Lylurn Enclave

I've been bad. Only to myself, mind you, but I've been bad none the less. I've been allowing myself to have excuses for why I haven't been writing more on my book in almost a month. No more. I'm going to set a goal for myself and stick to it. I'm going to start off slightly slower than I tried to in November though, 500 words a day.

Minimum.

No More Procrastination.

I just joined a website where writers can critique each other, http://www.critiquecircle.com, at the suggestion of Michael Wulf and it has some other additional tools to help you write and keep you on track, including a customizable progress graph. I put in the data for the book I'm writing and it's annoying how blunt it is, but in a good way. Now I'm going to go write a couple thousand words.

 

Here is another excerpt from my book.

Molimo leaned forward to get a better look around the side of the building at the two Orcs talking quietly at the end of the alleyway. He was pretty sure they hadn't noticed him yet; he'd always been good at hiding from the big races. As he watched the big one on the left, who Molimo called "Tusks" because he was missing one, pulled his shirt up to his neck so the other one could see his chest. As he did that the other one, "Mr. Fancy", took out a short black rod with a clear glass part in the middle and pressed it to Tusks' chest. He held it there for almost a minute, little red crystals clinking into the glass part as Tusks shuddered.

    Once he was done with that Mr. Fancy pulled the glass part out of the rod, revealing it to be a glass vial with a red cap, and held it up to his eye, nodding in satisfaction he put it into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash bigger than anything Molimo had ever seen in his short life and handed it to Tusks, who was pulling his shirt back down. Tusks took the money and glanced around to make sure no-one was watching. He slid the money into his back pocket and started toward the mouth of the alley. Molimo ducked back and hid behind a bin.

    Tusks walked out of the alley without a backward glance and headed down the street with a big smile on his face, straight into a busy bar at the corner from which a bard's playing drifted just barely above the volume of the rowdy patrons. After a few minutes had passed Mr. Fancy still hadn't come out of the alley so Molimo slunk out and slowly peered around the corner. As he did he saw Mr. Fancy, or more specifically Mr. Fancy's boots. He was standing right there, just a few feet away looking down at Molimo with a smile on his face. 

    "How'd you like to make the kind of money I just gave him?" Mr. Fancy asked with a small smile.

    Molimo almost squeaked, his big floppy green ears twitching back and forth in his agitation. Mr. Fancy took a couple slow steps back and held out his arm to guide Molimo further into the Alley. 

    "It'll take just a minute" said Mr. Fancy in a low voice, "and if you don't like it, you never have to do it again. What do you have to lose?" 

    "Will it hurt?" Molimo asked softly as he stood and cautiously walked into the ally, never facing away from Mr. Fancy.

    Mr. Fancy smiled a knowing smile, "Just a little" he said. Fully aware that he'd already got Molimo.

    Molimo made it to where Tusks was standing just a few minutes ago and pulled at the edges of his ragged shirt a few times before adjusting it so that one of the many holes was position over the center of his chest, "Well" he started, then swallowed and started again, "Well, go ahead then." as he held his chin up and nodded curtly.

    Mr. Fancy took out the rod and slid a new glass vial into it, Molimo noticed oddly that this one had a black cap rather than a red one but didn't have time to comment on it before Mr. Fancy pressed the rod to his chest. It started off with a tingling in his fingers and Molimo wondered how he was going to hold his shirt like this if he couldn't feel his fingers anymore. Then he didn't wonder anything anymore.

    Daxton, "Mr. Fancy", held the rod to the little goblin's chest for another thirty seconds after its eyes had drifted closed and then pulled it away, watching the body crumple to the ground with a barely noticeable thud. He pulled the vial out of the rod and held it up to his eye. It was a quarter of the way full of little red crystals that glittered in the dim light,  almost seeming to move of their own accord. Daxton sighed and put the vial away, the goblin hadn't gotten him very much Crystal Clarity but at least he hadn't had to work hard to get it. He turned and walked out of the alleyway and into the street, away from the bar that Nelton, his latest long term mark, had just gone into.

    "Not much longer for you Nelton." Daxton said to himself with a wry smile, "That little goblin saved your life tonight."

It's always hard when you're trying to decide whether or not to kill someone off. If you're going to kill someone, why? What does there death add? Are the readers already familiar with the person or is he a nobody? How do you make people care you've killed someone off? I've tried to strike as close a balance as I can manage, let me know what you think.

There was nothing Eton wouldn't give for a chance to actually let a coworker get close to him, to have a real friend. Well, almost nothing. He wouldn't give up his career. He wouldn't give up the respect he'd earned from the Auditor, and he wouldn't give up her.

When I wrote those words I said to myself, "Who?" I didn't know what I was doing. The words just came out onto the page and she walked into Eton's life. More than walked into, she became a major part of his life and now has been for a very long time. Yesterday she didn't exist, and now she's one of his driving motivations.

He told me she was there. I've heard author's say things like that in interviews before, how the characters really dictate the plot. One author being interviewed recently even said that we're just the radio receiver between the station (the characters) and the readers. I didn't quite get it, and I guess you just really don't until it happens to you.

Now? Now she's in the story and she's not going anywhere, and frankly I think it's better for her presence. 

As a side note, I think I'm going to go with "Crystal Clarity" for my book title, for now at least.

Just thought I'd put up a quick excerpt from what I've written so far. 

 

  With a smooth smile Eton replied, "Good morning to you too Lidia, I'm fine for now, how was your weekend? You said you had plans to go hunting with your Aunt Trudy, right?"

    Lidia grimaced with a sour look on her face, "Exactly right, and it was horrible! She always has to show off her aim and this time she wanted to go armored boar hunting, do you have any idea how dangerous those are?", the look on her face implied she didn't want an answer, "She got a flitter to take us down to the edge of the Vertigas and somehow managed to track one down, she made me take the first shot and you know how I am with guns!"

    With an attentive expression Eton continued to listen to her story, his mind automatically filtering it for talking points and storing them for later as he thought about the elven woman he'd seen less than an hour ago. She'd looked so peaceful, almost at rest. An elven princess from myth sprawled in a field of grass a dozen paces from the walking path. The nearby tree twisted its way up into the sky with bright green leaves spread toward the early morning sky, dew sparkling off them. The chill of the night before had just begun to fade and there she lay, looking asleep with one arm tossed across her brow and her mouth still slightly pursed. The illusion was shattered only by the setting rigor mortis. The Guardian keeping watch for him said that she'd been found in exactly that position, no sign of a cause of death. Struck down at barely fifty she was practically a child.

    "So she shot it right between the eyes and it slid to a stop barely fifty yards from us, nearly gave my mom a heart attack." Lidia finished in a rush.

    Sorting the story in his mind Eton replied without a break, "I can't believe you actually got three shots off, the first time I fired one of those things I scared myself silly! How much did it weigh in at, and how in the world did you manage to get it back here?" and then he returned to the body, the fifth nat dead in as many weeks for no apparent reason. He needed to get to his office and put together a report, the Auditor would need to know that it was hitting Elves too, not just Dwarves and Ogres as they'd seen before. Drifting back to the conversation he chuckled and said, "Not a chance that I'd put something like that up in my house, it'd scare the guests. Now that I think about it though, I could use some tea, would you mind grabbing me some? I've got to get started on some reports in my office or they'll never get done."

Let me know what you guys thought of it, if I get good feedback maybe I'll put some more up.