focus on them after that whole thing made a lot more sense. Well, then, since I needed to finagle a reference to the Japanese anyway, and the tribe that’s going to capture them is by far the most aggressive… It just makes sense that an aggressive tribe trying to catch a group of adults unawares would decide to use a wounded soldier (whom they hate, anyway) as bait, right? So there is Chapter 10 finished, and I am SO READY TO BE DONE, IT’S NOT ALL THAT FUNNY ANYMORE!

Sunday: Another day… and I’m STILL two days ahead, and only now I have finished Chapter 10, instead of Saturday like I thought I would. (That’s the trouble with writing these updates “live”, is that sometimes I can assume too much about the strength of my motivation… oh well!) At least now I can say that it’s done for sure, and the three parents are well and truly captured, and everybody’s tucked away where they’re supposed to be. (Oh, and by the way, I went with a pit under a gently-sloping entrance; of course it knocked Frank out, but at least it didn't break his leg!) There was even some time today where I decided I wanted to use some Japanese phrases—but, Google Translate being what it is, I wasn’t getting the right translations (I thought) so I hopped on Facebook and asked the NaNo group, and somebody responded with almost the same replies I was getting from Google Translate (but when I would try to back-translate, take the Japanese text and feed it back through to English, the translation was all messed up, so that’s what scared me! Good to know I can still use it with impunity and hopefully it won’t confuse anybody!) PLUS this was the day that I started Chapter 5, so I think what I can do is pull back and focus on finishing up the big gap of chapters 5 through 7 over Monday and Tuesday (because, being the only two days I work this week, I am pretty sure I won’t have time to do much write, just like last week) and then when the holiday begins on Wednesday, I can resume on Chapter 11 and away we go! It feels so good to be so close to the end.

Monday (Today): Huzzah!! I made Wednesday’s word count, and I made it through Jan’s account of her and Frank’s relationship! That was a bit of a sticky conversation to have, so many details and emotions to deal with. Because Edith has always known Jan to be the “serial girlfriend” and she’s seen plenty of boyfriends who end up dumping her mom for stupid reasons, or she ends the relationship because the other guy is treating her unfairly—but in this case, the guy is Justin’s dad, and Edith has always considered Justin to be fairly harmless. Her mother’s reaction to the sudden reappearance of Frank seems to indicate otherwise, and Edith needs to figure out if her trust in the Dillards is misplaced. It took several unexpected turns, but I think it came out all right, and it definitely set the animosity in motion—I’m going to have fun writing that out tomorrow! Meanwhile, I am fairly certain that I will actually manage to successfully complete the 50K by the end of the week, and then it’s back to writing all the projects I’ve had to set aside to focus on this one! (Maybe after some other projects are finished, I will come back and finish this one off, but until then, I don’t mind taking a little break and revisiting some of my old characters!) 40K HERE I COME!!

So, coming up next week… It’s the home stretch! Join me for the helter-skelter race to the finish line, as I wrap up my LAST 10K right in the thick of the holidays, and revel in the joy of finishing off chapters 6 and 7 at long last!

Catch you Further Upstream!

Reader's Review: "Conner's Odyssey: Discovery" by Ian Bristow

Synopsis from Amazon:
When 14-year-old Conner finds himself on Rohwen—a world as dangerous as it is wondrous—he is forced to come to the hard realization that the only chance he has of finding his way home rests in the hands of a 15-year-old Rohwenite named Medwin. But Medwin has other plans for him. Lost in a world he knows nothing about, Conner has no choice but to follow Medwin on a journey that, unbeknownst to him, will uncover the truth of his destiny.
>>>>>

My Review: 

What’s more fun than making new author friends? Finding out that said author lives in one’s area! That’s right—yet another network connection via Jeffrey Cook, and a willing donor to the Upstream Writer Review List! It sounded like a fun adventure (and I am not one to resist a good, light-hearted fantasy!) so, after whittling down on my To-Read list a bit further, I finally got to take a crack at reading Conner’s Odyssey: Discovery! (Warning: this review isn’t as spoiler-free as most of my other reviews, but I try to gloss over specific events, and I don’t give away the ending… much… Sorry in advance!)

The beginning was mundane enough—young boy’s life is uprooted as his family moves to another state, and he’s feeling forlorn and left-behind as he has to start all over again. Life is so uncertain, he goes exploring in the woods behind his house… and discovers a magical portal that leads to another world—and that’s where the story really begins.

After the generic beginning, I kept waiting for it to take off and show me a breed of fantasy I hadn’t seen before—and, to my delight, it did! Turns out a very specific line of people in this world have a power called “cognition”, which means they can will things into existence, or manipulate matter with the mind. Conner has this ability, of course, but it’s a while yet before he receives any kind of training or explanation.

Unfortunately, the “cognition” aspect was the beginning and end of the originality in the plot. One of the first people he meets is a boy about his age, and his father—who inform Conner that he was a prophesied Chosen Hero to defeat the wicked and malicious mage who yearns for ultimate power to do whatever he wants, and uses his cognition for evil purposes. Of course, the father and son decide that the son should guide Conner on an epic journey across this fantasy world, to find the mysterious and reclusive good mage who will explain everything to Conner. There’s a sea voyage with all the perilous trappings you could want in a fantasy-world sea voyage, an epic battle between the forces of good and of evil, dramatic death scenes, and…

A talking wolf?? Yeah, I was a little thrown by that one, to say the least. No other non-human beings have the power of speech at any point, nor is it implied that there is a race of Talking Animals… To be quite frank, I wasn’t expecting this character to actually be an animal at all, so the effect was rather haphazard and it sort of lessened the impact a loquacious character like him would otherwise have had.

Bottom line, I loved the cognition, and any part of the story having to do with that: the villain and the mentor were both wonderful characters, and the way Conner and his in-world friend related through the fact that they both could use it (the difference being that the boy had been practicing cognition all his life, and Conner had only just learned of the possibilities it presented) and the ensuing friendship and character development that went on between the two—everything about it was absolutely wonderful! I could appreciate the quality a little better when I considered it more of a middle-grade novel, instead of YA like most of what I’d been reading. So if your reader is between the ages of 8 and 12, and they love fantasy and epic battles and sword-and-sorcery-and-sea-serpents type of books, then Conner’s Odyssey is definitely the series to read!

Conner’s Odyssey: Discovery earns itself a hearty ****4 STAR**** rating from The Upstream Writer, and I’ll throw in a Middle Grade Recommended rating as well! It’s clean, it’s wholesome, the characters make great points—from a "seasoned" reader’s standpoint, yeah, it’s got little “dings” and “scratches” and it’s not the most mind-bendingly awesome thing that I’ve read—but it’s a solid start to a great series for parents who want to give their kids something worthwhile to read, and that’s good enough for me!

Further Reading (YA/Young Reader/Fantasy Adventure)

-Warriors of the Edge--Katie Bridges 

-The Boy Named Topaz--Jeffrey Gartshore  

The Alexander Legacy--Sophronia Belle Lyon
       -A Dodge, A Twist, and A Tobacconist
       -The Pinocchio Factor  

-The Starlight Proverbs--Darren E. Barber (*Also a local author!)

-Songstruck--Sofia Black
-Thimblerig's Ark--Nate Fleming 

-The Pirate Princess--Catherine Banks 

-Merchant of Alyss--Thomas Locke 

-Girls Can't Be Knights--Lee French

-Puck's Choice--Skye Hegyes

NaNoWriMo 2016: Week 2 Recap!

