365 Nights of Writing (9/27/12)

[Elysiia]

Hello all!

I just started the challenge in the wee hours of the morning. I'm pretty okay with my first bit, though I did wrap it up when it became obvious that I was having trouble spelling sweatdrop Anyway.

Some introductions: My name is Amanda and I've recently graduated with an English major, Japanese studies and art minors. My ideal job is to be in the publishing business as an editor for young adult fiction. That's what I write and read (to keep up with what's popular--alas, some are absolutely horrid) too.

I've always been uncomfortable posting full original work online, so this journal is going to function a little differently than what I've seen of the others. Hope that's okay. What I'm going to do for each challenge is to post what prompt I've responded to, possibly a short excerpt, and always a summary. I'm going to focus on the lives of Shane, Aiden, Juliet, Keira, and Alec primarily because I'm hoping to develop their characters further. The characters I'm writing about are near and dear to me as I've been thinking about them since 2009 and only recently have come back to them. What I'm writing is going to be back story to what I hope to publish one day.

Thank you for the support of the guild, and without further ado: the challenge!  

[Elysiia]

I am likely going to do the prompts in order so I can easily remember where I'm at. The first prompt is "New Beginnings" and I decided to write about Shane's first time in the Academy.

Now, some information that is needed. Shane is my protagonist, and the main character in this scene. The supporting character is Aiden, a boy she met the previous evening when they fought off Raksha demons. She can no longer return home as she has been pulled in to this dangerous, supernatural world.

She has no idea where she is and she sets off to explore. It is set at the closing of her old, normal life and the beginning of her new life of the knowledge of the existence of the supernatural.

Quick character info: Shane is an only child, born to parents who believed that they would never be able to have children. She's a miracle child, in their eyes. Her name means "god is gracious."

Aiden is also an only child; his name means "little fire." Both Aiden and Shane have names that define them in a way. I'm really big on choosing names and often spend a little too much time doing it... sweatdrop

A little bit of the piece:

<Although, she reflected, a bunny would probably object to having its ears tied together.

There was no more having it. She’d have to leave her room at some point, and even though she was nervous about the reception likely waiting for her somewhere in the Academy, Shane knew that it was only a matter of time before someone would come knocking at her borrowed room’s door, especially after the previous evening. Shuddering, she shook off the image of the lanky, gaunt creature with black pits for eyes and the thick cord sewing its mouth shut in a frozen grimace.

Besides, she couldn’t stay hidden forever. Self-consciously, Shane wiped her clammy palms on her borrowed jeans. She felt comfortable in her Converse, but the rest of the clothes were far too fashionable for her taste. Most of her clothes were from the thrift stores that littered the towns around St. Paul, and this Juliet’s clothes were clearly either new or so infrequently worn that they barely looked stretched. Shane suspected the latter since there had been no fight about borrowing them to a strange girl. It was just one of the many mysteries that Shane had discovered upon waking. Mourning the loss of her favorite bulky sweater, she’d pulled on the jeans and pink sweater with a swooping cut, only to discover that it showed far more skin than she was comfortable with in the autumn months. And she loathed pink. It was such a girly color.

Surprisingly, when she opened the door there was no guard or escort to be seen. Feeling slightly put out for a moment—how in the world was she going to find her way—she let a small gasp pass by her lips as she noticed her surroundings. 


Her eyes traveled upward, following the line of the pale grey stone pillar to the ceiling. It was one of many set at intervals of 15 feet wide enough that she could place both her arms across it if she so dared. Shane’s eyes jumped from symbol to symbol set high in the stone ceiling, which seemed to spread like the branches of trees to form a canopy in the middle. It called to mind many trees and the interiors of European cathedrals. There was a wild moment when she frantically thought that she was in some sort of cathedral or castle, but when she held her breath and listened she could hear the faint roar of busses passing by on the street. There were repeating motifs of roses, both carved in the ceiling and patterning the creamy wallpaper, which was lit by strange angel shaped sconces, the light flickering across their features and distorting them. They looked like avenging archangels in one moment, the kind messengers proclaiming the birth of Jesus the next.

Closing her mouth, for she realized she had it open wide this whole time, Shane set down the hall, her feet making muffled clomping in the thick Persian carpet, blue with cream colored stars twined about the edges. Although she could still hear outside noise, the silence in the place was stifling. She sensed that the place was huge; even passing down this hallway yielded many doors...

