I'm back. Again. With news. Related to writing.

So I went to a writing workshop.  An awesome writing workshop.  I made friends.  FRIENDS.  Who knew I had it in me.

(That's my favorite gif ever.  Someday after I rewatch the latter half of Supernatural, I'll write a long and nonsensical blogpost about how Cas and I are soulmates.  If I had a penny for every time I used the aforementioned quote, I would be a rather well-off individual.)

Anyway.  

Remember... um.  Did I call it by its name?  Better Angels?  The Paul/Ananias idea, anyway.  I can't remember if I've referred to it by its real title.  I just really don't remember a whole lot right now (exhaustion yo).  But anyway, that little pet project?  It's done.  I finished it on the last day of the writing workshop.  It came in a little over 80k, which is the longest standalone I've ever written.  Rather proud of my little semi-Christian attempt.  I'm happy it's done.  It was emotionally exhausting.

I'm also attempting the July Camp NaNo.  Probably going to try to get 50k of Pyxis done.  Pyxis being the first book in the Aster Quartet, the books I wangsted about a month or so back.  So get ready for lots of emoting in that quarter.

Uhm.  I think that's it.  OH.  I do have one more writing bunny.  I'll rant about it the next time I remember I have a blog, hopefully before July starts because I'd like to clock in my WC after the first day.  So.  I'll be back later with elucidation on the Hindu/medieval dystopia about the boy with purple eyes.

(I feel like I should have a catchphrase to say goodbye with.  And I feel like it should have something to do with Supernatural.  How about... 

GOODBYES!  IT'S A PARADE!

...No?  Well, I'll keep thinking.

more writing... words.

It doesn't take much when it happens.

Usually it's something as small as a quote half-read on Pinterest, or a line of music played on a piano by someone who means it.  Sometimes it's the feel of azalea leaves under my fingertips.  The sound the trees make when wind starts rushing through their branches.  The way my carkeys fit into my hand or how my brother's sneakers hit the floor.

It never takes much, but it's a hair trigger.  It just takes a touch.

It's all the stories, all the people, that could potentially come from me, imploding inside my veins.  "It's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror" except there's no terror and there's no sudden silence.  All the future beings that might live inside my head wake up and all together announce their presence.

It's like static, it's like emotions, it's like thousands of years of lives and relationships and voices tangling up just under my skin and if I don't write them or at least write something to drown them out then I'll just go up in flames or explode or turn to dust or at the very least have a heart attack and die because my physical body is too weak for this.  Or maybe I'll just go insane and start talking back to the creatures in my head.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a healthy way to survive.  But I'd rather have the insanity than the silence.  Being crammed with impatient people is better than being on your own.

Writing angst!

It's been almost a month.  How have you people survived without me complaining a bit?

Let me tell you a story.

In early June, roughly, of 2004, I finished my very first book (barring the hand-written 'book' about the wolf three years prior).  I was eight years old.  This book was about 100 pages long, written in 19-point Baskerville Semi-Bold.  It told the first part of the epic story of four ordinary girls prophesied to save an entire planet - an alien one, in which Angels watched over and participated in a violent war between the planet's inhabitants.

I called my mom and I emailed my cousin.  I was thrilled.  I was beyond paralyzed with delight.  My first book was done, and the girls' journey - the journey of STAR - was just started.  I had no idea that the journey would keep going.  And going.  And going.

And going.

I had no idea that I'd been Doctor Frankenstein to the Energizer Bunny of youngster-written series.

Today, only a few days from my officially-sanctioned birthday of what is, for now, The Aster Trilogy, I looked over my three notebooks' worth of notes and almost chucked the whole project out.  Because as much as I like to imagine myself as Sherlock Holmes, I'm far too much Jawn and my emotions occasionally get the best of me.

I was thinking of a girl I don't really know but know of.  She's in the writing group I mention a lot.  She's written... I don't know, seven drafts, I think, of her novel, over... five years?  I can't remember.  I've never read her writing but everyone in the writing group is in awe.  Lots of them have read the drafts.   Everyone has beautiful things to say about her and her book.  Life-changing.  Spiritually energizing.  Special.

I started thinking about that and then I looked at my heaping mass of steaming, stinking crap that I've accumulated over nine years of writing and rewriting and losing drafts and changing storylines and ditching and creating new characters.  I must have written ten versions of the first Aster book; as many for the second; five for the third; and at least one for the fourth, fifth, and even sixth book.  I've never actually finished the series, but I've still written about thirty books.  In the same series.  Today, the grand total of usable books is two.  I thought I was done.  Just one more book, and then it'd just be editing and tweaking, maybe a few scenes added or deleted.

