Writing updates #4

If you want to read all the recent  updates you can find them here:

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

Or you can just start with this one and fly on....


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July  8 2011

Book #3 of A Resurrection of Magic, in progress:

Late last night I finally understood the difference between  the acceptance of  love and the call of duty for three of the characters. I don't like what this means in terms of where I have to start today, but I don't have a choice. And it is after ten o'clock am here in CA and I need to stop procrastinating NOW.  Sigh.  Sometimes writing is painful.
The first two of the trilogy:

art copyright David Ho

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It is astounding what people can build from stone and mud: from hope and courage: from despair and longing.  

July 10 2011
Before I start to write my current work today:
Free Rat: a story that has been incubating inside me for almost 15 years. It might be the next YA  book, or maybe next to next. It took over my fingers and my brain last night again. Sometimes all I can do is listen and type.  I am thinking about it more and more because even though I began weaving it a long time ago, it seems to be weaving itself now.Maybe because every time I read the news, I realize how close to my own world it really is. Mine and yours.

And now, back to the city of Limori, and everything it is hiding...

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July 13th, 2011

Trees have even more moods than people do-- This one matches mine this morning, perfectly, as I stare down the barrel of the chapter I am about to start... 

In Limori Sadima is isolated and facing a decision so huge that I keep starting the scene over and over, because it hurts to write it and the last part will be the worst if it goes the way I think it might. Hahp and Gerrard are still both alive, both angry, and scared.  I am hoping for some kind of happy ending but I can't see it from here. Yet. I am about 3/4s done. I think. I hope. It is getting longer and longer..

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I wrote a scene last night that I am almost sure will be "questioned" once the book is out. Sigh. I will read it again this morning and see if I was right about it being inevitable, necessary. I am almost sure it is. No actual sex involved...but there are other things.  Fantasy seems to slip past the censorship fans. We'll see.

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7 20 2011

This is me, typing.  And typing.

I am getting into the part of the book where things tighten and slowly begin to fall into place. I  find there is almost nothing I can say that isn't a spoiler. Market Square is a dangerous place now.  The poor people hold their children close and the rich are hiring guards.

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7.21.2011

First, I want to thank the people from all over the world who are reading this blog--about 500 of you this week so far!

Next:
Thanks to everyone on Face Book and Twitter who stay in touch and read these updates!!

WRITING UPDATE
In Limori, there is a rising chaos. This is the first time in the city's history that powerful merchants and City Magistrates (most descended from the old royal houses) are dealing with Magicians who have prolonged their lives in order to perfect magic. This is the first time Eridians have had both wealth and influence. There will be no easy victory this time, fought only by guards hired by each faction. There will be no behind-closed-doors compromises made.

Sadima, Hahp and Gerrard are still alive... and that's all I can say without spoilers. (trust me, I just tried four or five times to be vague enough and couldn't.)

Thanks for all the messages here and FB and Twitter and my website http://www.kathleenduey.com
Every kind word about my books is wonderful and appreciated.

Taken from a train window on the way to San Luis Obispo....marshes are lovely to me.  There are marshes north of Limori's South End. Sistra's mother is buried there. I had no idea how important that would become in the third
 book. .....where and how she was buried. 

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7 22 2011

Sometimes it is music that shows me how to write a scene.  This morning, thanks to Elvis Costello and Fiona Apple for a lesson in immersion, conflict and  pain.  (and thanks to Richard for sending this to me weeks ago. I have watched it many times since) 

  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiOmhOumh-w

San Luis Obispo train ride...The tracks come so close the the edge of the bluffs...so close ..... 

bombax blooms!

 bombax flowers begin as green and brown pods that elongate slowly, then erupt overnight into full bloom.  This one is in my back yard.  Click any of these twice for max enlargement. 

The flowers last only a day or two, and I love them even  more because of that.  I have decided that they grow in Limori, inside the cliffs, in Jux's forest, magically, unnaturally, on command.... 

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. 

WIFYR (( Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers conference...))

I am just back from an WIFYR  conference in Utah. I met with my class for five days--four-hour sessions each day. It was the best teaching experience I have ever had. We critiqued as a group and I tried to tell them everything I know--and/or suspect about writing. Writer-bloom filled the room!!!

