Quick Announcement: No Cat Monologue Tomorrow.

That's it. Read the title. Sorry.

I'm back--hopefully for good. Announcements/Updates

So, yeah. Inkweb has kinda been thrown by the wayside for a while now, while I've been focusing on NaNoWriMo, Iron Wyvern, and life in general. But I'm back and I'll be following my schedule a bit more regularly than before.

So, before I begin in earnest, a few announcements/updates:

1. I've got a dog!!!
His name is Oliver, he's a Boston Terrier mix, and I got him around the beginning of summer. Anyway, I just had to tell everyone.

2. The schedule will be changing very soon.
Please bear with me as I get back into my stride. Blogging regularly requires a lot of work. I'll post schedule updates as I figure them out.

3. I'm no longer that much of a pantser. I will soon be changing my Pantser logo and replacing it with a Planner logo. (I have no idea how long I'll be a Planner, I may flip-flop at some point.)

That's about it for this post. Thanks for sticking around if you already kept track of Inkweb. If you're a new visitor, thanks for visiting and I hope you come back soon!

Announcement: November Noveling

Okay, readers of Inkweb, I have, on the spur of the moment, at the flip of a coin, at the roll of a die, decided to participate in NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month is quite fun, and although I do not have the faintest inkling of an idea what to write, it will still be fun to try. I've completed it once before, and also Camp NaNoWriMo, which was the more successful time of the two.

However, readership, I will not abandon you! My schedule will remain largely the same, except for one small detail:

DURING THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, I WILL NOT BE POSTING SHORT STORIES.

Well, that's the major change for the month. I will still post HyperLinkzer's suggested story this Saturday, November 2nd. I will still be posting cat monologues and fact lists and poems, and, of course, mad things (maybe even novel excerpts) on Mondays. But I will not be posting on Saturdays this month.

Toodles!

-JW

Announcement: No Posts Today

Hello, readers of Inkweb! I won't be posting today because I've already done a fact post this week, and those lists are harder to compile than one might think at first. Plus, this is my first week using my new schedule, so I'm going easy on myself.

Tomorrow will be another short poem, Friday I will post a cat monologue, and then Saturday I will post a short story entitled "The Gravestone." Please note that the short story is a first draft and is not polished nicely, so have mercy on my writing.

Thanks for reading!

-JW

P.S. I urge you to listen to "Explorers" from the Coraline soundtrack. It's quite beautiful.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I HAVE A POSTING SCHEDULE!!!

Greetings, human and not-so-human readers of Inkweb, my humble internet abode! I bring peace, and cherries, and good tidings, and various other things.

First off, and perhaps most importantly:

I NOW HAVE A DAILY POSTING SCHEDULE!!! HOORAY!!!

Sweet, right? No more prolonged lapses in posting (hopefully), and it'll keep me writing, especially for Short Story Saturdays.

I've added a tab about my blog schedule, entitled "About Inkweb," and it's up above, so if you want to check out my schedule, you can. Basically I'll be posting six days a week.

Camp NaNoWriMo - Mission Successful!

I have succeeded at Camp NaNoWriMo! I wrote a grand total of 60,931 words this month, with an additional 20,000 before the month began to bring the novel's word count up to...drumroll please...

80,931 WORDS!!!!!!!!

And it turns out I got my word goal just right! At that exact amount of words, I finished the first draft of my novel. And now, to unveil the TITLE!

Broken Thief: The Taskforce, #1

Announcement: Three Trolls and Some Treehugging Billygoats

Welcome, friends, readers, fellow occupants of the magnificent, glorious blogosphere! You're all probably wondering why I've brought you here today...but in fact it is to do none other than reveal the makings of a new project!

The three coauthors of Iron Wyvern, including myself, have come together and decided to finish off The Draconian Letters in style. Trust me, from magical frankfurters to flaming prune juice, this will be one grand finale of a lifetime! As Smok grows older, the uncles also grow older. And they who grow old must soon pass on. Thus, we have decided to finish off the letters with flair.

But though the chronicles of Smok and his family will come to an end, a new chronicle is about to begin! Introducing Water Under the Bridge! Check out more on Iron Wyvern where the fun is just beginning! The adventures of three trolls and their young acquaintance Lout have just begun. Just make sure to watch out for the treehugging billygoats!

Water Under the Bridge may just be the most ingenious scheme the coauthors of Iron Wyvern have ever devised! So stay with us as we journey through the last litteris draconis, and turn the page to a new chapter in the blog's history as Water Under the Bridge takes off!

www.ironwyvern.blogspot.com

WORD WAR!!! Camp NaNoWriMo

Aye, me buckaroos! I be doin' the NaNoWriMo this yarr month! But it be bein' no pirate book, arr! Nay, 'tis me stupid accent t'at's gettin' ye all riled up fer a pirate book. Nae way! 'Tis sigh fie! What mysteryful science coul' be made inturr fiction, I nae know, but 'tis!

