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Thinking about dragons

ShadowDragon2

I was feeling non-writer creative today, and made this. I like it so I decided to post it. I took the picture last year sometime while out on a trip with friends. The main reason I took the picture was because a while ago near the same spot, I took the family blueberry picking. At the time I had told the kids the place was very near middle earth (which the adamantly refuted because obviously middle-earth is in New Zealand, and we don’t live there). Since this looked like the dead marshes to me at the time, I took the picture to try and convince them I was right. The text says something mundane in a now-defunct version of Petath, the writing system of the Jai people in my book. I think it’s more fun not to know.

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Progress report – I’m making progress!

I haven’t done a good blog post in a while. I’ve been trying to type one up, and have about 3 going right now that I just don’t like very much. In any case, I have finally managed to nail down a draft of chapter 10 of War of Shadows that feels pretty good. I need to spend a bit more time with it before I can go on to one last short chapter with this character before heading back off to the main character. I’m even planning to take some time off next week so that I can focus on writing, although the week already seems pretty full, and so that may not really pan out. Right now, I’m sitting at about 76,000 words, making up 17 chapters and a short prologue. There are still quit a few bits and pieces in those first 17 chapters that could be expanded and better fleshed out, and so realistically, once I get that all done, I’d probably closer to that original 80,000 target. When it’s all said an done, I’m looking at 90-95K words, I’m planning 4 more chapters, two of which are likely to be fairly short.

One of the interesting things (to me) about this book as I move toward the end is that I’ve got these brothers who are headed for opposite sides of the war. This is something that’s known to the reader from about chapter 6 or so. The ‘other brother’, the one who is not the protagonist, isn’t a super evil take-over-the-world bad guy. He’s nobleman making his claim on land he feels he’s entitled to. After I’d written him, I found that instead of being an unlikable character, which I expected, he’s not -and that works fine. At the outset of the story, these brothers are pointed in very different directions and have goals that could be described as opposite, yet as they advance I can see them possibly ending up where the other had intended to be – at least vaguely. I’m thinking that during one polishing pass through or another, I might really play this up, a sort of tale of two brothers thing.

Well that was rambling wasn’t it… I’ll try to think up something interesting to say next time.

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Flash-in-the-pan fiction; Eight donated words

As I was perusing twitter today, and looking for new ways to procrastinate, I came across a gem of a tweet from @EmilyFRussell (https://pisscoffeeandvinegar.wordpress.com/), the author of Aurian and Jin: A love story. She donated to the twitterverse the following eight words: Kerfuffle, shibboleth, axiom, seraglio, hexerei, sanguine, and squeen. I have taken up the totally unnecessary challenge of using all of these in a sentence (not really possible). The further challenge was to do it in fewer than 800 words. Well, my distinguished challenger (of sorts), I have done this in fewer than 800 characters, with some bonus vocab. Enjoy.

 

Amoleqi tugged nervously at the sleeve of his thawb and squeaned at the door to the seraglio of the prince’s women. Just striding past caused a shortness of breath and light-headedness. He firmly believed in the old axiom that seraglios were dens of hexerei. A whiff of pungent incense from under the door put a vision of the lurid hangings of sanguine, incarnadine, and puce that must furnish such a place. More than anything, he wished to petition the king to eliminate such places, where the minds of men were molded like soft clay, but he was among the shibboleths of the court. No man, no matter how noble, from a different district could bring up such a topic without starting another contentious kerfuffle.

 

Definitions, from the OED where possible, and yes I’m taking some liberties, but I think I was true to the intent and general meaning.

Incarnadine – Properly, Flesh-colored, carnation, pale red or pink; but also used for various shades of crimson or blood red. (OED)

kerfuffle – commotion / disturbance, particularly involving conflicting viewpoints. (This word not in the version of the OED I have)

shibboleth – This one seems to have no easy translation, I’ve checked a couple of sources. Basically it’s a manner of speaking or habit that sets a class apart or distinguishes foreigners. (My version of the OED doesn’t give a particularly good definition of this)

axiom – self evidently true.

seraglio – The part of a Mohammedan dwelling-house (esp. of the palace of a sovereign or great noble) in which the women are secluded; the apartments reserved for wives and concubines; a harem. (From the OED)

hexerei – witchcraft (I hella like this word BTW. IMF use it at some point, the sound of it evokes some really great imagery.)

sanguine – Using definition 1 in my version of the OED – Blood red

squean – to look askance (Squeen appears in the Urban dictionary. I opted for the OED version)

BONUS WORDS

thawb – The robe traditionally worn in middle-eastern cultures

puce – Purple/brown color