Jemma-Verse III: Flensing

I'm sure my one reader who cannot attend the flensings is dying to know how it went. It went well! Overall people enjoyed the story, the larger universe, the characters, the runic art, and some little turns of phrase and description I threw in. The criticisms were helpful: further develop the Miqo/Kinarre relationship (perhaps with a scene at the bar), make clearer what's causing all hell to break loose, tie the larger story together somehow, bring the characters together to make these short stories mean something larger, re-visit some specific passages, end section with some sort of closure.

I'm thinking right now that I'll have the two agents of Jemma-Verse II be the thread that ties these together; I also like the idea of news articles and things floating through the story, seen by characters in different stories. My biggest problem is figuring out where the larger story goes (and for that matter, where exactly it begins - with Jemma or even earlier?).

Another big challenge will be bringing the characters back to continue their stories; as I've been thinking about it, Jemma and Elorna were killed. But that's actually not necessary to the over-arching plot, so I can mess with that. I was thinking I could either have the agents continue to be the Good Guys fighting the Bad Guys who have abducted (but not [yet] killed!) our heroines OR I could have the agents be unwitting pawns of the Bad Guys, and then they could have their own story, interspersed through the other stories, of finding out what they're doing. In that case, the Good Guys have abducted Jemma and Elorna to keep them safe. Maybe it's because I've been watching Alias lately, but I really like this second idea. The agents should get their own story beyond just the police investigation, after all! I was recently talking with one of my loyal readers about digging further into the agents' characters, and this would be a really fun way to do it.

I'm not wedded to anything, and this semester I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to do. But dang, I can almost see this turning into a Real Novel! It really helps that I can work on this in short bursts with these sections, so it doesn't feel like I have a gigantic stretch of Tens of Thousands of Words staring at me.

Jemma-Verse III: Fun Things

As I mentioned, two ideas from my brainstorming session about Jemma-verse Story III really stuck out to me: magical climate change and postmodern runes. Today during a class where students presented their research ideas, my laptop battery died and I was forced to write my questions for the presenters in my notebook. When I wasn't thinking up questions to ask (because I know I really appreciate people at least pretending to show interest in my presentations), I was doodling some of the postmodern runes that will appear in the MC's pet exhibition.

In the story already is a piece which looks a little like a camera. When someone stands in front of the circle, blobs of color appear on a canvas behind the piece. Magic! These other pieces I'll have to mention because they were a lot of fun to draw and ponder. One looks like a bowl of fruit, which you lick; it's perfectly sanitary! Another looks like an origami crane; it just flies around and maybe makes a noise. Another is a structure of some sort built entirely out of spheres. Another is a carved heart inside a vase; when you touch it, it may or may not zap you. My favorite two are: the reverse Jackson Pollack (it's a painting with squiggles of paint on it, but when you walk past it, the paint flies backward and spatters on you!) and the mouth, which has a lot of scary teeth. When you touch it, it bites you and you bleed - but when you step away, you're all better!

And now I must return to the story itself. I had such fun drawing these, though, that I thought I'd share them with my two loyal readers.

New Story

Because I am a demented human being, I once again volunteered to be the next sacrificial victim for my writers group. This is not demented because they're all insane flensers - they are, but I'm almost used to it by now - but because I have so much else I should be spending my time on, like my two papers and the two presentations that go with them that are due this semester. One of these presentations is due a week from the day of this posting. Oh God.

The story is another tale of what's coming to be known in my head as the Jemma-verse. So far I've produced two short stories, but with this one I think I should admit to myself that I'm really creating a novel here out of these vignettes. I have other ideas for big writing projects, but I don't want to start those out of writers group-induced "oh noes I have a week and a half to write this" panic. And once I got to thinking ideas and scribbling them on the back of a law review article, I had two concepts that I will not be able to put down until I have them fixed in a tangible medium: postmodern runes and magic climate change.

Actually, the runes aren't exactly postmodern because these people don't use that term to describe that sort of art, and the magic climate change is both highly accelerated and very localized compared to actual climate change. The MC of this is a museum director whose story opens with (probably) her dealing with the latest art exhibition of runic art, though it'll be called something different. For some mysterious reason--magic climate change induced by super-secret gov't testing of magical weapons--the pieces are't working right, and of course the artist(s) are being very difficult about it.

I sketched out a very vague plot arc for this which may well change when I sit down to write this. I have a bunch of homework right now, so this will probably wait for the weekend, but I'm suddenly excited about writing again! My evening classes have been terrible about deflating my enthusiasm because my most creativity productive time has been eaten up by class, travel time, and late dinner. But that class ends at the beginning of March, and I think this story will be a great start to shove me back into semi-regular writing.

Contest - New Story

I think I've settled on a vague idea - but no more than that - for the story I want to write for the legal fiction competition I posted about a day or two ago. I want to set it in the Jemma universe and have it be from the POV of the Grienyte family lawyer (or one of them), whose mundane practice is turned upside down by her murder/disappearance/whatever. I already started writing bits of it in my head, and besides the plot, which remains a mystery to me, my main challenge is to make the protagonist a distinct character from Jemma. Actually, she could sound exactly like Jemma from the perspective of the judges, but I don't want to have One Stock Character I bring out whenever I write something original.

I'm thinking that Unnamed Lawyer is an intellectual property lawyer who specializes in magic business (which has a fancier name, after suggestions of critique group). This sounds awfully close to my own interests, but I promise that it actually works within the Jemma story. I'm thinking that Jemma pulled something along the very cliche lines of, "Send this story to the papers if I'm killed," but left something with her family's magic-specializing lawyer instead.

I already have a short tangent in mind about how the incorporation of magic into the legal codes and things finally spurred Congress or whomever to pass a law officially striking down the law against perpetuities. Okay, that might have to go, but the idea tickled me as I was thinking of it. The RAP is basically evil and complicated and stupid.

Anyway, the poor lawyer is bewildered by the wackiness that ensues, and I think that's where Unnamed Lawyer is going to differ from Jemma. Jemma was always pretty hyped up about what was going on, the point that my critique group mentioned several times that she's on the verge of a heart attack, and Unnamed Lawyer is going to be the opposite - bewildered but really laid back about it. Hey, you don't put in your obligatory three years in BigLaw in magical law only to jump out of your skin every time you get a death threat.

So that's all I have for now. Plot still needs to be figured out, but I have a character I like and a universe I vaguely know, which is pretty good progress.

EDITED to add: Check this out! Etymology of the word "prestigious": 1546, "practicing illusion or magic, deceptive," from L. præstigious "full of tricks," from præstigiæ "juggler's tricks..." Oh, that's going in there.