Flight From Hell on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Pas cu pas, până departe

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 04:37:27 +0000

Încă 7 zile și romanul meu va fi complet publicat pe site-ul editurii. Aș spune că e varianta Beta, varianta foileton, varianta 1.01. Merge, funcționează, stă în picioare, dar se poate mai bine, va fi mai bine. Gata, final – 4 sezoane a câte 12 episoade fiecare, 48 de episoade: 48 de capitole. Un an.

O să scriu mai multe despre experiență, dar până atunci îmi iau inima în dinți: mai urmează o fază, cea în care iau toată cartea și o transform din versiune decentă în ceva mai consistent, mai bun, „mai complet”. Editare, cu alte cuvinte, rescriere, refacere. Creația nu mai merge în linie dreaptă de la A la Z, fiecare pas unul nou către necunoscut, ci în spirale și cercuri între A și Z, dând o formă mai lină, mai clară, mai elegantă. Rafinare, șlefuire, îndepărtarea asperităților, adăugarea ultimelor retușuri (din câte mă știu, retușurile vor fi drastice – varianta 0.2, pe care o trimiteam editurii, era de obicei cu 20-30% mai lungă decât varianta inițială 0.1, iar din părțile rămase doar 60-70% coincideau).

Una dintre editoarele mele, Amanda, șefa, a strâns toate cele 48 de capitole într-un singur document. Știam că o să fie lung și-l estimasem cam la lungimea pe care o are, dar chiar și așa m-a izbit dimensiunea. Neîmpărțit în calupuri de câte 10 pagini, capătă în mintea mea dimensiuni de dragon, de monstru sacru, de munte pe care-l privesc din propriul meu punct mărunt. Gigantic. De zece ori mai mare decât mine. Inabordabil.

Scot cravașa, pregătesc bocancii. Dacă e musai, îmblânzesc dragoni, urc munți.

Cărți, știri, foiletoane și romanul meu disponibil gratis

Fri, 02 May 2014 12:58:26 +0000

Editura la care public Flight from Hell și-a schimbat stilul de funcționare. Pe scurt: toate romanele sunt disponibile gratis pe site și cei care donează prin Patreon pățesc tot felul de chestii bune. Schimbarea s-a produs azi, cu relansarea site-ului și înscrierea editurii în Patreon.

În ce mă privește sunt sceptică cu privire la mișcarea asta a celor de la Big World Network, dar pentru voi e numai și numai o chestie bună. În primul rând pentru că aveți acces gratis la romanul meu (și cei cărora nu le place de mine pot să se plângă mai în cunoștință de cauză, fără să dea niciun ban pentru asta):

Și în al doilea rând pentru că aveți acces la tot felul de alte romane, cărți de non-ficțiune, cărți audio și toate cele. (aș dori să precizez că m-a lovit la un moment dat revelația că Amanda Meuwissen, editoarea mea, autoarea seriei Incubus, scrie scene sexuale explicite și le citește ea însăși cu multă dăruire 😀 )

Pentru cei care au ajuns aici tardiv și au ratat toate anunțurile mele în privința asta, Big World Network e o editură care publică foiletoane în epoca digitală – câte un „episod” de carte de 4-10 pagini în fiecare săptămână. Pe site sunt și serii complete, și unele care sunt încă în scriere (ca a mea). Cărțile complete audio/ebook/tipărite sunt disponibile la vânzare și de obicei sunt re-editate, adăugite și în general mai bune decât ce apare pe site. (cei care donează primesc cărți pe gratis – inclusiv tipărite, inclusiv livrate internațional)

Nu știu dacă o să rămână pe donații la nesfârșit și dacă accesul gratuit o să fie disponibil pentru totdeauna, așa că merită să băgați un ochi sau doi pe acolo în perioada asta, să vedeți dacă vă surâde câte ceva.

The Fighter and the Blond [Story]

Sat, 15 Feb 2014 12:10:11 +0000

[Author’s Note: So, this isn’t a short story, not really. Short stories have points and they create a universe of their own and enchant you all by their lonesome. They’re enough in and of themselves. This is a scene. It has a mini-point.

It takes place in the ’90s in Kyoto. Sara is the same Sara from Flight from Hell, but at a low in her life when she really doesn’t like humanity as a whole. She isn’t a werewolf yet.

This has been written because I felt like it and I wanted to share something that will never go in the novel. I think it can be read as a stand-alone.

Hey, I come from the world of fanfiction. Throwing random prose at people is acceptable behavior.]

The building was eerily quiet, as if all its inhabitants had taken vows of silence. It suited Sara just fine. She felt like a shadow herself, a ghost haunting an elegant Kyoto penthouse. And why not? Surely heads of criminal organizations had beautiful homes that they eventually killed people in. She could be one of the murdered, eventually, if she played her cards wrong. Unless, of course, they were more clever than to kill her in elegant places where her death would draw a lot of attention. Sara was still a bit shaky on the details of such organizations. All of her information came from fiction, which was unreliable as a whole.

