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lizbeeAU Big Bang progress:
14455 / 50000 words. 29% done!
As you can see, I've stopped pretending that I'm aiming for a 15,000 word limit.
Equally obviously, I decided in the end to keep going with the story I've got, rather than switching to something that would be less wordy. I spent a lot of last week getting a feel for where it was going and how I wanted it to end, then read through the draft, tightening it up here and there and adding some scenes that would give it a bit of momentum. I'm pretty happy with where it's going right now, but I've also come down with one of those horrible colds that leave me feeling much too lethargic to write much.
Anyway, here are three snippets, one from each of the first person narrators.
Azula
Maybe I was going mad.
I should have been happy. I had everything I wanted. Why wasn't I happy?
Something was wrong. With me, with the Fire Nation. The treasuries were empty, the troops were overstretched. It was as if, in declaring himself Phoenix King, Father had decided to gut the Fire Nation, leaving us nothing more than another conquered subject-nation.
With me as another conquered subject-queen.
Did he really think so little of me? This thought had been haunting me since Father left. I had even sunk so low as to ask Zuko.
He had turned to look at me -- it was only two days after the Comet, and he was still strong enough to stand, if he made an effort -- and said, "Maybe it's worse, being his favourite. You're just a weapon to him, Azula. Maybe if you can see that--"
Whatever wisdom he was about to impart -- cobbled together, no doubt, from things Uncle had said in his lessons on treachery -- were lost in his scream.
"Fire Lord."
I raised my eyes from the ledger. The servant bowed lower, as if hiding her face. Hiding from me.
"It's time, Fire Lord."
"Have the ministers summoned," I told her. "I will see them next."
I went to watch them burn my brother's body.
I wore no mourning clothes, and the Sages -- the only other people in attendance -- were not foolish enough to don the white themselves. It was a short ceremony, befitting a servant rather than a prince. Just his name, and the names of his parents and ancestors. No titles. No achievements. His name alone would be added to the ancestor shrine within the Sages' temple. He would be quickly forgotten.
Goodbye, Zuzu.
"You think you're beyond forgiveness," said my mother. "You always did underestimate people."
I ignored her. We were alone at the pavilion, the Sages, Zuko and me. My mother was dead. Father had told me she was dead. Father had never lied to me.
I watched until Zuko was nothing but ash.
Mai
I couldn't sleep that night. My head was full of memories and grief. I got up to get a drink of water, and froze in the doorway of my room.
In the dim light of the new moon I could see Iroh, sitting lotus-style on a cushion. Around him, burning sticks of incense were arranged in a half-circle. His eyes were open, but he didn't see me.
He was very far away.
I went back into my room and slid the door shut behind me.
I had heard rumours, of course, of General Iroh's journey into the Spirit World after his son's death. The stories had kept Azula amused for months, and she had encouraged us to find the most disrespectful and absurd variations.
It had never once occurred to me that the stories might have been true.
The unfamiliar smell of the incense worked its way into my room. I lay on my sleeping mat and tried not to breathe too deeply.
The next day, he seemed perfectly normal, like a man with nothing on his mind beyond his next meal and a game of pai sho. And Azula had always thought she was the great liar in the family.
I considered asking him about it, but I kept my mouth shut. Part of me was afraid to hear the answer.
Aang
That night there was a feast, heavy on the sea prunes. And the squid. And the sea crabs. I filled up on seaweed bread and wondered if I could convince myself that krill was more vegetable than animal. Afterwards, Gran-Gran poured tiny glasses of liquor from a black bottle, one for everyone, even Toph and I. There was no toast, but I thought of Katara as I drank, and I didn't think I was the only one.
The next day, we had the funeral.
Even in summer, the ground here was too hard for burial. It was the custom to lay a body out on the ice and lay out stones or blocks of ice to protect it from animals. Here, we had no body, but we built a wall of stone anyway.
The wind froze my tears.
