Echo Elms
June 02, 2007 12:28 PM
Noveling Fury! Kick Off Event by Echo Elms
February 1st. The first day of Novelling Fury!. Today was the day Echo had told the group they would be having an all day sit-in in Labyrinth Gardens. That meant, that for the entire duration of the day, anyone walking through the gardens would see at least one person writing.Saul had been able to get in touch with the House Elves via his cousin, Mr. Tellerman, and they had been provided a small table and an unending plate of cookies shaped like open books. It was awesome. Echo taped a sign that said, "Novelling Fury!" to the table and laid out an old blue cowboy bedspread for novellers to sit on. Last Fury! Echo had written a tale about a cowboy who lassoed dinosaurs, so it seemed appropriate. Brett promised to be along later with a Green Bay Packers sheet.
So far, so good. Now, for the writing. Echo folded his lanky legs under him and pulled out his notebook (enchanted to show his wordcount on the cover), and opened it to the first page, which read, "Testing, testing? One, two, three."
He looked up and saw another Furious Noveller wandering about, and waved. They didn't have to novel on the blanket, but it was more comfortable and they were certainly welcome. It was all about the mass novelling.\r\n\r\n
Subthreads: A Fury of Noveling! by Irene Liddowe with Echo Elms, Irene, Elly Eriksson, Saul
So here I am... by Hyana Kamiya with Caedence, Hyana
Here we go then. by Oliver Abbott with Brett Hodges, Oliver
Kicking off by Saul
Probably not the most likely duo... by Helena Layne and Amber Carey
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Echo Elms
Noveling Fury! Kick Off Event
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Echo Elms
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Irene Liddowe
June 05, 2007 6:30 AM
A Fury of Noveling! by Irene Liddowe
Irene wandered the Gardens, looking out for the Noveling Fury! group Elly had mentioned. She wasn't really sure where it was, only that it was in the gardens. Irene was excited about getting involved in something othe than Quidditch, not that she didn't love that. It was just new, refreshing. Irene looked around and saw one boy (Echo, right?) sitting on a sheet on the ground. He had a notebook in his lap. Found it! Echo waved and Irene waved back. She strode over and sat down on the blanket."Hey," Irene said. "Elly told me about this thing and it sounded fun. Any objections to new members?"
Irene took in what was around her. There was a table with a sign taped to it and a tray with the most amazing looking cookies she had ever seen. Man oh man, this thing was pretty cool! Irene took out her note book and a quill. Not quite sure how to start, Irene just sat there tapping the quill on the paper.
"Hmm..." Irene hummed to herself. Maybe this was going to be harder than she thought....
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Irene Liddowe
A Fury of Noveling!
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Irene Liddowe
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Echo Elms
June 05, 2007 3:30 PM
Welcome! by Echo Elms
"Nope, no objections!" Echo grinned at the new girl. He was pretty sure she was one of Elly's fellow benchers on the Quidditch team. Not that Elly benched for long, but anyway, she mentioned Elly and so he was probably right. Either that or Elly knew her from Charms club, or... just from being Elly and somehow knowing everyone. The girl looked around and seemed to linger on noticing the cookies. He waved in their general direction, "Help yourself and have a seat."So there they were with their pens poised and he noticed she wasn't writing either. Maybe she didn't know what it was all about. "See, the point is not to think too much. You just start writing something -- well, a story -- and see what happens. It's really cool once it gets going. Last year I ended up with this dinosaur rancher cowboy guy who did magic and it was really crazy. It doesn't have to be good stuff, and it's actually kinda more fun if it's bad."
There, he had given his sage advice. Now, back to staring at the 7-word page. Getting started was always the worst... well, that and when you hit the lull in the second or third week and realize that your story is terrible and makes no sense -- that was the worst -- but for now all he needed was a couple sentences to get him started.
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Echo Elms
Welcome!
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Irene
June 05, 2007 4:27 PM
Why thank you! by Irene
"Nope, no objections!" "Help yourself and have a seat."Irene grinned at him took a cookie (okay, two) before taking a spot on the colorful sheet.
"See, the point is not to think too much. You just start writing something -- well, a story -- and see what happens. It's really cool once it gets going. Last year I ended up with this dinosaur rancher cowboy guy who did magic and it was really crazy. It doesn't have to be good stuff, and it's actually kinda more fun if it's bad."
Irene nodded. Okay, good advice! Irene was glad that he was giving her tips rather than shrugging it off.
"I know what I want to write," she began, "but it's those stubborn beginnings! They like to hide in the best hiding spots..."
Irene tapped her pen on the paper in front of her. An opening sentance like, 'It was a sunny day...' seemed pretty lame to her. She wanted something... you know, BAM!-like. Whoa... There it is.
"Aha!" Irene exclaimed, not really meaning to say it out loud. "Sorry," She said with a sheepish grin, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. "I found the opening sentance!"
Beginnings are always the worst, but once you get past that everything seemed to get easier.
Well, it's a start.
"So who else is in 'The Fury'?" Irene asked.
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Irene
Why thank you!
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Irene
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Echo Elms
June 06, 2007 2:59 PM
No problem. by Echo Elms
"I know what I want to write," she began, "but it's those stubborn beginnings! They like to hide in the best hiding spots..."Looking down at his notebook (which still bore a big "7" on the cover because that was how many words he had), Echo let out a short laugh. He completely sympathized. Saul and him had snuck into the divinations room -- well, it was sort of a tent, as it turned out -- to discover the secrets of what his story was going to be about. That was how Saul knew he was going to write a mystery involving a pregnant lady.
For Echo, the runes had come down with three runes in the center cluster. The first was a sideways hourglass shape, which Saul's book called Dagaz. It stood for transformation and beginning and endings. The second was Hangalaz, which was disruption or poor weather; it looked kind of like an N. And the third, looking like a P from Hercules, was Thurisaz, the devil or boundries, and it was flipped over but they pretended it wasn't because they didn't know what it meant for it to be flipped over.
