Posts tagged trip
Story 10: The Boy and the Barrow Part 2

Trip tossed and turned. No matter which way he lay, the ground seemed bumpy underneath him. There was a stone poking up through the fabric of his bedroll and the cold nipped at his nose. He sighed. Victor’s snores seemed to penetrate the entire fabric of reality, never mind anything else.

The story he had told floated in his mind. One of the tricks they had taught him at the Library to take advantage of his memory was to treat each memory as an island, a piece of rock, floating in an infinite dark gulf. Bridges connected the memories, allowing him to see how one linked to another. With a thought, he could fly, run, walk, from one island to another, reviewing the objects and scenes there.

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short storySteve Cookhorror, nanowrimo, ten ehrian tales, trip, victor, writingComment
Story 10: The Boy and the Barrow Part 1

For the tenth story, I knew that I wanted to return to Trip and Victor. This was also a genre I haven't really tried; horror. I think it turned more into surrealism that actual suspenseful storytelling, but I'm sure I can practise. It's not really my forté but I'm sure I can work on that!

 

The hillside sloped lazily down towards the path and Trip ran down it, gleefully pinwheeling his arms around. The wind whipped his robes around him and teased at the stubbly hair growing through on his head. He reached the bottom, sandals crunching on the gravelly road, and looked back up the hill. Like some dark patch of treacle slowly sliding down a wall, Victor was making his surly way towards the path.

The man looked older, Trip thought. Visibly. Like the events of Fennica, just a few short weeks, had aged him. He was still made of boot leather and twice as tough, but there was a definite slouch that hadn’t been there.

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short storySteve Cookhorror, nanowrimo, ten ehrian tales, trip, victor, writingComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 29

Oh my goodness.

It's finished. It's finally finished. Now, a corollary to that; NaNoWriMo is very much NOT finished yet. I am ahead of par, to the extent where I could, in fact, take a day off. I won't, of course; that would be stupid. But I'll be writing something completely different for the last couple of days of NaNo because Poisonroot is DONE.

The last chapter... I'm proud of it. I'm not often pleased with my writing, but Victor's character has started to change in so many subtle little ways. I think he's still a bit of a bastard under the surface, but it's more that he's starved of contact with other people, or he's deliberately starved himself. Forced to communicate daily with Trip and Lauren, things have changed for him.

Anyway. A sequel is definitely coming.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookarbour, chapter, emmeline, fennica, high father hork, nanowrimo, poisonroot, rennin, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 27

Whooooooooooo! Epic fight scene is epic! Ok, so I listened to almost the entire Portal 2 soundtrack (Songs to test by) while writing this. It's actually really good for writing epic scenes. Lots of electronica-assisted soaring orchestral riffs.

This is quite a wonderfully epic scene for me and it's already got me thinking about how I can top it in the future. Tricky stuff. My inspiration for the Hork-construct monster is part Chernabog from Disney's Fantasia, part 18 colossus from Shadow of the Colossus and a healthy dose of body-horror from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

PAM is entirely grown from the D&D campaign. Thanks guys!
 

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PoisonrootSteve Cookanila, arbour, chapter, chernabog, church, colossus, evangelion, fight, hork, mecha, nanowrimo, poisonroot, rennin, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 26

Almost done, I think! Can things get any worse for Trip and company? Rennin swoops in the save the day and Sabir kicks ass, but will it be enough?

 

All over the room city-dwellers shuddered as the fruit did its work.

“What have you done to them? Lauren said, her voice almost a whisper as she stared round in horror. Trip and Victor looked at each other briefly; this was too similar to Deep Round for mere coincidence.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookanila, arbour, chapter, high father hork, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, rennin, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 25

Chapter 25, and the end is in sight for Trip, Lauren and Victor! What surprises await them? How will they deal with this new threat? What is High Father Hork going to do now that he has his own personal army?

Find out in the thrilling conclusion, over the next few days!

Side note: I had real trouble not having Victor swearing in this. I'm tryin' t'keep it fam'ly friendly, I'm guessin'.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookanila, chapter, church, father, high, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, rennin, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 24

Ok! So I can share a post now, as the last two were either plot from after the current canon or background-related info.

