Yzabel Ginsberg

I finished to first draft for #DreamNoMore yesterday, and now I don't know what to do with myself any 😂😂

#writing

Fortunately, I have a cat, so I have already achieved my goal ;)

Sounds a lot like the dating scene for people my age with my kind of interests 😂
(a.k.a I don't bother with it at all)

For the first time since she had met the girl, the Hunter saw it at last: the flame, the silent strength dormant in that heart, crushed for years under the baleful gaze of an overbearing father, and now unfurled into the most beautiful weapon, its ethereal blade shining like the purest diamond. It didn’t matter that Magda’s hands shook as she reaffirmed her hold on the long haft, or that she stood so small compared to the massive glob of flesh suspended above their heads: right here, right now, this child was the heir, the only true heir of a long, forgotten lineage that was always meant to fight for good, not for evil. Sören Albrecht had become an incarnation of evil, according to Samuel Willard; but his daughter was made of a whole other cloth.

"Massive"ly disgusting, I say.
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Context: Magda and Sam, facing the Heart in the spiritual version of Thruxted Mill. (What else was it supposed to look like than some disgusting organic thing, really?)

Definitely. Well I'm not having kids anyway, but if I had them I'd try to do better, too.

No but I am 😂
Or... Actually... He probably is, too? XD (He's a photographer and enjoys cinema and TV series, so his being a fan of Farscape isn't far-fetched at all!)

Our parents are just human, that's why ^^ Some try to do their best (but fail). Some are really shitty, bad people. It's very unfortunate when we end up with the latter... 🙁

Oh yes, he's a proper POS. Even that frelling vampire does a better job at it...

Monsters. Perhaps that word applied to Magda as well, all things considered. The more she spoke of Sören Albrecht here, the further away her memories of him as an actual father seemed to drift. When was the last time he had had a kind word for her? Taught her, instead of blaming her? Had he ever played with her when she was younger? Try as she might, she could only remember the other children and the women, never any men attending such activities; she wasn’t even sure there had even been real playtime—only school, chores, prayers, ceremonies, and more toiling. More of being told what role she had to fulfill to become a perfect wife and mother later on. This time, the Hunter cast her a glance, half quizzical, half judgmental. ‘You don’t seem to care about him that much.’ ‘He wasn’t a good father.’ She wasn’t sure if her voice had betrayed all her bitterness, all the loneliness suddenly carving out a cold, frozen den in her chest. Sam let out a relutcant grunt, and didn’t pursue that line of conversation.

Pursue.
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Context: Magda and her fraught relationship with Sören, her biological father. She's been constantly torn between the fact he's her father, and Dan hurt him badly, and she knows she should hate him for that... But...

And sometimes, it ends up a train wreck 😂

Ohh I didn't watch the series (I watched the movie when it came out in the 90s, though).
Not sure if it's the same red forest though (mine is an actual place, though it's not "red" anymore nowadays afaik).

This! These extra words are pretty much my equivalent of leaving myself a comment in the margin. Which I could also do, but... I'm in fiction-writing mood when I write, not in comment-leaving mood 😅

‘Kill them? Eh, Magda doesn’t want them dead. Not at the moment. I just knocked them up. Like you.’

No! No, Dan, no! WRONG PREPOSITION!! 😂😂

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It's part of what makes me over-explain things to "the reader", and then that means I have a ton of stuff to excise out of the manuscript (that I could just have NOT put in in the first place!).
But it's also part of my process of developing characters and plot, so it's useful too! �

Today, I thought of the Red Forest for the first time in a long, long while. The last time we went our separate ways. Not because circumstances forced us, not because we both agreed, but because I was being childish and letting my stupid hubris get the best of me. I’m actually surprised that didn’t happen sooner, to be honest. I think… This is the one time where I came closest to destroying you. Don’t you even dare try and find excuses for me. What you did then—your errance, your wanderings, that stupid, desperate search for… for them…—you’d never have done that if I had been by your side. I know how shrewd you are. The only times you make really stupid mistakes, is when you’re in such despair you can’t think straight anymore.

