Audience Participation

I'm quite lucky to live where I do, currently -- although this won't be for much longer (less than a month, at last count). One of the nicest things about this place is the fact that it is an area of native bush; although this is being somewhat eroded by subdivisions and idiot building plans, the areas of forest that currently exist are not generally able to be touched, and therefore it means it's a very nice neighbourhood to go for long walks in.

I didn't always take advantage of that, but because I now live in constant terror of blowing up like a blueberry a la Violet Beauregarde, every Saturday and Sunday I go walking. (I would do it during the week, but because of the short days and very dark country roads around here I am confined to my stationary bike and Zumba DVDs unless I want to be wiped out by a 4WD.) I find the walking to be soothing, not least because my usual soundtrack is ambient music from Tomb Raider, Zork: Nemesis, Riven and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I tend to think a lot about writing as I walk, which is both good and bad because I've lost a lot of lovely dialogue this way. But still, as I wandered today, I got to thinking...and I wandered a lot today, as I discovered a reserve I'd never bothered to venture into before, and then I walked much further east than is my usual wont. And then, because the hiking boots I wore in Mexico are basically a bust and I am thinking of maybe going to South Africa, I went and bought a new pair and therefore had to go on another walk this afternoon to break them in. I don't even know anymore.

All this walking obviously ate into any writing time I had, but I've been having weird thoughts about writing anyway. I'm essentially quite deeply depressed anyway; I'm scared as hell of moving, as I am convinced I will end up facedown in a gutter in Chiswick being poked by hobos with sticks sharpened at both ends. Yet if I stay here, in the words of Matt Stone, I will end up hanging by my neck in my f*cking closet. But even my writing depresses me, because I just realised how much I write -- and how little I show people. I'm just so damn scared all the time, and even though I do read back what I write? I am so terrified of rejection that I just can't bring myself to show things to people. And yet the greatest joy in writing for me isn't the writing itself, as much as I love it -- it's talking about it with people, hearing their comments, seeing how they see it. That's what brings it to life for me, and right now I feel like I am in complete purgatory.

So...yes. This was an unnecessarily depressing entry. I think I need an early night.

"It's like being in charge of a special school on a day out!"

When I went to the Millbrook a couple months ago, I had dinner at the Millhouse -- and as I had gone away for some peace and quiet, I had taken a good chunk of the manuscript of The Neverboy in order to do some editing. At dinner, I entertained myself between courses with said manuscript. For the last three weeks, I've relived that dinner by having Saturday's lunch at a restaurant while reading and scribbling with my big red pen. I also did this in Wellington three weeks ago. It's actually really lovely, despite my ongoing problems with food and weight and whatnot. One place, too, is actually somewhere I regularly walk past on my weekend wanderings, so incorporating a stopover there into my walk -- and lengthening it afterwards -- was really very, very lovely, especially as I usually spend my walks mulling over characters and storylines.

So, this Saturday I toted the prologue of the forevergirl along to a pseudo-English pub and worked through that. It was an interesting exercise in that I knew the prologue really didn't make a lot of sense in the new context of the novel. When I wrote it last December, I had assumed I wouldn't be writing the actual novel for a long long time and was doing it mainly because it took place during Winter's Heart, which is sort of the closest Sarinian equivalent to Christmas (although it's more just a mid-winter festival of food and gifts; it's not strictly religious, but then for a lot of people these days Christmas is fairly damn secular anyway). Things have changed since then, of course -- not only did Arosek and Ryenn shoehorn themselves and their damnably complicated friendship into the novel, but the Dragon and its drug-fuelled dream-devouring dramas turned up out of bloomin' nowhere, and Alara recently informed me that Nan is going to be in this novel too. Nan. I'm terrified of Nan. I'll have to introduce you to her someday. When I'm not terrified of her. Which might be never, come to think of it. (...oh, God, iTunes is, like, reading my mind and playing me Gay Bar as I write about Nan. Shit. She's totally going to start that nuclear war, isn't she...?) But...yes. I had to rework the introduction before I could consider writing the first chapter, which I really need to do if I'm to stop Arosek and Ryenn running off with the whole damn book.

