1. (character) is an alchemist/witch that is working in creating the ‘nine-lives’ potion. A powerful brew that will give the drinker the life span nine time that of a normal person/mage/whom-or-whatever. In the course of his experimentations, the potion affects him adversely. He’s turned into a housecat. His loving live-in girlfriend find’s his cat form and keeps him as a pet. The story would detail the life of (character) as both human and cat as well as what he tries to do in order to keep his lady love from marrying another.          

2. A portrait of the modern person who is surrounded by all these ways to communicate with others but is isolated by technology.

3. Someone who see’s people with an overlay of their emotional scars as physical features. Someone who was sexually abused may have a twisted and scarred mouth. Visible scars rising from the waist of their pants and neck of their shirt. Someone who is working to make themselves better/work through accepting whatever hurt them would have the appearance of the scars healing or fading slowly away.

4. Examine in a YA story how our personal concept of ‘home’ can change in a short period (“The problem is, when I come back from spending the summer up there it’s not I’m coming home, It’s I’m leaving home again and it rips my fucking heart out.”)                                   

5. A world where timezone’s have been abolished. Dystopia. Everything is on the GMT time now and noon has many different faces across the world.

6. Lucifer’s side of the story. Lucifer (Ci) is the protagonist and God is the antagonist. Hidden in allegory much like Narnia only for a darker twist.

7. Write about a random person on the street who finds an interesting magical item, anything from a weather controlling-scepter to a bright orange converse shoe with spells written on it in red sharpie, that takes over their life.

8. The queen of the nightmare court marries the king of the dream court.

9. Character finds a locket in her neighbor’s attic when helping the elderly couple clean away some stuff. Pocketing it she keeps it and when she opens it for the first time she finds herself in another land. However the second that the locket closes she is transported back to the real world. It’s the same every time she opens the locket.

10. (FMC) is a 20-something Jesus freak who works at a movie theater. She begins losing faith however when her sister dies in childbirth leaving Bridget and the father to take care of baby. She meets the gothic-punk (MMC) who is the owner of a fairly popular Goth club in their town. The two begin a fairly intimate and steamy relationship. (MMC) who is in the Army reserve is called up to serve over seas for a three-year tour. Just as FMC finds she is pregnant MMC is declared MIA. Not willing to be a single mother to her child while also raising her niece she wants to get an abortion. However they've been outlawed. She goes to get an illegal one, but the story ends with her on the porch of the building where she's to have it staring at the door trying to decide if that is what she wants or not.

11. Dragon story – Dragon’s don’t eat the beautiful maidens that are offered to them or kidnapped by them; instead they employ them as maids, nannies and cooks. Told from the POV of the wife of a young upstart dragonologist who uses the fabled Talisman of Merlin to have a dragon set her free.

 12. A story of Magic in the Modern age. Only innocents and pure hearts have magic, it is in nature and is slowly dieing unless a particular forest can be saved. Prophesized by an old gypsy.

13. A girl who is comfortable with life Gets the PERFECT boyfriend and is suddenly discontent after just a month. She finds herself attracted to a boy quite the opposite of her man. A Rebel who turns out to be perfect for her.

14. This story would be about the 'truth' about mermaids. We've all seen pictures of mermaids that are beautiful women with fish tales. Often the males of the species are depicted as fish with some human features such as arms. In my story there are both beautiful and ugly male and female mermaids. The ugly ones create the beautiful ones. What happens is this, the merpeople bring down humans into the sea and using ritual magic make them into mermaids. Often the humans don’t like this and either kill themselves or resign to their fate.

The story would follow a female lifeguard who is turned into a mermaid and how she learns to turn others into mermaids as well. Using that magic she creates herself a husband and they both spend their time learning how to reverse the spell and free themselves and countless others. Sadly, if they do reverse the spell the freed merpeople will become human at whatever age they are, so anyone 100† dies. If they don't stop using the spell they will live in exile from the mermaid territory.

15. Gods and Goddesses of ancient mythology in modern day.

16. The seven deadly sins (Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth) and seven heavenly virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence) personified (a story for each).

17. Reversed role fairytale -> a dragon in the care of a princess

18. Fairytale? -> Princes are kidnapping Dragon babies and a princess has to save them.

19. What if a woman believes and has been told for over the year she's been aware of her existence that she's an AI robot? In the end, she had amnesia (sp?) and had AI Robots telling her that when really she was human all along.

