Let's Build a World Together

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I have this old plot idea running around in my head dating from my days when I would make up stories with my sister and her best friend. This one is just me and the best friend ... yeah, V was on a I-don't-like-stories thing, leaving Kat and I to make up stories with just the two of us. We had four that I'm still plotting around with.

Anyways, I really like this idea, and it has some serious potential ... but I need to do some world development will ya'll.

What I know about this world:

The pitch of this world is it's ruler - the Eternal Queen. I don't know if she rules the entire world, or just a portion, but she is so called because she seems to be eternal. She goes through fifty year cycles where she'll get older and older until death starts to knock at her door and she simply disappears. At the end of the cycle, she will reappear somewhere at the age ten. She can disappear at any time in those fifty years, but she always reappears at the end of them.

As a child, she appears as pictured above.

No one knows where she goes when she disappears save for herself, and she's not telling anyone. (I happen to know, but I won't say where. Hint: I'm heavily inspired by Narnia in many books.)

Some cycles she will marry, and her husband is called the Mortal King. Her children hold no special title, but their names are all recorded in a special book, and she will often set them and their descendants as governors of farther corners of her world where it is harder for them to travel.

And that's all I know, and I give it over to you. Just comment below with some facet of culture, a bit of physics, a new species of animal or plant. Have fun! You may come back and comment as often as you like, just make sure you wait until someone else has posted and don't contradict anyone if you can help it. (I'll understand if you both post at the same time and I haven't approved the one before yet! If that happens I'll just publish them both and decide later which one I'll use.)

(Each comment that abides by the rules will qualify as an entry to the giveaway)

Z - The End

Z - The End

Today is the official release day of the Ankulen.

*Insert confetti*

And it is released. You can head over to amazon to pick  up your kindle version, or to createspace for your paperback. I've also set both Sew and Saffron for free on kindle, so if you don't have either, you can go pick up your copy of them too, if you don't have them already.

I've drawn the winner for the memorable worlds giveaway ... but I've decided not to announce who it is until tomorrow.

Anyways, why did I title this post z - the end? Well, you see, there is nothing in the Ankulen that starts with z. Not a zebra, not a zoo, not a zither, not a zigurat. I don't think even a zipper made an appearance.

But Z is the end of the alphabet ... and that's close enough right?

It's a fitting post for today.

You see, for all of you (with the exception of my lovely beta readers) this is the beginning of The Ankulen for you. You finally get to crack open the book and read beyond the prologue and chapter 1 that I posted some weeks ago. You finally get to accompany Jen on her adventures ...

But for me ... it's the end. I'm done with the book. I wrote it, I rewrote it, I typed it into the computer, I edited ... and yesterday I hit the publish buttons on Amazon and CreateSpace. I can't write the book anymore. Read it, yes. Promote it, yes. But I can't write it anymore.

I'm done. It's the end.

But it's the beginning for all of you. So ... enjoy!

Y - Youth

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Y - Youth

Ah, youth, childhood ... it's a time of wonder and magic. Everything has the potential of an adventure. Sticks become swords, boxes become castles, and the ugly hand-me-down sack dress with a huge stain on the front? Well, that's a magnificent ball gown.

But alas! This time is fleeting, and children themselves all to often are in a hurry to be a "grown-up" and don't realize that they will lose so much when they get there.

I've mentioned that The Ankulen is about imagination, about sacrifice, about friends and family ... but it's also a farewell to childhood.

You see, even though Anka and Anku never lose their imaginations (unless of course a Polystoikhedron gets involved, but we're not here to talk about that) and they therefore never lose their ability to see life as a great adventure. But somewhere between the ages of ten and twelve, something changes.

It is no coincidence that this is also the time when most Anka and Anku are now able to string their adventures into words and sentences, and capture them with pen and paper. They now spend more time writing and less time play-acting. Most write stories, others plays. A few are artists and draw instead. (Artists often start the earliest.)

