note - Meres and writing

I didn't realize going into it how awkward it was going to be for Kimber and Meres to be talking together.  She sounds SO lame and silly and...well, dumb, actually, compared to his much more elaborate and elegant speech.  (Made even worse once I went back and re-read some of Amaranthus again for awhile to get his voice into my head - the entire story is in the voices of my Grigori, which is... a very different voice from a normal person in the present day!)

...is that fact that I am 43902 kinds of in love with Meres showing much? lol. Inevitable. But I hope... I recently read Grounded by Heather Ordover (of the Craftlit podcast fame), and I fell completely in love with one of her characters.  And as I was reading it, I was paying more attention to the writing than I often do (because I could relate a lot to her style and content, so was trying to pay attention to how she made things work).  And I could tell by the way she wrote the character, that she's completely in love with him too - so in reading it, I couldn't help but feel the same way.

At least I think so.  Either that or she and I are just both suckers for mysterious boys with unexpectedly sweet/humorous sides and floppy brown hair.  Which is also entirely possible.  (I might still tweaking some fanart of Casey.)

Anyway.  Meres.  <3  It surprised me, actually, how light and sweet and happy he is here - there's a brightness that I hadn't expected him to have found.  But I know he's happy in this little world he's created with Celestine...and I'm happy to see him that way.

// This section is irrelevant to readers of this story. //
That said: I've been battling in my own mind about the possible conflicting timelines between this story and Amaranthus.  (Obviously, they don't HAVE to actually work together, but I kind of want them to.  I could have the characters be someone else, but... I don't want to lol.)  I think I'm going to have to go back and change some dates in the editing anyway, the kids' birth years and Celestine's death aren't going to line up right currently.  I'd originally thought this story took place after Amaranthus, but I don't think it does - I think it's actually before.  And it's the sorrow and frustration and everything that Meres and Azal have here that eventually sends them back to hang out with their cohorts in London.  Azal takes a break back in the desert for awhile first.  I'm not sure how I'm going to rationalize the fact that they'll be friends again in Amaranthus - in re-reading, it's clear that they're on very good terms - but despite their selfishness, deep down, these characters have a lot of sympathy for each other, and Meres especially.  Puny humans? No forgiveness, no mercy.  But among each other?  What they've gone through is so infinitely much worse than anything they could do to each other, it just slides away like water.  Not only do these things pale in comparison, but their history excuses just about anything they do - as a result of the fear, or the loneliness, or in avoiding the pain, or distraction, or some seemingly innocuous thing triggering a deeper memory...

note - unexpected and wordcount explosion

So, the whole bit in yesterday's post where Meres shows up? COMPLETELY UNPLANNED. She walked into the gallery, started looking at pictures (content which I shamelessly snagged from the YWP's Dare Machine), and then... and then.  It was terrifying and wonderful and really hard to write, actually, that photo of Meres formed in my mind and I just... I had to keep pausing while writing, which is a little unusual with a scene that intense, normally I'll just blast right through it.  But my heart was breaking and I had to keep stepping away to breathe.

This is the miracle of NaNoWriMo. <3

Today was the NaNoThon - combination fundraising/wordcount-boosting day.  Most years, this has gone largely uncelebrated by me, but there was soooo much going on via Twitter all day that it actually kinda felt like a holiday to me.  I really felt like I was write-in with the whole internet all day, it was absolutely lovely.  (Also, I was smart, and took a notebook over to the beach to sit and write somewhere else for awhile.  Got a day's worth done there!)  I've been writing on and off since finishing work today, and it's been awesome to spend such a good chunk of time in the world of the novel.

Oddly, I've been writing scenes out of order a lot this year.  The (upcoming) scene with Mary was written before the one with Anna, simply because it popped into my head more clearly first.

Half of the things that went down (and most of the metaphors/similes!) in the scene with Anna were inspired by random flashcard word-prompts from a brief livestream by the NaNo folks.  A bit of random input always works well for me.