20. But what if, in the future, when children go missing and are never found the government has a program. They make a robot AI that looks exactly like the child and send it to live with the parents. Every year they take the 'child' for a check-up and transfer the computer guts into a new body that looks slightly older. When the parents die, the AI is decommissioned.

21. Rrrrow? -> Story of a animal hoarder, told by an animal (dog or cat) “The human spoke in a strange language; it was far beyond the ‘r’s, ‘o’s, ‘w’s, and ‘g’s of dog tongue…”

22. At the Worst time -> a princess is brought to the castle of a dragon the day before the dragon’s egg(s) hatch. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time… Have you checked with all the other castle dragons?”

23. Plot:

Flashback: Melea’s First visit to the Carnival (prologue)

Melea’s Joins the carnival ~~> Icara “You don’t understand, we don’t have ‘real’ names. Most of us have grown up here. We’ve been ‘the show’ all of our lives”

Trying to find the right job (tries caller, bouncer, game booths, cook… ect)

Bow Shooting contest among carnies (two bulls eyes)

“I’ve got just the job for you.” Practice (shooting blindfolded, through hoops, Multiple arrows ect.)

First Show (badly done “boo” “get off the stage”)

Flashback: Being teased in school about wanting to be a carnie

Hephestus and Aeolus twins yet rivals

How to Wow the crowd

Fortune by Aphrodite

Aphrodite and Hephestus’ wedding

Last Show

Hercules, sexist brute

Aeolus my savior

Running away

Epilogue

24. In a large city square a teenager doesn’t speak the same language as everyone else.

Dinah Crafton, is depressed and at the end of her rope with the pressures from life and school piling up and the still painful loss of a former beloved neighbor/baby sitter(Danny Roark). Instead of killing herself, she follows a modern folk legend and ends up in the different world. She's lost in a land that has magic and forces she doesn't understand (like Illusion Nexi). She is powerless and has trouble adjusting.

Meanwhile, there is Kiriana Mays, she is a small time necromancer (they raise the dead to let them move on to the next life through second death) and one of the first, and the only powerful undead she raised a man, (Danny) from our world. She has problems with killing the people she raises and he proved to act as a brother figure to her. They've been together for years and all the time he's talked about his world.
Dinah isn’t equipped to handle a world where the dangers can be physical or magical. Illusion Nexi can warp to her troubled mind’s visions and her girl-scout like preparations can’t always save her. She’s also aching to go back home, her problems there put into perspective for once in her life. The problem she finds, though, is that the worlds are drifting apart, something the people of the new world claim is not unusual. With fewer and fewer of the known doorways back Dinah is rushing to find an open path before it is too late.
Kiriana wants to leave her world for the supposedly safer world that Danny is from and is running into the same trouble. When she and Danny meet Dinah at a disappointingly severed connection point between the worlds the three join together. Dinah is drawn into traveling with Danny and Kiriana but the girls are wary of each other, each thinking that they have the right to stay with Danny more than the other.

Stopped before crossing over several times (doorways in Illusion Nexi that disappear, Malevolent fae, doorways in ruins) the girls are disheartened but Danny keeps urging them on. Sparking their fire and kindling their fragile growing friendship as the three go through the trials together.

When they finally reach a doorway that is open and not trapped they find out something that will crush their spirits. Danny cannot ever go back to his world. The girls are saddled with the choice to stay and be with the man they love like family or let him move on to the next life while they return without him.


NEW PLOT:

Dinah Crafton, is depressed and at the end of her rope with the pressures from life and school piling up and the still painful loss of a former beloved neighbor/baby sitter(Danny Roark). Instead of killing herself, she follows a modern folk legend and ends up in the different world. She's lost in a land that has magic and forces she doesn't understand (like Illusion Nexi). She is powerless and has trouble adjusting.
Dinah isn't equipped to handle a world where the dangers can be physical or magical. Illusion Nexi can warp to her troubled mind's visions and her girl-scout like preparations can't always save her. She's also aching to go back home, her problems there put into perspective for once in her life.
Her friend Jeb, whom she emailed her self-death note to tried to get to her in time to stop her, but all he found was a handwritten copy of the note cut into the shape of a key. After some digging around her room and logging onto her computer to check some things he figures out what she's done.
He does the same in attempt to go after and save her.
She goes back to the door she came into the new world through and finds it locked, but upon waiting for a while, someone else comes through it and she dashes back to our world to find herself several states away. She has to find a way home.
Jeb gets lost in the new world now and refuses to turn back until he finds Dinah. He runs into dangers of his own but he's determined to face them.
When Dinah gets home she finds out Jeb has gone after her and she must once again go into the other world to find him and bring him back.

