So I'm elbow-deep into plotting this book. I say "elbow-deep" because it's messy, complicated, and I'm sure at some point I'll realize I've severed something vital. This is the metal fantasy thing I talked about a few entries back, and I think I'm hitting the points I want to with it, at least so far. I have the first draft of the plot done, and with that behind me, I did some great character work that will also make the plot better when I go over it again.
I've gotten so used to things crashing and burning or just fading away in the early stages, so it's a little weird to actually feel good about a plot again.
However, I'm dealing with a different issue with the main heroine. The story takes place in a world where just about everyone has draconic ancestry, many generations removed. (Yes, dragons were made to be able to breed with just about anything, and there are reasons both for why they can and why they did.) The heroine gets thrown into the whole mess because she's the only one who has the same very rare draconic bloodline as the main villain, and some people believe that makes her the only one who can defeat him.
Which sends me kicking and screaming into The Chosen One territory.
I'd like to state for the record that I'm bloody tired of The Chosen One. Not only have I seen it too much, I've used it too much. The first book I ever wrote relied heavily upon destiny to explain why the heroes had their unusual abilities; I had plans to actually explain that away in the second book. (Looking back on it, I have no idea why I ever thought there would be a second book.) The rewrite of that story did the same, only with an even larger Chosen Cast. There's something about someone starting the story with prophecy or something similar on their side that takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.
Though I do wish I hadn't had to write it so much to learn that.
I'm also tired of a similar variant, a hero with an incredibly unique ability that means they're the only one equipped to handle what the story throws at them. Yes, I did this all over the place in THE ACCIDENTAL WARLOCK, and it wasn't the first time an incarnation of Shiloh filled that role. But this leads to the same thing - a hero with a much greater chance to succeed not because of their own skill or knowledge, but because of something they were born with.
So, one of the things I'm working on is making sure I avoid these particular tropes. There are no prophecies in this book - Our Heroes have their own reasons for getting into all this trouble. Good reasons too, I think, since the villain is not exactly a nice individual. And while the heroine's bloodline is rare, it's not unique, and its powers don't manifest in the same way as the villain's. That power, while useful, is also not the key to solving the whole problem - no one person's bloodline is. It's more about this motley crew coming together to take care of a problem no one else was willing to solve.
While I don't deliberately aim for tropes (okay, most of the time, sometimes it's just too good not to), it seems like The Unchosen One serves much better here. And I'm good with that.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Let's Get Fictional.
And while we're at it... let's get a bit silly. ^_^
I found this image quite a while ago, and while I generally think it's hilarious, it gets me thinking: if your life was fiction - if each year of your life was a season of a TV series, for example - what would your fans say about you? What would they discuss, what would they argue about, what would they like the most and what would they think needs to change? Granted, I know I don't live a life worthy of fictionalization, but let's just say whoever's watching has vastly different standards of entertainment and go from there.
Considering the vast misconceptions I've seen online of how the writing thing actually works, I'm sure my viewers would be ranting regularly about how long it's taking me to make it as a writer. He started writing books back in season 13, they'd say. (Some would argue if the stuff I did back in season 7 counted or not.) But after so long, shouldn't I be rich and famous? Others would say that I hadn't made it yet because I'm not spending every waking hour writing, and there would be arguments wherein fans linked one of my own blog entries to those people.
It's very odd to think there would be flame wars over my lack of success. O_o
Some fans would point out that the show's writers had clearly either run out of ideas or gotten into a serious rut, what with me staying in the same place at the same job for eleven seasons. Others would praise the rotating cast of characters at said job, and talk about the character development I've shown. This isn't like seasons 18 through 21, they'd say. Still others would be disappointed at certain characters from work leaving the show, and say that at least the work time was more interesting with them around. I would agree with them.
In that same vein, I'm sure there would be even more arguments about my moving plans, with some saying the series needed a new direction, and others saying that eleven seasons in the same place was proof that it was working out. But such a thing would lead to a new supporting cast, which would only give more fuel to... the shippers.
I haven't had anything even remotely resembling a romantic life for a very long time, but I know how shippers work, and I know that nothing stops someone who's dedicated to seeing two characters get together for a happily ever after and/or mad crazy sex. I tend to get along well with women, which means that I'd be shipped with every woman I've ever known and a few I merely walked next to. >_< The smushed-together pairing names would be ridiculous, as would the ship wars between people who wanted to see me with one person or another.
And in every single argument, there'd be that one person saying, "Dude, he treats her like he treats everyone else. He's not interested in her. Get over it." That person would be the only correct one.
