The Outtakes: Seth dances with Emily

Just a one off with Seth and Emily. I suppose, technically, any scene with Seth is a spoiler, so if you HATE spoilers and ever intend on reading Asylum when it's finished and I start posting it, then don't read this. However, that's so far away, and this is so unconnected to anything else, that I don't honestly see it being a problem. So, you've been warned, spoiler, I guess. :P

The Writings: A bit of Zig

Sometimes, inspiration will strike at the strangest moments.

Cooking dinner earlier, I suddenly heard Zig start talking, and this little snippet was born. It's not as clear in the beginning, because I rushing to capture the dialogue, but as I was able to keep up with it, the writing blossomed, then just as quickly faded. Maybe this will be part of a story I write for him one day, maybe this is all he cares to tell me of it. Who knows? Sometimes, it's just enough for you the author to know, so that when a character references something, you're not completely lost. Sometimes, its fun to collect all these little nothings and share them with your audience (at least I hope you're all having fun :P)

The Writings: The Feast of St. Zig

So, speaking of meat posts, I haven't posted any actual writing in a while. Now that I've finished my NaNo, I'm a little at a loss for what to post that isn't what I'm working on currently. Asylum just isn't ready to come out yet, and I don't want to rush it.

On the plus side, Cait and I have this lovely little writing process called "Outtakes" where we write something in universe but unrelated to any of the current story lines. Sometimes its cannon, sometimes it's mostly cannon, and sometimes it's completely off the wall. This one is a brief look into Zig's everyday life, for curiosities sake.

NaNoWriMo: The Results

Alright, here it is, the big number crunch. 50,000 words, about 20 hours of writing. Roughly 2k an hour, best writing done early in the morning. Below is "just the numbers" though my record keeping fell apart a bit in the middle. But more or less, this is what I got.

NaNoWriMo: Day 30

I'd already finished my NaNo early, because I knew I'd have to, but here's a little treat. I spent some time working a few kinks out with Cait, so this a joint piece we wrote together. Kain's bits are hers, Meliki's are mine.

NaNoWriMo: Day 29

I took some time on Friday to pump out a few more words, just so I could be sure I'd written enough. I'd technically already "won", but so much of what I'd written wasn't story, and I just didn't feel like I'd "did it" just yet. After that last day's work, I felt much better, like it was a "real" win.

For reasons that don't matter, Zig and Rain are at the coffee shop after dark. Maybe they just wanted tea, who knows?

Of the two girls behind the counter, one of them Rain recognized as one of the fey sisters. The other, a tall, thin, dark woman screamed Incan to her brain. She couldnt tell you what made her think “Incan” in particular, instead of just hispanic in general, but the moment she thought it, she knew it was true.

“Hey Bei, Miel.” Zig greeted each of the girls fondly, though only the sister had a warm smile for him in return. The Incan scoffed at him and turned to do something with her back to them.

“Aww, c'mon Honey, don't be like that,” he said with grin.

“Damnit Zig, will you stop baiting my girlfriend?” She came around the counter to give him a hug, but only after punching him in the arm.

“Oh I get it,” Rain said suddenly. “Miel means honey, right?”

“Bingo, bingo, you win the prize,” Miel said flatly.

“Oh love, knock it off,” Bei said with a smile. “Honestly, you're so cranky first thing in the morning.” She turned around and stuck her tongue out at her lover, smiling at all of them. “Hey, I didnt' name this place the Early Bird for nothing.”

At Rain's confused look, Zig elaborated. “Before Bei and her sisters set up shop here, the Bird used to only be open from dusk til dawn.” When she still didn't get it, Zig said flatly, “Miel is a vampire, kiddo.”

Rain gave a little o of surprise.

“Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch, I'm not gonna eat you.”

That, more than anything, put Rain on edge. Bei pursed her lips. “No fair taking advantage of reading her bio-signature, babe. Of course she's freaked out, your probably the first vampire she's ever met.”

Rain nodded and tried to become very, very small.

“Oh, don't worry about Miel, cara,” Bei said, coming around to give Rain a hug. “She doesn't even feed on humans.”

“And you don't even like them,” Miel called back. “What are you being all touchy lovey with them for?”

“Jealous?” Zig asked, expression smug. Bei smacked him again. “Now, you behave! Just because I get caught up in the spirit of luau is no reason to get all big headed.” She leaned over the counter, crooning to her lover. “Miel here is my sweetheart, and no stinky, day walking boy can tempt me away from her, isn't that right sweetie.”

