Something else about Chancey-boy.

If you'll notice, he has a playlist.  Scroll down.  There, at the right.  See?  Thank you, Spotify.

Actually it's not the complete playlist.  For some reason it only shows twenty of his songs (he has twenty-seven at the moment).  Sad but that's okay, because "Everybody Loves Me" is at the very top and to Chance, that's the only song that really matters.

Also, in regards to NaNoelle, I have almost 3k over my word goal again.  Yay for car rides of insane concentration.  I'm thinking about celebrating by having a Durarara!! marathon with chocolate milk and bell peppers. 

Too bad Chance loves bell peppers.  I'll probably have none left.  Ah well.

A fortnight of NaNoelle.

NaNoelle.  Ah, I kill myself with my cleverness.

I'm on track.  Actually, not yet, but I will be.  By sometime tonight.  I hope.  I need to get ahead again because I'll be gone all day Saturday and will not have time at all to write.  Sigh.

Good news, though - I'm still having a blast.  There's no villain, no plot twists to worry about, no world to save.  Just a girl and her insanity and a god of mischief trying to help her.  And then the god of death just kind of dragging along and the eight-legged horse who has more sense than any of them.

And Edgar Allen Poe.  Gotta love that one.

Also, I thought it'd be a good time for an update on my Writing Team, since I have a new member...

 

See see see?  I have Marvel Loki!  Though he and Scar are far too friendly.  Especially when they both consider the other to be an idiot.  Oh, villains.

Anyways.  That's about it for today.  If you like anime, watch Durarara!! - it's fantastic.  Now I'm off to boost my word count and stop Chance from hogging all my Halloween candy.

Because Mommy!Loki jokes never get old.

A bit from Chapter Four of Masque of Ice.

 *

[Loki] leads me to Sleipnir’s side, and I think I understand what he asked – you can ride Sleipnir for a while if you want.  I whisper it under my breath, to make sure it does make sense.

“What was that?” Loki asks, lifting me up onto Sleipnir’s back.

I shake my head and hold Sleipnir’s mane in both hands.  He thuds his hooves into the carpet again – one two three.  

“We can go now,” Loki says pointedly to Hades.  “Is Daddy done fussing?”

“I don’t know,” Hades shoots back, “is Mommy done coddling the kids?”

I cannot help it – I laugh.  Loki gives me another look and raises his hands in surrender.  “No loyalty.”

“You—“

“Set myself up, I know.  Move.”

Stuff. Yes. Stuff.

I'm not rightly here.  If you can tell.

First thing.  NaNo.  I was going to update on the first day, but that... did not happen.

But today's the seventh, so I think a week's update is sufficient.

At the moment, I'm completely and totally in love with the story and I'm not even to the really good parts yet.  It's been ridiculously easy to write.  As of tonight, I have about 12.5k words - ahead of schedule!

And then today, we saw Wreck-It Ralph which was, in a better man's words, fantastic.  Ralph was a great character, Vanellope was flipping ADORABLE, and Felix and the Hero's Duty lady and King Candy and - Merlin's beard, it was just a good movie.

"I'm okay - it just glazed me!"

"Why are your hands so freakishly big?"
"I don't know - why are you so freakishly annoying?"

"You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?"
*WHACK*
"Okay, you hit a guy... with glasses.  That's clever.  Well-played."

"They invited Pac-Man?  That cherry-chasing dot-muncher?"

And I admit that half of its charm was the game references.  I actually did play a lot of those games (Frogger. In the background.  Oh yes, one happy girl here), and I was having a flip-out when I saw Sonic doing ads for 'not dying' outside one's own game.

So yeah.  NaNo, going pretty well on schedule.  Wreck-It Ralph is a must see.  That's it for me.

NaNo. Again.

Aster, they name is Glutton-for-punishment.

Yep, I'm doing November NaNo this year too!  This time I actually have a brand new baby novel ready to write.  Well, not exactly brand new - it contains two original characters and three characters from mythology.  Not to mention the setting is taken from Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death."

But it's still my baby. (I'm pretty sure it'll end up a novella [and under 50k words - I'll see what I do about 'winning' NaNo later on] and therefore a real baby, my first novella.  But enough semantics.)

Here's the basic gist of what's, for now, known as Masque of Ice:

Legendary - it's obvious to say that it's populated by Legends.  Jack Frost, Perseus, Robin Hood, Aphrodite - heroes and villains of Earth lore all end up here in this small portion of Sector Country.