*For the recap of Week 1, Click >>HERE<<

Summary: Week 2 is in the BAG! A lot more writing time this week than the last one, and I am proud to report that I have successfully maintained the meeting of my word goals each day! A quick note about the promise of excerpts that I made… I was all excited to do that, I really was… And then the next day I promptly changed my mind. I do kind of want to save the actual story itself for the Wattpad edition, I think. So last week was all about “How To Get Writing Done Without Losing Your Job”, and this week, I think I’m going with a “Character Focus”!

Tuesday: Week 2 launches, and I really want to keep my lead, so what better way to do that than by just skipping ahead and writing the part that I’m excited about? That’s right, the “un-excerpt” that spawned this whole idea has now become part of the official Amazon Triangle narrative! Whereas the first time around all the action was in first person, with very little context, now I needed to go through and figure out how the actions of the story flow into and out of it. I decided early on that my poor victim would, of course, be Ben—as a matter of fact, right about the time I wrote this scene for my Suggestion Box series. (Which is also how I decided on his name, incidentally!) So Ben gets separated from Justin and Edie after they had already split up from their parents, because the three healthy, younger people had a better chance of reaching the shore quick enough to attract a rescue vehicle, than the older adults, what with Francis getting badly wounded in the cruise accident and all. (which I haven’t written… all in good time!) Anyway, he gets separated, the caiman goes after him, and—well, I guess you’ll have to read it when I post it on Wattpad if you want to find out what happens, right? It’s Chapter 8, just so you know.

Wednesday: And Chapter 8—the chapter with the caiman attack—is finished! Justin and Edith are off running in the jungle, while Hank, Janet, and Francis are making their slow and tedious way to another part of the coast, heading at an angle so that maybe they’ll reach it sooner. I also rambled my way to the end of Chapter 3, the chapter introducing Justin and his somewhat tenuous relationship with his father—and also the second mention of the cruise that is the central inciting moment to kick this story’s action level into high gear. Everything you know is about to change, and you’ll find yourself questioning reality, when the beginning had seemed so much like a straightforward romance—complete with ex-lovers and romantic intrigue, as Justin only recently figured out that Edith’s mom might have been a former girlfriend of his dad—which Edith herself didn’t know her connection to Justin, just that he was a good friend of the guy she happened to start dating, after they got along so well in a math tutoring scenario. Of course, once this information is out, the three friends decide not to tell their parents; out of the three of them, only Hank and Francis have ever met, and even then, Francis made a point of not keeping in touch, as a silent disapproval over the way Henry thinks and functions, and a preference to keep the friends that meet his approval. Neither of them know that Edith is Janet’s daughter, and Francis has all but forgotten about Janet in the ensuing years—but the cruise is coming in the very next chapter, and all the “status quo” is about to change very drastically!

Thursday: CHAPTER 3 IS FINALLY DONE!! Man, I was so hyped up with the caiman side and Ben’s whole “first contact” thing going on that it was almost a real struggle for me to then go back to the “introducing the characters” portion and try to deal with actually INTRODUCING Francis Dillard in the plot. But I did it, and that’s done. Know what else I got to do in Chapter 3? Write in a co-worker. That’s the risk of being friends with a writer, people! She told me she wanted to be in my novel—but she didn’t want to be somebody who died on the cruise ship crash. So I made her the PR manager for Francis Dillard and his company. It worked very well; made her British, gave her a Lincolnshire accent (because I’ve heard the difference and I think it would sound cool with the actual voice of my coworker!) and the same sort of professional-grade snark that my coworker has! She is the one person who dishes Francis’ pushy attitude right back at him, and he trusts her enough to let her boss him around, because she really has his best interest at heart, and she wouldn’t tell him to do things that wouldn’t be for his benefit. If he gets snippy with her, she gets snippy right back, and still manages to remain calm and professional about it. So much fun. (If any of my other coworkers are reading this… I guess you’ll just have to read it on Wattpad to find out who it is! You will know instantly when you read the name; I hope she likes the portrayal!) Forward to more words!

Friday: Grr, I feel like I just can’t move forward with Chapters 4 thru 6 (namely, “The Cruise”) because I just don’t have enough information on how a cruise actually works! What my characters could do, where they could actually go—I’d like to not have to BS my way through the WHOLE novel if I can, and actually have some fact-based stuff to work with when I formulate the context for all the relationship tension that is going to happen (two words: NUCLEAR FALLOUT) but it doesn’t look like I’ll get that luxury after all. Meanwhile, I went and pegged away today’s word count in the form of Chapter 9, a somewhat mundane “filler chapter” between Justin and Edith. I guess I wanted to give myself an opportunity to delve deeper into those two characters, after letting Ben have the spotlight in Chapter 8… But it isn’t quite going as smoothly as I planned. Bugger. I just feel like the whole chapter is the equivalent of “Words, Words; Lots of Words” just to get the word count. Speaking of word count… I TOTALLY NAILED 20K A DAY EARLY! Man, I knew Saturday was going to be fun because I finally got a full day ahead of schedule! And with as successful as I have been this week, the rest of this month is shaping up to go so smoothly, and for sure I will finish early!

Saturday: OH HOLY BUCKETS!! So first of all, a HUGE thank-you to Ryan Howard for pointing me to the Cruise Stories site, which is basically a travel blog that contains anything and everything I would ever need to know about cruises to be able to write this story! I now have a better idea of where my characters will be staying (for example, the tickets that Edith won with the writing contest will probably be the cheap ones, in a “porthole cabin”, whereas the Dillards would well be able to afford a nice, stately suite with a balcony) and more specifically the kinds of things they will be doing, and the sights they would see on the ship. (Since SPOILER they won’t necessarily get the opportunity to get off the boat before everything goes sideways!) and also to my new “assisfriends” (Dirk Gently reference… even though I didn’t find the pilot all that compelling IT’S DOUG ADAMS OKAY??) Julia, who happens to be ON a REAL CRUISE this week, and Wendy, who actually worked on a cruise ship some 30 years ago… They have been TREMENDOUSLY helpful in giving me LOTS of useful information that has done WONDERS for my ability to write these chapters!

PLUS, I was able to finish up Chapter 9 (woohoo! FIRST CONTACT actually goes to Justin and Edith! Even though, probably, it’s happening simultaneously with Ben’s experience—but as far as the plot goes… oh, this was fun!) which means a total of OVER 23K, and I have only finished 5 out of the 20 chapters planned! That’s some good writing, right there! The fact that I successfully cleared another word par a full day ahead in only one morning of writing, means that I will most likely be able to get TWO days ahead over this weekend… which bodes well because I know that the closer I get to Thanksgiving, the busier I will be! Whoopee! Writing on!!

Sunday: Great Googly-Moo! I did it! 25K achieved—and exceeded! It feels really good to be so far ahead, it does! Suddenly there isn’t so much pressure to get ALLOFTHEWORDS in for the day, and I know that whatever progress I make in a day will be just fine, and the rest can be left for the weekends, where I get super amounts of writing done! Wendy is now a character in my novel, a super-helpful cabin steward who does a great job at putting Janet and Edith at ease. So now everybody’s on the boat, though just now, the Morrisons are merely references, I haven’t actually honed in on their POV yet. I figured they would be the sort (especially with Ben coming along) to arrive at the docks earlier than all the rest, since it would be very important for Henry to be there, even if Ben doesn’t really want to. The trouble is, as soon as I finished the scene with Edie and Janet, motivation to continue the chapter immediately dropped—so instead, to continue to make up the word count, I just wrote out the notes for the rest of the chapter, instead of forcing myself to write the whole thing out when I really didn’t feel like I wanted to. It worked! So there we have it. I also did a little bit of Ben reviving in the company of an Amazon who is more sympathetic toward humans, by the name of Neyri. Carnossus is like her “cat”, even though Carnossus is a gigantic panther (like the size of a pony—big enough to ride on!) and also the one who rescued Ben from the caiman. Fun times!

