April 12, 2013

• Eight Hours

  I fully intended to spend much of my Thursday finishing up some editing on a manuscript that is due next week. I thought I might fit some time in this morning before my dentist appointment, but seeing as I forgot the latest draft at work I was not able to. I tried asking the gallery administrator --who takes my place on thursday through saturday-- via email, facebook, and text messaging but she seemed to never get around to sending it to me. So after my little trip to the dentist, where upon SEVEN cavities were discovered and one of which may actually require a root canal, I stopped by the office to send myself the dang manuscript. 

  I ended up chatting with GA for a couple hours, some of it about work related things and some not, before heading home. Once I arrived at the house and hid myself away in my room, I decided to relax with the novel I was nearly finished before gearing up for some hardcore editing. I did finish my book, but I kept my mind kept wandering to the dream I had before waking. It was a strange dream, one where a group of us were trying to mimic an ancient water burial (kind of a la Anne of Green Gables doing the Lady of Shallot scene) and one guy --a playboy type recently back from a tryst-- volunteered to be dead. It was agreed that he could be the floater, but another person had to go with him to witness what happens on the journey. 

  I was the one who was sent, following on my dolphin, even though my father had strict rules about what parts of the water I was allowed to swim in. In one place my dream father didn't want me in a certain area and directed me to a lagoon-type location with glowing water and had land with a white picket fence guarding fruit trees and berry bushes. My dog --which I presume had moments ago had been my dolphin-- went into the floating orchard and picked fruits to bring back to me so I could eat too.

  Nearby was a hut out on the water, and that is where the "dead" boy had gone to rest for the night. I went over to the hut to join him, as did my dog, but mean kids kept throwing things over the roof that you'd get hit by whenever you tried to leave. We managed to escape because my dog-dolphin distracted the mean ones somehow, and we quietly walk/swam to the lagoon area in which others were not permitted to inhabit. He also ate or else he would truly be dead, then slept on his raft while I slept on another. I had a crush on him though I knew he tended to use girls and then move on, but after going on this excursion with him I was seeing a more softer/vulnerable side to his personality. 

  I woke up around then, but the part that stayed with me all day was my pet dog/dolphin. I thought it would be interesting for an animal to shape-shift like that, could shift into a creatures that could take to land, water, or air. Then I tried to figure out what would cause an animal to be able to do that, why would it want to, and what kind of world would it be living in? Thus started the germination of a story. 

  At first I was just jotting down a couple point-form notes so I wouldn't forget, but started looking up some information to verify that my ideas were doable. Then I decided if I was going to jot down so many notes I may as well organize them on my computer and save them as a doc, but instead I ended up just writing the backstory, the prologue as it were. I spent EIGHT hours writing and researching, there are nearly three thousand words depicting this strange world and how it came to be... but I haven't the slightest idea of the actual plot. 

  Oh, and I didn't get around to doing any editing either *wince*

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  Update: I just spent all of today doing further research and writing up the basic background information for how the world in this story works. This background can be used to write any book set there as it has information like laws, education, languages, etc. 

  I now have ONE LINE for a plot idea and still no editing got done. I'm going to finish my editing now, I swear!!!

  SUMR

  • 7:02 pm
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