Shadow Letters

I finally got Shade and Shadow and Letters printed out and i took it to work and i went through the whole thing and did some work to it.

It's funny.  I have Shade already started to be Smashed... i thought it was ready to go, but even now,  having read through it eleventy-seven times and doing how many revisions, i'm still making more.  Of course, now with the second one there are things that need to be tweaked  just-so so they match up with the later story.

And Letters... i've read through it on the computer a thousand times and thought it was nice and done, and i wouldn't have to do much to it.  boy was i wrong.  Not only edits and elaborations and pretification but one of the letters themselves.  Completely wrong.  assigning an attribute to the wrong sister.  read it a thousand times, never noticed it before.

Sometimes i'm such a dunce.

So now i suppose i should go get some coffee this coming sunday and apply revisions to at least one of them. 

It feels good to half-cross out one of those things on my to-do list for 2013

Things, Things, Things

Let's see.  To start, it's the 14th day of Nanowrimo and I've only thought of it once or twice and never with regret.

I've been working hard on The Prophet.  I got to another stopping point and i'm dying to dive back in but i know it's not time yet.

I tried to also force myself to find a third story in between Shade and Shadow and Letters, but i think it doesn't have to be there.  i think the uncumbersomeness of the whole thing is better than weighing them down with what would just be something that is expressed i think well in Letters.

i printed out a copy of it for my grandparents.  extra large print so grandpa doesn't have trouble reading it.  he mentioned he might feel up to start reading his books again, after his long bout of eye pain, and i figure i can give him something a little shorter to read too.

i should probably send it to my dad too. i can't remember if he read the first one now... he must have.

anyhow.  I've also figured out some mroe little nitpicky things within the Guide/Prophet connections and i've also been thinking a little bit about how to maybe work a bit of Daniel's pre-prophet years among the stories on the space ship.

She is the sword, he is the crown.  i must remember this.

Distressed and Rambling

It's not even the lack of time that i use as my excuse.  It's my doubtfullness.

I worry that, in the end, the conflict of the second story, The Prophet, is weak.  And without that story, there is nothing else.  The first one's only there to set it up.  The third one is only there to set up the fifth but cannot exist without the second...

I guess it's what i've been tryign to work on, since i am rewriting it all over again.  The other four grew out of what it was supposed to be, not what it was.  i fear my foundation is shaky...that there are plot holes i can't seem to fill.

Maybe, though, i can blame the time.  because when do i really have any time to sit down and thnk about it?

i have beautifully terrifying outlines and post-it notes everwhere.  i need a sabbatical.  but captioning assistants don't get those.

and i know that's why i've been so focused on Eillim and Enna lately in their little stories.  because they entwine with but are not dependant upon the main, treacherous bodies.  Chapter Eleven of the The Pilot revolve around them but with a little editing i could pull it right out and the twins could exist free entirely of the insanity of the Ankaverse.

...and now that i've said that, i wonder... could i pull it out in such a way as to still leave it in (god, i hate myself) the same span of time, from their point of view...

i just don't like the gap of information between Shade and Shadow and Letters, some of which exists in Chapter Eleven.  i'd like to put them Smashwords.  still waiting to hear back from glimmer train on whether or not i continue with the process for Third Bed...

in other news, i watched The Avengers again tonight.  i still think that it is better than the sum of it's parts.  i loved it more than i loved Ironman and I. Love. Ironman.  i have a very meh feeling about all the rest of them (you know, except for that hot thing.  i am still a girl)... i always expect Captian America to yell "Flame on!"  one guy really shouldn't be two superheroes...

but when they all come together and they each have their own seperate personality and joss whedon is fabulous... yeah.  i love the avengers.

The Meryl Streep-athon

I don't know if it can really be called an "-athon" but that's what i'm calling it.  i made the list of all of her movies that came from books.  here's the list:

Kramer vs. Kramer - Avery Corman
The French Lieutenant's Wife - John Fowles
Sophie's Choice - William Styron
Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen
Ironweed - William Kennedy
Evil Angels - John Bryson
Postcards From the Edge - Carrie Fischer
One True Thing -Anna Quindlen
The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean
The Hours - Michael Cunningham (ha! that's my cousin, sort of)
The Manchurian Candidate - Richard Condon

That list does not include Julie and Julia and The Bridges of Madison County (both of which i've read but not seen) and The Devil Wears Prada, which i've both read and seen.  Sophie's Choice i've seen but not read.

