I am writing a Charles short story.  I have 700 words so far, and I love it.  It's something I've been kicking around in my head for a few weeks, and I'm so, so pleased to have started it now.  

Best part: it's sort of a response to something I'm working through in talk therapy, so in a strange way it's like I'm getting to do a scene with Charles.  Which is absolutely, incredibly fun.

 But the words are coming, so I don't care.  

Well, okay, I care.  It must be the new thing, post holy-shit-last-fall-what-the-fuck, whatever that whole thing did to my writing psyche, that I feel moderately dazed while I write, that it feels insane and all over.  But honestly, there is NO PLOT HERE.  Nada.  None.  It's nothing but nonsense, and so much of it is UTTER DRECK.  If Charles smiles one goddamn more time, I'm going to choke him.  I mean, the flan scene was great, but this is just weird.  

But they're sitting on a star, wondering who made them.  So it's hard to be too pissed off.

Also, talk about cast of four billion.  Holy hell.  Some of these people have to fold into one another.  Somehow.  

The music du jour, however, is Enigma.  Big props to youngdaniel  for saying, "Hey, you knew they had a new album this fall, right?"  because I didn't, and it is fabulous, and I have it now.  I have had an Enigma renaissance, in fact.  Aurel, though, has his own mix.  It's very epic and optimistic and full of hope, with little dark edges.  Right now I am in the middle of this huge sequence where it's he and Charles, talking and talking and talking.  And riding golden dragons to the stars.  (Dan, it was too good not to use.  But no lotus yet.)

It drives me nuts how the story contradicts itself, though.  One minute somebody knows something, then they don't, and then . . . I don't know. Crack.  This book is on meth, crack, speed, and it guzzles whiskey, too. With champagne chasers.

I just don't know.  It's so weird.  It feels like absolute nonsense, end to end.  And yet I keep showing up and birthing another set of three thousand words.

Okay, then.

I love him.  I love him, love him, love him, love him.

I wrote him for the first time today.  He opens the story.  He is as Charlesish as ever.  He is wonderful.  He flew out of me like breath from my lungs.

He nearly destroyed the world with a flan, then saved it with a kiss.

I have 17,123 words on day three.

I love Charles. I love, love, love, love Charles.

I officially have two of the three acts of the completely and totally revamped THE WITCH'S APPRENTICE, formerly A TOUCH OF STEEL.  Generally, I am tired, confused, and surprised, but also very quietly happy.

I don't know about the fencing stuff.  I think that will be in book two, which is one of the surprises, both that there will be a book two with a lot of Madeline and Jonathan and that the fencing will be there.  I always thought the fencing was part of the building back trust, and I think it still is, but it turns out that like any good partnership, hooking up is just the beginning.  Since Madeline is SO much more resistant in this version, it makes sense that they hook up here somewhat tentatively and largely because of an extreme crisis; while they really do form a partnership and erase a lot of the old hurts, they by no means are sitting on a veranda sipping tea and trading newspaper headlines from here on out, so I suppose.

The bondage stuff is so still in there.  So fans of that can relax.  Also, I am personally fangeeking over the spellcasting stuff, which probably means it is over the top and too much, but I'm having a ball writing it.

It really, really is Charles's book, but he's really just the spearhead of the theme, which I wish I could tell you about but I still don't know.  There is something about androgyny, but it's not really that.  That's just part of it.  Definitely it's about change, but that's so generic I don't know why I bring it up. 

I do not yet know what the damn plot is.  I blame the ghost monks.  They are clearly going to tell me only at the last minute.

The second draft polish is going to need more than just a buffing cloth, but I'm at peace with that.  I'm not going to wait as long as I originally thought, either.  I'm going to get act three down, collapse and drink a bottle of wine by myself and probably bawl, because it's what I do, and then I will garden or paint for a few days, then dive in there and get gritty.  And then I have no idea.

But I am in act three, and I will be heading to the end shortly.  So on it goes.  Four more chapters, maybe with a short coda one on the end.  Because while I like twelve, something in me says there should be a thirteen.  But maybe not.  I'm sure the ghost monks know and just won't tell me.

