Conworld - Blog Posts

Day51 of rewriting my novel

University has gone back to session so I’ve had less (no) time to write, but what with American holidays, I’ve gotten a chance to increase my word count a little bit! Just figured I’d post an update.

Day 50 (1:42) of rewriting my novel

Today I continue my quest or rewriting this stuff in reverse. I wrote the "capture" of Ir Nouzonif. (It is a tragedy: the President has already fled with the magic, but not the Heroes' bodies.)

I haven't been too active on here in the past couple days, and that will continue to be the trend as we continue into the fall. (American schooling, as it were.) That doesn't mean I'm not writing, or paying attention to anything y'all send me! I swear I'll get around to tag games when I'm able.

Usual suspects: @quillswriting and @oldfashionedidiot

If you'd like to be tagged in my posts, either DM me or reply to this post directly!

Day 49 (100 in base 7) of rewriting my novel

Yeah ok I abandoned base-30:base-7 in favor of base 7 today because it looks better.

Today was "let's all ask Lozerief about our lore" day for all of my OCs because, by this point in everyone's storylines, it's long overdue. I think Part Four is coming together alright, and I just hope to explore some more concultures here. (Namely: Atepsi, Ytos, and Northern Odapir.)

Usual Suspects: @oldfashionedidiot and @quillswriting

If you'd like to be added/subtracted from a taglist, please DM me or see my taglists post.

Day 48 (1:24) of rewriting my novel

Ok today I thought I'd share the Lozerief song:

Particularly when the rhythm solidifies somewhere around the 57 second mark, but the whole thing really. It captures her vibe immaculately, I think; both the badass side, and the yapping side. (She's a chronic yapper.)

I only say this because I start Part Four today with Lozef yapping about the Heroes' plan to retake Ir Nouzonif. I also reveal in this chapter that Lozef loved Dolgof ("Lozerief, ner zimouhes ezimouhes Dolgofenif?"/"Zimouhes, ner lougodenif zisi!") (Lozerief, did you love Dolgof?/Yes, and you're a cow (as an insult)).

Usual suspects: @quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot

If you'd like to be added to any of my taglists

If you would like to be added to one of my taglists, please see this post or DM me!

Day 47 (1:23) of rewriting my novel

I finished Part 3 today! Like all the others, I'm sure it's a hot mess that doesn't quite fit together, but it's a first draft and that makes me proud of it.

I've reached about ~57k words, and that's actually the most I've ever written on a single thing, which I'm also proud of.

Today was literally just filler scenes. Mind-bendingly drivelous filler scenes. Well, they weren't just incoherent babbling from me, Somehow, I have to plan out Part Four tomorrow, but I have a big drive tomorrow, too, so I may take a day away from writing. I dunno, yet. Stay tuned.

Usual suspects: @quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot

If you would like to be added to one of my taglists, please see this post or DM me!

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Where in your setting would you most like to visit, and where would you avoid at all costs? 😉

I may have to start celebrating Worldbuilding Wednesday. (I'll probably participate in Lexember this year, though.)

Mixed feelings about most of the places in Meiste, but there are a couple I'd really want to go to, and a few I'd desperately want to stay out of.

The runner-up place to go in Meiste is...

Ytos and Itaush: The Twin Duchies

In addition to the inhabitants of Ytos and Itaush having a history of hospitability, Ytos and Itaush both occupy the North Pole of Meiste. My ideal trip would start in Ytos City, to see the Hero's Landing, then make my way North to hike to the North pole. It could also be cool to do an arctic cruise (or something like it) around the coast, but most importantly, I'd want to see the thousand-year old architecture in Itaush city. (Oh, pretty important aspect: The Ytos and Itaush have a history of treating queer people as equals in ways that most of the rest of the world really doesn't because it's in the Zenestosphere.)

(One last thing: Itaush left the Confederacy in a velvet divorce, but Itaush maintains an open border with Ytos.)

And the winner is:

The Principality of Atepsi

Atepsi is in the Zenestosphere, but they're queer-friendly as Ytos, especially outside the capital city, Atepsi City. (However, since Princess In Taguchif is out as a lesbian, and also wildly popular, that sentiment is changing.)

The climate of Atepsi is hot and humid, since the whole country straddles the equator. In fact, Atepsi city is in the middle of a jungle, deep in the headwaters of the Atepsi river.

First, I'm going to Atepsi city. Open-air markets, historic places, friendly people, extravagant architecture, public transportation, etc. Easily the best city in all of Meiste. It's not even close.

Then I'm taking a boat up the headwaters of the Atepsi river and into the mountains. They say the snakes are benign in Meiste. Definitely looking for cool snakes.

