Monday, October 31, 2011

Entangled: A Short Story by Alexander Bennett

A bit of info before you read: This is a short story I decided to write for you guys. It's about 1,500 words long, so it's not too much. I didn't have any idea what I was going to write about until I started writing. It ended up kinda turning into a... prequel-ish or chapter-ish story. It could totally be expanded into a full book or something. I tried to give enough background info in the story without slowing down the pace, so none of you should be confused, ya dig? There was a lot less detail in the first few drafts, but I was told by someone that I needed to slow it down and give more information. So, without further ado, I present ENTANGLED...


It would be a lot easier to get away from Kellan Delaney if he couldn’t read my mind.

Minutes ago, right after leaving my final class of the day—Herbal Studies—I felt the tingling sensation around my ears that let me know someone sensing my thoughts. As a human, I was able to tell when a faerie was invading my mind. And if someone was able to break through the mind barriers my father put on me, they were a lot stronger than most of the students here. 

I turned around, and there he was—Kellan Delaney, The Institution’s most popular and, I admit, hottest student. If he went to the human world, he would have about seventy-two modeling agents after him in an hour. I felt drab in comparison to my unearthly classmates, with my straight, dark hair and midnight blue eyes.

 If Kellan didn’t want me dead, I would be elated at the fact that he was interested enough to read my mind.

The thing is, right before I was sent to live in Fae, my faerie father overthrew Kellan’s—after Minister Delaney tried to reinstate the practice of taking children from the human world— and is now High Minister. I would probably hate me too if I was Kellan.

When I finally reached the main entrance to the wing of The Institution that hosted my Herbal Studies class, I kicked the door open and started swiftly towards the girls’ dorm.
            “Inara! Inara, stop!” I heard Kellan’s deep, soothing voice calling to me, and I actually did hesitate for a moment, but only for that one moment. Once I regained my composure, I picked up my pace in an effort to evade Kellan, heart running rampant in my chest.
I moved quickly, and I could no longer see Kellan when I took a look behind my back. I blinked thrice, but my eyes remained flooded. Without warning, I tripped, and was flying towards the stone sidewalk at an unimaginable speed.

And then I wasn’t doing… anything.

My body hung in midair, not six centimeters from the ground. It had to be faerie magic that was doing this, but I couldn’t think of anyone in Fae—besides my father—who would care enough to stop me from wiping out.

“Inara,” I heard the rumble of Kellan’s voice, and immediately tried to bolt for the dorms again, but I couldn’t budge. No. It was Kellan who had saved me from falling. But of course, he most likely did it so I wouldn’t be able to fight him off when he ended my life.

It never seemed fair to me, the prejudice the people of Fae had against me. They said it was because I was not truly faerie. They were right of course, my mother was human and I had no magic to speak of. But when your father is High Minister of Fae, you would think people would be more hospitable.

“I’m so glad I finally stopped you, Inara,” it was Kellan again, and after the words left his lips, I realized that I was no longer floating centimeters from the ground, but instead resting in his arms. “Oh, and you’re welcome.”

“Let go of me!” I screamed, while kicking and doing anything I could to free myself from his muscular arms. Arms which I could admire, if they did not belong to the faerie who loathed me most.  Other students were staring at us, but didn’t move to help.

I had a flashback of the first time I met Kellan, when I first got to the palace after being thrown out by my mother after I came home from a party smelling a wee bit like vodka—and taken in by my father within minutes. Kellan took one look at me and told me that my father and I would be sorry. That was the only hint I needed to know that we would not get along.

To my surprise, Kellan actually released me from his grasp. When I stood on my own, and glanced back at him before gearing up to zoom away once more, I noticed that he looked almost… embarrassed.

I didn’t know if it was just one of his little games, or if he actually felt remorse for being such an ass, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

I took off again, and didn’t look back until I had reached the building my dorm room was in. Once I got there, I wiped sweat from my forehead, and plopped down onto my king-sized bed—one of the many perks of being the High Minister’s daughter—surrounded by purple drapes. Everything in my room was either purple or gold, the colors of Fae Royalty.

I don’t know what faerie magic made beds so soft and comfortable in Fae, but whatever it was, I was thankful for it. I was asleep in minutes, but to my utter dismay I dreamed of Kellan.

I was once again in his arms, but this time I was enjoying it. He was holding me close to his chest, and I breathed in his scent, which was a combination of ice and fire, excitement and serenity.

            “Inara,” he whispered, “you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this.” And before I knew what was happening, his lips were on mine. The kiss was soft and tender, but soon turned into an embrace 0f pure passion, and then all of my reprehensions were abated. Who knew when I would be able to kiss Kellan like this again?

            Kellan pulled back and looked at me earnestly. “Kellan, I lo—” I awoke, and was immediately greeted by the tingling sensation around my ears. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Who the hell was reading my mind, and how much did they see?

            “Dreaming of me?” Crap. Of all the people to have seen that dream, it just had to be Kellan Delaney. In fact, he had probably used his crazy-ass powers to trigger the dream in the first place, just to be able to rub it in later.

            “Get out of my room!” Before I said it, I hadn’t even realized where we were. There wasn’t time to figure out how Kellan had gotten past the guards (guards that my father had insisted be placed all around the school once I arrived) at the dorm entrance, for I was too occupied trying to come up with an escape plan. Oh why couldn’t I have been born with my father’s faerie powers?

            “Not so fast, fireball,” Kellan was confident now that we were alone. “We need to have a talk.”

            I was of course scared, but I tried not to let it show. “So talk,” I managed to keep my voice level, but the smirk that formed on Kellan’s near-perfect face showed that he knew I was terrified.

            “It’s about your father,” he said, and was silent for a moment, probably waiting for me to ask him for more information. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

            “What about him?” I asked.

