Somehow, it is an iconic day for me...

I always think back to a quote from HT. Let me go dig it up:

I sat up in bed, did some less than coordinated stretching, and started to recall random fragments of the night: Rocky Horror music, eyeballs, Twix, and running at top speed... What about the figure in the yard? I got up and looked out the window again. It was the same sight as always, only now it was November 1st, and everything was drenched in rain.

*looks out the window* Yes, everything IS drenched in rain. But Halloween was nothing special or interesting. I was at work. 

Still, it's a very transitory day, where I "wake up" from the tunnel vision of October, in which I was scrambling to make a costume, or trying my best to soak in the spirit of the month while it lasted. Okay, so, November 1st. Now what? There is less to grab onto, that helps define the experience I'm having, or that informs the direction in which I should go. It's almost too much freedom all of a sudden. Will the rain hinder me, physically or in spirit? Who am I?

Kidding. lol But yes, it's very much that sort of tune. I'll need a moment to find my grip and start climbing something new, or something else. I actually love November. It's atmospheric in its own right, lots of cozy things. In just a couple days, on the 3rd, it will be the tenth anniversary of being introduced to Nosferatu, the film that changed my trajectory as a student, inspired my first cosplay, and also inspired the start of a TV mini-series. Whoops - never even sort of finished that. 

Perhaps I could see November as the month of Nosferatu. So then, what does that mean it's about? Embracing the cold, drawing inspiration from the night, keeping my curtains open so that I can peer out the window. Deciding what is beautiful about the grotesque. Stringing together poetry of monstrosities. Thinking about how a work might give one experiencing it a hypnotic, even addictive, sense of dread. Stimmung. Which, when I think about it, has been set up pretty well in CRYSTAL PALACE, which from henceforth I'll write in all caps because it just seems more fitting. 

I think there is something within HT, even though I'm not planning to write it soon, that still applies. What begins on November 1st for Lily, my narrator? A game between her and Mischief. Poking and prodding of the other. Finding that attraction/fascination alone can send her off the rails. Risks. Inviting the monsters nearer. 

*shrugs* Dunno why I'm writing this entry in such a way, but there it is. Food for thought. Snacks for meditation. 

Today, I write in this journal on a late September afternoon, and I must lament that Fall has still not arrived. 

The seasons have always been influencers of my creative whims. There used to be a time when I changed projects every three months, so that what I was working on "matched" the season, whose specific stimuli might transplant me to certain atmospheres in which my stories took place. So, some were Summer stories, some were Fall stories, etc. I feel like this journal needs more art around here, so I'm going to dig some up. And hopefully size them in an agreeable way this time. xD;



Cool air nipping at your nose, hot drinks, and creepy woods were hallmarks of He's There. Yes, the whole story spans from October to May, but I think its first 8-9 chapters were the ones that make an impression, set up the world. There are so many festivities and bustle taking place, which the gloominess naturally encroaches upon... disguising what is out of place, or giving what is out of place a cloak of appeal. Fall allowed me to highlight what was off-key for my narrator during times and situations when she was supposed to feel most connected to others. Halloween parties, theatrical productions, and Thanksgiving... all had an "alone in a room full of people" vibe that explained why she looked towards the gloominess hanging there at the outskirts. 



Nosferatu in Love got its vibes from the skeletal trees, eerie quiet, and night walks under the moon, in Winter. Though I think it evolved to also encompass Spring, and life fighting through the frost to find the sun. The setting is Daytona Beach, FL. (for a bunch of thematic reasons)... but, of course, everything a vampire touches dies, is drained of its colors. It's a Winter of the soul for them, and all that poetic shit, too. 




The original concept of T&J transpired all in one summer, and so it inherited that bright and loud sort of whimsy. I mention this story only because it's the only one that fits the bill... It is a project I abandoned at least a decade ago... but I still think about it sometimes.

Of course, some stories transcend seasonal borders. A lot of fanfic, obviously, unless the story was hinged on what time of year it was.



I have noticed that it's extremely hot weather that fuels Crystal Palace -- that I plunk away at it, holed up in the darkness of my room with the AC blasting, when summer is the most brutal. I think because imagining an ice castle is helpful to get through it. I have very little else to inspire me in summer, because I hate summer, so there is that ice castle waiting, when I most need it. 

Anyway. 

Yeah.

So there are mixed feelings I'm having about the Summer-Fall transition. A part of me anticipates being healed by the arrival of sweater weather and all things spooky. Another part feels unprepared to enter a new season packed with so many expectations, because this cosplay project has given me tunnel vision, and haven't thought ahead about what I'd be moving on to...