Then, I'm backpacking through the rest of the mountains to get to the Straits of Odapir to find Meiste. (I definitely won't.)

Finally, I'm taking a boat through the Straits of Odapir to the islands of L'meistek. L'meistek is an island halfway between Odapir and Atepsi which is said to be at the center of Meiste and where magic is strongest. But mostly there's a dormant(?) volcano there I want to hike up lol.

Atepsi also controls the Nendisfsho desert to the South, so if I came back, I'd love to see the sand dunes and dry rainforest.

Stay Away From:

Zeneste: Ir Nouzonif

Capitalistic hellscape. This is the capitalistic, authoritarian hellscape I talk about in previous post. Many people in the province of Ir Nouzonif are also brainwashed into hating Odapir and Odpairian citizens as a means of control. In a convoluted, twisted way, the farming economy of (Southern) Ir Nouzonif is entirely dependent on migrant workers from Odapir.

After the Fall of Ir Nouzonif (in Part 4 of Meiste), the city of Ir Nouzonif becomes fair game, since it's also a religious center and Hota and Lozef completely overhaul the government, yet xenophobic tendencies remain, especially in Southern Ir Nouzonif State.

Odapir: Odapir City

Odapir is an authoritarian surveillance/police state, and Odapir City is the place the police have the most eyes. (Not to say Ir Nouzonif isn't a police state.) Many in Odapir, too, are brainwashed into hating Zenestians as scapegoats. Not a great place to be, and many in Odapir City are xenophobic as a result (much like Ir Nouzonif.)

Outside of Odapir City, and especially in the Southeastern corner (where there are no cameras) you may find the Hero of Life, good beaches, and good hikes.

Zeneste: Tolftorrijv and Zenée

Ok, maybe you can get away with going to the cities of Tolftorrijv and Obizoe, but beyond that, don't even try. The cities themselves aren't really worth visiting, and many Zenestians beyond the cities are xenophobic, in addition to there not being anything to do beyond the cities.

This has been a massive excuse for me to yap, so I hope people enjoy this lol.

Usual Suspects: @oldfashionedidiot @quillswriting

If you'd like to be added to one of my taglists, please see this post, or DM me!

Introducing: Néndisfas

Consider this post a very brief introduction to my in-progress conlang, Néndisfas.

In summary, Néndisfsho is a fusional language with phonemic pitch-accent, personal agreement in verbs, and split-ergative based on animacy.

Phonology

Consonants

/p/, /b/, /m/, /t/, /d/, /n/, /k/, /g/, /ŋ/, /kʷ/, /gʷ/

/f/, /v/, /s/, /ʃ/, /z/, /xʷ/, /h/

/w/, /j/, /ɾ/, /l/, /ʎ/, /ʟ/

Not much to say here but for the three way /l/, /ʎ/, /ʟ/ distinction held-on from the protolanguage.

Vowels

Five-vowel system with length distinction, making 10 vowels. Not interesting at all here.

Phonotactics

Max syllable: CV(C)(C)(C) / CV(C)#

Indeed, this means that the maximum size of a consonant cluster could be 4-consonants long,

Morphology / Syntax: Grammar

Verbs

Verbs (and predicative adjectives) are simple, comparatively, to the syntactic nonsense going down with nouns.

Verbs take a prefix for perfective and passive, and a suffix for past or present and to agree with the subject in gender (animate, inanimate).

Due to sound changes, verbs fall into one of six categories, but classes II, III, and IV all have alternate forms.

Nouns

Néndisfsho nouns take on one of two genders: Common or Neuter. Common nouns were derived from old animate nouns, and neuter nouns were derived from old mass nouns. The nouns which didn't fit with either were grandfathered in.

Due to sound changes, nouns take on one of six endings depending on their class. Classes I, III, and V have alternate forms.

Nouns also inflect for one of 5 cases: Nominative, Genitive, Accusative, Allative, and Commitative. The Allative, though, is beginning to be used like an Ergative, marking an animate subject of an intransitive verb, and an animate object of a transitive verb.

Take, for instance, the following sentences:

Yés-e váw-i ve-kát-ur-o.

Yessei.C-NOM car.N-ACC PRV.drive.PST.ANIM

"Yessei had driven the car."

Since the car is not animate, Yessei is rendered in the nominative, and the car is rendered in the accusative. In the following sentence, however:

Yés-ivā búm-pe kéht-us

Yessei.C-ALL dark.N-NOM hate.PRES.INAN

"The dark hates Yessei."

Here, the nominative case is reanalyzed as an absolutive, and the allative as an ergative.

This structure could be rewritten with a passive, like

Yés-ivā (búp-ko) ver-kéht-o

Yessei.C-ALL (dark.N-GEN) PASS.hate.PRES.ANIM

"Yessei is hated (by the darkness)."

