Camp NaNoWriMo: Death to Writer's Block

Readers all. As you know, both my fellow bloggers, J and T Baner, have participated in the literary cooperation known as NaNoWriMo. Having succeeded both, they continued on in their lives. But, as it happened, J Baner entered into Camp NaNoWriMo just a few months past. Camp NaNoWriMo being entirely similar to normal November NaNoWriMo, save for its online cabins, and accessible virtual s'mores.

This July, all three of the Baner personality have accumulated such adverse manifestations of literary matter as the beginnings of an unnamed space trilogy, a partially publicized medley of myth, and a multi-genre victorian era adventure.

And so, likely this blog will be visited by the untold futures of these mysterious stories. the eighth month of this year could herald the unveiling of three new, NaNoWriMo-born, narratives.

Until our next meeting,

-Z Baner

Book Two Letter Twenty-Seven

My Dearest Nephew,

It has come to my attention [despite copyright filed by Scaligar the Serpentine on Septemberikuss the 6^th to the Supreme Draconian court on the matter of the opening phrase ‘It has come to my attention’ in order that none shall use this phrase without his personal consent to the matter] that both of your uncles were soundly beaten in the battle with the Yovians lately. Last I heard, Scaligar and Trubodox were still ‘Kouting’ their ‘Teef’. Where was I during in the midst of this disturbing brouhaha? I shall tell you in just a moment after these short messages.

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            Apologies for the advertisements, I have lately taken up a career in the local newspaper, loathsome an occupation as advertising is. I have no idea how Browski the Hammered got one of his advertisements into the paper. I hear that his patented ‘Inferno Whiskey’ is illegal in thirty major Provinces and four minor ones as an incredible fire-hazard. I think that the humans have developed a dangerous weapon based on it. I believe that they are calling it ‘Greek Fire’.

            Anyways, back to the matter of the fight with the Yovians and as to where I was at the time.

            Being somewhat a cautious Dragon, I decided that I would find the meeting-place before the time of the council and do some advance-scouting, just in case an enemy force had found our council-area and was planning an ambush.

            I enlisted the help of my Siberian friend, who, judging by the few snippets of information I could give him of the area, and studying several maps of the different coastlines, managed to discover that the meeting had been somewhere along the Yovian coastline. With a bit more fine-tuning, he was able to narrow the area down better and draw me a map of the section of coast.

            Already this seemed suspicious to me. The fact that the meetings were on the Yovian coastline that is, not the fact that my Siberian friend could find the spot on a map never having seen it before. He is gifted that way.

            I then set out on my flight and soon reached the coastline, soon being a relative term. It took me a few days.

            When I got there, I quickly located the council-cave and infiltrated it. The security was horrible, simply a few hired Drakes whom I overpowered easily, bound and gagged, and proceeded further in.

            When I reached the central council-cave, I found a bunch of Yovians sitting around a pool. I hid myself before they saw me, and heard them discussing new ways to make the dragons coming for the fake council look silly. It was then that I realized once and for all that the councils had all been a sham put on by the Yovians and it was then that I revealed myself and overpowered all forty-nine of them. Single-clawed. No kidding.

            Over a long conversation with the Yovian leader of the vast horde of present Yovians, I managed to win him over, and begin laying a new plan for the Dragons soon to come. This would be my revenge for all those years of pranks and insults paid to me by your uncle Scaligar.

            It seemed that the Yovians had simply been planning to hold another fake council meeting for the Dragons when they arrived, but I managed to get them to divulge their long-term plans for the council and decided to set them in motion ahead of schedule.

            I had the Yovians draw the map on the bottom of the pool, along with the battle-plan, and made the finishing touches to my plan wit them. Then I hid myself outside the cave and waited.

            It was not too long after that when the Dragons began arriving. There was a moment of excitement when Scaligar set off a flare for some reason and then was force-fed toiletries until he talked his way out of the matter. Pity, I could have watched the performance for a few more days if I just had some popped corn, or do the humans call it Pop-pot-corn? Anyway, with a bit of it, whatever the name, the show would have been perfect. However, it ended far too soon and then Scaligar was on his way down into the cave.

            Not long after that, they appeared and began donning their black toilet-paper armor. Just as I had planned.

            Once the group was in the air, I followed at a distance and watched it all with my magic telescope. I noticed that Scaligar seemed to be playing secret-operative or something. He seemed to have had another Dragon tail the entire group for some outlandish reason. Really, he seems to be going quite mad.

            Later on in the battle, when he was thrown into a pothole, I saw him inflate a dummy of himself, fill it with exercise weights, and fly away leaving it there in his place! Proof that his mind is going!

            Anyway, after watching the battle with the Yovians and my relatives, I winged my way back home, had a good laugh with my Siberian friend over the night’s events and set to writing this letter.

