lucathia

Finally finished formatting my NaNo story. It was so hard! The story was totally incomplete, so I decided to just fix up Part 1, but to make Part 1 good enough to stand alone... I had to add in an extra scene. My writing was so sloppy there... wrote it all yesterday and today. :'D Am totally unable to write these characters now. I bet some parts don't even connect correctly because of this inserted scene. OTL Took out the very last scene of Part 1 (Rykatu's behavior is a bit off there, but I can't seem to fix it) and instead used the first section of Part 2 (Ikatchi's POV) as the ending so that it's not as abrupt... but I don't know how well that works. XD; I'm at least not as dissatisfied with the entire thing. Except I still think the result is not a story, because stories need plot. >__> I'm too used to writing character pieces and single scenes for fanfic... The page numbers and margins also confused me, but I think I have everything formatted correctly now. I consider this young adult. I left my font the same size I was using (arial, size 11). Pretty huge font for print! XD; It makes the entire thing 143 pages (plus blank pages and title pages).

I also tacked this on at the end on the last page as a teaser. Spoiler for the ending. XD;

Tune in to the next novel for more of Rykatu and Tekatme's adventures!

After losing his memories, Rykatu ends up being taken in and passed off as a human servant by Ikatchi, an elf from the Triad Clan. Elves, a race that has never gotten along with dragons due to the longevity and seclusive nature of both races, are now going to have a dragon in their very midst without anyone knowing better!

Booted out of Veline and given the task of searching for Lady Tokara, Tekatme ventures to one of his most hated villages, a fishing village with fish everywhere he goes. There, he meets a young girl he can't seem to shake off, as well as a guy who looks suspiciously like him. But, in Tekatme's words, "Where the lord is Lady Tokara?"

(because seriously, this "novel" is so incomplete. OTL But wait, Tekatme's not even in the next one...)

Summary for Veline:
The village of Veline rarely receives visitors from the north. Bordered by mountains, Veline receives most of its visitors by boat from the river that flows through Veline from west to east. Visitors by foot almost always come from the south and never from the north, for occupying the mountain range to the north is the powerful dragon tribe.

When a dispute breaks out between Veline and the dragon tribe, the dragon tribe decides to send Rykatu, the son of the current leader, to Veline to settle the matter, lending Veline a rare visitor from the north.

(OTL. Could not come up with a good summary because there's not much to summarize)

I guess I should name the next novel after Ikatchi's place, though I have no idea yet what his village/town/whatever is named.

I commissioned

seta_suzume some art of these characters for help_japan. The result is so cute! You can view the full versions over here (top three drawings). I already made an icon of one of the drawings! XD Three of these characters haven't really made much of an appearance in the story yet (or they haven't even appeared). I wonder when I'll ever get around to them. XD;

Rykatu, the main character! I love what Suzume came up for his clothes. I only ever got around to drawing the top part, haha... Rykatu's hair is longer in the story, but it ends up around this length at the end. I've always drawn him with this length hair. :'D

His personality was supposed to be like Ikatchi's - kind, sort of muses to himself - but haha, he so did not turn out that way. Yesterday when I was trying to write a conversation between Tekatme and Rykatu so that Tekatme would be in the know about something... oh man, Rykatu was all, nope, can't talk about that. It would be OOC for me to do that! OTL

(Part 2: Weeeeell, I guess Rykatu's personality is getting a bit closer to what I had previously imagined? What with Ikatchi teaching him...)

Tekatme. ♥ Oh gosh, I came to like him a lot while writing him, and isn't that drawing of Tekatme and that fish so hilarious? XD; I didn't have much of a feel for his character before writing, so he was actually easier to write because this was my first attempt at him (unlike other characters who have gone through several versions). I only knew that he was supposed to have some sort of rivalry with Rykatu (that's kind of moot now), and that he likes fighting.

I kind of wish he were the main character. XD; I could totally write about the trials he went through to become a guard, or just his adventures skipping town.

Ikatchi~. He was supposed to be the emo outcast. He turned out so... kind. A huge worrywart. How did that happen? He's the main character of Part 2. I have one of the later scenes written, but I can't connect the scenes, ahhhh.

I asked Suzume to draw him with a bird and a leaf whistle~. :D

The rest are all characters we haven't officially met yet. :'D

Nokara. She'll be the one bugging Tekatme next time. XD; She totally loves fish~.

The female-male ratio in my story is so skewed. ;___; And the females won't even get much of a role until Part 3! I don't even know if that'll ever get written. :'D

I can't wait to write about this guy. XD; He's gone through a lot of different versions too... in my previous NaNo, the 2007 one, I think, he actually made a proper appearance (whereas Tekatme and Rykatu hadn't even shown up in the 3k that I wrote). For now, I'll just call him "C". =x

Nikaya. XD; Pretty obvious I guess, but she's the barmaid that wasn't named in the story. XD;

I also asked other people to draw Tekatme (I don't have very good references... I need to draw better pics of these characters myself!). Here are two, one by

orechibisama, and another by

oriaon. Thank you both~

Hopefully I can send my novel in soon. Still waiting on the cover. XD;