#i'll do my grand reveal when the poll ends

[taz-clark]

Responding to the gender poll, I said female because you're rad as fuck and Im female so okay maybe I'm projecting lmao

of course you're rad as fuck! lets have lunch on the top of this moving train.

dont worry about it~ rad people are immune to fall damage. i got the dev notes right here.

the poll

[griseldabanks]

I've been seriously considering participating in SlowMoWriNo, a variation on NaNoWriMo where, instead of writing 50k of a story in a single month, the goal is to write for approximately 15 minutes a day for a year, starting this November, and hopefully have a novel done in a year's time. It's a challenge for those who are busy and/or burnt out, which perfectly describes me right now. I'm getting pretty close to finishing the first draft of my current WIP, and while I should probably just take a break from any sort of organized writing for the rest of the year to avoid a complete burnout, I also really like the idea of SlowMoWriNo.

So I think I'm going to do it. I can push myself for fifteen minutes a day, right? In order to still be giving myself a break from the hefty fanfic project I've been focusing on for the past four years or so, I'd like to use SlowMoWriNo to work on one of my woefully neglected original stories. Even if all I have to show for my work after a year is an outline or notes rather than 50k of readable story, it will be more than I've got right now!

I've got quite a few story ideas that have been gathering dust in my mind for years now, so which one should I dust off and take a poke at? I'll describe each one below the poll. Basically, you're voting for which story you'd like to hear updates on and potentially get excerpts from, because I'll be doing that for accountability purposes in the year ahead.

The Ambassadors - Sean is scrubbing the floor of his village's chapel when the village is attacked by a rampaging dragon. Before he knows what's happening, the dragon smashes through the chapel and dies. With her last breath, she places a dragon egg at his feet. The egg hatches in his hands, revealing a baby dragon with black scales. Though he has heard all his life about how evil and dangerous dragons are, Sean just can't bring himself to let any harm come to the baby dragon. So, changing his name to Shard, he runs away to find a place where he and his new dragon friend can live in peace. Medieval fantasy, dragon rider story, lots of angst and lots of fluff, no romance but lots of friendship with an emphasis on brotherly love between the main character and his dragon, strong Christian themes (complete with my own barely-disguised fantasy Christian religion :P). The first draft is written, but I need to completely rewrite it because I've reworked and refined a lot of the plot and worldbuilding.

The Arcblade - Aiden Averrod, captain of the airship Robin, is just about broke and looking for work for his crew when a mysterious noblewoman hires him to give her transport on her quest for the fabled Arcblade, a mystical weapon said to bring peace to their war-torn land when it is unsheathed. Reluctantly, because he has no other choice and because the young lady has a fat purse with promise of another one forthcoming when the quest is achieved, Aiden agrees and sets off on a quest that will completely upend his life. Eighteenth century-ish fantasy, steampunk (crystalpunk? is that a thing?), serious laced with humor, swashbuckling, includes a romance between major characters. So far, I've written a grand total of two scenes and then realized I needed to revisit the worldbuilding -_-

bartender story (unnamed) - Bob is the friendly, rotund third-generation owner of the town's tavern. All is going well in his life until a band of heroes comes through and...well, one thing leads to another, and in the end, Bob's tavern is just a pile of ashes. Demanding repayment for damages, Bob tags along with the band of misfits as they continue their quest to save the world from the Dark Lord. Medieval fantasy, satire with a heart, tongue-in-cheek poking fun at fantasy cliches, probably no romance but we'll see. Nothing written for this so far.

