The "I'm writing a book" thread

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The "I'm writing a book" thread

Post by Bob the Hamster »

I'm writing a book!

In celebration of passing the milestone of 20,000 words written I am posting an excerpt from the chapter I just finished.

Also, I know for a fact that I'm not the only person in the slimesalad community who likes to write, so if anyone else wants to share any bits of writing, this is a good place for it
in a chapter of my book I wrote:"Put the sacrifices up high, above the fire!" Provincial shouted.
Catt stared at him in open-mouthed bewilderment, not understanding how he expected her to even begin doing such a task.
Four hook-tipped wires suddenly dipped down from above and fastened themselves to the corners of the burnt offering rack. They began to lift it up by some unseen mechanism.
Catt whistled in surprise, and stepped back a bit. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and looked up, watching the rack rise.
"How did you do that, Magic?" Catt asked.
Provincial was still focusing his attention upwards. "Good, good!" He shouted. "Perhaps move those ribs to the side for now, we do not want them full of the wrong kind of smoke!"
A large rack of ribs moved laterally. Catt felt certain that this was some kind of spell, but Provincial's words did not sound anything like the utterings of a wizard, which she knew had to be spoken in specific special languages in order to work.
Provincial nodded in approval of the current position of the tray. The paper and cloth bits were already kindling. He seemed to belatedly notice Catt's curious amazement.
"Ha! You like? Is not Magic," Provincial chuckled, "Is Jangley!"
"Jangley?" Catt asked, confused.
"Well, Jangley is maybe sort of magic. Jangley! Come down and meet Catt!"
All the wires lurched just slightly all at once, and then the cobweb began to rearrange itself, bunching downward. The rack of burnt offerings and the various cooking meats all remained in roughly the same places, with wires shifting and trading places to keep them where they were.
At the heart of the mass of wire, it seemed like there was one point where many of them came together in a bundle. This point was coming closer to Catt. She could see a cylindrical shape about as big as three fists side-by-side. The wires connected to its two ends as if it was their source. As it drew parallel to them, she could see a semi-round shape on the side of it that looked like a large eye.
"What is it?" Catt asked. It brought to mind a spider with far too many spindly legs, or some baleful ocean creature, all tentacles.
"Catt, meet Jangley. Jangley is wire golem. Jangley, meet Catt Zago. She is acolyte for Reverend Lemmy.
The wire golem was frightening, but Catt remained calm. It helped that Provincial was speaking to it like a person, but she was also glad that it was moving slowly. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jangley." Catt said. She kept her hand firmly at her side. She did not want to shake any of its appendages, some of which were still glowing red hot.
"I like small Priest," said a buzzing voice like a bucket full of bees. "If small Priest apprentice you then I like you."
"Jangley is our Master Chef," said Provincial. "Jangley is the one whom we have to thank for the success of the Outer Bakak Fine Meats and Sausages Company. There is no finer chef in the Smokefields."
"I like to cook. I cannot taste," said Jangley's buzzing voice. "Will you taste for me?"
A thick slice of bacon descended from above on a single wire. It was sizzling and sputtering. Catt remembered how hungry she was, but she didn't dare burn her fingers by reaching for it. She also could not help but notice the wire's resemblance to a fishing line.
"Um… I…" Catt stalled, not wanting to offend the golem.
Provincial produced a grease-stained cloth pot holders from somewhere and held it under the bacon, as if he had seen this sort of interaction before and understood the need to put her at ease. Jangley gingerly dropped the bacon onto the cloth, and Provincial passed it to Catt. She blew on it to cool it and gratefully savored the smell.
After it had cooled enough that Catt could take a bite, Jangley asked, "Taste?"
"It is exquisite!" Said Catt, honestly. She didn't know how to describe the smokey aftertaste, but she tried, "It tastes… like a beautiful flowering tree… burned to… the smoke… I'm sorry, that came out much more sad than I meant it to sound."
"It is good that sadness is in the taste," buzzed Jangley. "All meat has sadness, but you had empathy for the wood. This pleases me."
Catt nodded, unsure of how to respond. She ate the rest of the piece of bacon, chewing very slowly, feeling suddenly as if she had to relish the experience of eating it in order to respect the sorrow inherent in the meat.
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Post by TMC »

Ooo, reads like your DnD campaigns/characters. Quite gripping. Also, this explains a thing or two!
Hey wait... Catt is one of your DnD characters?
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Post by kylekrack »

I didn't know you were a writer. And 20,000 words; that's no small feat. This roped me in hard, especially considering my terrible attention span (I'm dyslexic and caffeinated, so I have to force myself to focus on reading; after the first two lines, I stopped having to force it, the text alone drew me in). Even from this short excerpt, your writing style shows itself off. I will happily read more when it's available. Do you have a release date yet?