The other thing that I am sort of going "huh!" over is that I am realizing that this is completely, utterly, entirely, not a romance.  At all.  There are many love stories, and I bet it could be marketed as one if someone was determined, but it is not a romance story.  It's not really a fantasy story, either, but it might be a fairy tale.  I would like it to be a fairy tale, but right now I will settle for "it is a novel" and be quietly content.

New icon--that's Katya.  (Well, Natalie Portman, but you know how this works by now.)  Used because in addition to Charles waltzing all over the plot of Madeline's story, I tried to make cookies today and ended up frozen over the kitchen sink as a perfect, crystalline opening to the Katya/Charles story downloaded into my brain.  And you know, I went with it, because I knew it would be heady and rich and deliciously taboo, not just because that's what Charles and Katya are but because I knew it was verbotten to switch to a different story.  I did it anyway, and it wasn't a switch--I'll write another scene from TWA before bed, if not two.  It's all good. 

Writing was, too.  It was like having a different bed partner for the night--new moves, new twists, everything fresh and wonderful because my brain has not been gnawing at it like a rabid thing.  I'm enjoying a little bit of afterglow, listening to the wrong soundtrack and watching a few scenes unfold in my mind, letting it ripple and sway, and then in a few minutes I'll switch back, and it will be done again for now.

I think it's so good because it's so wrong.  There is at the very least one book between TWA and Charles and Katya, at least, and so much of this story I don't know.  Except this story, like none other, just writes itself.  I just sit back and dictate.  I reread the other scene I took down from dictation last time, and my jaw was on the floor.  I don't remember writing half of it, and there's this made up foreign language in there that I was just impressed as hell by, and then I realized I had written that.  God, that's a fantastic scene.  I have absolutely no idea what it means.  The one I wrote tonight isn't as wowza pow! but still has lots of OMG COOL in it, like all this magic stuff Charles does, and he just does it, and I'm thinking, well, neat!  How and why are you doing this?  Which is of course why there are several books between.  The only thing I know is that he gets his head cut off.  That's IT.  That's absolutely all I know.

This is the statue I put on the side of the document while I wrote.  It's not the right statue, but it had the right emotion for the scene.  Statues are VERY VERY important in this story.  VERY VERY. 



I will say that it's a real treat--and I mean it--to write Charles three/four/whatever books out and then go back to the beginning.  I'm starting to wonder if every damn book about Etsey will be about him, sort of like Miles Vorkosigan.   Well, the mermaid one won't be.  Still.  I suspect he'll show up or be referenced.  But he is so fascinating.  I've never seen a character like him, and I'm not tooting my horn here.  Charles always just walked on--I never created him at all.  In fact, I have to work to get out of his way, because he wants a harder road than I'd ever give him.  He's so my favorite.  I'm just going to give in and admit that.

Katya's not bad, either.  I don't understand her yet, but I'll say this--Charles is a really tough character to match a mate to without making them tragic or little more than a foil or stock, but she is really, really rising to the challenge.

The only frustrating thing is that those scenes are so cool, but I won't be able to share them with anybody for years.  YEARS.  Though I admit I am increasingly tempted to ruin carylerg and show them to her, because she's Charles's biggest fan and has been less and less subtly saying LET ME READ SOMETHING, and here I am wanting to show somebody. It's just cruel, though, because they're really out of sync, and worse, if she liked them, it'd be years before she got any resolution, and knowing me, I'd change it all.  I like her too much for that.

Sigh.  Writing really is a lonely profession.

Good thing I have Katya and Charles to keep me company.

I think I just found out why I got invaded by that story.  If I'm right, it relates to the one I'm writing right now.

May I just take this moment to say, WOW.  I never saw that coming.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out.  If it does, or if I'm just on crack today.

Don't mind me.  I'm just talking to myself all over the internet.  But you know what?  The muses really do know what they're doing.

And Katya is good, but she's SCARY.

Yay!

