Mortal Coils

I'm starting a series of posts about my various novels and writing projects. And since I've been recently rereading it, we'll start with Mortal Coils, a novel I came up with for 2010's NaNoWriMo and which I failed utterly to finish.

Thistle and Weeds by Mumford and Sons - theme song for the story

This is one of those novels that I feel has been in the back of my mind for a long time. Because it's set in what is essentially my parents' hometown - a small but ancient (in American terms) mill town on the coast of New England. As I mentioned in my last post, I have tended over the years to write many detailed descriptions of places and people on random scraps of paper. I have a rather large collection of those scraps pertaining specifically to spending time in that town and being around the people who live and have lived there for most of their adult lives.

Here's a rundown of the story.

The Macpherson family has lived in Lamprey Falls for centuries. And for centuries the citizens of Lamprey Falls have known that there is something about the Macpherson family that is not quite normal.What they don't know is the family's long-kept secret that they are witches with demons bound to their service.

Noah Macpherson

Noah, a young scion of the Macpherson clan, has been summoned back to his family's house after finishing his college degree halfway across the country. His grandfather is dying. His sister is about to have the first baby of the new generation. His alcoholic uncle has moved back into the house after his latest divorce. And his grandmother, the clan's matriarch, is trying to choose an heir.

But Noah has his own problems that his family and even his demon can't seem to help him with. He's dreaming.

Miranda Fairchild 

Noah dreams repeatedly and with increasing frequency of a red-haired woman who is destined to fall in love with and destroy him. Not long after he returns home, he meets this woman from his dreams and is terrified to find that she is real - and working at his favorite bookstore.

Another theme song - for Noah and Miranda.

Miranda likes Noah right away. They both love art and history. They both want to visit Europe. And he makes her laugh. But there is something not quite right about him. And sometimes she catches him looking at her as though he's trying to decipher a puzzle. Then again, sometimes Miranda thinks something isn't quite right about her either. Ever since she moved to Lamprey Falls, she can't sleep at night. She wakes up from daydreams she doesn't remember having. Not to mention she can't quite explain to anyone why she wanted to move to this town in the first place.

What Miranda doesn't know about herself could not only kill her new boyfriend - but it could destroy his entire family.

There's the rundown. I'll post more in-depth about the characters later. This ought to be fun, considering I have a Macpherson family tree going back four generations (and heavily linked to two other witch clans).

Writing a Write

When I was in high school, I read something somewhere about how writers should keep a box of things to go through when they're feeling less than writerly. Being an avid scribbler at that point, I immediately took a sharpie to a shoebox I had lying around and labeled it "inspiration box." Minimalist design. I never decorated it, figuring the inside should be enough.

I can't even begin to say how glad I am that I did this. This box is now filled with tidbits and oddments of things. Bookmarks, Red Sox tickets, rocks from Alaska, a lollipop shaped like Sigmund Freud's head. Then there are the numerous small notebooks and index cards I wrote descriptions of people and rooms and feelings on. There is blank receipt tape from when I worked at Target covered in scraps of Rising and Seven Words for Madeline. There are philosophical musings on brown paper napkins from the cafe at Clark. Cuttings from newspaper articles about my high school crew team or interesting things I read in the Washington Post when I lived there in middle school. Dozens of pamphlets and maps from my family's trip to San Diego a few years ago.

I've always been a pack rat when it comes to my writing. I would be surprised if more than a bare few notebooks or scraps of paper containing my writing/scribbling have made their way to the landfill. The vast majority of it is here with me in my apartment. This means dozens of notebooks. Scores of files folders. Even more journals. The rest of it is at my parent's house - more notebooks and at least two boxes of letters.

I'm glad I've kept this stuff. It's amazing to look through. To see the insights and writing style progress in a person from age 9 to their early twenties is pretty crazy.

And I always get inspiration from it. It's nice when you can inspire yourself, ahahaha.

Anyway, I'll be sharing a bunch of stuff from my inspiration box over on my Tumblr. So if you're interested, make with the clicky.

New Directions

In the past few days, I confessed (separately) to my boyfriend and one of my best friends the method I use to put myself to sleep.

