Progress update

I got a bit more writing done this week. It’s now at 58,600 (That’s actually the exact word count when I stopped), so I got about 4k written this week.

I have reached a section of the story that I’ve had planned out since I got any kind of feel for how this version was going to be so I am actually a little surprised I didn’t get like 15k written for the week. I am just scratching the surface of the sequence as I have it planned.

It’s not happening exactly when I planned and is a little muddled with another planned battle sequence, but I think I have a good solution for the conflicting plans I made.

It is a lot of fun to finally get to write this bit that I’ve been thinking about and planning for a while.

Here’s a little snippet of my labors this week:

Zuriel swallowed thickly. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but watching Aila wrestle with the overwhelming grief as she gave burial rites to her friends left him gutted. He watched her with knitted brow as she kept moving through the stones, occasionally wiping her face as she went. She was in pain, doing something only she was capable of. He couldn’t even share the burden of it with her.

So, he simply watched as she imbued the headstones of her friends, slowly illuminating the graves of the last nymphs of Vale that had sat dark for more than two decades.

When she sat heavily before a stone, her shoulder’s shaking with her sobs, he got up and went to her, wrapping her in his arms. She leaned into him, accepting his offered comfort.

He was so focused on her he almost didn’t notice the use of magic in time.

Zuriel sucked in a quick breath and threw up a block just in time to intercept a spear of ice.

“Sorcerers.” He hissed as Aila let out a surprised yelp.

He sent his mind out, there were at least a dozen. Two more shards of ice exploded against the block and a third sailed past them and shattered as it struck one of the trees at the edge of the clearing. A bolt of lightning glanced off the edge of the block as Zuriel pulled Aila to her feet. “Run!” he yelled and pushed her ahead of him.

Much more reading than writing this week

I read like 6 books this week so I have been much more absorbed in reading than writing. The Shadow of Vale is now sitting around 52,800 words so I wrote a little under 3k this past week.

I normally try to update Saturday or Sunday but I read three books in the past two days so I honestly forgot. Haha

I’ve been reading a bit of fluff so I haven’t exactly been in a fantasy headspace, but I am doing a reread of The Bound and The Broken series by Ryan Cahill (Highly recommend if you’ve never heard of it. He’s a fantastic writer and story teller.) so hopefully that will help get me back into gear to finish this draft.

I am still wrestling with a lot of the plot lines and characters but most of what I wrote this week was centered around Zuriel and Aila’s relationship. Given the reality that the core of the story is centered around them, I guess that makes sense.

While there isn’t much to pick from this week, I did want to include a little snippet. Pretty inline with my reading this week. Enjoy!

As he neared the garden his mouth fell open at the transformation. It was no longer a simple, cleanly manicured garden, but a rich complex display of what seemed to be hundreds of plants ornamented by stone structures and two fountains.

“Wow.” He said softly as he reached out to touch a draping vine with vibrant pink flowers.

“Agur said this garden is mine now.” She raised her shoulders in a sweetly apologetic way. “I might have gotten carried away.”

“It’s amazing.”

Aila said nothing for a moment as Zuriel slowly stepped into the garden, admiring her work.

“Do you recognize any of them?”

Zuriel turned to her with faint alarm in his eyes. “Are these all medical plants?”

Aila laughed. Zuriel couldn’t help but smile.

“Not all of them, but most of them.”

“Well, this is a whole lot more than seven.” He chuckled and continued his study of the garden.

“I’ve been doing some research.”

Zuriel turned back to her. “How does it work? The life point? Do you have to know the plants to create them?”

Aila stepped forward to stand beside him. “Not exactly. When I’m connected to the life point they are just there. I know a lot about them just from pulling their essence from the life point, but I don’t necessarily know their names or how we use them.” She pointed to one plant that appeared to be a purple cactus. “I don’t know what that one is. It’s similar to Aloe, but it has a higher antiseptic quality.”

Zuriel let out an awed breath. “That’s amazing. Of all the magics I didn’t get.” He let out a brief laugh. “The only magic I’ll never be able to teach is what I’ll pass on. You’ll have to be the one to teach-” He snapped his mouth shut as he realized what he had been saying.

“Our children.” Aila finished softly. “I was wondering if that had occurred to you yet.”

His heart raced as he scanned the garden, no longer seeing it, simply avoiding looking at her. He had an overwhelming desire to apologize and he wasn’t sure why.

This is escalating kinda quickly

I wrote 10k this week, landing just over 50k total now.