Head's up, today's chunk IS A DOOZY.  My goal was to write 3334 (twice the normal daily allotment), and I'm currently a bit over.  Not posting yet because I may add some more to it before the day's out, just because.  I have my pirate hat on and busted out some typing-mitts, so it has been a wordcount-beefing kind of day.

Plus I love scenes with Mary.  She cracks me up. <3

note - beginnings and resumings

I'll start getting the blog prettified soon - I know it's dull and drab and link-less and wordcounter-less right now. But I had a loooot of re-reading to do (once I finally decided I was doing this, and what I was doing)...

Using a different word processor than usual, thanks to Mr Husband putting a "better" Linux onto my laptop. (Those quotes are there for a reason.) Haven't decided if it's gonna work, but, I found a built-in word count, so that's helpful at least.

Still thrown by doing NaNo when it's 80-some degrees outside. Too warm for all my typing-mitts!  But fine for NaNoWriMo t-shirts.  Luckily, a pack of dark stormclouds showed up just as I set in to start writing tonight, so that at least made me feel a little better. Rain would be fantastic.

Feel free to buddy me on the NaNo website (Ananda Daydream) or follow me on Twitter (@anandadaydream)!  I'm not foreseeing any major thwarts to my writing plans this month - nothing much on the calender, anyway, and the shops have slowed down for the season - buuut writer's block never needs a reason to show up.  Luckily, in my re-reading, I made insane amounts of notes (as you may've noticed), and was able to find a few loose threads I can pick back up if I get stuck.  And an awful lot of the music Kimber had been listening to is still on my Zune - though I'm not sure I'll be able to avoid her adding some Sigur Rós and/or Jónsi to that list this year. (Finally caught a concert last month, and I'm 74302x more in love than ever.)

Super grateful to the me-of-two-years-ago for having left off smack in the middle of a scene with a chatty ten-year-old. x)

notes - intro

Helloooooo, it is very-nearly-November and I decided, uh, two days ago what on earth I was going to be doing.  I pulled a NaNoRebellion last year and churned out a drawing each day - which was fantastic, I'm actually still riding on that motivational kick-in-the-pants.  But I did miss the writing, getting lost in those worlds, and I have two stories I really want to get finished someday.

I'm also still on serious highs from the concerts I've been to in the past year, so, y'all have had a narrow escape from some kind of ridiculous rockstar story. (For now. I haven't totally ruled that out as a future plot - I wrote some not-totally-irredeemable short stories in that vein years ago.)

PLOT. Ha. Funny we should mention that.

I spent an entire evening curled up with No Plot, No Problem! and 20 Master Plots and how to build them, trying to sort out where on earth I could take my stories in a productive direction. Naturally, at first all I was doing was ticking off, "yep, that plotline is Meres and Veri! yeah, that one's definitely Azal..."  Because these characters never really leave my psyche.  So I nearly went back to Amaranthus by default.  But I wanted to work on Echoes in the Garden, which has an awful lot of things I like, but doesn't have much by way of plot movement.

At least I thought it didn't.  I've re-read about a quarter of it now, and it's a little less tedious than I thought it was. YAY.  (I've also discovered its soundtrack overlaps quite a bit with what's currently on my Zune anyway, so that works out nicely.)

That said, we still need an antagonist.  So I have an easy one that I'm going to throw into the mix, and then we'll see what happens from there.  I don't have a whole lot of plans cemented for the story, but I have enough little bits to get me rolling, and I know the story will invent some things on its own once I'm back there. <3  We're definitely going to need to delve into Meres and Celestine more, because I still have no idea their purpose in showing up for Kimber.  Actually I still have no idea what anyone's purpose is, apart from satisfying her curiosity and motivating her to draw/live.  Which is nice and all, buuut not really enough of a plot for a whole novel.

Still working on that one. le sigh.