So tired. So very tired. It’s time for me to go into a coma for a little while, but AT LEAST I BEAT RATESJUL!  Also, Vancouver won the word war, so I am also happy to have contributed to that. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go over there and die a little until everything creative starts not being hard anymore.

Enjoy the last words of the novel I am writing this month.

Final Word Count: 128013

Chapter Sometime in the Future

And there on the other side of the grove was a large beast sitting on a throne of stone, simply overseeing his small kingdom that he was building in here under his rule. He had set into the head of the throne he sat on a strange glass construct that, as Alice found herself walking through the grove and closer to the other side, seemed strangely familiar.

Still, the beast on the throne drew more attention for the moment. It was large and seemed to be very much not at all like something from Wonderland, Neverland or anywhere else she had ever been. It was like something from Merlin’s books, wherever he had come from, and like they were probably absolutely horrific. It was a beast of beastly proportions and I can’t come up with a picture of it in my head right now aside from it being large and dragon-like sans wings with slender fingers gripping and twirling a stone goblet of liquid that Alice is going to assume in blood in a bit.

Her eye still drifted up to the gem at the head of his throne and she saw something that snapped her quite thoroughly out of her stupor by chilling her to the bone. The gem was beating in an all too familiar fashion and, now that she was close enough to see it, she could see that it was not a gem at all. The horror of the memory of hiding under a desk and surrounded by still beating hearts brought back the memories as she realized that in there were the hearts of likely every brainwashed creature in here. Her mind started to clear, though the haze didn’t fade quite as quickly as she would have liked had she been properly in her right mind.

“Hello, my dear,” the beast said, his voice strangely soothing and a silver tongue flickering out. “Delightful of you to join us.”

Two thoughts that struck her immediately were likely ones that she probably shouldn’t have expected to have. The first was a question. Why was this thing British, exactly? That accent was pretty out of place for a monster of reality and much more suited for a horrible creature in a romance novel that she would need a handsome prince to come and rescue her from. That wouldn’t be such a terrible option right now, to be honest.

The second was an issue with the creature’s tongue. Silver? Wasn’t that more than a little cheesy? Really, there was a metaphor in that which was being laid on entirely too thick. It was completely unnecessary and the smooth, comforting voice was more than enough without the need of the visual metaphor to drive the symbolism point through. Someone clearly thought they were being clever when they created it.

Actually, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m drained for the month. I’ve written my little fingers off and now I’m in dabble mode and making it all fit within the story because I can only write small scenes and not whole stories now. I’m so creatively drained from the month, but at least we’re still beating new Zealand. Mostly, anyway, and for the momennt. We WILL beat them come the end of the month! WE WILL!

From Unknown Chapter

Lira put the book down for the moment. There was something else that she felt compelled to do. It was a strange feeling, like something other worldly was making her do it and completely break character. She was fairly certain that she wouldn’t be doing this under any normal circumstances, anyway, but there was something weird about this whole day.

She couldn’t figure out just how long this day was, but she’d already managed to go to the library twice and read a whole book in between. She couldn’t recall ever actually eating or using the washroom, and the rest of her house seemed to not exist outside of the sofa and the kitchen. But now, the computer was also there and she was almost certain that if she looked back, the book would be gone.

But now that the computer was there, she went to it, not really sure what the driving force was behind her actions and yet still unable to bring herself to contemplate it or worry about such a thing. Something out there somewhere needed a puppet or plot device or something of the like and she had been chosen. She had no choice but to ride it out until it ended, so she went and sat in her chair.

Her fingers started moving and she started writing. She didn’t know what she was writing and she didn’t care. She decided to sleep then and let her fingers move across the keys, the melodic clicking enough of a lullaby for her. And she went to sleep, though words appeared on the screen despite her not having opened a word processor or turning on the computer in the first place.

I got sick today. Not too terribly serious this time around, but dammit! I’m sick again! I really wish that would stop happening because I was going to go into the office today, followed by dance class followed by write in. I had a whole plan and what happens? Cough turns into sick cough and I go, dammit, I’m contagious aren’t I? So, day home, everything all falls apart and BAH!

From Chapter 3

“It is weird that I’m almost excited for school tomorrow?” Adrianna asked. “I think it was actually weirder having the time off and not seeing everyone. And I’m getting used to being around other girls now instead of just my brothers.”

“Mmmm,” Alice muttered back to her, still trying to think of what to do. She thought there might be something in the book in the capture section about putting people to sleep as an early lesson in capturing. It was supposed to be the best way to get them immobile so that they could just manually catch them. But she wasn’t quite far enough to have actually gotten to the actual part where she might learn how to do that.

“And it sounds like everyone has had such a fun vacation too! I wonder if Father would let them all come over next year for New Years? You’d come too, of course, and that way maybe we could get to celebrate downstairs.”

