Taven Moore's Blog

Retrospective

Insert Sad Trombone Sound Here

So … this isn’t working.

I have the next chapter ready to go, but the act of going back and editing is draining every drop of joy that I found in doing the original writing.

That’s no bueno.

I tried this method because it is what has historically worked for me in the past — prep the chapters for posting, keep to a schedule, and bam! Accountability + reader excitement = wordcount.

Actual Writing Cycle

* I write until I hit a problem with multiple solutions.

* I obsess over potential solutions, trying to find the best one.

* I write the solution, making my way to the other side.

* By the end of the chapter, I’ve found some flow and joy in the words moving forward.

* I submit the chapter to external eyes (Perry, who is awesome and who I very much thank for his time!)

* The chapter comes back with comments, some of which point out areas where the image in my head and the words on the page don’t quite match up.

* I revise the chapter, fixing the things I can and noting down alternate solutions that would require that I alter previous chapters, which I cannot do.

* I get the post up for readers.

* I start writing the next chapter until I hit a problem with multiple solutions.

* … rinse, repeat.

The amount of time spent in FLOW and JOY is far too small before I go back to picking the writing apart and hating every piece of it.

Instead, I’m spending 90% of my writing time stressing out over what become mediocre chapters to offer to you guys for reading.

Try, Evaluate, Change

I am a firm believer in the “try/evaluate/change” method and I finally feel like I’ve given this particular method enough “tries” to evaluate it as Definitely Not Working.

This last chapter went from happy-glow to gut-churning-unhappiness too quickly to be an accident.

So. “Try” and “Evaluate” are over. Time to change and try something new.

What Does This Mean?

No more Gryphon’s Feather posts for a while.

Probably not “never” — I believe in the characters and story, it’s just my own self-confidence that’s shot.

So for a while.

I need to spend more time in JOY. I don’t think I can do that while I feel the need to apologize for everything I post.

Chapter 4: Sweetwater

Reflexively, Akela pushed herself away from the rock as though it had scalded her. Pirates, here at Koapuo? Sacrilege.

Her fingers twisted themselves in a prayer to ward off evil, and her mouth set in a grim line. Whatever they were here for, they weren’t going to get it.

Her heart thudded inside her chest as she kicked, sending herself back to where she’d found the rope. Swiftly, her fingers traced what she could find of it, eyes straining in the dim to help her understand its purpose. It encircled the “beak” of the cave mouth, tied off with clever knots that she didn’t recognize.

Her lungs gave a faint twinge — a reminder that she was on a time limit. More decisively, she used the rope to pull herself down toward the open mouth of the cave.

The overhang was about as long as she was tall, made entirely of black stone that gleamed in the dim glow from inside. The cave itself was twice that deep, with a pile of lumpy bags and water-tight metal boxes neatly stacked against the back wall.

The glow came from the roughspun sack at the top of the largest stack of boxes, tied tightly at the mouth. Whatever was inside of it glowed so brightly that not even the heavy cloth of the bag could entirely dim it. She started to swim toward it, then paused as a sudden current caused something to flutter just out of the corner of her eye.

At first, her mind refused to acknowledge what she was seeing.

The fluttering thing was the tentacle of a dead octopus, resting gently on the lower jaw of the cave mouth. The rest of the octopus lay without any visible injury or wound, nestled among the gruesome corpses of several other fish in varying states of decay.

She had been so intent on the glowing thing that she had almost missed them and her stomach curdled at the thought of what they signified.

A trap.

Of course pirates would leave a trap behind to guard their treasure.

Akela realized that her hands were repeatedly tracing the prayer pattern to ward off evil, and forced her fingers to still. These poor animals did not deserve and end like this. Their deaths benefited no one. Any sea creature drawn in by the bait would fall prey to the trap themselves, attracting even more hapless fish.

The octopus tentacle gave another gentle wave, and Akela realized with horror that the animal was still alive.

Why was it just lying there? A healthy octopus would have bolted the second she swam close. Why hadn’t it eaten any of the other fish, and why wasn’t it trying to swim away?