I find myself lacing in several loose ends into the story that even I am not sure what I’m doing with it yet. If I don’t weave them in at some point, I’ll go back and nix them, but at the moment, Harkin, and Samael are doing curious things I haven’t fully fleshed out yet and I created a character kind of in the background when I made Pyre’s first chosen link and I haven’t decided if he will matter or not.

Setting up those possible subplots was the biggest addition to the story this week aside from doing some work on Zuriel and Aila’s relationship. It feel a bit strange with three strains actively going now, to just pick one for a snippet, and given how much I wrote this week I think I’ll give a little peak into at least two of the threads.

Enjoy!

“What’s this?” Zuriel took the sword more reflexively than conscious decision.

“Your sword, what else would it be?”

“My sword?” Zuriel looked down at the sheathed sword in his hands. The belt and scabbard were obviously new, the faint scent of leather reached his nose as he drew it closer to study the hilt. His eye was immediately drawn to the green stone set in the pommel that, he was disappointed to find, he didn’t recognize. He wrapped his hand around the wooden grip which he guessed was Alder. The guard was titanium, hard enough to block most metals and he grinned as he became aware of the faint presence of a cold imbuement.

He licked his lips, a smile he couldn’t suppress spreading as he pulled the sword from its scabbard. He held the sword up and turned it, taking in the simple beauty of the double-edged blade. The beautiful and strong Afigus steel was forged straight and clean with a fuller running down the center of the blade.

He held the sword out a moment before swinging it down in a slicing motion to the left, then the right, getting a feel for the balance.

“Hand and a half. Double-edged. Versatile. You can weld it single handed with a shield or two handed.” Cyrus stepped closer. “At least, you will be able to weld it single handed. Put it on, we’ll work on drawing and get you familiar with the weight and balance of it.”

Zuriel sheathed the blade and drew the belt around his waist. With Cyrus’ unusually patient guidance, he got the blade situated comfortably on his off side.

“Alright,” Cyrus stepped back, leaving ample space between them to draw swords. “It sounds easy to draw a sword, but given that you’ve never done it, understand there is a right and wrong way to do it.” He demonstrated a smooth draw, gripping the sword smoothly in both hands and falling into a simple starting stance.

Zuriel tried to imitate the motion, but the sword seemed to catch in the scabbard causing his hand to slip off the hilt entirely. As the sword tipped down, he grabbed at it reflexively earning a set of deep cuts as his hand involuntarily closed on the blade in his attempt to catch it.

He cursed and drew his hand back, allowing the blade to slide free and land in the dirt beside him throwing up a small cloud of dust.

Cyrus sighed as Zuriel clinched his fist to slow the bleeding. He could feel Aila’s eyes on him and his face warmed with embarrassment.

“Kal!” Cyrus called for the field healer stepped forward to examine Zuriel’s hand. “In the future, I would recommend just letting the sword drop.”

After another deep breath, Harkin opened the door and stepped inside. Fala had traded in her seductive dress for a more practical suit of leather armor.

“Ah,” she smiled at him. “I assume they told you I will be your boss for the remainder of my time here?”

“Yes.”

Fala studied him for a long moment. “I’m not going to attack you. Relax.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Fala shrugged and turned her attention back to a pack she was loading up on her bed. “You interest me. I am not accustomed to being refused and you are such a perfect specimen for my purposes I am not willing to give up just yet.” She looked over her shoulder and grinned at him. “I’ll win you over yet.”

“I can’t leave the grounds.” He raised his cuffed wrist as he eyed the bag she hefted onto her shoulder.

“If I were taking you out with me, you would be carrying the bag.” She looked over the room a moment before nodding to herself. “No, I just wanted to make sure my request had been granted.” She passed Harkin who turned to follow her. “I will be back for lunch at the pentacle. Please be here with it. You’re free till then.”

Harkin frowned as she stepped through the door. He stood standing in the empty room a moment trying to make sense of the new situation he found himself in. Fala had had him assigned as her personal servant within the palace. He was safe within the palace, but at greater risk of her bed.

Information. He needed more information.

He went to the door and opened it to peek out into the hall. He listened carefully before closing the door softly. He was alone for now. He turned back to the room and examined it. The bed was unmade, two trunks were set at the foot of the bed, one open, one closed. He went to the open trunk and carefully searched it. Just clothes and a disturbing number of weapons. What use had a sorceress of her level of so many daggers? There were at least ten. With a frown, Harkin resettled the items and moved to the second trunk.

