I'm Back....I think
I can't believe how long it has been since I have finished Goodwill and to be honest...I haven't made as much progress as I would like with...well..anything. I have this idea in my head that I need something 90% done...but you know what I'm just going to dive in at 50% and see what happens so there may be more things rolling out slowly. At this point the only thing I feel comfortable with is NA3. So it's ...coming soon.
AHA Moments
I've got a ton I'm working on and one of the reason's I've been in the trenches so long is because I've been tying to find the Aha! moment for my serials. I think a good example of this was when I originally did Goodwill it was Angel : Black, White and Gray. I knew it was gong to be about Sofia and Tomas returning to Petal Brook so Sofia can confront her abuser and then her having to deal with the painful reality of confronting Alan and how his family will be impacted by the trial. I wanted to show that he wasn't a faceless monster that even sympathetic vulnerable people can do monstrous things. But I could just never get it past chapter 3.
Then, while working on a short novella about teenage Elijah (which I will share after Red Booth) I got this interesting perspective on Tomas and Sofia's past...also I had this nagging feeling that Elijah (who is a bit of a troublemaker) had someone he felt accountable to.
At the same time I started thinking of Toma's drug addiction through the opioid crisis and what it would look like in a community like Riverside. So I slowly started writing Goodwill this time focusing on class, addiction and the legal system. I was writing about Judson and then Charity sort of popped up out of nowhere and so I started writing Red Booth (Before working on Goodwill) and Charity's backstory just came together. If you remember from the excerpt of Red Booth I posted Sofia and Tomas are coming back from Veronica's funeral in 2017. I reflected on how Charity came to live with Sofia and that made Goodwill click for me. Of course at this point Veronica and Donna didn't exist in Goodwill so I wrote them in and it took off from there
I realized that as much as Goodwill was about Sofia getting justice it was also about her building a family and grace in the face of adversity.
IDK if any of that got through
With all that said I've reached moment like this with NA3 and my Liapri (My Emile, Clara and Fierro go on vacay story). I sort of have it for Red Booth. I'll be honest I'm being pretty lazy with NA3 because it's already plotted and one in my head but I need to sit down and get it out.
I am pushing myself to finish all these serials I have out here for one reason...I want them out of my head. During Goodwill I would push myself to just put 10,000 words down. Just slapping down any scene idea or fragments to get things moving and I'm going to have to do that to tackle the 3-4 serials I have left.
Send help.
None of My Characters Are Straight
While hogging SHV's comment section I've mentioned Clara being Demisexual and I say this because (I feel like I blogged about this somewhere) Clara can't see herself being intimate in absence of a relationship. One of the reasons Clara sleeps with Fierro is because he says he loves her, and he sleeps with her because ht believes it's what she (like Lucie) expects.
.Clara has only had physical relationships with three men, all of whom she had deep romantic feelings for ( Fierro, Peter Morrarti and Marco B-
Muse : Wait we haven't discussed him yet
Lile : I mean he was technically mentioned in another serial, just not by name
Much in the way I was never able to write Fierro sexualizing Clara, I was never able to write Clara in a sexual relationship with men she wasn't in relationship with which was why dating was so hard for her. IDK if it read as text but all of Clara's sexual encounters are mentioned in the serials she's only had four sexual encounters in 12 year (Fierro in 2007, Peter in 2008 , Marco in 2010, *don't worry about him we'll get to him* and Fierro again in 2017 )
In PLT this happens
I was sitting on the side of the bed, My eyes focused on my floral print shoes. I kicked off my shoes and slipped off my diamond earrings. My hands were shaking as I unclipped them. In that moment there were things I wanted to say . . . but I couldn’t make myself.
I could feel him on the other side of the bed, sitting in the same position with his back to me. Perhaps thinking the same thing. If we couldn’t talk to each other about Rose how were we supposed to talk about this ?
Clara knows they should have a conversation about previous partner and protection but they just can't talk about it because Fierro can't explain how he feels and Clara isn't sure how to say she hasn't wanted to be with anyone in five years.
Anywho this is why Clara never sleeps with the mild love interest I wrote for her in Pretty Little Things and there are lines like this
PLT Chapter 12
His eyes moved down to my hands, he picked it up and kissed the back of my wrist. I opened my mouth to say something but I couldn’t find the words. Despite all the places Niklas had kissed and touched me that evening nothing felt like his lips barley brushing my wrist.
Okay, I promise my next post will be filled with pictures.
Sincerely, Emile Chapter 2
Guys, to steal a line from SHV this serial got away from me plotting and structure-wise. I wrote this and Liapri with the same themes and ending in mind, but I NEVER thought I'd write Liapri and now that I have... this one was harder to justify. But I did it...sort of.
Chapter 1 was posted in the last post.
Re-Cap
Clara DeLune, Addison Fierro and Emile aren't your typical group of friends. Years ago they escaped Litany Lane a dreamlike purgatory with a chance to build new lives for themselves. But they aren't the only thing that's escaped death. *grumbles at The Good Place*
In Pretty Little Things (part I and II) Clara purchases a rundown French Chateau (Check out the Pinterest board) that was the secret estate of Victor Bordeaux who lured and murdered three people at a costume party he threw there.
Decades later the Spectres of his victims have returned after being cast out by Victor and though they are fading they haunt the new inhabitants of the house until the truth comes out and their bodies are discovered.
With the Spectres resting in peace, Clara, Fierro and Rose have settled into their new home. But it's not quite complete so they invite their close friend Emile to move in with them in the guest suite. Emile is writing a book about the murders that happened at Chateau Mercier and a book about Etruscan History. What better place than the remote Versaille countryside to write in peace.
Now it's summertime and as Emile settles into life in Versailles, Clara has left for a road trip and a wedding in America, Rose is at a prestigious art camp at a fancy hotel in Northern Europe and Fierro has secrets of his own.
Fierro has agreed to be Clara's date for the wedding and Emile has one job and that is to get him to the wedding on time
This sounds like one thing , but this is really just an inside look at Emile's emotional journey and we find out what he was up to during Pretty Little Things.
Playlist
+1+ the temperature on the air of on the bow of the kateelen
+2+ Berlin - RY X
All of the songs on my playlist sound the same
CHAPTER TWO
