1
Nov
So here’s a little update. When I said I wanted to be at 20-30k for the end of October, I was undershooting the mark. I ended the month slightly over 35k, after 5,700 words were added to the manuscript Halloween afternoon.
Now begins the month of NaNo. The goal is to write 1667 words a day, for the entire month. After the first day, which was a few hours this morning, I’ve got 4,000 words done. Because I won’t be able to write some days during the week (damn you school for taking my time), I’m going to be trying for 5,000 word blocks every weekend day.
Counting today, I’ve worked on Læccan Waters for 11 days. 10 were in October, 1 November. The story is 39,000 words long. It means I’m averaging about two hours worth of work on it each day I sit down to write. If I can manage 15 days in November instead of the 10 of October, I’ll be fine for NaNo. Either that or I push the average up to 3 hours a day for 10 days.
I’m also going to have to teach myself how to write in the evenings, which is something I’m usually bad at. Ah well.
Good luck to all of those engaged in NaNoWriMo, I’ll see you in a month.
16
Oct
So, for the first time, I’ve decided to join up and try NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50k words in a month, from November 1st to the 30th. It should be rather fun, and a fair amount of work at the same time.
Now, on top of everything else I’m doing, you might be wondering why I decided to do this as well. It’s simple: I have set myself a goal of finishing the first draft of Læccan Waters by the end of the year. I’m assuming the novel is 150k words long, and that I write at about 5k words every three hours. At least, that’s what I did yesterday, and trying to do again today. So, that means I need to spend about 90 hours working on the book to be done. Call it 100 to allow some wiggle room.
The goal is to have 20k to 30k done by the end of October (Thanks to yesterday and today, Læccan Waters is already over 10.5k, and should end the day around 13.5k), add another 50k in November, and spend December, of which I have half off, doing the rest. At this point, I’m expecting to miss and have to do the remaining work in January, but that’s hardly a big drawback for me. Even if it does bleed over into January, I’ll have written the first draft of a 150k word novel in under 4 months, and that will mean a great deal to me.
And now, I need to get back to writing it.
27
Sep
The Áðexe are a clan oriented people. Even in the great cities that cover Læccan, the Áðexe huddle in family units, each living in a single dwelling made of many different houses merged together. Towns and cities are built up of clusters of these family units, with each family compound being a hexagonal shape with only a few doors and windows, and cleared ground between it and any next to it. In cities, where room is harder to find, the Áðexe have learned to adapt, and live in giant beehive shaped buildings, dug partially into the ground as a defence against the bitter cold of the winter storms.
In Æbb, they lie in sod houses made of dried mud brick strengthened with lattices of reeds and brush. On Þracian, they build with stone, permanent structures that have stood for generations. The Áðexe of ?gflota have broken with the old ways and live in many small houses of breeding pairs, rather than in the great family units of the other kingdoms. This forms one more reason why they are viewed as strange and unclean. Many other kingdoms will not let a Áðexe from ?gflota within their borders, for fear of moral corruption and dissolution. Citizens of Hálsiend burrow down into the earth, their homes shallow tunnels just underneath the surface, pockmarked with breathing holes and windows that let in air, but designed to be plugged easily when winter or a hurricane comes close.
Elders are considered the fount of knowledge amongst the Áðexe, and councils of them are found ruling in many places, although some kingdoms prefer hierarchical rule, with a single family exercising dictatorial power over the rest. Stories and tales and laws are rarely written down, but instead passed down by speakers and archivists, whose jobs are to hold certain memories within their heads, and pass them to a worthy successor. However, should this fail, each speaker must spend a month a year reciting all that he knows to scribes in his kingdom’s capital, where the knowledge will be interred for future generations.
The Áðexe are gifted with a magical talent seen nowhere else, for they can shift their own form or that of someone they are touching. The magic allows them to shift other peoples forms in certain physical ways, by altering the muscle and bone structure. The Áðexe can only do this to those they are in contact with, or to themselves. The more sudden the change, the more energy and the more dangerous it is. Even gradual changes become dangerous if a creature moves too far away from its norm. Energy for this magic comes from within, or from the person being changed, in which case the burden is shared.
This talent is fairly rare amongst the Áðexe, and in some places is considered a sign of evil, of being cursed to an untimely grave. In other areas, the shifters are considered a holy sign, a gift from nature to the family. Families that produce unusually high numbers of shifters are prized, and often find their daughters and sons placed above their station into high class breeding families.
In appearance, the Áðexe are vaguely reptilian, their bodies low slung to the ground and capable of walking either upright or on four of their six limbs. Two limbs form vestigial arms, used for fine manipulation but little else. The upper pair of arms are much more massive, mounted with strong hands and webbed claws excellent for swimming. The legs are short and stocky, strongly muscled but not capable of great speed except in short bursts. Their torsos are squat but muscular, with scaly skin the toughness of thick leather covering their head, back, and limbs. Fur sprouts from between the scales, a testament to the chill temperatures that arrive in winter. The jaws of the Áðexe are short but wide, capable of swallowing fish whole. Their colour varies with the season and location, but most have wave-like patterns on their stomachs, to disguise them while swimming.
