Reconciled

I've got my sights set firmly in the guide now. Nano was a complete failure of its intended purpose, obviously, but it did get me back in there and working.  And last night i did it. I think i closed the last hole. it started with a death that i've always wondered whether i needed... i always knew i would take that death back in an instant if it really didn't serve any purpose as i had been thinking all along.

And then came the last (i think it is the last... i've said it before) Why hole. The swirly mess of madness and questions i can feel myself judging my character's actions on. Why did she do that? Why was that decision made. why why why?

I reconciled both of those parts with one another. Sadly character one has to stay dead, but if i can ever finish this, it means that he'll get to live at all...

NaNoWriMo 2015 and a Gender Swap.

So we're already most of the way into November. I decided at like 5am on the 1st of November hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to do Nanowrimo? Yeah! I love coffee!! Woo-hoo!!

Five in the morning really is a weird time of the day for me.

Anyway, i set up my own parameters for it. because i don't want to write something new. I don't have the time for that. And i have too much unfinished to just blithely run off and fall in love with some young new stranger. Strangers don't interest me anymore.

So i'm working on the Guide. and here's how my word count works.

if i write something new: full word count
if i transcribe something out of a notebook: 3/4 word count (because when it comes down to it, i'm really rewriting most of it anyway. notebook stuff is just outline suggestion-y, especially some of the older things that are dodgy in their usefulness due to developments since their scrawling.
if i search through old typed documents to find stuff to move into new documents: 1/4 word count.

I'm currently at 4,000 words.

which is good. ish. i guess. considering we've all been sick and i still need to work and actually hang out with my children.

Also, in a strange twist, i believe the entire path of the 'verse following the Guide - from Prophet on - has changed course when i decided to gender swap my main character. Daniel as Dani, creating a 2:2 male female ratio, rather than a 3:1.

Dani would still be searching for a sister. I wouldn't want to swap Jo in response. In fact, i don't think i want to swap any other characters. I like a female Prophet. I like Daniel's personality transposed into a girl. Don't change anything but pronouns and the whole arc of stories suddenly feels more female-centric and the role being carried out by this character, i feel, is an entirely new and exciting spin.

I think i've committed to it.

My only worry, actually, is the way it changes the relationship with Spencer, but that's so far down the road, and even his story isn't complete...

And now I'm 31

I have a sort of plan. It involves my youngest daughter's preschool, still three years away. That is absurd. 

So there is a second plan but I am blocked there too, there is so much at stake. 

I am going to write these things. I am going to design this great story, even if only to myself. I have to get it out. It is not eating me, it is eating itself. There is so much I don't know what to do first or next or last. 

A new goal. A chapter a week. Can I do that? And not in among the stuff that is already there to confuse me. A fresh page. A blank sheet for this new and final vision. 

I have laid it out. The wood paneling adds something, don't you think?

It's not much yet, but that's okay. Because that binder is so full and everything has changed. I have to find the truth thread again. Forget about the future. We will get there. 

Parallel

Sometimes I think we pass back and forth between parallel dimensions. Sometimes things change. Okay, maybe it's the matrix. 

Today I stood in my sewing room staring at my serger for four, five minutes remembering. Because two or three days before I threaded it because mom was having trouble getting it to work. Then I tested it. 

I know I tested it. The fabric with the test seam was still connected. 

But the only machine cord plugged in on the table today is for my old sewing machine. A little digging and I finally found the cord in a bag, tied up still in the fancy Velcro from the repair place under the table. 

BUT I TESTED IT. 

Another instance of the same sort would be that one and only delivery run in the two years that I owned Buster, the red VW golf, the back doors EVER opened. Just that once. Never again. Not even later that same night. 

Watching Jupiter Ascending because The Mary Sue says it's the best bad movie. Lego head it wolfish rescuing a gril queen. I need to finish my stories before they've all already been told. 

iPhone

So I finally upgraded to the smart phone era and have found that in bed at night before I go to sleep I like to work on the novels.  I have found though something I knew but didn't entirely comprehend. 

In the catastrophic failure that turned my laptop from a useful piece of technology into a pile of crap that freezes when you dare to watch a video I lost all the story information that had been in scrivener. There were a lot of bits and pieces I had written in there and they are gone now. They were never put on paper first. 

Redo. Redo. Redo. 

Found!

