NaNoWriMo (fail) Update 2

Hi Guys,
So today I'm going to update you on my NaNoWriMo story. So it's currently the 23rd of November and I have a total of 3,339 words. Yeah, I know. So i've concluded that i'm not going to reach 50,000 in fact I'm not sure I'm going to reach maybe 5,000. So It's not going great, but I am enjoying writing it.
So what you've all been waiting for (like probably not at all):chapter 2.

Chapter 2

Cole Tholan was a guard at the palace and he was standing silently as the Prince Alexander had a quite conversation in the corner with Caro Sutter. Caro was a duke who hailed from Pythees (the healing dirsist, Axos the selfish dirsist) and had run into the prince’s games room where he had lounging claiming he had important news. The prince had then awkwardly shuffled into a corner where they had a whispered conversation.

Cole, although was trusted with Alex’s life, couldn’t focus his mind. He’d had a very trying day and was now worried for the seventeen guards he’d sent to ambush the rebel base unknowing whether they’d make it back alive or if their ambush would reverse and end in death and loss for the palace instead.

            He was in the middle of one of these thoughts when Alex called on him. Caro was gone and Alex was waiting to go.

            “Earth to Cole, what’s on your mind? You know don’t answer that it’ll probably take hours.” Cole grunted in annoyance. “No but seriously you look worried. Is it about those soldiers?”

            “Yeah it is. It’s just that I sent those soldiers away and what if they don’t come back?” Cole meekly admitted.

            “You do what you always: you tell their families then get the hell over it. Plus which there are like 15 untrained rebels Vs 17 Highly trained guards, what do the odds show?” Alex’s voice held a sort of sarcasm that assured Cole he was right.

            “Yeah, Yeah I guess. Anyway I should be the one reassuring you. Forget this happened” Alex nodded his agreement then smirked

            “I can’t believe you were worried about something so petty” Cole shoved him but not hard enough to make the prince do anything but stumble.

            “Shut up! Anyway where do you want to go?”          

“Let’s just walk” Alex grabbed Cole’s arm and led him towards the gardens “let’s just walk.”

                                                            ____________

Lillian rose from the fields of bodies around her. Her dark ebony hair had gained a reddish quality as had her clothes, neck, hands and face stained by the blood of many.

 The guards had indeed began to ambush and without considering the others she swung herself into the beams that blanketed the ceiling and stood watching as the guards cut down person after person without hesitation. She felt slightly guilty about just letting her people die but then again they hadn’t believed her about the guards and here was her proof. She stayed hidden where she was and when the guards were leaving her thought about the lives they’d just removed from the planet and as they thought they had gotten away with it, she unleashed herself upon them.

They’d died too easily. The fight they put up was hardly worthy of all the death they’d just caused, then again they weren’t expecting a highly trained ex-seeker to be there. No one could out fight a seeker, it was almost impossible, almost.

She closed the grate as she exited the sewer, now on sight layer one, and began to make her way through Greve. She kept to the shadows in fear of people spotting her and making a scene, she was covered head to toe in blood. As she slipped from the shadow of one building to another she bumped into a hooded figure going the opposite direction. In fact he was going so perfectly in the opposite direction that she grew suspicious so she naturally came to the decision to follow him.

                                                ___________

Cole bumped into a figure and was surprised to see she was covered in blood, leaving a sticky brownish residue on his cloak. She mumbled her apologies and annoyance as she brushed past then he heard her stop and turn back in the direction he was heading in. Why? He turned to catch her in the act but there was no one behind him. He continued on his way slipping into the second layer as he approached the grate. He readjusted his long cloak and re fastened the mandatory name pin. He lifted the grate and slid it aside then called into darkness. No reply. So he grudgingly began the descent into the sewer.

                                                ____________

It took her a few minutes after her initial encounter to recognise the cloak he was wearing, each of the soldiers she’d killed had been wearing won. She was watching him while running across a mixture of ground, roof and balcony, when he disappeared from sight. In that moment she knew exactly where he was heading, she slipped a layer behind and saw him begin to descend through the sewer entrance she had thought was secret.

