Time flies like a banana

Or however that saying goes. I got kind of curious when I actually started on this incredibly long trek with Dean and since I'm wasting time before having to get up and shower and go to work, I thought I'd poke some files to see when, exactly, this whole thing came into being.

The idea for the Black King happened when I was trying desperately to finish my playwriting final, a one-once play that had to be a minimum of 25 pages. Let's just say that I'm horrible at plays (which I suppose extends to scripts as well) and I had zero idea of what to write. So I got clever. I wrote my own situation (final due next day, no idea what to write) and low and behold, magic! Action figures started talking to me, characters from stories past started offering advice, etc. It was very trippy. I still have no idea how I passed that course, but I did. THAT was how I randomly (snirk) got the idea, I guess. So, that lovely piece was written December 22, 2009.

Cue winter break and me just being a bump on a log and doing absolutely nothing whatsoever. Well. Actually, I think I sat down (stayed in bed) and watched all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1. In three weeks. Yeaaah. Anyway, new semester, new writing course!

I forget what the assignment was, but I had to produce a short story in a couple of weeks. There was a 15 page limit, if I remember correctly, but nothing more than that. So on March 9, 2010 I started to write. I'd had a scene in mind for a while -- Dean pinning an angry Medic to a slimy wall and taunting him. Dean was very much originally just a superhero gone bad who wanted nothing more than to make the world burn. It grew so much from there. That first short story was...11 or 12 pages, single spaced, abused italics, and was non-linear so it skipped around every scene all over time and space and confused the hell out of my classmates. Ultimately they (and my professor) liked it, but not as a short story. So, I worked on it some more. My final version of it was...hell. 15 pages, single spaced, tighter, more linear, but also not enough.

So I spent all of 2010 working on fleshing out my boy and his cast and it grew, and grew, and grew. And I decided that, hey, you know what? Let's do National Novel Writing Month with Dean! And, lo and behold, I won. I got 50,200 words. I was all happy and special feeling. And up until that point I'd thought of my special project as a a nonlinear adult novel. And then I won. And realized it might be better to write it as a young adult novel instead. Alter my style to make it a little less...yeah.

So now it's been years since I started this whole thing and it's gone through so many permutations that it's not even close to the original idea or story anymore. Which, honestly, is a good thing. The old story was absolute crap. This is fantastic. This one I'm writing I am proud of and want everyone to know about it. :) So here's the history of my book and idea. I have kept every single scrap of Dean's evolution. Most of it will make me cringe some day when I look back on it but it's worth it. I am a proud mama and keep it safe and close. And I do want to share. Eventually. When it's ready. :)

Research!!

I have an addiction to Netflix which is somewhat sad but pretty standard for me. I have crime shows, scifi dramas, random movies, documentaries on the weirdest things, and kids shows. I get home and I start flicking through them to find something to watch. Now, a while ago I added a whole bunch of apocolyptic documentaries and shows to do a little research into how other people think the world is going to end, yadda yadda.

And so I pop on National Geographic’s Collapse. This? Is very interesting. And it is giving me books to investigate for my world. Will any of this actually have any bearing on the actual text? No, probably not. But I’m a researcher at heart. So I enjoy this and watch how people think the world will end in the Year of the Apocolypse. And wonder if anyone will ever stumble upon my theory which, well. I hope no one has come up with yet. :)

More Musings!

I have this horrible habit of watching TV when I should be doing other things. This is primarily the reason why I refuse to have cable in my apartment (aside from the fact is it ridiculously expensive and I can do without it). As I sit here, watching the BBC's Sherlock series 2, I start to make some connections.

I have this ... character. The Black Voice. It's complicated, but I've mostly been creating the Voice by piecemeal and plotting. At first I was thinking mostly about Professor Hojo from Final Fantasy VII, but he ended up being a lot more of the basis for Meechum. So I'm watching Sherlock and I'm realizing that Moriarty is amazingly close to how the Black Voice operates. It's rather interesting. And it's just giving me more and more fodder. It's lovely!

And I should so completely and utterly be working on writing since I am currently without a proofreading assignment (which will not last for very long unfortunately).

