Previously: The novihomidrak, Cirvel, heads through a festival on his way to meet up with an old “friend” who has a map that Cirvel needs. The friend, Sapere Imor, isn’t happy to see Cirvel and tries to persuade Cirvel with other temptations. Irritated with not getting his answers, Cirvel seals Imor into a genie lamp. A ninja steps from the shadows and steals away the lamp containing Imor, leaving Cirvel holding only air. He returns to the shrine to discuss the situation with the Grand Sapere, who demands to take it to the Dragon Council. Cirvel knows the Council will take far too long to come to a decision. Cirvel decides to act on his own. Returning to the market, he hopes to see the woman who had taken his lamp. He finds her and but she’s not quite ready to get down to business. At least not the kind he wants to discuss. When she does give him a chance to explain, he tells her that what he has trapped in the lamp is not a genie and that she won’t be able to use the lamp irregardless because she’s not the rightful owner. She bargains with him: help in exchange for the genie lamp. He asks her why she needs a genie. She replies that she needs a powerful trap. Treshauna then takes him to the meeting house for the ninjas to meet their leader, Drelin. Cirvel pulls Imor out of the lamp to prove that Imor is not genie — just a human. But Drelin learns that Cirvel is the genie. Cirvel “convinces” Imor to reveal to him the location of a place known as Alexander’s Den. Now that Cirvel has what he wants, the ninjas are ready to go on their mission. Before traveling the Wells of the Onesong, Cirvel needs to make one stop at the shrine first. Cirvel gets the coordinates for where they are traveling and he heads out. Meeting up with the ninjas, they take to hiding within his shadow. They go through the Wells, but as soon as they come out on the other side, they discover something is waiting for them. Blindsided, Cirvel gets severely injured. He withdraws and takes Treshauna back through the Wells, but is unable to pull Drelin along. Once back, the saperes realize how wounded he is. His world blurs as he’s taken back to be healed.
Cirvel woke later to the warm breeze carrying the scent of desert flowers coming through the room. Chimes rang in the distance. The sound brought a sense of relief. If the festival was still going on, he hadn’t lost too much time to the healing.
He turned his head and found himself alone in the room. His heart sank. He’d been wishing Treshauna would be there. Of course, the presence of a ninja probably wasn’t something the saperes would welcome, let alone any other novihomidraks.
I do feel the mojo coming back though. It was just tired. The rest has given me some time to really think about the structure of what I’m doing. (Okay, going all out like I was had some insanity to it.) It’s strange and I’m still in the middle of it, so I don’t think I can talk about it right now. At least not that part.
But, I am thinking… well, again, it’s hard because I’m in the middle of it and I don’t know what my life will look like when I come out the other end of this tunnel I’m currently walking through. However, I write a lot. I enjoy being prolific. I would love to run more fiction here on my blog. I’m thinking about adding another story or two. I worry about keeping up with the pace, but if I’m only releasing 200-300 words at a time on a story and I only start releasing it as I’m getting toward the end of a story, it would allow me to share so much more here.
That’s one thing I’d like to do. Your thoughts?
I also would like to get back to my comics. I miss them, and I want to build up more for FanX this September. Should I even talk about my kid’s books.
Along this same like, I want to paint more.
I have a four-legged stool I’m trying to build (writing, painting, illustration, and narration).
While working full-time, I seem only to reliably be able to do two of these things at a time. For more than 200 days, I chose writing and narration. I got a lot done. But I never feel complete if I’m only working on two of the four. No, I just feel frustrated.
Then I start to wonder if I’m not actually living life, but rather just being he mule carrying the load up the hill all the time. Okay, well at least I can express that part. See, there are so many other auxiliary things that go into each of the four legs of my stool (editing, cover design, publishing, print-making, varnishing, cataloging, listing for sale online and off which include shows and writing up listings, mastering and editing audio, bookkeeping, exploring new opportunities, etc.) that each of these really gets lost. Now that’s where the frustration really builds.
I know, some would say that I need to hire someone to help me. I don’t think it’s with this area that I need to find someone to help me. Besides, my son already cooks and takes care of the pets for me. What I need is a housekeeper, and maybe someone to do some of the yard work — though I do enjoy mowing my own lawn with my push mower — it’s a good workout. Oh, and speaking of which, I can’t hire someone do exercise for me. So, this is something that yes, I need to look at, but it only works if I’ve got steady work for someone. Besides, there’s so much that I still have to do myself at least in regards to the art.
I bought a course a couple years ago on productivity and I do attribute it to how much I’ve been able to get done. Now that the mojo is rounding back (and you see some of the thoughts rumbling around in my head), I’m planning on going through the course again; this time with the auxiliary things in mind so that I can figure out how to get all those to work. This morning during my meditation, I realized how I need to structure that: not on a per day basis like the course teaches you, but rather on a per week basis. The more I think about this, the more I feel as if it will work well.