Alice didn’t really want to try anything on Adrianna, though. She was a friend and it wasn’t nice to test potentially dangerous capture spells on friends. Especially if they didn’t actually work. Merlin had a bit of a habit of negating lessons a page later just in case to mess around with anyone who might be reading, so she was going to have to be quite careful about what she did and did not try. If she tried any of it at all.

“But then my parents probably wouldn’t want to be around. Kids taking over the house for a party? I don’t think they would just leave. All of us unsupervised wouldn’t really be quite right, don’t you think? But maybe there’s a way that we could still. Perhaps they wouldn’t mind chaperoning for one night. They’re really nice about letting us have friends over.”

But then again, if she was going through the trouble of reading a potentially magical book, then it might really be best to try out some of them on someone. Maybe Cat would come back and she could use him as a test subject, just so that she could have the satisfaction of wiping that grin off of his face. Oh, that would be a wonderful sight indeed.

PURPLE BAR! PURPLE BAR! I HAVE A PURPLE BAR!

For those of you who don’t know, purple bars are a lovely sign that you have validated your word count and that you have won Nanowrimo. to celebrate, I’ve made my donation and then found out there were winner shirts, so now I get to decide if I want a winner shirt too. Decisions.

From Chapter 3

They sang and generally did all the family stuff now that their father was around. They tried to enjoy their time as much as possible and they did, their father doting his time and attention on all of them, though it seemed mostly to Adrianna, while his wife scorned over in the corner that he wasn’t spending as much time with her. It was a little awkward at times, but Adrianna tried to make her feel more included in the festivities.

“I don’t think she likes me,” she said at last. “She keeps saying that I should be keeping quiet and doesn’t want me to come with her when she leaves for her special days.”

“You’re probably imagining it,” Alice said. “She’s probably just not used to having so many kids. Your father just married her, right? She’s probably still just getting used to the idea that there’s all of you guys there. She probably can’t even tell Mark, Mike and Matt apart yet.”

“She can’t,” Adrianna said with a touch of amusement. “They’re quite happy that they have someone they can fool when she’s around now. When we let them, anyway.”

“You actually let them sometimes?” Alice asked incredulously.

“Only when it’s harmless,” Adrianna said with a smile. “They’re only allowed to make her guess which one is which and nothing else. And someone’s usually watching them to make sure they don’t try anything funny.”

“I’m kind of glad they haven’t tried to play that with me.”

“Can you tell them apart?” Adrianna asked, eyes wide and curious. Alice shook her head no. “Oh, well then we shouldn’t tell them that. They think you can, so they don’t bother.”

I’m getting tired. Really tired. As in, I’ve never written this much in a month and I’m getting kinda close to burning out from all of this. Well, maybe not burning out, but it’s going to earn me a two week break where I’m going to bake instead and do anything that’s not writing for a little while. Mostly because today, this was the first thing I wrote:

From Chapter 1

[While this first chapter, in all honesty, should really be about Alice and her family getting together for the holidays and their awkward conversations to find out if Alice has gotten over Wonderland and show some of the beginnings of the downfall of her parent’s marriage, I’m skipping it. I don’t know what to do with the characters yet, so instead there is this note.

Also, there will be mention of how she really is concerned about what’s happened in Wonderland and whatnot, as told to something else and her discovery that she can make a mirror into a looking glass into Wonderland when she so chooses. Maybe two chapters. Also, the maid will be quite sympathetic, but not believe her, it will be brought up with her parents and boarding school she goes again! I really should name that maid woman. She does more raising of Alice than her parents, in my mind, though Alice adores her parents more until tragedy comes and whatnot. Then she will always run to the maid first.

And so, back to school for Alice after a rather perplexing holiday where she has read through the book and whatnot. Actually, you know what, I will write these chapters first. I kind of need to now that I’ve actually gone through and developed this character interaction and whatnot. So name for the maid needs to be done before the writing. Let me think. Oh, and maybe a phone call from Adrianna in there somewhere too. Margaret? Margaret Wood, because I have an Atwood book that caught my attention on the shelf first and it seems age appropriate. Also, must rename the chapter to something else. Going now.]

I’ve taken today off entirely. No writing, just a break between the novels as I recovered from everything. I need a break here and there, you know? I”m at an amazing word count that I’ve never been at before and I really need to take a break every now and then.

Since tomorrow is going to be me writing the next book in the series, today I will post something I wrote yesterday. The editing chapter. I’ll post all of it. BAHAHA!

Back with Lira

Lira put the book down once she was done, not entirely sure what to make of it. It was a little crazy and schizophrenic, changing tones very abruptly from scene to scene and having little consistency. It was like it was written as quickly as possible and padded out to get the proper amount of words in with little to no regard for making it good.

