Um, do I have to be furious? on Labyrinth Gardens

Echo Elms

October 26, 2006 9:53 PM

Novelling Fury! by Echo Elms

Echo showed up in Labrynth Gardens a half hour early with his brand new journal tucked under his arm, his bookbag packed with needed supplies, and a borrowed table trailing along behind him in the grips of a halfway competant wingardium leviosa.

He had plans for that table, and hoped the Pecaris wouldn't recognize it and reclaim it for their common room just yet.

From his bookbag, Echo pulled out carefully folded brochures explaining the writing event and calendars to help people keep up with the word load. He had taken the liberty of scheduling weekly get togethers and an end of Novelling Fury celebration (featuring muggle soda and pringles potato chips sent via owl from Wyoming thanks to his mom).

The flyers (these weren't enchanted so they weren't flying away) and brochures he set on the table under rocks so they wouldn't blow away.

There wasn't much else that had to be done except wait for the other kids to show up. If they showed up.

At 8:05am he stood up and thanked everyone for coming, offering them words of daring do, and ending with a strong, "Let the novelling commence!"

He grabbed his own novelling journal and tried to calm down. Now that it was all over, his great project was in motion, now, now his hands were shaking. He stared at his blank page.\n\n

Subthreads:

Um, do I have to be furious? by Zack Dill

Once upon a time.. by Echo Elms

Mumbling under my breath by Saul Pierce

I can do fury by Caedence Redoak with Echo Elms

21 Echo Elms Novelling Fury! 93 Echo Elms 1 5

Zack Dill

October 26, 2006 11:16 PM

Um, do I have to be furious? by Zack Dill

Zack had arrived a few minutes early. He wasn't sure what sorts of supplies he was supposed to bring, so he brought a whole package of looseleaf paper (college ruled), a binder to keep the finished pages in (with a label sticker on the front proudly proclaiming his book's title: Headmistress Marnett and the Aliens which wasn't terribly creative, he could admit, but it was descriptive), and the remainder of his box of ball point pens (there were about eight fine point blue papermate softgrip pens left).

When he arrived, he found there was a table, but not much in the way of chairs. Well, that rock looked like a reasonable place to sit, and he did have the binder to lean on. He claimed the rock in the name of Alderaan. Well, more for himself, really.

He used a pen point to tear open the top of the plastic around the looseleaf paper and pulled out a few sheets. These, he placed atop his binder and poised his pen on the top of his page and waited for the signal to begin.

When it eventually did, he got right to it.

Lucinda Marnett was the Headmistress of Sonora Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She was an elderly woman. She looked old because she was old. She still enjoyed working though. You could tell it by how pleased she was each year as she made her welcoming speech at the Opening Feast.

Unfortunately for her and the people of Earth, she would not long be able to keep that favored position as Headmistress of Sonora Academy. For Headmistress Marnett is not an ordinary old woman. She is a hero. When Earth needed her, she answered the call of duty. This is her story....

\n\n

1 Zack Dill Um, do I have to be furious? 40 Zack Dill 0 5

Echo Elms

October 27, 2006 9:50 PM

Once upon a time.. by Echo Elms

There had been so much time taken up by getting this novelling group started -- making posters, talking to professors, writing home, making the brochure, making recruitment speeches to his friends -- that he hadn't actually had time to think about his novel. Somewhere, that whole novelling part of Novelling Fury sort of got pushed aside.

He made a couple squiggles on the page. Back when he first started he'd wanted something with cowboys, train robbers, and woolly mammoths. He thought it would be funny to have train robbers gallopping across Crooke County on the back of a massive mammoth, and have saber tooth tigers prowling around.

Now it seemed kinda dumb.

"Canyon Hale," he wrote. Whatever his story turned out to be, Canyon would be his main character. Echo looked up at the other kids and recognized Zack Dill. He'd heard of that guy. There was a rumor that Zack was a weirdo alien or something -- or maybe he thought he was an alien or everyone else was an alien. It was sort of muddled.

Maybe Mammoths were aliens. No, that was dumb too. Maybe humans were all aliens and mammoths weren't. But then how did they get there? Flying sabertooths?

"Just write something," he told himself. So he did. "Canyon Hale was something, and he lived somewhere. He had a pet mammoth he called Pendragon. He clipped Pendragon's wool every summer and made thread to sell in the towns, but usually he just roamed. Canyon was a roamer."\n\n

21 Echo Elms Once upon a time.. 93 Echo Elms 0 5

Saul Pierce

October 27, 2006 10:22 PM

Mumbling under my breath by Saul Pierce

Saul wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the first 'meeting'. Maybe a rehashing of the rules, introductions all around, that sort of thing. It didn't even occur to him that they might start writing there. Consequently, his quick quotes quill was still in his room and he didn't have any paper or parchment.

When he got there, he picked up one of each of the fliers and brochures because it seemed the thing to do. He didn't really look at them beyond a glance before folding them together and sticking them in his jeans pocket (it being a weekend, he was dressed down in blue jeans and a t-shirt bearing the slogan 'Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.').

Then Echo started talking, which was right along what Saul was expecting right up until he said, "Let the novelling commence!" and grabbed a journal like notebook.

Saul blinked and looked around. The others were also pulling out paper or even scribbling away already. Then he looked around again because he was at a loss as to what else he should do.

Following his plan in this sort of environment would be really disruptive, and while Saul didn't mind being a minor distraction or the center of attention, this really wasn't ideal. He'd be more likely to annoy everyone else and prevent them from doing their own writing.

