Connections (PFA's NaNo 2012)

[PFA]

HEY HEY YOU GUYS. It's almost NaNo time, and PFA's decided she's more than likely going to revive an old NT series she never finished!

Her Spirit's Eyes
Dark Friend
Weak-Minded
Connections

Yep, it's the old Indera series. You guys remember that, right? With my terrible twelve-year-old writing style? Yeah, good times. The rest of it has just been kind of bouncing around in my subconscious and I feel bad that I never finish it for all the fans I had, so. Here it is.

SPOILER: Click to show

It's been a year since Laura Songdream discovered that her young daughter Dina was a legendary being known as the Indera, apparently destined to overthrow the tyrannical crown of Vladimyr Village. Of course, having been a full year, that means that the evil Princess Rose has returned for her biannual inspections... and for revenge. The Songdreams must once again stop the princess' plans to kill Dina, with the help of a mysterious Ruki who knows more than he lets on.

...Aaannnddd that was the hardest summary to write ever. XD; Doesn't help that I came up with this plot when I was twelve, where all my plots just kind of flubbed together. I guess this means I've got some plotting to do! *plots*

[PFA]

Hey hey neglected thread of mine! I just posted an excerpt on the NaNo site, so you get to have it too! Yay!

SPOILER: Click to show

"How much longer will Bi-nuh be?" Laura whined, having long since gotten bored of the alphabet blocks. "I need to finish cweaning!"

"Laura, relax," Wanda said with a sigh, boredly tapping her eraser on her book as she considered the maths problem she was working on. "This is supposed to be your break. It's not time to think about cleaning."

"Buh I can'h help it," Laura told her, fidgeting nervously. "I need to cwean. Ih's almost time for—"

*knock knock!*

"I'll get it!" Wanda dropped her pencil on the ground and hefted herself to her feet. "Act natural."

Laura swallowed nervously, quickly going back to the alphabet blocks. She continued spelling out basic Neopet names, in hopes to not attract the attention of whoever was at the door. Acara. Lupe. Buzz. Whatever it took for whoever was at the door not to notice her...

Meanwhile, Wanda shuffled over to the door, opening it and lazily looking up to see who was there. But when she saw who it was, she immediately snapped to attention, eyes widening. "Oh no."

Laura felt a chill come over her when she heard those words. She quickly glanced over to see who it was, but that only made her feel worse. What she saw was a female Royal Aisha, wearing what looked to be a rather costly new dress, and a bulging purse draped over her shoulder—more likely than not, full of Neopoints. The Aisha looked down at Wanda, a bitter smirk crossing her face.

"Well hello there, Miss Wanda," she sneered. "Miss me?"

Wanda's brow furrowed in disgust. "...Rose."

It feels weird posting this when I know people are going to be reading the whole thing when it's done. Like, for real. This isn't one of those novels I talk about and squander away for no one to read, I'm actually going to publish this in the NT when I'm done. OH WELL, have teasers! Hoohah!

I also hope anyone reading this remembers what the Indera's power is? And shenanigans associated therewith? For those who don't, basically Dina is like this magical spirit thing that can switch bodies with people. Yeah. Thus why Laura is talking like a baby in this excerpt. :B

[PFA]

Random NaNo-related ramble: I uh have no idea what to do with the timeline in this story! So you see, the last time we saw all of these characters, Neopia was different. I mean like, purple-pets-having-orange-spots different. Which they haven't had since TRODS, which was... what, four years ago now? (Holy dang.) And once upon a time I was going to make reference to the fact that Zora, the purple Acara, didn't have orange spots on her cheeks anymore, but now that's so old a thing that I don't know if people remember it anymore. <_>

Furthermore, there are characters who I have yet to make reference to in this particular story, but there are characters who lived in Faerieland. Which I definitely referenced as still being in the sky in Dark Friend (whole sideplot of trying to figure out how to get back up to Faerieland, blahblah).

But yeah, only a year is supposed to have passed between HSE and Connections, so I'm not sure if I should pretend this story takes place in the past or if that would confuse newbies or something? I DUNNO. So far I've just been avoiding mentioning either thing, but I suspect I will have to at least address the Faerieland thing at some point. The orange spots I might just be able to retcon, since it appears I never actually mentioned it in anything except for the passing mention in an old unfinished version of Connections. Still not sure if I should crash Faerieland though. I feel like I should, but at the same time I dunno. <_>

(This is what happens when you take six years to finish your stories, PFA)

[Yoyti]

Keep the orange spots! It doesn't impact the plot (at least, not as far as I'm aware), and it's a nice bonus for people who remember them (actually, until you just said otherwise, I thought that they still did have the spots).

[PFA]

Nov 5, 2012 21:33:11 GMT -5 Yoyti said:

Keep the orange spots! It doesn't impact the plot (at least, not as far as I'm aware), and it's a nice bonus for people who remember them (actually, until you just said otherwise, I thought that they still did have the spots).