In other words, the reading told them that Echo's novel was about someone who is transformed by bad weather and then something bad happens because of it, something involving boundaries. Alternatively, maybe each of the three center runes was a main character. Dagaz was a cool name anyway.
Okay, so Saul's runic method was not very helpful. It just made things confusing and complicated.
"Aha!" "Sorry," "I found the opening sentance!"
"Sweet," Echo encouraged, a bit jealous. The opening sentence wasn't important, but the transition of the blank page to the begun novel was. He needed to get some of that going on. He'd already been here for, what, ten minutes?
She must have gotten stuck again after the first sentence, though, because she started talking again.
"So who else is in 'The Fury'?" Irene asked.
"Well, you know Elly," he started, then decided he should go through them more systematically or he'd forget people. "Let's see: Brett, and Hyana, and Hikaru, and I think Oliver are first years. Um. Then there's me, I'm Echo by the way, uh, Elly, Caedence, and Amber for the second years. Saul is a third year. Zack and Gwen are fourth years. And for fifth years... Stephen Baxter took an info thing. Those are all the people who were at the informational meeting, anyway. Today's like the day of truth; we'll see who shows up."
Actually, the day of truth was more like the last day. At the end of Fury party they'd see who made it through the whole thing.
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Echo Elms
No problem.
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Echo Elms
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Hyana Kamiya
June 06, 2007 5:33 PM
So here I am... by Hyana Kamiya
Hyana was somewhat nervous. She knew what she was going to write about. But she knew that Caedence was supposed to be in it too, and that made her a little more than nervous. She wished Josiah was a part of this. He would probably write a story about girls and how much he liked girls...so that probably wouldn't be an answer.She walked through the gardens, clutching her plain, violet notebook tightly to her chest. If it wasn't run by Echo she probably wouldn't be doing this. She couldn't write. And who would be interested about a first year's life at Sonora anyway? Zack seemed to think that it was a good idea. Of course, it was Zack. And he was an alien obsessed teenage boy. He probably thought everything was cool.
Hyana was close enough now to see Echo waving someone over. It turned out to be a Pecari reserve, Irene Liddowe. She doubted they could see her, so she stood for a moment, brown almond eyes surveying the area. She couldn't see Caedence. But she couldn't run forever. Well Hyana, here we go. She thought to herself as she walked over to the group.
She sat on the cowboy bedspread, not really noticing anything around her. She didn't belong there. Why was she even trying? She sighed and opened her notebook, staring at the blank page. She left her pencil behind her ear, hidden behind her hair. Lost in thought, she didn't notice who sat next to her. It took until the person said something for her to snap out of her thoughts.
"Sorry, didn't catch that." She apologized sheepishly. "Could you repeat that?"
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Hyana Kamiya
So here I am...
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Hyana Kamiya
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Caedence
June 07, 2007 6:46 PM
And I too... run by Caedence
Caedence had come to Noveling Fury armed with a broom (she wanted to go do some laps at the pitch after she was done) a quill, parchment, and her black journal. She still didn’t even know why her mom opted for a nice journal, instead of a horrible pink one. After all, her mom was deluded into thinking that Caedence was a girl.She looked at the bed sheets with a sneer. Yeah, right, cowboy sheets. And this wasn’t lame how? She smelled something in the air. It was… yes! Cookies! She let a rare grin grace her face as she walked over towards them. Books? Oh my gosh, how… cliché. Books, for a book writing club. She sighed, at least they would probably taste like cookies, unless they were poisoned, in which case Echo would have no novelers to help him out, thus defeating the purpose of the meeting. So, she tasted one. Not too bad, probably from the house elves.
Her braid was tied with the ribbon Hyana had given her. She dressed cooly, as the weather was getting hotter. Her black shorts were offset with a grey tank top. On her feet were navy blue flip flops. Around her neck was a black choker, made out of glittering beads in a crisscrossing pattern about an inch thick. On each of her wrists was a thick black bracelet. She wished she was old enough to add shadow to her eyes, but her mom wouldn’t let her until she was fourteen, two years from now.
Speaking of Hyana, she was on the ground for the club. She recalled Echo saying something about her being in the club. She was staring at a blank page. Caedence sighed. The idiot. She would have to help her, again. Was this girl helpless without Caedence’s guidance?
“’Lo…” she muttered standing off to one side. She found herself a seat next to Hyana. "Sorry, didn't catch that. Could you repeat that?" Caedence sighed, “If I’ve taught you anything it’s that enemies are all around. Don’t zone out like that. Anyways, I see you’re having issues. Need any help?” She tilted her head to one side. She didn’t smile, but her face took on a less feral look, opting for a docile composure. \n
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Caedence
And I too... run
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Irene
June 08, 2007 7:00 PM
So here we are.... by Irene
"Let's see: Brett, and Hyana, and Hikaru, and I think Oliver are first years. Um. Then there's me, I'm Echo by the way, uh, Elly, Caedence, and Amber for the second years. Saul is a third year. Zack and Gwen are fourth years. And for fifth years... Stephen Baxter took an info thing. Those are all the people who were at the informational meeting, anyway. Today's like the day of truth; we'll see who shows up."Irene nodded, happy that she knew some of the people in here. Hyana and Caedence had joined them and seemed to be tlaking amongst themselves.
"Well then, I guess we'll have to see..."
Irene looked down at her notebook. Progress was good, if you can call the one sentance progress.
Beginnings are always the worst, but once you get past that everything seemed to get easier. Apply this to whatever you wish, but for Irene paused. Names... Aw, man. Let's call her Grace for now. Who knows how long that will last....
