Why Does Love Do This To Me

For a variety of reasons, I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day. Partly it's connected to my birthday, which was yesterday; as you might have gathered from the entry yesterday, I spent most of the day wishing I was dead. Valentine's doesn't tend to help this feeling at all. Still, on Sunday I went to Isengard, as you can see above, and that cheered me up even before I went into the deep dark hell of birthday!depression. Mostly because I went by horse. I like riding horses. I also got to see the tree that Bean!Boromir died most dramatically under, as Sean Bean is wont to do. WILL THAT MAN EVER LIVE THROUGH ANYTHING, I ASK YOU.

At any rate, I had a terrible morning and was only cheered up when I got home and discovered that the three Valentine's commissions I'd ordered at the start of the month were waiting for me over at deviantart. I had sworn at the time I'd write some drabbles to go with them, so I've spent the last couple of hours writing them. I have three couples, and because I'm all for the Equal Opportunity Pairing, we have the pairings today in three flavours -- one male/female, one male/male, and one female/female. Although the male in the m/f pairing is admittedly bisexual leaning towards gay, not to mention one of the girls in the f/f pairing is probably by default straight, but is totally IT'S OKAY IF IT'S YOU for her partner. D'aw. (Actually, one of the males in the m/m pairing probably qualifies as something dangerously close to a Depraved Bisexual, while the other is actually functionally asexual. I never claimed this was a simple fluffy Valentine's thing, did I...?)

Now, all these pictures were done by the awesomely talented Kayla, who goes by the handle ThePlanPony at deviantart. Go and tell her how awesome she is, would you? BECAUSE SHE TOTALLY IS. Besides, she's still taking on more couple commissions for Valentine's this month. I'm tempted to get another few myself, so...if you have any characters of mine you'd like to see in a fluffy picture and drabble, gimme your suggestions. In the meantime, here's the story so far:

Ever Afters

Aleksandr still felt guilt for a lot of things. Key amongst them were the way he’d left his sister, and then he was constantly troubled by the way he couldn’t be sure he’d ever be able to love the paladin the way he knew the other man loved him. But as he stood in the window of their latest inn, his thoughts drifted to another, to a woman he so very rarely allowed himself to remember.

The silver moon was probably the reason why, he thought with dim melancholy. Its pale orb reminded him of her pallid colouring, of the way she had always seemed a shimmering silhouette against the dull reality of the world she’d been forced to live within. Though he’d not known of her true form for so long, he’d realised from the beginning that she was something different. Something more. A dream, perhaps. And all dreams by their very nature were fleeting.

His hand rose, the tips of his fingers pressing to his lips. For all he tried not to think of her often, he could so easily conjure up the memory of her kiss. Those pale lips had tasted of saltwater; had it been the remnants of her lost ocean home, or simply her tears? Aleksandr had never quite decided. And he’d never been given the opportunity to find out again. In the end he’d never even been able to hold her, not properly, not the way people did in stories. Though they’d been of a height, even with the effects of his own illness upon his body he’d known she’d have been light in his arms. She would have floated there, silent and perfect and real.

Aleksandr closed his eyes, pressed his forehead against the cool glass. It was perhaps better to remember her as she had been at the beginning, not at the end. The first night they’d met she had descended the stairs in the darkness, and then stepped out into the rain. Freshwater had dripped all over him from where it beaded upon her hair like pearls, and her long fingers had been so light as they’d traced the blue veins just below the surface of his skin.

He is dying, she had whispered, but now she was dead and he was alive, and he opened his eyes. The sword of the water-god hung limply in his hand. As he looked down at its iridescent weight his lips twisted into a grim smile. What kind of a hero could he ever claim to be, when he had left the maiden fair to die?

If he closed his eyes again, he could imagine instead the difference of their lives, if it had ended like the stories he’d loved as a child. In those legends the prince always saved the princess – and so often at the last minute, just as things seemed their most hopeless. He wouldn’t have just saved her life, either. In the prince’s house Alyria had been little more than a wraith, a lost lingering shadow. But if Aleksandr had been a true hero, he’d have found her scales, he’d have given them back to her. Then those pale eyes would have danced with the knowing mischief of a siren, and her lips would have pursed with promise and pleasure. She’d have been happy, the sea-song upon her lips spilling forth from deep within a heart that beat with the rhythm of the waves.

“We’d have been happy,” he whispered, and imagined his arms around her shoulders, her pale hair spiralling about his fingers. “I’d have saved you, and we would have been happy.”

His hand tightened about the sword, unknowing; with a sigh, he opened his eyes. The silver blade glinted in the moonlight, cool and smooth. It reminded him of the ice that had broken all across the lake the night she had died. The night her water-god had taken her home, and all because he hadn’t been enough of a prince to save her.

Turning from the window he slid the blade back into its invisible sheath, both winking from view. His paladin would be waiting for him below, and for all night had fallen Aleksandr knew the time for dreaming this evening was over.

He cast one look back to the lake, found it shimmering and silver and silent. Then, he nodded, and walked towards the door. That sad little story had finished, and there was another one yet to be written. He could but hope he’d learned enough to find this story the happy ending it deserved.

In Media Res

It might have been a difficult prospect, to find him – the reticent seneschal had been unable to tell Ryennkar anything more than “the youngest son is somewhere on the back of the estate.” Said estate comprised several hundred acres of both forested and open land. Yet as he exited the back gardens via one of the heavy gates in the high stone walls, he caught a flash of red up on the ridge and smiled.

While not an unobservant person by nature, Arosek had become so involved in his work that once he’d climbed the hill, Ryennkar found it all too easy to sneak up on him. Childish games were not generally his favoured indulgence, but with scarcely a second thought he went to his knees behind his oldest friend and placed his hands over his eyes.

Arosek stiffened, charcoal stopping dead halfway through the arc of one rich curve. Then, his hand relaxed; Ryennkar could feel a smile pressing his cheeks upward. “Ryenn?”

He raised an eyebrow, though he’d effectively blinded the other man. “How did you know it was me?” Pressing closer, his next words were a scarce whisper dropped into one ear. “I could have been anyone.”

Arosek gave a half-snort, far more amused than it was exasperated. “You’re not just anyone.”

Only just suppressing the flash of pleasure this proclamation brought with it, Ryennkar leaned over Arosek’s shoulder and gave his work a curious look. “I thought you’d stopped painting.”

“I’m not painting. I’m drawing.”