With the mentions of magic and what TMC said about DnD, does this take place in the DnD universe or something based upon?
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Glad you like it! I'll post another chunk when I got 30,000 words.

If I can keep up my current pace of writing, I hope to have the first draft done in March 2020.

Yes, you are correct! This takes place in the same setting as the "Unburning" DnD campaign. I am taking care to avoid any trademarks, so there won't be any beholders. I'm also not at all sticking close to how magic and gods work in DnD. I just liked that setting too much to let it go.

And yes, I did try to play a rogue named Catt who matches this Catt's description in two different short-lived campaigns, but neither of those lasted long enough for her to develop much personality, so the novel version of Catt has already eclipsed the older ones in my mind, and I am unlikely to use her as a PC again
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Kylekrack referring to James wrote:I didn't know you were a writer.
I still have this sitting on my bookshelf (though I moved it to the foreground for the picture). I'm pretty sure this is the original version of James's short story collection, not the new improved version he released a few years later that included two new short stories.

Image

Fun Fact: This was the book that inspired me to self-publish my own collection of short stories back in 2004. So, thanks to James for that one.

Speaking of my own books, many of you know I have e-books on Amazon. But did you know I've also recorded one of my short stories, "Amusement," for YouTube? Here are the videos for the overview, introduction plus legal information, and each chapter if you're interested in checking it out:

[yt]FHx7M8ngUkk[/yt]

[yt]nkfnIDKdq68[/yt]

[yt]NEYmQVdGpno[/yt]

[yt]cJp4gur6J6A[/yt]

[yt]DHAXS1XYdWs[/yt]

[yt]-uG0SFqXDQI[/yt]

[yt]Yp9kMReDOK8[/yt]

[yt]gQvWJdkIF-s[/yt]

[yt]1Kcpw2X5_io[/yt]

Do something similar and post it! Let's hear you reading your own stories!
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Post by kylekrack »

Bob the Hamster wrote:Yes, you are correct! This takes place in the same setting as the "Unburning" DnD campaign. I am taking care to avoid any trademarks, so there won't be any beholders. I'm also not at all sticking close to how magic and gods work in DnD. I just liked that setting too much to let it go.
I love the way authors create/adapt systems of magic into their writing. In order for it to work in a story, magic has to have pretty explicitly set rules, even if those rules are open-ended. Using the D&D system is great since it already has all those rules defined for you. I recently finished reading my first Mercedes Lackey trilogy, and it was insane how in-depth she went into creating and explaining a system of magic. So much time spent detailing the limits and capabilities. But implementing the magic in the story felt much more impactful as a result.

Just a tangent. This got me thinking about it.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Thank you for posting those, Pepsi Ranger! I know what I'll be listening to in the car on the way to work this week :D

Kylekrack, that sounds interesting! Any specific Mercedes Lackey book you would recommend as a starting point into her work?

I recently read The Raven's Tower by Ann Leckie, and it was fantastic. It had a system of magic based on gods, where anything a god spoke had to be true, so if a god spoke something that wasn't true, their power changed the world to make it true, but they were still bound by the real-world laws of physics, so if they said something that couldn't be made true by means of physics, chemistry, gravity, whatever, their power would be drained, and if a god said something impossible, they would die.

I might try recording myself reading something later if I have time... Not sure which story to read though.
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Post by kylekrack »

The Mage Winds trilogy is the one I started with. She has a whole timeline going on, and characters and events from some books are referenced in others. As a standalone story arc, The Mage Winds is great. The only other books I've read of hers is The Black Griffon, which takes place thousands of years in the past from the Mage Winds, which is super interesting.

