(Warning: spell check was not working. I tried to correct as many as I could see, but lord knows how remain.)
The mornings have been so nice that I've been keeping the doors wide open, letting the cool fresh air pour into the rooms.
I forced myself to sit down and make out a timeline for the third section of Torii. Now at least I know what scenes go where and when.
I think it's funny that when I was writing Ceallach and the story grew into hundreds of pages, I worried that I'd lose control of the characters and be unable to manage all that amount of story. But it is scary, the first time, to try and do that.
I never worry about that anymore; I'm too busy actually managing it. And Ceallach was so easy, its time span was just over a year and only two characters were truly dynamic. I had only two cultures to manage and only one plot line.
Torii spans twelve years and almost all the characters are dynamic. I have four worlds, each impacting the other. The Spirit Realm alone has two distinct geographical regions, each with their own native populations, cities, weather systems, habits and widely varying cultures.
I have a main plot line, I have a secondary plot line and I have a shadow third plot line, and each of them winds in and out of the different worlds, touching on each of the characters in different ways at different times.
Sometimes I think I'm trying to force two or even three stories into one. But I need all three plot lines for the story to work. I need Gilly's plot as the story's main emotional engine, I need Tenshio's story as the framework that holds the engine in place, and I need Gilly's parent's story to provide contrast and counterpoint to all the fantasy.
I think. I have to finish the damn thing before I know for sure.
I don't even know how long Torii is, because I keep it in four different documents, for ease of editing. Actually, now I'm curious; I think it's around a hundred thousand. Yeah, it's one hundred eleven thousand words, and I have pages and pages yet to write. The last few scenes will be extensive.
I think I'm going to keep my next story very simple.
I was rereading some of Ceallach this morning, and my characters were so limber, so expressive. It was like looking into a fish bowl and instead of seeing a goldfish, I saw little, fully formed people busily going about their interesting lives, oblivious to me. It was just so interesting.
Anyway, enough of this. I have to try and get back into the scene where Gilly gets her period. Ugh.
