| if that silly boy can do it, so can i. |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|02:05 am] |
well, you said to get a little more up close and personal. so i did.
the pacing of this story from start to finish is NOT consistent, btw. segment one started out as sketching a ridiculous high fantasy character at work. it.s a bit of an odd place to begin a story. segments two and three i sketched in the background of his life - how he got to be that way. they are particularly epic, if highly over-concentrated. i like their contents very much, but they need to be expanded into multiple chapters each. they are VERY brief at present. now, due to response, ive started actually fleshing out scenes. im not 100% decided on exactly which part of this story arc to focus on and declare the primary one, and that's something i'd really like feedback on.
last few segments
one. meet aeon ae'llewyn. highborn but lastborn, penniless, landless, widowed with a young son. so he set the boy before him on his horse and set off to sell his sword.
two. aeon and aeder. the youngest sons of old baron ae'llewyn. not really twins, but close enough they could speak in it. their childhood and relationship could be a whole book.
three. aeon and lisbet, the girl aeder tried to kill him over, the girl aeon forfeited rank and family to marry. this is the poingant end of their story arc. the implied history could definately be told.
four. aeon and his son rowan. and why they have no home.
( five. aeon swallows his pride to do what is best for rowan, even if that means facing aeder. ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 31st, 2009|03:33 pm] |
And now as Umbrae allied with D'Armine and met Yberia in pitched battle for Yvenn, Aeon found himself with not a single military force in the land he was willing to sign up with. For though he remained estranged from the family because he refused to fight under his brother's command ever again, he certainly wasn't about to take up arms against him, either.
As spring thawed the ground and the miserable, dragging winter battle heated up once more, Aeon paced in nervous circles around the tiny forested barony of D'Astur. He could feel his welcome wearing thin. The moment he heard Darcy had taken a decisive victory and San Martyn had retreated back into Yberia, he hit the road. He wasn't quite sure where he was headed. If nothing else, they could hide out in the steppes for awhile. He'd have to spend a few weeks crossing D'Armine, it was true, but with any luck he'd be able to get through while the Northmen were still drunk with celebration.
He found himself taking them down the longer road, the one that wound through the northern edge of Yvenn. They had not been back to Whitford-on-the-fens since Lisbet had died. Rowan had often asked about it, but it had never been as if they could just go back anytime they pleased. The keep had fallen and the old Baronet been slain the same day the daughter they had never named came stillborn, and Lisbet had bled to death in the birthing chamber. The messenger had found him in their little cottage, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, and he had not known which was more merciful - that Lisbet had not lived to hear of her father, or the old Baronet to hear of his daughter. When the frail old messenger - he had been the old Baronet's personal valet - had shaken Aeon into a semblance of sense and dragged him outside for the first time after the long night of wailing and blood, the sun was coming up. The castle was burning, the fields were burning, and the smallfolk were fleeing. The old Baronet's man had tried to say something, perhaps, but finally lost his wits or perhaps found them, and turned and fled himself.
And then Rowan, barely then able to walk, had stumbled out of the house and into his father's knee, knocking himself to the dirt, where he sat crying.
Aeon looked about him, and everywhere he could see, there was nothing. No life, no meaning. The world before him was burning, its souls fleeing. Behind him, in the little cottage, there was no one. At some point during the night the cook had fled, the maid and the valet and at last, when the Crone took his wife and daughter into her embrace, even the midwife had taken foot and run. Nothing. No life, anywhere around him.
He looked down. There, clinging to one dusty boot and crying, was Rowan. The only thing left alive in his world. And he the only thing in Rowan's.
He picked up the boy and went into the house. Nothing here but an empty shell. Nothing worth taking. He strapped the greatsword across his back, found the silver coronet in the wardrobe where it waited. Brushing back Lisbet's hair, he placed the coronet on her head. Her skin was cold, eerie. He lifted Rowan and set him on the bed beside her. "You may kiss your mother good-bye," he said, and Rowan moved to obey, but his little face brushed his mother's he squirmed back in alarm, starting to cry anew. "You're right," said Aeon softly. "She's not there anymore."