Er.

So, yes, that was lovely -- but then I came home and realised that I had two short stories that I really had to finish this weekend. One's something for a local short story competition, the other is part of a trade, which is something really quite interesting I'll talk about in a minute. But I have to mention the competition first. I always have incredible trouble writing for competitions -- partly it's because I have great trouble writing to order, but it's really the wordcount that tends to trip me the hell up. I'm still surprised Tea For Two didn't get banhammered for its incredible length, but then I think it got through on the strength of its atmosphere anyway. But yeah, this competition was for four thousand words; the current first draft is closer to 4.1k, but I can knock that down. I think. Ha. It's really very funny, though, how long it took me to write this story. It's not actually something I dreamed up for the competition, it's more that the competition finally gave me an excuse to write it. Even though I am riding very close to the deadline. (Which is Friday...) It was directly inspired by a song, actually, and when the competition is all over I think I'll go over the genesis and the development of the story. It'll be fun! (...I swear.) But the fact that I actually have something to enter is achievement enough, as I originally thought entries were due at the end of June and I was far too wrapped up in my zombie headstate to do a damn thing about it then.

...which reminds me, in a roundabout way, that I am still far too intrigued by one Kaworu Nagisa, which has led to the discovery of a tumblr that gives me ridiculous pleasure. I just couldn't resist something that included the description of "My hobbies are cooking and being sad." Oh, Shinji. I am a Bad Person, honest. But I just love this thing to pieces. For all it is obviously parody and satire, they really do nail Shinji's character.

But to get back on topic (topic? what topic?) I'll speak a bit about the other story I wrote this weekend -- I just finished the first draft, actually, and with any luck I'll be able to give it a decent edit tomorrow night and send it off to Neme-chan. It's my half of the trade I mentioned above, and it's been...an experience! Neme-chan is an artist over at deviantart I met via a friend from IRG (which is basically My Happy Place); I commissioned her a few times, and I've posted the results of those here a few times. She's really very, very talented and I adore her style. Because she was doing original characters for me, I ended up sending her snippets of stories involving said characters, and she enjoyed my writing style enough to offer up a trade idea -- she would draw something for me, and in return I would write something for her. We decided to do this quite a few weeks ago, but between her exams and holiday and my own wallowing in Cooking And Being Sad, we hadn't really got started on it until a couple of weeks back.

So, I got about fifteen hundred words done last weekend and figured I would plot out the rest properly this weekend, but then Neme-chan sent me my completed half and I freaked out completely. I was determined to stop dragging my heels and just write, no matter my mood, and...here we are. I can be really slow, you see, for all I am by nature a prolific writer. I mean, I wrote over a hundred thousand words last November. I could have written more. I just...have a bitch of an inner editor and therefore find it very hard to write at all some times. Or most times. But I was writing for someone, and I knew it was time to stop listening to the Inner Editor and just go for it.

It was a really interesting experience, as I've said. The characters I wrote for are original creations, and I am also unfamiliar with the world they were created for. Essentially I worried that I was totally God Moding the whole thing, but after a positive response to the opening I've totally let loose on the rest of it. I can but hope she likes it as much as I do the picture she sent me in return. ...to give you a visual, this is basically what I did when I opened the attachment in my email:

Daaaaaaw. No, honestly, I was gobsmacked. The two characters in question have been in my mind since I was twelve or thirteen or something, and though I never quite seem to finish their story, I am trying. Hibernaculum, the latest incarnation, is OH SO CLOSE. ...of course it needs to be edited the hell out of, but never mind. Having a draft is the first damn step, and it's further than I usually get, so...yes. But I figure I might as well close this entry with a little snippet of my bbz, and then you can see for yourself how talented Neme-chan really is. ...and while you do that, I will go hold myself to my end of the bargain. And pray that my dribble will make me as happy as did her scribble. <3

When she chanced a glance sideways she found him smiling, tremulous and quiet. He then reached forward, the touch of his fingertips light upon her cheek. “He said you weren’t beautiful, didn’t he?” Zurin mused, and though Luchandra thought she should have blushed, to hear him acknowledge so the fact he had seen the dance of the gods, she pushed it aside. She’d always known. He’d given her the lullaby. And then his smile deepened, sad and yet tinged with the faintest hope; it stirred her own even as he leaned back, shook his head. “But you are. You are so beautiful.”