... she turned a corner and came out in to a large open foyer. The carpet abruptly ended in to gold and cream tiles patterned in large star like shapes, the ceiling soaring even higher above than the vaulted ceiling in the hallway. It opened out in to lovely glass skylights, their colored glass speckling the walls with lavenders, blues, golds, and greens. Shane looked around the rest of the foyer: there was a large scarlet plush couch with matching armchairs in the center, along with ceramic pots filled with plants that looked familiar but she had never seen them arranged so; small dark wooded tables with more roses, vines, and stars carved in to the legs and spreading across the top; and, she saw finally, a lift.

“Thank God,” Shane exhaled, her voice loud and echoing. She moved toward it, her sneakers squeaking across the tiles when a voice stopped her.

“Leaving with nary a goodbye?” His voice filled the silence of the room, breaking the spell that had her feeling like she was in a church.

“Yes?” She hated when her answers turned to questions.

The boy’s lips quirked in to a smirk. “Seems that you don’t even know the answer to that.” He gestured with his hand. “I’ll show you the way, Charlotte wants to talk to you.”

Shane hesitated, searching his face. He dropped his hand.

“Look. I know this is hard for you. I know I told you last night that you’d never be able to see your parents again without bringing danger to them. She’ll explain better than I can.” It was the first time that she had seen this boy seem sincere, the sarcastic remarks gone temporarily. He reached out with his hand again. “Come on.”

She came to him then, and he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, steering her down yet another hallway with the soaring tree ceiling. “Trust me, it won’t be that bad. She’ll only make you kiss her once.” So the sarcastic wittiness was back.

“So, it won’t be painful, or anything like that?” she said, ignoring his comment.

“What do you think she’s going to do, pull out your fingernails?” he quipped. “Charlotte loves strays.”

Despite being called a stray, Shane’s shock was too great to respond, so it numbed her responses. “All right...Aiden.” His name held a sense of the unknown, but it also held the sense of something that was going to change her life forever.>>Copyright Amanda F. 2012

I decided to post the majority of the piece here, but I request that no one post this anywhere else. I'm still nervous about posting even this small bit sweatdrop

Ideas, writing, characters, and whatnot belong to me. Please respect my writing and rights. Thank you so much for reading!  

[Elysiia]

Ahem. Well, I have been writing this past weekend, I just haven't been doing the whole updating it on here thing. I've also discovered that I'm kind of lazy on the weekends so I didn't write completely on the respective days. That's probably the biggest challenge of this 365 days of writing thing. I am HORRIBLE at motivating myself. And I've decided to be even more crazy and do a nanowrimo for october. So a whole month of answering prompts AND writing a novel? No biggie. whee

Alright, second day (9/28/12) I wrote on the prompt Cause/Effect. Characters in this are siblings. Alec and Juliet are about a year apart and Keira is a bit younger. Regardless, Juliet and Keira like to spy on their brother who is just starting to explore his sexuality (argh, that sounds horrible sweatdrop ). And by exploring I mean he's just starting to discover that he may not be a typical boy: he's checking out his mama's makeup. Alec is gay, and he feels that as the oldest (and as a boy) he has to present this tough-guy attitude. And when he finds out that Juliet and Keira have been spying on him through the crack of the door, well, he feels that he has to protect himself. He's terrified of his mom and dad finding out that he's gay and this leads to the future where his actions still have this preventiveness in them because he doesn't want his family to know (yet), although Juliet does know, she's just too nice to push it on him.

Cause/Effect:

<< The two girls covered their mouths to stifle their giggling as they took turns spying through the crack of the door. Golden light created a bar across the face of the auburn haired girl, clearly the older and more haughty of the two, as she nudged her dark haired sister in the side. 


“Oww,” she said plaintively, her forehead crinkling down toward her nose as she worked up toward a wail.

“Shh!” the older stage whispered, frowning down at her sister. “We don’t want Alec to catch us.” Turning back to the crack through the door, she gently pulled the door open a little wider as her sister leaned forward.

“Juju, I can’t see!” the younger girl’s voice threatened to rise again.

Juliet leaned to make room for her sister as she tried to see Alec’s next action.

The dark haired boy sat on the low seat, the dark wood set off by the forest green cushion. He turned his face from side to side, cerulean eyes focused on the mirror and his reflection in it. Alec looked down at the items that littered the expanse of the vanity: a small glass box whose contents consisted of broach, lipstick, and pearled hair pins; a large pouf layered on to of light pink powder; and assorted eye powder brushes, blush, and small boxes of makeup. A slim hand reached out to take ahold of the white pouf, a little puff of powder ejecting from the stained underbelly. Alec tapped it on the light pink powder, experimentally prodded at the bottom. Finally, he took a final glance at the bottom and pat both of his cheeks with the makeup pouf. His cheeks now a shade lighter, Alec moved on to his forehead and chin, leaving his face a ghost mask.

