Day 7: 700 words

Extract:

“They’re finally going, then,” Felman said with a heaving sigh. He was a big man; anything he did – talking, breathing, moving – had a sense of both great size and great effort to it. “And not soon enough. There’s bad blood between Icelvik and Angaborg. One side accuses the other of poaching sixty years ago, and before you know it…”

Hemming stopped paying attention because Earl Icel had appeared at the entrance to the square, mounted as usual and tailed by his wife, two more warriors, and Thistle, who was again on foot. She smiled at Hemming.

“Are you going to fight?” Felman asked.

“No. Broder forbade me.”

“He did?” Felman frowned. He had a heavy face and a bristly brow. “Surely someone should be going to represent the earl’s blood.”

“Why can’t that be Broder? He’s the earl’s brother,” Hemming said.

“Well, for one, he has his own colours and his own hall. For two, he’s going to be leading that band of archers instead, ain’t he?”

Hemming was quiet for a second. “But I couldn’t do it. If Broder found out…”

“Why not? I was practicing to use the axe by your age, and you’re big enough to carry a shield.”

Before they could continue, Thistle hurried across the square towards them. The bags under her eyes told Hemming that she hadn’t slept well. “Hello, husband,” she said, trying to be playful, but her smile looked distant.

“What’s happened to you?” Hemming asked.

Triss pulled him aside, out of earshot of anyone else. “We’ve got to go to that battle, Hem.”

So today I began writing the first battle of my novel. The change of pace that comes with writing an action scene meant I had to re-write a few times until I got the feel right, and even then it was only after re-reading the 'Battle by Deepwood Motte' from George R R Martin's A Dance With Dragons: Before the Feast (which is one of the best battle sequences I've ever read) that I got into the real swing of it.

Once I had started, though, it went really well, and I feel like I have a vivid fight scene developing, so yay!

Day 6: 1,000 words

Extract:

“Did the warriors cause much trouble?” Hemming asked him when he entered.

Kjalsi was looking at the statue of Honir in the centre of the room, on its wooden pedestal. “Oh no, they were quiet,” he said without turning around. “They were all Honir-worshippers, so they understood the need for silence. Are you ready to begin your lesson?”

“Yes,” Hemming said, but then continued. “So I’m to marry Thistle and go to Icelvik?”

“No, you’re not going to Icelvik. Broder managed to negotiate you out of that part of the deal while you were… in the woods.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He seems to want to keep you around, for some reason.” Kjalsi smiled to show that he was joking, then sighed. “If you’re fucking her anyway, why not just go through with it and get it done with?”

“I’ve already said that I’m going to go through with it, and I’m not fucking her, Kjalsi.”

“I know you, Hemming. You’ve probably already got three different ways you’re going to weasel out of this and you’re just deciding which one is best. And oh? So you just run off into the woods together for hours to hunt elk, is that it?”

“Actually, we just talked.”

Kjalsi shook his head. “You two are more mysterious than the gods, truly. Come on, take a seat, let’s get started.”

Feeling very much back on track after having a day off, but today was almost equally as busy, and I would have ideally written more, but oh well.

I've been reading about the monomyth recently, or the 'hero's journey' structure, and I was very surprised to see just how closely my story matched it!

I have the coming-of-age character who has to leave his comfort zone; I have the mentor; I have the 'catalyst' character.

I am debating whether or not I should measure up my plot against the rest of the monomyth structure so that I know my story can't stray too far from a traditional structure.

Either way, interesting coincidence!

Today's writing wasn't very exciting; a winding-down scene that came after a tension-building scene. I liked how it revealed more about the characters' relationships, though.

(Opt Out)

Today I am using my 'opt out' option, because I didn't get time to start writing until 7pm tonight, and then spent that time working on my CV instead of the novel.

I know, I know - excuses!

Back to the normal routine tomorrow, I promise.

Day 5: 2,900 words

Extract:

Icel was looking around, a scowl on his face. “Your rider said that you could defend yourselves. I brought forty warriors. You have six.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Broder replied.

“I myself will be going, as will my two sons. Our bondsmen, Halvard and Harri, who have yet to arrive, will make an extra fourteen, themselves included. My brother has four others who are keeping peace in the village, which makes twenty-six altogether.”

