Hi! Welcome to This Curious Island! This all-ages work of fiction follows two teenagers at a colourful boarding school as they make friends, get up to hijinks, and solve a mystery involving a missing locket. Its prose is inspired by Charles Dickens and George Eliot (in its adroit diction that doesn’t patronize its readers and often comments on social issues), Lemony Snicket (in its active and droll narrator), and Leigh Bardugo and Suzanne Collins (in its creative but grounded setting and distinctive cast of young characters).
This blog began in 2022 mostly as a tool of accountability as the author wrote at least something every week, but it is also a way for interested parties to get a glimpse into a truly unique and charming narrative as it develops.
Read the first chapter here | Listen to it here (RP) | Listen to it here (NA)
Being my lifer project, This Curious Island has of course never been far from my mind, but I have not done anything for the past two years except mentally revisit where I left off, going, Ah, and this was next, wasn't it? Well, and I designed a real cover for it!
But today, as something to do between recording audiobook chapters, I imported the complete text of This Curious Island into an OpenOffice document.
After publishing a short novel in autumn last year, an RPG handbook before that, and a new edit of Around the World in 80 Days in the middle of 2023, I have a good foundation for formatting for publication, and am hoping that doing some formatting edits on This Curious Island will inspire me to write more when I come to the dangling end.
I suppose I might have hoped the same after designing the new cover, but this time I'm actually working with the text ...
When this project was begun, it was a contained goal: every week for one year, I would write something to further the narrative. I had my down weeks (many) and better weeks, but by and large it was “effective”. Certainly, I did not write a lot, but every time I sat down I wrote at least a few sentences, and usually when a week’s output was low it was simply because I had left it too late to have time to do more: I wrote a paragraph or three and then marked my week’s success.
For the reasons I expressed at the turn of the (project’s) year, I wanted to continue! There wasn’t a lot of momentum, but 30,000 words means the novel grew by more than 200% during the first year of this project, and that’s something! I thought, optimistically, that the same sort of progress might be seen over the next twelve months.
Maybe one month is a poor litmus test and I’m giving up too soon, but when three of those four weeks produced literally no more than three sentences together, and because the feeling of the project has shifted to something more difficult to engage with (something open-ended), perhaps it’s time to step away.
Also I’m just so exhausted and life is very difficult.
Cybelline Rose Montgomery has red hair. She also has marvelously frizzy black hair and a streak of blue hair. She also has an area on the left side of her head where there is no hair at all. She thinks her hair is beautiful, so it is, and nobody can tell her otherwise. She has rich brown skin, lovely brown eyes, and a single dimple, on her right cheek, which makes an appearance if she really likes you. There, now you know almost as much about her appearance as she does; Cybelline Rose has never much felt the need for mirrors.
Cybelline, you may be curious to know, has the best parents in the world. This may be a shock to you, if you are fortunate enough to think the same of your parents, before you remember the nature of her world; that is, it is not quite the same as yours. In fact, if you were to go back in time and then forward again and if your parents had forgotten to have you and had instead found themselves on a small island in the world’s northernmost ocean—well, they may just have ended up as Cybelline’s parents instead; too bad for you.
Let’s pretend you had been born, but perhaps to different parents if necessary, and again in the city of Arualt. Perhaps this version of you, having finished up at the census office, is taking a pleasant sunshiney walk down an industrial avenue because you like the round grey stones of the buildings’ architecture. You may be surprised to come upon, in such an area, an enormous gathering of human beings, unless you at first suspect it is some manner of workers’ union collecting to seize the means of production, in which case you should support them in whatever way you can. But such a first impression will be very quickly dispelled by the fact that roughly half of the gathered are children, identified easily enough as a group by their uniforms, if not by their statures. Unless your thoughts immediately turn to a Dickensian workhouse, you may suspect that despite the unsuitability of the area, there must be a school nearby. And, in fact, there is. Pressed in between a railroad tar manufactory oozing out a hot stench on the right and a railroad rail manufactory clamouring a violent noise on the left, is Saltstone Academy. It is the first day of a new school year for the gathered children, who will, by and large, board here until the end of term.