“Why’s he doing that?” Juliet’s sister asked, pulling at Juliet’s sleeve.

“I don’t know, Keira! Shh!”

Alec had now moved on to touching the small boxes on the top, blue eyes wide in his mask of white. His fingers landed on a vial and he pulled the gold filigree top off, revealing a deep scarlet lipstick. He slowly rolled the lipstick up, his fingers clumsy on the vial.

Keira laughed then, unable to hold the noise in any longer. Alec froze, the lipstick falling on to the vanity top where it dented and left a smear of red. His eyes darted to the corner of the vanity mirror where the reverse image of Keira and Juliet lay frozen in the glass. As fast as he could move, he darted toward the door. Keira wasn’t fast enough, but as always Juliet managed to keep out of his reach.

“Ow, ow! Alec, let go!” Keira twisted in his grasp, trying to pull her arm free.
Alec shook her roughly, his eyes wider than Juliet had ever seen them.
“What were you doing? Why were you spying on me?” his voice was brusque, and he shook her again for good measure.

“You’re hurting me!”

“You shouldn’t have spied on me, then.”

“Do you want me to go get mom, Al?” Juliet’s tone was mocking, her face twisted up in a leer.

Alec froze.

“She wouldn’t want you playing with her things.”

Alec looked down at Keira, tears running tracks from her hazel eyes.
Slowly, he let go of her arm. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Juliet smirked.

“Don’t you tell mom!” Alec turned back in to the room and slammed the door.


Alec didn’t know what made him remember that, exactly. Sitting in the small Thai cafe, the lingering smells of peanut oil and incense mixing to create a heady scent filled his nostrils. Across from him sat a hume girl chatting animatedly away about her dog and school and how so and so would be so shocked that he had just picked her up on the subway! It was something he had taught himself to do, in order to keep people off his back. He probably was remembering because she was so uncannily like Jules. Alec tried to keep an interested look plastered on his face, but he knew his eyes were wandering.

This place was a haven for both Nightworlders and humes, as long as there was no trouble. It was one of the last places where both could linger with no conflict. Alec let his eyes rove over the inhabitants, the blue spotlights stopping and remaining on certain individuals. There was a scruffy black haired boy that had a certain roughness to him, like he had just come in from running in a field. He wasn’t really Alec’s type, but he could see him as a perfect distraction—if it weren’t for the fact that he was a werewolf. Never a good idea; too angry. The next boy he landed on wasn’t really a boy, but a slim man with slitted eyes that seemed to glimmer in the low light. He was eating some sort of noodle dish with the cheap chopsticks provided by the restaurant. Alec’s gaze lingered for a moment longer, then moved on to the next boy, a blond headed one that looked similar to the one he was trying to forget. No.

“Are you even listening?” the girl’s voice cut through his thought, her eyes indignant. Caty, Carly?

“Sorry; you were saying about school...?”

The girl snorted. “Thanks for the nice time.” She got up with a flourish, yanking her bag so hard from the back of the chair that it rattled on its legs.

Alec sighed. He wasn’t very good at this pretending thing. It would probably help if he could talk to someone at the Academy, but his sisters had made it clear long ago that they didn’t understand him. >>Copyright Amanda F. 2012

Again, still nervous about posting. I just love Alec and I wanted to give him his little moment to shine because I'll probably stick with Shane and Aiden, for the most part.

Ideas, writing, characters, and whatnot belong to me. Please respect my writing and rights. Thank you so much for reading!  

[Elysiia]

For 9/29/12 I wrote on the third prompt, Peace of Mind. I'm at this point in my writing where I don't know if I want to write Shane's point of view or Aiden's, so I'm exploring with Aiden a lot. I want to understand him a bit more in order to make him three-dimensional, so I've been writing a few of these challenges with his point of view.

Another thing I've been doing is creating family trees (familyecho is the best free website for trees I have ever come across) and writing in information on characters in his family. It's quite fun.

But back to the challenge. This one is short, which is probably a blessing for those of you (if any sweatdrop ) who are reading my journal.

Aiden doesn't often get to relax because he's usually training, or off killing demons, or doing other debaucherous things. But that's not just who he is, but he won't let me in his head! This was a struggle for me to write because of that. Oh yeah, Marks are tattoos across their body that lends them supernatural strength, agility, cunning, etc.