To leave this with one final mind screw: I've cosplayed as various characters from a handful of series over the years. Which means I'm now imagining one of those characters sitting down to watch the series of my life, only to see me putting together a costume and going to a convention... dressed as them.
I can only imagine the look of utter dismay on Snape's face, but I'd like to think Bumi thinks I do him justice.
I found this image quite a while ago, and while I generally think it's hilarious, it gets me thinking: if your life was fiction - if each year of your life was a season of a TV series, for example - what would your fans say about you? What would they discuss, what would they argue about, what would they like the most and what would they think needs to change? Granted, I know I don't live a life worthy of fictionalization, but let's just say whoever's watching has vastly different standards of entertainment and go from there.
Considering the vast misconceptions I've seen online of how the writing thing actually works, I'm sure my viewers would be ranting regularly about how long it's taking me to make it as a writer. He started writing books back in season 13, they'd say. (Some would argue if the stuff I did back in season 7 counted or not.) But after so long, shouldn't I be rich and famous? Others would say that I hadn't made it yet because I'm not spending every waking hour writing, and there would be arguments wherein fans linked one of my own blog entries to those people.
It's very odd to think there would be flame wars over my lack of success. O_o
Some fans would point out that the show's writers had clearly either run out of ideas or gotten into a serious rut, what with me staying in the same place at the same job for eleven seasons. Others would praise the rotating cast of characters at said job, and talk about the character development I've shown. This isn't like seasons 18 through 21, they'd say. Still others would be disappointed at certain characters from work leaving the show, and say that at least the work time was more interesting with them around. I would agree with them.
In that same vein, I'm sure there would be even more arguments about my moving plans, with some saying the series needed a new direction, and others saying that eleven seasons in the same place was proof that it was working out. But such a thing would lead to a new supporting cast, which would only give more fuel to... the shippers.
I haven't had anything even remotely resembling a romantic life for a very long time, but I know how shippers work, and I know that nothing stops someone who's dedicated to seeing two characters get together for a happily ever after and/or mad crazy sex. I tend to get along well with women, which means that I'd be shipped with every woman I've ever known and a few I merely walked next to. >_< The smushed-together pairing names would be ridiculous, as would the ship wars between people who wanted to see me with one person or another.
And in every single argument, there'd be that one person saying, "Dude, he treats her like he treats everyone else. He's not interested in her. Get over it." That person would be the only correct one.
To leave this with one final mind screw: I've cosplayed as various characters from a handful of series over the years. Which means I'm now imagining one of those characters sitting down to watch the series of my life, only to see me putting together a costume and going to a convention... dressed as them.
I can only imagine the look of utter dismay on Snape's face, but I'd like to think Bumi thinks I do him justice.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Getting Personal.
This is mostly supposed to be a writing blog. (Mostly.) But I'm working toward 2015 being a year of significant change for me, and I want to talk about that for a bit. Starting, as it should, with some backstory:
I'm originally from southern California. I went to college at UC Santa Barbara, met two of my best friends there, and a year after I graduated, I moved with them to Vermont. Hell of a change, I tell you - living in the state that invented the term "sub-70 weather" for nearly 23 years and then heading to a place with winters that drop past zero? Actual zero, not just below freezing? Two years of that was enough, so we packed up and moved to Albuquerque, where I've lived since then.
After nearly ten years here, my friends moved back to CA, the end of a long story that's not mine to tell but only bears telling if alcohol's involved. I thought about moving with them again, but after taking some time to consider, I decided I didn't want to go back to California. I then spent the next year hunting for a job where I really want to go:
Seattle.
The astute among you will note that I've said that I'm still in Albuquerque, which gives an indication of how that job hunt has been going. It's a lot like my search for an agent, I might say. I think that still being in NM is a disadvantage, though; someone who's hiring wants an employee who can start next week, not next month. After giving it a year, I decided that was more than enough.
So, I'm moving to Seattle, job or not. The planned exodus date is at the end of March. And just typing that freaks me the hell out.
I've been purging my apartment of everything I don't need - you accumulate a lot over nearly eleven years in one place, believe me - and I've started searching for a moving company as well. The apartment search begins in earnest this coming weekend. There's a lot to do, and it's really stressing me out. This is the first time I've moved completely by myself. And while I have friends and family in Seattle, I can't ask them to drop everything and travel over a thousand miles just to help me move. So it's on me, all of it.