Icel cracked his knuckles. “Twenty-six altogether.”

“And I will lead a band of archers made up of local hunters. Fifteen in all.”

“So, forty-one men in total. Hmm.” A smile cracked his frigid face. “It seems you cannot fight this battle alone.”

Broder smiled, though it looked more like a grimace. “Which is why we sent a rider to you.”

Today has been a day of good writing.

I was alone in the house for two hours, which means time free from distractions and free to play whatever music I like!

I finished a good scene today and I like the quality of it; I re-read after writing it and it won't need much editing on the second draft, which is nice. It also works well and the tension is well-established.

Today's session also puts me back on schedule: to reach 12,000 words by the end of the week I needed to be on 8,400 today, and I'm now just under 9,000.

The card for today was called 'Borrow Mercilessly', and it advised that you should copy and take from writers whose styles you like. I've been reading Assassin's Apprentice recently, and while the voice is different (1st person as opposed to 3rd person) I really like the way Robin Hobb ties in multiple senses to bring settings to life and have been doing my best to do this in the settings I've created so far.

I definitely feel as though my story is back on track, which is a relief, and now I can get on with planning what happens next.

(Aside)

If any of you want to write/read short stories, I really recommend reading 'Smoke and Mirrors' by Neil Gaiman.

And annotate the hell out of it. Literally rip those stories apart. He is a master of form, of twist endings, imaginative writing and hiding information from the reader/manipulating the reader's understanding.

For writing longer novels I recommend 'Plot & Structure' by James Scott Bell, which gives you an overview of the structure of a novel and helps you to set out a plan if you haven't got any clue where to begin.

Back to writing!

Day 4: 500 words

Extract:

It was just before midday the next day when the rider returned, the party of Icel in tow – about thirty men in all, all mounted and armed. Hemming and Broder watched them snake up the road from the south, standing on the wooden walls around Anga’s Hall. Angaborg lay to their right, on the other side of Anga’s River. The village of six hundred was at its busiest; smoke rose from the hovels as women tanned animal hides, and the air was filled with the methodic crunching of many querns, as oats and grain were milled into flour and porridge. Stretching out down the riverbanks to the north and south, the yellow fields of oats and wheat were full of men with iron sickles. Children played games in the dirt of the market square, where farmer met crafter, and they exchanged food for tools. Idlers watched the work while they talked. Hemming could see two of his father’s warriors in the square, but he couldn’t tell which two. They had their hands on their sword hilts, but they mingled casually and talked with the merchants, and didn’t wear any armour.

So today I didn't do much writing of the actual story, but I have done writing of another sort.

I've written out a plan for the next few chapters, mainly so I know what direction I should be heading in whenever I start a new scene or section.

I did this because the writing I produced over the last few days, while helping me to discover the characters and the way they act and interact, has drifted vaguely from the aim I have in mind, and has become sort of lacking in direction.

So today I also went back through the last 2,000 words or so editing and refining (I know, I know, the golden rule!)

But the platinum rule is to complete a coherent novel... so that overrides it. :P

Tomorrow will (hopefully) be a day of many words, now that things are pointing in the right direction again.

Fingers crossed!

Day 3: 1,500 words

Extract:

“Your father is dying,” Broder said once they were outside the hall. “Kjalsi tells me he is past hope now.”

The news was something Hemming had expected for a long time. His father had been ill for two weeks, each day worse than the last. Now he would only speak to Kjalsi, and even then only in whispers. Hemming was not so much hurt by the news as he was concerned for his own future. His father had loved him little, preferring to dote all of his time on Hormund the Younger instead. “Just a little rat who scurries in shadows, too afraid of the firelight, that one,” his father would always say of him. He had tried to teach Hemming the way of the axe, which was the way of their family, he said, but Hemming could never get the hang of it.

“Will you be taking up the earlship, then, Broder?” Hemming asked.

Broder grimaced. “Me? No. No. I have no wish to be an earl. And these lot would never accept me anyway,” he thumbed back towards the hall.

“You are his eldest brother,” Hemming said. “You could always claim it. I’d back you, that would convince them.”