General Notes:
 

Illusion Nexi, as mentioned above are one of the biggest non-creature threats to people coming into the second world and even those that live there. They’re geological hot-spots for magic energy and that is expended by the wild magic creating illusions very personalized to the person viewing them. Groups of people see something in common they all fear people alone see what they would fear  most.

 
The modern folk legend that she uses is one I found when reading some creepypasta. Boiled down to 'if you are ever so low you wish to end it all write a death note and cut it into the shape of a key. Stand before any door and make the motions of unlocking it with the paper key. Open the door and it will bring you to the next world.'

It starts with a gun battle. My crew (well part of it) is squaring off against four aliens after a botched attempt to break into a building to steal something. I've got my pilot in the van with my hacker, both laying as flat as possible to be invisible through the windows and I've got my captain and two gun bunnies out fighting. I know that my pilot has the knee joint of her walking brace hit in the middle of the battle some time but ultimately they get away, Enna is also sporting injuries, though minor, and Dinah is taking care of her and the pilot. Captain is screaming at the hacker the entire time for not disabling the alarm on the building.

Fast forward a week and they're talking to the guy who gave them the job. He says they're too hot now for any normal people to employ them so they should work the corporate circuit and see what kind of under-the-table jobs are available there. He can set up a meet with a handler from the Ashandil Corporation. They go to the meeting and the handler basically says they cannot work for anyone else for as long as Ashandil Corp employs them. They get paid by the job and Ashandil will pay for any needed equipment as long as it can be brought back (aka nothing disposable or it comes out of your pay). But before they can start they have to go on a test mission.

It's simple enough they've got to fly out to Charybdis(planet) and bring back and Ashandil scientist who's been working there. Problems arise when the Aliens aren't keen on anyone flying in. After gun battles, very tricky evasive flying and some down time hiding, they get the scientist and bring him back. Ashandil accepts them on as a hired team(yey). They get a paid for the test run and after a short period of downtime they're contracted to go on a mission following another team's intelligence about a hidden Crylor Foundation base.

They have to steal two experimental vehicles from the base, but as often happens plans go awry and they only get one. They disable the base with the intent to return after buying some more gear but the base gets cleaned up and completely moved before they can return. Ashandil get's info, from a hack into the base's computers, that there is another base, this one located in Madagascar. The team is charged to go to the second base and pick up second vehicle. In this fiasco, Dinah dies and by the time the team gets back they're ready to quit. Only their handler is dead and they have to dodge a few assassination attempts from Crylor's top team.

Okay. In this essay I talked about what I said earlier (the way things went wrong was bugging me) and also put forth an idea for the ending.

I'll say it's unimaginative. Why does everything have to descend into a gunfight once they're discovered? It provides tension for the moment (i.e. are they going to survive?) but after that, it goes back to nothingness. No tension. No sense of urgency. They made it out alive, and now there's some down time before their next mission Hence why I said it sounds like a video game, though it would also provide a good chance to develop the characters. Anyway, my (plot doctoring) question is: What if Dinah gets captured, rather than killed outright, and before they get the other vehicle?

You see, now they're conflicted by two separate time constraints: rescue Dinah before Crylor tortures her to death, and steal the other vehicle before Crylor moves it to a place outside their reach. You've got the conflict between the personal and professional life. What's going to happen? Will the crew say, "[bleep] you, Ashandil Corp." and go to rescue Dinah? Or will they get strong-armed into completing the mission despite the personal cost? What would happen if they completed the mission and then still have time to rescue Dinah, but make it there a few seconds too late? What if the crew is forced to watch their friend's execution before their very eyes? What if they're able to carry her body away, but Crylor implanted Dinah with a tracking device beforehand? Then, when they return to their handler to discuss what happened, the Crylor assassins jump in and kill the handler while scattering the remaining team members?

For the rest of the novel, you can focus on the team members getting back together. Maybe one of them goes to the Ashandil scientist, saves him from Crylor assassin, and then uses him to construct a beacon that will reunite the team? Then, once the team is reunited (and perhaps discuss Dinah), they finish off the last of the Crylor assassins and then resolve to avenge Dinah by going after whoever was responsible for her death?

And then, since they can't remember the face of the man who killed Dinah, their hacker can break into the security feed from Dinah's death so the team can get a photo of the man who killed her. This would be doubly uncomfortable since they would be forced to relive Dinah's death in order to avenge it.