A thought occurred to her, dreadful as ice tripping down her spine.

She opened her mouth and let the water run across her tongue, praying she was wrong.

She tasted nothing out of the ordinary at first, but then there it was. A hint of sweetness, like a ribbon of pineapple syrup. She spat out an involuntary string of bubbles in her haste to get the water out of her mouth.

Sweetwater.

Panic clawing at the back of her throat, she kicked away and arrowed to the surface.

Her mind spun frantically in the few seconds it took for her to rise. Sweetwater was a horror story told around bonfires by scarred divers. An invisible danger added to children’s games of tag. Some said it didn’t even exist. Others said it had been an experiment gone wrong at the Mage Academy. Akela wasn’t too sure about that one. She’d heard everything from tsunamis to biting insects blamed on the Academy.

What she did know — what everyone knew, from old fishermen to chanting youngsters — was that anything that swam into Sweetwater just … stopped.

Stopped caring, stopped breathing, stopped living.

And the only way you could tell if it existed was to taste the water. “Sweet on the tongue, your life’s all done!” could be heard chanted by children on every island of Oa.

She didn’t actually know anyone who had encountered it firsthand. It was a lot like the stories of bloodthirsty sharks. Sure, plenty of divers “knew someone” who had been attacked, but no one on Koapua had firsthand experience of a shark attack.

But those fish, and that sweetness — what else could do such a thing?

Finally, she broke the surface of the water and drew in a great gasp of crisp air. The moment her ears cleared, she heard the soft pattern of Dancer’s worried creeling. It had taken on a sharper, more insistent note since the last time she had been to the surface.

“Dancer? What’s wrong?”

Still perched on a nearby outcropping of island, the dark shadow that was her friend stretched out one massive wing, pointing.

Akela’s gaze followed the line of feathers, then her stomach sank.

In the far distance, she could see signs of a boat, ablaze with light against the full-dark of the sky. It was too far away to see flags or sails, but it was on the wrong side of the island wreckage to be from Koapua.

“God’s tits, please tell me those aren’t pirates.” Dancer’s keen eyes could pick out details she couldn’t, even in the dark.

Dancer’s worry manifested in a hoarse cawing sound.

Akela tread water, mind swirling uselessly. There was absolutely no chance the Sweetwater was in that cave mouth by accident. She swore again. “Sky forbid they let us come back during the daylight to finish this.”

She was wasting time. They should leave. Fly away before the pirates got here. Tell someone. Her dad, or the elders, or Dancer’s flock — this wasn’t their problem. This was something bigger than a pair of teenagers could handle, especially since Dancer couldn’t swim. Being this far away from the island was dangerous for her.

Akela hesitated. By the time they managed to convince anyone to come here, it would be too late. The pirates were already here. She and Dancer weren’t full adults yet, but they weren’t children, either.   

She needed to simplify the problem. One choice. Run to safety, or stop the pirates from getting whatever was in that cave. Everything else hinged on that decision, and when she thought of it that way, there wasn’t even an option.

Akela shook her head. “We can’t let them have it, whatever it is.”

Without waiting for a response, she took a deep breath and dove back to the cave.

Chapter Delayed (ugh)

It pains me to post this, since I have it 3/4 of the way written already, but this cold is just murdering my ability to focus. (On top of the lingering cough I’ve had since November, I have a head cold now as well — complete with sneezing and mouth-breathing. It’s very attractive.)

It IS a good chapter and I’m excited for you guys to read it, but I can’t even play video games right now and there’s zero chance I’m going to get it finished and edited in time to go out tomorrow.

Words are cheap, but this sort of on-again off-again posting schedule is not intended to be the norm.

I really appreciate your understanding and promise to repay it with a more solid schedule as soon as I reasonably can promise to do so, lol.

Chapter 3: An Unexpected Find

Salty water closed over the back of Akela’s head and she fought back a gasp, saving as much air as she could.

Falling in the ocean while wearing her nicest festival outfit ranked up there with some of the dumber things she’d ever done in her life, and she was glad her sister wasn’t here to see it. 

