notes - success and thoughts

WOO! And with that, folks, 50k has been achieved.

The late Thanksgiving this year nearly did me in - luckily, I'd built up enough buffer through the month that I was alright taking a day off, and sneaking in a few hundred words here and there between some family time. Yaaayyyyyyy.

So! Echoes in the Garden now has 84032 subplots! And some backstory sorted. A few new characters. But mostly, some plot, which it desperately needed.  Year 1 it got a setting and some pretty, year 2 it got a lot of characters, year 3 it got some storyline.  Well, moments of drama at least.  If I get them strung together a lil more nicely in the editing, I should be able to wring a plot out of them. ;)

I also didn't have to revert to too many dirty tricks to get the word count going - only a few passages of description-heavy nonsense, and way fewer song lyrics, ha.

Obviously, no, the story doesn't have an ending yet - wasn't planning to get to it this year anyway, since I still need to re-construct the elements into a better plotline before I can sort out what its resolution is going to be.  But I do have a few ideas on that front at least.  Which is major progress, ha.

Yaaaayyyyyyyy.

note - flowers and things

Summer:
Almond tree - hope
Rose - generally beauty, but tons of sweet and beautiful meanings, depending on the color and variety
Fall:
Trumpet flower - separation
Daphne mezereon - I desire to please
Cypress - mourning
Dittany - birth
Clematis - artifice
Nightshade - bitter truth
Colchium - my best days fled
Winter:
Snowdrop - consolation
Love Lies Bleeding—Hopeless, not heartless/amaranth - immortality

...I do have notes on some for spring, though I got caught up in other things and didn't add them in.  In case I do later:

Everlasting pea - wilt go with me?

Rosemary - your presence revives me

Peach blossom - my heart is thine

Pear tree - affection

So, yeah, that took some time to get out!  I'd had a general idea of the paintings, but uh... spent an awful lot of time looking at flowers and meanings, and putting thought into basically everything. At least it's not horribly awful to read, I don't think, for a first draft lol.

On endless loop for almost this whole section: "Hrafntinna", Sigur Rós.  Suited perfectly. <3

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 - links and flower meanings

Blaaarrrrgh.  I am intimidated by writing Meres.  (Not as much as Luce - who, luckily, is not a part of this story.)  Also, I have zero clue where that scene is going, thank goodness I hit my word quota when I did. xp I keep getting sidetracked and re-reading old bits from Amaranthus and the short stories I did around '06.  Which does help a bit with getting back into Meres' voice, but, his was always a little harder for me, because it's more of a default p.o.v. for me, as opposed to most of the other Grigori, who have particular personality quirks. Meres' quirk is an artistic eye, which, y'know, is basically my own.

Like Kimber, I have no talent at all for remembering/understanding men's fashion.  Drives me batshit, I have to look things up eeeevery time, and then try and find something I like, and find out whether it makes sense or not given the etiquette and random things like lapel width. ugh.  Today's resource: men's fashion in old photos.


Flower meanings (Meres may actually explain these, but, so that *I* remember what they are):

Peruvian Heliotrope - I love, devotion
Honeysuckle - the bond of love
Ipomaca (related to morning glory) - I attach myself to you
Pulmonaria - thou art my life
Yarrow - cure for heartache  

I'm mainly relying on the book Kimber picked up earlier in the story (whose chapter on flower meanings is here on Gutenberg), since every book lists different meanings, aaaand the website I used to use that compiled several of the books is no longer around. :\

Also, as I was looking up the spelling of chiaroscuro , I stumbled across this painting which I am now minorly obsessed with. Sacred and Profane Love, by Baglione.  (Sometimes also called other things, like heavenly love defeats earthly lust, etc.)

note - drama and failure

So, you know how Kimber was mentally exhausted after seeing Azal and Celestine?  Yeah, so was I.

That was NOT a scene I had planned.  I knew there had to be some kind of secret uncovered by visiting the carriage house, but I really had no idea what when she walked in there (obviously lol).  Finally, the thought of people coming back from a ride popped into my head.  And then the rest clicked into place, and some other things clicked into place (which might take some retroactive date adjustments in previous chapters, I'm afraid), and... well, there we were.  Azal wasn't going to let that scene go any other way.

Translation notes:
bella donna - Italian, pretty woman
ástin mín - Icelandic, my love
(...I'd actually rather have thrown in some Semitic language or another, but, I'm typing on a Linux-based laptop, and have enough issues with specialized Roman characters, wasn't even gonna try to get Arabic or Hebrew working right on there. And Google Translate doesn't do Sumerian or Akkadian yet, le sigh.)

So last night, I had NO idea where on earth to go or what on earth I was going to do.  But I had to let poor Kimber (and me) have a little breather.  So I tried...

...and then major U2 news broke on the internet and the Twitter-based fandom exploded, so, uh, kinda distracted lol.  Add just enough headache to break any real concentration ability, and I knew it was a pretty hopeless night.  But I wanted to at least "check in" with the story - and a little thinking about it and a few random idea prompts throughout today got me going again.

And then of course I hit an info-dump section, and now I've spent as much time sorting out details and timelines (which will probably change anyway) as I have writing. argl. I did have a decent timeline worked out, but, I keep throwing monkeywrenches into relationships, so it's messing with the original structure a bit!

Oh. And yes, Alison is more than a little based on my own little sister.  Sorry Mel.  Made for an easier wordcount boost. ;p

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 - characters and translation

So, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Mason was originally supposed to be Adrian, not Azal. WHOOPS. These are the things that happen when you lose your notes! But I think I'm going to run with it anyway, and make it work for Azal. Uh. Somehow.

WAIT.

I think I just had a really good idea. Because I was breaking my own continuity for his character, but maybe I don't have to.  That could work. Huh. Uhm.

Anyway. Spoilers. ;)

Alternately, it's not like they couldn't be using assumed names or something, if I can't make it work. (And if you're unfamiliar with Amaranthus, my other favorite NaNoNovel-in-eternal-progress, none of this matters anyway.)


Azal likes languages, and it's already pretty well established that these guys know a lot of them.  Bits in today's chapter:
"Tutto è andato" - Italian. All is gone, or everything went
"S'il vous plaît." - French. If you please, or please.
"Longa est vita, amor aeternus est." - Latin. Life is long, love is eternal.  (This came into the story last time I worked on it, thought I'd throw in a refresher. ;)

As is often the case, translations are courtesy of Google, because my characters know more languages than I do. If you happen to see I've screwed up the grammar or anything, please let me know! <3