I found the notebook.  It was on a shelf in the closet of the then-office now-baby's room that has yet to be cleared out of office related things.  And it is blue.

So i immediately sat down and read through Edonith's story.  i didn't even look at Daniel's because it's E's that has me ruminating.

This morning as i was working i made the decision to cut it completely from the collection of character intro teasers.  The teasers include Loki, Anka, Daniel and Carrie, Nesris, Boss and Milah.  These are my core characters.  Edonith is important, yes.  He is the reason that Anka survives a lot of her injuries, but is he so very important that i need a teaser for him?

That question made me wonder then about Nesris.  Yes, she eventually leads Daniel back to Carrie, but is she core?  Do i just not want to cut her because her story with Nasinair is so awesome, and the first one i did?

But no, i think in the end she will fits.  Because she is the connection between the Anka part of the verse to the Enaj twins, and they are, of course, important because they lead to another aspect of Spencer that his parents' story does not.  and if i plan, after the short stories, to release Shade and Shadow and Letters, this will be a connection that is needed.

But then, just a few minutes ago i decided i did need Edonith's story.  it gives his background of developing his Feeling Hands later in life than his people are accostumed to, but this is also something that can be explained in a few paragraphs, if that, by Barious after Anka's first meeting in the botony class with him...

he's important, but is he important enough?

Lost!

I'm missing a notebook.

the one with the last two short character stories...

I think it's blue...?

I'm really only posting because usually that means I'll find it....

Because I'm 30 Now

What was the hiatus for this last time?  i don't know, there always seems to be one.

I turned 30 since I last typed here.  I didn't have any sort of crisis, except for a few momentary thoughts about the Verse.  Seriously.  it's so very unfinished.

I have been moving along on Scribophile, getting the short teaser introduction stories critiqued and smoothing out the kinks.  My very first goal is to get them all compiled and publish them as an ebook on Amazon.  i finally landed on Amazon one, because it's free, and two because they have a cover designer, so i don't have to wait around for my husband to finish his cover design for me (of course the one he started is for Shade and Shadow).

 

I have a new office.  A meltdown of all hardware, software and components has stuck me permanently on the desktop for transcription, and the forthcoming Bat Falcon child has banished us from the upstairs office to the corner of the finished part of the basement.  But i took the opportunity to put a bookshelf just to my left and lined up the binders in which the novels live.

 

I even labled them because i can never really remember which one is in which binder.  And they will sit there and stare at me and beg me to complete them.  And i hope i will respond.  Because i'm 30 now, and this is getting a little ridiculous.  not a single one is completed.  the fifth one doens't even have a binder yet!

 

Just now i took a break from working and reorganized the usb with all the saved documents, as well as putting some stuff in my Google drive to work on without having to search for the touchy usb my dad had to re-solder.

 

because i'm 30 now.  that must be my  motivation.

so much to do...

I only want to get paid for writing.

not enormous amounts.

just enough to pay the bills for a little while so I can not work.

There is so much to do, and I come here, and I say it, and then I go away for a while, busy.  And then I come back and say it all again...

Puzzle Pieces

I've been copying and pasting for half an hour.  putting the pieces of Kath's story in the correct order.

Just a moment ago, i erased "Kath's story" and started to rewrite Spencer's story. but who am i kidding?  this is kath's story.

I've gotten input from several places on the gender problems, of the referring to gender for a character such as Kath, in Kath's circumstances.

I laid out an outline, in three main parts (because Spencer spends three days at the Enaj Estate recovering from his time in Kath's word, before returning to his father and his home world), and in each section i must decide how i will refer to kath.

I already know that i never want Aniste to say "he."  She, who is in posession of Kath's secret, will be the only one who never outwardly lies, only lies by omission. 

I have already written one or two moment of confusion and reflection in Spencer's own mind about how he sees Kath after he learns the truth, and after that truth becomes important.  Since it is in first person, from Spence's pov, I can always use the "he" term for Kath, because it works.

But i'm thinking i need to, at some point, write a great deal of the storyline without any gender.  And it's hard to do, but not impossible.  I think the point after Kath comes back to Oaklusa is the point where Spencer will stop referring to Kath as "he," and begin, instead, to leave Kath ungendered even in his own mind.

I'm still planning on, in some way, telling the story in fragments, and non sequentially, but the sequence in which they were written is cumbersome, and it is difficult to find what i'm looking for when i'm looking for it.

