Yes, well, need to update. Sufficed to say, this project has not gone away. If anything, the residents of Ambrosia have gained strength and are insisting that I finish their story before allowing me to move onto more fiscally responsible projects. I need a big white board to map out the plot I think. That, and I want to adopt the "band-aid" mentality of writing - just rip it off. It has been one year since Write A Novel In A Month month, and I can't say I'm that much closer to having a finished project. Oh well.

Ambrosia-book1-ch.1

Chapter 1

~ Day Two ~

Emma crouched in the cold, distracted from the wonders of being in the Dream Kingdom by her own stench. “I stink,” she thought. “I think I smell worse than I have ever smelled before. I smell like old rotten onions.” Despite the cool air, flies buzzed annoyingly over the brushy undergrowth where Emma and her tall, dark companion, Ian, had taken cover. He smelled like a wet dog. She shivered and hugged her shoulders. Out of habit, she brought her fingertips up to her mouth to nibble, but luckily glanced down at them first. “Look at my nails!” she thought, “Ew, they’re all black underneath. What I wouldn’t give to just wash my hands in warm soapy water.” She smiled in spite of herself and closed her eyes. “And a bath! A nice, hot bath.” The wind picked up just then, and Emma shivered. She tucked her nose into the front of her jacket. Her voice muffled by the fabric she said aloud, “this sucks.”

“Quiet,” Ian hissed through clenched teeth. Her guide in this new strange world was in his mid-twenties, handsome, and had all the charm and personality of hemorrhoid – a pain in the butt who was quick to irritate. Dressed in black leather and fur, like some reject from a renaissance fair, he was hunched over, starring hawk-eyed through the dense yet leafless branches of the bushes off into the distance.

She popped her nose out of her jacket and whispered back, “I don’t even know what I’m doing here! I don’t know who you’re fighting or how or why! All I know is that I am sick of smelling like a hamburger!”

“Then shut up and stop thinking,” Ian said, not looking at her.

“Jerk,” she thought, and decided to chew her nails regardless.

To pass the time, she took stock of her situation, from the ground up. “My toes are frozen, my socks haven’t been changed for days, my shoes are muddy, I’m wearing the only pair of jeans I have here and the knees are stained and if I knew I was going to end up in another world, I’d have worn my good jeans and not these stupid old ones. I’m not even going to think about my underwear!”

To her right, she heard a twig snap. She gasped and looked at Ian, who had not moved.

“Squirrel,” he said.

Emma though, “whatever Mr. I’m-so-cool. So you can hear the difference between a squirrel rustling through the branches, and those nasty whatever-they-ares.” She shivered, remembering her encounter back home in the dead of night with the dark beasts, all claws and teeth and bones held together by swaths of leathery skin. She felt a chill pass over her, and the fact that she was very far from home hit her as it had a few times since she’d arrived in this world Ian called Ambrosia. It was a sickening, scary sadness that formed a lump in her throat. And it made her reach for the silky chain she wore around her neck. She tugged it out from beneath her shirt so she could clutch the single teardrop-shaped pearl her father had given her as a good luck charm years before. She did it almost unconsciously, in the same way she threw the necklace over her head every morning without even thinking about it. She rolled the pearl between her fingertips; it was just a silly old piece of costume jewelry he’d picked up somewhere. At least that is what she’d thought.

“What are you doing with that?” Ian broke the silence and slapped Emma’s hand over the pearl. “Put that away! Even just agitating it could alert evil forces to the fact that we’re here.”

“Sorry,” she said, trying to seem unconcerned, but she hastened to tuck the necklace back under her shirt, laying it against her skin as Ian had told her to. Apparently she was the necklace’s Possessor, whatever that meant. According to Ian, it was only safe when it was touching her. It didn’t feel like anything special, though. It didn’t look magical. “But for some reason, Ian seems to think it’s some sort of icon. Something that’s going to help heal this muddy, cold, leafless land. How? Why me? And where the hell did my dad get a magical necklace?”

“There.” Ian’s whisper was tense.

Emma looked up. There was movement, and even she could see it was something bigger than a squirrel that was coming out of the enchanted forest known as the Visionary. “What is it? Is it one of the demons? What am I suppose to do?”

Beside her, Ian said, “hold on.” He had both hands on the fur-lined edge of his hood and pulled it up, completely covering his face.

“No wait,” Emma said in a panic, but her companion had already begun his transformation. “We don’t even know what it is!”

She looked away from the black, melting form of Ian, back out towards the Visionary. Something very familiar stepped from the trees, and her heart sank. “Oh no! What the? Ian, no! Wait!” She turned back to see a huge black stallion standing where Ian had been. The horse tossed its head, ready to crash through the brush.

