"Good as Gold", Chapter 19

Click here to get to chapter 18) In which Mirii finally meets Sei again, and… well, is even more confused about what to think about this whole mess. Velia and Pau sneak about in the Lanali city, getting so close to the terrorists that Yannis would really not be happy if he knew about it! and Brennan finds out exactly what his captors have in store for him.

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"Good as Gold", Chapter 18

(Click here to get to chapter 18) In which Mirii meets Yannis’ contact in the foreign lab (and gets even more confused), Brennan moves out to the hospital, Biohazard makes a surprising discovery of his own, and Asenka crosses swords with the sinister doctor Hueil.

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"Good as Gold", chapter 17

(Click here to get to chapter 15) In which the twins discuss their limited progress, Eri gets a message, and Asenka starts to have second thoughts about what they’re doing.

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"Good as Gold", chapter 16

(Click here to get to chapter 15) In which Mirii visits the market with Yannis (who - as always - has an ulterior motive for the visit), and Sei finally begins to find out what his abductor is up to.

Posted words: 57,361 out of 100,000

"Good as Gold", chapter 15

I'm being a little bit of a NaNoRebel, this year! I felt like trying to finally get "Good as Gold" finished - in draft form, if nothing else - so may I present the first new material of NanoWriMo 2012:

(Click here to get to chapter 15 on Dreamwidth or Livejournal; choose which platform you prefer. ) In which a little deception is revealed, more trickery is planned, and Mirii considers her options...

Posted words: 50,445 out of 100,000

If you'd like to catch up, the story so far is posted on Dreamwidth and Livejournal.

Memento Mori - first draft complete!

This post is slightly belated (about a week); I never got as far as posting it, because I ran out of title icons for the individual chapters.

As with the previous half of the first draft, "chapters" 19-33 are now posted as a PDF on my website, and can be accessed by clicking the picture at the right. (Again, it's just over 2Mb, and about 80k words.) If you just want to read the last few chapters, they are here: Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33 (Epilogue)

Thus, the first draft of Memento Mori is at last finished!

I now need to think about getting to work on editing it, so I can publish it, although I may try and get "Good as Gold" finished first. (That, I think, will be my project this November.) It makes more sense to publish that and "Thunder Daughter" first, seeing as they explain a little about certain aspects of Memento Mori (notably, the feared "blood fevers").

I’ve always considered doing illustrated “special editions” of things, but as the photograph below shows, that may end up being prohibitively expensive. (I checked on Lulu’s price calculator, the base cost of a 300-page perfect bound full colour book would be in the region of £42. I’m not sure many people would be willing to fork over that much.)

The delay in making this post did allow me to get this item ready to go into it, however. As soon as the first draft was finished – and that is pretty much literally, as soon as the last word was typed I was formatting it to send off – I got the first draft printed up as a book (via “Lulu”, a print-on-demand service). It took about a week to arrive. I purchased two copies – one for me, to put in my bookcase as a “reward” for finishing it, and one to loan out to people at work; the loan copy is already out in the wild.

Edit: I'm not sure why it's so difficult to get things to post with the correct formatting, on here.

Memento Mori, Chapter 30

I am getting SO CLOSE to finishing this, I can almost SMELL it.

(Click here for chapter 30) In which Blink manages the incredible, and actually gets into the Institute. OMG. And finds a little surprise inside.

Just fyi, "Hoo-dees" is the colloquial name for hooting deer. I've only just started to think about their names and things; I need to do a bit of worldbuilding before I edit the thing up. I don't really want to have to use the word "deer", for instance, it was a stop-gap so I didn't get too stuck. XD

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Memento Mori, chapter 29

SEE, SEE? I told you I'd get it done in less than a month! *PROUD*

Blink is getting quite excited about the event coming up just around the corner. I'm getting quite excited too as I'm getting close to the finish, WOO.

(Click here for chapter 29) In which Blink makes an unbelievable discovery about her little hosts, and Rae wonders if they should take drastic steps to resolve "the Tevak problem".

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Memento Mori, Chapter 28

So much for “determined to get the next chapter finished faster than the last” – I seem to have been even slower, this time. (It’s been about 40 days since I last posted! What.)

Again, “I am determined etc”, so I’m going to set myself a deadline, this time; next chapter by the 27th. That gives me a week to finally tame the creeping junkheap once and for all, and then a week to do the writing. If I can keep to the “50,000 in 30 days”, I’m sure I can write 6000 in a week.

