I like it! Though you're very right about the comma spam. It drove me out of the reading and into editor mode a few times. But punctuation isn't always a simple thing to get down pat, and hey, it's a first draft. Keep it up!
Hm, if everyone else is posting excerpts, I suppose I'll put a snippet up here before I get started in on today's word count. I'm not putting the whole thing up anywhere simply because I'd very much like the possibility of publishing in the future, after revising and revising and revising and... actually having some short fiction published first. But still, here goes showing off my less-than-polished mess (the first page, give or take a few dozen words, of the first chapter after the prologue), for better or worse:
Mathis dodged backwards, avoiding a reckless swipe, and laughed. His opponent snarled and swung again, this time overhead. Mathis stepped to the side and replied with a swing of his own. His wooden blade struck padded ribs with a solid smack.
“That doesn't count!” Bade cried, clutching at his side. “It was still your turn to receive.”
Mathis grinned and wiped at the sweat beading on his brow. The sweat was not so much the result of any physical exertion, but that of the blazing midday sun. “Hitting air doesn't count either I'm afraid, little brother!”
Bade huffed and attacked again. For a while, Mathis danced about the dirt ring, avoiding his brother's ungainly swings. The boy came close to hitting him a few times, but with each close call, Mathis replied with a single solid strike. And each time he received an anguished protest in return.
It was probably unfair to his brother, who was not yet old enough to grow a beard. But Mathis was entitled to his fun. What challenge was there in it for him anyway? He was all but a man now. His sixteenth name day was less than a month away. He had trained with his father's guardsmen daily for years. He had learned to fight the hard way, through all the bruises and cracked bones. So when his little brothers wanted to fight in the practice ring, none of whom had been trained to fight like men, what else could he do but humor them – and himself?
At last the younger boy flopped to the ground, tossing his sword aside. Mathis pointed the tip of his own sword at his brother's heaving belly. “Your turn to receive?” Mathis asked, grinning.
Author
Topic: NaNoWriMo 2014: It's Over! (Read 24876 times)