Thursday, November 28, 2019

The Home Stretch



After a herculean effort on my part (ie. less farting around, more writing) I managed to finally catch up on my NaNo and I’m even a little ahead of the game. But even if I wasn’t, I still have the rest of today, most of tomorrow, and all day Saturday to cross that finish line.

It’s been a fun ride, but I’ll be glad when the pressure’s off. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up the good habits I’ve developed – writing every day and spending more time in my office. Working on the Neo helped a lot too.

And now, the final excerpt from An Elemental Spirit. This one is actually in two parts, but they’re both giving a little more insight into the Illezie. And while you read them, remember that they’re unedited. :-)



Many important records had been lost when the dissenters set off the explosion in the records hall in their attempt to contravene the prophecy. The most important loss was that of the clan birth records, which is why the age of any Illezie born before that time could not be confirmed.

The Illezie hierarchy was age based, the older the Illezie the more weight their words carried. A syllable was added to their name with each century that passed, but many, after the explosion, had eschewed this tradition, citing that after even half a millennia the names became too unwieldy, and that more time was spent reciting lineages at a Gathering than discussion on the topic at hand.

E.Z. had stopped adding to his name at ten centuries, but even so he preferred to go by the initials the young wind elemental with so much potential had given him. Watching her grow had been a bittersweet experience for him. He knew the boosting of her mother’s gene sequence at just the right stage, infusing the embryo she carried with his own DNA, would result in the most powerful wind elemental born, just as he had known what fate she was to be groomed for. What he had not known was how much he would come to care for the girl.

It was too late to put a stop to events now, far too late. What had been put in motion had taken on a life of its own. If he had not been instrumental in bringing Nakeisha and Chaney together they would not have been in the right place to help Rayne and Pyre, which in turn set off the events leading to the creation of the elemental comet which spelled his world’s doom. But who was to say the volcano would not have erupted in any case, sending the elemental energy released by the death of all those elementals and potential elementals into space instead?

He sighed, a most uncharacteristic thing for an Illezie to do.

“It is a heavy burden we carry, the Illezie who learn to care,” Gra’anna’s voice came softly to him.

“Did you ever attach yourself to one of the Ardraci?” he asked, curious.

“Oh, yes.” She came to stand next to him where he was gazing out at the stars streaming past. “It was many centuries ago. Her name was Anna, she was an Earth Elemental.”

“They are so short-lived,” E.Z. said quietly. “Their lives burn out so quickly.”

“That they do,” she agreed. “But oh, how bright the flame while it lasts.”

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

There had been no new offspring of the Illezie for centuries. Da’nat was, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, the last Illezie hatched in the incubation chamber. Housed in a large cavern deep in the bowels of Zarathul, it held row upon row of pods waiting to be filled.

It was a place Da’nat visited when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts, as he did now. He had never made use of the sequencing pods and so never contributed to the gene pool from which new life was drawn. Now he would never have the chance.

As far as he knew, no one but him ever visited this place – there was no need. Or perhaps they found it too depressing, that it would never be needed again. It was a sad and lonely place, but somehow he felt at peace here.

Da’nat had never given any thought to offspring, until he had become acquainted with the young elemental Zephryn. Of course he was only young by Illezie standards, by human standards he was a grown man. But he was a man full of life and exuberance. He lived life fully while the Illezie had become nothing more than observers of life.

Though young by Illezie standards, Da’nat was old enough to realize that the Illezie race was stagnant. Save for the few who still made their presence known on Ardraci, the Illezie had not left their world in centuries. While he had no more wish to die than any other creature, he was ready for whatever lay beyond this plane of existence. He would play his part in the ascension with a willing heart.

So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that he did not sense the presence sneaking up behind him. By the time he sensed the danger it was too late. The blade of obsidian cut like butter through his back and into his double-chambered heart. Da’nat would never know the joy of ascension.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

I Think I Can, I Think I Can



Like a little engine that could, I keep chugging along.

After almost catching up on Wednesday last week (just over 1,000 words behind) I had a couple of really busy days that totally derailed me again.

Thursday I managed to squeeze in 1,000 words (the daily goal is 1667) but Friday I only managed a measly 350 words. Yikes! But… yesterday I kept plugging away and despite not liking the last scene I was working on AT ALL, I wrote an amazing 3,800 words, just shy of my goal of 4,000 words.