Her finery was ruined no matter what she did at this point, but the flower chain was so very close. Caught in a gentle current, it drifted out of reach like a feather on the breeze. It would be the work of a few seconds to catch it. She secured her lungful of air and thrust forward, swiping at the twined blossoms.

The current pulled it just out of reach, the delicate orchid petals giving the faintest of teasing brushes against her fingertips. 

Grimacing, she changed direction and dove after it. 

The seascape she swam through bore little resemblance to the quiet desolation of the world above. There, short fingers of island rock thrust upward at the sky, sad reminders of what had once been the island’s tallest mountains.

Below the water, great slabs of black stone stabbed down into the depths, only their smallest tips reaching far enough to break the surface. Sea life had begun to reclaim the area, but only slowly. The outer edges of Koapua’s girth teemed with fish and turtles and sharks and plant life bringing new beauty to the dead island.

Here in what had been the center of the island, creatures were slower to populate. Akela found herself alone, swimming in the world between a purpled sky and pitch-black depths, chasing a string of flowers fading into the darkness with every passing second. 

She swiped again at the orchids, and again a current of water stole the garland from her grasp. The flowers spun out of sight around a stone spire wider than Akela was tall. 

Now that was just spiteful. Akela gave one last push, lungs burning. She rounded the corner with a blind grasp for the flowers, as if they were a fish she could startle into her net. With a grunt of satisfaction, Akela felt her fingers close around the tightly-woven band. She saw the big yellow petals flutter in the gentle current, then paused, realizing the significance of that.

She saw them.

There was light nearby, and it wasn’t coming from the surface.

Lungs aching, she spared a brief glance to her surroundings.

There! Just a bit further down. Some kind of sea cave yawned, like an open gryphon’s beak with an overbite. 

She made a mental note of its location and thrust upward, gulping lungfuls of fresh air the moment she broke the surface.

Worried creeling met her ears, followed by the low whoosh of Dancer pumping her wings to send a gust of wind and waves in Akela’s direction. Without a gryphon’s night vision, Akela couldn’t see what her friend was saying, but she could guess.

“I know, I know,” she muttered, knowing full well Dancer could hear her. Pitching her voice to a mocking tone, she said, “Only Akela could take a bad idea and make it even worse.”

The creeling stopped, followed by a low ak-ak-ak chatter. 

“I’m fine, stop being such a wet hen!” 

At that, Dancer huffed, but stopped her nagging.

“I saw something down there, I want to go in for another look.”

Ak-ak-ak.

“It’ll only take a minute!”

Silence.

Akela looped the flowers over her own head, fingers twining the broken seam into a new knot. She couldn’t see what she was doing, but her hands knew their work. In less than a moment, she had the garland whole again.

Akela paused, treading water, to twine her hands together in a graceful prayer for a swimmer’s safe return. Investigating sea caves during the day could be dangerous business. Doing it at night was … well, yet another bad idea in the flower chain of bad ideas she was decorating tonight with.

The soft click of Dancer’s beak tapping open and shut, an audible question mark.

Akela laughed. “If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t need to go back and check it out. Don’t worry. I won’t let you miss the party.”

If Dancer replied, Akela didn’t wait for it. She dove with a proper lungful of air this time, legs and arms pumping powerfully through the water. As her cave loomed into view, she saw that the odd shape of it would keep the light from being visible from the surface. The upper jaw of the cave overhung at such a drastic angle that she wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t already been diving down far enough to chase her flowers.

She swam directly to the tip of the beak, then carefully tested the rocky surface for sharp edges with her hands before securing her grasp. “Impatient seamen can’t count to ten” was a favorite saying on Koapua.

Her fingers brushed against something scratchy and familiar and not-at-all rocky.

A rope.

Not so waterlogged that it had gone soft with seaweed or succombed to salt.

This was new rope.

