So that’s where my November went…

You aren’t seeing things, Ladies and Gentlemen, I did it! Crossed the finish line last night at about 12:20 in the morning with about 50,033 words.

Here’s the kicker though, I’m not even close to done with this story yet. Under A Falling Sky still has a long way to go, with me seeing the story possibly winding up as 90K-100K words in total. Yeah, still a lot left to do before the first draft is even done.

What has surprised me the most about this story isn’t actually the protagonists, but actually my supporting characters. Tanis Arkay is a smuggler and former soldier, while Ashayl Faeron was the daughter of a wealthy shipping company owner before she became a Weaver (see: magic user) that controls fire.

While those two characters shape up well, it’s a couple of the supporting characters that have captured my curiosity as their stories have gone on. Varik Lasal is another Weaver, controlling the element of death, who views his abilities as his calling, giving him the mission to seek justice for those who have had unclean deaths. Captain Azariah Barker is an officer in the Honosian military, the closest thing to an ally for Tanis and Ashayl, who has some history serving alongside the smuggler.

The one thing about these characters, however, is that they all suffer in some way. Whether their torment is physical or mental, they all have their own pains inflicted upon them by the story, the setting, their history, or all of those combined. Through their pains, they are changed throughout the story.

Part of the challenge is in dealing with magic. It’s kind of difficult to treat magic as powerful and deadly, yet not an “I Win” button. In a way, however, it kind of is. Society in this story treat magic users as if they were evil incarnate, and the abilities Weavers have and the sheer power it gives them helps reinforce that notion.

Let’s face it, in Ashayl’s case, she’s able to use her fire abilities to bring down gunships and other low-flying VTOL aircraft. Kind of hard not to think that kind of power is otherworldly in nature.

But yes, now I have a sliver of free time that I intend to use watching the absolute plethora of TV shows I have to watch. Haven, S8 of Supernatural, Homeland, Alphas, Revolution, S3 of Justified, ect. All of those are shows that I actually own, but just haven’t had time to keep up on.

That changes now, this weekend will be spent watching a number of these shows. I’ll watch plenty of shows and get some game time in, but I won’t be neglecting the writing. I just won’t be going at it so brutally hard for some time.