Then the rest of the novel plays out through some detective work revolving around the team tracking down the man who killed Dinah. When they finally catch him, they are informed by Ashandil that he's also the man responsible for Crylor's entire wing of experimental weaponry (this could also be revealed earlier in the novel). Then, you can have a scene where one of the team members is faced with the titanic internal struggle of finally catching this guy, but being unable to exact the justice the situation demands. Then they return to Ashandil a lot wiser from the experience and resolve to become better people or whatever. You can even throw something in there about how Dinah's spirit lingers beyond the grave in their minds and in their actions.

Notably, all of the motivations are still in line even though things have changed dramatically. The team is focused on catching the man responsible for Dinah's death, and in doing so, they are also fulfilling Ashandil's wishes of gaining an edge over Crylor.

The only problem with that ending, however, is that the reader might feel cheated that so much has built up to catching this one man, and then he doesn't face judgment because he's too important to Ashandil. Maybe the team decides that Ashandil is the bane of their existence and they have lost too much working for them, so they severs all ties with Ashandil to find their new place in a galaxy where the Crylor Corporation has been crippled by their small group. AND, maybe the best ending would be something like this: earlier in the book, Dinah might share with one of the other team members her dream of a day where it's not just their one group of some 5 people, but an entire freelance contractor with hundreds of people. At that point, you can end the book on a note where the Captain talks about realizing the deceased Dinah's dream of a Balzatrine freelancing corporation. Maybe they could be in the process of taking their first applicants. And of course, this also opens up the possibility of a sequel if you wanted to write one.

That's pretty much it. You know how this would apply to your novel much better than I do, but here are some last thoughts of mine on the whole situation. Firstly, I place a huge emphasis on resonating character deaths. That means if a character dies, I want it to be something that affects the nature of the rest of the book. One of my favorite quotes is from a fanfic author who once wrote that, "All shock [regarding character death] falls short of becoming horrific melodrama as long as the nature of the tragedy is dealt with in a succinctly mature and emotionally provocative fashion," and that's what I really look for.

Secondly, I am very familiar with how thrillers work, and they basically revolve around something always being at stake. Furthermore, the main idea here is that the reader should always have something to look forward to, and a mutually exclusive conflict of interests is one of the most compelling things I can think of (aka a Big Choice). It makes for good drama, which is why I included the one part about Dinah being captured before the mission is complete, with the main characters knowing that Crylor is torturing her for information about their contract with Ashandil. Now yes, it's a cruel thing to do. It's a cruel thing to put your characters through, which takes us back to my original statement that the setbacks were unimaginative. It doesn't have to be all about superficial gunfights. Above that, it would also make Dinah's death so much more dramatic if the team knew that there was DEFINITELY something they could have done to save her.

With that said, there's no doubt that this story has a lot of potential. It has so much potential that I almost want to steal it. Almost.

I mean that as a compliment, btw.

So there are my thoughts on the plot, plus my suggestions for the ending. You are free to do with this what you will, whether you take everything, pick it apart and take pieces away, or decide to go in a completely different direction. In any case I now have a massive headache from so much thinking :P

No matter what, I'm also very interested in how you end up handling the novel. Best of luck.

- [person]

Okay, when I first got my inspiration for NaNo I started writing little blurbs for 'writing contests' on a forum, here are the collected blurbs from that, each are for a different stated subject.

( Blurbs )

That’s all that was in Lucy’s head as she lifted herself into the piloting deck. Her chair couldn’t get up the steps to the bridge so Salem carried her up, usually but he’d been wounded on the last run.  It had been a hard one and they didn’t even get the goods.

The sensors began flashing and Lucy woke up from her lucid dreaming to check what they’d picked up out on the track. There wasn’t much between the human’s solar system and Proxima Centari’s system, but something was making everything go haywire.

She pulled of her visor and looked out the plasma windows at the barren stretch of space before her.  There was an old NASA style rocket stranded in her path. The design was ancient, probably a black market salvage transport but something had gutted it. 

It hung in its own orbit of the sun slowly rotating. Ice seemed to be coating all the visible windows and there were no signs of life that her sensors could pick up. She did another sweep and read the core temperature at well below zero. The ship was frozen solid from the inside out.

“Lucy, trust me, this is not going to be the strangest thing that happens to our team,” Salem said.

