January 2019 Writing Challenges: #FantasyWIPJanuary Challenge Week 3

I've been having a ton of fun with this challenge. Some of the prompts are new and interesting, helping me did deeper into who I am and who my characters are. It's great!

#FantasyWIPJanuary Writing Challenge Week 2

Day 15 - I count all of these as weird moments of inspiration but none of them are extremely weird...

• while I'm praying
  
• when I'm almost ready to sink into the sweet oblivion of sleep
  
• when we take off for a short drive and I leave my purse with writing equipment at home (making a note to leave a small notebook and pen in glove compartment)

Day 16 - Isn't it awful when you try to keep a statement short but to work grammatically, you need to add more words? That question is definitely a good example of such a thing. Anyway...of all the pieces I've written seriously so far, my favorite is probably "Surge" which is book three in the series. It's not complete yet and still in rough draft form. Even so, the elements in that story have been the most fun to work with so far. I would've shared the makeshift cover with you but this aesthetic board serves well enough. I wish I knew who all these artists/models were. I found all the photos on Polyvore, which is no longer a working app. :( If any of you know of other apps that allow you to create outfits and arrange the pieces into a pleasant photo, would you let me know? Collages are nice, but Polyvore allowed so much more scope for easy creativity.

Day 17 - Liha doesn't really have any rivals other than a couple of snarky pilgrims at Gild'n Mountain Shrine. Zec has a rival he doesn't even know about, though. Hyo is a physical combat instructor at Gild'n who meets Liha and approaches her with a request for her to consider him as a life-mate. In Genzetti culture, it is the male who must request a life-mating but it is always up to the female who she chooses to spend her life with. Parents may express their wishes but in the end, it's still the female's decision.

Hyo is dark red, which is why I edited this photo as I did. I don't know who the model is but his lines scream "Lieutenant" or "Captain" to me, which means military in the end. Thank you Pexels and Pexels contributors, yet again! :)  You might want to know that Hyo is actually a pretty good guy. For a time, I toyed with the idea of Liha accepting him as a suitor. It hasn't happened yet, though. It may before the final manuscript is complete...but that would change so many things... Not sure I want to go there.

This week has gone so much better than last week did, as far as revisions are concerned. Even though, as I'm typing this, it's Tuesday and I'm not even halfway through the week yet, I feel more focused. That's already a victory. Fighting my normal night-owl tendencies has paid off this week, for sure.

Day 18 - My story starts (for right now) with a sort of tribal chant and a character you only see sporadically for a while. I won't say too much because I don't want to give away any more of my story than I'll have to while completing these writing challenges. Also, this isn't a prologue but an actual first few lines of chapter one. I couldn't just share the one line. It's strong, but so much stronger, I think, when you read the whole chant.

When I first started writing, my plan was to use "Creator" as the name all the Clans called the deity. But as I wrote, I thought how unvaried and unbelievable that would be. These Clans are more diverse than that and though they started together in one area, they now live on two separate continents and several islands. So I gave the deity a certain name in each Clan. But the ancients still refer to this deity as Creator (as shown above) and sometimes, in conversation, even the people will refer to the deity in this way.

Day 19 - I'm not going to share all my shoutouts here. I unfortunately do not have the time to go to each account and share all their links here. But if you follow me on IG, you can see my posts for yesterday. There are two because there were two accounts I forgot to mention. :) Some of them are new but there are several I've tagged before in previous posts.

Day 20 - To be honest, I could find something interesting to see in almost any state or country and be overjoyed. I haven't been able to travel much throughout my life but ancient ruins and architecture interest me, as do different cultures and their history. My youngest groans anytime I get the TV remote because if I had my way all the time, we'd watch documentaries almost exclusively.

PS I will be super annoyed if any travel companies start sending me 'deals' about vacations because the fact of the matter is, I cannot afford to go to our closest National Park for the day. I'm finally convinced writing full time is my vocational calling, but it's a good thing we don't have to rely solely on my income. Hoping that will improve with time and dedication. :)

Day 21 - I don't do jokes. I don't tell jokes. I don't play pranks on people. I am a person on a mission and those things sit in my mind as something that just gets in my way. Usually.

Now my dad on the other hand, loves to tell jokes and play pranks on people. <sigh> I could tell some of his jokes, but they really aren't the same without his singular mannerisms and dialect. His favorites are Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes. He's great fun to listen to but I just don't think the jokes would be as funny without hearing them.

Anyway, just because I don't tell jokes doesn't mean I don't enjoy comedy from time to time. I love George Carlin and Dry Bar Comedy and British comedy. So for this challenge, I shared my favorite Monty Python sketch: The Ministry of Silly Walks. IG-ers only got to see a GIF but you guys get to watch the whole thing. Please enjoy!