briarwood: Supernatural: Ruby (SPN Ruby)
Morgan Briarwood ([personal profile] briarwood) wrote2008-07-28 11:10 am

Dying in the heat!

Funny how things work out, isn't it?

I had a long to-do list this weekend but 90% of it involved using the PC and it was way, way too hot for me to do that. The PC is in my bedroom which is also the boiler room: yummy and warm in winter, absolute hell when we hit a heatwave like this weekend.

(Which is why I'm behind on answering email and comments - my apologies.)

So I squeezed into the only shady spot in the garden, and spent most of the weekend trying to keep my cold drinks away from the dogs and reading or writing.

Weirdly, I ended up with eight pages (that's handwritten pages - can't give a wordcount) of a sequel to Never Say Die. I hadn't seriously planned to write a sequel; there's an implied sequel in there, with the next generation of psi!kids and a couple of other plot details I left hanging, but although the road was left open I didn't expect to write it. What I wrote this weekend is in such a different direction from my original thoughts, it's quite exciting.

To start with, I have a prologue written in the first person (I never write in the first person!) from a demon's POV. I'm not even certain which demon it is: could be Ruby, but it could as easily be Meg or some original character. Meg could be fun...but I'm just gonna go with it and see who this turns out to be.

Then I got an opening plot which...I dunno. It feels like I couldn't have thought of it myself, you know? It's not the kind of idea I would have. But it's a really interesting wrinkle and opens up all kinds of possibilities for things to happen later.

At this point I don't know if it's a story worth continuing. I need to know the ending before I can decide, and while I have one idea (one evil idea bwa-ha-ha), I don't yet know that that's the end. Nor even if it would really work.

Also re-read Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy. Yep, the first book makes a lot more sense on a second reading, now I have a better idea who the characters are. It's good that she doesn't "spoonfeed" the reader but there were things I found confusing on a first read. I'm totally in love with her writing. *makes note to buy more of her books when I'm paid this month*

Now praying (preying?) for the weather to cool down so I can do the work I promised on Sue's website!

[identity profile] admiralandrea.livejournal.com 2008-07-28 11:45 am (UTC)(link)
Huh. I just got done whining about the heat in my LJ. I hate it, particularly because if I leave the window open for fresh/cool air in the morning, before the sun gets round the back of the house, I'll be sneezing away inside 10 mins because of my hayfever. I've had my fan on more or less constantly the last three days and nights. And really, I've had enough now, I want cool and rain, proper English weather!

(Oops, seems I wasn't done whining after all, sorry!)

[identity profile] morgan32.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
I want cool and rain, proper English weather!

Hey, how about those storms yesterday, huh? Every time you posted there was thunder where you were I knew to close my window - we were getting it right after you.

Way more reliable than a weather forecast, you were *grins*

[identity profile] admiralandrea.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, they were amazing!

We've had some heavy rain today as well.

LOL! Always happy to offer a public service to my friends *g*
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[identity profile] slipperieslope.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
I hate AC but it has gotten so hot here I had to turn it on these last few days. But I always have a fan on my PC in the summer - I would be terrified it would melt down otherwise. You write by hand? Do you normally compose on a keyboard? You do have lovely little teeny handwriting - I can't read my own, though! But yours is plain to read.

[identity profile] morgan32.livejournal.com 2008-07-29 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
You have AC? Lucky you! I have a fan but I can't use a fan for long; my eyes get painful. So when it's as hot outside as it is inside...I just have to suffer.

You write by hand? Do you normally compose on a keyboard?

I write my first drafts mostly by hand (actually I use whatever's to hand, but that's usually pen and notebook because I carry them everywhere.)

A first draft for me is a real mess: I just write with no regard for stuff like shifting POV or grammar, I use little diagrams for some bits, I write parts as a script with no scene setting...it's a mess. An no one but me ever gets to see that.

Back when I started writing I used to transcribe that first draft by hand (turning it into readable prose) before I typed it up - the typed version would be the third draft because I'd revise-and-polish as I typed. Now I transcribe from my messy notes directly onto the computer and revise a gazillion times, but in bits-and-pieces, until I'm happy with the result.