Pinti’s name comes from the sound of rain “pinti-pinti” in her race’s language.
Her friend Kirlan teases her about it.
Then she says stop. Thanks him for cheering her up and hugs him. He’s all stiff, so she breaks away and asks him what’s wrong.
Then he says, “I like y—I mean, sound of rain.” and runs off.
Pinti calls after him, what do you mean? The sound of rain? Or me?
Then she gets a little flustered once she realizes what he could have meant. But then denies it. They are friends. She never once thought of him that way. Surely, he meant the same thing, right? Like, but just as friends.
My first three chapters rewrite is turning into my first four or five, I think.
Here’s the last bit I worked on.
When night arrived, and the two visiting clans finally went home to what was left of their territories, Pinti ran up the hill to her house, burst into her room, and threw herself on the bed.
She didn’t eat, or bathe, or do any of her normal night time things. She didn’t even drink her relaxing tea. Too tired to be bothered. She smooshed her nose into the pillow, groaning into it until she had to come up for air.
Could still do with some work. After all, a rewrite is like a first draft here.
But I think the story has become more interesting now. Especially considering what is supposed to happen later. I think I tied it in nicely.
Just a little worried about the foreshadowing in this chapter… Did I pull it off or not? Not sure until someone reads it.
I’ve got a question. In my ONC novelette, there is Spanish sprinkled in as a main secondary language as well as a few words here and there like Greek, Jewish, Portuguese etc. Should I be italicizing these words so it’s clear they’re not made up words and they’re a language other than English?
Finally wrote a satisfying ending to, essentially, act 1.
“I won’t go away like that,” Kirlan said, “I paw-mis.”
She sniffed a laugh. “Since when have we all started saying it like Tendri? It’s ‘promise’.”
“I really mean it.” He took her paw in his.
Their eyes met. Her heart beat quickened. It was as if he was staring into her soul. But not in the accusing way Valan did. Kirlan’s gaze was like a hug that made her feel safe. He leaned toward her. Their noses almost touched.
“Falling stars!” Tendri called out. Startled, they pulled away. “Quick, make a wish!” she said.
For info: a nose touch for Kattaluna is like a kiss
Now I can finally move on to where everything goes downhill.
Pinti’s chest filled with sadness for the bipedal lions that eventually lost their place in the world and became completely integrated into Human society. Now all that was left of them were some Hybrids with lion heads and Human bodies.
“And they really were magical like us?” she said.
Thorn nodded. “All native Elganians had some type of magick. Ilvagis and Kattalunae are the only pure natives of the planet now. That is a great imbalance which the world tries to adjust to. Do you know how?”
“We would have been great friends,” Chardi pipped up, “The princess and I. I bet on my whiskers and my munchie treat.”
The princess of the Kaunlutha race was said to have been able to control the sun and make fire burn in her paws. She single-pawedly destroyed a terrible ice beast that threatened her species, but ultimately would face extinction. Then one day, she disappeared and was thought to have ended her life somewhere in secret.
I don’t want Kattalunae to be like that, Pinti thought.
“single-pawedly” because, well, they don’t have hands
It’s been a long while since I last posted, but that’s because I haven’t been doing much writing for my story at all because I’ve been just absolutely overwhelmed by schoolwork for the past month. For the past two weeks, all I’ve been doing is just waking up and doing homework and projects and preparing for quizzes, and these projects have been very writing intensive (probably 8k words total) along with preparing for annoying reading quizzes, which required me to take about 10k words worth of notes, which sapped all of my motivation for writing. However, today I turned in my term paper (just minutes before the deadline), and I’m finally freed from all these projects and quizzes, though I’ve got finals in a week. But still, I think I’ll be able to get a little bit of time to add to my story in between studying for classes, and I’m excited since I’ve had a lot of time to think about what direction I want to take my story!
Also, made Valan’s change in attitude toward Pinti a bit more meaningful. Now he respects her after seeing the support she has as clan leader.
And I changed her interaction with her father as them coming together again after a super tense day. They both said things they didn’t mean and her father apologizes and also says he is proud of her. He thinks she is worthy. Pinti needed to hear that validation.
There’s still the matter of Thorn and Pinti’s now mixed feelings about him. He betrayed her or did he? Will he come back to hear if she will accept or decline his offer to help her find her origins?
There’s also the uncertainty of whether or not the other clans will remain in this kind of cold war situation or will they all attack Pinti’s clan at once?
Then I have foreshadowing moments: 1, what is seen in the vision. 2, the poem in the vision. 3, what is said about Pinti’s little sister in the vision.
Decided to not overcomplicate the vision and make it be about the one in her life Pinti cares most deeply about.
To be honest, I’m not too sure yet since I’ve spent the first two years of college just grinding out a whole lot of lower division pre-requisite classes, like calculus, chemistry, biology, physics, and economics, that I haven’t had much of an opportunity to explore the upper division environmental sciences classes, though I will start taking those classes beginning this summer. Right now, I’m fairly certain that I want to go to grad school, but I’m not too sure which direction I’d like to take since I both love the biology aspect of ecology, which I had an opportunity to explore as part of a research lab, and the more social aspects of environmental sciences because I’m a huge politics and policy nerd.
While I’d like to minor in political sciences, it’s just something that I won’t be able to fit into my schedule since I’m planning to do a data science minor, though I will be taking a bunch of environmental economics and policy classes this summer and upcoming fall.
Thorn offers to give Pinti a chance to see the world while he can do that for her. Pinti declines right away. It appears that Thorn is angry but then it seems like he’s unbothered. It should be clear that he didn’t betray her because she declined…
Don’t know if I succeeded there.
I made her ask, “are you mad that I declined”
and he says, “you said no. end of story. why would I be bothered?”
then she realizes she misinterpreted the Ilvagi body language. He was fine about it.
Hmm
Also figured out how it comes to be that Pinti ends up kind of unintentionally uniting all the Kattaluna clans because she’s the only one that can heal. It’s a big deal if you’ve got magick that can 100% heal a broken bone.