So he didn't go back for his quick quotes quill. He could do a little bit writing in the normal manner. He just needed, yeah, that. He liberated a sheet of paper and a pen from a kid sitting on a rock who was so intent on his own writing that he didn't even see Saul steal his stuff.

Next, he needed a writing surface. The table was the obvious answer, so he ignored the lack of chairs and cleared a few brochures out the way to make room for him. Then he put pen to paper and made a nice little dot.

Okay, the story. He had a story. He was going to tell it with voices and everything, but looking at the piece of lined paper, his mind mirrored its blank state.

No, no, he could do this. He wasn't going to be the only (or at least not the first) person to scream in frustration and give up. He was no quitter.

"Once upon a time," his whispered under his breath, which seemed a good start, it being tried and true. He stopped to write it down. "Once upon a time there lived a boy named, um, Saul." He'd breifly considered using 'Sal' so it wasn't quite as obvious that he was doing a modified autobiography, but figured with him telling the story out loud with the quill recording him, he'd eventually slip up and start using Saul by mistake. Might as well keep it simple.

He wrote out the rest of the first sentence, then muttered again, trying to pick up story momentum. "Once upon a time there lived a boy named Saul."

Nope. No momentum. He crossed it out. "Once upon a time," he mumbled again. He wrote that down and said it again, "Once upon a time there was a boy named Saul." No, he'd already done that and it didn't work. "Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess." Okay, it looked like he was scrapping the autobiography idea. He wrote down the rest of the sentence.

"Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess. Her name was Maria and she was the most lovely girl in the kingdom." He wrote that down up to but not including Maria's name, because there was no way he was telling a story about his cousin. He looked around an his gaze fell on Echo. He replaced the name with 'Elly' and continued on.

He knew where he was going now. He just needed to figure out how to bring in the love interest, Sir Echo, and the story would tell itself from there.\n\n

1 Saul Pierce Mumbling under my breath 82 Saul Pierce 0 5

Caedence Redoak

October 29, 2006 4:30 PM

I can do fury by Caedence Redoak

Caedence was amusing herself by sitting on a swing that was rumored to be Elly Ericksson's. Or, at least, she made it. She was still in a great mood. The latest quidditch fever had her carrying her broom everywhere she went and using it as often as possible.

Then she saw Echo Elms dragging a table behind him. She smacked her own forehead. Oh yeah, she did voulenteer as a joke, didn't she? Well, it appeared there was a meeting. Jumping off the swing, she recalled too late that she was in mid-swing. She ripped the black lace sleeve of her sweater and got sand all over her jeans. To add to it, there was a scrape under the tear in her shirt and it was bleeding pretty bad. One solution. She ripped off the tattered remains of her sleeve, folded it over and tied it around the wound. It would do until the meeting was over. She grabbed her broom and bookbag that was waiting nearby and lept into the air.

Of course it was only feet away, but she didn't want to go trapsing around the labyrinth. She never did really care about finding her way through it. Brain puzzles werent her thing. So she got out within seconds. She found fliers and other stuff under rocks so she took one of each. Then she took out her quill and parchment. She perfered them to pencils or pens and papers. She zoned into Echo's speech when he told them to begin writing.

She took a comfortable seat next to the rock Zack sat at. She nodded briefly to show that she held no rivalry off the field and began to scribble words on her paper. It was what her muggle teacher taught her; if you dont know what to write, just write random words until you get an idea. Funnily enough, she got the idea straight away when she wrote 'beating'. She smirked, of course her story had to do with quidditch!

Once, there was a girl named here she paused waiting for a name. One came when she glanced at Echo: Elm. Elm loved to play quidditch, but the position she played the most was the beater. Her parents, one an incompetent witch, the other a firm non-beliver in magic, never really shared her passion. But she always loved quidditch. What did she love more than quidditch, you ask? Tai-kuan-doh, of course. she wrote under it 'use spell checking quill' She would always be challenged to prove her skill at fighting. She had to watch her back. There were plenty people out there who wanted to beat her. But Elm knew that she could only be beaten if she let her guard down. So, she covered herself in a hard shield of indiference. This never did quite cover the kind look in her eyes. Not until she was angered completely. Then, all trace of kindess or pity would be gone. Yes, Elm could be quite scary.

She never realised that she was writing an auto biography. She went on for a while about her childhood and stopped just before recieving her letter to Sonora. She cracked her knuckles and turned to Echo, "I wrote maybe a foot, two, but I got to go. You don't mind do you Echo?" \n\n

0 Caedence Redoak I can do fury 94 Caedence Redoak 0 5

Echo Elms

October 30, 2006 2:06 PM

If you can't, I don't know anyone who can. by Echo Elms

Canyon went on being an alien human living in the wild west for a few more paragraphs before he was suddenly and unexpectedly captured by a band of neandrathals. They had built a huge stadium a ways south and were dragging Canyon there to fight as a gladiator against a giant mean male mammoth and a sabertooth tiger at the same time. Of course, Canyon was terrified and trying to remember mammoth and sabertooth biology as he could before he his imminent and untimely death. He hoped a weakness could be found.

Maybe the tiger could be made to attack the mammoth.

"I wrote maybe a foot, two, but I got to go. You don't mind do you Echo?"

Echo looked up and blinked at her. Caedence. Yes, of course, it was definitely time to introduce a new character. Wait, no, she was asking him something. Something about asking permission to leave? Permission. From him?

"Do what you got to do," he told her, "Just keep up your word count. 2,000 words a day. See you later." He'd find her in lunch, maybe, and see how she was doing with it. He was suddenly very eager to talk about his novel.\n\n

21 Echo Elms If you can't, I don't know anyone who can. 93 Echo Elms 0 5