Productive week in Vale

I have nearly reached 28k for this draft. I’ve been doing lots of world building, character work and work in the magic systems this week. Its been fun playing around with some new characters and piecing together some of the subplots.

A notable bit of work I did was centered around Halvar’s character as I’ve never fleshed out a backstory for him before, at least not one that goes back to his family. So, congrats Halvar, you know have your own tragic origins. Not as tragic as some of the other characters and since I have more fleshed out characters on the “villain” side, there are actually characters in the story that don’t have utterly depressing origins and histories.

One fun element I have been playing with are the links, one of the aspects of the telepathic magic of the naims. I’ve always had an idea of them being of use in long distance communication and I finally fleshed that idea out as well as the different ways a naim’s mind would link with other people and dragons. It’s always been a challenging aspect of the plot as it impacts basically everyone’s relationship with Zuriel.

Bit of a longer Excerpt this week, Enjoy!

Zuriel turned his attention back to Halvar as the witch placed her hand on Halvar’s temple and muttered her spell. Halvar groaned and opened his eyes.

“I’ve brought your dinner. Zuriel’s back.” The witch said pleasantly and helped Halvar sit up to eat.

“That was a dirty trick.” Halvar said to the witch with a scowl. “There is no need to cast sleeping spells on me like some prisoner.”

“I’m sorry, Halvar. You know its not my call.” She said softly as she laid the tray on his lap.

“Get out.” Halvar said sharply as he took up his fork.

“I’ll make sure your dinner arrives soon.” She said to Zuriel, unphased by Halvar’s demeanor.

Zuriel thanked her and waited for the door to close before turning his attention to Halvar.

“That was rude.”

“Rude is keeping me asleep like I’m some child.” He shot back, stabbing his food twice and shoving the bite in his mouth.

“They’re just trying to help.”

“Don’t you start.” Halvar said around his food, pointing at Zuriel with his fork. “Don’t act like you have any idea what its like.” He stabbed his plate again. “Sitting here useless while you are freaking out,” He laid his fork down and look at Zuriel, “I could feel it. That absolute terror you felt, I felt it and I had no idea what was happening.” He made a sort of growl and took his fork up again. “Then they put me under like my reaction was unreasonable.”

“I’m sorry, Ray. Even if I knew how to send, I’m not even sure I could have in the moment.”

“Halvar,” he said gruffly. “My name is Halvar. I’ve missed my name.” He added, sounding very much like a child.

“Halvar, sorry. Lonan taught me the basics so I should be able to send to you now if anything like that happens again.”

“Which wasn’t his job.” Halvar spoke with his eyes on his plate. “And if something like that happens again,” he met Zuriel’s eyes. “The Great Creator help whoever tries to stop me from getting to you.” He frowned and resumed his aggressive loading of the fork.

Zuriel sat in silence for a moment. “I am starting to see why they call you my guardian.”

“I am your guardian. That’s the charge Agur gave me. Its part of why he made me the way that I am.”

“The time control.”

“Aging control.” He gave a tight grin. “I can’t control time, though I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

So much fun this week

The Shadow of Vale’s third draft now sits just over 23k. I found a few new characters and some plots that will be filling in some of the blank spots I still had which is good.

Most importantly though, I had so much fun writing this week. Reminds me that even if I never get to the point where I am ready to publish, this is just so much fun to do. I hope other’s will enjoy my work as much as I enjoy creating it.

Slightly longer except this week just because it was fun. It’s rough as most of what I wrote was chaotic and it is unedited for the most part. I cleaned it up a little for clarity.

Enjoy Pyre and Zuriel meeting properly for the first time:

“Is the-” Zuriel broke off as his mind was suddenly bombarded with images and emotions. He let out a cry and fell to his knees, vaguely aware that the other’s were surrounding him calling his name. Somewhere in the mess that his mind became, he could hear Halvar, but it was quickly washed away by image after image of a red naim man and the blue dragon Pyre. He saw flashes of himself and Aila and a shattered stone.

The force that swept through his mind withdrew suddenly and he gasped as his other senses returned.

“Sheild! Sheild!” Someone yelled.

He looked up as a wave of warmth washed over him. A longing. Before him Pyre approached along with the green dragon and two others, one purple and a second green dragon he’d never seen before. Pyre let out a roar and spread his wings wide as he slowed his decent and landed with more grace than Zuriel thought possible for something so large.

“He chose you?” Lonan looked at Zuriel wide eyed.

“What?” Zuriel frowned and looked up at the dragon who was headed straight for him.

