writing updates #5

I have been writing about my writing, avoiding spoilers, but trying to paint a portrait of the day-to-day oddness that is the core of writing any novel.
I want to thank the kind people who have been waiting for this book for far too long (there are reasons, not interesting ones, for the delay).  

Welcome!!  readers from the Philippines, Germany, Poland, France, Canada, Russia, United Kingdom, USA, Georgia, India, Australia, South Korea,Latvia,Czech Republic, South Africa,
Hungary, Macedonia, Malaysia, Ukraine, New Zealand, !!  


Hello and thank you!!   I love it when you find me on FB, here, my website: http://www.kathleenduey.com, and twitter @kdueykduey


If you want to read the writing updates in order here are the links:

http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/05/writing-updates-all-projects-2.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/06/writing-updates-3-2011.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/07/writing-updates-4.html

......Or you can start here and fly on
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7.29.2011

Olive trees, those ancient, patient trees that watched Rome rise and fall. 

Today's writing will take me back to a place I don't want to go. The characters are real to me, especially now, in the third book of the trilogy...





I wrote most of the chapter yesterday, was amazed at the turn it took, stopped writing and answered fan messages for an hour or two instead of facing what I knew was coming.  Today, NOW, I have to go back.  


The City of Limori has been destroyed by war so many times over the centuries. Wizards and kings, back and forth, the people  swept up into a battle they become convinced is their own.
But it isn't.  It never was.


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7 30 2011

This is a Euphorbia. The thorns keep it safe. And if that isn't enough, the milky white sap can burn your skin or blind you. 

I was awake much of last night and slept in until 7:30am-- unusual for me.  I have been sitting at the desk, writing notes from last night's insomnia-blast of revelations. I am just about to start writing for the day, a chapter with Hahp and Gerrard. They have learned to survive the pressure and disorientation of the dark passages they live in, the strange tests they are given. But now, the wizards are gone and everything has stopped. Why?  


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The moon and one star. Taken with a shaky handheld camera, the lens madly searching for light. I held my breath and counted to sixteen before the shutter finally snapped.  

8.1.2011
I spent a lot of yesterday rereading what I have written so far. I also read first person accounts of coal miners and documents from early American mines that describe the effects of working and living underground--and being trapped there. So now I know that what Hahp said yesterday is true, that what he is feeling is not unusual and what he intends to do is a typical human reaction. And I know now what will happen to him if he manages it... 


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8. 5. 2011


I do critiques sometimes and yesterday was full of talking to people about their work.  It's always interesting and always makes me see my own work more clearly. So today I am going back into the dark stone corridors with no idea what will happen, just that I need to be there to record it when it does. 

Silk floss trees would rather be in  South America, but they tolerate California. The thorns are huge, and store water in dry seasons.  They can grow to 60 feet. mine is about 20 feet tall now.

The blooms always surprise me, like they were meant for some other more delicate, more poetic, less thorny tree. I am hoping for unexpected blooms today, for Sadima and Hahp. And Gerrard. Maybe especially for Gerrard.

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A bio-green-building in Paris....the windows are  reflecting the trees across the street. Do they talk? The wall-plants and the ground plants--do they discuss flat ground and roots pointing down vs. roots clinging to wire frames filled with soil three stories up and having roots parallel to the ground?

  The grand plan for a foggy Sunday:  Three writing sessions today. First 90 minutes on A Resurrection of Magic #3. Thanks to everyone writing to ask when it will come out. I KNOW it is taking too long, but it is a complicated book and I am writing as fast as I can. It is intensely emotional for me to write--if you have read the books, you know why.  Second session will be two projects I am not talking about yet, still exploring what will come next. Third session back to Limori and book #3. Now, off to DO all that....


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8.9 2011
An amazing thing is happening in Limori. Last night, the people in Market Square were stunned into silence, and so was I.  This morning, I will go back and see if I imagined it, if it was an illusion, or real. If it is, I have no idea what will happen to Sadima now, or the boys inside the cliffs. 

This is the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the picture was taken on an night walk.  When the tower was built, it amazed the world, a triumph of art and  steel, built to awe anyone who saw it. 

