This may not make any sense at all, and it's not something that I have often done with my journals, but I don't feel like sharing the negative things going on right now... simply because I don't want to have to think about them and remember how it felt dealing with them when I'm rereading entries in the future. (We all do that, right? Go nostalgia-mode on our lives as presented through our journals?)

SO HAPPY STUFF WHETHER YA'LL LIKE IT OR NOT

Tomoko's package came in the mail that she had been worrying about, even on her birthday, which proves how suh-weet she is, all the time. By the time that I ever meet her, I will owe her like 1,500 hugs, probably. 💚💚💚 A lot of these items are wonderful little works that were sold by YYH fans at the Yuuhaku Only event. Naturally, she got me a whole lotta Kurama. ;) She also got me a fancy multi-colored ink pen and eraser stick, and ughghhh, I threw my hands up into the hair and said to myself "OKAY, TOMOKO, YOU WIN AT FRIENDSHIP. YOU WIN."

🌟 We go see The Phantom of the Opera tomorrow, and it's a three-day weekend. 

🌟 I changed my revision plans again for HT ch15-18, so my motivation to work on it is revitalized. If all goes well I'll work on it these next three days and make some ground. WHY WOULDN'T I, I'M SEEING PHANTOM TOMORROW?!! DDDDD:

Like in all honesty, isn't that where a lot of writer's block comes from...? I was having problems writing this same stuff, months ago, and it finally occurred to me: if I can't figure out what the point of the scene is or how to wrap it all together, maybe it doesn't have a point. Maybe my plans weren't filled with logic and continuity after all. It's so weird that I would be thinking that already and then come up with other plans that are also half-baked/half-logical as well, but that must have been what happened. So yeah, the plans have been changed.

What sparked the plans was something that simultaneously made me excited and sad, though. I was reading some material from the first draft that happens directly after where I am in the draft two narrative, and it wasn't stuff that made me squirm in my seat anymore. It was actually pretty decent writing that you could tell was product of a writer living in that space, in their head, being present in the scene and inside the body of her narrator. There was a web of goings-on that I understood at the time, and... it was a way of storytelling that felt more free and true than how I'm so carefully constructing things today. You could almost tell that I didn't have depression yet when I was writing it... I know they were chapters from late 2011/early 2012, so I was still in the clear. *sigh*

I mean, it needed some minor adjustments, and "Erik" wasn't always saying things that I would believe nowadays to be in character, but mostly I didn't want to touch it at all. I wanted to just find a way to write until I had hooked up with that point, and then connect it and share those chapters as they were. 

It was a story I was happy to read myself, too... I believed in it being something that a reader would want to stay focused on. 

Well, okay, it's almost 1:00 in the afternoon. This is an ideal time to work on some things, let go of the happenings this week, and be content with some aspect of my life. 

Ciao,
J

I had a dream the night before last that I *was* him and Lily was 14 again by the looks of it? And still I/he was all smitten with her trying to land kisses on her face? What in the hell?

That was weird.

I mean I could argue a lot that they don't even breathe the same air until she's 17 and he's 20/21 depending on where in the story (still a problem in many states) but I just-- I do not believe for half a second that his sexual inclinations towards her are recent. *chokes in horror*

The whole situation is -- yeah, it's just weird, because even I think that if he were a few less flavors of fucked up they would really hit it off as a couple and the age thing was just kind of an accident. And lord knows many of my readers are even more adamant about them being a couple, and seem to focus almost exclusively on the fluff. It's like in the YYH fandom when people just want to produce and consume endless amounts of fluff about Kurama and it's like... Dude's shady. Think about it a moment and the dude's shady, sorta not human, sort of a sadistic self-righteous murderer sometimes, etc. etc. I'm not saying I don't like Kurama fluff, just that there is such thing as wanting too much of it and wanting fluff so sweet all your teeth should be falling out and never wanting anything else when it is painfully clear there ARE other things about him, things glaringly unpleasant and bound to get in the way.

Bless her heart, I have a friend who is like that about "Erik" and Lily. And she always feels bad for him, and gets uppity when they're fighting, and excited about all the innuendo.

Meanwhile I'm like wanting to go along with it because he's like my fictional son whose life I ruined in the first place so the least I can do is give him some moments with this girl who means everything to him. Knowing all the same that I wrote him specifically to come off like a creep, because he is. He's also one of those people who's aware he's a creep, aware of the boundaries he's stepping, but has all these explanations and does it anyway. Then he does that thing (by the end of where Patrice was reading) where he tells her up front "you know, I really am kind of trespassing, this has been really not okay but I have feelings and all that", knowing that she will say something-- wanting to be soothed by her saying something that forgives him for his transgressions. Knowing she's dependent enough upon him not to drop his ass. I mean it almost makes it worse than if he just didn't know things, especially in your love life, aren't supposed to happen this way. He's not off the hook for being schizophrenic, either. I repeat: he is not off the hook.

