Various Musings by the Second Blogger

Hannah here!

Trinity wants me to put something on here, so I have obliged her. She will probably get a bit irritated, because I’m going to say that I have no idea what to write. Actually, no, she won’t get irritated now that I’ve predicted that she will (or maybe she will, now that I’ve predicted that she won’t). Never mind.

I have no idea what to write. I’m not a blog-y person like Trinity. In fact, I am notoriously bad at blogging. Once I got all excited and made a blog, but didn’t tell anyone about it. I put a half a post on it, then deleted the blog a month later. It’s about the same problem I have with writing and sending letters. I’m completely full of ideas and absolutely sure what I’ll write, right down until the moment that I’m staring at a blank document/sheet of paper. Then my brain goes AWOL. No idea why.

Inversely, I have a problem, in that, once I get in my mind that I have to do something, I will be mentally tortured until I do (sometimes it becomes virtually impossible to do that thing, and I don’t really ever get over it). So this blog has been nagging at my mind and I’ve finally decided to get it over with and write something.

Trinity suggested that I say something about the novel I’ve been writing, or my NaNo novel. The only idea I’ve had for my NaNo novel I didn’t like, and I subsequently trashed it (that’s another thing that’s been nagging at me). So my only other option is to talk about my other novel, which is also hard to do. I just don’t talk about it often. I have volumes of information in my head, but as I general rule, I only rent out a few books at a time. About three to four people knew the ending of the story (that, I think, was a mistake, but it’s okay, in a sense, because I’ve changed it). Now one person (besides myself) has an inkling, and she’s been sworn to secrecy. I don’t think she knows why. So I’ve usually kind of reserved when it comes to talking about my story, but I’ll try my best.

The first book that I wrote was bad. Very bad. It was 31 pages long, including the Table of Contents. I didn’t know how bad it was at first, but I had gotten really attached to the characters, so I jumped directly into book two.

The first book was written for my friend Darby, eleven at the time, for her birthday. I had bought her a gorgeous plastic dragon, and my mom suggested I write a book about Darby and her dragon to go along with the present. It took about a month to finish, and I was so proud of it. Family members all complemented me on it (in hindsight I’m not sure why; it was horrible). So when I started my second one, I wanted it to be done by Darby’s next birthday. I had much more time to work on it, and I was really intent on finishing it all the way, really well. About a quarter of the way through the book I realized how very horrible the first book was. There was mistakes and unexplained sections and confusing bits and bad action scenes and no real storyline. It also had many parts that were complete rip-offs of the first Inheritance book.

So this new one, I thought, would be the redemption. It will be much better. And so far, it is.

But Darby’s twelfth birthday has passed. And her thirteenth. And her fourteenth. Her fifteenth birthday is coming up sometime soon, and I am very not done. It’s a bit of a problem.

I don’t actually intend to publish these books. I may eventually, but no time soon (and not until I revise a few big things). So I’ll tell you a bit about them.


Basic storyline-wise, this is what the first two books are about. In the first book, Darby was out camping with her family when she found a small blue ring out in the woods. When she put it on, it shrunk to fit her finger, and a dragon suddenly appeared behind her. The dragon, who Darby named Aquamarine, claimed to be a “maiden’s dragon”: a dragon specifically bred and trained to protect the girl who finds the ring (in the case of a boy finding the ring, the dragon is a “knight’s dragon”). In the first book I put no conflict or story goal, but Darby did end up going to another dimension - which is something that a dragon ring can let you do - and met two elves, Armen and Lina (no last names at the time). She acquired a sword named Darby from Lina, who was an accomplished swordswoman and the original owner of the sword. Darby ended up changing the sword’s name to Gemstone, which was her nickname for Aquamarine. Aquamarine hitched a ride home with Darby’s family and lives with them now
.
Book two, Darby’s Quest. Aquamarine the dragon disappears inexplicably and Darby’s ring is shattered. As Darby tries to track Aquamarine down, she falls into another dimension by accident: the same one she had once visited with Aquamarine. There she is reacquainted with a certain pair of elves, along with a whole host of others, who have been having their own dragon problems. Darby tries to find Aquamarine, and a way back home, while she and the elves are being plagued by strange occurrences: either odd coincidences, red herrings, or half-hearted assassination attempts. They don’t know who’s behind it, or why the dragons have disappeared, and meanwhile, war is brewing on the horizon.

Yes, that was a bit melodramatic. And probably corny. It’s hard to write synopses. Methinks I may need to work on that.

As for the NaNo novel, I need to get an idea of what I’m going to write. It’s going to be nagging at me for awhile, and it’s a bit disconcerting when your sister has a synopsis of her story, a notebook dedicated to apocalypse research, and a couple of book cover ideas. I’ve got a little more than a week to get on the ball.

I will probably look back on this post later and wonder what on earth I was thinking.