Monday (Today): Okay, I don’t have much time to write today because we’re having company over this evening so I need to help my mom, but I at least got a little bit in, just trying to write out more of Chapter 4 from the notes I left myself, and proceeding on the scene between Ben and Neyri Fun times! The fact that I have 5 completed chapters and 2 half-chapters brings the total to around 6 chapters, and half the word count in the bag already—so this begs the question: how close am I going to be to finishing it all by the time 50K is completed? I know I’m probably not going to have much time to write after Thanksgiving, and there’s no telling just how excited people are going to be to see it on Wattpad—I mean, if I don’t get a lot of views or votes on the chapters I have already finished (at this rate, it could be as much as 12 chapters… incidentally, as many parts as the Clan of Outcasts, which very few people seemed willing to feedback about…) then what’s the point of pushing myself further? Especially when technically I should probably be getting back to the projects I put on “hold” to be able to work on this one: Commander’s Courage, Merely Meredith, The Water-Man… You know, I’m actually surprised that I’ve been able to write so much with the material I have for this particular project. All through the planning stages, I thought I was good with the 20 chapters in my plan, because if I allotted 2500 words for each, that would bring me to 50K words total—but then Chapter 1 ended up more like 3500 words, and that’s been the average for each of the chapters, so I guess that means I underestimated the average size of each chapter. That’s a good thing, right? Oh well—I guess my question would be: who wants to see me finish this? Would you rather see more of the other half-projects return? Lend me your opinion!

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the inner workings of some of my current scenes. I’m thinking next week, I’ll be mostly dealing with the scenes containing a lot of “Conflict Exposition”, so that, I think, will become the daily theme for my recap! Hope you enjoy it! (P.S. Interested in seeing some of these “older works” that I refer to in my recap for Monday? Just click the hyperlinked text, and it will bring you to the excerpts from each title! Hope you enjoy those as well!)

NaNoWriMo 2016: Week 1 Recap!

The first week of NaNoWriMo is officially at an end!

Summary: Boy-oh-boy, it's hard this time around! I don't know what it is... maybe because work is so much more involved (which is a REALLY GOOD thing, don't get me wrong) this year than in years past, I just feel like I'm not blasting through the plot on all 4 cylinders like I have in the past. Maybe that's a good thing, because it means I have so much material that I can produce these thick, beefy chapters, consistently over the minimum—it means I can reach the word goal of 50K words long before I reach the last chapters of the 20 I have planned. However, it also means that I am spending large amounts of time on these “boring” introductory chapters, and I just have to hope I won’t burn out before I finally reach the “good parts” of the story!

Daily Run-down:

Tuesday: Woo! Barely out of the gate… and already WAY behind… Didn’t exactly get any writing done during the day, and came home from work largely exhausted, so blah! Three hand-written pages in my notebook ended up only amounting to less than 750 words, and by the time I got them all copied down at the end of the day, I didn’t have very much energy to do more than double that… which is still less than the daily average should be. I don’t know, maybe I can make it up later?

Wednesday: Running at a deficit definitely bites—more so when I’m STILL in Chapter 1! Good grief, when I made these notes I don’t think I anticipated just how long I would be able to draw out a single conversation, nor how easily I would be able to transition between conversations with the characters. It just happens that way when I have “in the moment” reactions going for my characters. Maybe planning and thinking about them for so long ahead of time really helped me to be able to devise how each would naturally have a distinct reaction from each other. HELP ME I AM STILL BEHIND BY LIKE 800 WORDS!!

Thursday: My first write-in! I am proud of myself. Last year about the only “community participation” I ever did was the Kick-Off, one leg of the Write-in-Motion, and the TGIO party… So glad I met some socially proactive people at the Kick-Off this year! I could only stay an hour and a half, and I did it by hand, not on the computer, but I definitely filled two whole pages! So what if it only amounted to less than 1,600 words? Finishing Chapter 1 was totally worth it! Spending 3 days on a single chapter (well okay, one chapter and a prologue) may feel a little backward and depressing, but this next chapter is going to be fun, and I foresee more of a chance to see how far I get through it!

Friday: Cursing parrots. That’s what this has come to. I have taken the phrase “the parrots are swearing” from my notes and I have padded my narrative by including repeated phrases that you will never EVER hear me utter—but I typed them out for the sake of the word count. (For those interested in seeing the draft on Wattpad when I start posting it, I will be mincing the oaths and softening them considerably, so no worries!) It’s kind of fun—they’re adopted from the local animal shelter as a mated pair, so of course, Edie—being the romantic-nerd-girl at heart, names them Gomez and Morticia… but the swearing! It’s cathartic, to say the least—but it also feels a bit scandalous. AND I AM STILL FREAKING BEHIND BY LIKE 700 WORDS!! I need help. Oh, and also, I did a Very Dumb Thing—I went to the library. To pick up “one hold.” Of course, I came out with no less than SEVEN books… which I am (ostensibly) “NOT GOING TO READ” (or so I told myself) because I have SOOO many ebooks to work through and SOO much writing to catch up on. So that is a thing that happened, and this does not bode well for me!

Saturday: Help has arrived in the form of HELLO I AM SETTING UP MY OWN WRITE-IN! I posted it the night before, and by the next morning, a few people had responded! Totally doing this thing! I get to the (I thought) agreed upon location… who knew that Salmon Creek would be one of those places that had STARBUCKS LITERALLY LESS THAN A MINUTE APART??? It took a while but we were finally all together, three of us (and, for once, somebody from my “team”!) and WOOHOO I blasted through to the end of Chapter 2!! (Is it telling that I chose to write the bulk of this blog post on this day as a sneaky way of making up my deficit?) I am now officially ahead of “word par” and it feels so much better! Looking forward to another productive day of writing (in spite of all the goings-on that I have on Sunday) that will put me AHEAD going into the next work week!
 

Sunday: 10K in the bag! I actually managed to make up the difference quite quickly, on account of getting antsy for the “fun part” starting in Chapter 8, when they’re all in the Amazon Rainforest and about to get split up, some captured, and others attacked by a caiman. I blitzed out about a thousand words there, even though, chronologically speaking, I should be working on Chapter 3. The story is coming so much easier now, it’s kind of amazing. I have had a really productive weekend, and I couldn’t be happier!

Monday: (Today) Okay so… not much writing accomplished at work (of course not!) which puts me kind of behind the eight-ball for today, but with the weekend’s accomplishments, I am fairly certain that I will be able to make up the deficit. My hope is to be able to gain and overtake the daily word goal, now that I am no longer at SUCH a deficit like I was at the beginning. And knowing that I actually can make up the difference over a weekend is helpful! (Especially since not every weekend is going to be as busy as the one I just had! Yay for more writing time!)

On to Week 2! Once I finish Chapter 3, the real fun begins, as all the characters have been introduced, and it’s time to set events in motion to get the story moving! Keep an eye out for excerpts this coming week, and feel free to leave a comment on any previous post, to motivate me to keep writing! Thanks!

P.S. Oh, also, one small note, in case you were wanting to read the "Clan of Outcasts" series all in order, to get a real sense of the whole story going on, I’ve gone through and added “Next Post” links to every post, so you can start HERE for Part 1 and read all the way through to the end! I hope you enjoy it!

NaNoWriMo 2016: Meet the Cast of "Amazon Triangle"!

