A Little Getaway

You know what I like about vacations? I get to go somewhere different (or maybe not so different) and relax. There's nothing to worry about, nothing to clean, nothing to stress over.

You know what I hate about vacations? The exact reverse of what I've just described.

There are about a million little things that have to be done before going on vacation, and they all seem to revolve around my cat. She needs food, water, a clean litter box, a place to sleep, a window open so she doesn't freak out. Then there's the packing: making sure I have everything in my bag, going through the list so I don't forget anything (I always do, and it's always a hairdryer), doing laundry at the last minute because I forgot that I wear real people clothing during the week, too.

So it amazed me when, at about 7:45 tonight, I found myself with nothing to do because I had already done it all.

Sure, I'm not completely packed (but the hairdryer is already in the bag!), but most of the little important things are done (or are being done...the cat's drinking fountain is in the washer as I type). I even had a few minutes to write a bit of a scene that deserves more of my time and attention. I know that this is going a lot slower than I initially thought it would, but I kind of like taking my time on this. If I step away for a few days, that's okay, because when I come back, the ideas are all there and they seem to manifest into something much better than before. Basically, what that all means is, I'm going to continue taking my time on this one. If it doesn't get done until after Thanksgiving, so be it. At least I'll be proud of what I've written (or so I'm hoping!).

On that preachy note, since I'm leaving for three days and I don't exactly know when I'll be back on Monday (but regular hours start up Tuesday, so I'll have something up that morning), I figured I would leave you all with something a little special. I'm not far into Amory's sequel, but I am far enough that I can give you a small taste of the adventure she's on now. In case you forgot, let me catch you up to speed (SPOILERS!): Amory's wings have been cut off by her best friend Drystan, leaving her in Bexington with her brother, her demon lover, and the rest of the crew. She's sent them all out into the world to find others that will join their cause to protect Rick and this small village, so that the humans can stand a chance against Heaven. The second installment picks up about four days after Amory has left Bexington. She, Oskar, and Fintan are searching the United States for someone to agree to help them. At one of their last stops before heading back home, they meet Jane North, a fierce demon camp leader that might know more than she lets on... (PS, this is not the final draft, OBVIOUSLY)

Truth be told, I’m not really in a hurry to meet Jane. I know it’s our job – the job that I set myself – but I just don’t want to stand around all day talking about fallen angels and I’ve now joined their ranks. It’s enough of a reminder putting on a jacket each day, my fingers hitting the small nubs of wing that Fintan couldn’t burn off.

            And then that brings up memories of Drystan. I don’t need to go down that road.

            Before another bad thought can even poke in my head, the door flies open. All three of us are brought to attention by a large, rather imposing woman. She towers over me, and even though I’m not exactly tall, the fact that the bun on top of her head skims the top of the door frame frightens me a bit. Her skin reminds me of the night sky in Bexintgon: beautifully blue-black, so dark that it seems to swallow the stars. Every feature on her face is big: eyes, nose, mouth. But it all fits her. She comes together wonderfully.

            “Can I help you?” she barks, her eyes taking in each of us in turn.

            Fintan steps forward, but the look she gives him stops him comically. Slowly, she turns her face to my brother, but he shakes his head, his eyes wandering down to his shoes. When she finally looks at me, I curse the day I set out with these two cowards.

            “Jane North?” I ask brusquely.

            The corners of her mouth twitch. “Who’s asking?”

            “Amory Ambrose.”

            An eyebrow crawls upward. “The fallen. How have I been blessed with such a guest?”

            I offer a smile, but I’m aware it’s more of a grimace. “Look, can we cut the crap? You know why we’re here. I’m betting that the moment we left Emily’s camp, she had already let you know that we were coming.”

            Jane blinks at me, and for one crazy second, I think she’s about to cut us down where we stand. Sure enough, her fingers twitch at her side, and my hand goes to the knife secured tightly at my hip, but then she laughs. In fact, she laughs so hard that she bends over, her bun smacking the doorframe on its way down. Both hands on her knees know, the back of her neck exposed to us.