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Did more critiques yesterday, two by Skype.  Critiques in LA: twenty minutes (they have to, the volume of writers is massive) When I do them from home, average time about an hour.  Two more today, later in the day. For now, I am about to sneak onto the green of Limori's Market Square in the middle of the night and see if I can find out who is building this thing. (see below)  And why.

This ceiling is in the United Emirates,  in a hotel that was built to accommodate royal visitors. The gold is really gold. The "opera balconies" are about 40 feet overhead.  Sunlight pours through the high windows.  Somehow, nothing echos, all sounds are hushed. So I was standing in a hotel lobby feeling like a transfixed, rural pilgrim,  staring up at a cathedral/shrine/temple roof in 1429.  Strange and lovely.

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This is in Fez Morocco, a family business of leather tanners and dyers. It was amazing to watch them work, moving sheep skins from one basin to anther. . In Sacred Scars it is the tannery where Sadima sometimes goes to sit beneath the nearby trees, protected from interruption by the piercing stench, knowing that both Grrur and Charlie are close, as close as they can be now. 

I thought I knew what Somiss wanted, what he has searched for all this time. And I was wrong. I have three writing sessions planned today interspersed with my usual critiquing, tree trimming, planting, gardening, etc. The deepest insights come when I am outside doing something physical.  This one did, yesterday. I dropped the shovel and ran for my office.




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8:18:2010


I sort of auto-wrote something last night, right before I shut down to go to bed. I was in that tired, defenseless, fluid/creative state that disconnects writer-support from the character--and they begin to breathe on their own. I think it is the protagonist of the next book talking to me. I hope so. If it isn't, whoever she is, she will get a book out of me
someday.  (or the reverse?)


**added two days later***....below the photo is a short excerpt of what she said to me last night: 

This is an old butter churn.  I used it for years...then stopped spending every second of every day  to  grow and make food....so I could write books. It sits on my kitchen counter, a reminder and an old friend.  The voice that came to me has a butter churn just like this one. But she doesn't use it to make butter--or anything like butter.

The Mystery Voice

“It’s not what you think, this ain’t any thimblerig. I’ve never been afraid of my mother. She’s no help, not ever, but she never hurt me nor Kerf, not once.  It’s just that no one has seen her, not even Grabbat and she wouldn’t dare buy from no one else.  I’ve wished for that. For her going missing, staying gone. I’ve hoped for the day of never again having to help her come up with enough for one of Grabbat’s little blue bags. But Kerf is sick. He needs food and I can’t leave him alone to go work the station crowd. The hat boxes are all empty. I don’t have one single thing left to sell.”


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8. 24. 2011


This is Heather Brewer, me, and Ellen Hopkins, in Rochester NY, at a book festival (an AMAZING one) a few months ago. I am including it here because sometimes the weirdness of writing (like any other weirdness) can only be honestly discussed with friends who share it.  So, Yeah. We talked writing!!! And when any of us mentioned hearing voices, the other two just nodded.  

Last night, just a few minutes before I closed up shop, Hahp started talking to me on the screen. And now I understand something in Skin Hunger that had never made sense to me before. I am about to start today's work. Hahp is near the lake, searching that huge dark chamber...he is hoping.  And so am I. 


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8. 26. 2011
About to start writing for the day. I kind of dread it this morning because I have come to love Limori and some of the things happening in the city of Limori are happening in my country, right now, too. So I guess even in books people are...people...wary and unfair. 

This is a South American ice cream bean blossom. It's a pretty, rangy, tree with weirdly shaped leaves. New leaves are a deep blood red that changes to vivid green as they grow...Inga edulis is the Latin name. The fruit, which is not really a fruit, is amazing. It took me a long time to try it, I think because the tree itself is so...unfamiliar. 



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8.30. 2011
The thing I am wrestling with now is that I have come to love the characters or pity and understand them, or I wish I could help them....so the hard scenes are REALLY hard to write.  I have to write with hope, but I have to record what happens without making it up.  And, yes, I know that sounds silly, but that is how it feels to me. If *I* write this story, it is going to be untrue--probably at least a little sappy with almost everyone surviving and finding some kind of life. And I know that isn't what really happens. It couldn't. 

