Lines Drawn in Starlight

For part 4 my current multi-chapter fic, I'm going to be posting in-progress updates to this journal. The chapters will go up on Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net after completion.

Instead of being sequestered in her room, Elsa is sent by her parents to her Uncle and Aunt, the King and Queen of Corona. King Thomas and Queen Primrose are thunderstruck at the idea of caring for the girl, since their own daughter, Rapunzel, was kidnapped as a baby and is still missing.

Elsa and Anna write letters to each other while Elsa grows up in Corona and Anna grows up in a castle full of people and life. Away from the anxiety exacerbated by her parents, Elsa has more control of her secret ice powers.

Elsa's fate to become the Snow Queen, however, is not so easily escaped.

Full work through Chapter 34
Chapter 34, Part 1
( Chapter 34, Part 2 )

...I began with the dream, if you want to call it that. And then afterwards, perhaps, some idea came of it. But I didn’t begin, as I say, by the moral and then writing a fable to prove it. -1976 interview with Jorge Luis Borges.

Isn't that wonderful? I was already alive when he gave that interview. I could already read, I am fairly certain.

( my updated list of works in progress, only of interest to the very bored... or reckless cats... )

So far this month, I've continued writing every day, at least 750 words daily. I signed up for the 30 day challenge.

Obsession. In spite of it being a penchant of mine, I have always had to check the spelling. (I haven't always checked the spelling. There is sometimes an abscess in my spelling of obsess.)

It happens when I'm stressed. It happens when I have a lot of creative energy, energy that translates as mania at times. The upwards swing of the carnival gondola, and me afraid of heights. Upward swing, both ways, different sides of the same boat.

I know it's happening now and I don't want to convince myself to stop it. I had some good times, the last time I rode this ride. Bad times, too... head between my knees, wishing it would all be over bad times. This time, I'm a lot more alone. And that's probably good, standing here in the deep damp hole of a different metaphor. I might be able to collect all the bones that I need to build something topside.

"A Desecration of Gravestones" (early stages, could be too late a planting)
A Wedding in Tulips
"The Dreamer of Jannah"
"Stadium"
Turning the Key
New City Limits
The 13th Chime
"Parasol" (fanfiction)
"Clow Stories" (fanfiction, revision/rewrite)
"Take Comfort" (fanfiction)
"Meeting as if By Chance" (fanfiction)

Yeah -- write that. Obsess about something useful for once. This time it's a thing, not a someone. No sonnets for my voice, now.

Fiction. Escape into dreams. Tell yourself a better story.

 OMG, the things that turn up when you're looking for something else.

I think I might know where a big part of the snagging is happening. I have been self-editing. I'm too aware of my tendency for long, complex compound sentences that runs in shades of purple. However, purplish is the way Jewel speaks. Clipping her is a mistake; she's the one telling the story.

Ciel doesn't speak at length, but he thinks a lot. He keeps his thoughts to himself, is used to self-censorship. As a kid, being quiet helped make him less conspicuous to the bullies. He and Nox were getting an education not typical for their environment. They could talk to each other; they were isolated from everyone else and bound to each other in friendship because of it.

But Jewel is made out of all the unspoken poetry, all the longing and dreaming that Ciel has kept stuffed down inside himself. She is made of love and hope and beautiful things, all the best parts of him. And she is quiet, but thinks a lot.

So, of course when she tells the story, she tells it with dreamy hope and loving descriptions of the world(s). I need to let her speak freely.

Only another 250-300 words today. Not much, but much better than the goose eggs over the last month. It was as if I balked after missing the deadline. Better not to think about deadlines at all. Writing hurts my hands and wrists, but it is still enjoyable. Pleasurable, even.

I have a lot of disconnected pieces of RY and only two more months to turn it into a readable first draft. Since the change up at work, I haven't written more than a few sentences, so tonight I sat down, opened a fresh page, and wrote what the story is about.

Well, no. I wrote down what happens in the story. That's more concrete. ( There is no wedding in the end, no happily-ever-after, or even big, steamy kiss of requited love. )

At the heart of things, I still see myself as the unrequited one. The unlovable. In spite of glaring contradiction! I am loved, I have been loved. It's from that view of myself that my attitude toward romance comes. I suppose that I believe that love out-of-balance is truth. Chalk it up to terrible lessons learned from popular entertainment and fiction. Though, it is not just that. I believe that being loved by someone else is secondary to knowing and loving oneself. In fact, that it is unstable to build a romance-relationship on any other foundation.

Most of all, I don't see the romance as the end. What good is falling in love with someone unless there are further adventures?

Off of Prompt 263 at daily_prompt:You see I'm falling in the vast abyss
Clouded by memories of the past

If it's too similar to his musings in the earlier part of the fanfic, I'll probably cut it, even though I like the reference to Tinkerbell. Ideally, since I'm heading to the end, it will balance/tie-in to that earlier section.
***
( Snippet from the next installment of Take Comfort )

(I have a feeling that this would work better rewritten as a sonnet.)

( poem )