A few things (Ais)

This entry isn't really of import except to say I'm pleased with where we're going. We've had such clashing schedules for awhile, combined with my own issues which included an increasing dislike of writing the story, that for awhile it seemed like things were headed on a downward spiral. I never planned to quit writing the story but I needed a break so bad that it was making me hate my characters, dread having to write, and overall was adding to the miserable aspect of the entire situation.

The reason I'm pleased is because this hiatus has already allowed me the chance to start to take the break I needed, which is making me head in the direction of wanting to write again. I still have my moments where I don't want to but now they're few and far between as opposed to the constant, immediate reaction of before.

One of the biggest issues was Boyd. I think months ago, I subconsciously was affected by some things, which ended up affecting the way he was written. Not the plot per se, because we had that all figured out already. But for quite a few months, it felt like nothing was right and all attempts to fix what was wrong failed because I didn't know what was wrong, and no one was happy. It was incredibly discouraging and was a major factor in my starting to hate the story.

The problem is, I only ever started writing because I wanted to write what I want to read. So when I started imagining myself as the reader and not liking certain things, and when readers didn't like certain things, and when we were having problems with writing because of scheduling conflicts, etc, it all added up.

I finally got the chance to step back about two months ago, to figure out what it was that made me not want to write Boyd anymore. We were having problems with Boyd and Sin meshing as well. I realized that certain things had gotten skewed and once we talked about it at length, I decided I was going to start writing Boyd the way I wanted to write him again. That shift was probably most prevalent around Pandora and the subsequent interludes.

It's been working better now but FYI, just remember that everything we post online we consider to be a draft or work in progress. When we go back and edit, some things will change to make Boyd more like the way I wanted him to be all along. Because there were a lot of reader reactions that took us (or me at least) by surprise and it took me months to figure out why.

In the end, the negative or unhappy reactions were mostly reflective of my own reaction that I hadn't realized I was feeling yet: something wasn't right. Some of the reader comments helped me figure out what my own issue was with it.

In somewhat related news, feedback makes me smile. I was just reading some of the really nice feedback people gave, including some really nice stuff said recently in Evenfall. I love it when people comment. I love it when people hang around the site and talk on shoutbox or the forum. It makes me happy.

So keep it up, peeps!

Website redesign

FYI, I made a post at my livejournal regarding the website redesign. If anyone has feedback, I'd love to hear it.

http://starlite-gone.livejournal.com/546973.html

It includes picturrres...

I'd really love to hear any feedback at all on the site as it currently is -- is it easy for you to navigate? Is it hard? Are the colors ok on your eyes for reading? etc. I also made a post at the forum about this (http://sonnyais.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=2542) so basically, let me know any way you'd like -- shoutbox, email, forum, this blog, livejournal...

-Ais <3

Interlude writing: 3.17 - Ais

Sometimes I find the writing process to be interesting for this series, and maybe in general for me. It's funny because, as I've mentioned before, Sonny and I tend to look forward to certain chapters or scenes for a long time but when we get to writing it one or both of us may end up being uninterested. I think it's the anticipation that kills it.

That happened to me with several interludes... even 3.11 and 3.12 (they will be released next weekend and what the hey, I may as well give out the titles as teasers-- Forfeit and Entre Nous). Scenes that I think will be super cool, sometimes I just don't want to write at all.

I used to sort of like writing action scenes and really didn't like writing sex scenes. So this is, I suppose, why I'm feeling a bit perplexed at the moment.

There are action scenes in some of the interludes that I was like, "Auuuugh I don't want to wriiiite," but then the one I'm working on now has a sex scene in it and somehow, this interlude just exploded in length. And the sort of sex in it is... well. I guess you'll see. But it's not something I'm sitting there going, "Wow this is hot" for because that's not the point of it.

At the moment, it's 31 pages according to Word (that's with a space between each paragraph) and I haven't even gotten the most crucial part of the sex scene written. This particular interlude was interesting because it was added somewhat last minute and I still don't know some parts of it. I didn't work on it for a few days, and then I wanted to work on it on my laptop and killed my laptop accidentally before I could (still need to bring it in -_-), so I was able to borrow a friend's mini laptop which I've used on and off.

