Matter

[Tam]

So, long story short, I fell completely out of touch with this thing for about three days, came this close to giving up on it, picked it up again two nights ago for who knows what reason, ended up writing a solid five pages, neglected to write at all yesterday, wrote six pages in the last two hours.

Current total: 43 pages. If I can write seven pages tomorrow, I'll be caught up. Yay! *crosses fingers* ...But honestly, just hitting quota every day from now on will make me happy. I can scramble at the end if I need to, but I don't do well if I take breaks. I need some stability in this story.

Also, my characters have started being reckless drivers and building blanket forts and stuff, so that's pretty cool, I guess.

SPOILER: Click to show

((So there's this ghost who keeps leaving messages, right, and one of them contained what seems to be a code or something. Also, Xander's in a bad mood because he's in the backseat of a car and backpacks keep on falling on him. Yep.))

Iris
(to Shadow)
Anyway, what did you find out
about XC-47?

Shadow
Uh, that's on the last page. Google
gave me a bunch of results about a
cryogenic canister of some kind.

Iris
(reading)
Interesting, but I can't help but
think that it's a little far-fetched
that a dead man's soul has been
trapped on the mortal plane by its
insatiable desire to improve
handling of bottled nitrogen.

Shadow
Yeah, that was what I thought too.
Fortunately for Mr. Mauriac, though,
I'm a paranormal investigator. I
have a few wikis I can turn to when
the mainstream search engines come up
blank.

Xander (OS)
(bored)
What are you, a supernatural hipster?

[Tam]

I need a name for ruthless transdimensional beings that look like angels and get stranded in our world whenever someone talks to ghosts.

...

...This is harder than I thought it'd be.

[Rikku]

Er. Shining ones! Lost ones! Fragments, feathereds, shatters, slivers, ghostings, ghosteds, The Heralds, harbingers, um.

... Those Things That Get Stranded In Our World Whenever Someone Talks To Ghosts, You Know The Ones, They Look Like Angels!

It is catchy.

[Kathleen]

Jul 18, 2011 6:55:12 GMT -5 Rikku said:

Er. Shining ones! Lost ones! Fragments, feathereds, shatters, slivers, ghostings, ghosteds, The Heralds, harbingers, um.

... Those Things That Get Stranded In Our World Whenever Someone Talks To Ghosts, You Know The Ones, They Look Like Angels!

It is catchy.

I read 'slivers' as 'silvers', and started nodding my head going, 'uh-huh, that sounds cool =D' then I realized what it actually said, and immediately got the mental image of toothpicks. *nod*

I'm no help at all. D= Although, transdimensional angel-looking-things sound pretty cool. =D They could be, like, transangels! ... >.>;

[Tam]

After a while I came up with White Wraiths. Not sure if I'll use it. I like the feel of it, but "wraith" is a tricky enough word on its own that combining it with another w word might be kind of cumbersome.

Jul 18, 2011 6:55:12 GMT -5 Rikku said:

Er. Shining ones! Lost ones! Fragments, feathereds, shatters, slivers, ghostings, ghosteds, The Heralds, harbingers, um.

... Those Things That Get Stranded In Our World Whenever Someone Talks To Ghosts, You Know The Ones, They Look Like Angels!

It is catchy.

=D Those are very nice suggestions! I think I quite like slivers. Hmm. *ponders*

And yes. That is quite catchy. If I were NaNoing I would use that one for its remarkable ability to boost word counts. =D

Thank you, Rikkuling. ^__^ Your help is most appreciated.

Jul 18, 2011 15:28:56 GMT -5 Kathleen said:

I read 'slivers' as 'silvers', and started nodding my head going, 'uh-huh, that sounds cool =D' then I realized what it actually said, and immediately got the mental image of toothpicks. *nod*

I'm no help at all. D= Although, transdimensional angel-looking-things sound pretty cool. =D They could be, like, transangels! ... >.>;

Ha! So did I! =D And I also thought it was pretty cool, although really, it works both ways. The only problem with "silver" is that I think these things, while for the most part being very very white, lean more towards gold than silver. So it wouldn't make much sense. But would be cool!

...Toothpicks would be a wonderful derogatory term for them, actually, because I've decided they're all abnormally tall and slim. Huh.

xD ...I could have so much fun with "transangels". It would be wonderful.

*glomps* Thankee kindly, Kathleen!