There are too many isolated, protected, powerful people involved. There are too many descendants of massive wealth in the city of Limori, most of whom harbor old hatreds, old rivalries.  There is so much decadence, extravagant entertainments,exotic foods and a life-long feeling that they deserve to live this way as the step around the beggar children, annoyed at unpleasant smells.  But there is no one with the means to stop it because they also pay guards and buy their loyalty. 

I woke up this morning knowing this: There are a lot of desperate poor people in Limori, too, many more poor than rich, as is always and ever the truth.  

This is a teapot, decorated with a bracelet. It sits on a table in South End, in a quiet room waiting for children to arrive. The woman who owns the tea pot is named Theodora Nerak. You haven't met her yet, but you will. 




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Writing updates book #3: 2011

image copyright Omar Rayyan, 1999

I love this illustration, created for The Unicorn's Secret.  It's a series, eight slim books written so that third graders can read it, but almost half the fan mail is from adults.  The story came from dreams I had in gradeschool, contiguous dreams that went on for about a year and a half and  felt like a second life. Every night I went back to the same place, then, when night fell in the dream, I would go to sleep there and wake up *here*.  Writing these books was the beginning of my strong preference for letting the story write itself. 

http://www.kathleenduey.com/KidsBooks/  for first chapter excerpts.

okay, on to much darker things.....

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Resurrection of Magic book #3---in progress. 

Traveling always interrupts my work, but it also provides distance. After a week of teaching writing, I spent the first two days here at  home rereading.  Here's what I know now. Hahp has passed a point of no return--and he knows it.  Gerrard is hiding something, from me, from everyone.  Sadima's choices are heartbreaking, logical, impossible. I can only hope.

An acacia tree that died, maybe...didn't.

I have almost 50 solid chapters now, and the time lines are crossing, converging. The city is on the edge of terrible things and the boys in the cliff are almost beyond fear. Almost.  I have one more conference next weekend--four days counting planes days--and am taking my Neo with me.  Then I have a whole month at home. This is so hard to write. I love these people.  

Thanks to everyone getting in touch to ask when the book will be finished. Soon. Probably all too soon...

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6 26 2011

Euphorbias -- the fleshy cactus-like limbs sometimes drop and rot, but the thorns live on and on and on....like bones. 

Just returned home from two conferences, back to back. I'm always amazed by the blooming writers in my class sessions and critique sessions. My two-day home-again acclimation is over. The garden is tended, the jet lag is gone and about half of the third Resurrection of Magic book is now sent off to gather early feedback. I will start the day by rereading chapters, listening to my recorders, reading the pile of notes from me to me... and then, probably around noon, I will start writing. 

There is so much trouble in the city of Limori.  The boys in the cliffs can't hear the shouting or see the guards' hands, always on their sword sheaths. They can't see the beggar children in South End who stand silently, one hand out, afraid to speak, to ask anyone for food...but they can feel something changing, collapsing... 

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6 29 2011

between thunderstorms in Florida...

Last night, very late and very sleepy, I might have gotten a glimpse of how things will end.  I cried, then smiled, then wrote the notes and filed them.  I am a long way from writing those end scenes...but not THAT long...so it's good to have the future revealing itself.  

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6 30 2011

I woke up dreading the place I have to start today.  Immediate, unscripted, un-outlined writing is all about not letting yourself blink, or run away.  I know what will probably happen and I just have to record it accurately whether I am right or wrong.

some trees are like poems 

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The backstory in this trilogy is so intricate that I find myself rereading sections of the first two books to check details, to make sure the physical set up of some part of the city is consistent, but then I keep reading far past what I needed to read, notice small things that set me thinking and I finally look up from the book when I realize I am hungry. I am a deep writer. Maybe not an efficient one, though.

But there is THIS:

Karen Bale and I wrote this book for middle grade readers many years ago. It stays in print--and once in a while, gets translated again.  This is the brand new German version--a reminder that life and death drama never gets old. Heroism--and the lack of it--play a part in every life. 

writing updates, all projects #2

What is better than the mile long post Writing Updates 2011?   MORE writing updates that pick up where it left off. And this one is important. A weight has lifted. I can now go on with the writing....because...

Yesterday was one of those days that starts with prolonged frustration and continues into headdesk confusion that sends me outside with a shovel to re-arrange the earth.