That's right. I'm writing a science fiction novel this July for Camp NaNoWriMo. It's the beginning of a trilogy of epic galactic adventures featuring my main character, whose name is Mr. TOP SECRET! That's right, I'm not telling you, because his real name is actually part of a plot point. Crazy, right? Kinda like Doctor Who, or James Bond. James Bond, because when he says his name, we know he's going to be ordering a martini soon, and if he doesn't say his name is "Bond. James Bond" in the movie, then it isn't a real James Bond movie, right? And Doctor Who because, well, duh! Doctor who?

So, I'm writing and writing, and I wrote 9,000 words yesterday! Woo-hoo! Now, I'm going to be gone for the next few days, up in Missouri where the Cardinals play (whoop; I love baseball) and the sun shines all day. Forget this Oklahoma nonsense. Anyway, while I'm gone, I want to instigate a word war challenge thingymabob!

WORD WAR CHALLENGE THINGYMABOB!!!

WRITE!!! Write anything you want, and write as much as you can. Then, on Monday, comment with your word count, and I'll make an announcement with the rankings, as well as word count from now till then. Okay? Let's do it.

This is a contest, but only if you want it to be. You can be competitive and try to beat my word count (trust me, guys; you won't :P ever.) but the main point of this contest is to have fun, write, and maybe even learn something while we're at it.

WORD WAR BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out Joel's essay on the Holy Worlds Blog:
http://www.holyworlds.org/blog/?p=1338

Announcement: Concerning the Inspector Wolfe Tales

Friends! Readers! Bloggermen! Lend me your ears;

I come to bury Wolfe, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is often interred with their bones;

Let it be so with Wolfe.

-Adapted from Mark Antony's speech, Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

It is true, readers. I am discontinuing the Inspector Wolfe Tales. I shall be supplementing my blog instead with poetry and writing. Inspector Wolfe will live on, but I will not be posting any more of his lore.

The reasoning behind this decision is simple: since the Inspector Wolfe Tales was so long, it was hard for new readers to be incoporated into the blog, when all they saw was "Part 64,000,000" on the very top post. So, I shall discontinue it. I will post stories, poetry, and thoughts of various types on here, and try to be more consistent in my posting, but the Wolfe will be no more, except in the tab above, where I will fill in all of his saga that has been posted for anyone who wants to read it. But there will be no new installments, no clues, no leads, no suspects, no cucumbers, no sporks or spork-hats.

Here lies our friend, the Inspector

James Hamilton Wolfe

(2012-2013)

May he ever rest in peace

Broomstick - Part Sixteen (+ CONTEST WINNER)

Welcome to Inkweb! I have a few announcements to make before we begin.

FIRST, I have selected a winner for my contest (in the post below this)! I mulled over the choices, and the winner is.....HYPERLINKZER!!!! His blog is Livin' on the Edge and he came up with a fine character. I will use his character as a police officer in my Camp NaNoWriMo July novel! Congratulations, Hyper!

It has also come to my alarmed attention that the mobile template of my blog has a white background! All of my posts previous to changing the template of the computer version of my blog have been in white! Thus, on my mobile template, my blog was completely unreadable. Two days ago, this alarming fact came to my attention. I don't control my blog through a phone, so I didn't realize this problem until I had mulled over my new blog template. I realized in alarm what I had done, but I've fixed it. No longer are any of my posts written in white! They will now be readable on a phone. Anyway, I'm glad I caught that.

Now, on to Inspector Wolfe's investigation, and the Nether World!

---------

I strapped on my black helmet, protective vest, and belt, attaching a piton cord to the last item, just in case any of the readers was confused and thought I attached it to my vest or eyeball or something.

I looked around and saw a red pyramid-like creature trying to fit on a vest and a belt. Eventually Lox came over and told the little guy he could just have an arm strap with a cord attached to it.

We all processed into the portal room, a circular room lit with soft pulsing blue werelights from the floor. A man stood in the middle of the room, wearing a silver robe and holding a wand in his outstretched left hand.

We came in, and Lox locked the door tightly behind us. “Please tether yourselves to the wall.”

I went over to the wall and stuck my piton in a slot at eye level. Others did similarly.

“All right, please be patient,” Lox instructed, “Lenny’s going to perform the spell.”