Right now I'm only about 350 words behind. I’m really hoping I can write at least 3,000 words today to put me ahead of the game, just to have a few extra in case of an emergency. Thursdays and Fridays tend to be my lowest word count days, but NaNo doesn’t officially end until midnight on Saturday, so I’ll be able to barricade myself in my office and write until I drop if I fall behind again.

Surprisingly enough, I’m still enjoying my story. Usually by this time I’m ready to just jettison the whole thing into space, but I’m kind of curious to see how this is going end. Right now is a bit of a struggle because my characters are pretty much just sitting around on a luxury space ship waiting for the Big Event so I’m having a hard time coming up with things to fill in their time.

My Elementals have been pretty isolated for most of their lives, so I figure learning self defense might be a good idea – they could use the exercise and I could use the words. After my third attempt (and yes, I kept all three versions because they were all fresh words) I gave it up. What do I know about fighting or self-defense? It needs some research, but I just don’t have time for that right now.

While there’s going to be a lot cut out of this when I’m done, there’s also a lot that’s going to stay that I didn’t expect. As I think I mentioned before, the Illezie are a bigger presence, and I’m starting to see a little subplot involving some disputes within the Illezie conclave.

I’ve ditched the historical record/journal entries that I was starting each chapter with, but I do intend to get back to them when I start working on the final version. They’re a good way to convey important information without having one of the characters do an info dump.

Goals For the Week

Duh! Rock the NaNo!



Don't forget to come back Thursday for another excerpt!

Thursday, November 21, 2019

It’s All Up Hill From Here


Here we are, once again it’s Thursday. And I’m only a little over 1,000 words behind.

As messy as this book is turning out to be, I think once it’s cleaned up and buffed and polished, it’s going to be the best Elemental book yet.

I’m learning so much about the Illezie – stuff I wish I’d known for the first four books. But then again, if I’d known all this I probably would have wanted to include more of it, and they wouldn’t have been as mysterious as they are.

This week’s excerpt sort of follows the first excerpt I posted, the one where Kaine is dreaming. The Adraci/Elementals he’s been staying with are worried about him – he drinks too much and keeps too much to himself, and they want to change that.



One of Rayne’s ideas for making Kaine feel more included was to host a dinner for which he would be the unofficial guest of honour. Though dubious as to whether it would have the outcome they wanted, Taja was all for the idea and enlisted Nakeisha to help with the planning. Having hosted many a diplomatic dinner by this time, Nakeisha was right in her element (so to speak). The only problem to arise was convincing Kaine to attend.

“But I am not an elemental,” he pointed out. “Nor even an Ardraci. I would not wish to sully the ambience of your gathering.”

“Chaney is not Ardraci either,” Taja told him. “You would be doing him a favour – he must be getting weary of being the only non-Ardraci in the group.”

“Very well,” he said with a sigh, knowing there was no point in arguing when Taja set her mind to something. She seemed to feel that just because he’d saved her life they had some kind of bond – not like she had with Ravi of course, more like that of siblings. “But in return I wish to set up a sparring date with you. I find this life of leisure I’ve been leading has made me somewhat soft.”

Her eyes lit up. “I know exactly what you mean. It would be my pleasure.”

Since the dinner was to be held the following evening, they scheduled the sparring match for one hour hence. In the short time it took for them to get ready a small crowd had gathered in the gallery overlooking the practice room. Taja seemed a little surprised by it, but Kaine barely acknowledged their audience.

“Hand to hand or weapons?” Taja asked.

Kaine thought about it for a moment. Though he was larger and heavy, he knew better than to think it would be to his advantage during hand to hand combat.

“I think our audience would appreciate seeing our skills with weapons,” he told her. “And seeing as I was the one who issued the challenge, I leave it to you to choose the weapons.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Taja responded with a grin. She’d already had a weapon in mind – the Bohran fighting sticks.

The last time she and Kaine had sparred, she had discovered his love for archaic weapons. That time it had been wooden staves, and she had grossly underestimated his skill with them. The Bohran fighting sticks were rarely seen off world, and even on Bohran they were used only for ceremonial purposes now. Her teacher had been Bohranian and been reluctant to teach a woman at first…until he’d seen how quickly she became skilled at them.

