Tammy's Journal

3:10AM - Catch-Magic update, major revisions

What had me down and stalling so much over the past while was Catch-Magic's inconsistencies. Go back and read Rilath and Enhash's introduction scene; they're NOTHING like the characters they've become. Plot devices/characters I put in during draft 1 when Catch-Magic was a self-contained novel, as well as just plain not-well-thought-out aspects, do not work.

So, a brief rundown of major changes to keep in mind.

1) Rilath wandered in the desert for 3 decades and change after the death of Queen Nyrmei, whom he loved unrequittedly, and who died giving birth to current royals Theros, Thain and Nyseiz'y.

2) Cassie and Tobias don't get along. No, really don't get along. He hit on her when they first met, she slapped him, now they goad each other and bicker like children.

3) Grandmère, the old woman who took Evie in, doesn't exist. Evie ran away from her temporary foster parents' place, ran into Cassie at a fast food place, stayed with her for a day or two, ran away from her, ended up in the Braxton's yard, where the House took her in. On the way home from visiting Evie's former, charred house, they're chased by a Darshyque; James gets separated from them, runs into Tobias, who helps him get back to his friends because he has a Thing for helpless schoolboys in glasses. The gang, +1 new addition, is chased again by Darshyque (the same scene where Evie freezes them dead). Tobias offers to help them out, because he has a Thing for helpless schoolboys in glasses.

4) Chris doesn't go with them to Kellari. Not sure yet how, exactly, this comes about, but a) there are too many characters to keep track of in Lenest-Levine-Zing-Cassie-Denlye-Jhu scenes already, b) any plot-forwarding role he has can easily be adapted and handed over to Zing instead, c) this allows Chris to become a vital plot-forwarding force in the beginning of book 2, and d) being left out will be a major influence on his character development, which will also lead to vital plot-forwarding in book 2.

So to show that I actually have been working recently--since coming to England, which doesn't sap my will to live/write like France did--here are a few excerpts.

( Revised prologue from the revised prologue )

( Chapter 1, section 3 (Rilath & Enhash's introduction), completely redone )

(1 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

9:35PM - Hate and Cheerfulness - U104

Working Title: Hate and Cheerfulness - U104
Rating: PG, for implied sexual situations/prostitution
Summary: Android U104 explores the logic and illogic of human emotions, focusing on "hate", whether or not it is a concept worth adopting.
Author's Notes: Completely unoriginal, but lorataprose liked it, and as it was a gift to her for finishing her workshop piece, posted 'cause she encouraged such. Beware how the ending just isn't. Anyone is, as always, welcome to leave crit. A better title is, as usual, greatly appreciated if you think of one.

( She hated being cheerful all the time. That was her greatest accomplishment, one that was hers alone. )

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

2:43PM - Happy Holidays ^^

“Five hundred dollars? For a one hundred gram package?” The woman’s mouth gaped open, distinctly fish-like however cliché the comparison.

“It’s the day after Christmas, Ma’am,” Lisa said, concealing a grin that was too mean for a Christmas elf. Which is what she was dressed as, shop gimmicks being cheesy as they were. Although Lisa supposed that a gimmick probably stopped being cheesy when it worked so well. The store certainly received its share of attention from shoppers, being the only one in the mall that hadn’t undergone the hasty scramble to take down its Santa doll and plastic reindeer. Sandwiched between an electronics store, which strove always to be the most up-to-date, and an antiques boutique, which thought itself too cultured to put up decorations in the first place, the Yesterday Post Office was a winter wonderland of spray-on snow and service workers dressed in green tights and elf ears.