“I suppose not, but… an ‘Illari’? Don’t you think we’ve got enough problems without someone who is trying to ‘rescue’ our fuel supply. This is a Machar ship, if one of those birds gets on board who knows what they’re going to do to the engine room?”

Salem leaned against the manual piloting console and lit a cigarette. “It’s the best we can do. From what I’ve been told she’s the best infiltrator that we can afford. Gets in, gets the goods, and gets out, a real charmer, too. She can work out a deal with some of our contacts better’n me.”

“She won’t try and kill us all?”

Salem strapped into the co-pilot’s chair and looked at Lucy. She was lost to the ship, and barely breathing. This was going to be a big one. The old NASA cast-off had knocked them so off course they were headed for a big belt of debris and dust that circled one of the many dead planets on the Proxima Centauri system.

He braced himself as the Riverlock began to shudder violently. Pulling the com-system up on his screen he broadcast to the entire ship. “Strap into somethin’.”

He looked over at Lucy again and softly added.

Tench twitched her head and looked at Salem through slitted yes.  “Yes?”

Salem chewed on the filter to his smoke and nodded a greeting. “About this next piece.”

“The statue?”

The translator in Salems ear lagged behind a bit too much and he could hear her speaking in her own tongue for a moment before it kicked in. He shuddered slightly. “Yeah, this is a pretty risky recovery, there are several alarm systems for the building before we even get in to it.”

She nodded and picked lazily at her teeth with one of her claws. “So I’ll be kneed deep in the matrix with Daniel.”

Enna groaned as she tried to sit up in her bunk. Her head pounded into the bunk on top of hers just ten inches up. Heaving a loud sigh, she pressed her hands against the sides of the confined space and rolled her bunk out.  As she sat up, she ran a hand through her short hair and felt the bruise that was already forming.

Kicking her legs over the side of the metal bunk she jumped down and slammed it back in place. Holding her head, she walked to the med-station at the back of the ship without bothering to put on her shoes.  She pulled out a blue vial with attached needle and felt the scar on the inside of her arm.

It figures that our next mart is a junkyard hound. He’s got the earth’s record for most used cars for sale anywhere…everywhere. He’s got dealerships for the outdated hunks of metal on every continent in every country every state and province. He’s quite prolific.

We’re gonna land at his base of operations in Georgia, Salem saw fit to tell me that it was the state not the country. Knew that, but he’s the boss so whatever. Apparently this base, or lot, whichever, is home to nearly ten thousand cars. That’s a lot of realistate dedicated to such a limited transport. Who am I to argue?

Lucy was quiet.  Her knee was throbbing as she sat in her wheelchair by the table while the crew ate. It’d been nearly three weeks since the crash; the Bazarine was repaired, Dinah buried, the mole killed. It didn’t matter. It was her fault. She couldn’t keep the ship steady.  Dinner was back to the bland protein cakes since Ashandil Corp wasn’t footing the bill until after they brought back the crafts.

“So this guy, he was pretty big for a Machar, he just walks right up and punches my date in the gut, spouting off in his own language. I didn’t have my translator chip on, so I don’t know what he was saying…” Enna was recounting a funny story from a time before the ship.

Lucy looked down at her plate and sighed. Grabbing a bottle of flavorspray she spritzed the cake gently with it and took a bite. It was dry and crumbled quickly in her mouth; even the artificial flavor couldn’t mask the disgusting texture. She’d picked a bad spray anyway, rose.

Senka had shivered as they brought her through the city gates of Terron. No armbands, no money, it was like the huddling group of elves and faelin had no identity. A city that used to love her, if only for her money, now looked to kill her. The walk through the market and into the streets had been a blur; she could only feel the vague impression of being closed in from all sides now.

She was in an iron cage with a group of women, all clinging to each other and trying to keep away from the door where a human stood guard. They were a mass of nightgowns and dresses. Most of the village was still alseep when it happened. There were some faelin with her two. Their cattish features and tall frames setting them appart from the huddling circle of elves.  A crowd had been gathering at the base of the low wooden platform in front of them for hours but now the noise was on the verge of deafening.

They're selling people as slaves, Senka thought. In the back of her mind she knew it was a common practice among humans, but now she couldn't understand it. It was so alien. We're people. We've come to the city countless times. The humans know us.

There was a roar from the crowd followed by a gradual hush as three people stood on the platform. It was beginning. A young faelin was taken from one of the other cages and strapped to a chair just next to the stage. Without a pause one of the humans began shaving away his mane. Thick chunks of brow-gold fur fell to the ground and the knife flashed quickly over the boy's tan skin and white throat.  