So copy and paste.  Shift the puzzle pieces around until you have something that resembles what you're working toward.  And that's why sometimes i prefer lego blocks to puzzle pieces, when i'm making this analogy.  Puzzle implies that there is only one way this picture can turn out.  If i'm playing with legos, i am able to freestyle at any moment, and change the course of events for everyone involved...

also, i gave the Seoul Sister Shade and Shadow to read.  partly because she wants to read it, and partly because i need someone with a grammatical and proofing sort of eye to give it a once over and fix only the things that NEED fixing, which i would not be able to do on scribe (and it would cost me a lot of karma to get all five of those chapters up there.  i'm not in the mood for that).

Oh, Edonith

I made some pretty harsh statements about this character a few days back. that was cruel of me. i was frustrated.  i apologize, Edonith.  i have had many issues with the character over the years.  one that sticks out the most is the many, many times that I've written the reunion-turned-attempted-abandonment between Anka and Edonith in The Prophet.  his emotions during that scene ranged from nothing to apathy. 

Then, one time, i made him mad.  And that stuck.  and it felt good.  I was finally able to yell at Anka for all the bullshit i'd allowed her to get up to, and i used her lover's voice as a speaker box.

So i had hopes for sad, quiet Edonith.  and being stuck on his childhood story for so long just sort of blew me over the edge.

But yesterday the Gator asked if we could go in her room to play.  She had the tablet, i had a notebook, and in between turns of Pudding Monsters i finally got Edonith's childhood down on paper.

it's mediocre.  and i may have broken the rules in introducing Loki into Edonith's story, where he has a story of his own.  But in doing so, i ended up writing Edonith's story so as to appear the last in the series, which had not been the plan.

but then i thought of something else.  There's this little fragment i was gonna stick at the end of The Guide, the moment of Milah choosing Daniel, to lead up into Daniel's story.  but it seemed out of place.  well, that's not where it's going anymore.  i have added it to the end of the list, after Edonith.  And i have rewritten the order so as to tell the best story.

it's going to work, i hope.  these almost quick-sketch stories of character reveals, i am hoping they will draw readers in.

if i draw them in, though, i will have to follow through with the everything else.

oh geez.  oh geez.

When Did the Definition of Pro-choice Change?

Sometimes i have things to say that aren't about writing, but that are a practice of my skills, i find myself needing a venue to post to.  so here is another.  one i think about often...

When did pro-choice come to mean (at least to pro-lifers) "pro-abortion"

I am pro-choice.  Does this mean i am pro-abortion. No. absolutely not.  And you know what?  When i enter into a discussion on the topic, rest assured that i know exactly what the process entails.  I know how horrible, and horrifying, and sad the procedure is.  I know what happens.  I know.  There is no need to try to shock me with graphic details or guilt me with talk of a baby's beating heart.  I know.  I'm not pro-abortion.  I am pro-choice.

Me?  I don't think i would or could ever have an abortion, but that's the me, happy in my marriage, my new house, trying for a new baby, no problems that threaten, no scandals that scare.  Should my situation change, i would be forced to assess the change in my own soul and decide what needs to be done.  Part of abortion that the rabid pro-lifers never give themselves time to think about seems to be the torment of the mothers who are forced to face such a decision, or those who have had to make it.  I hear too often that they are murderers.

No, they're not.

I don't believe that a baby in utero is a person.  a pending person, sure, but mostly just a parasite.  I thought that for much of my own pregnancy.  This little creature attached to my insides, eating my food, weakening my bones, draining my energy, taking up my space.  I loved her dearly, once she came out, but a big part of why i love her is because she came out.

These pending people, of course, deserve love, and good care, and attention to their needs, but their rights should never EVER supercede those of the woman who is giving her everything to allow them life.  And even when that pending person has reached a stage where it is potentially viable to survive without mother, albeit with medical intervention, they should not have more rights than mother.  At that point, yes, the same amount of rights, but no more.

I do not want there to be abortion.  I do not want this procedure to be in the back of every sexually active woman's mind as the final stop-gap between being a mother and not being a mother. 

What do I want?