Musings Over Lunch

Yes, 4pm is lunch for me. Well, at least when I'm mid to closing shift anyway. But, meh, whatever. Is what it is, yeah? Retail. Gotta love it.

Anyway, this week has been rough and I've been taking it out on my baby and my manuscript. I've been writing Dean's story pretty much nonstop since April or March 2009. It has gone through so many permutations and shifts and style changes that it's hard to believe I've stuck with it for so long. Dean actually started as a short story. A horrible and nasty evil short story that got, ultimately, trashed by my writing class. I went back and made it more, edited it, and kept working on it. From eleven scenes it morphed into a novel, maybe 300 pages. I won NaNoWriMo 2010 with Dean and learned a lot about him and the rest of his expanding cast. From there it went into two books, where it stayed for a long time. Then I took a Classics class on mythology and was promptly informed that there were three books. Everything was planned out but it kept changing.

Book 1 was very clearly going to be focused on Dean and the Squad, Medic, and Dean's fall into insanity and evilness. Book 2 was about redemption and dealing with a threat that would destroy the world. Book 3 was about Dean and Medic getting sucked into a war of the gods that they wanted nothing to do with but couldn't walk away from because of who was involved.

But.

Then Book 1 decided to be long and cut off at a good scene and made the main focus on Dean and his relationship with the Squad. Make the knife hurt more as I twist it. So I'm editing and wincing at the big holes and start writing more to fill those holes, and I'm watching as it starts evolving more and more. It's a little wince worthy, especially when I can see the need to go back and thoroughly change mass bits of the story just to get everything just right. Why yes, I am a perfectionist, thanks for asking. ;)

On top of it, as this week has been harsh, I've been taking more and more out of my best boy. Which makes for a great story but makes me feel a little awful....and whine at my friend/cheerleader/first reader to make sure I'm not being tooooo cruel. Well. Crueler than I need to be.

Two years. Almost three now, actually. I feel like I'm going to have a party soon for him.

Hello Arisia!

Hello to all the people who have possibly picked up my business card! I figure I should be kind enough to introduce myself. I am Jaelin Nemain, but you can call me Jae. I am, as quite obvious from my card, a writer. I write scifi and fantasy, though am unsure where my current novel falls. It is a little of everything I think, but probably more scifi.

My main characters are superheroes and it involves powers, a seriously messed up world (political and atmospherically and that's not a word but it is now~) and gods and evil doctors and and and...

But welcome! :) I'll be around all weekend.

Uhoh.

I'm doing what most writers should not do (but probably do all the time): procrastinate. I am a horrible procrastinator. I really, seriously am. My grades during high school and college don't count. I'm still stunned I graduated as well as I did.

Anyway. Instead of (a) going to Arisisa (there's no interesting panels today and I got some very bad news this morning) or (b) editing my book, writing the scenes to fill in the beginning, or anything else writerly or (c) doing my proofreading (I freelance proofread for a publisher) like I'm supposed to ... I'm watching LOST. I've never watched LOST before. This is kind of interesting, even if it moves slow. SOOOO SLOOOOOW. I'm only on the first season and it's SLOW.

But I am multitasking. I have my proofreading up on the tablet. I am ... plotting other bits of my story. I am being productive, I swear! >D Even if I am more likely just to look at the TV instead of anything else. I'm very entertaining.

Spotlight: Dean Prescott

ALL RIGHT. So this is it. I'm going to spill some of the beans on my main boyo, Dean. There's not a whole lot I can say because, well. He's the main characters. Things that are currently happening to him now are important to the books themselves. He's very, very important. On so many levels. :)


Name: Dean Prescott
Codename: The Black King
Power: telepathy and slight pyrokinesis (and some later ones at a later date)
Team Affiliation: the Squad, the Cabal (and then the Alliance)

What to say about Dean. What to say, what to say...