Despite the stress and fear, though, I'm excited about this. I've been to Seattle before - my friend there and I went skydiving to celebrate our 30th birthdays - and I love the area. It's also one of the geekiest cities in the country, which is always good. I just keep telling myself that this is a good thing, and it'll all be worth it, even if I'm freaking out about it now.
So, yeah. That's my major plan for 2015: getting the hell out of the desert. I'd also like to find a job I enjoy, write at least two books, and get one of those books to a point where I can start submitting to agents again. (I've never been good at thinking small.) Here's hoping it all works out, one way or another.
Wish me luck. O_o
I'm originally from southern California. I went to college at UC Santa Barbara, met two of my best friends there, and a year after I graduated, I moved with them to Vermont. Hell of a change, I tell you - living in the state that invented the term "sub-70 weather" for nearly 23 years and then heading to a place with winters that drop past zero? Actual zero, not just below freezing? Two years of that was enough, so we packed up and moved to Albuquerque, where I've lived since then.
After nearly ten years here, my friends moved back to CA, the end of a long story that's not mine to tell but only bears telling if alcohol's involved. I thought about moving with them again, but after taking some time to consider, I decided I didn't want to go back to California. I then spent the next year hunting for a job where I really want to go:
Seattle.
The astute among you will note that I've said that I'm still in Albuquerque, which gives an indication of how that job hunt has been going. It's a lot like my search for an agent, I might say. I think that still being in NM is a disadvantage, though; someone who's hiring wants an employee who can start next week, not next month. After giving it a year, I decided that was more than enough.
So, I'm moving to Seattle, job or not. The planned exodus date is at the end of March. And just typing that freaks me the hell out.
I've been purging my apartment of everything I don't need - you accumulate a lot over nearly eleven years in one place, believe me - and I've started searching for a moving company as well. The apartment search begins in earnest this coming weekend. There's a lot to do, and it's really stressing me out. This is the first time I've moved completely by myself. And while I have friends and family in Seattle, I can't ask them to drop everything and travel over a thousand miles just to help me move. So it's on me, all of it.
Despite the stress and fear, though, I'm excited about this. I've been to Seattle before - my friend there and I went skydiving to celebrate our 30th birthdays - and I love the area. It's also one of the geekiest cities in the country, which is always good. I just keep telling myself that this is a good thing, and it'll all be worth it, even if I'm freaking out about it now.
So, yeah. That's my major plan for 2015: getting the hell out of the desert. I'd also like to find a job I enjoy, write at least two books, and get one of those books to a point where I can start submitting to agents again. (I've never been good at thinking small.) Here's hoping it all works out, one way or another.
Wish me luck. O_o
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
IWSG: I Say This Every Year.
"Expectation is the root of all heartache." --William ShakespeareThere's something about the new year that makes me even more hopeful for the future than usual. I'm a relentless optimist, and every year, I think this is going to be it, this is going to be my year.
This year, I'll write the book I love, the one that everyone who reads it thinks is amazing. This year, I'll write the best damn query letter anyone's ever seen, and I'll get an agent on my first round. This year, it's all going to work out. This year, my career starts.
And it never happens.
You know what? To hell with that. The new year's a good time for affirmations and assurances, yes, but I don't need a new year for things to get started. Nobody does. Writing is a year-round job, and those moments we're waiting for can come at any time. Start something new with the new year if you want, but there's no reason to feel like you have to.
Because when you're in this place, this limbo of plotting and planning and writing stuff with no idea if it'll ever be published, the only thing you need to worry about is writing what you want to write, and making your work the best it can be. That's all that matters.
With that in mind, something I've already learned this year is that it helps to look at what you're working on and figure out if it's what you well and truly want to write. I've spent the past two weeks working on six different plots-in-progress. And I've learned that just because I like the ideas that go with a genre, that doesn't necessarily mean I want to write in that genre.
Simply put, as much as I like the trappings of dark fantasy and the cosmic horror story, I lose interest when I try to plot those stories. It's still a struggle for me to really put my characters through hell (though I'm getting better at that, I swear), and while I believe in making everyone earn their happy endings, I want there to be happy endings, damn it. So after careful consideration, I decided to set aside dark fantasy.
Instead, I'm going to write metal fantasy. I want to write worlds that read like they were swiped from the lyrics of albums where every single instrument was turned up to eleven. I want people to look at the covers and swear they've seen that art on an album before. I want to write books where, if they're ever made into movies, they'll have to get a necromancer to dig up Dio to do the soundtrack.
(Yes, I said dig up, not resurrect. You can't get much more metal than having an undead guy do your soundtrack.)