...but for Grace this applied to pretty much everything. All she could hope for was that it would stay easier.
Grace Baker opened the front door of her home. She was curious as to why Daddy had picked her up so early from Kindergarten, and fankly, she wasn't too happy about it.
"Daddy," she said impatiently, "Why did you pick me up?"
"Shut up!" Her dad snapped, slamming the door behind them and stumbling unsteadily into the house.
"But why couldn't Mommy--" The five-year-old asked, still curious as to why her mother couldn't have just brought her to the school instead.
"Your mother's dead! She died in a fire today!"
Grace wiped at the falling tears and moved forward for a hug. She could use one right now...
"Get away from me you...you witch! You're just like her and you'll end up just like her!"
Irene closed the notebook, figuring that was quite enough for the moment. Talk about Deja Vu...
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Irene
So here we are....
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Irene
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Hyana
June 08, 2007 8:21 PM
But I haven't gotten a cookie yet! by Hyana
Caedence. It had been Caedence. She couldn't space out and have Zack bug her, or whoever else was in the club. It just had to be Caedence.“If I’ve taught you anything it’s that enemies are all around. Don’t zone out like that." Caedence practically snapped at her. Hyana bit her tounge. She wasn't going to apologize. Not this time. Caedence would probably get mad anyway...
Anyways, I see you’re having issues. Need any help?” What was this? Caedence was offering help? Was this really Caedence? "Huh?" Hyana asked, turning her gaze to Caedence, expecting to see a violent look on her face. Instead, she looked somewhat calm. It was kinda pretty. No wonder Hikaru was crushing on Caedence.
Hyana forced herself to ignore those thoughts. Hikaru would kill her if Caedence found out, and Caedence would kill her for telling. If that made sense. But that was how it worked in the first year's mind. "Ummm...I'm just trying to think of a good beginning sentence. I'm just writing about my year at Sonora. I figured it might be helpful to some first year in Aladren."
Then she noticed that Caedence was wearing her ribbon! It put a small smile on her face. "So I see I got you an okay present after all..." She commented, trying very carefully to choose the right words. She didn't want the same thing to happen here. After all, it was in the Gardens where Caedence hit her. Why not have it happen again?
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Hyana
But I haven't gotten a cookie yet!
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Hyana
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Caedence
June 09, 2007 2:50 PM
My cookies... grr! by Caedence
"Ummm...I'm just trying to think of a good beginning sentence. I'm just writing about my year at Sonora. I figured it might be helpful to some first year in Aladren." Caedence thought that that was a good idea. It was way better than her story. This girl was in Aladren for a reason. Even if she was stupid about practical things like street fighting and learning how to care for herself.Caedence shrugged at the comment about the braid. “I guess it was okay, Kamiya. Mother got me a kitten for my birthday, but I didn’t want Scrap to get lost outside. Maybe I can fetch him after Noveling Fury! what do you think?”
She glanced at the parchment that she brought with her. Okay, how to start her story? “Well, if your story is about the school, start with something about the school. Like Sonora Academy, in the Painted Desert if Arizona, has a wide variety of classes, students, and places…. Something cheesy like that” she said.
She scribbled on her parchment Nathelie wasn’t like other normal girls. She had always been picked on for being a girl. So one day she decided to change all that. One day, Nathelie decided to become a boy.
It all started one day at the school playground…
She glanced up at Hyana, “Just let it come to you. Maybe even just start out with a name. That might get to writing things out. And cookies help,” she nodded at the plate with a smirk seeing Hyana without one. \n
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Caedence
My cookies... grr!
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Caedence
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Elly Eriksson
June 09, 2007 3:36 PM
and aren't you glad? by Elly Eriksson
The first day of February was the first day of the Fury. Elly headed out to the Labyrinth in her black jeans and a thick blue sweater. The weather was warming up fast, but if she was going to be outside writing all day she didn’t want to be cold. She had a blank notebook tucked under her arm, and she’d stuffed in the few sheets of parchment upon which she’d made notes for her novel So far she had the setting, the names of the two main characters, and a very vague sort of plot. She hoped the details would fill themselves in as she wrote. Her wand and a biro were stored together in the wand pocket she’d made for herself (now a little tatty) that was sticking out of her pocket.As Elly approached the clearing, she saw that a small crowd had already gathered. “Aloha!” She called in greeting to everyone in general. She stopped at the blanket and knelt down between Irene and Echo, smiling widely at them. “Good day for the Fury,” she said grinning. She dropped her notebook in front of her and, spying a plate of cookies, reached forward and selected one. “These are vegetarian, right?” she asked Echo.
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Elly Eriksson
and aren't you glad?
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Elly Eriksson
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Oliver Abbott
June 10, 2007 11:01 AM
Here we go then. by Oliver Abbott
The day of the kick-off event for that novel-writing thing had come. Oliver headed down to the gardens in his jeans and a loose sweatshirt, wearing his old blue sunhat and his lightest tinted glasses, because it wasn’t all that sunny today. He had a vague idea of what he would write – something he could show to his parents and Julian and Charlie when he got home again at summer. They couldn’t appreciate a lot of his achievements, being practically disconnected from the magic world, but writing a novel was something that they could all get on board with.Bearing this in mind, Oliver had decided to write about dragons. He knew now that they did really exist, but he guessed it was ambiguous enough that Julian and his folks would take it as mythology or something, and Charlie might even get excited about magic. That was another of Oliver’s goals, because he really wanted his sister to join him at Sonora when she was old enough. It would be so fantastic to not be the only one in his family learning magic. Anyway, the story was about a dragon slayer, who journeyed all over the world getting rid of angry, fire-breathing, rampaging dragons. A dragon kills him in the end, but that was going to be a great plot twist.
