NaNoWriMo Day 17: Stopping for Drinks

I hit 60,000 words today!

I have this scene that I started writing where the rulers of the country and the church, Kaylon Dayaln, King of Vastervale, and Yarrow Evercross, High Hierarch of the Creeds of the Five Divine Beings (think a fantasy version of the pope), were out with their guards and my MC and they decided that they wanted a late-night drink.  Against the advice of their guards, they went to my MC’s favorite tavern, much to the surprise to everyone in said tavern.  The High Hierarch doesn’t drink alcohol, so he’s just drinking milk, but the king and the guards are opting for ale like my MC is.

So far the scene has been fun to write.  I’ll see where it’s going when I continue it tomorrow.

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 61,147/50,000!

Until the world turns,

Andrew Ronzino, Spaceman

NaNoWriMo Day 16: The Second Excerpt

Today, when I was writing, I added yet another unplanned scene where the rulers of the kingdom and my main character go to interrogate a prisoner to get some information out of him.  He’s a little person named Jestro.  I overcame a small bout of writer’s block too, so it ended up being a productive day.

I would like to share another excerpt with you all.  If you would like to read the first one, you can do that here.  Again, just like with all my excerpts, this is a vomit draft, so please ignore any spelling or grammatical errors that may have gotten past my quick edit.  Let me know what you think of it.

He was within a hundred feet of the house now.  They had been crawling for a while, and he had to admit even he was starting to grow weary of the difficult movement.  But Symon could hear someone coming along.  He stopped moving.

“Who goes there?” He heard a woman’s voice call out in his direction.  “Identify yourself!”

Symon stood as still as he could, not wanting to move a muscle.

“Fysher, is that you?  What have I told you about sneaking up on me when I’m on watch?”

Symon still didn’t move.

“Who’s there?” Symon heard from coming from father away.

“You see something, Vern?” the woman near Symon called out.

“Heard something,” came the man’s voice.

“Me too.”

“We’re under attack!”  The man’s voice called.

Symon took that as their cover being blown.  Whichever Cleric the man saw, they were caught so they decided to attack.  Symon used his strength to push himself off the ground and jump high, drawing the Divine Blade as he did so, he landed on his feet and pointed the weapon at the woman who as fifty feet away from him.

“Mythic Clerics!” she yelled.

“You are surrounded,” Symon called.  “Surrender.”

Her response was to knock an arrow and fire it at Symon.

Thanks to the Divine Blade, he was fast, not as fast as he was with two or three Mythic Blades merged with his spirit, but still much faster than the fastest person on the planet, he gathered.  He sped himself up and watched the arrow fly.  It still had some speed, but Symon was able to cut it out of the air.  The Divine blade slicing though the wooden shaft like it was butter.

Symon dashed to the side as another arrow fired at him.

“Mythic Clerics!” The woman screamed even louder.  “Alert, Alert!  Mythic Clerics!”

Symon used this as a chance to get closer, so he ran.  He closed the distance in seconds flat.

She dropped the bow and drew a sword.

Symon saw out of the corer of his eye Sir Cad rushing the house from the left, and Dame Elyza and Sir Evan rushing the house from the right.  That meant that Sir Ulias and Dame Allyssa were the ones he couldn’t see closer to the back.  They must have been dealing with the man who probably also had a bow and arrows.

Symon reached the woman and parried her first attack and dodged her second attack.  She was strong, he could tell by the strength she attached his sword with.  She kept an eye on his sword and feet, not his face.  She was smart, and she was experienced.

But he was a Mythic Cleric.  He switched from defense to attack and within moments he found a weakness in her defense and took it.  He parried her strike, and spun to stab her in right where her armor was weak.  The Divine Blade dug into her with ease, and she cried out in pain, as blood poured out of the wound.

She dropped to the ground.  Symon was sure she would live if she didn’t move around too much.  He moved past her and reached the house as someone else, an armored man wielding a mace bound out of the door, which closed behind him.

He didn’t even get the chance to swing his weapon, Symon slit his throat, which was unprotected.  He fell, already dead by the time he hit the ground.  Symon’s adrenaline was rushing.  He kicked the door using all of his strength, and it flew off the hinges, leaving part of the wood behind, splintered on the now bent lock.

-Excerpt from The Sixth Cleric; Chapter 19, by Andrew Ronzino

This was the start of a nice action scene where the Mythic Clerics fight in a farmhouse full of people who want to kill them.  It was a fun and challenging scene to write.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 58,353/50,000!

Until all go up in flames,

Andrew Ronzino, Timekeeper

NaNoWriMo Day 15: The Halfway Point

I’m going to keep things short and sweet tonight as I have a lot of things to do.

Today is the 15th, which is officially the halfway point of NaNoWriMo.  I’m going strong at the moment.  Yesterday I hit the 50k mark.  I’m going to try to slow down my pace now and work on the climax of the story, which I’m getting new ideas for and I think it’ll work out a lot better.

I’m looking forward to it.  I’m not there yet, but I’m building up to the craziness that I’m planning for the ending of this story.

For everyone else who’s doing NaNo this year, and if you’re behind, just keep working at it.  You got this!

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 55,054/50,000!