“And you have more power than you know,” she whispered in return. “You saved me, then.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. You did.”

“If only we’d met under other circumstances.” Zurin tightened his hands on his knees, gave a short laugh. “Then I suppose under other circumstances, we never would have met.”

“Maybe not.” Luchandra looked again to the butterflies, wondered what warding power they had; surely they were from the East, the land of the air-goddess. She was not their patron. But then, their earth-god cared much for their protection any longer. “I wonder if it even matters, though.”

“It matters.” She turned, surprised by the sudden ferocity of his words – but the kiss shook her deeper. Though it felt very different to the pressure of the earth-god’s kiss when the fire-lady had blazed within her, lacked the taste of metal and snow, she still shuddered beneath it. Zurin drew back as if stung, eyes wide.

“I’m sorry.” And she could see he was, could see he was just as surprised by his actions as she. “I didn’t…I didn’t mean…!”

“I don’t mind,” she said softly. “I was just…surprised.”

“I still shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?” Bitterly she spoke, even as the memory of his swan-song sent a shiver down her spine. “They took their comfort. Why shouldn’t we have ours?”

Zurin stared at her, so long that she felt as though the world had stopped. “Do you really mean that?”

“Maybe we would have met no matter what.” She bit her lip, and then laughed, wild and careless. “Maybe this is what they talk about, in the stories, when they speak of destiny. It’s the world bending to the path of love and desire.”

He shook his head, but there was clear wonder in his gaze. “You can’t love me. We’ve only just met.”

She smiled. “And perhaps we’ll never meet again. Isn’t that why we should do this?”

For a moment, she thought he would draw back. Then he laughed, too, and for the first time she heard genuine joy in his voice.

“You’re mad, you know that?”

“I just like a good story,” she said, and reached for him. “You know…the kind with a happy ending?”

“This isn’t the ending.”

“We can still be happy,” she said against his lips. “If only for a little while.”

Words by me, picture by Neme-chan. <3

"SON! There better not be any WALKING DEAD up there!"

I keep fading in and out of radio silence right now. Life as it is? Is just not conducive to good writing. It's hilarious in hindsight, though, in that I tend not to write as much when I'm genuinely happy, but when I am depressed I also am completely unable to write. There's some sort of bizarre middle ground here, although right now I'm dipping in and out of that space like a plane that's lost its hydraulics.

I've also been distracted by various things. For whatever reason I decided to make a terrible mistake and actually play Amnesia: The Dark Descent myself; several heart attacks later, I am halfway through the game and have hit SAVE AND EXIT in a blind panic more times than I care to remember. I am now very much in the mood to write horrible Lovecraftian stories. Thank you so much, Alexander, it's much appreciated. [rolls eyes] It's not solely the fault of the game, mind you; a couple weeks ago marked the Australian release of the DVD for the second of the Neon Genesis Evangelion rebuild movies. Given the story's inherent fondness of Eldritch Abominations, you can imagine it fit rather well with my mindset. Also, I've been near-suicidally depressed over the last month or so. Re-watching The End of Evangelion certainly doesn't help this sort of thing -- we must consider the infamous Komm, süsser Tod sequence, though Rebuild's Today Is The Time For Goodbye is going to give me almost as many nightmares as the actual Dummy System itself -- but it does tend to make the whole thing resonate in a way that it won't necessary do when you're in your happy place. And so, I have the urge to write some very dark stuff.