She could smell the putrid smell of blood long before descending down the ladder. She heard an audible retch from below and slipped to layer three before finishing her descent to avoid being spotted. When she landed in the room, she (like before) swung into the rafters and switched back to layer two so she could watch.

                                                  ____________

Cole counted the dead 32 so someone was still alive. Who? He counted his soldiers 17 so the missing person was rogue. He checked the bodies and began putting story together. His guards had ambushed and killed 15 rogues, and then the one who remained killed his guards and escaped. But who would be skilled enough to kill seventeen guards? Seekers would be, but why would seekers kill a guard they were fighting for the same thing. He made his way around the room saying a short prayer to each one and placing their hoods over their heads. He didn’t bother to clear away the bodies; no one would come down here. Also, not many people came onto the second layer to smell flesh either.

He soon grew sick of the smell of death and decay and turned to leave. He made his towards the ladder head bent in concentration. He looked up to find his footing on the rungs, but there was someone blocking his way. Hell! It was the same girl he’d bumped into on the streets, and she meant business. Her hair was made of the blackness that came with night, and it was matted with blood. That same blood covered every square inch of her; her face, her neck, her arms, legs and clothes. She was holding to swords each one so bright and silver they were like individual slices of moon. He could see other sinister weapons glinting around her hips and her thighs, He could also see by her stance and positioning that she knew how to use them. Was she the one who’d escaped? The guttural growl she let loose was nothing short of animalistic, and he could do nothing more than draw his own sword before she began to advance.

So another cliffhanger and I know it's awful but there you go. Chapter 3 soon. Bye,

-A

NaNoWriMo (fail)

Hi Guys,
So this month is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and the aim is to write 50,000 words in during the month of november. Now I have been guilted into takin part.
Now as you can tell I am a little late to do this post, but I've been really busy lately and haven't had the time. However in the time that I haven't been using to blog, I've been ussing to actually atempt to write this thing because well why not! I am not very good at this at all, it is way past the halfway mark and I have just over 3,000 words. By my standards that is pretty impressive and considering I started like 10 days late I'm doing Ok. Jokes I'm failing quite alot.
I will link my NaNoWriMo here: NaNoWriMo

Now for the real reason of my post here is chapter one of my book:

Chapter 1                                              

She dropped, well that would be a fancy word for what she did. She fell, off the roof of a warehouse after just escaping the clutches of the council. Lillian Winewood knew that within seconds the guards would be after her, but then again, she also knew that she could outrun them.

As Lillian fell through the darkness that was collecting around and within Greve, she thought to recall what the seekers had told her. And, as she hit the grimy streets, she tucked her legs up against her far too thin stomach and rolled into a standing position. She took no more than a second to regain her footing, and when she had she once again began to sprint through the repulsive city that was Greve. It was when she heard a loud commotion behind her that she realized how fast her pursuers actually were and without giving it a second thought she ducked into an alley to wait out their hunt.

Would this actually work? She questioned. Then smiled maliciously; first at the noise of the council guards as they rushed past her; and then at their mistake in not considering which of many possible ways she could have gone. Again Lillian began to question herself about, was what she had achieved in snatching worth the risk that she piled on herself every day? But then righted her thinking by muttering under her breath

“You have to, to survive, and any way they don’t call you the sphinx for nothing; they haven’t caught you once in seven years” She physically grinned at the prospect, seven years! No one lasted that long; she was the best of her kind (that would be the rogue). She hastily smoothed her features into a bored sort of expression as she began to stroll casually down the alley.  The neutral expression turned grim as she made her way back to the hellhole that she had to call home, but to her it felt more like a headquarters of a sort; she would check in, and out, and give in her daily prizes so they could be shared with the more helpless rogue.