I do still want to write a bunch of other stuff, yes, but I just came up with the term "metal fantasy" this past Monday and I'm honestly not sure if I'm the first to apply it to literature. But it resonates with me strongly enough that I plotted a full book from stuff I came up with that day. It needs work, as all plots-in-progress do, but I love it so far. And it's not the only thing I've been working on that's going well - the story that's been evading me for months, one I've blogged about several times, finally clicked for me this past Friday. I've got a huge chunk of it plotted, and while there's still a lot to figure out, I'm ridiculously pleased to know how it goes.
...which brings me back to my point about how the only thing that matters in this stage is writing what you want and making it as good as you can. Will a metal fantasy tale in a world where everyone has dragon ancestry ever sell? I don't know. Will a surreal YA story involving dream duels ever sell? No idea! What matters is that I keep trying, and keep going.
Because regardless of what year it is, someday, I'm going to get published. Someday, we all are. And it'll be better for all of us, and all of our future readers, if what gets published is exactly what we want to write. So write that.
"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold onto. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve." --Lao Tzu
Yes, I say all this because I need to hear it. But I'm sure I can't be the only one.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Year of the Teeth-Clenched Learning Experience
"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." --Oscar Wilde
As much as I enjoy bucking tradition, there really is no better time than the year's end to look back and see how things have gone. Looking back on this year, there's really only one way to sum it up:
2014 was fucking awful.
Dead serious here. The year's high points were DragonCon with friends and Christmas with family. That's pretty much it. As for my writing, much as I'd love to say "the less said the better" and cut this entry short, I think it needs more than that.
I started querying THE ACCIDENTAL WARLOCK earlier this year, and received more silence than rejections. I'm no stranger to rejections, I know none of us are. One does not simply get published without getting rejected. But I believed in this book. I wanted nothing more than to start my career with this book. Hearing back nothing got to me more than rejection; a rejection at least means I know the agent considered it before saying no. Hearing nothing means they could have just deleted the e-mail unread. And somehow, that's worse.
Then, as I've talked about, I decided to set TAW aside. Realizing that the book had no real antagonist came as an unpleasant surprise, the sort of thing I should have seen when I was plotting. Isn't all the time I spend plotting meant to catch problems like that? I set the book aside, I didn't want to go back to it after some time, and . . . and the whole thing ended up feeling like a huge failure on my part.
I try not to feel that way. I really do. But seeing TAW go the way of every single other book I've written hit me hard.
It should be a brighter note that I wrote two books this year. It would be, if they were worth reading. The first one I wrote in a few weeks, despite knowing that for me, trying to write quickly results in crap. Yes, 70K words in 16 days is a hell of a thing. But as soon as it was done, I hated it. It wasn't anything like what I wanted it to be, and what gets me the most is that I knew it wasn't ready when I started it. But I had taken time off for a writing vacation, and it was the only plot I had that was even close to being ready.
The second book went a bit better. The end result wasn't what I wanted, but the only way I could have realized what I truly want the world and its stories to be was for me to write the ridiculously over-the-top story that I did. I'm slowly taking down notes for another story in this world, and assuming I get to it someday, I'm hoping it'll go better.
My bitter ranting aside, I'd like to think of what happened with that last book as a metaphor for this whole year. Nothing turned out the way I wanted it to. But even in mistakes and failure, I honestly do think I'm getting better at this writing thing. I'm not good enough yet, but there's hope. And there's no way I can stop.
So here I sit, teeth grinding together, as I consider this whole year one giant learning experience.
Next entry: IWSG for the new year.
As much as I enjoy bucking tradition, there really is no better time than the year's end to look back and see how things have gone. Looking back on this year, there's really only one way to sum it up:
2014 was fucking awful.
Dead serious here. The year's high points were DragonCon with friends and Christmas with family. That's pretty much it. As for my writing, much as I'd love to say "the less said the better" and cut this entry short, I think it needs more than that.
I started querying THE ACCIDENTAL WARLOCK earlier this year, and received more silence than rejections. I'm no stranger to rejections, I know none of us are. One does not simply get published without getting rejected. But I believed in this book. I wanted nothing more than to start my career with this book. Hearing back nothing got to me more than rejection; a rejection at least means I know the agent considered it before saying no. Hearing nothing means they could have just deleted the e-mail unread. And somehow, that's worse.
Then, as I've talked about, I decided to set TAW aside. Realizing that the book had no real antagonist came as an unpleasant surprise, the sort of thing I should have seen when I was plotting. Isn't all the time I spend plotting meant to catch problems like that? I set the book aside, I didn't want to go back to it after some time, and . . . and the whole thing ended up feeling like a huge failure on my part.