I kind of had trouble moving on after the last chapter. It's taken me most of three days to write Trip and co. away from the cozy semi-safety they were in at Lord Rennin's. Poor Trip; he's not had a pleasant time of it recently, and things are only going to get worse.

I've been reviewing my stats on NaNo and I've discovered I've been almost bang on par or over it since Day 11. That's 13 consecutive days. I think I can actually do this again. It's almost miraculous considering how bad last year went.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookchapter, church, high father hork, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, rennin, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 23

Today has been crazy. We made bread at work; the kids thought it was great. Hell, I thought it was great! Only... cooking is incredibly tiring work when you're doing it all day in a school.

Got my words done though. Half of this was written in a Brick Lane cafe called Kahaila. I can only kind of half recommend it; they chucked us out after twenty minutes because it was closing time, virtually no warning. No posted opening times either. When I mentioned it might be nice to put them up, the lady looked at me as if she'd never thought of it before.

The rest was written at home over a pie and chips.

Now off to kill people in artful ways in Hitman Absolution, which arrived in my mailbox this morning. How I've managed to avoid putting it in the PS3 up until now, I don't know...
 

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PoisonrootSteve Cookchapter, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, prison, rennin, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 22

Just broken 30,000 words on NaNoWriMo! Feeling pretty good :D

Music; what do you listen to while you're in the writing groove? I listened to the Bastion soundtrack for the first half of this, the Braid soundtrack for the second half. They've both got good points and bad points; I need something quiet, not too beat-y, interesting but not more interesting than the writing. Nothing with words. That is a definite no-no.

There was an interesting Twitter discussion the other day with Sonia Leong asking what people listened to. I waded in with the Death Note anime soundtrack (not all the tracks, only some of them) but it was interesting to see that I also listen to some of the other things that were mentioned; Shadow of the Colossus, Braid, Bastion, a lot of Final Fantasy, Tron Legacy, all that sort of stuff.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookchapter, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, prison, sabir, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 21

Wow, this was hard to squeeze out. Like a cat trying to pee out of a sewn-up bum, to borrow from Sir Terry Pratchett. We were busy all afternoon with guests, then it was 'well let's eat some pizza and watch a film' and that turned into 'lets have three Coronas and watch a second film'. We watched The Big Lebowski, which is weird but good fun, and Stardust, which is also weird but good fun, and both weird and good fun in different ways.

I finally got my wordcount updated on the NaNo site at four minutes to midnight. Close run thing. But seriously, it took about five hours to get 1670 words out.

Hopefully there will be other, easier, days.
 

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PoisonrootSteve Cookahnia, arbour, chapter, emmeline, nanowrimo, poisonroot, trip Comment
Poisonroot - Chapter 19

Halfway through! Good grief, and what a day to actually pull ahead of the par for the first time this year. This set me wondering; is it an anticlimax to just finish the last chunk on the last day, exactly on par? First time I completed NaNo, it was with a mammoth 10k on the last Sunday of the month. That was actually the 28th, so I finished early and in style, mainly because I'd been behind almost all month. This time it looks like I'm bang on par. We shall see!
 

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PoisonrootSteve Cookarbour, chapter, matron yohloh, nanowrimo, poisonroot, quinary, tripComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 18

Another new character, but this one serves a purpose. My wife quite rightly pointed out that I've introduced a lot of new characters recently; some of them are important. Some serve a purpose. Others will be discarded. I think it's important to have a healthy cast, but some of these will eventually be cut, either in editing or through the process of moving on from their part of the story and forgetting about them.

I like Matron Yohloh though.

Also: DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN...
 

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PoisonrootSteve Cookahnia, chapter, gargorians, matron yohloh, nanowrimo, poisonroot, tripComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 16

A new character, and a ladyfriend. Young. Rich. Potentially powerful. Also a bit wet at the moment; that might change.

Only a short update today; lots to do this weekend. Going to see Skyfall this evening!


