pacing

...is so disgusting right now. Oh my word. Such a MESS. Oh my gosh. Loose ends, and things that need to happen, and GAHASDFGJKL QWRETYU WHY. can't even find where I want to open this chapter ("Fallout"). Word of the day: Outline before you write. Then, at least, sanity stays in a nice little plotted box that you can at least retreat to when everything hits the giant 65mph rotary fan.

....so, it's 9pm.

I think Monarchy WILL get updated today. Has to. Haaaas tooo..... This week has been a mess of working on Melee, which still needs reworking a bit, and going back to an old three-parter story I would like to finish if it would cooperate, and drawing. There are so many loose ends flailing around and sometimes it's beyond me and I want so much to work on something ellllllllllse. This three-parter, if it's ever done, might make a good first exploration into e-booking. No one's gonna buy a novella that short but some of the phrasing and pacing I love. It's a brief fantasy about Irene (more or less the leader), her philosophic charge Constantine, and Elysander, her half-elf merchant companion who is actually someone else's creation.

Working on Swampland...

Tern trying to channel Harry Dresden is hilarious. I'm back on the Dresden Files (Jim Butcher) bandwagon, both apologetically and unapologetically. Un-, because they're so much fun and well written and well, you can't go wrong? Apologetically, because I binge-read and get NOTHING done on other projects. Other than that, I think this one will come together all right. It's of about the same complexity as 'Physical'. "Allegiance," which I can't spell, should be up on the wordpress sometime tomorrow. May need some last minute edits.

Languages. Bleh.

Trying to figure out what SPOKEN OPPALIC sounds like. Never thought I'd have to deal with it. Greek is cloooose...? Flemish isn't bad. Bah, decisions. #Edit: AN UNHOLY MASHUP OF KOREAN AND SLOVAK. *shrug* They're happy with it.

'Physical' update, illustration, and new story

Illustration for "Physical" here: http://who-the-moon-is.deviantart.com/art/Brave-soul-358807519 Also, Physical is up now! (click the hyperlink above) (learning blogs is such fun) Also, writing up a new, intermediary story called 'Allegiance' (prone to change) and realizing that very few of my women are nice. Or even pleasant. Sophie is a nice, non-sarcastic person but all those of the female persuasion seem very aggressive, very guarded, when dealing one-on-one with Tern. --then again, he is pretty abrasive. This is why we can't have nice things!

Tea Scene

Ire sat down with a cup of tea, looking at his young guest with bemusement. The younger boy had been here the better part of twenty minutes, ten of which had been spent alone with Murk as Ire found Selah, told her to make the tea, waited around until she brought the tea back, and accompanied her in to serve it. She was gone now and the guest was fidgety.

Ire leaned back in his chair.

“Now, who did you say you were, and how did you get here?”

“We told you. We are your neighbor from the north.”

“I know our neighbors from the north. They don’t look like you. Or him.” He nodded at Murk and took a sip of the tea. It was a bit dusty – if he had known that he would be using both of them, he would have rinsed them both out, but as it was, ‘Tern’ had the clean cup and Ire made due with the one that had been on the mantle for ten years.

Tern toyed with his teacup, still without having drank. “We are a little farther north than that.”

“Living underwater would account for why I haven’t seen you before.”

The young boy scowled fearsomely and appeared to consider pouring out the tea on the floor in a gesture of anger. He definitely didn’t want to drink it and, when Ire reached out a hand to take the offending teacup, he handed it over and, after a second of hesitation, accepted Ire’s proffered cup. That, he drank. Fear of poison then, Ire mused. He should have switched them from the beginning.

Tern began to explain. “We live in what you would call the sky. It exists where this ‘Lanval’ kingdom exists, but north of here. And you can’t find it, so refrain from shooting cannons at the sky or any such thing.”

“Ah.” Ire’s impulse was to call him crazy and call the twins to escort him out, but crazy did not lend one the ability to materialize inside a king’s bedroom. Whatever that skill was, it would be useful to have. (So would ‘cannons’ but that was a question for another day.)

He cleared his throat, sipped at the tea. “Well, Landria isn’t one to make war, at the moment.”

“Excellent.” Tern looked down into the teacup, having drained its contents and just now fretting about it. “What is this queer powder at the base?”

“Sugar. It sweetens the drink.” Well, it was probably sugar. Some of it might be dust. All the same, Tern relaxed a little and Ire could finally ask why he was here.

“You didn’t come down here for tea though.”