...with that said, we have a nice bit of irony in that because the other day? I wrote something quite fluffy. I defend myself by pointing out that said fluffy snippet is a dream sequence and comes into the story in a fairly creepy sort of fashion, not to mention the entire underlying backstory makes the whole thing more tragic than terrific, but there you go. I finally wrote something fluffy. But in the way of such things, the character who brought all this about is really disturbing me something chronic.

I often don't remember creating characters. I can explain the origins of some of them, but a lot of the time they just sort of...saunter into my head and do whatever the hell they want to do. This is probably one of the main reasons I tend to talk about them as people; I really don't feel like I have much control over most of them. And this is certainly true of my latest character, who is simply called the Dragon and is turning out to be something of a pseudo-Eldritch Abomination. What even is that thing. [facepalm] There was also Additional Hilarity when I read the first thing I wrote with this character to my spec fic writing group and concluded with OH MY GOD IS IT JUST ME OR DOES THE DRAGON TOTALLY SOUND LIKE A DRUG ADDICT. ...and this is a children's story. (Supposedly.) Then again, one might say I am simply following in the illustrious footsteps of one Lewis Carroll. Or Walt Disney. Er. Still, I really have no clue where the Dragon came from or what it even thinks it's doing. It isn't helped by the fact that said Dragon is apparently a literal Dragon, from some of the leading nonsense it's been spouting between all the creepy drug-fuelled nonsense it usually indulges in.

Yes. This is my mind not on drugs. Go figure.

I do love the enigmatic characters, though. (Not that the Dragon is strictly enigmatic; I have the distinct impression it's actually far closer to just being downright Ax Crazy. One can but hope that it won't pull a Jamie McDonald on me and go both feral and Fax Crazy into the bargain.) As I said above, I've been watching various canons of Evangelion recently and reliving my love for one Kaworu Nagisa. He's more plot device than person -- after all, in the original series he gets approximately sixteen minutes of screentime, and yet manages to screw up Shinji even more. I know that sounds like shooting fish in a barrel, but it's honestly a pretty heroic effort. But seeing Kaworu in Rebuild is an interesting experience. Again, he's not around very much -- but three of his lines make for interesting theories. In the first movie, he refers to Shinji as "...the Third, again?" In the second movie, he addresses either Gendo or Fuyutsuki as "father" (with that said there is another possible reason for using the term, although Kaji didn't give Gendo the embryo of Adam in this continuity...that we know of). And then at the end the usually very mild-mannered Kaworu has the most deliciously disturbing look on his face when he tells Shinji that "I'll make you happy...this time." It gives one the distinct impression that Kaworu is not only leaning on the fourth wall, he's kicked the bugger over and is lobbing the bricks at anyone who comes close enough to see what in God's name (OH GOD THE IRONY IT BURNS) he thinks he's doing.

(As a side note, every time I watch the end of the second movie I can't help but tilt my head sideways at the "halo" you see with both EVAs involved in the worst of it all. I keep thinking of the angels in Bayonetta, I suppose. Although let's be honest with ourselves and admit that not even Hideaki "...more fanservice next episode!" Anno himself could ever out-fanservice that damn game...)

I've never been a huge fan of Evangelion. I first watched it in 2001 and was horribly confused by the rather infamous Gainax Ending. I found this distressing, actually, because I like being mind-screwed. My favourite anime is actually a lovely little trip into Mindfuck Manor by the name of Shoujo Kakumei Utena, but while being trolled by Ikuhara is practically my life's calling, Hideaki Anno really didn't press my buttons. But Rebuild seems to have caught my attention where the original anime did not, and I actually read part of the manga the other day. I now have four volumes winging their way over from Japan, but...yeah. From what I understand, in all of the numerous alternate universe canons of Eva, Kaworu has a habit of appearing if not omniscient, at least aware of the fact that all these parallel universes exist. That's a really fascinating position for a character to be in, I think. It's probably not something I could explore easily in my own work, but I do find it fascinating...if only because the Dragon appears to exist in a different circle to the other characters in my latest attempt at a novel. It's not removed from the situation, but it certainly seems to think it's not directly part of it. Huh.