Back to business. I actually posted the meat of the chapter before work, but ran out of time to link to it from my other journals, so here we go. Better late than never!

(Click here for chapter 28) In which Tevak gives the Library an ultimatum – find Blink, or he’ll burn the place down – and certain little shocking revelations are made. Up in the danata colony, Blink struggles to work out where she’s meant to go from here – and scared that she’ll end up bringing the monster to their door.

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Memento Mori, Chapter 27

I am determined to get the next chapter done quicker than the last. *srs face* I can’t keep going with the whole “one chapter every month” pace, I’ve kinda ground 90% to a halt here. Otherwise I’ll never get the first draft finished by August. I want to get the darn thing edited and finished asap.

(Click here to get to chapter 27) In which the Library discuss Sarmis’ betrayal, and Blink struggles to see whether there’ll ever be a way out of this whole mess....

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Edit: Whoops! Can't count

Memento Mori, Chapter 26

Another chapter in less than 6 weeks! It's a miracle.

I had wanted to get this chapter finished and uploaded on the 1st May, because it would have been the story’s “6-month birthday”, but I had a little writer's block. Happy Belated Birthday, anyway, MM? (Actually I’m not particularly happy because it means I still haven’t finished it, and I can’t edit what I haven’t finished. And I am determined to have something finished enough to self-publish by the end of 2012. Cue, end of the world?)

(Click here to get to chapter 26) In which Sarmis manages to blow his own cover, and Tevak discovers his prize is missing (and promptly also blows up).

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Memento Mori, Chapter 25

(Click here to get to chapter 25) In which Blink finally makes good her escape – but where are the danata taking her? Has she maybe just climbed out of the frying pan, and got straight into the fire?

I'm getting close to the end, now, I can feel it. *wiggles* Soon I'll be able to get down to editing it.

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Memento Mori - Chapters 21-24

I came along to post chapter 24, which I have been taking an unfeasibly long time to write, and realised I'd managed to NOT post chapters 21-23. (I would say, I think it was probably because my laptop with the little oblong titles had gone to be repaired, but that's a bad excuse.)

Now I have them, though, let's get on with the show!

Click here to get to chapter 21 In which Rae is bitten by a werewolf (well, a "were-something", anyway) and Blink's escape attempt comes to another abrupt and rather painful end. (Girl, you're going to be covered in bruises if you keep on testing Tevak's patience like this... Although at least you showed Zinovy why he shouldn't touch you!)

Click here to get to chapter 22 In which Blink gets a much-needed (but not much-wanted) drink, and perhaps a new friend? Rae recovers enough to start making plans that Odati would definitely disagree with, and Whitesides pays a visit (or does he?).

Click here to get to chapter 23 In which Halli and Rae unwisely set out into enemy territory, but maybe make a new ally in the process, and Tevak... tries to show his softer side, but Blink isn't buying it. She's going to have to make a decision soon, though, because she's already hallucinating, and she can't stay in the basement forever...

Click here to get to chapter 24 In which Halli spots someone sneaking somewhere he shouldn't be (alliteration intentional), Tevak lays down an ultimatum - as does Odati - and three of the smallest sapient creatures in the known universe hold out a very BIG hand in a gesture of kindness.

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Memento Mori, chapter 20

Click here to get to chapter 20 In which Halli and Rae discuss some of the more worrying things preying on their minds, and Blink learns a little more about her new home, and new hosts.

Another longish chapter. I decided to just... keep going until the point I'd decided on as a stop point, instead of divide it up.

Edit: Oops, got my colours wrong.

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Memento Mori - Part 1

A new year, a new post (at last!).

I know. I haven't posted here for a while. I should confess, I haven't really had much TO post, as I'd been busy getting ready for NaNoWriMo in November, and battling a zombie desktop PC (...and then, of course, WRITING said NaNo.)

I planned on linking to each chapter of MM I wrote as I uploaded it, but the icons were on the dead PC, and by the time I got up to chapter 15 and still hadn't linked to any individual one, I thought it was about time to stop planning and get to doing. Thus, "chapters" 1-18 are now posted as a PDF on my website, and can be accessed by clicking the picture at the right. (It's just over 2Mb, and about 80k words. Should download fairly quickly.)