The thought of dying didn’t make her afraid, or even very anxious. In a way, it didn’t matter to her whether she lived or died, except in this case dying meant losing the game. She didn’t fancy losing.

„Can I get you anything, mistress?”

The man had been sitting humbly on a pillow for the better part of two hours. Sara was too apathetic at the moment to stir much, but she had to wonder how he wasn’t bored out of his mind yet.

„How about an answer?” she asked in return. „What could make a man sign his body and soul over to another man?”

„I’m afraid that…”

„Tea,” she cut him off. She’d already heard his polite excuses over and over. Damien didn’t want her to know what this man’s contract contained and her slave-servant-person wasn’t about to break his confidentiality clause. „And salmon,” she added. „If we still have salmon.”

The young man was alright, she supposed, but he was unexciting. Damien liked his servants biddable, which she appreciated in general, but now she would have liked to be around someone more exciting. In two days she would meet with some of the important Japanese families and she’d start having work to do. Until then, she needed to wait and waiting wasn’t her strongest point. She’d visited Kyoto, seen the people, been entertained by a geisha and done everything a tourist would do, and now she was out of ideas, as well as lethargic.

She thought it was easier to get bored around people than without them, since you couldn’t relax and do whatever you wanted to do in peace. This obedient Laurent was lovely as a slave and shit for company. Sara considered telling him to take the night off and rent a hotel room somewhere, so she’d be left all alone in the apartment.

„I think you ate all the salmon, mistress,” he said from the kitchen. „It’s remarkable, since we had enough for five people at least.”

There was something new in his voice. A light sarcasm. She turned around, suspicious. Had boredom broken down his walls? Was there something in him that was actually worth looking at?

„Then perhaps we still have tuna?”

„…some, I think, mistress.”

Obedient again. Sara wasn’t very happy. She wondered if people had been spreading half-lies about her again – the ones to the effect that she was a batshit crazy assassin.

„Actually, I believe the tuna is gone as well,” Laurent said, the light sarcasm back in his voice. „In a few weeks you’ll be the size of a…” He realized what he was saying, stopped, licked his lips and gave his best dumb smile. „The perfect size to… to be a…” He was obviously struggling to find some brilliant, complimentary way to finish the sentence. There was none, so he ended up saying, „…a really big leader.”

Sara stared at him, stone-faced. If she made the slightest move, she would burst out laughing. She hadn’t laughed in months, so she felt it would be inappropriate to do so now. Not a muscle on her face twitched. Unsurprisingly, he took it to mean she was angry.

„I’ll go buy salmon and tuna, I’m sure some place must still have them,” Laurent said cheerfully and tried to run out of the kitchen. Sara grabbed him by the hand.

She hadn’t meant to be threatening, but the moment he stopped and turned towards her, she realized she was being so. If they’d told him that she was a murderous psycho who was barely waiting for a provocation, his worried expression made a lot of sense.

„Forget that. I don’t want to be a really big leader just yet,” she told him. „Just get me tea.” She considered. „And rice balls. I didn’t eat all the rice balls as well, did I?”

„I don’t think so,” he answered. Sara almost saw him make up his mind about something. „I think it’s rather lucky that you were so fascinated with staring out the window that you forgot about them.”

His tone was tentative, trying to gauge her reaction to impertinence. The intention wasn’t disrespectful, so she let her lips curl up into a smile. He relaxed visibly. If he ever got any ideas about how far he could go, it wouldn’t be much of a problem to put him back in his place.

„Isn’t it?” she asked. „You can help put a dint in my abnormally large leadership by eating with me this time.”

Not much later, at the table, sitting on pillows, they talked over tea and rice balls. Sara reconsidered her evaluation of Laurent from the past few days.

„Did they tell you I was a psychopath?” she asked out of the blue.

„Yes,” he answered. „With an inclination towards violent rampages.”

Well. That explained a lot. „And they told you that I am often silent because I am psychotic, I presume. The quiet type who bursts out in murderous explosions of discontent.”

Laurent nodded and named a few names, explaining who had told him what. Sara resolved to knock their heads together when she met the bastards and scold them for putting the fear of dangerously crazy in those who worked closely with her.

„I am violent,” she told him. „But not randomly. Also, depressive, not psychotic. I suppose Damien wanted you to amuse me in some way while I was here, to lighten up the gloom.”

„I’m a sex slave,” he offered. „I think there’s a clue there. I’m not trying to say that you need to get laid, of course, but…”

Sara got laid a lot, actually, but it was none of this man’s business.

„Which reminds me of my question: why would someone sell themselves to somebody else, body and soul?”

„Not just anybody. I gave myself to Damien Kenden.”

Sara looked him up and down. „I think that was the gayest answer you could have given.”