For a second I was going to find something wrong with Lily but she really is kind of a cinnamon roll that wants to pull love out of her pockets and sprinkle it on him like glitter and-- well, you know, do the impossible: fix him. And when she does feel guilty about something she's doing? Frankly, she's showing him too much pity. Or he's made her think a perfectly reasonable reaction she had was unreasonable. He knows this about her too: that there's probably a way to bend her kindness backwards until it's unproductive and painful for her. Doesn't everyone who's damaged need to seek these kinds of people out, since everyone else won't put up with them? Mariam certainly wouldn't. Paulina has in the past but has learned from it. But unfortunately for Lily, 1.) Mariam's low tolerance just seems cold and judgmental, 2.) Paulina knows Lily has to learn for herself. 

Anyway, yeah, their quirky age/disposition gap. I think these two moments speak for that:

(From chapter 11): Sometimes, it was great fun, and I'd be like Alice chasing a dozen white rabbits through “Crew Only” corridors and staircases while he idled behind me. (...) “One time, Mariam and I... I mean, little Meg Giry and I, we came in there,” I told him, about the hall to the control room, “and we ate candy from the bowl on the front desk that we'd stolen during dress rehearsal. Is that stupid, or what?”

“It sounds just like you,” was all he said with fondness, but with his hands wringing. If he ever seemed quiet when I told him stories during lessons, he was even more reserved when I went on those adventures, almost like I was an experiment of his. Once I had tripped my whole way up to the automation booth and ogled the levers and screens, I caught him propped against the doorway, clutching his pocket watch and fixating straight ahead. When I asked what was on his mind, he said I made him see everything anew; he had a vicarious joy about it the way a parent would with a child. “But you're better than having a child, because I can't stand them.”

(From chapter 15): The King of Mischief's steps were too heavy to flutter like his Spark's, so he carved a steady path through the pines while I pranced all around him like an erratic moth that had found their favorite street lamp. We passed the theater towards the path where we had first met, and he made no mention of going inside. The ever-looming subject that had brought us together was clearly weighing on him, making my fluttering rather nervous, so I balanced across fallen tree trunks and turned up stones just to give him time to find his words. (...) Maybe I was the only one who'd be stunned by it, but the rings of chocolate brown that burst to life as he glanced towards the sun had me tripping and staring in secret awe. Well, I guess it wasn't such a secret anymore after that. 

“Careful,” he told me. He probably didn't need to lay his hand on the small of my back to steady me, but there it was. As if the tree roots rippling in the dirt beneath our feet might sweep us away like the river current, I threw my arms around him, though only briefly. That perfect shiver overwhelmed me enough that I broke away. After that, I told him he should have something and crammed the stem of the flower I had been holding down his breast pocket. The fact that he didn't immediately react was somehow hilarious.

I don't know, I actually love what the two bring out in each other because even though Lily suspects him to be older, this isn't typical behavior. All this childish jumping and wandering and staring in enthrallment is not what she's known for, she's just so damn smitten, and energized because of it. Her feelings for him, on the whole, are transparent and make her very happy. That is also what he is attracted to and has been attracted to from the start. I think he's in love with her by the end of that first moment's day, like legit "I was not planning on this, and now this whole thing we're doing seems 10x as scary as it originally did... WHAT AM I GOING TO DO TO KEEP HER. I HAVE TO KEEP HER NOW? Oh I'll just keep hiding everything because she wasn't supposed to know anyway, or have to know, because we shouldn't have been doing this."

I mean HELL to the NO he did not think she would want to stay after lessons! As the authoress, I just laugh at imagining his giddy, perplexed POV of that stuff. "You want to stay here. With me. Alone. After midnight." Then I also don't laugh at all because he must have been staring at her a lot, and testing his physical boundaries with her in the smallest least conspicuous ways he could manage. And no one is around to witness this or hold him accountable. They're in a little land of "anything goes", and she likes it, and in her heart of hearts she never meets anyone so enticing again, not for years. Despite what I know he puts her through and how horribly everything ends. Even in her mind it gnaws at her that he was her soulmate or something. And he certainly feels that way about her and doesn't keep it a secret. And she's prone to believing things he says because he is "Erik" after all -- he is "maestro", he is clever, he is prodigious -- and if nothing else he is intense enough to seem right.

Yeah they are like kind of fucked up and four years apart at a key time that defines whether their relationship is legal, but. Well, I do enjoy writing them. o_o

When you're a procrastinator like me, who also gets tossed around by life's crap, you can never actually expect to get where you want. So to be able to announce today that all the heavy rewriting for your novel is done is pretty damn fantastic! Done!

