day HACHI! o my F-ING god yes. do you think the church would object to me marrying my laptop? coz w/out it, i certainly wouldn't be having this much fun sending my own brain through a pasta machine. after two days of pulling teeth straight out of the alligator's mouth w/ a pair of tweasers, i have in fact OBLITERATED my personal goal for a single day. i have a lovely 16,716 words. that's over 35% of tomorrow's goal, already shattered! course, i'd like to have 18,716 words by tomorrow, but just in case my fragile brain melts like the over-ripe kumquat that it is, I'M ALL GOOD, because today i was on fire.




shiva and sara didn't actually do much today, either, which is just another reason to celebrate. all they did was pick up the wind box from the temple -instrumental to destroying the world by the way- which they then tried to sneak out of, but as per ~MichaelBeckett's instructions they met w/ a giant three-headed snake, and had to destroy it. then they ended up at the docks, but assassins came after them from afar w/ a hail of arrows, and sara was hit. they managed to get out on a little sail boat, but now the assassins know exactly how to expect them in vishuddha, and sara's been injured. also, we learned a tastey tidbit about sara's past.

which i'm not going to tell you. coz shiva doesn't really know that much about it, and i prefer to know only as much as my POV character on my first draft. so really all they did was pick up a box and get out of anahata. i'm still having thoughts that maybe the story's not long enough though. i'd really like to avoid kidnapping sarasvati, if only coz it's so entirely cliche, but i'm not sure how long i can make this thing w/ only three more cities to go. course, if svadhistana and anahata are any indication than i may be worrying about nothing. i spent two days on svadhistana, and three on anahata. anyhow, i've still got 33,287 words to go, 67% of the story still to write. if i'm gonna go with only the seven cities, i suppose i should still be in manipura. i may have to go back and add some stuff. but really, these are all worries for next week, when i'm getting down towards the end and suddenly decide that shiva hasn't remembered such and such an incident, or that they needed to pass x, x, and x trials before reaching sahasrara. i'm a little concerned, but i would say not "worried." i'm certianly more sensible than i have been these past few days.



day KYUU jesus. it's only day nine!? christ. i have 18611 words, that's 37%. i've only been through 37% of this month. it seems like forever. today was back to giving gators dental exams, but i just don't care. i have to stick with it! i'm getting very concerned about length though, and i think that's why it's been getting harder and harder to keep writing. i keep saying i will not abduct sarasvati, but i just don't have anything else to do. course, as of this evening, they're holed up inside vishuddha temple w/ no way out. and shiva got stabbed. so maybe she'll end up dead or something. that'd sure convince him to destroy the world, now wouldn't it. what i really need is Sub-Plot. something to take up a few extra thousand words while i sort out what the F--- it is i'm actually doing. i'm not exactly famous for my ability to complete plotlines, a fact that is once again rearing it's fugly motha to destroy my world.

in other news, i've been challenged to a race by a man writing in china about the last two pandas on earth. i read part of it actually, it's like eastern myth-meets-sci fi setting as written by terry pratchett. pretty funny. and he's got almost exactly the same number of words as i have. so i'm certain at least to beat my head against the wall a little more now. coz i didn't have enough pressure, what w/ the little demon voices screaming YOU MUST WRITE YOU MUST WRITE and my muse whining back from the corner, But i don't wanna~

day ...uhh... JUU!? yes i'm having trouble remembering what day i'm on. this afternoon at work, my sub-plot showed up. turns out krishna's been following them this whole time on orders from brahma. too bad he's really good at keeping hidden, coz i totally did not see him back there, and now i've got to fake it like he's not that good at it, so shiva can maybe spot him once or twice. and remember when sarasvati said that she works for shiva? [no.] that may have been what we traditionally refer to as A LIE. remember when shiva had the dream that led him to believe that sara was given to him by brahma? [still no!] that may have been what we traditionally refer to as JUMPING TO AN ERRONEOUS CONCLUSION. at least krishna's unexpected presence solves for me the problem of how to get out of vishuddha temple.

we also seem to have found our voice. i've just been sort of puking up all over the page up until now. [no, folks, it hasn't even been as pretty as that.] but now i've found shiva's narrative voice. what i'm gonna have to do is go back through it and fix some stuff so it sounds more like him. course, the POV seems to be getting further and further away from shiva's head as i go along, but that may be a good thing. at first, when he doesn't remember who he is, there's a lot on his mind, but as he progresses and starts remembering his mission, there's not much to think about. of course until he actually does remember his whole mission. then there's gonna be hell to pay, coz there is no way under the stars that he's gonna agree to do it. ...wonder how i'm gonna force his hand...

today's total? a whopping 21035! whoo-hoo!
28965 to go. by this time tomorrow, i'll have more novel already written than i'll have not yet written. also, if you have a few minutes, you should read the exerpt of the story of the guy who challenged me to that race from yesterday. it's pretty funny. giant pandas? WHAT!?