Today I realized I'd have to start over.  Again.

And I thought What in heck is the point to this anymore?  There is none.  I'm torturing myself.  This series will never be done.  Nobody except my cousin has read it, and her life, I'm fairly certain, has not been made better or even just changed by the reading.  It's not spiritual.  It has no mention of God in it.  I didn't even put great themes like Harry Potter's in it.  It's not a life-changing story.  It's a story about four witchy teenage girls who fight and complain their way through a really close encounter.

It's basically worthless.

Except.

Except, from the time I was nine until after I turned fifteen, when Sacrifice happened (I don't count the 40k Bloods book), Aster books were the only books I finished.

They were the first books I wrote where I really, really liked the characters.

I wrote my own fanfic for these characters.

I drew diagrams, I created maps, I formulated timelines.

In between the long hiatuses and the times I ignored it and the times I sat up almost in tears because it was never going to work, I have to stop writing these damn books (pardon my French), I had fun.

The story still appeals to me; the subplots and backstories still manage to get to me; the characters keep growing and growing; and I continue to understand the world better.

It's probably still a waste of time.  I'll be amazed if I finish these books by the time I'm forty.  And it won't change anyone's lives.  It's an action flick of a series, that's all; shallow, pointless.  The kind of books literature teachers and youth pastors cringe at because there is no possible moral or lesson they could squeeze out of these pointless pages.

But still.

June the first, The Aster Trilogy's ninth birthday, will find me up at all hours, working on the new version.  Maybe it'll be the final version.  I didn't know what I'd started when I was nine years old.  It follows that I won't know what I'll finish before it's through.

And then things end.

It's the last day of NaNo.

Say that out loud looking off somewhere to middle stage with enough melancholy in your voice and it sounds nice.  I didn't try that in real life, of course.

The last day of NaNo has been successful.  I reached my 40k goal and then a few hundred or so.  Better Angels, as it has become titled, is about halfway done.  I'm going to try to keep to the 1.3k goal in May and see if I can finish it before then.

But I know I won't, because NaNo is over.  It may be a personal drive but there's no real reason.  Because NaNo ended.  Because things end.

Another thing that's ended: SVVA.

Of course I didn't finish it and then bury my head under a pillow.  Of course I didn't send my little sparkly Viking vampire alien off to an unknown world and then have a nice cry.  Of course I didn't succumb to such ridiculous emotions.

Of course I'm lying.

Nine months.  I'm not even going to notice the convenient number there.  But nine months.  Much of that being procrastination, but still.  Nine months.

Most of the books I've finished lately have been NaNo projects that were over in a month or a little over.  I'm not accustomed to long-time projects now.  I forgot how they worm under your skin and settle down right between the two halves of your heart like they belong there, like they and they alone stitch the parts together and keep you alive.

I think it'll be good for my temperament and well-being if I keep to short-term projects that need to be finished in a month or two.  This is stressful.

When did writing become not-fun and bittersweet and just generally ouch?

Don't answer that.

I think I'm breaking a rule here...

But this isn't the second part to the previous post's first.  I realized that, what with Doctor Who finally starting up again this Saturday, it might be in a bit bad taste to post a list of particulars on why I dislike the current *handwave* attitude/atmosphere for the good Doctor.

Lol not really.  I wish I was that respectful.  Seriously, I just want to plug some of my own writing.  Humility is strong with this one, amirite?

Anyway.  This is a new project whose form has not yet been decided.  More like it hasn't told me what form it should take.  Right now it could be a novel, a novella, a collection of short stories... I'm not sure what incarnation it'll take.

Whatever form it does take, I do have a premise.  Acts 9, just a few scant verses of it, forms the basis of this idea, which is roughly titled To Be Or Not.  The stuff about Paul and Ananias.  This is one of those ideas that causes me to black out during the sermon because characters are being dragged kicking and screaming into my head, determined not to tell their stories, but my magical powers of deduction wiling it out of them.

Ha, ha.  Anyway.

The setting is a '30s Italian-inspired country, Salvare.  Religious uproars everywhere.  Just picture Israel after Jesus died/rose.  That's the state of the place.

We have Aristides Aiolfi - our Saul/Paul figure, the Butcher of Salvare, a young zealot ruthlessly hunting down religious deviants at the encouragement of the Church.  It's what he knows, the family business - almost all of his older male relatives are powerful Churchmen, all suffering at the hands of this dangerous new cult.  Aris is set to follow in the family footsteps, and the holy war against the Following can only help him and give him peace.