As a result, a lot of it was written in little snippets that, when pasted into the larger document, contained a whole bunch of blank spaces in between. And one part I'd written was originally the beginning of the sex scene and I decided it worked better at the end, and then THAT was expanded...

And these other scenes I never really intended to write initially squeezed in there and then expanded as well, resulting in some strange insights.

I've worked on this thing all day and I always know when I've pretty much worked on something a whole day without taking many breaks, and when I haven't been typing super slow, that it's going to be a decent length. I guess I just didn't realize it was that long. It may even be pushing 40 pages by the time I finish the sex.

And that's crazy to me.

But I really like how it worked so well to just jump all over the place, writing the parts I was inspired for, then moving them around until they were cohesive.

It's been awhile since I felt so interested in writing a story, maybe because so often the interludes include things I'm trying to be careful about getting in there and having it happen a particular way. But in this one, I was able to explore some things I otherwise wouldn't have been able to.

And I know this is all super vague but I guess it may make more sense once that's released. I was going to say what the title of it is but I realized it would be a pseudo-spoiler if I did because of some of the info I've already mentioned.

Wow, I'm getting tired though. I've been working on this shit for like. idk. 8-10 hours or something.

WTF MATE aka i'm a fucking blond ass scatterbrained motherfucker

I have too much shit I want to do and not a goddamn one of them is getting done.

I want to work on ICoS stuff, including Boyd/Sin story lines and Emilio story lines. I want to start on my new unrelated to Sin/Boyd ICoS miniseries (more like an arc of stories I have ideas about rather than a multi chapter connected plotline like ICoS). I'm currently semi obsessed with Adam and Gordon and all of the ways they can annoy the shit out of each other but I'm too hung up on Emilio and Zachary and their issues to start writing anything new. Wtf.

On top of that, I can't decide if I want to edit chapters of Evenfall in between writing 3.18 like I should be doing or continue to write random Emilio interludes like I've been doing instead. It's like the man has fucking possessed my brain. I start to open Chapter 5 of Evenfall but then cringe at how awkwardly it's written and start writing about tacos and failed missions and mad Emilio drama.

Ok. Whining done.

But for real, my brain is on fucking creative ICoS overdrive (and completely shoving my plan to start on my separate original novel to the side) and I can't seem to get anything done because I'm too scatter brained and RL people keep getting in the way.

BTW, women are fucking trouble. I'm going to swear them all off and go all the way gay. Maybe I'll pick up some way hot dude at the gym like Brian always did in Queer as Folk.

It could happen.


PEACE.

Sonny

Favorite Quotes and Scenes?

This is a departure from the norm... because normally the blog is rambling about stuff. Well, the only rambling I'll really say is that we've been busy with the interludes in between real life. This week's been pretty quiet on the writing front-- but then, I think we deserve the break.

Now, down to business:

We're curious what readers' favorite quotes are. And we're also curious what your favorite scenes are.

This is anywhere in the series -- the books, side/back stories, the interludes...

If you have any opinions/favorite quotes or scenes and are awesome enough to want to take the time to tell us-- do so wherever you're most comfortable. Here, the forum (http://sonnyais.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=1938 asks the question too), shoutbox, email, review, guestbook... whatever.

(The other reason it's a departure is because this is an Ais post and it's probably about my shortest one ever.)

Evenfall, series names, editing, and oneshots (whew!)

(Ais post.. in case the length didn't give it away whut?)

So, first of all-- we have a tentative title for the first book: Evenfall. Although I'm sure you all know this already since I said it about a bazillion times on the site + forum in random places.

Titles are pretty odd to consider and as for why we went with this, there were a number of reasons. We appreciate all the reader suggestions thrown out there, and it actually helped narrow it down. Some of them seemed like great words with great meanings but they just didn't sound right, and some others led me on a fun synonym craze until I eventually ended up with Evenfall.