“No! Can’t you see?” Emma said, standing up and feeling the pins and needles in her legs from crouching in one position for too long. “Wait!”

But the horse hesitated just for one moment, and Emma knew that if she didn’t climb onto his back, she’d have no chance of stopping him. So she entangled her fingers into his mane and threw her leg over his broad side. Before she could even settle herself, he pounded forward towards the thief.

Okay, this blog has confiscated by the Queen of the Unknown, Mr. Jael Merripen (hey, if Ambrosia is a Kingdom ruled by a Prince, then my little domicile can be ruled by a male queen!!!!!!) All of you just go about your business, oblivious as usual to what is stirring right under you noses, beneath the thin skin of reality. Yup. Don't mind those eyes staring at you from under the bed, or that flash of movement you see out of the corner of your eye. It's nothing. Not demons waiting to pounce and devour you or nothing. Nope. Don't think you heard anything in the other room or anything. Best you don't go "check it out."

Ah my, this keyboard is a trial. Give me the quill of any large fowl that takes its route over the Unknown and a jar of dark red ink any day. Even the feather of a poppinjay's own angel wings would work better (but they do so hurt when I pluck them!)

I would like to say, I do at times miss the olden days. When I lived outside of this stagnant wasteland and was able to stalk Dreamkins like the most pompous game, training with dear old Asean, cursing the damned Goddess for her games and wondering where in the bloody world that Pearl went to. Now my days are spent feasting on fungus, drinking Unknown wine (the secret ingredient is fungus!) and oh yes, planning my revenge on everything! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Oh I am so glad I got in a bout of manic laughter! Now let's see, what other villain-y stereotypes I can evoke. Obviously this all stems from my relationship with my mother. We all have mother-issues, don't we? Especially those of us born with half a soul. Do you know what a pain that is? Literally - it hurts! So much so that as a baby I just cried and cried. Add to that the fact that the soul is in a constant search for wholeness, and so whenever it comes in contact with another, it pulls and pulls, trying to make itself whole again. Well, that's a great relief to me, but rather a reflexive problem for the person I am touching. So yes, mother dear and I did not have the closeness usually associated with such a relationship.

I also hate my brother. Mainly because he's perfect in every way - right down to having not only both halves of his soul in-tact, but in the fact that he is what I was meant to be - a DreamKin. Oh yes, he is able to change fully into a cute little puppy, a noble owl or a fearsome warhorse just by melting into its form like a showy young pile of black goo. Bastard.

And let us not talk about my stepfather. Bad things happened to him, and I can't say I have any regrets that he was made of a meat found to be a delicacy by demons.

But as I stated, that was a long time agone. (Ooh think I just made a new word! Agone - how olde tyme does that sound? Very fanciful and nice, I think I shall use it again in the future.) I am over my whole feeding-families-to-demons phase. Now I'm really just trying to get a little relief while enjoying the quiet solitude of my confinement. Is there anything wrong with enlisting an underground army of the young in order to put the Whorld back the way it was before we all got here? Very noble if you ask me, to be loyal to those that have come before. To recall the days when good old Nyuben was creating the place I now call home, while his annoyingly immaculate brother brought into creation that stupid forest. What was he thinking!? A forest that isn't really a forest, that brings magic to this land from another? Well of course you are going to have people learn to use magic for their own gain - its in their survival nature to do so. Anyway, he's the one that screwed it all up. That darn Nickabar. Id love to have a drink with Nyuben; I think we'd have a lot in comon. If only he wasn't so dead.

Anyway, must tootle off now. Things to do, people to harass, children to intimidate, moldy wine to drink. Oh, one last thing; I have a feeling that someone, perhaps a girl-someone, perhaps in the possession of that Pearl I spoke of earlier, may be coming to try and rain on my parade. Please, if you happen to see her, try your best to detain her. I have a lot riding on this, and the last thing I need is some curly-haired fifteen year old other-worlder stumbling around with some sort of oracle of the Goddess coming in and falling in love with me or something. Would muck up the whole system.

Blowing you all Kisses (except any woodsmen out there - you get a big crackly hug!)

~ Jael M.

Written 3/15/07

Okay. Have not blogged in a bit. But I just realized something. For some time, I have wondered if I am just dense. So many times I accept things at face value, and find it easier to just roll with it. I mean, so often I am faced with a problem and, rather than solve it by looking at it from a new and different perspective, I just find a way to live or work around it. I have been wondering if this means I am stupid; like I can’t think of solutions. Well, I was just writing (don’t let anyone ever tell you writing is a waste of time! you learn the most amazing things) and my character admits that she sees things out of the corner of her eye all the time. One could easily explain this away as a peripheral reflection, a trick of the light, a flutter of one’s hair in the wind. My character always just says “must be fairies.” I am this way with certain things. Rather than trying my darndest to understand some things, I usually find it so much easier (and more calming) to chalk it up to magic. I will never be a professor, or engineer, or great leader this way, but I will be much more fanciful and interesting (and will continue to admire and loath people who aren’t so distracted by such things.)