Peace of Mind:

<< Aiden lay flat on his back, the coolness of the grass against his flushed skin making him shiver slightly. The contrast of the summer heat and the chill grass reminded him of autumn bonfires. The perfect opposites created the most calming effect for him and he closed his eyes against the bright azure sky wisped through with cloud fluff.

The Marks tattooed across his body leant him an awareness of his surroundings: the breeze that ruffled his hair and clothing, the sunlight that lingered on his face in patches, the small creatures that twitched hidden in the shade. Aiden let his mind wander, twisting tantalizingly around the things that he couldn’t often do, or even could think about.

He remembered the way his mother’s hands danced across the ebony and cream keys of the piano in the sitting room, remnants of the breakfast lying on the thin blue and white china. There had been a dog, for a time, a little Cavalier spaniel that had licked his face, brush tail wagging. His mother had set up a small studio in the attic where he dabbled with watercolors and charcoal. It overlooked the expanse of lawn, the stand of trees in the distance the marker of the edge of the property. Opening his eyes, the vision of his parent’s estate vanishing much as it had in reality. The sky had darkened, deep purple and indigo blue interspersed with the now thick dark grey clouds. For a slim moment, Aiden had been at peace.>>Copyright Amanda F. 2012

Ideas, writing, characters, and whatnot belong to me. Please respect my writing and rights. Thank you so much for reading!  

[Elysiia]

For the fourth prompt (9/30/12) I wrote on Childhood Memories. I focused on Aiden again, and the time that he got his very first mark. The First Rune gives the Hunters their abilities; it's a sort of doorway rune. I thought about exploring first Aiden's memories, but it became a sort of father / son short on both of their memories about getting marks. I also focused on Aiden's childhood and the choices that his parents made to keep him from his heritage and the hunter world. Because Aiden had been kept from the world he belonged in, he originally only thought that his father's mark was a tattoo. It ends with Aiden giving himself more marks, and reflecting on his first and how painful it was. It isn't for him now.

Because this one is probably going to be used in my novel, I'm not going to post an excerpt here this time around.

Thanks for supporting me!  

[Elysiia]

The fifth prompt (10/1/12), Speed, was a little more challenging to write. I knew I wanted to write about the speed of the hunters and the things they hunt, but for some reason I just couldn't start. I feel like my writing got stronger at the end of the piece, and I was pretty okay with how it turned out. The ending wasn't the greatest, but I just had to end it otherwise I would start writing another novel. sweatdrop

Summary: The hunters find themselves at a vampire-run nightclub pursuing a demon who feeds on pretty things, primarily girls and women. Juliet acts as the bait, but proves to be anything but the damsel in distress; Alec starts to lose his head a bit over the thought of the demon harming her; and Aiden is his usual demon-killing self. There's a focus on speed: the runes that aid the hunters and the way that the demon fights.

A little excerpt, but only a smidge because this will likely focus in my novel:

<< The pulsating music thrummed through the entire building, rattling the dusty and grime soaked windows in their frames, although that was not heard over the deep bass of the techno and dub-step. Although Aiden didn’t find either genre appealing, its beat got in to his veins and sped up his heart. The adrenaline coursed through his body, each Mark tingling on his skin and heightening his senses. His eyes sparked with awareness as his eido rune took effect and he watched those dancing around the club. Riot was owned a faction of the local vampire coven, and tonight, like all nights, it was full of them. Their white skin glowed surreally under the black and colored spotlights, the disco balls fracturing their light on their skin in sparkling shards. Elizabeth and Carlisle had promised their kind wouldn’t interfere this evening, and that made his job easier. His gaze briefly dropped on to Juliet, writhing with one such vampire on the floor as her eyes were watchful. He didn’t see Alec, but suspected that he was somewhere hiding in the shadows, as he was wont to do....

He saw Juliet detangle her body from the vampire’s and head across the floor. The vampire boy looked longingly after her, specifically at her neck, and Aiden decided that he was either very stupid or he didn’t care about the covenant. He couldn’t worry about vampires who didn’t seem to know the Law at this moment, however. His eyes followed Juliet as she skirted the edge of the floor and the bodies twisting together. Juliet looked stunning in the nearly floor-length black dress and it made her stand out against the way the other girls were dressed, which was the purpose....

As she reached the edge of the floor, she glanced back quickly, sensing the gaze of Aiden on her. Giving a nearly imperceptible nod, she started chatting up a tall stranger, his long black hair threaded through with green. Aiden got up from the bar and he saw Alec free himself from the shadows where he had been lurking.

