juushika

Because I just received a set of glowing reviews on the Conflict Made Flesh/Desires Become Real fics (DBZ, Vegeta/Future Trunks, NC-17, be ye warned), and because I am sick and sad and stupid (I slept through most of the day and I'm about as brilliant as a very bright slug):

I have been rereading these fics.

So. Lessons learned (and be ye warned again for discussions of fictional explicit homosexual incest):

1) I find Conflict harder to read, so much so that I almost skipped it. I think it's the combination of repetition (stylistic, mostly) and first person (so that all sentences begin with I). I've developed increasing issues with first person since then, and now rarely read or write it—but whatever my issues, the beginning of that fic certainly aggravates them.

2) I fall victim to a couple of noob writing quirks, things like calling blood "crimson life fluid" and describing two events in the same story as "inconceivable." That tendency towards purple prose and penchant for exaggeration had, I think, more to do with fanfiction and erotica as a genre than my personal quirks and weaknesses as a writer—which isn't to say that I in a vacuum would be entirely free of them, but they're easier for me to correct and avoid; I feel like a lot of them pop up in my old works because as a fledgling writer I almost felt like they had to be there.

2a) Holy dialog tags, adverbs, and typos Batman. Never trust spell check. All it tells you are lies.

3) My other writing quirks and weaknesses are remarkably unchanged, even after all this time. I have a fondness for repetition (everything must be in threes!) and parallel structure (nevermind my young self's inability to quite nail it) which can lead to redundancy, and a tendency towards a cool, distant, terse POV and precise word choice, which is overshadowed here by the first person narration but is still apparent. These are things I still struggle with, because together they can make my writing impersonal and slow. In a way, the first person narration is almost a blessing because it contradicts many of those instincts—and so it makes me wonder if I should try writing more of that, nevermind my personal dislike, to see if it helps me improve.

4) I stand by these interpretations. I've long had the desire to write a third and final installment to this series, and if I did it may be stylistically different (and perhaps more refined), I would tone down the exaggeration, but the underlying character interactions would not change. I may be a slash-begoggled fangirl then and now, but I think these feelings could exist in these characters, these events could play out between them. There's a certain glee in sex for the sake of sex, a sometimes-problematic fetishization of gay sex and incest, and I embrace both of those things and loved them even more as a hormonal adolescent. But what really matters to me, then and now, is the subtext of people and relationships: the potential for these things, what might happen if it were realized, and what both say about everyone involved. I was just seeing an inkling of that then, it's what I value most now. Seeing it hold true in my old work, therefore, is almost a triumph.

5) I write a damn good Vegeta. A good Trunks too, for that matter. The latter is more important but more subtle, given that the stories are in his POV. The former is what I love most. As silly and unrefined as the fics may be (and they are!), there are things—like the conversation about Trunks's dream, like Vegeta's "Of course you do, brat. I'm your father."—which are ... it's hard for me to say exactly what they are. They are a further view of the Vegeta that I love, the Vegeta that I watch the show for; they're a part of him that the show can't include, of course, but a part of him that's there. It feels self-congratulatory to applaud my writing for being in character, especially when the character is my FAVORITE EVER OMG, but there you have it. Vegeta has my heart of hearts and he is what I come to see; that I can come to see that, another incredible part of that, here in my own writing—I do consider that an accomplishment.

6) I have been watching about four shows lately, three of which with subtitles (which means I can only watch them sitting up, which limits my watching time), so I've been going barely at a snail's pace through DBZ. I refuse to go back and edit my old work, at least this work, because it has such potential that it wouldn't be a quick and dirty find and replace like I did with the The Bonded (DBZ, Vegeta/Goku, Trunks/Goten, NC-17, do not go read that it is horrible)—it would be a in-depth reworking and my life and patience are both too short for that. But in the show right now, Vegeta and Trunks are currently in the Room of Spirit and Time, and it would be a lie to say that I am not tempted. There is a third, there. And right now I sorta want to write it.

Pairing Pendragon/Merlin (the anon meta-Merlin fic that's been making the multifandom rounds) has made me want to create something cooperatively. The fic is about the romance between a fanfic writer and his beta, and it's entirely adorable and idealized—the creative writer, the insightful beta, and the spark, both creative and personal, born in the discussions between them. Of course it makes me want to make that spark with someone else (if not in a romantic sense). Of course that spark is hard to find. And people are people, and a two-person project requires two people's free time, two people's work ethics. And the create process is hard, it's messy and high-stress and projects go unfinished at the best of times. And even if that spark is there, it may not lead to fire—to stretch the metaphor.

