79,525 / 79,525 (100.0%)

Wow. Some five months after the end of NaNoWriMo 2005, the first draft of the story I started then is finished.

This is also the last 'official' story in the Moonlight & Shadow arc. Even though nobody died, I think for now, this is the last story they have to tell. Like Arrow in the Night, which the end calls back to, it's also a collision with Bridge of Silver. That arc still has more stories to tell, by a lot (and actually, so does M&S, but this is chronologically the last one). No more stories where Terre and Marcus are the central characters, even though Cassie still has one more story under her belt.

When I first envisioned this, I wasn't sure it would last out to 50,000 words (I thought it would peter out around 30k), but here it is, just under 80k. Wow.

Now I will set it aside until subsequent drafts (where I will likely improve the pacing near the end, among other things), and find something else to work on.

Tonight, I broke 80,000.

Barely (as in reaching 80,001), but it's still something of a milestone met.

Of sorts.

I know I shouldn't really be counting it a milestone until I reach 100k, but I'll take what I can get when I can get it. 

Yay me! 

Her birthdate is 11 October 2011, and she was born in Charlotte, NC. Her father was Steven Thomas, and he was an mechanical engineer who helped design some of the alternative fuel cars that are popular during that time. Not a big name, of course, but he's not the type. Just a geek with an old-school motorbike and a beat-up leather jacket. Her mother was Gail Colston. Her parents never married, but it was agreed upon that their first child would have his last name.

This arrangement started collapsing when Donna was four, and the culminating blow came when she was five and her father walked into the room in time to see her mother strike her hard enough to knock her across the room. He picked her up, and carried her upstairs to her room, gathered a few things of his and Donna's that were necessary, carried her back downstairs, and away without even a word to the woman he'd shared his life with. He got onto his motorbike and just drove away. He didn't stop until he felt like it, and by then he was on the west coast.

(I'm writing this one now. Oi.)

The years that follow are kind of blurry. I think they live with his sister Michelle in Portland for a couple of years, and then they end up either North to Washington or South to California. What I do know is that she ends up a little behind, and doesn't graduate until June of 2030. She meets Silvia at a convention over Thanksgiving weekend during her first year at college (November 2030). From there, she ends up bouncing around from university to university until she ends up in Flagstaff.

She starts working at the Institute as a tech writer in 2034, when she's still working on her own engineering degree. She's just short of getting that degree in 2036 when she's packed up for being a Political Deviant and sent off to Mars with the others, as a scientist. (And one of the things she never forgives them for is the fact that she never actually finishes her degree at a proper university, but gets her papers after spending several sessions perpetually six months behind.)

Starting in 2029 and onward until 2033, Donna seems to be in one bad relationship after another. After she starts work at the Institute, she buries herself in work and her friendship with Silvia, even though she does try to date from time to time. She isn't even necessarily looking for the perfect romance or anything perfect. She just wants proof that out in the world there is romantic love (or lacking that, romantic companionship) that doesn't turn violent.

And as soon as I work out places and names and such for Brendan and/or Anton, I'll tweak their entry so that it's more than a handful of dates.

I was thinking about the Drabblemania piece last night, and was also thinking about doing edits to it, turning it into something different. In the end, I decided against it, because for all that there are other stories of Anne's that could be told with the prompt wizard, that one is important, too. Admittedly, it was drawn from conversations and experiences myself and a friend had, but In a way, it's almost like those things made worse because… well, I know I didn't hear muttered implications as to how on earth I got into an engineering(ish) programme.

I just remember all the talk when I was young about girls and getting girls into science programmes, and the knowledge that to this day, so many of those programmes are still the domain of the guys. So I can only imagine that in the late 70s, there would be some of Anne's classmates who'd make it hard on her. The fact that she was good at what she did (or at least reasonably competent) would make it even worse.

