NaNoWriMo – “Texas Style” Weekend Update
Time for this week’s NaNoWriMo – “Texas Style” update!
The standings as of this writing are:
Edward Cheever II’s Grand Total: 7,619
Glen Robinson’s Grand Total: 4974
Both of these counts are slightly askew. Mine is off because, well, the week isn’t done yet, and I did some writing that is currently sitting on a flash drive in my Brother’s pocket, thus uncountable. And I think Dr. Robinson may have written some more but hasn’t updates his count yet.
Also to take into consideration, somewhat, is that about a fourth of my word count has been in a side project, and not Jaine. It is a Side Project I elaborated on Here. I count it in my overall score mostly because anything that keeps me writing creatively consistently is worthwhile.
The writing has been at times hard, at times easy. The side project has been smooth as butter, mostly because I only write on it when I have an idea to add that I can’t get out of my head. Jaine has been harder in parts because of tough subject matter, or because that finding creative ways to approach the situations were harder to manage than I would have hoped, but at the same time I’m fairly confident in the writing’s quality. I know I’m writing a rough draft, but it always feels good to write material well the first time around.
I’ll try and post mid-week next time, as an end of the week post may be difficult with my girlfriend, Katie, finally moving down here to Texas. 
I’ll be a bit busy, methinks. Anywho. Catch you all later!
-Edward L. Cheever II~
Both myself and Glen have been having a rough time of it, getting back into the writing saddle this summer of 2010, and so he suggested on my other blog that we try out a little NaNoWriMo of our own, to make us get back to work.
So, starting today and progressing for the next 30 days, we’ll be trying to write about 1,500 words a day, with the ultimate goal being 45,000 by the end of the thirty days (I forget the exact date…)
Anybody is free to join, but I’d be surprised if anyone did, so this is primarily just me and him for the moment.
I’ll be keeping track of this here on my Jain Blog (since I’m writing more on Jaine) as well as over at the Rough Writer’s Forums – whose entry looks suspiciously similar, no? Anyways, I’m starting us off with the initial entry of a little over 1,600 (I’ll get specific word counts by tomorrow’s entry.)
So here we go!
My daily total: 1,600
Edward Cheever II’s Grand Total: 1,600
Glen Robinson’s Grand Total: ?
Woo! 
National Novel Writing Month: Week 3
Previous Weeks’ Total Word Count: 33740
Current Week’s Total Word Count: 18089
(Another week and I one-upped myself again! 
I think this will be the last week I one-up myself though, you’ll see why.)
Day 1: Word Count – 3639
Comments – It came hard, but if I’d started earlier in the day, it might have been easier. The story really took some directions I hadn’t intended, including being far more emotional and visceral and raw than I had originally planned, but it worked well. The material is starting to show a little bit more of its own will. I’ve always thought that that was a sign of when my material was starting to really be a successful living thing, when it started trying to wriggle out of my hands. That just means the world I’ve built, and the characters I’ve constructed have real rules and personalities. They’ll be far better for it, now that they’re trying to take control for themselves.
Day 2: Word Count – 3416
Comments – Today I managed to be done writing before 2 o’clock. I started getting pretty bad headaches from lack of sleep, though. Still, I’m glad to be done for the day. It is time for a looooong nap. The Homework unpleasantness can just come later. I’ve realized how close I am to being done with NaNoWriMo, and I really, really want to be done with it before the week’s end. It would give me time to prepare for my vacation time in Illinois with Katie! ^_^ <3
Day 3: Word Count – 1910
Comments – Somehow today, on a Tuesday of all things, I managed the word total between class and work. It doesn’t normally happen that way. At all. I’m kinda worried about the quality of the bit though, as it felt more spat out than most of what I’ve done so far. The good news is I believe there is a good, tense scene there waiting for polish. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.
Day 4: Word Count – 3602
Comments – The first half came easy. It was a breeze, and the words just seemed to flow. The second half came out like I was prying it out with a crowbar. It didn’t help that it was a complete change of general scene and structure. I went from a scene of physical pain and medical treatment to some dream sequences. I’m not certain about the quality of the dream sequences at all. I guess I’ll just hope they look better when I proof-read them than they currently do in my head.
Day 5: Word Count – 1770
Comments – Thursday sucked pretty bad. All this week I’d been getting nowhere near enough sleep for one reason or another. This day I fell asleep in the afternoon, right after the Rough Writer’s meeting when I had planned to write, and I ended up having to write late at night. It was a hard, hard time. It was a difficult scene, but the bonus is that I finally introduced what I feel is the creepiest critter I’ve invented for this world yet. I call it an Umeolot, and I hope it gives people the willies like it does me. I’m thinking it’s going to have to squirm its way back into the story somehow, but I’m not sure where that would happen, yet.
Day 6: Word Count – 2003
Comments – If Thursday sucked because of extensive napping, Friday was worse. I slept most of the day, and I mean most of the day. I forget when I woke up, but I spent much of the rest of my time that day writing. Happily, I finished it at 9:53, just before the next big sequence, which was a good place to end it for the time being. I wished I could have done more, but hey, there were crappy circumstances.
Now that I’ve done my complaining, let me do my celebrating. Woo-Hoo! I won my own challenge! I beat NaNoWriMo! !!! (at least I did according to my math. I’m not going to officially close out my NaNoWriMo experience till my last word count on Saturday)
NOTE: Apparently the above celebration was a little premature. My math was off somehow and I was around 200 words short. That means that…
Day 7: Word Count – 1749
Comments – Today I REALLY finished NaNoWriMo!!! Woo-Hoo! Yeeeeaaaaah! ^___^ And to top it all off, the stuff I wrote today felt good. Really good. Like as in I’m really not sure how much tweaking is going to be necessary come edit-time, good! *contented sigh* Expect a blog about my NaNoWriMo experience tomorrow, as well as a general announcement about how my writing is going to progress from here. I’ll be linking to here from my Main Blog, and I’ll be linking to that upcoming Blog About My NaNoWriMo Experience on here soon, as well.
OVERALL NANOWRIMO TOTAL: 51,523 Words!
Have a very most excellent evening, folks! ^___^
- Edward L. Cheever II~
National Novel Writing Month – Week 2
Previous Weeks’ Total Word Count: 16005
Current Week’s Total Word Count: 17735
(Let me just say I’m very proud to see that I have at least one-upped myself verses last week’s total, even if it isn’t by as much as I would have wished.)