Francis Dillard—Mid-forties. owner of Dillard, Incorporated, a real estate developer company responsible for acquiring land and designing and constructing buildings for large office firms and multiplexes all over the First World nations. Francis is a firm, shrewd businessman, absolutely fixated on being in complete control of every aspect of his business, and he wants nothing more than to see his son Justin become the same kind of leader in the business. He allows Justin to dabble in each field consolidated under the Dillard umbrella, so that he would use that knowledge to be able to place orders with adequate expectations as to what the various contractors are capable of.

Francis dated an American exchange student named Janet Alden, but they broke up after a year. When Justin got accepted into an exchange program at Columbia University in New York, Francis saw this as an opportunity for a firsthand visit to his American land holdings. He bought a penthouse in Manhattan and is there most of the time, conducting deals and negotiating with other business clients—only venturing out for in-person meetings over a meal.

Justin Dillard—mid-twenties; the son of a reputable business magnate, he might have been regarded as a "silver spoon" child, except that he never fought to be recognized by everyone around him. Justin prefers the background, takes more of a supporting role to others. He has had enough of his dad pushing and dragging him into the limelight, he capitalizes on his father's constant distraction and obsession with work, and uses his free time to pursue his own interests. He spends most of his time in the architectural division, chatting with the designers and contractors about their work, and even drawing up his own designs. There is one building in particular, under construction in London, that Justin himself designed, but because the architectural contractor presented the plans to Francis, then the father has no idea that his own son is responsible for the project. 

Justin got into the Columbia University exchange program on a business management degree to please his father, but he is also studying for an undergrad degree in architectural design. He met Ben in an Anthropology class taught by Ben's dad, Professor Henry Morrison, and the two became great friends because, while Justin found Ben to be a lot like Francis, he also found Ben's manner tempered by a lot more understanding of Justin's freedom to make his own choices.

Professor Henry "Hank" Morrison—mid-forties Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. Ben, Justin, and Ben's girlfriend Edith Alden all take his class for the "Humanities/History/Sociology" credits, even though Edith, as an Education major, would be the only one who actually needs credits in those specific areas. Hank became fascinated with the effect of folklore on cultures during a two-year stint at Oxford University as a Sophomore/Junior, which is where he met Francis (whom he calls "Frank" even though literally no one else does) and the two hit it off well because of Hank's amiable and open demeanor, and the fact that Janet had only recently dumped Frank, and he was a bit depressed over it. Hank drew him out of his "post-girl funk" and the two became close friends for many years. When Frank managed to start the contracting company that would later become Dillard, Inc., he became so engrossed in his work that he all but forgot about his old college buddy, till Justin moved to New York and met Ben, and the two boys discovered the connection between their fathers. Henry's wife did not appreciate his impulsive, easily-distracted manner, as his fixation on the things he studies and his discoveries often caused him to forget important events or other tasks she wanted him to do. Henry's interest in folklore always tends to play a part in his lectures, as he seeks to prove that literally any kind of social value and practice will have some story or another to explain or reflect it. The real recognition comes, though, when he is invited on a tropical cruise through the Bahamas, to speak on the cultural connection and historical basis for the legends surrounding the Bermuda Triangle. The cruise, they say, will pass very near the Triangle (without crossing the nautical boundaries) on the day just after he is scheduled to give the lecture, to give a real-world backdrop to his talk. Little does he know that one single night is going to change his life forever.

Ben Morrison—mid-twenties, Business Finance major at Columbia University. Tends to have a more straight-laced personality, to off-set the impulsive, open personality of his father. His mother was the same way, and wound up turning to alcohol (drinking and "socializing" too much) and eventually separating from Hank, and moving all the way to Florida to commiserate with her family. Ben lives with his father while studying at Columbia University, and during his junior year, he met Edith Alden, a freshman in need of math tutoring. Ben obliged, and the two hit it off very well, as Edie proved receptive to Ben's attempt at starting a relationship, barely-romantic as it was. He was pleased to discover that Edie understood his rationality, and did not mind the absence of "traditional" levels of sentiment, as Ben's gifts to her tended to err on the practical side, and he bore no ill will if she decided to use the gift rather than save it, and he understood when she would decide to get rid of a gift that was no longer useful, for economy's sake. Neither Ben nor his father initially knew Edie's mother's connection to the Dillards--and even Edie herself didn't know that Ben's best friend Justin was the son of her mother's ex-boyfriend. Ben tends to be the schedule-keeper for his dad; whereas his own mother couldn't figure Henry out, and gave up trying to understand him, Ben always observed his father carefully, and learned to interpret his mannerisms and predict when his father would need someone like Ben to step in and assist him. He doesn't need the Anthropology credits, but he attends some of the lectures anyway, mostly for moral support of his father. He definitely appreciates the way Henry still makes time for and shows an interest in him, in contrast to the way Justin speaks of his father largely ignoring or overlooking him.

Janet Alden--Mid-forties. Janet has held multiple jobs over the course of her life, and none of them for very long, much to her daughter's chagrin. Originally from England, Janet met Frank in her first year at Oxford, but by the following year, they had a falling out and she dumped him. A group of American students came the next year as part of the student exchange program (Henry Morrison among them) but Janet, rather than remain in England, applied to be one of the students heading to America instead. There, she began a string of relationships that all started out well but ended up badly, and somewhere along the years (during which she quit school and tried to find jobs that could pay the rent, all while moving all around the state in search of affordable housing) she got pregnant, with little idea who the father actually was (but a fair amount of certainty that it wasn't her current boyfriend.) Not wanting to be saddled with a family just yet, her current boyfriend made her choose between continuing a relationship with him, or raising the baby on her own, so Janet entered a new phase of life as a single mother. Desperately wanting that simple, pleasant childhood that she remembered from her days in England, Janet worked hard to be able to provide for her young daughter, regularly browsing the classified ads in the newspaper for anything that she could reasonably handle. Fate seemed against her, though, as it happened with almost regular certainty that, no sooner would she start a job, than extraneous circumstances would remove her: a pizza kitchen burned down overnight, the family she nannied for moved away suddenly and without warning, the hotel went abruptly (and mysteriously) bankrupt--and so many others. Janet isn't fazed by much, and, circumstances notwithstanding, she has actually managed to stay in the same townhouse since Edith got the scholarship to begin attending Columbia University, and she still combs the newspapers every day for the two of them, eager to see her daughter succeed in the life she never quite had.

Edith Alden--mid-twenties. Born while her mother's life was in turmoil, Edith craves a steady job, steady life, and steady prospects, but never quite had it. She made it through high school largely fending for herself as her mother juggled several jobs to be able to afford rent. She learned to live simply, because no sooner would she become attached to something, than they would downsize and have to get rid of it. Instead, Edith turned to writing stories, because that was something she could own that didn't take up any space, didn't deteriorate, and she could bring with her wherever she went. Her dream has been to become a published novelist, but she has had to settle for being just a blogger with big dreams. She enjoys dating Ben Morrison because he is predictable and steady--everything she craves in her life. She loves her mom and does not hesitate to pick up the slack because she knows and appreciates how hard her mom works to make a life for them both--but at the same time, she longs for the day when they won't have to work so hard just to live. Between her and her mother, Edith is the only one who has ever managed to hold down a steady job on a consistent basis, so she regards herself as the principal breadwinner of the family, while Janet is terminally "between jobs." After extensive research of many colleges, Edith finally found a well-funded scholarship at Columbia University, where she could take a job at a local daycare to pay for each semester after her first year's tuition, which she earned by winning a writing contest. She is studying for a degree in Education because she has an interest in helping others understand the world around them. She tends to have a very rational view of the world--a quality she shares with Ben--and no room for joking or playing, since those were luxuries she couldn't really afford in her helter-skelter life. She tries to be lighthearted and cling to a positive outlook, but the rose-colored glasses are certainly more of a conscious effort than a natural perspective for her.