Until the new awesome post,

Andrew Ronzino, Breakdancer Who Can’t Breakdance

NaNoWriMo Day 14: The 50,000th Word

Good evening, readers of The Paradigm!  I have some fantastic news:

I REACHED 50,000 WORDS!

Only fourteen days after I started the NaNoWriMo challenge, I’ve have reached the word goal of 50k!  As it turns out, this is the fastest I have ever reached this goal for NaNoWriMo in the 10 years I’ve been participating, which is pretty cool.

Like every year, I would like to share the 50,000th word with you.  This year that word is: “Manuule”.

The sentence containing the 50,000th word is:

“I am Mannule.”

The context is that Symon is talking to someone he’s known for years who is revealing and proving that he’s the Lost Divine known as Manuule, the same one that the cult is about.  It’s a huge scene in the story where my MC learns of who this man really is, as well as some truth that will turn his own faith upside down.  I find his Divine name to be fitting for the 50,000th word.

Now, though I’ve technically succeeded in the challenge of NaNoWriMo, I am not finished until I complete the novel.  Because of that, I won’t consider it a victory until I type “the end”.  I still have a long way to go.

I better get crackin’.

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 52,392/50,000!

Until next time,

Andrew Ronzino, A Man Who Wrote A Novel In Under 30 Days

NaNoWriMo Day 13: Villain Motivations

As I’ve been writing this story, the villain’s motivations have become much clearer to me.  When I first wrote my villain’s character profile (You’ll meet him in a future post), he was a lot more innocent than he’s becoming, and more at the wrong place at the wrong time then took advantage of it.  The great villainous act I have planned for the climax was going to be aggressive self-defense.  But now I know it’s going to be cold-blooded and calculated.

But the more I write this, the more I’ve determined that he’s doing everything on purpose.  He’s more of a puppet master, controlling what’s happening while pretending to be innocent.  He’s lying to my MCs way more than I originally intended.  But I think this is good.  When I first wrote to him, he was a little too shallow.  I like where it’s going.  He’s becoming villainous, which is what I wanted him to be in the first place.

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 49,030/50,000!

Until the rise and fall of the great lands,

Andrew Ronzino, Fool of a Took

NaNoWriMo Day 12: Letters

I wrote a lot of letters today in my novel.  Thank God for Sesame Street teaching me letters like “L”, and “O”, and “R”.  This had been brought to you by the number 6.

No, I mean correspondence.

So, I had planned for only one letter to be in this chapter, a letter from the High Hierarch (the story world’s equivalent to the Pope) to my main character, Symon, informing him of a raid of Warprists on a town.  That one letter turned into six.  They are as follows:

• A letter from the High Hierarch to Symon about the raid on Windfield
• A letter from the King of Vastervale to Symon about the raid on Windfield
• A letter from Culder (Symon’s best friend) to Symon catching up and sharing some woes he’s been having.  I didn’t know the story needed this, but after writing it, I found it completely necessary.
• A letter from Symon to Culder, reassuring him.
• A letter from the Hierarchy Library to Symon about a list of books Ulias Crothburn had been reading lately.  This was originally going to be told to him, but I like the letter better.  It’s also what the chapter was supposed to be all about until Culder hijacked it.
• A letter from Symon to the High Hierarch requesting a meeting.

I was not planning on penning that many letters for this chapter, but I feel like it worked out well.  I was able to use the letters to get necessary information to my MC as well as include some heartwarming greetings.

Not bad for an impromptu correspondence session.  I liked the way it turned out.

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 46,011/50,000!

Until the time comes,

Andrew Ronzino, Game Master

NaNoWriMo Day 11: The Cult of Manuule

Today I hit 40,000 words!  I’m so close to 50k that I can reach out and touch it.  But there’s still a lot more story to write.

One of the main themes of my story this year is shaken faith.

The main faith in the world this story takes place in is called the Creeds of the Five Divine Beings, often just called the Creeds.  It’s the worship of the Five Divine creator beings that made the world they live in and all that they see.  They are known for being five benevolent gods, though I never use the term “gods” in the story itself.  They are known only as The Divines, or The Divine Beings.  They have individual names, but they’re usually referred to as a collection most of the time.  It is also believed that the Five Divines gave humanity the Mythic Blades as there are five of them.

Until the sixth was found.

Now people are wondering if the weapons are connected to the Divines at all.

My characters have started to hear of the Cult of Manuule, which is a small underground religion that believes that there were once six Divine Beings, but one of them was cast out and is their Lost Divine, and that they need to return him to power.  This is something that the church of the Creeds believes is a high heresy.

The antagonist of this story is not only secretly a member of this cult, but is one of their leaders, and is actively trying to start a religious civil war to draw out the Lost Divine.  He wants to be the one to find him and give him what he believes belongs to him, the Sky Blade.

What my main characters don’t know is that they’ve already met Manuule, and his story is wilder than either the Cult or the Creeds believe.  In other words, they both a little right and both a little wrong.  I’ll speak more about Manuule in a future post.

What will the characters do when their faith is shaken?

Current word count for The Sixth Cleric: 42,633/50,000!

Until next time,

Andrew Ronzino, Alien in Disguise