The beginning of his story now clear in his mind, Oliver sat down near the small crowd of other writers. He sort of knew some of them by name, but not by ever meeting them, so he sat a little way to the side, more or less on his own. Then he opened his ruled notepad and began to tell his tale in very poor handwriting.
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Oliver Abbott
Here we go then.
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Oliver Abbott
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Hyana
June 10, 2007 5:30 PM
They're technically not your cookies by Hyana
Hyana found herself staring at the page again as Caedence spoke. She still felt guilty about their fight. It was her fault after all. But when Caedence began to speak of a kitten, she looked up in slight surprise. Her mom got her a kitten? What a great person! So not all mothers were bad. Of course, her mom wasn't bad either. Just...troubled."Maybe I can fetch him after Noveling Fury! what do you think?" Caedence asked. Hyana smiled and nodded her head. "That sounds good." She replied. "My mom made me get rid of my cat over midterm. Bry-" She sighed. She still couldn't say his full name. There was just something weird about him. "My mom's boyfriend is allergic to cats."
Even though Caedence still might be mad at her, she was acting like a normal girl. It made Hyana happy. Caedence seemed to be having a better second half of term than she expected. She was even giving Hyana suggestions.
"Thanks Caede..nce." Hyana finished Caedence's name. Caede probably didn't consider Hyana a friend. So she probably didn't want to be called Caede.
Sonora Academy. A Home away from Home. That's what it is to me, Hyana Kamiya. Hyana wrote. That sounded cheesy, right? She saw Caedence writing, and figured it had something to do with martial arts. As Hyana went back to write, Caedence glanced up and said something about cookies.
"Uh, no thanks. Maybe later." She replied. She didn't really eat cookies. Her sister used to make them, but after she died, her mom stopped buying and making them. Glancing back up at Caedence, Hyana thought of something to say. Caedence might be the 'I want quite while I work' people, but Hyana really hoped she wasn't. She wanted to keep up a conversation.
"You're a really good Chaser Caedence." She finally said, returning her gaze to her paper. "I enjoyed watching the last game. I bet the championships would've been fun. We would've won if I hadn't let in that stupid goal." She sighed. Quidditch, something else to write about. Maybe she would make the word goal after all.
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Hyana
They're technically not your cookies
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Hyana
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Irene
June 12, 2007 6:15 AM
Uber glad! by Irene
Irene looked around as another person joined the group. Elly had taken a seat between Echo and herself. Irene smiled and gave a small wave as Elly said, “Aloha!”"Hola, Elly!" Irene said, taking a bite of her cookie. “Good day for the Fury,” Irene nodded in agreement, opening up her notebook again. She heard Elly ask Echo, “These are vegetarian, right?" as Irene began to write again,
"...end up just like her!"
The tears welling up in the young girl's eyes began to fall over the edges. When was Mommy coming home? Grace didn't like it when Daddy was mad like this...
But she wasn't coming home, and Dad wasn't going to calm down. Grace no longer went to school. Dad wouldn't drop her off, and it probably wasn't a good idea for him to be driving. She stayed at home, crying in her room, wishing for her mother to burst through the door, saying in her cheerful voice, "I'm home!"
Grace pulled the bed sheet tightly around her as she turned away from the door. Her belly gave an enormous rumble, begging for food. She hadn't eaten dinner. Or lunch. Or even breakfast for that matter.
Daddy was drinking again. She thought that maybe this time he had really quit. Maybe they could get real food, rather than the gross drinks he kept buying. Then he could make dinner and watch a movie like they use to...
A breeze came through the broken window, chilling the room. Grace shivered, pulling her mother's bed sheet tighter around her and curling into a ball.
She use to dream at this time of night. She would dream of Daddy coming in, a breakfast tray in his hands, and kissing her on the cheek. He would say, "Good morning, sweetheart. Hungry?" But that was when she was five. She was a naive child then. She was seven now. She didn't dwell on dreams that couldn't come true. She was much too old for that...
This was going along nicely. Irene didn't like the whole "Trip down Memory lane" but the good part was coming up!
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Irene
Uber glad!
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Irene
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Echo Elms
June 12, 2007 9:53 PM
Yes indeedy do! by Echo Elms
Dude, Echo told himself after another thirty seconds without writing a word, Forget the whole runes thing. Just write something. He could start with something simple, like a name. He knew lots of names. Last year his character was Canyon. This year it could be something else cool. There were tons of names out there.Or, maybe even just a gender. A name could come later. Maybe an action. Actions were good.
He ran his hand over the tree trunk.
There, that wasn't so bad. Now maybe a description of the wood, how it felt.
It was bumpy.
Okay, well, it was three words. It was something on the paper anyway. Keep going.
But not bumpy like other trees he'd climbed--if he slid on this one it would hurt because the ridges were so deep and so dry. He wasn't sure if he could even climb this one. It barely had any branches on the bottom, so he'd have to shimmy up a couple feet to reach the first one sturdy enough to hold him. He glanced around. It didn't look like he had any choices. The men were coming to take him back to
"Aloha!" the voice of Elly registered, and he looked up and waved, then discretely crossed off his last word. "Good day for the Fury." Ah, yes. True that.
"Heya Elly!" he greeted her. A quick sweep of the place showed that Hyana had shown up, too, and so had Oliver and Caedence. "Oh, wow, where did everyone come from?" He'd been paying attention to exactly two things: his writing, and Irene. Now he had a whole lot more people to think about.
"These are vegetarian, right?" Elly asked, inspecting a cookie.
Echo shrugged, "Probably. They're cookies. Well, maybe, I don't know--they might have eggs. Do you eat eggs?" The house elves made them, so it was also entirely possible they materialized out of thin air. Echo wasn't sure how that worked with the vegetarian stuff. Or even how it worked. It seemed to him that even when things materialized they still had to come from somewhere or something.
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Echo Elms
Yes indeedy do!