This started when carylerg mentioned she was looking for new music.  I surfed my last.fm charts, tossing recommendations at her, and then trolled the recommendations the site was giving me, because I realized I was searching, too.  I had hovered over Sarah Brightman, but I thought, no.  I like some of her stuff, but Symphony decidedly didn't do it for me at all.  It was a bummer, too, because I'd really wanted to love that album.  I'm realizing, though, that I don't much like her voice.  I like her music stylizations sometimes, but not on that album.  Last.fm had a recommendation for someone else, though, someone similar to Sarah B: Emma Shapplin.

I. Am. In. Love.



Well, let's be more specific.  Charles is in love.  He has miles to go before I get to his story, but every time I write him, his story pops up.  It's interesting, because while Charles ends up with Katya in the end, he is not particular in the gender department and at the moment in the story I'm writing he's chasing tenors every chance he gets, seeking vengeance over an old love (female), and entering into a dangerous and ill-fated affair with his enemy's batman.  He ends up with Katya, though--not for several stories in, but he ends up with her all the same.  Except every time I think I know who Katya is, she morphs on me again.  I had her cast as Nicole Kidman, but that didn't work.  I could make it work in collages, but it never lasted in my head.  And worse, I never heard her.  I didn't know what she sounded like, and Katya is music.  That was a problem. 

Ever since I moved the ATOS/Charles world out of the real world and into an alternate one, Katya has been even worse.  Given the new arc path Charles has been put on, I knew she would have to be something very intense by the time Charles found her--she was going to have to be magical, or something similar.  I've known for awhile what she was, and I'm not telling, except to say this: she can shift herself into different people, and she's already been dead.  For a very, very long time.  And I think, but am not sure, that she creates herself to be what she thinks Charles wants.  And today Charles said, "I want her to be Emma Shapplin."

I'm actually writing near to constantly these days, which is why all the blogs.  It's like I dump all the extra energy here; though in a few moments I have to go be in the real world and do very grounding things, such as mop the kitchen floor because we are sticking to it when we walk.

But as I'm catching up on a few messages and things before I go do that (and admittedly will try to sneak in another twenty-five words or so) I am listening to the playlist I have called "Alchemal Charles," and it is so doing it for me today.  And the song "Pater Noster" by Magna Canta just came on, and it makes me so damn happy I could hug myself.  I always see Charles directing it on the stage of his opera house in Prague, or what will be the Heidi makeover of Prague in the alternate world I've made.

It's just so wonderful.  Here.  Have a listen.

Back to work.

The Girls have gone wild.  I finally gave in and started to write down the scenes from The Bastard of the Opera that just won't shut up, and I keep bouncing from editing Charles in ATOS to working on BOTO.  I think I started that on about Thursday actually writing out scenes.

I have 63 manuscript pages.

DAMN.

And can I say -- Charles and Katya are FUN to write.  They could banter for days. 

Though I forgot what a workout this sucker is.  I can't work without less than three firefox windows open -- I have to have the liberetto to Don Givoanni  open, a window for "Behind the Name", and an email loop so I can keep firing questions at my Russian SIL.  And clearly I need to make friends with someone who speaks Italian.  And German, but that's for my sister in Vienna.  I'm also going to need Czech.

I'd say this sucker is going to take years to write, and I think that will still hold, but apparently the DLDD is interested in being burped out this weekend.  Which is nice BUT DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE OTHER TWO, GIRLS!  Please.  Because I'm so close on ATOS.  I'm stuck on the last sequence on fixing Charles.  And I'm still staring at the shell grotto on the sea story's collage.  I must really need those books coming from amazon.co.uk, because the Girls have totally closed the book on that sucker for now.

Except it makes so much sense that I'm trying to fix Charles where he's a secondary character and so I get downloads for the story where he's the main.  Though my family has got to think I'm cracked, because I'm walking around murmuring the Italian from Don Giovanni.  Anna likes it, though.  We sang "Batti, Batti" on the way to dance class.  I didn't tell her she was singing, "beat me, beat me, dear Masetto" in Italian.