Perfect? Well... It's come a long way. Still has room to be tweaked. But everything is there to be tweaked!

I'm having a little bit of trouble adulting right now, so this silly schedule they gave me all week (11:30am-7:30pm) only leaves room for me to wake up late, go to work, and cram in errands and self-care. However, I will try to dig my hands into the pot of events I've copy-pasta'd from draft one into two "CH15" and "CH16" documents. I've got the clay, now I mold it!

The superfluous stuff will be pruned out, what worked in those events will be kept and expanded upon with my new notes, and a few settings will be changed. Unlike in the first draft, the theater is off limits for a little while. As he put it to Giry, some things got stirred up there that can't be immediately settled. So yeah, he has to actually avoid it, try to get Lily to meet him other places. It's gonna be a little awkward, I think! Especially awkward because the next time Lily sees him, he has promised to explain how he knows her, and this scene won't be guarded and passive the way he was in the first draft. It seemed appropriate to nod to Leroux's scene in which Erik admits he's not the Angel of Music. Soooo!... yeah

It's gonna be quite something, to get into that... Looking forward to it, probably going to act it out a little, so I'm not missing any of the more subtle emotional shifts as certain things are said. Sometimes one character hears something, has a small physical reaction to it, and that has a domino effect. The first character picks up on it, maybe changes course, maybe backs out of what they were saying, has to be re-engaged, learns something they weren't expecting. The list goes on and on.

Well, there goes my morning. Already. ugh Such a stupid schedule, right in the smack-motherfucking-dab middle of the day. ugh Also it's hot and I have my period.

*blows raspberry* This day can go fuck itself, already.

So last week I learned that having your car rear-ended would suck but also yield good things. My Allstate people were always available and patient with me. The repair shop holding my car made me feel at home while I was stranded there. The cop printing out my crash report assured me I wouldn't be liable and complimented my Little Mermaid lunchbox while I was sitting there blotting my tears. lmao My mom and half my coworkers have given me rides. Linda even gave me a ride at 8:30am on her day off and arrived in her car in polka-dot pajamas. *tchchchchch* I should probably bring donuts or cookies or something. (When I switch jobs I'm going to miss everyone. It's too bad they can't all come work with me somewhere else. lol)

Oh, the other great thing about it: I've got a fancy rental car that's covered by my insurance while my car is being assessed at the repair shop, but initially Enterprise was flaking on me, so my boss didn't schedule me for work for a few days so I wouldn't have to worry about getting to work, so I'm enjoying four days off in a row, which is all going towards writing and playing catch up with my March goals. I am NOT taking this for granted! In between all the adulting I've had to do, my eyes have been glued to the screen, fingers a'tappin!

I find it unlikely that in nine days I'll have all 12 chapters of draft two sitting around for feedback, but I'm just elated that the giant, confusing mess known as chapter 10 is actually making sense now, and only needs 3-4 more scenes before it's done. Chapters 11 and 12 actually already have a few pages because there were things I felt like writing ahead of time. It's unlikely, but it's actually not impossible to finish all this.

Once it's finished, I may take a break, I may not. The third arc (there are four arcs) also has plot notes, although most of that is just streamlining of material that's already in the first draft. This is the point in the story where the first draft mostly works, just isn't written very well or has some awkward stuff I could remove. If I recall, L & E also had a few meaningless conversations in the 30's chapters, which I could never imagine them having now that they're more developed.

Oh, and let us not forget the REWRITE of rewrites that must happen, once my editor's circle has criticism for draft two! oyyy! I actually began a third draft of chapter one the other day, on a whim, and I understood completely why R and A thought my presentation of events was too jumpy. The first few chapters don't have A Midsummer Night's Dream in it either, so I even just sent them to savoreachsense with Lily talking about Vivian and then suddenly switching to Mustardseed and digging for fairy wings with Mariam in the costume closet.

By the way, can I just say thank you, even if you're not reading this, Kate. ↑ Despite everything, she wanted to be one of the editors and said nice things that made me blush last night. If any of y'all have went through the (friends-locked) final chapters of draft one, she was there leaving awesome feedback.

Anyhoo! I have run out of Sierra material unfortunately, but I'm in love with Charles Dance again. I read more Leroux and always giggle at his description of Raoul, I discovered that Phantom on a Budget is on tumblr, and I might see about joining the Phandom, particularly the Leroux side of the Phandom. I can't relate to the solely ALW fanatics, or the Rierra nuts, or the Gerik children (I say children because they really are all stupid children who think Gerard Butler is legit), or the Susan Kay "nope, Erik was never abusive, Christine should have chose him" revisionists. Screw that noise. I want to be friends with adults whose heads aren't below the actual source material. Does that sound elitist of me? Oh well.

See ya!

-J