Leahna

Daily Writing Check-in: January 18, 2019

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Words/Time: 46 minutes minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

I continued to read through more of the story, making broad changes. Today I only got through about 9 pages of 436, ending on page 189. However, approximately 4 pages (about 660 words) of that was writing a new scene that has been needed badly since the first draft.

When I wrote the first draft of this story, the first few lines of my outline basically just had the main character, Alexander, learning about and falling in love with Power while growing up a little. With no real details planned, I ended up spawning a new character, named Garend, almost immediately, someone who could be a childhood friend for Alexander (well, they were 15 when they met, but both in need of a friend).

But then by halfway through the book, when the story turns a lot more dangerous and serious, and Alexander and the secondary main character Leahna are in their twenties, Garend just…disappears.

After the first draft was finished, I realized this huge, gaping hole, and brainstormed some ideas for how to get Garend to exit more gracefully (and realistically), because I knew I couldn’t keep him as a close friend of Alexander’s later in the story, with how complicated things get.

The resulting story arc is one I am very happy with, because it fits very well in the long-term story that this is part of, but I still had to make it work. Today was the pivotal scene for that story arc, which is why it took a while to write. But I’m pretty content with it for now, and will be moving on to swifter revisions now.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 30, 2018

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Words/Time: 1 hour, 2 minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

Most of that time was spent working on an item in my second list of things to revise, the same item as yesterday. While trying to add some glimpses into the personal life of my secondary main character, I had to make a small edit to my timeline. I realized that she thought of the main character as too young for something he wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure he was really young enough. I tried to change his age, but that didn’t really work out.

In dealing with this issue, I realized that the secondary main character is too young, considering that she was younger than some of the side characters in “Pithea” that she’s definitely meant to be older and more experienced than. So I aged her a bit.

Then I added in one of the scenes I wrote as writing practice a few years ago, which I think is great for the story. Tomorrow, I’ll add another scene (and probably play with the timeline a bit more).

goal tracker 12-30

I doubled my goal of time spent working on writing this month!

Daily Writing Check-in: October 8, 2017

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Words/Time: 330 words of free writing, followed by 14 minutes of NaNoPrep work.

A few days ago I read a post on a site I have really come to like, and the author had given a word list as a way to inspire some writing. I’ve been wanting to do some free writing alongside my NaNoPrep since I returned to writing a few days ago, but haven’t had a chance to go and dig out my various ways to begin free writing. Word lists have always been a favorite type of writing prompt for me, and today was no exception.

Then I opened my “Pursuit of Power” outline in Scrivener and started looking at what it would be like to cut out the first 1/4 of the story, so the true plot for this book could get started a lot sooner. I also plan to incorporate a character who’s supposed to be a secondary main character in the story more, so I’ve been toying with the idea of starting the story more from her perspective. I didn’t get real far, because I got to my writing late today, but at least it’s something.

 

For anyone out there who is participating in NaNoWriMo, feel free to check out my series of tips and tricks for the month, and also to add me as a writing buddy! (Let me know you came from here, and I’ll add you back!)

A Monday Moment: Homecoming

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This is part of the scene I worked on a lot of last week. It continues past this, but goes into novel spoilers. Leahna is the secondary main character in “Pursuit of Power.”

After everything that had happened, Leahna could only think of one thing—seeing her dad. She waited until the morning and then went to the house where she had grown up. There was a sign on the door that announced the house would be sold to the highest bidder on a future date. Leahna stared at the sign for a full minute, trying to process it. Her father was moving out of her childhood home.

She tried the door, but it was locked. She knocked, but there was no answer. Though it was a little early for him to be at work, she went to the Academy anyway. There an old friend of the family told her that her father hadn’t been in for months. Leahna asked if the man knew where her father might be, and she was told to try her brother’s house.

After thanking the man and leaving, Leahna felt like she was in some strange dream. Her family’s house was being sold, her father wasn’t working at the job he loved, and he was staying with Ronald? In that moment, the year she had been away felt like ten. It was as if she was returning from being away at war for a long time, finding everything she left behind gone or different.

She ‘ported directly outside her brother’s house in Jaffna. She had only been there a few times, so she felt awkward as she approached the front door. At least there was no sign on this one.

She knocked tentatively, unsure what she could expect to find behind the door. Ronald answered, laughing at something to which Leahna wasn’t privy. As soon as he saw his older sister, his smile froze and his eyes grew wide.

“Leahna!” he said with exuberance. “You’re…here. You’re back.”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she said, unsure how he even knew she’d gone anywhere.

“Are you…okay? Is everything okay?” he asked uncertainly.

There was no easy answer to that. “Not…exac—”

Her father appeared behind Ronald. As soon as he saw his eldest daughter in the doorway, he pushed past his son and pulled Leahna into his arms. She didn’t know how to react and simply stood still until he stepped back.

Once she could see him better, she realized that this was not the dad she used to know. He looked ten years older, and yet somehow happier.

