Update! As of 10pm, the folks over at NaNo have confirmed that Camp will start on July 1st… no other info as of yet, but I’ll take what I can get!

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Still no word from the Powers That Be on when/if the website for Camp NaNoWriMo will be up nor what the details are for the Camp challenges…. but I have a plot! (more on that after the rant)

I’m slightly worried that we haven’t heard anything from the folks of The Office of Letters and Light, even if there have been some delays it would be nice to know instead of floating around in the realms of wild speculation. There are no set rules or dates or anything else for this events, so I’m building my plans around guesswork.

We have ten days and counting until Camp is supposed to go live… This is not comforting.

From Whence It Came

Ranting about the lack of communication aside, I’ve got plot!

As I’ve mentioned before, this NaNo is a pseudo-parody of two books/universes: Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey and Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey.

To be fair, these two are also two of my favorite books– I just got a little tired of the Mary Sue nature of the Companions in Valdemar and the Dragonriders in Pern.

Thus, my inspiration: a Pern/Valdemar novel minus the Mary Sues.

What, No Pictures?!

There are no icons yet because designing a coat of arms is slightly harder than it appears. A gold (generosity and elevation of the mind) foxhawk rampant against an azure (truth and loyalty) field with vert (Hope, joy, and loyalty in love) nebuly lines (clouds or air), with the foxhawk clutching a bell (power to disperse evil spirits; a hawk’s bells denotes one who was not afraid of signaling his approach in peace or war) and an arrow (Readiness for battle).

Lack of pretty visuals aside… it’s time for the plot!

And Now, The Story

That Don’t Impress Me Much is the story of Maybelle Smith and why Grand Adventures are not meant to happen to normal people.

Maybelle, who goes by May, is pretty without being gorgeous, well-liked without being popular, and slightly above average in skills and abilities, without being outstanding at anything.

Her ambition in life is to finish basic schooling and then apprentice herself as a baker to her elderly bachelor uncle in preparations for inheriting his business in Oak Grove when he retires.

As for a husband, she has her eye set on a Foxknight named Aaron Jones, who returns her affection, abet from afar. They have corresponded for two years via letters and both set of parents have given their blessing to the eventual union. (They must wait until Aaron retires from service since Foxknights are not allowed to wed.)

Maybelle is set to move from her small town of Twin Beaches to the larger city of Oak Grove as soon as she graduates school so that she can be nearer to Aaron and apprentice to her uncle.

As is common practice, she attends a spring hatching event near her town and, well, you can guess the plot from there…

In the grand tradition of Name With Meaning:

Maybelle is a variant of Mabel (English), and the meaning is “lovable”. I was tempted to name her Adora, but figured that was overkill.

Aaron is of Hebrew origin, meaning “mountain of strength”. It’s one of the top 100 common baby names. Plus the double A means he will always come first alphabetically, which is not actually important.