Word Count For the Year, Entry 6
9566 / 200000 words. 5% done!
I've decided to post by the week now, although this has been a slow week. Still, I got a decent amount done.
Brian got a job, though! So maybe my creative output will now shoot through the roof. It would be nice...
Haylee - Charloft Saturday
"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." William Shedd
It kind of sounds like you should get out more because while you’ll be safe if you wall yourself up in a home, that’s not any real kind of life. Which…admittedly, when I was human, I was all about walling myself in.
If I wasn’t around, you still would.
Yeah, yeah, quiet you! Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, I’m getting better about it. I’m not inside every night on my own. Well, I’m never truly ‘on my own’ now, but I try to go out a little bit more. I’m not nearly the shut in that I once was.
You could still do a lot better.
Didn’t I just say hush your face? *sighs*
Haylee - Charloft Winter Bingo “Admire”
Haylee actually wasn’t the type to admire much in the way of people. She had never really liked people all that much as she had grown up, and aren’t you supposed to like people to really admire any of them?
However, there had been a few exceptions to the rule. She had grown up reading Stephen King novels, and she knew from when she was a little girl that she had wanted to be a writer just like him. She liked the idea of creating entire worlds completely in her mind. It was how she escaped everyday life. Her worlds weren’t cute and cuddly, though. Maybe because of what she read, they were always dark and scary. Then again, her life was dark and scary, so why wouldn’t her imagination take the same types of turns?
Beyond him and a few other token writers (none of them actually being Tolkien as she had thought his stuff was silly), she didn’t admire many. She didn’t have a favorite teacher or look up to her parents or anything. It just wasn’t her style. Authority figures had always let her down. Why expect anything else?
Haylee - Charloft Winter Bingo “Memory”
Haylee awoke with a groan. At first, she couldn’t remember anything. Her head was blurry and she was starving. She was hungrier than she had ever been in her life. All she wanted to do was go out and get something to eat, because she had never been much of a cook and now she could easily afford to buy anything she ever dreamed of to eat.
She rolled over on the sofa in an effort to get up and saw Sy sitting on the floor across from the sofa and everything came flooding back. Her letting him in, him talking for hours, him biting her and feeding her his blood.
“Oh god,” she groaned. Her saying something seemed to awaken him out of whatever trance he was in, as his head snapped toward her. She actually flinched when he looked over at her. She just didn’t know what to expect to be coming next.
“Don’t be scared,” Sy said simply, coming over and sitting next to the sofa that she was laying on.
“Don’t be scared?” she snarled back at him, sitting up and looking at him even as her stomach hurt worse than anything she’d experienced in her life. “I’m pretty sure your ass just bit me and fed me blood while I was too weak to fight. I outta beat your ass and leave you in a ditch!” Because her beating against him had worked so well before.
He looked her over for a second before he started laughing. “You already tried hitting me before and it didn’t work, remember?”
She thought for a second and sighed. “FINE, but you better fucking explain yourself or I swear to any god LISTENING that I’m going to set fire to your ass or something. Do you usually just go around biting people and feeding them blood? Do you have AIDS? GOD you probably just infected me with something!”
She would have continued on but then he clamped his hand over her mouth. “If you keep talking right now I’m going to tie you up and gag you. Understand?” he asked. Haylee nodded quickly. “Good girl. I bit you because I’m a vampire. Technically, the right word is kindred, but we’ll go with vampire right now because that’s the word that you actually know. Are you getting me so far?” She nodded again, even though she wasn’t sure that she believed him yet. “I bit you and drained you pretty much dry, then I fed you some of my blood. That makes you like me now. A lot to take in at one time, I know, but it is what it is. People like us don’t have to grow old and die. We get to live forever, at least if we play our cards right.”
She gave him a look saying ‘can I talk now’ and he removed his hand from her mouth. “If anything of what you’re saying is true, then prove it,” she said simply to him.