He put his son on his shoulder and walked from the room without looking back. Saddled his horse and placed the boy upon it. Then in the doorway he placed three gold coins to pay the Crone's fare, one for his wife, one for his daughter, one for his goodfather. Taking the a torch in each hand from where they sat in their sconces, he threw them into the floor rushes. The rushes caught at once, and Aeon swung up behind his son. They watched for a moment as the funeral pyre took, and then Aeon wheeled his horse and left the burning valley at a canter. |
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| and now for something completely different |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|11:54 pm] |
always working on the same story, especially one of that nature, was keeping me in a very bad headspace.
i'm too old to do so little growing and changing.
i took a mental break for the last few weeks and have been scribbling something completely different in a little notebook at work.
how completely different?
( high fantasy completely different! ) |
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| it aint much |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|02:24 pm] |
it ain't much, but i'm on someone else's computer. more of chapter 12
Elijah
She wasn’t looking at me.
‘Course, I wasn’t looking at her either. But I saw her. Standing there at the end of the hall, leaning on the doorframe. Not waiting for me. She fell into step beside me as I passed. Looked down, looked ahead, but not at me. Her voice was hardly a murmer.
“Hey, dude.” The engagement ring was on her hand. Out in the open. Voluntarily.
“I see you got your ring back.” Matched my tone to hers.
“Things have changed.” Not waiting for me at all.
“So I gather.” Still wearing the chain I’d given her, too. Silly girl. Can’t have your cake and eat it too.
“I have…” she trailed off. Not with these two pieces of cake, anyway. “Stuff… to tell you.”
Mentally, I shrugged. Can’t know ‘til you find out. “Lets meet up somewhere after school.”
“How about the forest preserve east of the highway?”
Anyplace better than here, where any imbecile could see. “I can be there by 3:30.”
“I’ll be within earshot of my car.”
“See you there.” I turned abruptly to go down a different hallway. No eye contact. Not here. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 16th, 2009|10:45 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bitchy | ] |
death, chaos, destruction, fuck. still at work. sick. knees hurt. feet hurt. queasy. phone just ate my first attempt to post. boo. |
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| also |
[Aug. 21st, 2009|04:17 am] |
you should see this:
brought to my attention by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zuridea |
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| reason 869 that i am stupid |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|02:39 am] |
so, my computer finally sucked in enough cat hair that the fan up and died. it was giving off a smell like burning metal. didn't know metal could burn, much less that it had a smell i could recognize, but apparently both are true. i did throw the most recent version of the story on a flash drive and get it the hell out of there, but i am now moved onto a somewhat inconveniently stupid laptop. by stupid. i mean devastatingly low in ram. used to belong to this middle aged luddite housewife who apparently never needed it to do anything, like minimize a window, in less than ten minutes. so, until i can get more ram ordered and installed, things are a bit tedious over here.
but the story is safe and under way.
meanwhile in lieu of content: Evolution Fucked Your Shit Up: The World's 50 Freakiest Animals. |
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| people, they never cease to amaze me |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|01:35 pm] |
Reason #873 people are stupid.
Don't wait for people who aren't coming back. Sure, you can pine over them in private, but waiting? For seven years? When you're only 25? Yeah, that's a bit much.
So, Laurie is Ben's not-girlfriend. Ben is one of my roommates. laurie is pretty much our honorary fourth roommate. overall, she's pretty cool, low-drama for a chick, whatever. I've generally had a pretty good, no-drama setup for awhile now. After Caroline moved out (not that she was too much of a problem either, she doesn't let her personal wtf spill over into official house business like paying her rent on time.) this older woman Ellen moved in. Ellen is, like, 38 and divorced with teenage kids who visit every month or so. So she's been there and is so over all that shit. Living with her is kinda like having a godmother or aunt who's not weird about us smoking on the roof. ben's around my age, in grad school, another stoner guy, real chill, no drama, so for ellen I think living with us is kinda like living with nephews or godchildren, who you still kinda see as kids, but who are now old enough to be taking care of their own shit. And besides, they're someone else's kids so you don't REALLY have to care about the details. So yeah. It's worked super-well for awhile. Ellen has a couple of "nice strong young men" to help her reach things or lift untoward packages (she's also from that generation that worries about being a woman living alone) and we have someone who swears she REALLY doesn't mind that she just cleaned the entire kitchen as long as us strapping boys will take out the, heavy, heavy, trash. It's been so good I feel kind of guilty.
So, Laurie, and people being stupid. Laurie's been kind of pointedly not-dating Ben for like six months now. I mean, they're obviously dating to any casual observer, but she is specifically and officially Not Looking For A Boyfriend Right Now. When I first asked if that was his new girlfriend who was over having loud sex every other night, he was like "nah, just a chick." which made sense considering he'd just had a nasty breakup a few months before, but then she kept coming over for six months, meeting all his friends, hanging out with us playing guitar hero all night. It got to the point where his friends were automatically inviting "and Laurie" to do shit. I didn't really ask why she was still so pointedly Not His Girlfriend, until I found out in a whiskey-sodden explosion last night that she has been waiting for the love of her life.