Zuriel tried to scramble back, but fell as another assault of images and emotions swept over him. Flashes of the red naim, a pale man in a black robe, the naim, a battle field filled with naims and others he didn’t recognize, all garbed in armor. The images flashes and overlapped, some with sound, others mute, as waves of emotions raged through him. Loss, pain, joy, hope, anger, rage.

He gasped and scrambled to his feet as the force released him again.

As he found his feet, he looked up to find Pyre was close enough that he could reach out and touch him with ease. Terror gripped him as the dragon opened his mouth and took hold of the front of his vest with his teeth, yanking him forward.

He let out a cry and clutched at the vest, then the dragon’s face, as his feet left the ground. The images came again, along with a sense of possession and pride. The images ceased as the dragon tossed him into the air. He screamed as he pinwheeled his arms and legs. His stomach lurched as he fell toward the dragon who had swooped beneath him to catch him between two of the spikes on his back.

Zuriel’s scream cut off as the air was forced from his lungs. He grabbed frantically at the spikes as he felt his body sliding on the rough, warm scales of the dragon.

The Shadow of Vale update

It is now 14,300 words long. I technically have a goal of 700 words a week, but once I sit to write my 100 words for the day I generally get closer to 500 or so. But the 100 words a day does pretty much guarantee I write daily.

I did get a little stuck this week as I introduced Agur and I haven’t quite settled on who he is in this version of the story, but me and Zuriel kinda met him together and I was happy with how the portion of the scene I got through turned out.

But I did get to write the first encounter with Pyre this week which I have been excited about for a while. In celebration of that I decided to share a bit of a longer excerpt from the end of that encounter. Enjoy!

The dragon growled and grew still. He could hear it breathing, an occasional growl emitting from deep within its chest. There seemed something almost calm about it now.

Zuriel rolled slightly and looked at the dragon over his shoulder. It stood not far off watching them with its enormous yellow eyes. It growled, opening its mouth. Zuriel rolled back, clutching Aila closer and waited for the dragon fire to flow over them. The dragon let out a defiant roar that seemed to move through them with a tangible pulse of energy.

There were more growls and snapping branches and trees, but they were moving away.

Zuriel released Aila and rolled back to watch the dragon as he pushed his way back out of the forest. Around them, the other’s got to their feet, watching the dragon with guarded optimism.

“He’s leaving?” Lonan stood watching the great blue dragon with a frown.

“Let’s not give him a chance to change his mind.” Cyrus reached out to help Aila to her feet.

Zuriel climbed to his feet and was immediately jerked forward by the front of his shirt. He looked into Cyrus’s furious blue eyes. “Do not ever pull a stunt like that again. Don’t think for a second I would have left her there to die. What you did risked not only her life but all of ours.” Cyrus released his shirt and shoved him away. “Idiot child.” He muttered as he headed back to the front.

“That’s a bit harsh, he didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter what he did or did not know, he needs to know that when you break defensive formations like that you get people killed, especially when you drop your block.” Cyrus shot another glare at Zuriel before turning toward the path that Pyre had carved through the trees. “Let’s go.”

Zuriel watched Cyrus a moment trembling from the adrenaline, a sense of shame tearing at him. Cyrus was right, it was simple luck that the dragon hesitated. He turned as he felt a hand on his arm and found Aila looking up at him.

“Cyrus is a good man and listening to him will save your life, but he does have the people skills of a briar bush.” She gave him a small smile, her eyes still wider than normal. “Even if it was probably not the safest thing, I’m still grateful you came back for me.”

Good week.

This draft is now just over 11k.

I had lots of fun writing this week, probably the most fun I’ve had writing in months. I’ve been working toward the first appearance of dragons and I am probably getting to it first thing next week.

Here is a short excerpt:

“Who are you?” one of the naims with the same blue hair and eyes as Halvar.

“Cyrus?”

The naim looked down at Halvar, his eyes opened in shock. “Halvar? You aren’t due back yet.” The naim knelt down across from Aaron examining the wound. “Take a breath, I’m going to pull the shard out and bind it. Lonan!” Cyrus turned to one of the other naims, this one was young with red irises and streaks in his hair. His eyes were unsettling despite the earnest expression of them. “Send ahead on the relay, we need a healer to meet us on the way.”

“Understood.”

“You might wanna bite something.” Cyrus said as he grasped the shard of ice.

“Bite what?” Halvar yelled, just before a scream tore from him as Cyrus pulled the ice clear.

“Barloc, make me a bandage.” Cyrus spoke calmly as Halvar went limp.