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Echo Elms
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Brett Hodges
June 12, 2007 10:29 PM
Here I am, with another blanket! by Brett Hodges
Brett showed up at Fury! in the early afternoon with a folded Green Bay Packers sheet slung over one shoulder and his adidas slipstring bag filled with novelling supplies over the other. This shindig was much more Echo's deal than his, but here he was. He'd considered bringing his dusty soccer ball (OOC: This takes place well before the soccer game BIC:), but figured it would be too distracting for everyone involved. Instead, he packed a hackeysack. Just in case.It looked like a pretty good crowd. Brett thought maybe he should have come earlier with the blanket so it could've been less crowded. To be honest, he hadn't really expected many people to show up. Sure, people would come to the informational stuff, but to actually show up and start writing? Yeah, right. He was surprised he was there, and he did it last year. Granted, he didn't make wordcount, not by far, but he did it.
Echo seemed to be busy in the novelling so he dropped his stuff a the edge and laid out the Packers sheet for anyone who wanted to spread out. He wanted to be next to Irene, but there wasn't room so he figured he'd keep an eye out for an opening and start writing in the meantime.
He ended up next to Oliver Abbott. He hadn't really ever talked to Oliver, but he knew him a little from classes, which was to say he knew they were in them together. He was also pretty sure Oliver was in Charms club, but then, who wasn't besides Brett? He'd missed that somehow.
"Hey, Oliver," he said, dropping down next to him. He probably would've said more, but he didn't want to distract him too bad. Instead, he picked open his bag and pulled out the dog-eared dictionary he was never without and his writing stuff.
He had plot finding scheme all planned out. He opened Websters to a random page and took the first word he saw on it and repeated that three times.
Tonsil. Justice. Space.
Okay, now, there it was. Those were the main theme words of his three main characters. Tonsil would be Tonya. She was clearly extremely beautiful because--because of kissing and tonsils and that whole thing. And his aunt had a problem where she lost her voice because she had a problem with her tonsils, so maybe Tonya had a weird sounding voice. And Justice would be Justin. He was all just and stuff. Maybe a policeman. And Space would be Ace. He was clearly a fighter pilot like in Star Wars. Maybe Justin was a space policeman and Ace worked for him and Tonya was there too. Excellent. Time to write.
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Brett Hodges
Here I am, with another blanket!
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Brett Hodges
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Saul
June 13, 2007 9:59 AM
Kicking off by Saul
Saul had debated for a while on whether or not he was going to come down here for Day One. The problem was that Saul couldn't just sit and quietly write. Nearly his entire first novel had been dictated and copied down by a Quick Quotes Quill and that was how he intended to do this one, too. Being in a group of other writers would just distract them.Two things decided him though. The first was, well, it was Echo's big day and he'd be disappointed if Saul didn't show. The other reason was far more along the lines self-interest. After all, Saul had been instrumental in finding Echo the cookies so he knew they were going to be there. No thirteen year old guy turned down cookies.
So here he was, with a stack of parchment (probably way overly optimistic on how much he'd use) and a normal quill and inkwell. (It was just so much cooler to write with quills, ink pots, and parchment than pens and lined paper, especially for something like a novel.)
He nodded and waved to Echo and some others that he recognized when he got there and found a space on the blanket closest to the cookies. He grabbed two right off the bat and began munching them as he set up his writing supplies and dipped his quill into his ink.
The lady was pregnant, he wrote first, because that was the most important point of the whole mystery story. His runes had told him so. Her name was, Saul paused and tried to chew thoughtfully on the end of his quill but the wizarding writing utensil wasn't nearly as good for that as muggle pens. "Eugh," he complained and made a face. He quickly took another bite of cookie to get the nasty feather-taste out of his mouth.
Turning to a person sitting nearby who was also not writing at that precise moment, Saul asked in a whisper so as not to bother everybody else, "What's a good name for a pregnant lady?" His first thought had been to use one of the names of a girl who was present here, but he didn't want to make any of them pregnant. They'd probably smack him if they ever found out. And Echo might not get anybody to do this again next year, if girls turned up pregnant just for writing novels.
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Saul
Kicking off
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Saul
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Oliver
June 13, 2007 10:40 AM
A security blanket? *sniggers* by Oliver
The dragon towered before him, a hundred feet high, covered in bronze scales that flashed in the sunlight.That was a very good opening sentence, Oliver thought. It was descriptive and exciting, and set the scene rather well. Now to introduced the main character.
Ethan stood unafraid, looking up at the hideous creature. This was nowhere near the largest dragon he’d ever fought, nor the meanest. Dragon slaying was an art, and Ethan had studied it for years. For him, each kill was a masterpiece.
Not bad at all. Oliver had never really considered creative writing before, but it seemed it came rather easily to him. Great!
“Hey Oliver.”
“Huh?” Oliver looked up to find that he had been joined by another boy from his year. “Hi… Brett, is it?” he thought it was – they had been sharing classes for a few months. He was almost sure it was Brett.
Whatever his name was, he was thumbing through a dictionary. That was a good idea – it had never occurred to Oliver to bring a dictionary. Actually, he’d only brought pen and paper, and wondered now if he should had been more prepared. “Good thought, bringing a dictionary,” he voiced his thoughts out loud. Maybe a thesaurus would have been a good idea, too? Or maybe paper and pen really would be enough. It wasn’t like he had to write the whole thing today, after all.
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Oliver
A security blanket? *sniggers*
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Oliver
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Elly
June 13, 2007 12:08 PM
Starting to write. by Elly
“Do you eat eggs?” Echo asked.“Yes,” Elly replied, still peering at the cookie. Well, most cookies were vegetarian, she figured. Shrugging, she took a bite anyway. She opened her notebook and removed her biro from the wand pouch.