Day 1: Word Count – 1776
Comments – You’d think I’d be able to get a lot more writing done on a Sunday, but noooo. Moving temporarily into a Hotel with family doesn’t exactly help in that regard. For those of you who followed my twitter, or my last post on my Main Blog, or Last Week’s NaNoWriMo Update, you know already that me and the family have been having some pretty major plumbing problems around the house lately. Well, one such problem necessitated closing off the water to the house for a time. Seeing as how we needed to take showers and drink water, and especially as how we would miss restroom breaks rather terribly, we moved into a local La Quinta Hotel for the evening. This drama naturally put a strain on getting as much writing done as I would have wished. It is simply not as easy to write with loads of other people in the same room watching the cowboys game before bed.
Still, I did get a nice number out of it all that tickled my American History funny bone a bit, so it wasn’t all bad.
Day 2: Word Count – 3498
Comments – Monday was beautiful, however, and just as productive as I could have wished, though it did take all day. This is mostly because that I was writing some scenes with a bit more emotion than your generic chase scene scenario, which I am terrified that I have been mostly writing. I mean there have been a lot of chase scenes. I’m just hoping it doesn’t get old when somebody reads the book. That said, I think I managed some pretty good characterization here. I realyl want to keep the difference between Robert and Jaine distinct before I really start smudging the line later.
Day 3: Word Count – 1907
Comments – 1907 words? On a Tuesday!? No. I can’t believe it. It helps I woke up in the middle of the night to work on it some more, I suppose. I was going to finish Tuesday with the typical less-than stellar word count but after waking up for a while in the wee hours of the morning, I decided to buck the trend, and I bucked it hard.
Day 4: Word Count – 3638
Comments – Late Night Writing made this possible, saving my atrocious by-day word count. It helps that I really hit a stride and just kept right on trucking, churning out a lot of stuff very quickly. It’s not often I hit such a smooth spot, and I really enjoyed it, letting it take me to my highest word-count yet. That said, I just hope it was good writing. There’s no telling, as I haven’t gone back to re-read it.
Day 5: Word Count – 1729
Comments – Thursday was a lousy day mostly, for a number of reasons. I felt like I hadn’t accomplished squat, with the only highlight being the Rough Writer’s meeting. Then I squandered the afternoon I had after that by sleeping through pretty much all of it. That I managed the daily minimum by the skin of my teeth is miraculous enough. I’m really glad this didn’t turn into one of the dreaded 300 word days I’ve felt like having on occasion.
Day 6: Word Count – 3407
Comments – Friday was beautiful. I got all the writing I wanted to do done before 1 o’clock. I could perhaps have continued on to bigger numbers, but I really wanted to take a break, and enjoy an Anime for an evening (I’ve finished R.O.D., by the way, which I highly recommend for fantastical alternate history, semi-futuristic, spy action type. Just watch the movie “Read or Die” first.) I also wanted to take a break because I’ve hit a really tough patch where Robert and Jaine are using double-speak to talk about a subject they aren’t really talking about. I want time to think about how to do it.
Day 7: Word Count – 1780
Comments – Well that didn’t turn out the way I originally hoped it would. I think it’s pretty emotional the way I wrote it, though. You know how I was going to use double speak? Well, I started out trying it, but then I realized that the brash nature of one of my characters just doesn’t allow for what I was doing, so I let it explode like it wanted to. What I ended up with is, I feel, a pretty powerfully emotional scene. I know I wanted to walk away from it for a little while after having written it, but I stayed on to continue writing anyway until I had reached the minimal limit. I think what I have is good, and I may leave it as is for tonight, but then I may write later on as well. If I do, it will go on to Sunday’s total and you’ll find out about it here, on my weekly NaNoWriMo updates.
That’s it for this week, a much more profitable week both in content and wordcount than the last. Cheerio my homies!
- Edward L. Cheever II
P.S. I’m going to start posting my un-edited chapters (starting tonight) HERE, on the Rough Writer’s forum. It is for the small writing group I’m a part of over at Southwestern Adventist University.
Chapter 6: The Wilds
They crept along slowly, Jaine deftly using touch and sound to guide her from plant to plant, trusting her familiarity with variations in rustling noises and smells to avoid dangerous creatures, of which there seemed plenty. Robert learned to recognize some of the signs Jaine looked for, such as a sickly sweet smell accompanied by intermittent scuttling that announced a large crustacean-like creature with poison in it’s swinging stingers.
He tried to avoid the memories that Jaine was pouring over, such as her time spent in the government academy. They contained images of various creatures that lived here. Robert was generally good with bugs, he had collected them as a little boy, but some of the creatures in Jaine’s memories made him squirm.
The jungle had a strange order to it. Robert could feel his hands, as Jaine moved them, feeling along thick tangled vegetation, tiny creepers and leaves, that led from Pillar Vine to Pillar Vine like the roots of trees connecting together, making living roads. In between these roads stood patches of various plants that Robert sometimes felt brush his clothes as they crept by. Each patch they passed would go silent as they came near, then burst back into chirps, caws and cackles amongst the rustling of leaves and branches.
Robert stared out into the darkness, but he couldn’t even see his arms moving just past his face. How Jaine had managed to survive out here he didn’t think he would ever know. Like a rabbit in a spotlight, Jaine suddenly froze, a jolt of fear shooting through her. Robert stared out of his eyes, frozen in terror.
“What?” He asked. “What is it?”
Jaine didn’t answer and Robert was about to ask again when he suddenly realized that the jungle ahead of them had gone deathly still. No calls rang out, no insects sang. Even the ever present shuffling of leaves had ceased. The sound of his heartbeat thrummed in his ears.
“What is it?” He asked again slowly, a mental whisper.
No matter what happens, we must stay still. She whispered back.
“What’s going to happen?” Robert asked tremulously. “What?” She didn’t answer. Frustrated though he was, what he felt most was the growing ice in his stomach. He was about to ask her again, forcefully, when he heard it; a faint rustling of leaves, and heavy clicking footfalls, just ahead of them. Whatever it was, it was following the root road they clung to.
