A.D....Oooh, Shiny!

It's been one of those weeks where I've been able to write a lot more, but I haven't been able to focus on any project for very long. I'll start plugging away at TUO, and then an hour or so later I'll be working on The Dancer, then, eventually, my brain will get an idea for The Descendants, so I'll move on to that. Rinse and repeat.

I am so close to being done with Chapter Five in TUO that I can almost taste it. I still don't understand why this chapter has been such a struggle for me, but it just has not wanted to cooperate at all. I'm hoping that chapter 6 will be kinder.

The Dancer has been moving along quickly, and, if this pace keeps up, I'll probably have it finished before TUO. I'm thinking of changing the profession of the hero though. I originally had him being one thing because it tied into another series I planned to write in the future, but trying to stick with that may make things a little too complicated and far stretched. I'll keep writing it as it is though, and make changes in the edits if necessary.

The Descendants is a different beast entirely. This is a story idea that I've been playing around with since High School which was initially written to amuse me and my friends during boring classes and lunch. It's matured a lot since then (I've overhauled it at least three different times) and I'm very happy with the current incarnation that I see play out in my head sometimes. However, I wasn't going to start working on it until either TUO or The Dancer was finished.

Well, it had other plans. So far I've cleaned up the prologue, and started on chapter one. I also started writing an alternate chapter one based on one friend's suggestions - which can always be used later in the book if I decide to stick with the initial chapter one. TUO and The Dancer still take priority though.

And now for something different;

Last week, while going through some of the other ROW80 blogs, I stumbled across Kymele's check in where she had posted a snippet of her story for WIPpet Wednesday. From what I can gather, this was originally started by K. L. Schwengel, and the rules are that you must share something that you've written that somehow corresponds to the date. So for 5/29 you could share 29 lines or paragraphs from chapter 5, or 5 lines or paragraphs from chapter 29. Or you could share 34 lines or paragraphs because 5 plus 29 equals 34.

I've often thought about sharing parts of what I'm working with the readers of this blog - but I've always chickened out at the last moment. Well, no more! Here are 29 sentences from the oh so troublesome chapter 5 of TUO.

There, just ahead, stood the rest of the castle denizens. They gathered in groups, their faces paler than normal with shock and fear while guards watched from the parapets that surrounded them.

Mattie drifted close to one of the groups in hopes of overhearing what had happened. She caught snatches of conversations as they spoke in hushed voices.

“...tied him up earlier today...”

“...torn apart...”

“... his head just hangs there, chomping at nothing - can’t even speak the poor thing...”

“.... well he never spoke much to begin with anyways... Always babbling about this or that...”

Mattie felt her heart begin to pound against her chest. Had her fears been realized? Had the guards discovered the body and punished her father for it? Or had they learned that she and the others had antagonized the villager and torn her friends apart? “Who was tied up?” She asked them. “Who did the guards get?”

The group of men and women just stared at her, their eyes suspicious and their expressions unwelcome. Stunned by their animosity, Mattie backed up.

“It was her fault... I saw her go down there with those friends of hers...” One of them whispered to another as she turned away.

“Troublemaker, just like her father.”

“Haven’t seen him in awhile though...”

“Good riddance.”

Mattie approached another group and to glean more information from their conversation, but they all fell silent when she drew near. “Has anyone seen Talesin? Or Rordan?”

Just like the others they did not answer.

She left them and half walked half ran towards the front of the keep. In the past, the King had stuck the heads of his enemies on pikes overlooking the castle gates for all to see. If the guards had kept up with that tradition, then the head of whoever they had punished would be hanging there as well.

You can check out more ROW 80 updates over here, and more Wednesday WIPpet posts over here!