NaNoPitchMo 1: EMPTY LIES THE DARKNESS

This time last year I started writing a pitch a day for all of November. In fact, the blog has essentially been gathering dust since the last post of November last year. Oops. But! I'm back again this year with more pitches, and if I can get my act together, maybe I'll even be able to do one a day again.

I'm going to start off this year with the pitch for the book I've been working on all this past year. It's been one of my absolute favorites to write. I love the characters and their world, and I think I could happily keep writing books in this world for a long time.

I've had the idea for this one for a while now. It was one of my pitches last year, which I guess means I'm cheating a little, but it's undergone a few changes.

Without further ado, here is EMPTY LIES THE DARKNESS:

Sorsca is a cartographer in a world where maps create new land, pushing back the Empty mists at the edges of the world and pulling mountains and rivers, trees and marsh into existence. A single wrong stroke brings monsters into the world, beasts that devour and demons with silver tongues. Sorsca longs to go to the Empty to conquer it with ink and vellum and to become a hero who creates protections from the monsters through her cartography.

But when she gets her chance, she discovers that she is not the prodigy she has always imagined, and the Empty is more dangerous than she bargained for. A demon of the mists haunts her. In desperation she turns to her map for a remedy against him, but with every stroke his influence increases. If she can’t find a remedy quickly, Sorsca risks bringing more darkness into the world through her map.