[Nova]

for some reason 'white wraiths' are inspiring me to write.

i dunno how but.. white wraiths sound cool =D *tries to form unique ideas now*

[Tam]

Jul 18, 2011 16:36:10 GMT -5 Nova said:

for some reason 'white wraiths' are inspiring me to write.

i dunno how but.. white wraiths sound cool =D *tries to form unique ideas now*

xD By all means steal the idea, if you want to. I promise I won't sue you when I'm an incredibly famous and wealthy TV showrunner. *doesn't plan to do anything with this script and thus can't exactly claim ownership of the idea* Besides, it'd be fun to see what you write! =D

Um... in other news, I passed the halfway mark, I am still quite behind, and my story now involves evil angels, UFOs, and horribly butchered French. I swear most of the butchering was on purpose.

But... yay halfway mark! Let's see if I can still finish this thing. xD; *running low on motivation*

[insanepurpleone]

While I am going to be no help on the angel-wraith-beings front, I just wanted to say that I loved the "supernatural hipster" line. I have an odd fondness for anything relating to hipsters that I can't really explain. XDD

[Tam]

Jul 19, 2011 3:22:41 GMT -5 @insanepurpleone said:

While I am going to be no help on the angel-wraith-beings front, I just wanted to say that I loved the "supernatural hipster" line. I have an odd fondness for anything relating to hipsters that I can't really explain. XDD

xD Thanks! I find hipster-related humour highly amusing for some reason. Possibly because hipsterdom seems to have some of the most hilariously arbitrary social criteria. I mean. Can anything not be interpreted as hipster-like if you try hard enough?

...Things being hipster-like is so mainstream. *brick'd*



Um on the script front, I'm at 65 pages. Which is bad, mostly. I still haven't forced myself to do that catch-up day, and I've gotten into this really terrible habit of only bringing up the word processor at 4 in the morning, which means I'm staying up 'til at least 6 most nights. I need. To get. A better sleep schedule. >_______>

I dunno how many people are still reading these, but what the heck. Excerpt time!

SPOILER: Click to show

Xander
Lighten up. Indulging in a few ghost
jokes every now and then is good for
the spirit.

Shadow
Plus, I don't really have any stories
that don't involve ghosts somehow, so.

Iris
Same thing with me and alchemy.

Xander
Me too.

They look at him, surprised. You can practically see the thought running through both their heads: You haven't existed long enough to have stories.

Xander
I know, I know. My stories would all
be fake ones. But I still know what
they would be. And they feel real to
me right now. They're all I have.

Iris and Shadow nod awkwardly. Iris turns to look curiously into the bushes behind her for a moment, as if she heard something.

Shadow
(to Xander, hesitantly)
What kind of story would you tell?

Xander looks down at the fire and shrugs.

Xander
I dunno, really. What kind of story
would you want to hear?

Iris turns back to the conversation and speaks up.

Iris
Something from your childhood.

She tips her head, gives a half smile.

Iris
I'm curious.

Xander
Um, okay... what part of my
childhood?

Iris
As far back as you can remember.

Xander raises his eyebrows and blows out through his mouth. Using his own marshmallow stick, he doodles vague patterns in the dirt at his feet.

Xander
Okay. Hold on a second.

He takes a few moments to think. Shadow glances at Iris questioningly. Iris gives him a tiny, almost imperceptible shrug in reply, as if to say, Why not?

Xander
I guess the furthest back I can
go is to the streets of London.

Iris
Where you were born.

Xander
(nods)
I don't remember my parents. I
guess you probably didn't give
me any.

Iris
Sorry, I... (uncomfortable) I
never got around to it.

Xander
Nah, it's okay, I don't really
blame you. Anyway, it doesn't
matter. I remember a woman named
Claire Wiltshire. A tall woman,
middle-aged, although she looked
much older. She took care of me.
She couldn't do much, because she
was very poor and her husband was
a giant swine of an excuse for a
man. Hated her talking to anyone,
so naturally he didn't take kindly
to the news that his wife had been
feeding street urchins behind his
back.

Xander stares fixedly into the fire, his expression set. His eyes are harder than we have ever seen them.

Xander
She—

His voice wavers for a second, but he expertly gets back on course and continues in a slightly easier tone.

Xander
She was crying. I didn't even
know what was wrong, back then.
I'd seen the empty bottles, I'd
seen the bruises from that time
she told me she had fallen down
the stairs, and I had been
hiding under the window that
night, so I heard the screaming.
I didn't know what was going on,
but she was crying, and I knew
that it was him who was making
her so upset. I was angry. I
was angrier than I had ever
been, so angry that I could feel
it burning in the back of my
throat.

Iris
(quietly)
What did you do?