But that doesn't kill the desire to write back and forth with someone. As two writers, I think, rather than as writer and beta. Probably original material rather than fanfic (but ideally something that still felt like fanfic—a spinoff of our established characters, perhaps—so that writing was more a guilty pleasure than a piece of work), because my fandoms are weird and I'm not feeling the pull of fanfic right now. But a cooperative piece, compiled in a single documents, where the line annotations, the ideas and critiques and personal notes from one person to the other, are as important as the writing contributed by each.

I've been at a bit of a creative standstill. Part of that is it seems that for years and years, I had concepts but no characters, and so my work was lifeless; these days my head is full of characters and more specifically of character interactions, they're what I'm drawn to in all media, I literally collect lists of my favorite dynamics, but I have no setting or plot to put them in and without plot, the story lacks motivation. Part of it is that I feel a bit cowed by the creative processes of others, the stories they have to tell, the fact that they feel lost if they don't do so—and I don't have that: failing to tell a story makes me feel unproductive and frustrated, but there aren't stories in me screaming to be let out, and if they don't need to be told ... are they really worth telling? Part of it is the simple lack of time, effort, and perseverance put into storytelling.

I've been trying to come out of that standstill. I may be succeeding a bit, I don't know. I wonder if I even need to—if I even need to be a storyteller. But I do know that writing like that—as an interaction, as well as a creative process—is one hell of a seductive fantasy.

It may be an idea to raise to century_eyes, when she's not busy driving to Portland every weekend. Does it appeal to anyone else? Call this a tentative offer, if you will. I still think it's more fantasy than possibility, especially while riding high on the idealized version of the concept in Pairing. And I am hardly the most reliable person for a joint project. But it is, at least, a nice idea.

In the meantime, the fic's not a bad read. It's pure fluff driven by strong characters, a good balance of cute and heartwarming without veering into the dangerous world of sap. And, yes, it's accessible even if you don't watch Merlin (I don't).

I'm editing something so I can post it, trying to make the language a little less like ... ah, well.

Trying to cut out a few of the two dozen semicolons (and taking out a few of the dozen colons, too). Trying to cut some of the parallel structure, because I overuse it to the point of repetition. Being especially brutal with the parallel structure when it uses colons and semicolons, because the combination is almost recursively idiosyncratic. Pity that's not like a double negative, canceling out itself; instead the piece just ends up all the more complex. Murdering my darlings, which for me is often the em dash. Trimming down a bit of length, tightening and tautening—but it's things just like this which get me, you see: I love wordplay, a touch of consonance, pairs and triplicates of the similar-but-unique; I revel in and depend on excessive punctuation to draw boarders 'round the edges of my long sentences. This is how I think and talk, and so it is how I write.

In other words: I am editing a piece of my writing so that it is a little less like me.

That sounds inherently negative (preserve and value self-identity! of course), but it's not. My love of punctuation really is excessive. My penchant for repetition really does slow pacing. (Some of my moderately old fanfic pains me to read, now, because it's become so obvious that if I'd trimmed it just a bit, it would have improved quite a lot.) These changes are changes for the better.

But each time I excise an em dash or rearrange or redefine a sentence to avoid a semicolon, a little part of me—the part which knows "kill your darlings" means also "they are your darlings"—cringes. This piece needs this level of editing, because it's somewhat strange in its own right and doesn't need to be overly complicated by my stylistic eccentricity, but as much as I know the third colon-separated, semicolon-divided list needs to go I end up staring at it for a bit first, thinking, "ah, but it is such a pretty sentence—and it matches the others so well!"

Still, it has to go.

I've been meaning to post a couple things, but have been occupied and preoccupied enough to procrastinate for days. No time like the present, I suppose. How many things is it that make a post, again?

1) This line began as a typo* in a story I've been scribbling, but it's a typo that froze me when I caught it, and I have not the heart to delete it. Edited and isolated, then:

"Is that really what scares you?" I ask, whispering because this question, all of this, is meant just for you.