I heard a low muttering emanating from the center of the room where Lenny the magician stood. It echoed around the room, a deep roiling tone that bounced around in the acoustics of the space while Lenny moved on to a higher tone in his chanting. This higher tone joined the echoes bouncing around the room, harmonizing in perfect synchronization to create a haunting effect of simultaneity.

Lenny’s arm moved, and the werelights changed colors, switching from soothing blue to unnatural emerald, brightness constantly shifting, shadows flitting about.

Then, we weren’t there in that room.

The landscape around me was desolate and dry, and white clouds sped past like unicorns through a purple sky. The clouds were going so fast I had a feeling of vertigo.

The land was flat for what seemed like miles around. I looked back and saw Lox, standing smugly with the others. I took a tentative step toward Lox, my tether dragging along the ground as I did so. Somehow it was still back at that wall in that room. Lenny was there, in front of me, as I took the step. But the room wasn't there.

My foot hit ground, and the landscape suddenly changed. I was on a tall snow-capped peak, the powdery snow falling sideways, driving into me. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky now, and the landscape was sharp and jagged, mountainous. My tether extended downward behind me.

I took another step, and I was suspended in motion, falling into the magma below in a volcano, but then my tether snapped taut and I stopped. As I swung, the molten liquid below turned into water, sea water, crashing on rocks, and I was clinging to a cliff face. I could still see Lox and Lenny and Spoonella and the others, moving around as well. Did they see the same thing as I did? Or did they experience shifting realities completely different?

I tried to yell up to Lox, who was making her way along a ledge farther up the cliff. But no sound came out of my mouth, except the faintest whisper.

I climbed higher, and the scene changed. I was in a dark cave, and there was a light ahead of me, and something rushed by me. I heard a rustle, and two green eyes peered out of the darkness. “I am the Raven,” rasped a voice. There was a rustle like the fluttering of wings, and suddenly the light was extinguished. I gasped and stumbled forward, and I tripped as my tether turned taut once more. The landscape changed.

I was underwater, but not drowning, instead borne along by a current. I could see the pyramid shape beside me, waving his red arms that protruded out of his triangle-like body. I peered into the water’s depths all around me, but could perceive nothing except the water around and the others on the tour.

I looked below me, but there was nothing except the eventual darkness below. Not even sand. I looked around me, but there was no light source. The water’s light became green, and then red, but it seemed to come from the water itself. I tried to shout to Lox, but only a few bubbles came out of my mouth. I cursed inwardly. How was I supposed to ask questions in this environment?

I stepped forward and was borne out of the current, taken onto the wing of a giant eagle. But it wasn’t an eagle; it was made of paper, which melted away into tiny scraps that became multiple shadows of myself, laughing and pointing at me. I stepped forward across white space and into a tawny canyon, and into a maze of blue columns with different designs, all of them rotating around the base of the structure. ∆˚∫çµΩ, was one of the patterns. Some of them were indistinguishable, and I didn’t think I fully perceived much of the symbols; they were too otherworldly.

I stepped to the side and was upside down walking along the bottom of a blade of grass. I saw Lox above, or rather, below me, and I jumped toward her. The world shifted, and I was pulled sideways into a crumbling house, away from her. I twisted in midair and changed directions, spinning slowly to the ground as I landed on a cubelike platform protruding from a blue plane that stretched ever on into the distance where a pink sun was setting. The others were on similar shapes. I saw Plate-O with eyes wide, groping forward.

I moved towards Lox but the land changed, and I was falling through a dark liquid, and music was playing, a soft music that was dark as well and didn’t make sense. Lox was in the distance. “I just want to ask you something,” I whispered, but she didn’t hear me. The Nether was a nightmare.

I moved forward, and the music turned into the twittering of birds, and I was atop a dandelion in a grassy field, and the other dandelions crowded around me. I saw the others bouncing along them, but I took a step and plunged straight down. My tether seemed to follow me, so I guessed I wasn’t actually moving, but it felt like it. Everyone moved with me, and I retained the same perspective.

Suddenly I passed through fire, and I ran forward. I crossed a desert in one step into a jungle with the next, bounded down a snowy hill into a valley full of cherries and then twisted directions and was falling sideways into a giant dark pit, climbing up out of it and into a mountain range, swimming upward and plunging into a forest of gray. Sometimes the tether tugged, others it bent and moved with me, but always it stayed, and I always saw the others. This was the Nether realm. It was amazingly complex. I hadn’t even gone more than a few feet judging by the length of my tether, and yet I had completely lost myself in the folds of this dimension. How could Alice Shipton even begin to fathom its complex structure? It was clear that she couldn’t have mapped it all, or solved all its mysteries. She may have explained a part of it, but most of it would remain a mystery forever. This realm was not merely that which transported magic; it was magic, the very essence and well of magic, the soul of magic. And Alice was within its depths. Of course she couldn’t survive for long in this, because this was pure magic. There was no way to live here for a prolonged period.