Cybelline Rose is one of these children. She and her mother (“Meeps”), father (“Pips”), and brother (“You Dweeb”) are standing near the plaster arborist’s looming stone building across from the school having a discussion.
“Honestly, you dweeb, you can’t think that your science textbook is more important literature than JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings!” It is important to note at this juncture that The Lord of the Rings most certainly exists in this world despite what you might think.
“Don’t call me a dweeb, you lump!”
“You know, she’s right, Chilton—I really don’t know where you picked up that heresy.”
“Awe, Meeps! How could you! I thought you loved science!”
“She does, but . . . The Lord of the Rings, you scamp!”
“Pips, you’re supposed to take my side! Cybelline’s got Meeps; them’s the rules!”
“Oh, drat.”
Meeps laughs.
“Cybelline, dear—em—the thing about The Lord of the Rings is—well, it doesn’t really teach you . . . about chemistry, does it? Important stuff, chemistry!”
“Weak, Pips!”
“Yeah, Pips, I need better than that!”
“Uh, well,” Pips grabs the textbook out of Chilton’s hands and flips desperately through its pages, “it does have nice illustrations and—Oh, for goodness’ sake, Chilton, this is impossible! Rules be dashed!”
Cybelline crows in victory, Meeps wipes a tear of amusement from her crow’s foot, and Chilton kicks a stone in defeat, striking a crow on the foot. You may be curious to know that crows never forget, and are remarkably intelligent and vindictive animals. For the rest of his school life, Chilton will be haunted unceasingly by the murder of this crow—not, you understand, by its death, for it is in fine, if angry, health, but by its friends and family.
Chilton retrieves his textbook from Pips and slips it under an elastic cord wrapped around his chipped-paint steamer, already holding what looks to be a small library in place.
“You’re lucky you got the trunk this year,” says Cybelline, watching him adjust some precariously secured books to sit more tightly under the elastic. “I had to give my roommates items every time they visited in order to get my supplies in—hope Yelmy brought my chem set . . .”
“We should really just get you another one,” says Pips. “But—”
“Hm, maybe next year,” says Chilton quickly.
Cybelline shoots a look at her sibling. “Yeah, next year, sure—when you get the new one.”
“—But that,” says Pips, grinning as his kids energetically argue.
“Speaking of getting supplies in,” says Meeps, “start-of-term assembly is in fifteen minutes. We had better let you get in there so you can drop off your things before you’re late!”
“Alright, Meeps, we get it,” says Cybelline, “you’ve got a game to catch.”
Every year after dropping their children off at school, the Montgomery parents race off to the nearby amphitheatre where they participate in (Meeps) or watch (Pips) the annual Saltstone Academy alumni lacrosse match. Meeps had been fouled out of last year’s game for knocking a tooth from the opposing team’s goalkeeper. Needless to say she had been extremely proud and is, in fact, wearing the tooth today as an amulet around her neck.
“Love you both!” calls Pips, hurrying to catch up with Meeps who is already halfway down the street. “Your mum does too!”
And that was that: Cybelline and Chilton drift apart as they move into the school grounds, each heading towards their dorm rooms wherein they will deposit their belongings.
*
Surely you find descriptions of maps as tedious and incomprehensible as any other reasonable person, so you will find no such attempt made here to describe the grounds of Saltstone Academy. Suffice it to say that, behind the large main building that fronts onto the industrial avenue, there is quite a large plot of land all surrounded and cut off from the nearby industries by a looming stone wall, and in this large plot of land are found the school dormitories.
The dormitories of Saltstone Academy are divided between three locations, being the Lake, the Tower, and the Woods, and these three locations are divided into two houses each, each populated by “boys” or “girls” respectively, more or less, except in the case of the two houses of the Woods, Lodge and Treehouse, which are peopled by those students who file for placement with the school administration or whose guardians do not really care if their child happens to sleep near a person with a different gender identification than their own.