So, now i have to track down all those books.  i don't know which one to do first... but i should probably start carrying the list around with me so when i go to the book store i can find the books.  i couldn't remember all those authors' names if it was my life depending upon it.

In other news, Smashwords!!  The Third Bed is almost completely reformatted to be uploaded.  wait, scratch that.  it's completely converted and ready to go, except for the cover photo.  i'm hoping my cousin (not the sort of cousin from above, the other one) will do me a cover page, and that will be awesome.

I like that i started with something simple like The Third Bed because i just had to do the formatting and i also managed to learn some stuff about my new Word program that i didn't know before.  because everything got changed and moved and i couldn't find jack shit.  But since it's a short story and there was no italics or chapter breaks or font changes or anything crazy like that to deal with it was a quick conversion.  Shade and Shadow is five chapter with breaks within the chapters.  all that shift-shimmer shit is gonna drive me crazy.

but i have a background with which to start and not pull all my hair out... at least not immediately.

A Short Stretch of Freedom

Because the husband's grandfather died plus the wedding we were going to this weekend i have taken the entire week off work.  10 days total.  i'm on day 3 and already i feel it's going too fast.

i'm not doing much story work, though i have all this time.  I don't have the vacation from the real job to cover all the hours i'm missing, so i have to make it up with the at home job.  but, as always, i am not angry about this.

I did actually spend some time working on the Pilot the other day.  more like scribbling in margins and whatnot.  i really am still very disappointed by the awfulness of the story.  every time i would open my locker at work and see the binder it's in i would tell it so.  So Disappointed!

ah well.

the title of my last post: Letters From the Desert, i realized later that's probably gonna be the title of the Shade/shadow sequel.  i'm a little worried about it... not only is it coming out of me slowly but the story itself is moving slowly.  with the first one moving so fast i thought i'd want the second one to match.  but they're both older now... much older.  so maybe it's the right thing to go slow.

Caterwauling

the story has gone caterwauling, bouncing off the walls of an empty room and i sit in the middle of the floor thinking to myself, "I don't feel like chasing you anymore."

that's the signal. it's time to move on. i really like the way i'm doing it now. working a little here, a little there, till something draws me away. it doesn't get forced.

but what do i want to work on next? The Pilot is the logical choice, it's the only one that hasn't been looked at yet. but i would also like to get both Shade and Shadow and Third Bed on Smashwords. and there's always the two past years of unfinished Nano stories. I'd love to see more of Darbin and Dax, but then again, i want to know what Vincent does with his books...

decisions, decisions.

Sorta Stressed

oh man. i can't find it. i don't know how to introduce sol and jo before their introduction.

i know i'm pushing to hard. i know i just need to dream on it. it'll come to me. one morning i'll wake up and i'll know. like the morning i knew the names Kalen and Dartia for the Spaceship story. Or the tree situation for the Monstroscity. or how Svanir's name in Shade and Shadow came to me as if it were fated to always be that name. as if i wasn't writing the story at all, only transcribing it from the whispers of some unseen muse. it isn't my story at all, i just have to wait on it to come.

but i don't wanna. i'm impatient.

maybe i should work on something else for a while.

in other news i just finished my reread of The Host by Stephenie Meyer. Where i hate the Twilight catastrophe, i do love this story. cuz it's about aliens. and it's got some interesting viewpoints. and there's no creepy abusive vampires. there's a few whiney piney girlie parts but not so overwhelming as Bella. and there's only a couple exchanges of "I need to protect you" "no, i need to protect you" "No, I need to protect you!" no one needs to protect anyone, just get on with the story already.

but no. it's a good book. which is why i read it again.

what to read now?

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 4

What the heck is going on here? Not only have I been writing crazy fast (surpassing my 2272 personal daily word goal the first three days) but i've also had time to browse through the Nano forums which i've always wanted to be part of, but never have. And this is all happening while i have two jobs plus small baby child to deal with.

Its like the days got longer or something.

anyway. the things i'm finding in the forums! There's this: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/restlesslyrandom my profile page for Smashwords where i can get PAID for things i write and post if people buy them. And do i really want to be paid? no, i just want people to read my shit. Maybe it's because of Little Women... Jo's success that's got me all fired up to get things done and out there. cuz they need to be. the first thing i really wanna publish is A Study of Shade and Shadow. i just love that one so much.