Then late in the evening it suddenly bloomed into 2000 words that are so right, so perfect, that it was worth the wait.  Sadima has made the decision.  Not the one I expected, but the one I hoped for. So. This changes everything for her, for me, for the city of  Limori.

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5/17/2011

Back from Rochester NY. Traveling is always interesting, and sometimes amazing, even though it interrupts my work. I took manuscript pages with me and read on the planes...and I think the 400 or so pages I have written is good. Maybe really good. So today I am going back to Limori.

The basics: Somiss and Franklin and Sadima and Hahp are all still alive.  So is Gerrard. Winter is ending now and Sadima has made the monstrous decision I thought she *wouldn't* make. The angry young men in South End are crossing the line into the city of Limori. Guards are everywhere. Hatred and blame and anger are everywhere, too.  The children of the wealthiest people have guards of their own, hired by their anxious  parents...and things are getting worse. Sadima is crossing Market Square, walking fast, hoping...

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5/19/2011

It is 7:30 am. I am rocking back and forth in my chair, wishing I knew what was going to happen today.  The boys inside the cliffs are facing something deep and true and lethal.  The ordeals they have lived through are enough, too much, really, for anyone to endure, but this will be the thing that defeats them. Maybe. They are almost at the point of not caring and that might save them.  Maybe.

The photo was taken from a plane window, flying at 37,000 ft. This is Iceland.  I was coming home from Dubai and Abu Dhabi school visits. Skin Hunger had just been published. A teacher at one of the schools was the first person to read it and tell me he loved it.

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Hahp knows what he has to do and he knows what it is going to cost him. So do I.  Oh, man this is going to be a hard one to write. If I am still coherent by the end of the day, I will add to this and let you know how it went. Blood is involved--and fear.

This was taken from a train window, traveling north along the pacific coast.

This is where I want to be today. But I am not. I am in my office and scared to start writing. But I will.  NOW.

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Last night was a blind leap and now I need to read the pages again and see if it is as true as it seemed. I think it will be. I hope so. It is hard when you love the people in the book and you know that not all of them can possibly survive the shitstorm you know is coming. They know it, too.

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May 23 2011

This Aloe bainesii tree is in the front yard ((that isn't a yard. really.))

Yesterday's  pages were deep and true and painful.  And today I have to get back to the task of tweaking time lines again before I can go on....Hope to be writing new words by about 2:00pm PDS.  The next scene is pretty tense...and sometimes that means it won't be anything like I imagined it would be.

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May 26th:

I want to start by thanking everyone who has written to me about my books. You can't imagine what it means to me. I try to answer at least some of the messages. Please know that I am just overwhelmed in projects right now, I appreciate every single word you write. I always have. You would be amazed how much your responses give me courage.

http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/02/unicorns-secret-new-covers.html
art copyright Omar Rayyan, from The Unicorns Secret:



WRITING UPDATE!
Today, in the troubled city of Limori,  something terrible will happen. Hahp won't know about it--he is inside the cliffs, trying to find a way out. Neither will Sadima. She is caught between what is right and what might save someone she loves.  But it is going to change both of their lives.

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Hahp is facing a terrible choice this morning, if it is morning.  There is no daylight inside the cliffs except inside Jux's forest--if it is a forest. A wizard has pounded on the door, then walked away--so no classes today. Hahp can smell a faint scent of smoke in the stale, still air. That scares him.  It should.

This is a tree in the courtyard of the Alamo.
Where people who could have run away stayed and died.
Yes. All the images echo the book one way or another.


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5-26-2011

Yesterday's pages were painful to write. Reading them this morning...what happened makes sense, I can see it as I read it....and the emotional depth was there. I cried again.  So....back to work now.  I usually clean up the previous day's work, which also gives me a running start.

This epiphyllum didn't bloom last year.  I think the rain this winter made it happy enough to blossom.  The flowers last a couple days, tops, but they are spectacular, hanging downward at the end of long, flat, leaf-links. This one is about 8 inches across. Within a few days, the flower with shrivel and it will be a scruffy green succulent plant again, plagued by snails, drab and almost invisible to anyone walking past.

