I realised that I hadn’t put in the prologue with the recaps and that the recaps themselves are sort of useful. But I think I a) need to add some categories to this blog and b) set up a page that indexes things in nice clickable links – I’m not promising this will happen any time soon just that I am planing to do it!
I know I said I was going to post in 2000 word chunks and then yesterday I posted a 1000 word chunk instead but I wanted to share and alot of it is written in 1000 word chunks now.
Also I am still putting out the novel as ‘raw’ that is spelling mistakes and all – and being dyslexic there are a lot of those!
The dream was dark, green gold with a shimmer of smoke, the pall of opiates was thick on the air, she dreamed of the goods of the forest but it was illution, it was never as deep for her and some of those around her would not wake, she could not take that knowledge could not cope with the wind uttering their names, she shimmered in a slick sweat as her body expelled the narcotic. The animals called and she awoke to the biter chill of late spring snow, Matthews warmth was delisios and needed next to her but he was shuddering, fearful of the dream trance she turned over, would her be slippping into poppy dreams irratrevable to her? Had his lust for the truth of god sucked his soul from the mind leaving a husk like before. She shock her head it was thick with snow headache and the room was room, sublte rong but wrong, this wasn’t there room. Then the memory of the move and stolen food poored in. That didn’t explain the shacking next to her though – she turned and laid her long fingered hand on him. The shaking intensified and a sob escaped the boy. He really was all limbs, and his pale skin was mottled with the cold, blothces of white and of waxen yello. ‘Matthew?’ she whispered.
He sobbed, Matthew?’ she reapeted and he curlled up as if to push her out and away from him, creating a shield to shelf with his body. Concerned she leaned up on an elbow and looked at him. Tears had soddened the blanket and his bedcloths. She stroked him and he shuddered still more. ‘What is wrong?’ she asked bearily keeping the fear from her voice, she tried to turn him over but he just curled up further on himself. Horrified she climbed out of the bed and begain to light new candles to get some sort of warmth in the chill and bitter room, the stone floor stole warm from her.
There was a heavyness about the air that said more snow, if the weather continued like this then there would be mass starvation across the country – she wondered if she could secure them enough food to survive? ‘Matthew!?’ she whispered urgently at him. ‘please talk to me?’
‘I’m sorry.’ he whispered quietly and she climbed back onto the wooden bunk with him. Clasping him to her in a fierce hug her nails digging into his chest. ‘I’m sorry.’ he whispered again.
‘What are you sorry about?’ she asked.
‘I h.. had too..’ he whispered. Fear pierced her – had he told the Abbot she was a girl?
‘Had to what?’ she said more harshly than she had ment. The tension in her voice racked him to more sobs.
‘I had to… had to let him…’ sobs cascaded from his thin framed. Alarmed she pulled him over into an embrace.
‘The Abbot?’ she asked increduously, surely she had miss understood things?
He nodded, ‘I avoided the others, brother Francis and Brother Eric but.. ‘ tears and snot streamed from him. ‘I can’t argue! Can’t say no.’ he wailed miserably.
‘Because… becuase of me?’ she asked quietly. He nodded.
‘It hurt,’ he said quietly, his eyes focused on her for the first time, ‘it still burns, is is it like that for you when we…’ She shook her head. Anger boiled in her viens she had thought the Abbot was ok, but he was a vile hypocrite – all his talk of homosexuallity being wrong, all the warnings! Was he doing this to everyone who was having an ‘illicet’ relationship in the Abby.
‘It wouldn’t hurt so much if he wasn’t forcing you Matthew,’ she said gently. She could not let this continue. She could not let him suffer so.
‘He didn’t force me.’ he said sounding small and frightened. ‘I…’ he brokje into sobs once more. ‘Matthew!’ she cried startled. ‘He said he would put us in seperate cells, he said the choice was mine.’ bitterness twisted its way through his words. Tears burned at her own eyes.
