Gray Morning
I’m hoping for rain today. It’s gray and sticky (was awful humid last night) and I’m dragging a bit, mostly because last night Froopy 2, the DHM, and I stayed up watching Mel Brooks History of the World, Part 1, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and Cate Blanchett in The Gift,one of the best movies about psychic phenomena EVER. (Mari in Storm Watcher was partially inspired by Blanchett’s performance.) It was a lovely evening, in part because the DHM got home a lot earlier than I thought he would. I miss him terribly when he’s gone, and I worry about him when he drives long distances.
So. I’m at work, and today I’m thinking about false starts.
I’ve started the fifth Valentine book six times now. Once, memorably, I had to scrap fifty thousands words’ worth of Dante. All because I didn’t want to do what I knew I had to do–start out this book with Danny getting hideously hurt. I always had the plot line stashed in the back of my head, but I retreated frantically from it each time.
You can’t do that, Lili! Especially to Dante! You like her! The readers will never forgive you!
To which my Muse replies, Tough. You asked me for the story, I’m giving it to you. Write it down, kid. Or no dice.
I remarked on my forum that I’m crazy, I’m emotionally attached to imaginary people. I like Dante. She’s prickly, oversensitive, sometimes rigid, and damaged. But she’s also tremendously loyal, gentle as she knows how to be to her friends, and never hesitates to back a friend in a fight. I hate to do something so terrible to her, especially at the very beginning of a book.
But it looks like that’s the way it is.
*sigh*
You know the worst part? I feel bad about inflicting pain on this imaginary person, this character who started whispering in my ear so long ago. It’s in the service of the story, always in the service of the story.
What a job.
No related posts.
August 9th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Lilith,
We know Dante has been badly hurt before. Heck, she’s been eviscerated, shot, whipped, burned, you name it. So how is this different other than you are going to let us hurt along with her at the start of the book? We like Dante too! I’m willing to put up with the pain if it’s her story. Besides, you don’t tell storys unless they are interesting and compelling. I’m willing to invest a little emotional currency at the very start of a book and see where it leads!
August 11th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Question ~ if Danny is still what she was at the end of Working for the Devil, then what exactly COULD hurt her?? She is, as it stands now, harder to kill/hurt. Now I know the Devil hurt her at the end of the book, but he’s the devil, and I took her new ‘self’ to mean that she couldnt be hurt by most human things/people. So is she still “more than human” or is it a really really bad baddy, or does she just piss the Devil off past his reasonable point?