Still, it was more of a clue about him than she’d had before. That he needed something, probably desperately so, was obvious. That it had to be Damien was a new development. She’d have to see what she could make of it later. Also, she’d need to talk to Kenden about asking people to sign sexual slavery contracts in return for his services. It was funny, but rather uncalled for.

„You have a filthy mouth,” Sara told him. „I’ll be making use of it.”

„Certainly.”

„I can’t read Japanese, but I know you can. You’ll be reading my correspondence for me tonight and teaching me how to write and read in the next few days, when we have time. I’m uninterested in sex right now and uninterested in you in general.”

„But interested in eating the entire kitchen.”

She decided she liked his teasing and speaking back. It was like having a friend, except not really.

The thought made her gloomy again. She would have liked to put daggers in some of her old friends and see them drowning when blood poured into their lungs. She would have liked to grin at them when she asked why they’d shunned her so easily, why they’d seen fit to humiliate her. Her vision darkened and her blood pressure spiked so much that she became dizzy.

She noticed Laurent looking at her with worry in his eyes. Smart boy, but he wasn’t the enemy. And she would never really harm her old friends, either, despite how much she wanted to.

„Mm. The novelty of raw fish will wear out in a few days, I am certain,” Sara told him, getting a grip on herself. „Well, since you are an outspoken individual with a real personality not resembling that of a doormat, I suppose I can make use of you in more ways than I initially expected. If I think that I can trust you, and if you are faithful to me, I will take you on as a confidante. Maybe even as a lover, who knows?”

Laurent’s lips quirked up. „My mistress has a sense of humor, as well.”

„I mostly like laughing at other people’s stupidity.”

„Alas, I am sorry that I can’t entertain you better in that case.”

She snorted, more from a desire to be amused and lighthearted than from an actual desire to laugh.

„Call me boss, or ‘my lady’. Either one will do. Stop it with the ‘mistress’, I am not your dominatrix.”

„Yes, boss.”

„If this is who you are, you are free to provoke those I come in contact with, unless I tell you otherwise. A bit of wit never hurt too many people.”

„Alright.”

There was something very honest in the way in which he agreed to do her bidding. At some level, he probably really was an obedient sort of person. Signing a contract for sexual slavery… She could easily blame Damien for that, but he didn’t draw up funny contracts lightly, and not one like this that she could remember. Perhaps the question wasn’t why a man could sell himself, but what sort of a person you had to be to sell yourself. Why would you want to belong completely to somebody else? If you weren’t a sexual pervert, that is, and Damien was uninterested in those.

The answer came to her: protection and a natural ease for following orders. Hullo, Laurent was in trouble. And if Damien was willing to take him on, more than that, if he’d given him to her, he had to be interesting in some way. Her fingers itched to go to the phone, pick up the receiver and call the London offices, hoping that Damien was there, and ask him what the blond slave was all about.

Sara decided not to. She was bored and finally there was a challenge before her. Hopefully, behind the smile and the wisecracking, there would be some sort of prize. Something that would cheer her up more than a new book or a new lover. Or a new failed attempt to find a friend.

„Also, you’ll be sleeping on the floor in front of my bedroom door tonight,” she told him.

„Are you kidding, boss?”

She was. „No, I am not. You get pillows and a blanket.”

„…Alright. I feel it is my duty to inform you that I talk in my sleep.”

Nice dodge, but she wouldn’t let him off so easily. „No problem. I listen in my sleep.”

„Then I’ll try to be quiet before I reveal my secret pasta recipe.”

Sara decided she liked him, as much as she could like anyone she’d just met. She could let the him cheer her up, or at least she could let him try. Especially by being sarcastic towards the annoying people she needed to be polite and nice towards.

Maybe she would call Damien, just to say thank you for giving Laurent to her as a gift.

Oi fi pe cale să devin stafidă?

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 12:54:31 +0000

Îmi pun căștile cu microfon să înregistrez. „Flight from Hell, season three…” Mă opresc brusc. Parcă mi s-a uscat gura, jur că mi s-a lipit limba de cerul gurii puțin. Încerc iar. „Flight from Hell, season three…” Gâtul mi se face ca deșertul.

Iau o gură de apă. „Flight…”

Iau trei guri de apă. „Flight from Hell, season three…”

Beau paharul până la fund, duc partea cu „written and read by” până la capăt. Mă duc la bucătărie, iau sticla de apă, o aduc, îmi torn, beau paharul. „The woman had long, black hair drawn back in a wild bun barely kept together by shiny, dark brown hair pins.” Sun ca un om chinuit în Sahara.

Limba mi se lipește iar de cerul gurii. După încă două pahare simt că mi se usucă buzele și mâinile. Încep să-mi pun problema că ori mi s-au stricat glandele salivare, ori sunt victima unui blestem biblic (doar că alea de obicei parcă sunt cu o foame imposibilă, nu cu o sete imposibilă).