And then there was a shrill whistlelike sound, and it all disappeared, and I stumbled back into reality.

Lenny had brought us back from the Nether world. That sounded funny in my head.

“As you can see,” Lox announced, “the Nether is almost more complicated than one might have first imagined. Every step you take is a step through another world. The Nether’s movements are highly unpredictable, and even Alice Shipton herself once was lost on one of her famous explorations, but using her expertise she managed to relocate her tether and come back to reality. Her discoveries have helped, but the Nether realm is still far too complex for us to navigate without difficulty.”

I nodded and looked around the room, now lit in blue once more. The ducklings were looking around, starry-eyed, at their surroundings, dizzied by their recent experience.

            “All right!” Lox cheered. “Let’s go back to the other room, and I’ll take questions.”

Song 2

The title of this post will seem completely unconnected to anything I'm writing about hereafter, but trust me, it is. It's connected with how I got the inspiration for the plot of my July novel.

Yes, I am participating in the July session of Camp NaNoWriMo. I know I told T. Granger, one of my followers here on Inkweb and a good friend, and Z. Baner, also a good friend and follower of this blog through JTZ Baner, that I would be waiting until November to put into action my very first novel of this genre, but inspiration struck, and, well, when the muse takes hold, it can get very hard to wait for the right moment to put pen to paper, face to desk, fingers to keyboard, plot bunny to burrowing, brother to bed, and mind to the task. Not necessarily in that order.

So, I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo. What's that? You looked up my blog, you can look up NaNoWriMo. So there. I've posted the links several times and I'm not going to do it this time. So open a new tab, look it up, and then read on.

Anyway, for my July 2013 project, I am going to write my very first science fiction novel. I believe the genre I will be writing in will not properly qualify as space opera, seeing as it only has a few main characters, a few not-necessarily-so-bad-after-all bad guys, no gigantic space armadas, and tons of nachos. Also, no Sith Lords. But it involves space travel, lots of planets throughout the galaxy, and stereotypically cannibalistic tribal warriors, as of my thoughts so far.

As a special sneak peek, I'll tell you a little bit of what I've thought out so far. It involves a man named (blank) who is on the run from (blank) and happens to find a young companion named (blank) on the way, who comes along with him to help on his quest to (blank), along the way being shot at, flung across the galaxy, trapped in the airlock, and declared the god of death by a bunch of stereotypically cannibalistic tribal warriors, not to mention flying through asteroid fields and all that good stuff. I've got a few details to sketch in, but I've got half a month to do it, and then the writing starts. So what am I telling you this for? You can help me along the way.

I need a character. This character is a galactic police officer and needs to be a compelling character. So, here's what I need:

• Name for said police officer (along with gender; plus, he/she has to be human, so make it reasonable)
• Planet of origin for said police officer
• Description of planet of origin for said police officer (he/she has to be human, though, so make it inhabitable)
• Description of said police officer (i.e. height, skin color, etc.)
• Quirky small fact about police officer's likes/dislikes

Got it? I'll pick my favorite and announce whose answer I've picked in an upcoming announcement. Get your answer to me by email: smiling_pint@yahoo.com

Joel out. *static crackles*

Announcement: Concerning Camp NaNoWriMo

www.nanowrimo.org

www.campnanowrimo.org

During the month of April, I fought a long and arduous struggle with several powerful dark creatures: Writer's Block (Wielder of the Blank Page and Evil Overlord of the Slowly Shifting Word Count), Distraction (That Dancing Llama at the corner of your eye who entices you with cotton candy and cookies, only to destroy your whole manuscript when you approach in hopes of treats), School (I won't even go into that; suffice it to say it impeded my word count very much), Despair (at the meager size of my word count), and, perhaps worst of all, Sickness. I came down with some bad poison ivy, coupled with a fever, around the second week of the month.

Any fellow Wrimos out there know how important the second week is. You can catch up on the first week, but if you don't stay on track for the second, it all falls to pieces. I still managed to write quite a lot (I was aiming for 75K, and I cranked out enough to put me in position to conquer 50K). But after my second week, I basically gave up, and only managed about 3000 more the rest of the month.

I have won NaNoWriMo before, last November in fact. But Camp NaNoWriMo, the April session at least, was not in my destiny. I had several essays and projects to write in school, as well as the dreaded ALGEBRA, worst of all horrors, so that when I came home I was exhausted by the time I finished homework. All these factors I've mentioned combined to beat me to a pulp this April. I only managed 30K the whole month. Which isn't bad, considering the obstacles. But it's still far short of the intended goal.