Slowly but surely they spend less and less time IN their imagination, but that doesn't mean they aren't using it. Nay, quite the contrary. Now they have finally begun using it for the purpose they were given it. By the time they are sixteen or eighteen, many don't go in anymore at all. This is not a sad thing, it's just how it is.

Jen lost her imagination at the age of seven. Before the transition time. By the time she finally gets it back, she's fifteen. She was denied the transition time, but she was not denied one last brilliant adventure. That is why I say that this book is also a farewell to childhood.

I think it's also somewhat a farewell to my own childhood. When I started plotting it, I was only fifteen. I still went outside every day and made up stories outside with my younger cousins. I was more "I need to write this down" oriented than they were, but I still was giving myself a new name and frolicking around the yard pretending I was a fairy, a queen, a dragon princess ... or even a fifteen-year-old girl who had lost her imagination.

But as I finished writing Sew, and got it published, I stared changing my outlook. My imagination was no longer just a fun place to play, but a serious business. Oh I still go in from time to time, (I'm babysitting some cousins tomorrow, so a visit to Rizkaland is scheduled) but I now spend more of my time writing ... not just imagining.

X - X Marks the Spot

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X - X Marks the Spot

Okay, so there aren't any pirates in Jen's imagination, but there aren't very many words that begin with the letter x, and none of them apply to The Ankulen in any way, form, or fashion. (Well, if you want to get technical, Jen has something like x-ray vision when she's in her imagination ... but you can hardly expect me to write up a whole post on THAT)

So we get to do x marks the spot, which is a fancy term for "Where is it?"

There are two main elements to most fantasy novels - the journey and the battle. Sew and Take are missing the battle part, but Kingdom does have one.

Bookania aside. We're talking about The Ankulen here. I've mentioned the battle before, I believe. And there's also Jen's search for her missing memories ... have I mentioned that?

So, yeah. Jen has to go search for her memories ... but she doesn't have a map with a convenient x to show here exactly where it is. But she does have the Ankulen. which she can ask to show her where stuff is. Not a commonly used feature ... so it's not it's finest. But it's there and Jen can use it to find her imagination.

Just as long as she keeps her eyes open and doesn't run into trees.

W - Wood Children

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W - Wood Children

After having Jen find her Ankulen, actually going into her imagination, and eating frog leg soup ... I had exhausted my entire plan for the beginning of the book. The next thing I had planned was her regaining her imagination - and I didn't want that to happen until at least half-way through the book. Since I was aiming for 50,000 words all total, and I hadn't reached 10,000 yet ... I knew I had to come up with something else for Jen to do for a while.

Well, obviously she would have had other people for her to meet other than the Old Woman so I figured that this would be a good time for one of those other people to show up.

They were in a forest of sorts, full of dead and dying trees, and at that moment, a little boy showed up claiming to be lost. So Jen ever so kindly offered to help him find his home. He said his name was Willy, and I quite contentedly followed along as Tisha and Jen tried to determine his identity. Apparently, Tisha had forgotten some people.

At last we found his "house" which proved to be a tree and in thanks, Willy gave Jen a stick. Which she put in her hair.

As they resumed their search for Jen's memories, Chris finally took pity on us girls and told us who Willy was. Apparently, he was a Wood Child, which is kinda like a dryad ... only they're kids, not pretty girls. The stick Willy gave Jen? Well, used by her or one of the Wood Children, it had the ability to grow into a a full-sized tree in seconds.

Jen and I had no idea WHY a tree might be useful, but hey - if we did need one, we'd at least have one.

Willy was the only character in the book to have his name changed from draft one to two. I liked Willy ... but I decided that I could find something a little more tree-ish ... like ... Walnut! And the spooky forest they found him in? That could be an orchard. No, not just an orchard, THE Orchard.

I loved those Wood Children the first time ... but the second time round, they were absolutely adorable. Walnut will remain ever my favorite, but some of the others are almost as sweet.

Now, I need to get back to editing. I have to have it done by tomorrow afternoon so I can upload the file to CreateSpace. I WILL get this book out on time.