Here, the genitive marks the agent, and the allative (ergative) marks the subject. Yessei, in this context, is treated as the object of a transitive verb, rather than the subject of an intransitive verb.

The reason this is so messy right now is because the language is in the middle of evolving the ergativity.

Other Notes

Néndisfas has no "true" 2nd or 3rd person pronouns, because pronouns are a completely open class in Néndisfas. The general 1st person pronoun is "gémse, géra, gésho" (I, me, my).

This is probably a language I'll wind up using as a meme language throughout my writing. It originally started as a language used in the deserts of Southern Atepsi, but now it's Yessei's first language, so I decided it can be both. In the context of Meiste, though, this is a long-dead language.

Paging the usual suspects: @quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot @ominous-feychild

Also if y'all have translation suggestions don't hesitate to drop them in my asks or as a reply/reblog to this post lol.

Day 46 (1:22) of rewriting my novel

Yeah I finally wrote the Izi and Taguchif meet with governor Bunthun scene, which I decided was a lot shorter than I originally thought it might be?

Like, I make it very clear that she's pretty much just a power-hungry warlord who's jumping at the chance to assume complete control over Zenée adn start turning it into an enthostate and consolidate power by knocking out Tolftorrijv and the Middle States/Sedroste.

She's also a hard-ball. She demands control over Ir Nouzonif City only to immediately call back and be like "yeah, actually, just reparations and bordering land is fine."

The Usual Suspects: @oldfashionedidiot@quillswriting

If you'd like to be added to my taglist, please respond to this post or DM me.

Day 45 (1:21) of rewriting my novel

No piece of writing of mine would ever be complete without the 4-legged table theorem. So, I added it in today in the 1200 words I wrote. And I'm still not done with Part Three (but getting closer!)

Speaking of Part Three, I'm getting close two being done, I think. I have a couple gaps left to fill, but that's about it. I'm surprised I haven't managed to write the actually important last scene (that being, the meeting with Governor Bunthun.

I still feel bad about romanizing her name, but nobody (except people who read Cherokee in its romanized form) would figure out that it's pronounced [ˈbə̃.ˌθə̃] and romanized as bvthv. So, preying on the fact that English speakers (mostly) nasalize their vowels and <u> can represent the "strut" vowel, so [ˈbʌ̃n̪.ˌθə̃n] will have to do. It's close enough.

Meanwhile, outlining Part Four looms on the horizon, nebulous as it was before. I know how I want it to end, and the major points in between, but that's about it. Somehow, Part Five seems to be more fleshed-out in my mind than Part Four.

I still have to derive Modern North Zeneth, whose closest living relative is supposed to be Low Zeneth. It's derived from a northern dialect of Old High Zeneth that split away from Old High Zeneth about 800-600 years ago. Maybe then I'll have a better name for Bvthv, but it wouldn't make sense for Governor Luwbefê to call her anything other than Bvthv.

Character names are hard.

The Usual Suspects: @oldfashionedidiot @quillswriting

If you'd like to be added to my taglist, please respond to this post or DM me.

I don’t talk about her very much, but this prompt is definitely the MC from It Will Hurt: And There Will Be No Fire. Her name is Yessei, and she’s a vegan and a Vampire and runs a coffee shop but can’t work a cell phone for the life of her.

“All those centuries, and you haven’t learned how to use a cell phone?” “I am 800 years old! Unless you know how to work a 15th century printing press, you can stop laughing and show me how to do the Twitter.”

Day 44 (1:20) of rewriting my novel

Today I didn't log many words, but that's ok.

Today I continued my journey in writing Part Three in reverse. Instead of writing the long, boring car scene, I skip to the good part-making the plan to convince Governor Bunthun to help, only to have the plan ripped away violently from underneath the New Heroes. Classic storytelling, but interesting nonetheless.

I don't know why, but the idea of post-novel canon has been living in my head rent-free. Like, I think I know how I want the rest of the novel to go:

the Coalition grows in number,

they take Ir Nouzonif only to find that President Sluwfa has run off with the remaining two Old Heroes' magics,

Izi and Tagif go and stop President Sluwfa while Hota and Lozef remain to keep the remains of Ir Nouzonif stable,

and Izi and Tagif return and restore the Old Heroes, balancing Magic and bringing Meiste back to having a physical representation when They want it (don't ask.)

The outcome of all this is a couple things:

A bunch of power-hungry warlords control most of the Old Confederacy

The situation in Odapir is particularly dire, considering the country will have been in full-blown civil war for several weeks.

But, as of right now, I'm not sold on writing a sequel.

Writing process taglist: @oldfashionedidiot

If you'd like to be added to any of my taglists, respond to this taglist post, or DM me and I can add you that way.