            Oskar, Fintan, and I exchange a brief glance. Have we walked into insanity?

            “Good lord, little bird,” she chuckles, straightening again. The laughter is still written on her face. “You are a tough thing, aren’t you?” Quicker than a woman her size should move, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me close. Her fingers play dangerously close to my stumps. “I guess I should call you my little broken bird, huh?”

            I wait for the anger to come, but, surprisingly, it doesn’t. Instead, amusement bubbles out of my mouth. “I guess that would be the right term.”

            She pulls me inside the house while waving at the other two. “Get in here! Emmy did indeed let me know that you three were on your way here. But she said that you had some good things to say. She also told me,” she adds in a stage whisper, “that you were traveling with two gorgeous men, and she wasn’t kidding!”

            While she laughs again, I glance back at my brother and Fintan, both of whom have the good grace to appear embarrassed.

            We’ve been ushered into one of the coziest houses I’ve been in since Bexington. While most of the camps we’ve gone to have been just that – camps – Jane has obviously chosen comfort over anything. There’s no sign of tents or make-shift latrines anywhere: chintz chairs, pillow like sofas, a fire already going behind the iron grate. It even smells like a home: cinnamon and mint and honey and all those good things that disappeared from the Earth when everything fell apart. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a matronly woman bustle out of the kitchen with a tray full of out of the oven cookies and cold milk for us.

            But that doesn’t mean there aren’t signs of war here. Swords are shoved in the corner, thrown haphazardly into a stack. There’s thick iron bars over the windows, built on the inside, hidden from passerby’s by some pretty floral curtains. Paper is scattered across all surfaces, it seems. Jane pushes it all aside, gesturing for us to take the sofa across from a handsome leather chair set up right in front of the fire.

            She sees me glance at the steadily climbing flames and smiles. “We demons can never get enough heat. Am I right?” This seemingly rhetorical question is aimed at the two others.

            Neither of them says anything, but I notice that Fintan goes to stand at the fireplace while Oskar takes the seat closest to him.

            Jane smirks at me. “Demons. What did I tell you?” Then she claps her hands together once, loudly. I swear I can hear little disturbed feet scuttling for higher ground. “Now! You’ve traveled all this way for a good reason, I hope.”

            “You must know why we’re here,” Oskar says warily.

            “Of course I know why you’re here,” she huffs, rolling her eyes. Everything seems to be a joke to this lady. “But rumors and gossip can only get you so far. I need to hear it straight from the source’s mouth. In this case,” she adds, pointing her finger at me and winking, “from our little broken bird right here.”

            Strangely, the name doesn’t bother me. It’s better than the pitying looks I’ve received from most of the camps we’ve visited. Or the fearful ones. I’m not sure which are worse.

            “We need help,” I tell her frankly. “Bexington is the last peaceful place on this planet, and I think we all know why that is.”

            “Rick,” she says simply.

            I nod. “Rick. But now…We think that Toussaint knows Rick is hiding there. He has to. There have been angels and crazy humans bombarding that place for the last few months. The villagers are good fighters, really, but…” I shrug, looking up at Fintan.

            “But they do not have the kind of training that demons and angels have,” he picks up for me. “Amory thought that it would be prudent if we went out into the world and asked others with similar interests as us for help.”

            “And how’s that working out for you?”

            It could be my imagination, but I think I hear laughter in Jane’s voice. “For us? I mean…pretty okay. There’s been a few camps that like what we here. But…” I trail off, not sure how to explain.

            What can I say? How can I tell Jane that many of the camps out there are made up of terrified humans that don’t want to believe that angels and demons are real? How can I tell her that so many of the humans threatened our lives, that they chased us off their land without even listening to what we had to say? How can I tell her that she’s one of our last hopes, that we know she could convince many with her clout? Something about Jane North has made other camps bend to her will, and we could certainly use that right now.