This is the view from the campus....the colors change with every shift of light, every cloud shadow.



The lovely, incredible and famous King's English
Bookstore  was kind enough to hold a pot-luck
dinner for authors and others. The food was so good! The people were wonderful....

and oh, the BOOKS!!!






THE BOOKS...

THE BOOKS!!!
The store is in an old and beautiful neighborhood. There are five or six interesting book rooms, a gorgeous and artsy patio, amazingly informed and helpful staffers and, as befits a premier independent bookstore....an *astounding* range of books.

The faculty http://www.wifyr.com/   was full of people I like and admire, including the brilliant Holly Black, so every meal was a writer-fest.
and .....




I got to see Shannon Hale  at The King's English Bookstore!!  We once shared a panel in San Antonio and try to keep in touch. She is fun, funny, and one of the nicest people I know.




I am just hoping WIFYR will ask me back. (Are you listening Carol?)

thanks!!!

this picture was taken in Wisconsin, a state full of odd and lovely trees and very nice people.

Thanks to everyone for writing to me, leaving comments here, getting in touch through FB, Twitter, my website, my publishers, etc.  It makes me write better, and sometimes faster. In a few days, I fly to Utah to talk to writers about their work http://www.wifyr.com/ .  Then I will be back in CA for three days before I go to join http://www.marjettageerling.com/ and Michelle Burke of Random House publishing and everyone else at http://www.scbwiflorida.com/details.htm.

THEN, SCBWI LA (after all)

After that I have a blank calender until October.  I will be chained to my desk during that time--finishing (then revising) the third book of the trilogy. I can't wait to hear your reactions. I think...I hope, it is going to be amazing.

P.S.  I think I will be going to SCBWI after all, mostly living in the critique room...!
http://www.scbwi.org/Conference.aspx?Con=8



this picture was taken in Wisconsin, a state full of odd and lovely trees and very nice people.

Resurrection of Magic

 Two stories, 200 years apart. The first story causes the second one.



I am writing the third book now. Click the red link for more news:  http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/

Rochester NY Teen Book Festival. WOW.

 Heather Brewer, me, Ellen Hopkins


Terry Trueman


Plus twenty- four more teen and tween authors.....and about 4,000 other wonderful  people...
   

Teachers and teens fill the room... Ms. Johnston loves literature!! Her students learn about peanut butter poofs, her family in Germany--and how to read deeper and write better.

....Everyone had a fabulous time at The Rochester Teen Book Festival.  We had amazing transportation...a lovely vintage bus, classic cars!!! A marching band and a Drum Corps met us at the gate. There was amazing food, a beautiful campus, a little misty rain, and BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS.  (Note to all the teen boys who did not come to the book festival. Look at the above photos carefully. Lots of girls. Smart, interesting, girls. Next year, get on the bus!!)

Check out the art behind Heather and me...even the faculty dinner restaurant was amazing.




YAY Rochester!!!  A thousand thanks to Stephanie A. Squicciarini  and her amazing staff. Nothing went wrong, EVERY SINGLE THING went right.  If you can get to Rochester next year, do it. I am hoping to be there.  

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.

Small World!

Another thanks to all the people reading my books here at home and outside the US.

A young man from Russia contacted me last week for information for a class presentation. I hope it went well.  If you know Anton, tell him hello for me!  Anyone can contact me through my website:  http://www.kathleenduey.com


visitors: 
May 23 2011:

United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Russia, Slovenia ,Taiwan, Canada, Australia, Germany, Georgia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Philippines, Arab Emirates, Turkey, Ukraine, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, Romania, Hungary, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, France, China, Switzerland!!!  Ireland...hello!  My great grandparents left there to come here.   

Hello to everyone...I wish you all peace, prosperity, and happiness. 

A Resurrection of Magic: Balance.

 In my trilogy, A Resurrection of Magic, students are required to do the impossible. Random videos sometimes help me imagine the kind of disciplines learning real magic would include. The line between skill and magic is astonishingly thin. 

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knowhnbCV-E

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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.