Nine Lines, Nine Tags

A tag game from @authorcoledipalo (that I totally didn’t forget about, sorry!)

The rules: Post nine lines of dialogue, and then tag nine people. (I will tag less because 9 is too many.)

1. “You two [Izi and Hota] are cute,” Tagif chuckled, sitting on the extra bed, undoing her gauntlets.

2. “Hang on, let me get my foreign relations advisor on the phone with you.” I waved for Tagif who leaned in while I held the phone out.

3. “That was the last [syringe]. I shattered the other two.”

4. “You already took away our only chances at saving our world. Why come back to rub it in our faces?”

5. “Goddammit!” She stomped her foot, throwing her fists down. “Do you think I wanted to do that? I’m here to get her back, too.”

6. “No. Mistake is too light a word. Try murder?”

7. “It doesn’t kill magic, it just makes it unusable. Happy?”

8. “She already brainwashed everyone,” I hissed, “what more does she want.”

9. “All I want to do now is help you. All I want to do is retake Ir Nouzonif and stick it in President Sluwfa’s face.”

Tags:

@foxgloves-garden @ominous-feychild @theothersideofthewoods @moonsbetween @oldfashionedidiot +open tag!

OC Questionnaire Tag

Another fun tag game from @authorcoledipalo.

I'll use Izi, Hota, Taguchif, and Lozerief all together at the same time.

What would you do if your enemy asked for help?

Izi: Yeah okay so that happened once and I would've ground her to a pulp then and there if Hota hadn't stopped me.

Hota: Izi's too impulsive, and it can be a strength when in dire straits, but a costly mistake in other environments. I try to make up for that wherever I can.

Tagif: I'm not normally with Izi on these, but yeah. Definitely grinding Lozerief to a pulp if I ever get the chance.

Lozef: I'm not a fan of questions as broad as this, or being reminded of how I allowed myself to be used for the benefit of a literal tyrant. Obviously, I've been the enemy asking for help many times. Never have I expected any help, and yet somehow it all works out.

Would you ask your enemy for help?

Izi: Depends? Like, I asked Governor Luwbefê for help, but we didn't know how vicious he would go on to be.

Hota: No, but like Izi, I was duped into believing in the goodness of the Governor of Tolftorrijv. I was sorely mistaken.

Tagif: Yeah totally. The ends justify the means. They say that in English, right?

Lozef: Another very complicated, nuanced question. Like Hotautebz and Iziser, I didn't know President Sluwfa would be such an evil person, but I went along with her plans to remain unobtrusive. So, when she built the anti-magic bubble, I left and begged Iziser and Hotautebz to retake me.

Do you act on impulse, or do you think before you act?

Izi: Well, Hota already answered this question for me.

Hota: Yeah, I did. At least Izi's honest about it.

Tagif: Premeditated plans are the best, especially when building stuff. I'm probably more impulsive than Hota, and less impulsive than Izi.

Lozef: Hard to say. I would say I'm spontaneous but not impulsive, if that makes sense?

Paging: @oldfashionedidiot @theothersideofthewoods +open tag!

Taglist?

Would anyone like to be tagged in any of my posts? Reblog/comment if you'd like to be included in any of the following lists:

Conlang Translations

Writing Updates

WIP Exerpts

Linguistics/Conlanging Ideas/Inspiration

@ominous-feychild

All

@oldfashionedidiot @quillswriting

Day 43 (1:16) of rewriting my novel

Today, Part 3 cracked 20,000 words!

Part 3 is finishing up nicely as I bridge the gap between the New Heroes leaving Tolftorrijv behind and the scene where Lozerief comes to them in Obizoe.

I'm not convinced that the ending to Part 3 is my best work, but for now, it just needs to exist until the novel is done.

Plus, there's a lot of Part 5 planning that I need to do before this whole thing is complete. And even then, I don't know how far into post-novel canon I'm willing to go before I deem the story complete. This is just a thought that's been on my mind as Part Three (hopefully) comes to a close, soon.

Ok, so, when reconstructing natural proto-languages, those protolanguages are almost never attested. Historical Linguists are basically making educated guesses and throwing darts against a wall when making the Proto-Indo-European hypothesis, it was just that the evidence was so compelling that linguists (and, most humans) believe it. For all intents and purposes, it's a really good guess.

The issue with my conworld? Classical Zispoel and Proto-Ytosi-Itaush are still fully attested languages with exactly 2 and 1 native speakers each, all still technically living.

To make matters worse, Lozerief is kind-of a scientific genius, and Pagjom is the literal Hero of Language. Together, they could reconstruct Proto-Zispoel and see what a god-awful, horrifying shit-show it was.

