I Will Destroy Everything of Beauty

Oh Small Crimes. You are a story that never fails to alternately infuriate me, make me incredibly gleeful, and creep me the fuck out.

Part of the creepy has to do with Cain and the way he sees Scout. Basically, he sees his mission/experiment/thing (because he essentially is trying to torture the Rak out of Scout) as a kind of fucked up catcher in the rye thing--he wants to save her innocence by removing her inability to not act on her murderous impulses. The other complicating factor is that he sees this (subconsciously, I think) as a kind of self-redemption thing--because he hasn't been successful thus far, and also in part because of the bigger, creepier factor.

Which is, of course, the fact that he's somehow replaced Scout in his head with his baby sister Lindsey. Who he has lost contact with and just... Cain feels like he's failed her because he wasn't there for large portions of her life. He wasn't with her when she got her wings--he's almost disappointed that she turned out to be a guardian, and he feels like that is his fault because he left the house when she was eight, to go to college. And their relationship has always been creepy anyway, and with the whole connection to Scout it gets so much creepier. Because... well.

Cain has sex with Scout, a few times, before she escapes. He's drunk every time, and it's not something that he thinks about consciously. But it does happen, and whether it's an extension of incestuous feelings he has towards Lindsey or not, it complicates matters--Cain is trying to preserve Scout's innocence, but at the same time he's taking it away by having sex with her. It is a present part of their relationship, as much as Cain almost deliberately does not think about it.

I guess really what the whole ramble is about is me struggling to write sympathetic creepy characters. I want them to come across as sympathetic--because as fucked up as he is, Cain does have sympathetic qualities. He wants so badly to succeed it's probably limiting him. The same thing is happening with Matt. I just... don't know if I can pull it off. But I'm working on it.

Woooooow. And then I proceed to not update for nearly six months. SORRY GUYS, not that anyone really follows this. More like sorry to myself, because posting here always gives me some kind of motivation to write and I've really been missing that.

So. In terms of updated things. I hit the 50,000 word mark for my NaNoWriMo, CIRCLING THE EDGE, but the story is kind of... resisting being finished. Possibly this is because the characterization overall is not as strong as I would like and it's more plot-driven, and I suck at plot. Oh well. I'll look back at it another time, perhaps. It's got a little bit of promise left in it, I think.


THE TEAM is stalled as well, for opposite reasons. I think it's going to end up being similar to THE AFTER ADVENTURES, with the whole apocalypse thing--more focusing on the apocalypse itself than the aftereffects, and obviously it's not going to be a children's story like THE AFTER ADVENTURES, but... clearly I need to go back to the plotting stages of that one. Both of them, actually. Oh JOY.

BURN THE DEVIL OUT is actually... okay. So I haven't touched it since like JUNE, but I read a portion of it for the coffeehouse thrown by the school's literary magazine (which I am one of the head editors for... yeah, I'm a nerd) and people really liked it so I've started kind of poking at it again. I forgot how much I really enjoyed that story, and how fun the characters were, and I can't wait to finish the first part so we can move into the second, which is one step closer to me being able to WRITE THE DEVIL. And I love the Devil in that story. So much.

HER I MUST FOLLOW might be permanently scrapped. I mean... I love the title, and I love Mat (the main character) but I have no idea what his story is. I just know that he's connected to the title. So it's kind of back to the drawing board on that one. Yeah. I have so much plotting to do over break.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY I HAVE SUCH A BLOCK WHEN IT COMES TO THE ADVENTURES OF SIR SHAGSALOT. Seriously. I just... cannot seem to sit down and actually WRITE that thing. It's very very frustrating. Granted, I'm working through some backstory stuff for him, which is nice in understanding why he's such an asshole. Okay, not really. Whatever.

And finally, the work that is currently EATING MY BRAIN OH MY GOD is SMALL CRIMES, which is actually more like a collection of short stories about the same characters than anything else. But it's fulla sketch and I love it so much because it's so twisted.

All links for these stories (save OUT which... also needs to be reworked OH GOD SO MUCH REWORKING TO DOOOOO) can be found in my (very not shiny) profile. I will try to keep updating more often with things like revelations about characters, plot things, etc.