Brains?

I may be slowly returning to life. I was sent home from work yesterday for being dead--that may be discriminatory, but at the time I didn't care. I woke up generally pain free this morning, and that's a plus. The train seems to be leaving the land of Debilitating Illness, passing through the Realms of Phlegm, and hopefully heading for cheerier climes.

No wordcount in days, sadly. Yesterday I wielded the obsidian dagger of editing without mercy, and excised at least 1000 useless words from chapters 8 and 9. I'm sure I thought the words had purpose when I wrote them, but damned if I know what that was now.

Of course, since chapters 15 and 16 are what I'm working on now, that's not so impressive.

The boy is gone for the week, so it's just me and the kjittens. While I lie in bed and moan, the kjittens run amok. They're slowly disemboweling the papasan cushion. Every day sees more white stuffing carnage strewn around the living room.

Wow, I'm boring when not writing. But we already knew that.

Characters are weeeeeird.

As I languished the past few days unable to write coherently (I did try; it came out poorly), I amused my sad little brain by trying to build a world for some old characters of mine. They once lived in a piece of GEF juvenalia I started in high school and worked on for 7 years before trunking. (OWWers might know this piece o' crap as Falling Towers.) A handful of characters survived the trunk by insisting very loudly and eloquently that they were cooler than the book I'd given them, and they deserved a second chance.

So I'm trying to build them a world. So far it has dragons, trains, guns, swords, goblins, maybe some werewolves, and lots and lots of zombies. And some lurking Lovecraftian horror, for good measure. Oh, and vampires. Because everyone needs vampires. And horned, omnivorous horses. Whee! (No plot in sight, though.)

Anyway, the weird bit is Adam and Isyllt. These two have lived in my brain in one incarnation or other for 10 years, and never been remotely interested in each other. Now they're shooting Significant Glances at each other all over the place. I wasn't yet convinced about the train, but they demanded it. I'm pretty sure they just want a place to make out on the way from Eidrasil to Erisin. I just wish they'd tell why they're going to Erisin in the first place.

So maybe after the King of Moths I'll write some Norse steam-punk.