2) Speaking of scribbled stories (tangentially), I've been sitting on a pair of IOGraphs for a while now. I posted one of these a while ago, but my on/off obsession with the program continues. IOGraph is a simple program that tracks and records mouse movement. Lines indicate movements; circles indicate pauses—the bigger the circle, the longer the pause. Click through for larger versions and notes. Yeps, I'm a dork—but it's oddly fascinating, ain't it?


2 hours writing/transcribing fiction.


10 cumulative hours general computer/internet use.
(Sometimes I paused the recording when afk, and sometimes I forgot.)
3) As mentioned, century_eyes visited last weekend; that weekend was also Devon's maternal grandparents's 60th wedding anniversary. No huge post from me, this time; I came away with something perhaps more vivid but less revelatory: comfort, simple comfort. It was a busy weekend: Dee got in late because the Memorial Day traffic was hellish; we spent all day together on Saturday, and Sunday I split into social thirds: breakfast with Dee, early afternoon anniversary celebrations next door, and a long last conversation with Dee in the afternoon before she drove back (Sunday evening, to avoid traffic on at least that half of the trip). I went into Sunday wary and tired, but the family event was surprisingly enjoyable (Devon's grandparents were adorable, and had the chance to talk books with someone) and that last conversation with Dee—in Starbucks, in the early evening, with weather wavering between muggy and sprinkling rain—was my favorite part of the weekend. Conversation flowed, the atmosphere was lovely, and when Dee stayed a little big late for a little bit more time together...

It was a twilight time. Overcast weather and evening coming on made for literal twilight, but there was a sense also of the in between, of neither here nor there: the moment stretching on, intimate and shadowed, delicate and timeless. That's a rare thing, a magical thing. Quite beautiful, indeed.

So, yes. A good weekend, a good visit. Devon's threatening to ship me up North to visit her, sometime before too long. And, romantic rhapsodizing aside—and this does make me a geek, I know—but goddamn is it good to talk Sims, in person, with another simmer.

4) Today Maddy scratched on the bedroom door. Maddy is Madison, one of Devon's family's cats, although I think she's turned changling, been abducted by aliens, brainwashed or something, I don't know—because after a few minutes sniffing the corners of the room she found a corner to curl up in and slept there for a few hours, then switched to the bed for a few more. Little circle of fur and purr, warm and adorable, drooling all over my black sweater—it was pretty adorable. My life feels empty, my heart feels empty, without a cat of my own, but having one's not an option right now; since I go bereft, afternoons with Maddy are blessings, every rare one. It made for a good day, despite the fact that today was also spent installing Sims 3: World Adventures. And then uninstalling it, and the base game, and reinstalling it, and the base game, and setting up a new mods folder, and removing AwesomeMod because it doesn't work with the current patch, and then playing a few hours of Ghost and Aaron: Things Which Never Happened in France (and Riverview). There are many awesome Sims posts coming, let me tell you.

5) I think it's five things that make a post, but as I flip back through my notes and open tabs (and having finally finished the review which made up half of said notes), it appears that I've taken care of most I had to say. But when forced, I can pad with one more: I'm finally moving out of my women only music playlist phase, in part because Sims stories beg a different soundtrack but mostly because of the new How to Destroy Angels EP. HTDA is Trent Reznor's new project, a dreamy dark addictive sound. Check out and download the EP for free on the HTDA website, or first check out "The Spaces in Between" (although "BBB" is my current favorite):

( Under the cut. )

* The typo, for the curious, was the last word—"you" was meant to be "her."

Today is the day of the fanfic. The reposts I mentioned are complete, after too many hours of editing epithets and adverbs from .txt files. I'm grouping the rest of these together, because they are technically reposts, and because they aren't as good as 'This is the world in its true form.'. Feel free to skip over them as it suits you, of course.

All of these stories are hosted at my FanFiction.Net account.

Title: The Bonded
Fandom: Dragonball Z
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: VegetaxGoku, TrunksxGoten
Summary: Years ago, Vegeta and Goku spent one intimate afternoon together. Now, in the wake of a newly revealed relationship between Trunks and Goten, they are drawn together again. This fanfic was originally published in 2001, and while it was popular then, it really no longer represents my skills as a writer. It has its good moments, and its painfully bad ones. I have done a cursory edit, but read at your own risk.
Word Count: 40,000
Warnings: Violence, explicit sex, moments of really bad writing, gratuitous sex scenes.