                                                                               _____

Lillian once again began to doubt the victory of her bread as she lifted the iron grill that closed off the sewer to public access (it obviously didn’t do a great job) and hopped down into the bowls of the city. When she had first learnt about this ‘sewer entrance’ she was adamant that she wasn’t going anywhere near it and would use the more innocent looking front entrance. She had, as well as most others, believed the sewer entrance would in fact lead to an actual sewer. But, in fact, it lead to a ladder, and that ladder led to a room that would be seemingly empty unless you thought to remove yourself from that layer of sight and position yourself on the in one under which case you would clearly be able to see a small group of people. That small group of people were in fact the rogue of Axos. 

It was that very ladder that she made her way down before dropping into the room expecting, as normal, for it to be empty and it was until she peeled back the layer of muck that clouded her vision and blocked her from viewing the door. When that layer was gone the scene around her changed and burst into life. The room was alive with people bustling around doing their jobs as if nothing was amiss, but she knew better than to trust them. She peeled away yet another block, exactly like her mother had been teaching her. That was until she was captured and killed for being different. When that layer was gone she felt rather exposed as peeling away sight barriers was like taking of layers of clothing. You remove the layer in front of you and put it behind you meaning that you are now invisible or ‘clouded’ from others on different layers of sight.

After the second layer was fully behind and she opened her mind to see more, the bustling crowd disappeared as they remained on a previous layer. What stood in front of her was worse. Seventeen city guards stood there waiting for a moment like this to happen, that or waiting to attack when everyone was asleep. As quickly as she noticed them they noticed her and began to move in set on claiming this one-off prize. Before she fully disappeared from their view, Lillian saw a sword jab where she was standing but a few seconds ago.

When she popped back into existence on layer two, it took a few seconds for her to realize she was now without her bread; she had dropped it in her haste to get the barrier back in place. She quickly congregated anyone who would listen to tell them about the situation.

“Ok, Ok how do I start” she began to mumble, her voice rose as she clearly spoke To the 15 people who had gathered “umm well right then, I was umm checking the layer of sight beneath the one we declare ours and well I was faced with 17 city guards waiting to ambush. They obviously can’t do it now while we are all up and active, I mean they would be stupid to try. Break into a room full of thieves, exiled warriors and in my case seekers, they would be crazy absolutely cr...”

“Get on with it” She allowed her eyes to skit over the crowd and with little effort located the owner of the yelling. David Marks, an idiot. The look she then gave him would have made the worst of the worst shudder even a little. She glared at him until he backed down mumbling apologies before she continued.

“I don’t think we need to evacuate or anything like that. This is no extremity it’s simply them waiting to ambush us so instead we ambush them. Anyone who would like to fight can stay here. We don’t need many there were only seventeen guards four or five of us will do” She waved a hand in dismissal waiting to see who was left. No one, that’s who no one had taken her seriously and stayed behind to help her fight no one, if that’s how they wanted to play it they could die. See if she cared. Lillian then turned to go and not a moment later seventeen city guards popped into existence and began to ambush.

I know it's awful but I'll post chapter two soon just to keep every one from killin them selves with the suspense (not) bye.

-A

 

Martian Movie Review

Hey Guys,
So today I'm going to be reviewing the martian movie. I actually saw the film beginning of October but only recently thought to review it. Let's review...
So I would first like to mention the special effects. I think everything they used was really well done apart from near the end when he was 'flying' from the incision made in his spacesuit, other than that small part I think it was pretty well accomplished. The Martian terrain as such would, I think, have been easier to create as it is mostly dessert but still, it looked pretty legit.

I love the format the film was done in as that video diary. You probably don't know this as I've never mentioned it, but when reading I really enjoy a different book format e.g. when a book is written like a letter or diary or a play script (like Shakespeare) so I enjoyed the book and film format.

Finally I think the casting was well chosen and the parts were played really well. In the book I really enjoyed Mark Watney's character and personality traits and I think in the film they managed to captured him reasonably accurately which is good.

Overall I think the film was well made and it didn't stray too far from the plot and managed to get most of the book's content in the film which is great. See you soon,
-A