            “Well, the thing is, as my father is Vice Minister, your father thinks it wise for us to be…close. We will need to work together someday, when we take over for our fathers.” Kellan pushed a few locks of his wavy, chestnut hair from his eyes.

            “Hopefully not.”

             “Yeah, you’ll probably end up getting yourself killed first,” he was back to his ass-hat self. “Anyway, it looks like you and I will be spending a lot time together.” He didn’t really seem thrilled by the idea.

            “The hell we will be,” I liked standing up to him. He may have magical faerie powers, but I could tell it like it is.

            “Yes. We will be. Your father has told mine that I am to,” he paused, and it looked as if whatever he was about to say would cause immense pain. “I am now legally your… sentry.”

            I looked right into Kellan’s forest-green eyes, but didn’t know what to say. If my father had pronounced Kellan as my sentry, there didn’t seem to be many options. A sentry is the equivalent to a body guard in the human world. Except sentries took an oath that they could not break unless they wanted to lose all of their faerie magic. Forever. My father had six.

            “I’m just as disappointed by the news as you are, Ara,” Kellan said, seeming to look through me as he spoke. “But one can’t just up and defy the High Minister of Fae.”

            “First of all, don’t call me that. Second, maybe you can’t,” I said, “but that’s because he’s not your dad.” He shook his head, and was about to object, but I cut him off. “Come with me, sentry, we’re going to get this taken care of.”


So what did you think? Leave a comment with your thoughts, please! I'd like to take this time to thank @rwbofficial @readingvacation and @darthdeatheater for reading ENTANGLED early and letting me know it wasn't horrible, and to @bookaliciouspam for letting me know which parts were.

Friday, October 28, 2011

I've Got the Tiger by the Toe

Good news! I finished the short story I will be posting on Halloween and it clocked in at around 1,220 words, which is 220 words over the goal I had set for it. You'll have to wait until Monday to read it, but I will give you some sneak peeks. 1) It is about faeries. 2) There is a kissing scene. 3) There is a chase scene.

It's not as scary as you'd expect a Halloween story to be, but it is pretty thrilling if I do say so myself. I finished the first draft today, went over it and did a round of edits, and it is now with my buddy Pam, and after I get feedback from her (and probably change some stuff), it will be ready to be posted! I'm still trying to figure out a title for the story.

NaNoWriMo update: I still haven't really plotted out Charmed, my NaNoWriMo book. And now I'm not 100% sure that Charmed is the book I will be writing. I'd better figure that stuff out, since NaNoWriMo starts on Tuesday.

Recently, I found this blog post by C.J. Omololu, author of Dirty Little Secrets, about how to write a novel in 90 days or less. I found it extremely informative, and in case you don't want to read the whole blog post, I will sum it up: write 1,000 words a day. Every day. No exceptions. And if you write 4,000 words one day, you still have to write your 1,000 the next day. Also, make sure you have at least a basic outline of the main plot points in your book before writing. Let the idea sit for a while before writing it.

So yeah, I think I'm going to try this technique for my next book I write, which will be my NaNo novel. But instead of 1,000 words, I'm going to have to write at least 1,667 a day. I was able to do it last year, so I shouldn't have a problem. My main issue is going to be plotting the book before I write. I had a basic outline for my NaNo book last year, and that didn't go so well.

So who knows. I should have decided on a NaNo book to write by tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. Also, don't forget about my short story which will be posted on this blog on Halloween.

Bis bald! 

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Good to See You Again, Old Chap

So... NaBloWriMo... yeah, that didn't happen. And I even promised you guys! I am the worst, obviously. So here are some updates since last time we spoke:

I've been slowly writing the new middle grade book, and it's at about 1,000 words. Which, clearly, is bad. I could write a lot more, but I seem to always find other things to do first. But that will soon change because in just a few days is NaNoWriMo.

So here's what happened with last year's NaNoWriMo... I won, and the book I had written ended up at 55,000+ words. I just let it sit there for a while, and then I remembered that it COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY sucked. I don't want that to happen this year, obviously. I don't know what the problem was last year, but I am hoping that doesn't happen to my NaNo project this year.

For NaNoWriMo this year, I will not be continuing on with any of my current WIPs. That would be against the rules anyway. I've decided that on November first, I will be starting Charmed. It's going to be really fun to write. It's very light YA, and it has a leprechaun in it. Total win.

Also, I am hoping to write some sort of short story to get to you guys by Halloween. It's only going to be about 1,000 words long, and I will probably get it done this weekend. I'm also going to have to start thinking about Charmed this weekend, because all I know right now is that there is a girl who likes this guy, and a leprechaun comes in and messes things up.

Au revoir!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

In a Pickle

Oh hey there! So guess what month it is... OCTOBER! It's also NaBloWriMo, which translates to National Blog Writing Month! So I decided I'm going to write a blog post about writing and stuff everyday on this blog! Yay! I know I missed three days, but that's because... well, I have no excuse. But ta-da!

So next month is NaNoWriMo and I'm in a pickle. The book I want to write for NaNo is the first in a new middle grade series I have planned, and the word count will be less than 50,000 words. I know NaNo is more about writing a book and all, but I won't feel like a real winner unless I write a book with 50,000. And I don't want to write the second book in the series when I'm done, because I want to let the first book sit for a while so I can edit later, then submit to agents, etc, etc.

The NaNo book I wrote last year was basically a disaster and I hope to never write anything like it ever again because it was bad. Hopefully that taught me not to write as bad. The book was so stupid, and had so much unnecessary detail and was boring until the absolute end. So yeah, let's not do that again.

I have a few ideas could also write for NaNo, but I am just so excited to work on the new middle grade series. What do you think I should do... write the middle grade book even though it won't be 50,000 words, or write a different idea that definitely will reach the minimum word goal?
 
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