Stretching the Mind...

I mentioned a few posts ago about how a friend, Kella, talked me into participating on this new project she had come up with called Collaborating Chaos. She, some other authors, and I would work together to create a story by writing round robin style. Each week one of us would write a new chapter and post it, and then, eventually, after we felt the story had run its course and all the loose ends were tied up, we would go ahead and end the story. Then we would take a break, wait for our readers to vote on what we should write next, and the chaos would begin again.

This week is my week to update the story, and it's been quite a shock. Not only am I writing in a genre I'm not familiar with, Sci Fi, but I'm also learning to let go.

I'm slowly getting used to writing Sci Fi. I actually read a lot of Star Wars in High School and the earlier Dragonriders of Pern novels have some Sci Fi elements in them. Plus the previous authors for this round have set up just enough bread crumbs for me to use in my chapter.

Learning to let go of what I've done and the characters I have created for this chapter is proving to be harder than I expected. When you create a character, you know who they are, what their backstory is, and you know where they are going (unless they decide to take control of their own story and completely surprise you). When you write in a round though, you only get to play with these characters that you create for a chapter and then you have to pass them on to someone else. They could have a completely different idea of who the characters are, where they come from and where they're going - and you have no say in what they do to them or where they take them. All you can do is pray that they can follow the bread crumbs you left for them - and that they don't turn your babies into ax murderers.

Kella, the girl who came up with this madness and started off the story, agrees with me that it's quite the learning experience. The story has changed drastically from where she saw it going when she wrote the first chapter - and we're only two chapters in!

My chapter should be up on Saturday. I highly recommend you head on over there and check it and the rest of the story out.

As for my other projects...

I haven't been able to write 1000 words a day like I wanted - but I'm getting pretty damn close!

I plugged away on one of my fanfics, and should be posting that over on FF.net next week (pending beta approval).

I went back through The Undying Ones on Monday and make some minor edits to it. I had an idea that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that helps solve some problems I didn't even know where there until I thought of said idea. As a result I had to go through and make some very minor tweaks to the dialogue here and there. In addition to that I am almost done with Chapter Six.

In other exciting news, the artist I commissioned to draw two of my characters from The Descendants finally finished her piece...

By Frizz-Of-Fury on Deviant Art

I may have squeaked when I saw it. Co-workers may have stared/glared at me because I interrupted their work with said squeaking...

The girl on the left be Vivian, from the prologue I shared here and here, all grown up and ready to take on the world. The gentleman to her right is Gwalchmei/Gawain. He doesn't show up until the second book, but he is probably one of my favorite characters in the series.  

And now it's time for WIPpet Wednesday!

Unfortunately I don't have any more of Chapter 7 to share, so I'm going back to a previous chapter that I have not shared yet. Today is 7/17/13, I am going to share 26 paragraphs from chapter four (7+17 = 24-1=23+3=26... which has to be some of my most creative WIPpet math yet). 

This piece features Liam, a character we haven't met in The Undying Ones yet. He's a young man who lives in a village that's about a mile or so away from the castle that Mattie and her friends inhabit. While the village was hit by the plague at the same time that the castle was - it was not affected by the curse that afflicts the castle. People around Liam's village tend to go missing though, and his sister is the most recent one to disappear. However he refuses to believe that the woods are haunted by ghouls like the rest of the villagers - he thinks she's out there, somewhere, hiding from the marriage his father has arranged for her. He's spent the last few weeks looking for her, and is returning after having some weird experiences at the old bridge that leads to the castle...

“Young Liam, what are you doing out and about?” A gravely old voice called to him as he passed. Liam turned to find old Marley watching him from the porch of his house. Ancient, with tan wrinkled skin and white wispy hair that was almost translucent, the man worked a pile of straw by his feet into fantastic shapes and designs with his gnarled fingers. “Everyone is usually in their bed by now.”

Liam could ask the man the same question, but Marley was nearly a hundred years old and Liam’s mother would have his hide if she learned that he had been rude to a town elder. “Good evening, sir.”

“Have you been looking for your sister again?”

“Yes sir.”

“By the old bridge?”

“How did you…”

Marley pointed a crooked finger down the road. “Nothing that way except for the bridge and the castle on the other side, so where else would you be coming from?” He returned to knotting the straw. “You don’t think she’s hiding up there do you?”

“I don’t know, sir. She might be.”

“Bad place, that.”

“Letty’s a smart girl. She knows how to survive…” Liam leapt to his sisters defense but Marley shook his head.

“Your grandfather was a great hunter. I know he taught you both well, just like his father taught him, but there are things there and in these woods that aren’t human. Things your skills can’t protect you from.”

“I know about the Ghosts, sir.” After the King had killed his wife and his subjects, supposedly their spirits had lingered and still roamed the castle walls to this day. Letty had always shivered with delight when their grandfather had reached that part of the story. “But that’s just an old wives tale - they aren’t real.”

“I wasn’t talking about the ghosts, boy. There are darker things about. You’ve heard the stories about the things that go missing. How grain and other crops that disappear in the middle of the night?”

“It’s just rats and other pests...”

“Do you think rats made off with that barrel of dried fish that went missing from your father’s store last spring?”

“No, sir, but there had been that group of gypsies camping nearby.”

“Feh! Fine. Blame it on the gypsies... they always do... They said they locked them up over there...”

“Who? The gypsies?”

“No, the undying ones you daft fool! My father said his father and the others trapped them there, but I’ve seen things creeping about at night.”

Liam sighed.

“Still don’t believe me, eh? Do you remember, about five winters ago, when two of our men went hunting up that way and never returned?” Marley reached down to pull up another strand of straw and add it to his creation.

“Yes.”  In the spring another group of hunters had found their mangled and half eaten bodies. Liam’s mother had refused to let them leave the town until the bear that had attacked the men had been tracked down and killed. It’s hide now hung on the wall in the Two Stags. “They caught the animal...”

“If you believe that tale, you’re dimmer than I thought. A bear didn’t attack those men, something else did. I saw the teeth marks - they were human. If your sister did go out that way, then I guarantee that thing and it’s friends have gotten her.” He made one final knot in the straw and turned the intricate design around in his hands, ignoring how his young friend’s expression grew darker with every word he said.

“Letty is not dead.” Liam growled. “There was a girl out there, and if she could survive, then Letty can too.”

“What?” Marley looked up, his normally rheumy eyes suddenly clear and bright. “What did you say, boy?”

“There was a girl at the ravine. She had dark hair and a white face...”

And that's all for now! Be sure to come back this weekend - I'll have an update about my friend's wedding dress on Friday, and I'll be sharing some pictures from our trip to Red Rock in Las Vegas!

As always, you can check out more ROW 80 updates here, and WIPpet Wednesday posts can be found here!