Let The Story Begin!! 

Serial Saturday: "The Clan of Outcasts" Part 12--Exchange

Kaidan and Javira Clissander, "The Twins"

Part 12

"Exchange"

The gates swung open slowly before the small family huddled just outside them. A mother and her two young children slowly inched their way into the courtyard. 

The one on her right—a boy barely eight years old, with deep green eyes and soft red curls—hunched closer.

"Are you certain we should be here, mother?" He whispered. Their tattered clothes seemed dreadfully out of place here. It was too grand a place for the likes of them.

"Of course, dear," his mother answered. "The castle was in need of a washerwoman, and the summons allowed me a small apartment of my own on the palace grounds."

The little girl—no more than three minutes older than her brother— shrank into her mother's skirts as servants intent on their duties stopped to gawk rudely at the newcomers. 

"Mama," she whimpered, "I'm scared!"

Veransa Clissander held her children's hands a little tighter as she was confronted with the misgivings weighing on her heart. She swallowed the doubts and shook her head. "Now then!" She spoke as much to herself as to her children. "We cannot let fear of what may be, and what others tell us should be, get in between us and what is! We—I have received this opportunity, and it won't do to let it go to waste merely because we weren't at all sure about how this would all turn out." She met the gaze of both her children. "Chins up!" She instructed them. "Smiles on! You know that we have worked hard to arrive at the point we are at, and we have earned this new situation, which promises to provide for us for as long as we need it."

The boy blinked his eyes as they wandered the lowly service halls in the bowels of the castle. Only their mother seemed to know just where to go. She turned the corner and a man stepped in front of them, as if he had been waiting for their approach.

"Oh there you are!" He cried. "When you said you would arrive today, I had no idea it would be so late."

The dutiful mother bowed her head. "My apologies. The market was a little more crowded than I was expecting."

The man sniffed. "Hm, yes; well, you're here, so you might as well get started right away. Peraven!" He raised his voice only slightly as a woman in plain clothes with full skirts joined him and immediately took the daughter's hand. She frowned and tried to twist away, but Peraven's grip held as she also moved to herd the children away from their mother.

She reached for them frantically. "What are you doing?"

"Come now, Veransa," the man chided her. "Surely you did not think we would allow you to bring children down there! Do not worry; Peraven watches the Crown Prince, as well. They will be in good hands while you work."

Peraven's wide skirts served as an impassable barrier as she goaded the children onward, toward the stairs that would bring them to the main level of the castle. 

"Come along," she cooed sweetly. "What are your names?"

The boy sniffed as he thought of his mother, all alone. "K... Kaidan," he stammered. 

Peraven turned her gaze to the little girl, but she hung her head without a sound.

"'S my sister, Javira," muttered Kaidan. "We're twins."

"Kaidan and Javira?" Peraven repeated. "How wonderful you get to join us! Come and meet your new friend; his name is Beren, and I think you'll get along just splendidly!"

Kaidan let a smile play around his lips as the memory resurfaced of his arrival at the White Castle. 

The governess had been all smiles and sweetness during that first meeting, but after becoming acquainted with her young charge, the quick, keen, troublesome Prince Beren, it became clear that this was merely an act on her part. Beren was a few years older than the twins, a fact of which he was rather proud. He was accustomed to palace living and took delight in constantly correcting the two newcomers, often making fun of their frequent mistakes when they behaved in a way contrary to the prescribed protocols of etiquette—but in spite of all his knowledge of behavior, there was something he could not quite do: subvert the all-encompassing governess. Not a moment did they spend out of her sight, not a minute of their collective days was spent free of her pervasive influence. 

Whole years passed without Kaidan and Javira even once getting to see their mother. For all his defiance and stubbornness, Beren had yet to uncover a vice or a weakness in the implacable woman. Then came the day when Javira, not quite twelve but fast becoming a woman, happened to catch the shift in Peraven's demeanor every time a certain knight marched by. It happened to occur at the exact moment that Beren was attempting to sneak another scone, which was something she frowned upon. The lad would surely have been discovered and punished—if the knight had not decided in that instant to stop and let the sun glint off his armor. Peraven did not look away as his mailed hand lifted toward his chin, as if he intended to remove his helmet so she could glimpse his face—

The scone vanished, the hand dropped, and the moment ended. Javira glanced at her brother, and the bond they shared confirmed that something significant had happened.

Kaidan glanced out the window to the servants' lodging, where Peraven and Captain Fortin of the King's Guard lived, happily enamored with each other. 

Finding out what distracted the all-present governess wasn't the only thing that happened that day. Very soon, Kaidan found that he, too, had an almost uncanny knack for getting things to happen just like he wanted them to. The three youngsters could do as they pleased as long as Peraven continued to look the other way, and as soon as Beren promised to make Kaidan his personal servant, the capable child-minder suddenly found herself the object of an affectionate proposal, and promptly decided that her charges were quite mature enough to look after themselves. 

Kaidan moved into the room adjacent to Beren's chambers, and Javira fairly floated downstairs to the massive washing room to find her mother.

Kaidan moved to the parlor just outside his room, and found his sister already waiting.

"So soon?" He asked. "How is she?"

Javira wouldn't meet his eyes; she spoke slow, in short breaths, as if she had trouble making the words come. 

"Mother is well; she knew right away." Finally, Javira whirled to face her brother, the silky red hair tumbling down her back as the full, bland skirts swished. "She knows our Gift!"

Kaidan tilted his head. "Why is that such a terrible mystery?" He asked.

"Is it not strange to you?" His sister demanded. "Siblings, possessing the same Gifts? How would she even know of our Gifts if they are supposed to be unique to the individual?"

Kaidan shrugged and moved to place a hand on her shoulder. "It is not so strange; we are twins; we share a lot of traits."

Javira turned her head away again. "She said our father had the same Gift." This time, she spoke with an edge sharp enough to cut.

Kaidan couldn't help reacting to her words. "Our father? Since when did Mother ever speak of our father?"

Javira pressed her lips. "She told me all about him; she said that the Gift he had would cause others to do what he wished. He used it on her."

Kaidan nodded. "And basically forced her to marry him; I get the picture. But Javira, the man is no doubt dead somewhere, or at least not even thinking about us! Mother escaped from him."

Javira shook her head. "No; our father is the reason we are here. Mother said he convinced her to take the job, even if it meant giving up her children. In return," she scowled, "the scoundrel gets a stipend of his own, which he has used to buy a mansion all his own, where he resides in comfort—"

"While we must be content with inferior beds and second-rate castle lodgings," Kaidan finished with understanding. "I agree; it's not fair."

"What do you suppose he somehow used his Gift to change ours?" Javira murmured. "What do you suppose would be the Gifts we were meant to have?

"Can a Gift be changed like that?" Kaidan responded. 

Javira hung her head and her lips twitched. 

Kaidan's instinct was never wrong. "Oh, sister, you didn't."

"I wanted to!" She looked up with fervor. "I chose one of the gardeners—he was making flowers right there in his hands and planting them instead of just weeding and caring for the plants already there. I just wanted to see—" she faltered.

"And?" Prompted her brother.

Javira shook her head. "I couldn't do it; if it is possible, it must be only with family, and only before a Gift has manifested."

Kaidan peered closely at his shaken sister. "So why are you still troubled? What happened to the gardener?"