The god-based magic in Raven's Tower sounds super interesting! I'll have to check that out.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Speaking of the Unburning campaign. I recently watched the Anime Enen no Shouboutai and I couldn't help but see similarities. Maybe that Anime can help give you some ideas for your world.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

@spoonweaver: That show looks fun!

@pepsi ranger: I nearly screamed while you were reading the legalese page, but once I got to the story, I have been enjoying it!

@all

My wife wrote this short story this week, and it makes me smile and laugh: https://www.wattpad.com/796865073-nerdy ... ny-sal-and
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

@pepsi ranger: I nearly screamed while you were reading the legalese page, but once I got to the story, I have been enjoying it!
I really, really didn't want to record that page AT ALL, but I felt it was important to have it since the book itself has it, plus, you know, legal stuff. All media comes with it in some form. Ick.

I'm legitimately surprised you listened to it, though. I wouldn't have. ;p

I should thank you for that by the way. You'll likely be the only one to sit through that episode, so thanks for setting the standard.

Glad you're enjoying the actual story.

I don't know yet if I'll do another audiovisual book experience. The view count for each episode is currently very, very low, and even though it took very little effort on my part to actually put the whole thing together, between editing, finding support images, and actually reading the whole thing into a microphone, it wasn't exactly a short process, and I definitely would've preferred that it do better than its currently doing. Not sure that any effort is worth the return it's getting.

On the other hand, this video below has earned nearly 170 views (with a 6.2% retention rate, which is surprisingly good for the type of video it is), and thanks to its reasonable popularity given its topic, I'll likely continue it in new installments if it continues to gather interest:

[yt]qrnxZQ4usc0[/yt]

I'm also entertaining the thought of recording and posting NaNoWriMo progress this year. Anyone interested in doing the same?
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Post by Sazae »

I'm working on outlining a Psychological Thriller and Supernatural Horror at the moment. Do you plan to participate in NaNoWriMo? It's basically a month long event that encourages writers to complete the manuscripts they are working on.

I've read the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas; the author reportedly used her DnD campaign and characters as inspiration for the book. Using DnD is a great template, especially for fantasy.

I have to ask, do you consider yourself a planner or a pantser? That is, someone who plans their book before writing or someone who just starts writing? I'm a planner myself, which is part of the problem of having not written anything of substance.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I'll be celebrating NaNoWriMo as best as I can. Work and kids means I probably won't be able to exceed my current word-count-per-day in November.

Personally I am more of a pantser (that term is new to me!) My instinct is to just jump in and start writing, which I think is why I have created short stories I am happy with but never anything novel length before.

I am trying hard to also be a planner, and it is helping. My wife gave me a bit of writing coaching, and I am making use of an outline to keep myself on task. She's written several full length novels so I trust her judgement :)

Whenever you want to share more about your novel, I am interested!
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