 

They had been resting for a few hours in the plush confines of the guest room when a tap came at their door. Trip looked up from the book he had been reading.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookarbour, chapter, emmeline, nanowrimo, poisonroot, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 15

Chapter 15 already! NaNo is going great, I'm a little behind due to getting flu (which I'll go back and edit later when the wordcount is right) but I'm still due to finish about the 5th of December, so I can pull that back no problem.

This showdown in the throne room is actually my second attempt to write this scene. In the first one I simply pulled it out of the aether; Victor was more likeable, Trip was a bit less empowered, the Duke was more obviously nuts, High Father Hork didn't exist and the daughter's name was Amanda. Oh, and Trip and Victor came in under their own steam, not as criminals.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookanila, arbour, chapter, church, nanowrimo, poisonroot, rennin, trip, victor Comments
Poisonroot - Chapter 14

Oooh! Some Victor backstory. This is the commercial side of his backstory; there are far more things I could talk about but he seemed to be feeling particularly negative in this bit, so I focused on the sale and distribution of his stories.
 

The cell was cold and dark. Trip huddled in the corner listening to something dripping onto the floor, every drop seeming to reverberate as loudly as possible. He sighed for what seemed like the fiftieth time in five minutes.

“Ain’t no use huffin’, boy.”

“It’s not like you’re concerned,” Trip muttered into his knees. He got up and started pacing again.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookanila, background, chapter, church, nanowrimo, poisonroot, prison, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 13

Oooh. 13. Unlucky for some. Seems to be fairly unlucky for Trip and Victor but then it wouldn't be interesting if they got to the Arbour and there was a large 'to end plot, press here' button.

As it's unlucky for some, I want to take a moment to talk about people who deserve to be luckier than they are. I donated to NaNoWriMo last year, the year before and I will do again this year. Especially as a teacher, I believe in getting people writing, particularly children. Imagination is a wonderful thing and it's entirely too possible that a generation of imagination is being stunted by the plethora of media available. Now, believe you me, I'm not a technological zealot; I love my technology too, but it has a place, and that place is aiding the expansion of an imagination, not replacing it.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookanila, arbour, chapter, nanowrimo, poisonroot, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 12

Turns out my flatmate and very awesome friend Chippy is also doing NaNo. She needs some cheering on :D

 

With a thump that shook the Belle and dented the deck, the tree-demon landed between Victor and Trip. It roared, crouching, leaves bristling on its back like fur on a trapped animal.

When he looked back on it later that day, Trip wondered how the thing was able to move. Clearly seen in the daylight were the squat legs, like logs, obviously built for powerful leaps; its arms hung all the way down to the ground, ending in claws as long as Trip’s own forearms; by comparison, its boy was tiny, stick-thin. Its head was the strangest, looking like nothing more than a huge round walnut seed that had split; instead of a delicious nut, the mouth contained only teeth and a ridiculously long tongue.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookarbour, demon, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, steampunk, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 11

Chapter 11! Short post today as we've got a lot on. I'm back at work and generally things are motoring but I still found time to do this, so that bodes well for future updates.


 

“Get this crate loaded on, lad. Chip chop.”

Trip shook his head, levering himself up from the crate he was sat on. The sun was high in the air and they had been moving heavy objects for hours. Wearily, he turned and picked up the unwieldy wooden box. It had ‘Fragile: arbarometers’ stencilled on to the top with some sort of paint.

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PoisonrootSteve Cookarbour, chapter, demon, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, steampunk, trip, victorComment
Poisonroot - Chapter 10

Still ill. However, Chris is down this weekend. An awesome friend, he was my best man at our wedding and he is ALSO doing NaNoWriMo! Wish us both luck ^^

 

His eyes took some time to accustom themselves to the low light in the workshop. Trip moved further in, stepping carefully around the piles of brass workings and leather sheets.

“Hello?” he said, his voice swallowed by the huge jumbled space. He cleared his throat. “Anyone in here?”

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PoisonrootSteve Cookarbour, chapter, lauren, nanowrimo, poisonroot, steampunk, trip, victorComment