Today's Page of the Third Book

As the sun is shining but it is raining, I managed to write a page+ today. I am still on the first chapter -- 9,000 words, probably 30 book pages. I have used 6 Fleurons so far to indicate a passage of time. I'll reconsider this as a chapter when I re-read it, but for now, I am going on.

For your amusement, here is a part of what I wrote today -- totally out of context. It is a partial recounting of a Native American Flood Story:

One morning as Eagle and Crow awakened with the rising sun, they were surprised to find a Turtle swimming around their stump. With interest, Eagle and Crow watched as the Turtle disappeared under the water, out of sight, and then popped back up on the surface with a fish in his beak. Chewing and waving his head back and forth, the Turtle enjoyed his catch. The Turtle went down again. This time, when he returned, the Turtle had a fish AND mud in his mouth. Crow and Eagle looked at each other excitedly.

“Can we get Turtle to bring us dirt so that we can build land? How can we get Turtle to understand what we need him to do?”

Eagle had an idea which he explained to Crow. “Let us catch fish and give it to Turtle and when he understands maybe he will bring us mud for our land in exchange."

Over and over the two birds caught fish and laid it on the stump for Turtle. After time, Turtle began taking the fish, but still fished for himself. Sometimes when Turtle came to the surface, he had mud on him. Eagle with his long wings would scrape the mud off Turtle and place it on the stump. Through many attempts, Turtle finally understood that he could bring them mud and they would give him fish in return.

It was a long process, but they had nothing else to do, no place to go. Gradually, Crow had a pile of mud on his side of the stump and Eagle had a similar sized pile of mud on his side of the stump.

Turtle was a hard worker, keeping Crow and Eagle busy bringing fish to their side of the stump for Turtle, who seemed to be always hungry for more fish. Crow and Eagle shared the burden of feeding Turtle equally and each took their fair share of mud from Turtle, building more and more land beside their stump.

To stretch their wings and to satisfy their curiosity, Eagle and Crow would sometimes fly out over the water to search for any signs of land. Nothing had changed, but they knew their mud piles were growing and that over time they would each have built a new world. “We will share our world, equally,” they agreed.

At their stump, their mud piles were growing everyday. Turtle was tireless in his muddy work and also tireless in his hunger for fish. One morning Eagle and Crow noticed a slight change in the waterline on their stump; the water was going down.

“The flood must be ending,” Eagle said excitedly and off he flew to survey the effects of the lowering waters.

Since we no longer have flooded earth, Eagle and Crow must have succeeded -- but not without conflict. I hope you have enjoyed this unedited snippet.