For those of you who use Scrivener and want to join NaNoWriMo 2019, I just posted two new templates you can use to help you along. Check them out here.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I passed 30,000 words last night! In celebration, here are a bunch of them:
The back of the palace nestled right up to the craggy foothills of the mountains. Zig-zagging staircases were cut into the stones, some leading upwards to terraces in the foothills where there were other buildings, much smaller than the palace, but by the look of them they were still mansions for nobles and lords.
One broad staircase led to what appeared to be a servant's entrance on the rearmost wall of the palace. Catt could see people moving up and down it, carrying things, going about palace business.
She felt she would be conspicuous standing there at the bottom of the stairs casing the entrance, so she retreated, returning to the front of the palace, and seated herself on a marble bench underneath one of the trees in the square. This seemed like a popular place for people to linger, and she felt she could loiter here without attracting attention. She spent some time watching to see who was going to or coming from around the left side of the palace. After a bit of observation, she began to be able to characterize the typical sorts of people who seemed to be using the palace's rear entrance.
There were servants and cleaners, and a few people who looked like craftspersons, carrying tools or paints. There were also occasionally some executioners, which suggested to Catt that they served as palace guards. The grim irony of their being the King's protectors while at the same time being destined to be her murderers galled Catt's sensibilities, but she put those thoughts aside.
The main type of person using the rear entrance were Porters. She watched them going back and forth, wearing the white sleeveless uniform with the yellow and orange badge of the Cook's Guild, and carrying big baskets and covered trays and pairs of bags on shoulder-yokes.
The Cook's Guild Porters accounted for more than half of all the person's she observed that were moving in the direction she cared about. It made sense that fine food would be brought to the palace, after all, the Unburning curse meant that kitchens inside the palace would be useless. The large number of porters suggested to Catt that this wasn't simply for the King's table, rather there were probably quite a lot of important and hungry people in the palace at any given time.
What if the King was holding some kind of a banquet today? Catt wondered if today might be a uniquely bad day for her to be sneaking in to keep a dinner date, but then again, maybe this was just a normal afternoon, and maybe there were always that many Porters. Perhaps they even delivered other things besides food? Could they also serve as the City's Royal Mail? Porters delivering messages was actually rather less of a stretch than executioners serving as guards.
As Catt was watching and pondering, she suddenly realized that one of the people she was watching was watching her back.
A man wearing a Porter's uniform was making eye contact with her. His ears and lower lip were covered in silvery rings and studs. Catt recognized the man she had knocked down in the Smokefields a few weeks past.
The man had clearly already recognized her. Hatred was gleaming in his eyes, and he changed direction and began approaching her.
Catt could feel her heart beat faster, but she forced a charade of calm.
"You!" Spat the man, "Don't think for a minute that I forgot about you!" He reached a point a few places away from Catt's bench and stopped.
Catt affected confusion. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
"Unlicenced carrier!" Growled the man, the words dripping with spite as if this was the worst obscenity he knew how to voice.
"What's your problem?" Catt asked holding out her empty hands. "I'm not carrying nothing."
"I ought to give you the beating I owe you!" Said the man, taking a step closer.
Catt rested her elbows on the back of the bench with calculated nonchalance. "Really? You're gonna attack me? Right here In the square?"
His bluff was called. She could see his eyes shifting quickly back and forth, and taking in the number of witnesses.
"I'll get you," he said menacingly, "When you least expect it. Next time you won't see me coming."
He turned his back abruptly and walked away.
"Okay, nice chat! Bye!" Catt mocked.
She watched him leave the square as she assembled the rest of her plan in her head.
The moment the man disappeared around the corner of a distant building, she was up, and hurrying in the same direction.
Catt was almost at a run when she reached the street that he had gone down. She caught sight of his back in the distance, and dropped back to a walk.
She tailed the man all the way out of Old Bakak, and into the Marketday district, closing the distance carefully, but keeping far enough back to avoid notice. He showed no sign of suspecting that he was being followed.
Catt guessed that the man was heading for the Smokefields, and she figured she had to act before he reached Sausage Row, with its heavy foot traffic.
When she saw him turn down a relatively deserted side street, she made her move.
Catt sprinted, closing the distance between herself and the man in a matter of seconds. She pounced with all her momentum, while simultaneously grabbing at his shirt. The clean execution of this surprise maneuver was essential to the success of her attack.
A lone passer-by yelped at the sight of her tackle, and the man, alerted, started to turn about, but he was too late. As Catt collided with him, she dragged his whole shirt upwards towards his neck. His arms went up, both to defend against Catt's onslaught, and to defend against his impact with the ground.
As they both crashed into the ground together, skidding and scraping across the street, Catt rolled right over him, and dragged his shirt completely inside-out over his head. For an instant he was blinded and his arms were entangled, and Catt managed to land a couple of vicious blows to his torso with her knee before he wriggled out of his shirt entirely, and rolled clear of her.
In an instant he was on his feet again, center of gravity low, fists clenched, muscles coiled, ready to fight back and fight hard.
Catt barely saw this, because she was already hightailing it away from him, fleeing with all the swiftness of a wild rabbit.
"Yeah, you better run!" Shouted the man. "You better run, Coward!"
Catt noted the triumphant tone to his shouts. He believed he had won. He believed that his dexterity had saved him from a mugging, and that his ferocity had frightened away his foolish attacker.
Catt left him behind as she rounded a corner. A joyous grin was stretched over her face. She had won. The gambit had worked perfectly. She had gotten away without a scratch, and she still had the shirt in her hand– the white shirt with its beautifully embroidered official Cook's Guild Porter's badge on the right breast.
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