Destroy(ing)
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Context: From one of Ezekiel's videos, addressed to Dan.
The Red Forest is both an actual place and the twins' codename for "Dan being tempted to do Something Very Stupid"

My bane: wanting to make sure every. little. thing systematically makes sense. Even when there's no need 😅)

Yeah. Totally the chlorine. Aaabsolutely no other reason.

(Hmm it does seem random here actually, because it's only an excerpt. 🤔 But he had gone for a swim before that scene, hence the chlorine and not something a little more common, like onions.)

Ahahaha so true!

For once it's actually not even something that bad😅 They're like a hippies, "back to nature" cult with some hippie flavouring at first; the regular members are fine if a bit loopy, it's their leadership that's rotten. (That part, of course, will keep infecting the rest later if left untreated...)

Even that was a struggle—the old, exhausting waddling in a mire of words whose letters kept switching with each other despite the specific font he had configured everywhere, forcing him to slow down in his reading, blinking, striving to focus and focus some more. Email software: Ribeiro’s latest report—still no news from the mysterious other visitor. Browser: a few tabs opened onto Brad’s social media accounts—was that idiot really so worth it? Next, the cult. Again. Oh, wait, now that was interesting: a new post on their Facebok page, because, yes, they had one too, how confusing the world had become. A new post about a solstice retreat they were organising. The winter solstice. The twenty-first of December. Still a few weeks away, and yet looming so close already. Hells. Would Ezekiel be awake for it? Would he be able to bring him back in time to celebrate their— His eyes stung again. Must be the chlorine. A good shower would help with that.

Mostly social media in here
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Context: Dan is looking up info about Brad to better distract himself from his decision to leave Magda with the mages "for her own protection". Neither of them is happy with that decision of his.

Only then did C.T. wave the three of them after her into the station hall proper. ‘There you go, my friends,’ Smith said, his loud voice now echoing even more under the tall ceiling of the station’s hall. Four cups were already waiting for them on the cart’s counter, three of them steaming hot, and the last one… Oh, what a charming attention: fresh blood, still warm, AB positive. His favourite. ‘And this is for little lady Magda,’ he added, handing a cup specifically to the girl, containing what looked and smelled more like hot chocolate. ‘Uhm. Th-thank you, Mister… Mister Smith, is it?’ ‘Ah, none of that between friends! Call me Hammer, dear child.’ In his back, C.T. rolled her eyes, but didn’t make any comment. Story of her life.

Counter
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Context: Part of Dan and Magda meeting "Hammer" Smith and C.T. in the Obverse version of Liverpool Street station.
Poor Hammer definitely wants his Very Manly Name, to compensate for his flamingo pink suit (Pantone 197 C).😂

Father Amos kept on explaining they didn’t have so much on a lot of vampires, even after gathering information, for the undead had become long ago masters at covering their tracks, switching identities right and left, and embedding themselves in the most intricate layers of society. After all, when one never aged, it brooked a cascade of problems to deal with, and so they had understood early enough that ensuring the cooperation of armies of solicitors, real estate agents and bankers was key to their continued survival in the modern world. Sam couldn’t help but imagine entire dynasties of solicitors, devoted to very special families whose children always came back from Australia or Japan or the United States after thirty years spent abroad, looking like the spitting image of their parent, ready to claim their inheritance.