Javira crossed to the edge of the room. "My influence caused him to exude an entire bouquet in the sight of his overseer. Some guards took him away. I am afraid—"

Kaidan took his sister by the hand and led her to the couch. "You don't have to be afraid, Javira. King Balwyn is not opposed to employing Gifted people; Prince Beren even showed me his Gift."

The lines of worry disappeared, and she even tried to match her brother's smile. Clearly she regarded the prince well. "Beren is Gifted?"

Kaidan nodded. "He can manipulate water, and even exude it from his own hands. He told me his father keeps a record of Gifted people, and professes a desire to see them all gainfully employed in occupations that benefit the kingdom and utilize the unique Gifts."

Javira's smile dimmed. "Records can be dangerous; what real benefit would ones like us have for the realm?"

"You have said the very thing that went through my head when I first heard the news," Kaidan confirmed. "We know that, based on what our father did with it, such a thing could only lead to harm if it were made known."

"And yet our father remained unknown, so he was able to destroy all our lives with his Gift!" protested Javira.

"Keeping the record is inherently neutral, so long as the intent is beneficial," Kaidan affirmed. "But if there might be other Gifted people out there, and men like our father continue to have their way—"

"We must figure out a way to use the record to find each person," Javira concluded. "We can use our shared intuition to discern which are legitimate needs, and which individuals need to be stopped."

Kaidan nodded. "I know of at least one person whose influence is far too pervasive, and needs to be controlled or at least diminished."

Javira finally relaxed. "Then perhaps the solution is not to use the King's record, but to create our own."

In the pause, the clock in the Prince's parlor chimed. Javira stood. "I must return to the servants' quarters," she said. "Mother has reserved the cot next to her for me."

Kaidan joined her on his feet, and hugged her close. "We will find a solution for this, Javira, I promise," he whispered.

Javira lay in her cot, watching her mother's sleeping body curl close, the arms forming a protective barrier over the chest.

"Don't worry mother," she whispered into the night. "We understand. Men like father don't deserve to live unhindered. He will be stopped." She closed her eyes and fell asleep to the echoes of that comforting thought.

The next morning began with a scream.

Javira bounded to wakefulness as Veransa shrieked long and loud, holding her bloodied hands before her. But whose blood was it? A swift investigation revealed that during the night, Habram Clissander had been murdered with someone's bare hands. Since the only likely conclusion was also the most obvious, Veransa Clissander, his abused wife, was found guilty of the crime (though she professed no knowledge), and the death sentence swiftly followed.

Kaidan and Javira again conferred, this time both wearing clothes of the deepest black—though no cloth in the world could convey the depth of their despair.

"It must have been father!" Kaidan declared.

Javira couldn't understand how her whole world could have fallen apart so suddenly. "Why would father want to kill himself?"

Kaidan began pacing. "Who knows? Perhaps to be rid of us forever. Now we are the children of a drunk womanizer and a crazy murderess. Can you imagine the mess we would be in if our Gifts were revealed now?"

Javira clapped her hands to her cheeks. "No one can ever know what we are!" She gasped in horror.

Kaidan met her gaze with determination. "The Gifts are not a benefit to society, no matter what the King says. The only ones who can truly help the realm are you and I."

Javira blinked in confusion. "But what can we do? How can you be so sure?"

Kaidan stopped pacing and dropped into the seat next to her. "Don't you see?" He said with eyes alight. "Fate brought us to the palace. We alone can hide our Gifts and prevent them from ever being discovered, even while we use them to reach our goal, the one position where we can do the most good: we must become heads of the Royal Council, and bend it to our will!"

Javira felt her brother's Gift overwhelm her mind, but she welcomed it; she always trusted her brother completely. "Yes!" She enthused. "We will cleanse the realm of all the Gifts, so that no one will ever experience the terrible tragedy we have faced today." She smiled, as the more she thought about it, the more it felt right. "So, Kaidan," she stood by her brother's side. "Do you happen to have that list you finished yesterday?"

"I do!" Kaidan drew the piece of parchment out of the pocket in his cloak. Javira glanced at the first name.

"It appears we have our first target," she mused.

At the top of the parchment stood a name, in bold strokes:

KORSAN NASROK, KING'S ADVISOR. Beside it, another column listed the respective Gift: MAGIC.

Javira smiled; they had their work cut out for them, but they could handle it together.

~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~

It was a strange sensation, Erlis thought, to be dragged along the corridors by nothing but magic influence. She had complete freedom to turn her head to either side as her feet marched forward of their own accord. They stood in what seemed to be a disused operating theater, with high dark windows, all shattered, and two deep troughs, roughly human-sized. Her stomach churned.

"This is where the Council—"

"Conducted the experiments on the Gifted ones, without the knowledge of the King," Zayra hissed, her head lolling. She giggled as she ran a hand around the rim of one trough. "I guess you could say this is the cradle where I was born!" She laughed but her ecstasy turned to a scowl as she whirled on her prisoners. "And it will be the coffin where I die, to be reborn yet again!"

Aurelle noticed a lone wire draped over the edge of the trough. With her eyes, she followed its length to the edge of the room, up the wall—and by then she saw the other end: coiled around the wrist of another woman wrapped in wire, dangling (thankfully right side up) from the ceiling!

Erlis heard her gasp and followed her gaze.

"Edri!" She cried.

Zayra leaned against the trough and laughed. "Oh yes! I decided that I was tired of being the one experimented on, that I wanted to try an experiment on my own! See, it didn't work, last time she put her hands on me; she couldn't fix my brain. So I wanted to see what would happen if I siphoned off all her Gift, and transferred it to myself with this wire." She jerked to her feet and clapped her hands. "Then I will have TWO Gifts!"

Erlis shook her head. "A Gift ceases when it is taken. It can only remain a Gift if it is given freely."

Zayra stuck out her lip in a pout. "Well, how do you expect me to do that? I can't very well ask her!"

Erlis sighed. "Zayra, I am sorry for what happened to you, but this is not the way to help yourself. Please, let us go and—"

"NO ONE IS LEAVING THIS ROOM UNTIL I GET WHAT I WANT!" Zayra shrieked.

Instantly, all the doors in the space vanished. The windows only led to other, doorless rooms. 

Erlis felt her whole body jerk as Zayra slapped her across the right, human side of her face.

"Do NOT address me as anything other than Your Highness or My Queen! I AM QUEEN!"

Aurelle stepped forward. "Your Majesty," she said slowly. "Please release that woman; taking her Gift cannot help you. There is not even a guarantee that your method will work!"

Zayra scowled. "It must! I demand that it works!" She picked up the wire, and immediately the suspended body gave a jerk. A blue spark illuminated the wire around her hand and spread along the wire, eliciting a deep wail of pain from the soldier—but the blue light barely made it half the distance between the two before it faded to nothing.

Zayra wasn't fazed; in fact, she seemed almost excited. "Did you see that?" She squealed, tugging on the wire some more and making the body jiggle. "I demand that you wo—"

"ENOUGH!" Erlis roared, angry flames flashing in her dragon eye. She lunged forward to yank the wire from the madwoman's hand, but Zayra shrank back. 

"Stop!" She whimpered. "Don't touch me!" 

Erlis felt the wave of resistance pushing her back as Zayra said it; her Gift gave her the power to make her whims reality. 

"Please," she begged, "my... My Queen." The title came as barely a whisper. "There is another way; if you let Edri go, I can give you something that will in fact help you more than Edri ever could."

Zayra leaned forward, a hungry gleam in her eye. "What is it?"

Erlis pulled up the sleeve of her right arm, all the way up to the scales and plated shoulder. "Dragon's Blood, infused in my body."

Zayra inhaled slowly. "The most regenerative substance there is," she whispered. 

Erlis nodded. "I will give it to you freely, as much as you need; only let Edri go!"