“Hanako,” Sara said, încep iar. Parcă-mi stau cuvintele în gât, vocea nu face ce vreau eu să facă. Fiecare inspirație pe gură pare să evapore instant orice fel de umezeală intrabucală. Beau încă un pahar cu apă, în dimineața asta am băut deja o cafea, un pahar de apă minerală și un litru de apă plată.

Îmi fac un ceai de mentă cu miere că n-are ce să strice (și m-am săturat de apă). Mă dau cu cremă pe mâini până nu mai simt că mi se strânge pielea.

Și, încet, încet, cred că încep să-mi revin. Deși e foarte dubioasă chestia. O_o Wtf. Eventual mai corectez la o traducere înainte să reîncerc să înregistrez.

Persoana a treia, perspectivă limitată

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 17:49:53 +0000

La școală țin minte vag că ne-ar fi explicat că naratorii sunt, în principiu, de două tipuri: naratori omniscienți, care spun povestea la persoana a treia, și naratori la persoana întâi, care sunt și personaje și care sunt subiectivi – și că naratorul la persoana a doua nu există.

Fals. Întâi că există narator la persoana a doua, chiar dacă e rar (am auzit de Bright Lights, Big City că ar face așa ceva, dar n-am citit cartea). În al doilea rând că o narațiune la persoana întâi ar putea fi obiectivă, bănuiesc, dacă naratorul ar fi Dumnezeu. Sau moartea (vezi Hoțul de cărți de Markus Zusak). În al treilea rând că naratorul la persoana a treia nu e mereu omniscient, chestie destul de clară dacă ești atent la ce citești.

Naratorul ăsta ultimul poate să aibă o perspectivă limitată, pentru că de fapt urmărește un singur personaj și doar cu personajul ăla știe ce se întâmplă. E un fel de narator la persoana întâi cu mască. În loc să zici, „M-am trezit și am văzut că Elena”, spui, „Se trezi și văzu că Elena lipsea”. Îl găsești peste tot, de la Metamorfoza lui Kafka la Harry Potter. Uneori se poate întâmpla să ai mai mulți naratori de-ăștia într-o carte, fiecare urmărind alt personaj (vezi Urzeala tronurilor, în care naratorul îl urmărește pe personajul care dă titlul capitolului).

Problema e, evident, că dacă alegi un narator la persoana a treia cu perspectivă limitată, și îl folosești vreme îndelungată, nu poți să-l schimbi brusc.

…

Se aude până acolo oftatul meu prelung? Am un narator de-ăsta. Și nu pot să schimb brusc perspectiva, chiar dacă aș vrea să mut povestea, temporar, pe umerii altcuiva. Sigur, celălalt personaj poate povesti. Sau poate povesti un terț. Sau se poate găsi un jurnal părăsit intenționat (doar că nimeni nu scrie jurnale aici), sau pot să-și citească gândurile într-un subit accident telepatic. Pentru că fantasy. Pe principiul de o gramatică dubioasă „iadul sunt ceilalți”, care se adaugă faptului că personajele sunt în Iad, aș putea să-mi trimit personajul principal în amintirile altcuiva ca pe un fel de Alice în Țara Minunilor, doar că fără minuni.

Asta nu schimbă faptul că până la urmă ce aș vrea să fac ar fi să mut perspectiva pe altcineva. Tot narator la persoana a treia, tot perspectivă limitată.

Mă întreb câte greșeli de interpretare gen „autorul a vrut să spună că” s-au născut din simplul fapt că autorul facea acrobații ca să-și păstreze o coerență a textului, chestie care nu e evidentă când citești cartea.

Flight from Hell – the end of season 2

Sun, 05 Jan 2014 15:07:27 +0000

There’s still a bit to go before the last episodes of season 2 of Flight from Hell are available online, but I’ve already sent them out. (which reminds me, a new episode was posted today)

For the past few days I felt lost. I’ve written 2 seasons of Flight from Hell – 12 episodes each, so 24 in total. About 3000 words/episode, give or take. About 70-75 thousand words, I think. Unless my maths deceive me. And I know where the story is going and who the characters are, but there’s a point in anything I write when I wonder if the story isn’t, in fact, dull, crap, stupid, cliche or unreadable… or all of them together. That point, for Flight from Hell, is now.

Once upon a time, that feeling was absolutely correct. I wrote crap. That’s what teenagers and beginners do. It’s how you learn, by smearing the paper with what you think is brilliance and seeing later that you sound like a childish drama queen with a speech impediment and a slight IQ problem. These days the feeling is usually wrong (not always, but usually). As such, it’s something that I need to deal with. I need to push myself through doubt, through indecision, through the desire to flee and abandon the novel.

