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Jan. 1st, 2006
You can see 'em work!
Jan. 1st, 2006 12:35 pmEven though she's an unsympathetic character, I retain a tremendous fondness for the Glass Cat.1 And she seems an appropriate muse to invoke for this post, since I'm going to demonstrate the workings of my own brains.
I'm writing a story2 at the moment in which the two principal settings are a city (old, fabulous, etc. etc.) and--equally old and fabulous--a fortress that is part prison and part tomb. I didn't know about the fortress when I started the story, and named the city Æä out of sheer bloody-minded perversity. But then I discovered the fortress and realized that city and fortress are reflections of each other and that therefore they need complementary names. Æä offered no handholds in that direction, so I scrapped it as a name and started from scratch.
( name generating )
And the story begins like this:
Long ago, in a world none of them can remember, the vampires were taught to dance.
And they in turn, as they move through the mirrors from world to world, teach their paramours and prey. And sometimes when they move on--for they are restless creatures, vampires, and do not stay where they are put--they leave behind, not a corpse, but a child.
The vampires' dance is called Spider's Rose; in many worlds, it is also a quilt pattern. The vampire Almegramith taught the dance to a woman of Bianch'Elen, the most ancient city in all the worlds, and thirteen months later, the doctors cut the child from the woman's flesh.
---
1"That's the idea, Scraps," said the Glass Cat, approvingly. "I'm glad to find you have decent brains. Mine are exceptionally good. You can see 'em work; they're pink." (L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., 1913. p. 61)
2![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elisem, this is "Spider's Rose," which is getting very weird.
3The Doctrine of Labyrinths is my name for the series comprising Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Summerdown.
4Until I change my mind. Again.
I'm writing a story2 at the moment in which the two principal settings are a city (old, fabulous, etc. etc.) and--equally old and fabulous--a fortress that is part prison and part tomb. I didn't know about the fortress when I started the story, and named the city Æä out of sheer bloody-minded perversity. But then I discovered the fortress and realized that city and fortress are reflections of each other and that therefore they need complementary names. Æä offered no handholds in that direction, so I scrapped it as a name and started from scratch.
( name generating )
And the story begins like this:
Long ago, in a world none of them can remember, the vampires were taught to dance.
And they in turn, as they move through the mirrors from world to world, teach their paramours and prey. And sometimes when they move on--for they are restless creatures, vampires, and do not stay where they are put--they leave behind, not a corpse, but a child.
The vampires' dance is called Spider's Rose; in many worlds, it is also a quilt pattern. The vampire Almegramith taught the dance to a woman of Bianch'Elen, the most ancient city in all the worlds, and thirteen months later, the doctors cut the child from the woman's flesh.
---
1"That's the idea, Scraps," said the Glass Cat, approvingly. "I'm glad to find you have decent brains. Mine are exceptionally good. You can see 'em work; they're pink." (L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., 1913. p. 61)
2
elisem, this is "Spider's Rose," which is getting very weird.3The Doctrine of Labyrinths is my name for the series comprising Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Summerdown.
4Until I change my mind. Again.