Thanks for listening to me babble. If nothing else, I hope it helps someone out there who also has these jumbled, rambling thoughts to realize they are not alone.
Well, wish me luck because that’s what I’m going to start on later today.
Let’s get you to the story.
Previously: The novihomidrak, Cirvel, heads through a festival on his way to meet up with an old “friend” who has a map that Cirvel needs. The friend, Sapere Imor, isn’t happy to see Cirvel and tries to persuade Cirvel with other temptations. Irritated with not getting his answers, Cirvel seals Imor into a genie lamp. A ninja steps from the shadows and steals away the lamp containing Imor, leaving Cirvel holding only air. He returns to the shrine to discuss the situation with the Grand Sapere, who demands to take it to the Dragon Council. Cirvel knows the Council will take far too long to come to a decision. Cirvel decides to act on his own. Returning to the market, he hopes to see the woman who had taken his lamp. He finds her and but she’s not quite ready to get down to business. At least not the kind he wants to discuss. When she does give him a chance to explain, he tells her that what he has trapped in the lamp is not a genie and that she won’t be able to use the lamp irregardless because she’s not the rightful owner. She bargains with him: help in exchange for the genie lamp. He asks her why she needs a genie. She replies that she needs a powerful trap. Treshauna then takes him to the meeting house for the ninjas to meet their leader, Drelin. Cirvel pulls Imor out of the lamp to prove that Imor is not genie — just a human. But Drelin learns that Cirvel is the genie. Cirvel “convinces” Imor to reveal to him the location of a place known as Alexander’s Den. Now that Cirvel has what he wants, the ninjas are ready to go on their mission. Before traveling the Wells of the Onesong, Cirvel needs to make one stop at the shrine first. Cirvel gets the coordinates for where they are traveling and he heads out. Meeting up with the ninjas, they take to hiding within his shadow. They go through the Wells, but as soon as they come out on the other side, they discover something is waiting for them. Blindsided, Cirvel gets severely injured.
Cirvel tugged himself toward the Wells. Blinding pain, fear, and spewing blood helped sharpen his focus toward getting away. He felt like his eyes were crossed and he couldn’t see straight.
Posting on time this week, but only because I’m getting it done a bit ahead of time. It’s such a great world we live in that we can do things like this. I just knew that this week would be busy with me preparing for the craft show this weekend (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Jerome High School if you want to come out and check out all the great vendors. My friend Stacy will be there with her powerful stone jewelry and lovely crochet work and Corissa will have her beautiful finger puppets). As such, I figured I better get this done early. That way I free up the week for other things, including my son’s play — he’s performing Shakespeare’s The Tempest at the College of Southern Idaho this week. Yep, I said it would be a busy week.
Chapter 12 has now turned back into a pumpkin. If you missed it, click on the banner above to go to the current posts for my blog. There’s another free story or story excerpt somewhere around my blog – I try to post something new every week. Hunt the story down, read, and enjoy!***
If you have enjoyed my work, please tell a friend about my stories. Thank you!
This excerpt is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
I am currently at FanX in Salt Lake City, Utah, and having a great time. Come on out and see me. Get set with you summer reading with autographed copies now.
Keeping it short and sweet since I am out at the convention. Besides, you want to get to reading anyway. Let’s do this.
So sorry this was not posted earlier. I have completely lost track of what day of the week it is. It feels like perpetual Wednesday at the moment.
That’s all right though. I have reached the end. Next week I begin putting my life back on its normal track. I am so ready for that.
Best of all, I will have a new short story called Alexander’s Den released very soon and I’m hoping that over the weekend I can get audio uploaded for Oxygen, my haunted highway story. And I can get back to painting. I have three new ideas that I’m excited to get to work on — the start of building a whole new body of artwork (it’s time!) So, you’ll have a couple new things too look forward to in the next little bit. Yippee!
For now though, let’s get you to this week’s chapter.
This is one of those chapters that will probably get rearranged when I begin to revise the book. You are getting this chapter because you get to see the book as it was written. The rest of the world will miss out!
I realized several hundreds (maybe thousands) of words later that if I had this scene here, then he had no motivation to go on. I’m not certain (at this moment of my writing these words here) if I began to develop the story with this scene missing or not. Sorry if it gets confusing later, but that’s why. I saw the flaw and I may have started to shift the sands then.
Although, I’ve also been questioning if I want Treshauna to know that he’s a genie. I wonder if I let that cat out of the bag too quickly. Cirvel and I need to sit down and have a chat about this and whether or not he would so easily give away his secrets, even if he is smitten. So, some of that may also be shifting.
Again, you get to see the good, bad, and the flawed here. *grin*