There's this whole explanation of the meaning but what it comes down to? Evenfall is the time of day directly after the sunset. I like the image that provokes-- the idea of going into the night, a time of transition. Since a lot of that book is about good/bright things mixed with bad/dark, and it's pretty much a constant state of transition for at least the two main characters, and probably other stuff I forgot-- overall, it has the right idea. It works well in relation to the other series titles: Evenfall, it's just getting dark, Afterimage, like the memory of something vivid, Fade... well. I won't say much about Fade until that book comes out. ;p

And, in that progression all of them fit with the series title -- In the Company of Shadows. Also, it was going to drive me nuts if it wasn't a one-word title to match the other two. Especially with our long as hell series name. (In Ais' world, 5 words is LONG AS HELL!!!111 PS: Ais lives in a dramatic world)

What's interesting is all of this is pretty coincidental and arbitrary, like freaking everything in this series. You'd think we were all bad ass and planned things ahead of time, but no. It was pretty much like this the whole way:

Sonny: We need a name for the story ((when we didn't know it would become a series))
me: Here are some titles of poetry I've written! They're crap!
Sonny: Uhhh... In the Company of Shadows! SEARCH OVER!
me: Uh ok I guess it's okay for now?

me: We need a title for the second book
Sonny: What about Afterimage?
me: GOLD!

Sonny: We need a title for the third book
me: What about Fade?
Sonny: DONE!

me: We need a title for the first book
Sonny: I don't know
me: I don't know
(time passes)
me: Evenfall? It's kind of okay?
Sonny: WE'RE ROLLING WITH IT
me: I guess it's okay for now...


Good God. The title of the fourth book may be interesting XD I think we should name it FLASH. Or SUNRISE. Or DAYBREAK MUTHAFUCKKAAAAAA (<-- that last choice is clearly the best except it's two words so I think we'll have to invent the world DAYFUCKA to get the appropriate idea across while keeping with the time-honored and vry srs naming conventions of this series. *nods sagely*)

(Also by the way, we did actually put thought into why Afterimage, Fade, and Evenfall work for the book plots XD But it was, filtered down, basically my rendition of our Srs Decisions)


So anyway...

Speaking of Evenfall, we're still editing the Bad News Bears chapters. Which are Bad News Bears because they're Bad News Writing and Bad News Plotholes. I'm slowing the process down like whoa because I'm discovering that writing early!Boyd with early!Vivienne is a little more awkward and difficult than I expected.

It's hard to think in terms of Boyd's mindset when the series started. Not So-Hard-I-Can't-Write-It, but This-Boy-Has-No-Emotion-Or-Thoughts. Also, Vivienne is pretty hardcore. I think a lot of people think she hasn't changed much, but she's always in the background. And years have passed. She progresses too, in her own way, but it's nothing that will ever be in the foreground. And she doesn't have as dramatic of changes as others. (*coughsinboydcough*)

And to finish my post filled with random, these oneshots are fun to write and hopefully people will enjoy them. We, once again, started with an idea and then realized some characters would do things we weren't expecting or some things should be expanded. Subsequently, it went from a plan of like, I don't know, 7 oneshots? To now around 27. LOLZ.

Not all of them are FEATURE LENGTH CHAPTERS, though. They'll range from a few pages to large multi-parters, depending on the topic. And that's exactly why we had to do it this way, because if we'd tried to formulate the storyline between Afterimage and Fade into another book, it would've sucked hardcore and we probably would've gotten annoyed with always having to keep everything cohesive like it has to be in a book. And things would've been lost in the translation.

And now once again it's occurred to me that I've written about 1000 pages on 3 topics and it's time for sleeps for Ais. =(

Drunkeness hangovers and addicted to ICos

(sonny post)

So when I originally designed Sin I had two people in mind for his personality and his appearance. My cousin Silvio for his personality and HIS cousin Christian for his appearance. Christian has a combination of dark hair/olive skin/hazel eyes that I found really exotic looking and cool and my cousin Silv is just a complete evil psycho.

So last night we went out drinking and while in a state of drunktitude, Silv does this thing where he narrows his eyes at the bartender (who'd started ignoring us in favor of gaggle of hot girls who weren't even that hot tbh) and looks like he's about to jump over the counter and cut the guys throat open and the poor bartender got so startled that he started tripping all over himself trying to give us service.

