Yrae Chronicles

STOP EVERYTHING.

IT'S TWENTY-ONE DEGREES.

*FLINGS THE HOUSE OPEN*

This is the first time the temperature has dropped below 26 in three days. It's beautiful. I'm so glad I live on top of a hill now and get a breeze to go with my cool change. Soon as I opened the window it was just sweet relief all over.

I wrote four pages today! After sitting on the last chapter for six months I'll have this one done in a weekend. What even is writing.

I have not been killing my desk bromeliad(s)! It turns out dying is just a thing they do after they've flowered. I mean, I'm sure the day of direct sunlight on a 40-degree day probably sped up the process on the last one, but I still could've saved it.

Turns out, they only flower for about six months, then they start putting out little offshoots called pups, of which mine now has four. Once these are half the size of the plant, you can take them off and plant them as new plants while the mother keeps producing more. Its flower will die, as mine are in the process of doing right now, but the leafy bit will stay alive for another couple of years, by which point the little ones will be ready to flower and the cycle starts again.

My first one had put out one pup, but the rest of the thing was not looking happy after the said day of full sun, so the plant wouldn't have gone for those couple of years creating pups, but it at least had the one I could've saved. Woulda been nice to have had that on the tag when I'd bought it, but at least now I know. I'm not killing this one, it's just dying of its own volition. So that's nice to know.

The fern alongside it, which had been decimated by that 40-degree day to the point where it was reduced to two leaves sticking out of the dirt, has now fully recovered and is as fluffy and green as it was when I bought it. Hooray!

Also I've written a page of SH:Gold tonight! I've worked some shit out and now it's flowing again. I doubt I'll have it done by the end of my holidays (tomorrow =( ) but it's flowing and I'm reasonably confident about what's going on with the rest of it. Politics have been left to the politicians, leaving Nimay to hit things with a sword, drink beer, and figure out how to 'kill' Yan. I am le squee.

I KNOW NOBODY CARES OR EVEN KNOWS BUT I'M PUTTING THIS HERE FOR POSTERITY.



EDDIE BETTS YOU GODDAMN GENIUS.

I had a GOOD weekend. I don't know that I've mentioned this stupid post before, because it's super boring and has yet been SO FRUSTRATING. Nobody will notice it once it's done, but omfg. So. Visual aids. In 07 there, the first one, you can see the two posts holding up the veranda, the one right at the back beside the tank and then the next one along, around about the middle. Those were the two posts I was going to string the new clothes line up between, but as you can see in photo 05, the second one linked, that post is behind the tank, and the tank is about the height of the door. So the clothes line would have to go over top of the tank, and I'd be hanging clothes about a foot over my head. Yeah no.

So last weekend I went to Bunnings and bought myself another steel post and a couple of brackets, lined the post up against the gap and marked it to the right length, then took it around to Dad's welding mate to cut it up and weld the brackets onto it. Took it home for Dad to then bolt it to the veranda beam and the concrete... and the stupid thing was 8mm too long. I frigging hate steel. You can't stretch it or squash it or bend it or anything. If it's 8mm too long there is no shoving that thing in place. And Dad, in what he seems to think is a practical voice of 'you need to do this' but actually has a very strong tone of 'you failed. You tried this thing and it's failed and you fail,' made me cry because he just wouldn't stop with the not-at-all-practical doom-and-gloom-and-also-you-fail voice, which was exactly what I did NOT want to hear after the week I'd just had at work... and I just... screw steel.

Anyway. I think Mum had Words and he toned back a bit, helpfully measured up the stupid frigging post and also came with me to buy the right bolts for the job. I called his mate back again to come back with the post later on in the week, and generally calmed down.

Bringing us to Friday just gone, took the post back up to Dad's mate's place, pissing with rain and bloody freezing HI WINTER. He cut off the offending 8mm, welded the bracket back on (twice, because he'd done it the wrong way around the first time, with a cheerful 'see? We all make mistakes =D' and omg I heart him) and was generally awesome. Saturday morning I took that baby outside and slotted it smoothly in between veranda and concrete. Easy as. Not yet bolted in but it's ready to go! What a good start to the weekend.

So that's the story of the post. So far. It's going to be the least interesting and least noticed part of the whole garden--the whole HOUSE--and yet it's been the single most frustrating part of anything so far. ANYWAY.

