My novel, which is provisionally called Dragons of Mars, finally has a dragon in it. We first see the dragon at 72,910 words in. For context, this book was originally going to be 60k.
Oh, and the dragon is dead.
Still... Dragon!!! At last!!!
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It takes me forever to get my characters anywhere these days.
For example, it's just taken me almost 8,000 words to crash my airship. This would be okay if I was writing Fat FantasyTM, but this is supposed to be a kids' book. There was a time when 8,000 words would have been a substantial proportion of one of my books.
Now I've dropped my characters in the middle of the Martian wilderness, hundreds of miles from where they're supposed to be, and I have no idea how they're going to get where they're going. Nor how many words it's going to take to get them there.
One day, I expect to write a novel in which no one manages to get anywhere at all. ;)
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Okay, I've never done this kind of journal entry before, but quite a few of you do, so I figured I'd give it a go.
This is an extract from the Work In Progress. In fact, it's part of what I wrote this morning. So, with the usual disclaimers about this being complete first draft, lots of things going to change before it's done, etc., etc., here we go.
All you need to know (well, you probably don't need to know, but what the hell) is that the year is 1816 and we're on Mars. It's a kids/YA novel, and this is about 2/3 of the way through.
Dragons of Mars - Extract
I woke to the touch of someone’s hand on my forehead. I let out a groan, and the hand was snatched back.
My head hurt. My face hurt. My neck hurt. Even one of my arms hurt.
I forced my eyes open, then immediately regretted it. The light was too bright for my head.
“You’re alive!”
I squeezed my eyes into focus. Putty was leaning over me, looking worried.
I nodded, very slowly. Through dry lips, I said, “What happened?”
“Oh.” Putty sat back on her heels. “Well, Dr Blood kept going on about his rocks and how one of them had been chipped when Cousin Charlie knocked them off the table, and then I tried to tell them about how the photon emission globes worked, because they’re really interesting and quite clever, but no one was listening, and--”
“I mean to me,” I croaked. “What happened to me?”
Putty’s face fell. “Doesn’t anyone want to hear about the photon emission globes?” She looked around. “What happened to you?”
“Help me to a chair,” I managed.
Putty grabbed my painful arm.
“Other one!”
She released me. “You’re a complete mess, Edward.”
“I was attacked,” I said.
“Oh.”
Together, we managed to get a chair upright and me into it. My legs were still shaky, but things were slowly coming into focus.
“Where’s Charlie?” I asked.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. I was telling everyone about the photon emission globes--except they weren’t listening--and then Charlie said he thought you’d been gone too long, and would I go and look for you. Only--” she frowned “--I think he might just have been trying to get me to stop talking and go away.” She looked up at me. “He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
#
I'm guessing that that makes no sense at all out of context, but...
Here are the target updates:
'Dragons of Mars' progress:
February 20th target:
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