With a chuckle, Ryennkar arched deeper into the natural curvature of his friend’s spine. It had been too long, since the last time he’d allowed this. “Drawing so often leads to painting,” he murmured, and he felt Arosek’s smile dim, just a little.

“Not always.” He paused, and when he spoke again Ryennkar could remember the sadness he’d last seen in those dark eyes, all those months ago. “Just…sometimes. Maybe.”

The silence that fell between them was broken only by birdsong, by the soft rustle of the wind through the leaves of the Aekar Forest below. But they were up on the ridge, the forest and the house and entire world held at a distance. Pressed against Arosek’s back, Ryennkar’s chest rose and fell in rhythm with the other man’s shallow breathing. He still did not remove his hands from his eyes. “You didn’t even know I was coming,” he said, soft, and Arosek nodded.

“No.” Something like a smile felt to be returning to his wide mouth. “I’m glad to see you.”

“But you can’t see a thing.”

“I see enough.” Gently he pulled back, angling his body around. Ryennkar let him go, but before he could drop his right arm Arosek leaned back upon it. One hand rose to rest upon his chest, just over Ryennkar’s heart.

“I see you now,” Arosek whispered, sketchbook and charcoal slipping from his lap to vanish into the long fronds of the scented grass.

“So do I,” he murmured, and leaned forward to capture his lips. Sometimes a kiss was only always that. But as Ryennkar steadied himself, palm gathering charcoal dust while his fingertips brushed the sun-warmed grass, he thought that kissing could become something more. He’d always been good at talking Arosek into taking up his brush even after he’d laid it aside with the admonition that this was the very last time.

Best-Laid Plans

“I don’t see why we have to stay in a place like this.” Nan surveyed their surroundings with a critical eye, her brightly-coloured lips pressed into a plump and inviting frown. “Can’t we just stay in a little alehouse or something?”

Alara had to smother an entirely unlady-like grin. The other woman might insist her liking for the smaller and more intimate lodgings to be just because she enjoyed the easy camaraderie she could strike up with the owners, but Alara knew it was more that Nan had never felt the slightest bit comfortable with the trappings of the so-called higher classes. While she was content enough to watch Alara dress up – and had proved rather adept at getting Alara both in and out of even the most complicated high society gowns – she’d never accompanied her to any of those types of events without a great deal of cajoling. Occasionally it had even degenerated into outright bribery, though Alara had to ruefully admit she’d enjoyed those moments just as much as Nan herself clearly did.

“I wanted something a bit more relaxing, tonight,” she said instead, quite mild. “So I felt that these…charming…surroundings were entirely in order.”

Nan screwed up her small nose as she peered around the opulent room, noting the rich sofas and the ottoman set before the great picture window that faced the west. “I thought you had a dinner party, you said?” she asked, and crossed her arms; Alara had to regret the obstacle this presented to an otherwise quite lovely view. “Look, if it’s all the same to you, I might just go take a room in that little inn we saw back near the city walls. You can swing by and pick me up in the morning, yeah?”

After allowing the woman to get as far as the door, she spoke just one word. “Nan.”

“What?”

Ignoring Nan’s half-suspicious question, Alara crossed the room with an elegant stride, halting only when stood before the great red upholstered couch. Dropping her riding cloak, letting it pool upon the floor in a lazy fashion she rarely indulged in, she turned to take her seat. Beneath the cloak she still wore her preferred riding outfit. When she stood, the panels of the dress hung in demure lines from the wide belt, giving the illusion of a proper skirt. But when she reclined back in this way, crossing one long leg over the other, it split up both sides. Nan’s eyes widened, then focused upon the expanse of skin revealed between the mid-thigh height of her boots and her hip. Alara smiled, propped one hand behind her head; Nan’s eyes immediately leapt to her chest. Though her mouth opened, no sound came out. Alara chuckled, soft and knowing, and Nan gave her an accusing look.

“I…you said you had a very important dinner tonight.”

“Be a dear and lock the door, would you, Nan?” she asked, and licked her lips. “I do believe that dinner? Is already served.”

*****

So, that's me for the day. I suppose I should go and get some sleep before work in the morning. Joy! And I have to admit with some shame that these days, whenever I think of Nan and Alara? All I get in my head is this. Oh, dear...

If I Could Turn Back Time

The first time I walked into the Raphael room at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, I just about had a fit because it was huge, empty, and beautiful. I have a thing for grand stately rooms, particularly when I feel like I have it to myself (you may note in entry before this one, there is a picture of the larger temple at Abu Simbel with no people in front of it; I took that, and my good god it was amazing to be able to do so). The next time I saw the Raphael room I figured it wouldn't get any better than the first hit, so to speak. HOW WRONG I WAS. They'd installed what you see above: a giant couch. That's not even the half of it. You could walk into this room, kick off your shoes, and loll around in the presence of masterpieces.

There's a reason why I'm babbling on about this, believe it or not, but I'll get to it in a minute. The entry is really supposed to point out that I've "finished" NaNo, or at least I've achieved some of what I set out to do. I have first drafts of Hibernaculum and Greywater finished, I have a random beautiful and terrifying scene between Ryenn and Arosek written, I have a roughly 7k short story about SPARKLY EVIL BLOOD FAE, and as of today I have 50k on the manuscript of Kaverlen Falls, which I just started last week. I'm hoping to finish a draft of the 6k short story The Blacksmith's Daughter tomorrow, and...the official wordcount so far is 154,256.

I'm still having something of a crisis. I just don't know if I'm a good writer. It's a mental thing, as in I'm a complete mentalist, but now that I have spent almost six weeks in Australia writing my heart, eyes, and wrists out, I'm terrified there's nothing to show for it. Which is blatant lies judging by the prodigious output I've managed, but then I tend to bury my head in my hands and wail BUT IT'S ALL CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP an awful lot. [rolls eyes] I don't know.