Noelle is an Icy - an Ice Spirit - one of Jack Frost's kind.  She's totally insane - sweet and very slow sometimes, but, if frightened, vicious and lethal.  She's been this way for four thousand years; lately, she's been getting worse.

After one of Noelle's fits take an even worse turn than usual, timid young Icy Missle and two other Legendaries, Loki and Hades, decide they want to help Noelle recover.  But when the attempt goes horribly wrong, all four (as well as the eight-legged horse Sleipnir) end up in Noelle's mind - a crumbling, seven-roomed nightmare of flashing color and garish noise.  If they get out before the Clock strikes twelve, maybe Noelle will be okay.  But if they don't, they all might die in Noelle's madness.

Noelle is one of my favorite characters (she was in Manipulation, actually).  Missle is really fun to write.  Loki is a new char but already I'm in love with his attitude and his flaws.  And Hades has green hair.  And Sleipnir the eight-legged horse!

I just finished outlining the important chapters.  It'll either be ten or eleven chapters - not sure yet on whether I need two or three introductory chapters.  We'll see.  But it's been a struggle waiting for Thursday. A real struggle.  This book is going to be so fun to write.

September.

It's September.  Camp NaNo is over.  Even for those of us who didn't actually do the real thing.

Manipulation juuust did end up with twenty-five chapters so far, with a little over 52k.  Not much to be proud of, because... I guesstimate a little less than 30k was already written.  Not to mention I still have... eight or nine chapters more to write.

But that's all cool.  Because it's Friday night(ish) and I can now finish my New Who Series One marathon of episodes 9-13.  Maybe.

Or maybe I'll just crash.

Or read.

Or maybe even work on Sparkly Viking Vampires In Space. (For info on that, see my friend Quill's blog over to the right.  You will not regret reading about this project.  Maybe sometime I'll expound on it myself.)

Or hey, I could just keep blogging aaaall niiiight loooong.

You know it's time for me to go to bed when I start drawing out words.  Have a beautiful start to September.  Laterz.

It's the last week.

Of August NaNo, that is.

It's weird how you call it Camp NaNo or August NaNo or whatever.  Camp National November.  Shouldn't it be Camp WriMo?  Camp Writing Month?  August WriMo?

I really digress.

Anyway.

Manipulators stands at 48,000 words and twenty-three chapters finished, out of a projected thirty-five chapters.  Or is it thirty-six?  I don't remember.  I split a chapter in half and got confused.  I wrote the outline at four-thirty AM, anyway, I don't expect myself to remember the precise numbers.

So that's another twelve or thirteen chapters left.  And some of them should be pretty short (like twenty-four).  Then again, a lot of them will be pretty long.  So I know pretty much for a fact that I won't finish in August.  But that's okay, because twelve/thirteen chapters to the finish line is a lot closer than I've been, and I shouldn't have a hard time writing the rest of it in September.

Especially when I have my peeps watching my back.

Chibi-Automaton Sigurd, Siggy for short.  He urges all my deaths.

Ayame Souma from my favorite anime ever, Fruits Basket.  He's a handy evil-twist plotter, but they all have to do with romance, and I have no romance in Manipulators, unless you count Cynnabar's sort-of crush on Ariadne.

The tall bunny-eared creature is Scy (Sai).  He's my quiet buddy - bonks Ayame over the head when Aya gets too talkative.

And Scar is... um.  Motivation?  He glares at me when I don't write enough, anyway.  Not especially encouraging, but I like to imagine him singing "Be Prepared" during tough spots.  He doesn't appreciate that, but, y'know, suck it up.

With a team like this... "what have I to fear?"

A taste of Manipulation.

...I glanced over at Archer.

            Her eyes were red and swollen, and her hair was fluffed everywhere, like a chicken had been rooting around in it.  “You don’t look so hot,” I commented, going closer.  My legs ached but I tried to ignore it.

            Archer looked up and glared daggers.

            I raised my hands.  “Just sayin’.” I knelt down by her.  “Look...”

            Well, this was going to take more moral fortitude than I had expected.

            “Look.  I’m sorry.  I’ll try not to antagonize you anymore, despite the fact that’s my best method of stress relief so far.” I paused.  “We need you in the game, Archer.  You’re a manipulator just as much as I am.  You need to help us.”

            She looked at me steadily.  Her eyes looked way colder than they should have.

            “I want to go home,” she said.

            Then she turned sideways and rested her head against the wall.

            I scowled.  “That’s a nice way to try to get there.”

            She didn’t react.

            “Fine, be a baby.”

            Something clicked outside the cell.  Archer jerked upright, her eyes going wide and white.  “What’s that?” she hissed under her breath.