He shrugged, then turned around and looked at a pencil sitting on her floor and, without touching it, made it sit up and float over toward them. Haylee sat there and watched in amazement as the pencil floated over and dropped in her lap. “Wasn’t aware vampires could perform telekinesis,” she said, staring down at the pencil in her lap. She didn’t know what she was expecting him to do, but it wasn’t that.
“Vampires can do all sorts of things that you didn’t see much of in the movies,” he said to her with a grin. “Believe me now?”
“Hmmm…maybe,” she said, still not wanting to give in just yet. “Who’s to say that you didn’t feed me some hallucinogen while I was out?”
“Guess I could have,” he acquiesced. “I didn’t, though. If you’re going to think like that, anything I do can be chalked up to that.” She had to admit that he had a point, there. “Now, stop talking again. We need to go out and get you something to eat. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“That means I have to drink blood, right?” she asked, letting him pull her up off the sofa.
“Yeah, it does,” he pointed out to her.
“That is SO fucking gross,” Haylee said with a crinkle of her nose.
“Eh. You get used to it,” he said as he pulled her out the door.
Haylee - Charloft Munday
Examine your character's last few prompt responses.
What new information have you learned about your character from their answers?
I think that Haylee suffers from severe co-dependency issues that I really didn’t have in mind for her when I first created her. I don’t mind it, as I think it gives a good flavor to a character who, as a human, hated interacting with people and only did it when absolutely necessary. Then again, Sy was probably the first real friend that she had ever made, so her being completely dependent on him just being there isn’t really that much of a shock. It would be more shocking if she could just totally be OK with him not being physically around anymore. You know, once you turn on the faucet, you can’t stop the flow? Something like that.
Mere - Charloft Saturday
"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." William Shedd
It’s completely about living life to the fullest. It’s not that complicated, you know? You can hide away in your home and be safe and secure, or you can go out and live life to the fullest. Sure, you may get burned (god knows I have so many times), but just the idea that I *might* find complete happiness and someone that’s perfect for me is what keeps me going out there and trying again.
Mere - Charloft Munday
Examine your character's last few prompt responses.
What new information have you learned about your character from their answers?
I suppose it’s not really ‘new’ information as simply some stuff that was confirmed, but Mere is EXTREMELY loyal to the people that she cares about. She absolutely adores everyone that she’s friends with, and would do anything for them.
She’s also really positive about her future. She’s in a relationship that she feels is perfect for her right now, and actually has hope (for once) that she may have a semi-normal life, although it certainly won’t be a dull one.
Haylee - Charloft Twosday
Have you heard the expression 'two sides of the same coin'?
Tell us about two sides to a current issue in your life.
Two sides of a current issue in my life. Well, right now I’m trying to decide whether the protagonist of my next book is going to go to the police right away with information that he knows about a possible serial killer or if he wants to investigate it himself first. He’s a former detective himself, and he wants to find a way to get back onto the force and he thinks that this may be it. If he helps the police figure out who this killer is, he thinks that if he helps them out, it might be his ticket.
I still think that you should have HIM be the killer.
I am NOT doing that, Sy! That’s so lame I don’t even have the effort to address all of the reasons WHY that it’s lame.
Mere - Charloft Twosday
Have you heard the expression 'two sides of the same coin'?
Tell us about two sides to a current issue in your life.
Two sides that I kinda have to deal with now in my life are this wicked insane situation of the breakup of Ash and Lucy. Yeah, it’s been a few months, but the two of them are both my friends, and I’d never want to pick one side over the other. Add to the tension that I’m now dating Lucy’s brother, and it’s an oh so fun ride for me! Not that I’m sure Kevin EVER really liked Ash.
What’s with my boyfriends hating on my buddy?
Mere - Charloft Wednesday
Respond in some fashion to this image of fireflies.
That looks SO cool. That’s like, if a bunch of mini light sabers where being wielded by flies or something.
And OH MY GOD I am surrounded by so many nerds in my life that I was able to come up with that on my own. EW. I think I need to go shower.