“So how're you guys doing then? Got a good start?” she asked between mouthfuls of cookie. She realised then that this was supposed to be a writing day, and maybe her friends wouldn’t want interrupting. Though Elly personally felt that a little conversation was always welcome, especially if they were going to be there all day. “Tell me to shut up if I’m disturbing you,” she said cheerfully.
Elly peered down at her thus far empty notebook. How to start? She glanced again at her parchment notes – they had the basic plot and a bit about the characters written on them. She had done a little planning, but now it didn’t seem as though it was enough. Still, that was all she had to go with, so she put pen to paper to see where it would take her.
It was a windy Sunday morning and Megan was with her parents at a car boot fair. She thought it was a very boring place to be but her Dad had promised they could get some chips on the way back so Megan had agreed.
So far so good. Now what? Elly sucked the end of her biro in contemplation.
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Elly
Starting to write.
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Elly
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Irene
June 13, 2007 3:57 PM
So how's that going? by Irene
“So how're you guys doing then? Got a good start?” Elly asked. Irene put down her pen for a moment and replied, "My hand hurts." She had been writing a lot. It wasn't hard because of the story already laid out first-hand for her. The tricky part was picking the words to describe everything...“Tell me to shut up if I’m disturbing you,”
Irene shook her head. "Nope, not disturbing at all!" Convoration kept everything so much less awkward. Pure silence, well, it gets boring. Irene read over her already writen stuff. Man, way to be depressing, Irene! She thought. Irene took a bite of her cookie, trying to put the situations into words.
Irene looked around for an ispiration and found that more people had joined the group now, including Saul, who had just recently joined them, and Brett. Irene waved over to him, gesturing that he and... oh man, names... She didn't know the other boy's name, should bring the blanket over here. She held up a cookie as if saying, 'We have coookiesss!'
Irene turned and smiled at Saul. "Hi!" She greeted her teammate. Irene turned to her paper and began to write...
It had only been a week since Daddy had last shouted and years since she didn't care that he was. But this time she was escaping. She didn't have to stay here and listen. She could fly away and laugh from above.
Grace had never met her Uncle
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Irene
So how's that going?
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Irene
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Irene
June 13, 2007 4:05 PM
This is the better post. Read this one. by Irene
OOC: I did realize Saul had said that out loud =\\ Sorry! So here is the same post with an added paragraph =)“So how're you guys doing then? Got a good start?” Elly asked. Irene put down her pen for a moment and replied, "My hand hurts." She had been writing a lot. It wasn't hard because of the story already laid out first-hand for her. The tricky part was picking the words to describe everything...
“Tell me to shut up if I’m disturbing you,”
Irene shook her head. "Nope, not disturbing at all!" Convoration kept everything so much less awkward. Pure silence, well, it gets boring. Irene read over her already writen stuff. Man, way to be depressing, Irene! She thought. Irene took a bite of her cookie, trying to put the situations into words.
Irene looked around for an ispiration and found that more people had joined the group now, including Saul, who had just recently joined them, and Brett. Irene waved over to him, gesturing that he and... oh man, names... She didn't know the other boy's name, should bring the blanket over here. She held up a cookie as if saying, 'We have coookiesss!'
Irene turned and smiled at Saul. "Hi!" She greeted her teammate. Saul asked in a whisper,
"What's a good name for a pregnant lady?"
Irene thought for a moment and suggested, "Michelle? Miriam? Julia?" Those were mostly name of Uncle Mike's friends' wives. He usually brought her to the baby showers so he wouldn't have to go alone.
Irene turned to her paper and began to write...
It had only been a week since Daddy had last shouted and years since she didn't care that he was. But this time she was escaping. She didn't have to stay here and listen. She could fly away and laugh from above.
Grace had never met her Uncle Mike Mitch. Well, maybe once. But she didn't really remeber it. He was one of those peopel your parents say, "You remember your Uncle Mitch!" when really you have no idea who this guy is. But he had saved her and now she couldn't picture life without him.
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Irene
This is the better post. Read this one.
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Irene
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Saul
June 13, 2007 4:57 PM
So you're the folks with the cookies by Saul
Ah, it was Irene. He'd waved at her, right? Of course, if she'd been busy writing, she might not have seen it. So, just to be sure, he returned a "Hi" of his own when she greeted him. She seemed not to be too concerned about talking in whispers, though, so he stopped doing that, too.He considered each of the names she'd suggested, making a number of weird expressions on his face as he did so. Of the three, he liked Julia the best, but even that one didn't quite strike the perfect pregnant lady chord in his mind. "They're good names," he conceded, "But they're not my pregnant lady." Of course, the problem was probably that he'd been calling her 'The Pregnant Lady' for the last month. "She's a damsel in distress," he added, in case that helped Irene or anybody else listening in come up with a better name.
He looked down at his parchment and thought he could go a little further without a name yet. He crossed out the unfinished sentence and jotted down some more that he'd just been inspired to write.
The lady was pregnant.
Saul was going to have fun with this story once he got to start dictating it. He'd practiced his Private Eye voice a lot in the last couple of weeks. Even Simon thought he sounded almost like Humphrey Bogart now. It took him a long time to get the 'schw' sound in "schweetheart' down just right. Michael probably thought he was completely insane by now. Of course, Michael had probably thought that well before these last two weeks.
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Saul
So you're the folks with the cookies
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Saul
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Brett Hodges
June 13, 2007 11:01 PM
Call me Linus. by Brett Hodges
“Hi… Brett, is it? Good thought, bringing a dictionary,” Oliver returned."Yeah," Brett grinned, and nodded a little too. That yeah was for both the question and the comment, "It's all part of my mad schemes. Check it out: you get stuck, and all you have to is flip through here, and you've got instant inspiration. I'll leave it here," he offered, "you can use it if you want."