But I'm home sick this afernoon and writing this is really beginning to give me a headache. I ought to take a nap, or something. But really, I do need to do some more writing. I almost managed to sketch out Hibernaculum in its entirety, which amazed me. And forevergirl just keeps surprising me. And then I really need to Lovecraft the dark meanderings out of my mind, so...I don't know. Let's meet the Dragon, shall we?

*****

“Of course it isn’t fair. I rather thought myself that that was the entire point of the thing.”

Tara’s head jerked up. No longer standing beneath the hanging forest of imprisoned dreams, she found herself lying upon the floor. The Dragon held the dream-case in its small hand, looking at it critically as it held it up to the light. It remained thankfully closed, and then it turned an annoyed gaze upon her.

“Well? What did you think?”

“I…” Tara swallowed hard, throat parched. She did not wear the black gown nor the lace mantilla, but the weight of both lay like a familiar ghost upon her flesh; it made it hard to stand as she pushed upward. Her whole body felt wracked by tremors, as if she had survived the strongest of winter storms, and she swayed as she rose.

“Are you quite all right?”

“No.” Pushing her hands back through her hair, she looked up with haunted eyes. It was impossible – it had to be impossible, she’d only just seen the First Consul herself! – but she could not dispel the deep fear curled about her heart so easily. “That…never actually happened, did it?”

“Of course it didn’t. It’s a nightmare, isn’t it?” The Dragon’s annoyance lifted only as it thought upon the gauntlet Tara had walked, and it smiled in deep content. “It’s a very good nightmare, though. I’ve told you already, but I’ll happily tell you again – I cannot wait for the day when I finally give in and let myself devour that one. Oh, the agony of it, rushing through my veins! I won’t be able to move from this place for days. I’ll cry and I’ll sob and I’ll wail and I’ll rant and I’ll scream until I have no voice and it will be so very deeply completely totally wonderfully exquisite.” Only then did it sigh, satiated by thought alone. “I want it so much.”

And Tara closed her eyes, her heart coiled in pain. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead.”

“Of course he’s not dead.” Irritated again, the Dragon flicked her with its tail, snapping her eyes open. “How many times must I say it? It’s a nightmare, you foolish girl. And in fact what makes it such a wonderful nightmare is that it is the Dreamer’s worst fear.”

Tara looked down at her empty hands, the realisation harsh. “Lord Rendran is most afraid of losing Lord Arosek...?”

“Actually, I’m telling a little bit of a lie. It’s not such a wonderful nightmare just because it’s his worst fear. It’s powerful because it is his worst fear combined with his greatest love. The loss of his greatest love, even. And the hate that comes out of that…” The Dragon did an odd little twirl, the claws of its unnatural foot scraping the stone with a shriek that sounded almost human. “Yes! It’s wonderful! You see such purity of emotion, such raw expulsion of everything within one’s own heart so very rarely…I paid very dearly for this dream. I regret not a moment of it.”

Tara’s head snapped up. “He loves him?”

“Of course he does. It was why I wanted to show it to you.”

The withering tone of its voice could not shield Tara from the horror of what she had seen. She had dreamed of love, like any other girl her age. Even though she had grown up in the shadow of parents and their peculiar marriage, she had always thought of love as something to search for, to hold close and treasure once found. But in the face of the sorrow she had seen in the Sanctuary she wondered at the wisdom of such an action. “Is that what love truly is?”

“It’s what his love is,” it pointed out, pragmatic to a fault. “But then I can’t pretend to really understand. Dragons don’t love. We haven’t any need to. That’s a mortal thing.” It seemed almost wistful, reaching upward to set the dreams swinging. The chime as they clashed against one another made Tara wince anew. “Why else would we devour the dreams of mortals? We have no other way of knowing what such things are.”