Mere - Charloft Thursday
Tonight, one hundred words on: falsehoods we maintain for the benefit of someone close to us.
Mere knew that she had made a mistake when she broken up with Brayden for Deanna not too long after she had done it. She also realized an important fact: WHY she had done it. She had thought that she needed to be something very important to Deanna. The girl had just been SO depressed and nearly suicidal that Mere had thought that she needed to be there for the young woman in body, mind, and soul. When Bray had said that it couldn’t be a true ‘threesome’ between them, she had chosen Deanna. Turns out, she had done it for the wrong reason. It’s not a good idea to date someone because you feel the need to give them something to live for.
Haylee- Charloft Wednesday
Respond in some fashion to this image of fireflies.
*shrieks* JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS THAT!?
I can’t believe for once I’m telling you to calm down. Those are fireflies.
SHUT UP!!! They look like radioactive orbs! Is one of them going to come up, bite me, and turn me into Firefly Girl? Like how Spiderman got bitten and turned into what he is?
I already fucked up dying once! Keep those things away from me!
*sighs* When I’m the saner one of the conversation, there’s trouble afoot.
Haylee - - Charloft Thursday
Tonight, one hundred words on: falsehoods we maintain for the benefit of someone close to us.
Maintaining a falsehood when you share your head with someone else was a hard thing to do. Not that lying to Sy had ever been an easy thing to do. He was basically a human living vampiric lie detector. It took her a long time to realize that he could always see people’s auras (he actually couldn’t turn it off), so even trying to really lie had quickly become a ridiculous attempt at futility.
Not that Haylee had ever been much of a liar to begin with. She had always been a straight forward individual. She didn’t like the majority of people all that much, so why bother lying for their benefit? She didn’t care to save someone’s feelings, as no one had ever bothered to think of hers, either.
Why care?
Haylee - Charloft Friday
5 Excuses
1. Do the voices in my head frighten you?
2. I don’t mean to be weird. It’s forced upon me.
3. I’m not insane. Someone lives in my head and WON’T. STOP TALKING.
4. My latest draft is running late because I’m having issues sleeping. Yeah, that’s it.
5. I have nightmares sometimes because of the crazy things I write. SURE.
4 Explanations
1. Someone DOES live inside my head.
2. I do have sleeping issues. I have to sleep during the day because I’M A VAMPIRE.
3. Nightmares are sometimes caused by seeing crazy shit.
4. Turn down the noise! It’s hard to write when you’re screaming in my ear like that.
3 Wishes
1. Silence
2. Sanity
3. Sy out of my head and in his body.
2 Promises (1 Broken, 1 Kept)
1. I don’t break promises.
2. I don’t make promises, either.
1 Secret
1. Like I’d spread my secrets all over the internet like that. Well, suppose being a vampire IS one of them. I’m not supposed to tell. It’s a secret club, don’t you know?
Mere - Charloft Friday
5 Excuses
1. I watched my father burn through women growing up, so it made me less trusting of people.
2. I left Brayden because I thought I could help Deanna.
3. I have lots of sex with random people simply because it’s fun.
4. I sleep late because I’m a night person.
5. I didn’t go to college because I wouldn’t need it.
4 Explanations
1. I like sex the way I do now because I kind of like the idea of punishing myself.
2. OK, I also just REALLY enjoy it.
3. I have low self worth because I don’t see myself as a good girl who’s *worth* romancing.
4. I have to end up with a guy because I’m looking for a father figure in my life. (Please don’t try the Freudian crap with me. I think it’s bull, but I heard someone say it about me once.)
3 Wishes
1. To make things really work with Kevin.
2. That my friends find real happiness that lasts in their current relationships.
3. That the drama of my life slows down *just* a little.
2 Promises (1 Broken, 1 Kept)
1. To have more confidence in myself that I am worth waiting for.
2. To be faithful.
1 Secret
1. A part of me still desperately wishes that I could undo breaking up with Brayden, even though I’m head over heels for Kevin.