            -Your humble servant, mentor and uncle,

                        Semithino

P.S. Don’t forget to check out S. Iberian’s auction of art and poetry this Saterdunk!!!

P.S. If your uncles ask you, the events stated in this letter never occurred.

Book Two Letter Twenty-Six

My dear Smok,

It has come to my attention that—oh, shove it. I did it again. I told you, I know I did, that I would stop using that greeting, but I have not yet remembered to forfeit the copyright and sell it to the highest bidder (the highest bidder, in fact, being your uncle Semithino). So, I suppose I will merely sue my brother Trubodox for using it, and send Semithino a nice letter for being a fan of mine. Trubodox’s use of the greeting was quite stupid and insulting. And besides, I now am his mortal enemy.

Anyway, most of the events that Trubodox described in his non-intercepted-by-me letter were accurate. Although, I beg to differ on his description of the battle plan as a masterpiece. It was a piece of excrement in a veil of water. Anyway, Xunt has informed me that my three hundred concussions have subsided, and my seventy-two fractures are coming along nicely. Yovians, intoxicated and in large numbers, are quite overwhelming.

Anyway, when my guides arrived on my doorstep clad in black toilet paper (limited supply at Drakemart), I began to fear that something was amiss. At first, I thought that the enemy had gotten wind of our plans and decided to lure us all into a fake council meeting. So, I told Xunt to go get the frying pan, but as he turned to go, he accidentally ran into my marble statue of Belligast and was knocked out cold.

I didn’t want to blow my cover, so I pretended to go along with everything. They told me to latch onto the same tail as last time, and flew me blindfolded through the sky to our meeting place in the pitch darkness. Luckily, this time, I had sent instructions to Rexrei Wythwave to tail us and find out where we were going. My master plan was in effect. I also slipped several miniature typewriters up a few of the dragons’ noses, just for the heck of it.

When we landed and my blindfold was removed, I took the flare I had been secretly holding in my claw the whole way and set it off. A brilliant light flew straight out of the cave mouth and into the sky, signaling to Rexrei my exact coordinates. Even Varix the Nerd would have seen that. My captors, as well, saw it, and proceeded to shove giant rolls of toilet paper down my throat until I told them my plan. But instead I lied and said it had accidentally gone off, and accused one of their number of setting it off because he was an enemy spy. They took this into consideration, and then promptly banished him from the realm with jets of flame and streams of acid. At least it wasn’t me.

I was led down to the torture chamber council room. It was packed, and the plan was demonstrated, as Trubodox told you, in horrendously horrible handwriting and spectacularly silly spelling. We were then escorted up above and told to don our super-suits...these turned out to be made of toilet paper. I had it! They were Yovian spies sent to humiliate us!

Oh yes, I was elbowed in the snout by one of the council members. I said, “Excusificate me,” but he seemed not to hear me very well, and only grunted off a line of binary numerals in reply.

But anyway, we donned our black ninja mummy super toilet paper suits and flew off to the Western Wiles. I noticificated at the corner of my eye that Rexrei Wythwave was following very discreetly behind us. Good thing Yovian spies don’t have rearview mirrors. They do sell those at Drakemart, you know, but they’re very expensive.

I practiced super-poses as we flew, swinging my forelegs out this way or that and accidentally slugging a few of my captors at certain points. They shouted me down with cries of, “BANANA SPLIT!!!” or “BULLDOG SHAKE!!!” at which point I stopped.

I noticed the stars above, and figured out that we were flying North, and had originally been south of the Western Wiles. This was an interesting detail.

We eventually took our positions in the air above the tangled groves of the Western Wiles, flying in wait for the invasion force. Hehe, see what I did there? Anyway, suddenly the trees rustled, and cries burst forth, along with several dozen Yovians. And, can I tell you, they sure were an ugly-looking bunch. I yelled, “Attackificate!” and plunged below into the fray, fighting until Trubodox whacked me upside the nostril. Several times. I played dead and fell to the earth, unnoticed by the Yovians, falling into a pothole below. Trubodox roared in triumph after having “thrown” me, and as the fighting went on, I inflated a Scaligar dummy I happened to have on claw and left to tell Rexrei.

When I got to his position, I told him how everyone was actually a Yovian, and they had hot dog guns and nuclear potatoes at their disposal, and I told him to send an army, three armies! Sorry. It was as panicked as that last sentence, but that was a run-on. Anyway, we chewed the fat, deciding what to do, and then spat out the fat and flew off to get reinforcements. We arrived at the scene of the battle with a half dozen burly Northern dragons, Biffus, Buffus, Duckus, Whuckus, Ruckus, and Turkus the Brawny. They promptly drove off the Yovians and went back to their homes.

