…heat wave inundates most northern (tribes / communities / cities) today, while in the southern (land / island / continent) fierce storms lash the eastern coast. Storm surge overtopped the inner seawall in Ka-Voniss, flooding the second ring of the city, forcing millions of residents (Li-Estl’s note: this number cannot be right; there are no more than several tens of thousands of Kwakitl in the entire world today) to flee the city and seek higher ground. The (elder / leader / mayor) promised to build a higher wall and install pumps. Elections are in two (unknown).
Yes, this is a short one. Not so much a standalone scene, but the translation of the ancient broadcast which Anna and Laxmi now are reading for the first time, with interpretation from Jaci and Li-Estl.
A news broadcast from 1200 years ago!
Some of the ancient terminology is unfamiliar to Li-Estl, as they don’t have concepts like cities or mayors anymore, so the translation includes rough English approximations.
What do you think the news broadcast reveals? What does it tie to that we’ve seen in earlier scenes?
In other news, this represents my first words for 2019’s NanoWrimo, so I am now 630 words in for the month. Not that far for what is technically the 2nd day, but I’m good with it, and I’m also not necessarily done yet for today. It’s early still! Who knows, I might even post another scene this weekend, breaking my usual once a week (or once a month) habit.
The cave stretched back toward the interior of the mountain, but Anna quickly adjusted her perception of it. Cave was the wrong word, as it had clearly been excavated and enlarged by some form of avian industry. Kwakitl industry. Anna tried the avians’ word for themselves out in her mind as she looked about the spacious cavern.
The floor was smooth and level, well adapted for the passage of many feet. No rocks or cracks to trip on here. To either side of the chamber, the floor joined the walls in a gentle chamfer, sloping up and curving inward to a rounded, domelike ceiling. The walls and ceiling were not as smooth as the floor, showing some evidence of natural formation left mostly to itself, yet still they remained relatively even. Side passages with similarly rounded aspects led away from the main chamber, and rather than appearing dark, they were lit with natural sunlight. The light came from small circular openings in the ceiling, tubular ducts leading at an upward angle back toward the cliff, apparently cut for this purpose. With a start, Anna realized the light ducts were enclosed with round glass or crystal caps nearly identical to those she had seen in the abandoned mountain temple on her jungle island, and the caps served to diffuse and amplify the light.
For all that Kwakitl society seemed primitive, nevertheless they were capable of forging glass and machining lenses. What other surprises might be held in store?
We now know what the avian denizens of Kepler 62f call themselves: Kwakitl. No, I didn’t actually know about the historical Kwakiutl, the First Nations people of British Columbia, when I came up with that name, though I hope both peoples, historic and fictional, will be ok with the similarity. I had in my mind Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god associated with the divine wind who appears as a feathered serpent, except I misremembered the name. As I live in the Pacific Northwest, almost certainly I had encountered the Kwakiutl name before, but there any intentional similarity or relationship ends.
Yes, I’ll probably have to change that name in the rewrite. The similarity is too close.
For now, though, Jaci has been living among the Kwakitl for a few weeks, and he has not been idle. In that time he has learned how to communicate with them, and now he is leading Anna and Laxmi to meet his “breakthrough,” as he termed her at the end of the last scene. His teacher, and more formally the teacher for the young juvenile Kwakitl who otherwise seem to spend their time running around the docks and taking alien visitors by the hand.
Welcome to the classroom of Li-Estl, venerable teacher, mentor, and historian of Kepler 62f.
Before the lesson is done, another surprise is in store for our lost explorers when they learn…
Well, you’ll have to read the scene to find out what they learn, won’t you? And when you do, let’s discuss it in the comments!
It has been five years since I last participated in NanoWrimo.
Nanowhat? you ask. NanoWrimo (sometimes capitalized as NaNoWriMo, but I find all that pressing of the Shift key tiring), or National Novel Writing Month, is an annual affair that occurs every November, in which tens (hundreds?) of thousands of writers (published or not, famous or not, serious or just having fun or… not) attempt to write 50,000 new words in 30 days.
1,667 words per day. Every day.
That may not seem like a lot, and for a day here and there, it’s not. But this is every single day. If you have a full-time day job, this can be a bit daunting. If you have kids to manage, this can be daunting. If you have a social life… yeah, you might have to put that aside for a month. Also, it’s November, which in the United States is a major holiday month, in which many people travel to spend a long weekend celebrating with family.
1,667 words, each and every day of that holiday weekend, while your family celebrates around you.
What do you win if you reach the goal? Bragging rights. Some downloadable “stickers” that you can put on your blog or your social media profiles. And sometimes decent discounts for writing-related software, but that’s it. It’s not about the prizes, it’s about challenging yourself. It’s also not really a competition, at least not against other participants, because there is no limit on how many people can win. Everyone who reaches the goal is a winner.
Really, everyone who tries, who writes more in November than they normally do, and who keeps on writing, is a winner, whether they reach 50,000 words or not.
The traditional goal for NanoWrimo is to work on a new novel. Plotting is allowed in advance, but no words can be written prior to November 1st. However, the organizers have recognized that there are rebels out there who use NanoWrimo in their own way, to achieve their own ends. Some people continue work on an existing work-in-progress. Some people write multiple short stories instead of one novel. Some work on revisions and 2nd drafts. The only real caveat, the only hard-and-fast rule, is that only words newly written between November 1st and November 30th can count toward the 50,000-word goal.