We -- Katara's family -- were the last to leave. Finally, Pakku and Hakoda persuaded Gran-Gran to return to the village.
Sokka said, "Our mom used to tell us that if you dream about a dead person, it means they don't want to leave. So you should give that person's name to a newborn."
Suki and Toph both winced. They had pretty strong taboos about using the names of the dead in the Earth Kingdom.
Before we left, I approached the stone memorial once more. The rock was icy-cold as I touched it.
It was the simplest bit of earthbending to rearrange the surface of the stone to form the characters of Katara's name. Sokka nodded.
"It's good," he said.
We went inside.
In between inflicing unspeakable tortures on fictional characters, I've been watching Fringe. I finished the first season this week, and I just want to throw my arms around it and go, "SHOW, ASIDE FROM THE EXPOSITION AND THE BIT WHERE ASTRID DOESN'T ACTUALLY GET TO DO ANYTHING MUCH, I APPROVE OF EVERYTHING YOU CHOOSE TO BE. ESPECIALLY WITH THE UNEXPECTED LEONARD NIMOY."
Seriously, I just want to draw little hearts around it. Especially Olivia, because emotionally reserved women with wry humour and secrets hidden in their own subconsciousnesses are my kind of fictional character. And I have a massive weakness for alternate universes, and parents who maybe weren't all that good at parenting working with their now-adult children, and UNEXPECTED LEONARD NIMOY, and morally ambiguous older women with more-than-professional-interests in the young women they're trying to groom as proteges, and angsty spy shenanigans.
The whole fringe-science-mystery-of-the-week format leaves me a little eh, but I love the overarching mythology. It's like season 2 of Alias, only with more icky squishy bits, and obviously it would benefit a hell of a lot from an injection of SpyParents. But it makes me very happy as it is. UNEXPECTED LEONARD NIMOY! Am I the last person on the internet to know about this? Probably? Do I care? NO!
As you can see, I've stopped pretending that I'm aiming for a 15,000 word limit.
Equally obviously, I decided in the end to keep going with the story I've got, rather than switching to something that would be less wordy. I spent a lot of last week getting a feel for where it was going and how I wanted it to end, then read through the draft, tightening it up here and there and adding some scenes that would give it a bit of momentum. I'm pretty happy with where it's going right now, but I've also come down with one of those horrible colds that leave me feeling much too lethargic to write much.
Anyway, here are three snippets, one from each of the first person narrators.
Azula
Maybe I was going mad.
I should have been happy. I had everything I wanted. Why wasn't I happy?
Something was wrong. With me, with the Fire Nation. The treasuries were empty, the troops were overstretched. It was as if, in declaring himself Phoenix King, Father had decided to gut the Fire Nation, leaving us nothing more than another conquered subject-nation.
With me as another conquered subject-queen.
Did he really think so little of me? This thought had been haunting me since Father left. I had even sunk so low as to ask Zuko.
He had turned to look at me -- it was only two days after the Comet, and he was still strong enough to stand, if he made an effort -- and said, "Maybe it's worse, being his favourite. You're just a weapon to him, Azula. Maybe if you can see that--"
Whatever wisdom he was about to impart -- cobbled together, no doubt, from things Uncle had said in his lessons on treachery -- were lost in his scream.
"Fire Lord."
I raised my eyes from the ledger. The servant bowed lower, as if hiding her face. Hiding from me.
"It's time, Fire Lord."
"Have the ministers summoned," I told her. "I will see them next."
I went to watch them burn my brother's body.
I wore no mourning clothes, and the Sages -- the only other people in attendance -- were not foolish enough to don the white themselves. It was a short ceremony, befitting a servant rather than a prince. Just his name, and the names of his parents and ancestors. No titles. No achievements. His name alone would be added to the ancestor shrine within the Sages' temple. He would be quickly forgotten.
Goodbye, Zuzu.
"You think you're beyond forgiveness," said my mother. "You always did underestimate people."