Xander
Nothing. (looks down) I did
nothing. I wanted to, but I
was scared. So I ran away.
But after that, everything was
different. I never wanted to
be too weak to help the people
I cared about ever again.
Instead of just surviving, I
started living. Fighting to
do better. I got a job,
started working my way up the
social ladder from the absolute
bottom. After a few years I had
enough money to go to school.
But before I left, I went to see
Claire, and she told me something
that she hadn't told anyone else
for over twenty years.

He pauses. Iris and Shadow are completely drawn into the story and waiting expectantly.

Xander
She was an alchemist. Or at
least, she had wanted to be one.
She told me about the National
Academy of Alchemy in Liverpool,
and the work she had done as a
student there. I was hooked.
Claire hadn't been able to finish
her studies, because she had fallen
in love with what people like her
like to call a muggle. She said
that she was proud of me for going
off to live my dreams. But that
was when I realized that my dreams
were wrong. The idea of alchemy was
firing in my brain. It felt
like... (hesitates) ...like a spark.
Or a fire. Or the feeling you get
when you're sitting in front of a
fire, with the heat spreading up your
arms and into your core, warming up
parts of you that you never even
noticed were cold. It was clear at
that moment what I had to do with
my life. My new dream was alchemy.

Xander sighs and sits back, suddenly looking much more casual about the topic. Iris and Shadow blink at the sudden sigh, yanked out of their stupor.

Xander
(upbeat)
So I went to Liverpool and enrolled
in the world's finest alchemy school
with no prior knowledge of math,
biology or chemistry whatsoever,
paid an arm and a leg to learn how
to turn diamonds into coal, and
still managed to outshine each and
every one of my peers. Naturally.
(grins) I never forgot, though.
Never forgot the almost-alchemist
named Claire who thought I deserved
to live. Or her excrement-sniffing
husband, for that matter. At the
end of my first year, I even went
to pay the old fellow a little
friendly visit.

Shadow
(cheerfully)
Did you light him on fire?
Please tell me you did not leave
without lighting him on fire.

Xander
(lightly)
I used a basic molecular
realignment procedure coded to his
DNA to make it so that everything
that passed his lips for the rest
of his life would taste like cherry
kool-aid. Poor bugger. Admitted to
five different hospitals, the last of
which was rather... specialized and,
ah, long-term. Can you imagine the
cravings he must have accumulated
before the end?

He pauses, then glances at Shadow. Almost self-consciously, he adds:

Xander
...I lit his car on fire as I
was leaving his driveway.

Shadow
(grinning)
You are one insanely cool dude.

Even Iris chuckles.

Xander
(laughing with them)
Yes, well. Too bad none of that
ever actually happened, I suppose.

The smile on Shadow's face freezes, and falls. The silence that follows is awkward to say the least.

Man I overuse awkward silences. I'm not sure if it's because they're the cheapest and easiest method of transitioning between conversation topics, or because I really like them. I think it's both. =D

[Tam]

*grins ruefully* ...My scriptwriting has devolved into the production of a giant fight scene, and yes, I do mean devolved, because at the moment what I'm doing isn't even close to actual scriptwriting. xD; It's. More like. Curt, sloppy, overly casual prose that happens to be in present tense for some reason. Seriously, my dialogue just pretty much disappeared, and now I'm all He does this! She does that! He does this which is funny because this is also happening at the same time!

Generally it is terrible, but I forgive myself based entirely on the fact that this is never going to be an actual TV show, so it makes me feel better if I get to do all the actors' and fight choreographers' jobs myself. I've just got all these fun actiony ideas in my head for this scene and I apparently can't stand the thought of not finding some use for them. I guess.

Um anyway, this is just my obligatory ALMOST THERE post, because I'm going to hit 82 pages tonight and things are still, barring the aforementioned megadescribed action sequence, going pretty well. Too bad I'm leaving on a camping trip tomorrow. >_> I'm actually bringing my computer with me this time (not something I like doing on camping trips but hey), though, so hopefully I'll still be on track by the time I get back this weekend. =\ ...It's a kind of desperate hope.

Aaaanyway, if anyone's still reading this and if anyone who is still reading this is still working on their own Julno — best of luck! =D Let's charge headlong into the final stretch together and write something amazingly stupid and awesome!

[Tam]

102.

Not quite done the story yet, though. I've still got a bit of this one scene to write, then a short resolution. But I'm going to finish. :3 Tonight, if I can.

[Rikku]

*CHEERS LIKE A MAD BEING!*

[Tam]

<33333! Thank you!

...I am not going to finish tonight. =D I am going to treat myself to a 3 am bedtime, because I have earned the right to turn in early. Ha.

[Terra]

Congrats on hitting 100! =D

[Nova]

YAY TAMIA! Congratulations! ^________^