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I probably won't be able to actually start this till Saturday but my prompt is:

17) Make up an entirely new world, including, species, religion, economy, and culture. The plot is up to you.

I'll be using the aliens from the story I wrote for Sent's fictional sport prompt thread (that none of you bothered to read or participate in) and the player will get a brief glimpse of their society during three epochs of their history.

Update:

Haven't started writing yet but I spaced out during the entirety of work today and plotted it all to my satisfaction.

I guess I'm starting this tonight, but I already foresee a real difficulty in describing things in a world where humans and Earth things don't exist as a point of reference.

Word count so far: 0

Might get to it today, might have to be later this week. nbd, still on schedule for its allotted two weekends.

Updated word count: Still zero.

But I made it to a computer finally so yeeeaah I'll get right on that.

:O Happy writing ^_^

Thank you for taking pity upon my thread.

Pity AND progress! Does it get any better than that? ^v^

My sight must be getting worse, all the posts that I see in this thread are from 8 days ago or older. Is that because you were so busy writing you didn't have the time to post, Mizal? :)

No need for concern. I may start it tomorrow.

I suggest tomorrow's yesterday may be a better day to start writing. :)

Nah I'm sleepy and everything hurts.

Aww. *gives mizal comforter*

Thanks lol been a fun couple days with an ear infection, intense lady problems and almost no sleep this week. The other day my aunt was dying in the hospital again (she's better now, again) but things are looking good now to buckle down and try to crank some words out tonight and over the weekend.

At this rate I might beat you. XD. (If you don't submit anything.)

Sounds like a pretty crappy week then.  Glad you made it through (damn those lady problems!).  Good luck with the story!

Excellent news everyone! I've written my first paragraph.

Yay! :D *prepares some power food*

You're sounding like Ford. That's definitely not a good thing.

Second paragraph! ^_^

We do mean something like a 900 word unindented paragraph, right? D:

I hope everyone loves fantasy nouns.

I've on my second page! There will be a choice soon. Impressive progress, I'm excited!

Ayy ^_^ Keep on writing, keep on writing...

Figured I'd post my first page, since that's a thing people do:


Scrape. Scrape. Thud thud thud. Scraaaaape.

A trickle of dirt from the earthen ceiling falls onto your upturned face and you look away, blinking rapidly and scrubbing at your eyes. Your family are all around you here in the crowded den. Your muana and puathi keep all four little ones gathered in their laps; you can hear Muana murmuring to them, snatches of sing-song rhymes and lullabies you remember from your own time in the nest.

Namir crouches just to your right, peering upward in intent thought while his claws scratch absently at the fuzzy patches of fur just recently grown in at his knees. He turns to you and says in a low whisper, “Selko, you reckon the two of us might make the sprint to the powder caves?”

You and Namir are nestmates, the only ones left of the previous passel. The others vanished into the dusty expanse of the desert; led by the Walking Call to seek out the resting place of the sun and perhaps begin a family of their own somewhere far away.

Or fallen prey to something like the animal on the roof. Again you gaze upward, and like the others your eyes rove restlessly across the domed ceiling for signs of imminent collapse. Of course, as your puathi has already protested several times, the wyrkin a’ro aren’t even supposed to be this far south outside of their seven year migration. And even then, for one to fly this deeply into the desert is unheard of.

Thinking it over, you give a light shrug. “Maybe. If it comes to that. They’re persistent though, that’s the thing. And this one already has our scent.” You’ve seen the diminutive cousins of the wyrkin, the wynki, dig rodents out of their burrows with patient persistence and crush their skulls with powerful serrated beaks.

If the earthen dome of your home is breached, there is the tiny root cellar to retreat to, but there isn’t nearly enough room for everyone and it goes without saying it will be your muana and the little ones that take shelter there. If even that is enough to save them. The rest of you will be on your own.

More scuffling and scraping from above. The back of your neck aches from staring upwards for so long.