The idea that my characters could derive my god-awful, good-for-nothing protolanguage is, somehow, deeply disturbing to me. I think they would realize they were in a simulation if they did that.

Cursed Low Zeneth Translations

Consider this a makeshift guide to how Low Zeneth works.

Overview

Low Zeneth is a language and group of dialects spoken Southwestern Zeneste (the state of Tolftorrijv.) Its last common "ancestor" with Ipol was Classical Zispoel, but it had already started to diverge before the time of the Hero of Life. Low Zeneth is radically different than Ipol in many ways, though it's been influenced substantially by Ipol, too.

I will focus here on the prestige variety of Low Zeneth: the kind spoken in the city of Tolftorrijv.

Phonology/Romanization

Rendered Phonemically:

Stops: /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

Nasal Stops: /m/ /n/

Affricates: /t͡s/ /t͡ʃ/

Fricatives: /f/ /θ/ /s/ /ʃ/ /h/

Approximants: /w/ /l/ /j/

Tap/flap: /ɾ/

Trill: /r/

Vowels:

/iː/ /i/ /yː/ /y/ /uː/ /u/

/eː/ /e/ /øː/ /ø/ /oː/ /o/ 

/ə̃/ /ə/

/a/ /ɑː/

That makes 34 total phonemes broken down from 20 consonants and 14 vowels.

Romanized:

p, b, t, d, k, g

m, n

ts, q

f, th, s, sh, h

w, l, j

r

rr

ij i üü ü uw u

ee ê öö ö oo o

v e

a aa

If you can't tell, I had fun deriving this phonology from the restrictive, Classical Zispoel phonology. Maybe a little too much, but oh well.

Morphology and Syntax - Grammar

Technically Low Zeneth is a VSO language, but that's not the full picture.

Basically, auxiliary verbs get sucked up into the (head-initial) tense-phrase. The tree below describes the translation "fijsesê bv hijfrê" which literally translates to "have I money" and means "I have money."

The result is that most subordinate clauses have the structure SVO, while the main clause has structure SV(A)O.

Low Zeneth has very slim morphology, only inflecting for a simple plural in nouns with -o, and no morphology at all in verbs. A series of sound changes rendered the T/A distinctions of Classical Zispoel basically indistinguishable, so to compensate, speakers of Low Zeneth employ heavy periphrasis.

Cursed Translations from Today

Fijatsia bv io dv luw êraanva ijrenva

Phonemic: /fi.ˈja.tsi.a ˈbə̃ ˈi.o ˈluː e.ˈɾɑː.nə̃.a ˈiː.ɾe.nə̃.a/

Lit. Translation: Will I give you of news urgent.

Meaning: I will give you urgent news/I must give you urgent news.

Üümen ijnvth Dvrr Ilaajote hijthen-luwario

Phonemic: /ˈyː.men ˈiː.nə̃θ ˈdə̃r i.ˈlɑː.jo.tə ˈhiː.θen.lu.wa.ɾi.o/

Lit. Manages Zeneste Emperor Tolftorrijv fight-people.

Meaning: The Emperor of Zeneste (now) manages the Tolftorrijv army.

Conclusion

I just figured I'd talk about Low Zeneth today because I haven't talked about it a lot but have been producing a bunch of translations. I realize only now that I didn't go over forming questions in this post, but maybe later I will. Feel free, as always, to request that I translate random words/phrases into this language.

Day 42 (1:15) of rewriting my novel

Today, I wrote Izi's address to the city of Tolftorrijv.

Sidenote: I realized that all my translations for place names are super inconsistent. Tolftorrijv, for example, is named in Ipol, but Ir Nouzonif is named in Classical Zispoel. Zenée is (probably) named in Zeneth? Then Odapir, Atepsi, Ytos, and Itaush are all named in Classical Zispoel, too.

Anyways, one of Izi's character traits is that, despite being relatively shy and stage-scared, he's still very charismatic and popular with most Zenestians. I suspect he'd be a major political force in the chaos that is post-novel canon.

Sidenote 2: I realized that, in post-novel canon (actually, during the duration of Part 5, too, which includes the aftermath of the fall of Ir Nouzonif) Izi doesn't have to relinquish control of the Coalition's armies, due to some weird wording in the Coalition's founding document. Would this potentially lead to a united Zenesto-Odapirian macro-state? Possibly? That's a tale for another day, probably.

Day 41 (1:14) of rewriting my novel

I didn't write a lot today, but that's okay. Any progress is progress.

I'm still thinking about Izi's speech in Tolftorrijv, and about what he might say. For the three-man band that is the "New Heroes," Izi fills both the Heart and the Leader, and Taguchif overlaps with him in the roles of Lancer and Smart one. I guess that makes Hota the tank, while also fulfilling some leadership roles because they're good at making plans. A well-balanced team.

