Spontaneous Inspiriation

"I was on a stone altar somewhere very dark. I’m not talking ‘bout no Sunday mass crap here, I mean bloodstained pagan altar. As in I was laid up for sacrifice. While I sat there, shivering, someone walked out towards me and stood on the ground by the altar. It was part of me, the part of me that thought I could take on the world. It was dangerous; it scared me. But I gotta’ say offhand, it looked way cooler than I thought any part of me could be. It was telling me I had to get up because I still had to fix the problem.
I was like, Shut up. You were stupid. You were wrong.
But it kept telling me to stand. You got up in the desert. You have to get up here. There’s no difference; it’s only harder this time.
That is stupid, stupid logic.
Is it? Look at you, the ‘strange little victim’. That what you’re gonna’ let Mr. Boogley-Eyes make you?
I’m just a kid, it’s not up to me.
“Damnit, you can’t see it is up to you!”
I turned my head towards him, taking it off the altar. “Hey, hey, I don’t swear! ‘cept maybe once to make fun of Mr. Clarebecker.”
“Neither do I, except to you.” It drew a sword and stabbed the altar, but the blade slid off. “You can’t accept this fate.”
Now it was my turn to make a comeback. “Oh, yeah, why not? How do you know this isn’t my punishment for all you did? Haven’t you ever heard of God’s punishment for crimes like ours in church?”
“And maybe it’s community service. You don’t know yet, and if you’re meant to die, I sorta’ figure you will anyhow. But I wanna’ go down better than this. Look, Jack, get over it for now. Here, right now, in this place, that you killed someone means nothing.” It laid it out flatter than three-day old soda.
“That’s kinda’ cruel. You know it still hurts me, too.”
“Not much else I could say. After all, that’s the one thing you won’t run from facing right now.” It spun in a frustrated circle. “Look at you! That’s not even you talking; you have enough compassion to see reason, I know it, even though you’ve shut me out recently. That’s not you talking, it’s fear!”
Something laughed evilly through my mouth; not the voice from before, something else altogether. A dark misty shape came and possessed me; even though it didn’t hurt. And my mouth spoke back to the only free part of me, still standing by the altar. “Yes, thorn in my side, it is Fear. And the decision has already been made for you. We will stay right where we are, and this mind, this heart, will be fed to Fear.”
“NO.” The strength of his voice shocked us both; my body recoiled a little."

Chapter 21 is done, but this next one will be a logner chapter. This passage above just appeared when I was writing today. There were absolutely no plans for this scene in my original outline, not even any plans for it when I wrote right through this part of the book, drafting all the paragraphs before and after it. But when I went to type it up, I just came up with this. And boy do I like it. These are always good days. I'm not sure how much of this I'll keep, or what I'll change, but I think this scene in general will certainly be in the final copy.

Chapter 20 Complete

"I reached out a hand. “C’mon here, dude! We’re friends, right? I help you, you help me.” It started getting’ really smoky up there, an’ I coughed so hard I couldn’t hardly talk. I always wondered what breathin’ in that fire smoke’d be like, but hey, I wasn’t gonna’ last much longer up here. And it just stared at me with those empty robot eyes.
Rose grabbed onto Alpha’s leg, crying and everything. “Please,” she sobbed, “please, Mr. Robot, save Jack! We need you.” She knew I was passin’ out, didn’t she? The fire was running down the ceiling, too. Man, I was baking!
Alpha glanced a little at this new disturbance. It’s eyes flashed as it recorded the lab all collapsing on us."

It's been a little while since I've updated this, but a lot has been done since then. I'm essentially in the climax chapters. Tantalizingly close to finishing drafting before the school year starts, but I think I'll finish it in the first month of high school this year.

Chapter 14, 15

"Staying cautiously in his spot, Bask soon gave in to trying to listen in on the stories exchanged around the fire. It didn’t work; he was too far away. Why did he care so much about the words being said over there? He knew they couldn’t be important; even from the tone he could tell that. But something pulled him, there was something critically important being discussed, he felt, something he couldn’t put his finger on, like the insects hiding in the shadows over here."

Chapters 14 and 15 finished. Not much to say, except summer is unfortunately soon over. I wish I had more time, but I'm going to have to work at the slow school-year pace to finish this book.

200 pages

" Although, I was having a significant degree of trouble justifying this one. It was just that the heavily armed walker in front of me didn’t look like a tool for helping mankind. Just think of it as a scientific instrument, is what I told myself, eventually resolving the problem. This device will help you learn incredible things.
And that was that."

Over halfway there, while it looks like I won't finish drafting this summer. A pity. Lots of littler chapters recently, different things going on at once, time for some character exposition, development, bonding. Good stuff.

13 Chapters

"Great. I leaned my head against the rock I was tied to and let the heat fry me. If I’d been those Fire villagers, I’d a’been trying anything to appease that mountain spirit, too. I could fight a dozen more Rock Kami and still not get enough experience points to be able to beat that thing. “Gimme’ a break!” I yelled. “Just, c’mon! This is what I get for killing one monster?” I thought about Bask. He always was right.
Rose was thrashing around trying to break the ropes. “I hate you, Bask!” she cried. “I hate you I hate you I hate you Ro-yaru!” A few folks stared at us. If they were payin’ any attention to what we were saying at this point, they didn’t care."

Almost 200 pages. It's nice things are starting to get more serious for Jack; I've had some great ideas for things that will catch up with him later and really make it tough. But at that point in the story the reader'll be invested, so he can be, heck, suicidally miserable without causing too much trouble. Certainly a transformative experience. Must be strong for a 12-year old...

Chapter 9 (10)

"Was morning. Sun still rise. Yay-yay looked for anybody, scary, friendly, big, small. Nobody! So she slip out of the rope tied on her and look over edges of metal table. Hoped men wouldn’t be mad she leave ropes. Wanted her to stay. Ktchue-ktchue-ktchue!"

""...And I don’t want anyone taking revenge for me. I’m a Ranger!”
Bask sneered. “This has nothing to do with you. I’ll take revenge for me, and when I feel like it.”
“You don’t care abut being a Ranger!”
“Keeping the peace? No. That’s an empty phrase for featherheaded fools.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You? Really? I wouldn’t have thought it.”
A sorta’ side door popped open on that helicopter, and five guys with pretty mean looking guns jumped out onto the plaza. Just me, or was it getting a little crowded up here?
They marched towards us all menacingly; Bask leveled a business end of his staff at ‘em. “Come and get it, dogs.”

I've finished the equivalent of chapter 10 just now. The big city story is finally over; now I move people into the wilderness for a good long time.

100 Pages

"What was this? Checkered tablecloth? A hundred wine bottles? No dancing? Oh, no; I’d been trapped in an old people party!
The worst part is, I couldn’t even leave. I was the guest of honor, remember? That commando tore up his uniform for me, so I might even have to drink some of his rotten grape juice just to be polite."

I can hardly beleive I've written a hundred pages so far; I must have written more already this summer than all of last year, or almost. It's getting pretty good; I'm into chapter 8, but I'm already seeing a couple things I'll have to go back and fix. For now, I just keep talking, keep telling the story.