I tell myself stories. I have done this for years now. In fact, I remember some warm California sleepovers a long time ago during which my best friend and I imagined our own fantasies in virtual video cassette form and popped them into imaginary VHS players. (Oh, by the way, we were two of the founding members of the Weirdo Club. WWRTW!) In those days, our fantasies involved becoming figure skating legends or dating Nick or Brian from the Backstreet Boys. Over the years, my storytelling methods lost their literal translation from life to the screen in my head, and I focused more on the details of the stories themselves. I started seeing my novels come to life, my characters like actors in a play while a voice over described what they were doing and how they felt about it.

The past couple of months, my novels have moved off the stage (though I still retreat into their comforting embrace in daydreams), and a more sordidly detailed sort of setting has taken their place. An entire soap opera of characters and drama has gradually taken shape in my head until I can lie contented with insomnia for hours, imagining the various misdeeds and ill-begotten children of that world in my head. Having confessed this silly secret to my boyfriend, his reaction was "well, why don't you write it?"

Me? Write down all that smut and ridiculousness? I mean, I secretly adore watching General Hospital, and I can't say I haven't forgotten all of the outrageous stories my girlfriends and I used to play with our Barbie Dolls. But write it? I feel like that would be a betrayal to my other stories - stories that may involve sex and illicit relationships and murder, but have nowhere near the "watching the train wreck" feel of an actual soap opera.

However... A serial soap opera could be fun. And seeing as I have the characters and plots already formed, why the hell not? It will be entertaining, and, hey, there's a reason soap operas and thrillers and Harlequin romances sell so well. Besides, there's always the plus that this will make me post/write something every day.

The real question is - is anyone interested in reading this crazy stuff? And if not here, where could I take it?

Love is a bird..

I imagine that if Melantha made a music video, she might look like this.



For those of you who don't know who Melantha is, she's the Scerae (i.e. a goddess) of Chaos and Insanity in a fantasy story that M and I wrote together. She is known as the Black Flower, born of the Cruel Shard, and she is the best thing I have ever written.

Here's how she first appeared:

On Writing

Trying to back into the habit of writing daily. It's amazing the things that fall by the wayside when one gets even a little busy. I've finally gotten around to hanging pictures on the walls of my apartment, and the atmospheric difference is amazing.

My boyfriend and I attended a friend's salon gathering on Friday night. There were many beautiful things shared: poetry, food, some gorgeous violin/cello music, even a mostly impromptu rap. I offered to do a little reading of my own, and chose A Hunter's Fire as my subject. I read a small scene where my main character is sitting in a diner with her newly formed rock band; it's mostly internal monologue indicating the beginning of her slip from reality. And it went over pretty well. I got some questions and some compliments, and overall felt good about the whole thing.

(I am planning my own salon party. Soon, I hope. If you're around and interested, let me know and I'll send you an invitation!)

A Hunter's Fire is probably my favorite novel of those I am currently working on. Face the Flames will always be my first baby, but AHF is the story that rings truest to me. An artist's descent into madness is a story I am always interested in. Now if only I could decide what to keep of what I've written - and whether or not I should just turn the damn thing into a screenplay instead.

Face the Flames goes ever on and on. I'm stuck in Dameon's world right now. Trying to iron out his chapters in part one. I messed up the timeline awhile ago and am still in the process of trying to fix it. I have done bits and pieces of future chapters though which I am very excited about. Mostly about Tori and David's relationship which (aside from Gabrielle and James in AHF) is my favorite thing to write about.

Wings of Destiny is still in editing. As soon as I finish up with that though, it will be time to find a serious agent and get that out there for the masses to devour. I'm pretty excited; I think it has a decent shot. Despite or because of the craziness.

Other projects are ongoing... The North and my various Circle of Four stories almost never leave my head. I get scraps of them down from time to time, but nothing solid yet. I've also got an autobiographical piece I've been steadily adding to. Moreso for the past month or two. I guess getting older makes you stupidly in love with your childhood.

Oh! And in the vein of trying to resurrect my daily writing schedule, I signed up for a Science Fiction Big Bang. Four months to write 25,000 words. This is half of what NaNoWriMo requires stretched four times as long. I'm going to write a prequel of sorts to Face the Flames as my challenge. It will follow Human characters on Siphenn - and David may or may not be among them. He and General Hunter will probably be the only characters to appear in both this story (tentatively titled "Desperado") and the novel.

Excitement!