So, for the first time in nearly 6 months, I’m posting a brand-new chapter of CoT. Trust me, I’ve actually been working like a demon on it — my commute to work is nearly 2 hours long (making 4 hours of total commute in a day) and I work more than 8 hours a day, which is a completely different beast than writing when unemployed. To start with, you have a lot less time to actually write. But, on the upside, it becomes the thing that occupies your mind, because it is no longer your only semblence of work besides, perhaps, applying and interviewing for jobs. This schedule should be ending soon — Gabe and I have leased an apartment much closer to my work, cutting my travel time down to an hour. This hour is also spent on the piece of the transit system that is most easy to write on, although I may nto always have a seat to do so. It depends, really. In any case, I am expecting an influx of time and creativity, so hopefully the next chapter won’t take so long.
This chapter was mostly written in a small notebook of actual paper; something I have not done since I was maybe 12 or 13. Maybe 14. I made the transition to MS Word quite quickly once I realized how easy it was. Also, it was the first time I had a computer in my room, and I felt like I could write all of my pubescent drivel on it without anyone finding it so easily. So, writing in this new, tiny notebook has brought back some nostalgia with it. Basically, I wrote the first few scenes over my Christmas vacation, then started my job and promptly forgot to even look at it for a few months. But I thought about it. I came up with ideas that really made me excited. And then, sometime in March, I came back to it.
It is unbearable strange to write in a notebook after writing so long on the computer. There is no thesaurus. No spell check. No easy removable of words. Just you, your pen, your paper, and your thoughts. I learned very quickly to view the notebook as a sort of “sketchbook” for writing. It isn’t final, everything can change when I transcribe it to my computer, and that I just need to let go. It took about a month to get there. I got into the rhythm of writing during the week on the train, then transcribing when I could over the weekend. I didn’t catch up until today, when I ran full-stop into the place I ended, unable to go further without the old scenes I had written in the firt draft to draw from. And then I decided at about 2 o’clock that I would finish it. I had only a little left — a scene and a half — and I figured I could power through it.
Gabe slept through a portion of my writing tornado and woke up about two hours later, to my furious typing. I then took a two-hour-plus break to play Fire Emblem as I had promised, and returned to writing. By the time Gabe finished dinner, I was two paragraphs away.
I think, perhaps, that I have the hardest time writing Eldari because she is very close to my personality around age 13 or 14. Very self conscious, very few female friends, and completely wishing books could guide her. Secretly, I think I must consider myself very boring, and I drag my feet about writing Eldari. She has possibly the most rewarding arc, but she’s a stubborn mule ( by design) about getting there, and I try to make it as realistic as possible. Make no mistake, she is not my Bella Swan or some such — she is very much divergent from me, and I consider her flawed. Most of her gifts keep her from being able to interact with other in a normal way — her bookishness, her gifted mind, every ‘advantage’ she was given actually sets her back any place that isn’t the battlefield. Of course, she’s far too timid to be anywhere near a battlefield, so she sort of comes off as useless to her people. It’s only when she’s out of her comfort zone where she can make friends. She has what SC calls an “aura of romantic complication”. She has a tendency to attract those she doesn’t like and become invisible to those she does. And when confronted with this, she is happy to be the object of attraction until it becomes serious — she isn’t unfair, just a bit silly, and when she can no longer ignore what is going on, she deals. Not overly well, I think, but she does it.
Eldari’s story ended up being more adolescent than I thought. When I started writing her, I thought she would come out sort of fully realized, self-actualized and totally in-control. And then Andar came along, and I realized that no, she is actually sort of young when it comes to romance. And angsty. And that all of that would have to come about in her arc. Getting over her unattractiveness to her own people, realizing that not everyone perceived her that way, and then realizing that she didn’t need a leading man. She’s hit the first two, sort of, but I’m looking forward to actually getting on that personal journey of hers. Also, she meets some of the most interesting side-characters. So yeah, that too.
Next chapter should be more with the ranger, Daithi, and his bard cousin, Elishaveth, who I have been dying to get back to. They also have a very intersting plot line (but then, I think all my characters do), and it’s far more fast paced than say, Muirinn or Eldari’s. Hopefully I’ll be able to start and finish it within a few months, but until then, I should be attempting to post every week or so.