I am still going to be uploading the individual chapters to the Memento Mori LJ as I go, if anyone is interested in following along from there. Comments/critique/useful nitpickery welcome. :)

Lastly, I have an account on Dreamwidth now. I hope it'll be a fraction more reliable than LJ.

Artpost

Bees! This is "Busy Bee", weilding a hammer, and "Bee-autiful", with a flower. D'aww. They're sort of a "cute"-reworking of my Danata, just for the sake of being cute. ^^

This of course is Mirii. I'm not 100% satisfied with the picture - it's another of my book cover attempts. You'd think finishing editing the thing would be a better idea, right?

I need to strip the thing down to its bones and rebuild it, essentially. Mirii's story was mostly fluff - weird for weird's sake? - with a lot of parts that didn't really seem to add a lot. I might use the "record cards" type technique, it might be easier to visualise where I'm taking it.

Alien-Mayan Creatures

"Mayan" beasties!

On the left is a zochi'coatl, or "lotus born". They look lizard-like but they're actually mammals, with scaly armour like a pangolin. The crest slowly unfurls over the course of the first part of the year. like a fern. The Qii consider them to be spiritually connected to plants, because of their looks - they're hard to spot and even harder to catch, but easily tamed if caught as a griz and hand-reared.

On the right is a nut-foot (I need to think of a Qii name for them). "Nut foot" refers to their little hoofs. They're a semi-intelligent semi-domestic species - capable of a small degree of abstract thought, but not very clever. The Qii use them for a variety of purposes - guarding, hunting, and eating, mostly (although great care has to be taken on the latter, because their skin is highly poisonous.)

They're contorted into odd shapes because I was trying to fit them into a circle, so I could get them printed as stickers. XD Plus, it goes with the whole central-American theme, I suppose? I'm working on a few more, so they'll probably crop up over the next few day.

Toccata and Fugue, chapter 17 (and 16!)

This SHOULD have been posted on the 6th, when I actually uploaded the chapter, but I forgot.

Alone in the abandoned corridors of the derelict Surkea Hospital, Blink finally works out that nothing she has yet come up against is what it seems...

Edit: In fact, I just noticed that I didn't post chapter 16 when I uploaded it, either. *slap wrist*

Danata - "beeople"

Early concept-y working stuff that I need to get on paper before I forget it. I'll probably change a lot, as I usually do, but eh. XD. Because bees are awesome.

The danata are one of the species I hope to feature in my Nanowrimo this year.

This is Duskwing; she's a danata worker naiad, which means she's an adolescent, sterile female danata, an alien species that evolved from an eusocial insect like a bee on the rim-world of Hesger. Yes, she stings (although in her case it's not lethal to her), and can make honey; woo, insect vomit.

Her anatomy is... eeenh, wonky. I'm not sure how it ended up like you're looking down on her, her head is mahoosive and her legs were a lot longer when I started. Somehow I only really noticed it once I'd inked it. ¬_¬ (Although in real life that wouldn't be difficult, she's barely a foot tall - to preserve the ability to fly.)

The top right image is closer to how she SHOULD look, with the exception of those widdly little wings, although I'm still not 100% decided on the whole legs-on-the-abdomen thing. I originally went for that with the idea of greater flexibility in the upper body, but I could probably achieve that just by adding some more joints to the thorax and it'd make the abdomen less awkward? Buuut then equally I suppose if she had that waspish petiole/waist, she'd be carrying a lot of weight (she's got all her gut in there) that would just stick out behind and and not really be supported very well. Hum.

The little "vents" on her sides are her spiracles; she has small, efficient lungs and a complex multi-hearted circulatory system of "haemolymph", which enables her to extract maximum oxygen out of the air, which she needs to fly. She also speaks through them; her language is a clicky, squeaky one.

Her crop and pharyngeal glands are in her upper body; her stomach and intestines in her abdomen. A "queen" (who I need to find a better word for) has a larger abdomen as she has her reproductive organs in there - Duskwing is non-reproductive so she's smaller. Drones also have a larger/broader abdomen.

She lives in a reasonably large colony of about 200 individuals (mostly workers of various castes, with one queen and a few drones) in the stinger forest on the coast; her colony overlooks the sea, so they used a lot of stone in its construction. Nearby colonies in the forest used more wood and reclaimed plastics. They are a computer-age society, although they didn't develop it themselves; most of their technology they bartered for. Their "mead" was a very popular (and expensive!) drink that they used to sell to offworld traders, but with the advent of Hah'zeepti haemorrhagic fever and Hesger's current quarantine they lost their primary sales route. They're not too bothered about it; they're pretty self-sufficient, and now they "recycle" materials that the warmbloods left behind when they all died.