As Robert curled defensively in the back of his head, Jaine’s consciousness turned to ice all around him. His body’s skin crawled. His lips quivered, and would have pull back into a snarl, except that Jaine kept them pressed tightly together. His breath slowed, though he ached to pant.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Every footfall brought it closer, and for every dull fall of its weight, came a sharp click; the sound of the stone beneath being chipped away. Robert stared out into the darkness, eyes rolling, searching vainly for something they could not see.
He heard it breathe. A low growl in the back of its throat, in and out, in and out. It came closer, and closer, the heavy footfalls, and the menacing clicking and clacking. Ten feet away. Six feet away. Two feet away. And it was there. A hard muscled leg bumped heavily into Robert’s shoulder, pushing them backward and a surprised grunt came from the darkness right above their head. Robert quivered with fear. He tried to sense Jaine and was surprised even through fear that should have had his teeth chattering. She was still terrified, but she was… a leaf. A plant. Every bit of concentration was going into being a part of the foliage around them.
The creature took a step back and Jaine let Robert’s body rock back into the position they had frozen in, like a vine. If Robert had been in charge of his body, they would have died the next instant, as something began sniffing and ruffling his hair. He wanted to scream, leap away and run, but Jaine held them firmly rooted. The muzzle of the beast came down next to Robert’s left ear. It’s heavy warm breath settled on his shoulder, moist and foul. He heard the wet flapping sound of flesh on flesh, the monster licking his lips, or smacking its gums. He heard the dull rasp of its teeth, soft blades rubbing together. Jaine held their breath as the muzzle moved past their face to the other side of their head. The deafening, shrieking roar that came next drove Robert to panic and he screamed in his head. Jaine’s icy terror quivered violently, but she didn’t move a muscle.
The beast stood still for a moment, then with what Robert could almost sense as twisted disappointment, it climbed over and past them. It’s great rock-like feet planted in Robert’s back bringing hard groans in their head and even harder in his muscles and bones. A multitude of sharp pricks poked into his flesh through his clothes, making small wounds through his shirt and scratches through his work jeans.
It slowly passed over them. Jaine let them start breathing again, slowly and carefully, though Robert wanted to gulp the air. The beast had almost made it past their feet when a familiar scuttling met their ears and a sickly sweet smell crawled up their nose. The poisonous lobster-creature waddled toward them from the right, and worse, capturing the attention of the monster standing over their legs. Drawn by the motion of the crustacean, the beast turned around and crouched down, pressing their legs into the vines below.
Robert was too frightened to think. Jaine was panicking, her thoughts racing. She couldn’t see any way out. If they remained still, the crustacean would almost certainly kill them with its flailing stingers; if they moved, the creature behind them would attack. She remained still, laying hidden in the weighted darkness, hoping that one of the two creatures would take the decision away from her, and terrified in that hope.
A soft sound in the distance caught her ear; a faint rustling. The monster on their legs shifted, sensing the distant motion. As it grew nearer Jaine realized what it was, and her hope gained new life. She tensed her muscles, waiting. A warm breeze from the distant underground vents rolled through the forest like an ocean wave, battering all in its path. She could hear as vines swayed and danced rapidly, great broad leaves snapped and vibrated in the wind and even the great Pillar Vines creaked and groaned.
The beast stood on its hind legs, head turned to the approaching wind in anticipation, leaving their legs free. Jaine could have shouted for joy, but settled for a small smile.
Just as the wind crashed into the foliage behind them, Jaine leapt up and made Robert’s legs start pumping, running headlong through the darkness, with only the vines beneath their feet to guide them. She held his arms in front of them, bent slightly, saving them from smacking face-first into the first Pillar Vine they met. They hit it hard, his arms taking some of the blow, knocking the breath out of them. Jaine pushed off of it, swiftly finding the root path on the other side, and they continued their desperate sprint. The wind whipped around them, giving heat, moisture and fresh oxygen to the eager surrounding plants that whipped at them and grasped at Robert’s clothes.
Several minutes later the last of the wind wound down and so did Jaine, coming to halt next to yet another Pillar Vine. Sinking down with the trunk pressed against their back, they breathed deeply in exhausted relief. When what they had done sunk in, their breaths became chuckles which grew into a deep long laugh, leaving them teary eyed and glad to be alive.
“I thought we were dead! I mean I truly thought we were dead.”
Never, in all of my training, or missions, have I ever been that terrified.
“We were goners. What was that thing, anyway?”
Jaine grew quite for a minute. The Academy of Discovery has never captured one, dead or alive to study thoroughly. We are not sure exactly what it is, except that it hunts by sensing motions through vibrations in the air. Many trainees never come back from the Daom forest, and it is believed that most deaths and disappearances can be laid at that… beast’s claws. Few have ever gone near it and survived; they are the lone sources of what little we do know of it. I do not believe anyone has ever come quite as close as we just did.
“Lucky for us that wind came when it did.” Robert said with an inner grin.
Yes, lucky indeed. We were luckier still that we didn’t run into anything else dangerous on our way here.
Robert immediately imagined stepping on a crustacean, or something worse, and regretted it. It was a sobering image. Their smile slipped from their face.
As you might say, Jaine thought dryly, We aren’t out of the woods yet.
“Ha. Ha.”
I thought you would appreciate it. It is an apt colloquialism.
“Oh, you do know how to tickle my funny-bone just right.”
I try.
“So how close are we to getting out of here anyway?”
We are nearly halfway there, if I were to estimate. Truthfully, I thought we would have already hit the Daomic Cliffs before now.
“Cliffs?”
Did you truly believe all of Miria as one smooth plain?
“How big are we talking?”
You shall see.
********
After only perhaps another half-hour of crawling along the vines and leaves that stretched between the thick trunks of Pillar Vines Robert sensed that the forest was thinning. The root road beneath them was smaller and coarser as the vines became wiry and shriveled. The vegetation that brushed them as they passed became sparse and thin, and the many songs of the forest took on a slight echo as they bounced off of bare spots on the cavern floor and ceiling.
Jaine began running her hands around the ground at their sides, looking for something. Robert curiously tried to peek into her thoughts to see what she was looking for, but se had closed them off too well. He was about to ask when she found what she was looking for. She had picked up a small flat rock with a sharp edge, and shoved it in their back pocket opposite of the one that still held Robert’s shoe.
“What do we need that for?”
We shall have need of it for many things.
