Chatterbox: Blab About Books

I'm officially writing three books right now, and I wanted to share one of them with you guys. It's called Chicken Valley, (don't worry, I'm going to be fixing that horrible title as soon as I come up with a better one), and if you couldn't guess, it's a fantasy story about chickens! I played with the idea for a while, started writing it, and then abandoned it maybe one and a half years ago. Now, I've rewritten the beginning and continued onwards to chapter four. If you want to read some of it, I've got the first chapter below. I'd love some feedback, as I'm 99.9% sure I'll be publishing it! 

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Chapter One--

Chicken Valley was beautiful in the summer. The grass was tall, fresh, and green; the forest, ominous as it was to the chickens who resided in the meadows nearby, was in full bloom; flocks grew and chicks flapped around happily, and wary of hawks. It was on a particularly clear-skied, breezy day that a young game cock named Corn chose to have a very important battle. This battle, being a formal one, was to be in the arena that the chickens used for these types of occasions.

Corn strutted slowly into the clearing of short grass, nervous crickets bouncing in his crop. Flocks of chickens surrounded the oval arena in the worn spectators' spot, which in reality was a large dirt ring around the arena where generations of chickens had fought for dominance. Obvious excitement shone in the specators' eyes for the upcoming event; the hens stood close to their roosters, clucking to each other about who they thought was going to win. Others mingled together gossiping, chatting, and catching up with friends from other flocks.

Indeed, Corn, the brilliantly colored golden and red game cock, was about to fight--yet again--for the title of Top Rooster. His archenemy Winston, a glossy brown Rhode-Island-red rooster, had held that title for many moons now, and Corn intended to take it from him. Eventually. Things weren't really working out quite yet.

The sun was rising just above the forest that grew on the east side of Chicken Valley. It backdropped against Winston's muscular form and outlined his battlestained spurs. His comb was almost black with scars that had yet to heal, yet his face maintained a cool, handsome look that had always sparked an unexplainable anger in Corn. Winston's some thirty-five hens cocked their heads from the sidelines, unworried that their rooster's status would be taken. Corn's single hen looked depressed, convinced that her rooster would lose.

Corn was taking his time getting to the center of the arena. Carefully noticing every detail around him, he hummed a short song to distract himself from the unpleasant battle ahead. When he'd stared at Bramble, a rooster of West Valley, and his flock long enough, he turned his attention to Big Red and his flock. The tough-looking Americauna rooster stared unblinking at Corn. Doubtless he was thinking, Oh, Corn, not again, you silly dumb rooster.

Corn was really strutting slowly now. Winston stared impatiently at his challenger's comb, tapping his talons on the soft grass. Ominous bloodstains from previous formal battles littered the arena's ground. Corn could pick out the spots where he'd been defeated the last two times. Blue sky, tall grass, medicine hen tree...Corn was frantically distracting himself from everything. Unfortunately, at that moment, Tiny, a feisty bantam cochin rooster, scooted out and bumped Corn to the middle of the clearing.

"On with it!" shouted spectators.

"Okay, okay!" Corn defended. "I was just...um, observing my surroundings. You know, gettin' all prepared." Corn did a warm-up dance in which he jumped from leg to leg and flexed his talons simultaneously. Winston was unimpressed.

"Okay, Corn," Winston sighed in that oily voice of his, pretending to ignore his lesser's embarrassing dance. "Let's do this--again. I'd ask you if you wanted to back out, but, you know, I don't think you want to have wasted a whole night in the woods only to regret your decision and humiliatingly drop out of an important battle."

Every chicken knew that before a challenger could fight to become Top Rooster, he had to first formally challenge the current Top Rooster with the traditional words, then stay up all night in the woods, which were known to even the youngest chicks to be extremely dangerous, until finally being able to complete the actual battle. Obviously the winner got to take the looser's hens, and not to mention, according to the code that all roosters (unless they wanted to risk exile) followed, that the looser had to stay in the spot he was defeated in until dusk--only then could the medicine hens treat his wounds, assuming he was still alive by then. He then faced a night in the woods.

Oleander, the juvenile silver-laced wyandotte rooster, stepped into the clearing. "Allllrighty!" he began with relish. Oleander served as a referee of sorts during battles. Someone had to do it, and the black and white rooster particularly enjoyed the job, so the flocks had let him be the official referee. "Here we have Corn, the...er, the game cock who seems to enjoy getting beat up by other roosters," Oleander shot an apologetic glance at Corn, who was now glaring at the younger rooster, "and Winston, our Top Rooster, battling for dominance!"

Wild cheers broke out among the individual flocks. The dirt ring where the spectators stood grew cloudy as the chickens flapped in excitement.

"I'm sure we all know the rules," Oleander continued brightly, "but let's go over them one more time. Here's the rule we all know: No outside chickens, whether rooster or hen, may enter the arena while a battle is going on, regardless of the events happening within it. And vice versa; no battler can leave the clearing. Rule number two: The opponents have permission by the code of the roosters to kill each other--unless the losing fighter clearly says the words, 'I surrender'. Not, 'Oleander surrenders,' of course; I mean, obviously, but--"

Oleander caught Winston glaring at him coldly.

"Um, okay, nevermind," he peeped meekly. "And the...ok, the loser has to stay in his spot until dusk, and remember, he can't talk either, and the winner gets all the hens, the end, ok, let's begin."

Oleander swept a laced wing between the two opponents before hastily disappearing into a throng of gossiping hens. The battle had begun. 

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If you like it, I'll post the rest of chapter one! I'm thinking about making it a series, so maybe I'll call the whole series 'Valley of Wing', and...I'll have to think of a good title for book one.