They're a relatively stern species; not very emotional, very busy and logical. Their art and architecture tends towards highly geometric designs - yes, hexagons are a theme, and there's an egyptian-ish stylisation to a lot of it (the Egyptians were very maths-oriented in their art, it seemed to fit). Young danata don't really play - the only age at which they're not either working or in school is when they're very young nymphs, after their first (and only) true moult.

They hatch from eggs as small, white, soft-bodied versions of the adults; most are females, and depending on diet, they develop either into workers, or reproductives. (Workers do have all the right "equipment" to lay eggs, but its growth is stunted by lack of a particular hormone). Workers and drones get only small quantities of the "royal jelly"; queen nymphs are fed mostly on this substance, which contains a hormone that stimulates ovarian development. (Thus, if the queen dies and leaves no successor, a worker COULD conceivably lay eggs, but this is highly uncommon.)  The small white nymphs are soft bodied to allow for rapid growth - essentially, they are little more than eating machines, and an individual can double its body size in a month or so.

After moulting off their infant skins, the nymphs are about half their adult size; they are greyish in colour, fluffier than the adults, with small leathery winglets. This is the only time in their lives that they "play" (although it still doesn't much resemble mammalian "play" - it is very "learning-oriented" playing). Their exoskeletons are still soft, and it grows slowly over the next five or so years until they attain their adult size, at which point they are considered naiads. Naiads take a further couple of years to reach adulthood; they are adult size, but still greyish-yellow in colour, and weak fliers with small wings.

Worker naiads are intensely schooled in this period of transition, with the aim of selecting the best adult role in the colony for them - some become guards, nurses, teachers, foragers, etc. Reproductives (drones and queens) are also taught their adult roles, although there is less "determination" done for them.

*flop* OK I think I got the basics down. XD

I plan on drawing her again, but with less screwwy anatomy. Now I have the basics of how I want her to look down, it should be easier, I hope ¬_¬

Did I mention bees are awesome? Almost as awesome as butterflies. Yay bugs.

Sapere Galaxy

I was tired of not knowing where all my places were in relation to everywhere else, so I decided to map them out. (click to enlarge the image).

The pale green blob designates Coalition territory.
Vulpecula and Ondra are the two founding worlds; home to the Vuls and Ondrai respectively. Vulpecula is very earthlike, albeit more heavily forested, whereas Ondra has very large oceans and is quite marshy/swampy over a lot of its surface.

Cethys is a binary world, only one planet of which is occupied. The le'Trai and DuSkai (both colonising species) live here.

Xanu is the oceanic Xniki homeworld, and Zaaros, another temperate, earth-like planet, is home to the Zaar.

Tas-umskel is a recent addition (both "in world" and in my workings); I don't know a lot about the place yet. I've called it "dry and dusty" in one book, and the umskel 'speak' through touch as well as verbally, but that's about it.

Unseria, above and to the right, it a mysterious planet located considerably "above" the plane of the galaxy, and home to the unser. It's in the grip of an ice-age, and is mostly either ice-cap or taiga. The unser themselves are rumoured to be non-native.

Hah'zeept is a so-called "Rim World"; it is primarily desert, but colonists have done a fair amount of terraforming. For a far-flung world on the outer rim, it's a popular holiday resort.

Hesger is another Earth-like world, but has been ravaged by Hah'zeepti Haemorrhagic fever, and is under heavy quarantine. The pink circle designates the restricted area. It is also the planet of origin of the lepuuri and danata.

Tejiva and Telluvia are worlds owned by the Laima Salire; Tejiva is the laima homeworld, Telluvia is a "colony". Telluvia was originally inhabited by the ruta, however the laima accidentally brought a respiratory virus with them that killed a large proportion of the population. The majority of the remaining ruta are in slavery.

The pale blue blob is the Kiravai Imperium. Highly xenophobic, the kiravai are quite ruthless when it comes to keeping other "animals" (they do not consider other sentient creatures to be their equals, just animals) out of their territory. ia'Vai is their homeworld; ia'Maura and ia'Daavi are science colonies. (They have other colonies in this area - Sei lives on a colony-world - I just haven't decided on their names, or where they are.)