Also, there's this which makes me weepy with delight: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php Software that you can use to sort and resort and fix long documents. Something i've been wishing existed because the prequel and the monstrocity are basicly a disaster. i would love to just put all the pages i have printed and scribbled and reordered onto a very large bonfire and laugh. Laugy a crazy lady laugh as i watch it all burn.

(Thank you Blogger for autosaving my posts! i almost lost this one!)

The story is running along nicely, i think. a character i didn't know existed when the book started showed up at a party i didn't intend for her to be in. I'm wondering if there's more to her than i originally thought. it would explain her restless and intrusive spirit. she really tripped me up today, which is why i wrote less than i intended. i'll get over it though. because i'm almost to the important discussion between Vincent and Charleston that i've been plotting for weeks. this is where the story starts to take shape. everything up until now has been setting the scene. i'm ready to move forward!!

A Task

I've thought of a way to work myself back up to it. I want to go back to my very first copy of Third Bed and redo my edit - with almost none of the suggestions from the Scribophile members.

I have really not been back since before nanowrimo but i only sort of want to go back. I feel like i got more critques on my STYLE rather than important suggestions on like story line, grammar, overall understandability. all they wanted was more dialog.

maybe some of them should read some Jane Austen, some Robin Hobb, Terry Brooks, even sometimes some Stephen King. books with huge paragraphs of delicious narration and dialog only when it needs to be there. that dialog thing really bugged me. i dont like it. i dont like writing it, i don't like transcribing it once its written. i dont like anything about it. i use it when i need it most.

I do want to put Shade and Shadow up on scribophile, even though i don't want to go back. but now that i know how people are i can ignore all their idiotic remarks and focus on the informative ones. But that's jumping ahead. first i must print my very first copy of Third Bed (I there must be a version of the original or as close to it as comfortable somewhere)... sit down with it and see what happens.

And i really do want to revisit those two characters. i hearted them very much.

Artemis

that damned door in my head!! its like an old todash door, off its hinges and echoing chimes through the entire hallway. it makes me woozy and i have to force myself to concentrate on something else in order to not be sucked in, because the monsters beyond that door will devour me.

in order to keep myself distracted from idle thoughts about the new story snippet mentioned in the last post and supposedly forgotten about, i have been working on the series of short stories that i'm just calling the Apocolypse stories (Though i should go back and make sure i didn't call them something else earlier... note to self...). They will include the coffee maker story that i wrote earlier as a writing prompt. So far i have 3 additional stories that are linked, though not directly. One has been sitting in a state of edited limbo, and i may have even mentioned it before. I'm calling it Artemis cuz that's the main characters name. easy peasy titling there. The two additional stories are written but not typed and both sort of fun. i'm really getting a feeling for this world.

yet i still hear the chimes...

Today at the coffee shop i have edited Artemis and i'm gonna post it on AD since i haven't posted anything there since i finished Shade and Shadow. I cleared the stats for that once chapter 5 hit 150 and the others were in the high 200's. i've been watching them still while they're not new anymore and its funny the way numbers 2, 3, and 5 have so many more views that 1 and 4. i suppose those are the best chapters, though i like 4 better than 5. the foxen is more interesting in that one.

so here's the link to Artemis: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=49069 now i have to leave the coffee shop cuz i've been here forever. It took nearly a million years to edit that thing. Plus i was distracted by a chat on Facebook... it happens.

The End of Shade and Shadow

I posted the last part of shade and shadow this morning before my two lady friends came to town to take me to my late birthday lunch. Knowing I wouldn't have time to go to the coffee shop today to do the final edit I did the bulk of it a few days ago, though in the shower before I posted I came up with one little thing that I felt needed to be changed - so I ended up going through the whole chapter again just to be sure everything was the way it needed to be.

And then I went to Author's Den and started loading everything into the posting format and I started to get the worst butterflies. It was crazy my gut was just full of nervous flutters. I didn't feel anything like that when I posted the first parts but this is the END. The end is the last part. The end is never the most important part, but it is the last thing you remember. and since this was such a short story and I've been getting good hits on it on the site i certianly didn't want to disappoint.

I didn't want to write a Stephen King ending. (btw, I LOVE the obnoxious King endings - not bashing a thing here!)

What I hope most is that my method, my format is not as visible to readers as it is to me. But that is the same as anything you make yourself and put out into the world. The only thing you see are the bad points because you are so familiar with damned inch of it. But it was my first attempt to write a story to fit a format and I simply do not want the ending to be anti-climatic or just plain stupid.