I now plan on breaking that balance in Part Four, though, splitting them up. It's time for Zeneste to come under new management, anyways.

Day 40 (1:13) of rewriting my novel

I hit 50K today! For that I'm very excited.

Some liked my previous Low Zeneth translations, so I'll share another here.

Hior bv puw ijsonvn bivq

IPA: [ˈhi.or.ˈbə̃.ˈpuː.ˈiː.so.nə̃n.ˈbjə̃t͡ʃ]

Lit. Translation: wish.PRES.SMP 1ST.SNG 3RD.SNG is good.

Translation: I hope you enjoy it. (Literally: I wish it is good.)

Some notes on this: ijsonvn /ˈiːsonə̃n/ is a dummy verb for non-predicative adjectives, like the word bivq /ˈbjə̃t͡ʃ/, which can be "good," or used independently as an NP to mean "goodness."

Syntax in subordinate clauses switches to SVO, as you saw in the example above. A grouping of it might look like this.

[VP [V hope] [NP I] [VP [NP it] [V' [V is] [NP good]]]]

Maybe one day I'll get around to making a syntax tree to describe what's going on, because that grouping isn't quite accurate, but it's good enough for right now.

I’ve never read this book, I only watched the series on YouTube. I must read it at some point. David J. Peterson’s content on linguistics is immaculate.

I FOUND A BOOK

Look what we got from the library!!! Look at it! Look!

Now that we have The Book, there's no stopping us. You will all be drowning in words and grammar and scripts >:D

But seriously. If I had a flappy hands emoji, I'd be using it right now.

Day 39 (1:12) of rewriting my novel

No crazy Low Zeneth translations today, although I'm very proud of its crazy analytical grammar.

Today I'm thinking about post-novel cannon, because I find those events just as fascinating. After the novel is over, the Empire of Zeneste is completely disbanded, leaving just the state of Ir Nouzonif with Izi as its "Emperor."

Meanwhile, the White Army definitely does not finish retaking Odapir, so in post-novel canon, Izi definitely helps Heja'umak reclaim her home city of Odapir City.

Furthermore, the ruler of Tolftorrijv is pretty corrupt in the same way that President Sluwfa was...

And about her, I haven't even decided what happens to her yet. Perhaps out of desperation, she tries to combine the magic she stole inside herself? Lozerief did say it was like "replacing your lungs with lungs that were 10 liters."

I feel like the states of Ytos and Itaush would reunite, since Itaush was one of the Twin Duchies, but left the Confederacy.

Day 38 (1:11) of rewriting my novel

Ok today I gave in and started writing Part Three in reverse.

That's mostly because I know where Part Three is headed completely. I'm still debating how I want Part Four to go. I'm now anticipating (but can't predict) a Part Five. A sort-of last-ditch effort for the evil President Sluwfa.

I also wanted to write Lozerief again because she's more fun to write than most of my characters, I think. She's dark and brooding, but she's not evil by any stretch of the imagination. It's also fun to see her at her weakest: for a long time, she was regarded as the strongest Hero. I think it's fun to see her come crawling back to the people she hurt the most.

Heads up, Seven up!

Thanks from @authorcoledipalo for the tag!

Take these seven lines of dialogue from Part Three:

"She killed her ... in front of us. In front of me." "Izi ... I'm not doing this because you can't, I'm doing this because you can." “When you get back in power, make it so the train is free.” "Too late...you're cooked." “Obviously not! The layers of deception with her go so deep it’s not even funny anymore.” "Do you even know how you feel?" "We're going to get our mother back and beat the shit out of her for lying to us."

Plus seven tags:

@theothersideofthewoods, @oldfashionedidiot, @flurrysahin, @the-letterbox-archives, @eternalwritingstudent, @koinotfish, and @moonsbetween

Day 37 (1:10) of Rewriting my novel

Today I mostly just want to share these crazy Low Zeneth translations:

Baan fijsesê bv hijfen ijnvn ijfo ilatsifio.

This phrase is used at a coffee shop and means "what can I do for you?" My literal translation looks like this:

what IMPF.PRES PRON.1ST.INF.SNG can do up 2ND.FOR.PL

In a more normie-friendly way:

what I could do up you?

It's worth ilatsifio is a suppletive form of "dv/dvrvt" ([də̃, ˈdə̃.rə̃t] or in phonemic notation: /də̃, ˈdə̃.rə̃t/). Like Spanish "usted" < "tu merced," ilatsifio was an old word for "teacher."

Anyways, what's interesting about this is the imperfective-simple present split here, marked with auxiliary verbs. This sentence is marked in the imperfective present because the speaker (barista) is unsure if she can actually help the listener (Izi.)