            The three of us were still for a few seconds.  I relaxed and shook my head.  “Just something...”

            “What if they come back and want me?” Archer whispered, clutching at her hair.  “I can’t do that – I can’t take that!  I don’t know what to do.  I can’t be tortured.  I – there’s just no way—“

            “Archer!” I grabbed her shoulders, and she jerked her head up, focusing her wide eyes on me.  “Chill. out.  You have to keep it together.  No going crazy – all right?”

            She didn’t respond at first.  The intensity of the fear in her eyes was... scary.

            “Archer.” I gave her a little shake.  “Keep. It. Together.”

            She gave a little nod and gulped again.

* 

Dunno, just really liked that part.  Which probably means it's hideous.  Oh well.  There it is.

Some past NaNo dialogue.

I was trying to work on Manipulation this afternoon.  Didn't work.  At all.  Annoying little novel.  Too stubborn for its own good.

Anyway, I ended up going through last year's November NaNo.  It was supposed to be a prequel to my longest-running series, the Aster Quartet, focusing on one of my favorite characters, Doli Lin Greya.  Epic guy, if I can blow my own horn for a moment.  Among the best I've ever written.

It was really painful going through If I Fall Away. (Working title - one of Doli's theme songs is February Song by Josh Groban, which contains the line 'Forgive me if I slip away,' which I modified to If I Fall Away for reasons unknown to myself.)  Painful because, one, the plot was really, really badly done.  Writing in deliberately short chapters does something to my writing, apparently, because this plot was just all over the place.

Two - my dialogue was, by and large, really, really spectacular.

Any of my writing friends will tell you that I don't compliment myself often, so I'm really confident in the dialogue that I wrote for Doli's book.  I think it's because I was so much in the characters' heads - especially Doli, here going by the name of Avi, and his best friend, Tomi.  I know exactly what happens to these chars and how it affects them, so, even if the plot was poorly executed, I still have a blast going over some of the repartee between Avi and Tomi.

~

Avi and Tomi climbed past the grass and collapsed in a heap.  Avi let his fingers drift over the freshly cut grass stubs; the scent of hay hung in the air.  “Must have mown it lately,” he mused.

“They did.” Tomi crossed his legs and slumped forward, elbows on his knees.  “I saw them.”

“Didn’t help them?”

“I was too busy dodging the Duo.”

Daraq and Vycaris.  Avi nodded.  “Understandable.”

Tomi grabbed a handful of grass and ripped it from the ground.  Avi winced but didn’t say anything.  “I just don’t get what they want from me,” Tomi snapped.  “What don’t they understand about ‘let me think it over’?”

“Nothing, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Tomi pulled one piece of grass from his hand and ripped it between two fingers.  “It’s stupid.”

“Very.”

“Stop humoring me.”

“You’re the Prince, my lord.”

Tomi threw the grass at Avi.  Laughing, Avi tried to duck, but the blades fluttered down all around him, a few blades drifting down the back of his shirt.  They tickled and scratched on the way down and Avi clawed at his back, trying to get them out.  “Ouch!”

Tomi stared at him a moment, then burst into laughter.  “You’re so pathetic.”

“It itches.”

“So you say ‘ouch’?”

~

Preya, the hyper-High Colitar’s friend, was gone.  So now it was just Avi and Jai.

He swallowed and moved toward the tomb.  It came as high as his shoulders, solid and sure.  When he touched the polished stone, a chill traveled up his arm to the back of his neck.  He twitched and took his hand back.

“Was that for missing the funeral?” he asked softly.  “Sorry.  I didn’t want to.”

He blinked and added, “Not that I wanted there to be a funeral at all.  But... I guess it was inevitable.  It just hit me pretty hard.”

The tomb crouched, silent, in the moonlight, immovable.

Avi sighed and collapsed on the bench.  “I am so tired, Jai... Great-grandfather?” He shook his head.  “That’s just strange.”

 “A little.”

Avi looked up.  In almost the exact spot he had stood himself was Tomi, bleary-eyed and clutching a black jacket around himself against the cold.

Avi stared at him.  “Does everyone like congregating in the graveyard in the dead of night?”

“No.” Tomi arched his brow and came to the tomb.  “I didn’t realize two people qualified as ‘everyone.’”

“There was...” Avi stopped.  “Never mind.”

“A few ghosts keeping you company?”

Preya’s pale face and pure white wings came to mind.  “Not exactly.”

“Well, that sounds intriguing.” Tomi lowered himself down onto the step.  “But what’s even more intriguing is why in the world you’re out here.”