And Caryle?  You are going to wet yourself over Charles.  I'm just saying.

Meanwhile, I've got to be dropping blog audience in buckets because I can't shut up about this stuff.  Well, I suppose.

Well, with all this business with Charles, I knew it was inevitable.  Today I went to the library and checked out the original cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera.  Those of you who have already heard TPOTO rant may just want to turn away now, unless you just enjoy the rants, and then by all means stay.

Except, I figured out today why this sucker sends me so completely and utterly around the bend.  And I'm sorry to say, it's the chick.  Christine.  Christine must die.

Well, I know she does at the end -- at least, of the movie.  I don't know how the musical differed.  I do know that I can do the musical cast recording a lot better than I can do the movie.  One, the people in the musical could actually sing, and the Phantom is a lot scarier and stalkerish, even just in his voice, than poor Gerard Butler is in the movie.  But Christine had totally got to die.  And I'm going to kill her.  She's going into the opera story, and she is so completely toast.  Except, of course, she's not just going to die.  She's going to be erased and obliterated.  She's going to need flying buttresses for antagonists, but she's so going to be the antagonist.

Here's the deal.  Christine is cute little button-nosed nobody with a fairly good voice whose Dear Father died.  I enjoyed it in the movie where Dear Father had enough money to buy himself one hell of a crypt, but he left Christine to the foundling routine in the chorus.  Nice dad.  But I digress.  Christine is kind of ho-hum, pretty cute, yeah, probably destined to have low-end affairs with low-end gentry if she's really, really lucky, and maybe she'll work her way to the front of the chorus, but that's the best she's going to get.

Enter the stalker!  I love the Phantom.  He's such a beautiful mess.  He's a brilliant freak, but he is, at his heart, a freak.  A very beautiful freak.  However, tragically stupid.  Because he fell in love with the dippy shit button-nose and taught her everything he knew, made her huge, and even killed so she could have everything she wanted. He ruined tons of other lives so she could be the star she knew she was always meant to be.  THAT'S devotion.

But is she grateful?  No.  She bats her eyes at the sexy former playmate, who never did a damn thing for her but have picnics in the attic.  He is, however, sane and pretty, so I guess she's got a point there.  And she even has a period where she could claim she thought he was a cute little angel of music just like Dear Father said.  Except everybody says, "Dude, that's so cracked" and then he carries on like the most INCREDIBLE stalker ever and drags her down to the misty cellar full of candles and, seriously, does the best obsessed stalker routine ever.  EVER.  He totally wins the prize.  And she still lets him carry on, encourages him, sings the substitute-for-sex duet and basically mindfucks the bastard. 

Then she caves.  CAVES.  She has a perfectly perfect insane sexy do-anything-for-you stalker and she turns him over for a guy who says: 

No more talk of darkness/Forget these wide-eyed fears.
I'm here, nothing can harm you - my words will warm and calm you.
Let me be your freedom,/let daylight dry your tears.
I'm here with you, beside you/to guard you and to guide you...

Let me be your shelter/let me be your light.
You're safe:/No-one will find you -
your fears are far behind you...

So, basically, he's going to take care of everything and put her in a box.  Guard and guide her.  Oh, that's just lovely.  Let me get you a house in the burbs, baby, and wrap you in an apron and get you a pair of high heels.  And she's no better. 

Say you love me every waking moment,/turn my head with talk of summertime...
Say you need me with you now and always...
Promise me that all you say is true - that's all I ask of you...

All I want is freedom,/a world with no more night...
and you, always beside me,/to hold me and to hide me...

Basically, "Oh, yes, now that I have everything I ever wanted, don't let Rumplestiltskin collect!  He's so bad!  He gives me everything I want, and then he wants me to keep my end of the bargain!  Save me from my pact with the devil, because I so did not KNOW he was a BAD devil.  I swear, I was sure he was the Angel of Music!"

Please.

