(I posted this to my tumblr last night, but I think it bears repeating as the notes to this chapter.)
I always find myself amused by what I feel the urge to listen to while I’m editing or writing a particular chapter or scene. I don’t have a set “soundtrack” to anything, and one gift I always ask for are iTunes gift cards so that I always have a balance ready to purchase exactly the song I want for any particular moment of writing.
When I sat down to edit chapter 26, I knew I needed to listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s setting of “Pie Jesu.” sung by a boy soprano. It’s a beautiful piece, and something told me this was the piece for this chapter. So I dug around on iTunes until I found a setting I liked, and then put it on one-song repeat.
I had never in my life looked up the meaning of the Latin in this piece, until the moment when I knew *this* was the song I needed to hear as I worked on this chapter. I just knew that I liked it, and that I needed it to do these edits.
This is the translation:
Lord Jesus Who takes on the sins of the world Give them rest
Lamb of God Who takes on the sins of the world Give them rest Everlasting rest
Call me a crazy author, but I think the urge to listen to that was Carlisle. Telling me exactly what he wanted to say to Edward in his turning.
(It was also eerily appropriate given the tragedy in Connecticut yesterday, and these words certainly apply there, as well.)
I posted this one without sending it to my beta to stay on track with getting SB up in December, but she is never undeserving of my thanks. Openhome sits on my shoulder even when I’m self-editing, going, “You’ve already said that three times, move along.”
I’ve mentioned this before in authors’ notes, but it’s especially important here. One of the questions I asked myself, when I began Stregoni, is how did Carlisle become the father he became? It’s not enough simply to say he tried to be the opposite of the man who raised him; not only does that not capture the complexity of how we inherit our parenting styles from our parents, it also renders William merely as a cardboard cut-out foil. The anti-Carlisle, as it were.
So instead, I asked, what if a great deal of who Carlisle is actually does come from his father? After all, he never knew his mother. In many ways, this drives some of the best conflict in the 1667 chapters. When you have opposing characters that are nothing alike, you get a struggle. But when you have opposing characters that are almost exactly alike, you get a really fascinating struggle.
And here the conflict brewing between Carlisle and William finally rears its head.
I apologize for the delay in posting; if I’d planned this slightly better, I’d have posted 25 at the beginning of this month so that 23, 24, and 25 would sit together, as they’re meant to—each being the crux of their respective storylines. But I trust that it will still be an enjoyable read.
From here on out, SB will post weekly; there are three full chapters remaining as well as a sizeable epilogue. Simultaneously, I’ve finished the entirety of a draft of a new Pre-Twilight novella, and am about 40% of the way through with a second one—these were both bid on for Fandom Gives Back, Eclipse Edition, and those who donated have been rather patient with me while I worked out the kinks. So along with SB, we’ll have some new things coming down the pipeline, too.
As always, I owe a great debt to my beta, Openhome, in this instance, for helping me slay my darlings. Just to give you some sense of what revision is like on an SB chapter, this one in draft was 7,820 words. When I sent it to Openhome after my first revision round, it was right at 6300. The one that is posted today is just under 5100. Having a friend whom you can trust when she says, “This all can go,” is worth everything the world over, and I’m grateful for her help.
One reason I remain staunchly opposed to the practice of publishing one’s fanfic without credit to the original author (which, by the way, happens automatically in the case of publishing a fanwork of an out-of-copyright source–by keeping Mr. Darcy as Mr. Darcy, you implicitly acknowledge your debt to Austen in the creation of the character) is because I still have never seen an answer to this central paradox that doesn’t rely on “Well, I just didn’t know any better” as the crux of the defense.
And as we are largely a community of adults, and since I don’t know of a soul under the age of 18 who has P2Ped, I find “I didn’t know any better” to be a lame excuse.
This is the question that burns under almost every Twific I write. According to interviews, it was one of the main questions that Rob asked Stephenie Meyer: why would a boy stay with the vampire who turned him? What was it he saw? In Ithaca is Gorges, I gave a partial answer:
Unbeknownst to me, the venom had reached his brain in fewer than twelve hours, and so he had quickly become privy not only to the words I was speaking, but also to the internal monologue that ran parallel to the story I told him. I unintentionally laid myself bare to Edward as he was being changed, revealing to him my deepest emotions: the crushing pain of my loneliness, my terror that he would despise me for his entire existence, my fervent hope that he might someday know me as a companion, perhaps even as family.
By the time he awoke, Edward knew me better than I did. And then he quietly stepped in to fill the void he saw in my still heart.
But as I wrote more and more, I realized that to give that question a full answer required capturing Carlisle all the way back; exploring each of the things which ripped at him, and every moment that helped create that void.
And so I started working on Stregoni.
And yet, when after twenty three chapters, I get to part where I try to give the answer, I wonder if it feels unsatisfying. I finished this chapter in late June of this year, and felt pleased with it then. But part of what pleases me about it is exactly that I don’t think I answered the question.
Because I’m not sure there is any one single answer.
Why Edward? is the ongoing question. Why Edward? drives everything about Carlisle’s relationship with his son. Carlisle will spend the rest of eternity unpacking this moment and this day; and I wanted to do his effort justice in the way that I wrote it.
As always I owe my beta, Openhome, great thanks for her help in tweaking this chapter so that it rang every bell I needed it to ring.
Last week, I got a slew of spam registrations from one particular domain. No harm done; the users were deleted (along with several others that have sneaked in over the last year), but I did install a new Captcha to the registration page to discourage bot registrations to the site.
In the process, I updated all my plugins and broke the slideshow I was using for my front page. If you’ve been to the site in the last week or so, you may have noticed. As this was the first week of school, I haven’t had a chance to fix the slideshow yet, but I will find a new plugin that will work. In the meantime, enjoy the Johnson quote. There is no quote that better encapsulates my feelings about my own writing, especially my fanwork, and I carry it proudly on the cover of my nook and for the meantime, use it as my sole representation on this website.
Look for a new plugin (and maybe new quotes and photos? I might go crazy!) some time next week.