She frowned, the first trickle of real unease settling in her belly. Fishermen from Koapua didn’t come here. Shortly after the eruption, some of the islanders had tried to come back and look for anything that could be salvaged. The few that returned did so with jagged gashes cut into the hulls of their boats, fallen prey to invisible spikes of stone just beneath the surface. The priests had declared the entire island off-limits. Said Koapuo did not welcome them back, and had given them warning that he would kill any who tried. 

Even Koapua punished villagers who tried to praise her dead brother. She shook and rumbled and tore down any statue to him. She rained miserably on any festival thrown in his honor and had rocks cut the nets of any fisherman who prayed to him for good fortune. 

No, this rope couldn’t have come from Koapua. Akela found it difficult to believe it could have come from any of the other islands of Oa, either. They had no reason to visit the desolate center of a dead island when they had their own gods and goddesses to praise. 

That left only one real option.

Pirates.

No Post Today …

I know, I know. Right on the heels of my declaring Friday to be an official Story Day.

BUT. It’s because I had A Better Idea(tm) for how the chapter should go, and I think it’s well worth exploring. There WILL be a chapter next week (and hopefully it’ll be a good’un)

In other news, it looks like my area’s due for a bit of a snow-pocalypse. Hanging out with my cats and getting in some quality cuddle time sounds just about perfect. Hope you’re all well!

Chapter 2: The Dead God

Akela knelt on a stony outcropping only a little larger than herself, a solitary fang jutting from an ocean painted crimson and mango by the setting sun. 

In her lap, a worn travelsack gaped open to spill a riot of delicate blossoms against the rough wool of her trousers. Reverently, she lifted her favorite wreath from her lap — rare yellow orchids with speckled pink hearts against a background of deep magenta freesia. She and Dancer had spent all week gathering the blooms, and the previous day had been lost to weaving unruly stems together. 

It was a fitting gift.

She lifted the wreath over the jagged tip of the outcropping’s highest point, looming just above her head while she knelt. As the flowers drifted down to encircle the stone, the wind picked up the clean scent of the blossoms and swirled it around her.

Quietly, Akela began to sing.

Her voice was nothing particularly special. She hit most of the notes she aimed at, but that was the kindest thing that could be said about it. Still, she was the only one here who could sing to him, even if no one was here to listen. Not even him.

Koapuo, Koapuo, beautiful and strong.

First born, first blest, home to one and all.

Koapuo, Koapuo, we cheer and sing along.

The simple tune had been taught to every child old enough to speak. Every year on this day, the residents of the island would sing it to him and bring him flowers and laughter and love.

The wind picked up her singing and spun it out over the ocean around her, bouncing off the glassy surface and shattering it against the few jagged fingers of black stone that pierced the water to stab upwards at the sky. These lifeless spires were all that remained of what had once been the brother-twin to the island Akela now lived on.

On a nearby outcropping, Dancer’s familiar darkness perched. Her clawed forepaws dug into a thin rocky spire and her wings flared half-spread to aid her balance. Her long tail curled forward to draw a perfect curve against the sharpness of the rock and her eyes were half-closed as she added silent prayers to her friend’s song.

The sun completed its dip below the horizon. For a brief moment, the sky held on to its colors, using them to paint the water with every shade of the rainbow.

Akela’s song faded and so too did the daylight.

The last echo of her song drifted away and replaced itself with a silence that draped over the pair like wet wool. 

“We miss you,” Akela whispered, and the wind stole that, too.

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the dead rock in front of her, nose buried in the flowers she had brought. 

She imagined him as he had been when she was a child. The smallest of all the islands of Oa, Koapuo had boasted waterfalls so clear you could see rainbows through them. Mountains rising up like green-furred shoulders, with lush valleys home to flowers you could find nowhere else in the world. Her village had been high on the broadest mountain, where the air was so crisp that the other islands had looked like toys floating in the distance. 

Clouds would crash against the mountain and her mother would put her in a carry-sling so they could stand on the edge of the cliff as their fluffy whiteness rolled in. She still remembered the sound of her mother’s laugh, even if she couldn’t quite remember her face. 

Koapuo had been perfect.

He had been home.  

