NaNoWriMo Update #4 - The Pale Horse
As of this post I am 51,073 words into Pale Horse: A Story of the World Hereafter, thus achieving the 50,000 word goal set by National Novel Writing Month. Of course I’ve only completed 12 chapters (I’m currently partway through Ch. 13) out what I think will ultimately be a 30 Chapter (plus Prologue and Epilogue) novel so there’s a lot of work ahead of me. I honestly don’t have much else to share with this week’s update. It’s been a busy few days but the constant waking up at 7 a.m. (rather early for me) has really helped me set aside the time I need each day to keep writing.
My plan as it currently stands is to keep writing every day until I get the first draft done, although I’ll probably be a little easier on myself when it comes to days already packed with other activities (or holidays). Ideally I’d like to get a rough draft completed by the end of January and then let it sit for a few months while I focus on editing and preparing The Ghost, The Serpent, and the Wasteland for a Summer 2023 release.
Writing The Long Road was an exercise in chaos, what with a complete rewrite not once, but twice before I found the right way of telling the story. However, The Minutemen was much better plotted out. I wrote about half of the first draft, took a break for a few months, and then came back at it. I actually restarted from the beginning, rewriting each chapter (not much changed, but the act of actually rewriting it helped solidify the events in my mind) before moving on to the second half. I don’t recall exactly how long it took to finish The Minutemen, but I do remember writing most of the climactic battle in three or four days and being very proud of myself for getting so much done so quickly. I’m pretty sure it was over a holiday break, so I had plenty of time each day to pound away at the keys. Editing involved going over a printed copy myself, getting a copy to my editors (I actually had two this time around), and once those fixes were made I had a few beta readers read everything with fresh eyes. My main editor and I went over it once more after the beta reads were done and it went off to the printers.
Hopefully Pale Horse will follow The Minutemen pretty closely - rough draft, first round of edits, beta readers, second round of edits, more readers, and final polish. If I’m lucky (and well organized) I can get the final part of Locke’s story out there in early 2024!
As always, here’s another excerpt. Always like to write up weird dream sequences:
Locke’s dreams took him back to the farmhouse and his days toiling in the field. His body wasn’t sore from battle, but from his laboring in fields where the wheat grew tall. His muscles didn’t burn because he wielded his machete against his enemies, but because he wielded a sickle against the stalks. The cuts on his hands were from simple, honest labor and not the weapons of the men and women trying to kill him. His rifle didn’t hang from his back, ready for battle, but instead hung by the door only to be used on the hunt.
He grabbed a bunch of wheat with his left hand and cut against it with the sickle in his right before placing it in one of the woven baskets hanging from Whiskey Devil’s sides. Again and again Locke did this, the baskets growing heavier with the hours. The horse followed behind him loyally, occasionally lowering his head to nibble at a fallen stalk or two. The sun crawled from the western edge of the world to the east as they carried on until finally the field was empty.
“Tomorrow we’ll work the potato field,” Locke said, rubbing Whiskey Devil’s velveteen nose.
Whiskey Devil only whickered in reply. Wheat, potatoes, corn, carrots, it was all the same to ol’ Whiskey Devil.
Locke took a cloth from his belt and wiped the sweat from his brow and forearms, marveling for a moment at the unblemished skin. No tattoos, no brands. Just a few light scars – the prizes of working in the fields. His was a good, simple life.
“John! Supper’s on!” Elizabeth called from the house.
“Be there in a moment! Need to get Whiskey back to the barn!”
He led the horse to the rust colored barn where he took the time to clean out Whiskey Devil’s hooves and brush him down, removing the dust from the horse’s dappled gray coat. The massive beast had worked hard today and deserved a proper grooming. Locke had found Whiskey Devil lingering around a ruined village long before he had arrived in New Kingston and had managed to tame the creature well enough to ride him west until they both settled down with Elizabeth and her son.
“You did well, Whiskey,” Locke said, scratching the horse between the eyes. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Whiskey Devil’s gold-brown eyes blazed in the light of the setting sun, belying the fiery spirit contained within its frame. Locke patted his thick neck and offered him a carrot before leaving the barn. He barely heard the sound of swishing canvas, distant and far away, as if from another world entirely.
He started walking across the yard, pausing to stand by an old tree – a bristlecone pine, he thought Elizabeth called it. Its gnarled and twisted branches reached upward toward the sky, the spindliest of which reminded Locke of wooden fingers grabbing at the heavens. His wife claimed her ancestors, a great-grandmother perhaps, had planted a seed when she was a little girl more than a century before the bombs had fallen. The tree had survived the end of the world, standing defiant and continuing to grow in the harsh wasteland.
A hawk screamed as it flew over the farm, drawing Locke’s attention from the tree to the sky. The sunlight caught against the clouds, turning them the reddish purple color of wine against the pale blue sky. The faint twinkle of the universe’s brightest stars and planets battled the dusky sun in an attempt to make themselves known to Locke. The sight stopped him in his tracks, enthralling him.
“John!” Elizabeth shouted from the porch. “Are you coming or what?”
