NaNoFinMo - First official writing day!

Sticking with my awesome writing buddy Valerie, we have decided among ourselves that we still need a weekly challenge to keep our novels going. I got to pick Monday and Thursday as the official days we can get together online and motivate each other to keep those word counts rising.

And what do you know, I need to go out of town today for a meeting. It never fails, me! Why do I always pick the bad days! Are Thursday's just haunted for writing?

Blergh. Even though I'll be stuck on a train for almost three hours, I will use that time to write instead of complain! I'll have my trusty iPad and I'll use it to make an extra story chapter - not play Candy Blast Mania
(*I promise*)

Speaking of chapters, I've struggled a lot this week with finalizing my novel outline. I've been trying to shove my story into a perfect little three act format complete with 27 chapters. And it's just not working! This is the split between planner and pantser that I've continually run into. It seems that if I try to plan too far ahead, I get myself stuck. So I wrote down my plot without chapter numbers and I put away in a separate file. Not gonna look at it! For now, I'll just keep in my memory and just write whatever the heck I want! Perhaps that's just a lesson I need to figure out since I'm a newbie writer.

That brings us to the next chunk of story story writing. When I stopped NaNo, I brought my characters into the parallel realm, gave them some awesome weapons, and showed them some of the rules of this new world. Things are not always as they seem! So the next part to write is recording their reactions and training them how to fight some baddies.

I made a brick of notes yesterday around 1400 words, so I'm gonna focus on expanding that into story content. Today I wrote... --->200 words....<---- On notebook paper. And....I'm too tired to type them. Well. Note to self: don't schedule writing days on train days!

Good luck with writing everyone!

--->EXCERPT<---

Well. Let's just use an older excerpt from NaNo then, shall we? I don't even think what I wrote today could make any sense if I were to type it up. So...yay! Character's have their cool magical weapons! Time to test them out.

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The beast was much smaller than the one they had seen outside and it looked more like a dog than a bull. That didn’t stop the imminent fear of dread crawling over Jason’s skin. “I present to you the ultimate scientific test,” the scientist pronounced with great exaggeration. “Every trial you’ve faced so far has prepared you for this battle. Use your new weapons to defeat this daemon!”

A shuffling scratched at the microphone and it sounded like Sun had grabbed it in a hurry. “Don’t worry,” she tried to reassure them. “That one’s just a baby, practically harmless!” That didn’t stop the beast from shooting a fireball right past Jason’s head.

                “This is insane!” he cried out.

                “Didn’t the grass and sky just materialize, along with the daemon?” Shiri asked.

                “Well yeah, but that fireball felt really real. And might have fried my hair.”

The creature curled up on a little grassy spot in the middle of the room. Once white flowers were now black and steamy. Jason held his sword in one hand and danced around the creature, looking for an opening. He jabbed the weapon in front of him, but quickly side-stepped to the right when the creature growl. They followed each other’s stare, the daemon’s back now exposed to Shiri.

“Well just distract it or something, I have an idea,” his sister suggested. She looked at her glove, little blue energy lines starting to race across its surface. He saw her eyes light up and she took a fighting stance, legs spread apart. If she was going to attack, he needed to distract the daemon. Jason gripped the padded hilt and lunged at the beast, swiping the blade horizontally over its belly.  The blade bounced off like hitting rubber and sent violent vibrations up both arms.

                “Confirmed! Even if this room is fake, that creature is here in it with us,” Jason said.

                “It looked like you didn’t even scratch it!”

                “Ya think?!”

 The creature seemed to grin as it lowered itself into a squat. Jason thought it was about to attack, but instead the beast shuddered, new muscles popping out from all its joints. The legs grew longer and the torso shot a meter into the air. It probably grew a whole new set of teeth too.

                 “What did you do?” Shiri cried out and rolled to the right. Not knowing what else to do, she lowered onto one knee and aimed her glove at the demon’s rear. Energy crackled and congealed into a small bubble, emerging from the front of her fist. It didn’t travel far before it waivered and popped.

Now Jason was sure he heard the beast laugh. Again it stretched its limbs in a downward crouch and its red eyes glared at them. It’s chest popped forward and it’s paws grew the size of truck tires. A large whip of a tail drilled out of the creature’s back and chased Shiri as ran to join Jason. Now the daemon was the size of the house, just like the giant hammers they dodged from the first trial.

                “These weapons are completely useless after all!” Jason yelped and dodged another fireball with Shiri right behind him. “If this thing grows any bigger, we are gonna get stepped on before we find a way out of here!”

The man on the intercom finally came back to life. “That is very strange. I can assure you that the weapons recorded a 100% match against your DNA patterns. They should be working.” He stopped to think for a moment.”Perhaps you haven’t activated them yet?”

                “Activated? You mean there’s a power button somewhere?”

                “Remember the weapon is made from an element now bonded to your DNA. It will react however you direct it. So…how do you feel right now?” the man asked.

Jason pulled his sister to the ground so they could miss the giant leather tail from ripping them in half. “How am I feeling?” Jason barked back, his face buried in the dirt. “Scared out of my freaking mind! I would really like an exit about now.”

The demon dog scratched at the dirt and sprung from his hindquarters. Jason skin pricked around his neck with the vibration of the creature’s passing. The beasts back foot kicked out before it landed. Jason tried to get out of the way, but it hit him square in the shoulder. His teeth vibrated so hard they almost flew out of his mouth as he flipped over backwards.

He was expecting to spit up blood when he landed, but his teeth kept buzzing. It felt like –

Jason started to theorize out loud. “Okay, since that idiot of a scientist isn’t going to help us, let’s try to think this through.” The daemon’s tail slammed into the ground, sending a spray of grass and fake flowers into the air. “In the previous test, he wanted to test our reflexes. There was a pulse combined with a danger. “

                “And it feels pretty dangerous now!” Shiri rolled to the right.

                 “Remember what happened to your glove! Before it looked like it created some type of energy bubble before. What were you thinking about?” Jason offered and jumped closer to her position on the ground.

                “Honestly, I thought it was getting ready to fire some type of laser beam. “ she replied. “I felt the energy building up in my hand. But nothing happened.”

                “Wait that’s not true. That’s not what happened!” Jason had to think, but it was really hard when a demon dog was trying either to bit your head off or crush you like an ant. “The glove gave off an energy pulse when the creature was still small.”

                “Before I was afraid of it – “her voice trailed off. She picked up a fistful of dirt and let it slip through her fingers. She saw the grass clippings smudged against her shoes. And now she noticed the vibrations tingling across her lips. “This place isn’t real,” she whispered to herself and closed her eyes.

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