( The Bonded on FF.N )


Title: Conflict Made Flesh
Fandom: Dragonball Z
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: VegetaxMirai Trunks
Summary: The night after his first trip to the past, Mirai Trunks receives a visit from his father. This fic was originally posted in 2001, but it better stands the test of time.
Word Count: 3,000
Warnings: Incest, explicit sex.

( Conflict Made Flesh on FF.N )


Title: Desires Become Real
Fandom: Dragonball Z
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: VegetaxMirai Trunks
Summary: A sequel to Conflict Made Flesh. Mirai Trunks returns to the past and spends a year in the Room of Spirit and Time with Vegeta, prompting unexpected consequences. This fic was originally posted in 2001, but it better stands the test of time.
Word Count: 4,000
Warnings: Incest, explicit sex.

( Desires Become Real on FF.N )


I also posted A Beautiful Man (on LJ) (Gackt, PG-13, 800 words) and The Night Before (on LJ) (Gundam Wing, Alex/Mueller, NC-17, 1000 words, and this one is actually quite good) to FF.N.


The Bonded may be good for nothing more than a laugh, but still I wanted to get it online somewhere other than that old Geocities account where someone backed up for me—for posterity's sake, and in case someone wants to read it. Conflict Made Flesh and Desires Become Real are both, in my never humble opinion, actually not half bad. Although I wrote them some time ago, the subject is more interesting and the writing is much tighter and more polished. If you read DBZ fic and don't mind incest, you may even want to check them out.

I welcome reviews on everything, here or on FF.N, and if you do chose to read them, I hope you enjoy. Feel free to quote and ridicule the worst of The Bonded. Someone has to.

Aaaand... Me tired. Me go bed now. Sorry for the flist spamming. I promise I'm done.

I'm no longer sick! I think the death of the cold can be timed to about midday yesterday (it's 4a? now the day before yesterday), but it was certainly gone by this morning (now yesterday morning). It left as quietly as it arrived, though much faster, thank goodness. Period has also passed, and with it my cramps. Back still hurts, but it's normal hurt now, and so easy to ignore. So, on the whole, I am back to my old self: achey and whiny and headachey, but without the chest cold or the dizzy spells. Yay! Thank you to all of those that wished me well. ^_^

On the other hand, the boy has been complaining of congestion and sneezing, and it seems to be more than just my piggies, so he seems to have picked up my cold. But he looked better today than he did the day before, so methinks he's fighting through it well enough—and definitely faster than I did. Fingers crossed.

What else does no longer being sick mean? I could wear BPAL—and smell it! Today was Jack, because it's autumn (true Halloween pumpkin, spiced with nutmeg, glowing peach and murky clove; this is very light and sweet and innocent on me, almost creamy but mostly waxy, like the smoothness of a candle with a pale orange pumpkin scent) with just a dot of Casanova to bring out the spices (a rakish blend of leather, anise, lavender, bergamot and amber with tonka, lemon peel and lusty patchouli, which still makes me sneeze on the drydown but is my ideal spicey layering scent). It's wonderful what just a touch of Casanova does—it gives a spicy, deep brown edge to sweeter scents, and worked wonderfully with Jack. It's interesting—Casanova was a frimp, and yet I have a deeper relationship with it than almost any other BPAL perfume. From layering it with Antique Lace to having it bite my finger to layering it with other sweet scents like Jack ... well, it certainly has proved useful. And, since I just add the smallest little tiny dot of it, I really never have to worry about the imp running out.

Anyhow.

I went out on a walk through the nearby wetlands preserve today. ( Of the walk to the preserve, of the preserve itself, and of autumn and death. )

That's enough lengthy and grandiloquent wordsmithing for a bit, wouldn't you say?

Other wordsmithing is going wonderfully well, which is to say I wrote just over 2k words today, typed about 1.5k, and know where I'm going next with the novel. More than that, I'm delighted with my work, and will probably do a bit more of it before I sleep. I was surprised by how smoothly it came today—I could not write fast enough, and only got to an ending point when I ran up on a few paragraphs that I had scribbled ahead of time and now have to slightly resituate into this altered setting. I felt like I could have kept going for quite some time. I also managed to work out a surprising number of kinks without quite noticing: where they are (well, what it looks like and why; I did at least know where they were going ahead of time), how they got there, and what trouble they're in now. There is still some more dekinking to be done before the end of the novel, the biggest of all is, um, how does it end? But on the whole, today's progress was exceptional and I'm feeling confident, again, with where I'm going.