And of course I'm like, in my mind of course, YES THAT IS THE LOOK I TRY SO HARD TO DESCRIBE THAT SIN DOES AND I CAN NEVER DO IT RIGHT I MUST REMEMBER EVERY DETAIL OF THIS EXPRESSION AND ETCH IT INTO MY BRAAAAAAAINNNN!

Of course I have no memory of it now and I'm mostly just amused at how obsessed with our characters I am. Hot girls? Pfft. What hot girls? Must memorize expressions to describe for Sin.

Light Edit

So Ais and I have decided to take on a mini-project, which is editing the first several chapters of Book 1, and a few other scattered chapters within the book that we think need heavy revision. The reason for this?

A) The quality of writing is not good. We wrote it super casually and just for fun and for some reason we posted it that way and now it's kind of embarrassing.

B) Some of the characters have evolved differently than we expected in our minds so they are semi OOC in the beginning now.

C) They are just bad and we don't want new readers to see them and be warded off.

So, yeah, that is our current project as we write the one-shots.

-Sonny

Ais fails

Ais (12:14:56 AM): i can never think of description words
Sonny (12:15:24 AM): adjectives!
Ais (12:15:29 AM): HA
Ais (12:15:34 AM): HA.......
Ais (12:15:38 AM): case in point ;_;
Sonny (12:15:48 AM): lawlz

(Ais) Psyched about writing... And the obligatory rambling as well.

So, it came to my attention that the RSS feed doesn't include our tags. Which means anyone reading RSS (or not noticing the tags at the bottom of the blog entries) was probably going, "Who the hell is writing this entry?" every time we posted.

LOLZ. We just like to keep it mysterious, guyz. It's not that we just didn't realize that. Not at all.

Sonny and I were talking last night, and we noticed how much quicker Afterimage has been to write than Book One (some day I'll get off my ass and throw out some viable solutions for the name of that book.. I still really like the suggestion of palimpsest but unfortunately that word is way too awkward). We're not sure quite when we started writing Afterimage but it must've been early June/late May. We're working on Chapter 31 at the moment so that means we've written 32 chapters (almost the entirety of the book) in about 8-9 months. Which is pretty good. The first book took I think just about exactly a year to write. Although admittedly it was ++ times longer...

At the moment, I'm totally psyched about writing. I haven't really hit the super lows like I did for the first book (and the short stories afterward) where I'd have periods of time where I was just like, "FUCK THIS STORY I HATE IT I WILL NOT WRITE IT." I get frustrated here and there with parts and I think there was a week where I just didn't want to write at all because I needed a break, but other than that, Afterimage has been pretty smooth. (This is all aside from the hiatus, of course, which was needed too. I guess I just don't think of my mood during the hiatus as being as intense as my mood sometimes was with Book One. But I'm also a very forgetful person, so...)

The funny thing is, Sonny and I are both just itching to write Fade. We're already looking beyond this book and even the one shots in between (which will also be fun to write) but Fade is really what I can't wait for. It's so hard because I keep wanting to ramble about this or that or express my enthusiasm for different parts of the plot-- but obviously I can't, because, hello major spoilers.

Suffice it to say, there are things in Fade that Sonny and I both are excited about writing and exploring and we hope you'll all enjoy that (and all the other parts of the series) as much as we enjoy writing/creating it.

I'm enjoying reading feedback and theories and what people would like to see in Afterimage as it is. It's so interesting because obviously I know where the story is going and the scenes that will occur in the future and what plot line goes in which direction, but readers can only guess. So some people are probably a lot closer to what will happen than they realize and others have interesting ideas that are probably not going to see fruition, at least in this book. But I can't say anything about that, either =(

Woe is me...