But what got me to thinking wasn't any of these things. It was something in that drabble I wrote for Drabblemania, which I need to post there eventually. Hell, it's an object that I've written about dozens of times, and it never even really clicked with me. Anne's sword, her best sword that Albert made for her. Before last night, if I thought anything about it, then I assumed it was a gift from one friend to another. But last night, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. In the Courts, where everything is insanely ritualised, something made by hand with magic woven in and through is likely not a simple throw-away gift. Even if Albert comes off like he'd do exactly that. And I don't doubt that he would. Just not this time.

That sword likely was a Gift of Intent.

If this is right, then it throws everything I thought I knew about their relationship prior to the spell off-kilter. I thought that prior to the spell, they were good friends, and nothing more than that, really. However, if that lightning bolt that hit is right, then they were actively dating before that spell was put on them.
*facepalm*

With the way those two act most of the time, I'm not surprised. And they would have known each other fairly well, given the way their apprenticeships went. Anne was apprenticed to Raishan, but still studied with Shaia, the weaponsmistress. For Albert, somehow I think it was the opposite. And even before the apprenticeships came into play, Anne, Albert, and Bastian were all around each other. I have an image of them in my head sort of huddled together in a bunch while the one Court was ripped into two. This might be why in the end, they don't associate with one Court or the other, because those three were in some sort of in-between place when that happened.

This information isn't exactly a house of cards bringing the whole thing down. In addition, there's a few other details that came along with that particular bombshell. Like that the real reason for the spell was to pull them away from their original locations and taskings and into the "grand plan" of being the primary to their respective leaders of the Dual-Court.

Bah. I have all this jumbled up information running around in my head. Which probably means that it's time to edit Rival Courts and get some of this junk in. And maybe even start the prequel. Then maybe I can get it all to make sense.

<u><b>Birthdates</b></u>
<b>Brendan</b> – January 19, 2008
<b>Anton</b> – April 20, 2009

<u><b>High School Graduation</b></u>

<b>Brendan</b> – June 13, 2026
<b>Anton</b> – June 5, 2027

<u><b>Enter College</b></u>
<b>Brendan</b> – August 2027 (since he took a year off to do… whatever, since he hasn't told me yet)
<b>Anton</b> – September 2027 (just following on from high school)

College graduation date for both of them is <b>2031</b> (yes, it's a four year program in my world). They go their separate ways for approximately two years, so they're not reunited until <b>2033</b>, and things start getting yanked out from under Brendan's feet in <b>2035</b>, when he's been working there for four years to Anton's two. The Mars launch is in <b>2036</b>, and I forget how long it'll take them to get there. But I do remember the launch date.

That's the year of their ages that I gave for <lj comm=bodyandsoul100>. I think. And somehow it amuses me that neither of the boys have technically been born yet.

And what got me to thinking about all this? The fact that Brendan and Anton's "Chemistry for Non-Majors" prof warned them against trying to blow up the lab, since some wise-ass student actually carried through Brendan's half-hearted plan back in 2014 and having to pay for having them redone cut quite a bit into the school's government funding.

Yeah, this is the first real milestone of the brand that I’m used to.

It took me a month and a half (more or less) of working on various projects in various arenas rather than the crazed writing on one project in a month’s time, but I still made it.  Since I’m in the 250k club, though, I still have a long way to go, but this helps.  Also helping is the knowledge that I’m going to do NaNoWriMo again this year, and I will make the 50k (bares teeth).

It’ll probably also help to have those other projects in the same universe at least closer to completion so at least I know where the universe is going and where it’s already gone.  On that note, I think I’m either going to take a break and nap or write some more.

Chapter 18 of Exodus is far from done, after all.

Victor, Brendan, Donna… Even though in my own way, I love all of them.  They’re all fun or interesting to write in their own ways.  But Victor, being the mentor and later, teammate of Brendan and Anton, gives an interesting perspective.  He also is an interesting character altogether.