Rain was utterly confused.

“Luau is a big metaphysical shin dig that Meliki hosts ever new of the moon. It's to celebrated the lives we have and the love we can make and all the food we can eat while we walk this earth.”

“It's about” Bei cut in, “honoring the dark lady that comes for us all, and recognizing our duties to live while we can, and embracing that we will die tomorrow, and that both halves are needed to the cycle to continue. If we all just ran around making babies and being born but never dying, where would we be?”

“Up to our armpits in babies,” Zig chimed in, though he did have the smarts to flinch away from Bei's look.”

“There'll be another luau shortly, the three days before the moon goes dark. On the last day, when the moon is completely dark, we have a big feast and celebrate life, but the days before that we honor the dead and spend time in quiet contemplations – which is why it's something Zig knows nothing about. He couldn't be quiet if you put a roll in his mouth.”

“Ugh, too true,” added Miel. “Next time we should try an apple and see if someone puts him in the roasting pit.”

“Heeey!” Zig protested, but the girls just laughed.

“Come to the feast,” Bei said, once she'd recovered herself. “Even their little Delphi goes, though we do put her to bed before engaging in the more ...vigorous festivities.”

Rain didn't want to know what she meant, but judging by her comments earlier, she figured she already knew.

–

Rain had gotten quite good at teaching her ifrit to jump from her candle flame to her mind and back to the candle. When they were practicing, she had to keep the thing properly lit, or else the ifrit would't know where to jump back to, but he curled up in the warmth of her mind just fine. She wondered if she'd be strong enough to hold them both in her head long enough to take him to meet Rinna. Surely someday.

“Maybe if I give you a name,” the mused out loud. The little flame crackled and popped, flickering merrily at her.

“Alright, alright, you want a name? Why don't you come over here and whisper to me what it is then?”

The ifrit jumped immediately to her mind, filling it with one single word: ASHLEY

“Ashely?” she said, making a face. “But that's a girl's name – I've been calling you a he this whole time, don't tell me I've been wrong.”

Ashley refused to do anything but push her his name over and over and over again, so Ashley it was.

“But don't expect me to go thinking of you as anything but a boy!”

The flame chirpped and popped then settled down happily to burn low on the wick.

–

NaNoWriMo: Day 28

This is it. This is the big push. My word count marathon. Some of it is glorious, some of it is crap, all of it was a labor of love and stubborn determination. Behold my madness.

NaNoWriMo: Day 27

First day alone for writing. The next four or five days were a blur of writing and working, working and writing. Lots of fevered, mad dash kind of writing. Tomorrow's post is the big one. Today's is the super stressed one.

NaNoWriMo: Day 26

And now begins the race to pump out word count. Thursday's work was good, but Tuesday and Wednesday were way rough. I did a lot of just sitting down and writing whatever came out. So, lots of rambling in the works to come. I did manage to get an actual 50k of "story", but it took A LOT of work.

11/26/13 

8:39pm

Raeven knew she had to write, she only had five days left, and lets face it, this day was pretty much over. But she'd walked away from this world for four days, it wasn't coming back naturally. Still, it was becoming pretty obvious this story wasn't going to wrap up in a measely 50k – hell, it was probably shaping up to be a trilogy. So, just write.

He took Rain home not long after that, she was still pretty spent. Zig said that made good sense, considering how hard she'd worked today, and the fact that her magic was cut off from her. She didn't really buy that last one, she never used her magic, why would it make any difference if she couldn't reach it? But she let it go, and clung wearily to him on the ride back.

Myles was watching from the living room window as they pulled up, but her mother slipped up beside him and put an arm around his waist, giving Rain a smile. Maybe he wasn't so bad. It made sense he'd want to know where she was if anything happened to her, and she could understand why he wouldn't tell her about all this crazy magic stuff until she'd opened up to him. Still, she was too tired for any drawn out conversations tonight.

When she slipped into the kitchen, her mother moved into the space just behind Myles, who was doing his best not to loom, but failing. Rain decided to beat him to the punch and just play the caught in the act teenager.

“Yes, yes, I was out with a boy. Mom's met him, she said it was ok if we hang out sometimes, and I promised not to break curfew.”

In an act that surprised even herself, she went up to the man and wrapped her arms around his neck in a fond hug. “Thank you for looking out for me,” she said, meant for her mother's ears. Leaning in closer, she added more softly, “Thanks for the present, I promise I'll be careful.” Then she took advantage of his stunned silence and ran upstairs to her room.

She went to bed almost immediately.