On the other hand, I killed another pen, and now only have one that's comfortable in my hand, and the ink seems reluctant to flow well for me, so—I may need to go pen shopping. I suppose there are worse evils.

Wordcount: 110,000+ typed, 7,500 handwritten.

Previous Accomplishments: Getting to the vampire city, getting writing in general back on track, more male characters (yay!)

Upcoming Challenges: How quickly should they get to where they're going within the city? How long does this New Male Character stick around?

Currently Reading: Dracula, Bram Stoker; Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert; Tales of the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, H.P. Lovecraft.

I've been meaning to post for ages, I swear, but my writing has consumed me, and when I'm not writing, I'm reading (and since I made another trip to the library during their front-step booksale, I'm doing even more of that). So there's no huge landmark to announce here—I passed 90k, and haven't quite yet hit 100k, but I'm pretty damn close. Either way, the novel is proceeding apace, if by apace we mean very rapidly indeed. I've reached the wolves section, which I wrote pretty early on in the progress of this novel and marks the change from the inside safe world to the outside dangerous world and, with it, heralds the read developments and the approaching end of the novel. It's also a huge chunk, and for a while I was uncertain where the story went after that, but an epiphany and a half later, I now know precise where the story goes next—and how it gets there, and what it means. All that's left after that is figuring out the what and how of the end of the book—I've known the why since the beginning.

And I am thrilled with the progress, and having one hell of a great time writing it, even it part of me is still itching to start that next novel.

( I am constant pleased by how this novel exposes itself to me, and I'm not sure who to be impressed with--the novel, or myself. )

Worries like that sure won't keep me from writing it, though.

I've finally named another character: Adora, the vampire. I've been playing with two names for a while, but finally decided on one because, um—to be honest, the boy likes it more, and I've been at a draw, so that's a good enough reason for me. I was considering the name Delilah (Hebrew: languishing, lovelorn, seductive) for the story of Samson and Delilah, but went instead with Adora (Greek, Old German and Latin: a gift; beloved; adored) for the Leanan Sidhe, the fairy lovers and muses of artists with, as popularized by Yeats, vampiric tendencies. Leanan means sweetheart, as does Adora, and is a fitting name for the character and her role in the story. Plus: it sounds pretty.

This leaves me with just the protagonist (currently NAME) who is in dire need of a name. She's a cat-hybrid, apprentice witch, and is (self-)isolated, insecure, somewhat haughty, and afraid to admit her mistakes. The whole story revolves around her, so her role is wide and varied, but basically: she must go to the palace, untrained and uninformed, to discover the threat to her kingdom and how to save it. And (as I'm sure you've been expecting): name suggestions for the protagonist are more than welcome. Any language root, any length, any meaning, any sound—I just need starting places.

In non-novel related news, I'm in love. This is no new big thing because I'm just in love with the same boy I've been in love with for years now, and it's not a huge revelation, and things aren't perfect. But, lately, they've been good, and that's enough for me.

Wordcount: 94,223 typed (377 pages), 3,400 handwritten.

Previous Accomplishments: Reached the wolves, which means that the first two thirds are now officially and completely written and typed. Figured out where the story goes after the wolves, and how to get there; began writing it.

Upcoming Challenges: Figure out how the book ends, and try to write the final third in fewer than 5k words.

Currently Reading: The Rose and the Beast, Francesca Lia Block; War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, Tales of the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, H.P. Lovecraft.

New color scheme over at juushika. I've been intending to change it for a while, now that I'm updating my overall journal layout to reflect my friends only to public changes. It is brown. It is still pretty close to the previous layout. It makes me want chocolate.

Oh. Good Lord. I spent all day typing up the handwritten draft of the novel. Why? Because now that I've hit the middle third of the story, I need to know where I stand regarding my fictional court and its appropriate etiquette, which means knowing where I stand in the book, which means unifying all the various drafts and versions a bit. In the attempt to avoid getting wrapped up in idea vs. action, I don't want to do more research than necessary, so knowing where I am in the story is crucial.

It also lead to an entire day spent pounding away at the keyboard, rushing through pages upon pages upon pages of the handwritten draft. 10,000 words worth, to be a little more precise. All of that, while battling the worst back pain I've had in about a year—so bad I took meds for it. (I don't take medication, OTC or otherwise.) It was worth it, because I'm now a mere 1.6k words away from the end of the handwritten manuscript, and then I can get back down to business as usual.

