Realm of the Gods Part Three

“We cross over the Fire only when we come to it.  Not before,” Migaru said, repeating one of her father’s favorite sayings. “Come on.  You can have dinner with me tonight.”
“Eat in the mountain? With lord Inferno?  No one but a lord or lady can do that!”

“I’ve been doing it for years, and I’m still alive,” she told him dryly.  “You’ll be fine.  I’ll race you there.”

Migaru took off across the plains that lay at the base of the Fire Mountain range with Rifoe right behind her. Their laughter was loud and their race made several passing Fires jump back to avoid being crashed into.

Unseen by both, a hawk swooped down to the ground, picking up its meal for the night before returning to the forest.  It landed on the outstretched arm of a man in green. “I agree,” he told it.  “It is time.”

“My thanks to you, lord Inferno.  Dinner was delicious,” Rifoe told the leader of Fire.

“It was a pleasure to have you as well, Fireling.  Besides, how could I deny a request on my daughter’s Day of Power?”  He looked at Migaru, who was busy staring at her plate as though it was the most interesting thing in the world.

A knock on the door interrupted any further conversation as Fumilt poked his dark haired head into the room.  “Sorry to disturb you, milord, but there is a visitor to see you.”

“Can’t it wait for a bit? At least until I finish dessert?”

Fumilt shook his head.  “I’m afraid not.  He says it’s important.”

“Very well.  I’ll meet him in the main hall.” Fumilt nodded and closed the door on the three.  Inferno looked at the table still full of food and sighed.  “I’m sorry to have to do this to you.  If you would excuse me though.”  He rose and closed the door behind him as he left.

“I suppose I had better get going then too,” Rifoe began slowly.

“Right.  Yeah…Yeah,” Migaru said quickly.  She rose with him and walked over to the door leading to the mountain’s entrance.  “Thanks for coming?”

He grinned.  “Of course!  Like your dad said, how can I refuse a request on your Day of Power?”  He easily dodged her mock hit and smiled again.  “’sides, it was fun.  And it meant I didn’t need to compete with the rest of the family for food at the table.”

Rifoe’s huge family was forever a source of amusement and frustration to him.  While it was great to have so many people, it all the meals were a huge to do and generally a contest to see who could get at the food first.  “Good thing I had you come over then, huh?”

“You know it.” Then, before she could move away, he gave her a quick hug before darting out the door.  “Bye Mig!” he yelled to her.

“See you Rif!” Migaru called back to him.  She watched out of the door until he was out of sight. Turning, she went back inside and began to return to her room when Fumilt stopped her.

“Lady Ficis?  Lord Inferno requests your presence in the main hall.” Fumilt held out his hand.  “I was told to bring you there.”

Getting back to this…

I moved AGAIN this weekend, but hopefully for the last time now.  Unless things go horribly horribly wrong, I’m here to stay.  Which means I can get back to updating this with more regularity, even if my schedule isn’t.

My goals for this week:

Review the book I just finished (The Name of the Wind)

Update Realm of the Gods

Choose a cover for NaNo 2011

Edit NaNo 2011

Poetry Day

and any other suggestions that you might have.

Are there any topics involving writing that you would be interested in learning more about? Or at least my viewpoint of them? Please let me know!

Poetry Day

It’s been a while since I did one of these, what, with life getting in the way and all.  But it’s back!

It’s Poetry Day, once again featuring miss Emily K Proeber.

Real World

You were
an optimistic sadist, hoping
your nightmare
would return,
so tired
that the walls crawled

attempting
to re-dream, speeding
over light-bumps, tripping
over shadows, falling
asleep again
is not
in her vocabulary.

The room spun
twice today –
once for each
of us, for
the times that we
awoke, losing
our battles
with mourning.

We are damaged, dis-
counted, but at the biting
apple-core, still
Goods.

Bibliophile Heaven

Well, if it wasn’t a sure thing before, it is etched in stone now.

The first place I go now that I live in a big city?  The library that is a three minute walk away.

I got a card today. And then I found out that, not only do I have access to all of the libraries in this City, but also the whole of the county and SEVEN OTHER COUNTIES.