Dean and Evelyn (Vee) Prescott were born on Avalon. Avalon is a floating city in the Pacific Ocean and part of the Agriculture Triangle. The floating city is not really a city; it's largely residential and produces the majority of fresh food. So lots of trees and green-ness and places to go swimming. Dean and Vee had a large-ish family; grandma, grandpa, mom, aunt, uncle, cousins. No one in their entire family is superum, they're sapien through and through. They were well-loved and taken care of. Johanna, their mom, worked in the agricultural field on Avalon, mostly taking care of apples. When she wasn't out working the orchards, she was home with Dean and Vee. Dean she plied with books and she sang rhymes for both her kids. Vee she taught strong girl stuff -- basically terrorizing her older brother. Dean is/was a dreamer, Vee was a doer. Thomas, their uncle, worked as a lab technician in a place that was concerned with producing food faster. The grandparents stayed home and took care of the neighbourhood kids, making a sort of creche. Annmarie, their aunt, was a teacher. One day, mama, grandda, grandma, and auntie went to the train station and got blown up by a bunch of sapien power terrorists. Uncle also vanished that day, but no one knows why. He just did. The Avalon city squad came and took Dean and Vee to the city's government and it turned out that the closest orphanage was on Mu, two floating cities away. So that's where they were sent.

While the world I created has no war, no famine, no hate, low crime, people still die. And sometimes people are stupid enough to die without making plans for their children. The crimes that happen are usually petty: theft, vandalism, trespassing, and similar. There are a few major crimes that occur (murder) that are punished quickly and severely. Usually these people are tried, found guilty, and sent to the Mariana Trench Facility and are never heard from again. There are still drugs, still prostitution, still bad things, but they are allowed to function only to a certain level. If they grow out of their allowed zone, they are squashed viciously.

Back to Dean.

Dean and Vee were sent to the Helicon Lee Aployta Group Home and stayed there for six months before they (Dean) drew Meechum's attention (by literally running into the man's legs). And that led to a lot of bad things that set Dean on the path he's currently on. And if I say anything else about all of that I will spoil a good bit of ... everything.

What I can tell you (*grin*) is a lot of after stuff. Dean gets himself all figured out and ends up as happy as he can possibly be with Meechum still above ground and being in the middle of a Graham and someone else in terms of love, but. Well. He's happy and doing his thing and still whole. As much as everything tries to break him, and as much as something tells him that evil is easier, he is good and happy and whole.

...more or less.

12 Facts About Troy Parker

Okay, so yesterday was a little...hectic at work. So I didn't really get to the rest of the people I intended to. And then I fell asleep when I got home. SO. Here's the last one (since I have the day off):

Troy Parker

1 - He isn't as braindead or as unware as everyone thinks. He hears everything that goes on around him in Eden. He wants nothing more than to reach out to his friends and family and love them as much as he can. But he can't, since he's trapped inside him mind.

2 - Troy has always loved Scry, both as a friend and as more, but his friend is too stupid to figure it out. Or, well, too blind. Which is all very entertaining since Scry Sees everything and that he's one of the smartest people Troy knows.

3 - Troy loves green things. This isn't really hidden or anything since he always brought his kids up with greenery and had his own greenhouse. He loves it because it's calming and simple, and that plants really have no busy minds like humans. He can spend time with them and not have to worry about anything except making sure they have enough water and sunlight.

4 - Troy has a horrible sense of humor. And by this he means he laughs at what shouldn't be funny, what isn't funny to anyone but himself. 

5 - He has a bit of a sweet tooth. Specifically mint or gummy candies. Chewy things makes him happy. Especially gummy worms. 

6 - Troy is beyond relieved that the scrawny little redhead he helped save grew up to be a warm, caring young man who doesn't take crap from anyone. It was all he ever wanted for the kid, to be able to grow up right.

7 - Sometimes he's sorry about Mimic, about the way things turned out, and thinks that maybe they never should have tried at all. He knew there was something broken about her when he met her, and he knew he should have stayed away, but she was exactly what he wanted and needed.

8 - Troy personally thinks that Derian was the perfect leader the Alliance needed. The fact he left is something Troy thinks is one of the true let downs of the Universe.