Senka winced as she watched, too curious to look away. His face danced between fear, pain and rage as they stripped him of the symbol of his manhood. When they were done they clipped his whiskers close to his cheek. The'd stripped him of his identity. He was screaming with all his might as they unstrapped him and tossed him onto the stage.

Two of the humans came down on him quickly and tied his hands behind him while holding him up by his neck. They slowly took away everything of his. A necklace, the coins in his pockets, anything of value. His weapons were taken from a pile the raider's had brought and tossed with his things on the stage. A prize for his new master. As he writhed and struggled trying to break free of the men holding him the third began taking bids.

Forty Denari? She thought, pressing against the bars to get a better look at the man who seemed to be wining. Come on. Turn around you old bastard. She wanted to see who could do such a thing. Who could win a person for a few coins.

He was surreptitiously counting coins in his hands and looking around at the crowd behind him almost daring that anyone outbid him. Even as he was announced as the first winner of the night, he had a cocky air about him. Senka thought he looked familiar but she couldn't see his face. Come on, she thought, Turn around.

He was making his way to the far end of the platform where the boy was waiting for him with two more men. Her knuckles were white as she clung to the bar's trying to see his face across from the crowd. The lock clicked and suddenly the women pushed against Senka, she let go of the bars and let herself be shoved ahead of them as they all ran to a huddle on the far end from of the cage. Pressed into a corner, she watched as Amila, a girl she knew, was pulled out and tossed into the wooden chair.

Senka closed her eyes and tried not to listen as she moaned and whimpered under the knife. Even as the bidding began Senka worried about herself. Why didn't I see Amila in here with me?

She looked back to the far end of the stage. Someone was piercing the faelin's ear and putting in a metal stud. The old man was turning around to talk to the slave. Senka pressed her shoulder against the bars and stared, waiting to see him. Is that Jacob?

Amila screamed on stage; they'd taken her wedding ring. Without hesitation a gag was put in her mouth. Senka's heart was racing. SHe was struggling more tha the faelin had. Amila had more to fight for; her baby wasn't even six months old.

He's going to die. Senka thought, leaning back into the corner and sliding slowly down to sit on the wooden floor of the cage. How could I not have seen her in here?

The question gnawed at her as she tucked her nightgown around her. The blood on the hem and skirt was dry now and the thick patches of it scraped against her legs. She looked up at the faces of the women now. Was Houri here? No, She thought, Not in here.

She tilted her head to look into the other cages. Some were already filled with slaves that had been shaved, perhaps even sold before. The rest were her group divided. Men stood in one, none of them to proud to show fear. Children in another. Houri's not here.

Something caught in her throat. It hadn't hit her until now. Sorin's dead. The raid was a hazy memory. The screams of the crowd and shouts of the auctioneer became a cadence as her mind wondered over it. The village was chaotic when it began. After she screamed, Sorin came out, a dagger ready in his hand. The raiders burst into the house quickly and there was a fight. Someone had cut Sorin's hamstrings. She was kneeling by him when they grabbed her. Someone hit her on the back of her neck.

Tears were spilling hot and fast over her cheeks as she sat there. Houri was missing. Her chest ached and the covered her face with her hands to stifle the sobs that were coming out of her. The women stepped on her nightgown and her toes whenever the door opened. She could hear the roar of the crowd as more and more slaves were auctioned off. Senka felt weak and tired. She'd not slept at all when the raiders had made camp before going into Terron in the morning. None of the slaves did. She leaned her head against the bars and closed her eyes.

The image of horses trotting down the street burned behind her eyelids. She looked around. There were so few women left with her. Four more. Another boy was being shaved now. A little elf who Senka had seen playing at Vivian's house. He was crying. It was too much to take. Senka turned away, afraid that if she looked she'd be sick. The ache from her chest was spreading through the rest of her body slowly. Her tears were still burning as the fell from her chin onto her neck.

Well I've finally done it. Another writing milestone.

Today I've finally hit the 25,000 mark on a single story. It literally happened a minute before midnight. I was writing like a fiend. Food, fear an intrigue helped that scene get pounded out.

I'd write more but I'm so tired I'm about to fall asleep where I sit.

• Finish at least one novel rough draft
• Submit fifteen times or until published at least one of my short stories
• 70,000 words for NaNoWriYe
• 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo
• 20,000 words for Script Frenzy
• Post on here three times a week
• Write at least 500 words a day
• Pass all of my classes for two consecutive semesters