Fun things!

Over the weekend, I hit 50,000 words and an ending. Now I get to go back and restructure the novel so that there is the appropriate amount of story between beginning & ending. Exciting but bewildering, because it does not at all end where I thought it would. This "book" appears to be the trilogy that I had originally wanted to AVOID (because honestly, wouldn't it be nice to be able to read a book and have it be a stand-alone now and again?)

On another note, I'm sick. YAAAAY BRONCHITIS. Since I'm a resident student and have no doctor up here, and since our student health isn't super reliable about respiratory stuff, I had a two-hour wait in the afterhours clinic for a ten-minute appointment. I brought some Neil Gaiman with me to read, but there was a radio playing, so I couldn't concentrate. And I have this thing where I find offices/places-of-business weirdly inspiring to write? I dunno. Anyway, I started scribbling on the back of an envelope because it was what I had at hand, and I felt very writer-y about it. Have a snippet:

"How are you?"

The pause of someone deciding whether or not to admit how shitty he feels, and then Rinehart answered, "I'm all right."

"No, you're not," Sophie said matter-of-factly. "You're miserable. Why do we say that, anyway, how-are-you-i'm-all-right, when nobody cares if you're all right and you don't want them to know you're not?"

The next pause was the sort that always followed Sophie's being honest. "It's nice to know you're concerned," Rhinehart said at last, tartly.

"I didn't say I wasn't concerned." Sophie swung herself up onto a fallen trunk and sat by the roots, heels kicking. "When people say 'nobody cares,' they mean 'everybody-doesn't-care.' I'm not part of everybody, so I'm not part of nobody when nobody really means everybody-doesn't."

"I see." Rinehart's lips quirked up - despite his best efforts, Sophie was sure. "And if you're not part of everybody-doesn't, what are you part of?"

"Well, everybody-not, of course. But everybody-not isn't a thing you're part of -- either you're everybody-not, or you aren't. It's a title, not a group."

Rinehart was silent so long Sophie almost started to worry he was having a true sourpuss day. Then he said, "I can't imagine how you must confound your teachers at school."

"I am a very smart individual," Sophie quoted, "who consistently fails to apply my talents to the proper avenues of study."

Sophie is a very smart, very weird, and slightly obnoxious girl. She happens to be able to see fairies, but this is not what makes her smart, or weird, or obnoxious. She also happens to not give a shit about whether people understand her 90% of the time, and it is beautiful. She's going to have her turn in the spotlight whenever I finish Ker's story.

Quick update

Words: 32,490 and counting. I'm supposed to be at 100 pages (approx. 50k with this font size) in two weeks.

So this book. I 100% intended it to be a standalone, because I didn't want to be tied to the first world I ever worked in (given that I am sure my writing will improve MASSIVELY over the first few years I'm writing). And then I started plotting and realized I had too much material for one book - it needs to be two, at least. And now I'm realizing that the world I've invented is simply too large to be explored fully in one story (or set of stories). Originally, the story was going to gallivant about from the city of Quorina to at least two or three other cultures. Now it's looking like the entire first novel is likely to take place in Quorina. This makes me sad, because it is SO MUCH FUN to explore the fruits of my worldbuilding.

So I suppose I will have to write some short stories or novellas or whatnot in addition to this. Who am I kidding? I would love to write an entire novel about a child growing up in Elatxaia.

I need to get back to my writing. I want to get another 2 pages written in the next hour. Here, have some snippets I had to excise:

She could see now that Keranos’ fists were clenched; his perpetual scowl had deepened, if possible.

“If you two could postpone this argument until we’re in the sewer,” Luxinus added, crouching down on the floor and pulling some sort of grass blade out of a container, “that would be excellent. You’re raising your voices again.” He stuck his arm through the grate hole and wiggled the grass blade back and forth.

“You’re not the only one ever used,” Keranos said to Eritsena, and if his voice was softer, it was twice as vicious. “Do not say, northerner, just because you – because you…” He trailed off, his face twisting. Then he spat something in an unfamiliar language and snapped, “Your words are not good.”

Luxinus paused in his magic and blinked at Keranos, apparently befuddled by the comment. The sentiment was so familiar to Eritsena that she nearly laughed. She controlled herself before the prickly northerner could take offense, and said, “They’re his words, not mine.” She jabbed a thumb at Luxinus. “I only speak Imperial because it’s what most people understand. It has all the wrong words for all the wrong things.”

-

She took a few moments to slip into a clean dress and neaten her mussed hair. She did not bring a lamp with her to the garden. The halls of her childhood home were as familiar to her as the soles of her sandals, and anyway there seemed to be a great deal of moonlight tonight; she could see grey, shifting shadows on the corridor walls.

She realized that the spirit was still with her when she reached the garden. Scent hit her strongly as soon as she stepped through the doorway: flower and leaf, marble and dirt, sweat and skin and the overpowering perfume used to cover such odors. The garden was shaded in deep greens and greys, and its beauty in this altered state nearly took her breath away.