Zayra weighed her options for only a moment. She shrugged and dropped the wire. "Oh very well; she wasn't much use to me anyway." With a quick pull and a twist, she released the mechanism holding Edri aloft. Aurelle barely had time to catch the body as it crashes toward the smooth floor tiles. Immediately, she set about untwisting the wires. She looked up and locked eyes with Erlis.

"Go," the Dragon nodded. "Tell the others where I am. Tell them not to come for me."

Aurelle bundled the unconscious Edri in her arms and turned toward the window—but it was still filled in on the other side.

Zayra perched coquettishly on the edge of the trough. "Ah-ah!" She wagged a finger at the women. "Our business has not finished—and you really don't think the Healer was going to do everything herself, was she?"

Aurelle left Edri propped against the wall as Zayra lay down in the trough. 

"You," she pointed to Erlis, "in there." She indicated the other trough.

Erlis had no choice. She crossed to the empty trough and lay down.

Zayra held out her arm. Erlis did the same.

"Hook us up!" Commanded the Queen.

~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~

Korsan watched the trees; they were much older than the last time he chanced to pass through the area. He sensed Velora watching him as they crossed the river that had grown deeper over the years.

She put out her hand. "Look out for the—"

Korsan sidestepped the loose rocks neatly and landed safely on the other bank.

A small smile played around the Alpha's lips. "You know my village?"

Korsan chuckled. "I knew your parents, young one. In fact, it is your house I was hoping to—"

He stopped as they arrived in the clearing.

Velora's voice came strained. "You'll find it much changed from when you were here last," she whispered.

Korsan surveyed the devastation. No house was left standing. The entire area stood inches deep in soot and rubble.

"What happened?" He asked.

Velora shrugged. "One moment, we were all huddled in our homes as the storm raged outside. No one even knows which house caught first, but it didn't take long for it to spread, even in the rain. Father made a hole in the wall, and I escaped..." She stopped by a patch of ashen mud.

Korsan swept forward and placed a hand in a divot filled with freshly-turned earth.

"You won't find it here."

The voice was barely a whisper, and yet the speaker had no scent so it was several members before Korsan and Velora found her: a woman, dressed in gleaming white, with magnificent wings all bent and shattered spread beneath her.

"Who are you?" Velora demanded.

The woman looked straight at Korsan. "One who knew the Prince," she said. "I tried to help him—"

"What have you done?" Korsan hissed.

"What was necessary." The woman didn't appear to be bloodied, but she sounded very weak, and her skin was so pale it looked almost translucent. Most puzzling of all, she still had no scent.

"I took his memories while he was a prisoner on that pirate ship. I carried them as we traveled together into the Harbor. I led him here and put the memories in the crown. I had hoped he would put it on before heading to the castle, but—" she gave another shuddering gasp as her eyes rolled in her head.

Korsan lunged forward and took her hand. "But what? Did he put it on? Does he remember?"

Her head lolled. "I don't know; we parted company. I don't know. I must depart so I can recover. I'm sorry." She faded out of sight before their eyes, in a burst of brilliant colors.

Korsan stepped back. Velora watched him carefully as the stench of his fear rolled off of him in waves. "What is it? Who were you talking about?" She asked. "What memories? What Prince? Is she talking about Jaran?"

Korsan gripped his talisman so hard the gems bruised his skin. "When you were but a babe, Prince Beren Seramis, the Crown Prince, departed on a pleasure cruise with friends who would betray him, and he left behind the True Crown. Only the one who wears the True Crown is fit to sit upon Balwyn's throne, and only the one who sits upon Balwyn's throne is fit to be his successor. The Twin Regents no doubt plan to use Jaran as bait to lure his brother, and if he doesn't remember who he is, then he will no doubt yield the crown in exchange for his brother. We must get back to the castle!" The old Mage took off running through the forest. Velora had to draw upon the Wolf within to keep pace with him.

"I don't get it!" She pressed. "What do you mean, if he doesn't remember? Who has the crown now?"

"Velora!" Korsan didn't slacken. "Prince Beren is Harlock, the man with no past!"

"Oh blast!" She snarled. "And he's headed to the castle a long while ago, to try and rescue Jaran!"

"We need to stop him before he hands over that crown!" Korsan agreed as the White Castle loomed into view.

~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~

Harlock landed in the throne room, the antique crown hanging from a loop on his belt.

Slow applause caused him to freeze and peer defensively at the shadows in the front of the room.

Javira and Kaidan Clissander sat upon the two thrones where the King and Queen once sat. To avoid the penalty for breaking the law, they had draped the golden seats with heavy black fabric, to sit upon.

"Well done, Beren," Kaidan nodded. "I was wondering when exactly you would make it back from your pleasure trip!"

Harlock snorted. "You are mistaken; my name is Harlock." He saw Jaran and the other kid, a young wharf rat with barely any clothes, kneeling in irons at the foot of the dais. The end of Jaran's chain rested in Javira's hands, while Kaidan held the other.

Javira regarded him smoothly. "You seem to know your way around this palace very well, for a sailor," she mused.

Harlock shrugged. "What can I say? I have a keen sense of where to find things, and it just happened that this was the only room with people in it." He saw them glance to the side, where a gorgeous woman in rich clothing sat in a gilded cage, her hands gripping the bars so tightly that her knuckles gleamed as white as pearls. "Hello, what's a pretty thing like you doing locked up?"

"Leave her!" Kaidan barked. When Harlock turned back to him, he continued in a silky tone. "So then, you know nothing of this Beren person? And your name is Harlock?"

Harlock nodded. "Oh yes, and I'm taking your prisoners."

The twins exchanged a glance. "Both of them?"

Harlock shrugged. "Well, I was going to just take the tall skinny one, but the pickpocket I think works with a friend of mine," he gestured toward the cage, "and if I am not mistaken, it doesn't look like the pretty one actually wants to be here, either."

Azelie rattled the bars of her cage, but no sound escaped her lips.

Kaidan glanced at his sister. "What do you think, Javira? Should we just let them all go?"

Javira tilted her head and regarded him closely. "Not for free, of course. Naturally, if you're coming here to liberate the hostages we've rightfully collected," she gestured to the two unmoving in front of them, "you should at least bring something of value to us."

Harlock seemed to scrunch his face as he considered it, but he shoved his hands in his pocket and shook his head. "Yeah, I've got nothing."

There was no missing the sudden elevated tension as both twins leaned forward.

"What about the crown you carry?" Kaidan licked his lips and tried in vain to keep his voice steady.

Harlock glanced down and unhooked the crown, spinning it around his wrist like a juggler's hoop. "What, this old thing? I found it buried in the woods somewhere, can you believe it? Nah, this isn't worth the dirt I scraped it from! Ask me for something else."

Both twins were on their feet now. 

"Did you put on the crown or not?" Kaidan snarled, even as Javira shouted at the saw time, "Give us the crown!"

Kaidan grabbed her shoulder. "No! It's no use to us if he's already worn it!"

Harlock chortled. "Worn it? With all the manure I had to shift to get it? No thanks, I am not in any way interested in putting that anywhere near my face, thank you very much!"

Kaidan held Javira's gaze. "Is it true?" He asked.

Javira's eyes shifted to lock onto the trembling Azelie. Her expression relaxed.

"He knows nothing," she confirmed.

"So," Harlock was tossing the crown in the air and catching it. "Are we making this trade or not?"

Kaidan smiled. "Of course; one crown for three prisoners."

Harlock gasped through clenched teeth. "Yeesh! You two drive a hard bargain. Oh well; at least we're all getting what we want. Catch!" He tossed the crown higher this time, and toward Kaidan. The Lord Regent lunged for the diadem as Harlock yelled, "NOW!"