“Many things?”
Yes.
“Can’t be any more specific than that?”
You will find out in time.
“Yeah. Sure thing.”
It is not worth bothering over.
“I said ‘sure thing.’”
Indeed.
Robert was about to continue when Jaine announced they had arrived at the cliffs.
We’re at the cliffs?
“Yes.”
How do you know?
“We have reached the wall climbers.”
Wall climbers?
Jaine reached out and touched a vine. It felt… hairy. Long thin tendrils and creepers stretched out from the vine in all directions, most of them, however, reached down and sunk into the ground. The vine was firmly fixed to the floor by those “hairs,” as Robert named them.
“The wall climbers mark the edge of the Greater Daom Forest and the Lesser Daom Forest, also called Daom’s gorge.”
“A gorge? So we don’t have to climb up?”
Not as of the moment, no.
“’As of the moment?’”
Indeed.
“Stop saying that.”
The path ahead is treacherous. I must focus on the task at hand.
“Uhg. Could you at least tell me how deep this gorge is?”
Fine, if knowing that will ease and quiet you for a while?
“I’m a mouse.”
That is a truly odd thought. Very well. Jaine followed the wall-climber till it plunged unseen over the edge of the rock they were laying on. She reached around and grabbed a large rock from nearby. Holding it out over the lip of the ledge she let it drop. Robert listened. Half a minute later a distant crack of stone striking stone told him it had reached the bottom.
His body’s eyes bulged in his shock. He didn’t know exactly how far a rock fell in half a minute but in his mind’s eye it fell a very long way. It took him a moment, and two or three times clearing his throat, before he could speak. “How on earth are we supposed to get down there?”
Do you mean besides leaping off?
And Robert had thought his eyes were bulging before.
No, I do not propose we jump. I am not insane. We will climb down on these. She patted the wall-climber beneath her hands.
Robert moaned.
Jaine rolled their eyes and, grabbing hold of the wall climber, swung her legs out over the edge, and began the long climb down. Jaine moved quickly, hands and legs continually moving, finding footholds in the rock and new vines when the one they were on suddenly ended. It was a tall cliff-face, but before long a strange odor drifted up to Robert’s nose.
“What is that smell?”
Larva pits. We are almost at the bottom.
“Good. Wait, larva? What kind of larva?”
It is not a bad sort of larva.
“Is it a good sort?”
More or less.
“It won’t bite me?”
It won’t bite you.
“Good. Or sting?”
Or sting.
“I think I’ve had my fill of things that want to kill me.”
You are not alone in that regard. She bent their head around and peered down toward the ground. See that? In the distance little speck of muted yellow light speckled the ground, some smaller than others, and some much smaller, barely visible from their height.
“What? They glow?”
Yes. Ruy larva glow to warn predators not to eat them.
“Predators?”
They aren’t dangerous to us.
“Well, alright. But why shouldn’t they eat the larva things?”
They are poisonous.
“Poisono…!”
Not to us. It is only poisonous if ingested.
“With all the crap out here, how do you people even sleep at night?”
Is there nothing in your world that is dangerous?
“Well, yes, but…”
Jaine gave him a flat mental stare. Robert changed the subject, “There’s all sorts of glowy stuff down here, isn’t there?”
We do not have a… sun, she said awkwardly, so ‘glowy’ things survive better down here. It is not so amazing.
“When I was a kid, it was cool to have shoes that glowed in the dark, you know.”
Your people are strange.
“Or yours are. I mean, those Sern light things? Cool. I like ‘em. How does that ever get ordinary?”
They reached the bottom a moment later as Robert’s left foot came to ground. His toes sank an inch into thick mud. Robert grimaced.
“Yuck.”
You do not like it?
“No! It’s disgusting.”
The odor here may not be pleasant, but the mud has regenerative properties. And it is easier on our feet than rock.
“How is there mud down here anyway?”
It is made by run-off from the eastern Sern fields.
“Oh. Does that mean it floods down here?”
Floods?
“I’m guessing that’s a no.”
No, we do not have… floods. The Sern vines secrete the water, so there is always a light overflow of water, which then runs down here.
Jaine turned to the wall they just climbed down from and found an old hard vine. Pulling the sharp stone out of its pocket, she hacked at the wooden plant just above their head, like she was swinging an axe. Once she chopped through to the other side, she squatted down and began hacking about three feet below the first cut. Once the vine was sliced through, she used the rock to carve away the hairs and tendrils still holding the piece of vine to the wall. A second later she pulled the vine free, now a yard-long stick.
“What do we need that for?”
You will see.
“You love your cryptic answers, don’t you?” Robert said dryly. “Up for a sarcastic answer? ‘I can’t see anything.’ Ha! How’s that?”
Instead of responding, Jaine hunted out the closest larva pit. Once found, she thrust her hand inside and emerged with thick pulsing, mucus-covered grubs. While Robert mentally retched and protested, she crushed them against the point of the stick and rubbed their remains all over it. After five other worms suffered the same fate as the first, the stick glowed like a yellow florescent bulb, if a dim one, illuminating their surroundings.
Robert reached out and took control of the arm holding the stick for a moment and swung it about.
What are you doing? Jaine asked angrily.
“Sorry. It’s just that I don’t get to feel like a Jedi every day.”
Whatever that means, we do not have time for you to indulge in fantasies. This light won’t last for long.
Jaine was right. They had to repeat the procedure twice, sacrificing thirteen Ruy larva before they reached the far side of the gorge. From what Robert could make out by the light of their glowing vine, this side was much rougher, with a steep incline instead of a straight cliff-face. They slowly began the long haul upward, pulling themselves up over rocky ledges and shimmying around imposing overhangs.
The rubble wasn’t barren, either. Thick moss covered everything, with long thin sprouts of feathery stems sticking out in clusters amongst the rocks. Small creatures would skitter away just out of sight as they came around a bend or heaved themselves to new heights. Everything smelled like the bottom of an old forgotten pool.
It wasn’t long before their glowing stick grew dark, and they had to throw it away. Feeling their way through the darkness once more made an already frustrating journey even more tedious, as unexpected dead-ends forced them to wind their way back and forth up the ruinous slope. Their tired limbs cried out once more, and the pain from the small wounds and cuts in their back grew hot and sharp.