The attendant brought out a long, flat box. Nestled inside on a bed of silk were the two fighting sticks. They almost looked like wooden swords, save they were broader through the middle with a straight edge with a razor sharp band of metal imbedded in it and a deep, curved edge studded with teeth of volcanic rock.

She watched surreptitiously as Kaine took a hold of one of the sticks, hefting it in his hand before running through a series of warm up exercises while holding it.

Up in the gallery, bets were taking place.

Chaney ran into Ravi as he was placing a bet for Nakeisha. “Aren’t you getting in on the action?” he asked. “Nakeisha assures me that Taja is a sure winner. One of her instructors was from Bohran.”

“I well know Taja’s skill, they are evenly matched in all but weapons prowess,” Ravi said, “However I also know that Kaine spent considerable time on Bohran. It bodes to be a most entertaining match.”

“Interesting, and does Taja know this?”

“No, she does not,” Ravi said with a grin.

Chaney looked at him askance.

“As I said, it will be quite an interesting match.”

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Persistence Is Key



Well there’s one good thing about doing NaNoWriMo, at least you know I’ve been writing, right?

Perhaps it hasn’t been good writing, but at least I’m starting to catch up. I’m still about 4,000 words behind as I type this, but then I haven’t started working on today’s words yet. So we’ll just have to see how distracted I am today.

One of the reasons Chris Baty chose the month of November for NaNoWriMo was because it’s such a dreary month. The problem with this for people like me is that the dreary weather can often create dreary mind sets.

We’ve been getting some sun, but it’s usually a very thin filling in between two slices of greyness – not really enough to charge my solar batteries. Add to that I’ve been having mystery headaches that come in clusters and you’ll understand when I say I’ve fought for every word I’ve written.

And I’ll confess right here, they haven’t been pretty words. But there have been a few surprises. I wrote a rather long back story to one of my characters, thinking it would probably end up cut during the editing process, but although it might get tightened up some, I think I’ll keep it. It concerns one of the main characters, and this character has pretty much only been mentioned by name in a previous book.

I’m getting a better handle on the Illezie prophecy – I keep adding refinements as I think of them. There’s a lot more of the Illezie in this book than I expected, and they’re turning out to be a lot more manipulative than I thought they were.

I’ve also given them a home world, a planet disguised as a gas giant. AND I figured out why they needed the Elementals, and why there’s five, instead of just four. But what I haven’t figured out why the as yet un-introduced sixth one is needed.

So, yeah. There’s a lot of crap that needs to be cut from the story, but it is moving along.

Goals For the Week

If I can finish catching up on NaNo then I can feel free to use part of my writing time for editing some more of the anthology. If I haven’t, then the goal is to finish catching up on NaNo.

Don’t forget to check back Thursday for a new excerpt.


Thursday, November 14, 2019

Picking Up Steam



These Thursdays really like to sneak up on me!

At the typing of this, I’m about 2500 words behind, which all things considered isn’t too bad. I’ve been working in my office more, and usually get 1,000 words done in the morning, 1,000 in the afternoon, and if I’m lucky a few hundred in the evening.

Yesterday, however, I got my 1,000 words done in the morning no problem but really struggled in the afternoon. Finally I gave up and made a couple of quiches, which must have been just what I needed to get the brain going again because I got around 2,000 words done after that.

Today, of course, is going to be a whole different story. I’ve been going to Tai Chi for two hours on Monday and Thursday mornings, which pretty much takes care of the whole morning. And Thursdays I also have my photography class, which is three hours, and that’s pretty much it for the evening. So basically, I’ll have the afternoon to write in.

But you didn’t come here to hear about that, did you? You’re here for the excerpt. This week I’m sharing a conversation between Nakeisha and her husband Chaney, who were featured in the first elemental book, An Elemental Wind. Despite being hand picked by the Illezie to be an ambassador, Nakeisha is beginning to have doubts about them.



“I am troubled,” she said after a moment.

“That much I could gather,” he said with a smile. “Now tell me what’s troubling you.”

“How well do you know the Illezie?” she asked.

