*cheerleader pom-poms waving around*
My muse and I have been at a stalemate for the past few days. She’s been giving me some awesome ideas, but whenever I tried to get more detail, she’d stonewall me. Yesterday she showed me an awesome, kick-ass of a prologue and yet she refused to tell me the specifics on the magic –and I needed that to write the scene. *Dr. Evil voice* “Throw me a bone, will ya? I’m the boss. Need the info.” (I love that line).
Yeah. So today, after much musing (heh) over this particular bump in the road, I pulled up Holly Lisle’s Create a Plot Clinic. I needed more scenes — I had a few in mind already — so I figured now would be a great time to try for both. I used a tool in there that involves using Tarot cards (or any type of picture-oriented cards, for the non-Tarot folks out there) to help communicate with your muse — in images, not words. So I followed the excercise. It’s basically taking your character and asking questions, using the cards as prompts for brainstorming. I’ve done this in the past, but using Tarot meanings, and my own meanings from over 10 years of reading the cards. But, I have never used the images themselves to do this.
And being the eccentric chick I am, I tried a hard question. Instead of using a troublesome character, I used the demons’ magic system as the troublesome character (hell, I’ve used the plot itself as the focus in the past…with good results), just to see where that would take me.
Using the Rohrig Tarot, a beautiful, very abstract yet dark deck (that immediately screamed pick me! pick me! when I thought about which of my 30+ decks to use…), I did the reading, except I virtually ignored the Tarot meanings, as instructed, which was tough, which is what Holly said. You can take the reader out of Tarot, but you can’t take the Tarot out of the reader……
So now, thanks to Holly Lisle, I have a very good idea about the magic system. I’ve found out that it involves use of a special magically-infused object, handed down through generations, and that the mind of the victim is virtually obliterated…..with images hitting them like raindrops. The muse says that this is REALLY important, and I’m not clear on precisely how, but I trust her on this one.
I learned other things too, but that would be spoiling things. All I gotta say is….poor Alisia. I put her through the wringer in Pirouette 1.0, but this — this is almost akin to death. It’s not, not by a long shot — she won’t die (so, Chris, if you’re reading this — it’s ok, I promise) , but it will involve a very magical, very messy death of sorts.
But man. What a story. I think it is finally coming together. 🙂 All from a few questions and a Tarot deck. Trust me, this book of Holly’s really works. I command thee to go forth and buy it. Immediately. You won’t be disappointed.
In other news…I’ve moved the start date for the Rewrite of Doom to July 1st. Mainly because I have a few other projects competing for attention (*cough indexing cough* *cough darkroom cough*) and I want to give myself as long as I need to do all the necessary pre-work. I want this draft to be as smooth as possible — no tangents, no weird shit, just what’s in the outline. I will allow myself time to meander — I have to or else I’ll get stir-crazy — but — I will consider these meanderings more carefully then I did before. I will not write another 400k draft. I’m capping it at 120k, which is a bit too long, but still acceptable. Writing 1k a day will take me approximately 4 months. I haven’t written any first draft material in forever. I am getting twitchy, so this week I might take some time and tackle either Survivor or Requiem in Blue.
Not much else going on, except that I took some kick-ass pics of my sister’s flowers in her backyard with my new camera. I’m ecstatic.
Now, it is time for bed. Me tired.
Weaver of Words 