Cybelline had been placed in the Lake’s Beach House her first term by lottery and has roomed there ever since. Beach House is a sprawling wooden building sitting on a round stone foundation looking over the shallow pond that occupies nearly a quarter of the academy grounds. An observant individual could quite easily intuit that Beach House has grown since its initial construction: additions are set at odd angles and none of their various shapes possess wooden slats of quite the same colour. Even more telling is the haphazard first storey—that is, the first above ground level—protruding from the center of the building, still surrounded by scaffolding on three sides and constructed from as-yet unpainted wattle-and-daub. Wattle is a framework of wooden slats, if you’re interested, sealed up by a mixture of mud or clay called daub.
Cybelline groans as she beholds it; last year, she and her housemates had been responsible for daubing the wattle: this year it will presumably be their responsibility to paint it. The stacks of paint barrels shedding white flakes in Beach House’s lobby confirm Cybelline’s suspicions as she walks in, but she has only a brief moment to feel a deepening dread before her face is full of curly black hair.
“Your solution is here!” cries a muffled voice from Cybelline’s collarbone.
“My what?” Cybelline pulls her attacker to arm’s length.
“Your solution! Because I brought your chemistry set!” Yelmy looks excitedly at Cybelline, her thick eyebrows nearly at her hairline.
“Sorry, Yelmy, I don’t get it. But thanks for—”
Yelmy cuts her off. “Solution, Cyb! Your solution.”
Cybelline is still at a loss, but smiles at her friend and brings her back into an embrace. “I’m glad to see you, roomie.” In case you, too, missed it, solution is a term widely used in—ah, but to explain a joke is to ruin it; sorry.
“I’m glad to carbon dioxide,” comes Yelmy’s muffled response. She pops her face out of Cybelline’s collar to look up at her. “I’m glad to C-O-two, get it? See you too?”
“Oh dear,” says Cybelline. “Walk with me to the room?”
“Let me carry your bag!” Yelmy tugs at the multicoloured and multitextured satchel slung across Cybelline’s back.
“Careful with the new stitching!” Cybelline fends Yelmy off. “I already had to add a new patch this fall.” She stiffarms Yelmy to a safe distance and begins to move towards a hallway to her left. “I can carry it myself.” She lets out a laugh at Yelmy’s dramatic pout.
“Just trying to help,” Yelmy mutters.
“Your periodic assistance is all I require,” says Cybelline with a sideways grin.
Yelmy almost laughs but catches it behind her teeth and forces her eyebrows together into a frown. “I don’t get it,” she says stubbornly. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Oh, Yelmy, I love you,” Cybelline laughs. Yelmy joins in after a second, and their laughter fills the hallway as they make their way to their room.
“I put your set on your bed,” explains Yelmy as they near the open door featuring the familiar brass 2134 nailed crookedly and just off center, “and Tirzah and Bug were unloading your books there when I left to find you.”
Two steps more reveals the truth of this to Cybelline and she pauses in the doorway, a smile spreading across her face.
Tirzah, her hijab dropped around her shoulders to reveal a bird’s nest tangle of thick black hair falling down her back, and Bug, translucent white skin nearly glowing beside the coarse darkness of her roommate’s voluminous hair, have their backs to the door and are engaged in carefully perching a book on a stack already a dozen high on a trembling mattress.
Yelmy does not pause and bustles past Cybelline. “Cybelline has arrived!”
Bug, startled, dives over the mattress, narrowly missing the stack of books, and is in a split second peering up over its edge with wide, dark eyes. Noticing Cybelline at the doorway, she stands. “Oh,” she giggles nervously, “it’s you.”
Tirzah guides the wobbling stack of books down to the mattress before turning to greet Cybelline. “Welcome back, Montgomery!”
“It’s good to see you two,” says Cybelline. “Ripping dive, MacLeary.”
“She’s had practice,” chimes in Yelmy. “Her dive when I came with my things was not nearly as graceful.”
“I’m really glad to be back,” says Bug quietly, placing long gentle fingers on a yellowing bruise all-too visible on her cheekbone.
“Oh, my dear,” says Cybelline, quick-stepping to her side and pulling her into an embrace. “You’re safe here, Bug. Sorry about commenting on your dive, okay?”
Bug smiles and detaches herself from Cybelline’s arms. “Thanks, Cyb. It’s okay.” She twirls around, tossing her arms into the air in an effort to mimic a ballerina. “I am quite graceful, aren’t I?”
