which is largely concerned with vampires
Attention particularly to goddessreason: there is a film coming out in September about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, and it looks spiffing. Unfortunately neither of them are vampires in it (no word on Byron however), but one cannot have everything, I suppose.
The sun went down yesterday in a tangle of after-storm clouds and a pale bloom of light, and the rain-rimmed window glowed with it. Later outside was dark and the sky dark-water blue and still cloud-wracked, though the rain was drying. Oh, how I love weather.
And in other good news, the first draft of the first chapter of the Evangeline story is finished; I finished it while on holiday. It needs a once-over and I absolutely must edit a handful of passages that I loathe and despise, but it will be going up on balladrie as promised: very soon, actually. And by "very soon" I actually mean "it's up now". (Friends only, as it's My Novel, but if any of you haven't friended balladrie, just do so now and I'll friend you back before you can say... something really short. Unless I am sleeping.) A great deal of new things have snuck in, including a sudden and startling revelation I had in the car: the dead woman on the library steps is not a warning, an accident, or a sign: she's a ritual. I don't know what for yet (perhaps to weaken the threshold ward on the library?), but things make a lot more sense now because I never really knew what she was there for. It's not made clear in the first chapter, though, because the characters don't know at that point. So.
Anyway, Mr Caruthers' Sordid Past! (Someday, I will start a band with this name. It will be brilliant.) Was reading a mostly-entirely unrelated novel when a passing concept sparked a bit of storyknowledge in me, which led to a new set of circumstances, namely: Mr Caruthers spent a year or more living in thrall to group of vampires, supplying them with blood in exchange for learning black magics; was probably about twenty or so at the time. Originally entered contract because of vampire woman he fancied himself in love/lust with. He finds himself in rather an awful situation (what did you expect, you pillock? learning black magics from vampires will lead to nothing good!) but can’t escape. (Do vampires want his blood particularly for something, besides willing blood/memory donor/connection to humankind? Does Mr Caruthers have some sort of special power/ability/lineage? Special capacity for magic?) Eventually the Vampire Division finds and liberates him and make a deal not to charge him with various offences, including use of illegal black magics, consorting with vampires (yes, probably a prison-able offence), various things he was probably something of an accomplice to, and things he did and got away with before entering into thrall -- if he uses his personal understanding of the vampire mindset in their service pretty much forever, whenever they feel like calling on him. Mr Caruthers takes over a library, becomes a recluse in spectacles and tweed and a painfully messy office, and eventually hires a fetching copper-haired assistant librarian.
By the time the story beings, it’s been ten? seven? thirteen? years since Mr Caruthers was released. Some kind of unrest is stirring in the vampire community -- something to do with the Industrial Revolution? Pre-WWI whisperings? Vampires feel threatened, which leads them to try to perform some sort of ritual? Which involves Mr Caruthers as a teind, because he was once a functioning part of their community, or because in their twisted mindset they consider it a sort of honour? Or because he betrayed the community by killing some of them in his bid for escape and/or fed information to the Department? They think they are allowing him to redeem himself by being their sacrifice? The ritual takes place on All Hallows Eve, of course, the story being rather demanding, and my subconscious so determined to put in little hints of Tam-Lin everywhere.
Good heavens, my subconscious is such a bizarre place.
(And yes, really, I do promise to talk about Nova Scotia! Only things keep getting in the way.)
The sun went down yesterday in a tangle of after-storm clouds and a pale bloom of light, and the rain-rimmed window glowed with it. Later outside was dark and the sky dark-water blue and still cloud-wracked, though the rain was drying. Oh, how I love weather.
And in other good news, the first draft of the first chapter of the Evangeline story is finished; I finished it while on holiday. It needs a once-over and I absolutely must edit a handful of passages that I loathe and despise, but it will be going up on balladrie as promised: very soon, actually. And by "very soon" I actually mean "it's up now". (Friends only, as it's My Novel, but if any of you haven't friended balladrie, just do so now and I'll friend you back before you can say... something really short. Unless I am sleeping.) A great deal of new things have snuck in, including a sudden and startling revelation I had in the car: the dead woman on the library steps is not a warning, an accident, or a sign: she's a ritual. I don't know what for yet (perhaps to weaken the threshold ward on the library?), but things make a lot more sense now because I never really knew what she was there for. It's not made clear in the first chapter, though, because the characters don't know at that point. So.
Anyway, Mr Caruthers' Sordid Past! (Someday, I will start a band with this name. It will be brilliant.) Was reading a mostly-entirely unrelated novel when a passing concept sparked a bit of storyknowledge in me, which led to a new set of circumstances, namely: Mr Caruthers spent a year or more living in thrall to group of vampires, supplying them with blood in exchange for learning black magics; was probably about twenty or so at the time. Originally entered contract because of vampire woman he fancied himself in love/lust with. He finds himself in rather an awful situation (what did you expect, you pillock? learning black magics from vampires will lead to nothing good!) but can’t escape. (Do vampires want his blood particularly for something, besides willing blood/memory donor/connection to humankind? Does Mr Caruthers have some sort of special power/ability/lineage? Special capacity for magic?) Eventually the Vampire Division finds and liberates him and make a deal not to charge him with various offences, including use of illegal black magics, consorting with vampires (yes, probably a prison-able offence), various things he was probably something of an accomplice to, and things he did and got away with before entering into thrall -- if he uses his personal understanding of the vampire mindset in their service pretty much forever, whenever they feel like calling on him. Mr Caruthers takes over a library, becomes a recluse in spectacles and tweed and a painfully messy office, and eventually hires a fetching copper-haired assistant librarian.
By the time the story beings, it’s been ten? seven? thirteen? years since Mr Caruthers was released. Some kind of unrest is stirring in the vampire community -- something to do with the Industrial Revolution? Pre-WWI whisperings? Vampires feel threatened, which leads them to try to perform some sort of ritual? Which involves Mr Caruthers as a teind, because he was once a functioning part of their community, or because in their twisted mindset they consider it a sort of honour? Or because he betrayed the community by killing some of them in his bid for escape and/or fed information to the Department? They think they are allowing him to redeem himself by being their sacrifice? The ritual takes place on All Hallows Eve, of course, the story being rather demanding, and my subconscious so determined to put in little hints of Tam-Lin everywhere.
Good heavens, my subconscious is such a bizarre place.
(And yes, really, I do promise to talk about Nova Scotia! Only things keep getting in the way.)