This is why last year I thought writing a serial novel is a brilliant idea: I’ve already made a contract to go on. As well as being a series of physical, on-paper contracts, writing for the Big World Network is a metaphorical contract with myself, a promise that no matter what, I’ll go through with it. Flight from Hell might not be the best thing I’ll ever write (I should hope not; it’d be disappointing to write my best work at 25). It might not even be as mind-blowing as I wanted it to be. But I’m hoping it’s good and I’m trying to make it so. You aren’t a real writer if you only ever write in your head. So eventually I had to take the big step and step on insecure ground, exposing myself to failure and criticism – but mostly, to being disappointed in myself.

This morning, feeling like I was about to curl up in a corner and hyperventilate because I was so afraid of screwing things up, I re-read a pep talk I got on NaNoWriMo a few years back. It was by Neil Gaiman, because of course it was. And it started like this:

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone[…] You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that […] it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

So true.

It turns out many writers have doubts. Including Neil Gaiman. Including 75% of the writers his editor knows. I assume that out of the rest of the 25%, you have at least 5% who think that they’re the best thing since Shakespeare and that perfection flows from their pens like lava out of the Vesuvius, cca. 79 AD.

So I got myself an Irish Coffee, which is basically coffee with whiskey in it. I rarely indulge in alcohol, but it’s fucking brilliant with anxiety. The amount of alcohol in an Irish Coffee is usually perfect: enough to lower my inhibitions, but not enough to make me think I’m funny or brilliant when I’m blatantly not.

I wrote.

I now have 1129 words of the 25th episode of Flight from Hell. And I’m in love with it again. Not because alcohol makes any novel idea looks pretty, but because I loosened up enough to remember why I love writing it.

The only thing I hate is that I write from a single character’s point of view and it’s frustrating not to know how to reveal others’ POVs as well. I know them, I know what they’re thinking, and Nakir is a bit clueless. But it’s not an insurmountable problem.

Last time I finished a season, I wrote an article called „12 episodes, 12 quotes” to entice people to check it out. But fuck it. I didn’t feel like advertising this time around. I’d rather celebrate, because it’s a fun novel and when I sent that first episode to the Big World Network last year, I had no idea that it would actually be a novel, and one people like reading, at that.

O tehnică literară (pe care tocmai am folosit-o)

Thu, 02 Jan 2014 10:57:52 +0000

N-am o denumire pentru tehnica asta literară, dar vreau s-o disec ca să explic ce am făcut, de ce, cum funcționează și la ce folosește.

Situația: un personaj (Nakir, înger) foarte stresat, în criză existențială + semi-atac de panică, ca să spunem așa. Alt personaj, supărat (Sara) care a decis să-l ia la palme verbale.

„Îngeri,” pufni ea. „Sunteți o trupă de idioți. Nu vă dați seama când ar trebui să vă dați un pas înapoi și să vă uitați care vă sunt limitele. Vreți să salvați lumea, să ajutați oamenii, să le aranjați viețile după cum aveți chef. Nu sunteți salvatori, sunteți tirani și nici măcar nu vă dați seama. Poate că aveți un complex, vă credeți Dumnezei. E foarte oedipian din partea voastră, vreți să vă omorâți tăticul și să stăpâniți creația, ștoarfa lui.”

Nakir îi spuse să se ducă învârtindu-se.

(din Flight from Hell, sezonul 2, episodul 12 (nepublicat încă). (Am spus vreodată că-mi displace la culme să mă traduc singură? Îmi displace la culme să mă traduc singură.)

Conversația continuă în același stil. Ea: didactic, lung, afluență de cuvinte, filozofeală. (în contrast cu felul ei obișnuit și aproape laconic de a vorbi)

El: nu-l auzi vorbind. Vezi doar chestii gen „îi spuse să se ducă învârtindu-se”. Replici scurte, redate de narator.

De ce? Aveam nevoie de ceva care să redea ideea că ea atacă, iar el e foarte obosit, cătrănit, vrea să fie lăsat în pace. Simți rafala de cuvinte, frază după frază de acuzații indirecte, insulte, chestii menite să rănească și să enerveze. Simți superioritatea cu care vorbește Sara, felul în care ea folosește un întreg arsenal indirect pe care ai nevoie de energie să-l combați. Nakir efectiv nu are energia asta.

Nakir îi spuse să se ducă învârtindu-se… De ce nu-i spune direct, între ghilimele de dialog?… Ceva mai jos, nu e foarte clar nici dacă mai vorbește sau nu mai vorbește. Ea spune ceva gen „Vrei să știi adevărul?” Și suntem informați că Nakir nu vrea, dar Sara continuă oricum. A zis că n-are chef să mai audă? Doar a gândit? Nu e clar, dar ce e clar e că n-are niciun chef de toată conversația.

Pentru că știm exact ce spune Sara, simțim impactul vocii ei mult mai tare. A lui se pierde în peisaj. Ea e peste tot în paginile alea și el devine mic, pasiv, aproape absent.