            She’s the youngest creature we’ve come across. She can’t be more than twenty-two or so, even though she’s been a demon for five times that long. But we’ve heard other camps speak her name in reverence, seen the power that she’s amassed. Her camp is easily three times as big as Bexington, and that is some serious man power than could help turn this war around.

            Oskar’s hand creeps into mine. I take it gratefully, squeezing it until I think I can feel the nonexistent pulse in there. He offers me a smile, the same one that he’s given me each time we’ve failed.

            Have we already failed?

Quickie

You ever have one of those days that seem to go on forever? Well, that's sort of what happened this weekend. My boyfriend and I went to a music festival on Saturday, and even though it was only about four to five hours of our day, the next day gave way to sore legs and absolute tiredness. Honestly: I felt like I could have gone to bed around seven in the evening. I'm still kind of tired today, and I'm not sure if it's leftover festivalness or I'm just ready for summer to be over.

Either way, that's why I'm writing this on Monday night and ready to go to bed.

Before I started writing this post, I really thought about what I was going to say. It didn't feel like I did much of anything on the writing front this weekend, but then I opened up the file and saw that I probably put in a few thousands words. Time flies when you're having fun, right? But, look, between the festival and Doctor Who (oh my god, sooooo gooooood), it felt like nothing got done. But my bank account and word count tells me differently, so I'm listening to them!

This is the part where I'm supposed to say that I've been working hard since I've arrived home today, right? Well, I mean, I totally have. Just not on anything productive. Well, nothing for the story, I mean. But I've cleaned my kitchen, transferred my recipes over to one place (finally!), and watched the last two episodes of True Blood (save your time: super boring). Now that it's a bit cooler outside, I think after I finish this up, I'll try to get some writing done. This story took a big turn, but it's one that I felt needed addressing. It involves Amory's father, and it's something that I've skated over each time I write out any version of Amory, so I'm glad I had a moment to fix it up.

The next post will probably be up later this week. We have another long weekend in store for us, but I'll get something up either Thursday night or Friday morning. I'll update you all about where this story is going, and maybe a little extra surprise. Keep your fingers crossed!

Scheduling Time For Writing

So it's not Wednesday. Oh wells. Really, you should be proud of me for knowing that. This whole week has gone in a blur. One big, long, stressful blur. But the good news is that the source of my stress is gone. Also, this coming week is the last week of summer school! While my wonderful hours will be disappearing, it also means that I can have some time now and now drag myself home around five with a pile of stuff still to correct. That could be very nice.

But first, I have to get through this weekend without a sunburn.

Even though things have been pretty messy and stressful lately, and I've been a bit down in the dumps because of that, I've still managed to get a couple thousand words written. I'm still only on the first chapter, but I have to say (I believe I've said it before) that I really love this direction I'm going in. You know when you have a plan inside your head and then you execute it, and it turns out completely wrong? Well, that's how the first draft of this thing went. Some of the characters I had written didn't even make sense to me. A long time ago, I had imagined this one character that I ended up falling madly in love with, but it didn't make sense to put him in the first Amory. So I waited for this one, but when I wrote his scenes out...it fell flat. I ended up rolling my eyes at him every time he spoke, and that hurt my heart! I'm not yet at his introduction, but with the way that the other characters are going, I have high hopes for him.

I'm going to try and get some writing in this weekend. The festival we're going to isn't until two in the afternoon, but it's going to a long day Saturday. If I stopped writing this and maybe started cleaning my apartment, I would have a little time to write before I have to leave again and run some errands. You know, whenever I want something that I can't afford, my dad always says, "Sorry you weren't born a Kennedy." I would laugh because, really, who wants to be Kennedy? I'm perfectly happy being a Garcia. But sometimes I wish that the Garcia's had the Kennedy's money and I would't feel so bad being lazy and writing instead of cleaning or postponing something that would benefit my future.