I triumphantly sent the photo of the thing standing up on its own, happily wedged in, to Dad and his mate, then drove around to give him a thank you 6-pack of Coopers. Then to Mum and Dad's for lunch and then take them to the airport as thank you-in-advance for bolting in the post and clothes line (to Dad) and thank you for helping dig up baby's tears last weekend in the rain (to Mum). They're off to Bali, because Bali is hella cheap right now and I'm sorely tempted myself. We had a coffee and cake at the airport just waiting for their boarding time, then I headed back up to theirs to watch the footy (EDDIIIIIEEEEE ♥ TEEEX ♥) and put my washing in the dryer. Cos. Still don't have a clothes line. ahahaaaaha we'll get there.

Sunday sleep in, followed by a pyjama day of writing and that was that. What a good weekend. Got my post fixed, nice coffee, amaaaazing footy, and writing. Now shower and more writing, I hope. I mean, it seems to be doing its own thing, so who knows?

Hahahaha fuck off =|

It's currently cold. Yesterday it was 19, after having been nudging 44 on Saturday. That's a 25 degree drop overnight. Today was... meh. Forecast 29, don't think it went above 23. Tomorrow's nice for the last day of work, though!

I think I'm going to do some writing. Of the prose variety. I'm over coding, so very over it .-. I'm challenging myself and learning things through doing it, but god the troubleshooting. I'm ready to write some stuff that mostly does what I tell it to.

THERE I fixed my outline. Again. All that planning and making sure there weren't any holes and then BOOM characters go do their own thing and completely stuff everything up. Well, one character. Catalyst for everything else. BUT NOW IT WORKS AGAIN. Okay technically that one chapter at the end has nothing but [stuff happens] but lbr the whole thing'll change before I get there anyway. I know how I work.

Hard rubbish is taken out, muahahaha.

( Read more... )

I feel so tidy :D

Also, I wrote four solid pages yesterday. I've just been invited to a brewery with Colin and Laura for this afternoon but I nevertheless still have high hopes of finishing the chapter tonight. Man, Nol is just so easy to write. I think maybe it has something to do with him having no language barrier.

Homg that was such a tense match. So glad we won. It's frigging Carlton it should've been a percentage game. Omg don't do that to me, boys.

Curtains are expensive. I was anticipating maybe $1000-$1500 across the two windows, ohhhh no, Spotlight's quoted me $4255. If I accept the quote in the next 21 days then I get a 35% discount which brings it down to $2890, which is still... ouch... I can't see the local guys quoting any less but geeze that's a lot of money.

I'm now going to spend the rest of my long weekend writing, aww yeah.

I know I should really update on my Cassie holiday, but right now I have to celebrate a MILESTONE of ten years of Yrae Chronicles. Ten years ago today I met my twins in this completely random snippet thing. Back then I only had that image in my mind. Yamin's name fell onto the page, and because I didn't expect this thing to go anywhere, because I expected it to just be a random stand-alone thing, because I didn't want to lose my flow but still needed a sodding name for her sister, I just flipped Yamin's name in reverse.

Since then, Nimay's gone from being the general of the entire Raykinian army, quite handy but nothing spectacular with a sword, to being the general of just those fifteen blokes and ranked about number 4 in the kingdom with her sword (behind Rumal, Emon and Melraan). Also, according to how many fics I wrote on the topic, she was far more assassin than warrior. That's probably her biggest change.

Also Raykin hasn't gone to war in decades. And they ride camels, not horses. And the archers aren't nearly so dominant anymore. And wtf pushing fifty siege rams all the sodding way to Kazin. Though I do remember there was some internal conflict going on in Raykin at the time. I think it may have been halfway towards being Kazin, but the more I got to know those guys, the less merit the idea had. Raykin's too laid back to go to war with itself. Also the yrae is a shitload less impressive than it was back then because it has BOUNDARIES now and I know how the thing works. Took years to work that out. YEARS.