I am a rebel.
As those of you following along know, I have been working on The Silence of Ancient Light for nearly a year and a half now, and in all that time I am just now approaching 50,000 words for my first draft. Turtle writing, indeed! I briefly planned to put that aside and work on two new short stories for NanoWrimo this year, but I have shelved that plan. Instead, I will continue working on SoAL, using the challenge to inspire myself to perhaps write a bit faster, a bit more prolifically, than I usually do.
Will I reach 50,000 words? As a total WIP word count, yes, but as new words just in November, almost certainly not. I already know I’m just not going to be able to do that every day.
I “won” in 2013, and let me tell you it was a lot of work. I can also tell you, however, that it sure felt good, afterwards, even if I never did anything with the story I wrote that year.
Yes, I “won” in 2013
I also participated in 2012, although I did not “win” that year. Nevertheless, I was pretty happy with the words I wrote — perhaps someday I will post them here.
This year, my only goal is to make steady progress on my existing work — a rebel goal! — and perhaps also to inspire and be inspired by others who also participate.
Are you doing Nano this year? Let’s be buddies! Find me there at:
Anna stepped back from Jaci, still holding his arms, and looked into his eyes, smiling into her own. She wasn’t too sure about the beard, but it did give him a rugged mountain man appearance. The babble of avian voices around her rose in volume and pitch, and light feathery touches pressed against her legs. She took a deep breath, broke from Jaci’s gaze, and looked around her.
The small avians, the children, who had accompanied Jaci through the crowd now pressed in close to all three human visitors. The excitement in their demeanor was evident as they hopped from foot to foot and squawked at each other, at Jaci, and at Laxmi and Anna. Jaci laughed, reached a hand down to be taken under a juvenile wing, and gestured to Anna and Laxmi to do the same. Anna hesitated, then reached out her own hand, and quickly she found it tucked in tight between wing and avian body. The small bird-like juvenile squawked and tugged, clearly impatient to lead her somewhere, and she let herself be guided, along with the others, through the crowd and toward the cliff face.
Anna looked back at the pier and the trimaran that had been her home for the past two weeks. The sailors were wasting no time as they loaded bale after bale of fish from belowdecks up onto the pier, and a line of shoreside avians carried the bales toward the waiting cliffside elevators. Standing on the outrigger, gruff and grizzled, his scar bright against his dark feathers, Gamma supervised the operation silently. Perhaps sensing Anna’s gaze, he looked up and caught her eye, but his impassive expression did not alter, and after a moment he returned his attention to his sailors and docksiders.
What lay behind that inscrutable gaze? Anna wished she could have talked with the old bird, but the gulf between them was hardly less than the depths of space between their worlds.
After a busy month (some travel involved — see my Instagram feed), I’m back with the next scene, and what’s more, the kickoff to a new chapter. At the end of our last scene, and of Chapter 5, Anna and Laxmi are finally reunited with Jaci, who appears to have been living quite happily among the avian denizens of Kepler 62f. What happened to him in the meantime? What has he learned? They have much to talk about!
The tension for our heroes ratchets down slightly from the past scenes — they need a bit of a break — but they’re not out of the woods yet, nor off the planet, and there are still plenty of surprises in store. For the moment they’re no longer in danger of immediate death, but they still have no idea how they are going to get home.
Jaci also gets a chance to show off a little in this scene. He’s felt a bit like a bump on a log for much of the voyage since arriving in the Kepler 62 system, but now he finally gets to demonstrate why he was picked for this mission in the first place. You’ll see what I mean when you read the scene.
As always, please leave a comment and let me know what you liked and what you didn’t!
Twice more the avians fished over the ensuing week, but each time it was clear to Anna their hearts were not in it. Understandably, the divers were hesitant to go into the water, and when they did they stayed quite close to the boat. As a result, the hauls were but a fraction of what they pulled in the day of the octopoid attack. Beta and Gamma argued over the fishing, but who was taking which side, and what were the sides anyway? Anna supposed that one pushed for more aggressive fishing, the other for more restraint, and neither seemed happy with the compromise.
There were no more attacks, however, and in between fishing episodes most of the crew remained idle.
Early on the morning six days after the attack, Beta squawked an order and the crew jumped to stations. Laxmi leaped out of the way of a pair of rushing sailors and found herself a spot on deck where she would not be run over or bumped aside.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re changing course.” Anna pointed out the sailors taking up slack on lines strung through blocks on the port side of the boat, while others to starboard stood ready to let loose on their side. “We’re tacking. You might want to hold on. And duck.”
First off, you may have noticed the little insert just above where I put the word count and estimated reading time of the linked scene. This is the first time I have done that, and I mentioned in the announcement blog post for the previous scene that I was thinking about it. What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea?
Changing Course is indicative of more than just turning the boat to a new direction. There is a bit of a different feel, a different tone for this scene compared to many of the recent scenes, which I am sure you will pick up on. I also estimate this is about the halfway point for the story, though of course that could change as the back half develops (see what I did there? I swear it was unintentional!). Not to say that our heroes are out of danger! Oh no, things could be about to get far worse…
What elements keep coming up again and again in the narrative? It’s probably not hard to determine where Anna and her crew are going after this. I promise you, however, that there is a major plot twist (!!) coming up when they get there.
Please let me know in the comments what’s working for you, and what isn’t. Otherwise, see you at the next scene!
Matt Fraser 