I try not to feel that way. I really do. But seeing TAW go the way of every single other book I've written hit me hard.
It should be a brighter note that I wrote two books this year. It would be, if they were worth reading. The first one I wrote in a few weeks, despite knowing that for me, trying to write quickly results in crap. Yes, 70K words in 16 days is a hell of a thing. But as soon as it was done, I hated it. It wasn't anything like what I wanted it to be, and what gets me the most is that I knew it wasn't ready when I started it. But I had taken time off for a writing vacation, and it was the only plot I had that was even close to being ready.
The second book went a bit better. The end result wasn't what I wanted, but the only way I could have realized what I truly want the world and its stories to be was for me to write the ridiculously over-the-top story that I did. I'm slowly taking down notes for another story in this world, and assuming I get to it someday, I'm hoping it'll go better.
My bitter ranting aside, I'd like to think of what happened with that last book as a metaphor for this whole year. Nothing turned out the way I wanted it to. But even in mistakes and failure, I honestly do think I'm getting better at this writing thing. I'm not good enough yet, but there's hope. And there's no way I can stop.
So here I sit, teeth grinding together, as I consider this whole year one giant learning experience.
Next entry: IWSG for the new year.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Myth-in-Progress.
I don't usually share this much of something I'm still working on, but I like how this bit turned out. ^_^ In trying to work on the project that seems set on me not figuring it out, I took some advice from a few commenters and tried a different approach. Instead of trying to hash out the world and characters from scratch, as per usual, I wrote up a sort of myth that describes how the world came to be.
As I said, this isn't the sort of thing I'd usually share, and it's damn sure not something I'd try to publish. But since I might not have even tried this without advice from y'all, posting it seemed like a decent idea. Here goes:
The dream god knew that he had failed, and could not bear the thought.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The mortals weren’t supposed to know about him. He stood above and beyond them, and showed them what they needed to see, whether they knew it or not. Whether they learned from their sleeping visions was not his to know, for he was only to make the dreams, not watch the dreamers.
Such was his failure, one single slip.
He floated within the starry infinity at the heart of his home, the place that was him. The endless churning visuals of his work swirled around him, thousands of bits of sight and sound and scent and feeling – no, he thought, and darkness fell around him as all the seeds of dreams disappeared at once. Not feeling. Not truly.
The dreams weren’t supposed to be true. Real, but not true. The truth of dreams came from the dreamers. He showed what they needed to know, but finding that meaning was up to them. He’d known that his entire existence. Such was his role in all that existed.
The dreamers were never to know he was there. But one had. One single mortal looked up at him when he held the dreams to her sleeping mind, and asked him who he was.
He wasn’t supposed to be true. Not to them. The dreams were real, but he was meant to be less than legend. But she looked him in the eye and asked who he was.
And he lied.
It seemed such a simple folly, to act as though he was part of her dream. He cast himself in red and black, to hide the face she never would have known. The dream he made for her was a simple one, a journey with one ending, to show the path she ought to take. He’d cast it only for her.
All the dreams were so personal. And yet he never knew how the dreamers saw them. Surely one time wouldn’t hurt.
So together, they walked the path he’d prepared. He knew every twist, every turn, every hazard and safety. And he let her lead, as though he walked as blindly as she. He let himself watch her wonder, he saw the dream as she did, he learned to question the warped ways and see how it made sense if you discovered how the dream was meant to be seen.
Such joy in a simple thing. She saw what she was supposed to see, when the path reached its inevitable end. That moment of understanding, the smile on her face and the glow of her soul. . . .
He’d never known. Deep within, the dream god knew he was never supposed to. She embraced him like an old friend, and thanked him for coming with her, swore she was dreaming and hoped to remember him when she awakened.
Then she was gone.
And now, hanging there in the void, the dream god knew longing and desire, as he had never before. As he never should have. He was not to dwell with those who slept, only to make their dreams. She should have been just another dreamer. Just another mortal.
But the pain hanging heavy within him, the strange new sense of loneliness, was beyond him to ignore. All he wanted was to walk with her again.
The dream god thought of raising one hand before himself, but did not move, and clouds full of pictures floated into place through the stars, swirling around where his hand would have been. The girl was there again, in the myriad images, standing atop something that moved beneath her. She was unsteady, but the gleam in her eyes showed her eagerness to see where the journey took her.