In all honesty, I would like CP to transcend Summer and come with me into the playful gloom... Sometimes, it takes itself too seriously. 

-J

He's There fans, like "Erik", seem to sneak up on me out of nowhere. I could just be minding my own business and then see that someone has favorite-attacked me on DA, and they usually want to know if I'm ever writing it again (as most can see, quite clearly, that it is unfinished.) Although I did have an interesting experience once where someone thought chapter 39 was the end and were willing to "respect how I chose to end it with so many unanswered questions." Oh, what an interesting prospect. lol

No, but anyway... This summer I had plans to get back to writing it but now it seems like, when I do, I'm jumping into the past. It used to just be "my project", the one and only. CP2 was not even finished (and I hardly cared), CP3 didn't exist yet or was in its infancy... Nosferatu in Love, what in the fuck was that? But it has been around so long and side-glanced at my other projects, perhaps with some frustration, that now it has a carved place in my mind in terms of its context.

When I write it or even think about writing it, I imagine it's 2007, and I'm sitting in my room, with nothing else to do but wait for my first day of college, nervous to take the public bus and hoping classes aren't too hard. I've got candles burning, Florasense's "Rain Forest", and Celestial Seasoning's "Tension-Tamer" chamomile, mint, and lavender tea. The smells are everywhere and I am absolutely nuts about Phantom. I can't imagine why I thought the story was hopeless.

When I write it, I imagine it's 2008 again, and I'm sitting in my black coat on the driveway, drinking pomegranate tea and trying to retain the feeling in my fingers, because it's November and no sane person ought to be outside at night in November. I can hear the hum of my first laptop that I used when Hermy the 2nd was in the shop. I was writing "my novel"; it was going to be big; my biggest accomplishment.

When I write it, I imagine it's 2009 again, and I've taken an inexcusably long break because I got obsessed with Adventures in Wonderland, but I've come back for NaNoWriMo and I've fallen in love with Charles Dance and Robert Englund. I feel flushed with creative energy, I feel dark and brooding, and interesting now that I have my driver's license, but the roads are slippery from snow, so I'm nervous, too. I'm listening to "Lucifer's Angel" every time I walk to class and jotting ideas for the next chapter in my notes.

Also, when I write it, I imagine 2010 and sweltering heat. I'm stuck in my car at the park because my dad made home so unbearable, but I'm determined to write chapter 37. It's a heavy chapter, and I want to know what people think about it. Even though I want to write HT and escape my life, I'm finding escapism hard; I'm worried if I'm not alert that something will happen out of nowhere. But then, later that year, it's Autumn again and my parents have split up. Despite how distracted I was during Summer, I find it even harder to concentrate in our silent living room, in the dark, with my giant cup of chamomile tea, waiting for Mom to get home. I utterly failed at NaNoWriMo, but I got into the musical a lot and couldn't stop going to youtube.

And, of course, I imagine 2011, when I'm shoving my futon into the bathroom and writing there, hoping it will give me some peace from my horrid roommate who is never quiet. I'm getting in the mood and writing excellent chapters. I seem to see the story in a new way. Things happened I would've never dared let happen earlier. I had just spent a lovely Halloween as the Phantom, it was one of the prettiest Autumns I'd ever seen, and my German Cinema class was showing me an entirely new world, of magic.

Most, perhaps excluding just one, of these memories are during Autumn, and that is really the fuel of He's There, I've realized. I know it's my favorite season, but I couldn't tell you why it matters so much to that story, but I'll guess. I started it in September (Autumn), in HT's world, the story begins in October (Autumn) and one of Lily's first important events is Halloween, the past three years I've tried to further its completion with NaNoWriMo in November (Autumn). Really, whether I like it or not, everything seems to be born again for me in September - it's like the beginning of my own year. HT always seems to come back like a phoenix from the ashes, though I wish I could figure out why the rest of the year fucks up my plans as much as it does. I can't even imagine an Autumn in the past four years that I wasn't at least worrying what I was going to do about that story, and it'll happen again in a few months, if I haven't already gotten back to work on it.

One thing is for certain, though - even if it makes me feel nostalgic, there is little else that feels like it does when I step into that place again, in Lily's school, in the theater, etc etc... They're waiting for me to unravel the mess surrounding them, but I think even I will be surprised when that happens.

Long post is long?

G'morning, Monday. May you pass quickly.
♥, J