"Most": another of those words I use way too often!
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Context: Sam, checking the local Hunters' archive for London's supernatural creatures.
Fun fact: Dan does, in fact, have a dynasty of solicitors working for him. 😂

Two of my POV characetrs tend to be on the snarky side, with some humorous commentary running in their heads at times—though in a different way. Sam (human) considers that kind of vampire as jokes. While Dan (vampire) has understood long ago the world makes no sense; and so he makes fun of it. XD

Brad the Lad was supposed to be such a minor charater... but he's been turning into a local legend in this story. 😂

And there was an actual picture of Chiara, though not one she could easily exploit: a tall, slender woman, perhaps too skinny, even, sitting naked on a windowsill in a thoughtful pose, against the backdrop of night-time City skyline, long curly hair tumbling down her shoulders and back, both her face and body artfully obscured. To that, Brad had merely commented: ‘Small tits.’ Yes, that fine specimen of a man was better fully dead than undead. It really didn’t help he was part of another group, seemingly of male vampires only, called “Thirsty Lads (🌢🌢🌢)”—most likely his old mates from up north, with a quite regular commentary about Manchester United. Brad the Lad. Seriously.

Face
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Context: After offing Brad the vampire, Sam nabbed his phone and is now checking his social media.
"Chiara"—short for "chiaroscura"—is Zandra's nickname online.
"Thirsty Lads (🩸🩸🩸)" is courtesy of @hauntedtoasters.bsky.social 😂

It’s still so vivid. All I need to do is close my eyes, and I can recall its memory so quickly, so clearly. That plain, and a silhouette trying to cross it, slowly, so slowly, stumbling, coming closer and closer, until I could see it was you. You were wearing that cavalry uniform—it’s strange, because I had never seen you wear it for real; those wars were pretty much over by the time we met. Yet everything matched. If I go to the Wallace Collection, I can see the same clothes in some of the paintings. Strange that it was a Royalist one, though. A throwback, perhaps? It’s not like you had been given the choice, right? And that dream was very, very much about not having the choice. I remember being rooted in place, unable to move, unable to call you. All I could do was watch you shuffle your way closer and closer to me, your coat torn and tattered and covered in blood, still dripping from your wounds. There were arrows and crossbow bolts sticking out of your back, and even something that looked like a spear’s head—a spear’s head, for God’s sake!—and how come you were still even able to stand, let alone walk in that state? Forward, forward, going forward, I’m not even sure if you had any goal. Just going forward, with that dreadful-looking sword clutched in your hand. Seriously, I’ve always hated those designs. They looked way too much like ribcages. I know, I know, that was precisely the point. Still too bleak and morbid, if you ask me. We both hated that century for our own reasons.

Walking
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Context: From one of Ezekiel's videos, in which he recounts the first time he really had a prophetic recurring dream... One that let him foresee Dan's death—back when Dan was still mortal, that is.

Text

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‘True. And I probably look just a little too old for people to believe this anyway. Oh—I know! You could be my daughter. Let’s say… my estranged girlfriend left you with me.’ ‘Old? You’re like, what, thirty? Actually, you seem too young for that! And we still don’t look like each other.’ That infuriating half smile again: ‘That’s because you take after your mother.’ If only. ‘Well—’ ‘Also, you’ve got an accent, so we could say you were brought up abroad.’ ‘But—’ ‘You know what? I like this idea. I never had children, but I guess there’s always a first time.’ ‘Wait—’ ‘Alright! That’s settled, then. You’ve got yourself a deal… daughter.’ For the first time since she had started this stupid negotiation, Magda wondered if she hadn’t bargained for the wrong thing with the wrong person, because the way he was looking at her now, that new light in his captivating eyes, made him look like he was actually having fun.

I have too many "thing(s)" in this WIP😅
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Context: If Magda (a minor) is to live with Dan, they need an official reason that won't attract unwanted attention. So why not father and daughter?
The way it is approached is just... so Dan.

A second later, Magda’s eyes shot open, and she sat bolt upright, flailing, gasping for hair.

Aaaand a nice blooper to end my writing session today! 😂
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I found the #WSPit event quite fun as well! Ovewhelming indeed, especially because I had had a very full day, but I still managed to give it some time in the evening, and the short pitch exercise taught me a few things that will be useful later on as well. :)