8:47 pm 6 mins 370 words

9:26 pm

There was still much to do, but Raeven didn't really know where to start. She'd need to re-read to catch it again, but re-reading would lead to editing, and they were soooo close. Maybe after writing with Cait for a bit....

9:27

9:41

What will Rain do next? It's Tuesday when she wakes up, does she dream between now and then? Could be good, might introduce Morgana some. There's also the baddie with goonies that tries to get her – where, when, why? And somewhere in there she has to slip through Myles' fingers – does baddy get him? Does Morgana? Does he step down when the playing field gets so tough? Cait says probably. So

Rain needs more dealings with Rook

Rain hooks up with Kaleans: can't go off to school with them til she's able to leave for days at a time

Rain runs into nameless baddy

Rain runs afoul of Morgana somehow – is that how we get Kaleans involved?

Rook

He was hesitant to say anything to her, he didn't know how much was too fast but Jon was right – this needed to be her decision. Part of what kept him from succumbing to their power was the force of his own personality – he wanted to stay Rook. If Rain didn't know who she was or what she wanted out of life, the Death would take her over, eat her alive in her own head. They had to be partners, or she'd go just as mad as Moira had. (Moira? Not Morgana?)

So he started down the giant wolf that stood in Meliki's garden, the Kalean that had answered the fey's requests for guidance.

“We can't just force this on her, you know.”

The great wolf tilted his shaggy head, as if he didn't understand.

“You know there's no damned reason to wear that form around me, I've started my Undoing in the face before. Face me now, and let us talk about this.”

The wolf shook, like a dog spilling water from its coat, and ice crystals flew in every direction. When the small snow cloud settled, a small figure was left standing in the wolf's place, just a normal man, albeit one far too pale. He was not much taller than Rook, lean muscles and hard lines, icy blue eyes starting out of a painfully angular face. His expression was utterly calm, and utterly alien. There was nothing at home here that could be bargained with, not really.

Rook remembered staring down such a face, and being offered a choice – a choice to remember no more. Now and again, something would strain at that choice, remind him of things he was meant to have forgotten. Looking into the face of a man that would have killed him, no, annihilated him from existence- even if this wasn't the same Destroyer that had bested him in the Purging, they all had that same look about them. And they all had the power to remind him of things his soul could never forget, even after it had been erased from his mind.

9:54 520 words 5 mins

10:02

Rain was walking down the street when the baddy found her. She slips her head, walks into a pocket of ghost or something, maybe whatever the baddy was tracking – an elemental? Something incorporeal, and it kicks the baddy's ass. But that gets his attention, and he tails her from then out, til she gets Frost, who eats anyone that comes near.

10:03

NaNoWriMo: Day 21

I tried to write while on vacation at my mom's, but it didn't really work. I got the one little blurb the first day, but after that I got caught up in living my life. I had a good Thanksgiving break, at least. :)

NaNoWriMo: Day 20

My last good day of writing before the vacation. I took a night off before the drive, to push as far as I could, but my mindset was already on my vacation. I was able to write scenes I'd already established, but everything after this was just a scramble.

NaNoWriMo: Day 19

I can't recall if I wrote this day or not. It seems likely I didn't, since it was Tuesday, and I'm usually exhausted on Tuesdays. Most importantly, I don't have anything marked at day 19, so I'm thinking I missed that day. Things got a little hazy as I went on.

But, never fear, I do have a shot of my finished NaNo graph to share!

Daily Word Count for 2013

NaNoWriMo: Day 18

I started to get lost in my own continuity a little bit. I've always kind of felt that's a really good point in a story. Where it's developed enough that you realize you actually have an idea, and that your beginning doesn't point to that idea solidly enough, or that you wandered a little of track in the beginning, or whatever. When you need to go back and edit, I think it means you've finally got some substance.

NaNoWriMo: Day 17

Some interesting stuff coming out in today's stuff. I'm a few days away from vacation, scrambling, but I also had some good stuff to work with after brain storming with Cait the night before. Everything is really coming together at this point.

NaNoWriMo: Day 16

Some more good writing, as far as story goes. Lots of making notes about who did what how and things like that. Unfortunately, the more I figured out, the more I lost interested in actually writing it out. As I got what I wanted from it, I cared less and less about the story itself. Pretty soon after writing this, I took a vacation to see my fam for Thanksgiving and lots what little motivation I had. I knew that would happen, so I pushed for as high a word count as I could get before that. I think from here on out, word count became more of a distraction than  help.

