long post is long, and indecisive

Word count: 1889
Project: pearls and brimstone 5

It's not a science. It's not guaranteed, by any stretch of the imagination. But the hours of 3-6am are so, so good to me for fiction writing. Other things suffer (most things suffer), but if I've got a hook and I'm invested in it, that particular time of night (morning?) is my own personal witching hour. I'll reread it later and go seriously? I wrote that? WTF? but in a good way. It's not my normal style; it's usually more fluid and dare I say poetic. I think it's surreal, but that's because I know my usual sardonic, sharp style.

Holy hell do I love writing at 3-6am.

Unfortunately, daily schedules do not tend to agree with this use of time. :D But that those moments are rare only makes me revel in them more. I think I wrote my creepy zombie Easter short story at that time of night, judging by the style. I should start keeping track of this.

(For the record, I still don't know what I was on when I wrote that. I know what I was thinking, but not what substance I was apparently abusing.)


So now I've got 5 parts to Pearls and Brimstone. Pearls is like a precursor of sorts to Demigods and Sacrifices (naming theme, I has it). I originally wrote Pearls first, loved the hell out of everything about it, and expounded it into the EG 'verse. That was the first two parts of Pearls, I think. The last three have been sort of interludes, little moments I wanted to write that are either totally self-indulgent or just weren't really pertinent to the D&S story itself. But damn, do those ficlets drive D&S home. They're often referred to in D&S itself, or later, the Ghosts set. In some hypothetical universe where this whole collection was published, honestly, I think they'd be the favorites. 1 is how Adam got his body back. 2 is when Reqel's eyes first sparked. 3 is... something, 4 is the story behind the cats' adoption, and now 5 carefully doesn't say how Adam lost his body in the first place. It's sort of an ongoing canon mystery as to how he lost it, since he refuses to talk about it to anyone but it's strongly alluded that some very peripheral characters are faintly aware. (Hell, I didn't know until recently.)

It's also very squicky in my opinion and I doubt I'll ever write it out explicitly, haha. I'm definitely not big into torturing my characters. I sincerely doubt I could write this, although it kicks the sparkly/friendly vampire fad in the nuts. Bleh.

I think Pearls is my favorite. :) But that's just me.


Also close to my heart is Vessels and Wardens, since that was the first fantasy mythos I ever constructed. I think I was like, 12. But this just means I exert a lot of pressure on myself to have everything about it perfect. I know the main/leading characters possibly better than I know myself. And I don't think I'll ever be happy with it. I'm just about afraid to write the ending. It's odd. I've never been paralyzed by perfectionism before. The Magic & Mercenaries story is my second oldest (probably created a few years after V&W, so maybe 14) but it's so much easier to play with. I don't know why V&W gives me such problems. I think it's because it's more fantastical in nature and unless I've hit that magical 3-6am stride, it's hard for me to write lyrically enough, to my satisfaction. (And I'm not sure what's wrong with that sentence because holy shit Russian ate my brain, just go with it.)

M&M is dark and gritty and pragmatic, and that's easy. The problem with that one is that it's supposed to be Cass- and Jassily-centric but everyone else wants to take over.

Which I guess says something, and brings up the entire thing about trusting your muse/instinct. I haven't decided on a course of action. I might literally just pants the HELL out of that one, since I'm so conflicted. The author in me wants it to be about those characters, since they're the glue binding that story to the rest of the world, and those characters weren't POV-privileged the first two times. The writer in me wants to go to friggin' town with the dark arts and my older characters, and is tired of Cass's brattiness and Jassily getting shafted by life. They have not yet reconciled, and I'm not sure if they will. If I were any good at math, we could play Find the Function of X or whatever. Sadly, I am not.

/throws everything to the wind
/pants like hell
/writes Pearls and Brimstone 6
//jk jk
///for now