Speaking of crap, my mother forced me to go see the latest Twilight movie with her the other day; I already felt ill before we got there, and the patented SPINNY CAMERA ANGLES OF DOOM meant halfway through the damn thing I had to dig into my purse and find two paracetamol and five mg of prochlorperazine. And I still felt so ill I had to keep my eyes closed for ten minutes. I didn't even eat my popcorn, and I have an eating disorder. (Maybe I should just spend my life locked in a room with Stephanie Meyer. I can almost guarantee I'd never want to eat again if all I had for stimulation was her books and those damn movies.) At one stage in the movie I even facepalmed. I literally facepalmed. Here, have a visual aid:

And I don't even like Star Trek, either. (DENNY CRANE!) I don't even remember what it was that made me do it. There were a lot of things that upset me about that movie. Principally, though, I was deeply disturbed by the power balance in Bella and Edward's relationship. I could only stomach it by entertaining the private theory that Bella is in fact an anguisette (thank you for the sanity switch, Jacqueline Carey). Because otherwise I'd just have to go with my initial gut feeling, which was that Bella is a good and dutiful housewife-to-be who marries at eighteen, justifies her husband's violence against her with "he can't help himself" and "it's proof of how much he loves me" and when her unborn baby threatens the mental health of her friends and family and also her own life, she justifies allowing herself to die by the thought her worth as a wife is only to act as a human incubator.

Also, there was a huge-ass fight between vampires and werewolves and NO BLOOD WAS SHED WHATSOEVER. I miss Alucard. I miss him a lot. ...I guess I just like my abominations Eldritch, not Edward.

The thing is, though, that I really ought to be careful what I complain about. I readily admit I can't and won't ever understand Twilight. But I will open myself to mockery by admitting the other day I noticed a movie about to play on FoxTel and promptly recorded it. And later watched it while kicking my feet in glee. I know most people pan the damn thing, but in my opinion it's so bad it's hilarious. ...sorry. ^_~

But I think I'm in a melancholy mood anyway because I finally finished reading the full text of the old story I had been writing all those years ago with an older friend, and...while I was wincing at the writing at the beginning, by the end I was utterly absorbed in the world we had created and the story we were weaving to the point I couldn't work out who wrote what. It's also been so long since I paid any lasting attention to the characters or the story that I'd forgotten so much of what we had written and what we had planned, and now that I am at the end of it...the sense of loss is immense. Not just for the story itself, but for the friendship that created it. I ache to read more of it, as much as I ache to write to my old friend and see where life has taken her now.

I thought of the V&A above for several reasons. I mean, museums are places of memory. You walk in the door and you are taken back to places that existed long ago -- so long ago, in some cases, that we can't even be quite sure they did exist. We can guess, but we're never going to know what those lives were like. There's a terrible sadness, in that. And I get a similar sadness from unfinished stories, especially one like this. So much potential, just rotting away on my harddrive. It feels like a betrayal, that even I forgot them. Part of me just wants to turn around and write to my old friend and beg her to tell me that she didn't forget, because if we both did...it seems so unfair.

But then, I also thought of the V&A because of that giant couch. It's not the first whimsical thing I've found in a London museum; I was most enchanted by the Super Fun Happy Slide! installation I discovered one dreary December at the Tate Modern, but then you expect that kind of malarkey at the Tate Modern. Not so at Victoria's digs. I love that museum for many reasons, and I walk in there feeling like it's one of the great and airy palaces of my imagination, stately and elegant and real. And then...I find a giant couch in my favourite room.

The emperor of the story I forgot, he came to his royal title at the age of eighteen after having been raised a commoner. It was always a running joke in the writing process that Dion would one day do something daft like fill the Emperor's Bathchambers with rainbow bubbles and a thousand rubber duckies, or that he'd draw a hopscotch grid on the approach to the Shining Throne and refuse to hold court unless all assembled gave him a round. He's the kind of person who'd insist on beanbags for state assemblies. TAnd this room, in this beautiful and elegant museum...had a giant couch specifically designed for lolling. Dion would have loved this room.

I wish I hadn't forgotten. In some ways, though, I almost wish I hadn't remembered.

Grief

When I was in Aswan recently, I ended up being stalked through a souk by a little Egyptian man who was determined to sell me a statue of Anubis. Granted, it was my own fault; I had gone for a walk further up the market with two of my tourmates, and while they were haggling over canopic jars the other merchant asked me what I wanted. As my bag was already overfull (and the recently-acquired belly dance costume was not helping; after a year of lessons you'd have thought I'd remember how heavy those things are), I wasn't much interested. He tried to sell me the usual cheerful touristy traps. "You like Isis? Nefertiti? Tutankhamun?" I kind of blinked at him and said "I LIKE ANUBIS." The expression on his face was really quite priceless. However, these people in the souks remember you, and on both subsequent visits I made to the souk before we went upriver, this man found me and tried to sell me Anubis.

In the end I came home with a tiny faux-obsidian canopic jar with Anubis on the lid. I believe it's for the stomach? I'd have to look it up, as I've forgotten a lot of the things my Egypt-mad childhood self learned back in the day. Unfortunately I haven't a picture of it; I sent it back to New Zealand from London and I'm in Australia right this minute. It's a pity, and he's rather cute. For a god of death. (You could say the same for Sobek, the crocodile-headed god; now I can't remember what he is god of, but we went to a temple (I think in Kom Ombo) where he and Horus were all over the walls, and he was bad-ass. Oh, yes.) But I was thinking of my wee friend Anubis both last night and today, and it was because I've been dealing with grief.

Now, I was saying yesterday I was going to write a short story about evil fae before I went on with my third novel completion project, but I opened the last part of TJB -- the file is rather poetically entitled the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew.doc -- just to see what awaited me and wouldn't you know it, I got to writing. I did it completely against the way I was supposed to, as well; with these fights for the finish I'm supposed to go to the very beginning and work my way through from there so I catch all the fragments and start to catch continuity errors. Which tend to be rife, considering I generally write out of order. However...

There's a scene about two thirds of the way through the third part of TJB that involves grief. I came to the internet when I was sixteen, in the late nineties, and I was an unashamed fanfic fangirl. And emo. Which means that basically, emo death!fic was my bread and butter for rather a long time (and I believe the fact that I kind of stumbled into my first publishing credit in an anthology of erotica was not accidental, thanks to reading far too much PWP in those same days). With that said, I got out of the habit of killing people left right and centre while claiming dramatic license a while back. Which isn't to say I won't kill characters, but my stories are no longer complete massacres for the sake of trying to be a tearjerker.

Last night while I was flicking through the .doc I found that this scene in TJB was only fragmentary. For some reason, I wanted to finish it. Oddly, Eliot is in varying states of grief all the way through TJB, but this was the first time I had ever seen him really let it go. And it hurt. There is always something of me in every character that I write, but rarely is any character so close to me in personality they could be called a Mary-Sue. It's more that they take some aspect of myself, amplify it so I empathise with them, and then they go off and become their own person until I start screaming at them to behave. Which they never do. Eliot...is not like me in a lot of ways. He's a smart-ass, sure, but says what he thinks and he is rarely backs away from a confrontation. Honestly, he's more likely to run head-on into them. But this is largely because Eliot has a death-wish. Eliot wants to be dead. When I created Eliot I was deeply depressed, and before he found himself in a full-fledged novel he was just a collection of short stories I wrote to work through that depression without directly harming myself. But for all that, Eliot rarely displayed actual grief. And I think that is something I share with him. I am often depressed. But my grief is my own.