If the question surprised him, he didn’t let on. “Before I met you, I knew them only by reputation, which is to say I didn’t know much about them at all. They are one of the oldest races in the galaxy, are incredibly powerful, and totally mysterious. Even their home world is couched in secrecy.”

Nakeisha nodded. “Even growing up with them we did not know much more than that. They were our care-takers, our protectors, and some even said our creators.”

“Creators? That hardly seems likely.”

If anything, Nakeisha looked even more troubled. “I do not wish to think it of them, but it makes a terrible kind of sense. It would certainly explain why they seem almost…proprietary of us.”

“Have you talked to E.Z. about this?”

“No, I have not. To be truthful, I do not know how to broach the subject. But there is something else.”

She shifted so that she was leaning more on him and Chaney obligingly put his arm around her.

“Working closely with the survivors from Dr. Arjun’s compound as I’ve been, I have had ample opportunity to speak with them.”

“And?” he prompted when she fell silent.

“Sorry,” she said, giving herself a little shake. “Do you know why Dr. Arjun was so fanatical about his breeding experiments?”

“Like most people, I figured he let his scientific mind get the better of him. That and his need for order, to keep the Ardraci race pure.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “That is what most believe.”

“I get the feeling that’s not why he did it.”

“That was only part of the reason. The other part was that he knew somewhat of the prophecy. He knew the Illezie were looking for specific traits in an elemental.”

“And he thought that by creating the perfect elemental he’d win recognition from the Illezie?” Chaney guessed.

“Not exactly,” she said. “He thought if he could create an elemental powerful enough, one that held all four elements in equal measure, Then the Illezie would be able to fulfill their prophecy and set the rest of us free.”

“Set you free? But you were never…” Chaney’s voice trailed off. He’d been about to say that the Ardraci had never been prisoners of the Illezie, but that wasn’t entirely true. Up until just a few years ago the Ardraci home world had been hidden, protected, and only a few selected Ardraci had been able to leave the planet. Many of them didn’t even know there were other planets, other beings. They’d been deliberately kept in the dark.

“If that’s the case,” he said slowly, “It’s a wonder the Illezie did not sanction Arjun’s experiments.”

“Who’s to say he did not?” she asked quietly.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

All Aboard the Crazy Train



I sent this quote to my best bud Jamie this week:
You are doing this because you are fantastic and brave and curious. And, yes, you are probably a little crazy. And this is a good thing.
— Chris Baty

As soon as I saw that quote I started hearing Ozzy Osborne’s “Crazy Train” in my head. I’ve always thought of it as my theme song. In fact, I’ve been on that train so often I could probably drive it.

Anyway, I must be crazy because I’m still plugging away at NaNo. As I type this, I’m 6,000 words behind. When this is posted I’ll be behind by 7,667 (when you add on the daily 1667). Hopefully by the end of the day I’ll close the gap at least a little.

I’ve changed the beginning a few times, added a prologue, decided to add journal entries to the beginning of each chapter – which can be as time consuming as an actual chapter. And I’ve been struggling with the words themselves. AND I’ve done a crap ton of research on rogue planets and gas giants before deciding the Illezie have only disguised their planet to look like a gas giant. All that time wasted. *sigh*

Then yesterday I actually parked myself in my office, and after hemming and hawing over the words I’d written during the past week I finally convinced myself that I needed to stop worrying and start writing. No one’s ever going to see this but me, so it really doesn’t matter whether it makes sense or not. All that matters is it gets written. Which is kind of the point of NaNo, isn’t it?

So then I pulled out my trusty Neo and made some actually progress – I always seem to write faster on my Neo, maybe it’s because it’s free of distractions. Of course some of that progress was an info dump that I was going to use in the journal entries, but whatever. Words is words.

Goals for the Week:
Forget the anthology (for now) this week is going to be all about catching up on my NaNo word count. This means I have to write 815 words a day in addition to the required 1667. No mean feat considering I haven’t hit the daily goal yet.

I was going to leave you with Ozzy’s version of Crazy Train, but this one was impossible to resist. LOL


Thursday, November 7, 2019

Crap! It’s Thursday!



How did Thursday sneak up on me so quickly?

As you can see, I’m still woefully behind words-wise on my NaNo novel. It’s still early yet, lots of time to catch up. Possibly. Maybe. Hopefully.