And then we have Zelindo Foschi, the Ananias, the Angel of Via Retto, a young man who's supposed to die in a year or two of a painful terminal illness.  He was one of the first believers in Arrigo (the Jesus figure), from the time Arrigo first showed up three years prior, when Zel was a young teenager still waiting to get out of the orphanage.  And yet, unlike the thousand other people that got their mild needs healed, Zel is still dying.  He covers up his waning belief by wasting himself on serving - on earning his nickname, the Angel.

And the Lord said unto [Ananias], Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for behold, he prayeth, And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.

Ananias's reaction: "Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name."

In other words, "Oh heck no." But, of course, Ananias goes.  And Saul/Paul goes on to being a big uppity-up in the Christian circles.

After Acts 9, I don't recall Ananias coming up again. (Maybe he does, I'm no Bible scholar, but I can't remember him.)  But what's just occurred - this amazing meeting, these direct interventions by God in the lives of both of these men - it's just delicious.  It makes me happy.  It's simply begging to be turned into a friendship of Holmes/Watson opposite attraction, a violent implosion of two enemies who suddenly find they're on the same ground, a relationship that breaks itself apart before it heals itself again.

Or maybe my brain is just on overdrive and I'm reading too much into a handful of Bible verses.

Either way, the story has made itself known, and Zel and Aris are here to stay.  It's a definite possibility for my Camp NaNo project (which I'll try to keep updated about once April comes [she will]).  Even if it's not, I plan on writing snippets of it off and on starting now.

This is one of those projects I get really excited about.  It's not so much plot or setting as character. And I adore character.  Zel and Aris are some of the most interesting chars who've presented themselves to me in such a short time.  Expect spam.  Expect a lot of spam.

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.”

Heartstrings and the French assassin holding onto mine.

Chance would like to clarify that he's not actually French, he's Nor'Eastern, since France doesn't really exist anymore in his storyline.  Tomato, tomahto.

Chance Treize.  He was an incidental character in the first chapter or two of Deep Six (the third-place OYAN winner novel).  Lev needed a friend.  Chance popped up - seventeen, wavy-auburn-haired, blue-eyed, with an accent and a flirtatious manner and a love of extensive wardrobes. 

He wasn't what I expected.  He didn't play by my rules.  He switched sides.  He confused me.  He did things and said differently, and he spoke and did differently.  He was a traitor, to both sides of the conflict.

He lost his voice when he finally did the right thing.  And somehow that made him bitter and he didn't stay on the right side.  Sure, he's not 'bad' either, but he's not in any hurry to be Superman.

(He'd also like to say that sky-blue tights and bright red underpants are hardly his idea of fashion, too.)

In short, Chance is one of the most complicated characters I've ever written.  I still don't really know everything that makes him tick.  But he's so real.

He's real enough that I can feel him sitting by me on the bed now, peeking over my screen and asking questions. 

("What in Brahma are you going on about?  I'm not that complicated, silly girl.  You just like to think I am so you don't notice how attracted you are to me.") 

When my family and I watched Rear Window, I could feel him holding onto my wrist for the entire last thirty minutes of the movie.  Screw the fact that he's been a trained assassin for his whole life.  He was hanging onto me. 

("I regret to inform my author that she's bloody wrong.  I was seeing how long it would take to cut off circulation in her fingers.  Maybe I actually am complicated to her.")

His backstory, his mentality, his everything makes me hurt.  I want to give him a huge hug because he's so wrong and he won't admit it because if he's not the one to help himself, no one else will.  He needs to be there for himself and himself only. 

But he needs people, and he's only driving them away. 

He's outspoken and prideful and selfish and a coward.  He's hollowly flirtatious, an expert liar, and I'm not sure if he even grasps the concept of right and wrong. 

But he's Chance.  He's my character obsession right now.  He's my Imaginary Friend who won't leave my side, even when I'm with people.  He's the hand I feel on mine, the voice I hear when I'm by myself.  Insulting, mocking, flirting.  Occasionally breaking.

I almost want it to end - Chance is taking up all my thoughts now, regardless of NaNo and OYAN and school and everything else - but then I'm terrified of what happens if Chance does go away.  I'm no longer really sure what I'd do without him.

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.

Well, I'm back.

Yeah.  Poor blog. Anyway.

Basically it's the same story.  I've not done much anything of any worth.

I'm on the sixth series of Doctor Who.  I'm still not in love but hey, it's fun.  And Rory is probably my favorite New Who character of all time.