Giving that grief voice through Eliot was an odd experience. I'm still trying to understand it. I've since had to move on to some other scenes, but I am proud of what came out of it. I just...I rather wish I had my canopic jar here now. I want to turn it over in my hands, rubbing my thumb across the maw and ears of the jackal, remembering the scent and darkness of the night I bought him in Aswan near the ancient whispering currents of the Nile. Death is natural, for us. For Eliot, it is anything but. Yet grief is all the weapon we have against it. I suppose in the end we must all learn to wield it in our own way.

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

(Ash Wednesday)
T.S. Eliot

Shopping Cart Of Love

...yes, that is a shopping trolley on a beach. I can look at said beach if I get up from the dining room table and go stare out the kitchen windows in the direction of the lighthouse. It kind of represents my brain, actually: empty and shadowed and mired in sand.

I've been having an interesting time of it. As you can see I haven't been doing the NaNo updates, but that's a long story. Mostly it boils down to the fact that the other day I wanted to RAGEQUIT the whole thing. This video kind of explains that desire in a succinct little comment right at the end, although the rest of it is good for a laugh. And by Christ I've been needing a laugh.

Yes, yes, it's more Amnesia. Actually the stupid game saved my sanity somewhat, because on Monday I just couldn't write at all. ...well, I lie, I wrote nine hundred and thirty four words. And waited for inevitable RAGEQUIT. In the end I slept for thirteen hours, got up on Tuesday, and got on with it. Today is Wednesday and I have 55,547 words for NaNoWriMo and a completed first draft of Hibernaculum. It's a terrible first draft, but it exists. And I started writing this version of the story back in 2005 or 2004 or something. So, screw it. It's done. I can fix it later. It's done.

I am always terrified of waking up one day to discover I am a terrible writer. This is generally why I give up halfway through a novel, and why I rarely submit things. Hibernaculum has been bothering me for so long that finishing it really took it out of me, and I just couldn't see it happening. Well, here I am. And I did it mainly by promising myself that once I was done with it, before I returned to The Juniper Bones (a terrifying prospect for a myriad of other reasons), that I could indulge the Lovecraftian muse awakened by Amnesia and write a horrible story about evil fae. So, that is going to be my day tomorrow. I also have the urge to finish a story I started writing way back in early...2010? It could even have been 2009, I'm not sure. It seems suitable, considering the story was inspired by Fly My Pretties and I finished Hibernaculum right on the end of this beautiful song.

So, for posterity, here is the daily NaNo breakdown:

GREYWATER -- 153,732

01/11 - 157,787 (4055)
02/11 - 166,457 (8670/12,725)

HIBERNACULUM -- 187,374

03/11 - 192,376 (5002/17,727)
04/11 - 196,406 (4030/21,757)
05/11 - 202,421 (6015/27,772)
06/11 - 211,707 (9286/37,058)
07/11 - 212,641 (934/37,992)
08/11 - 223,863 (11,222/49,214)
09/11 - 230,196 (6,333/55,547)

Incidentally from the time I arrived here in Australia before NaNo I added 47,882 words to Greywater and I also wrote that ten thousand word story for Alara and Nan. I think I wrote something else. I don't even remember anymore.

...yeah, no wonder my brain is fried. Too bad Dr. Morgan will see me now. O_o

"Once upon a time, ain't always a happy ever after."

It's been a funny day for NaNo -- for a while there I was pretty much convinced I wasn't going to do any writing at all. I've spent most of the day exhausted, and certainly when I finally stopped writing just after ten I was barely able to look at my computer screen. But here I am, updating. Whoo.

I think it doesn't help that I've been reading a lot too; I've gone through three Karin Slaughters, one Robin Cook and one and a half Lynda la Plantes in the last week and I am so sick of crime novels. I realised that, actually, while watching Contagion earlier today. There was something of an unnecessary scene involving the whole pull-the-face-down-and-make-a-skull-cap, and I was all OH GOD WTF. Not that I'm necessarily hugely squeamish, I'm just done with this. I suppose when I finish my current novel I'll go onto that George R. R. Martin I picked up yesterday. I've always been wary of reading his work, but I saw the first three episodes of the Game of Thrones adaptation on the flight between Heathrow and Changi, and as I can't find the rest of it here I suppose I might as well read the damn thing.

Speaking of Contagion, that movie was an interesting exercise in pacing. It felt tremendously long, but I don't think it even clocked in at a full two hours. I'm kind of curious how they managed it, as the pacing seemed far more suited to a series than a movie, yet it wasn't really that long at all (it reminded me of the difference between the movie and series versions of State of Play; trust me when I say the UK original blows the hollow US adaptation out of the water). Actually, the pace of Contagion almost seemed to slow, but I'm starting to wonder if it was a deliberate choice as a good deal of time passes in the movie -- four to five months, I suppose? And rather than being an apocalyptic imagining of our world brought to its knees by a global pandemic, it wanted to show everything in a realistic light -- which meant Hollywood staples looking almost like normal people, and letting the action not be compressed into an action-packed three days. So, it was interesting, I suppose, but I still can't decide if I liked it or not.

This evening, though, I cracked on with the writing. Here's the update on that.

NaNo progress notes, 03.11.11

Number of words committed: 5002
Total words: 17,727
Total goal for the day: I'm just glad to have written anything, considering how exhausted I feel.
Reason for stopping: I hit the end of a chapter, and decided that enough was enough.
Favorite line: Because there are two main protagonists, I decided to pull a couple extracts. I didn't write one today; I came across it as I was reading the tale end of the fully-constructed scene before the first fragmented one, and it reminded me why I love this story so much:

“He knows too much about you, Aleksandr.”

“What does that mean?”

The doctor shook his head again at Aleksandr’s bare whisper. “He wouldn’t waste all that time for no reason,” he explained, and there was something very much like pity in his words. “However, that is between you and him. I’ll tell your sister to let you rest, shall I?”

