NaNoWriMo 2020: Updates and Excerpts
It’s time for Mood Gif…
It all started out rather smoothly. The first few days I was writing above and beyond my word count! Yay me!
And then I stopped.
I just stopped writing. I lacked motivation, and when I did sit down to write, I ended up scrolling Pinterest or listening to Sister’s writing woes (she’s doing NaNoWriMo as well, and we’ll be doing a special blog post next week).
I don’t even know what happened. It was like the bottom dropped out and my inspiration went woompsh. Plus, having to write several essays for AP classes doesn’t help. (Fun fact: I just wrote the word to above as two)
But I’m going to attempt to pull myself up by the bootstraps and write more, Maybe I won’t finish in time, but I’ll get through it and have an actual, sloppy, lovely first draft that I can look at and scream at.
That was a short little progress update, so now we’ll talk about stuffs and I’ll put some excerpts. All excerpts are center-aligned and italicized. They will be exactly as they were in my NaNo document, minus spelling errors.
Excerpt #1: At the age of twelve, Calliope takes Sage and shuts her into an old Fae tower. Sage is riddled with loneliness and sadness.
Young women are not supposed to be kept in towers.
Sage quickly found that out. She wanted to explore the ruins of the castle but her mother said no, monsters roamed there. She was never allowed outside. Her mother could be gone for weeks at a time on secret missions.
Stifling. As Sage grew, her need to leave grew with her. But Calliope was adamant.
Depression set in. Sage was okay when her mother was with her, but by herself she fell apart. She wouldn’t eat, she’d sleep too long. Numb.
Excerpt #2: Enter Tarik! Tarik is our story’s love interest, and he’s pretty cool if I do say so myself! His type is not generally the type I get attracted to, and he’s not my ideal fictional crush, but he’s still pretty cool. Plus, if you can get Sister (she’s been heart-set against NOT shipping Sage and Tarik because of [redacted for spoilers]) to ship them, that’s a win!
In this scene, Tarik hears something crying and goes searching for it, finding Sage’s tower.
Everyone knew the old Fae architecture was teeming with ghosts. One was most likely crying to lure him in. But the crying was not ghostly; it was hard and relentless. Tarik murmured a protection incantation before touching his spearhead. If all else failed, at least the spirit-stone would protect him long enough to help him get away.
Tarik cautiously approached the tower. There was no door; it had to be a ghost. Tarik peered into the window as something moved.
A shadow. Then it was not a ghost. Ghosts didn’t have solid bodies, and therefore couldn’t cast shadows. Inexplicably, there had to be someone in the tower. Tarik retreated, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was in the window.
It was a girl! She was the one crying. Tarik was astonished. She had long, shining brown plaits that dangled out of the window and brushed the ground. Obviously something was going on. The crying slowly faded as the girl drifted away from the window. Tarik watched as the candlelight illuminating the window darkened, casting the tower back into darkness.
Excerpt #3: This one is FUN! Tarik is an banished prince, who’s fleeing as the Doticiler, a theocratic (ruled by priests/religious leaders) government who’ve taken over his country of Vezyat. He has several others with him; twin noble girls Nulijuk and Nulikuk (based off of me and Sister), an aspiring horseman named Pillip, a cartographer’s son named Yosolo, and his best friend (who’s trained as a sergeant in the army) Amajaq. This scene is when Tarik comes back to camp after visiting Sage for a second time.
“Where’ve you been?” Asked Nulikuk, cuddling her foxcat in her arms as it squirmed desperately.
“Put that poor creature down!” pleaded Pillip, looking up from the fire. “Please!”
“Ricks loves it,” said Nulikuk staunchly, squeezing Ricks tighter as the creature went floppy with exhaustion.
“Mmm…no,” said Amajaq, setting down his whittling as he leaned forward and pried Nulikuk’s arms off. Relieved, Ricks sprinted off. “So,” asked Amajaq, returning to his carving, “where have you been? You disappear in the morning and look! Now it’s twilight!”
“Just exploring some old ruins,” said Tarik. It wasn’t a lie. When he’d gone to visit Sage, he done some preliminary scouting.
“What ruins?” asked Yosolo, perking up and retrieving his Map Brain, as he called his notebook.
“A bit east of here,” said Tarik, gesturing vaguely. Why didn’t he want to tell them about Sage?
Why?
“What’s cooking?” he asked Pillip, sniffing.
“Stew.”
Nulikuk groaned. “Stew yesterday. Stew today. Stew ever since the Doticiler—”
“Curse them,” added Nulijuk.
“—took Vezyat! I need bread!” She moaned, rubbing her stomach. “Breeeeeaaaaad…”
“You’re always whining about bread,” said Yosolo tiredly.
“She just wants it!” said Amajaq. “I, myself, could go for a roast.”
“I miss the slakiyed,” said Nulijuk. “It was always so sweet and cold.”
“It should be,” said Yosolo drily, “considering the name means sweet ice.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t complain,” said Pillip, ladling the stew into trenchers. “It’s winter, so no wheat. It doesn’t get icy here, so no slakiyed.”
