Your dream job.
I've said this for a long time, and I think that no matter what, I'll keep saying for a long time. I'd love to be a writer, the kind who actually makes a living from what they write. I don't know whether I'll actually ever get to do that, but hey, it's a dream.
Mirrored from Tangents and Digressions.
Or, you know, an early Friday morning, but let's not get too picky...
I haven't had much time or energy or brain power to work on actual book writing lately, so both Book Wolves and Game of Choice (and oh lord, I need to find a better working title for that second one, or else I'm going to start calling it Married with Mercs) have been backburnered for a long time. And I don't know if it's because it's spring (ha!) or just the fact that my stay in Wales is over and I'm almost done with the BA and I'm starting to get slowly sucked into the yawning pit of ohgodohgodwhatdoyoumeanIhavetochooseaschoolandaprogramandwritearesearchprojectproposal? pre-MA application anxiety, but my brain's creative bits have started stirring again, and I kindasortareally want to start working on the novels again (and possibly actually carry on with the work to some point other than that nebulous "I'm working on a novel" that so many people are at.
It's not that I haven't been writing, because I have! And it's original fiction, too, since I don't really write fanfic. But all those stories are of the pisanie do szuflady (Polish, literally "writing to the drawer," meaning not for publication or for anyone else) variety. Well, they get posted on the internet sometimes, but I write them for the pure fun of them, and I don't really have any interest in trying to turn them into something publishable.
Anyway. I started writing this post for a totally different reason, and as usual got distracted (but then again, tangents and digressions, hello): the always-awesome Chuck Wendig, whose writing posts always provide inspiration and some much-needed laughs, wrote a post about plotting: Fuck The Straight Line: How Story Rebels Against Expectation. It's a post about writing, but it really resonates as a post about living, too. And I think that's what makes it even more profound. Knowing that it's not just our characters who get to escape the straight line, that we can do it, too, that's a hell of an inspiration.
Writing advice is always tricky, because not everything works for everyone, and what works for me may make someone else dig in their heels because that's not how their process works. But the important thing is that through reading (notice I'm not saying "following") things like this, we can actually figure out what our process is. Because otherwise? We're really just flailing about and shouting into the void, rather than getting our shit together and doing something to actually achieve our goals.
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originalbigbang but for the moment all I have is an idea that's kind of a modern retelling of The Little Mermaid, with the girl giving up her voice in exchange for something, only she's not a mermaid. I haven't decided whether the bit about every feeling like she's walking on knives will stay in, though. And I just realized, if I go with the original Hans Christian Andersen story, she's going to die at the end. Shit. Um. Need to think about this.
atomicvaudeville.
atomicvaudeville, which is where I'll be posting AV-related stuff now.
originalbigbang :: 
"Ava, who's this?"I haven't had a chance to pick at this too much yet, mostly because I've been stressing out over essays and my inability to sit down and actually start writing them. Bleah.
"It's Conner, mama," Ava says, giving Alex a long-suffering look that's a non-verbal equivalent of a "duh."
"Guess we're going to have to rename the cat, hunh?" Alex eyes the boy, who must have been among the last wave of people to arrive, judging by his appearance.
"No, mama. This *is Conner," Ava says, laughing. "He was a cat, and now he's a boy."
"Of course he is," Alex mutters to herself, backing away from the children. She glances at the wall clock and wonders if it's too early to start drinking.
Alex grabs onto the shelf above her, holding on as Belial hitches her up a bit higher, driving up into her. She braces herself with a foot on the shelf behind him, wrapping her other leg around him as she wraps a hand around the back of his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. His mouth still tastes like blood and smoke, and Alex shudders as it spills over her tongue, bringing back the memory of the taste of sins. She pulls back and gasps for air, but Belial closes the distance between them almost immediately, driving into her with a twist of his hips that has her clutching at him, nails digging into his shoulder through his shirt. She's rewarded with a hand in her hair, yanking her head back to expose her neck and Belial's teeth grazing the spot she knows he's already left a markFor all the agonizing I do over the sex scenes lately, they turn out surprisingly tame. Next up, Ava makes a boy out of a cat! That should be fun, because not enough traumatizing shit has already happened to all of the people in the story. /o\
scarimonious for a while, to get some of the details straight.Belial moves to stand behind her, wrapping himself around her, and takes her hands in his. He guides her movements, placing her hand over the girl's forehead. Alex feels a tingling sensation in her fingertips and cranes her neck to look at Belial. He nods and gives her a reassuring smile, and she turns back to the girl. Belial moves her hand down to the girl's chest, splaying their fingers flat over the clammy skin. Before Alex can say or do anything, Belial presses down, and she feels her fingers sinking down into the girl's body. It's a sensation like nothing she's ever experiences, but the jolt of power coursing through her is practically orgasmic. Alex's body arches against Belial's involuntarily, and she can feel his hard-on pressing against her.
They're almost wrist-deep in the girl's body when Belial speaks, his breath ticking Alex's skin and sending shivers through her.