Avi touched one of the tomb’s stones.  “Just needed to... think.”

“We thought you’d be in bed for a long time.”

“I’m fine.” If ‘fine’ translated to ‘even the water in my body feels like it’s sharp and pointy,’ then yes, I’m perfectly fine.

“Mm, I’m sure.”

Come to think of it, Tomi usually did seem to hear his actual thoughts.

“How was the funeral?”

“It was... nice.  Grandfather would have liked it.  Simple.” Tomi drummed his fingers on his knee.  “Everyone – Father, Mother, Vycaris, Daraq, Konna – they all said a few things.  I did, too.”

Avi was in the farthest mood possible for wanting to lighten the situation, but he couldn’t help it.  “You cried, I assume.”

“Yes.  Gallons.”

“I’m surprised this tomb isn’t smaller.  Don’t waterfalls erode stone over time?”

Tomi opened his mouth to reply, but his solemn expression cracked open to reveal a wide grin.  “Idiot.”

“You played along.  That makes you a bigger idiot.”

“Eh.” Tomi leaned back against the tomb.  “Probably.”

~

“Oh.  Oh, oh, ow.”

Something smacked Avi’s shoulder, dragging him from the ocean of sleep he had been drowning in.  Startled, he scrambled backwards and fell off the bed.

Onto grass.

Avi stared at the greenness beneath him.  Grass?  What in... Then he looked up at Jai’s tomb, and it came back to him.

Tomi hadn’t lost his balance, but he looked close to it, stretching his arms and legs in several directions, while his face contorted similarly.  “I am so sore,” he grumbled.  “Whose idea was it to fall asleep out here?”

“I don’t think it was a conscious decision.” Avi rubbed the back of his neck, where it felt like a vampire (possibly a stone vampire shaped like a tomb) had perforated his skin with edged teeth.  “But I’m blaming you.”

“Ha!” Tomi tried to stand, but fell back against the tomb and only just caught himself.  “Oh, the pain.”

Avi snorted.  “You’re pathetic.” Then he attempted to rise himself.  A few seconds of trying left him in much the same position as before.

Tomi burst out laughing.  “And he says I’m pathetic!”

Stiff muscles shrieking, Avi scrabbled at something, anything, to help him get up, but there was nothing handy.  He scowled.  “Oh, help me up.”

“Me?  Oh, no.” Tomi’s hair bounced up and down as he shivered in pent-up laughter.  “I’m too pathetic to do anything.”

“Then I blame you when someone comes to dump dirt over me and erect a tomb in my honor!”

Tomi wandered over, grinning enough to split his skull in half.  “You blame me for a lot.”

“You’re guilty of a lot,” Avi grumbled, finally managing to get into a crouching position.  “I swear, bad ideas do come back to bite you in the—“

“Good Lynne, what time is it?” Tomi peered up at the sky.  “It must be past lunch.”

Hey, look. I live.

I'm like one of those scarily powerful Bleach characters, or that annoying love interest.  Right when you think I'm gone - SURPRISE.

Anyway, I did come back for a purpose.  Camp NaNo.

Among other novels, novellas, and worthless connected short stories about villains in Limbo, I'm writing a book whose working title is Manipulation.  (Actually, I'm thinking about calling the trilogy that, and since I despise it when first books are called the same thing as the series name, I'll have to change it.  That'll come later.)

Basically, I've been writing it for nigh on four years and I was hoping NaNo could galvanize me into finishing it once and for all, because I'm tired of the stupid thing.

Unfortunately, I'd already written 150 pages of it and it all needed to be edited.  So, effectively, half of August has been taken up in editing.

Except it was less than half, because in between edits, I was finishing up other edits on this other book I wrote, Bitter Magic, the link to which I may or may not post sometime, depending on how it places in the contest for which I wrote it.

Back to Manipulation.

Today marked the day when I actually finished editing.  The plot is cleared up, I have my plan of action (mostly), and I'm ready to write.

Evil Twin: I'M SO STINKIN' EXCITED, Y'ALL - ARIADNE IS EPIC AND I ACTUALLY LIKE MY CO-HERO AND I HAVE THREE WHOLE VILLAINS-

Sorry.  My alter ego keeps shouting at people.  I'll try to put more duct tape on her next time.

But, yeah, it's pretty exciting stuff.  I may post updates and I may not, depending on if I can actually remember to do it.  I may even post a little synopsis and/or rant about the characters. (Characters are always, always my favorite part.  And I've got Jack Frost in this one.  JACK. FROST.)

Eh, I had more to say, but I think that's it.  Wish me luck on finishing this baby by September.