Still, she had to admit there was some promise in the series. If the author had taken a little more time with the Cheshire Cat storyline so that he wasn’t a pedophile, then it might have been all right. Really, it seemed that he just snapped and wanted the book all of a sudden from nowhere. What should have happened was a slowly building curiosity and him being a cat only when Alice was there. Changing into a boy whenever there was someone else aware of his presence was good, but an inconsistent aspect of the story.

And his apparent interest in underage girls? That was incredibly creepy. He was a fourteen year old cat, apparently, in the story. He took on the body of a fourteen year old boy. He hardly seemed aware of his actions as he identified himself as a cat. She supposed it all made sense in that way, but it was terribly creepy. The author probably wanted it that way.

The latter half needed to be extended, as did the former. Have a building rumour aspect of it as the Cat had more to do with Alice than anyone else, have it escalate into full out stalking by the end and have him never leave the story. Let miss Horner have a part in the matter as well, concerned but utterly unable to find Cat or talk to him. That would have made for a more interesting dynamic.

And Adrianna’s brothers! They needed more time and development. The triplets and Lance especially. Evan got his moment at the beginning and could have done with a few more cameos. Travis was only a blip on the radar and Joseph could have used a scene or two more. I suppose the rest of the series could make better use of the other brothers, but it seemed that they were utterly useless in the story otherwise.

There was also quite a bit that needed to be done with Alice’s newfound abilities of treacle tarts. Of all things that give someone a super power, treacle tarts seemed a lot better than having an injection that caused an incredible amount of blinding pain. She should be happy for it and the girl was, but it might have been interesting to see more of her practice with it. It seemed to already be second nature to her in Wonderland, though, so perhaps that attributed some, but it would be nice to have something a little more gradual.

There were other elements and aspect to it that seemed a little odd too. Like when the hell was this happening? There was mention of television, but they talked like they were all from turn of the century England for a lot of it, then modernized it up a little later on. There needed to be a little more consistency with time and whatnot. It was fine in Wonderland, but not so much in other places.

And then there was Wonderland. Some of the stuff seemed to be thrown in so randomly. A little foreshadowing and some elements beforehand would have been nice to cushion the idea of a refrigerator tree. It just seemed out of place, even in Wonderland, especially with the changes. It was off, the whole thing from here and there. But she wasn’t the writer. She just wished she could tell the actual author some of this stuff. One day, maybe.

She thought abut it for a little while, then decided that perhaps the second book would be better. It was the first in the series and it was apparently quite different from the rest of the stuff the author had ever done. It might just take her a little time to get into it. And besides, she had to wonder what would happen with Alice and the Jabberwocky, as well as just about every other dangling plot thread she’d left in the first book. Cat shoved back in Wonderland? How did the ice become a portal to Wonderland? And what was all that about a middle wish pie and granting her middle wish? That kept coming up and it never came to a proper conclusion.

She went to the library and picked up the next book. She made herself a cup of tea, settled down in her comfy chair and thought that maybe she should do something else before starting to read. She wasn’t sure what. Really, she thought that maybe she should be doing something more because someone was trying to write stuff happening to the end of the page and was completely brain dead so she’d come up with some filler delay.

Really, it’s making no difference at all. Lira settled down and started to read.

I’m finishing this story tonight. Somehow, I will. But first, I must say that the way the story got reworked in my head as two separate books is making things a little strange. The first is Wonderland and the oddness that happened there followed by the Cheshire Cat becoming obsessed by his curiosity of the book that caused the oddness. And the Cheshire Cat, in that sense, has become a bloody paedophile. It’s creepy the more he goes insane, the less he seems to realize that as a boy he can’t do these things. And I will need to rewrite it so that his madness develops a little more, but keep his madness just as completely creepy.

From Chapter 11

She cracked open her eyes and saw what woke her up. There was something moving on her bed, something rather large and crawling there. Gasping, she shot up in her bed and let out a yelp, realizing that the thing on her bed was a person that was really supposed to be a cat. Adrianna stirred in the next bed, but Alice wasn’t all that concerned about waking her just now.

“What-Why-You!” she stuttered as she reached under her pillow and pulled out the first thing that she could think of, a water gun. In the morning she would be more concerned about how much that seemed like second nature to her, but for the moment she only hoped it was full as she shot it at Cat, who turned to look at her with wide, mischievous eyes.

The water hit him square on and he hissed, recoiling at it and snapping forward. He pinned Alice down, back to the way she knew him as a purple cat with one paw on her shoulder to keep her down at the other paw threatening her with the claws out and pointing dangerously close to Alice’s face. Alice stared at the claws, eyes wide and breath caught in her throat.

“That was terribly rude of you, girl,” he hissed at her, lingering there for a moment before retracting and stepping back to let her sit up again. Alice breathed a sigh of relief, but continued to glare at the Cheshire Cat.