The tension broken, all four girls laugh.
“Has Dylan already left for the assembly?” asks Cybelline, tossing her bag onto the bed beside the books.
“She’s transferred again,” says Tirzah. “Her family moved up north.”
“What’s even up there?” asks Bug.
“North-ing much,” says Yelmy immediately.
“Ah, too bad!” says Cybelline to Tirzah. “I hardly got to know her last year! Her family moves a lot, eh?”
“Yeah,” replies Tirzah, “and they didn’t even wait for their flat to sell. It was still empty when we drove up.”
“We should get going to the assembly,” says Bug. “It never pays to be late.”
Cybelline casts an eye over the mess on her bed. “Yeah, I can clean this up later. Come on.”
Tirzah tucks her hair back into the hijab, a rich purple today, and fixes its clasp when it is in place. “All good?” she asks.
“You look fit,” says Bug.
“I sure do,” replies Tirzah, and leads the way out of the room.
Wrote literally one sentence yesterday after actively not wanting to write at all (usually it’s just a lack of interest or motivation). My usual months-long winter congestion has recently become worse and all I want to do is breathe through clear nostrils and play fifa. *Sigh*
Well, I suppose I have to keep writing, don’t I? Clearly, this has not become a discipline that comes without explicit regulation (meaning, I don’t write if I don’t make myself), so onwards, I suppose!
If I don’t finish this novel, after all, the world will be missing out on a truly unique piece of wildly feminist literature featuring positive fat representation, Queer characters and characters of colour and disabled characters, and a super fun and subversive plot told in singularly charming prose! The world needs more of this, and I can provide - if you can be very, very patient. <3 <3 <3
Though I’m ultimately disappointed by the small amount of This Curious Island I’ve brought myself to write this year, I’ve also written a fair number of words for other projects, mainly:
~41,000 for narrative recap chapters of various TTRPG sessions*
~11,000 for tiny reviews of film, TV, and books
~5,000 on edits and blog updates for an original TTRPG game manual
I also compiled a poetry collection & a collection of original short stories (one of which I wrote this year) and *led 41 sessions of cooperative fantasy roleplay.
I began this record of accountability with the goal of writing something in this novel every week, and have accomplished that! It feels good to have fulfilled my explicit aim, but I would be lying if I found myself, while writing, without the implicit goal of actually finishing the novel during this year-long discipline - and this I’ve not succeeded at. But before I dwell on disappointments, here is what I have to be proud of:
- I’ve sat down to write This Curious Island at least 52 times this year - but the number of writing sessions (of five minutes or three hours) is probably closer to a hundred.
- I’ve written 29,731 words.
- I’ve added 92 pages full of words to my manuscript.
- I have finished (rough drafts of) eleven chapters and started on a twelfth.
- I’ve learned more about the characters, and their stories, and the world that they inhabit!
As of February 16, 2022, This Curious Island is 13,298 words long (including a few notes regarding characters’ full names and boarding school houses). The next words will be the first of chapter 7.
Started the month with 39,363 words and finished with 43,029 - nearly four thousand! One of the best months, I think, which I feel good about. Finished chapter 17 and know exactly what needs to happen in the next, being the parallel of the finished one.
Wrote some yesterday and then more today - it’s the last week of the year, so I felt like I had to! Got around three pages in the two days, which is decent.
One more week until a year! I’ve got relatively little to show for it, as you’ll see in the milestone report, but feel positive about the amount I wrote today, at least. I finished a chapter! The first of a pair of chapters covering the two fronts of the heist.
The protagonists are meeting with a scummy human being and pretending to be from an organization called the Firm and Unimaginative Corps of Kids and Youths - do you think that’s too explicit? Swearing is a weird thing to cut from preteen+ media, since all of them cuss or hear cussing in real life, but it is kind of accepted that YA material doesn’t have the F word in it. Now, it’s never made explicit - I never give it the NORAD treatment and write out FUCKyou - but perhaps it’s still too much.
This is as close as I get to spelling it out:
“No, Firm and Unimaginative Corps of Kids and Youths,” corrects Cybelline, wishing she could spell out the joke and say it straight to the matron’s face.