A meaningless dream. He could do better for her. He could teach her, walk with her every night, until--
No!
This was not him. This was not who he was supposed to be. This anguish, this yearning for another, was not his way.
He’d made himself an archetype, there in her dream, to hide his true nature, even though she never would have recognized it. The colors and shapes of mortal legends worked well enough then, but they suited him no more.
They could not suit him ever again.
He’d cast himself as a devil in her dreams. To never think of her again, he must cast this devil out of himself.
A dream for the dream god, he thought as he raised his hands, and new images blossomed to life among his fingers. A place for part of himself to sleep until it faded away, to be forgotten like any other dream.
The place came together in a clashing of concepts, rattling around between the dream god’s palms. A world bound by the void at its borders, a dark purple nothingness full of stars, so the devil within him would think it was still home. Bind those borders in rose vines covered with thorns, to warn away any passing glance with the promise of pain.
For the prison itself, a place of buildings that moved of their own volition, full of paths that led never to the same place twice. People as well, the soulless flitting semblances that populated every dream, with just enough thought and conversation to fool others into thinking them real.
All to ensure the devil within him, the part that yearned to walk the ways of dreams with a mortal once more, would be satisfied. If it ever escaped. Because like all dreams, there had to be a way out, a way to awaken.
Three secrets for the world, then, three hidden places and three coffins buried deep in the dream’s depths, three words to end it all if ever he needed this piece of himself again.
He carved the words into the world’s three hidden places, and made himself forget them.
With the prison complete, the dream god held it before himself and stared within, casting a critical eye upon his work. It would hold. Dreamers would be drawn to it of their own accord, unavoidable with a dream this powerful, but they would leave when they awoke.
It would bind the part of him that he wanted bound. And now only that binding remained.
The dream god called up the image of himself dressed as his own devil, the seeming he wore to speak with the girl. It wore what would have been his face, had he been mortal, but nothing else of himself. It was all color and flesh and a smirk horribly out of place, as though that part of himself knew something he did not. The dream god scowled, crags of his face growing shadows deep enough to swallow the surrounding stars, and ordered the devil into its prison.
And because the devil was part of himself, the dream god too swept through the binding vines and across the prison’s halls, and felt the walls of the coffin he created solidify around him.
Even as their creator, he was bound by the logic of dreams.
Calm returned to him, and peace. He felt the devil that was once within him raging at its imprisonment, pounding on the inside of its own coffin lid and screaming to be released.
It felt. He did not. And so his design was a success.
In time, the devil’s struggles would cease. It would forget why it had been bound. It would forget who had created it, and why it came to exist. It would forget how to feel, and thus become worthy of being part of him again. And on that day, he would emerge from his coffin, and open the second one, to accept the other part of himself as healed and become whole again.
A faint laugh, low and devious and unfamiliar, shook the binds of the third coffin.
Something else lived in the dream now, something the dream god had not placed. Knowledge of its presence cast shards of realization through his mind, and the dream god knew he had not completely banished the devil from himself.
For he could still feel. And at that moment, he knew fear.
Why, the dream god wondered, had he created a third coffin?
Hope you enjoyed it. No blog entry next week due to Christmas and all that goes with it. ^_^ Be back on the 31st.
As I said, this isn't the sort of thing I'd usually share, and it's damn sure not something I'd try to publish. But since I might not have even tried this without advice from y'all, posting it seemed like a decent idea. Here goes:
The dream god knew that he had failed, and could not bear the thought.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The mortals weren’t supposed to know about him. He stood above and beyond them, and showed them what they needed to see, whether they knew it or not. Whether they learned from their sleeping visions was not his to know, for he was only to make the dreams, not watch the dreamers.
Such was his failure, one single slip.
He floated within the starry infinity at the heart of his home, the place that was him. The endless churning visuals of his work swirled around him, thousands of bits of sight and sound and scent and feeling – no, he thought, and darkness fell around him as all the seeds of dreams disappeared at once. Not feeling. Not truly.
The dreams weren’t supposed to be true. Real, but not true. The truth of dreams came from the dreamers. He showed what they needed to know, but finding that meaning was up to them. He’d known that his entire existence. Such was his role in all that existed.
The dreamers were never to know he was there. But one had. One single mortal looked up at him when he held the dreams to her sleeping mind, and asked him who he was.
He wasn’t supposed to be true. Not to them. The dreams were real, but he was meant to be less than legend. But she looked him in the eye and asked who he was.
And he lied.