However, in July, I will try again, and there won't be school to impede me. Hopefully, I'm healthy, too. The phoenix will rise again!

Announcement: Camp NaNoWriMo

Welcome to Inkweb! I've decided to post about my experience so far of Camp NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, to those who don't know, stands for National Novel Writing Month and is a non-profit organization devoted to getting your novel written. National Novel Writing Month takes place in November and is a challenge for you to write 50,000 words in a month.

Camp NaNoWrimo is part of the NaNoWrimo project, taking place in other months of the year. Note: It is not a real camp, it's only online. For this one, the target word count doesn't have to be 50,000 words, it can be anywhere from 10,000 words to 999,999 words (although I do not recommend the latter option) and it doesn't have to be a novel, it can be short fiction, nonfiction, a script, or whatever you choose.

I decided to participate in the April session of Camp NaNoWriMo and floor the accelerator, taking my novel's word count to 75000 words, which is turning out to be harder than I thought. Currently I'm about four thousand words behind but that's not the worst I've been and I think I've got it in me to come back. I believe my whole month will be like a surging tide: I'll write like crazy and get up to the target, and then be exhausted and take a break to do other things like school and fall behind about 5000 words before writing my way back into the game. AAAAGGGGHHHH. I'm feeling exhausted already, and it's only the end of week 1.

On top of that, I lost my flash drive so I don't have a big chunk of my writing from the last few days. I've continued in a different document but it's weird not having half my project. I hope I can find my flash drive and add in everything else to the document before the end of the month.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the part of my novel that I haven't managed to lose, incinerate, or crush under a tractor:

"The city of Brasilia was packed. Alabaster buildings were stuck so close together that in some places the road wasn’t quite as big as the Jeep; pedestrians and bikers were everywhere on the road, and sometimes there would be a fruit vendor squatting with his fruit stand right in the middle of the road.

Birds were everywhere, in every nook or cranny known to man. There were bright colorful birds obviously from that region, and there were darker colored, less vibrant ones as well; they perched on poles and wires, they flocked together on windowsills and bicycles; they filled the air with an incessant flapping noise that stirred up the air into a miniscule whirlwind of currents. Feathers fell through the air like snow, adorning the ground in great green, red, yellow, black piles. There were parrots and parakeets, macaws, a hawk or two hovering high overhead, but the crows gave by far the most clear impression. They were giants, black hulks crouching on telephone poles in groups of about two or three, never a whole murder all together at once, but definitely sticking to each other. While the other birds frolicked, these black-beaked birds sat silently like dark angels staring at the children of light."

-J.W. Ball, In the Trappings of Lost Gold

And, JTZ, please don't spoil the ending in the comments. I didn't even want you to know the ending for this, but you looked at my notes anyway, so, oh well.

Please visit Iron Wyvern and Coal Ridge, everybody! Links here:

www.ironwyvern.blogspot.com

www.ancientryme.blogspot.com

And don't forget to answer the poll at the top right!

Announcement: Coal Ridge

If any of you buckaroos out there has been paying attention to Iron Wyvern (www.ironwyvern.blogspot.com) then you already know about Coal Ridge. However, I wasn't going to count on that and I wanted you to get a heads-up.

A good friend of mine, T. Granger, who makes up the "T" in "JTZ Baner, has begun a blog of poetry entitled Coal Ridge. Here's the link:

www.ancientryme.blogspot.com

Enjoy, critique, have fun! He just wants suggestions and helpful criticism, and perhaps a little bit of praise thrown in there as well.

-Joel 

Shoes (& Important Announcement)

Shoes. Anybody wear them?

Well, anyway. That was just to grab your attention. The next installment of Inspector Wolfe is below. And the other one's under it, in case you haven't caught up. Just click the label "Inspector Wolfe Tales" in the Post Index to the left to get them all in chronological order.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

The Inspector Wolfe Tales will be posted thrice a month, beginning next month. The dates of the posting of each installment will be:

10TH OF THE MONTH

23RD OF THE MONTH

LAST DAY OF THE MONTH

This month, March, however, since I missed the 10th of the month, it will be just today, the 23rd, and the last day, the 31st.

Announcement

I regret to inform the readership of this blog that Broomstick is going to be postponed until December, because I have been spending and probably will spend most of my time this month writing for NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/). I am sorry for the inconvenience, but after November's end, in addition to continuing Broomstick, I will probably post excerpts of my NaNoWriMo novel.