broken heart story (unnamed) - Annie has had a crush on [unnamed heartthrob] for years, but would never dare tell him. After all, she's ugly. She's fat. She has terrible acne. She's cripplingly shy, and she's been picked on and bullied her whole life. There's nothing he would ever find attractive about her. But one day she happens to witness [unnamed girl] cast a spell on him that turns his heart into an origami heart made of many separate pieces of paper folded in on each other, which she pulls apart and scatters to the winds. Without his heart, [unnamed heartthrob] has no emotions, no personality, and his so-called friends start avoiding him because he's acting so weird. Taking pity on him, Annie decides to get his heart back. Even if it might break her own heart in the process. Modern-day urban fantasy, probably some kind of magical school setting (maybe university-level?), angsty drama, romance, basically a reverse Beauty and the Beast about true love looking past the surface. Nothing written for this so far.

clone sister story (unnamed) - [Older sister] is struggling to accept the clone of her deceased younger sister, who has just been completed and come home from the lab. The decision to clone [younger sister] was a snap decision her mother made in the throes of her grief after the accident, but since then the whole family has come to grips with the knowledge that [younger sister] is gone forever. But the cloning process was already started, and her mother was unwilling to pull the plug, because she believed that clone was a real person, a real little girl who needed a mommy. Now that little girl is coming home, and they all have to remember that, just because she looks exactly like [younger sister], she is a different person. [Older sister] isn't sure what to think. Near-future sci-fi, family drama, angst and grief, family relationships with a focus on the sisters, strong Christian and pro-life themes. Nothing written for this so far.

The Family - The Shiwaga family is a wealthy, well-respected clan that has been a pillar of the town of Avalanche for generations. What no one realizes is that they're also secretly a mafia-like organization working to sabotage the government, believing it was usurped from the rightful ruler - someone Shiwaga hopes to be able to influence once they have been returned to power. (This story is actually kind of hard to summarize, both because it's currently a mess and because there's at least a dozen main characters who are all supposed to be equally important.) Meiji Japan-inspired epic fantasy, huge cast of characters with opposing motivations, family drama as well as world-threatening crises, romances as well as friendship/familial relationships are front-and-center, currently the ending is more bitter than sweet but I want to reevaluate that. This was the story I worked on the two times I've done NaNoWriMo before, so two of three parts are written, but in a very slapdash fashion that's basically just a fleshed-out outline that will probably have to be completely rewritten anyway. The original thought was to make this a trilogy.

The Four - Timor was found as a small child, abandoned in the forest and somehow managing to eke out an animal-like survival. Since then, he has been raised in the home of Avadris, a one-time counselor to the High King, who has been dead for years. As Timor grows older, Avadris slowly puts two and two together and begins to suspect Timor is actually the High King's son that everyone thought was killed the same night the king and queen were. In the hopes of restoring the order and prosperity they enjoyed under the High King's reign, Avadris announces Timor as the heir to the throne when he turns twelve. Though he asked for none of this, Timor suddenly finds himself running for his life from those who want nothing to do with a new High King, accompanied by strangers who may become friends - or may end up killing him. Medieval epic fantasy, adventure/quest, non-traditional fantasy races/peoples, no romance but various platonic relationships among the impromptu band of companions. This is what I consider to be my first "real" story idea, but even though I came up with it when I was twelve and still believe in its potential, I've never finished a draft and don't really know how it ends anymore ^^' Probably needs to be started over from scratch for the...fourth or fifth time.

four siblings story (unnamed) - Jack, Sophie, Rebecca, and Grace are recently orphaned siblings who know they have to stick together to survive. The good news is, they all have superpowers that have manifested as they struggle with their grief over their parents. As they try to gain control over their powers and figure out how to balance them with the serious side effects those powers bring, they are taken in by the wealthy Dr. Clementine, a jovial old philanthropist who promises to be like a grandfather to them while also giving them opportunities and resources to hone their supernatural skills to the fullest. But it's not long before the four siblings begin to suspect his motives are more sinister than they seemed at first. Modern-day urban fantasy, children's/YA fiction, adventure, no romance but a heck-ton of positive sibling relationships and eventually found family, standalone with possible sequel potential. Meant to evoke some combination of Escape to Witch Mountain, The Girl Who Could Fly, and E. Nesbit (Five Children and It)/Edward Eager (Half Magic) books.