Pines

Or, "Why the New A Fine Frenzy Album Is Forever Endeared to Me Even Though I Have Not Yet Listened to It."

I WILL get this. Soon, hopefully.

Honestly, I think I need to start a running tally of what has become endeared to me this October, because I feel like it's going to be one of those seasons. Those ridiculous perfect storms of writing where stuff just starts popping left and right. Which I suppose for Wonderfall is fitting, because epiphanies are kind of magical in their own way. But, really now? First Lowe's and now a CD I haven't even heard. Which I want. Because A Fine Frenzy's stuff is like, "Magical Realism, The Music." I'm playing the first album right now, and "Borrowed Time" and "Rangers" are on my Wonderfall playlist.

Anyway, why Pines? This morning I was sitting at the dining room table, trying to refine Wonderfall's plot because I had fallen into one of my regular pitfalls: overcomplicating things. It wasn't that the story had too much going on, it was that it had too much going on for the tone I'm aiming for, so I was either trying to pare it down or reframe it. Things were going uncharacteristically well, actually - I had adjusted the plot so basically the same things were going on, but in a different context. I was working on character motivations, then - what Elias, Lorelei, and Connor each really wanted, and what the antagonist (ostensibly not a real villain this time) wanted. It was taking so long to come up with that I stopped thinking about it after a while, and moved on to other things.

Now, part of the problem that arises in the story is that Connor and the antagonist want close to the same thing, though not exactly. I knew what Connor wanted, but the antagonist's motives were still vague. I knew he or she wanted an event called "Wonderfall" to occur for a specific purpose, whereas Connor was just waiting for Wonderfall for the sake of it. The question was, what specific thing did the antagonist want Wonderfall for?

Later on, I got up to make toast, mulling it over, when it hit me. The thought process looked like this, though of course the details aren't really that simple. Um, SLIGHT VAGUE KINDA SPOILERS:

Haha, spoilers, yeah, I guess. A magical garden is in some way involved. But anyway, what the antagonist is going for versus what everyone else in the story wants just fit so perfectly with the tone. And then I just fell in love with the story all over again. Plus, I did want to keep the story a bit on the shorter side, by my standards, and the garden idea made a bunch of things fall into place.

*Sigh* I do love October. 

Writing Revelations, and Other Fun Things to Do With Home Improvement

(Long story.)

So, I forgot to mention this in my last post (it was late, I was half asleep, etc.), but the local Lowe's is pretty much endeared to me forever.

The genre wars are still raging, as far as my NaNo is concerned, but yesterday I had one of those little writing epiphanies we all know and love and kind of get desperate waiting for. Now, I had already been to a different Lowe's and a Home Depot in the last couple of days, and when I walked into this new store I wasn't particularly impressed.

This, x1000.

I'm silly. I judge most stores by what music they're playing and how bright it is, and this Lowe's was bright enough, but they were playing this mainstream hip-hop/pop station - and a song I really don't like, no less. I am not a big hip-hop person, and Home Depot had already wowed me with a rock station that played some of my old favorites I'd forgotten existed. So, I was inwardly cringing at the music and getting sidetracked taking in the sheer number of different bathroom faucet fixtures they had on display.

Also, I was doing what I always do when I'm out shopping: imagining story characters. What they would do if they were here, why would they be here, what story am I putting them in, again? That sort of thing. I'm of the "voices in my head" and "hallucinations" writing set, and I take my characters everywhere. It makes trips less boring.

This is important
later.

As I wandered toward my actual destination (flooring, by the way), I was thinking about the aforementioned cyberpunk plot's characters. It's this trio of friends, and I was pondering the group dynamic (especially the sorta-romance between two of them), and how the girl is kind of the mystery. She's the one that's going to get the plot in motion, get into the weird stuff, generally be obfuscating. Because she's hard for me to get my head around, and sometimes I attribute that sort of thing to an actual character trait.

The thing is, with the plot in general, I was having a real hard time getting it squished into something I felt capable of writing. I wanted a story slightly less out of control than my Camp NaNo project, and the cyberpunk plot? Totally insane, over-the-top madness in my head.

Then, Lowe's came through. Bless its heart. I'm staring up at this huge contraption draped with laminate samples, and it's been ages since the last time I heard the song, when here comes the opening lines - I need a sign to let me know you're here / all of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere. "Calling All Angels" by Train, right? No big deal.

Except, in my head, it's like, "OHMYGOODNESS IT'S NOT CYBERPUNK AT ALL IT'S MAGICAL REALISM AND THE SONG'S LIKE, ELIAS TALKING TO LORE!"

Cue a torrent of mental images I have yet to sort through. It involved what was definitely not ghosts, but perhaps something similar. My mind blown, I continue to stare up at the laminate.

So, yeah, suddenly my crazy cyberpunk characters are plopped into my beloved home genre. Which is kind of great, because they're the kind of people I wouldn't expect to find there, and I'm excited to see how they fit in.

Another odd thing about me and writing - all my ideas come with color schemes. Swatches of color are intrinsically tied to the atmosphere I feel off any one story, so this one had this really light, white/bright color/mid-morning sun vibe along with some grittiness that Elias brings in.

And that, friends, is what I've been spazzing about for the last day or so.