Before & After & Inbetween

Life's still busy, but writing - mostly on Mariko and a little on BAU-00, continues. The lack of updates about it is mostly due to the lack of updateworthy details, as in both stories are currently at stages with little to no good quote lines. I hope that changes soon for the better.

In the meantime:

Paper sculptures left anonymously

Hangover Owls kind of like LOLowls. :-)

current chapter word count: 3577 (+360)
scene worked upon: caught in the act
scene complete? not yet (but almost)
character getting the riddle of his life: Seishiro
character getting into Seishiro's pants (sort of): Tree-san
surprisingly useful plot features: ash and crushed petals
quote of the day: "Stop messing up the uniform. Getting the sap out is a nightmare!"

Week 1 of 2 of my vacation is now over and -yes- there is still a planet beyond my desk (and story files on my harddrive). I planned on working on "Business As Usual" (or at least the polishing for the PDF/e-book version of "Family Matters"), instead I'm playing with my long going Family Matters side-story "Mariko" - a.k.a. the sordid tale of Seishiro, his kids, and a house in Osaka... Okay, not so much of the last one, because I'm not that much into architecture. Anyway, here's the result of last week's work...

Story: Mariko
word count: 3191 (down from 3903)
less because I now take advantage of the episodic nature of the story and tell some of the crucial details in retrospect / memories, thus eliminating a lot of otherwise necessary but unimportant clutter.
structure: Part I (1983, just prae bet, Seiran), Part II (1987, Paper doesn't blush), Part II (1991, between end-of-bet and Hokuto's death, Jiro and Taro).
scenes Part I: cliff, illusion, biology practice, killing schedule, {caught in the act}.
scenes Part II: the patience of the predator
scenes Part III: {without an eye}, phone order, {dead man mating, accommodating a Sumeragi}
[complete, incomplete, {missing}]
quote of the day Part I: "Is there a fridge?"
quote of the day Part II: "She might become prey."
quote of the day Part III: "Why don't you take off your glasses?"

...and I probably should stop making plans for specific writing tasks (see above). I always end up working on something different anyway!

BAU: -579
current chapter word count: 1284
less because I took out some of the overly goofy scenes that distract from the important stuff going on.
quote of the day: He knew he had screamed at some time. Or times?

FM:
corrected text hauled off to solo for final okay to be turned into a PDF and epub soon.

Mariko: -45
current word count: 3903
less because I finally entered my scribbles and deleted the related writing notes
quote of the day: "Then they'll kill you and make do with somebody weaker but more compliant."

related side-note:
I closed the poll about "what to write first", because I realized that my muse doesn't give a damn about it anyway. The majority of people wants me to plot BAU, my schedule barely agreed with me making corrections to FM in late night pillow sessions, and about the only plot actually seeing progress was "Mariko", the one story nobody but me seems to care about. (I do, but then, I know what's going on in it. ;) ) My work load is still nightmarish, but the Paper-of-Doom[tm] is going to be off my back on Monday and things have to calm down a little bit, otherwise... no, no otherwise allowed. Period.

Real life [tm] is still eating my time somewhat fierce. There's virtually no creative timeslot left this week or the next (this is a coffee break, in case you wonder). The only thing I still manage regularly is red-inking Family Matters for the final version. That's a nice "bedtime read", so to speak. I'm at chapter 19 now.

BAU and Mariko will continue once I catch up with my schedule and return to a bearable workload-a-day thingy. (Or when my muse throws a fit and forces me to write beforehand, or else!)

status of the projects:

BAU: unchanged

FM: red-inked to chapter 3

Mariko: +865 words
word count: 3468
Part I: Miura lock in - Where's the fridge? - [Back to Work] - [(a)bet]
Part II: Parental visit - Sisterly reunion
Part III: The devil you know - Arrival at Where? - [A dead man] - [Learning curves] - She's asking departure - [Notification]
[complete, gappy, [missing]]
scenes worked on today: Miura lock in, Where's the fridge, Parental visit, Sisterly reunion
character entirely not happy with this: Seishiro
character prepared to die for her daughter: Mariko
surprisingly useful plot devices: a Kawasaki motorcycle and a white-and-pink plush bunny
research of the day: Yokohama, Osaka, Kamisumeyoshi, Northern Grey Shrikes
quote of the day: "I haven't got the whole night for this."

Status of the various projects:

1. Family Matters exists now as one, consistently formatted file. Next step will be finding all the small ickies left in the text and get rid of them. We're talking about lice-combing 204 pages of 10pt text, folks. So expect it to take a while!

2. Business As Usual (BAU)'s initial part is conceptionalized, planned, and gained already 600+ words. I don't think it's right to call it "an introduction", because -really- it's more of a "special feature" connecting Family Matters with Business As Usual. A while ago, I even considered turning it into an interrim story, but who says that a story has to start with a short intro instead of a meaty entree?

3. Mariko, the one background plot to Family Matters which I want to see written (besides' Yue's story, which would be a full blown arch sequel of its own, given all the details), gained another 500 words overnight and stands now at 2603 words - including the dreaded het!sex required plotwise. I have to admit, I felt "out of practise" writing het. *phew* I wonder if I should worry about that. The story is fully planned, has teenager!- and just-one-eyed!Seishiro in it and some nice scenery I love to use for some rather tough action & scheming. (No, Sei-chan is so not going to be "father of the year" any time soon.)