“But—but—That’s more than I make in a week!” the lady was protesting, clutching her jewelry box-sized package as if it were as precious as her little girl, whose hand she held tightly in her left.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Lisa said, sounding nothing of the sort. “But our store provides an entirely unique service, and I’m sure you can imagine it is most in demand on December 26th. As you can see,” she added on, waving a tired hand at the line clear out the doors and around the corner, and the wall shelves, which were stocked floor to ceiling with packages wrapped in manically cheerful holiday paper, “we’re swamped already. Perhaps if you didn’t want it delivered so very early…”

“But they’re Christmas presents for my son at college,” she protested. “He can’t receive Christmas presents on Christmas night.”

“Unfortunately, Ma’am, all of our clientele feels the way you do about their loved ones, and they put their names on the waiting list earlier.” Lisa picked up a clip board, blew some flakes of paper snow off the top and flipped back two pages, tugging thoughtfully on the cotton ball end of her hat. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind around noon yesterday, we can deliver your present for only three hundred dollars—or for two hundred fifty at three o’clock yesterday afternoon—“

“These are criminal, your prices—pure exploitation—a monopoly—“

“The only reason we have a monopoly, Ma’am, is because we’re the first company to have mastered short-term time travel. Please be assuaged by the fact that next year, we expect that many new companies offering similar services will have opened, all charging similar prices.”

The woman, snapping the gift back into her overlarge purse, muttered something about the police being happy enough to use the same services for the good of the public. She glared over her daughter’s head, ready to criticize and waste the store’s time when she wasn’t going to buy anything. Which, of course, the store couldn’t have.

Lisa did grin then, and vindictively. “We workers here at the Yesterday Post Office are perfectly willing to oblige all your holiday needs, Ma’am, but unlike the fine men and women of the State Police, we are not given state funds for our endeavors. I am sorry that we couldn’t be of assistance to you today, and please consider our services in the future when you forget to send out your son’s birthday present, as well; after all, birthdays very rarely fall on major holidays, so there should be few delays or excess charges when sending such a package.”

The woman, visibly offended to the very core of her soul, clenched her daughter’s hand so tightly the girl winced and swept herself from the shop. “Merry Christmas, Ma’am!” Lisa called as the shop bell, replaced by the sound of jingle bells, sounded out cheerfully. She then bent herself in half laughing, flipped off the “open” light, taped an apology letter to the window, and slammed the front door shut in the faces of the line of customers outside, fresh with the reminder of how much she loved working over the holidays.

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

2:51PM - Your daily dose of inanity

The examiner pressed her lips together, then sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Monternal, but I cannot give you a passing mark for your work this time around. Perhaps next semester…”

Matthew packed his copy of the textbook into his bag, rolling his eyes when the action allowed him to twist away far enough for the examiner not to see. This was his third semester flunking the exam, a special occasion seeing as how they’d given him Olenzack, who was notorious for passing the most flunkies on to Advanced Occult. The corner of his book snagged and pulled torn material in the lining of his bag.

“Excuse me,” said the dead man lying strapped to the table. “I don’t mean to intrude or anything, but—where am I?”

“You certainly have the potential for great success, there’s no doubting that,” Madame Olenzack continued to Matthew, eyes darting to the dead man but choosing to ignore him. “In fact, I must confess I and the other professors are perplexed by your results, what with your family history.”

“Excuse me,” the corpse began more tentatively than before. “Am I… dead? I remember a… car running the light…”

“Yes, you’re dead, and a lab rat to boot—doesn’t that make you proud?” Matthew drawled, sidestepping the examiner’s sharp rebuke about how speaking with the dead wasn’t kosher.

The dead man, who couldn’t pale, trembled. “This… isn’t heaven.”

“No, it’s a classroom, and you wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t screwed up my necromancy exam—“

“That will be all!” Madame Olenzack shrieked, running her hand over the dead man’s eyes. He stopped trembling, laid still like corpses were supposed to.

Matthew shrugged and exited the room, dragging his bag across the floor a ways before slinging it onto his shoulders. He thought his examiner had been sort of unfair—a faulty reanimated corpse was better than none; it could move, and you could convince it to do your bidding, even if it wasn’t a proper flesh-eating drone.