‘Matthew, you…’ she was going to say should have said no but he was looking at her so intensly, she felt maybe that would hurt him more.
‘I.. I understand if you don’t want me anymore..’ he said dangerously quielty – she thought of the self destruction that would occur if she said that. How could she feel revoltion for him?
‘I’ll… I’ll kill him!’ she said through gritted teeth.
MAtthew shook more, ‘I’m a beast!’ he said and the force of his tears robbed him of voice, she cradled him until he threw up and then quietly cleaned things whilst he slept fitfully. Acid was a cold burn in her stomache, how could she have not seen that? How could that old man touch him! Touch his bueatiful body, hurt him like this?
Thoughts of bloody and grisly deaths she could inflict flickered through her mind. Matthew sobbed in his sleep, she clenched her fist. Tears stung her eyes he’d done this, endured this hurt for her. To be with her, the guilt pooled in her gut. How could she stay? How could she let him be used like this? And how could she go? How could she take his love and trust, take his sacrifice and throw it to the wind. He wouldn’t understand why she’d gone but she couldn’t let this happen again. His tear stained face scoured hate in her.
Things where more rotten here than she had thought.
She awoke him, they had to still go to morning vespers. He shook as she got him ready, he seemed to have lost all his strength. She took his thin high cheeked face in her hands, she wanted to say I love you but could not, it was stuck in her throught. His eyes searched her’s and she wanted to stay in that moment, she kissed him gently on the lips and bowed her head. His fingers stroked her cheek and then he rested his forehead against hers.
It was a peaceful moment but one that was not going to last, sighing they looked at each other once more and left their little cell.
I think that now we are out of the other side of nano and I am not doing a post everyday I’m going to go back to putting up snippets that are 2000 words long – this makes things easier for me to keep track of the chapters and I think 2 K a week is not too much!
The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974
Abba Gold (look I have a small child who needs entertaining ok!)
Apocalyptica: Inquisition Symphony
Godspeed you black emperor!
More Than This: The Best of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music
No More Shall We Part: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother
Pink Floyd: Obscured by Clouds
The Ladder: Yes
Sea Shanties for the Far Inland: Men Diamler
And I have….. 72, 000 words!
Notes and chapter extracts will continue to go up through out the year – mainly I have enough novel to post like 1000 words a week for the whole year and more anyway!
I did really well with my PiBoIdMo stuff too which is good 🙂 I will be attempting to get the novel finished in December but we will have to see!
Hopefully I’ll be taking part in more writing challenges and maybe get something more than my poems and flash fiction published!
As I was writing yesterday I realised that I really really do feel completely overwhelmed by the Punk Project as a whole – not just the novel. It is huge! It is so huge that it is going to take my lifetime to write and that frankly scares me!
Why does it scare me?
Well a) do I really want to spend all that time in my life on this one project and b) what use is it? No really – I always thought when I was younger I would give something to society and when say I was working on meteorites it felt like I was doing something for mankind yet here I am finding that my life work is going to consist of the sort of tacky scifi people ban their kids from watching/reading. And yet I am going all out with it – I am researching things, historical fact is as correct as it can be within the confines of the story. The same with the science and technology, I have looked at where I think new techs can go and what they can achieve – I have looked at the socio-political consequences and outcomes of certain actions etc… There is a lot of work and alot of actually quiet useful information going into the novel including the darker aspects of human behaviour and how the victims respond and cope with this!
My research list is massive though and my brain feels like a collindar trying to hold onto custard.
With it having taken me over a year to produce the first novel and then I am having to cut it in half :/ I just can’t really see me ever getting the whole lot written 🙁
Add in the fact that I really do still want to do the graphic novel starting from the beginning of the Punks story and working forward – the art work alone would take years and some of it I don’t even know how to draw 🙁 But I’m not sure I can collaborate with anyone on this project either.
Every history section of her life I write is going to have to be researched so heavily too. The number of short stories and spin offs that are pushing at me too be written is quiet scary too.
