I haven’t been doing NaNoWriMo this year. It’s upsetting on some levels, but I just couldn’t balance Moving-Into-House Nov 1st (which was really like the whole first week, let’s be honest), Election-Grief (and yes, I’ve got all stages of grief for my country still), Georgia burning down (seriously: click here to see pictures of the smoke clouds last week) and work having a massive project on my plate due last week. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about writing. In fact, the accidentally-enforced hiatus (lack of time/oxygen/energy).
I have three ideas that are floating around my head. Two of them have already been started or worked on at some point in the recent past. And seriously, each of these received like a dozen re-writes because I was trying to make short blurbs… I think I mostly succeeded on the first two…
1) Imperial Lands
Ashendika, of the Kaiju people, is as shocked as everyone else when she accidentally breaks all traditions and taboos by bonding to a manticore – a sentient creature. The unique magic of her people compels them to a bond to an animal and hers – well it happens to be another sentient creature who came looking for a bond from the original Kaiju homeland. At the same time, the Imperial Prince, who is not thought to have any Kaiju blood, bonds a phoenix. Just as the empire is being threatened with war internally and externally questions of heritage, tradition, and honor are worth dying for.
2) Spy in the Palace
Cathia is a princess’s handmaiden turned thief. She has escaped slavery; learned and lived with pirates; and stolen the princess from the clutches of the usurper who slaughtered and enslaved the noble children of their realm. She now uses her skills as a cat burglar to seek information of the noble children held hostage – information which has led her to the neighboring kingdom and a plot which might endanger three kingdoms. She must use every skill she has, and earn the friendship of the younger prince of the realm in order to save her princess from the assassins who seek them both. As she moves forward, she has to decide – when is does she stop being a hero and become a villain? Can she avoid becoming a monster in order to defeat monsters?
3) Space Race
Esthabar is the only black sphinx that has ever been admitted to the Academy. Gifted with the unique ability to read all the Holy Texts; she is shocked when one day she finds the mystic Black Book awake, a light blinking in the corner and playing a distress call from a man-like creature. At the same time, the Nerdrous Guard Knights have seen something falling from the sky with a great crash. Is it friend or foe? Could this stranger who fell from the sky save her people from the increasingly successful attacks from KAOS, the army which has barraged the kingdom for generations? As Esthabar seeks to uncover the mysteries which involve a war of morals, her own genetics, and the fate of her world. At the same time the pilot and trader Belinda is seeking her best friend Domnik, who went to a planet which had a 2,000 year old quarantine to determine if it could fall into the newest guidelines for resource stakes and claims. She is following him because he’s overdue – and not responding via communications. Two drones were sent and went silent. She decides to go herself only to find herself crashed and marooned when harvesting drones try to take apart her ship – in orbit. On the planet she finds a massive sentient A.I. which is broken and fighting with its own parts. She has to struggle with the decisions of her ancestors and decide whether to enslave and destroy the sentient A.I. or allow it to live – even when she morally opposes it’s directive.
So I am curious: which of these would you want to read (and why if you can vocalize it)? I know the 3rd is long – it’s two intertwined stories that I’m mapping out to meet about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through – I tried to shorten it, but I couldn’t figure out what to cut….
Dream by Day 