Working with the Big World Network

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 09:20:34 +0000

Flight from Hell is well into its second season by now – the fourth episode is out today and episodes 5, 6 and 7 are ready for when their time will come. 8 has been written, 9 is being written.

And the one thing I keep saying this morning is that I have awesome publishers.

First of all, the reason why I decided to get a novel published with them is that I absolutely loved the concept. I come from the wonderful world of fanfiction, where you wait for a new episode and you text your friends things like „Holy fucking shit! Beside You in Time was just updated :-O It’s alive!” Or you run around and tell people in Canada that silverkytten updated, or that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality just got a new episode.

Literature can be a domain where you eagerly wait for more, where you can get involved, speculate, hope for more. We’ve kind of lost that in the mainstream when serial novels stopped being published – but fanfiction, where the chapter is the default posting unit, brought the excitement back. The only problem being that many, many series lie abandoned, maybe never to be finished (such as some of my own, actually… hiatuses just keep growing)

The Big World Network publishes one chapter/episode per week, though, so you’re ensured against heartbreak of looking at series that will never be finished. And I love that. It’s brilliant.

And of course, they publish audio episodes as well. Which is lovely, I adore audiobooks.

But. Part 2 of the story of my love for the Big World Network is the unseen one: what happens behind the scenes. After all, sometimes the books that are published can be lovely and so can the concept, but when you end up working with the people who make the magic happen, you can feel like crap (I’ve been in that situation before).

The truth is: I absolutely love the BWN team from this point of view. I’ve been working with them for some months now and they are awesome.

Here, let me bullet point the neat stuff you don’t see from the outside:

They’re great with planning. They take their time to come up with solutions, set deadlines which allow for unforeseen delays and think things through before they act. They know the extent of their abilities, and they know what to expect of the average author. In other words, they don’t rely on optimism and improvisation to get things done – which is a nice change from some of the artistic teams I’ve been in. „Better early than on time” is a decent standard to function by, no? And you always have time to notice whether anything needs more work that way.
They’re transparent about what they do. We get team updates regularly, in which we find out what the Big World Network is planning: site changes, convention participation, events, plans for certain events, what is going on with other parts of the Big World Network. Technically, I don’t need to know some of that (e.g. changes in the way the site looks like), but it does make me feel like I’m welcomed into their home. Which is great. I get to know who I work for and what they do.
They listen. I’m a nitpicking sort of person, and a lot of people grumbled over how evil and criticizing I am (I don’t mean it in a bad way, though). But the BWN guys don’t grumble. They check, explain, fix, improve. Is there a typo anywhere on the site? It will be fixed. A broken link, an audio glitch, anything that falls under the category of „you missed a spot”? That spot will be checked ASAP. And I’ll get replies to things like „Have you tried selling your books with X, Y or Z?”
They also dialogue. Let’s hit the full spectrum of communication here: I can discuss the merits/downfalls of an idea concerning either the novel or the site with them and some solution/compromise will be reached. And they’re polite, nice and assume you’re (trying to be) the same as well (which really helps people like myself, who can put their foot in their mouth regularly).
They try new things: today they’re at a convention, tomorrow they’re finding people on the net who will promote them, yesterday they talked to some people about promoting your work for some time to come, at some point they will do something promotional and neat God knows where.
I should’ve mentioned this above, but it’s obvious from the way the site looks: they’re very skilled at what they do. Novel covers look great – and they look different. My banner is very different from Thralldom’s banner, which in its turn is very different from the banner for Billie vs the Unseen. Perhaps some are less impressive than others, but you can see a personality in them, professionalism. The same goes for editing: Amanda and Wendy (yes, I have two editors) find typos and problems easily, fix my convoluted sentences, tell me when something is wrong and, all in all, save my ass every once in awhile. And, of course, everything runs smoother than smooth on their side.

They make you feel like you’re part of the team and, overall, they make my life a bit more cheerful than I’d expected it to be. Which is why I’m writing this post.

And it isn’t just me saying it, either.

Planuri de noiembrie

Sun, 27 Oct 2013 08:30:11 +0000

Continuând cu NaNoWrimo.

O chestie pe care am remarcat-o în anii trecuți e că șansele de a scrie ceva de calitate scad direct proporțional cu viteza cu care scrii respectivul lucru. Și nu mă refer la tastat, pentru că tastez cam la fel de repede în toate situațiile. Mă refer la timpul pe care ți-l oferi ca să gândești ce scrii.

În ce mă privește, standardul NaNo, de 50.000 cuvinte/lună = prea mult. Pentru că încep să dau chix dacă mă axez pe cantitate. Deși nu exclud ideea de a putea scrie bine mai mult într-o lună dacă n-aș fi atentă la numărul de cuvinte.

Momentan, capitolul/săptămână din Flight from Hell ajunge la 3.000 cuvinte, deci aproximativ 12.000 cuvinte/lună. Ceea ce e ok. Ca ritm.