Looking around at your family in the dim half-light, you see your muana clutching your two sisters in a protective maternal grasp. It wasn’t too many years ago that you and Namir were young enough to be held like that. All your nestmates had been males, like you. For the latest passel to include a daughter was a cause for celebration; two was considered a divine blessing from Apah’ro himself. The girls, Aelka and Alnua, are so young still that their solemn eyes are still blue, their black claws still tiny and shiny and rounded. They stare about at the family and scrunch their noses at you, seemingly unaware of what the fuss is all about. Prior to the arrival of the wyrkin a’ro, Muana had been sitting with them beneath the front bower, combing fragrant oil into their hair until the locks hung in shining black waves, framing noses and cheeks with their intricate swirling markings still as pink and delicate as the embroidery on her shawl.

The boys had been out playing in the sand, wrestling each other for a toy in their slow, babyish way. You grimace at the thought of how exposed they’d been when that keen-eyed shadow had come gliding in on the evening sky.

The newly patched and stuffed little nelgan plowbeast with a tiny basket to pull in place of a cart had been a favorite of you and Namir’s. It now lay discarded where it had been dropped when you’d grabbed the two squalling little ones and dragged them inside. Hopefully the stuffed toy will be the only casualty here tonight, but as you look around the room you get a sudden terrible flash of the dome hut in crumbled ruins and familiar forms with mangled faces disappearing one after another down the maw of the wyrkin a’ro, blood and clumps of gore spattering the glossy carapace of its segmented throat.

Red anger blazes up in you at the thought of this stupid, senseless beast and all it intends. Driven by animal greed to devour those who were better and kinder than it could ever be, who could feel and know the beauty of the world in ways it could never comprehend.

Puathi abruptly sets the boys aside, silencing their protests with light swats. “Get down to the root cellar,” he tells your muana. It takes you a second to notice what he’s already seen; a long crack snaking its way down the opposite side of the hut.

“What about you?”

“What I should have done before it came to this.” He limps toward the spear hanging from the wall.

Your puathi yet bears the scars from some misadventure of his earlier years. They’re not something he’s ever spoken of in detail in you or Namir’s hearing. You only know that he’s quite a bit older than your muani, and had another family before, which he lost. Although he never speaks of that either. In you and your brother’s life, his primary role has been as a source of authority and moderate terror. He seems to feel the fact that you and Namir have never yet gone off on your own is proof you need more toughening up, and takes it upon himself to personally see to that.

However there are certain tasks his bad leg doesn’t allow. Going on and spearing a wyrkin a’ro like a hero of legend is almost certainly one of them. You suspect he intends more to sacrifice himself distracting and perhaps satiating the beast more than anything.


>Go out in his place.
>Do nothing.

A pretty good start. I’m excited to read it. I’ve got a feeling that if a lot of people manage to finish their stories, then this site will have a lot of good additions.

Well I was supposed to publish today but I didn't so I'm writing on borrowed time now.

Cracked open the top secret emergency 'condense characters and cut the plot in half' blueprints this afternoon and I guess that's what I'm going with now even if it means ripping out some stuff I already wrote for the middle section.

New publishing date...Thursday? It pretty much has to be Thursday regardless of whether it's finished or not.

I'm considering publishing in the last five or so days.

As soon as I get home I'm combining characters and plot points in the textual equivalent of some kind of fucked up transporter accident and it's going to be rushed and I hate it. :(

Really looking forward to writing without deadlines of any kind next year, think this may be the last contest I do for a bit and I definitely won't be taking out any more 1000 point bets...

This means you are learning.  Or something.  Maybe just being less prideful? :)  Or less prone to trying to prove things to people anyhow.  Not really sure. :)

Well, there are good stories, and then there's good enough for CYS.

Exemption from SHAME secured. Moving on.

At least you're aiming high.

Congrats on finishing another one! You're on a roll and I hope you can keep it going after you take a very brief (but well, deserved) break!

I've been back at writing again the last few days actually, or at least attempting to. Pretty much just immediately open Scrivener when I get home by reflex now and it turns out there's not a lot else to do with my computer time.

Holding off still on the previously planned Scrooge McDuck dive into the bottomless well of my Steam backlog. For now...

Got 6000 words ready to add to this and counting, just as soon as the judging is finished.

Proper ending for the Caas paths done and I've started working on Telaan.