Oh yeah. Apparently there was some love triangle thing back in college where some guy dated her when he was really wanting to date this other chick, but then when he finally dumped her to date the other chick he realized Laurie had been the perfect thing all along. Admissions of undying love, etc. Right. So then Laurie finishes college to move to Chicago, and they're all cool to see other people because they're not gonna be stupid and sit around chastely waiting for each other. Every time they see each other it's all roses and moonlight, Laurie's really the one, and any girls back home are just conveniences. Somehow she manages to ignore the fact that he's still seeing the SAME OTHER CHICK FROM COLLEGE and accept his excuses about why he doesn't just move to Chicago, even though it would be great for his career AND the alleged love of his life is there. She keeps suggesting to him that he should just man up and dump this girl if he doesn't really love her and just move to Chicago to be with her. Somehow she miraculously ignores the fact that he doesn't take her advice. For years. And the other chick is now living with him.
Yesterday she was drowning herself in whiskey because he finally told her he and the other girl are getting married. And they've been engaged for a month, but he didn't dare to tell her because he was afraid of how she'd react. And, you know, most people who are not me think about proposing for a hot second before they actually do so - so most likely, this guy had been planning to ask this girl for months. And never told Laurie.
Seriously. I feel bad for her. But how fucking stupid can you be? |
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| updated version of brian's first passage |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|08:30 pm] |
This is the new modified rendition of Brian's first passage, thanks to much commentary on it's awkwardness. Also, "Brian" has officially been changed to "Mikey" and "Sean" to "Geoff." Brendan laughed and agreed not to sue me in writing, so I'm leaving his name as is.
“C’mon, fatass, are we going now, or what?”
Brendan is an asshat. Geoff is, too. Come to think of it, so is Jerry. All my friends are kind of asshats, in their own ways. I don’t know what it is with people around here. Maybe it’s just people in general. There’s a lot of asshat, but some people just take it more seriously than others.
“Yes, yes, hold your horses.” I took my bike from behind the shed, wheeling it out. Brendan was waiting at the end of the driveway, looking vaguely annoyed.
“Maybe nobody else cares, but Christine’s mom is going to bitch for hours if we get there late. Like it actually matters when we all leave, anyway.” Really I don’t think there’s any good reason for why I’m friends with any of them, except that we are. We go back. It matters, who you sit around and plan to blow up the school at recess with. They’re all generally asshats but they all have their good qualities, too.
“We’re not going to see her mom,” I reminded him.
“Beg pardon? Doesn’t she like, live with her mom and stuff?”
“Her mom is never home on Sundays, remember?” I was annoyed. I was still generally a mess from being rushed. I mounted the bike, shaking my bag to sit more comfortably and pushing my glasses up my nose with one hand. “That’s why we always go to her house?”
“Oh.” Evidently that was enough of an answer. “Yeah. Sundays. I forget. Whatever. You’re still fat.” Brendan is just sort of vaguely oblivious. He doesn’t even realize he’s a friend when he is. It’s kind of funny how he’s all old-fashioned polite country gentleman, “Beg your pardon, ma’am?” and things like that, and then he doesn’t get why people think he’s like that.
“Where are you guys going?” Adrian, Brendan’s little brother, was sticking his head out of an upstairs window.
“Nowhere that matters to you, dumbass.” Brendan jumped on his bike and rode away.
“You’re the dumbass!” Adrian hollered at our backs. I’d never tell him this, and anyway he wouldn’t believe me if I did, but it’s actually really frightening how smart Brendan is about the two or three things he’s good at. I mean, I’m pretty fucking smart, but holy shit, Brendan is smart. That robot we won the state championships with in sixth grade? It was practically all his idea. I mean, I refined it and built it and did the actual calculations with him, but the concept was all his, in one single flash. And what’s funny is he doesn’t believe it. Most people generally know how smart they are or not. He just takes himself for granted, like he’s normal or something. Which is why he thinks his brother is so stupid.