I don't believe it will be an obvious outcome, but also not unexpected because i do love a good paradox. Good does not win out over evil in the end, no one really wins anything. No one really wins anything ever. the circle just keeps turning...

The Full View

This post is specifically for any new readers coming from Author's Den. I will be posting a link back here from the last chapter of Shade and Shadow, but in a way I would really like to put a lot of this stuff down too. Rehash it for myself because it always clears out cobwebs, new epiphany sprouts in the idea garden and the like...


Shall we go chronologically? since that is the way we like it best AND it starts with Shade and Shadow which is where new readers are coming from and future me will be promising information!!


A Study of Shade and Shadow


Enna and Eillim are old characters and not so much characters as Alter Egos. If my mother had won my name would have been Millie, and my aunt always wanted to be Anne. One night names were written backwards and suddenly we were different people that we masqueraded as on a writing site where i'm sure everyone who knew us, knew it WAS us, but it was just so fun.

E&E faded into the background for a long time, until i watched Gray Gardens and also probably saw Practical Magic in the same span of time. I am a fan of sci-fi, and that is what i write so i turned these practical real world crazy women based loosely on my aunt and myself with thick influence from all the ladies in the movies mentioned above into witches. I wrote E&E into a story which you will read about later - The Spaceship Story - and they were fabulous. i loved them so much that i edited that one first draft chapter over and over until it was top quality while the rest of it hasn't even been typed up into my cpu yet.

My aunt texted. She said that she had run across the phrase "Analysis of Shade and Shadow" and thought it should be a title for a story i could write since i am notoriously unable to title a damn thing. It instantly inspired me to write a short story... i knew exactly what about. Starting with a title, which i modified so it wouldn't seem so scientific, (btw i love bloggers autosave as i just accidentally closed my window!!) i ended up creating a very specific plot layout, with an entire EFFECT in mind. It was really interesting to build something that way, when i usually just let it flow and see where it takes me.

there's all sorts of fun little anecdotes about the story i could tell you but i just don't have the space, but you can probably find them spread throughout other posts, if you care to read on. But i really did like creating a religon and faith based mostly on cataclysmic events in the land the people lived on.

The Prequel

"Named" as such because i am writing it second, after the Nameless Monstroscity, which comes next. I am currently working through revisions on this story that tells the story of Anka and Loki in their early life, their meeting and Anka's struggles to leave her old scary life behind. it explores all of her early relationships and introduces my oldest favoritest characters to each other. I had originally included much of this story in the Monstroscity but it became exactly what i called it. It got too heavy and i decided to go back in time and tell it in 2 parts instead.

This one is interesting to write because i already have an end point in sight. I have to keep in mind main plot points from the second story so that key things link up, and I also have to keep track of all the things i have decided to change in the future to fit better. Interesting and frustrating. and daunting. I love this story very much because i love meeting younger versions of my characters, as i have just reexperienced with E&E.

The Nameless Monstrocity

which is little by little getting smaller and better. Though i haven't worked much on it except to write countless post-its with ideas of changes and additions and removals.

This story introduces Daniel Mccaffrey who is my show stealer. every time i introduce him into a story he takes it over as his own. i believe he is the reason the monstroscity got so large and i found it so difficult to include Anka's back story. I was too busy with the forward story. The forward story of what actually happened in Anka's past and also setting the stage for Daniel's future. Like Shade and Shadow i think it deals a lot with religion and god and in a lot of ways it is how i view higher powers. I didn't plan it that way when i was writing it, but when i finished it i saw that there WAS something i was actually saying - rather than just making up a story.

The Spaceship Story

cuz it spends much of it's time on space ships. i'm a star trek freak. i love firefly and the bbc show red dwarf and there's a little bit of each of them in my characters - as well as influence from a million other places in other ways. This i started as a short story with the intention of only introducing the crew of the Orbiter so that i could use them later with something i wanted to do with Daniel as he searches for his sister - which is his main goal throughout even the first story.

But then i actually introduced everyone to daniel and suddenly there was more story. Daniel stole the show and I did, in time, realize that this was a good breaking point between the ending of the Monstroscity and the beginning of The Sequel. though he doesnt really need it - egomaniac that he is - it develops his character further and makes him more mature for those later events.

I got stuck halfway through this one - totally didn't know what to do. So i started The Connector for Nanowrimo and the ending for this story developed at the same time. The 'foe' of the two stories are the same and writing the connecter enabled me to figure out how to finish the Spaceship story.