I want nonsecular, scientific, useful sexual and reproductive education taught to our children in schools at the appropriate age.  If you balk at this, you better be giving your children the education yourselves.  The right education, with the right terms, the correct consequences, and more options than just abstinence.  Because children don't abstain from the things they're not supposed to do.  Ask my Gator whether she's allowed to touch the TV and she'll say "No touchy TV."  But you may find her, an hour later, with her sticky fingers all over the screen.

I want affordable and accesible family planning (and the term "Family Planning" seems to also become a psudenym to the opposed for abortion as well.  No.) in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies for those too young, or unwilling for children at this moment.

I want afforadable and accesible prenatal care for every pregnancy for every pending human so we know they are safe and healthy and we are able to provide for their needs.

A bottom-up approach, not top down.  Banning all abortion will not stop abortion, look at drugs.  look at prohibition.  If we take these steps from the beginning of a child's life, we can change the way the child looks at the world.  Education in order to phase abortion out, so that it still exists for rare instances, but is never pondered lightly, because there is never an unplanned pregnancy.  You don't get that by standing in an abortion clinic parking lot throwing doll parts at heartbroken women.  You get that by going into the schools and doing what's right.

But, for now, I do want there to be a ban on abortion after a certain point, and for a time I was opposed to most pro-choicers when they were fighting the 20-week ban.  But then i read this article.  I'm pretty sure i cried all the way through, in sadness and in relief.   The final paragraph killed me and it changed my mind.  There needs to be a limit, there needs to be a certain-week ban, but placing it at the ultrasound, where most birth defects are found, is wrong.  Yes, there will be a loss of pending people with Down Syndrom, which is both challening and beautiful, or with spina bifida, scary but not debilitating.  But that 20-week ban would also be sentencing severely deformed babies, like the one in the article and others, and their parents to a traumatic and painful birth, an agonizing life, a too-soon death.  Abortion as end of life care, because the quality of that pending person's life, after birth, would have contained only pain, and torment and fear.  You wouldn't wish that on your ailing grandfather, so you bring hospice in, and he gets morphine.  Why do you wish that upon the soon-to-be-born?

I am not pro-abortion, i am pro-choice.  Meaning that everyone has a choice to make for themselves and the welfare of their own mind and soul and family.  The only abortion I need to concern myself is the one that I would have.  The only abortion you need to concern yourself is the one you would have.  And have you no uterus?  Well, as the wise Rachel Green stated, you have no opinion. 

How about take the time out of trying to shock the pro-choicers, and go into your nearby school to fight for sexual education.  Educate away the idea from the minds of the girls and boys there, before they even have it.

Catastrophic Failure

That's what i'm calling it because that's what it was.   the loss of everything.  every. thing.

but what i actually lost?  3 hours of audio.  Some music that can be redownloaded.  four paragraphs of revisions, maybe a handful of pictures.

i am very fucking lucky i had decided to back up all of my writing, and dump all of my necessary files onto usb drives in the very recent past.  My dad has fixed it, given me a new hard drive.  I must begin the process of rebuilding my comfy computer space.  my shortcuts and my bookmarks...

In other, more depressing news, i suddenly realize that i don't know Edonith.  Anka's true love and greatest annoyance.  He saves her and he lets her go over and over again.  He is tall and pale and good with plants.  And he is quiet and friendly and welcoming.

These are the things i know about him, but he is so flat, so cardboard.  I realized it as i sat down and tried to force myself to write his Children story.  Because they are all moving forward but for his and Daniel's.  I can't figure out how to write it.  I can't figure out what to write that will show us what makes up Edonith, because Edonith is made up of nothing.

blah.

how do i even fucking fix that?

and what could he possibly be thinking about me for saying that??

...

you know what?  probably nothing.  because i never gave him a brain with which to think.

Evicerated

I like that word.  it pleases me.


it's what I'm currently doing to the guide.


relentlessly, without regret.


it's what it needs.  what I need.


and starting with the teaser childhood stories has allowed me to see it.

A New Year and Opportunities Abound

Metadata is awesome.  On Facebook once, not too long ago I saw a site for publishing an e-book, which has been my goal for quite some time now.  I had already looked into Smashwords, but my problem with that is that the formatting of the Word document is completely baffling to me.  This new site, Tablo.com, you can either pay to have someone do it for you, or you can input it into a template and it does it for you.  So that's what I'm doing.


