A mild writing day.

I allowed myself to sleep in a little. My wife has to work all three days that I’m off, so there is some writing time available.

Today, I took up Serang and moved her story ahead. This one involved her helping out the thieves to pay for the medical care her master needs. She deviated from the thieve’s plan and wound up killing a bunch of soldiers. She’s Serang, so that’s kind of expected of her.

Some camels died too, but she didn’t do it. These are Bactrian camels, the two-humpers. This is a fantasy world, but I want some similarities to Asia, so this desert is high and cold.

What Serang doesn’t realize, is that she is doing things she’s frowned upon previously. With her master on the mend, he’s going to call her out for this. She’s going to justify it in her mind, because they are soldiers. Doesn’t mean she’s right, but young people tend to find justification for their actions. It makes sense that she would too.

I’m at another transition point in the story, and those slow me down. I know what the next events are, but I have to get the characters in the right place and set the stage for it all to happen.

They’re going to join a caravan, travel with them for a while, then deviate for their own quest. While I think about this, I should probably come up with another fantastic creature of some kind too. This world doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of fantasy beasts, but there are some and it’s about time again.

I can’t just miraculously heal Yong, her master. This kind of thing takes time, but maybe he can hold himself in the saddle so they can move on.

I got all my critique samples back for the other story. This is the one with no name yet, and involves a bunch of my previous characters in a team-up kind of story. I need to work through them, then will probably take this one up again.

I might have gotten more done today, but bulldogs were involved. Frankie is more aloof than Otto and rarely wants lovins. Today she did. She wanted cuddled and scratched, and rubbed. How could I resist?

Of course, Otto was up here most of the morning, but he just hangs out and lets me write most of the time. Frankie insists on direct attention when she gets in the mood.

The writing wound up being nearly a chapter. Not a great day, but I can’t complain about it either.

Otto, just hanging out with Dad.