I ignored her. We were alone at the pavilion, the Sages, Zuko and me. My mother was dead. Father had told me she was dead. Father had never lied to me.
I watched until Zuko was nothing but ash.
Mai
I couldn't sleep that night. My head was full of memories and grief. I got up to get a drink of water, and froze in the doorway of my room.
In the dim light of the new moon I could see Iroh, sitting lotus-style on a cushion. Around him, burning sticks of incense were arranged in a half-circle. His eyes were open, but he didn't see me.
He was very far away.
I went back into my room and slid the door shut behind me.
I had heard rumours, of course, of General Iroh's journey into the Spirit World after his son's death. The stories had kept Azula amused for months, and she had encouraged us to find the most disrespectful and absurd variations.
It had never once occurred to me that the stories might have been true.
The unfamiliar smell of the incense worked its way into my room. I lay on my sleeping mat and tried not to breathe too deeply.
The next day, he seemed perfectly normal, like a man with nothing on his mind beyond his next meal and a game of pai sho. And Azula had always thought she was the great liar in the family.
I considered asking him about it, but I kept my mouth shut. Part of me was afraid to hear the answer.
Aang
That night there was a feast, heavy on the sea prunes. And the squid. And the sea crabs. I filled up on seaweed bread and wondered if I could convince myself that krill was more vegetable than animal. Afterwards, Gran-Gran poured tiny glasses of liquor from a black bottle, one for everyone, even Toph and I. There was no toast, but I thought of Katara as I drank, and I didn't think I was the only one.
The next day, we had the funeral.
Even in summer, the ground here was too hard for burial. It was the custom to lay a body out on the ice and lay out stones or blocks of ice to protect it from animals. Here, we had no body, but we built a wall of stone anyway.
The wind froze my tears.
We -- Katara's family -- were the last to leave. Finally, Pakku and Hakoda persuaded Gran-Gran to return to the village.
Sokka said, "Our mom used to tell us that if you dream about a dead person, it means they don't want to leave. So you should give that person's name to a newborn."
Suki and Toph both winced. They had pretty strong taboos about using the names of the dead in the Earth Kingdom.
Before we left, I approached the stone memorial once more. The rock was icy-cold as I touched it.
It was the simplest bit of earthbending to rearrange the surface of the stone to form the characters of Katara's name. Sokka nodded.
"It's good," he said.
We went inside.
In between inflicing unspeakable tortures on fictional characters, I've been watching Fringe. I finished the first season this week, and I just want to throw my arms around it and go, "SHOW, ASIDE FROM THE EXPOSITION AND THE BIT WHERE ASTRID DOESN'T ACTUALLY GET TO DO ANYTHING MUCH, I APPROVE OF EVERYTHING YOU CHOOSE TO BE. ESPECIALLY WITH THE UNEXPECTED LEONARD NIMOY."
Seriously, I just want to draw little hearts around it. Especially Olivia, because emotionally reserved women with wry humour and secrets hidden in their own subconsciousnesses are my kind of fictional character. And I have a massive weakness for alternate universes, and parents who maybe weren't all that good at parenting working with their now-adult children, and UNEXPECTED LEONARD NIMOY, and morally ambiguous older women with more-than-professional-interests in the young women they're trying to groom as proteges, and angsty spy shenanigans.
The whole fringe-science-mystery-of-the-week format leaves me a little eh, but I love the overarching mythology. It's like season 2 of Alias, only with more icky squishy bits, and obviously it would benefit a hell of a lot from an injection of SpyParents. But it makes me very happy as it is. UNEXPECTED LEONARD NIMOY! Am I the last person on the internet to know about this? Probably? Do I care? NO!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-26 01:20 am (UTC)And between you and
no subject
Date: 2011-03-26 05:18 am (UTC)*beams*
Fringe is pretty gross, but I think they stop showing it so much after the first few episodes. Or maybe I became desensitised? Or maybe my practice of paying more attention to my quilting than the screen was working in my favour.