It’s not like Brendan never does anything stupid either. The very next week we were all sitting around after one of the Science Odyssey contests waiting for the bus to take us home and we had just found this pile of Kool-aid packets and a stack of Dixie cups. Brendan and Jerry had decided it would be funny to make up super-concentrated Kool-aid with no sugar, like a whole packet in one Dixie cup of water, to see how gross it was. Then Brendan came up with the brilliant idea that for every cup of super-concentrated Kool-aid he drank, Christine had to remove an article of clothing. First she took a paper clip off her pants, then she took off her shoes, and then we made a rule that silly things like jewelry and socks didn’t count. Finally on the third cup we’d gotten her sweater off, and now we were really getting somewhere because she only had real clothes left, when Brendan said he wasn’t feeling well. It had been his idea to begin with, so we all were like, come on. So he drank one more, and then he puked.
We were all wearing dress clothes for the contest and I guess he didn’t want to ruin his clothes, because he kind of leaned forward really suddenly. The thing is, he was sitting in a rolling chair, so the force of his puking propelled him backwards like ten feet. Then he puked two more times, and finally ended up, like, down the hall, just kinda drifting backwards and moaning, with this giant trail of neon red puke.
I compared him to his brother when the janitors were mopping it up and giving us sideways looks. He almost punched me, like, he probably would’ve if the teachers and coaches hadn’t been so mad at him already. It wasn’t really that bad of an insult. I mean, Adrian is pretty stupid, but he’s not, like, a drooling retard and he’s okay to like, include in video games and things. But Brendan hates him. Brendan, like, actually gets upset about how stupid his little brother is. But then, Brendan generally hates everyone, so it’s all the same.
All my friends vaguely hate everyone, I think. But so do I, basically, so it’s not really that strange. That’s just the way it is around here. All my friends are generally sort of the leftovers of people. Most people are really asshats, not the way my friends are, but I mean, really asshats. People don’t care about anything but stupid shit, showing off how nice your new whatever is. Like my mom’s new kitchen. Last year my mom got a new kitchen that was worth more than the original price of the house. It’s stupid. My dad still doesn’t want to talk about it.
Jerry and Brendan and them were all pretty blown away when they saw it. I mean, she like, knocked out two walls to extend this huge stupid kitchen. The house is now like, a third again as big. She also created this sunroom thing for that we’re not allowed to go into. I’m pretty sure it generally only exists for when she has her friends over to play Mah-jong. She really bitched about my trailer trash friends and how they shouldn’t touch her nice stuff. I asked her what crawled up her ass and died and she called me ungrateful and stupid and threatened to like, leave the family or fly back to Israel where the extended family appreciates her and children know their place, or something like that, again. Then she left the house in a storm. I don’t know. She’s crazy.
My friend’s backgrounds are not really all that bad, in general. I mean, I know Brendan’s parents don’t have that much money, his mom works at the library, and Chris actually lives in a rental, but no one, like, actually lives in a trailer. Geoff’s parents are doing pretty okay and Jerry’s house is bigger than ours. Even though I know, I know, his mom only married his stepdad for the money like five years ago and they had no money and she was, like, a whore or a stripper or something like that before, bla bla bla. Last time I was mad at my mother I asked her that just because she married my dad for the money fifteen years ago, how does that make her different from Jerry’s mom, except for being older? She slapped me and left the house in tears. That time my dad actually tried to talk to me about it, except apparently the general difference is that because she grew up with money it’s okay to marry for it. When I pointed that out he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
Besides, it’s not like not having money makes them bad people in general. My friends are not, like, gangbangers from the city driving around shooting people. If anything, not having money has made them nicer people because they don’t act so entitled. Most of the kids my mom always tried to get me to be friends with are asshats, of the serious kind. Like, the break your nose and leave you out in the snow when you’re supposed to be playing soccer kind of asshat. They were always such jackasses to me because I can’t run or do stuff with my right hand, and then they were jackasses in school because their mothers would lecture them about not testing into the classes I did. Besides, they’re generally too stupid to work on projects or build things or really do anything interesting. I’m never going to be able to run, and they’re always going to be hopeless idiots, and that’s just the way it is. My friends at least are all generally smart, and we can actually do things.