And hell, at least this one hadn’t exploded.

(3 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

3:26PM - Because this journal missed content

Survey, from alchemy_hisoka: ( 100 Questions About Slash )

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

2:56PM - Eating the Stars, part 3

Part 3 of Eating the Stars and Gran's Dilemma:

( Duchess stood tall atop the stairs, surveying a jungle-gym castle. )

[A/N: For the curious, Sugar's sister/Tart/Jerry is 11-12, Sugar/Sweet/Sherry is 7, Duchess is 10, and Duchess' head servant Adam, who will be making an appearance later, is 8. The incident that killed off the adults and most children above age 4 happened 5 or so years ago.

As including data for a character who hasn't shown up yet may suggest, I have somewhat of a direction for this now! *party streamers and balloons*]

(Constructive Criticism?)

4:41PM

(1 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

1:45AM - Sebastian & Ethan untitled collab, chapter 1

Collaboration between lorataprose and altis.

Title: [no title/working title as of yet]
Rating: PG-13
Genre: SciFi; twisted
Pairing: N/A for the time being
Summary: Two rival 20-year-old scientists; one unmentionable past occurrence; countless pairs of mismatched socks; one chinchilla; a teenage secretary/hacker; a patient intern; and the race to make the discovery first when it turns ugly. Ugly, or "unmentionable."
Author's Notes: RPed over MSN chat in script format, then prosed by me.

( “Published, are we?” said the person in Sebastian’s computer chair while browsing today’s top Yahoo news articles. )

[For those who notice this is a fake cut: torturedsoul became free in the great LJ username purge and Lora and I snatched it up--because how couldn't we?--and will be using it for collaborations.]

(Constructive Criticism?)

2:02AM - Opinion and open call for suggestions

As you may have noticed, the beginning of Catch-Magic is under heavy review. The removal of inconsistencies aside, I face the archetypal battle between presenting the information the reader needs and making the damn thing interesting enough they don't fall asleep. I would love to start my story out with, "Creeeeeek—crash-shatter-whumph-slam!", which is a helluva lot more eyecatching than "No one noticed when a glassy, translucent orb in an out-of-use back corner trembled, shedding layers of dust.", but so far it is not of the working.

In the interest of this, I post what I hope will be the opening lines of Catch-Magic's sequel (working title of Drashanen's Catch):

"Your mother," Shirley Temple said, standing on tiptoe to lean against the bartop, "was a whore."

Tobias sighed; this was the third time this week.

I want to know: if you were in a bookstore, opened a book at random and that was the first line, would you continue? If you could please spare me 30 seconds to comment with a simple "It works" or "It doesn't work" at least, I would appreciate it muchly. Also, I would love suggestions for ways I could make the newer C-M prologue more interesting.

[Edit: ( Possible rewrite of the 'new' Prologue )]

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

1:43PM - Formulae

( The Classic Love Story )

( The Love Story Written in Defiance of the Classic Love Story )

( The Sex Scene of the Love Story of the Couple the Author Plans on Destroying )

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

1:21AM - Short & to-the-point one shot

Inspired by a news excerpt I saw this evening. I'm relatively proud of it, as it was written on a lark.

( But that's illegal! )

(3 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

11:59AM - Post #100! For Lora ^^

[A/N: Was trying to finish up the next chapter of Catch-Magic for this occasion, but it's not cooperating. Good news is that it's almost finished... >.>

Also something you must know before you read this: I am eating egg salad and corn pizza. Mmmmmm.]

( My moustache brings all the girls to the yard )

(9 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

3:25PM - Remember that eating-the-stars short?

Part 2 of this messed up thing. Still don't know where I'm going with it; it sounds like the introduction to either a short story or a long novel, so let's pray for the former for the sole reason that I don't think I could deal with a whole book of this.

Needless to say, as nonsensical as this is, it'll help a bit if you read the first part.