It seemed such a simple folly, to act as though he was part of her dream. He cast himself in red and black, to hide the face she never would have known. The dream he made for her was a simple one, a journey with one ending, to show the path she ought to take. He’d cast it only for her.
All the dreams were so personal. And yet he never knew how the dreamers saw them. Surely one time wouldn’t hurt.
So together, they walked the path he’d prepared. He knew every twist, every turn, every hazard and safety. And he let her lead, as though he walked as blindly as she. He let himself watch her wonder, he saw the dream as she did, he learned to question the warped ways and see how it made sense if you discovered how the dream was meant to be seen.
Such joy in a simple thing. She saw what she was supposed to see, when the path reached its inevitable end. That moment of understanding, the smile on her face and the glow of her soul. . . .
He’d never known. Deep within, the dream god knew he was never supposed to. She embraced him like an old friend, and thanked him for coming with her, swore she was dreaming and hoped to remember him when she awakened.
Then she was gone.
And now, hanging there in the void, the dream god knew longing and desire, as he had never before. As he never should have. He was not to dwell with those who slept, only to make their dreams. She should have been just another dreamer. Just another mortal.
But the pain hanging heavy within him, the strange new sense of loneliness, was beyond him to ignore. All he wanted was to walk with her again.
The dream god thought of raising one hand before himself, but did not move, and clouds full of pictures floated into place through the stars, swirling around where his hand would have been. The girl was there again, in the myriad images, standing atop something that moved beneath her. She was unsteady, but the gleam in her eyes showed her eagerness to see where the journey took her.
A meaningless dream. He could do better for her. He could teach her, walk with her every night, until--
No!
This was not him. This was not who he was supposed to be. This anguish, this yearning for another, was not his way.
He’d made himself an archetype, there in her dream, to hide his true nature, even though she never would have recognized it. The colors and shapes of mortal legends worked well enough then, but they suited him no more.
They could not suit him ever again.
He’d cast himself as a devil in her dreams. To never think of her again, he must cast this devil out of himself.
A dream for the dream god, he thought as he raised his hands, and new images blossomed to life among his fingers. A place for part of himself to sleep until it faded away, to be forgotten like any other dream.
The place came together in a clashing of concepts, rattling around between the dream god’s palms. A world bound by the void at its borders, a dark purple nothingness full of stars, so the devil within him would think it was still home. Bind those borders in rose vines covered with thorns, to warn away any passing glance with the promise of pain.
For the prison itself, a place of buildings that moved of their own volition, full of paths that led never to the same place twice. People as well, the soulless flitting semblances that populated every dream, with just enough thought and conversation to fool others into thinking them real.
All to ensure the devil within him, the part that yearned to walk the ways of dreams with a mortal once more, would be satisfied. If it ever escaped. Because like all dreams, there had to be a way out, a way to awaken.
Three secrets for the world, then, three hidden places and three coffins buried deep in the dream’s depths, three words to end it all if ever he needed this piece of himself again.
He carved the words into the world’s three hidden places, and made himself forget them.
With the prison complete, the dream god held it before himself and stared within, casting a critical eye upon his work. It would hold. Dreamers would be drawn to it of their own accord, unavoidable with a dream this powerful, but they would leave when they awoke.
It would bind the part of him that he wanted bound. And now only that binding remained.
The dream god called up the image of himself dressed as his own devil, the seeming he wore to speak with the girl. It wore what would have been his face, had he been mortal, but nothing else of himself. It was all color and flesh and a smirk horribly out of place, as though that part of himself knew something he did not. The dream god scowled, crags of his face growing shadows deep enough to swallow the surrounding stars, and ordered the devil into its prison.
And because the devil was part of himself, the dream god too swept through the binding vines and across the prison’s halls, and felt the walls of the coffin he created solidify around him.
Even as their creator, he was bound by the logic of dreams.
Calm returned to him, and peace. He felt the devil that was once within him raging at its imprisonment, pounding on the inside of its own coffin lid and screaming to be released.
It felt. He did not. And so his design was a success.
In time, the devil’s struggles would cease. It would forget why it had been bound. It would forget who had created it, and why it came to exist. It would forget how to feel, and thus become worthy of being part of him again. And on that day, he would emerge from his coffin, and open the second one, to accept the other part of himself as healed and become whole again.
A faint laugh, low and devious and unfamiliar, shook the binds of the third coffin.
Something else lived in the dream now, something the dream god had not placed. Knowledge of its presence cast shards of realization through his mind, and the dream god knew he had not completely banished the devil from himself.
For he could still feel. And at that moment, he knew fear.