The door clicked close in his wake, and Aleksandr looked down to the velvet in his lap. His hands shook as he unfolded the intricate bundle. Inside, two twisted glass vials were locked into a single configuration; one held a silver translucent liquid, the other a dense golden suspension. Beneath them rested a small scroll, held closed by a small golden ring. He snapped it open, and unfolded the papyrus to find it covered with a sprawling, ornate hand that nonetheless yielded only awkwardly to the Sarinian alphabet.

The second was written today, and it just makes me both happy and sad at the same time:

The simple statement only made Cassya stare at her all the more. When she finally looked away, Luchandra thought she caught the barest look of hopelessness there, fleeting and pained. But her fingers had relaxed somewhat, and Luchandra might have smiled had the houselights not dimmed even further. The concert was about to begin.

Though she had long wished to be able to play some sort of instrument, Luchandra had never had opportunity to attend such a grand performance. Orchestras did not come to tiny villages like Lygale. Only travelling quartets or single musicians would bother with so small a place, and even then it was rare to see them outside a time of festival or celebration. As the auditorium slipped ever deeper into the darkness she felt her heart skip a beat. A creature was lurking in that darkness, only waiting to be born.

A split second later she realised too late she had heard something like this before. Only a night ago such a being had been brought to life in the conservatory, under the prince’s careful birthing hands. Sharp breath caught in her throat, digging painfully into soft flesh, and she could not speak for the sudden fear that stole away her sound.

Then the hand curled about hers. Startled, she looked to her side and found Kavaan’s pale eyes glittering like stars in the dark. Even though the pupils had been dilated by that darkness he still smiled, and somehow remained a perfect personification of the sun so sacred to his people.

“It will be so beautiful,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid.” 

     

She had wanted him to go. And even as she tightened her grip, so glad to have him there, she wished with all her heart that he had left her here alone.

Surprises, pleasant and un-: Cassya changed the spelling of her name on me, wtf. She's been spelling it "Cassia" for years. And this was particularly odd as I went into this knowing I was probably going to be changing the spelling of the names of Nylurean characters, thanks to Greywater. Gah, I don't even.
Character I most want to slap right now: Hmm. Maybe Amanita, the crazy bitch.
Mean things committed: Valeria is a woobie.
Unexpected research: I mentioned a ring in one scribble from months ago, and to be honest I had no idea what I had been wittering on about at the time. I had to read back in the manuscript quite a ways to jog that memory.
iTunes reads my mind: Again it can't, really, as I have playlists for my stories. But while writing the concert scene I had Emma and Loreena for company. One song of Loreena's matched so well what I was trying to write; you can listen to it here. But Emma Shapplin has always been the voice of Valeria to me. She's gorgeous under any circumstance, vocally and physically, but this Turkish (?) interview is particularly demonstrative because Emma's singing without accompaniment. And her voice...god, that woman's VOICE.

Now, I do believe I really need some sleep. I just wish it would cool off a bit here; even though it rained today, I am still overheated in my little office, and when I try to sleep at night or take my walks. Boo.

The Final Countdown

So, it's Halloween. Not that Halloween is a big thing where I'm from -- this does tend to be the only time of year I really wish I was Stateside, if only because they really do love Halloween. And it's about the only really tacky holiday I can take pleasure in just for its sheer tackiness. Easter's not my thing -- too much surprise!church as a child while living with my grandparents -- and Christmas is a bit tricky in my family (the other set of grandparents inadvertently gave us bad associations), but Halloween? I can get behind Halloween. Although given the spring heat here I've only managed to scare myself with Amnesia and creepypasta stories on livejournal, ha ha ha.

Quite aside from all that, the last day of October obviously heralds the oncoming storm of NaNoWriMo. I'm set up to go, of course, because all I've been doing is writing anyway, but I am hoping like hell this is going to work. I've always found the basic requirement of NaNo easy, when I've bothered to see it through; last year I amped it up by saying I had to do 100k rather than 50k, and this year I am focusing on another problem altogether: finishing things. So, I've got to have a starting point. The novels and their current wordcounts are:

Greywater: ~150k
Hibernaculum: 187,374
The Juniper Bones (part three): 83,188

Greywater has an uncertain count because I'll almost certainly be working on it tonight before the official wordcount period begins. I'm almost a hundred percent certain it will be finished by the end of the week; Hibernaculum might be a couple of weeks, and then The Juniper Bones is far more iffy. It's the real struggling-point, that one; the other two are almost certainties, but the last one isn't. It's got a very complicated ending and I really am not sure how it's going to play out. But if I'm really in the zone...hopefully the finishing frenzy from the other two will coast me through the third, too.

I'll have to update this journal everyday to keep myself strong for this. In the meantime, I ought to go do some writing. As it's Halloween, though, I might as well update with a tiny snippet from a Halloween story from last year. I didn't have the opportunity to do anything this year, even though I rather liked the idea of writing something about a similar holiday in Sarin. This is something I wrote for my writer's group, involving a couple of characters of The Juniper Bones. I do love them so.

*****

“A Halloween party?” he asks, holding the invitation like it might explode. Given its origins, he wouldn’t be surprised if it did. The bearer of these bad tidings, pressed and perfect in his three piece suit, grins as if he has just read Eliot’s mind.

“Oh, yes. Had you forgotten it was coming?”

Eliot hadn’t, but even had he been inclined to turn up at one of Morgan’s soirees, he’s always figured himself to be beyond invitations. His modus operandi is just to show up when and if he feels like it. Examining the engraved card, personally handed to him by the good doctor’s own husband, he realises that he really doesn’t like the sound of this.

“She has them every year,” Baedeker adds, helpful to a fault. “You know what she’s like…throws parties, invites half the hospital around, and no-one can quite work out if she’s making fun of them or actually wants them to come over, and…yeah. At least with Halloween parties they can be fairly certain it’s going to be insane, whereas at most other times they really can’t tell.”

“So glad to hear it’s not just me,” he mutters, and holds the card out. “Not that I’m planning to come.”

“You don’t have to plan to come. You’re coming.” He raises his hands when Eliot makes a stabbing motion with the card, resolutely refusing to take it back. “Trust me, she’ll drag you over herself if you don’t show up.”

“Like she’s that desperate to see me.”

“Do you want to tempt her?” He’s grinning despite the warning note that’s entered his voice. “I know she was reading about Alexander the Great the other day, I saw her with Arrian. Between the thing with Hector in The Iliad and what Alexander did to that bloke at Gaza, and the fact I know she was thinking of buying a racehorse last week…unless you want to see what it’s like to be dragged behind a chariot you really ought to turn up.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t she?” He arches an eyebrow. “It’s Halloween. Everyone knows the blood is fake on Halloween.”