When he erupted, he’d killed most of his people. The entire south-facing slab of his largest mountain blasted outward and a slab of rock and debris fell to the shallow slopes and beaches of his largest towns. 

The members of Akela’s village who survived did so only because they lived on the northern slopes … and because of the gryphons.

The avians had been able to ferry five loads of people through ash-choked skies over to the sister-twin island of Koapua while the earth tore itself apart in violence and fire below them.

Akela’s mother would have been on the sixth load.

She still had her father and her sister and Dancer, who at the time had barely molted into her flight feathers.

Nobody knew why Koapuo had died, or why he had taken his people with him when he went. His volcano had been dormant for longer than anyone could remember, and even the hot-headed younger islands contented themselves with infrequent eruptions of slow lava rather than violent explosions. 

Akela’s frown furrowed. She wasn’t even sure why she came out here anymore, except that it felt important that someone remember him.

Feathers rustled nearby, and she smiled. At least she wasn’t alone.

She opened her eyes.

Day was over, and it was time to return to Koapua. Being twins, the islands had shared the same calendar day for their celebrations. Firstborn, the brothers like Koapuo held their festivities during the day, allowing the sister islands to revel under a starlit sky.

Akela reached out a hand to the stone in front of her to clamber to her now-numb feet. As she did, her fingers brushed across a weak point in her flower wreath. The breath left her chest in a painful squeeze as the braid snapped, sending a chain of orchids sailing to the inky shimmer of the ocean below.

Unthinking, she lunged for it.

Well, that was really stupid, she thought as cold seawater closed over the back of her head and Dancer’s startled squawk rippled across the water.

Apologies, Intents, and Understandings

Apologies

I’m sorry last week’s chapter didn’t go out. I had company and plans every day except Monday, which is the day I wrote the first draft. I need at least a little distance to give it a rough once-over before posting it, so today’s the first day it can go out.

Secondly, I am NOT getting emailed when comments happen that are auto-approved. My settings are such that I should be, but … *shrug*

I will respond to comments when I see them, but until I get that fixed, I can’t promise anything remotely resembling swiftness.

Intents

It is my intent to post a chapter every Thursday night (so late that it will feel like Friday to everyone and should go out in the email on Friday morning so folks can all kind of read it at about the same time.)

Writing being what it is, I definitely won’t be able to stick to that 100% of the time, but if I tell YOU what I plan to do, then maybe I’ll be more likely to stick to it, lol.

Expect posts on Fridays.

Understandings

Last up, I’m rusty as an abandoned well pump as a writer and I know it. Because I’m forcing myself to write weekly, I’ll be putting out stuff that does not meet my normal writing standards, and I would say these two opening chapters meet that description.

I HAVE to push forward, though. Most writers end up rewriting their beginnings when they start a revision, and I expect this will fall in that bucket. It’s got too much exposition, not enough character, dialogue, or action, etc etc.

I know. But I hope they’re still fun to read even with their flaws.

Chapter 1: A Bad Idea

This is a bad idea.

Scowling, Akela spread her arms, golden sunlight gleaming against her cocoa skin. “You have a better one?”

Dancer lowered her head and opened her beak, crestfeathers pinned to the back of her head. No, but that fails to change the fact that this is an incredibly bad idea.

Akela rolled her eyes. “You say that about all of my ideas.”

The gryphon gave a low creeling sound and rolled her shoulders, clacking her beak together sharply. I shall stop saying it when it ceases to be true and the sun forgets to shine, sister-of-my-heart.

Based on expression and posture, gryphon language was punctuated by sounds rather than composed of them. There was no real equivalent for the word “sister.” The idea of family-female-sibling would always be accompanied by a quirk of the head or a particular crestfeather angle which could completely change the flavor of its meaning. 

Children growing up on the island chain of Oa were taught the gryphon equivalent for simple concepts like “sister,” but it took real effort to learn the rainbow of differences between egg-sister, nest-sister, or clan-sister. There was even a very specific way of holding the wings which would indicate sister-to-whom-I-am-currently-not-speaking.