NaNoWriMo: Day 15

Lots of Notes in today's writing. One, I kept accidentally turning off my laptop, so that was fun. Two, my characters helped me figure out A WHOLE LOT while I was writing, which was distracting on the world count front but excellent on the story front. I was pretty excited about today's work, because my primary reason for writing this story was the information I'd get from it, so today's writing was gold.

NaNoWriMo: Day 14

Not as much writing done today, and what I did write was really weird. I'm not sure I'll keep what in it, because it involves a lot of too quickly researched things. I watched myself start to get sucked down the rabbit hole of researching ifrits, and knew I was eating up all of my writing time for day, so I just went with what little I'd learned and ran with it, before I spent the night reading instead of writing.

So I'll either refine it with better research later, or abandon making it "real" and just make up a bunch of stuff because hey, it's my world. I can do that. :)

Also, I wrote this scene in a very weird order. I think I wrote the middle first, then the beginning, then the end. I just went with what came, then attached it back to the narrative. I wound up doing that a lot towards the end, if I even attached any pieces back at all. As I started to scramble for word count over an actual novel, I just wrote what came to mind. A lot of it is just fun one offs that probably won't have anything to do with anything, but I did get my word count, so that's something.

11/14/15 10:43 pm

“She says its an ifrit,” he called back, pushing up out of his stool and moving across the hall to Tripp's studio. “I'm talking to the kid from earlier, Rain.”

Tripp grunted, caught up in examining his machine.

“She says she found it wandering around her head, that make any sense to you?”

“It sounds more like a Qarin,” he said absently, “if it was wandering around in her head. They're like, Jiminy Cricket or whatever. Spirits that influence human behavior by whispering to them.”

“Eh, I don't think so, bro,” Zig answered, going back through their texts. “I think she's talking about a literal flame that's dancing, though don't ask my why I say so.”

“No, it's cool,” Tripp answered, putting his gun down and sitting up to engage in the conversation more. “A dancing flame is a dancing flame, I was just half distracted.”

“I'd noticed.” Zig grinned at his brother, but didn't bother pointing out that Tripp was almost always distracted. It was part of what made Tripp Tripp.

“So, a dancing flame that told her it was an ifrit, as it was wandering in her head?”

“Oh here,” he said, just handing his phone to his brother. He thought about what little he knew about elementals while Tripp read, which wasn't much. He knew they were based on the classic elements of the physical world, or pretty much anything found in nature, so you got the earth wind water fire but also things like lightening, thunder, ice, spirit – anything abstract that could be condensed down into symbol, really. He knew avatars were somehow related, but he couldn't really remember how, but at that point Tripp was handing back the phone anyways.

“You might wanna go ahead and give her my number, so she can ask me any complex questions directly, but if you think that should wait until we hang out more, I'll trust your judgment on that.”

Zig startled, giving his brother a look. “Who said anything about us hanging out more?”

“You did, when you came in here asking me to help you answer some random stranger's question. You've adopted the girl, Ziggo, it is plain on your face.”

“Aww damnit,” Zig said, half grinning. “What the fuck are we gonna do with this Tripp?”

His brother shrugged. “Beats the hell outta me – you're the one that adopted her, you come up with the dumbass plan.” He stood and stretched moving to leave the room to go do whatever else it was he felt he needed to do before the rush. “I'll just sit back and watch for your mistakes and come up with a better plan after you fail the first time, ok?”

“Love you too, asshole,” he shot at his brother's retreating back.

–

10:56 pm 13 mins 484 words

NaNoWriMo: Day 13

Day 13 was a good day for me. One, it was a Wednesday, so I had the day off, and lots of little 2 hours chunks to write in between girlfriend's classes. Two, it was my birthday, so I was in a great mood. Writing always seems to be easier when you're in a good mood.

I did get a little funky with the timeline, but that pretty seems to be the way the rest of my NaNoing went. When I lost the first little chunk I knew about, I just wrote whatever came. It worked, but I don't have a story yet. Then again, I think this story is too big for just 50k.

NaNoWriMo: Day 12

This tiny little snippets is all I have for day 12, and I'm not even sure I wrote it then and not on the 11th. Tuesdays were HELL for me, because I'd close (2am or later) then turn around and open (9am) so I was always pretty loopy when I got off work.

NaNoWriMo: Day 11

Mondays were usually pretty good for me on the writing front. I didn't have work until later in the afternoon, but had to get up reasonably early in the day to take Girlfriend to class, so I was sure I wouldn't waste it, too much.