“Not that this hike isn’t charming, or anything, but when do we get out of here?”
Soon. Now stay silent.
“How soon?”
I wonder why I ever thought you would be less frustrating when I was in charge of this body.
“Not what you expected?”
It is quite the opposite really.
“I’m not usually this talkative.”
Oh, no?
“It’s something about being in the back of my own head. It makes me nervous.”
You shouldn’t be. I have everything under control.
“I would say something about famous last words, but I don’t think now is the time, especially with you in my body. And there isn’t even any wood to knock on.”
You are making even less sense than usual.
“You weren’t exactly the poster child for clarity when I first found you in my head.”
Be quiet.
Robert laughed, but dropped to silence for the moment. After half an hour more or so of climbing and intermittent bickering, the pair finally made it to the top ledge, which leveled off for about 100 yards before leading directly into a cave wall.
“What now?”
It is nothing to worry over. This wall protects the city from exposure to the forest, though there is not much of it on this side of the gorge.
“What, are we going to tunnel through it or something?”
Do not be ridiculous. She reached out with her hands and pressed them against the rock. She slowly rubbed her hands from side to side across the surface, moving further right as she went. Robert could feel her frustration growing as she kept moving.
I do not understand. It should be here.
“What are you looking for?”
A carving in the rock. An arrow. We place them shoulder height.
“You’re forgetting something.”
What? What do you know about our ways?
Reaching out to take partial control over his body, he squat down and pressed his hands in front of them. Under his hand they could feel a deeply carved line with an arrow pointing to the left; exactly the shoulder-height of a Jern.
Robert felt his cheeks blush.
Oh. Jaine said, thick with embarrassment. I am sorry about what I said.
“Don’t mention it. I haven’t exactly been a model passenger.”
I had not noticed.
Robert chuckled.
With a smile and brightening spirits, Jaine stood up and they walked left with one hand outstretched to the wall, feeling for the arrows that led them on.
National Novel Writing Month – Week 1
Total Week’s Word Count: 16005
Day 1: Word Count – 3036
I think I got out of the gate pretty good. I actually started writing as soon as Katie went to sleep and we got off the phone. I wrote for a couple of hours a least and managed 1,400 or so before bed. I started writing almost as soon as I was out of bed, and I managed a little before Kimberly wrangled me into going to Burleson with her. In between trips to the various stores, such as orders (where I spent entirely too much on manga,) and a Halloween store (where I padded out my costume that you will see on My Main Blog,) I wrote out a dream sequence on a pad of yellow paper. That was very smart of me, even if it only got me a spare 500 or so words. 500 is 1% of the total for NaNoWriMo. I’m that much closer.
I wrote a lot in between getting home and the English Departmental Halloween party, and all together it made 3036 words. While I’m proud of that number, I also took advantage of the massive amounts of Time I had to write this Sunday, and it makes me worried about days when I don’t have that kind of free time (especially Tuesdays and over my trip with Katie this Thanksgiving.) This says to me that I have to stay just this serious and more on every day I have free time, so that I can make up for the slack days.
Day 2: Word Count – 3159
I had another good, solid day of writing today, and I think I’ve decided that the 3,000 word marker will be my optimal daily goal. If I write that much I should make some spare room for days when I just can’t get as many words on paper as I’d wish, but it is also a low enough number to be realistic, and keep me from getting burnt out on long days when I do a lot of writing.
As to the quality of what I have written, I cannot say. I don’t have a lot of time to sit back and examine it, obviously. But I can’t help but wonder in the back of my mind if all I’m writing is crap. Are these scenes any good at all? How is the pacing? Does it flow well? Am I using a good enough vocabulary for the needs of the scene, characters and audience? Are some of the scenes I’m writing even a good thing to include in the story?
It doesn’t help that the fantastical underground worlds I’m trying to create as I go along are hard to visualize. Trying to think how an underground city would be built and put together is difficult, especially when you are dealing with builders who aren’t human, and don’t see the world quite the same way. What’s more, I’m trying to convey an act of sneaking in to a place that would be devilishly tricky to sneak in to, by someone who would have a hard time sneaking anywhere. It’s hard to write and imagine.
Also, I’m worried about the dialogue. I once said that NaNoWriMo would let me just let loose with the dialogue, but that doesn’t just happen. Trying to think about how two different people would see the world and interact is hard enough at a slow pace. Now that I’m having to write quicker, I’m afraid that the conversations are choppy and insubstantial.
Again, these are all just my fears talking. Who knows if they are right or wrong. Let’s just hope it is a very definitive “wrong.”
Day 3: Word Count – 1034
Okay, so from this day on, I didn’t keep a running blog update, so much of what I write from here on out is going to be me recalling things.
Tuesday was as disappointing as I figured it would be. Even without completing any homework, I had very few open hours between my classes and work. Toss the Homework into the mix and I had no time at all. I’m just glad I got to the 1034 mark. Hopefully next Tuesday I’ll be able to at least reach the daily average goal of 1700, and prevent it from becoming a word deficit day that I have to make up later.
Day 4: Word Count – 3421
Thankfully Wednesday was a day of super progress. I don’t recall much from this day except that I wrote, and wrote and wrote, and at times the words just seemed to fly. It was a very nice experience, and it covered easily for Tuesday’s lackluster showing.
Day 5: Word Count – 1993
But then Thursday came. Thursdays simply aren’t as bad as Tuesdays, despite having nearly the same schedule. It helps that three hours of my afternoon don’t have me working like Tuesdays do. But then… the flood came. Okay, okay, it’s not like a river came pouring out of its banks and stormed the house, but it was pretty bad all the same. Those of you who follow my twitter feed, @EdwardCheeverII, would have caught some hints of all this happening. The Water Heater under our stairs busted. Water went everywhere, getting under the Pergo flooring and soaking into the carpet all around the house. Now, this has an effect mentally, of course. My brain shut down for most of the afternoon while I helped wet-vac up the water, and I remained fairly much in shock. After all nothing of this magnitude had happened to our home in all the years I’ve lived there. At least it was water and not fire. But this meant that by the late evening I only had a few hundred words down. By the time I was getting ready for bed I was ready to give up on the day. But in a sudden burst of defiance I tackled the computer and managed to pump out well over the daily average. Nice.