"Feel that?" He cups his hand around Alex's, which is cupped around something that feels almost solid. "That's what you want. Get a good hold on that and draw it out. Carefully, slowly, you want to get it all on the first try. Makes a bit of a mess if you have to go back in."
Alex cups her hand around the lump, and it pulses against her fingers.
"Is it supposed to do that?"
"It's different every time." Belial's face is right next to hers, and Alex has a sudden urge to turn her head and kiss him, but she stifles it and focuses on the task at hand.
origfic_bingo card. I have two cards, and I'm not going to request any new ones until I get at least the most basic bingo on both of them. *resolve face* Many thanks to scarimonious for looking it over. 
origfic_bingo card I claimed a very long time ago. *facepalm*Titus draws curious glances from people, and he can't really say he's surprised. It's not his lack of clothes drawing their attention—mostly naked people are hardly a rarity in the compound. What's got them curious is the collar around his neck. He's seen his share of them—used his share of them in his days of working for eLUCIDate. Back in the city, they were common use on prisoners, but he'd been under the impression that people in the zones regarded them as a torture device and abhorred their use. Now that he's felt the effects of one on himself, he understands the terrified reactions of the prisoners from his past, and is inclined to agree with them completely.Today Marta and I went to Cardiff and sat in the Starbucks near Cardiff Bay for a bit. Marta did some reading for a class, and I did some translation work. It was good to get out of the house and get some work done, as well as walking around a bit. It was a cloudy day, but by the time we left the Starbucks it was dark, and we got to see the Millennium Centre all lit up. It wasn't the color we were expecting, but still pretty.
"My whole life is so weird," she starts, resolutely keeping her eyes away from his face. "There was Izzy, and being the mother of the Antichrist, and the apocalypse, and I thought OK, things are fucked up now, but I'm alive, and I've got Ava, and we've made a good start at making a life for ourselves here. And I figured sure, Izzy's going to take Ava away at some point, but that's still years away, I'll have time to get used to the idea. And then you come along, and you're all wings and fire and I still don't know what you are, exactly, and then I saw you eat a bunch of bodies in the morgue, and that wasn't enough to make me run screaming. And then you go and save me and my daughter from Hellhounds, so I can't just write you off as some weirdo, and and I don't know what's more fucked up, the fact that that's not the strangest thing that's happened to me in a while or the fact that I just don't care, and—" She pauses to catch her breath and looks up, her eyes moving from his face to the stark whiteness of the Roman collar, and back up to his mouth.Oh man, it's 2am and I should have been asleep at least two hours ago. Damn you, ill-timed creative bursts!
"Hi," he says, reaching up to wipe the blood from his mouth, and only making things worse since his hands are covered with blood, too. He makes a face and walks to the sink to wash his hands, scrubbing at his fingernails.And then there are Dead Space-style monsters and FEELINGS.
Alex can only stare at him, and at the blood-soaked sheet covering on the floor behind him.
"What... what did you do?"
"There are some injuries conventional medicine just can't fix," he says, drying his hands. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, you understand."
"You're not a man," Alex blurts out, and he raises an eyebrow at her.
"Caught on to that, did you?" He crosses the room toward her and she backs away until her back hits the wall. He comes in close, until they're standing flush against each other, and leans in to sniff at her neck. "Izzy's taught you some tricks, I see," he says, his breath brushing Alex's cheek. "What else has he taught you?"
Alex puts a hand on his chest, and pushes him away rom her, moving away from the wall and out into the open. "How do you know about Izzy? What the hell are you?"
"Well, you're on the right track with Hell," he gives her a predatory smile again, and there's a groaning noise from behind him. He glances over his shoulder and frowns. "Excuse me a moment, will you?" He presses a finger to her lips. "You should probably be very quiet right now."
Ava: Its source is Chava, a Hebrew name meaning "Life." Chava could also be interpreted to mean ''living being.'' (A correspondent points out its linguistic connection to the joyful Jewish blessing le Chaim -- ''To life!'')EEEEEEE, PERFECT NAME IS PERFECT.
However, some scholars cite an alternate source -- another Hebrew expression meaning ''serpent.''
That second meaning reminds us of the Book of Genesis in the Jewish scriptures. Chava (translated as Eve, Eva or Ava) is the first woman, mother to all humanity. Tempted by the advice of an evil serpent, she disobeys God by eating of the Tree of Knowledge. She convinces her husband Adam to follow suit, and God banishes them from the Garden of Eden.
Due to that ancient story, this name can evoke a complex of images -- ranging from revered mother to temptress to seeker of knowledge.
"Maybe it's caffeine withdrawal," a voice calls out from the side. Alex turns to Titus, who's coming out from the back with a tray of freshly baked cookies. When he sets the tray on the counter, Alex gasps. There are chains wrapped around Titus' midsection, glowing red and burning their way into his skin. There is one wrapped around his neck, the skin underneath it blistered and blackened. She shakes her head and looks away, trying to ignore the cold sweat she feels herself breaking out in.From the Antichrist Baby AU, which was going to be my Angelic Big Bang story.
