I had a bit of a… breakthrough? Epiphany? Epiphany sounds better, “breakthrough” makes it sound like I actually did something when all that happened was a spark. Still, sparks are important, every canon shot that breaks a wall begins with a spark, so… there’s that.
Anyways, I had an epiphany of the minor kind. I was thinking about why I was getting stuck with chapter 2 (WiW)—didn’t come up with a reason on the spot, but wait for it—and then decided that I would just skip the chapter (already partially written) and move on to the next bit. The next chapter being from S’Ahn’s POV (have to figure out the rest of her name, just BTW).
S’Ahn is a blank slate, she remembers nothing and has no feelings whatsoever for any of the other characters around her. To her, everything is strange and alien, partly because it is and partly because… well, amnesia. Due to the split in her soul and being in the “maiden” phase/skin (what’s a good word for that? Also, I don’t like “maiden”), she has no wants, no desires. She “carries nothing into the Drift” (Pacific Rim, General Striker or whoever the fuck Idris Elba’s character is), and so there’s nothing to motivate, save instinct.
Her instincts are strong, mostly because of that healing soul-rift, and there’s also the crow to guide her. Still, in chapter 3, which is the one I’m skipping to, S’Ahn doesn’t consciously want anything, except perhaps to understand the words around her. That mission is mostly accomplished, that’s to the shenanigans in chapter 1, but there’s only so far I can take that shtick. We need to establish the next step, and the next step lies with the songbird, already foreshadowed in chapter 1.
Right, but I’m getting off point. The original point of this Bitch-Space was that I had a (minor) epiphany re why I was stuck with chapter 2, which only came to me after I decided to skip to chapter 3. The epiphany is this… S’Ahn doesn’t know anything about this world or this story, and neither do I, so it makes sense to stick with S’Ahn until I figure it out, taking the occasional sojourn into other POVs (hello S’Zhou) in order to flesh/nut things out.
In the WiW, I am S’Ahn and S’Ahn is me; together we’re going to crack this nut.
I like that notion. S’Ahn and I can make a mess of the world and then I can come back and S’Zhou can help me set it a little bit to rights, make some kind of sense out of the big picture. And it’s going to be a very big picture, hence the 6-novella series.
I feel better now, freer. I hadn’t realised how much the pressure of trying to figure out the plot was messing with my head. This is going to be fun.
In other news, I decided to have another go at the sword and sorcery flash piece. It was going pretty good and I was happy with it, until I lost the words. Grr.
I’m (maybe) going to write it (or something similar) again tomorrow. First thing in the morning. And I’m never not going to copy paste after every WriteOrDie session again. If I’d done that with Old Ink 2, I’d be done with the piece by now and polishing it tomorrow, but… thems the breaks, and I’m not going to cry over lost words. It’s not the first time I’ve lost stuff and I doubt it will be the last. Instead, I’m going to remember the fun I had, and how easily they came. Not as easy as this, but still I had 600 words in 30 minutes (2 x 15-minute sessions) with only 250 to the word limit, so that was good. Progress and all that.
(For comparison, I’ve written this at double the speed of Old Ink, 600 words in 15 minutes.)
What is the secret between this and Old Ink? I’ve written about that before, and the only thing I can come back to is that this is stream-of-consciousness and Old Ink was more from the… front brain. Eeek. Writing shouldn’t be from the front brain, front brain equals inner bitch and inner bitch is what we’re trying to kill. So…
We’ll work on that.
Less front brain, more creative/back brain.
I got a minute left until the timer on my writing group goes and 210 words left until I hit the word goal on this Bitch-Space. I think I’m going to call it quits and let both parts of my brain ponder.
Time to meet up with S’Ahn and make a glorious mess.