Day 6: Word Count – 1233
Unfortunately, Friday was worse. Yes, we were now dealing with the aftermath of the flooding, but it was mostly the floor people who came by that were dealing with it, not us, so ultimately it wasn’t because of the floor problem directly.
After Hebrew Class and my late night writing previously I was exhausted. This lead to a very nice and long nap. When I woke up though, I wasn’t able to write much on my computer before I was summoned to sit downstairs while my parents were gone. This was for the simple reason that my parents were somewhat afraid that the people boxing up our stuff and moving it to the garage might decide to take some of it for themselves. My presence was to be the deterrent. I supposed that their fears were reasonable, as I have heard horror stories before myself, but at the same time, I was upset that they were taking me from the computer for most of the afternoon, until I had to go to work that night. As a counter-measure, I took a pen and some sheets of paper with me and worked on some side-material (dream-sequences) that weren’t directly reliant on stuff that happened just before. So I wrote and wrote and wrote, and I was very satisfied with the material I got out before my parents got back. Unfortunately, paper and pen writing covers a lot less ground with a lot more paper than I would have realized. When I finally sat down to type out my hard pen-work, I discovered that the daily count only came in at 1233. While I wasn’t happy to be behind the daily average, there wasn’t exactly much I could do about it.
Day 7: Word Count – 2129
Yesterday was a major pain. I worked from Early in the morning till 5:30, and very little of that time was free enough for me to write. Then, when I got home, I found myself exhausted from the days work, and the previous night’s work, so I couldn’t help myself and took a long nap which I only woke up for when my parents called me to tell me to meet up with them in town to go see the new Jim Carrey vehicle, A Christmas Carroll. The movie was actually very very good, though there were segments that were jarringly silly or ridiculous when compared to the otherwise serious film. It is also not close enough to Christmas yet. Still, it is very good, and a touch scary. In some ways it’s like a marriage between Halloween and Christmas. It’s certainly more scare-inducing than the other Holiday-branching classic, The Nightmare before Christmas. Perhaps I’ll review it sometime.
But that left me with no free time to write. Now, I was determined not to let the day be a waste, writing-wise, so I set out to write late at night. I wasn’t satisfied with my word count until laaate, and I didn’t go to sleep until around 5 a.m. or so. Since I still hadn’t slept yet, I still count what I wrote then for Saturday’s count.
And that, folks, has been my First Week in National Novel Writing Month! Now, on to week 2!
Chapter 5: Detachment
Robert was the first to wake, blinking sleepily with his face pressed into the soft turf. Reaching up to rub the sleep out of his eyes, his hand brushed along ground that felt very much like the old 70s era shag carpet he had in his little house, on the surface. It was that sudden thought, remembering he was underground, which finally brought him to full wakefulness. The unreality of the situation struck him again as he felt a now familiar presence in his head.
Jaine stirred groggily. “Come back…” she muttered, “come back…”
She was dreaming. Robert wondered if her dream was as bad as his was, and if it made as little sense. Come to think of it, despite how fast his memory was receding, he could have sworn he had dreamed he was Jaine. That was ridiculous.
“What? What is going on?” She groaned, finally coming around. “I made a plane. It was pretty, but Daddy would not look at it.” She groaned again. “What am I saying?”
Robert worked quickly to mask his shock. She couldn’t have…
“I could not have what?” She said grumpily. “Why must this not be a dream as well?” She paused and Robert could feel her emotions churning, and with the strong sense of suppressed tears she finally said, “I miss my body.”
Robert felt a surge of pity for her. He had it rough, but at least he was still in his own skin.
“Do not pity me.” She growled at him. “I will not have you pitying me. None of it.”
Right. Robert replied, doing his best to suppress the emotion. Don’t worry though. We’ll get it back. He knew he felt less confident than his words, and she felt it too, keeping a disheartened silence.
Slowly pushing up from the spongy ground, all of Roberts aches and pains came back to him. His scraped back, sore legs and bruised feet screamed at him as he brought them around beneath himself in a sitting position. He let out a breath between his clenched teeth and began scanning their surroundings, trying to ignore the pain.
It worked. The soft light he remembered, from just before he fell asleep, came from thousands of glittering specks of blue and green light that covered the stone ceiling, stretching as far as he could see. The ceiling itself rose slowly until it was at least four times his height and more. Shallow pools lay along the great cavern floor with orbs of light lying along their bottoms, a match for the ceiling. Covering the rock between the pools, as well as beneath Robert, was a strange thick moss, which was the soft, shaggy carpet that Robert had first felt.
Not far from his right hand lay one of the glowing spheres, like a large marble resting on the dense mat. He picked it up and brought it closer to his face. The surface was soft and squishy, the liquid inside moving from one side to the other as he pressed it between his thumb and fingers.
“That,” Jaine said, “is a bulb from a Sern plant. A fresh one.”
A Sern plant? Robert questioned. Jaine directed his eyesight again to the ceiling and Robert could just make out a multitude of wiry vines stretching between the glowing dots, with the dots hanging from tubes that seemed to emerge periodically from the tangled greenery. Oh.
“They leech off of the ceiling and sprinkle water and those little bulbs down to the floor.”
So, these are the “sern” lights? I thought you said they were crystals.
“Those bulbs are not Sern lights. They only hold the chemical used to make them.”
Robert kept squishing the bulb between his fingers. It felt very durable. How do you get it out? It seems like it would be kinda hard to get it to pop.
Jaine sighed. “It is not ripe yet. The pouch turns hard, like glass, after it has been separated from the base plant long enough. That is when they are harvested.” Jaine swept Roberts hand at their surroundings, “These are the Sern fields. The southern ones, I should guess.”
Well that’s great and all, Robert said irritably, But could you stop flinging my arms and eyes about? It’s confusing. They are my body parts. As if to prove his claim to them he shoved both of his hands deep into his pants pockets.
He felt a flash of irritation from her, but all she said was, “Don’t be a fool, we need to get to Ghund. There is no telling what that beast is plotting. The King could be in danger.”
Ghund?
“The city.”
Ah. Gotcha. Which way?
“That way.”
Robert was about to state that she wasn’t exactly helping when he suddenly knew which direction she meant. He turned to look, and felt such a keen focus, that he knew if he let go of his hands they would suddenly be pointing strait ahead. His feet twitched, and a part of him wanted to rebel and just stand there, but she knew the way and she was right, they had to get her body back.
