Death And Homecoming

During the last few days I've been revising the Friends section in my book. It has taken me quite a while because when I initially wrote it I didn't have the characters defined at all. I defined them while writing about them and, obviously, now there's a lot of stuff that no longer makes sense or is contradictory.
But I am close to the finish line! I can see it looming in the horizon!

I've realised as well that some of the stuff here actually belongs to another section but that's something easily solved.

Today I was focussing on quite a few of the friends.
Paula and her relationship with his parents, coming to life via what her parents have to say about the situation.
Rita's relationship with her mom, also steming from her reaction to a chat she's had with Cristina (just returned from the funeral).
How the news of his death are released onto the group of friends.
And finally, a broad view of the various parents and their children while uncovering Cristina's feelings about the whole ordeal.

All of these chapters focus much more on dialogue (with minimal visual description) than in internalized monologue, heavy on description.

I still need to finish Cristina's chapter. I don't think I'm gonna write (or re-write, rather) a long chapter for João. I think I'll stick to the one page one that I did today. We'll find out more about what he feels later on anyway.
Maybe I'll do a kind of a meddley chapter for Tomás, Rui and António.
maybe.
But, if so, it will be a short one as well. Maybe a paragraph for Tomás and a page for each of the other two.
And maybe I'll end it (or do another one, also a page, page and a half long) with a brief description of what every one of his friends does in that first night after knowing that he is dead.
Maybe... I've just looked at what I had written and there's some stuff there that I enjoy so...~

Still have another chapter, this one about Paulo, but I don't know if I'm gonna use it or not. It's quite strong but I don't really know if it's necessary at this point or not...

Anyway, that's all for today!

peace.

Inside a Car the World Melts

This is what happens inside the first chapter that I was working on today. A boy and a girl, inside a car, facing the sea, in a cold january night. Politics, fueled by isolation and intimacy turn into sensual overflow.

The second chapter of today dealt with another of the main character's friends. Here it's the mood enhancers and the momentum of going for a night out that carries a dialogue of quasi stream of consciousness throughout.
But there's also a girl with golden grey eyes.
Very much in need of affection.
Just like the boy.

There was a chapter in between these two but its content actually did not belong to this section and so I transferred it to the section dubbed Amigos (or Friends)

The final chapter was actually broken in two. The first part also belongs to the Friends section. I reworked it so that it could be easily included there and more or less re-wrote the other part so that it fits inside this section: Campa (or Grave)

I also read another comic. Scalped vol. 1 Indian Country. By Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra. Quite enjoyed it even though I wasn't really in the mood for a gritty crime story... I also wrote a review for it. Also to be published on the GNRG webpage at some point in the future.

I wrote a couple of posts but one is still on draft mode. It's good to pursue one's intuitions and best intentions but, sometimes, they don't seem to take us anywhere after we jump on them...

I also wrote a first draft for another short story for the New Scientist competition. I called this one Legacy. I really like it. It's told from a time far in the future, looking back at the remnants of the 22nd century. In my head this story was amazingly powerful and clear but, as soon as I started typing it, that feeling seemed to dissolve... I guess that's just how it goes sometimes...
or somedays...
In any case, I hope i will be able to look to it more objectively tomorrow or in a couple of days. This might be a good candidate to be sent...

I had the idea last night, while in bed. I lied there, musing if I should get up and write it down or if I could just see it clearly enough to be able to write it the next day.
Eventually I fell asleep...
But since I managed to remember it today that kind of graduates it to the kind of stories that hook me from the beginning. And those are usually the best.

I also read a bit of a book that I'm using to do research for a potential project to this years NaNoWriMo, in November.
Basically there are two ideas floating about.
One is to be written in English and I don't think I'll have to do any research to write it (though I could afterwards, if only to make some aspects a bit more plausible). I've already planned quite a few scenes for it and there's even a sketch of a structure for it.
I'm calling it NUME for the time being.

The other is to be written in Portuguese and there's quite a bit of research needed. So I was thinking of reading those books during NaNoWriMo and, hopefully, write the two books.
It may sound ambitious but I think that it is possible.
I don't want them to be very long. And, in actual fact, the two books are kind of the mirror image of the other.
At least in my head it makes sense for the two to go together...

The second one is called OS ANOS PERDIDOS (The Lost Years)

And, for now, I won't say anything else about them!

peace.