“Back in your old fur,” Alice noted, rubbing gently at her shoulder that he had stepped on. “What are you doing here? Going to try and push me into another mirror again?”

“I’m here for that book,” the Cheshire Cat said, pacing back and forth along her bed. Fe finally settled, sitting there and staring at her.

“You said I was going to watch over the book from now on,” Alice said. “It’s being taken care of. You don’t need to worry about anything. You can go away and never come back and find someone else to annoy.”

The Cheshire Cat’s eyes bore into her, trying to make her back down but Alice was in no mood for it. She’d been woken up in the middle of the night and she was tired and grumpy. Finally, his eyes seemed to catch on something else and he followed it for a moment before looking back to Alice.

“I hadn’t expected that you would keep it hidden away,” he said. “Children are meant to be curious creatures, seeking out adventure. You sought out Wonderland and were curious enough to find out what happened since you left. I’d thought you would at the very least read the book when you found it.”

“Well, I’m not going to,” Alice said flatly. “You can leave now.”

“I think not,” the Cheshire Cat said. “I must know what is in the book to drive the Queen of hearts mad.”

“The Queen of Hearts was always mad,” Alice told him. “Inside the book is a monster that steals hearts. Curiosity resolved. Let me go back to sleep.”

“I think not,” the Cheshire Cat said, leaping up to pounce Alice back down again. “I want to see that book!” he demanded, claws back in her face. “You will tell me where it is!”

“Alice?”

Alice looked over to one side where Adrianna spoke, pushing herself up and brushing at her bleary eyes. She looked over and seemed to be in shock for a moment, freezing at the scene before her eyes. Alice dimly noted that the Cheshire Cat had gotten a bit heavier as Adrianna let out a very loud, piercing scream.

Alice looked back up at the Cat, who was now once again in the form of a boy. “You might want to leave now,” Alice told him. “Miss Horner won’t be all that happy to find a boy in our room at night, much less in your present position.”

I have decided that various things that happened in this last chapter didn’t happen. This little exchange may end up being one of them because I, for one, find it quite creepy that a cat wants a 12 year old to court him. Might just be me, though.

From Chapter 10

“Are you upset because the other children think that you’re seeing a cat?” Cat asked, his grin growing even wider. “Or perhaps you are upset because you would like it to happen and you know it never will. If you were to be courting an animal, I dare say I would be quite the catch. Though I am much nicer when I’m in my fur, you know. This body just doesn’t suit me, but it does the job for now.”

“You really are a cat?” came a small, startled voice from the doorway. Alice turned to look and jumped to see Adrianna back. She moved quickly, shutting the door behind her and keeping the book clasped in both hands as Adrianna walked delicately forward, eyes wade in shock and awe. “You really are?”

Cat’s grinned grew very wide as he saw her, looking quite like it might even extend past the bounds of his face, and his eyes went to Adrianna. He shifted and turned in the bed to look right at her, amused and playful. “Although, if I were to choose, I would much rather have this one courting me. I daresay she is much nicer to look at than you are.”

“Then annoy her,” Alice snapped at him. “And do it somewhere else. I told you to go away.”

“You’re really the Cheshire Cat?” Adrianna asked again, her eyes wide and staring at him carefully. It was as if she were transfixed by his hair and eyes, which Alice supposed would probably be normal if she didn’t know full well the games that he liked to play and knew better than to let him know that anyone was even remotely interested.

Still, while he was staring it was like he was observing her through glass or as if she weren’t actually there, more like a doll than anything else. It was a bit strange to watch, Adrianna fascinated as he was, but neither of them seeming to acknowledge that the other one was real, though honestly for probably very different reasons.

Bed is warm and outside is cold and wet and raining and filled with soaked shoes and pants and everything. Also, I went to my first write in tonight and that is where I did all but 300 words. This particular passage has my favourite line of the night, placed in bold.

From Chapter 10

“Are you quite certain?” Lance asked playfully. “Addie was really worried and we’d really rather not have her running into the boys dorms first thing in the morning asking for us anymore. It’s really not that great of an experience.”

Alice had images in her head, none of which were probably true, of several boys in a state of half dress and looking blearily about to find Adrianna screaming at their state of undress. “I’m sure,” Alice said, feeling a little better about being part treacle now. “I think that was just going to happen once and never ever again.”

“Well, good,” Lance said, looking at Adrianna, who seemed a little hurt by the whole thing. “Oh, it’s not you,” he assured her. “It’s just embarrassing to have your little sister come wake you up first thing in the morning.”

“I know,” Adrianna said, looking properly embarrassed. “But I was worried!”

“That’s what your dorm advisor is for,” he said, almost as if he’d reminded her a thousand times over. “Miss Horner is nice enough, right? So you can ask her next time and ask us when we’re actually awake and properly dressed?”