So yes, for all of March I have been very diligently working on my novel every Tuesday and Thursday. OMG – what a mess. I have FINALLY moved out of the real-world, and have come to the conclusion that, at least for the next version, I will probably cut all of what I have written OUT. It is not really part of the story. It is good for me to know what comes before the story actually starts, but it really has no point as far as plot goes. If it turns out I need to reference things as things progress then yes, I will probably add parts back in. But as of right now, that’s the plan.

And god I’m hungry for Mexican food!

Is it just me or does that deer have some wolf-like qualities?

















Tallest horse in Britain - Crackers.

I feel like such a bad writers-group member! I had exactly one thing to share two weeks ago, and have been rewriting the same chapters over and over again since then. Well, you will all be happy to know that I have FINALLY moved on to Ch. 3! I will not tell you how many chapters the final book has, because, well, I don't want to think about it.

And it is rewriting, not just editing. The pile of crap I wrote in November is really just starting material. I described it as a big tangle of yarn. I think it will eventually knit itself into a book, but there are a lot of really knotted sections that need to be smoothed out. I mean, at first I had my main character's Mom give her a ribbon to protect her from the fairies, then I had her Dad give her a nickel, then a talisman, and now... well, I can't tell you because hopefully this gift will stick.

"What is it?"

"It's a good luck charm."

"But what is it?"

He tucked her covers in tightly around her body and kissed her forehead. "Don't try too hard to figure it out, love. That's what makes the magic disappear."

Chapters: When I'm reading a book, I like medium-length-to-short chapters. That way I can always convince myself, "just one more chapter and then I'll go to sleep." I like the lengths to be varied so that some times I can't make it to the end.

When I'm writing (up until the point that I realized this just now) I have had chapters that are more like sections - like 50 pages! I felt like I was "cheating" to have short chapters. (???)

Other things that make me feel this way (I may have mentioned this before) include letters, some forms of flashbacks, diary entries, switching between two character perspectives (meanwhile, back at the ranch:) , and using italics and parenthesis. I have also gone back and forth on the idea of a prolog.

Well, in the interest of broadening my horizons, I just took my prolog, which is also a flashback from another character's perspective, and have made it into a short chapter. So there, muse! What do you think of that???

P.S. My muse is one of the Little Lords of Chaos who floats around on a cloud giving me both good and bad advice, both constructive and destructive criticism, and I rather hate him.

Writing is so weird.

I have been rehashing the beginning of my novel this whole week, to the point that I should be serving it for breakfast with two eggs and a slice of wheat toast. And although I can't say that it will stay the same between now and two minutes from now, as I read it this morning, it is looking SO GOOD! Like, "oh, so that's how it fits, okay. Now I can move on to the stuff I actually want to write."

Two internet searches I did while writing today: WWII and Childhood Development.

I don't think I can write this story set in the 40s. There was just too much going on. Reading the article made me think 1. Boy I didn't learn much about this in school and 2. Man, the reason we're living in the world we are living in now is mostly due to stuff that happened during that war.

I want to see Pan's Labyrinth.

Sidenote: woke up at 5 a.m. completely alert. Just now getting warm. I read some of the lame-ass Organic magazine I get, and two articles were about strange pains caused by stress. One was quite interesting about some 5000 year old healing program from India that made me crave oatmeal (which I am eating now, embellished with blackberries I froze last summer) and the other one had "tips" like, "When you are angry or overwhelmed, say to yourself, 'I am breathing through my nose.'"

Okay, so I'm a new-age weirdo and all, but that sounds hilarious to me. In fact, the article itself started to make me feel angry since at that moment, in the dead of the freezing cold winter morning, my nose was so stuffed up, I couldn't breath through it!

Enough of this chitter chatter. Back to work!

I did a bit of editing at the beginning of December, then forced myself to stop and gave myself the luxury of writing a fun little romantic piece of Christmas fluff. I returned from vacation on Jan. 2 and edited about five pages that first week, mostly at night and on the weekend. This is the first morning I have forced my grumpy self to get up instead of hitting the snooze for that "awe gee Mom, just one more minute!" hedonistic pleasure of staying in bed.

It helps that there is another writer in the house who not only has forced me to have something ready to discuss on Sundays, but who also may be substitute teaching soon and therefore I will not be the only one needing to jump in the shower at around 7 a.m. each morning. Therefore, I need to get up earlier, get my s**t done, and plop myself down in front of this computer if I am expecting any amount of roommatial bliss.

...or if I'm ever expecting to get this novel done, for that matter.