10k In A Day Challenge

Hello. Yes, I didn't forget about posting from yesterdays challenge. While the goal was to write 10,000 words in one day, I didn't get very far. I did finish the section I'd started back on the 13th but I didn't get close to the goal for the day. My total word count was just over 1200. Some is better than none so I'm at least happy to have the scene finished and my novel now has 51,500 words in it. Only 49k to go.

Here is the scene from what I wrote yesterday (no editing): 

A knock on the door caused them all to twitch. The voice of the innkeeper through the door, "Is everything alright in there?"

Feyn almost spoke but caught himself just in time. He'd forgotten in that first second the innkeeper was expecting only female voices since the one male he knew was in the room had remained downstairs. He looked at Daemahn for what to do next and was given a signal to remain quiet.

Daemahn looked to the two humans, a slight moment of desperation followed as he tried to indicate one of them should say something but it couldn't expose the two elves. Luckily for them both, the smaller human gave in and responded.

"Everything is fine. Please give us our privacy as requested."

They waited a few moments in silence to ensure that he was gone. Daemahn rested his back against the door and listened during that time while the others in the room looked around in awkward moments barely holding any glances with the uncomfortable nature of the current situation. Once they were certain they could speak again, the conversation continued.

Gretchen spoke again, taking over the humans side of the conversation as Feyn almost expected. "Why should we trust you elves?"

It was a question that confused Feyn. He didn't understand where the new found animosity came from between the humans and the elves. While most of his travels had been uneventful even though he rarely received a very warm welcome, there were a few times when he'd been asked to leave or even chased from a location because of this insecurity that had developed. And he had no idea why it even existed. If his people had rarely ever left the forest then why would the humans have this idea that all elves were out to get them? And why did the village have a sense of danger for the elves as well? It was uncomfortable along with confusing that he hoped to one day figure out.

"Considering where we are and the situation," Daemahn spoke again, his voice still in that unnerving calm tone. "The real question is why should we trust you? You up and walked into our room, trespassed and are a threat to our safety. Why are you here and why should we believe you?"

Monday's Muse is Distracted

It's Monday yet again and over the past week I've been very distracted by... well, laziness. I haven't written more than 500 words since November 14th. After hitting the 50k mark I snagged and became distracted by a variety of things. Which sometimes happens. Distraction is easy. Look a shiny! *points*

NaNoWriMo WIP Wednesday

Hello wonderful readers! Since I made it to 50k a few days ago, it seems fitting to post an entry from the portion of the novel near that wonderful 50,000 word mark. This is a section that includes the 56 words that brought my word count total up and over 50k. Woot! Enjoy the mess that is a nanowrimo first draft.

Excerpt from the NaNoWriMo novel: Gathered at Dawn


Once he had washed off his face, Daemahrath left the water indicating that Feyn could use it to get the powder from his face too. He moved over to a small table and began to flip through a stack of papers adding to the ones already there with a few items that Jateau had managed to pilfer that night over dinner, which increased the amount gained from the earlier journey the short human had made through the village. When Feyn finished washing his own face, Daemahrath handed him a paper and indicated for him to sit down on one of the beds. Daemahn also sat down on the bed as he asked, "Can you look this one over and see if you can interpret what it says?"

"Sure." Feyn took the paper and sat on the bed next to but not too close to Daemahn. He spent a few moments looking at the signs and written script on the page he'd been given. It looked familiar but it wasn't easy for him to recall among the few languages he'd learned before leaving the woodlands on his quest. But there didn't take much longer of time passing for him to recognize a few key terms and one of them happened to be the groups planned destination. "It mentions the Fort here," he said pointing to the word. "But there isn't too much on this one. I think it's logistic information about the fort: the strengths and potential weaknesses. I think this one over here is an estimate of the forts population. It's a bit small though."