“That sounds like the tagline of the most terrible B-movie never made.” Something of a guilty look flashes behind Baedeker’s glasses, and Eliot groans. “Oh, please tell me you don’t moonlight as a wannabe screenwriter!”

“Look, you’d better just turn up.”

Eliot’s stuck with the invitation as Baedeker turns to leave, and he looks down at the shimmering lines of his name with a sigh. There are probably worse things than a Halloween party with Viola Morgan, but he’s pretty hard-pressed to imagine what they might be.

*****

And just in case you wonder why Eliot is so afraid of Morgan, here's a recent commission of the two I had done recently by the wonderful Danielle Ellison, otherwise known as thecosmicdancer over on DA. It's gorgeous. And terrifying. And we all know that's the way Eliot loves it, no matter what he says. ^_~

"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

Musicians and Mathematicians

I decided the other day to have another couple of commissions done, because quite aside from the wonderful workshops of the other day, I respond particularly well to visual stimuli. And I've had Wills Penrose strutting around my head being difficult; it then struck me that Rachel's style would be suited to the image I was carrying of him. So, I poked Rachel for a picture of Wills, and while I was at it I decided that Natalia's lovely dreamy style would be brilliant for a picture of Tess and Lavinia. When I noted Natalia about this, she messaged me back and said that she'd forgotten the last time she'd done something for me that she owed me a sketch, so I took both and asked her to do a kind of matching set of Círa and Otho, like maybe you'd find in a locket? And what I got back...it's absolutely, ridiculously, stunningly wonderful. I will have to share it at some point, but it's inspired a lovely little bit of Greywater that I want to write first.

...but that inspiration is a bit annoying in that I had commissioned these pictures of Wills, Tess and Lavinia because I really want to finish The Juniper Bones sometime over the next month, rather than go back to picking through the pieces that are beginning to make up the plot proper of Greywater. Argh, this is my major issue -- focus. And I am having some serious thoughts on this front. In fact, I'm in the process of ditching my last university paper, and focusing on my writing is one reason in the "pro" column. It's not the only one, and frankly it's not even the most major one; in the end it comes down to the fact that my job and my home life have conspired so far this year to drive me almost to point of a nervous breakdown, and I haven't done any Japanese study since about a week before I ran away to Australia for the second time in two months. I am now so behind I doubt I can catch up -- actually, no, that's a lie. I know I could. I love the Japanese language and I have a rather remarkable capacity for retaining vast amounts of knowledge for short periods. I also understand a lot more than I realise (I was dancing last night to a Moby song and my iPod, being what it is, gave way to a Code Geass cast Q&A that I was actually half-listening to without realising what I was doing before I flipped it to another track that happened to be in English). But the fact is...for all I procrastinate, I haven't the time to focus on things properly. And it's the focus that's needed to make all this worthwhile.

So, dropping this paper? Would give me time to finish these drafts, to work more on Greywater (because frankly I am shipping Círa and Otho like a mad mofo), and to edit Neverboy. This can't help but be a good thing...? And I'd like to play more with Wills. I miss him. He's actually from People In Looking-Glass Houses, but being Tess's father he's wandered into The Juniper Bones and seems to have no intention of leaving. Which is...fine, I suppose, because I was always very fond of him. I just had to cackle when I got the note back from Rachel: I LOL at the coincidence of how I get a commission for an Edwardian time traveller when I had a dream about two Edwardian time travellers a week ago. I had to respond to that with "Oh, so rather than 'THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING!' it's 'THE EDWARDIAN TIME-TRAVELLERS ARE COMING!'" which rather amused Wills-in-my-head. He's not the type to eat brains, after all. He's much better suited to a cup of tea and a sit-down. Possibly with a tesseract and a bit of discussion on the Uncertainty Principle on the side. Oh, and some Rachmanikov. Can't forget the Rachmanikov.

So, yes, I can but hope to get some work on The Juniper Bones done this weekend; certainly Morgan and Eliot are chomping at the bit, wanting to have a bit of closure to their story. In that respect, it's possibly not for the best that I've re-released the pair of them on the experimental blog Down With The Author! I suppose that teaches me, for ever thinking I've got any control over these things. Ha. The only problem with this weekend, mind, is that I have a Mission of Mercy planned to Cromwell on Saturday, involving Dora the Explorer cupcakes. And small children. Oh, god. And as I said above, those sketches...well, Círa and Otho are now my desktop background, and I just keep wanting to write more to explore their relationship and their histories and their present and their future and...

...well. I suppose it's all good, because if I am this desperate to write it...hopefully that means that one day? Someone will be desperate to read it. <3 In the meantime, though, I really ought to cast my mind back to Cambridge in the nineteen-twenties. Incidentally, I have a Companion Cube sitting beside me and I can't help but think that even though it's not a tesseract, Wills would be quite amused by the Cube. Those voices in one's head, they do make for an interesting worldview. ^_~

Writing Different Worlds

So,  today I took advantage of the wonderful local arts festival and its wonderful Readers and Writers Alive! programme, and went to a workshop based around speculative fiction. I'm pretty sure I've said before that I don't really know what genre my writing properly falls into, but considering my tendencies towards the weird and the wacky, spec fic is definitely a place where my mind is at home. So, I was quite excited about this one (although to be honest, I've been excited about all the workshops I've ever been to through Dan Davin; the ones with Owen Marshall and Gavin Bishop particularly stand out as wonderful in my memory, and I still kick myself for not going to Helen Lowe's).

Anyway, today's workshop was with Tim Jones, who was a Southland local for a while there but now lives in Wellington; I can hardly hold it against him, mind you, considering the fact that I myself am a bit of a Wellingtonian at heart. (Although how anyone could hold anything against a place that produces things like this, I don't know. I myself have a vague dream of living one day in Paekakariki, at least partly because saying it is hilarious...whether it's proper or Paekok. Ha!) We spent the workshop chatting about speculative fiction, did a couple of little exercises, and then ended with a discussion about publishing. That's definitely something I need to start focusing on, although then again I need to start finishing things first! Although with that said, Tim said that Young Adult is the genre most likely to be published by New Zealand houses, so I suppose I should really look again at the draft of The Neverboy. It's been sitting around long enough now that I can look at it semi-sensibly, so...

