In case you were wondering, it was about forty five minutes from Joe's office until he got to the bar. He's got an extensive colorful vocabulary.

I definitely didn't expect Billy to be broken like this. When I figured I needed this chapter I was expecting a confrontation between he and Joe, with lots of yelling and the odd punch thrown. I was going to have Joe phone in to Steve after it was done, but I don't have to.

And yeah, I was actually tempted to have Billy be already dead. Shades of Sixth Sense -- "I drink with dead people!"

Joe may well end up adopting Stephanie, I'm not sure. I didn't think so a while back, but then I didn't expect her to play any part in the story, or be a relative, or anything. It may complicate the sequel, if there is one.

Oh, well, gotta get to the end of this one first. Shouldn't be too much longer.

1. I really like the depressed brother. It's more complicated. I also like the way he reacted to news of Joe being gay. I'm not sure about the mom's dialog.

2. I told you Joe was going to adopt Stephanie.

3. I'm not surprised, somehow, that Billy has a connection to the murderer that isn't (directly) accomplice.

4. I don't like the Little People reference: it seems a little precious, and this story is anything but precious.

Wow, again!

A completely different side to Joe; and Billy's not how I imagined him either.

What I'm really looking forward to is reading this front to back, when it's complete. I've got so much going on in RL, that I'm finding it hard to keep a track of all the threads you've woven.

And, I can't believe this is going to be finished soon. You've so much going on that if you give it the treatment it deserves it must be twice as long, at least ... surely?

Lesse here:

1) Mom's dialog was modeled after a couple I had the dubious pleasure of sitting near on the bus a few months back. It needs work, I'm sure -- it's a way of treating people, especially your own kids, I just can't wrap my head around well.

I'm not sure what's going to hapen to Billy yet. I'd kill him off in prison, but that's kind of cliche.

2)

3) The connection is entirely after the fact. He didn't when I killed off Stephanie's family. Heck, she wasn't even Joe's niece at that point. I needed a thread to tie all the murders together with, and he was convenient. Poor Billy. (Which reminds me, I need to get more info in about the original set of murders that started this all off, as well as on the hiker that got killed)

4) I need to choose another euphemism, then. Joe's Nan told him old stories of the Fae -- selkie and changelings and elfshot, and all that goes with them -- and one thing they're not is precious. Arrogant, nasty, vicious, amoral, powerful, and capricious, sure, but not precious.

A completely different side to Joe; and Billy's not how I imagined him either.

Yeah, everyone's got a surprise of sorts in them. You'd not expect, from first impressions, that Joe came from a lower-class background, nor that his family's as pickled as they've turned out to be. There's a reason for it, and it's the same reason that Chris' parents both drank, and I just realized that's more stuff that I haven't actually gotten out in text. Dammit! And I've left out all the stuff about both of Chris' grandfathers.

Joe tries really hard not to slip into his past. He's got a good job, nice apartment, good clothes, a nice car, and besides being desperately lonely in waves until he met Alex, doing well.

What I'm really looking forward to is reading this front to back, when it's complete. I've got so much going on in RL, that I'm finding it hard to keep a track of all the threads you've woven.

 

And, I can't believe this is going to be finished soon. You've so much going on that if you give it the treatment it deserves it must be twice as long, at least ... surely?

Yeah, it's clocking in at ~46K words (Nearly 7K this weekend, and I still bought legos, went grocery shopping, cleaned, and did laundry. Woo! ) and will probably hit 60K by the time the first draft is done. It may well double after the full first draft editing pass.

I'm looking forward to it being done, if for no other reason than I've been listening to Carbon Leaf a lot lately and "Life less ordinary" has been knocking on the side of my brain demanding another romantic short get written. That and some day soon I really need to do the final polish pass on Dirty Basement done, then there are sand pirates and evil serpent queens, and...

I don't suppose anyone's got a can of Plot Bunny Be-Gone handy? The damn things are breeding...

Who did you buy the legos for?

A 200-page paperback novel is, by the way, 80,000 words, more or less, if the pages are about 400 words. That can vary a lot.

The legos were for the kids -- my apartment's a bit lacking in interesting stuff to do. A couple of buckets of generic brick pieces can be awfully fun, and most of the sets these days are all special-purpose, and you can't do all that much with them.

I'm hoping the story stays under 110K when it's all done. That'd be good. Who knows, maybe I'll take out the sex scenes and shop around for rejection letters...

The legos were for the kids -- my apartment's a bit lacking in interesting stuff to do. A couple of buckets of generic brick pieces can be awfully fun, and most of the sets these days are all special-purpose, and you can't do all that much with them.

 

I'm hoping the story stays under 110K when it's all done. That'd be good. Who knows, maybe I'll take out the sex scenes and shop around for rejection letters...

You don't have to take out the sex scenes. I think you're on to something here. (as I told Dom) not every good online story is also a potentially good print story, but this one strikes me as being one that could go that way. Have you read Michael Nava? There are some other authors whose names are not fighting their way out of the middle-aged ooze in my head at the moment, but a trip to the bookstores downtown will jog my memory. I'll get back to you. (The advantage of living in a college town is that you get to have multiple large bookstores, mostly independent ones, with lots of category fiction as well as the literary stuff)

Generic legos are just about the best toy -- when my kids were little we accumulated a double bushel-basket worth. In those days the specialized legos were not so prominent or even so specialized, so getting a few sets and mixing them in with generic ones worked really well. Though my nephew (I almost wrote "little" nephew, but he's 22!) always got the specialized sets, made the main model on the cover of the box, and then kept the model like that forever, which always puzzled my kids (and me).

I've never read Michael Nava -- I'll have to go poke around the stacks and see if there's anything lurking at Borders or Barnes and Noble. They're mysteries, right? Hrm, there's supposed to be a really good mystery bookstore in the village. May have to wander down there after work one of these days and see what there is to see.

Gotta agree about the generic legos. The specialty sets are okay as a bit of extra, something to build spaceships or whatever with, but you need a good foundation to build with. I've got about a cubic foot of brick, so I think I'm good for a while.