Daemahrath took a break from his own papers to look it over. "The Fort doesn't have a large population and even fewer of them will be capable of fighting. They are known for handling a much larger attack compared to their military because of their location and the build of the fort." After taking another couple of minutes to examine his own page he took the one out of Feyn's hand and tossed it on to the bed. He moved a little closer so that their arms were touching and the page that was in his hand then was displayed in front of them both. "Do you see what I'm seeing? Or am I reading this wrong?"

A little uncomfortable at the warmth that he felt when Daemahn settled up against him, Feyn had a slight distraction before he could focus on the paper and question being asked. The script was a little different than the one he'd just looked over and the numbers on the one in front of him were very different. These numbers were larger, much much larger and it wasn't until he got to the end that he realized why Daemahn had sounded concerned and asked for a second opinion. He took a deep breath before giving his opinion. "I don't know exactly what you see but I'm guessing that you are probably right. I think these are army numbers for the overlord and he is planning to have that number of them attack the fort."

"I was afraid of that." Daemahn said. He fell silent, still staring at the paper and not moving away from Feyn's side.

Retold: a blogfest entry

I almost forgot about this blogfest in the mix of NaNoWriMo but thankfully seeing the host's post reminded me and there is plenty of time to get an entry in even though I'm also trying to write 10k in my nano novel today. And I slept too much when I should have finished it before going to bed. So, this won't be an overly long piece. But I am once again posting a blogfest entry from Cinder Story for those that miss hearing about Jack and the rest of my version of a Cinderella story.

Blogfest Details
The Blogfest, Retold is hosted by "Just Another Sarah" over at her blog, The Wit and Wisdom of Another Sarah. She is a fan of story retellings and wants people to post blogfest entries that retells a story from a different characters point of view. It can be a retelling from a fairytale, myth, history, own novels/stories or anything really and the character point of view doesn't matter either. Just has to tell what is being retold and link if possible.

I actually retold a scene in a different point of view in my nano novel to get a better insight into a dwarf character but I'm going to limit my nano posts (one should be up tomorrow anyways) and found a section of my Cinder Story to retell.

About the Entry
This is going to be a retelling of a scene I wrote for a different blogfest. The first version of the scene was posted on October 7th for a blogfest known as At First Sight. It was the first appearance of the Prince character. Since this is a retelling, I get to do the scene over again from Prince's point of view. While it wouldn't be in the actual book, it is always fun to see things from a different character. The fact that he has attraction to males too is a secret until the very end from the main character, Jack's point of view.
 First Sight scene link


The Actual Entry

Staring down at the touch screen smart phone in his hand, Prince frowned noticing the time of the text message versus the actual time in the top right corner of the phone. He was already late and the predetermined coffee shop for the scheduled meeting was still a few blocks away.

"Remind me why we ended the basketball game early again?" The tall shaggy blonde in red and black gym clothes asked as he followed Prince and their other two friends.

"I'm late for a meeting and it's not going to make a very good first impression if I ditch it for a basketball game with some loser friends of mine."

The thinly veiled insult was ignored by his friend who continued his own jabs as they walked.  "You really ended the game so you could go meet some guy? I thought you were trying to date that one chick."

Prince wished he'd chosen to go alone but couldn't take back the offer of coffee for the rest. Not that he regretted ending the game because there was no way he was going to lose since his team had been up twenty points when they quit early so he could try to make the meeting. "I am. This is a meeting with her father's personal assistant."

Conversations over the topic ended as they reached their destination. He was only twenty minutes late but that was enough to make him feel bad. While the other guys stepped into line, joking and checking out the coffee baristas that were working there that day, Prince returned his focus to his phone. In the text he'd been sent the assistant had listed his coordinates so he would be able to find him in the somewhat busy coffee shop. Despite the enticement of coffee, he looked around the room instead of at the order board in search of the person he was supposed to be meeting.

