#Name of Castle

Prompt: What is your favorite word? Write a scene around that word.

I was going to talk about my extensive planning this weekend and connect it to the word "therefore" since that is how we planned, x must happen, therefore y must happen first, and I'm not lying when I say therefore is a great word (it makes you sound intelligent and there are so many ways to stress it), but then I realized I could use a different word: harmony. A word invoking thoughts of peace, but also of music. Specifically all my happy memories as one of the Second Soprano Smoothie Sisters. As a bonus, I had actually already written this into my story this week. So what follows is a longer section of my writing this week because I am super proud of it.

But first a quick background. It takes place in the far future. They are on a quest to restore these temples across the star system. Spades is highly keyed into nature magic and is fiercely defending this place.

You will also notice a couple #'s in the text. I do this a lot for this I want to come back to since it is easily searchable. That being said, if you have any ideas for castle names leave them in the comments below!

Favourite writing from this week: 

   It was an unusual sight to be sure. Spinning columns of flame nearly seven feet high in a small range of warm colours surrounded the group. A deep blue flame was directly in front of them and seemed to be slightly taller than the others. Remarkably, the flames were not nearly as hot as they had assumed. Spades took one quick glance around them and decided she was not going to be intimidated.
   “What in the mustquaed do you think you are doing?” she demanded, marching right up to the blue one and stabbing her spoon in its direction.
   “Spades get away!” Nadir called frantically. “You are going to combust.”
   She paid him no mind. “You were charged with protecting this place. And look at it! No one takes care of it, there are holes in the roof, and now there are workers at this very moment setting explosives to decimate this temple. I had to activate the Doomsday protection. And where we you?”
   There was silence in the forest as Spades waited for an answer.
   “Spades,” Dr. Kear said hesitantly. “Those are just flames; I don’t think they can--”
   “We were watching.” It was a harmony of three voices that sounded in their minds. “We brought you here.” A major chord spread across three different octaves, it wasn’t hard to tell this was no mortal creature speaking. “We are but elementals, servants of the Great Mother. Our physical bodies died long ago. No mortal form has been strong enough to contain us.”
   “But you can move into any form?” Spades asked.
   “Yes. You would not survive though.”
   “I’m not thinking of myself.” She smiled and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small pouch. “These were given to me by the Goddess Kim. I believe they were meant for you.” She untied the string and flung the seeds out in front of her. As if time meant nothing, the seeds shot through early life stages before their eyes and transformed into strong birch trees.


   The elementals said nothing but one of the bright yellow flames zipped towards the closest tree and disappeared inside. The white bark faded to become the same bright yellow, but nothing else changed until it moved.
   The branches shivered and began waving about, testing their limits of motion. “It is stable.” A different chord, only in one octave, for this new speaker. “It will last.”
   The other flames now also merged into trees, creating a colourful and dynamic forest like none of them had seen before. Branches swayed and twisted, the trunks uprooted themselves and seemed to glide through the ground as if it were a liquid. The forest of flames began moving back towards the temple.
   “We thank you for the gift, Lady Spades of #name of castle.” The blue flame infused tree bent low and extended a thin branch towards her. It had a single vibrant cerulean leaf. “Take this leaf and use it to call my kin if you ever have need.”
   Spades plucked the leaf and carefully slipped it between two pages of a book in her bag. #does she even have a bag? I know Hannah and Ari do#
   The Seekers and Dr. Kear watched the leader move off to join his kin in chasing off the scientists and undoing the damage they had wrought.
   A round of yawns reminded them all that they had hardly slept since the morning and there was no reason for them to remain out here. Dr. Kear set off in the direction of her old home, hoping to see her parents, and the others begged Hannah to portal them back to the hotel as soon as they were alone. She rolled her eyes but was too tired to deny that a shortcut seemed best. She spread the paper on the forest floor, they all linked hands, and on the count of three they jumped.

Magical Security System

Prompt: There is a door. It is closed.

Did not leave my notebook behind this week! Actually, I did, but I did all my in-class writing on my phone so that it would be saved on google docs so it wasn't even an issue to begin with. So I will be posting my next chapter of a fanfic this Monday, even if it is a week late. I think there is only one more chapter to go and I'm kinda excited. Both to be able to mark it as complete and for some of the ideas I have for the last chapter.

This week's prompt lead to Merlin disguised as a woman in France during the Sun King's reign. The story had a perfect transition into it and I couldn't resit a magical palm reader as security to fit with the prompt.

Favourite writing from this week: 
   Merlin sighed. He had really forgotten how exhausting all this protocol was. But a spy is a spy and a spy tries their best not to stick out. That was the whole reason Merlin was acting as Maria. She squared her shoulders and strode down the hallway, heels clicking on the polished floors. It wasn’t too long before she reached her rooms. Thankfully this door was warded with magic so that only she could open it. No protocol nonsense here.
   Merlin pressed her hand against the door and, oh, it didn't open. Darn transfiguration charms. ‘Maria’s’ handprint is not the same as Merlin’s. A small trickle of her magic unlocked it and she made a note to change the key. But for now, she had reports to write and deliver back to England. Thankfully, Merlin had plenty of practice being a spy.

If you write in the same notebook, you won't forget it places

Prompt: A character writes a secret message somewhere

I wrote nearly a thousand words this week in my nano story. This prompt really helped get the characters moving into the forest. The woman they have to guide them used to play in the forest as a child and had marked a symbol on a tree to mark the secret entrance into the temple.

I also forgot my notebook at the office in which I started the next chapter of a story which I had wanted to post today. Makes it a bit difficult.

It was hard to decide on a favourite bit of writing, but I am going for the bit of foreshadowing I planted in a spur of the moment decision.

Favourite writing from this week: Kalath’ka walked over but discovered that a force field of some kind gently steered her away from the book. ... Spades followed reluctantly behind, her fingers stroking the spine of the book as she walked past.

Starting a blog

I have a science blog, I have a tumblr blog, and I have a youtube channel, but I never thought about doing a text based personal blog. It had never appealed to me as much. But at the end of last year, Kristina Horner, a youtuber I have been following for ages, made a video talking about wanting to write more, not just during NaNoWriMo. She started this Wordbound challenge and I think it is a good thing to take part in. Basically, she posts a prompt, and you respond within a week. So let's begin.

Prompt: What are your personal writing goals for 2017, and what does #wordbound means to you?

Writing goals:

1. Write every week. It doesn't have to be much, but getting something down on the page is a good habit to get into. 
2. Finish my NaNoWriMo novel. It's called Restoring Faith and I had a blast writing (and winning) with this story in November. But the tale is not yet fully told and this is one that I think could get published. 
3. Win NaNoWriMo 2017. I'm worried I will still be working on the previous one, but let's do this again. 
4. Publish a paper. This one is a little more career oriented, but it would be nice to have another published paper out by the end of the year. 

To me, #wordbound is a commitment to make room for writing all year round. Making it something you do every week. I've learned from doing a year of weekly youtube videos, that when you have to make something new each week, you are forced to be very creative. You have to push yourself to think outside the box and explore things you previously would have dismissed. Because now anything will do. You just need to write something. So #wordbound to me is about pushing the bounds of what I can do with my words.

So I encourage you to join us in this adventure. I will be posting some of the favourite things I write each week and sometimes a video as well. I look forward to next week.



"Real writers don't write. They write anyway. Nothing made writing easy today. I wrote anyway." - Patrick Ness