The World Says Hello

I keep saying that I want to work on and finish the first drafts of Hibernaculum and The Juniper Bones before I do anything else, but I just keep poking at Greywater with the proverbial Great Big Stick. This is both good and bad, in that any writing is good writing, but it's feeding my bad habit of Never Finishing Aught. And I do need to work on finishing things. I suppose half the trouble here is that Greywater is simply more manageable, at least when it comes to the idea of eventual publication. The Juniper Bones is very long -- probably it's going to hover around the 300k mark, even when finished and edited -- and Hibernaculum is rather strange. None of them are easily classified, at least when it comes to their genres and whatnot, but those two certainly sit outside the norm. Argh.

With that said, I suppose it's not as if Greywater really slots easily into any category. You could call it a romance, in its way, given it deals very strongly in the strange relationship between a Major and a long-imprisoned water elemental (yeah, yeah, I have Belle and Sebastian in my head with Me and the Major, and it's irritating as hell). But I doubt I could pass it off as a true romance novel, given that a) it's written from the male protagonist's POV and b) the romance actually isn't the full point of the story. I thought it was in the beginning, actually, but I'm starting to discover that it really isn't.

Come to think of it, I'm intrigued by my POV tendencies. I'm a girl -- probably fairly obvious -- but I have a serious tendency to write from a male POV. I don't know what that says about me. Am I brainwashed by my culture, a culture that tends to say the voice of the male is the most correct and therefore ought to be the most dominant? I really haven't any idea, I just know that the stories I wanted to write were just best told from the perspective of characters who happened to be male. Maybe it's because I really came into my own writing-wise through fanfiction, and I was -- and still am -- a slash fangirl. But I suppose that's a quandary for another day. Another day when I actually have something finished and worth publishing, anyway. (Although let us note, for posterity, that Tea For Two, my first published story, is told from the wife's viewpoint. Not that this makes her particularly happy, let me assure you. But then we can count that as a nice bit of irony considering Lovecraft, the main inspiration for the piece, wasn't exactly a bra-burning feminist crusader. Ha ha ha.)

Still, the point of the entry wasn't to lament the fact that I can't even write within the boundaries of the romance genre to save my life -- it's far more traditional to be either the female or the female/male voice, and the latter still tends to be skewered to the distaff side -- it was more to talk about meeting new characters. Because although I have had the basic story of Greywater in my mind for probably a couple of years now, I've never really understood the nuances of what was going on. Basically, I knew that it was how Otho had met Círa, and explained why they were not really on speaking terms during The Neverboy. I also knew it had a lot to do with the beginning of the unravelling of Ryennkar Vassidenel, and how this would eventually ruin the heart and soul of Arosek Asfiye. What I didn't know, as it turns out, is that Greywater is actually about how a soldier deals with the way war moves in ways he cannot control, and how this affects the way he lives his life even as he struggles to keep himself alive in order to do so.

If that makes the slightest bit of sense.

This is all just relevant to me, mind, because I met Rylea yesterday. I'd known of her before now, but I'd never actually met her. She's Otho's first wife, and I knew from the beginning that she exerts undue influence on his life still -- I mean, the novel opens with him almost toppling himself out a window over an unexpected letter from her -- but I hadn't really expected the depth of it. The conversation between them that I just wrote? Hurt. And it's beginning to bleed through into his interactions with Círa, and is shaping their relationship in ways I didn't expect. It's wonderful, and frustrating, and confusing as hell. I'm also not really sure that her name is Rylea; it's sort of a placeholder right now, but there's still a reason behind the name. ...why yes, I was thinking of R'lyeh. And given how much trouble Rylea is causing me right now, it's fair enough to assume that it wasn't inaccurately given.

...I suppose I can but hope that now my mind is drifting towards the fascinations of non-Euclidian geometry, that my pet quantum mechanic Wills Penrose will speak up and get me back into The Juniper Bones before Rylea totally messes everything up. But knowing my luck, they'll just team up on me and make everything worse. I suppose that's just the hazard of the spec writer's profession...? ^_~

Acceptance

I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple of days, but life this New Year so far...well. It's taken some odd turns, that's for sure. My brother, whom I house-sit with, did something rather stupid on New Year's Eve that means I'm likely going to be house-sitting on my own in the near future, which stresses me out incredibly. And then work yesterday...was diabolical, and because of the situation that caused it? It's likely to continue that way for some weeks yet. So, even though I had intended to start the year afresh and relaxed, it ain't happening.

Still, one good thing has happened -- I got a rejection from the Crossed Genres submission, but my work with Mitzi on the Red Velvet and Absinthe submission? Has resulted in an acceptance! In theory, I will therefore publish my first short story this Northern hemisphere autumn. <3 It's...really quite surreal. I haven't quite processed it, I don't think, so...it's all very strange indeed. I also find it hilarious that my first acceptance is in the erotica field, of all things, but that's a long story. I blame it all on fandom, anyway. But...yes. I am laughing away, though, because I had an email from her asking for a professional bio for inclusion with the story. I...have roughly NO IDEA what to write. Being that I have no credits or credentials to speak of. <g> I'm tempted to just write "n00b" and be done with it, though that probably implies I know either 733t or hax0r culture, which is...totally not true. But yes, I find it ironic that the one-fifty word bio daunts me more than the six thousand word story I worked on to earn the opportunity to write the bio in the first place. Ha ha ha.

Still, even though I am not writing a lot at the moment, I am planning out my next submission monkeys. There's a Filament competition I've got a story already outlined for; it's a strange little take on a Scandinavian myth. And even though it's nothing to do with vampires, I at least partly blame Alexander Skarsgård's portrayal of Eric on True Blood for that. Although with that said, I had been thinking of a Nocturne Bite story involving either vardøgr or etiäinen, so...the näckrosor thing possibly isn't so strange. I'm also tempted to rewrite that myth in a darkly erotic way for another competition a friend flagged up, but we'll see. I'm also contemplating another Nocturne Bite submission...not really sure what I'm going for there, but it seems to be the fey and witches. Or something like that. I blame Gargoyles for that. Damn Puck.

So, yes, despite work driving me utterly up the wall I am hoping to work on some short stories for submission this month. It's likely a better idea than novelling, as novels involve a lot more concentration and continuous thought. The short stories...are far easier to pick up and put down as time permits. So, we'll see. Travis also asked if I'd try something for either Future Earth Magazine or the other e-zine, and I want to do something for Crossed Genres for February (mystery; I think I could rework Lies In The Land for that), so...plenty to keep me occupied -- and fulfilling resolutions!

But still. Finally, I got something accepted somewhere. It's a good start to the year for writing, if nothing else. <3