Status Report

I'm at 17k and a handful of change. Woohoo!

Oh, and major plot bunny.

I have a characte who was originally meant for the sole purpose of referring Iden to a job. She has now come back to haunt me with a much, much larger part in the story. Also, Iden and Tip are on the run a lot sooner than I expected, but it's okay. It all works out in the end.

I also like writing Arkilan a lot better

A week in...

I'm at 14,519 right now. I fell off the wagon over the weekend--I got 600 words over Saturday and Sunday, which is somewhat depressing.

In other news, I wrote the hatching scene yesterday. I also wrote more of Kendriana's torture, and Arkilan's subsequent defection. I wrote their escape scene and the first two days on the road for them. Soon they'll meet up with Tip and Iden.

The hatching scene was surprisingly fun, and I wrote about Tip finding out about the dragon. That was fun, too, although he's getting a bit out of character.

--Hackslayer

Excerpt time

Here is my prologue. Infodumping, adverbing, and other atrocities abound. Also, there are some tense errors, probably due to the late-at-night part of writing it.

* indicate italics, because yWriter doesn't have italics available, I don't feel like formatting them in this blog, anyway.

One last thing: in a moment of desperation, I took my favorite actress' name and used it in a throwaway line. See if you can spot it. ;)

Seriously, though, I was really on a roll and didn't feel like stopping to try to figure out a name. So....

I apologize in advance for the terrible nature of the writing--it is due in part to my wordcount-increasing practices, and due in part to my naturally crappy writing.

Without further ado:

Prologue

The first thing you smell is sweat. That is the only sense you can identify with any surety. There are far too many sights--flag twirlers, fire eaters, the king and his dragon--and far too many sounds--thousands of people talking and yelling, music from the parade--to identify. The crowd is moving, shifting, dynamic. You are swept along with them, their giddiness becomes yours as you take in the sheer grandeur of the King's parade.

Suddenly, there is a commotion to your left. You don't know what they're on about, but you'll be damned if you let them ruin the day for you. You give a half-hearted shove in that direction, before trying to move forward, out of the way of the fight. Someone shoves you back. Turning, you give them a punch.

You don't know how it happened. All you know is that, all at once, everyone around you seems to explode into chaos. Yelling--but of a different tone--fills the air. Fists fly and people fall.

In the midst of the chaos, the King's greatest possession is stolen.

~

The Prince saw the theft, and took chase. The dark figure almost disappeared into the crowd of rioteers, but the Prince has a sharp eye and manages to follow its progression. As he clears the crowd, it becomes easier--most of the city is a ghost town today. The Prince gains ground on the thief, but feels himself growing tired.

The thief stumbles, and the Prince surges forward. Now is his chance.

Too late. The thief regains its balance and continues on, faster now than before. Perhaps he is driven by desperation.

The Prince sees a beggar up ahead, who the thief knocks aside in his haste to escape the Prince. The Prince sees the thief veer sharply to the left, into an alley. The beggar boy is up again, and the Prince feels a twinge of guilt as he bowls the boy over yet again in his haste to turn the corner. The thief has scaled a building, and is jumping onto another roof.

The Prince follows suit, climbing the building and barely making the leap over to the next one. The thief is three buildings down already, but, as the Prince watches him jump the next roof, something happens. A quick leap, then a stumble upon the landing. The thief does not get up. The Prince presses the advantage, but, when he is a roof away, the thief seems to regain his courage. The Prince hears a groan as the thief rises and hobbles to the edge of the roof.

The thief will not make the jump down to the alley. The Prince can tell even as it happens. He continues running and leaping. When he jumps into the alley, he sees the thief at the end of it, crawling on all fours. The Prince feels pity for only a moment.

"In the name of the king, stop!"

The thief does not. The Prince has him, then, in a few quick strides. "Let's see who you are," the Prince snarls, for the thief is swathed completely in black, including a wide-brimmed hat and a veil around the face. The Prince rips the hat and veil from the thief--

It is a woman.