Yamin's pretty unchanged. She's always been shy but happy and friendly. Certain facts have been added, but as far as her character and role goes, she's the same as she was waaaay back at the beginning. NO WAIT. She used to be a scribe rather than a healer. I'm not sure why, tho a healer is a hell of a lot more use in SH now than a scribe was ever going to be. Man, if I'd persisted with the scribiness I'd probably ship her even harder with Nol than I do now >> My otp that will never happen <3

Yan doesn't appear in that fic, but he appeared later that night, along with a WHOLE bunch of story. Yan is the one I have least NO control over. None. I feel like with the twins, with Nol, with the Kazinians and the Own and everyone else, I'm the one changing their professions or giving them certain fears or hopes. Yes, they change on their own more often than not, but they're changes I expect and understand and all is good. Yan feels like a stranger who just rocked up as a complete person and I've only been finding things out about him, not giving life details to him. I learn something and realise I've been writing him wrong all this time and he just won't tell me at the time. He used to kill people on a whim. Now I'm not even sure he killed the twins' parents. I bet he could count the number of people he's killed, over four thousand years of not-life, on one hand. And he regretted every one of them for centuries. He just started out as 'the bastid' and kept that moniker until I realised Ni-Yana was named after him. Yes, the city's name came before the man's. SEE? Learn things about him but don't give them to him. He's the one I can ramble about the most but when it comes to writing him... god he's hard to get across.

AND THEN CAME NOL. I think. I have a funny feeling Melraan came first as the 'I need another army person *POOF*' character which is why he just epitomises the Own. But yes. Nolryn came in several months later (possibly in October, being as that's when his birthday is, but I'm not sure). He was evil. Genuinely he was the villain-who-wasn't-Yan. The charm was a façade to hide the evil. He was working with Yan and hadn't even been manipulated into it. And then he grew, as so often they do, and I think he's possibly my favourite now. As long as he's not talking politics, he's the easiest to write, and I don't think that's just because he's the only one of the three narrators I have at the moment who talks. He just feels like the most complete. The twins... still kind of feel like the product of a teenager's mind at times. Yan, as we've discussed, was not created so much as he rocked up and just let me figure him out as I went along.

The rest came as conscious decisions (I need a Llayan/healer friend/army master/Kazinian royal/parents for Nol/etc I KNOW HERE'S ONE *poof*) and more-or-less developed as I told them to. 'Cept Assili, she's come along much more than I was expecting her to, the little dear <3

Sum total, over a full decade, including two finished SH novels, three uncompleted SH:Rust drafts, one finished and two unfinished NaNovels, a handful of shorts and novellas and hundreds of minifics and writing memes and challenges: 886 245 words. You can bet your backside it'd be over a million if I counted the stuff I've written about it.

And there, all the way from day one a decade ago, there's been one person who's ridden right alongside me with it all. My Sallie, who's read just about every one of those nearly 900 thousand words (give it a month or two and she will have, I'm sure X3). For encouraging me with the crack and the serious, for letting me ramble and plot and throw characters at, for creating some of the most interesting people in Tsyllaes, for reading nearly a million words of my innermost everything: Thank you. I love you so so much. I feel like I'm writing it all for you as much as for myself. I had meant to draw you something awesome in thanks but the deadline has crept up on me much quicker than I was expecting! I'll draw you something this year, have no doubt <3

The other who of COURSE deserves a thing that I haven't yet drawn is Shanra. She's been the first to read every chapter since she hopped on several years back, and always offers the most invaluable advice (and inevitable squees and wails X3) over the course of the writing. You absolutely take to heart my 'rip it to shreds' rule of being a beta reader and I love you so much for it. I could not ask for better <3 It's your demands for MORE that get me off my arse to finish the next chapter X3 I love you. Thank you <3

To all those who've read anything of the Yrae Chronicles, be it a few random minis or the first couple of chapters of Silent Harmony (which, let's be honest, getting on a bit now) to those magnificent two who've persisted through to the end: Thank you all.

Also, this being the year of finishing things, next on the list is Blade Archer! I reread the whole of it last night to remind myself of what the hell's going on in that story, only took 3 hours or so, and I won't be rewriting any of that going forward. Being as that was NaNoWriMo 2004, MANY things have changed in Raykin since then, but I'll sum those things up when the next chapter gets posted. Going from 5000-word chapters back down to the NaNo version of 1667 will be odd but here goes!

Happy birthday, girls. Here's to many more <3

Nol, I love you, I love writing you, but srsly stop with the politics it's making my head hurt. Even tho you're crap at it, you're still smarter than me and I don't know how to make you say stuff :<

Did not realise adding Assili to the mix would make things politically awkward. Should really have thought of this. Onya, self.

I dislike this chapter. As I've already ranted about to myself in the spoiler book, too much shit is happening and it has to happen too fast. New people, dead people, scary people, mob of people, people in pain, confusion, loss, panic, plot moving very fast, and basically I feel like I have no control over the damn thing. I've tried it twice and I don't like either version.

May take the [stuff goes here] route and just skip to the next chapter or something. idk man. Not happy.