In the meantime, there's always Hibernaculum and The Juniper Bones to finish, and then consider trying for an agent either in Australia, the States or the UK. And I suppose there's always For What We Drown, too, but that manuscript has a gaping hole in it at the moment. The first half of the book, I think, is fine; it just needs a futher round of edits to make it tighter. The second half is a mess. I basically chopped the first three chapters to pieces and started putting it back together, and then gave up. It also requires major editing throughout because I confused myself so much in terms of the world-building of Julia's home, and...yeah. It lost momentum and cohesion fairly early on. I still think it's an interesting story and in theory it ought to be salvagable, but...yeah. It depends on my mood, somewhat. I suppose, too, it's more likely to be picked up in New Zealand than anywhere else being that its first half is set primarily in Te Anau, but we'll see.

I really enjoyed the workshop, though. It had probably the best turnout I've seen for any workshop here in good ol' Invervegas, and the people were fun. I really hope a couple of them will come to the Chapter I meeting tomorrow night. I need to make some cupcakes for that, actually. Ah, cupcakes, my old foe...

But back to the workshop -- the two writing exercises were interesting, both in the writing and then in hearing what other people did. The first was just a warm-up from a prompt, and I rather liked what I came up with in the fifteen minutes or so. Strangely, for me, it was basically a finished piece. I have no idea how many words it was, but anything less than five thousand words is a miracle on my part. I think I will have to type it out and play with it, keep it for some future submission or endeavour or whatever. The second was a bit less successful; we were just writing to show how the world was different in the story. I ended up writing something from the point of view of one of the handmaidens of the Queen of Nylurea, but I actually started, info-dumped, and then started again. That do-over, though, was quite useful for me in that it did help me examine what I was doing and how it didn't work that first time around. I would like to finish it at some point, mostly because it gives me an insight into the Nylurean culture. I'm far more familiar with Sarinian culture, as it's primarily Sarinese characters that I write, but of course there are Nylureans present in most of the stories. And I'm still fascinated by Jeramie and his love for the once-queen Kiriana, so understanding more about how she grew up...is always useful.

I never did finish those short stories for submission this month, though. I was inspired during one of my walks today, however; I think I'll try for next month's Wily Writers submission, which is to do with post-apocalyptic worlds. I've got the song Pretend The World Has Ended stuck in my head, and there's definitely a story there. I'm just not sure which world it's set in. I think it's an entirely new one, to be honest; that's a little terrifying. Maybe it's the crimson moon? Certainly thanks to Henryk Górecki and Lamb the once-opal moon has a terrible and tragic history. It seems maybe the crimson does, too.

In the meantime, I think I shall try and stop eating this evening -- I'm in the midst of a food binge, unfortunately -- and write instead. I think The Juniper Bones might be calling my name; Morgan seems to be having a temper tantrum about something. Or maybe I am just thinking ahead to the poetry workshop tomorrow. The section of TJB that I am working on now is named the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew, and opens with a nice little extract from Ash Wednesday. It's the bit with the juniper tree and its bones, even! But even then, maybe that's not it; I was thinking at the workshop today that I need to go back to the CompuServe forum and spend more time there, and I was reminded of how I had shared some little bits of this novel with them and received such support. There's little bits of poetry scattered throughout my prose, given the way I write, and especially when Eliot is thinking of Lavinia...oh, yes. So I suppose we'll end with a little of that, shall we?

The warmth of her had become as familiar as the sound of the sea, as the rhythm of the waves against the stone waterways of the city from whence he had come. Though he had never been a creature of the water, in that place it had become the touchstone of this life. Yet, in the city of marble and light, he found his rest and his sanctuary instead in the nearness of her flesh, the openness of her heart, the touch of her spirit against his. It did not matter, that he had not been born here, that this was her city. By his very nature, he should never have a home – and then the sacrifice of the widow had rendered her as homeless as he, save for the asylum of one another.

It was enough.

With the careful hand of a musician, he traced a line from the curve of her jaw down to the hollow at the base of her throat, coming to rest upon the delicate collarbone above the beat of her heart. No, this place had never been his home, and now it would never be hers again. Yet she never showed him that she mourned the loss of her human life, and for all she sometimes worried aloud about when this life was done how they should meet again in the next, he knew that she did not regret it any more than he ever could. Of course she missed the widow, worried for her peace and her soul – but Vincenzio had leaned over the other woman’s body and seen at last the peace on her face as she died for the final time. In a strange way, for a moment he had almost envied her. Then he had turned to find Lavinia standing there, his bride and his wife, and he had felt no more regrets.

Still, he thought of the place he had rested for so long, in that world now denied him. Despite being aligned with the watchtowers of the south, with the element of fire, he had been most easily summoned in an unremarkable grove of trees deep in the northern mountains. Even in his new life, he could not explain why.  There had been other ways, other places where his spirit could be invoked. But he had liked those trees. He mourned still the loss of the star-lake, the heavy scent of the silver leaves, and the silent watchfulness of the Menhir to the distant centre of the world.

“What are you thinking of?”

Startled, he looked upward to meet the sleepy gaze of her blue eyes. He had not noticed her awakening. “The place from whence I came,” he murmured, and leaned forward to press a kiss to the skin where his fingers had lingered. Already her eyes flared, dark with desire, though she had barely escaped from her dreams.

“Do you miss it?” she asked, gentle as the memory of the sea. He sighed.

“In a way.”

“Will you ever see it again, do you think?”

“Perhaps.” He did not think so, for he remembered well the dark day of the Ending, when he and all of his kin had either been sent from the world, or enslaved to those it had been given to. Though those gods had by rumour lost that influence long since, he still did not think his own kind would ever have what had been theirs once more. He could not bring himself to say her name, to bring her into their marriage bed, but he suspected that had been the reason why the widow had no longer wished to live. Their purpose had been taken from them, and filled with so little in return. But he had found a new purpose, and he leaned close to again press his lips against the rhythmic centre of her eternal life.

“It was a strange world,” he said finally, and then looked up at her with gentle trust. “But that world is gone. And here I am.”

“And I am glad for it.” Her voice was suffused with rich pleasure as she tilted her head upward, brushed her lips over the brief stubble upon his chin. “But…could we go there?”

“I do not know.” His brow creased; he had not expected her to ever want such a thing. “Do you wish it?”

“Only if you do.”