“No. We came to tell you to move your castle.”

###

Leads into 'Neighbors,' available here: http://missjoneswrites.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/neighbors-story/

New chapters: Exchanging Unpleasantries and Neighbors

New chapters up here:

Specifically 'Exchanging Unpleasantries' and 'Neighbors'. These, while more or less stand-alone by Monarchy standards, are some of the ones I like better.

So I'm trucking along, slowly. Next week should be Physical and, gosh, maybe just Physical. Physical is hella long and it's still a chaotic decision, figuring out what to put in or leave out. :)

A Specific Talent

While Klaeo agreed to learn embroidery and even to practice it, her parents had to accept that her avant-garde designs weren't going away any time soon. In her early years (which I can't portray because drawing children ESCAPES me), she took up a fascination for falcons, a symbol of an independent women in Garam culture.

To quote Emperor's New Groove: "Lemme guess, you've got a GREAT personality..."

Having been a moody pre-teen girl, I see nothing unusual about sitting in a corner window embroidering falcons. :)

Klaeo (c) Monarchy, stories available here: http://missjoneswrites.wordpress.com

Site Changes

I'm gonna fix this site. And it'll be awesome. Maybe I'll rename it Griffin Taming. And it'll be correlated with Wordpress and I'm gonna post the stories there, and blog/art here, and there's a link to deviantart, I'M GONNA FIX EVERYTHING. (Ambition is the loudest wailer)

An old old old draft

*cough*
Tern is trying to rewrite this story to sound Wodehousian.
Fortunately, this story IS coming together (Shadows, the 'second' story alluded to in the previous posting).
It is astonishing how quickly these stories like to fall apart, contradict each other, or just plain not work when prodded with a sharp stick. Almost as if I weren't worried about continuity when I wrote each of them. (perish the thought, I'm SO good at plotting...)
Anyhow, dreadfully behind schedule. Compounding it by blogging.

A bit:

"It was no use appealing to the man’s humanitarian concern or sympathy for the royal condition: he was Oppalic. Oppalic concerns ranged from battling the mixture of swamp creatures and sea monsters that regularly invaded their island nation, to sending ships over with valuable skin-based accessories. Fighting and selling. Dull. It was little wonder that their initial meeting had consisted of Father saying nothing more than "here's Murk, he's mute, he's your bodyguard'. A little research revealed that he was someone Tern couldn’t possibly identify with, even though Murk had bothered to learn Iriritamagonian and crossed a lively sea to be his bodyguard. There had to be a reason for that."

they have harpys here?

Snippet. Cause I'm fixing "The Absent Princess." It needs so much rewriting...
but I like the harpy bit.

--

"If Othello was told to marry Klayo, he would have to, just as he would have to be king if something happened to Father. If Tern were told to marry Klayo, the same rule would apply. He had already called her a harpy and questioned her homicidal embroidery. That would make married life difficult."

conflicting plot points again

I do not know if I have ever done enough research to merit actually writing ANYTHING. And yes, it is becoming a frustrating novel, the chapters of which stand alone. And I want to jump around constantly and figure out what on earth I'm doing.
And I have not heard from beta, and part of me doesn't want to, because it realized that Ire and Monarchy are trying to turn into the same story. THE SAME STORY. With-- er, slightly different outcomes. Is that all I've got? Just the one story, the one person, I keep repeating in different ways becauses it's the only one that resonates?

Hmph.

And the plane flight wasn't an entire bust.

tooting a horn before there is anything to celebrate

--in hopes that I'll guilt myself into doing something.

I am hoping to get some real work done on a flight tomorrow, assuming the time change doesn't wipe me out, capacity-wise. It will be quick work to get Deluge done (hopefully) and Shadows is coming together and have printed up Down, Absent, and Physical. *cough* and someone at small group wants to read the grouping (which she calls a novel. Which it is NOT. It's a collection of interlacing short stories that have underlying plot currents and an arc and... IT'S NOT A NOVEL.)
...
unless it is, in which case I will really have to give up on writing short stories because I've collected all the shorts and made them a novel. That's insanity somewhere, I'm sure of it.

That only took a little bit of forever

Plotting how to interlock two stories should really, really not take this long. I have been sitting here for most of the afternoon and even gave myself a crying break-down of "why can't I make this work?"

Not helped by my mom asking "Are you working on a job app?"