As well as adding a prologue that I re-wrote about three times (a NaNo no-no but it was important to the rest of the book) I also kept changing my mind about where exactly it was going to start. Hopefully now that I’m pretty sure I’ve got that right it’ll go a little quicker, if not easier.

And yeah, I am starting each chapter with a journal entry. Or an excerpt from historic records, to be more precise. It’s actually kind of fun – I don’t even have to come up with an actual prophecy, I can just hint at it.

I was going to use the prologue as my excerpt, but it’s over 1,000 words, which is kind of long for an excerpt. So instead I’ll share a piece from the opening of chapter two (which was going to be chapter one before I decided I needed to start further back).

For those of you familiar with the series, this excerpt is about Kaine, whom we met near the end of An Elemental Water. He was a guard who was in love with Nereida, sister of Kairavini (the water elemental).

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, this excerpt is about Kaine. :-D



It was dark, he was surrounded by it. He couldn’t see, couldn’t move, but he could feel. Loss, despair, anguish – the same feelings that had drawn him to her in the beginning. So much pain, but underlying that an astonishing strength of spirit. The strength of her spirit was such that it had been a shock the first time he’d laid eyes on her, so painfully thin she was more skin over bones than flesh and blood. But he’d known in that moment she was his beloved and that he’d do anything, risk everything, to save her. But in the end she’d left him behind. Alone.

“Not alone,” her voice whispered in his mind. “Never alone.”

He felt the fear, almost overwhelming, hers and the others as he worked at the master lock to the doors, felt the heat as he lead the way through the tunnels of the active volcano. He felt her growing weaker in his arms as they finally reached the shore on the other side. And then he felt only despair as her spirit became closed to him.

“I am with you always, my love.”

A speck of light in the darkness, moving closer, resolving itself into the form of a woman. She was tall and thin, but with a healthy glow to her skin unlike the sickly grey tone he was used to. Her hair was long and flowing, and the eyes . . . the eyes were her eyes.

“It is almost time, my love. Soon we will be together once more.”

“You are not real,” he said, but without conviction.

“Soon, my love,” her voice whispered to him, and she turned away.

He could not help himself. “Nereida!” he called . . . and woke up.

Kaine was sitting up in bed, one hand outstretched as though reaching for her. As he recognized his surroundings his hand dropped and he took a couple of deep breaths. This was the fourth time in the last week he’d had the dream, and it was getting more intense each time.

Throwing back the covers he got out of bed.

“Lights, thirty percent,” he said.

He knew by now there was no point in trying to get any more sleep, what he could use was a drink. Pulling on his clothes from the day before, he ran a hand through his hair by way of combing it, and left his room for the lounge.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

It’s NaNoing Time! (God Help Us All)



I freely admit I was not as prepared as I would have liked to be on November 1, but then I’m not usually. At least this year I had my idea ahead of time. Not that it’s doing me any good. There’s a lot of research to be done and I’ve already had to adjust the events I want to have happen because they’re just not scientifically possible. However, as research quite often does, it closed one avenue while opening another.

See, the whole elemental series is rooted in a prophecy that was predicted way back in the mists of time. And to make it even more complicated, it connects back to my very first, unedited, badly written, first novel, the idea for which I came up with in high school. And I really need to start writing some of the pertinent information down so I don’t forget any of it because this was not the only prophecy to set things in motion.

Anyway. I was kind of hoping there’d be a center to the universe, but there isn’t. However, I learned that just as planets orbit a sun, galaxies orbit the universe and that might work even better because I need there to be an extreme amount of time passing between the prophecy and the fulfillment of the prophecy.

I still only have a vague notion of said prophecy, and it’s really something I need to share for the reader to understand what’s going on. Unfortunately, it’s going to take me a while to figure out exactly how to word it properly and I don’t have that kind of time. Plus, starting with a prophecy would be kind of boring, I really need to start with some action. There’s only one solution.

*heaves a big sigh*

I’m going to have to start each chapter with a journal entry, like I did in Elemental Fire and Elemental Water. Something I swore I’d never do again.

Goals For The Week:

At least 2 more stories edited for the new anthology
Catch up and stay on track for NaNo.

Don’t forget to check back Thursday for an excerpt!