9 - Troy's personal deity is Aphrodite. She has never let him down in anything. She's a goddess of victory for him, as well as his savior for love. Granted, he ignored her a little when it came to Mimic, but considering he never would have had Graham or Casey and that would be a true shame.

10 - Troy is a fantastic marksman. Put a gun in his hand and he will be able to dispatch any and everything in his path.

11 - Troy taught Medic everything he knows about tech and ships. Troy passed on the gearhead love.

12 - Troy knows exactly who the Rainguard are and who their members are. He knows a lot more about what's going on in the world than people would think, even before he lost his mind. He just keeps his mouth shut because he's learned better over the years. He especially knows that if he can never mention who the Rainguard are to Scry.

And that's it for the 12 Facts! I.....might cave and do Lane Dalton later, but I...don't really want to. These 12 Fact things are hard. I really didn't expect them to be so hard. Probably because I really didn't have a lot of guidelines on these besides "oh hey. this looks fun. let's do that!" :D Next time I think I might just pick a meme and have them answer. Oh wow. That...sounds really fanficcy of me. Lame sauce, self. Lame. **grin**

12 Facts About Scry

Continuing on the theme from yesterday, 12 more facts about the line-up. I have another three for you today. Then I'm going to take a break and finish up the spotlight on Dean for the end of the week. :)

Scry

1 - Just because he has always been the Alliance's Scry doesn't mean that it's all he wants to do. His life is filled with more regrets than most could possibly imagine, and it makes him sad. He would secretly love to just live a mundane life, worrying about paying bills and rent, spending times with friends and being absolutely clueless to everything going on around him. Even if he hadn't been on the Alliance, he would have been Pythia's nephew and expected to continue on the family and perform his duties to the family and Apollo. He would never have gotten normal, and he wishes he could have.
2 - Troy was his first, and only, friend. Scry would have moved heaven and earth to have stopped what happened if he could have. Troy's friendship meant more to him than he'll admit to.
3 - He loves waking up early to watch the sun rise over the land, especially from the Sky Tower. His tiny hope that they're doing the right thing always seems reaffirmed when he sees the world emerge from the dark of night to sparkle sweetly at a new day.
4 - Scry hates technology. Well, maybe not...okay, yes. Hate. He knows its necessary and that without it the world would be screwed, but that doesn't mean he has to like the computers and cameras everywhere, or the comm devices that people can't seem to put down. He pities and fears for humanity at those moments.
5 - There was a tiny bit of him that, even after finding out about Dean, said that he should kill him. Scry is very glad he didn't listen but wonders why he has so much dread in his stomach in relation to the future and Dean.
6 - Scry doesn't have a lot of personal possessions. He does have a couple of things that are precious to him. A wood and stained glass keepsake box his aunt gave him, a broken seashell bracelet his eldest sister made him, the ribbon used in Troy and Mimic's wedding/handfasting ceremony, the earring of some girl he met once at a party when he was trying to be anything but perfect, a couple of pictures, and a beat up handmade journal that only has one used page.
7 - Scry may be just a precognitive and usually stays at the Tower running information during fights, but he is very skilled at hand-to-hand combat. He makes sure to log at least ten hours a week in the gyms, doing katas and keeping in shape.
8 - Sometimes he wishes that he had a different power than precognition. He thinks he'd probably like to be a telekinetic. Very handy power, that one.
9 - Scry hates when its cold. He's used to growing up in warm, decent climates where there's really only one season. He turns into the biggest temperature wimp ever. It doesn't matter that he mostly grew up in the Tower and has done several missions in the cold of space -- he will whine and bitch and huddle under thermal blankets and glare.
10 - Aside from his aunt there are very few people in his family that he bothers to keep in touch with. He has a whole clan of a family but is close to very few of them. He very rarely even speaks with his parents.
11 - He cannot ever imagine himself ever getting married or having kids. He doesn't even think he could do a normal relationship with sex and intimacy. He doesn't like being touched even when he has to be touched so a steady relationship is almost completely out of the question.
12 - Scry thinks the apples from Avalon are the best there is. He is very fond of them. Apples are among his favorite foods and he makes sure to keep at least a couple of them around at a time.