“Come on in, Leahna, please,” he said. He backed up, and Ronald did likewise. All three of them moved further into the house. Abner led the way to the living room, where a woman was seated. She stood up when she saw who was with Abner and Ronald.

Betany reacted similarly to Ronald, asking Leahna if she was all right.

“I’m well enough,” Leahna said. She was staring at Betany’s stomach, where there was a noticeable protuberance. She looked to her brother for an explanation.

He offered a pained smile and said, “Betany and I are married, and she is five months pregnant.”

“You are going to have a baby?” Leahna asked, looking between her brother and his wife with some confusion. It was wonderful news; she didn’t understand why everyone looked unhappy about it. Even her father wouldn’t look her in the eye. “That’s wonderful, Ronald!”

He raised his eyebrows and let out a relieved chuckle. “It is?”

“Of course it is! Why? Is there something else going on that I do not know about?”

“No, of course not,” Abner said, going to stand next to Betany. “We just didn’t know how you would feel about Ronald and Betany being married while you were gone.”

“I am sad that I missed it, but I…I suppose I did not expect that you would wait your ceremony until I returned. When I left, part of me thought none of you would ever want to see me again after what happened.”

Her father’s face darkened, and Ronald sighed.

“We were probably harsher with you than we should have been after she died.” Ronald glanced over at Betany and added, “We were definitely harsher than we should have been.”

“What about Noelle?” Leahna asked. “Does she still feel such anger toward me?”

“It is difficult to say,” Abner replied. “We don’t see her much these days either.”

Daily Writing Check-in: April 21, 2016

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Words/Time:  627 words of free writing, continuing what I started yesterday, a scene showcasing Leahna and her relationship with her family, which is usually pretty strained. It ended up being a lot more involved than I ever expected it to be. Whether I continue it tomorrow or not, I can’t say. I’ll be working for probably around 12 hours tomorrow, so when I come home, I can’t say what state my mind will be in. But having a scene to jump back into is better than starting something from scratch, so who knows.

I’m letting this free writing (which  might actually turn out to be producing scenes that will work very well in the actual novel) ease me back in after my break. I remember that my revision is stalled at needing to figure out how to start the novel (after the prologue) with the narrator, rather than forgetting that he exists. Until I can figure that out, the revision will go nowhere, but at least I’ve got something to do.

Daily Writing Check-in: April 19, 2016

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Words/Time:  566 words of free writing. Before I stopped writing for a while, I was planning to focus on one character during free writing time for a while, to try to draw them out a bit. Some of the characters in “Pursuit of Power” aren’t as developed as I prefer. Back in February, I started with Leahna, the secondary main character in the novel. I’m going to stick with her for now, and today’s writing started with me asking her the question, “What do you really want me to know about you?” This was because, as I mentioned once before, though she has a very big role in the novel, she’s been mostly one-dimensional so far. I think she comes across as being nearly flawless, so I let her ramble on a bit about that today.

A Monday Moment: Growing Closer

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The following is the main character of “Pursuit of Power,” Alexander, musing about his relationship with Leahna, the secondary main character. The musing is directed at Drear Dark, the narrator of this series of books, years after the events in the book would have happened.

I’m not sure I could tell you when Leahna and I started to become closer. I know you’re looking for accuracy and details for these accounts you’re compiling, but I’m not sure I can be very specific on this one. I’d like to say that’s because our friendship just grew so smoothly it’s hard to find the point where we became as close as we were by the time I met you. But the truth is, it’s probably just because I was so wrapped up in my own stuff, I didn’t pay that much attention. In fact, for a while, it was almost as if we were both avoiding becoming friends at all.

When we first met, we both kept our relationship professional, almost to an extreme. I was only intent on practicing my Power use, and on not giving her a reason to decide she didn’t want to train with me any more. I was paranoid about that a lot, after some time of running through Clerics. If it hadn’t been for my mom, I’m not sure we would have ever started to feel more like friends than training partners.

I will say that I probably faked familiarity for a while. Not on purpose, really, but I think part of me felt that if I made her feel a sense of loyalty to me, out of friendship, then she would choose to continue training with me, despite being very busy at the time. When you write about this, make sure you include that I felt terrible later for the way I treated her. Pretending to be her friend, all the while lying to her.

In fact, when I finally told her the truth, that’s probably when things changed at least a little bit. Well, and because of what happened shortly after that. You know how tragedy can put things into perspective? We certainly had our share of that.

It was probably when she started calling me “Lex.” If you know Leahna at all, and I guess you do, you know that she is very polite, even formal. My mom’s the only one who ever called me “Lex,” but there was a point that I first noticed Leahna was referring to me by that nickname. It was while we were in the desert. I’m pretty sure she’d been using it for longer than when I first realized it. It felt natural, not weird like I would have expected it to, out of her mouth. So I guess that’s about it, the answer to your question–sometime between me telling her the truth and our time in the desert. That’s when we became best friends.