The Connector

Chronologically this one actually begins sometime during the prequel - and it is sort of a stand alone story - taking place in a different part of my universe, under a different government and everything. It involves the story of Carrie Mccaffrey, Daniel's sister, who disappeared when she was 16. she is now going by her middle name - Jo - and has been a captive of the same individuals who appear in the spaceship story as i just mentioned.

In a way i had an end point in this story in mind as well. I had already had little epiphany images of Daniel and Jo's first reunion, as well as some of the things that would happen as he went through his search... but other than that i had no idea what was going to happen. Thought it was a Nanowrimo story i nearly stopped halfway through when i saw where my antagonist was going and i didn't want to finish it. i liked all my characters too much to want to do the things to them that i was about to. It was sort of the hardest story to write, but in the same way Turinax, my bad guy, may be my favorite bad guy of all time. Though that's a tough call. I really love Jubal Early.

The Sequel

i have been planning out this one since i finished the 3rd draft but as you can tell, the sequel is no longer the second story. I can't call it anything else until i name it for real because then i won't know what i'm talking about. This story takes place about 4 years after the monstroscity, perhaps about a year after the spaceship story. It brings Anka and Daniel together for his search for Carrie and this is really the last story i have a solid plan for.

With carrie comes Spencer and i think he may have been what i was working towards all along, which would be coincidental if i could only tell you the story!! for a long time i thought it was Ronan, Anka's son, but i don't think so anymore. Stuff like that happens sometimes. I once wrote a whole piece where Anka dies at the end... it turned out it wasn't anka's scene - i just hadn't met the right character yet...

Artemis & Buddy

Buddy the coffee maker from Coffee Companion es-245 and Artemis from a yet unnamed and unposted story exist in the same post apocalyptic world, though i don't have everything worked out yet about what i want to do with it. I believe i want to write a bunch of disconnected short stories that in the end introduces spencer into the world that he'll save... or not... we'll see

The Spencer Story

All i know is i think i want to tell it in first person - whereas everything else is in 3rd. I've got little idea nuggets but gosh i've got so much to do i should just stop thinking about it.

I should also stop typing cuz this post is crazy long and no one is ever gonna read it anyhow. but if you have gone through my entire epic layout and are still interested - holy crap. also, look around some more, and for god's sake encourage me. I think i'm a bit bogged down!!!

8 days

in 3 days i will be 26. in 5 more i will be sitting at a craft fair hopefully selling everything i have made and brought with me. I will eat a whole bag of pretzels and probably drink my body weight in diet coke and have a full day of girlie fun with my two favorite girls in the world.

I finally got my first comment on Shade and Shadow on Author's Den. I have been watching the stats closely to see how many hits it gets every day but I can never be sure if people are reading - or just clicking through. I click through, but not before attempting to read what I'm looking at. There are a lot of people on Authors Den who don't give a shit about formatting or editing. If you give me a block of text or too many passive verbs in the first paragraph I move on.

but a comment means it was read. And she said she was excited for the next one. The next one was meant to be posted on this coming monday which is my birthday day and i will be headed back home to hang out with mi familia. so i went to the coffee shop today to edit chapter 3 so i can post it first thing in the morning monday before i head home.

back to the stats - because i had more to say on that subject... chapter one of the story was the most popular in the fantasy catagory for a while, and that totally rocked. I think it must update weekly, or maybe bi-weekly, but as of yesterday chapter 2 was the number one and chapter 1 was number 5. I noticed that after chapter two was posted the stats on 1 started to go up even faster. Chapter 1 has been up longer so it has more hits, but chapter 2 is slowly creeping up behind it in hit totals.

i wish i would have been making a graph, cuz that would have been cool to look at. but i hardly have time to shower and breathe with all the crafting and craft fair preperation i've been working on. I haven't done much writing at all, though my mind is always working through kinks in one story or another. I am regretting that weekend 3 weeks ago where i spent most of the time playing video games. I'm such a fucking slacker sometimes!!

monday monday

edited shade and shadow part 2 and put it on the internets. link!! http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=48458

it didn't take very long at all and as i reread i feel sorry for the readers cuz its a nice cliff hanger Lost style - where nothing was really revealed and you have to wait a WHOLE WEEK to get to the next part. HA!! i realized just after i shut down my computer at the coffee shop that i should have also gone through chapter three because next monday is my birthday and there will be no coffee shop for me cuz i'll be doing the birthday thing. so i will have to get that edited so i can post it first thing monday before i leave for home.

anyhow i have to go for my walk now and then do laundry and then do clown pants and somewhere in there i should probably find something to eat cuz while functioning on coffee and diet coke makes you type really super fast!!!!! it does not keep you from dying.