I've also written a lot.  Sparkly Viking Vampire Aliens is coming along nicely at three finished chapters (nine to go) and the sequel to my sci-fi-lite assassin story Deep Six, for now titled Not A Chance, is a bit into its third chapter, as well.  And I've landed on my NaNo project - a novella about some Reflection characters of mine.  I'll probably do some quick charrie sketches sometime.  I'm excited about this novella.

And I've been reading some pretty good books and managing to cut down on books that I don't actually want to read that I just got from the library and feel obligated to read.  Right now, I just started what looks like a promising vampire/vampire parody thing called Team Human.  One very short chapter in and I love the heroine.  We'll see how long it lasts, buuuuut.  Crossed fingers.

I'm quite tired, having had only four and a half hours of sleep last night.  I was going to say more but I think that's enough catch-up.  I'll try to be back tomorrow with more enthusiasm for life in general.  And maybe more to say on Team Human.

Later, stupid faces.

The return of normal Aster.

Yep.  Catharsis is over.  I'm back to my unsocial, sarcastic, selfish, uncaring self!

To prove it, here's my report on this week's movies.  They actually only measure up to... two.  So I got distracted.  The first, which I watched Tuesday, was Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief.

Ye gods, Eragon was better than that.

That's all I have to say on that matter.  Except that at least you cared about Brom and Saphira and maybe even Eragon a little bit.  And that the battle scenes were actually interesting.  And that the dialogue wasn't always abysmal.

PJ gets no checks on those.

Today I watched Jane Eyre, the 2011 version with Mia Wasikowska in the title role.  I'd heard great things and I expected to love it, but... didn't.  I don't blame the actors - they were fantastic with what they were giving.  The script was just so... boring.  And it left so many holes in the relationship between Jane and Rochester.  Sigh.  Two disappointing book-inspired movies in one week.  Maybe I'll get better luck tomorrow.

Anyway.  The Book Report:

* Myths of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green.  YAY NORSE.
* Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted.  Modern-day Beauty and the Beast retelling that could be really horrible or really good.
* Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones.  JONES AGAIN.
* Beowulf translated by... someone.  I'll get back to you on that.
* Magical x Miracle Vol 2 by Yuzu Mizutani.
* Pandora Hearts Vol 7 by Jun Mochizuki.  I didn't get around to it last week.  I WILL do it this week.
* Wonder by R.J. Palacio. About a kid with a facial deformity.  It was actually really good.

I'm also sort of slowing down with my 100 In 100, but I'm still in the game.  Even if I don't beat everybody else...

Catharsis.

Here on Earth, life depends on the adjustments.  The ups and downs.  The happy and the sad.  The one side the gives you perspective when you get to the other.  The never-ending teeter-totter, the constant pendulum of laughter and tears.

I just had a tears moment.  Over my own characters.  And not just one or two, as it usually happens.  No, this moment came courtesy of almost every character I've ever been close to.  It must have been twenty, thirty at least.  Crowded inside my head.  They reminded me of every sad thing I've ever written, every misfortune, every death.  Every person who had to move on in the timeline, in the reality inside my head.

It was hard.  But I needed it.

I have a tendency to take this art for granted.  I forget all the time what an honor and a privilege it is to be able to do what I do.  These characters - these people all living inside my mind... it's a beautiful, bittersweet state of being.

It's beautiful because they're my friends.  They are closer to me than anyone on this planet will ever be. They live inside my skin; they move me with their beliefs and their choices; their thoughts run through my veins.  I can't be a single entity anymore because they are me and I am them.

It's bittersweet because... they are me and I am them.  And they suffer.  Oh, they suffer.  When they suffer, I suffer.  They're bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and I feel everything they feel.

And there are those few characters who turn out to be more of me than the others.  The ones whose pain comes from mine.  The ones I understand because they are me - they have more of me than the others do.  They're special.  They understand.  It's raw and horrible and I hate them because they have all my worst weaknesses.  But there's no way to keep from loving them, too, just for their weaknesses.  I know how it is.

How do I forget this?  How do I not end up face-first on the ground every time I open a document to write, in abject humility for being allowed this?

The feather-heavy touch of My Characters, holding my hand, living and loving and fighting and dying inside my skin.  These beautiful broken people, children from my mind Athena-like, who came to me without invitation and without permission.  Punching through my walls, braiding themselves to my heartstrings, taking me over and dragging me down into the deepest waters of emotional vulnerability.

I'm allowed this.  I can experience this.  The sweet curse, the bitter blessing, the white rose with bloody thorns.  It's a good thing it takes a long day and an unexpected mood change to make me realize this.  If it happened every day, I think it'd be too much for me.  I can only feel so much at one time.