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June 1 2011
Inside the cliffs...two people have just been reunited, more or less. One of them is probably not going to live much longer. Outside the cliffs, the city of Limori is seething. And now I will go see what happens next.

I was standing on top of a sea cliff in Hawaii when I took this, looking straight down at the ocean--which is never, ever, still.










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6  3 2011

Sitting here trying to summarize yesterday's writing without a spoiler and this is the best I can do.  All this training, all the magic, all the brutality it takes to learn it...changes people forever. It has to.  So it is spring in Limori but the flowers are not blooming this year.

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I have started to write this update three or four times, then delete it because the story is entering the last third of the book and anything I say will be a spoiler. So, just the basics:  Hahp and Gerrard are alive. Sadima is alive. Everything is changing, partly because of things happening outside the cliffs. As always, it is hard for the boys to tell what is real and what isn't.  And there's this:  I cried for a long time last night because of the chapter I had just written.

updates on my writing, all projects 2011

4/20/11
People are asking me to do a writing log again. I am grateful for the suggestion, because these logs help me organize my own days. When I know I have to write it down, I work harder. (really? I am that childish? )


You can scroll to the end of this post and comment or ask me anything. If you are referring to a specific entry, please make it clear which one---including the date is the easiest way to do that. 
The only rule: I won't post spoilers.


Here's the current pile of projects, in order of importance, immediacy, current timesuck and whim:


1. Book Three of A Resurrection of Magic is running my life. It has already taken a full year longer than I thought it would to write. There are reasons for the delay that have nothing to with the book itself, but it is complex, massively detailed and intertwined.  There are two stories that go back and forth, every other chapter. They are two hundred years apart in book #1 and gradually close the gap in the second book. They are now about 1 year apart. The first story causes the second one.  Book #1: Skin Hunger was a National Book Award Finalist.  Excerpts are here: http://kathleenduey.com/ya.html




2. Zeep  A book for 7-10 year olds. I have written it twice and am now, I think, on the right track. and am writing it in little bursts when I can fit it in. It's FUNNY, which is SUCH a relief from the politics and pain in the Resurrection of Magic books.


3. Free Rat:  YA/adult A boy who won't tell me his name living  in a near-future timeframe. I am beginning to think he doesn't have a name. He is in a facility where the nights are sometimes endless.


4. A Virgin's Blood: a medieval medical/political  YA/adult thriller. Probably next up. Or maybe Free Rat.


5. Dickens and Fob an animation project--or maybe a book idea? All hot air and a detailed proposal at this point but I LOVE the premise and the characters and early responses are encouraging.


6. Faerie Creek Ranch, a historical fantasy for 7-10 year old readers. It is set in Estes Park, Colorado, a place I spent a lot of time growing up.  It is with an educational book company now--waiting for judgement. Mainsteam publishers are down on historicals just now.... #cycles


7. Oddlets;  a funny and oddly structured  little story intended as an ebook series, with enhanced reading stuff built in.  It is with someone now who will tell me whether or not I should keep fiddling with it.


8. http://russet-one-wing.blogspot.com/ a free, twitter-format online novel that I haven't added to in well over a  year. But I AM adding to it at home and will post a monster chunk ASAP. Paying work has to come first for now...!!!


9. Limori short stories, for YA/adults, will be listed during the production-wait for Book three.


Daily reports begin tomorrow!!! Or tonight!! Probably tonight!  If you comment (please do!) on anything here, date it so I know which post you are talking about...


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4/21/11
I worked late last night, so am just now writing the first new update. It 7:15 am Pacific standard time, California, USA.  

Resurrection of Magic ate up the whole day yesterday. Sadima's story stalled so I reread (and revised) about 20 of Hahp's chapters. Now, today, after a long time in Sadima's story, I am ready to switch back to Hahp's. I will likely write his half of the story until it falters, then switch back to Sadima. This has been the pattern since the first book. It will be interesting to see if it changes as the time lines become concurrent. The stories were about 200 years apart in Skin Hunger. That narrowed to about fifteen years apart in Sacred Scars. Now, the stories are only a few years apart. 


In the fourth chapter of book #1 Skin Hunger, Hahp is being taken to the academy, flying over the city in a carriage, looking down at his father's amazing Malek Park, the copper roof on the Eridian meeting house, etc.  What he saw was the city and the time that Sadima is living in now. 


