Easterbay and Nanowrimo

I’ve been SO BAD about posting this week. It’s because I’m an idiot and I tried to do NaNoWriMo without a full outline even though I know better.

Nano is easy if you do it exactly right, and impossible if you do it even a bit wrong, I have found.

On day 10 I scrapped the whole thing, wrote an outline, and am now attempting to catch up. That’s 2000+ words per day now to end up with a full 50,000 word draft at the end of it. I’m still keeping the old words in the count for morale, but I’m not sure it’s working… Morale is low today.  Yesterday morale was high, though. Ugh.

So: Can’t talk, must Nano.

In the mean time, here’s an excerpt of the good portion. And a link to my Pinterest mood board for the thing so you can see what I’m working on is here: .

Easterbay:

I was just dragging the gate over the sandy roadway, preparing to click the lock together, when he stepped out of the trees.

I say “he” because he stood upright as a human would, on two cloven feet.  His bottom half was wooly, but his top was human.  He wore a leather bomber jacket and a knit cap with horns peeking through, and he looked for all the world at first like a cheeky fisherman, the sort who loitered down at the docks.  Only the cheeky fishermen down by the docks had either turned soldier or weren’t young.

“Hey!” he said.

I’m afraid I startled, and dropped the padlock into the dust.  I stood.

“Yes?” I said, slowly.

“Yourn the newest witch, right?”

“No,” I said.  “I mean, I live in the house, but I’m not a witch or anything.  I can’t do magic.”

He scoffed at me.  “Anyone can do magic, even you mortal folk.  That isn’t what I’m talking about.  You’ve taken Her place, haven’t you?”

“Gran’s?  Vega Gay?”

“That’s the one,” he said.

“I don’t know.  I guess I have,” I said.

“Then yourn the new witch.” He nodded at me.

“Can I help you?” I said.

“No, but maybe I can help you.  This time it’s free.  Next time it’ll cost ya.”

“I don’t know what you could possibly tell me at this point…”

“They’re meetin’,” he said.  “That’s wha’ I came to tell ya.  On Samhain, they’re meetin’.”

“Who?” I said.

“Who… as if ya didn’t know.  Them.  The Fae-folk.  The little people.  The Winter court.  Haven’t elected a king in years, but they’re going to.  Thought you’d like to know.”

“What’ll it cost me?” I said.

“Huh?”

“Next time.  What will it cost me?”

“A chocolate bar,” he said.  “Maybe two.  Depends on the information I got.”

“Sure,” I said.  “Sure…”

“Nice doing business with ya,” he said.  And then he turned and swaggered off into the forest again.