Things I have learned from the massive typeathon:

I will lose a big chunk of the wordcount when I edit, especially in the first third of the book. This is actually somewhat of a relief, because this would be an exceptionally long book without that editing. As it is, the first third is quite repetitive, a result of not plotting out the story in too much detail before I began writing. Characters repeat themselves, themes repeat themselves, plot points repeat themselves. Also surprisingly, I'm actually looking forward to streamlining this section because now, in retrospect, the changes that need to be made are quite clear. I'm not doing a word of editing until the first draft is completely finished, though, so that will just have to wait.

At my current rate, I expect the finished first draft to be around 120,000 words long. As stated sometime previously, plus this new massive typed update, I now have the entire first third of the book, the beginning of the middle third of the book, and the beginning of the third third of the book written and typed. Taking into account the length of the current draft plus the fact that a lot of the repeating waffling bulk is done, now, I figure there's about 50k left in the story—enough to fill in the gaps and get to the end. 120k is longer than I want the finish text to be (no, really?) but I'll lose a lot of that in editing.

And now. I really deserve some sleep.

Wordcount: 72,060 typed (288 pages), +1.6k handwritten.

Previous Accomplishments: Typing, typing, typing some more the written draft into the typed draft. 10k of it. Also: determining how the beginning has progressed and figured out some more pieces of where the end will go.

Upcoming Challenges: A little bit more typing, and then some research, and then I get back to the text. Filling in gaps in the story without getting too bogged down by streamlining may be difficult, but mostly because it conflicts with my anal-retentive nature.

Currently Reading: The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories, H.P. Lovecraft; Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein.

I rewatched the anime film Spriggan the other day and was just about thisclose to writing fanfiction. Spriggan is one of the smaller fandoms—by which I mean incredibly tiny—but since I first saw it, the characters have appealed to me. In this rewatch, I was impressed by how my understanding of the characters had matured. So impressed, in fact, that I wanted to write about: to dabble with them, play around with them, see what I can make them do. I, of course, mean a fanfic.

The problem then is this (other than the fact that I'm writing a book): Wanting to play around with characters does not a plot make. In this case, even being a rabid slasher doesn't help with the plot. What I really want to write is an introduction, a bit of character exposition, and some hot hot mansex. Exciting. Also no longer my scene. So I decided against it.

But I did write two paragraphs and it sure was nice to get into a different voice and mindset. Refreshing, really, which makes getting back to work on the rest all the easier. But I still have these paragraphs hanging around on my computer... And for lack of anything better to do with them, I'll throw them here.

If you don't recognize this film or this fandom—no worries, you're really not supposed to. Mostly I'm just indulging myself. And so, with no further ado: two paragraphs, in there just-barely-retouched state.

( Two paragraphs of a Spriggan fanfic. )

And for the curious: I do highly recommend this film. It has some hokey bits, but the characters are lovely and ohsogay and the plot is clever. It's an enjoyable film.

I sat down and wrote by hand to day with exceptional success. Finally using a blank lined book I've been sitting on for about a year, now, and it's a pleasure to write in. But moreover, I think I may have to write by hand more often. It is a little more time-consuming because I have to type it up after, but it's worth it: the trade off is that the writing comes faster and smoother and that there are far fewer distractions. I used to write all my drafts by hand, everything from fanfiction (including every bloody word of The Bonded) as well as essays for school. I stopped because of the time lost in typing up handwritten work, but now I find it hard to believe that I did. Handwriting is far more fluid for me. The daily 1k words came in about an hour and a half, rather than the usual minimum of three hours that it usually takes. Moreover—this was a section I was having problems with, and it yet came out as easily as my favorite completed parts of the story. Now that, I think, is a good sign.

But I'm really writing mostly to say that I broke 40k today. That's about 170 pages and, while not a huge gigantic landmark, is still a significant one, and I'm happy with it—and look forward to the next, what? 60k+ of the book.

Wordcount: 40,975 (actually a bit more, but I haven't typed up the rest).

Previous Accomplishments: Conquered the verbal battle and with much success at that; have introduced some doubt and a whiff of danger.

Upcoming Challenges: Developing a new pacing style for the long time in short text that follows next. Oh, and my characters could still use names, as we can add SISTER to the list of the unnamed.

Currently Reading: The Robber Bride, Margret Atwood.