Having fought the forces of the Blight since before he was born, Prince Leos of New Dakesh enters his twelfth year to learn that being born without arms does not exempt him from certain courtly duties, nor the intrigues that come with them. Trying to find his place in a world where he is a prince who will never inherit the throne, Leos finds his growing mastery of the Art turned into a weapon to be used against enemies of the kingdom and that the kingdom has more enemies than he ever knew, both within and without. The forces of the Blight and Providence have not been idle since the last great war, and Leos finds himself both their pawn and a player of these forces as he tries to find a place for himself in a world that is far different than life in the capital would have him believe.
That's the synopsis of a YA novel that entered my head just when I got back from Africa. (Seriously: I slept 3 hours, woke up, went: 'ugh, great....' and lay in head, had the first scene come to me and began writing it. (I paused it at the 13K mark to begin doing the rest of it as a campnano deal and give myself time to make a map and flesh the world out better. Like actually name kingdoms and figure out how they ran.) The story comes slowly, though I know the main scene now and how it ends, but it is a very formal story. Politics runs deep through it, Leos and others are constantly second-guessing themselves. It's fun to write, but definitely not a style or genre I think I'll write again.
I like space for weirdness to happen.* And this style of story doesn't really give me the space. It's a good story. I like the characters, the plot is solid and makes sense, but I doubt I'll ever write something like it again. Which is always fun to discover as well.
* perhaps not as weird as pizza-popsicles, but even so.
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