Day 82

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

31 Mar 2016

Contains affiliate links. So my updated passport finally came in! Paperwork step one: check. A whole decade of not having to worry about where I’m at, geographically speaking, at least.

Watched the first episode of The Scheme documentary (BBC) yesterday, which made me seriously question what I’m planning here… But trying to keep some perspective; it’s not like I spent time in bottom income/recovery communities here, so taking that as representative of my experience in another country would be misleading.

Although, given that I may not have a full professional’s income when I go, I can’t totally dismiss the fear that I could be stuck in the midst of people that I can only understand a tenth of the time. Irrational fears will eat me alive (lol).

Been reading Kelley Armstrong; engaging Canadian author with proven success, some social commentary along with fantasy/supernatural elements, definitely someone I should be looking in to.

Although as per usual, I feel simultaneously encouraged and terrified by her work (and not just because it has some pretty strong horror elements… another reason to emulate!) When I read back in my work, I feel like: yeah, this could work. When I think about how much it would take to shape and carve that ability to put one word after another in a pleasant way into an engaging, compelling, entertaining story… yikes.

I get pissed off enough just by submitting 100 word copywriting projects that get thrown back a few times for rewrites. It’s hard to imagine that at 100 times the scale, and about something more closely tied to my personal creativity.

But since I don’t write for my own amusement, it’s a necessary step that I WILL do. I hope. Probably. Almost certainly. Eventually. If I ever finish…

The fixes that need to be incorporated in rewrites are stacking up the closer I get to the end (or what I think is the end…) and I can’t imagine how to do them. I write with the intent of final draft - full, cohesive, flowing (I hope, or delusionally believe, anyways) scenes, which makes it hard to interrupt or redirect those sections.

However, Hayne5 needs to be a ‘straighter’ character for the first half of the story, believing in and supporting the Tower, but with an internal ethical core and moral code around his work that force him to recognize and struggle with inconsistencies, and eventually sets him at odds with the Tower. As is, that pulling away and skepticism is too strongly telegraphed too early.

Cole’s kind of the same way, or at least Cadence’s voice in Cole. She needs to be swept along completely by Ravel1 for much longer, particularly the pace that the story is moving at. Her realization that Freedom and Ravel1 are something to be escaped is a emotional high point and key plot move, and something that she’ll need to struggle with to make Itri’s arrival on the scene more meaningful and more of a contrast. Victoire may need to go.

And those are besides the small but pervasive details that have shifted, like the redesign of the uniforms to be burka-like cloaks with masks.

Part 2

Finished The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong, which cuts off very much in the middle of unresolved action. Perfect - that’s what I need to do.

Book One (Gold) is about Cole escaping the Tower and developing enough agency to make choices and see through lies.

Book Two (Silver) is about Cole recovering her identities, accepting and blending them, and gaining the power to affect the world around her, and not just be affected by it. The Tower tries to take her back, and she has to choose a path. The Tower falls.

Book Three (Earth) is about Cole learning to live in relationship, to lead, to be responsible for others. Revolution and picking up the pieces after all the frameworks have been shattered. Escaping and accessing a wider world, because there’s always another wall to climb and another world out there.

Thursday

Start time: 12:45 & 4:45 pm

Location: couch/living room

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