Since my last post...

here is a list of things i've gotten done since my last posting:

1. ate a lot of bacon

2. played a lot of Dragon Age instead of writing, crafting or walking.

3. I took Shade and Shadow to work and did a final edit on it. It didn't take very long at all, and I was also able to edit the short story I had written the day before

4. I wrote a short story, as i just mentioned. It is linked up with the Coffee Companion story. I have decided to write a collection of stories from different points of view on the world where this unknown disease has created zombie like creatures. It ends with the famous (at least in my head) line 'my name is spencer mccaffrey, i'm here to help' which is one of those things that pop into my head and a whole freaking story is created out of it

5. I brought Shade and Shadow to the coffee shop and put the edits in and posted the first chapter on Authors Den!!! I am going to post the rest of the 5 chapters over the next 4 mondays and I really do want everyone in the world to read it. so read it: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=48370

i don't know if there is anything else worth mentioning. i have to go home now and i am supposed to make clown pants, but i think instead i'm going to watch a girlie movie and make a windchime because i just dont feel like sewing... there is a craft fair coming and i'm nervous excited and wish there were about 6 more hours in the day so i could craft more and write more, because the writing has been lacking latey. sad.

its done

shade and shadow that is, and not the whole thing, just the first stab at editing.

and here i was thinking that i hadn't yet finished the revisions.

i bet i even blogged about it.

i just cant keep a single thought in this pretty little head...

Vacation is Over :(

This morning i finished up the first revision of Shade and Shadow. I had wanted to use it to submit to the main street rag's novella series. Turns out it is too short. I pondered writing the rest of the story, Eillim and Enna's second encounter with their gods, but this occurs after much of the rest of my stories. Their savior ends up being a boy who is as of now a newborn. I think for him to show up and rescue them without the reader having any idea who or what he is would seem almost contrived and confusing. So I won't write it.

or maybe i'll still write it and then just let it sit until it is ready to be used. Because I know all about little baby Spencer and what he is and what he's meant to do. I can write it for me. I like writing.

So next week it will be back to the Prequel. I'll let Shade and Shadow sit for a little while and do the final review and then start putting it up on AD.

gotta go to work today. I'll finish Graham Greene's The Comedians and I'll have to decide what other book to take. What do I feel like reading?? or do I feel like writing??

Sleeping With the Band

I wouldn't, not the band i'm talking about. it wouldn't work. it'd either be really REALLY gross, or i'd get bitchslapped by one of the girls who do the rest of the sleeping with the band... but what annie said might make it into my Petra/Jamie story where there is a band, and Jamie does sleep with one of them. it cracks me up, the whole story and all the drama. love it.

I went to the coffee place today and spent a few hours not editing. I looked at the point i had reached in Chapter Two of the Prequel and i was unsure of what i needed to keep and what needed to be changed due to the fact that chapter two will most likely be 4 or 5 now. I had made this decision but had jumped over all that stuff that was going to come between and expected to be able to edit it as if all that stuff was already written.

yeah, that is not going to happen like that. So i went through and i typed up all the stuff that's been freehanded randomly of all those things that fill the space between chapter one and chapter two. Chapter Unknown, Chapter Stolen, and Chapter Unthought have all joined the ranks of crap that needs to be edited.

But the whole dilema about what order to put all these things has been solved. I have a semi finalized outline on one of my ever present post-its (and i say semi finalized because two lines are highlighted with a question mark and a swap arrow between them. i just love how wishy washy i can be.)

I don't have all of the parts of these intervening chapters typed up as of yet, so that is my next goal. after that will be to put them together into the correct order and begin to edit them. Then, we move onto Chapter Two. once i get that far all of my placement issues will be solved and i may start to post on authors den from that point on.