Immediately, Damaris jumped to his feet as flames engulfed his body, so hot that the iron turned to red liquid and dripped from his wrists. 

Javira barely had time to resister a spark from Jaran before it slammed into her with so much energy that it sent her rocketing backward across the room. The bolt melted the locking mechanisms off the cuffs, and soon Jaran was free as well. 

Damaris still flamed as he approached Azelie's cage and melted the door right off its hinges, allowing her to crawl out. 

The four Outcasts stood together as Kaidan rose to his feet, gripping the crown in his hands. Slowly, as Javira struggled to recover from the lightning blast, Kaidan placed the crown on his head and closed his eyes in anticipation.

Nothing happened.

Kaidan snatched the crown off to look at it closely, but it was the last move he ever made, as a sudden frigid blast covered him in water and froze solid. 

Harlock clenched his fist to stop the flow of ice. 

Javira had gained her feet and clutched the side of the throne. She glared at Azelie. "You!" She screeched, "You were in his mind! You told me he didn't remember!"

Azelie smiled, but Javira could no longer read her thoughts. She had hidden them—just as she had hidden the slew of new memories in Harlock's mind.

Meanwhile, Harlock plucked the crown from Kaidan's frozen hand.

"Beg pardon," he said, "but this isn't yours."

Javira lunged at him, but a bolt of energy from Jaran knocked her flat.

Harlock winked at him. "Thanks, brother."

Jaran smiled. "Anything for my brother."

Damaris groaned. "Can we please just get on with this?"

The newly-crowned man stood on the dais, pulling aside the heavy swath of fabric.

"I am Prince Beren Seramis, Son and Heir of King Balwyn Seramis, and rightful ruler of this realm!" He sat on the throne, and around him, the darkened castle thrummed to life.

In the next instant, a terrible scream split the air.

"What was that?" Jaran asked, stating at the open window. He had heard that scream before.

"It came from the Laboratory Tower!" Azelie answered.

~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~

Part 13: "Trust Me" >>>>>

The Clan of Outcasts Series:

--Part 1: "The Storm"

--Part 2: "Reborn" 

--Part 3: "Memory"

--Part 4: "Legends"  

--Part 5: "Blemish" 

--Part 6: "Prey"

--Part 7: "Signs and Wonders" 

--Part 8: "Scales" 

--Part 9: "Rebel"

--Part 10: "Stolen"  

--Part 11: "Betrayal"

 

--Appendix: Locations and Characters, Part 1 and Part 2

 

NaNoWriMo 2016: Introducing "The Amazon Triangle"!

cover designed and created by Lia Wayward

A few years ago, I was innocently laying in my bed, when into my brain popped a bizarre sequence that I immediately wrote down. It had no context; it had no ensuing events. It was intense, vivid, and I loved it, but I had nowhere to put it.

Some time later, I also started thinking about the film Sahara (the 2005 version starring Matthew McConaughey, although my absolute favorite character was Steve Zahn) and what an underrated film that was, and how hilarious it would be if somebody made an adventure film like that, that wasn't all about suggestive situations and stereotypical females and crude jokes—but actually an intriguing adventure that was imaginative fun for the whole family.

 

The first thing I knew for sure was the kind of characters I would have: two father/son couples: one British, one American, and then a mother/daughter pair where the mother is British but the daughter American. The second thing, since I essentially had 3 pairs of characters, was that the theme would be "Triangles," since I could take what amounted to 2 love triangles (British father once dated Mother; she dumped him, he became good friends with American father; fast forward to when all their kids are adults, and Mother's Daughter is now dating American's son—and none of them have any idea about how their families are connected) and throw them into a perilous situation in the middle of the most famous triangle in the world, the Bermuda Triangle. I went ahead and drummed up something that could pass for an intriguing yet impossible situation that would involve all of them working together to figure it out, and it was a nice idea, but still pretty skimpy and it would involve a LOT of VERY meticulous research, which I was not prepared to do at the time. Or ever. Or at least not till I could just like you know quit my full-time job and making a living with JUST my writing...

Anyhow, I plunked out some premise notes for the idea, shelved it, and promptly forgot about it.

Until this year.

By early this year, I was very sure of 2 things:

1. I wanted to somehow create a context for the Amazon scenes I had;

2. I was somehow going to use the Triangle idea to do it.

There was just one HUGE problem: the Amazon is thousands of miles away from the Bermuda Triangle. How in the world was I going to use both locations if they are so far apart that, even if the cruise were to crash or break down somehow, necessitating my main characters to escape in a raft together—they could choose LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE CLOSER??

Yeah... No way a cruise ship could be blown 2,000 MILES OFF COURSE!
Rationality says they'd hit Cuba before South America... but this isn't "The Cuban Triangle"!

Answer: Nothing a little time/space dimensional warp can't solve!

All of a sudden, that span of empty ocean between Bermuda and the Amazon becomes a swirling vortex of wibbly-wobbly because of an interdimensional crash sometime in the mid-1940s... 1943, to be precise. The very same moment that a platoon of Japanese naval soldiers were on their way up the coast of South America to try and launch an attack on the Eastern US. Dimensions collide, they get caught in the time warp, and have to repeat each day 100 times before it moves on to the next one. Everything naturally occurring in that space is reset and repeated: same fish swimming by, same birds flying over—the only thing that doesn't change is that one boat. They can't leave the time warp because of the dimensional crossover. Any attempt to cross the boundary just transports them to another point within that same area. The only point at which they can leave the water is the side that leads to the Amazon River—and even then, they can only set foot on land for a maximum of three night falls. On the fourth sundown, the time warp fluxes and they're back on the boat again, along with anything they managed to pick up in the 3 days. There were some ships that actually made it out of the warp and were picked up by Allied troops within those 3 days (unwittingly 2 years later, in 1945), and so they escaped the "reset" (also giving rise to the realization of the "Japanese Holdouts"), but that was it; four boats still remain out of the original seven.

So what does this dimensional crossover have to do with the Amazon mermaid idea? 

What do you suppose lived in that other dimension?

That's right; a Japanese scavenging party encounters a fearsome race of terribly tall women living in the jungle—and these women are also mermaids, acquiring silver-grey scales and tails when submerged in water. So when the cruise ship crashes and our dysfunctional main characters get caught in this dimensional trap themselves (via the Bermuda Triangle) they discover the mermaid Amazons AND have to avoid being captured by the Japanese (who still believe the world is at war, and they want to be able to use these powerful superhuman beings against the Allied armies) while they figure out how the dimensions got crossed in the first place, and how to fix it. Throw in the relationship tensions, and it's enough material for quite a thrill ride!

Also... For those of you who have enjoyed my NaNoWriMo "1K-A-Day" shares... there's going to be a small change with that. This time around, rather than just sharing bits from what I'm writing, I will also intersperse excerpts with posts about my writing experience. Where does it come from? What problems do I face in writing and developing a plot, and how do I overcome them? How does someone who works full-time find time to write in a given day, anyway? I'll be posting as frequently as I can here on the blog--And then when December comes, I'll start posting the whole thing on Wattpad so you can read it! If you don't know what Wattpad is, here's a helpful blog post about it. If you're interested in reading the stories I have on Wattpad (Including the EXCLUSIVE urban fantasy "The Water-Man") Here is a link to my profile on Wattpad. I will say that an account is free, and you don't necessarily have to be writing a story to have an account--there are thousands of writers on there, and we need readers, too!

Stay tuned for more fun! I look forward to sharing this journey (yet again!) with you all!