Bite of God

[I started this story years ago, and have worked on it off and on since then. The last stint was quite a while back, but I've pulled it off the brick that houses all the stuff that's been dumped off of two dead computers now. I've always liked the characters in it - though I may end up renaming half of them (Bane and Morningstar, particularly; we'll see). This is the first go-through (in chunks) of stuff that needs more substantial re-writing than I've had a chance to give it, but I've at least cleaned up most of the really messy stuff from my teenage years. Oh man.]

Aurrin locked eyes with Banen, his gaze reluctant as he met hers from across the pandemonium of the hall. She still stood framed by the door, having just entered, slightly late, filled with silent terror and fury. Unheeding of Morningstar's meandering crowd of peon's and couriers, she cut through the loose crowd of people directly toward him. Bane stiffened, evading the brush of her shoulder as she settled into the place at his side. The aura of entitlement that she carried around her form made Banen bristle; she was determined that they would take this mission together, and that it would would help to clear the obstacles they’d happened upon as lovers. Aurrin and Banen had met working together, and it was too that element she wished to be returned. ( Read more... )

Drifter

[Second chunk, BY THE WAY there's a fair bit of swearing in this one. I might make mention that the whole Skin Game story contains some adult themes, though I haven't gotten into writing a lot about them yet. I'm not very good at keeping a general appraisal of that but, on a general basis, the audience I consider when I'm writing things unless I'm specifically writing for something else is an audience of adults.]

“Why do you do this to yourself?” Banen’s voice shook beneath his mask of purity, his mask of neutral quiet. She felt it in her flesh, felt it as his breast trembled, the air pushed forth from the exhalation of the words unsteady. He was angry. He was hurt. Aishling relished it, as much as she was able.
( Read more... )

Adding to the list:

I've also started working on Skin Game again, which I haven't looked at in a couple of years. I'll try to keep up with posting the re-write as I go in an attempt to keep track of it... eek. This is oooold. But I like this character; really all of them. They're a fun little group to write about, specially since they're all trying to eat eachother alive.

It was originally conceived by my teenage self to be a story about a powerful vampire (Baronir Calthan, as mentioned here) and and organization of pseudo-divine hunters/slayers/whatever. Now, even then, I had enough sense to be doing it with a little more interest (if I may say so myself) than... I necessarily could have been. It's always been more about a character thing than an archetype thing, or whatever. Unfortunately, I can't escape the feeling that Buffy and Anita Blake have really done it in on this front, and I never really got to any of the particularly interesting bits that would have set this story apart from that (no disrespect, I just don't want to write those stories over again). So... my thoughts are leaning toward changing the whole business of Calthan and his posse being vampires. Aurrin, Bane, Morningstar, and the rest are still going to be, as it were, celestial (Asthetim, particularly, which is another thing entirely I've been playing with over the last couple of years as a world-building thing but we don't need to get into that here and now, I haven't ironed out all their kinks yet). Ash is still just your good old human junkie. But what do I make the bad guy? And why are we expending such an effort to hunt him down? It's not like my 'protagonists' are a set of the most savory people in general. The other Asthetim I've set up to write about (a story called the Summer Prophets which is still in the unsuccessful brewing phase) are evil as shit. And besides, even when it was going to be angels vs. vampires or whatever, my goal was for it not to be a struggle of 'good' against 'evil', once the day was done.

I think I have too much going on; I'm feeling a little guilty about the division of my attention especially among the writing projects >.