Why, the dream god wondered, had he created a third coffin?
Hope you enjoyed it. No blog entry next week due to Christmas and all that goes with it. ^_^ Be back on the 31st.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
On the Night Shift.
There are times when I miss being unemployed.
Don't get me wrong: my job's not horrible. I make plenty of money, my co-workers aren't bad, and my boss has made it clear she'll be borderline traumatized when I eventually give notice. ^_^ Hell, because of how long I've been there and how much I know, my former supervisor told me I wasn't allowed to quit - she said the place was a black hole and it would never let me go.
I told her I keep universes in my head, so a black hole was nothing to fear. But I digress.
What I miss about being unemployed is being able to stay up as late as I want and not have to worry about when I get out of bed the next day. Because, frantic scribbling of story notes while at work aside, I'm more creative at night.
I've been like this as far back as I can remember. Way back when I was pecking out really bad stories on a DOS computer with 3 megahertz and an amber monitor, it was always in the evening and at night, as that was the only time I could have the computer to myself. I kept at this habit all through high school and college (though thankfully I got my own computer as a high school graduation present), and it's continued to this day.
Which makes it really annoying to have to stop writing and plotting by 9:30 PM so I can get to bed and get up for work the next day.
I know I'm capable of working during the day. When I'm editing a book, I'll often do two sessions on weekends, one day and one night. If I'm at home on the weekend and I have a plot idea, I'm writing it down, no matter what time of day it is. Sometimes I get really inspired and do full plotting sessions on weekend days, even weekend mornings. Nothing quite like getting out of bed with an idea.
My writing during the day is less great, as most books I've written that I actually liked were done completely in the darker hours. But I have no trouble with editing or plotting during the day and writing at night. That sounds really damn good, actually.
I tell myself that, someday, I'll be able to go back to those days when I could stay up late and wake up around 10:00 the next day. Because in theory, someday I'll be doing this as a full-time job. I'll have deadlines, sure, but I'll still have the same number of hours in a day, I'll just spend more of them up late at night. And my (equally theoretical) agent and publisher will get used to getting e-mails from me at four in the morning their time. I do hope they're not awake to get them, because damn, keeping eccentric hours should be the job of the actual eccentric. ^_^
So, what about the rest of you? When are you the most creative, or when do you feel you do the best work? If you have a particular time, how did you figure it out? And does anyone else ever miss being unemployed because of all this?
Don't get me wrong: my job's not horrible. I make plenty of money, my co-workers aren't bad, and my boss has made it clear she'll be borderline traumatized when I eventually give notice. ^_^ Hell, because of how long I've been there and how much I know, my former supervisor told me I wasn't allowed to quit - she said the place was a black hole and it would never let me go.
I told her I keep universes in my head, so a black hole was nothing to fear. But I digress.
What I miss about being unemployed is being able to stay up as late as I want and not have to worry about when I get out of bed the next day. Because, frantic scribbling of story notes while at work aside, I'm more creative at night.
I've been like this as far back as I can remember. Way back when I was pecking out really bad stories on a DOS computer with 3 megahertz and an amber monitor, it was always in the evening and at night, as that was the only time I could have the computer to myself. I kept at this habit all through high school and college (though thankfully I got my own computer as a high school graduation present), and it's continued to this day.
Which makes it really annoying to have to stop writing and plotting by 9:30 PM so I can get to bed and get up for work the next day.
I know I'm capable of working during the day. When I'm editing a book, I'll often do two sessions on weekends, one day and one night. If I'm at home on the weekend and I have a plot idea, I'm writing it down, no matter what time of day it is. Sometimes I get really inspired and do full plotting sessions on weekend days, even weekend mornings. Nothing quite like getting out of bed with an idea.
My writing during the day is less great, as most books I've written that I actually liked were done completely in the darker hours. But I have no trouble with editing or plotting during the day and writing at night. That sounds really damn good, actually.
I tell myself that, someday, I'll be able to go back to those days when I could stay up late and wake up around 10:00 the next day. Because in theory, someday I'll be doing this as a full-time job. I'll have deadlines, sure, but I'll still have the same number of hours in a day, I'll just spend more of them up late at night. And my (equally theoretical) agent and publisher will get used to getting e-mails from me at four in the morning their time. I do hope they're not awake to get them, because damn, keeping eccentric hours should be the job of the actual eccentric. ^_^
So, what about the rest of you? When are you the most creative, or when do you feel you do the best work? If you have a particular time, how did you figure it out? And does anyone else ever miss being unemployed because of all this?
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