Writing is a slippery slope into utter sadness.

Anyway! I'll let you all know what's going on and how well I've done with my goals this weekend. I'm already warning you all, though: no post on Monday morning. We're going to be at the festival until really late on Sunday, so I'll throw up a post on Tuesday. If you're lucky, it might be Monday night! But don't hold your breath. I might have come home from work and died.

When Life Gets In The Way

So, Bree, how did that schedule come along last week?

Shut it.

I have a very legitimate reason for not following my schedule last week, and it's definitely not because I forgot. Well, I mean, it sort of is because I forgot, I suppose. At a job, you're supposed to be ready for anything, right? Whatever your boss throws at you, you're supposed to catch it and say, Psh, no prob, I'll have this done in five seconds. Okay, now imagine that you work at a tutoring center where the organization there is...not best. Now, two new kids walk in: two kids that ask about a thousand questions per minute (even though they know perfectly well what they're supposed to be doing) with parents that want you to drop everything you're doing and dedicate all of your time to their children.

Fantastic.

So I've been working long hours and I've been so stressed out (or angry) by the time I get home, that I did nothing more than sit on the couch and angry read the rest of the Harry Potter series. One day I didn't even turn on my computer. Trust me, that's a shock. This week is the last week that the two new kids are here, and now I'm prepared for what I'm going to take on, so I should be a bit more on  par. Not just with the blog here, but also with the writing.

In case you're new here (or haven't read between the lines), you may not know that I love to be lazy. There is no better weekend than being curled up in bed (or on a couch or chair or floor) with a good book or maybe watching some TV. I also like to write because that takes me away from the stress that I call life. However, there are some weekends where I must get out of bed, put real people clothing on, and go out into the world. Lucky for me, those seem to be few and far between.

Not anymore, sucker.

Somehow, every band/wrestling promotion/comedian/what have you that my boyfriend and I enjoy seem to have decided on having a show every weekend in the fall. Starting next Saturday, I'm booked until September 26th. True, some of the shows are only one day, but those shows are usually very tiring and I need a few days to recover (give me a break, I'm old). That means I most likely won't be working on Amory during the weekends. I'm going to need my week to really get going on this thing. But then I'm still looking for a new job and I've handed my name into several districts for substituting jobs...so. Yeah. We're going to see how well this whole writing thing goes when it's distracted by real life.

But, really, now that I've finished Harry Potter, it shouldn't be a problem.

So, until next time (Wednesday, hopefully, unless my head has exploded), have a wonderful week, and enjoy the little bit of summer we have left!

National Lazy Day Was A Success

I did not have a very productive weekend (c'mon, it was National Lazy Day today and I'm nothing if not a stickler for holiday rules), but that doesn't mean I didn't start writing. Or rewriting, I guess I should say.

Would it please you if I said I have about 3,000 words already? It would? Wow. You are easy to please.

Yes, I only have about 3,000 words right now, but I can already tell that this version is going to be easier to write than the last. I know where I'm going with this one and I want to write this one. When I started writing the first draft back at the start of the year, I wasn't really into it. I think I was writing it more because I knew that was when I started revising AYLB and I felt like I should stick to a schedule. Instead of taking all that time organizing and making sure everything made sense, I just dived right into this one, sense be damned! But then, as I started writing, I noticed that my notebook started filling up more with questions and ideas and general notes about what I was doing wrong. I never mentioned any of that because I didn't want to discourage myself, especially when I was nearing 20,000 or whatever words.

In the end, I wasn't satisfied with what I wrote because it wasn't good enough. I didn't stop and think about what other people would think about it; I stopped and thought about if I liked it. And, like I said before, the more I read it, the more I didn't really like it. My notes and ideas made sense in my notebook, and I liked what I had there, but it was going to be near impossible to fit it in with the story. But now that I have a clean slate, I can include all those tiny things I wanted to add and they'll combine to make the story that I wanted to write.