Planul e următorul: scriu. Dar scriu la chestii diferite. În primul rând, Flight from Hell. Dacă scriu 2 capitole/săptămână, e perfect. O iau puțin înaintea termenelor-limită, dar nu forțez coarda. Dacă nimeresc pe la 20.000 cuvinte până la final, e ok.

Pe urmă, am două idei de nuvele, sau ce vor ajunge până la urmă. Ușurele. Fără complicații. Sper. Poate. Mă rog să fie așa. Una dintre ele e cea pe care o s-o scriu când nu scriu la FFH. Hai să-i spunem DW.

Și dacă am nevoie de pauză și de la DW, și de la FFH, ajung la ultima ultima variantă, SYS.

Deci cam așa:

E prima oară când vreau să fac NaNo pe bucățele, dar în fond, de ce nu?

Flight from Hell – 12 episodes, 12 quotes

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 11:13:40 +0000

All of Season 1 of Flight from Hell has been written, edited, fixed and recorded and is steadily going online every Sunday on the Big World Network. Two episodes to go!

So. Flight from Hell is a supernatural/horror series set in Hell (hence the title). The reason is probably the sex – or the mindfuck.

Quotes:

Episode 1 -- „A dying angel, a strange magician human woman, and a carnivorous horse met in sex-Hell. If it was the beginning of a joke, Nakir couldn't wait to hear the punch line.”

Episode 2 -- „Sara was now as tall as a house, her eyes gold, her bared fangs shining in the light as if she were Hell itself. But if Nakir remembered them right, Madness and Ferocity had had a hundred times her strength and ferociousness. Still, not bad. Not bad. He could foresee not dying quite as fast now.”

Episode 3 -- „After the preliminaries of the conversation, Ashmedai was a trip down the rabbit hole. Probably the drug-induced kind of rabbit hole, but still. [..] The way he was still touching the maid-clad woman was both disturbing and as eye-catching as erotica written on dirty sheets by a naked writer with a cigarette between his lips and three-dollar whores serving as muses.”

Episode 4 -- „“Did the devils make this?” Sara asked. She had barely spoken since they'd come to the road. “It doesn't seem particularly Hellish.”

“I don't know. Legends say there was something in Hell before the Fall. They might have just discovered this. Or it might have built itself.”

Sara laughed. The sound echoed around them eerily and loudly, which probably displeased her because she stopped abruptly. “Roads with walls and towers don't build themselves, you know.”

“Here they do.”

Episode 5 -- „“I hate this place,” Sara mumbled. “Deeply. Profoundly. From the bottom of my bloody soul. I loathe it and despise it. I want to tear it into little pieces and throw them into a fire and feed the ashes to elephants. Then I want to kill the elephants and bomb their carcasses, then send their remains to the bottom of the ocean.”

Episode 6 -- „“What do you think he's doing inside?” Nakir asked.

“Abusing hair gel, inflating sex dolls, corrupting the innocent, waiting to see how long it will take us to realize we've been locked on the balcony. Do you really want my theories?””

Episode 7 -- „Heaven was cruel. It was something humans had never been told because they didn't need to know. Its particular branch of painful coldness never touched them directly.”

Episode 8 -- „“I loathe myself, and sing myself, and what I endure you shall endure,” she said. “Or how did it go?”

She'd gotten things wrong, as usual. She'd twisted them into something bad, cynical, filled with anger and hatred.”

Episode 9 -- „He placed his lips against Nakir's ear and whispered, “I want to fuck you into the wall, I want to have you struggling against me while you pant in pleasure, I want you to curse me the whole way and give me that disapproving, spiteful look when your hips buck against me. But until then, angel, I'll have to let you go.””

Episode 10 -- „“There's a dead human in my bed,” the pretty succubus who'd screamed announced to every single person inside in a high-pitched, hysterical tone. “She's awful. Oh, take it away, take it away!”

Episode 11 -- „Nakir would kill him. They both knew it. Any second now, the angel would end the priest's chants and there would be no more Gilbert.”

Episode 12 -- „Nakir opened his eyes and saw a tall ceiling decorated with wooden patterns. He wasn't in his own bed. He wasn't clothed. He wasn't alone. His lips were parched and tasted of blood.”

Flight from Hell – the end of a season

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 21:43:40 +0000

I’m currently uploading the audio for episode 12 of Flight from Hell. That’s the last episode of the season – seeing as I won’t be taking the opportunity for a prolonged holiday, season 2 will start on the tail of season 1, with just one week’s break to mark the change.

I’ll be offering little quotes and teasers in a post on Sunday or so (tomorrow I’ll be visiting this Turkish city, forgot its name, with a bunch of Erasmus students, never knew their names).