Across the blanket he saw Irene looking his way and waving him over. He waved back, "In a bit. I want to get started first." That, and he just started talking to Oliver and didn't want the kid to be offended if he just left. Especially since he said he could use his dictionary. He'd just stay a here a little while and then go get a cookie and see if Irene would come join him and Oliver over here for a bit. They had all day.
Until then, he needed to get started on this mad writing thang. He took out his pen and tried to decide which character to start with: Tonya-Tonsil, Justin-Justice, or Ace-Space.
Well, what they really needed was a setting. He flipped the dictionary open again and came up with the letter L. A place that started with L was... Location. No. Lake. Okay, a lake. And a time period for... G. Gametime. He put the dictionary down where Oliver could have at it and set to writing:
Justin paced by the lake and worried. The game was starting in two minutes and he was supposed to be the referee. He looked out over the water. Where was Ace?\r\n\r\n
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Brett Hodges
Call me Linus.
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Brett Hodges
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Echo Elms
June 13, 2007 11:17 PM
We are at that. We have the cookies. We were here first. by Echo Elms
Echo smiled and turned back to his writing as Elly decided to eat her cookie.“So how're you guys doing then? Got a good start? Tell me to shut up if I’m disturbing you,” she said cheerfully.
"No, It's alright," Echo replied, looking up again. Irene added her two cents to that. When it didn't seem like anyone else was going to say anything, he offered, "The first sentence was tough, but I might be starting to get somewhere now. So far there's this guy and he's thinking about climbing a tree to get away from people who are looking for him. I have no idea where it's going. None. It's sort of crazy."
Brett and Saul were here now, too. Excellent. The blanket was getting pretty crowded. Now there'd be room for newcomers. This was all going so much better than last year. It was more fun, more social, and there were so many more people. Maybe by the time he graduated Fury! would be this huge thing. That would be awesome.
"What's a good name for a pregnant lady?" Saul asked. Irene gave him a couple ideas, but Saul didn't like them. "She's a damsel in distress," he explained. So she needed some kind of fantastic damsal name.
"Hmm," Echo considered, "Bell... or something with bell in it, like Anabell or Jezabell, or Belladonna. Maybe?"
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Echo Elms
We are at that. We have the cookies. We were here first.
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Echo Elms
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Elly
June 16, 2007 8:58 AM
Woot! by Elly
Luckily, Irene and Echo didn’t seem to mind her chattering, which was just as well because Elly wasn’t exactly known for being a quiet person. They’d both made good starts on their stories, and Echo told her a bit of what his was about, and Elly laughed at his lack of direction.“Well I hope he gets away okay,” she said, grinning. She did feel a bit better knowing that Echo didn’t know where his story was headed. At least Elly had a vague idea – her characters were going to follow a map and discover hidden treasure in Egypt.
Elly grinned at Saul as he joined them then, asking about good names for a pregnant lady for his character. “How about Georgina?” Elly suggested – she had contemplated using that name for one of her own characters, but decided in the end that it was too long to be writing all the time.
“Something with bell in it,” Echo suggested.
Elly thought a bit more, searching for a damsel-y sort of name. “Or Helena?” she said, grinning. She wasn’t getting much writing done, but it was great fun sitting out and feeding each other ideas.
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Elly
Woot!
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Elly
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Oliver
June 16, 2007 9:09 AM
Okay, Linus. by Oliver
“Thanks,” Oliver said, when Brett offered to share the use of his dictionary. He seemed okay, considering he was in Pecari. A lot of the older students in Oliver’s house didn’t think much of the Pecaris, and Oliver hadn’t really spoken to any to form his own opinion. Brett seemed okay so far, though. Actually… Oliver glanced up. Four of the other people there were on the Pecari Quidditch team, and he was almost sure the others were all in Pecari, too. He gulped. Maybe he would keep quiet and hope that nobody noticed he was in Crotalus?Then one of the Pecari girls waved Brett over to join them. “In a bit,” he said to her. “I want to get started first.”
For a moment Oliver wanted to tell him it didn’t matter, he could go and sit with his friends if he wanted. On the other hand, though, that would leave Oliver sitting on his own like the oddity he really was. If he could avoid that then it was probably a good thing. So instead, Oliver shrugged and returned to his story.
Ethan liked to name each dragon he killed, simply because it made it easier for him to tell each apart when he was relaying his magnificent tales to anybody who would listen. This particular scaly beast was Roger.
Oliver grinned. He thought Ethan was the kind of person to name dragons silly things like Roger. Plus he knew it would amuse Charlotte.
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Oliver
Okay, Linus.
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Oliver
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Helena Layne and Amber Carey
June 27, 2007 1:31 PM
Probably not the most likely duo... by Helena Layne and Amber Carey
OOC: Apologies for lateness and all. The authors wrote this jointly for time reasons, then Amber's author lost it, then she found it, so here it is. BIC:If Bludgers didn’t get Anne Wright, Helena would. It was the least she could do after all the trouble her friend had gone to to land her in this position.
She tucked a piece of hair that had fallen out of her clip back behind her ear and pasted on a smile. She was sure it was of the semi-nervous variety. Except for Quidditch, the feasts, and some general meals she caught during the rush, she had never attended anything extracurricular at Sonora, and she usually stayed to herself, in her dorm, at the end of the day. It wasn’t that she dealt awkwardly with social stuff as…that she dealt awkwardly with social stuff. Which Anne knew, and had known when she mentioned to her flighty cousin that Helena had always been creative.
Merlin only knew how Gwen had stayed on the Quidditch team, because she certainly hadn’t stuck this out. She and Helena had never had any problems, and what few interactions there had been had been almost too gracious, so Gwen saying hello hadn’t seemed unusual. What had been unusual was the fourth year adding that she was going to be Gwen’s stand-in at the novel-writing club, and that Amber would fill her in on all the pertinent details when they met up in the Cascade Hall.
