alwayslosingtheplot-blog

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

“We need you to clear the flock of banshees off the roof of parliament.”

The civil servant who’d called me was dressed in one of those suits that I think of as a ‘masquerade suit’. You’d know the cut if you saw it. It’s expensive, but not flashy. It’s well tailored, but not clingy. It does not hide or accentuate, but gives the impression of being a second skin. It is formalwear as your natural state. It is when your every stitch and fibre says: ‘this is my place’.

It’s like the glamour a vampire puts on to hide its teeth. Only it’s better, because it’s real. Oh, the things you can hide in a suit like that. It gave me goosebumps.

I tried to focus on something else, so as not to just rudely and silently stare at him. In the background, I could hear distant otherworldly screams. They made the air tremble with the promise of loss.

It was only a little comforting.

“Ma’am, we are willing to pay you a significant express bonus. And an out-of-hours bonus, if you can begin immediately.” The civil servant must have assumed my silence meant I was either sleep deprived or playing hardball. “And once you are enrolled as a contractor, we can likely offer regular future work. Especially if the flock *stays gone*.”

“It’s not a flock.” I replied softly.

“I assure you, there are … a significant number of them.”

“I’m not querying the number, but the noun. A flock is either sheep or birds.” I closed my eyes and focused on the wails. “Your guests are a ‘keening’.”

“Of course.” The civil servant smiled politely. “Well, at least we will know what to put on the invoice.”

“Some people prefer ‘bewailing’. For the alliteration. But that’s also not quite right. The plural of banshee should really be mnashee. Anglicised from ‘mná-síghe’.”

“I … see.”

“It’s Irish. Sticking an s on the end is … it’s a little like saying ‘womans’ instead of ‘women’.”

“Well. Can you banish this ‘keening’ of ‘mnashee’?”

“When did they arrive?”

“Right in the middle of a debate on the Pluto-Transmutation Act. It was quite disruptive.”

I clicked my teeth. I needed the money. But this whole situation gave me an all-over cold iron itch…

“I’ll need to see them.”

“Ah. I will fetch Ma’am a set of ear defenders.”

“That won’t be necessary.” I smiled my sliver-of-moonlight smile. “That’s why you hire a changeling.”

---

The mnashee were clad in their customary robes, dark cloth draped loosely over pale skin. Of course, it’s not exactly skin. It doesn’t really have cells. It’s not an organ. It’s just the edge of an idea. The boundary where death and grief meets human perception. So it looks like skin and it’s pale like a corpse.

What surprised me, though, were the placards they were holding. These were not exactly customary. They seemed to be made of mundane wood and cardboard - if I squinted, they stayed solid through the Veil - but the text and images seemed to have warped through close proximity with the spirits.

When things get warped, they tend to go one of two ways: spidery or squirrelly. The words had gone spidery, the words flowing into each other and splitting into vein-like strands, untethered from the cardboard. The pictures had gone squirrelly, seeming to shift and move and grow eyes that stared out at the world with feral, furtive energy.

I cleared my throat.

The keening of mnashee turned to look at me. They did not stop wailing. But the *flavour* of the wails changed. The sound was the same, but beneath it - above it, behind it, spat out of it - was a pattern. And that pattern was a meaning.

It was not communication, exactly. But it was a knowing.

So I knew, then, why they had descended upon parliament.

“It’s like I thought.” I said to the civil servant, thoughtfully. “The Act you’re trying to pass … many won’t survive it. They are just here to sing your grief.”

“The Act is necessary. The aetheric exchange is too volatile at the moment, we need to-”

“It doesn’t matter what you need. The route you’ve chosen to get there is blood-paved. This keening arrived when the first slow passing began. They will leave when the last ends.”

“We have run extensive projections and-”

“They don’t care how much you made the numbers dance.” I kept my voice politely neutral. “And I’m not here to judge you or tell you what to do. They sing what is true. Then I speak to that truth.”

“Can you make them leave or not?”

“Perhaps I could, but I will not. For it would not be honest to do to them. I will join them and I will continue to speak their knowings.”

The civil servant’s face was red, his biology betraying the lie of his perfect suit.

“Well, you can forget about the *generous* compensation package…”

“Fine. But you will still pay my call-out fee.” I sat down and prepared to wait. “Unless you want to break a bargain, that is?”

---

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[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.

I'm going to try it.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

No idea how many of you really care, but yes I am still writing. I just don't have anything to talk about it.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

is John green actually on tumblr or not

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

Stop-and-write: Hard Mode

If you see this, stop and write at least one sentence in each of your active WIPs.

Yes, each of them.

Good luck.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one that added 35k extra words to the projected length of this fucking story ahgeilahgleiag

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

“i liked it before it was cool” well i liked it AFTER it was cool when everyone abandoned it

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

“do you think your book will get published?” i think it’ll get finished one day, maybe.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

He got mistaken for a waiter and was delighted by it. 

I can’t

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

Hesperides

Is the place of dreams, Hesperides is the place of nightmares.

Come to the beach as the sun sets over the mainland and see the shadows of the roaming beasts, some as large as the city you stand in.

Come see the founding place of the religion of [[]] , come see the pond where the gods lay waiting for people to come find them.

Come all those of other faiths, for the welcoming isle cares not what you believe, only that you test that belief on the beaches of white sand and distant horrors.

Come Kings, come nobles, come those of a simple life. Come, and be humbled, and remember how small we all are, alone or together.

Come see them, and find them evermore in your dreams after you leave. Come here.

For there be monsters.

-A note from a banished jester to his former court, about the island of Hesperides, otherwise known as the humbling isle.

There is a small monastery city on the island, and some surrounding farms. The city is run by the church of Piscis, a water-based religion who believed the Gods were waiting for people to find them in a Pond on the Island.

This species of fish is said to have given the first Priestess visions and messages that saved her people. They are a highly, colorful fresh water species and it is forbidden to harm or eat them. Their ponds are maintained by the church and pilgrims are allowed to see them only with supervision.

All other fishing is considered a holy venture and is encouraged to happen as a type of prayer activity, as is singing.

Singing on the beach while looking at the mainland (and possibly catching sight of some of the megafauna that live there) is a nightly activity that is supposed to ward off evil.

The Chorus of the island is known far and wide, with many performers finding great renown after taking the opportunity to come and learn from the priestesses.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

what bugs me most about the idea that the Hero's Journey is "universal" is that the closest thing to an actual "universal" story that exists is CINDERELLA.

And what's the point of Cinderella? That she leaves. She goes to the castle and becomes a princess and LEAVES the place she started.

She does not "return changed." She does not do the Hero's Journey.

You do not get to call your theory universal if you can't account for freaking Cinderella.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

me as a writer

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

Whenever an artist who makes dark content gets outed as a sexual predator people will be like 'aha it was obvious something was up because their work was so dark and nasty' and whenever an artist who makes wholesome content gets outed as a sexual predator people will be like 'aha it was obvious something was up because their work was so aggressively wholesome' and it's like you know I think maybe you can't tell whether or not someone is a predator based on their artistic output.

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

Writers when it's time to write the story no one forced them to come up with in the first place 🙄

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

THE SWIMMING PIC HAS ME SOBBING 😭😭

[alwayslosingtheplot-blog]

So many paths to follow and no wizard gps...