12 Facts About Lea Woods

Just a quick note here: most of these little facts are being based on my characters throughout all three books. Most of them are general, but there's a couple that are based around events that have happened and what will be. None of them are really spoilery...except for Medic's flower, of course. But that's very, very minor.

ANYWAY. Onto Medic's childhood best friend.

1 - Lea has had THE biggest crush on Medic since they were kids. She was, when very little, convinced they'd grow up, fight crime, get married, and have a huge brood of kids to fight crime with. Needless to say, she grew up. Every now and then, though, she does still wish that she'd gotten her childhood fantasy. But then she sees Medic and Dean shouting at the top of their lungs at each other, looking like they're either going to rip each other to shreds, or rip their clothing to shreds, and is exceptionately glad that she escaped that.
2 - Contrary to popular belief, Lea does not hate Dean. She half pities him, honestly, and then the other half is just sheer annoyance with him. There might be a teeny tiny corner of her heart that honestly loves the redhead, but it's a very tiny bit that she will never admit exists. She likes busting his balls too much.
3 - Lea is addicted to caffeine. She loves and adores coffee, but if (good) coffee is in short supply then she will make do with just about any type of caffeine.
4 - Lea kind of fell into writing in high school, and then fell into it even more when she got to university and got a part-time job with the award-winning school paper. Originally, she wanted to be a vet, but the idea of having to put down animals just made her too sad to contemplate the idea.
5 - Lea is a weather witch, which is just basic fact. She has to love all types of weather and every single season there ever was...only she doesn't. She hates the spring and fall and loves the summer and winter. She loves nature's extremes.
6 - The best way to relax, in Lea's opinion, is either by going out and getting ridiculously sweaty and filthy, or by tying up her hair, setting a few candles on fire, and soaking in a nice big tub full of hot water with nice smelling stuff. Hey. She may kick ass be be loud about it, but she's still a girl.
7 - She is very fond of berries: strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries. She loves them. She gets them more often than not because a lot of the berries are really easy to grow and she has a tiny bush of each in a window box at her apartment.
8 - She would personally love to be the filling between Lane and Garrett. Though, if she ever had the opportunity, she'd turn it down. She really can't imagine letting that ever actually happen to her.
9 - Lea, unlike most people who get into the hero business, thinks that most people are inherently bad and if left to their own devices will only get worse. After seeing the extent of Meechum's cruelty, she feels reaffirmed in this opinion, even if she will never say as much out loud.
10 - Lea is most terrified of losing her brother. She sees him every now and then, mostly letting him live his life away from her and the superum (since he's a sapien), but she loves him fiercely and would do anything to protect him. If anyone ever felt like breaking her, all they'd have to do is take out her older brother.
11 - Lea's personal deities are Hades and Persephone. She always found their story to be romantic, in a silly little girl kind of way. She also knows that Persephone and Hades control the seasons, taking from the spring and summer and giving unto the winter and fall. This is also kind of why she loves them. If she met Hades, though, Lea would probably squeak and run in the absolute opposite direction.
12 - Lea is allergic to cinnamon. It's weird and means she can't eat a lot of sweets, but she deals. Mostly. She can deal with a couple of hives for a decent snickerdoodle.

12 Facts About Medic

Okay! Next up for 12 facts is my second baby, Medic!

