A New Story, An Old Story, Some Dedications, A Blessing

Dear Gaia Friends ~

Following is an outline of the story I will be working on this year during the month of November for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) I wrote this to post at Diving Deeper where there is a wonderful support group of Gaia Writers, getting ready to do NaNoWriMo together. I decided that I wanted to share this here on my Blog as well, as I did the other two years I participated in NaNoWriMo.  I was brand new to Zaadz in October of 2006 when Samme talked me into doing NaNaWriMo. It was one of the best bits of coercion in my life! Samme, and many others, stuck with me all the way through that first year and helped make it an experience to remember. It really made an incredible difference in my life, by letting me know that I COULD write prose. Good, bad or indifferent, at least I knew that I could do it. Thank you Samme! You will always be my hero. Thank you everyone else who read my ramblings and encouraged me.

I want to send a huge “thank you” to Sandra who has built something so tremendous here at Gaia by bringing her ‘Diving Deeper’ work here. A “Thank You” as well to all my new friends at Diving Deeper - my “Writing Buddies” - who are already giving positive feedback and encouragement.

This story is dedicated to my Gaia daughter Elisa. We will pretend that you are six, sitting on my lap and I am telling you this story. You will like it! There will be Faeries, Dryads, ROMance! Secrets and a Wicked Angel. This story is also for Jena, who - along with Granny - has watched over me every moment with healing love and who knows the way through all the Glistening Gates. For MamaKat, my twinish sister and the original Katja. For Jami, for letting me share Kat and allowing me to witness sister-love in action, and for being a true Lioness.  For Katherine Estelle Eveningstar, my Wonderous-Wyld-Sister, guiding star and favorite author. For Starseed who is so full of spirit and positive energy it can probably be felt on the other side of the universe, I know it can be felt on the other side of the country. Selfless love in action that is a beauty to behold. .For Siona for everything she does to make this dream called Gaia a reality, to keep it ever fresh and new, but still always stable and trustworthy at the hearts core. This can’t be an easy task and she does it with graciousness and grace.. For my fellow water snake Martha for many things, particularly for bringing me through panic and terror into a safe, sweet dream at the heart of green, the feeling of which is the basis for this story. For Joybringer, for constantly doing/being just that. For Sprite for teaching me the importanc of wings. For Amber for sharing smiles. For Leaf - Sarabi - whose spirit of the green has helped me feel what I need to feel to begin this work. The painting I did for her showed me my woods, my Dryads and a Glistening Gate waiting to be crossed. Everyone should read her Elfhood’s Vision .  For Mary, who listened when I desperately needed to talk, and for Mary’s Frog just because he’s great. For my friend Femke who made my Little Owl’s Eyes famous. For my Raven, Megan, who has been with me for years, still loving me - just as I love her -  through thick & thin, up & down and everywhere in between. I also wish to dedicated this story to my wonderful PLAY-POD MOD-SQUAD (We were MOD before MOD was cool!)  Thank you for helping me bring PLAY alive here at Gaia. I find all kinds of Play going on all over the place now and I am so delighted by it. We will get those cob swept out one of these days, do a bit or rewrangling and we’ll be back in business.

And then, for being there, even when I wasn’t, for remembering me when I was here and when I was gone, this story is dedicated to: Alluvja, Mila, Meenakshi, Islefaye, Kimmergy, Laurie, Mimi, Joy, debyemm, Silly Old Bear, Fastdart, Zephyr, Diane, Resurrected1, Ohmsmon, Teenie-Dakini, Nicola, Ayla, Pookietooth, Otter, Nicole, Time to Share, Shanti, Sol, Jeannie-Tink, Victoria, Kes, Jaguar Peaceful Warrior. Soccermom & Fiesty Cherub. It is also dedicated to everyone that I forgot because I am really no good at keeping track of things. I’m a lot better writer than I am a Keeper-Track-of-er, so to anyone I forgot, I dedicate and apologize at the same time. Finally (FINALLY!! Yeah!) This story is dedicated to Archimedes, who supplied me with the finest of Premium Writer’s Fuel (‘Fill ‘her up with Premium’) . . . the best tea on the earth. I’ve saved the last part of my package for months so I would have it for November. It will warm my soul as well as my fingers, my tummy and all my vast Creative Processes which, as everyone knows, are powdered by tea.  