I don’t know when I will possibly have time to read seven counties of books, but I’m sure as shoot going to start trying to !

Writing Every Day

NaNoWriMo is a great thing if you’re trying to get used to writing every day.

It can also be a bad thing for those people who have no desire to edit and instead publish exactly what they wrote two days after they win.

But let’s not go there.

 

If you completed NaNo, congrats to you!  You learned the importance of keeping to a schedule in writing, and how easy it can be to write a bit each day.  But upping the word count is never an easy thing, especially with a deadline looming. And it gets even harder when real life gets in the way.

This was the trouble that one author, Rachel Aaron, had when she started writing professionally. While struggling to find time with a new baby to write, she happened upon a few neat tricks that upped her word count from 2,000 a day (your basic NaNo goal) to around 10,000 a day (NaNo done in 5 days, anyone?).

The basics of it go something like this:

1: Do a basic outline of what you plan to write that day.  It can be anywhere from a few lines long to three pages of scribbled notes.  Get the basic ideas of how the scenes are going to flow, both in themselves, and together to create a cohesive whole. This ensures that you don’t spend time agonizing over where you are going next in your story, and that you can keep writing, as you already have most of it planned out.

2: Keep a record of what you are writing, Word Count-wise.  This lets you see where you are more productive, and gets you to sit your ass down in the chair to write. It may not be possible to dedicate an entire day to writing, but do it when you can.  Writing three hours at a time will boost your count by a lot, as you get more and more involved in your story to the point where the characters are telling it, you’re just the one writing it down.

-I have a personal experience with this one. I went to a Write-In three days before NaNo was ending and got into a word war with the local ML. We spent 20 minutes just typing, and the story came, because that was all we were concentrating on.  No internet to be a distraction, no TV in the background, just us, our computers, and our novels.  We both cleared close to 1000 words in those 20 minutes.

3: WANT to write your book!  Getting to scenes that you’ve had in your head since you started it is a great way to bump up your enthusiasm, and that bumps up your count. You want to tell this section of your tale, and the words often come pouring out.  But how can you get through the boring scenes? After all, if you’re getting bored writing them, we’ll get bored reading them!  The answer here, according to Rachel, lies in the first basic: your scene sketching. Find the one scene in what you sketched out that you can’t wait to get too.  Figure out teh plot hooks, and let in play in your head like a movie would.  You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll want to write what was once a “boring” scene.

-Personal Experience again, writing my novella during Camp NaNo (I used it as a time to finish projects rather than start new ones), there were some scenes that seems to drag on forever, and others that flowed out so perfectly and wonderfully that, when I look at them now, I’m still impressed that I was the one who wrote them. Make these moments become the norm. If you have to, skip around in your novel to write.  When you get bored with one scene, move onto the next. You can always come back and work on the first one later, when you get bored with the second!  It makes sure you are always writing, never wasting any of that precious writing time.

Rachel goes into some more details on her blog about this, and gives her own personal examples.  I highly suggest taking a look at it, as it’s something that we could all benefit from.  Even if you don’t hit 10,000 a day, you’ll at least help yourself figure out how you best write, making you a better author.

 

Moved In And Set Up

Well, I have successfully managed to move in about half of my stuff today.  The other half comes in next week complete with moving truck and furniture.

When did I have time to collect all of these things?  And my God, the CLOTHES!  WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY CLOTHES?!

That being said, it’s a gorgeous place here.  Comfy furniture (that is mine until my apartment is ready to be moved into), shower that is clean.  Hot water for as long as I want it and heat as high as I want too.  I never need to wear sweatshirts again! or shiver at night! It’s a good feeling, it really is.

Tomorrow there’s a craft fair that I plan to head to so I can try to find some decorations.

Or, you know, just get out and explore.

Aside from that…

With NaNo and moving done now, I should be able to get back to a regular posting schedule. So, Book Reviews on Mondays (or articles), Stories on Fridays, Poetry Days when I remember and random crazy-ness when it’s called for.

Which should be every day in my life…