The Question of the Day

How hard would it be to rewrite everything in present tense, rather than past?

It's something I started to ponder, not for the first time, today at work. I was writing between calls, not exactly new material just revisions that are too large to fit between lines on the already printed out pages. Then on breaks i was reading; Because It Is Bitter; and Because It Is My Heart which is written in present tense.

Coming back to my own work from something i'm reading often had this affect on me. i write in that tense, almost even in that style.

But as i was writing, seeing that i was doing it wrong and trying to get it back into my natural past-tense state i saw that i liked it better in present.

but there's so much to do. hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of words. Third Bed and Shade and Shadow would be left alone but the five, the prequel through the sequel, would they be improved in a different tense?

i did one page of revisions in the connector, bringing it into the present. the page where Jo thinks she's finally got everything under control. it seems so much more urgent, like she was, so much more excited, like she was. maybe this is a good idea, but where will i find the time?

that's another question of the day.

The Kids Have Grown Up

I finished the sequel two days ago, the day after my last post. i had honestly thought i had maybe two more days of work, but it was winding down quickly. And even though i came home early from work before i could hit the end i still sat down here at home and wrote the final scene. The End, just as i'd promised.

And i'm stunned at how completely shut out of the story i am now. It used to be i'd spend the time waiting for sleep, or waiting for a red light, or washing my hair in the shower to break things down and work them over. If ever i was idle my mind was not. it was off in those other worlds working up a sweat. I did not expect to be completely locked out once it was finished. i can't even open the door.

I shouldn't really be surprised. This happened with both Shade and Shadow and the Third Bed. I can go back and clarify my ideas, fix my grammar and spelling, move a paragraph around. But i cannot change anything. I cannot change what Svanir or the Foxen do to the girls. I could not for all the money the world give proper names to the him and her who love each other so. i'm locked out. those things are now beyond any control i ever had.

I suppose it's good for that, at least. my prediction that i could edit once i had it anchored seems to be true. It's just so strange to be unable to visit those places anymore. Last time i said it had taken up four years of my life, but that's not quite right. I came up with the main characters of the first two stories in middle school. Over half of my life has been spent writing their adventures and lurking in their strange and wonderful universe. I've known most of them since their own childhoods and those i met as adults are no less real.

At times over the years i've wondered which character in that story i am. I know that i'm a little bit of everything. Anka's my tomboyishness, Carrie/Jo has my curly hair. Loki is my reasonablness and Sol that grumpy brooding part. Both Nesris and Anka posess my fear of parenthood and Carrie/Jo is my love of it. it wasn't until i wrote some lines near the end that i realized who i'd been this whole time. I'm Milah. Though she only really appears in the Monstroscity (with a cameo in the prequel and Daniel talks with a imaginative version of her in the spaceship story) her actions are felt throughout the whole epic.

she set these events in motion in order to reach the conclusion.

i set these events in motion. and now it seems my children have grown up.

Other Worlds Than These

lately i've been coming home in a fog, reentering this world of ours from the far off reaches of imagination. other worlds, so many of them i don't even remember their names most of the time...

i'm so close to the end. i'm in the winding down phase. i'm in the part that i would usually say to myself 'okay, you can just write a quick sketch and figure it out later' because i'm just so anxious to move onto the next story.

But there is no next story this time. This is the end. This is what five seperate and enormous piles of paper and four years of my life has been heading towards. i didn't know it at the beginning, at least maybe not consiously. Back then i couldn't seem to find the right way to edit anything because it all seemed so drifty. Now it's anchored, front and back. I can begin again.

so in these last few chapters i'm not slacking. i'm not saying i'll write it later because i want to see it. i want to pay attention. same way that i always log out of my station at work to read the last two pages of my books uninterrupted. i want to really see the ending.

And when i'm finished, rather than my usual salutation to no one but myself i will not write "The Endish" becuase there's no -ish about it. This is the end.

i don't worry. there's another beginning out there. in fact in a round about way, it's begun. but it can hold. and stew. and wait. i don't feel it yet. but it's got its room, its door, its potential. it's planted.

Finished Something Kinda

Today i wrote the last five empty pages in the first notebook of the sequel. I think i wrote the first ten pages about a year or more ago. As always, i enjoy the way the size and shape of the notebooks i write in defines the story itself. Turning points always come right around the yellow divider pages and the close of a notebook is always the close of one moment and the moving on to the next.

I love where it's going and i can't believe how many bits and pieces i created long ago and have been able to hold onto. And i'm learning things about the past too. That's good. it'll help me when i go back. i really think that finishing all of them before going back to the beginning and starting again will help. or i could be kidding myself. This will likely be a huge pile of nonsense in one corner of my hoarded home when i die and the cats eat me...

things to do

i wrote a whole fricking post about what i'm working on and my thoughts. and then the website froze and it had never auto saved.

now i'm cranky.