Flyby Extras and Updates

So much work still needs to be done to prep before November 1. However, the biggest new decision I've made in the last few days was to switch my project. On October 25, I finished my manuscript, Bond of Darkness, and had planned to switch tracks for the month. I felt as if I needed to write something new. So I've been brewing the thought on a companion novel for a while and saw that as my solution.

Since then, I felt I was going to be sentencing myself to certain failure come the end of the month. I then made the bold decision to make my new project the second manuscript of the series, The Shattered Darkness. This way, I felt I was getting something doubly as productive complete, or attempting to, at least. I have to now pound out a new chapter outline for the project/manuscript (or essentially re-write what I had put on paper), and guide myself into the new story for the month.

Here is the cover art I slapped together with Photoshop.





HORRAH! 


HIGH FIVE o/ \o


(Thanks for teaching me this emoticon, Brenda.)

In other news, with the finishing of Bond of Darkness, I also slapped together an epilogue which was never in the original planning. Unlike prologues (which have that nasty cursed tendency to info. dump all over my face), the epilogue is a satisfactory way to bring additional ends of any story to a cliffhanger or close. In my case, I created a secondary protagonist who was featured five times through the manuscript. The epilogue is my way of cliffhanging her story. No one quite knows what any of this means, but I'm posting it just for fun. Reading for leisure. Double Horrah!

* * *

Epilogue — The Pearls of Mithrus

Howls of nocturnal creatures sang over the walls of Exaltus. Clouds over the northern plain stirred unsavorily as they prepared to deluge. The swift, undeviating rain came and thrashed the bridges in the city. Lush weeds and ancient tree roots dug up from the earth and spread across the ground.

Eris sat alone inside the Registrar. Candle light flickered dimly and she pulled roll after roll of parchment aside. Her research of the last two days amounted to untidy piles that loosely hung off the tables, threatening to tumble into an incomprehensible mess. 

“May I remove these for you, dear?” The keeper arrived at the table side and hefted her collection into his arms. He leaned over her, staring but she did not offer him a look. “You need more light, darling. You’ll ruin your beautiful eyes.”

“Please, no,” she said at last, “but you can put those out.” She pointed to a thick root tangling across the ceiling. A cobwebbed fixture bearing three lit candles hung above her, while two additional candles sat before the collection of parchment. “I need less light.”

“Why ever would you need to read in less light?”

“I’m not asking for an interrogation,” she said, avoiding the niceties the keeper had expected. “You can re-file those if you’d like, but less light.”

“As you wish, dear.” The keeper pulled a snuffer from under a second, more organized pile, and put out the three wicks. He slipped into an aisle, mumbling.

Smoke wafted to her nose and she leaned closer to the roll spread in front of her. She lifted the candles and placed them carefully on top of the parchment. A slow drip of wax plopped from stick. She cupped her hands around each small tongue to dull the light further and whispered two words before snatching the flames entirely. She slapped her hands onto the roll and a primrose shade spread from her palms.

Eris slid her hands over the roll, the primrose outlining into the words with additional ink-like strokes. The pale lines darkened to true ink form, new words arranging themselves.

It read: And He Who Watches holds above all those uniformity to which there is no greater choice. She skimmed along the passages, having read the words of the Remembrance Scriptures many times over, save for the anything after verse forty-seven. In a damaged portion, those few passages had been lost. At an earlier time, when she had just been memorizing the verses, she thought nothing of it. After Valence had left their city, something about the missing portions arose in her mind. 

The hearts of the devil takes disparate designs, for designs of those wretched in essence and soul will be lost without reclamation. Son Un of the First Generation, black eyes of coal, loosed the greater devil of creation into the world, but tarried in his credence of command over it.

Her incantation colored the lost words, slowly pulling age and destruction from the parchment. The missing passages glowed and Eris read on. 

Heretofore, the First Generation compelled no protection, for their artistry of the gods was ample safeguard of their practices. Bound of nameless magics, born of death shamans and warlocks cloaked away, oppressed for their fraught trials of the dark, Son Un witnessed a capacity in the greater devil that could bring him saving. Of a King’s Blade, told they to Un, of banished brother god’s blood, told they, and of crystal fury to bind all power, told they.

 

She slid away from the table, darkness falling over her table as the primrose words vanished to blank parchment. What he was seeking eluded her to this point, and did still, but one fact remained. He had taken her pearls, her dearest keepsake. She wanted them back, whether such power of this Seentirulian Son Un was hers to keep or not. 

Until NaNoWriMo!

Peace and Writing Love,

JWP

P.S. Buddy me: sirfrodo13