I keep saying that once I finish up one of my characters for Body and Soul 100, then I’m going to flip over to one of the other characters.  Donna is probably going to be next, though.  What little I’ve written for her (mostly in pieces to non_plot and lyric_plot) shows an interesting history that I’m looking forward to delving into further.  Heh, ironically, I need to let Brendan show up in one of the pieces to one of those communities, which is strange for me to think about since I do so much writing for Brendan and so little writing for Donna.  She does have a bit of a crush on him, though.

Victor’s coming in a close second, though.  I don’t even know what his situation is, so that he disappears.  I know what the others’ are, but not his.  He’s a bit of a mystery.  A lazily grinning, laid-back mystery, but a mystery all the same.  I want to find out about him.

And with all these characters I want to explore and find out more about, I really wonder whether Colonization Dreams will remain as little more than a short story about an expedition team to Mars.

I always do this.  Get a short story idea, start fleshing out characters, and having a full, breathing novel on my hands.  I’m still going to try to keep from doing that, but I don’t know whether it’ll be possible.

By that, I don’t mean that I’m finished.  I won’t be for a little while, because in my head, with the way things are going, there’s at least three more chapters left to write.  However, that’s the closest to completion I’ve gotten on any of my NaNoWriMo novels so far.  So that is progress.

Of course, afterwards there’s the grand editing scheme, but that can wait for a little while.  Right now, I just want to get it finished, and hopefully finish at least one of the other, earlier ones before this year’s NaNo starts up again.

I’m terrible about starting things and leaving them unfinished.  For this thing, it’s important that I finish.  I want to see the full stories and I want to have access to the facts of the universe before I start branching out and writing something else in the universe rather than making it up as I go along.

Quite some time ago, I had all the pieces of this particular section of the universe just come together in my head, like a jigsaw puzzle that I finally found the most important pieces of.  So even though I don’t have all the pieces together yet, I have a better idea what the picture’s going to look like when I’m done.   It’ll still surprise me, I’m sure, but that’s part of the joy of writing for me anyway.

I knew the location. I knew the time-frame. I knew the universe because so far, I’ve always written in the Anarchy and Rapture universe and until I run out of story ideas, I’ll probably continue to do that. Mind, it likely won’t be always Terre and Marcus, because I think I’m close to running out of stories for them and I don’t want to push it too far. The thought of not writing those two after so many years of doing exactly that sort of scares me. I’m really attached to them, but I don’t want to run it into the ground.

Damn. I think I’ve gotten lazy over the years regarding the whole character planning and development thing. Then again, there is the Brendan and Anton thing that I’ve been doing over the past month or so. So maybe not so lazy. Just attached. But considering that they’ve been running around in my head for the past ten years (wow, has it really been that long?), maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised at that.

Anyway, premise. Right-o. And expect more revisiting to this idea over time, as it’ll get more specific as the year goes on.

The story has had the working title of “Windy” since the end of last year’s NaNo. That was, of course, when the general idea started building. This general idea bounces way back in the general timeline of the universe. Technically “Windy” would be the second story in the series, following Terre and Marcus after their flight from Minnesota at the end of “Minds Like Poetry”. They end up in Chicago, have to make their way there for a time, and end up getting pulled into another situation of sorts. After they end up finishing up that particular piece of work, they start feeling edgy and restless and feel the need to move on.

Either that or the Chicagoeans throw them out. Take your pick.

A little more fleshing out happened in my head and I have a little more of an idea where I’m going with this one. There is a resident of a particular boarding house on the South Side who keeps seeing something late at night skipping around the stairs. Like a small child. So one night, he gets sick of it and starts to explore. Only to find that the child is a ghost that got pulled into something so much larger than her. Then he gets pulled in himself.

When Terre and Marcus arrive some time later, the landlady has had trouble renting that room, and so they get it at a reduced rate. The weirdness doesn’t start right away, but it does start up, and they have to find some sort of solution to it.

…and that’s all I have at the moment. I’m sure, though, that it won’t be shy in throwing ideas at me.

First thing, though. I have to finish Minds Like Poetry before starting this so I know where I’m going.

Both of which I’ve been this January.

Sigh.