Blot Punnies Abound

Okay, so you know how Iden was gonna get sold into slavery? Not so much. I was staring at my screen just now, wondering where I should go from here (I've got the exposition pretty much done) when it hits me--

Iden is going to stay in town for a while, attempt to get a job, get a job with Tip (the horrible old man who originally sold him into slavery), and won't leave until his dragon is a bit older. Not sure how this is gonna work out.

Because Iden will not leave until his dragon is a few months old, that means that, in order for him to run into Arkilan and/or rescue Kendriana, poor Kendriana will be tortured for a few months, during which time I must wonder why th king doesn't just kill her?

Or what if she tells them everything? Hmmm...it bears some thought.

End of Day 1

Well, day one is ending--I need sleep--but I've done reasonably well. 4823 words in under 24 hours. Let's hope I can keep it up. :)

Update

It is 4:30 p.m. on the first day of NaNo, and I have 2667 words, which is exactly 1000 more than I need to get each day. I'm seriously hoping that this pace continues and that I don't get stuck, which is liable to happen.

I've blown my way through about half of the introduction. I'm on Arkilan's character. I rushed through Kendriana's character, so if I need extra words, I'll go back to that and make it longer and more developed.

I've also had some interesting, if minor, changes to the plot. I love it when that happens. :)

On the other hand, much of what I've written is crap, about on par with Eragon. Prolific writing doesn't equal good writing.

My playlist for the day has been:

--Vienna (Linda Eder)
--Anthem (Chess the musical, sung by Linda Eder)
--One Song Glory (RENT movie soundtrack)
--Quiet Please, There's a Lady Onstage (Boy From Oz OBC)
--Don't Cry Out Loud (Boy From Oz OBC)
--Borrowed Angels (As I Am, Kristin Chenoweth)
--Girls of the Night (Jekyll and Hyde OBC)
--Someone Like You (Jekyll and Hyde OBC)

And the start

NaNo has been official for an hour. Since that hour, I have written 1792 words. Most of it is crap, but that's beside the point.

The race has begun.

A handful of hours...

Well, it is October 31, and I am anxiously awaiting the countdown to midnight.

Today I will be frantically making up names (many of which will sound terrible, but they're placeholders), filling out my map, and making a list of things to do in the event that I need to expand my word count.

According to the notes I've written regarding the first few chapters, my story is opening up with Iden coming home after a long day of scavenging for food and whatnot, and he sees an announcement about a dragon egg being found, Arkilan being chosen as the egg's owner/rider/whatever, and the ceremony for it which will happen in two weeks.

However, I'm contemplating changing it, as it doesn't seem to grasp my attention.

Here's the new scenario: I will drop the reader in the middle of the parade and the subsequent theft of the egg, but keep it relatively impersonal. When Kendriana is caught, I will end the chapter (prologue?) and cut to an introduction of Iden. We will meet him as he is fighting off other street rats in a territory fight. The fight is broken up by guards, who begin roughousing all of the beggars, Iden included, as punishment for disturbing the peace. Iden manages to escape goes home, where he eats a meager meal and goes to sleep. (If low on words, I will enter a dream sequence here :p) The next day, after waking up, Iden sees that a number of people are attracted to a posted announcement. Curious, he reads it and finds out about the egg, the parade, and the subsequent ceremony.

I will then take the opportunity to shamelessly infodump about the political climate, Iden's background, and possibly insert some Iden!angsting about his present condition.

Then, I will ramble on until I find a good way to close the scene.

After that, I will start a new chapter, from Kendriana's point of view. She is in the middle of a meeting, led by her father, discussing action against the new dragon riders.

We learn that the king (emperor? Still need to figure that one out) must not restart the dragon riders, otherwise the royal family will have no chance of regaining the throne.

Kendriana volunteers to steal the egg. I will then ramble until I can find a good way to close the scene--possibly, I'll include some stuff from after the meeting, maybe to show some interaction between Kendriana and her father. I dunno.

After that, I will introduce Arkilan.