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In my previous NaNoWriMo years, I did my ‘book’ without any kind of outline or previous plot ideas, just writing away and following where it took me. Right now I have three books of a series, with a lot of good stuff in them, but with plots that have never wanted to behave and just keep boinging off into something new. This year I’m trying something different. I have done some character sketches and I’ve loosely outlined the plot. I’m a little worried about trying to write inside of the structure. I tried this once before. When my characters started going off in ways that had nothing to do with the plot I had made for them, it freaked me and I stopped writing. That was a long time ago, however. This plot is looser and I am now very used to characters who want to do just what they want to do. I’m not sure I can make them behave and do what I want, but at least it won’t freak me if they take off on a tangent. [;-) Tangatizing!] It will be interesting to see how I feel about it in December.

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I have written several short stories and a couple of ballads that are set in the Derbane Dales which circled the mysterious Mountain of Wyrd hundreds of years ago. Some of you may even have read some of these. Raven Megan, if you are out there, one of these is the ballad I wrote for you, “Dancing With the Sidhe.” The protagonist of these stories and ballads is the Lady Annaelizia Rhiannon Danica Derbane ~ Duchesses of the Demesne of Derbane; Lady of Wineriver Manner; Keeper of the Estate of Dryadia; Guardian of the Dryadwood.  Every Spring Annaelizia mysteriously disappears, leaving her Overseers to take care of her vast holdings which include acres of farmland, a massive vineyard as well as the Dryadwood, which is so large that no one really knows it’s extent. The Duchy of Derbane also technically includes inside it’s borders the Mountain of Wyrd. Lady Annaelizia is wise enough to know that no one owns that mountain, so she does not “claim” it. The reason that The Lady Annaelizia disappears each Spring is because she is, in truth, half Dryad. During part of the year her blood runs as red as every other human and she stays home like a good Lady of the Manor. In the Spring, however, the sap rises in the trees and the veins behind her wrists turn green. She is called by a force she can’t fight, out from behind her safe, solid walls into the wide world . . .  into the Dryad Wood. There she travels as simply Elizia, a Poet and a Bard, with nothing but a small pack and a harp at her back. She has some interesting adventures, I suspect she will keep having them.

The story I will be writing in November moves the Mountain of Wyrd into the present. It is still mysterious, arcane and covered with mist. Parts of it routinely disappear, as do parts of what remains of the Dryadwood. The mountain is called Wyrdwood now, except by those who don’t want to admit it is there at all. Modern people are very good at looking right at something and declaring that it doesn’t exist. Here, then, is my rather lengthy outline - I tried to cut it and it got longer. Typical. My heroine this time is a fourteen year old girl named Katja, my hero the Wicked Angel who is NOT her imaginary friend. Before I launch, I bring you Elizia . . .  you see her in the painting above . . .“The Dryad Wood Calls.”  At the beginning of the next entry, you'll see another painting of her - the explanation of which is at the bottom of the next entry. Confusing! I can't make the pictures go where I want them.  They only want to let me have one picture. Do you think it is because I write so much?

Where were we? Ah! The Lore. In the area of this remarkable mountain there is nothing so important as keeping stories. The stories become legends, the legends becomes lore, the lore becomes mythology and mythology becomes religion. If you are lucky, the original stories are still there. To these people, from time eternal, nothing is more important than The Lore. It is preserved meticulously both by writing and by trained Bards. There are great rituals involved in having a story committed to “The Lore” - including having it written in the authors blood before the original is stored in a vault in the capital city of Winterhome. Every year there is a great convention where all the Bards of the land come to The Grove of Living Lore to learn all the new stories that were entered into the vault that year. They work terrifically hard learning and then they party terrifically hard, telling. When the stories are gifted to the people there is an entire week of Festival, Faire, Storytelling and Songs. The people know that story contains everything . . . all truth, all meaning, what is real, what is not . . . inside the remembrance of a culture’s stories is kept that which makes us who we are, that which makes us human . . . even if we are part Dryad. Does any of this remain in the present day where Katja lives? Any of this feeling of reverence and veneration for The Lore?  Maybe we will know by December.

And so . . . as the Dryad in charge of this story, I ask Elizia to step forward and speak a blessing on the Lore. She will reach her hands into the air and draw a rune there. Where her fingers trace, the air will be painted with a glittering light that will hang in the air while she speaks the blessing and then it will fall, running like sparkling gold dust to the ground.