It had been dolls. That was it. Almost all the little girls in America played with dolls. Helena, Anne, and Lavinia had not been unusual in that respect. The only strange thing in those games had been that the usually dominant Anne had let Helena lead them. No few of the plots had been stolen right off of her mother’s soaps. She wasn’t creative, and she was certainly not a writer. Writers, by definition, left behind paper trails. Helena hated leaving paper trails, despite it being a widely-accepted fact that she had nothing going for her that anyone else would be interested in.
She glanced sideways at Amber, unsure of what to say – if anything. The Teppenpaw seemed nice enough, but she was a Carey, and Helena preferred to avoid association with the Careys where she could. Gwen was crazy, most talk had the other Careys just as crazy, and Morgaine was, to put it a bit mildly, temperamental. Amber wasn’t their sister, but still. Helena lived in Charleston, and a branch of Careys lived nearby. They could cause problems for her family if they were so inclined.
“This is gonna sound really stupid,” she heard herself say, “but what am I – are we – supposed to do?”
Amber, like most people who knew Gwen, got frustrated with her upon occasion. Today was one such occasion.
This was supposed to have been, well, their thing. A family thing, or something like that. They were only – what was it again? Fourth or fifth cousins or something? – but that was a darn sight better than nothing at all, which was what the two of them tended to get from closer kin. Apparently, Gwen either saw things differently or really was that scattered-about and high-flung. It was, after all, one thing to brush off your kid cousin, and another to recruit – or, as seemed more likely, commandeer – a replacement. It was things like this that made her wonder, just a little, if her cousin had a screw loose after all.
The case for Gwen’s sanity wasn’t helped by the fact that Gwen didn’t even like Helena Layne. She thought of her as a younger Catherine Raines, only poorer and with a better nose. She’d never seemed so terrible to Amber, and indeed seemed pretty nice as far as Crotali went, but she did keep to herself a lot, and she was, well, a Crotalus. Maybe they all unsheathed their claws when they were back in their common room. Catherine didn’t look much like the foe Gwen had her built up as from the distances Amber had seen her at, after all.
She’d told her as much, once. Gwen’s answer then had been the same as her answer for why they were going to pretend that Helena was her. She had laughed and said exactly one word: Politics. In neither case had she explained what on earth she meant, leaving Amber in the deepest part of the dark about it.
Helena’s voice broke in on Amber’s thoughts. Bit of an odd accent, but it was pretty. “Eat and write, basically,” she said. “I think. Then we write, like, every time we’re able to sit down until the second, like I told you.”
Helena stiffened slightly, and Amber realized that might have sounded a little condescending. She hadn’t meant it that way, but she could see how it could be taken wrong. The other second year’s hint of an English accent became noticeably thicker when she answered back. “I remember.” She sounded like she was trying to force a friendly tone and wasn’t the best at it. She sounded like a soap woman trying to speak civilly to the new girlfriend of the ex-husband she was still desperately in love with.
“I – uh – yeah,” she said. Nice negotiating and keeping of the peace, that. Why was she in Teppenpaw, again? From all she could see, all she did in interpersonal situations was mess things up. “Listen…Sorry if I sounded, uh, all snotty a minute ago. I didn’t mean it the way it, uh, came out.”
Helena shrugged, then gave her a small smile. “Believe me, I know all about that. I probably put my back up too much, anyway. I’m not used to this sort of thing.” She waved the slightest bit at the other Novellers. “Clubs. Mingling. It isn’t really my style.” She uncapped what, surprisingly to Amber, looked like an ordinary ink pen. Maybe only some of the purebloods – the rich ones – were totally insane. “I’m for writing before we say anything else unfortunate. We’re apparently both rather good at it.”
Nobody spoke quite that well unless they were a bit miffed – well, nobody normal, anyway; some of the Rich Purebloods might speak that way all the time – but she’d get over it. Probably. Hopefully. Getting the spiral-bound five-subject notebook her mother had sent her out, she opened it up and immediately drew a blank, every bit of planning she’d done going out of her head. Just to keep from looking as if she was doing nothing, she wrote her central character’s name. Lucy Haggard.
Two words down, way too many to go.
Helena did not want to do this, and Anne was going to do some serious paying for telling Gwen she could rely on her. She and Geoff were always saying Helena needed to get out more, just like Helena and Geoff always said Anne needed to find something (other than Quidditch) to occupy her mind. She supposed it was a good thing they all cared enough about each other to take an interest, even if they did have odd ways of doing so.
She hadn’t had a chance to plan out what to write. She was not, as she was sure she’d thought at least twice in fewer minutes, creative. Oh, she was a fair enough liar, but she was also the daughter of an ex-politician and an ambitious politician wannabe. It was part of the job description.
Maybe writing a novel was like being a liar; they were both about telling a story that wasn’t the truth, after all. She could see that. She would just be telling lots of lies that smacked of soap operas about people who either didn’t exist or who she didn’t know. That could work. And she’d read her fair share of novels, so she knew a bit about how to string words together…
She separated one sheet of parchment from the others and wrote Pre-planning across the top. Beneath it she wrote down two names: Charlotte Graham and Joe White. She had no idea where the names had come from and, so long as students with them didn’t walk up to her with court summons and subpoenas for this thing in hand, she was all right with that. Art was a mysterious thing, according to some cliché she’d heard at some point. They were her main couple, though she’d need a few more. Once she had a few names down, a few weird family ties set up for most of them, and a town name, she began to write.
The crystal glass in Charlotte’s hand was the first thing to go flying towards the wall once Jolene’s head vanished from the fire…
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Helena Layne and Amber Carey
Probably not the most likely duo...
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Helena Layne and Amber Carey
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