Hey guys! I have a couple announcements and then I want to share a snippet of a Tare and Chess Club Christmas scene with y’all!
NaNo Post
Firstly, if you missed it, I talked about how my 10th NaNo went in this post!
(It didn’t go out to inboxes because I accidentally scheduled it to post November 9th instead of December 9th… while it was December. Further proof of how dead I was after NaNo. *headdesk* Anywayyy…)
Blogging Hiatus
Secondly, I’ll be taking a blogging break for the next couple of weeks to enjoy the holidays, so this will probably be my last post of the year . . . and decade. :O
I will (hopefully) see y’all in 2020 with some recaps or something.
About this Snippet
Okay, on to the story behind this post!
This spring, I finished my Kedran’s Wood story set at Christmas-time (like I’m hoping to finish my Kedran’s Wood novella set in the spring . . . sometime this month if I can . . . which is Christmas-time. The irony).
But since it’s 145K words and book 2 in the (contemporary fantasy) series, and rather a mess, it’s going to be . . . awhile until such things as publishing or whatever is going to happen with it, happens. XD
However! Since I did finish it, that means I have actual Christmas scenes! With my characters!
(Not just a blog tag interview with my characters like I did last year for my Other Half of Everything peeps. Which was tons of fun and you should go read if you missed it. XD *I just re-read it myself and honestly had a BLAST* *cough*)
I wanted to share something Christmas-y with you guys here on my blog, and thought that a bit of Chess Club and Tare Christmas-spirit would be a fun thing to share. ^_^
Disclaimer: This is from a first draft. It’s also near the end of the book, and more happens before and after it. I also redacted a couple of spoilers. But it stands alone pretty well as an adorable Christmas scene with some of my favorite characters, and I hope y’all enjoy it. 🙂
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, my dear blog readers!
Excerpt from the end of The Secret of Kedran’s Wood (KW2), work-in-progress by Deborah O’Carroll
They followed Tare and found themselves suddenly in a clearing surrounded by pines and firs, snow covering the ground, and in the very center grew a tall fir tree, decked out in glowing splendor—literally.
Soft white and yellow lights sparkled all over it, with a few garlands and red or gold or white globe decorations and other minor items hanging here and there, tastefully, with a white angel at the very top, and still some snow on it from the light dusting earlier that evening.
It was just the right time of night when it was not fully dark and the sky was velvet-midnight-blue and scattered with a few beginning stars, but it was dark enough to appreciate the radiant tree lighting up the clearing and bathing their upturned faces in golden light.
“So remember what I told you about being too busy to decorate?” Tare said. “And how I didn’t have a Christmas tree?”
“Trees live outside,” Lavender whisper-laughed.
He glanced at her. “Exactly.”
“It’s beautiful,” Robin breathed in awe.
“It’s perfect,” Marie said.
And several others murmured something along those lines.
“I figured it wasn’t much good for one person . . .” Tare said, folding his arms and looking up at it. “It kind of needs a few. So. That’s what I wanted to show you guys.”
“It’s like your gift to the Chess Club, huh?” Baz said.
Tare got a shifty look. “Maybe,” he said, and added, “[redacted] helped. A little.”
“Where is [redacted]?” Adrian asked.
“Off doing mysterious [redacted] or something.”
“Goodness knows you know nothing about going off and being all mysterious,” Ivy said.
“Exactly.” Tare either missed the point, or missed it on purpose.
Small Occasion was straining at his leash in Mr. Larch’s grip, trying to get closer to the tree—all the sparklies and hanging things that might be chewable! (There had been some small wars between Small and the tree in Mr. Larch’s house, which had resulted in it being blocked off where Small couldn’t get at it to attack it with his joy and love.)
“Well. Go look at it if you want. It’s not fragile,” Tare said, making shooing motions with one hand.
They laughed and moved forward, away from where they’d been clustered at the very edge of the clearing, to look at Tare’s Christmas tree. It was even more beautiful up close, simple but so elegant, and so perfect in this setting. Tare had brought Christmas into Kedran’s Wood.
“Oh, there are chess piece ornaments! How absolutely perfect!” Robin said.
Tare coughed. “Those are actually . . . for you guys.”
Everyone looked at him and blinked.
Tare crossed his arms tighter and went on, “They’re not ornaments, they’re necklaces, and I made them for you.”
All eyes blinked at him for a moment and he looked more uncomfortable than Lavender had ever seen him.
“Oh—!” She and Ivy apparently had the same idea and both spontaneously lunged toward him.
His awkward look vanished, replaced with alarm, and he staved them off by hastily raising both hands defensively. “Ah, no. I don’t do hugs. That’s too much like—you know—getting attacked. I might kill you or something. You never know.”
Ivy snorted. “Sure.” But she and Lavender respected his distance and reversed course.
“This one has your name on it, Adrian!” Jake called excitedly, looking around on the branches.
“Coming,” Adrian said, and walked past Tare, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder, grinning.
Tare half-dodged it but didn’t seem to mind terribly, and stood by, watching with arms folded again.
There was something of a fun treasure hunt scramble as everyone searched the branches of the Christmas tree for the little natural-wood-colored chess pieces hanging on silver chains, with names carved around their bases, and everyone matched up everyone else with the proper names.
Small got loose and happily galloped around and around the base of the tree, yapping and joining in the noises of laughter. Finally everyone had their chess necklace and tilted them toward the Christmas tree light to examine them.
They were all the chess pieces except the pawns: Mr. Larch’s was a king piece, Robin’s a queen. Adrian and Ivy had knight pieces, Baz and Lavender bishops—“because I’m a saint and/or my head-slash-mind is so sharp,” Baz said, nodding wisely and causing much eye-rolling—and the Valerian siblings each had rook pieces.
“There have got to be some lonely pawns back at your place to complete the set,” Mr. Larch said with a grin.
“Nooo,” Tare said, “because I carved these which means they are the set.”
Everyone blinked at him again.
“You carved these?” Baz yelped.
“What?” Tare shrugged. “I had to have something to do all those sleepless nights to avoid nightmares. I do have some skills besides killing monsters and freaking you guys out whenever I use technology. So. Those are my gift to the Chess Club,” Tare clarified.
“They’re perfect—thank you!” Everyone said their thanks and Tare looked at his feet and muttered something—and it was a little too dark to be sure but he might have been smiling.
Lavender clutched hers and thought she was probably glowing as much as the tree. She hung the chess piece necklace around her neck and the others began to as well.
“You don’t have one, though,” Adrian said, once everyone was wearing theirs.
Tare held up his hands. “Fine with me. I’m not the Chess Club.”
“Yeah, but you’re like an honorary member,” Ivy said.
“Maybe,” Baz said, “but we’re ‘the Chess Club and Tare,’ and if Tare was one of us it would just be ‘the Chess Club’ and that’s not quite as cool.”
“It is really bothering me that I keep agreeing with him,” Tare muttered. “Got one thing wrong, though. It’s Tare and the Chess Club, not the other way around.”
They laughed and agreed, even Baz.
A peaceful quiet settled over the snowy glade and they wandered slowly around, just looking contentedly at the tree together in silence. Even Small had gone silent, since Robin had picked him up.
It was almost Christmas Eve. Despite the cold, the tree’s glow lit their faces and their hearts. The wood sighed in the breeze around them and the stars shone.
Someone started singing Silent Night. Slowly, everyone else picked it up and joined in—except Tare, who seemed a little distracted—standing in a ring around the Christmas tree and filling the glade with their soft voices.
The Road of a Writer 