And in the final parts of my rambling (why are my entries always a thousand times longer than Sonny's and about 70 times less interesting? XD), I'm really happy with how the trainee characters have been received. It seems like so far, judging by what readers have said about the different characters, we pretty much achieved the basic goals we were going for with them. I'm secretly (except not since I'm saying this in public spaces online) pleased with the reception of Cade, for instance, because I think it's understandable if people don't like him or write him off as a dick and that's it, but I'm glad that some readers actually like that about him. Not sure I'd want to be seated at a table with the guy but at least he'd make the night interesting, I suppose ;P

Waa. Enjoying writing. This is good for me. Srsly, half the time on my vacation I was twitching to get to a computer to write... I guess I'm just addicted.

Editing/Writing Spree

Man, I'm dead.

I got back from vacation + flying on Saturday evening and proceeded to spend ALL of Sunday and Monday reading, editing, writing, and just now-- htmling/posting. I even stayed up late and got up early, although that wasn't really on purpose. (What the hell? When on vacation I just wanted to sleep in and kept getting woken up, and then when I can sleep in here, I'm all, "7 am on a Sunday? I'M UP!" Yet on weekdays this doesn't happen. Curse you, sleep cycle! Curse youuuu!)

However, here are my (impressive?) list of accomplishments:

*I reread/edited chapters 17-31 in Afterimage (yes, all 14)
*I finished the scene in chapter 30 which was really only working with/writing about 9 pages but still
*I HTML'ed chapters 17-19, then posted them on our site and AFFN, then wrote/released the newsletter and put links/an FYI on my lj as well
*I got caught up on the forum and updated the chapter status post
*I changed some narration to flow better and updated a few scenes in a few chapters along the way, then posted my reply in chapter 31

..I felt like there was something else but I don't know, maybe that's it. Whatever the case, holy shit were my eyes hurting by about 7 pm today. It was one reason I initially said I didn't know if we'd be posting tonight because I had such a throbbing head/eye ache that I had to step away from the computer and Sonny was busy with homework so he couldn't do anything. (Not to mention, to be fair, he html'd/released 16 and we generally try to alternate)

So! I guess I did good this weekend although I'm super tired now. And I work tomorrow =( Vacations are so much nicer because I get to wake up whenever... not to mention we were in a warm climate so it was all, "Where's my swimsuit? TO THE BEACHMOBILE!" for about a week. Whereas here it's like, "Well, shit, where'd my ice scraper go and do I have enough time to warm up my car?"

But I missed my comforts (read: computer) and most of the week I really wanted to work on the story. Which is probably why I was able to focus so intently on it when I returned.

About the latest release -- you guys lucked out, yo! Originally it was supposed to be chapters 16-18. But then because of all these shenanigans, 16 was released like normal but during the delay, we thought about it more and both agreed that 19 just didn't make sense to go with the next arc. So that's why you got a bonus chapter this week.

Also, it's sort of a gift for ... these chapters happening around Valentine's Day. And that's all I'll say about that so there are no spoilers.

Wow...falling asleep....

Writing...writing

I think I write these Zachary back stories more for my own amusement than anyone else's. As soon as I finish the latest one, I'll start coding for the mini-update.

Some languages in the story and Afterimage 13-15

Ais here, with further thoughts on language. I know I'm pretty much a one-track minded person sometimes with the topics I repeatedly bring up, but whatever.

Languages are extremely interesting to me, as are cultures. We always try to include as many accurate details as possible when writing the story but I tend to get wrapped up in it and always want to know a little more, be a little more detailed.

So, chapter 15 was one of the first places where I really whipped out the Spanish skillz to try to at least somewhat make some believable conversations. But it drives me nuts when I can't quite translate things correctly. I tried to use a combination of Venezuelan and other Spanish slang along with the proper forms (Venezuela's one of the few places that uses the vosotros form, which Boyd doesn't know because he basically learned Spanish from immersion in Mexico-- hence his "what the hell are they saying??" response). Yet it's always frustrating to try to get the correct level of casualness, etc.

Like, I don't usually speak in complete sentences and I also use a lot of contractions and so on (don't instead of do not, gonna instead of going to, etc). But some of the conversation had to be in complete sentences because I'm still not fluent enough to know which words to drop to make it sound naturally native.

At least I have enough understanding of Spanish to be able to do different tenses ("I have found the bodies" rather than "I found" or "I find") but the other languages I'm acquainted with? Ha. Not a chance.