More than once, Akela wished she had the expressive ears, wings, and feather crest of her friend. Maybe then she’d find it easier to talk to people. 

She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t have to come, you know.”

Dancer shook out her wings. Every year, this is the thing you tell me. As if I would leave you to steal a boat and become kidnapped by pirates or merfolk. The gryphon elevated her head to her full height, looking with feigned derision down her beak at Akela. No, I must go, if only to keep you from mischief. The merfolk do not deserve to be afflicted with you.

Akela laughed and flicked her fingers over one ear, the closest she could manage to sister-of-my-heart. “Just one quick flight, and we’ll be back in time to celebrate Koapua Night with our families.”

The gryphon lifted her crest, her tufted ears springing forward with sudden excitement. Yes, and the village will celebrate with young pork roasted in a pit, mangoes dripping with juice, and fresh red snapper. There will be fires to throw sparks into the night sky to mate with the stars, and drums and clever stringed gitars. There will be music.

“And there will be dancing,” Akela finished her friend’s unspoken wish with a teasing smile.

Dancer spread her wings, excitement flickering through her crest like an electric current. The setting sun struck her midnight feathers at just the right angle to spark luminous greens and gemstone blues from the ink of the gryphon’s plumage. The light warmed her velvety leonine fur and hinted at the subtle rosettes usually hidden in the deep shadows of her pelt. Like all gryphons, her entire lower half shone a stark and unrelieved white, from chin to tailfeathers. Against the gleaming ebony of her upper half, the effect on Dancer was even more elegant than on most other rainbow-hued gryphons. Behind Dancer, the sharp angle of the mountain fell away into lush forests and distant sparkling oceans.

Akela wished she was an artist like her father. Or a poet like her sister. Or even another gryphon, equipped with the anatomy to truly tell her friend just how gorgeous she was.

Instead, she was nothing. Featherless and artless, destined to be a merchant or a fisherwoman or do whatever it was people like her ended up doing. This was her last idle year, and unlike everyone else in her year-group, she still had no marketable skill or plan for the future. 

Dancer stepped forward and lowered her massive head across Akela’s shoulders, great black wings sweeping forward in an embrace.

Akela gently wrapped her arms around Dancer’s neck, feeling the silken brush of feather along the stiff length of her friend’s crest. Dancer smelled like she always did — spicy and sweet and musky, like a slow and dappled stream spilling from sunwarmed rock. 

Even without feathers or words, somehow Dancer always understood her.

Tonight belonged to the goddess Koapua. Every resident of Koapua island would leave their homes to sleep under her stars. Drinks would be raised in praise of her name and her bounty. She would be thanked for harvest and fish, for sun and rain and earth beneath their feet. 

Akela felt a curl of anger flare to life in her stomach. And if that harvest was less than it once was, and too many young fisherfolk were lost to the waves, and too many days filled with shocking frigid rains, no one dared raise their voice against her. 

The stories whispered about Koapua no longer told of piglets returned to their sows and trees miraculously growing coconuts to feed starving strangers. Now, they were sharp-edged tales of punishment for sloth or retribution for slights against the goddess. 

Even the merchants who traveled to the larger cities on Koapua had the same news. Less food. Less sunlight.

Less happiness.

In the distance, the sound of voices raised in a rhythmic chant rose as Akela’s village began their preparations for the festival.

Akela pulled away, a sliver of fear freezing her spine. “We’re going to be late!”

Dancer sidled away, one golden eye narrowing. You doubt my speed?

Akela’s brief shock of terror faded. Of course Dancer would make it on time. “Never.”

I would fly to the ends of the earth for you, sister-of-my-heart. Dancer lowered her head and dipped an outstretched wing with clear invitation.

Akela laughed. “Lucky for you, we aren’t going that far.”

She slipped her worn flight pack over her shoulders and fastened it securely across her chest. The smell of fresh flowers rose from the soft leather, orchid and freesia wafting from the main compartment. She smiled and gave the bag a gentle pat before lifting the flight goggles from around her neck to fit snugly over her eyes. 