Here are my notes for his introduction:

Arkilan is an intelligent young man, a couple years older than Iden. Of late, he has been thinking about his position in the empire, and the empire itself. He is struggling with issues of morality, and good and evil. He has begun to feel that the Empire is wrong, and that the emperor should never have gotten power. He is the heir apparent, and highly favored of the emperor, but he can't help but feel that he needs to help the royal family back onto the throne. He thinks that perhaps his new position as a dragon rider will help him achieve this.However, the land is wasting away under the emperor's rule. The emperor is very expansion-minded, and has been drafting men into the army for exploratory and eventually conquering purposes--so the economy has suffered. Further, taxes have risen to fund such an operation, which presses the people further into poverty. Arkilan hates seeing this.He is also uncomfortable with some of the emperor's other practices--such as not giving people a fair trial, and executing people without reason. Torture, too, bothers Arkilan, and he is in constant fear of his life.

So, basically, this will be one big infodump about Arkilan. :)

The next scene after that will be, according to my notes:

Arkilan is dressing himself for the parade, and takes a few moments to steel his nerves--he hates crowds. The emperor comes in, and begins talking to Arkilan about the glorious empire they will build together, and how Arkilan will become a great man. The emperor asks if something is bothering Arkilan--Arkilan often gets the feeling that the emperor can read minds--but Arkilan says it's just pre-crowd jitters.
Then, we cut to:

Arkilan readies his horse and enters the procession. There are flag and banner twirlers, fire-eaters, acrobats, and other attractions preceeding him. Directly in front of him is a wagon with no sides, upon which there is a gilt pedestal, and the egg rests on that. An armed guard marches around the wagon. Arkilan, the emperor, and Arkilan's father trot on their horses--the emperor on his dragon-- also surrounded by an armed guard.The parade seems to be going well, but suddenly, a riot breaks out. Confusion ensues. Arkilan sees a black-swathed figure take the egg and make off. He, the guards, and his father run after the figure. A chase throughout the city ensues, during which he pushes a young beggar boy out of the way.They catch the thief, but she does not have the egg with her. (Basically, restating the prologue, only now with a more personal feel. Yes, more shameless word-padding. Get over it.)

Then, we'll cut to Iden, who wakes up on the day of the parade with no intention of watching it. He spends the morning trying to convince a shopkeeper or someone to give him work. He is refused. He is, dejectedly, on his way home, when he gets bowled over by Kendriana, with Arkilan tailing her. She climbs a building and leaps to the next roof as Arkilan catches up. Arkilan knocks Iden out of the way again and follows Kendriana. Iden blacks out. He comes to a few minutes later, with a headache. He takes a few moments to figure out where he is, and then somehow or another, spots the egg.

I have a very, very, very vague idea of what I want to happen after that, but nothing definite.



Ugh, I am SO not ready.

Locations

Kassirem...capital city

Azel...river

Minzil...random city (tentative)

Shoshan...desert

Menzeli's Fort...random city built around an old fort.

Edited as I find more names.

Cast List

Iden...a young beggar living in the streets of the capital city, who finds and hatches the king's dragon egg.

Arkilan...son of the king's cousin and the crown prince, also chosen by the king to bring back the dragon riders.

Kendriana...princess of the exiled royal family.

Castin...king of the exiled royal family

Krysili...Iden's dragon.

Arex1...current king (tentative)

Will be edited as I finish naming everyone.

Crap!

As you can tell by my lack-of posts lately, I've been uber procrastinating. Like, seriously.

NaNo's starting next week. Crap. Crap. Crap.

Okay....

I'm gonna wing the plot. End of story. Screw outlining. Yay for spontaneity!

I need a finalized character list, because that'll drive my absolutely crazy.

I also need to name the cities that we'll be visiting. I've got a basic map drawn up (a very ugly map, but a map all the same), but no names for it yet. So expect two more posts in the next couple of days--one for a cast list and one for places.

All righty then. Not much I can do, really, except sit and wait. And plan out how I want to open the story. Starting stories is almost as hard as finishing them, for me.

--Hackslayer