So today, I come back to Hahp's story. The students' isolation from the city of Limori and all that is happening there is complete. They are not aware of the unrest. They can't even guess the season. They can only estimate how long they have been in the cliffs by gaging their own physical growth. Hahp knows they can't even be sure of that, really, because the wizards can and do distort...everything. 


So, that's where I start today. If I stall out, I will move on to Zeep. It's always a leap, emotionally, to suddenly be attending third grade with a girl who celebrates Grander Mander Dilla Day with her family. And a relief, sometimes. 


 But for now, back into the tunnels where Hahp is shivering, waiting for the sound of a pebble thrown at his chamber door so that he will know it's time....






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2/22/11


ZEEP
The morning went to Zeep.  I love her. She says things like this: 


"Ok, ok, I know it isn't polite to stare, but what IS polite, really.  Even if you are talking quietly and nicely, once in a while you will burp in the middle of it. Or worse.  Everyone does. Even our principal. I know that because I heard her once. She pretended it was a cough, but it wasn't. That's kind of like lying, isn't it? " 




A RESURRECTION OF MAGIC Book #3
From about noon on, I worked on A Resurrection of Magic #3. 


I began the day with Hahp's strand, then, hours later, opened all of the existing 55 files. I make one for each chapter, each with a title summarizing what's inside. This directory and its skeletal reminder of story points saves me a million hours of rereading.


Staring at the directory, thinking about all the things that are upcoming,it seems like the   time line can converge earlier than I thought. So that's where I will begin today, making sure I can do that before I go on.  Skin Hunger was 64 chapters long.  Sacred Scars was 71. All I can say is that the third book is at 55 chapters and there are no endings in sight. 


So, back to Limori where the story keeps getting longer....
Sadima is still standing alone in the dark when she hears the voices. 


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4/23/11
10:25 pm PST and I am going to bed after a fabulous, amazing day of writing. 


I began the day with Dickens and Fob and learned a great deal about a Roman building that is buried beneath a theatre in London.  The cast for this story is really interesting to me.  Some are kids, the rest are all kinds of things. 


Then at noon, I hit the Big Book--#3 in A Resurrectuion of Magic. 
I went through  20 chapters, condensing them into 17. Yay!  Tomorrow I ought to be able to fly straight ahead again.  Rewriting, I heard the all the voices more clearly,too. I think I have been trying to interfere with them lately, trying harder to add pages than  I am trying to hear the story. This is a revelation I have had, like, a hundred times and will have again. It's always a mistake for me, to actually write the story instead of listening for it. 


I am so ready for tomorrow now, really looking forward to see what happens. The whole city of Limori is uneasy. If you have read the books and remember Thomas Marsham's angry, fiery speeches condemning magic to the Eridians....


...there are other people in Market Square now, speaking to crowds, referring to the magistrates as "The Ferrinidies magistrates" which is true, most of them ARE the descendants of the old kings--but that reminder is stirring up the old hatreds. 


 Sadima and Hahp are both alive. Sadima has lost something that anchored her...and that worries me.  Hahp is trying to recover his hope. 


And I am going to bed! 


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April 24 writing update


Good morning everyone! I hope all is well with you and your beloveds.


Yesterday was a formative day. I spent hours following Sadima around and writing scenes that won't make the book--and I knew it when I was writing them. But everything she felt matters and will influence the story going forward. So writing those scenes, then summarizing them so that the reader can jump over important but slow emotional changes in her heart---allows me to begin with her decision.  Today's work starts like this:   


     Sadima spent the bright fall days that followed walking the streets of South End, staring down the crowded alleys, passing the guards as if she carried no secrets, no fear. She looked into every face, every shop window, and tried so hard not to hope--then cried when she stopped hoping. By the time the first snow fell, she had no excuse, no choice. It was time to go back. 


And now I can go on.....
This should be an exciting day of writing. Her decision is not the one I expected, but almost every kind of love scars the heart.