Well, considering the spots haven't been mentioned one way or the other to begin with (and I'm not sure how I would at this point without awkward-shoving it in), so it really doesn't matter. XD; Mostly I'm not sure whether I should treat Faerieland as still being uncrashed or not. Heck, I don't even know what NT rules are on that. Is there some kind of rule against writing Neopets in a way it no longer is, or am I just being paranoid about NT rules?

in other news, ugh so behind

why you do this to me, writer's block *shakefist*

[♥ Azzie]

I'm pretty sure you can keep it uncrashed. Stories can be set in the past, after all.

[PFA]

Nov 7, 2012 0:13:05 GMT -5 ♥ Azzie said:

I'm pretty sure you can keep it uncrashed. Stories can be set in the past, after all.

Well, it doesn't particularly matter to the plot one way or the other, it's just I'm guaranteed to need to mention it eventually, because of the chars who live there and all. XD; Ah well, I'll figure it out when I get there.


So, protip to NaNoers everywhere: if writer's block gets the best of you, write crap until something happens. Guaranteed to get you lots of useless rambling, but mostly more words. :^D *just hit 10k, yay!* an hour late, but OH WELL

Annual "special wordcount word" doohickey
10k: if
20k: did
30k: attempt
40k: wicked
50k: Wanda

[PFA]

I feel proud of myself for hitting today's wordcount after having been behind for the past few days, and before midnight too! I have this notorious habit for getting distracted by random things, in this case the TV, so I dumped my NaNo on the laptop we just got and wrote between commercial breaks. It was surprisingly effective! I found this fullscreen word processor that pretty much eliminated all computer-y distractions (not to mention I suck at using the trackpad agfhjk), which I think helped a lot. On this comp I have a bad habit of having it open behind Firefox, which is pretty much asking for trouble. Durr

Though I'm having a bit of worries that my plot may be becoming a bit too violent for the NT? I think I might have mentioned more violence and death and implied dark things in the past thousand words than is recommended for Neo. <_> I may need to figure out how to tone it down come editing time.

But for now, OH WELL. NANO. WRITEWRITEWRITE

[PFA]

*just hit 20k!* Just half an hour late this time. I'M IMPROVING :^D

In other news, I seem to have officially decided to leave Faerieland in the sky! This is exciting news. It's also pretty much all I'm willing to post here because of spoilers. XD; soon *ominous thunder*

[Kristykimmy]

Nov 13, 2012 2:37:30 GMT -5 PFA said:

*just hit 20k!* Just half an hour late this time. I'M IMPROVING :^D

In other news, I seem to have officially decided to leave Faerieland in the sky! This is exciting news. It's also pretty much all I'm willing to post here because of spoilers. XD; soon *ominous thunder*

Congrats, PFA! =D

[PFA]

Thanks, Kristy.

10k words later and I'm at 30k! Yaaay!

Advantages to being able to write on our new laptop: I can write during a storm! And be less distracted by the internet!
Disadvantages to the laptop: I don't have spellcheck (why did I think I wouldn't need it, whyyy), no text formatting, and the laptop gets super hot. I do not understand why they put the vent on the bottom.
Neutral thing: It counts less words than my other word processor, which causes me to write more. Then I transfer it back to my main comp and get instant more words! Yay!

In other news, I was expecting Connections to have ended by now and for me to have spilled over into the next story in the saga, but it kind of... hasn't? Of course, that's probably because I have no idea what's going on anymore. YAY

[PFA]

I powered through to 40(k) and I'm nearing the end!
I'm at the climax and this part is really rad
It's a mixture of relief, perseverance and caffeine sugar/leftover turkey
And just a little touch of going mad~

I still think this song is a pretty accurate representation of the NaNo experience. Or at least for me it is. Well, except that I'm pretty sure I had writer's block back at 20k too. XD; STILL THOUGH, it is an accurate representation for right now. I am indeed at 40k, the climax, and it is indeed very climax-y. YAEH WHOO

[PFA]

Just dropping this link here for posterity's sake

So close to the end aaaa @_@

[PFA]

50,000 WORDS YAEH WHOO *CONFETTI*

I was a little worried I wouldn't make it for a second there, because I was writing super slowly and it was getting later and later. XD; Not to mention I started feeling kind of sick sometime last night, and had a bit of what I can best describe as a dizzy spell earlier, so I was worried I would be too sick to write. (That cleared up though, feeling better now.) Finally, the NaNo site counted slightly less words this year than my word processor does, so I had to write more to get it to take it. (Of course, it was only like 45 words short of 50k, so no big, but)

Anyway, I DID IT HOORAAAAY I've got a little bit more to go to the end of the story itself, but I'm not sure if I'll be finishing that tonight or not. At the moment I kind of feel like partying. *dances*