Er. No. But this should work, it really should. It's an in-character solution that will let me put 'Deluge' first, revise some things in 'Shadows' (and come up with a better title) and everything should run much smoother. It fits the pacing better too. I knew it had to be there. The process of digging for that solution is like playing archeologist in the dark though.

*happy sigh* Okay. Relief. And I improved a two-year old story! Got the cheesy knives and stabbing out of there and everything.

In lieu of Twitter, yes, let's see, this is what I'll do...

Situation: I have two stories. Three, actually.

-The first took place about two months before the second.

-The second introduces a character and the current political situation. It also builds up a sort of rapport between the introductory character and the protagonist.

-The third tries to kill someone, and instills a mixture of forced trust and doubt between introductory and protag.

--

The first story is not important for my purposes. The third makes for a nice start-up piece after the first's cliffhanger, but the second has all the important bits. And some nice character development. And lots of angst. Ohyay.

The easy solution is to rewrite the second, but since the once-third story has instilled a sense of distrust, it changes the whole tone. Hm. Though I might want to do that.

Gah, the more I read either, the worse it gets. Sigh. Okay. The third story needs to be rewritten to fit, so it can be first after the break. Less distrustful, because I need to work up a good rapport. The introductory scene needs to be cut and summarized, nice and somber as it is. I think... I THINK I can do this.

What about anyone else? Unsolvable plot conundrums?

temporarily stopped

Ire/"The King Is Dead" is currently being beta'ed.
Which is farther than any other novel-length story I've written has gotten.
Yay.

During a big climatic scene.

" “You mistake me. I don’t want to be friends with you. I want you dead. I erased all chance that you would have a change of heart, burned the democratic proposals to cinders and stirred the ashes; I ruined you by letting you blind and ruin yourself. And now, having ventured out of sanctuary, you’ve given me permission to ruin you in the name of the state of Landria. You went after a little too much in taking Vivi. There are many things I’ll let you steal, but I warned you about this one. I’ll lose her on my own terms, thank you, I won’t let her be stolen.”
Then he lunged.
Also, he did some squats, a couple of push-ups, and several handsprings as Ire looked on, bored. Once Quinton had thoroughly warmed up and shaken out his sword arm, he attacked, and things got a lot more interesting."

Annnd, after thousands of words and dozens of chapters, Matthard wants to have conversations with himself NOW.
Good golly, Matthard, REALLY? NOW?

Grrrrrrr

Okay, Ire, you really make me mad. I think I smooth out all your plot problems and then...
YOU MAKE THESE COMMENTS CHAPTERS AND CHAPTERS AGO.
"As if I want to be elected over your corpse"?
Trying to send Matthard out of the country?
You're OBVIOUSLY trying to get rid of him and I'm supposed to believe that he's going to blow a gasket when he figures out about the competitor rule?
GAH.
IRE.
SHUT UP. STOP TRYING TO HELP PEOPLE, YOU ARE MAKING THE CLIMAX...ISH... THING... CONFUSING.
Unless it's a massive misinformation thing. Which is kinda is. Matthard hasn't heard about this, so he freaks. Ire needs to be a bit more ominous. Because, really, Matthard... people've told you you're not expendable. You don't think Selah would know?
Or maybe she hates you.
Good grief, he can't be this paranoid.

Oh. And those campaign ideas in scene 16.5/17? You're totally going to be confused about those in later chapters. Oh Ire. I can't maintain a political stance with you. At all.

whining part one million

Today is not really as stressful as I am making it be. Alphonse and Albert have been giving me MASSIVE trouble, ever since I decided to plot out to the end. They don't have the personalities I wish they did, at least, not to the degree I wish they did.

I realize why I avoid plotting.

On the bright side, this SHOULD make things easier. Alphonse's opinion is easily swayed--he sides with his father on everything, follows the rules, is polite, which made the character change so impactful. But, as things are now, it doesn't make sense for him to do that, so he won't. Ire won't help him. Albert will still be an issue.

Those are actually my only major issues, dealing with Alphonse, the slavery issue, and where's Patton. The other things are okay or becoming okay with some reworking. This is the point where I'd usually bail on a story. There's tons I could do with Sedna, after all, but that story gives me the heebies. There's Monarchy, there's Untitled but Important, there's shorts I could be working on.

*deep sigh*

I'll go back to it. I'll know I'll feel better when it comes together. I just know I'm being temperamental, putting off other things for writing, I know I've been in this chair all day, just trying to PLOT. Edit. Plot. Plot. Consternation.

Now I want to dance. Procrastination time.