Well, Brendan was, anyway. Jerry’s pretty all right smart, too. Like he, gets things and he’s generally okay to talk to and he’s not going to flunk out of school or anything. He’s kind of vaguely medium. He doesn’t have those brilliant flashes Brendan does, but he’s not as asinine either. I mean, he’s pretty dense, too, but, he’s not, like, under a freaking rock like Brendan. I think it’s also that he doesn’t care. He gets what’s going on with engineering but he’d rather fight. He’s really good at music, and not in like a vague way. He keeps saying music is just math and I generally get what he means but I never had a good ear for it so I never learned much about the details of it. It sounds stupid, when I say he’s good at music, like he’s just doing some general crap, but I mean like he’s good at getting the intervals and timings and things, and always knowing why things come out the way they do. I always ask him when I want to know why something sounds a certain way, and he knows about it in a lot of detail, which is why I think he’s smart and just doesn’t bother with things he doesn’t care about.
Chris is generally kind of self-centered, but she’s cute too, so she gets away with it. And, I mean, I know she means well. She’s a lot of fun to be around and she does care about people, she just generally wants things to go a certain way. I think she imagines out how to make things work out the best for people, so mostly I just have to figure out how to tell her when people need something different. It’s not like she’ll object. She wants everyone to be happy, as long as everyone includes herself.
Geoff is his own special kind of stupid. His own special kind of asshat, too. I vaguely doubt he wants anyone to be happy and that probably includes himself. He sort of generally hates everyone. But not the way Brendan hates everyone. Brendan doesn’t really hate everyone, he just hates stupid people and that I can understand. But Geoff is an asshat to people who are supposed to be his friends. Like, on purpose. He’s just kind of vaguely a jerk, all the time, and he doesn’t care, as long as he finds it funny. I don’t know why he keeps calling us, and showing up, if he’s just going to be an ass about it. But he isn’t like an extreme ass, so you’re never really sure with him. He always seems to want to hang out and go along, and he seems to listen and cooperate, except he keeps doing little things that make you think he kinda doesn’t care at all. Except then he’ll do something funny and everyone will forget about it. Even when he’s not there because we’re all mad at him, he’ll keep coming up in conversation, one of his funny stories, something ridiculous he did. Like, the other day he was sitting in a rolling chair letting out this long string of belches. Like, one, every few seconds, over and over. The thing is, he had the hiccups at the same time, and we had told him it was stupid to try to belch repeatedly like that when he already had the hiccups. Suddenly, he sneezed. Right in the middle of a belch, and a hiccup too. He, like, seziured back and forth for a moment, and the chair went shooting out from under him, and then he landed on the floor in the fetal position.
So, I guess the moral of the story is to never have bodily functions in a rolling chair. |
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| and now, to completely screw up your context! |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|03:04 am] |
This is technically completely new material, but it is being inserted at the beginning of chapter 2.
For those who just added me through the writing communities, thank you! You may get a little jumbled if you read the newest material on this journal... I have been posting all of my first and second draft here, so most of my friends on my personal journal have read the entire story up to chapter 11. I am writing the last chapter right now... but I am also editing 1-11, and putting the newest (third draft versions) on writing communities. So, FYI, "chapter 12" may come out here before I've actually gotten the first eleven posted to the writing communities, and you may get jumbled if you dont pay attention to the chapter numbers in cuts.
anyway.
This I just wrote this week, to add to the beginning of chapter 2 for the sake of rounding out ravenex's point of view (and because i just talked with real-life ravenex and it strikes me how distinct his speech pattern is), so this should be new for everyone. x-posted to several writing communities.
( the moral of the story ) |
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| even though you guys don't freaking love me |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|03:14 am] |
| [ | music |
| | in the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade | ] |
Even though you guys don't freaking love me enough to critique me anymore, I'm still writing. And we're nearing the end, slowly but surely. This is start of Chapter 12 (I may be combining some earlier chapters for flow purposes, so this may be a lower number in the near future, but for now, it's Chapter 12.)
( The Lion and The Unicorn ) |
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| ahaha |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|06:18 am] |
This is too great. too fucking great. I think I am just going to copy this one in verbatim.
So, as you know, I've been working on developing multiple perspectives. It is necessary to use alternate points of view to tell the end of the story smoothly, but right now the story begins with my personal saga alone. I've been working on developing the backstory of the other narrating characters and weaving them in from the beginning, so they do not come in suddenly halfway through.
I was going to base a particular episode on a true story from Brendan's (Caterpillar's) life, but upon re-reading the original I think I might just paste it in, verbatim, typos and all. It also gives a really good working example of how he speaks, thinks, and writes - with a lot of personal flavor. Very differently from me. I will have to make sure to stylize all his narration like this.
and, ya know, after all these years, it's still FUCKING HILARIOUS.
miss varletry, this one's for you.
Without further ado, the ( pee spider story ) |
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