Broder chuckled. “So eager to shirk responsibility? I wonder how much of that comes down to your friendship with the girl of our friend Earl Icel.” He rubbed his chin. “It must be you, Hemming. You are his eldest son, ever since little Hormund died. Besides, they say that those who are eager for power are the very last ones who should have it.”

I should have mentioned this before, but Chris Baty's novel-writing kit comes with a card for every day of writing, which comes with little anecdotes, words of inspiration, and useful tidbits of advice.

The card for day 3 was simply titled: Aim Low. It makes the point that aiming for completion, rather than perfection, relieves you of pressure, which makes your writing more ambitious and, paradoxically, better.

This is what I aimed for today. I didn't read back once; I went with what came to mind, completing one thought and moving straight to another. The sentences are all probably awful, and there will be bits missing that I will fill in on my second draft (which will probably bring this section up to about 2,000 words), but I managed a scene change, the introduction of a new location, three new characters, and a lot of background information. Tomorrow I will get into the juicy dialogue between these characters - definitely the more fun part - but I am happy with the ambition of the scene that I produced today.

My progress feels even slower now that I have a good idea of how the first part of the story will pan out, especially as this part today - the introduction of a new POV character - was something I debated over. My story has now made the transition to a multi-cast novel, with all the book-lengthening complication that that brings. I just hope I can keep it as neat and tidy as it has been so far.

(Spoiler warning: I won't.)

Day 2: 1,000 words

Extract:

In days past, the hall had smelled of life: of soot from the fire, of sweat, mead, grease, fish, bread and venison steak. Today it smelled of acrid, bitter herbs that caught the back of Hemming’s throat. But beneath that, there was a worse smell: the smell of pus, of feverish sweat, of loose bowels. His father was dying, there was no hiding it, no matter how hard Kjalsi tried.

The time I had available for writing today was considerably shorter than yesterday, however, I have managed to get some words down.

One character's personality fluctuated through the scene because I'm not sure how I want him to come across yet; this will be fixed when I go back through at the end. But the scene has moved the plot forward to where I want it. Other than that, it was fairly lacklustre.

I might even find myself going back through and editing this part (even though that is breaking the golden rule!)

The pacing is a little off, because I have put in little reminders where I want to include info-dumps or heavy description; I'm hoping these will balance out the pace when I add them in.

I already see areas where scenes or dialogue could possibly be switched around, or other scenes added, to make the story move more fluidly.

As someone who has always written very short, controlled fiction, the idea of having so little control over the direction of a story is a little terrifying, but I will stick at it!

All in all, a decent word-count for barely an hour's work. Let's see how tomorrow goes!

Day 1: 3,200 words

Extract:

The castle had an air of age to it, like it had stood still for hundreds of years.

Triss ran towards it, Hemming right behind her. They hurried past the old rampart and wooden palisade, which was now rotten and falling down in more places than it was standing. They ran under a stone arch laced with moss like mould in blue cheese, over cobbles drowning in grass and weeds. Triss darted right, between the wooden walls and an old stone building. Hemming followed, calling her name. A banner hung from a rusty iron pole. It was brown, the colour of clay mud, but Hemming knew it had once been deep red. It was torn and threadbare, but the outline of its sigil, the white shield, was still visible.

I was honestly taken aback by how easily this started.

It took a long time to get the first page done. I was reminded of that old mantra: "Sometimes writing is like chopping wood." It definitely felt that way to begin with; I had to fight my way through every word.

But as I wrote more, it began to flow better. My problem is that I frequently write short stories, so I have a severe case of "edit as you go". Because of this it was really hard to let my inhibitions go and just write whatever came to mind, but I definitely got better at it as the day went on. I did break the golden rule and glance back at what I'd written, and found a few big mistakes, but overall I feel like it is definitely a starting point that I can work from.

The best part about this process today is that I have a pretty good idea of where I want the plot to go - at least in the next 10,000 words. I also have an endgame ready that I want to work towards, but that is open to change.

George R R Martin says that there are two types of writer, 'Gardeners' and 'Architects'. In his analogy, gardeners like to plant an idea and watch it grow, watering certain parts and trimming others, while architects like to have the plot set out before they begin. My process is very much the architect approach - or at least it has been until now.