I, on the other claw, promptly went over to my Scaligar dummy, reinflated him with dumbbells and crowbards crowbars and other assorted heavy items, and waited. After several days, Trubodox unearthed my hidden dummy, at which point I, lying concealed behind him in my ninja toilet paper suit, chose my best solitary claw and gently popped the Scaligar dummy (purchased at Drakemart; I’ve got some friends in the manufacturing world). It went off with a bang, a boom, a pop, and several unseemly cracks, all directed at my unfortunate brother’s smug face. The dumbbells swung everywhere, sinking into his snout, belting him upside the backside, and booting him in the jaw, reenacting Bootjaw’s most historic moment, the moment of its founding. That’ll teach him. I gathered up the supplies and fled home before he discovered my trick.

-Your serpentine uncle,

Scaligar

Book Two Letter Twenty-Five

Dear Smok,

It has come to my attention (eat your heart out Scaligar) that I have lately attended the greatest manifestation of Draconian conflict since the formation of stupidity. However, I shall recount this crime against enlightenment without a single troubled bone. Not a one. I take no responsibility for the damage done to the Western Wiles, and shall divulge the following with a clean slate. Seriously, don’t tell anybody.

         It all began with the wretched secret council. Never liked it, you know, always had a bad feeling in my spine (later I realized this was due to the buffalo wing lodged between my outer scales. I advise you never to tip a waiter sparingly, as they have no conscience and an evil disposition). But if I had afore-realized the approaching conflagration of incompetency I would have retired as a 300-year old.

         Accordingly with the council’s information, a team of Dragons wearing ebony cloth ninja suits (which looked amazingly alike to toilet paper painted black) arrived at my cave and promptly introduced my delicate taste buds to the tail of the same Dragon I had attached my jaws to, the latter council date. I shall never look at cucumber marinated cardboard again the same.

         They promptly blindfolded me, in expensive cloth whose smell was strangely affinitive with ten year old, thrice wretched black gym socks. Likely my imagination, an enterprise such as the Draconian Secret Council surely could afford equipment surpassing athletic wear with asserted radioactivity.

         I was flown swiftly over a time span of perhaps a day, in which time all I had to eat was a forlorn buffalo wing, and then landed on the same ground  I had memorized the characteristics of in the last council. No how I recognized it? Tasted like cardboard, looked like landfill fodder, smelled just like the scent I remembered from my previously encounter.

         I was led down into the same dark, room. The only difference was that it was already packed with Dragons, all I realized, in desperate need of underarm deodorant. Smelled like a ferret bathhouse down there.

         I was then released from my odious pupil bond (I swear I heard a Geiger counter go off) and I then saw a circle of shadowy silhouettes surrounding the same dark pool I had recently cinderized in an upheaval of righteous retaliation. The meeting began sooner than I expected and the head Dragon quickly outlined our current situation. From anonymous intelligence, we had determined that the invasion through the Western Wiles would take place only eight hours from the current hour.

         The invasion force would consist of several dozen battle-hardened Dragons, possibly form the Outlands or merely the out skirting unnamed Provinces. He warned us that we would be outnumbered, but that he had chosen us for speed and skill in combat. I heard several cracking of chest vertebrae as our sternum’s swelled.

         The head Dragon told us for the moment that we would go over the main plan of attack in the pool, by way of scrying projection. A concentrated light blared into the pool and we all soon saw the soggy outline of a map, sketched by the claw of a masterful artist. The schematic showed the tunnel-like river pass that would lead straight into the Western Provinces, and an incredibly detailed written battle plan was sketched beside the painting’s impression of the tunnel.

Go tue Wylez, wate for bitt, ammbushz invayzun fors, kik teef in, throw oot uv brovunses. Hy five! Kownt teef.

Incredible! Never seen such complicated offensive plans in all my years. Such astute explanation, such complex battle scheme, and such good code! None but the best could decipher such a complicated algorithm. To say the least, I was very impressed by the battle draft so far. And I had fully memorized the complex execution plan, down to the last detail.

         The head Dragon told us that we would now continue up one by one onto the grounds and change into our pre-prepared battle suits. I was anxious for my turn, and elbowed someone in the face, he seemed to mutter something to do with “—ification!”, but it must have been my imagination.

         I was soon out of the cave and quickly found my suit, as Trewbodockz was encoded upon its chest. I quickly changed into it. Very comfortable, and very powerful too. Almost like laired toilet paper, or black elastic filled with tissue.

         Soon all of my fighting companions were garbed out for war. A small Dragon, who claimed to be the head Dragon, told us to ready ourselves quickly for battle. I re-sharpened my claws against a rock, and introduced my tail to several trees.

