Distraction

I always get really agitated when I want to write, but can't seem to concentrate on doing so. But then it's been One Of Those Days at work today, and I've been finishing a few things over the last few days. It must be partly the Magic of NaNo, and then just December in general; it's the time for things to finish, isn't it? And then, a time for things to begin...and as it stands right now, I am hoping next year will finally be the year I start doing something serious with my writing.

With that said, here I am procrastinating. Yet again. <g> I have achieved a few things over the last couple of days, mind you; I finished the short story Tea For Two and then I reworked and edited Sin of Seven slightly. Tea For Two is now away for sense-checking with a rather peculiar array of fellow writers and/or long term friends, so we'll see how that pans out. I'm horribly afraid that it's a terrible story, but I suppose we'll see? Rachel has inherited Sin of Seven, because she's the one who reminded me that it even existed, so...yeah. I also picked up another very short story to rework -- it's barely eight hundred words, which for me is a small miracle. It's just a vignette about memory and moving on, I think; I called it Entr'acte for lack of anything better (or less pretentious), but we'll see how that pans out. But all of these have destinations in mind, which is...scary stuff.

But then again...I dug up two other stories, also in the hopes of doing something with them. Of An Orrery is about five thousand words long and is technically finished, I just need to edit the hell out of it. Lies In The Land is a story I started writing at the beginning of the year for an anthology entry and never finished. But the concept fascinates me even now, so I am going to try and finish it over the next week or so and then maybe try it for submission along with Orrery to a local ezine and see how that goes. One of my infamous "101 in 1001" goals was to publish a short story, and time's a-tickin' on that countdown clock. I mean, people have been telling me since I was five years old that I am a good writer. So why is it that I am almost thirty and have published nothing? Damn you anyway, Inner Editor.

I should also be editing Neverboy, which I will possibly get to in a minute. But I've been distracted, as I said -- and not just by this motley crew of short stories. The Neverboy has two antagonists, and Ryennkar Vassidenel is the one we'll see again. ...actually, I just realised the other day what the title of the sequel is, and who's going to be a major player -- Tara. The Forevergirl. This is considerably complicated for any number of reasons, not least of all that Tara is dead. She was dead before Neverboy even started. Go bloody figure. Apparently the voices in my head have every faith that I will somehow be able to work around this. O_o

Still, back to Ryenn -- Kit, the protagonist, mostly knows him as the Magistrate-General, and he's a bit of a prick. He basically wants the world to burn. But while Kit, Círa and Otho tend to garner the (understandable) impression that this is simply because Ryenn is a force of chaos (think the Joker in The Dark Knight), I've always known that Ryenn's got a reason. I was just never entirely sure of the circumstances of it.


Which brings me to Arosek.


I've known Arosek and Ryenn for some time. They were childhood "friends," and then ended up both working in the higher echelons of Sarinian bureaucracy. Ryenn's on the justice side, Arosek is in what sort of amounts to the Home Office, or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Their paths would cross, but not that often. But they...still had a sort of obsession with each other, even though they rarely met after they left school. I also know of their very bad ending, mostly because Aleksandr sat Araben down one day and told him what I thought was almost all of the sad story. But...I just realised that while I knew Ryenn quite well, I was no better than my characters. Because I, too, mostly knew Arosek through rumour and legend, and not through himself. I have the horrible suspicion that I am going to have to write a short story about him from his POV...partly it's because I need to understand what Ryenn is trying to do in order to have The Neverboy pick up resonant pieces of the tune he's got everyone dancing to, but also because I have the sneaking suspicion Arosek is going to wander into The Forevergirl.

...not that he's any good at raising the dead, mind you. That would just make this all too easy...

And on that note? I rather think I need to sleep. If I'm too exhausted to write, you'd think I've be too exhausted to plot, yeah? Too bad it never stops, even when I desperately need to. ^__^