Friday, June 10, 2011

Socnoc, Day 10

Today's Wordcount: 2,399
Total Wordcount: 24, 549
(includes the part written before SocNoc - 4143 words)
Percentage: 40.8%

When you wake up in the wee small hours of your day off and you like in bed, and the plot of your story fills your head... That is when it is wonderful to be a writer. Today as I lay in bed, pondering my next few pages I found myself unable to sleep and had to get up and write. over 2k words written before shower and breakfast!

Then my mother came over and I spent the rest of the day working on art so that I could finish listening to an audio book that is due to expire tomorrow. Still, I am well up on the wordcount - should be 50% by tomorrow, I reckon. Unless it turns into a lovely sunny day and we decide to go for a walk in our earthquake ravaged city.

So, what happened today? Well our strange little cast of heroes hopped into an outrigger canoe with a maki called Manjoretra (which means "sensible") who seems to have some sort of previous relationship with Karazana. Relationship not yet revealed, but should be easy enough to figure out. And Chike got to tell the story of his past. Not sure what will happen next - maybe they will camp on the shore and be kidnapped by brown lemurs, or possibly face attack by a crocodile. Maybe a storm, but as they're currently inside a reef, they're pretty safe there.

There will be NO earthquakes in this novel. Apparently they don't get earthquakes in Madagascar, although they do have a word for earthquake -horohoron-tany.

For reference for my Malagasy words I have a phrasebook and also am using this site here.

Also, for anyone that is actually following this blog, I am scheduled to have it featured on the Kiwi's Unite webpage on the 13th June. Except that it seems to be up there now - so tomorrow I might write up a proper instructional post on "writing dialogue" cos I reckon about 70% of my novel is dialogue! My characters just won't stop talking...

So, here's an extract (Chike tells his story):

As you know,” the vervet began, “I am a monkey from the mainland – one of the vervet tribe. My family make their home in the acacia woods not far from the channel. They rarely ever venture from the trees, because life on the mainland is much more dangerous than here. There are snakes..”

We have snakes here,” Aurelia interrupted.

Not like these ones,” he continued. “The snakes are massive, and some of them spit poison. There are also giant birds that snatch us from the sky...”

Eagles,” Aurelia said. “We've got them too.”

And,” he continued on, ignoring her, “dangerous cats. Great spotted ones called leopards that climb the trees and chase us, and sandy brown ones that wait for us to touch the ground.”

We have fossa,” Aurelia interjected. “And mongooses* and eagles and...” She ran out of dangerous creatures. “Mongooses are scary,” she concluded. “I gotten bitten by one, see? And I've only heard about fossa but I really, really, really don't want to meet one. They're massive and golden and chase lemurs through the trees and gobble them up.”

Chike rose his eyebrows at her. “Who is telling the story, little one?” He asked. “Me or you?”

You,” Aurelia looked a little embarrassed at his gentle scolding. “Sorry.” She closed her mouth.

* The plural of mongoose IS mongooses, not mongeese or mongoose.

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