         A few minutes later the head Dragon reappeared with our fighting standard. A giant tooth backed by two toilet paper roles emblazoned upon a rainbow colored pennant. A truly fear-inducing flag of war. He called us to attention, told to reposition our hoods for our identities sake, and then with a roar we launched ourselves into the night air.

         We flew swiftly for maybe five hours, until we finally reached edge of the Western Provinces. Directly ahead were the Western Wiles, and the path of invasion exactly in our path. With only minutes to spare until the supposed time of invasion.

In actuality I am telling this story in the present tense, as it is more prominent a telling to narrate in my time of unknowing. Though of course I suspected the following all along.

Suddenly from a bank of rushes beneath the canopy tunnel a crowd of Dragons flew up toward us yelling categorical curse words and yelling like heck. YOVIANS! They were all Yovians! All scale color and overlap consistency pointed to one final ultimatum, everything had been a sham! And I was the only one who had expected it!

With betrayed rage boiling in my gut like undigested chili, and swept forward and tore the armor (toilet paper) off of our supposed leader. A YOVIAN also! I promptly swatted him into a hedgerow with my righteous strength. That was when the rest of the crowd realized it, however; unfortunately, it was also the exact moment when the surprisingly powerful crowd of Yovians met with us.

It was only due to my surprise and inadequate toiletry armament that a single Yovian, after sinking his claw into my stomach, continued on to beat the living tar out of my ambushed body. After a few minutes of the harsh reprimanding, I crunched down on his toes, poked him in the eye with a wing tip, and furthered my martial art prowess by pulling his snout and booting him into the water.

I then leapt into the fray, indiscriminately grabbing a cursed Yovian by the sinewy neck and beating him soundly around the mouth and snout. I then heard, through the enemy’s remaining teeth something that sounded like Scaligar’s voice. An obvious ploy, I proceeded to kick his face in a further seven inches, and not until he yelled “IT’S ME YOU FOOL!” IN Scaligar’s exact tone that I realized my his transgression. Not having told me who he was in time, he had forced me to inflict upon him my full strength.

         Fearing for his health, I subsequently grabbed him by the hind claws and shoved him into a pothole in the round below.

         The rest of the fight needn’t be portrayed in any great detail, let us merely say that me constant suspicions were correct and the renovation of the Western Wiles may take several years.

         Unfortunately, Scaligar was not able to pull himself from his earthen prison for several days, until with the help of crane, an earth-mover, and a quart of axel grease he was able to pry himself from the mole tunnel. I told him straight off that I had been solely concerned with his health when I inflicted his violent treatment. His following retaliatory volley of physical and highly un-needfully biased reprimands I shall not fully recount to you, as you are young; and unscarred by this violent and explosive abundant world.

         Anyway, the Yovians fled back to their wretched Province, once they realized I meant business. Of course I had seen through their plan all along. Seriously, yep, definitely, true and blue, no doubt about it.

         Your clairvoyant uncle,

         Trubodox the Scarlet AND GEEKADOAAAAAAH

P.S. Got him.

Book Two Letter Twenty-Four

My Dearest Nephew,

It has come to my attention (and indeed was dropped on my very cave-step) that I have been once again formally invited to a war council in the South. The summons was most intriguing, saying that we should soon be “tacking dyrekt akshun n thee curnt stake of wor” which I take in translation to mean that we shall soon be taking direct action in the current state of war. Isn’t it clever of the council to write their letters in such a magnificent code? Any other eyes might see it as the ghastly misspellings of a fool, but those to whom the letters are sent are trusted to decode the summons ourselves and must rise to this challenge.

The Wyrm he wanders to and fro,

The Wyrm he wanders high and low,

The Wyrm is ever wandering,

The Wyrm is truly Wanderking

          Do accept my apologies for this brief interruption, nephew, my goatly friend has lately mastered our written language and is writing poetry on whatever paper his hooves can reach. I merely took a second away from the letter to finish off my tea, but when I returned, he had added in a verse on the Wanderwyrm right in the middle of the page. However, this is not truly a great tragedy as his poetry is not all that bad and his hoof-writing is truly spectacular!

          Anyway, back to my story. The missive informs me that I shall be brought to the meeting place once again as I was before by delegates of the council and from there we shall discuss our next move.

          I shall write to you again when the meeting is over and I can discuss it in detail. Until then, I must remind you once again that these letters are in the strictest confidence and should you ever divulge any of the details to another Dragon…I am not really sure what would happen actually. I wouldn’t do anything about it, but the council would most likely be displeased and send their delegates out for you.

          Farewell until the next letter,

          -Your humble servant, mentor and uncle,

                   Semithino

The Wyrm is King of wandering,

The Wyrm of whom we now do sing,

He wanders here, he wanders there,

The Wyrm doth wander everywhere