Plot Point

Chapter 1

Liv, my best friend, is standing beside my locker at the end of the school day. We always walk home from school together, alternating whose house we go to and do homework at.

Liv is a lot of things I'm not. She is short, but a pretty sort of short. I am as tall as the third to top shelf of the floor to ceiling bookshelves in the public library. And on the topic of book analogies, Liv is about the same thickness as A Wrinkle in Time while I am more comparable to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And while books are easy for me to adore when they are large, why can't the books be big and heavy and deliciously thick and I can be... more edited. Like a ten thousand or so words cut.

Today, we were walking to Liv's house. It was gloriously warm outside, despite it being nearly November. The sun shone on my face and the air had a chill in it that spoke of potential and gave me the desire to write all my ideas at once. Mary Shelley actually talked about this same chill in the foreword of Frankenstein.

"So, how's the book going?" Liv asked.

"It's going... meh," I replied. "I just can't seem to nail the beginning."

"So just skip it," Liv said with a bounce.

Another way Liv and I are different: Liv is not a writer, which means there are things she doesn't understand. I mean, maybe there are people who can just skip the beginning of the book or ignore the fact that it's not the way they want it. But not me. The beginning of a book sets the tone for the rest of the story. It doesn't have to be perfect, of course, but it needs to be pretty damn close. If it's not good, it messes up the rest of the story and I get stuck.

"I can't skip it," I try to explain to Liv. Then I quickly shift gears a little so she can't argue. "I just don't know what to do with Riyu. I mean, he's an orphan and he doesn't know about his magic yet."

"Sounds like Harry Potter," Liv said. "And Percy Jackson. And Eragon."

Okay, I admit that Riyu had been influenced by Harry and Percy. But it wasn't the same thing at all. Neither of them were shapeshifters for one thing. And for another, if at least four famous stories—Harry, Percy, Eragon, and Star Wars-- could all share a similar main character, then there was no way that I would get in trouble for Riyu. I've tried to explain that to Liv, but again, she is not a writer.

The subject was dropped. We were pretty quiet the rest of the way to Liv's house. I got lost in my thoughts, and started thinking of the walk in terms of a long journey.

Erin the Brave and her best friend Liv the Lucky continued on their way to the Manor known as the Dwarven Keep. These were Liv's people, her parents the foremost geologists in the kingdom. Their love for the earth and rocks was only rivaled by their love for their children, their little gems.

If only the Dwarven Keep wasn't so far away. Erin clutched her stomach as it rumbled with hunger. Food had been scarce on the long journey. She looked over at Liv. Liv didn't look hungry. Liv had the slender strength of the dwarves—she could survive for days on only a sandwich.

If it came down to it, would Erin make a hard decision? Could Erin make that decision, if it would keep her from starving? Would Erin be able to choose such a difficult course of action?

Erin's stomach rumbled again. Yes. Yes, she would have to make a horrible choice. She would have to eat her homework and textbooks.

I snapped out of my narrative. I really was hungry, but the thought of eating my schoolwork was just a bit too silly for me to continue. Besides, I had a granola bar in my backpack and Liv's house was just another block away.

Liv obviously wasn't really a dwarf, but she and her parents were shorter than average. Her parents were also geologists, which I always thought was kind of cool. Their house décor is mainly rocks. Seriously. Granite countertops and a cobblestone fireplace and photo frames made by kids who glued small rocks and pebbles to a picture frame. There are vases full of seashells and rocks, shelves displaying massive geodes and polished quartz. The geological PhDs are proudly framed and hung on the wall in between two pictures of the large family. Liv is one of eight children.

One of the many sibs runs up to Liv and jumps into her arms. They laugh and the small child proudly holds up his coloring page from preschool. Liv admires it then takes the child's chubby and probably sticky hands and they go into the kitchen. I follow behind them and am delighted to see that there are not only massive cookies for our afterschool snack, but also baby carrots. I am far too hungry for cookies to be enough.

Liv's mom shoos the siblings out of the kitchen so Liv and I can do our homework in relative silence. It's always noisy in Liv's house, but I've gotten used to it and it's more like ambience now. I sometimes have trouble doing homework at my house because I have only a brother and he doesn't make nearly the noise Liv's siblings do.

We didn't have much homework at all that day and I am done before Liv. I snag another cookie, then pull out my tablet and start browsing the internet.

Suddenly, I have an idea. I type "writing prompts" into the search bar. Maybe a prompt will help me figure out what to do with Riyu.

The internet does not disappoint. There are entire websites dedicated to prompts! Some of them are weird, but I find a few that inspire me, some for now and some I might want to use later in Riyu's story. I pull out the notebook I am writing Riyu's story in and flip to the back where I have been writing ideas.

Then I find something pretty cool. A website for writers for a program called National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. There's a cool prompt generator on the front page, which is how I got to the site, but not what keeps me there.

During NaNoWriMo, the goal is to write an entire novel during the month of November. An entire novel. That would be a massive and crazy goal. But thousands of people sign up for this and a lot of people actually finish the novel. There are forums on the site too, where you can talk and make friends and ask for help with your story.

It's a community of writers. My heart aches a bit. I've never had a writing community. I've never even known anyone else who writes, except that one lady at church who wrote poetry back when she was in college. I don't think she counts.

I glance at Liv, who is finishing her calculus homework and her cookie. Liv is not a writer. She doesn't understand all the things writers have or do or know. She always encourages me in my writing but it's not the same thing as having a writer encourage me, to know my joys and struggles.

I go to the top corner of the NaNoWriMo site page and click the button that says "sign up".