I barely know any French although I can read/understand it decently due to my knowledge of Spanish, I hardly remember much Japanese and pretty much lose at recognizing any kanji anymore, and I'm just starting Russian but so far I can basically say "My name is __" and that's it. We're only just learning the Cyrillic alphabet.

Point being, this sucks, because Boyd knows French so I want him to sound fluent, but since I'm not fluent it makes this difficult. Hence me hitting people up for help with cultures/languages btw, although I also try to utilize other stuff like babelfish and triple check things back and forth to make sure it's not some really random translation. And even then I bet it sounds awkward.

I was thinking about how we use language in the story, though. For instance, it worked well enough for all that chattering in Spanish with Boyd trying to translate, but later in the chapter we had to resort to our typical "Blahblah," so-and-so said in __xx__ language.

We don't do that because we're too lazy to translate (although it's probably best we don't try since some languages we just aren't fluent in) but rather because some things need to be understood by the audience. And since the story is in English, the audience is too, even though most of you could kick my ass in fluency of multiple languages, and many readers aren't even native English speakers in the first place. (Major points for reading such a long story in English, by the way, to those of you who aren't as good at English.)

Anyway, if this were a movie, there would be English subtitles for parts where they're speaking another language but it's important info. Since we can't do subtitles, this works as a substitute. The perfectionist in me finds it a little sad but the realist in me knows this is the best way for us to write the scenes without getting so sidetracked we never finish.

Incidentally, I code the languages so they should be properly read by audio programs or the browsers as the correct language it is. Hopefully that works if anyone views the site in a manner where that would be useful.

Blah. There was some other shit I was going to ramble about but I quite suddenly got tired so TOO BAD. Although I doubt anyone is lamenting a few less paragraphs of my wordiness ;P

thoughts on the current update

I'm currently wondering whether or not I'll be dodging bullets after people read this newest update. It's always a concern of mine when...

*SPOILER ALERT READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE UPDATE*













...women are involved in the story. Jessica received some serious hate (which was expected) and I'm sure Ann will too but I hope people understand that they are entirely different characters with different intentions and personalities. The one thing I don't like about a percentage of the slash fanbase is the hardcore hate that is directed at female characters from that group without taking the other aspects of the character and plot into consideration. But anyway it's totally expected since she's unintentionally wrecking the Sin/Boyd home so whatever.

The reason behind this decision was kind of complicated but I'll try to make it make sense. First of all, it was something I truly believed would happen. These are two characters with a very charged history and when I started thinking about how they would interact, I knew Ann would be very intrigued by the Sin she was finally seeing as opposed to the one dimensional villain she always thought of him as before. The fact that she has all of these other issues in the background and is notoriously known for having been a very sexual person in her younger years on the compound made it pretty likely that she would start to become sexually attracted to Sin. (but like who wouldn't? if anyone took a gander at the pics of Jason Muirbrook, anyone would lust after that kid)

If you throw in the fact that Sin is alienated from basically everyone he thought he could trust and confide in, his fear of telling Boyd everything and the fact that he is notorious for using sex as a vehicle to escape his past, everything just fell into place.

Also keep in mind, Sin doesn't understand the connection between the physical aspect of sex and the feelings and intense emotions that Boyd evokes in him.

So we took took all of that into consideration and we factored in the fact that Boyd and Sin do have a flawed relationship (and that was something we needed to explore in this book) and that they really do need to take a step back from it and see what's going on so that they can become more aware of the situation and what they both want out of it or if they really want it at all.

We knew this would be a situation that would make it impossible for them to ignore the issues they both have individually and as a couple and it would force them to come to terms with that.

So please don't think this is suddenly a ANN AND SIN STAR CROSSED LOVERS story. This is still majorly a slash story with some het elements sprinkled in every now and again. I'm not saying how long this plot arc will last or how it will turn out or if Boyd and Sin even recover from this new obstacle because I don't want to spoil things but keep the STILL A SLASH STORY!!! in mind as you read on and don't be scared off. We wouldn't betray our fans by turning things het at the last minute without some major warnings ahead of time.