[link]

day JUU-ICHI! oh yeah, oh yeah, oh oh, oh yeah. i am feeling good. 23,228 words. not quite as close to half-way as i'd imagined myself, but i'm still feeling good about it. always, just as i think i've come to the end of the plot, something shows up. sometimes it's krishna with, erm, shall we say an alternate route out of the temple, and sometimes it's brahma, come out of his self-imposed hermitage to steal the last of the damn elemental Baksas. prick.

today, shiva seems to have recovered most of his memories about his relationship w/ sarasvati. which of course led to a ... well, not exactly sex, but a sex scene. two of em. one close on the heels of the other, so that was nice. AH the liberating effect of not giving a shit about quality. you get up the courage to write things like sex scenes. course if you take a look at the nano boards, i'm not the only one getting up such courage. the sheer number of sex and rape and murder and etc etc transgressive questions on that forum is just scary. in particular, i point you to the thread that asks, how can you torture someone w/out leaving any marks? if you want some disturbing reading, here it is. the EXPERT: Firearms and Weapons thread has 1022 views and some 250 posts. there's a thread on decapitation. there's innumberable threads on rape. i counted no less than half a dozen broken bone threads, and at least that many "how to dispose of a murder weapon" threads. probably my favourite though asks, "I'm blowing up a distillery. Anyone got links or advice?" the problem has in fact advanced to the point where we ourselves are asking if perhaps there might be something horribly wrong w/ us. [link] it's pretty damn funny actually. i read this one post where a guy was asking how normal people got along in life w/out all these charas and plots and otherwise extraneous SHIT running through their heads. i think i feel more at home w/ this group of psychos than i have w/ any other group of psychos ever. these people are hysterical. and their parents are pretty funny too. one girl told her mom when asked how she was coming along, "Fine, but my hitman is scared of rats, someone is blowing up a lot more dig sites than I told them to and I need to find a really high calibre rifle." her mom's response? "Poor guy. Rats are cute."

day JUU-NI! finally. last yesterday, i sort of took the whole day off. but it's still the 12er, so it's more like i just took a nap before attempting the day's writing. an eight hour nap. oh well! i passed the half-way point! 25,525 words! YEE-HAW! i have more novel written than i have to write! and i skipped a little forward and wrote the entire ending. i was getting bored w/ the section i was on [not a good sign] and moved on. it turns out i now need to re-write large sections of the middle, coz those boxes i thought contained the elements? turns out they actually contain deities. go fig. anyhow, editing always seems to go faster for me than just raw writing, probably because i've got some idea of WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, so i'm hopeful. tonight however, i shall watch some anime and have a craft fest! i got some new embroidery floss at JoAnn's today, which i get to play around w/, and i found some fancy paper, so i'm hoping to make some very little books and put small cross-stitch designs on the covers. i'll post em of course if they turn out any good. also i've got a possibly second preset for michael to get on, and a definitely present for my littlest sister dana to cut out. it's a small stuffed dog. she's wanted one of those obnoxious little terrier dogs for like EVER, but since i would sooner kill one and eat it raw than allow one into this house w/out a major stink, i am making her a stuffed one. i bought some fur from JoAnn's. dana's at her second of this weekend's sleep overs, so i figure i've got the time.

