Woohoo! I have successfully written 50,000 words in the month of April, completing my 38th writing challenge (counting November Nanowrimos, April/July Camp Nanos, and Script Frenzy).

This was a pretty rough Nanowrimo, given the prepwork that I had to do ahead of Clockwork Alchemy.

But, I did it, and learned so much about my story and the overall arc of the series as well. So, huzzah!

So, I am really churning with the edits on this one, but here's a segment which is relatively coherent:

The trim, egg-headed man emerged from Air Force One like royalty, the crowds of military personnel actually cheering him as he descended. At his heels, a lantern-jawed, white-haired man followed, grinning broadly, waving awkwardly at troops that seemed to like him even more.

Both kept smiling as they strode towards Jeremiah, but their body language …

“Oh, my,” Jeremiah said. “They hate each other, don’t they?”

“Now, that,” Marcus said, “is an understatement.”

The pair stopped twenty meters from Jeremiah, on one side of a rough ring of Secret Service agents that made Jeremiah feel like she’d just entered a gladiatorial arena; she wondered what the agents thought they would do if the Scarab decided to go all apocalyptic on them.

“So,” the President said. “You’re … Commander Willstone, correct?”

“Sir, yes sir,” Jeremiah clicked her heels, watching, without appearing to watch, a larger group of dignitaries forming up just outside the ring of Secret Service agents. “I am Senior Expeditionary Commander Jeremiah Willstone, and I am at America’s service, sir.”

“Are you?” the President said. “I hear that you gave our security detail some trouble.”

“I heard that too,” the challenger said. “I notice you refused to be disarmed.”

Jeremiah nodded; her blunderblast remained slung over her back.

“My people use nonlethal weapons,” Jeremiah said, “even this impressive blunderblast, which I will demonstrate later. From a security perspective, however, consider it just show: I’m the weapon. If I had wanted to blow up your plane, I would just have pointed at it.”

The President shifted, just slightly, but the challenger grinned.

“Will you demonstrate that for us later?” he asked.

“Er—yes,” Jeremiah said. “Of course, sir—”

“Not on my plane,” the President said.

“Ah!” Jeremiah said. “No, of course not, sir. I’ll use our psychic’s car instead—”

“Commander!” the Owl said. “I just got—you’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding—”

Jeremiah Willstone and the Watchtower of Destiny

Oh my. I hope they manage to convince each other to work together without blowing anything up.

Nevertheless ... viiictory!

Onward.

-the Centaur