In fact, I spent most of yesterday when I was "working" (I always love classroom files where more than half of it is group discussions, and I earn a dollar a minute to browse the internet with my foot on a pedal...) critiquing stuff on Scribophile, and doodling around on Author's Den.  Over there, at AD, it turns out they've changed the access of the free members once again.  You are only allowed 20 pages.  I've been part of AD since before and forever (I still remember the day I set my password, at the computer in the Hwy 83 house, quickly, before rushing back to the table to take my turn at the game we were playing)  I'm grandfathered in with my 160 pages, but I cannot add any more.


So I have two choices in my somewhat half-hearted plans to use my teasers on Author's Den (Writing.com really feels like a bust... more of another reviewing site, like Scribe).  I can either pull down everything that's up there and start over, which seems okay to me, but will be time consuming.  Some of those poems and stories I'm not sure that I have hard copies of any longer.  Or, I can say  "Eff it." and just leave AD hanging around in limbo-ed stasis.


I guess there's a third option, but that involves upgrading.  i don't have the money for that right now.


But then last night I logged into Tablo, where i had apparently already made a user name, and I began to lay out my first e-book.  A Study in Shade and Shadow.  Once i had it pasted in, i went through and did another edit, once again using some things I've learned from my short time on Scribe.  Even with the things i fixed, the crap i couldn't believe had gotten past me on dozens of other read-throughs, I'm impressed with the story.  I love that story.


I'm nervous to push it through... and I need a cover before I can.  I'm hoping maybe the husband will make one up for me.  something simple.  maybe an arch, with a line of fire... ooh, yeah.  i like that...


Once that's done, Letters From the Desert will be next... probably.  or perhaps i should break off and do the five Children stories first... then there will be some connection back for when Enna and Eillim mention Nessa... hmm...

Christmas Vacation

And quite a vacation it was.  I didn't work for six days... then worked sporadically throughout the rest of my pay period, ending up short money-wise, but finding an awesome money saving deal that will at least save us for this month.  Already work has picked up now that the new year has set in, and hopefully I can make up some of what I lost last month in this short period.


I'm not sure that I really did enough Other Stuff to justify all those days off.  But probably, I did.  Some writing.  Some critiquing and being critiqued on Scribophile.  I just uploaded a second, fleshed out, named version of the Kath reunion with Spencer story.  I'm really enjoying the critiques I'm getting back.  Helpful.  Useful.  Not annoying.


This morning I did some rearranging, adding folders and sorting stories into correct places on my USB drive.  I need to get the five When They Were Children stories worked out, and I'd love to post them as a serial, maybe once a week... one every two weeks.


This morning I went through The Royals, Nas and Risi, and tried to mend what I broke the last  time I went into it.  I think I can find a way out, and I like the attitude of Nesris better now, but I hate that I made such a mess of it.


I also did a first revision of The Seer, Boss and Milah and Yemar.  That was fun, and enlightening.  I'm using some of the things one critiquer said of the reunion story... because these are all teasers, referring to things the reader doesn't know.  I have to keep the balance between intrigue and oblivion.


This, of course, means I have to still finish Edonith's story, as well as the Carrie-Jo/Daniel one...


I'm not sure what to do with them, but maybe I should sit down and reread them.  Maybe it'll give me an idea, just to go back in.


I waver between worrying about all of this-this is my 30th year, and my 6th year working on what has turned into The Verse in earnest.  We should hope that I have plenty of time left to work on it, but I would not enjoy dying knowing that it is incomplete and unfinished.  So I worry, and fret.  And other times I am sure in my ability to finish in no time at all....

Scribe and Kath

I introduced Kath, as a nameless, genderless character to an audience at Scribeophile.com, and it was very enlightening.  It was something I wrote  that must be connected to this year's Nano, but not only is it written in third person (spencer was a first-person story) but it's in the distant future.  ok, not distant.  only 20 years.  but still, it may just be wishful thinking.

either way, i mostly wanted feedback on the perceptions on Kath's gender.  i included little-to-no details, putting the audience in cold, swimming through other confusing references they wouldn't get if they didn't know.  none of that other stuff mattered.  i just wanted to know what they thought of Kath... whether i was doing it right.  I think I am.  i waded through the useless-on-this-topic, but still thought-provoking comments and came up with what i'd hoped people would see in this character...