1 - Total. Machine. Geek. He built his airship ands actually has fun restoring old machines that he finds and building up normal consumer crafts. He doesn't do it all that often, but he enjoys it when he does it.
2 - Medic has a veryvery nasty temper. He also loses it more than he'd like. He doesn't throw a lot of temper tantrums, but he does get blindingly pissed off a lot. Especially when someone threatens his family and friends.
3 - Medic is bi, though until Dean he's always been more attracted to women. He has a type too, one which Dean doesn't fit (aside from the fact that Dean's a dude) at all. He likes them athletic, stacked, and able to hold their own against him. He really likes tits, and the rest of the package.
4 - When Medic goes out, he stays away from Tequila. If he drinks tequila, he tends to not remember what happened while on it, and there's a lot he does. Like make an absolute ass out of himself and tend to molest whatever's close to hand. He gets Messed Up on tequila.
5 - Medic started out as a nickname for him when he was a little kid playing doctor with the neighbourhood kids. Lea, whose brother watched too many military dramas, kept screaming for a medic...and well. It kind of stuck. And then Graham decided to only be called Medic. So blame Lea for that. ;)
6 - Medic's middle name is Riley, which is the name of Troy's brother.
7 - He has a tattoo and would like to get other piercings or marks, but is quite convinced that it is Not Proper, and that stuff would get ripped off during a battle, which would suck.
8 -  Medic's favorite food is...food. He doesn't care what he eats, really, and there is no preference. He doesn't mind the protein bars or the tasteless glump that serves as cheapo needed food. He'll eat whatever is put in front of him.
9 - Medic's most prized possession, the one thing he'll never be without, is a pressed flower he found in a book Dean gave him after Dean got better from [[SPOILER ALERT]]. It means a lot to him for some reason he's not sure of, especially since the book Dean gave him was boring and kind of a slap in the face ("7 Ways To Know If You Are A Control Freak, And What To Do About It"), but the flower is precious to him. When it started to fall apart he had Lea help him press it between two thin panes of glass and seal it safely.
10 - Medic hates music. He hates noise. Noise makes him twitch violently. If there is going to be any type of music, he prefers a simple piano piece with the no orchestra.
11 - Medic is also an obsessive neat freak. He gets very grumpy if he notices something out of place from where it's supposed to be. He does have a slight bit of OCD, but its not terrible.
12 - He sleeps like the dead. He very rarely wakes up in the middle of the night, not even with Dean flailing and screaming from nightmares. Eventually Medic will wake and calm his lover down, but not easily. Thankfully Dean's nightmares have mostly subsided over the years.

12 Facts About Dean Prescott

So I've been working on Dean's spotlight for a while now, since October actually, but I've been really lazy about it. So, turning over a new leaf here now that it's 2012. Work is slowing so I should be good to start spamming here again. :) And I'm going to start with 12 facts about my main characters today to celebrate 2012.

Starting the day off is Dean Prescott, the Black King:

1 - He absolutely HATES sweet food. Sugar makes him gag and he just stays far away from it. Baked goods, artificial sweetners, it all makes him run in the opposite direction.
2 - Dean is unusually fond of apples. He likes them a little sour and fresh, ripe ones. He would eat nothing but apples if he could, but they are very pricey and therefore are a very rare treat. He'll eat whatever fruit is available, but apples are his weakness.
3 - He has a perfect, eidetic memory. He can recall everything he's ever read almost instantly. He hid in the basement of a library for a while which helped him become a walking library. He tends for toward fantasy and science fiction, some history, and lots of random trivia books.
4 - He has a habit of reciting nursery rhymes, children's playground songs, and poems. He uses them to calm himself down and to focus when he's a little overwrought.
5 - He has a birthmark the shape of an hourglass on the back of his right knee.
6 - He loves being outside. If he has to be inside then he needs to have at least one or two really big windows so he can see the sky.
7 - He was never really much for the gods before he was on the Squad, before Apollo decided to stick his nose in and make Dean's life even more interesting than it ever needed to be.
8 - He has a twin sister, Evelyn (Vee), who he is two hours older than. When they were little, though, it was always Vee who acted like the oldest while Dean was content to follow her.
9 - Dean is covered in scars from all the things that Meechum did to him. He's always hated them, thinking them to be more evidence that the world sucks and how weak and helpless he was. He's very slowly started to take on a different attitude about them - that they are proof that he's survived.
10 - Dean is an excellent cook, but he only cooks if there's someone else to eat it. Otherwise he just does takeout or eats something boring.
11 - He may want love and stability and everything that that entails, but he refuses to be a pushover. If his lover starts pushing his buttons or acting like Dean is unable to do anything for himself then it's time to move on.
12 - Dean isn't very fond of alcohol but he can drink more than a superum, even with their outrageously amped up metabolism. It's a fun past time of his (later on in life) to drink unsuspecting superums under the table.