Based on the information in the text about table placement, paintings on walls and an odd sculpture near a wall, he looked over to the logical spot for his meeting. There was a table with a well dressed young male. He assumed that was who he was meeting and was pleasantly surprised. He'd assumed it would be  an older man judging whether he was good enough for the tycoon's daughter but this guy was young, well-built and rather attractive. Not moving, Prince spent a couple of minutes looking the assistant over before making his approach without even ordering a coffee.

"Are you," Prince said as he made it close enough to the table to garner the dark haired males attention, "Jack?"

"Yes." The man looked at him seeming a bit confused at first. "Oh. Are you..."

Before the question was even asked, he interjected. "Prince. That's me." He smiled, trying not to make it obvious that he was checking out the assistant as he pulled out a chair to sit in at the table.

"So, you really think you're cool enough for a name like that?"

It was an odd question but amused Prince enough that he chuckled. While unorthodox the question was enough to ease the slight awkwardness of first meeting by bringing humor to the table. He smirked and then gave his response with a shrug. "Not really but it's what people call me."

100th blog post

I started this blog back in March. Hard to believe I've had it less than a year and I'm close to having almost as many blog posts and followers as my first blog. I know that blogfests are a big part of both numbers, which is one of the few reasons I try my hardest to take part in them. But why start a second blog?

It really started when I decided to test on WordPress as a potential blogging source. Even though I didn't have problems with blogger I figured I'd give it a try and in doing so came up for the fun title "it's in the book" even though I know i"m not the only one to think of it since "itsinthebook.blogspot" was already taken. While I love having the "Dawn Embers" blog, which is just my pen name cause I haven't thought of anything better or clever to call it, I wanted to have a place for my personal writing. So, I separated the two. I didn't like WordPress as I couldn't even figure out how to get a background on there and that led to me having two blogs on blogger.


March 17th 2010 - First post made. It is a boring introduction post but the first none the less.
http://itsinthebookde.blogspot.com/2010/03/introduction.html

The next two posts jumped right into the topic of my writing as I posted about why I have two series involving genetic mutation and then discussed some of the novels I was or planned to work on. Maybe in a post in December I'll go back and compare the progress I've made on the novels discussed back then and the new ones I've started over the year. Later on, in the next month, I have a 2010 goal post so that should be interesting to reflect on in a future post as well.

Among those posts there also was a plethora of blogfest entries. Although my first blogfest entry was posted on my other blog, the majority has been here and most are well received. The ones that aren't well, it's hard to tell because they are ones with limited comments but that's okay. I still enjoy sharing my work and enjoy all forms of comments when they are left behind for me to view.


August 5th - Post 50, Change Blogfest
(It's post 50 if I'm counting correctly.)
Evidence of the impact blogfests have had on my personal writing blog is the fact that post number 50 was the Change blogfest. Hard to believe that 50 posts ago I was already using Cinder Story for blogfests (then again the nanowrimo prep added a lot of posts in one short month).
http://itsinthebookde.blogspot.com/2010/08/change-blogfest.html


Speaking of October. I had 28 blog posts in that month alone, which is even more than I had in my other blog but that's partly because I posted individual prep work here while the assignments were posted once a week on the other one.


The 100 Posts at quick glance:
During these 100 posts I've shown different excerpts from a few different novels and the occasional short story attempt. There have been a few character introductions that even included images found online. I made a confession or two. For a little while, I even had a slight schedule going where I posted "monday muse" topics on mondays and "work in progress" reports on wednesdays. October showed the method I've come to use every year in preparation for NaNoWriMo and now we're at December and the wonderful 100th post. It has been quite fun sharing my writing and knowing that others are reading, even for the times that no comments are received. I am glad I came up with this second blog and don't mind the work it takes to do more than one at a time. And considering I've had this blog less than a year (whereas the other blog I've had up for almost a year and a half now) it almost has as many followers and blog posts as the other one.