A Monday Moment: Sisters

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Leahna is the secondary main character in “Pursuit of Power” and has been pretty one-dimensional for the most part. I wrote this from a prompt, but I think I’ll keep her in the next few weeks’ free writing too, to try to draw out her background and life outside of the story.

“If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”

“That is quite a question,” Leahna said. She turned wide eyes to her younger sister who was laying across her bed. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because I know exactly what I would ask.”

“What would you ask?”

“I would ask if the Power really does come from him.”

The older sister gasped and stared at Noelle from her desk chair. “Of course it does! Why would you even question that.”

Noelle shrugged. “It seems to me that when we start to assume things about God, that’s when we get in trouble. Throughout history, that’s been a pattern, don’t you think?”

Leahna furrowed her brow. “I…I do not think you are quite correct.”

“Of course I am. Think about all of the times that people have done something in God’s name, but later they were judged to be evil, ignorant, or crazy. Joan Archer, the Crusaders, the Restoration Society, even the pharisees.”

“Oh, but you can’t…” She trailed off as she thought through the list of examples her sister had given.

“Does it say anywhere in the Bible that God would give us this great Power that would prolong our lives and give us special abilities?”

“No, it certainly does not.”

“Then why is the Church of Pithea so adamant that the Power comes from him?”

“From where else would it come?”

Noelle’s eyes lit up. “I don’t know, but that’s not really the point. If I can’t come up with the alternative, it doesn’t mean it has to be God. Maybe it was a spontaneous mutation. Maybe we’re all using evil powers without realizing it.”

“No!” Leahna jumped to her feet. “You will not defile the good that we do, the healing, the protection. You will not claim that it comes from a place of evil.”

Noelle shook her head, rolled her eyes, and sighed. “You sound just like Mom and Dad. I mean, is it really that big of a deal where it comes from? Like you said, we use it for good. So what if it doesn’t come from God?”

Leahna crossed her arms and took a few steps toward the door. “I would strongly suggest that you do not let Mom or Dad hear you say anything like that.”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? They don’t care what I think about God or the Power. You’re going to be a Cleric, and they don’t really care what I do.”

“They care what you do. They want you to do whatever God leads you to do.”

“Yeah. They want you to be a Cleric like Dad, but whatever I feel like doing is fine, because I’m not the oldest.”

“I thought you were planning to become a Cleric too,” Leahna said.

Noelle looked down at the floor. “I was going to. But I don’t know now. I mean…I thought they would want that of me, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter to them. Just like they don’t care that Ronald decided to become a Swordsman and join a militia.”

“I thought you both would be happier if Mom and Dad didn’t force you to do whatever they want you to do. How can you complain that they are not forcing their will upon you?”

“Like they are you?” Noelle pointed out.

“Well…not exactly. I know they want me to become a Cleric, but I am okay with it. I enjoy my studies and learning to use my Power to help others. Do you and Ronald believe they’ve forced me into it?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“And you wish them to do the same to you?”

Noelle shrugged. “At least then we’d feel like they cared.”

Prompt used: You encounter an omnipotent being who says they will answer only one question.

 

 

Daily Writing Check-in: February 8, 2016

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Words/Time:  638 words of free writing to try to develop a secondary character, and 37 minutes of revision, working up a possible prologue for “Pursuit of Power.”

Despite my beliefs that my little vacation from writing would still result in some free writing being done now and then, that didn’t happen after the first day. The truth is, once I step away for a day or two in favor of just being lazy and relaxing in the evening, it’s just too easy to not go back. That’s why I normally try to do at least a little writing work every day that I have any time for it. Without the habit, I’m lost.

In the end, the break turned out to be a really helpful thing. Not because I got any clarity in my writing, but because it was relaxing to just not worry about it for 10 days. I thought often about what I’d be doing when I got back to it, but I didn’t have any grand epiphanies or anything.

But the main reason it was helpful is because it kept me from stressing over whether I could get to my writing work or not this last weekend, when I had a huge change in my life. I started a new job. This is a pretty big deal, because I’m a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. I already work for my dad, but I work an average of a day a week, and I take my kids with me. This will be the first job outside of my home/family that I’ve had since before my almost 14-year-old son was born. The job wasn’t sought out, but was offered to me, and it will be part-time out of necessity (because I do still have 2 kids to take care of and homeschool during the week).

I’ll be working as a game master at an escape room company, which means I’ll be behind the scenes running the room when groups come in to play. For as much fun as playing a room is, watching others play it is the next best thing. I honestly can’t believe I’m going to be paid to do something so much fun.

My first day was last Friday, which was right when I was ready to start back to writing. I was set to work until around 11:30-12 at night, though, which is pretty much the end of my normal writing time. So I just extended my writing break until the end of the weekend. From this point forward, I’ll be working most Friday and Saturday evenings, so my writing time on the weekend might be severely limited in the future. But I’ll still have time the rest of the week, and it’s worth it for a job that promises to be a blast.