The memory of trees was like a brand upon his mind. It was true – he did want it. Though the world had changed, had gone on without him, he could not help but wonder if those trees still reached for the sky in the shadow of the great Kaverlen mountains that had sulked upon the horizon since time immemorial. It would have been years since their Ending, but the trees had been touched by his own immortality. And even should they have at last curled in upon themselves, helpless before the grinding mill of time itself, their children would have sprung from their gravewood and reached for the same stars that had once been the jewels in their parents’ silver crowns.

“Shall I take you?” he asked, and touched a chaste kiss upon her forehead. But when he rose above her again, her grin had become wicked, a promise of a world in which no sin existed, save for the denial of love and the beauty it wrought deep in the fabric of their very beings.

“Take me, husband,” she whispered, and reached for him.

He started – but a smile swiftly followed on its heels. As he leaned forward into her touch, he thought ruefully upon her capacity to surprise him still. But then, it was only ever in all the best ways.

Heads Will Talk

I think we all end up writing somewhat to the beat of our actual lives, but I've noticed something the last couple of days. I've been struggling with Hibernaculum still, mostly because the more I try to untangle the ending the more frustrated I become, and the less effort I want to expend on doing so. Which is somewhat ridiculous, considering how much I love these characters and there's already one hundred and seventy five thousand words here. Quitting now is rather...self-defeating.

But then, taking control of things is not something that comes naturally to me. And ever since this year began, I've been called again and again to take control of things and in general? I've failed miserably. At the moment work has put me in the position of "control" again, which I absolutely loathe, and I am completely out of control in terms of what I am eating; tonight I exercised to the point of throwing up just to take back some of what I ate. And what does that have to do with my writing, considering between work, eating and exercising myself to exhaustion (and laughing myself sick over the Beastie Boys' new video), I haven't written anything? Well...

Yesterday, when I was still on the long weekend and therefore had time to write, I had the characters start to do something odd on me. Luchandra did it first, on Sunday, but Aleksandr followed suit -- they took control. And it's truly odd in that this story? Is a lot of talking heads. I'm not an action writer by nature -- The Juniper Bones is as close as I get, although that "action" is usually Eliot getting his ass kicked; in his and my defense, it's not always involuntary on his part -- so words are the weapons of choice, so to speak (CURSE YOU, CHRISTOPHER WALKEN). But it made me realise that a lot of my deeper issues with this story's ending came from the fact that neither Luchandra nor Aleksandr were doing anything. Which, given their situation, was not unusual. But for the story to have a point...they had to stand up. They had to take control. They had to fight! For the right! To paaaaaaaar--

...yes, we can see where this is going. Goddamn rappers!

But my point, as I said, was about taking control. And the fact that both Aleksandr and Luchandra are doing that gives me some hope, even as I get ever more frustrated by the tangled web I've woven here. I just want to finish this damn thing. And I suspect a large part of that is to do with the fact that if they can take control, maybe it'll teach me something about control in my own life.

We can but hope, I suppose.

"If you give this man a ride sweet memory will die."

I thought I had best come back and make an update on my long weekend writathon. I didn't get done yesterday what I had intended, but I'm still very happy with what I managed. I wrote out the scene in Hibernaculum that had been in my mind for so long, but I didn't touch the one from The Juniper Bones much beyond the first couple of paragraphs while wailing along with Jim on Riders on the Storm. But it was all okay, because I ended up working on Hibernaculum quite a bit instead.

I'm not sure what the wordcount of the .docx was before I really got going, but I'm sure it was about 167k or thereabouts; currently it's sitting at nearer 175k. Still not finished, of course, but the good thing is? I'm beginning to understand a couple of the characters a lot better, and that's been one of my primary issues with finishing the manuscript. Which is quite ridiculous for a self-confessed "character" writer, I know, but there's a reason for it.

Hibernaculum is a slightly odd story -- then again, what do I write that isn't? -- and switches back and forth between the third-person POV of two characters who are variations on the theme of "those the gods love, they sorely try." Not that we can be sure it's love we're on about, here. But these two lead characters -- Luchandra and Aleksandr -- have been in my mind in one guise or another since I was thirteen, and naturally they've changed a lot since those days. Luchandra, for instance, likely as not changed her name by deed poll from "Mary-Sue" in the earliest days of her conception, and Aleksandr...well, to begin with, he was Five Man Band fodder. Although it was actually a Twelve Man Band, hence the abudance of cardboard cutouts towards the end of the novel (which was called The Pool of Reflection, by the by; yes, you may laugh; I was thirteen years old, and had I the manuscript to hand I'd type out some of the more florid prose for your personal amusement, too). So, given Luchandra was the original protagonist and Aleksandr was just scenery, it's quite ironic that this far into Hibernaculum? It's Aleksandr who's the real person, and Luchandra who's a shadow.

Much as I love Luchandra -- and I do; the only character I still write whom I've known longer is Julia de la Mare -- I ended up developing an obsession with Aleksandr and his relationship with Araben Ceynamaan. This really messed with the balance of the story, because it meant I didn't pay enough attention to Luchandra's grief or her slow descent into her avatar state; it left her portrayal very hollow, not to mention it completely dicked with Zurin's character development as well because his glittering image is totally dependant on her reflecting it truly. The only character who didn't suffer for this, it seems, was Kavaan -- in fact he kind of got to shine, because he's turned from a trope-laden angsty arrogant warrior elf thing into a wryly self-depracating son of a diplomat with a mouth like a tightly-wound corkscrew. And I adore him.

So, even though I did work a little on Araben and Aleksandr's side of the story, it was really Luchandra and Zurin who spoke to me yesterday. And it was a conversation we needed to have. So, the first draft of the ghost philharmonic exists now, and it was a beautiful and peculiar scene to write. It deals quite strongly in one of my own personal issues, in that Luchandra loves music, but realises she will never be able to give voice to it herself with any true talent. Zurin has that talent, but that's not the only reason she comes to love him. It's not only that, though; in essence it's a love scene, but while it's not true non-con the issues of consent in it? Are hazy at best. Neither character actually wants what is happening at that moment, though they will make the choice for themselves later. But I love the interaction between the two, anyway; it's probably irony in play there, given the mortals are communing on an entirely spiritual level while the immortals are reveling in the base, bestial needs of flesh and bone.

I think today, though, I will work on The Juniper Bones. We'll see what happens there, as there are a series of scenes I could fill in the gaps of, in order to inspire myself to really take the entire manuscript in hand. It probably helps that right now iTunes is reading my mind and playing me Lavinia. I think, sometimes, that I'm just as obsessed with her as Eliot is.