Dear Readers,
I don't know how many of you know this, but there is something that happens every November called NaNoWriMo. To those of you who look at that and think Nanskj;wij;?, this stands for "National November Writing Month." Basically, it's one big party of writers and dreamers scrambling to buy new notebooks and pour a sloppy and wonderful first draft of a novel, with the most common goal being to write 50,000 words in the thirty days of November.
I have always wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo, but each time November rolls around I find myself writing papers, or grading papers, or getting ready for finals, or applying for graduate school, or attending performances, or hosting Thanksgiving parties, or cleaning up after Halloween parties, or setting up Christmas decorations, or...you get the idea. By the time I get my pretty new notebook and shiny new mechanical pencil, Christmas songs are playing 24/7 and I'm wondering how that white-bearded man in a fluffy red suit appeared in the middle of my living room without my noticing him.
Due to my obvious inability to set aside time to write in November, I want to dedicate July as JuPerWriMo (*cough* that stands for "July Personal Writing Month," if you couldn't tell *cough*). I wanted to dedicate June, but...I sort of forgot. Now, I know that I left a bit of a cliffhanger at the end of Shadow's Light, but I want to use this as a non-Defenders of Light exercise (mainly to prove to myself that I CAN write 50,000 words in a month without sacrificing the quality of my Defenders of Light series). There are a few stand-alone story ideas that have been rattling around in my head, and I want to give you, dear readers, the opportunity to vote for which one I will write (Of course, if none of you vote, then I'll have to go eenie meenie miney mo, and I always seem to cheat at that). I will post the story on my blog, much as I have done with The Scroll (though I may post it up in segments after JuPerWriMo, if my creative juices seem to do better on a notepad than a keyboard).
With that, I give you the four choices of JuPerWriMo:
The Game Master:
This is actually based off a dream I had one night when I'd obviously been watching too much something (I'm not sure what, as all I remember after I awoke was "wow, I am definitely glad that wasn't real").
"The near future. Everything was normal until the night the plane burned as it fell out of the sky. Happy Vale, Utah, woke to find itself surrounded by a dome of light cutting it off from the rest of the world. But that wasn't the worst of it. As we waited anxiously for something to happen, mechanical creatures tore up through the ground and attacked, slaughtering us. Then they simply stopped. A voice echoed through the air: "I am the Game Master. Welcome to my game. The rules are simple: survive. There will be five winners, five survivors. I am watching."
"We have food for now. Some of us have weapons. Most of us are religious, but what will happen when our food runs out? And what if those monsters come back? Is there any way to beat the Game Master at his own game?"
I know, I know, this sounds a bit like The Hunger Games mixed with Stephen King's Under the Dome. But in my defense, I haven't read Under the Dome (I just know it's about a small community that gets trapped under a dome of some sort...really, I haven't even read the back cover of the book), and I've only listened to the first Hunger Games on audio book. All I know was that my dream was very long, very detailed, and very creepy. I'd love to write this and see how this all works out, placed in a setting with a religious community and mechanical monsters popping up every so often, waiting to see if the darker side of human nature wins out.
The Stone King:
This one is also based off a dream I had. (I have some pretty crazy dreams sometimes) In it, I was actually a boy...I think. Or I was watching the boy...it was all a little muddled. It definitely wasn't as detailed as my Game Master dream. I've had to build this story basically from scratch.
"The world is a dark wonderland filled with stars, with Cinder Dogs made of living flame are kept as pets and luminescent birds flitting through glowing trees. But once there was sunlight, in the days of the Stone King. And now the world is growing cold. Death is creeping through the land, brought by the servants of those only known as the Twin Rulers: the Shadow and the Flame. When these servants attack the home village of young Jethro, his father saves him at the expense of his own life, leaving him with the task of finding the Stone King and returning the world to its former glory.
"Jethro travels through the starlit land, finding a companion in Witness--the last of the Mist Maidens. Witness holds the memories of her people in her young soul, as they are born of the collection of the woes of the women of the world, and the Mist Maidens remember the days of the Stone King. Witness helps Jethro, but even the aid of the Stone King and his control over the Will and the Word may not be enough to banish the Shadow and the Flame."
So, how much of this was in my dream? Basically an image of the boy standing before a talking statue and asking for help in returning the land to light. So...yeah...I've had to make everything else up.