Right. Fine. He thought. The moss underneath his half-shod feet was blessedly soft and squishy, and it wasn’t long before he took off his other shoe, stuffing it partially into his large back pocket.
Walking between the pools beneath the ceiling felt like swimming in a sea of stars. He felt a giddy urge to stretch out his arms and pretend to float, as if through space. But he wasn’t a little boy, and his arms stayed at his sides. He couldn’t help but marvel at it, however, and for the next hour he watched the sky (he couldn’t think of a better name for it) twinkle merrily, reminding him of a time long ago when he had traveled to Arizona. Out in the desert there were no city lights and you could see the stars clearly on crisp cold nights. He had even seen the great spiral of the Milky Way. The stars here were much nearer, but beautiful in their own way.
The pathways between the pools were often well wide enough for travel, but at times they shrunk to bridges from three feet to a mere foot or even less. More than once they had been forced to find a way around expansive pools. Jaine grumbled at the waste of time, but Robert refused to wade into the pools, preferring to take the soft roads between.
While Robert saw no creature larger than a small dog, life became more and more abundant as they headed through the heart of the Sern fields. Small crab-like creatures that scuttled from pool to pool were the most common, while invisible insects of what could have only been some variation of crickets made a rousing chorus. Occasionally Robert would spot a pale, bulbous creature hoping along that, aside from a long tube-like nose, reminded him strongly of a toad. Robert had asked Jaine if any birds lived in the area, and she had replied with a firm no. There were no places to keep a safe nest, with no room for what Jaine called Pillar Vines, or Bag Ferns, though she told him they would be seeing them soon. Robert ruled out bats almost immediately because of the persistent light.
They had been traveling for quite some time when Robert felt a strong gust of warm wind from his behind him to the right. Startled, he looked in the direction it had come from. A wind? He thought bewildered. In a cavern?
“The winds are drafts from the heat pits.” Jaine replied. From the tone of her voice she would have been shaking her head at his ignorance if she had one. “They supply a steady stream of warm air that circulates all of Miria, but because there are many pits, there is no telling exactly where the wind will blow.”
You don’t have to treat me like an ignorant lout.
“You are an ignorant lout.”
Robert grimaced. I may be ignorant, but I’m not a lout. Um… whatever that is…
“So long as you realize you are ignorant.”
Robert ground his teeth angrily. He wasn’t sure exactly how to express what he wanted to say, because words like “respect” seemed pompous, and “be nice” sounded childish and whiny. Instead he brooded in silence, and Jaine, sensing his mood, decided to drop it.
It was another hour or more before the Sern fields began to dwindle and strange new plants began appearing out of the widening ground. Most were strange vines that dangled from the ceiling with wide leaves that stirred heavily in the warm breeze. Some ground plants, like reeds, grew straight and tall with heads covered in long thin leaves, making them seem to be wearing odd shaggy wigs. Jaine didn’t take time to give names to everything, now that they were both sulking, but he seemed to feel a growing unease from her as they progressed. He decided he was imagining things as she only urged him on, occasionally repeating the dangers the Murk put the kingdom in. Robert grew steadily more annoyed until he was nearly bursting with the need to tell her that if she spouted her warnings one more time that he would do something drastic. Before he could decide to do just that, however, Jaine announced that they had reached the Forest of Daom.
It was certainly a forest, though Robert might have almost rather called it a jungle. The thin, wide-leafed vines he’d first seen had given way to massive vines as thick as trees running from floor to ceiling with great leaves the size of elephant ears sticking out on all sides at all angles. Those Robert guessed to be the Pillar Vines Jaine had mentioned, while the great bulging sacks of plant matter hanging from the ceiling, extruding long hanging leaves that swayed a foot above Robert’s head, must have been the Bag Ferns. Those were both common, but he could spot other variations of vines growing along the ceiling, some with wild and fanciful leaves, others with broad pale flowers. Waist high plants of various kinds made travel slow going, with some clinging to his clothes as he brushed past and others eerily shying away.
He could feel Jaine in the back of his head watching their surroundings cautiously with what seemed to him to be a growing sense of apprehension. Her attitude started sinking into him and he peered around warily.
Animal life could be seen and heard everywhere. The singular chorus of the Sern crickets, as Robert had begun calling them, gave way to a raucous cacophony of competing songs, insect choirs alongside others that were distinctly bird-like, and a few that were utterly unfamiliar. One shrieking call in particular raised the hairs on Roberts arms and sent shivers down his spine. As his eyes traveled the dense foliage, what he had taken for a leaf here would suddenly scurry away, and what he had thought was a branch there suddenly slithered out of sight.
Robert was distinctly unsettled.
Um… He thought, staring into the dense foliage. Do we really have to go through here?
“Yes.”
There’s no way around?
“Well, yes, but it would take an unacceptable amount of time; easily more than a couple of days longer.”
That doesn’t sound so bad…
Jaine snapped in a sudden rage. “We are not going around! We cannot afford any more of your foolish delays. This is the only way we might get to the king in time. We must not let that thing kill him. Do you have any idea the chaos that would ensue? We cannot let that happen! I will not allow it to happen, especially not by my body!” The last came out as a shriek that had Robert covering his ears even though it was all in his head.
Ah! Alright! Okay! For goodness sake, you didn’t have to be so vicious about it.
Jaine remained angrily silent.
But, well, there’s some bad stuff in there, right? I mean, I’ve felt you getting all jumpy the closer we got here, and I know I picked up some of what you were thinking about the place. He caught some of the images that now flickered through Jaine’s mind, and some of the creatures were more than disturbing. What could any creature possibly need that many claws for?
How on earth are we supposed to get through their alive?
“I will lead you through it.”
Sure, right, Robert growled, and when those lovely fanged things I just saw in your head ambush us, I’m sure you’ll have all the time in the world to give me twelve step instructions on how to deal with it.
“Do not take that tone with me.”
Robert sneered, What are you, my mother?
“I swear, I will cut out your tongue when we are though!”
Oh, now there’s the motivation I was looking for. You know, you should do inspirational speeches.
Jaine seethed.
I want you out too, but if that’s the kind of treatment I can look forward to, then I will just learn to deal with this. You can sit in my head forever, and I’ll learn to ignore you. Deal? It’s not like you’d have a choice.