This morning i wrote a nano-related snippet.  just a fraction of one on a sheet of printer paper.  and then, this:

I do so love the rare moment when a character is doodled into visual life... even if that life is jutting of scribbles.

I have an idea...

an idea has been forming about how to go about this.  Because i don't live in a place where people read book, books anymore.  i live with technology.  but i think I've figured it out.

i think I'm gonna buy a 1 month subscription to premium scribophile...  i want to get one piece in particular critiqued... and i don't want to have to do the critiquing to get the points to post.  i want people to work for ME. and for $9.00.  yes. i think i will.

i know i said I've hated it in the past, but i know specifically what I'm looking for to be critiqued probably in each case.

so much to do... not enough time...

Edit 10:50 -

I did it.  only they've changed the premium, and you now have to critique to get points.  you didn't have to.  that's okay.  I had 3 already sitting there, so I did a quick critique on something and got this little snippet out there to get looked at.  no one has yet.  hurry it up! I'm impatient.

check out my Scribophile profile here!!

Wandering

I keep going back to the Nano story.  I turn my full attention to that section of the garden, and i wait, hoping something will dawn on me.  I want to know how or if Ecila fits in.  I want to know who or what Kath is.

I could do the obvious thing, the thing that stands out quite well.  But i don't want to...

And as i'm turned that direction, there are all the things that led up to here.  All the first stories, the Ankaverse...

Do we remember that i have been working on this story, in some shape or form, since i was in middle school?  Since i was 13.  More than half of my life has been spent here, has been used to get here.

I need to finish.  I need to start at the beginning and I need to finish.

I become discouraged because The Prophet is a typical storyline.  it is well known.

I become discouraged because there is just so much to do, and it still feels so full of holes.  i don't think it actually is, but unless i stop second guessing myself and get to work, i will never finish.

I want to put The Verse to rest, and i think i  have to do that before i can find out more about Spencer and Kath.  Because yes, they are connected to it, but it lies outside of the confines of the Verse... they are beyond the reach of Milah, who wrote it.

Something else is at work here, the puppeteer, the orchestrator.  He won't let me see what he's doing until i have completed my work with my current green-eyed mistress...

NanoWrimo 2013, A Recap

I did, one day last week, go back into the story and sketched out another 600 words of storyline that had come to me, but I spent the end of November happily not thinking about much relating to Spencer, Kath, Aniste or any of the others inhabiting the world that I had created.

But one thing did come to me.

Ecila.

Ecila is the daughter of Enna and the Foxen.  She is created and born in the short story Letters From the Desert, the sequel to A Study in Shade and Shadow. 

I began the story of Spencer at its end.  He returns from where he's been, eight years older, experienced, jaded, heartbroken.  He is dropped onto a planet he recognizes but cannot immediately place and before he has breathed a dozen breaths of this air he is recognized by someone.  Someone who was not even born before he disappeared, 12 years ago, on this side.

It's Ecila.  And much in the manner of her mother she talks for the entire beginning of the story.  She tells him why she recognizes him (he looks like his mother, Carrie Jo), she explains to him how long he's been gone (the 12 years, and not the 20+ that are evidenced by her own appearance), and also introduces her backstory and situation.  A demigod whose father is the chosen mate of her aunt, not her mother.

She even points out to him that they were both created for evil, she by Svanir, he by Turinax, but that they were broken free of those bonds and are now able to do good instead.  Spencer is skeptical about this, what good he could have done on that other, diseased world.  But Ecila is young and naïve and hopeful.

And then... Ecila disappears.  In the 28,000 words I wrote, she doesn't come up again.

But why?

I mean, I introduce these two characters together.  They open the story up together and lead us into Spencer's sadness and Ecila's hope.  She can't mean nothing to this story, but in all of November I never knew what her part in the tale was.

I still don't.

But I think that may be the problem as to why I couldn't finish, I couldn't find the rest of the words to put down for Nano.  Half of the story has to be hers.  And I think it's obvious by the way Spencer's story was progressing as well.  He is there for eight years, but only the first and the last have any real meaning.  For the six years in the middle he is simply living as a Junker with the other boys on the Elsinore complex, falling in love with Kath, losing his dreams, grasping at his fading memories of home, wondering why it is that he was there.

Not a lot of story.  Just stasis.  So... what has Ecila been doing?  how does she fit in and fill in?

That's what needs to be considered from here on out, to finish this story...