But this is great stuff for Charles.  He is so the Phantom.  And, thanks to Madeline, at the end of ATOS, he's even got a scar.  No mask for my boy, though.   I am going to give him an opera house, but now I"ve decided.  I'm giving him a CHristine.  Because really, that's what he wants.  He's the idiot phantom chasing the vapid bitch who will break his heart.  Madeline actually tries to save him, but he doesn't learn, which would mean, karmically, he's going to get worse before it gets better. 

And really, I"m loving this.  Katya's the real deal, Perdita X from Pratchett's version, except she's not Rubenesque.  She is so, also, going to call Charles an "insolent boy" and tell him he's a "slave of passion."  Katya's the chick the Phantom should have gone for.  She'd have let somebody kill for her.  Hmm.  Matter of fact, that's always been in there. 

Oh, this is good.  WAY TOO DAMN EARLY BECAUSE I HAVE OTHER STUFF TO WRITE, but it's good stuff.  Because the thug Charles kills will look like the antagonist, but the real demon's Christine, the bitch who wants to make him pay because he turned from her to go to Katya.  And sorry to say, Chrissie baby, but Katya can kick your ass.

Also, the opera story has Letizia.  God, but I miss her.

So, this is why I get cranky.  Because I've got the last little bits of ATOS to do, TKOTS to fricking FINISH, and then this beating on my brain.   And this isn't even bringing up the farm story. 

Then, toss on top of all of this, early menopause and adrenal fatigue and a thyroid on the waiting list to konk out.  Well, I guess I'm not bored.

You know, though, I just love the cheesy eighties synth in this sucker.  My heart beats faster at that overture. 

"Sing, my angel of music!"  Oh, baby, I will sing for you any day, you poor crazy sap.  And you can kill anybody in my way you like.  Go for it.  I am so giving you a happy ending and a much better heroine. 

God, what a wet bitch that Christine is.

There was interesting stuff this weekend, namely the mother-daughter day at Adventureland, but I can't seem to get a blog out of it, because all I want to talk about this morning is Charles.  Well, it's either that or whine about being perimenopausal and tired again, and even I'm getting sick of that business.  So, Charles it is.

This is Charles.



Very well, it's Ewan McGregor, but he does a very good Charles. 

Here are old versions of Charles.  The first, which died out long ago:



And then this is the one that's currently on the collage, which, when he doesn't look like Ewan McGregor, is pretty much on:
 

Charles is a secondary character in A Touch of Steel.  He's going to get his own story, currently known either as The Bastard of the Opera or just "the opera story."  It's set in Prague.  I ache to write that story, but there's this backlog of stuff in the way, and I can't seem to get there.  Charles is great.  Charles is wicked and kind, selfish and selfless.  He's so much fun in my head.  The only problem is I really don't think he's there on the page, not like he should be.

I wake up nights panicked that Charles isn't right on the page.  So much so that while Cornwall deep-penetrates in The Kiss of the Sea I'm going to go back and look critically at ATOS and check for Charles.  The thing is, Charles is supposed to be a foil to Jonathan.  He's all id, he's charm on the surface but a mess underneath.  He's the shadow twin, really.  He's Spike to Jonathan's Angel.  He's so huge, and I think I step on him. 

The thing is, it's not like I'm thinking I'll go in and rewrite like insanity, and probably if anything is added it'll be a scene or two, but the tweaking has got to be there, especially in his POV scenes.  He's throwaway, I think, right now, and that makes me crazy.  He deserves better than that.

I think I dreamt about the story last night, except it had the ocean in it so maybe it was TKOTS instead.  Except I got up and wrote all this stuff about seduction and finding your true self, which is so ATOS. 

Charles in ATOS isn't bittersweet enough.  He really gets put through the wringer, partly by his own efforts, but he's got to have more.  I want people to ache for Charles, to be dying for him to get his own story, and I know I"m not getting that out there right now.  I'm pulling punches.  Gotta stop that.  Because right now he's almost two-dimensional in places, but he's so much more than that.  He's my Charles, who lives to steal the scene.  And really, I could have even  more push if I used him right.

Oh, dear Charlie.  Today is your day.  And your Katya is just around the corner.