Jaine roared and Robert’s left hand jabbed him hard in the gut. Wind knocked out of him, Robert sank to his knees. His right fist took him in the eye and he fell sideways into a pack of reeds, which shook and thrashed wildly as he squirmed amongst them trying to take back control of his arms. His right arm quivered cramps forming in every muscle from his hand up to his shoulder. His left arm still flung about striking his body and head intermittently.
Robert furiously strained to control the left arm, but finally rolled his body on top of it. His triumphant laugh was cut short as his right heel was driven soundly between his legs. Cursing while trying to hold back the tears in his bulging eyes, he wrapped his left foot around the traitorous leg and pinned it to the ground. After a few more violent attempts of the left hand to break free, pinching and clawing, his body finally laid still.
They were both panting and moaning in his head.
“You would do that to me?” Jaine growled. “Keep me locked up in your head like a toy? Like a plaything?” Angry tears replaced the pained ones running down Roberts cheeks, and they were not all his. “I’m not yours to do with as you want.”
Robert was still angry, but confusion creeped in. She was angry, furious even, but as much as that, she felt… hurt. He sensed hidden thoughts, memories, like a purple and black bruise, just behind her words.
“No.” He whispered aloud. “I wouldn’t” Switching back over to thoughts, he asked, But what about you? Why do you treat me like that?
“Like what?”
Like trash. Like an idiot.
“I do not treat you like that.”
Oh no? Robert let memories of her words flow openly between them.
She was silent for a moment. “I did not mean it like that.”
It sounded like it.
“I did not…” Now she seemed mad at herself. Struggling with words she finally managed, “I must apologize. My actions were uncalled for.”
Thanks.
“Yes, well…” She said, “We still must hurry.”
All right. Robert thought, and with aching slowness he once more stood up, stretching his aching arms and legs. But how are we going to get through this alive? There’s still no way I could react fast enough if we were attacked.
“Actually, I have already planned for this, but I am not certain how you will take it.”
Robert arched an eyebrow, Oh?
Jaine sighed. “I know this forest better than you do. I survived here for two weeks alone, without tools, as part of my survival training. If we are going to make it out of here alive, I must take control of your body.”
Roberts eyes popped. What? No!
“It is the only way.”
Absolutely not!
“My service to the throne requires swift reflexes and perceptive eyes. You need my skill, and this is the only way to use it.”
How do I know you will give it back to me?
“Do you wish me to swear? I will swear to it by my life and the throne, if I must.”
To Robert’s mental ear, she said “throne” as if it were the stronger of the two. He gritted his teeth and shook his head angrily.
Jaine remained silent.
Robert paced for a minute, thinking privately. Keeping his thoughts from her was a chore, and he could feel her studying him. He turned and took a long look into the forest. The dim glow of the Sern fields behind them extended only a short way past the first layer of Pillar Vines and other foliage, fading into black after only twenty feet. The distant rustle of leaves and the coarse disharmonies of the forest songs filled his ears.
He sighed, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. All right. You win.
“Very well,” Jaine said lightly, “it shouldn’t be too difficult. We don’t want to merge again, instead we need to switch places.”
How, though? Merging wasn’t exactly easy.
“Remember how we merge. I force myself to feel what you feel, but if you did not feel, then I would take control of the body.”
You lost me around the time you said “feel” the second time.
Jaine sighed. “Just… try to loosen your control of your body.”
How am I supposed to do that? Robert felt Jaine shiver in frustration.
“Pretend you are laying down to sleep. Draw into yourself.”
Thinking of the long fall to the ground Robert said, This would probably work better if I wasn’t standing.
He laid down on top of bristly grass, his head in a patch of reeds and his legs under a strange fern. He closed his eyes and tried to close his mind to the endless chirruping and shrieking of the forest. He could suddenly feel Jaine… filling out… was the best way he could describe it. A strange tingling crept over all his body, growing until he could not stand it any longer and he resisted. His vision blurred as he and Jaine started to merge. With a sudden snap he was back in control of his body and Jaine was angrily muttering in the back of his head.
“Why did you do that? We had almost accomplished the transfer.”
Look, if felt weird, alright?
“It is true that the experience will likely be unpleasant, but you must endure it.”
Merging wasn’t nearly this bad.
“You were not relenting control at the time.”
Robert stewed for a minute. I guess we need to try it again.
“Do not take back control this time. We must work quickly.”
I won’t. Despite Robert’s best intentions, it took two more failed attempts before Robert’s eyelids opened solely under Jaine’s control.
Robert watched out of the back of his mind as his eyes studied the ceiling, jumping around briefly. His consciousness felt like it was floating in a void, or in water. If he would compare it to anything, he would have said it was much like a goldfish might feel as it was carried around in its bowl: watching, helpless, and hoping that whatever happens it doesn’t go horribly wrong.
His limbs felt distant and a little numb, but he still felt what they felt, so when Jaine sat up and pushed them off the ground he felt like a marionette pulled around by his strings. He felt a sense of wonder and curiosity flowing through him, and he realized it felt like he was surrounded by it.
“Jaine?” He asked.
Yes? The reply seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Um… This feels very… strange.”
It is not a particularly pleasant sensation, no.
“You’re everywhere.” He said wonderingly.
It felt much the same when I was there. Did I always sound like a small voice? Like a person sitting in the back of your head?
“Yeah, you kinda did.”
What an odd sensation.
Aside from the obvious, Robert knew better why she wanted her body back. Floating in the back of another’s head, a mere disembodied voice, a fish in a bowl, was highly unpleasant.
“Can we get on with this?” He asked sullenly.
He could distantly feel his mouth grin. Not liking the taste of your own medicine?
“You got that saying out of my head, didn’t you? And it’s wrong anyhow. I didn’t do this to you, you know. It’s not my medicine to taste.”
His body’s grin slipped. Yes, well. It is best that we get on with it then. Jaine said uncomfortably.
If Robert had lips they would be pressed tightly together in fright as Jaine cautiously slipped deeper amongst the vines and brush. Knowing that another was better equipped to handle this was one thing, but handing your life to them was something altogether different. As he watched from inside his eyes, the light fleeing, and darkness overtaking everything, he felt once more like a little child under the covers, chained to the bed with fear, unable to stop staring into the night.