The thing with this "novel in a month" challenge is that it asks you to throw caution to the wind and just write whatever. I tried this process once, and trust me when I say it didn't go well. This time, however (though I have cheated in a way by using a fantasy world that I designed earlier) it has gone much better. I've had a brief idea of where this plot was going to go for a long time, but was paralysed when it came to starting it.

Now... well, we'll have to see how it goes, but I feel pretty good about how it has worked out so far.

(The goal for this project is to have written 50,000 words of rough draft by the end of 31 days. The short-term goal is to have written just under 12,000 by the end of the first week.)

P.S. I somehow managed to design another fictional world yesterday - a post-apocalyptic version of Sandoval, New Mexico, dominated by a religious dictatorship who think that the atomic war was a curse from God for humanity's sins. I need to stop doing this kind of thing! But at the same time I really want to talk about it and develop it, so if you are interested, just ask. And, of course, I am more than willing to talk more about the process of writing my "novel in a month" project.

Tomorrow...

It begins tomorrow. Check back around 11 tomorrow night (GMT). Let's see how this goes!

A (very long) Introduction

First of all, I know, I know, NaNoWriMo is still a fair way off. But, as a student, now is a much more convenient time to be doing this than November, when I'll be up to my eyeballs in coursework. So, here we go.

The premise for my novel is a viking fantasy story set after the events of Ragnarok.

In my story, Thor helps a group of survivors escape Ragnarok before the end of the world by conjuring a portal.

They live in their new world for a time (they believe the world is on the very tip of one of Yggdrasil's roots) under the protection of Thor's sons Mothi and Magni, and Odin's brother Honir. That is until the brothers have a dispute and one of them, Mothi, dies in a battle with the 'natives' who the norse have displaced because Magni refused to help him. (The norse call these natives 'rootmen' because they live in the huge central mountain range that they call 'the root')

Honir is distraught that the son of Thor died while under his protection, and when he finds out that Mothi's lover is pregnant with Mothi's child, makes a vow that, as long as the norsemen remain united under the rule of this child's lineage, then they will be protected by Honir's power, and the rootmen will not be able to harm them.

Honir then creates five big green fires on the mountain near where the portal that brought the norse to this world appeared, and vanishes.

As long as the norse remain united under Mothi's descendants, the fires (that they call the Emerald Pyres) will remain lit and the norse will prosper. If they splinter, or Mothi's line dies out, the fires will go out and they will be left at the mercy of the rootmen.

(I hope you're still with me)

Okay, so, fast-forward 457 years (I've got a history of these years all written down, just ask me if you're curious) and a descendant of Mothi is still on the throne: Torrbrand VII.

However, the people of Torrhame (which is what they call their world) have not seen their kings for over a hundred years, because they remain inside their palace and rule the realm through their council, the Tynvoll. The reason they have not seen their kings for over a hundred years in that Torrbrand V was infertile and unable to continue the family line.

However, rather than just giving up and dooming the norse to oblivion, he refused to die, and became a draugr (who are beings from norse legend that are super cool - way cooler than the Skyrim equivalent - and I suggest you look them up). He continued to change his title, first to Torrbrand VI and then to Torrbrand VII, so as not to arouse suspicion, and he always hides his face behind a silver mask to disguise his rotting flesh. But despite his efforts, tension in the realm is growing.

Some people believe the council has taken over control of the realm and simply pretends the kings are still alive, while others believe the kings have become weak and mad and the council hide them from the public view to retain their authority. But then, one of the sub-kings of Torrhame, Earlking Dagmir, whose line is descended from the royal line from a few generations ago, claims that the realm needs a strong king and that he should be the one to lead them. Disgruntled by the current king, many hurry to join his cause.

That's the overarcing plot. But the novel itself focuses on one character in particular, who lives in the very north of the realm, right on the border with the rootmen: Hemming.

A fourteen year old boy and the son of a dying earl, he is due to inherit his father's land, and all of the problems and disputes that come with it. He will be dragged into this huge war over the fate of the kingdom.

But to learn exactly how that happens, you'll just have to read my story ;)

This is a simplified idea of my plot. If you have any questions, or suggestions, either positive or negative, don't hesitate to leave a comment!