So, it's the beginning of August (well, okay, the second week, but you get the idea). My summer adventure lasts for another two weeks and my weekends are about to get slammed (seriously, my calendar looks ridiculous). But I figure that if I spent most of the rest of my summer vacation writing, I should do pretty well. Like I said, I have about 3,000 words, and that was only from one sitting. I wasn't kidding when I said that this one is way easier to write now. But this doesn't mean that I'll finish it this month. And it certainly doesn't mean that (if I somehow miraculously do finish it this month) I'll be editing next month. But this story will get done, that much I promise. Hey, it's four months until Christmas, so maybe I'll be sending you all a great Christmas present! Or holiday present, I guess, is the politically correct term, right? Whatever, it'll be a present. Take it and shut your mouths.

Just kidding. But really.

Anyway, I guess I should get some writing in before I turn in for the night (oh, right, I'm typing this up on Sunday night). Maybe if I didn't spend so much time fighting with the Sims, I'd have been writing all this time. Priorities, people!

Hooray for August!

Well, that was another vacation!

I may as well get it out right now: I haven't been writing. I'm a terrible person. Horrible. (No good and very bad.) I've been thinking things over and I realized something. It's not something that I wanted to realize, nor was it something that I wanted to say out loud because that would mean some serious work. Not that I'm averse to serious work, but this kind of work would be something else. Okay, what did I realize? Take a deep breath, everyone:

I think I may want to rewrite the second installment of Amory.

Now that I see it in writing, it's not so scary. Look, I started writing this series back in 2008, and I had the idea for it in about 2007. The first book has been through the ringer so many times that I'm surprised Amory made it through (for reals: the first draft involved some weird kid that was supposed to kill Rick and start the second coming of Hell. Oh, yeah, and he fell in love with Amory and proposed to her). I can't believe that I thought this first draft would be okay with me. Like, I love it, I really do, but there's some things that I need to add, and I hate going back and adding them at weird moments. You know when you read a book and then see a really awkward, random piece of information, and you just know that the author stuck that in there during the second or third or fourth edit? I don't want that, especially because what I need to add is a pretty big component to the rest of the story, and that's not exactly something that you just throw in there. I've had this in my head for quite some time, but it didn't seem right while I was writing it, and now that I've looked at the story a few times, I know that's where I need to go.

So, yes, while I'd like to keep most of the story, I'm thinking about starting over. It shouldn't take me that long, as long as I start right away and don't dally around with things. I don't have a lot of time this summer because of work and looking for a new job and worrying about everything in between that, but I do have a few hours that I could spend not reading Harry Potter (fat chance, right?) or watching TV or playing video games.

That's been my problem with this story and I don't know why it took me so long to figure that out. I'd already edited it twice before I went back a third time and thought to myself, What is happening here? I wasn't into anymore. I thought that maybe it was because editing is a pain in the butt and I was over it, but now I realize that it's because I didn't like all the little things I had to stick in and smooth the story around. Not only is it annoying and time-consuming, but, after awhile, I started to not recognize my story anymore.

So, I suppose, I should get back to a schedule. My posts are going to come on Monday and Wednesday now (or I'm going to try my hardest). I'll keep you all updated with what's happening in the story and also maybe a few other things. Like, not only am I a German master now (not really), I'm also trying my hand at cooking. I can bake like no other, but cooking has eluded me. If I mess up cookie batter, that's no problem because at least I still have cookies. But if I mess up chicken, I'm screwed (for the record, I've made a few chicken recipes and they were delicious, so I'm not completely hopeless). But this schedule obviously started next week. This week is kind of filling up, but I thought I'd get something in. Let you all know that my impromptu vacation was not fun at all (long months with little paychecks never are), but that I'm back now and I'm going to get working.

After Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, of course.