under the benediction of the neon lights

Just submitted to Samhain EPublishing!

& I may be in the coldest place on Earth. Immensely beautiful, but cold.

A rural mental health placement was so most definitely not what I had in mind this session. I am not a country girl. Granted I’m not a city girl either. I’m suburbia. Green spaces but with the shops not too far away. Where I am now is 4 ½ hours from where I usually live. I live on the coast & can see mountains whenever I lift my head. Right now I’m way out west & all I can see is open space. The town is about three streets wide, but they’re gorgeous old buildings built in the 1930’s and still perfectly maintained. I should have some photos to post soon!

My plan for the next 2 weeks is thus: work on assignments. It’s Day 2 and I haven’t even opened my uni folder yet. I will though. I swear. Pinkie promise. I also wanted to update everything & that I have actually followed through on from this blog post to my fanfic. And my last thing was to write. While supposedly paying attention on the ward today I could hear Santangelo rattling around in my head.

I did spend some of yesterday working on Unction, the first in my Guardians series. It was really interesting because what came out on the paper wasn’t what I’d thought would come out on the paper. My main character appears to be much more human than I’d intended. Perhaps it’s a direct response to Ronnie Hall? I kind of love her already. Don is yet to appear but the Guardians kind of put themselves in a Prologue when I’d never intended them to have one.

Stephen King – of whom I speak too much about – talked about over-plotting in On Writing, which I thought was really interesting. He mentioned how he thought writing should never be over plotted because it became more like an instruction manual and lost some of its heart. I particularly loved how he spoke about characters coming to life and doing magic on the page, how he enjoyed writing because he could watch it happen firsthand. He said that when you write, you’re the first reader. I truly believe that. Santangelo is a blessing for me to write because I don’t plot him, I don’t do anything. He just turns up and rocks the Kasbah. Unction started off completely differently to how I thought but I love the way it’s going. It makes much more sense and somehow manages to explain the paranormal set up without going “It’s the year 2010 and...” Let the muse play!