Tag: Not the Chosen One

NaNoWriMo Day 30+ and Crossing the 50,000 Line

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo3 Comments

I have been very remiss in posting on here the last few weeks!  I had every intention of posting about the NaNo process as it happened…but then it happened to take up every spare writing moment I had!  I spent the month doing a lot of writing sprints before work, on my lunch hour and at odd moments here and there.  I spent most of the month hovering near the goal amount, and crossed the 50,000 after work on November 30th.  Then went out to my writing group!

So much for stats.  As to content–as I was beginning to feel earlier in the month, this turned out more of an exploration than a proper novel draft.  I think I got, perhaps, halfway through what would eventually be the story, but I’m not sure the first half always went the right direction.  I did a lot of world-building in October but not much plot-planning, and struggled to find it in November.

On the other hand!  I discovered some new things about my characters, and about the world even, and the themes emerged pretty strongly too.  I’m not exactly sure how much of what I wrote will end up in a final version–possibly a lot of fragments, cut up and rearranged.

I don’t plan to finish this semi-draft during December, as I often do with NaNo novels.  This was a good exploration and got me back in the writing rhythm after losing my speed some last year (too much revision, and too much other life going on too).  So I’m going to put this one away to think about some more, and in the meantime I want to play with some short stories and work on plotting…because that seems to be the big issue on my last three novel drafts that still need revision.  So it seems like a good time to play with something shorter to hone some skills.

For now though, have an excerpt from my NaNo novel.

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We approached the Great Hall, an intimidating enough building without uneasy thoughts to accompany an approach.  I had only been inside twice, once each year for the opening ceremonies of the new term.  The effect was quite different when streams of students were covering the plaza and heading through the open doors.

The rest of the time—well, I had passed the Great Hall hundreds of times, but it had always felt more like a mountain than a building, a prominent feature of the landscape but not something to approach, let alone enter.

Gery marched up to it fearlessly enough, bypassing the main doors for a small side entrance quite confidently.

The door opened on a short hallway, leading to a second, interior door, this one with a gargoyle sitting beside it.  “Who goes there?” the gargoyle intoned.  It was an old gargoyle, judging by the depth of the voice.  Those were the best ones.

“Gerhardt Greerson,” Gery said promptly, “with an appointment with Minister Drehagan.  And guest.”

I didn’t altogether love that, but the gargoyle squinted at us both then boomed, “Enter,” and the door swung open on a flight of stairs. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Day 30+ and Crossing the 50,000 Line” →

NaNoWriMo Day 4 and the Roller Coaster of NaNo

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo3 Comments

We’re several days into NaNo by now, and my word count looks like a nice smooth ride.  This is an illusion.

It really has been a good run in terms of words.  I started the month with 2,181 words on the first day, well above the 1,667 goal.  I always want to start strong—I have a slightly superstitious feeling that if I start out behind on day one, I’ll never catch up again.  I’ve hovered right around the daily word count, if slightly below, ever since, putting me almost exactly on target here on day four.

The content has been a bit more of a roller coaster.  I didn’t have much plot, remember, so I started out throwing some “how we met” scenes together on the first couple of days.  And that went reasonably well, even very well since I enjoyed my protagonist’s friend and love interest quite a lot…until this morning, when I realized I had themes I needed to build slowly and character reveals I wanted to do gradually and no idea what my characters should be doing while all that happened.  I needed a plot framework to hang all the rest of this on.

In a way I feel I have three novels here—one is a whimsical fantasy world we’re exploring, another is a school story, the third is a politics/resistance story, and I’m having trouble merging them together.

So I had my first NaNo freakout, and threw some random ideas around, and talked to a writing friend, and finally settled on a plan that meant going back and inserting a new chapter two.  I can probably keep the original chapter two (and all words count whether they stay in the final version or not), but I needed something earlier.

I decided I was too focused on the politics and needed to bring more school in.  And then I hit on a way to combine the two with a politically-motivated head of school, and now things are beginning to seem clearer, at least for a while…until the next NaNo crisis!

In the meantime, have an excerpt.

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The door swung shut behind her, suddenly cutting off the light that had been falling across the room.  Indirect light still came from the doorways at either side, but the room at once grew shadowy and dim.  And she hadn’t yet spotted the light source.

“Illumination,” she said aloud, and was rewarded by a faint glow extending a few feet around her.  It was enough to find her way to the left-hand doorway.  She looked inside, had a murky impression of a kind of lounge area.  Curtains were apparently closed over any windows.  She tried the opposite doorway and found a much better-lit kitchen space.  She went that way.

Good words like health and tasty lined the upper walls, and the room seemed to have ample counterspace and a good sized ice-box.  She circled past a jutting counter, noticing Illumination written across its top.  She reached out a hand, touched the word and concentrated.  The entire support part of the counter lit up, amply lighting the dim room, and Alyse let the glow around herself fade.

Beyond the counter was a long wooden table.  Under it lay a very large sheepdog.

Alyse sighed.  She had agreed to a house that permitted pets, but she had hoped this wouldn’t happen.  “A dog.  Phinny is not going to like you.”

The dog cocked his head to one side, opened his mouth with a hint of lolling tongue, and asked in perfectly intelligible tones, “Who’s Phinny and why not?”

Alyse did not actually collide with the counter behind her, but it was a near thing.  “Oh—sorry, I didn’t—you must be…”

“A shape-shifter?” the dog prompted.  “Or a hudjinn, either term is fine.”  He lifted up to his four feet, furry back barely clearing the bottom of the table, and pushed out past a chair.  Out from under the furniture, he rose impossibly onto his hind feet—or would have, except that his front paws had barely left the ground before he seemed to shimmer.  Alyse instinctively blinked, and by the time her eyes were open again a tanned human about her own age was extending a hand.  “I’m Gil.  And you are?”

“Alyse,” she said mechanically, just as mechanically shaking his hand.  She had heard of shape-shifters, of course.  There had been one or two at her last school, but she didn’t think she’d ever spoken to them.  She’d certainly never seen them shift.  Not that it mattered, they were people just like anyone.  But it was slightly disconcerting to find one under your kitchen table.

NaNoWriMo 2017

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo2 Comments

Happy November, everyone!  The first of November means the start once again of NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of writers set out to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November.  This will be my sixth year participating.  Two of my published novels (The Storyteller and Her Sisters and The Lioness and the Spellspinners) started out as NaNo novels.  It’s hard every year, but always a lot of fun too.

This year I’m launching into a new fantasy world.  My working title is Not the Chosen One, a story from the point of view of the very smart female friend of the prophesied Chosen One.  If it sounds like Harry Potter, yes, I think my fondness for Hermione influenced this idea–but from that germ of an idea I anticipate a more original novel as it grows.

I have a complex magic system to start playing with involving eight different disciplines, including literata, magic involving words.  I’ve read several books where word magic was at play…and never liked how it was done!  Clearly I should explore this myself.  I also decided this world has four sentient species: humans, dragons, jinn and sea serpents.  They have not always got on. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2017” →