Low Zeneth, though its verbs only have reduplicative morphology, distinguishes between the present, past, and future tenses; the simple, perfective, habitual, and imperfective aspects; and one modality.

The syntax is even more cursed, especially for a question (like this one.) That's a story for another day.

Day 36 (1:06) of rewriting my novel

Today was a day I didn't even think would be hard for me writing-wise, but it was. The vision in my head was "and Tagif, Hota, and Izi all go to Tolftorrijv uneventfully," but I decided to torture Tagif and Izi with their father's journal.

Xajas, Izi and Tagif's father, kept a journal off and on for like 900 years, and the last entry is about him battling his cancer. Here's a quote:

I told him to be loyal to himself first. Above all else, that is what he needs. I will always regret that I was not there to be with him when he needed me most. I believe it is his love that has kept me alive since Dolgof went away. That luck has run dry.

Last month, Lozef helped me write my will. I left everything to Izi. I explained to him everything I never could. About his mother, his sister, Lozef, the Heroes, and how his mother left the throne of Zeneste to him. Lozef promised she would see to it that I got it. 

But I know better than to be so blind to how lawyers work here. They're greedy. They'll rip the will to shreds if they ever get their hands on it. The courts refuse to digitize it, so once it's gone, it's gone for good. Lozef is smart, and she's clever, but she'll never be more cunning than those damn lawyers.

My only hope is that Izi is clever enough-and bold enough-to find this journal before it's all spoiled to him. That he may remember me for who I was: not through the rose-tinted glasses of a child, but through the retrospective eyes of a century-old man who died before he could ever truly know me.

And to Iziser, my loving son, if you are reading this, I owe you the world. You're a strong kid. You'll be an even stronger man. Whoever is lucky enough to share your company I adore. Relish your life while you have it, young man. There is no Hero of Life to keep us alive. Only ourselves.

Part of this is also to highlight how brutal and capitalist the Zenestian legal system is. After Xajas dies, no matter how hard Lozerief fights to protect him, everything is taken from Iziser, including his house. The lawyers destroy the will and take everything, agreeing never to speak of this. This is an unfortunately common practice in Zeneste.

I saw this from @oldfashionedidiot and this post is giving major Lozef-Dolgof vibes, especially in the "early days" (years 0-75, when Lozef was trying her hardest to win over Dolgof.)

But this is still true for Lozef! I do imagine that Dolgof would eventually find Lozef's undying devotion weird, and that's part of the reason for The Big Disappearance TM, but Lozef is so undyingly loyal to Dolgof that she's also undyingly loyal to her kid, Izi.

Even though she literally stabs Dolgof in the back, she knows it's wrong and is being manipulated by the President of Zeneste to consolidate power. That's why she comes running back to Izi: not only is she loyal to him, she's also loyal to Dolgof and wants to see her back on her feet.

That, and, she literally wrote a thousands-of-pages-long Epic about her journeys with Dolgof right after it happened. This is literally the Epic of the Hero of Life.

fuck unrequited love, give me unrequited devotion! give me a character who worships the mere ground their s/o walks on. give me a character who would do anything, cross any boundary or burn any bridge for the one they love. give me a character reveres and adores their partner to a religious (and unhealthy) extent

but the devotee just doesn’t get it. they don’t understand what they’ve done to receive this treatment or why the other character looks at them like they’ve just seen salvation. they fear they will never live up to the devoted one’s expectations and sometimes they wonder if their s/o is even in love with them, or if they’re really in love with the perfect version of them that they’ve created in their mind.

bonus points if the constant devotion and worship starts to drive a wedge between them!!!!!!

Day 35 (1:05) of rewriting my novel

Today was a "bridge the gaps" day.

Yesterday, I wrote about Vimir. The day before that, I wrote about Taguchif. In order to bridge those scenes with what I already had, I wrote for, like, 4 hours and about 2,100 words piecing it all together. Now, Part Three is like 12,000 words, and I'm probably just over 1/3 of the way there? I'm staring down the barrel of probably 40,000 words necessary for Part Three.

To be clear, in no way is Meiste meant to be consumed in four parts. Later, I plan to block off chunks as chapters. But not until after I've gotten all four parts to places where they can reasonably be split off into chapters.

Part of what I mean by that is this: Part One was really rushed, comparatively. My "alpha" reader pointed out that the pacing is really rushed in Part One, and that's been on my mind this whole time, but that was really so I could work up the motivation to get through Part Two.

Part One is even, comparatively, short compared to parts Two and Three: it stands at just 12,000 words. And mostly as an introduction to the other three parts. That was a critical flaw in choosing what has become, essentially, in media res to start a fantasy novel.