( Gran sat majestically atop the staircase. She was good at stuff like that. )

[A/N: wtfcrows? Guess there's a crow empire. *shrug* I'll go with it.

Again, suggestions for a direction for this plot, although not necessarily adopted, are appreciated.]

(Constructive Criticism?)

11:50AM - Randomosity returns, and someone needs to take these Calbee potato sticks away from me

( “We once had stars. Mama and Papa and the adults all ate the stars.” )

[A/N: Believe me, I'd like to know as much as you. Maybe I'll go somewhere with it; maybe it'll sit here and fester. It was inspired somewhere between rewatching Corpse Bride (this time dubbed in Japanese) and reading chapter 1 of a manga called Sugar Rune, which is quite cutesy and not at all messed up so really, no idea. Something in the wtf factor reminds me of Deva's sea serpent story (at least in the first prose short of IBG as I haven't seen any other version [/disclaimer]).

If I do continue, in addition to the sky being something that must be maintained (magically/psychically/wtfever), I'm toying with the idea of taking words very literally. For example, stealing a person's heart becomes a much more serious crime in this universe.

Uh... suggestions/comments? **fishes for anything that could work with this**]

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

4:55PM - Poll Re a story

Quick, head on over to this post in my other journal and vote on which turn my plot should take!

[I should post content sometime...]

(Constructive Criticism?)

8:55AM - This post brought to you by the Bowling for Soup CD “A Hangover You Don’t Deserve.”

Because I should be working on a) my history essay, which is late as it is, and/or b) my NaNoNovel.

( It had started out, as all good things do, with a dare. )

[A/N: From the same ‘verse as Drake and Edward, although Rose has never met them. The bookies are Will and Brooke, for the *tallies* approximate 2 of you who know of them.

Yeah, I should have named Rose’s roommate. If you want to make *assumptions* about my worth as a writer based on such things, then—you go ahead and do that! X_x]

(5 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

9:25AM

Last night I wrote three shorts. I don't really have any plans for them, so if you feel like borrowing an idea or something, drop me a comment and it'll probably be okay. One of them is entirely real, one of them is pieced together from bits of reality, and one of them is entirely fabricated. You decide which is which.

---

She was a proponent of open source with freckles the size and color of pennies and two calico rabbits named Marx and Engel. Started smoking at 12, quit at 14, started up again when Daddy wasn’t around to tell her no. Daddy wasn’t around because Mamma, who smoked like a chimney—that wasn’t tobacco folded up between paper, and it sure wasn’t incense—changed the locks, tossed a suitcase full of socks and ties and dress shirts down from the second story window. Her car, a tired bit of metal and glass from the 80’s-90’s changeover, had a sun roof and no floor in the back seat; she named it the ghettomobile. Back at the turn of the century she’d cried because she was scared of Y2K, not for the potential worldwide damage, but because she would lose the folder she had built, was still building, on the family computer. A treasure trove of important files and funny pictures and music she didn’t know who the hell had sent. It would never grow dust, something her Mamma scoffed at—as if they didn’t have substance they couldn’t be real. When she had the money she bought a junker of a Windows 3.1-weilding laptop the thickness of a medical textbook, sat in her junker of a ghettomobile next to Marx and Engel’s cage, window cranked for the cigarette smoke, and dreamed her penny-freckle dreams.

---

He tested the wind, or would have if it hadn’t whipped his hair across his brow, just above his eyes. The bite of the frigid lump of copper between his teeth didn’t have the decency to taste metallic until it froze his tongue through. Saliva melted over it, cylindrical body and pink tip. He didn’t bite it from the middle, wary of accidentally huffing a mouthful of gunpowder up his nose. A series of clicks, stiff fingers against metal and a bolt that handled like a handsaw; loaded. Camouflage suit that helped him blend in with his surroundings, denim better than green and brown in whitewash halls. The sun was newly risen, and his breath clouded the air through his maroon scarf. Settling the gun beside his science textbook, he fingered the safety off with a low-pitch click.