25525 BABY!

day JUU-SAN and juu-yon as it turns out. 27735, and i'm not really done for the day. SWEET! i'm addicted! i bridged the gap to the ending today, and had to change a few things around, but i'm really happy w/ the result. if i liked this whole book as much as i like the ending, i'd be set. ...and i'd probably have a head the size of a small industrial nation. so i suppose it's really for the better that most of this thing blows chunks. but i do have an idea to puff up the word count a bit, namely a ceremony, clandestine, in which sara is given to shiva by vishnu. it's not exactly a marriage ceremony, but it will be based off of the hindu wedding ceremony. oh! which reminds me. i am a networking goddess. [also, the stupidest person alive.] i went to print off some stuff from wikipedia on hindu weddings [you really can find anything there.] and it wouldn't print. so i went through the little troubleshooting thing, and it turns out that my laptop was on its own private little network. too bad the printer was on another, slightly less private, network. so i got that fixed straight away. i'm hoping that also will fix my problem w/ winamp, namely that i'll play some songs from my other computer and then after a random interval, the song will stop playing and winamp will freeze. i'm thinking that's because windows is rechecking its network connections, and finds that, omigod, the songs aren't where it thought they were. anyhow, back to the story. [yes, thank you.] so tonight i'm gonna be designing a sort of consort ceremony, where sara is officially, clandestinely, made shiva's consort. that should give me a few hundred words at the least, and since shiva's gonna have it as a dream, i'll get to do the whole thing in present tense! i writing in present tense. it's so surreal and dream-like. hopefully, it'll send that big ol number in the "Words You Have Left" column straight down the tubes. 22733. eep! in other news, it turns out i really like writing Brahma. he's just so damn slimey! there really is nothing i like about that man, and so of course it's hella fun writing him. also vishnu. who knew vishnu was gonna turn out to be my favourite secondary character in the whole thing? course Krishna comes in a close second, and i suppose since they're technically the same person, they could share each other's points.

it's excerpt time! [oh god.]

.Recovery

Shiva stood stock still, trying to choke down his destructive urges. The wanton slaughter that might make him feel better would not help the situation. Several moments passed before he was able to speak. "Krishna," he told himself between clenched teeth. "Take care of Krishna."

He turned to find Krishna still lying on the floor, unmoved since being flung back there. He resembled the tapestries the monks had pulled from the walls. He didn't look injured, so Shiva kneeled down next to him and gently shook him. "Krishna?" Nothing. "Hey, are you going to wake up?"

Krishna moaned and held his hand up to his head. "Ugh. No." His eyes flew open as he remembered what had happened. "Where is he? I'll kill him."

"Get in line," Shiva said. "Are you alright?"

"No," said Krishna, sitting up. He let Shiva help him to his feet and took a few minutes to stop swaying. "Let's go."

"What? Where?"

Krishna's attempt at a grin was really more of a grimace. "Vishnu knows where they are."

Shiva held on to his arm and they both took a step forward. Muladhara temple's main sanctuary materialized in front of them. Krishna fell to the ground with a grunt, but waved off any help from Shiva. Sarasvati was nowhere to be found, but Brahma was sitting on the altar, dropping grapes into his mouth. "Get down from there," Shiva told him. "You're not that special."

"I rather think I am," Brahma replied, his voice dripping w/ pomposity. He didn't seem at all surprised by Shiva's appearance so soon after his own disappearance. "I'm told that you are having some difficulty remembering things."

"No, I remembered."

"Everything?" Brahma made the word sound like a threat.

"Everything," Shiva answered, in that same tone.

Brahma swung his legs around and leaned forward. "Including the fact that Sarasvati is my wife? Oh but I beg your pardon. Perhaps you never did know that."

"She's not your wife, she's your consort. There is a difference." When Brahma opened his mouth to object, Shiva interrupted him. "Including the fact that she should be able to leave whenever she wants. You are required to let her go."

"It is a tradition, not a law!"

Shiva's voice grew deep, cold. "Do not test me. I wrote that law."

Brahma jumped down from the altar. "She is mine," he growled. "She has always been mine, she will always be mine."

A voice belonging to a young man entered the conversation. "She will be nothing of the sort, Brahma." An ancient, wrinkled body hobbled into the sanctuary on an elegant darkwood staff, in direct contrast to the voice which emminated from it. This was Vishnu. He made his way over to Shiva and Brahma, standing directly in between them. "Took you long enough," he said, eyeing Shiva.

"I had a slight memory lapse."

"You suppressed your own memory," Vishnu accused him, "in the hopes of avoiding your duty." Next, Vishnu turned his wrath on Brahma. "And you. How long have you known where he was? And you didn't tell me. You even tried to restrict my access to my own incarnation! Krishna is part of my being, did you think that would work?"