On the other hand – the novel I am submitting for the Pratchette Prize was easy to write because of research I had done for The Punk. And my science writing has also benifieted from it. I just sort of need to convince myself that this is a) actually doable in one life time and that b) it is worth it for both me and society.
I know you were probably expecting some chapter 11 today and it is there waiting to go live but I just have more random thoughts and things about this years nano experience. Basically I didn’t really have an issue with reaching the word count but once I was there I found writing motivation hard 🙁
I’ve been rattling off a few hundred words here and a few hundred there – it has become more of a chore as I now am not really sure where this ‘novel’ as apposed to the series is going, were I should end it and indeed how I’m going to get the protagonist out of the fixes she’s found herself in (in a believable way!). I have also steam rollered myself with the ol’ research issue. I am still working my way through the books I’ve picked up about Elizabeth and Tudor England and realising that it did heavily effect things I have been looking a little bit at Joan of Arc and found I have made some glaring errors – I am therefore trying to resist the urg to go ad rewrite certain bits of the story but at the some time I do need to make sure that the story will still fit when I do change them :/
I’m feeling that my spelling and stuff is worse than last year – I think this is a pregnancy thing to be honest – I’m in general making more mistakes with everything. Ironically the reduction in my mobility is now causing me to not want to write as I day dream of running about or tidying the house :/
I’m really hoping that I continue writing in December and stuff – I do know a hell of a lot more about the area in history and my story in general than I did last year. So I hope to hash it out until I at least have this novel finished – it really looked like it’s going to be a big novel though :/ I am feeling rather overwhelmed by it.
Beginning – Matthew reveals he’s been sexual propositioned/rapped to keep the sleeping arrangements with the Punk
Middle – the Punk feeling helpless and the other boys realising what’s going on
End – a bullying incident from one of the slightly younger monks
Whilst writing I have had unexpected things happen – characters that were of no consequence who present themselves suddenly as major players – this has become extreme with some major plot changes creeping in because of the new characters actions. My husband says he doesn’t believe this really happens, that the characters and story steer themselves – after a little conversation about it I realised that we both approach novelling in very different ways.
I tend to do a lot of what is known as free writing, I will use various stimuli a phrase, a picture etc… and just sit and start writing the first thing to pop into my head. The Punks structure itself is built up from me doing something similiar. I have been collecting snippets here and there and the whole thing started with a title. Of course there is the fact that it overlays a story idea I have been working on since my teens but most of the actual writing is still response writing. I may write chapter outlines but as you may have noticed I rarely stick to them – I have the main story arch fixed in my head but everything else is fluid!
My husband on the other hand, has an extensive wiki/database of information and characters and their interactions with each other. He outlines everything in minute detail and the actual discription and dialogue is hung on this frame. He wouldn’t dream of throwing an extra character into the mix without deliberating and looking at the potential out comes for weeks!
Though I am keeping notes and things on my novel this time I am still essentially a free writer, he is not – his writing is still fantastic and is far more of a polished item when he’s finished his first draft than mine is!
I just thought the two approaches were interesting – even more so as the novel he is writing is a joint effort between us – he is writing his part first (and has been for about 7 yrs now) I will then write mine once his is complete. They are two stories interwoven – his from the male protag and me from the female. It will be interesting to see how the combination works!
To a certain extent Alaric has issues with writing fiction in that he has a very demanding job and when I am incapacitated he has me and small child and elderly aunt to look after. I write most days unless my hands are trully too painful which fortunatly doesn’t happen that often. His rigid structure is probably essential for him to keep the momentum up with the story as there are huge gaps between his writing sprints!
Having said that when I have tested my monster writing game on him or he’s come along to the writing group I run he has excelled in the free writing, producing powerful openings to stories and sometimes even complete short stories. It often makes me wonder what would happen if he had more time to write – I think he would complete the nano challenge in the first week and produce something damn hot! Maybe if I ever make it to a best selling list I can give him that time.