---

Fake Italian restaurant, four guys I just met on the bus. One speaks with a Londoner accent; across from me another claims we attend the same school. He’s probably right. The other two don’t speak English, so we don’t talk to each other. Londoner laughs when New Yorker and New Yorker fire dialogue at each other in rapid succession. “Nobody likes the French!” “I’m a French major—and I don’t like the French.” My fettuccini is green. I remember always picking out green pasta from Nana’s pasta salad when Nana used to make pasta salad in winter. “Do British people actually watch the BBC?” “Old people do and, uhm…” The alfredo tastes like chowder, and it tastes good. The New Yorker and Londoner split a bottle of wine, the other two drink beer, I refill my ice water. “Why don’t the waitresses come to work in lingerie if their shorts are so short—why bother?” “Because they like to pretend they’re more high class than Hooters.” That green-pasta-detesting little girl only knew what it was like to be one of the guys. I remember what it’s like in a fake Italian restaurant, now, can’t decide whether reliving it makes me happy or sad.

(Constructive Criticism?)

3:56PM - National Academy for Gifted Youngsters 1/3

Tried to create an fp.c account only to find that a) the username "altis" is already taken (and the asshat's not using it for anything), and b) I apparently already had an account.

Please, for the love of God help me come up with a better title for this. **grimaces at it**

...wow. Chapters look a lot shorter on fp.c, don't they? o.o

(5 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

3:17PM - Warning

UCAUTION

IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP ALTIS AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES.

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

fleeftastic is going to mock me if I don't have 1,000 words of something written by the end of Sunday. Bah. I have, like, 500 words of something that shouldn't become long, but will probably anyway. I'm thinking of posting it in snippets/sections and having a the-first-person-who-gets-it-gets-one-(1)-spoiler-of-their-choice. lorata, of course, is not eligible as always; I already told her, and she knows pretty much every spoiler, anyway.

I have a test tomorrow for which I should be studying. >.>;

(2 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)

5:28AM - C-M rantfest

You know what, Ashnyal? Screw you! XP What, a trilogy isn't good enough for you, you need a happier ending than that? You can't even let me celebrate/mourn over figuring out the all-important List of Who Dies in a Gut-Wrenching or mediocre Fashion before ushering me over to your story? It's not MY fault I got a book 3 newsflash while writing your backstory! You--this isn't even your story! It's the Princess/Prince's! (<--should probably figure this out quickly) Freaking court life and all its BS I'll have to come up with before writing this story...

Hello, readers ^^ In case that didn't make sense, Ashnyal is a C-M'verse character you don't know unless you're a) extremely special, or b) extremely observant of names that have appeared once in canon thus far. Lora's up on the top bunk being a sleepy 5-year-old ("Not gonna gota bed! You're gonna have a party without me!!! *scrunchy face*") and I wanted to vent. C-M'verse project status:

-am toying with the idea of adapting real life drama into part of a story with Merrows, lord help me.
-have figured out key points about the main trilogy of books, especially about book 3; this includes the Dreaded List of the Dead.
-was assaulted by an idea for a one-book sequel focusing heavily on Kellari politics and the people who make said politics happen 20-30 years after the end of the Catch-Magic trilogy. Because Ashnyal is an annoying ponce who was "displeased" with how his bit of story ends in the trilogy (and it does suck, but still). That and I'm stuck on the idea of narrating the aftermath from a younger generation of Kellari Princes and Princesses' PoVs. I need a Princess. I have too many prevalent Princes. :P Ohhh, maybe I'll work in some Novesroth... o.o **mutters plans to self**
-a main trilogy, a Kellari-centric stand alone sequel, a prequel about the fall of the Drashanen Empire all in the works, and no doubt more to come. *le sigh*

(1 reviewed! | Constructive Criticism?)