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4/24
I woke up this morning, like every morning now, to fan mail. I want to thank everyone who writes to me in the comments here, through FB, Twitter, Simon and Schuster, Penguin, my email box, my website http://kathleenduey.com/ and any other way. If I haven't answered you yet, please read this when you have time, it's a letter from me to YOU: http://bit.ly/e2tiW4 



The writing was slow yesterday. Sadima has made a hard, painful decision ONLY because what her heart wants most is almost certainly impossible.  But only almost....


As I wrote the scenes that followed her decision, I realized it is the same decision we ALL have to make. What matters?  What matters most to you, to the ones you love, and to the ones you will never meet?  


Limori is tense, scary, balancing on a knife edge as powerful people wrestle for more power. The men and women on their way to work, opening their shops, the elderly people stealing food and a blanket for the night, the children who live under the boardwalks in South End, the fortunate sons and daughters of Ferrin Hill, scared that they are not allowed to go into Market Square without hired bodyguards now...everyone is wary, waiting, hoping.  




So. Back to today's work. Sadima can't run away from any of this anymore... and neither can I.  


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4/27/2011
I spend some of each day rereading sections of the first two books...often at random. I almost never read any of my books once they are published, because I see too many things I would tweak a little, or re-write completely. But there are so many details in A Resurrection of Magic, so many tiny threads to weave, that I have to reread as I write.


This morning I reread Sacred Scars Chapter 25, which is Hahp trying to recover from a surreal test that leaves him unsure of...everything. Because I understand Somiss's intent with every test, I know why it is important for Hahp to lose--and then recover--himself. The physics and the psychology of real magic, the cost of learning how to break all the rules, how to do things that are impossible--fascinates me. 


People do lots of impossible things: 
Wingsuits: 
http://vimeo.com/1778399?utm_source=wordtwit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wordtwit

Parkour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98jCBnWO8w
((Warning: If you aren't an audioslave fan, you might want to turn down your speakers.))

More Parkour, which began in France, but has gone worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nviRpBf81M8&feature=related
playing tag in the city

And today Hahp begins to learn how to walk through stone. I basically understand what would be necessary  on a molecular level....it's the belief that it would work that will be the hardest part.  Magic (and wingsuits, and roof leaping) require belief, first and foremost. Belief that it can be done.

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April 28, 2011

Last night's session ended with this:

Sadima is on her knees in a forest, staring up at the cliffs.  She is crying, but beneath that, in her deepest, heart, she is relieved, glad--and ashamed.

Hahp is standing in a dark tunnel, watching the impossible. Gerrard's hands on his shoulders, pinning him, holding him back.

The timelines are within about 3 years now, and closing fast...really fast...

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How did it get to be MAY? I feel like I am living in Limori, staggering out to eat and sleep, then coming back to the cliffs, down into the tunnels...

Late in the day yesterday, I wrote a scene in Sadima's story that rattled the windows. It went entirely differently than I thought it would. So today will begin with her strand of the book again, so that I can see if she meant it, if everything hereafter needs to be painted differently than I have been assuming it would be. I am almost positive she is not going to rethink this. 

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May 3rd, 2011
Today is the second day of condensation...of Sadima's strand. Not cutting content, just saying it in less words...because she needs to catch up, to be in the right place at the right time.  Sometimes just being there...really matters. 


((thanks, readers from Germany, for visiting me here!!) 




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May 5th 2011                                                      

I am still condensing, looking at the time lines and checking continuity issues. All of this rereading is generating a lot of character revelations. They are not so much talking to me as screaming at me.  


Sadima is torn between doing what she must and doing what she wants. 




Hahp has passed a tipping point. Fear is so familiar that he no longer recognizes it as fear, really. The wizards are so good at this... 












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5/7/2011
Late last night, I wrote a pivotal scene, one that made me cry.  The courage, the bonds  between the boys inside the cliffs--the trust they have managed to build in that insane place...just hit me. 


There have been classes of boys in that rat-maze of tunnels off and on over many centuries. The magicians of old often stole children from the streets, and sometimes from their homes. 


Somiss was the first to involve the sons of wealthy families, often families who were once royalty. He is building alliances, of course, and readying for a war he knows will come eventually.  The difference between Somiss and all the magicians who came before him is fundamental. They wanted to protect their knowledge, their libraries, and their influence for the use of those who would follow them--even those with grossly extended lives knew they would die one day.  Somiss has other plans.