“Ray!” Zuriel moved to Halvar’s face, smacking him on the cheek.

“He passed out. Leave him be, this is going to hurt a while longer.” He cut away Halvar’s shirt and made two pack bandages from it. “What in the world are you wearing, Halvar?”

Thanks for reading!

This Week in Vale

I have had a rather productive week writing. The 3rd draft now sits at about 3200 words. I have had to scrap the outline I was working on and after a few attempts to salvage it, I am just going to do another free flow kinda draft to feel out some of the major changes I have made to some of the characters, relationships and events.

A brief Snippet from this week’s labors:

Ray sighed and settled back in his seat. He’d almost forgotten the ruse he’d used to get Aaron out of the bar. Not that Aaron would notice if he got up and went to work in the morning, he was obviously fixated on the woman who’d stuck her tongue down his throat on the dance floor.

He rubbed his hand over his face and took a careful sip of coffee.

“I got him through high school, I can get him through infatuation with this girl.” He muttered to himself. In part because he was trying to convince himself of its truth. It had to be.

When Agur had handed him the tiny child that was now a grown man, nearing the age of stasis, he had a completely different idea of what it would mean to protect him. Give him a sword and a physical attacker and he knew what to do, but protecting Aaron’s heart had been an entirely different element he had had to learn over the years.

Hello!

I am back! Due to some rather major life changes, mainly becoming pregnant, I have been much less active in writing for the past few months. I have been able to write more as of late and have actually been able to begin the 3rd draft of The Shadow of Vale in earnest.

This week I wrote just over 1,500 words bringing the current word count to, just over 1,500 words haha!

While my updates may be a bit more sporadic than my previous draft, I intend to share updates as I work through this draft.

Thanks for reading!

What I am working on

Writing the third draft has proven a much more painful process than I had envisioned. It is a completely different focus and level of work than the first two drafts were. I know the story and characters better and getting through this opening bit is almost physically painful for me.

As a result, I am largely unhappy with most of what I have written and don’t feel particularly inclined to share it.

But, I have picked up a second story, a sequel to The Shadow of Vale which I wrote for fun after the second draft was completed. It is a second draft and I am enjoying it much more. I am still working on both stories, but in the interest of sharing something, I wanted to leave a little snippet of the sequel. Enjoy!

Alethia grinned as the guard below the window looked in his hand, utterly confused. He had been forming a small flame as he walked, a form of amusement for the bored sorcerer.

“And now…” Chiron grinned and brought the small hammer down on the stone he had set out on a cloth on the windowsill. The stone shattered, a few shards falling to the floor, unnoticed by neither the nymph princess nor the wizard servant.

As they watched, a large flame formed over the sorcerer’s hand. He extinguished it abruptly and looked around to see if anyone had seen. He finally shoved his hand in his pocket and went about his round.

Giggling Alethia fell back from the window.

Chiron smiled and folded the broken stone in the cloth. “Your father would rather I not show you things like this.”

“Well, you’ve already taught him.”

“Eh,” Chiron waved toward the princess as they walked toward the door, “I wasn’t one of his teachers. He hardly knows the blocking magics actually. He focused more on the healing magics and imbuing.”

Alethia smiled as Chiron rattled on, telling her the same bits he always did. He’d been proud of what minimal role he had played in supporting her father, Zuriel, as he trained in his early days, before facing the great sorcerer Samael. Her father, the great dueling King with access to three of the four Vale magics.

And here she was with not a fourth of one of them.

“Of course, if you want a really solid charm, the stone has to be of the right grade and cut. Granted, some spells don’t require a certain cut, spells for focus and such held in a charm would hold just as well regardless of the cut, given that the stone was right.” Chiron was saying as they moved through the halls.

Alethia smiled, letting his words wash over her, turning her attention back to him when one of the stones or spells he mentioned was unfamiliar to her. Mostly she looked over the various murals that lined the walls. Beautiful works of art of various colored stones, skillfully cut and arranged to show vivid scenes from the history of Tala.

She ran her hands along the stones of one that showed the exodus of the Tala nymphs during the rise of Samael.

“Alethia.”

Chiron fell silent as they both turned back to the witch who was calling the princess.

“Alethia, Alina wishes you to join her in the east garden.”

Alethia forced a smile. She had been hiding from her sister since she heard their youngest sister, Avira had linked to Tara that morning. She was well intentioned, but Alethia’s lack of magic was a problem that Alina wished to solve and she never wished to solve it more than when one of their sisters progressed in their own magic.