The future of the blog:
Don't worry. There won't be many changes yet for this blog. I may try to find a new template to use because I have had this one in particular for a rather long time. Maybe I'll get someone to teach me how to make some links work on the page so I can have a few pages instead of just the one blog page. Maybe if I ever get a book picked up by an agent or publisher, then the blog will have to make a few changes but for now, things will stay the same. I look forward to the year anniversary in March. And if I get 200 followers, another giveaway.

But for now... Back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Snack Bar

I have a small trove of snack and quick fix food items that I've hoarded away in the computer room where I've been doing most of my NaNoWriMo writing. Thought it would make a good post to share some of the snacks with you all, so you can see what bad food I eat while writing this crazy epic fantasy novel.

No, most of the candy and stuff in that picture is not what I snack on but I liked the picture when I did a google search for snacks. But my food isn't really healthier by any means. So... here is a list of the top snacks I am using to fuel me through 100k in NaNoWriMo 2010.

1. Fruit Snacks

Gushers ("sour" kind is the best)
Fruit Roll Ups
Fruit by the Foot
Mario and My Little Pony gummies

2. Coffee and Creamers

regular coffee

caramel starbucks coffee

white chocolate caramel mocha creamer

gingerbread creamer

chocolate creamer

any other kind I buy

3. Ramen type stuff

top ramen
cup of noodles
yaki soba (haven't tried yet)

4. Microwaveable food

bean&cheese burritos with 

cheese & ketchup (yes i'm weird)

easy mac

instant rice

Other stuff like that.

5. Soda

Pepsi
Coke
Pepsi Max
Coke Zero
Diet Pepsi
Diet Coke

Excerpt aka How Bad First Draft Is

That's right. I'm going to share an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel with anyone that reads this blog post. Yes, it's going to be pretty bad and unedited. But that's part of the fun. It's a first draft and if writing a bunch of words that suck is what it takes in order to get something that can be developed into an amazing piece of literature then why not write the bad words first. Because it's hard to tell based on a blank page which words are going to be great beforehand.

This is from a scene that will most likely not make it in the next draft but I wanted to write it anyways. It's from the first main character's point of view and takes place before he meets the other characters but after he has decided to leave home in his quest that he planned to do with his brother before he passed away. It's only 800 some odd words long, so it's one of the shortest scenes I've written so far in the novel. But for anyone who is interested, this is an example of what my nanowrimo first draft looks like.


The Excerpt

A twig snapped as fear tensed through the young elf's muscles as he clung to the branches of the tree he had climbed only a moment prior to the interruption of the silent throne of early night. Holding still, Feynethom listened for the distinctive shuffle of the patrol that will have walked by on the expected route. Darkness had settled throughout the forest as the moon provided enough of a glow through the dense woodlands to provide just enough light to make out shapes when the appeared a couple of feet from trio of trees he nestled within, hidden from those that might soon cross the path. Once they made it by, the coast would be clear and then he could make his move.


A cough indicated they had arrived, though they seemed to be taking their sweet time on the warm spring evening. The expected noise of leaves crunching until the sounds faded as the two guards were leaving didn't occur right away as expected.

Uncertain, Feynethom peeked down through the limbs making certain not to shake the branches. It was frustrating for him to see the patrol had paused for a break but soon they made their way along the designated route and he could breathe a sigh of relief. It was a surprising notion: the patrol that was set up to keep invaders from making it into the elven city deep within the woodlands, but it wasn't doing a very good job keeping him from leaving.

Hard as it was for him to stay still on the tree branch, his right foot had begun to cramp, he managed to wait another ten minutes to ensure the guard would be far enough away for when he did finally make a little noise. Climbing up the tree had been smooth but the getting back down always failed to be kept silent. The slight crash of leaved when his still slightly cramped foot hit the ground proved the point and he froze at once, holding onto the tree as if it could somehow save him if anyone heard. But silence followed and soon he was able to limp away, darting through the forest line at a quick but steady pace as the light of the moon gave him just enough sight to not trip, except for a couple of times. It would take a few hours for him to be clear from any of the patrols but so far things were going in his favor and he could only hope that he would make it to the forest edge by morning. Considering the closeness of one nights travel, he couldn't help but wonder why no one ever made it very far. It wasn't like there village was that far away, depending on speed of travel and baggage, but he'd never seen anyone make it past the initial border patrol, let alone the emergency ones that kept close eye on the very edges of the city just in case.