And on the topic of Shade and Shadow -

i know i said i was letting it stew, but it is such a simple and short story that i don't think it really needs it. the fact that i wrote it with a format, a grid on which i placed all my pieces just as i wanted them from the beginning, there isn't any story missing. I don't have to figure out motives or work out the inaccuracies that grew as the story developed.

it took me 2 days at work to go through and edit the whole thing by hand. (and that isn't even cheating on my promise to work on the prequel with more focus, since i can't work on the prequel at work). i think over the next few days when i'm sitting around between things to do i will start putting them into the computer copy.

i am really crazy excited about this story and i want everyone in the whole world to read it. and i most definitely want it up on AD before i start posting the prequel. So i will be working on more than one thing at once. so what's new??

Breathing

i'm sighing in relief as things are coming to an end. The craft fair was yesterday. it was unimpressive. i sold one print, which doesn't even equal the money i paid to prepare, but you know what that means? i just have everything done for a real fair somewhere else, don't i?? so i am going to start looking for fairs and that makes me excited.

I also finished up A Study of Shade and Shadow's first draft two days ago. I first assumed i could do it in less than 5 chapters which was my original goal, but i actually went over by just a little bit, sticking on a short epilogue that is not exactly an epilogue.

my plan now is to let it sit, because it needs that stewing time. I don't think it will need long because it is only 5 chapters and there is really nothing missing from the story aside from some names i haven't invented yet, and some descriptions of places that could use a little more umph. After it has been revised I am intended to put it up on Authors Den in 5 installments (the fifth chapter is short-ish so the epilogue will be tacked on there).

When that happens I believe I am going to take down the chapter eleven excerpt with Enna and Eillim from the Spaceship Story. The events of Shade and Shadow occur much before even the Prequel and i believe i am going to start to present my world from the beginning. Even though Enna and Eillim are new (though old) characters and not directly related to the main story line i can use it as a starting point to start revealing everything else i've done, in a sensible chronological order.

About Shade and Shadow, specifically, it was great fun to write. It was interesting because it was not the way I usually do things. Starting with the title changed my entire approach to the story. It became structured, 5 chapters, the first 2 introductory, the middle 2 half and half views from the perspective of each girl (and i made sure to start chapter 3 with Enna and chapter 4 with Eillim). There are aspects of repetition between the girls' stories, though i tried to make each journey as individual as possible.

My thoughts concerning the title itself were what created the gods the girls travel with. A Shade can be seen as a thin, ghostly thing (or whispy and invisible) and a Shadow, as a dark, vicious thing of only anger and violence... But both Shade and Shadow are dark places that light doesn't go. I wanted Svanir and The Foxen to be different, but the same.

And the development of the religions surrounding the gods!? oh, gee was that a ton of fun to fabricate!! I started with the gods, sure, but i allowed the civilization i placed in each locale to create the religion. I caused a great cataclysmic natural event that changed the course of life's development and let them adapt their relgion around it. They did me proud. The Foxen makes me laugh, though I feel like i need to add something of a character trait to Svanir. That is one of those flavors that will come out in the stew, though.

I'm going back to the prequel now. I will most likely head to the coffee place on this upcoming weekend and work through chapter two revisions and perhaps start sorting out pieces of the Unknown chapter into their proper locations. I also get to clean the house this weekend, since i've been neglecting it... And the Lost Dvd cases i'm making will get their start... i love my long weekends.

Yesterday's Dilema

has been solved. i didn't get any input from anyone but my boyfriend and i talked it out. we decided it would be best to just send each girl with her own god. and that's what i was going to do, until i sat down just now and started writing enna's half of chapter three and it wasn't Svanir that appeared before her, but the Foxen (or the Foksen, i may change the spelling cuz i like the way the second one looks). i was surprised, but then again not.

i think this is the way i've wanted it from the beginning, just didn't realize it. i have a vision of Enna being grabbed by the god that is with her, and Eillim getting no assistance from hers and that would put the whispy and invisible god with Eillim out of plain old logistics. Whispy and invisible gods would not be able to grab their followers. (BTW i will not once use whispy or invisible to describe Svanir in the story, but i had a ton of fun writing it three times in two sentences yesterday. One of my biggest reading peeves is words repeated too many times in one paragraph, on one page, in one chapter... i will probably be using whispy and invisible until this story is done here in the blog, because it amuses me.)

i have a new dilema today, whether to go back and forth between the girls more than once or tell enna's whole story, then eillim's. i think the dramatic points would be more dramatic if you don't know the truth of where they are, but it will be easier for me to write them bit by bit with flashes back and forth, so i can give it a try that way and then use the wonders of highlight and drag to fix it up once it's typed.

i'm glad i'm not a writer before computers; though also sad that i exist after them. conundrum.