“Mal’kitsa,” said Amajaq, sticking his tongue out as he received his meal.
Quick note: Mal’kitsa is a Vezyatan insult, which has a meaning similar to that of ‘buzzkill,’ and slakiyed is a Vezyatan desert, consisting of shaved ice drizzled in a sweet syrup.
Excerpt #4: After discovering Sage is missing, Calliope creates creatures to obey her bidding and sends them to look for her. This is a scene when the creatures first attack.
Cold mists hovered over Tarik’s skin. Unease. He felt it in the pit of his stomach. Sitting up, he gasped as the mists suddenly coalesced into a child-like creature. It stared at him with dark eyes before letting out a cry, not unlike that of a baby’s. Tarik bolted up, firing a pillow at the thing as Amajaq bolted upright. The mists parted to let the missile through harmlessly before reforming.
“Demons!” shrieked Amajaq, rolling over and grabbing his pack, tearing through it. Another shock of cold mist. One of the things appeared right in front of Amajaq, reaching for him.
“Amajaq!” The boy rolled backwards, off his bed and pulled a necklace out of his pocket, thrusting it towards the spirit. The dull green stone flared to life and the spirit diminished, it’s childish wail floating away. The first spirit, seeing the demise of its brother, cried and disappeared.
“Amajaq!” Nulikuk’s scream was desperate.
“The girls!” shouted Tarik.
“I’ll get them,” said Amajaq, bounding to his feet and bursting through the door. Tarik grabbed his spear, bolting to where Yosolo and Pillip were sleeping.
Yosolo was wide awake, evading the touch of four spirits. A sleep-rumpled Pillip was barely awake, trying to roll out of the way of another spirit. Tarik raised his spear, the blue stone reflecting the ghostly Otherlight of the spirits and reflecting blinding prisms. The spirits instantly evaporated, their shrieks lingering on the air.
Excerpt #4: This scene just dives a little into the magic I’ll be focusing on in this story.
The door burst open and Amajaq burst through, dragging Nulikuk and Sage as Nulijuk, pale, followed. “Spirits,” panted Amajaq. “Think they were looking for something.”
“Keep your spirit stones on you at all times,” said Tarik. “That’s the only thing that’ll keep them at bay. Be sure not to let them touch you!”
“Why?” asked Sage, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Some spirits get more powerful by drawing from human Soullight,” said Nulijuk. “Some channel it into a weapon. Some drain it all together.”
“What’s Soullight?”
“The thing that makes you human. Humans have Soullight, which is the power of your soul. Other creatures don’t have Soullight, and they’re not as human. Fae have Flair, and spirits like this have Otherlight.”
“Oh,” said Sage, clearly not understanding. “Will they come back tonight?”
“No, they need to rest. They’re like humans; their power has been drained and they need to recharge. They’ll probably go back to their creator.”
“So we can go back to our rooms?”
“Yes,” cut in Yosolo. “Go back to sleep. If they’re like the majority of spirits, they can only find us at night.”
“Wrong!” Nulijuk smirked, and Yosolo frowned. “Spirits can move in the day, but can’t take physical form.”
“Whatever! They can’t look for us until they’ve recovered, and once they find us, they can’t hurt us. We have some time to get out of here.”
“It’ll be harder for them to find us in the towns,” said Nulijuk. “Our Soullights will be confused with others.”
“They can’t recognize our faces?” asked Sage.
“Spirits can’t see at all like we can. They see using their Otherlight, and they can recognize Otherlight, Soullight, and Flair. Otherwise they’re blind to the world like we know it.”
Note: I’ve eliminated Flair and now fae have Otherlight.
I made Nulijuk as interested in ghosts and stuff as I am 😉
Excerpt #5: This last one is a li’l Sage and Tarik floof!
Now the song changed. Rowdy guitar gave way to flute and a light plucking of an arm-harp. The singer bowed and sat down, watching as more and more couples came forth to sway on the dock.
Tarik turned to Sage. She was watching him with glistering eyes. He turned full to her, bowing low. With a nervous smile, she curtsied deeply. He held out his hand and she took it. Spinning her out onto the dance floor, he took one hand and placed the other on her hip.
She was so beautiful and graceful. She felt so right in his arms. Moving with him, she was as fluid and light as the music itself. She looked up at him, eyes wide and filled with tears.
Twirling her, Tarik pulled her close. “You’re so beautiful.”
She buried her face into his shirt. “Thank you.”
He ran a thumb over her ear, then over her hair. He wanted to yank the braids free and unravel them, losing himself in the shining hair. Instead, he cupped his hand against the back of her head and rested his chin on her head as the song gently closed.
When they returned to the group, everyone knew better than to say anything except ‘what a lovely night.’
That was my last excerpt! Now I’m going to share some writing Pins that Sister sent me when (a. she wasn’t writing and (b. I wasn’t either.
Also, she enjoys distracting me by sending me Pins of Kili
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Be blessed!
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November 19, 2020
interesting.