(Per)NaNoWriMo Meme, Days 3, 4, & 5

Day 3 - Pick one of your female characters.  Introduce your readers to her, from her point of view and her words only.

Well I could use Greyblade for this meme (‘cause I love her and stuff), but she gets a lot of my time devoted to her already. Perhaps I should use Sky or Chloe… sorry, in text conversation with self. Gotta stop doing that…

Greetings. I’m Greyblade. Yes I chose that name myself. I was 5. Give me a break. Besides I like that name.

I suppose you want me to rant about myself. Don’t get me wrong. I can talk. About myself? Adequately. But blathering ‘bout me isn’t my style. So let’s keep this succinct, eh?

 I’m a young girl. Or rather, I appear as a young girl. Me? Inside? God knows.

I am a compilation. A composite of many. But I am one. Thousands of years of others’ minds, in taken into my own. But I am my own. Or so I like to believe…

You see? This is just asking for it. Complicated. Convoluted. But that aside.

My past is peculiar, my present particularly so. I shan’t go into detail; you’ll find out more later, I’m certain. Well ain’t this peachy? Me, chatting about myself, when really, I can say nothing. Nothing at all… nothing that make’s any sense, blech. But whatever.

I’m at least a century old. My mind is older, my body younger. I have a sister. Two actually. But I don’t talk about the other one.

I’m here out of choice. Don’t think for a moment that choice isn’t rescindable. And don’t think for a moment that I will rescind it. Point is I’m here. And for now, I’mm here to stay. God save the Cosmos.

Day 4 - What genre is your novel?  Why did you pick it?

It’s a bit of a genre buster (which I’m sort of proud of), so I’ll just list the elements: Science Fiction (the main, I suppose), Fantasy, High Fantasy (shades), Psychological Analysis/Thriller, Mystery?, Interpersonal (whatever the heck that is), Religion and Spirituality, it’s got some humor, some horror, some mental unraveling, etc., etc. I picked it…actually it really just happened. I knew it’d be a bit of all these things because these things just kind of happen when I write stuff.

Day 5 - Name two songs from your playlist that you feel are connected with your novel in some way, and explain how they are.

This one is tricky… I could use two character ones or one that works for the whole story…

In text conversation with self, again, sorry.

Well, I think Midnight and I by White Rabbit works particularly well because it not only expresses Greyblade’s personality (unsettling, ambiguous, dark, and alone), but it also expressed the creepier, more horrific side to my story. To the darkness inside ones heart, to the shadows that come to life and lurk about in the silent gloom. To the things that go bump in the night. It expressed the shadows that paint the blackest part of the world in my mind. And yet, simultaneously, it expressed the goodness wrapped up in all of this darkness, as there is goodness locked away inside of Greyblade’s stony, patched-up little heart.  

Falling Down by Oasis works quite well too, but with Jeck instead of Greyblade. Jeck is a sorrowed, broken young man, aged beyond his time and suffering from his past well into his future. The brokenness, the desperation, and the vulnerability coupled with wry hope and incredible strength of will are expressed quiet well through this song. There’s warmth and epic sense to it, contrasted by glacial lyrics and a despairing rawness of tone. It’s beautiful for Jeck’s character, and beautiful for the story.

Often I have struggled with the concern that I am a character first person and skimp on the plot. Well I can say truthfully that I’ve invested a lot in these characters; they are some of the most complex, fully developed, and (dare I say) real characters I’ve written. And I find no shame in that. They do not steal from the story, they are the story. The plot is an irrevocable part of them. And it is full and complex in its own right, both aside from and because of them. And I am satisfied.

I also take comfort in knowing that I can both write plot much better that I first supposed, I can write character even better than I ever believed, and that I can indeed, veritably write. And in this, I am more than satisfied. I am blessed.

Alleyway Vignette, an Excerpt

I stumbled into the side of the alley way, rubbing my shaking shoulder against the rough, cold walls. I shuddered. Dropped to the ground. Collapsed like a cheap table with too much weight placed upon it. I moaned. A pathetically long, wailing moan, wishing someone would take notice.

I whimpered softly and fell silent, listening for an answer in the bustling darkness, feeling the people all around me shuffle through the night. The streets ached and throbbed with a couple million hearts beating, a couple thousand hearts breaking, and a couple hundred hearts stopping in the cool, ridged, easy darkness. People living and moving and working and waiting and crying and sighing and laughing and screaming and dying. The world was loud enough without my voice. The world was quite full enough without me.

I was still and quiet, feeling the place pulling me in. Feeling my presence being erased, breath by breath...

I screamed.

I shrieked at the night, as if someone was listening for me, as if the city could hear my cry.

 It wasn't until I emptied my lungs and lay there, gasping, that I realized the truth; the city could hear me. But it did not care.

From The Deviant Begotten of God [working title]

© rrc. Eyes only please!