Onward

“Stream” sounds good. We’ll go with that. From my writing journal right after my friend pointed out the structural issues with my novels:

So Bly says I need to get more of Taro’s issues with his life in there early. He should know what he wants (she thinks) and that would make it clear from the beginning that the book is about his coming of age. And I think that could work. Then bring Eve to the hotel, so all the fighting can go on nearly at nonce, keep convo with Eve and maybe with Rafe but it’s not necessary…

But how to fix Eve? Oh, hell, I don’t even care about that right now. Get some practice at other stuff.

Okay. I need some sort of plan here. And I need to work out housework and Hope work and other stuff times. I need my control journal out here.

Hell with it, I don’t like my control journal. So I need an alternative. What might work? Just a hand-written routine? I like that. With other stuff…hmm.

Need a morning routine. No, I don’t. I’ve got mornings down all right. I need “stuff to do before going on computer” and “stuff to do before getting back on computer.” That seems reasonable.

I don’t want to be distracted by that right now, though. I want to think about fixing my writing.

I didn’t do it in Flame. But I’ve done it in every single book in Eve’s universe. Why is that?

Is it the serial format that works so well for me? Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could just make my living writing serials and posting them?

Yeah, dreaming. So. What I need to do. Fix Taro. Make it about his life, not just college, all along.

Oh hells I’m so sick of accomplishing nothing. I should at least blog my (no idea, that’s where I stopped writing. Next paragraph: )

Don’t have mom turn up at Kari’s. I could cut a LOT between Tolberra and Kari’s.

Ponder, ponder…

My plans crumble, ordination is my fate.
Re-writes unending loom like sequoias
while Real Life cackles glee and muses
jiggle the eight ball, seeking a better way.

Joss and Zeke are attacked. Zeke has Epiphany watching Joss. Next day to see Paige of and Zeke sends Joss too.

So if Eve book goes nearly straight from aftermath of getting Donte (I will not skip that) to Ben’s POV as Eve comes back to the ship with Taro…

And on and on, like that. Next paragraph is about fixing Rafe, then Donte, then worries about something else, then I have to go to bed…

Hey, be glad it’s this notebook. Otherwise I’d be scanning in my scribbled penguin, or the bandito snowman with crossed bandoliers and pistols on his “hips.”

I got new pens. Papermate PhD. I used to like Pentel RSVP, but at some point in the eternal pen exchange (for every five that disappear off my desk, a new one appears), someone left a PhD on my clipboard.

I love it, and the others I’ve bought, but I didn’t mean to go on about pens. It’s just turned out to matter a lot, because apparently my guys don’t want to work on the computer right now. I’m two thousand words into this new story and every one has been hand-written, then entered into the computer.

That’s just the beginning of what’s weird about this story.

It’s urban fantasy–not my thing at all. I don’t care for vampires, and I don’t have much of a fascination with the other staple monsters of the genre.

Seems this story is going to be pretty dark. Very odd for me.

It’s third person omniscient POV. “In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit. Not a dry, sandy hole–” (that’s as far as I can go without looking it up) Normally I write first person POV, where the story is told by one of the characters, or third person limited, where I sort of plunk the reader on one character’s shoulder and they experience the story from there. Either way, the reader only knows what the POV character does.

Not this time. I have an all-knowing narrator in this story, who goes in and out of people’s heads at will. It can tell things no one sees. If a tree falls in the forest–it knows.

It kind of freaks me out.

The names have changed. It’s now Fidelis who limped down that hall to help Gabriel. Other things have grown. Random girl-child whom I named Lexi because that was who I was talking to when I needed a name–she’s Naomi now. And there’s something very special about her. I just don’t know what it is.

I’ve decided this is a leap of faith. My muses want to know if I’m going to trust them, or if I’ll tell ‘em to sod off and stick to working and re-working the stuff I already know.

Here goes nothing. (I do, however, reserve the right to keep throwing bricks at them. They’re being obnoxious about the whole thing.)

Well, if you’ve hung around here a few months, you know there are two things that keep me from blogging–writing, and getting hit by a bus. Guess which it was?

I blame–oh, I forget who it was (because I can’t take personal responsibility, no). I was banging my head on my desk in frustration at the publishing thing (that whole thing about NOT being published? Yeah, that.) and someone suggested some short stories might get me some writing credit. So I was looking through my files seeking a short story or three I was certain were in there, and I came across character notes.

Character notes. Two simple words that cannot convey the power of what I stumbled across in that dank, dusty box, hidden away for who knows…okay, it was a computer file. In my living room. Which is frequently dusty, but rarely dank. And the file was created in August anyway.

So. Character notes. Back in August I got flattened by an image. That’s it. I saw a boy, fourteen or so, clinging to a railing and all bandaged up, determined to get where he was going. His name was Ayleo. And he had something to do with someone named Zord. And might be mute–or faking it. But no matter how I poked, that was all I got. So I put it down and put it away for later.

This week when I looked through my files, I saw that name. Ayleo. And I knew he wasn’t human.

My guys, I’ve said before, enjoy being mysterious. Obnoxious. Assholes. Alluring. (okay, they like to dance along ahead of me, dropping hints and clues that don’t make sense and laughing as I hurl bricks at them because I’m quite aware they know a LOT more than they are telling me.)

Not human. So what?

Never ask a writer, “so what?”

So…if he’s not human, what is he? Why does he look human? Is Zord human? Who is Zord?

Zord is at the end of the hall. Ayleo is trying to reach him.

Why?

Oh, now you’ve opened up a can of worms. He’s fourteen and injured, it can’t be ’cause I want to write smut. Maybe…Zord is hurt worse than he is?

So what?

Ayleo needs to help Zord. They’re partners.

Sorta.

And on, and on, and on. ‘Cause I’ve trained my brain like that, and my guys were luring me on with hints and pictures, and there’s nothing better than a new story when you’re fed up with the old stuff.

Yeah, so it’s my own fault after all.

Guess what I’ve been doing all week.

moar funny pictures

It’s my Christmas present to me. But I opened it early. (Katami told me to.)

So I get to share my artwork. Aren’t you lucky?

If you can’t tell it’s a peach…well, I know I need practice.