So behind with so many things.

Well, I missed about three different things I meant to blog about.  I'll just have to give the abridged version.

Book Report:
* The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman (SHUSTERMAN)
* The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson (rec'd by a trusted friend)
* Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones (JONES)
* Henry IV, Part One by William Shakespeare (didn't get around to this last week)
* Magical x Miracle Vol. 1 by Yuzu Mizutani (random manga I picked up in Goodwill)
* Pandora Hearts Vol. 7 by Jun Mochizuki (didn't get around to this either)

Now.  The 100 In 100 Challenge.

As of yesterday, I had 1784 words.  About 700 of those were in the novel I started; the rest went into an epilogue I wrote for my fairytale/ghost story, Bitter Magic.  I haven't written anything today and I'm thinking this may end up my grace day for this week.  Headaaache.

Anyway.

As anyone knows, The Avengers comes out on DVD on the 25th - in other words, thirteen days. (Cue fangirl screams.)  I like counting down to such momentous events (it's sort of like my thing with Top Ten Lists and such) and so I've given myself this challenge:

Watch a new movie every day for thirteen days.  Then I can watch Avengers which I saw in theaters three times.

Does the connection make sense?  'Course not.  But I want an excuse to watch a new movie every day, so here we go.

I haven't decided on one for tonight, but yesterday I got around to one I've been wanting to see for ages - Castle in the Sky, a masterpiece straight from Hayao Miyazaki himself.  It was really brilliant - the art was gorgeous, the characters were awesome, and the soundtrack - aahhh, the soundtrack.  Definitely a winner.

I'll check back in tomorrow with something about both today's and tomorrow's movies.  And hopefully a much-higher wordcount.

Finis.

Guess what, Avengers?  I WAS.

And I have conquered.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Every novel I finish has a different flavor.

Bitter Magic was appropriately bitter.  Sort of like old salt.  I was tired and that book had wrung me out emotionally and finishing was more of a duty done than something to celebrate.

Gemini, the second Aster Quartet book, that was... mmmm.  Strawberry cake.  I finished it on December 31st last year and it was kind of this big happy-party for me.  Especially since it's the longest book I've ever written (I think it got close to 100k words).

Deep Six was like cornbread and honey.  I knew it was too sweet of an ending but I loved it so much.  It and all my characters.  Not good for me - the MC was too much like myself for comfort - but really, really fun.

Manipulation... I don't know how it tastes.  I want to say catfish, but that's just because I was eating an old piece of catfish while writing the second-to-last chapter.

Actually, though, it does have sort of a... salty feel to it.   It's not a good book.  It's really a fail on most levels.  I hate reading through it because it gives this salty, don't-eat-too-much-or-I'll-dry-out-your-brain feel.  But...

Salt is good.  It doesn't taste good (by itself) but it's good.  You kind of need salt.

I've been working on this book for four years, at least.  I was developing the world for at least a year before that.  All the characters are sort of... under my skin.

Brian, Archer.  Jennet, Phillip.  Ariadne and Cynnabar.  Tabby and Peridoht and Marian.  Jack and Holly and Noelle.  Even Feldsparr, who only got in a few scenes but who I swear is going to get a position in some other story.  There're all... very personal now, even if their development wasn't the best I've ever written.  It's... I have to admit, I'll miss them.

That said.

I FINISHED.

CUE MANIC EVIL LAUGHTER AND MONOLOGUE.

I'll be back.  I have some homemade chocolate pudding to make.

100 For 100 Challenge

Nope.  This picture has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the post.  I just like it.  Even though this Thursday has actually been pretty good so far, despite the lack of schoolwork accomplished.

http://goteenwriters.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-new-writing-challenge.html

So there's that.  The 100 for 100 Challenge.  I'll be attempting that, starting this Monday.

They encourage working in one manuscript.  You don't have to, but it's encouraged.  So I was thinking.

Evil Aster: Let's finish Manipulators before the 10th so you can focus solely on Sparkly Viking Vampire Aliens!

Real Aster: . . .

So yeah.  That's what I'm attempting now.  Eight chapters in five days.  WHAT.

If I succeed, then I'm going to be really pleased with myself.  I mean, really, really pleased.  Thrilled even.  I'll probably make myself a milkshake.  Or maybe even homemade chocolate pudding.

Did I just promise myself homemade chocolate pudding?  Goodbye, internet.  I shall see you again on the 11th, my face smeared with suspicious brown substance.

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.

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.