This was the challenging bit: getting the demon away to a place where they could dispatch him. Riot was not the most private; a booth gave privacy for couples to canoodle, but not to kill a demon. Carlisle and Elizabeth had made it clear that their courtesies were not going to extend past allowing them in to the doors. Juliet stood on her tiptoes to whisper something in the demon's ear, smiling coyly. She had always been good at this part of the hunt. It smiled too, the smile of a predator, and Juliet took its hand to lead it through the crowd. Aiden shuddered and followed them at a distance in the crowd, and he sensed his Alec do the same through their paired runes....

“Get your filthy hands off her,” Alec said, the iciness in his tone cold enough to freeze blood. Aiden spared a glance at him, surprised to see that their was fear in his eyes. Aiden turned back to the scene before them, trying to see it through Alec’s eyes as he looked for a second time. The distance her dress had traveled up her legs was alarming, and Aiden felt a surge of brotherly protection toward Juliet.

“Back. Off.” The commanding tone Aiden used only seemed to entertain the demon, but it backed away from Juliet, its hands raised in mock surrender. It had abandoned its attempt to look completely human in its bloodlust; its eyes had the jeweled snake like quality and it looked as though its skin was beginning to go dry and scaly.

Juliet moved to the Alec’s side, pulling out the throwing needles that were holding up her hair. “I’m all right, “ she said. “God, that was gross.”

“There now, can I go?” the demon asked, his voice sinister sweet. “No harm came to her. Well, nothing she didn’t want, anyway.”

“You shut-up.” Alec’s free fist was clenching and the one holding his demon blade was dangerously tight.

“Enough talk.” Aiden knew that he needed to end this, and fast. Alec was quickly moving toward being unpredictable, and that wasn’t going to help in a fight.

“I quite agree; I’ll just head back in then, shall I?” The demon’s face was becoming smooth again, the way you might wipe away rocks from clay.
“I don’t think so,” Aiden said quietly....

There was suddenly a patch of black that was growing on its skin, shiny as an oil slick. A needle stuck deep in its chest, near where a human heart would be. “That wasn’t very nice,” it said, looking straight at Juliet. It pulled out the needle, a trickle of blood coming from its chest. The needle crumbled in its fingers, and Aiden tensed, the intuition rune burning as it activated.

In a flurry of motion, the demon suddenly moved, nearly so fast that Aiden could barely follow it, even with his runes. Juliet gasped as the breath was knocked out of her forcibly, the hand of the demon at her throat. He slammed her up against the wall, teeth elongating as he leaned down to take her blood. Juliet’s hand slammed up, bristling with needles, in to its face. Howling, it threw Juliet on to the pavement and then moved against Alec and Aiden. Its speed was incredible, and Aiden laughed as he thrust his blade repeatedly against its back....

[more fighting; Aiden realizes how its movements are slowing, but he himself is burning through all of his speed and agility runes]

With a sickening thud, Aiden buried his demon blade in to the chest of the demon, pulling it up and out and severing muscle and bone. Blood poured out in a viscous black sheet, soaking through the shirt the demon was wearing. A scream that sounded like a mixture of a velociraptor and a dying rabbit tore out of its throat, and it fell to its knees, gripping its torn shoulder even as it started to heal.
“Go back to where you belong,” Alec snarled as he cut the head off of the demon. There was a thump as the head and body fell to the ground and more of the black blood pumped out of the body. 


Juliet wrinkled up her nose as she pulled the toe of her boot away from the pool of blood.

“Disgusting,” Alec agreed, wiping his blade on his black sleeve. Aiden pulled his green long sleeves up, revealing Marks and new scars. He’d have to remark when he got back to the Academy.

“Do you need any healing runes, Jules?” Aiden asked, pulling his marking blade from his pocket.

Juliet turned her head from side to side. “I think I’m just sore. I’ll put on some salves when we get back.”

Aiden watched as the body disappeared, sucking in on itself like water down a drain. It went back to hell, or where ever it came from, they didn’t know. The battle had only taken a matter of minutes, but to Aiden it felt like it had gone on much longer. The adrenaline continued to course through his veins, speeding his heart and mind ten steps ahead.>> Copyright Amanda F. 2012

Ideas, writing, characters, and whatnot belong to me. Please respect my writing and rights. Thank you so much for reading! Please don't take!

I'll likely post the mayhem and gilding a lily entries tomorrow.