The Áðexe primarily use tools of stone, wood, and obsidian, although the Þracians have discovered metalworking, a secret they do not share with any others. Armour is formed of reeds or grass woven about wooden plates with stone facings, strong but light. Their ships are more primitive than those of Bedwar Barthu Dirio, but very sturdy and built with extremely thick hulls, due to the prevalence of ice.
They are a greedy people on the whole, with the various kingdoms involved in near constant warfare with one another over the small areas of habitable land. Thus, when the Enaid Brudiwr or spirit mages of Bhreac Veryan came calling, the Áðexe listened closely.
26
Sep
The continent of Læccan is a wet, dismal place, overrun by swamps and rivers and mangrove nests in the south, and cold and eternally locked in the grip of snow and ice in the north. Foetid jungles and pestilent lands cover the northern slopes of the great mountain range that divides Læccan from Bedwar Barthu Dirio, at the very extent of the land, while further north the swamps and mangroves flourish, and only on the shores of the rivers and the great inland sea do the Áðexe find a home in this miserable land.
The islands upon the sea itself are hospitable and welcoming, and clustered upon them are two of the great kingdoms of the Áðexe, the twin capitals of Æbban Dún and Æbbercurnig controlling the south-west islands, while Þracian houses itself on a massive isle to the north, along with a few minor subsidiaries. Here the lands are temperate, flush with wood and stone, but lacking metals. The Áðexe subsist on fishing and the seas, leaving much of their land uninhabited. Often, the centre of their islands have not been visited for centuries, too deep and dank in the forest for the citified folk to venture inland.
The kingdom of Æbb has six islands under its control, and their cities form a ring on the inward facing side of those isles, with four housing great cities, while the last two are little more then claimed trading posts, held only for the resources found there. Rain constantly drips across the land, an unending stream of constant drizzle. With their lands prone to heavy mist yet separated by the sea, the Áðexe of Æbb have learned how to sail by dead reckoning and the lead line, and so their charts show not the wind and the wave, but the particular type of sediment that comprises the sea floor.
Their great rivals, indeed the strongest kingdom of any that resides within the borders of Læccan, is that of Þracian. Their hill covered land is the only area of Læccan to be rich in ore, and their iron weapons have made them a fearsome foe to the stone and obsidian of the other Áðexe. They and the land to the north-east, Hálsiend, have long fought over the north-east corner of Læccan’s main continent, but since the discovery of metalworking, Þracian has never been rebuffed from the area. Only the deviousness of the navy of Æbb has kept that kingdom from becoming a conquered outpost of the Þracian empire.
Further north, difficult to reach by any route but the sea, lies the kingdom of Ægflota. Blessed by the flame, the peasants of this land do what no other Áðexe would dare: they burn the trees of their land, slashing down great tracts of land to farm and grow. Because of this strange fascination with the land, they are the only Áðexe who do not primarily subsist on seafood, and this desire for land has made them more acquisitive, and driven them into open warfare with the kingdom of Hálsiend. Despite this, Ægflota is the smallest of the four great kingdoms.
Hálsiend is a country in retreat, controlling half of a long, low island, swept by winds and oft buried under snow and ice. Ægflota has laid claim to the other half, and established a border city that is little more than an armed fortress to fend off the Hálsiend reprisals. To the south, Hálsiend was ejected from its land on the main continent by the advances of the Þracian, and now only controls its primary capital as well as a few smaller lands. Still larger than Ægflota, the two front war that Hálsiend is waging has sapped its strength and drained its coffers, leaving it in dire danger of collapse. The hurricanes that come yearly to ravage the land have been especially fierce the last decade, and so Hálsiend has been beset from all sides. Unless a great diplomat and warrior is born to their ruling family, Hálsiend will be swept away, chaff before the wind.
24
Sep
So, after sitting around for a little bit, I’ve completed the mapping process for the next book in The Four Part Land. It’s the second book in the Tarranau series, and will take place in a land called Læccan. The book itself is tentatively titled “Læccan Waters”.
Each of the areas in TFPL is personalized and given an old world language. The for Chloddio and Tarranau it’s Welsh, with a few hints of Cornish or Manx thrown in. For the new world that Tarranau is going to enter, I’ve chosen Anglo-Saxon. Below are the names of the major towns and cities, as a taste of the flavour and style of Anglo-Saxon.
Æbban Dún, Æbbercurnig, Andbita, Angnes, Cáserlic, Gárwiga, Grýtan, Hálsiend, Heardlic, Herewulf, Íegbúend, Lufestre, Néahéaland, Telgian, Tyhtan, Þáwian, Þracian.
I’d love comments on whether this style of naming characters and places works for you as a fantasy reader.