Preparing for Glory:
This one was not based off a dream, but an idea. What if there is life on other planets, intelligent life, but we are made in the image of God and are God's children? What about those other sentient beings? What if an angel came to Earth and spent her whole life wondering how she fit into God's plan? I actually came up with this idea several years ago, back when I first started to notice how many angel and demon books were starting to come out. This one is a bit of a sci-fi/fantasy mix, and I really hope it works when I get around to writing it.
"One chilly night, a drunken man stumbled across a mother cradling her child. They both looked somewhat human, except for their wings and long, feathery tails. The mother forced her child on the man and died. The man, desiring nothing except more alcohol, sold the child to a nearby circus.
"A few days later, an elderly man saved the girl from the circus, buying her from them. He took her home to the mountains, named her Netanya--meaning "a gift from God"--and raised her in his tiny village. Ten years later, a new inhabited planet was discovered with beings that looked like Netanya. Humans named them the Seraphim, for they looked like terrible winged angels. Soon after the discovery of the Seraphim's planet, the planet was deemed off-limits to contact, trade, and diplomacy. The Seraphim were violent, fighting among themselves, declaring themselves the rulers of the humans who discovered them, demanding that the humans worship them. But the Seraphim were planet-bound, as they didn't even have the technology to harness electricity. On Earth, Netanya and her adoptive father learned of the Seraphim and wondered if she was one of them. Yet how could she have been discovered on Earth when her home planet wouldn't be discovered for years?
"Netanya's father believed that the Seraphim were God's servants, and that they had gone astray. He believed that she had been sent by God so that she could be prepared to return to them and lead them back into God's grace. Netanya didn't know what to believe. She had read the Bible, and she knew that humans were the children of God--so what did that make her?
"Either way, Netanya felt she had to leave--for her father's sake. If she was discovered, he would be arrested for illegally transporting and harboring a Seraphim. So now Netanya must sneak back to the Seraphim's home planet and face whatever destiny is in store for her. And her new allies, Phoebe and Seth, are the only ones crazy enough to take her."
Some of the bits of this story are really well planned out. Some I'm just hoping will fit. And while it's set in the future in a sci-fi sort of setting, I'm betting it's more of a soft sci-fi when sci-fi is used and strong in the fantasy department.
Freaks R Us Detective Agency:
Heheh. I'm kind of cheating on this one. It's not a stand-alone story. If I wrote this, I'd write the first book in a kid's series--maybe the first two if the first one ended up being really short. This is also based off a dream (Again?? What's with my craziness?), two dreams, to be honest. In the first dream, I could fly by manipulating air and ended up at this hotel for rich people battling off burglars with machine guns. In the second dream, I could fly (again), but this time I did it by controlling flames--sort of like a female Human Torch (except I didn't catch fire, so maybe it's more like a female armor-less Iron Man). In the second dream I was having a grand time flying, catching things on fire, and--oh yeah--flying. Superman kept flying behind me, trying to convince me to stop destroying things, but I was having too much fun to listen to him.
So the concept behind Freaks R Us Detective Agency is this: Girl (I haven't found the perfect name for her yet) wants to be a detective. She's always wanted to be a detective. She's devoured all the Sherlock Holmes books, she was a devout Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown fanatic when she was little, and she enjoys watching Monk and Perry Mason. She can also fly by controlling air. Her family knows about the detective bit, but her flying abilities are her own little secret.
Girl's father works part-time as a bodyguard during charity functions, and one time he takes Girl with him on his assignment. It's at this retreat up in the mountains, an area that Girl has always wanted to explore, and since he has no reason to believe there will be any problems he takes her with him. While dad is off doing bodyguard stuff, Girl goes exploring.
Meanwhile, Rich Boy (again, I haven't found the perfect name yet) is stuck at this boring retreat with his dad. In a fit of rebellion, he decides to go off hiking without telling anyone where he is going. On the trail at the top of a cliff, Rich Boy sees Girl standing on the edge with her eyes closed. Then she steps off the edge and falls out of sight. Panicked, Rich Boy runs to the edge to see Girl floating comfortably (though his screams startle her and she loses control for a moment). After Rich Boy calms down, he and Girl become friends.
Of course, something goes wrong at the retreat, and it's up to Rich Boy and Flying Girl to save the day.
Book two would deal more with the actual creation of the detective agency and Flying Girl's first big case. This series would be more of stand-alone short novel serials with slight overarching themes.
So, what do you think? What should I write for JuPerWriMo? Vote below!
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