I plan on adding a scene at the end, once this is all said and done, where Izi, Vimir, and his boss are all at church. With that I can do several big things:

Lay out Zenestian religion. While the Constitution of Zeneste is inherently a religious document, Zenestian government has strayed so far from its original intents to suck power from its citizens that the religion has almost become a sort-of government worship. This was one of the big reasons my "alpha" reader was confused in the first chapter by everyone just accepting that "the Constitution said Izi is Emperor, so Izi is Emperor." It's a level of Orwellian brainwashing that is crazy deep.

Lay out what Izi's world even looks like. At this point in the story, he's just an eighteen-year-old worker in a rice farm taking a single evening of rest to go and worship with his community, including his best friend and most loyal ally.

Set up the windows scene in Part One. In Part One, Izi's astounded by the lack of designs in the Old Chapel of Zeneste, and when he finds the old windows in the attic, he hires somebody to come and replace the windows for him. Since the reader doesn't have context for this, it might make Lozerief's outburst even more confusing.

Foreshadow his mom being the Hero of Life. Like, the Hero of Life appears everywhere, and I don't wanna give away Izi's mom being the Hero of Life too early, but I can afford to drop more hints.

This, alone, would add probably 2,000-3,000 words.

In addition, she recommended changing the pacing so Izi has more like a month in the palace (instead of the 3 days that I wrote in originally.) I definitely could use this to illustrate what the Zenestian government is like: a bunch of corrupt politicians figuring out how they can get more power (Lozerief is an exception).

This has mostly become me ranting about novel plotting, and what I have to do later, but feel free to let me know your thoughts! I'm always open to hear other peoples' opinions (except when they necessitate the disenfranchisement of others.)

Another OC Questionnaire

An open tag from @authorcoledipalo.

This time, I'm doing this with the four most integral Heroes: Izi, Hota, Tagif, and Lozef:

Would you team up with your worst enemy if it was your only option?

Izi: It depends on what, I think. I promised Vimir I would make the train tickets free, so I can't really team up with the train company to make that happen. But to save Meiste? Obviously if there's no better choice, I'd do anything to save our world.

Hota: Izi's too trusting. I make very few enemies, and I keep my closest friends near my chest. If I've decided I can't trust you, I will never decide to trust you again.

Lozef: Regrettably, I'm more like Izi on this one. I've had to swallow my pride twice and admit that I'm wrong in order to do what's right. That's what's most important, anyways.

Tagif: Hota's got the right idea. I pound my enemies into the dust!

What is your pet peeve?

Izi: Hota always tells me I don't handle people questioning my authority very well, and they're right about that.

Hota: Izi says I am such a good planner that I can't stand when there isn't a plan, mostly emphasizing that I'm not flexible enough sometimes. Izi's gung-ho attude is just as anxiety-inducing as it is refreshing.

Lozef: Ok, doing shit that pertains to me without asking first is my biggest pet peeve. It's usually pretty small-like Izi changing the windows in the chapel. I swapped them for a reason! Don't swap them back!

Tagif: I don't care about authority, I care about expertise. Like, you're going to explain to me how to to build a chestplate with bulit-in holographic computer screens? Nobody's done that, yet, but Hota and I have butted heads over political expertise.

If a monster asked you your worst nightmare what would you tell it and why?

Izi: Well, it's gotta be believable, but not something you're actually scared of, right? Otherwise the monster will terrify the living daylight out of you. So, I guess I would say something like beetles.

Hota: I think it depends on whether or not I know what this monster is capable of. If it's Tev? I'd be honest: the death of Izi-or Tagif or Lozef-would kill me mentally, I think. If it's an sort-of evil Meiste? Beetles.

Lozef: No point in lying to the damn thing, I can take it. Losing my magic is my biggest nightmare, and I grapple with how Dolgof and Pagjom must've felt every day. My second-biggest is if something happened to Tev.

Tagif: My biggest nightmare is if Heja'umak thinks I'm weird or something. I can live with that, but it would hurt a lot. I guess I'm fortunate that my biggest nightmare is just wondering if my crush likes me back?

Open tag for anyone interested!

Unorthodox Ship Tag

Open tag from @theverumproject

The rules: Post five overly specific ship dynamics for characters in your story.

Mind-reading, anxious, tall one and easygoing, head-empty-no-thoughts, short one. (Hota-Izi)

Easily-manipulated, loyal, lesbian train wreck and giant lava monster who can get down to her level. (Lozef-Tev).

Capable, sciencey, badass, magically unstable Princess and revolutionary leader with virtually no magic. (Tagif-Mostijv).

Literally pining for 900 years and the one who never realized it. (Lozef-Dolgof).

Socially well-versed older sister and awkward-but-friendly younger brother. (Tagif-Izi.) Open tag!