Chapter 5

It took a week of sitting on the stool before we actually began to discuss magic. And the day and week did not go according to plan. I had heard the others girls chatting in the room at night I still understood very little, but had the impression that they were impatient....

Chapter 4

The first night I couldn’t sleep much. Everything was new, and new was scary. The room had an aroma of spice and dust. I slept on a bed, and not the ground. The softness of the mattress seemed another example of unnecessary excess. The roof prevented me from seeing the stars. But I supposed that it was for the bette...

Chapter 3

The boat wobbled and groaned. We plunged into the night, and clouds rose to hide the moon and stars from me. If it weren’t for the bahga’s wuffling breaths I could have convinced myself I was alone in darkness. I thought that being on the inland sea at night felt a lot like being trapped between words. Well, at least as I would have imagined being trapped between worlds would b...

Chapter 2

He arrived on a hairy bahga that shook its head as it shuffled its paws through the sand. He war white to arm against the sun, but was slender under the piles of fabric. I saw nothing but his gray eyes, and somehow that unnerved me. I felt that I was being greated by a ghost, a vision of walking sand with storm-light eyes.Then he reigned in his beast. It reared it’s head, sending the long gray-white...

Chapter 1

When spring came to the Hadhen plains, all the ViKaTogani set off to meet at the Midsummer Gathering Mound; this was my favorite time of the year. We followed the Genna-ko, who called to the Genn and got them to move in an orderly fashion with no more than the sound of her voice, the click of tongue to teeth and the pounding of the ko-staff on the dry earth. The Genn, long legged and docile, were...

Elessa Chianic and the Magics of Chiadina

Next up! Gods, Magic, and choosing my main character. Planning a world requires planning how it works. I usually like tying magic to gods, it just has always made sense. I mean, when we hear of magical things happening in mhythology, it's generally tied to some god, goddess or mystical creature that originates from the Realm of the Gods. If I go off of the concept that we need to draw boundaries...

Notes on Chiadina: Resources

Based on the map, I then select resources that would make sense. Namely, crops, lumber, fish, etc. Because this is a fantasy and I absolutely love wold-building, I am choosing made-up names for items. I welcome anyone who wants to draw what they think any of these things might look like to e-mail me their pictures. I promise to post them! Kwenda of the North: Trade with Xolanh Fish from Dwoba...

Chiadina: The Map

While it may be crude and childlike, I begin all projects with a map. I suppose I work backward. I draw the coastline, make the mountains follow the coast, the water (rivers) fall from mountain to ocean, occasionally pooling in lakes and land-bound seas. Trees follow the water. People build along...

New Project Just For this Site!

All right, so awhile back I wanted to revamp my blog. I've gone through a load of different things I wanted to do with this page. Then, finally when I decided what I wanted to do: stress hit. I am now working 3 part time jobs, and still writing. Unfortunately my writing is increasingly limited to non-fiction because that is what I can be paid for. Not that I'm currently making much, but it...