The goggles themselves were shockingly ugly. Cobbled together from discarded pieces she had rummaged from trash heaps, the mismatched eye cups showed rusty pockmarks that no amount of burnishing could hide. 

But they kept the bitter wind from stealing her vision during flight, which was all she needed them to do. It wasn’t as if tiny Koapua island had a thriving gryphonsport team like any of the larger southern islands, so buying goggles from a merchant would have been impossible even if she could have afforded them.

With the ease of long practice, Akela slid her legs over Dancer’s barrel and leaned forward to take a grip of the longer fur just above her friend’s shoulderblades. 

“Let’s go,” Akela whispered, her belly pressed against her friend’s spine and her thighs locked against the gryphon’s ribcage.

Dancer took three loping strides, then launched herself off the side of a rocky cliff. Midnight wings, each twice as long as Akela was tall, beat powerfully in defiance of both air and gravity, stirring the foliage of trees and ferns below.

Before the sun dipped below the waves, they had a dead god to honor.

Random Update + Gambling

1) The past week and a half has seen me harboring a cold that (while not epic) is definitely not fun. We will not go into details, mmkay?

Since half my team caught something at the same exact time, we’re all kind of assuming it came from the team outing we had volunteering at Second Harvest Food Bank. That, or the Jamaican buffet we ate at the same day for lunch.

Volunteering was rather a lot of fun when doing it with friends. We sorted meats.

Lots. And LOTS. Of meats.

As in, several pallets of ~10lb hams that didn’t sell for Thanksgiving. An alarming number of “chicken paws” packages (yes, it is what you think it is. No, I don’t know why it’s labeled paws when chickens have no such thing). One giant tub of “pork chitterlings”. Several boxes of exploded clams (voted “worst smell of the day” without any competition whatsoever).

Meat. Meats for days, you guys. (And some really gorgeous fish options as well. Most of the meat we sorted was really lovely, but that doesn’t make for a very entertaining anecdote).

2) I have the start of my story!

I have the first line. I have the first chapter. I even have the start of the second chapter.

We’re in good shape. I just need to not feel like exploded clams before I get started. (well, WANT. I want to not feel like exploded clams. One could easily argue that a kleenex box on my writing table would help with the physical symptoms, but the body exhaustion ain’t fun.)

3) Random brain noodle of the day.

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is a popular country song that most of you are probably familiar with. Johnny fiddled his country little heart out and beat the devil in a bet of his soul against a golden fiddle.

Nice, right? Little guy sticking it to the big bad?

WRONG. I posit that this story would be encouraged by any half-wit devil on the receiving end of it. Sure, there’s a bit of an ego-jab, but how could that compare to the hundreds or thousands of people who listen to the song and think “hey, maybe -I- could win a bet against the devil”.

BOOM. Soul-harvesting statistics surely climbed as a result of this song.

…

And that? That is why I think maybe I should wait for my thoughts to settle into normal thinking patterns before I start writing.

Just sayin’.

Character Meandering

I’m still here. I’ve got a surprising amount of groundwork done on some things, but the one thing that usually comes first for me is proving elusive.

My main character.

Since her personality and skillsets will drive the story, she is the most important piece for the way I personally write stories, and she just …

… she’s hiding from me.

I have her best friend (a gryphon).

I have a villain, a mentor, a family.

I think she’s angry. I think she is strong-willed and scrappy. She’s observant and clever.

I wanted her to be book-smart (taking Hermione out of her undeserved secondary character status) but I think that might be the piece I just keep jamming in the wrong spot for her. I was trying to avoid making her a jock – the equivalent of a football hero – but maybe that fits her too well for me to avoid.

Just because I identify strongly with Twilight doesn’t mean Dash doesn’t deserve her stories told, too.

So.

There you have it. That kind of thing right there? That’s why I haven’t been doing as many polls as anticipated. By the time I articulate what the poll might be, I already know how I want the voting to go.

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As a parting note, I leave you with the following:

Why does “The Princess Bride” seem all well and good, but the moment you say “The Prince Husband” it looks just about as horrible as a title could possibly be?