No more false declarations....I promise!

Lately I've been typing up my blog posts in the morning, and writing in the afternoons. I did this because I usually used all my interesting words in my story, and there just wasn't anything witty left to blog about.

However.

This combination has turned out to be rather...disappointing. I definitely felt guilty about being super determined to have a huge word count and failing horribly at it. That's why I want to formally apologize to the world:

I will no longer declare my goals before I reach them!

From this point on, no matter how excited I might be at 10am, I will not set any word count goals for the rest of the day. Or rest of the month! Only honest descriptions of my writing experience will stick to this blog for the rest of eternity. *wink*

So I just finished writing for the evening. I pulled through and got my new word count at:

60,606 words!  I hit a new landmark, and finished up two chapters. 

EXCERPT

Hmmm...and as much as I think about an excerpt today, I kinda want to go out of order. I wrote a piece about Isaac's past that I like, just haven't fit it into the main story yet. Here is a tidbit about his backstory!

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With fully bellies and warm bodies, the three of them felt the weight of the day on their shoulders. At first everyone collapsed on their separate beds. But Isaac sat with his hands behind his head, looking up at the painted ceiling. “What do you guys think? Are we really sleeping in a completely different world right now?”

Shiri sat up, pulling the blankets around her as she sat crossed legged. “Well, there I still don’t know for certain. But this place does seem different. I just…feel like I’m being tricked into believing some fairy tale.”

Isaac was silent for a moment. “He said that people could get trapped on this side. That some people get lost in this world and never come back. I wonder what happens to them.”

Shiri wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She scooted herself out of bed and padded the floor over to his spot on the floor. She sat, wrapping her blanket around her knees. “Are you talking about your mother?”

                “It did cross my mind, yes,” Isaac closed his eyes. “It’s been almost six years since she disappeared into the forests. Most people assumed she drowned in the stream, and the more superstitious said the mists took her. But my dad, he never stopped believing she was alive. But if I think she was trapped on this side the whole time ….”

                Shiri pulled her knees closer to her chest. “Can I ask, what happened to her?”

Isaac sighed and shifted his hands behind his head. From his expression, Shiri thought he didn’t plan to answer. But instead he took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling again. “Back when my dad first started salvaging, he and my mom would go to the ruins scattered close by. They searched for replacement parts, hand-held machines, little things they could refurbish and sell. It was just before he took on any apprentices.”

                “Yeah I know. I think I only saw your mother a couple times before…”Jason trailed off.

                “Anyway, their business wasn’t doing so good. Their local deposits of salavage had been picked clean. They needed some fresh supplies or their money would run out. My dad sent letters out to his friends in the other villages, asking if they were willing to share information about new ruins. Lucky for him, the old Shelden family reported a downed freighter ship near the railways where they lived.

               "My parents were thrilled. They went straight to work on that old cow, fixing it up and dreaming of the day she would fly again. That’s when they invented the idea of the Waymakers – merchants of goodwill that can transport goods to other people no matter the distance! I was excited too. My sister and I made bread and warm tea for our parents when they would work long hours. Soon there was only one part left to replace: the stupid engine converter.”

The air in the room changed with Isaac’s silence. Shiri could tell that the meat of the story was coming next, and yet she regretted wanting to know what it was. The teenage guy sitting in front of her was annoying most of the time, but he was strong. Reliable. And now she was the one who made him look so angry and weak.

                “Another hovercraft of an older model was found farther away from our town. Normally a group of five men at least were needed to travel that distance, to carry supplies and defend against the animals. But my father was too impatient – too stubborn – to wait for the caravan. He convinced my mother and me to leave early. He said we should travel the roads before the rains would wash the wreck down into the valley.

                Trouble was, the rains did come. Storms followed them all along the roads, but my dad refused to turn back. By the time they got to the wreck, the waters had already risen too. When my mother reached into the engine core, the water mixed with the exposed wiring and caused a small fire.  Frightened by the flames, she slipped from the machine and landed in the gushing mud.

               "The weight of her body caused the edge of the cliff to cave in. I tried to reach out to help her, but I wasn’t strong enough,” Isaac had to pause. He swallowed and slowly continued. “She fell down the hill and into the flooded stream at the bottom. My dad forgot about me and just leapt in after her. He dug through the mud with his bare hands for so long. The rain was coming down harder and I kept crying for him to come back up. I was so pathetic…”

                “Come on, you were still so young. You couldn’t have done anything,” Shiri spoke.

                “Her body was never found. My dad came back to that spot every day for the next six months, sometimes camping out there for a week at a time. He never found anything, and he never got over her.”

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