The topic was hard to find an answer to but it kept his mind away from his real concerns of what would happen upon morning when his mother and father would discover his bed empty and the short note stuck to the surface of the kitchen table. They were going to be angry with him but at this point he didn't care.

Things wouldn't have ended this way if his father had stood up for him during the hearing when he had requested to leave the city on his quest. Then he would have gotten permission, maybe, and been able to leave with a decent supply of food and the sun to guide him through the trees instead of sneaking out at night. But that's not what happened. Instead, the counsel had all laughed at his request while some down right mocked him before they banned him from taking on the quest for the ancient city, stating he would be wise to abandon his foolish dream and instead make due with his home in the woodlands. They didn't know about the promise he'd made; the one he intended to keep even at the risk of death.

He didn't care how long it took for he was going to prove the history books wrong. Magick couldn't be beat by sheer brute of weapons, it was impossible. He refused to believe that an entire race of elves, the strongest that ever existed in the realm, had been annihilated to the point of extinction and he was going to find them. First, stop would be the city no one had been able to find according to the history scrolls since the slaughter had finished with the land supposedly becoming cursed. Some had tried to find it and most had never returned. But that wouldn't stop him. He would make his brother proud that he had kept his promise and that thought alone kept his feet moving towards the unknown world outside the sheltered home of the woodlands.

Promise and Tristan's B-Day

So, I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks but it wasn't easy for me to accomplish with homework, procrastination and now nanowrimo. Sorry Kristie and thanks so much for extending the contest deadline cause it's an awesome contest.


First, Promise in the wild. I held up the book with the field that exists in front of my parents' house in the background. The picture is of the book Promise in the wild that is Wyoming. The direction is east so it's really really flat looking as the mountains are located to the west. Can you imagine the town was named after wheat? lol  It is also way to nice outside for November here. Usually we have some snow and definitely cold weather. This year is a bit odd since it's supposed to be in the 70's this weekend.

Next is the birthday bash post which umm, took me way longer than it should have because I am a major procrastinator. That and I got the really awesome (or so I thought) idea to make it a comic since I have a MacBook Pro and it comes with Comic Life. But it was actually harder than I thought to come up with something for the characters to say after I managed to divide the picture I use for my own two main characters from my Angel/Demon novel. For that that haven't figured out from my post that showed the original picture I used for the angel and demon, the one wearing the coat is the demon. ;-) And yes, part of me can't believe I've sharing how much of a dork I can be. But here is the promised entry anyways. *hides after posting*

If looking for me after this post, I'm hiding under a blanket trying to write my epic fantasy novel.

Monday's Muse NaNoWriMo

It wasn't easy but I've found some pictures to use as inspiration for NaNoWriMo. Of course, this is after commenting on a blog that I wish I had some. Oops.

The novel as described on my nanowrimo page:

A young elf leaves the safety of his forest village in search for a lost race of elves.
When he finds the lost city of elves, instead of finding the actual race of elves in the rotting city, he runs into a different type of elf. The new one is from a village of dreamers that left the woodlands in protest of the annihilation of the magic race of elves that had once ruled the lands. That encounter brings him into a battle agains a villain who is currently against the humans but may come after the elves in the future.


First are landscape, village, and other setting pictures. All found either on google or weheartit.

Then there is a battle near the end.

A couple of attempts at character, though they aren't very accurate. It's hard to find elf pictures that I like, then add the female dwarf and argh...

Lookie. I has a temp cover and a banner that someone made for me on the nanowrimo web site. Yay! It's not very epic/high fantasy speaking but it's way better than anything I could ever do. I like having an image for it at least.