The Spectraland Saga: Origin Story, Part Two

Catch yourself up with the Origin Story by reviewing Part One here.

By June 2010, I had drafted 5500 words that made up the first three chapters of my fledgling story. The first half of chapter one was the deleted scene with Mitch that I shared with you last week, and the remainder of the chapter included characters named Dave (Joel's friend), Clarissa (Joel's crush), Dad (Joel's dad), and Taylor (Joel's sister).

The early beginnings of what became "A Bad Day" (the final version of Book One, Chapter One) could be seen not only in Joel's confrontation with Mitch, but in his other interactions as well: he wanted to start up a band, but Dave didn't play a musical instrument; he was supposed to work on a science project with Clarissa, but she flaked out on him at the last minute; he wanted to just relax when he got home, but he had to help Taylor make a computer-animated version of something called "Cutey the Lovecat" (yes, I really did write that). As anyone who has read Book One knows, Joel's problems eventually became a lot more serious by time I finished the actual story.

In this early draft, Joel just wanted to escape from everything, so he ended up writing a song on the spot that included lyrics about going to a different world. This song, when he played it, was what transported him to the place that eventually evolved into Spectraland.

Once he got there at the beginning of chapter two, he ran into a dog and a cat, both the size of adult humans, who said things to him like "Eezleprogren! Arma boolie sten-sten?" and "Gilthen aboo larma. Orbo jameely gooten groh." I am not kidding. Also, get this: the dog was named "Cain," and the cat was named "Felicity." I believe may have mentioned something about that before. Basically, the only things that survived from that scene were Felicity's name and the fact that music had magical properties.

Anyway, Cain and Felicity were pretty suspicious of Joel, what with him being this ape-like alien and all, so they took him to see...the Mayor (ooo). Oh, what the heck, here's an excerpt:

"Hmm," Cain frowned. "Let's take him to the Mayor."

Felicity nodded at Cain in agreement. "This is quite confusing for us as well," she said, turning to Joel. "I think we all have a lot of questions for each other."

Joel rolled his eyes [ed.: seriously? Joel would never do this now]. "Yeah, you think?"

Felicity made a little growling noise. Apparently, she understood sarcasm.

"Let's head over to the Town Hall," Cain said. "We can talk more on the way there."

"Sure, why not, might as well check out more of this crazy place before I wake up," Joel muttered as he moved to pick up his guitar [ed: the final version of Felicity seemed to have absorbed a lot of her personality from the old version of Joel].

* RRING * A loud chord sounded from Felicity's harp, and a flash of red light burst from its strings, knocking Joel's guitar out of his reach.

"Whoa, wow!" Joel shouted as he jumped back. "Okay, what was that about? I was just trying to get my guitar."

"Should we let him have it?" Felicity asked Cain. " Could be dangerous."

Anyway, that's enough of that for now. More to come!