satisfiedDarling du jour: "Bones," Bijou guessed, which was mostly a safe guess in such cases.
1539 words into "Bone and Jewel Creatures," and it's starting to excite me. I think I'm feeling a little breathless and excited about this one now. See, I've known I had to write it for, oh, what, a good long time now, and even knew what I wanted to write--but it hadn't turned into a story yet. And I knew, because of scheduling, that it had to be written now, this winter. But as recently as a week ago, I really knew nothing about it except one character name--Bijou--and what it is that Bijou does for a living.
And then in the past couple of days the whole thing kind of put itself together in my head.
I should trust the story monster more. I really should. Most of the time, it delivers.
I do kind of think this one was meant to go to Peter Beagle circa 1971, though. It just has that kind of feel to it.
It helps that the pressure is off: I have permission to write exactly what I want, how I want it, and if it's uncommercial as anything, so be it. That's kind of a rare pleasure: I am, more or less, getting to write this story just for me. So I have six pages or so, and I know what the next few scenes are, and the central conflict, and the thematic argument. And I've introduced three of the four main characters, Bijou, Brazen, and the Feral Child, who will eventually have a name, but doesn't yet.
I'm going to take my time with this one, let it be a little bit leisurely, and see how it goes. So instead of trying to write everything I know as soon as I know it, I've just taken a bunch of notes. I know what tomorrow's writing holds, anyway, and possibly the day after that. And then, like what lies after the straight stair and the winding stair, we shall see.
Which means I'm knocking off for the evening, and I'm going to watch Sherlock Holmes and MfU DVDs and maybe read Wicked Lovely. I really need to do something about all this email, but I suspect it's going to have to wait until Saturday, because I do not have the emotional energy to tackle it right now.
Well, maybe I'll get some of it done. People should not have to wait weeks for a response to a friendly email. La.
There appears to be a limit to what I can actually handle doing in a day. Go figure.
P.S.: My hands still hurt so much from climbing yesterday that I only managed a half hour of guitar practice today, and I keep missing keys on the keyboard.