Stats say that people enjoy Flight from Hell. Well, either that, or they click on its links a lot – it’s a bit hard to tell which is which, considering the limitations of today’s technology. It makes me happy, even if I don’t know who they all are, or what they think or such. Except my mum and Linda and this friend of mine who was one of the first people to ever read my stories (back when they were truly crap). They say stuff from time to time.

I kept expecting people to complain about things, or to get my usual insulting trolls saying stuff. But they never did. (except mum, but mothers do that)

And I got to kinda love the Big World Network team. They’re not perfect, but they damned well strive to be, from the editors who read my mind and edit my words accordingly (but are still open to discussion), to the friendly tech support which reads my e-mails and gets things fixed yesterday.

I have a nice writing rhythm now – no more periods of non-writing, no tendency to abandon the project (since I need to stick to it). It’s beautiful and it gets easier every week.

So. I’m a proper novelist-person-thingy. Which is cool. Should be writing some more now 😀

The mystery of the 1-star rating

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:57:27 +0000

Currently my rating for Flight from Hell over on the Big World Network is of 4.6/5 (with 9 votes cast). You can see it here. But not so long ago it was 4/5 (with 4 votes cast). Reverse it and try to figure out what the possible votes could be: 4*4 = 16, therefore the 4 votes amounted to 16.

Possibilities: 4 ratings of 4; 2 ratings of 5, 2 of 3; 3 ratings of 5, 1 of 1.

I’d already checked the rating before and it had been 5/5 with 2 votes, therefore only the latter two possibilities existed. But this is the internet where ratings of 3 are rare, so I was willing to bet that the last option was the correct option.

Three people had probably voted 5, one had voted 1.

Now, I’ve yet to see a bestseller with a perfect 5 and no book I love has ever lacked haters. I doubt that I will manage to enchant everybody like a mythical storyteller, so it was only a matter of time until that perfect 5 was marred by different opinions.

Still, a 1-star rating. Since the Big World Network more often has ratings than comments, there was nothing there to motivate the choice and I found that I really wanted to know why I got that one. Did the rater hate the premise? The choice of words? The pretentiousness, perhaps, the long sentences, the idea about Hell, the… well… What did the rater hate?

After all, knowing what they hate is a gateway into figuring out what they like, what they appreciate, what you do right and what you do wrong. It’s not just that they hate, it’s why they hate, and isn’t that fascinating and psychological and maybe you can use it sometime?

But I was most certainly never going to find out. So I figured I’d have to wait until the first bad review to be relieved of curiosity.

Luckily for me, my mother eventually said, „Ermmm, I was debating on whether I should tell you this.”

Me: „Yes?”

Mum: „I shared your novel on Facebook.”

Me: „Yeah…”

Mum: „And a friend clicked and she gave you a one-star rating.”

Me: „!!!!!!!!!”

Mum: „I’m sorry…”

Me: „Why? Why did she? She must’ve said.”

Mum: „Well, it’s stupid, really.”

Me: *dying to know the answer*

Mum: „She was looking for the ’like’ button, to share it with others on Facebook, but she only saw the stars and clicked on the first one and only realized her mistake later.”

Me: „…”

Mum: „Don’t be mad.”

Me: *bursts out laughing* „You have no idea how long I poked that rating, trying to figure out what had happened there. This is too damned funny.”

So, note to everybody out there who gets really weird ratings: sometimes, it’s really not about you 😀

Discussions on literature (consider us drunk)

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:07:49 +0000

Linda’s come over, all the way from the other side of the country. Which is really cool. And conversations are getting really weird. We were talking Flight from Hell and we got to incubi and succubi.

Linda: Do you remember how incubi and succubi used to be so rare in fiction? And now they’re all over the place.

Me: I swear to God I didn’t know Amanda had a series called Incubus before submitting to the Big World Network.

Linda: Speaking of Incubus. *fangirls* I really, really like it. It’s fun!!! But no, I mean, all over the place. Everywhere.

Me: Remember where vampires were a metaphor for sex?

Linda: Yeah.

Me: So we just decided to drop the metaphor part.

Linda: Remember that English lit class?!

Me: YES!!!! O_O

*flashback*

15-20 students are sitting around a table during a literature seminar.

Professor: So, how would you like to die? [note: In her defense, we were talking about Emily Dickinson]

Student: By incubus.

Class: *stupefied silence*

Linda: Do you know what an incubus is?!?!?!?!

Student: Yes. *confused*

Class: O_O *more stupefied silence*

Professor: *starts snickering*

Student: I want to die peacefully in my sleep.

Professor: *barely stops from laughing out loud*

Linda: *dramatically* But they suck your soul and drag you to hell!

[…]

Me: But do you remember that class in which a professor asked what the fuss about vampires was?

Linda: *falls over laughing*

*flashback*

Professor: What’s the fuss about vampires?

Student: [something-something metaphors, literature, symbolism]

Professor: No, I still don’t get it.

Annoyed student: They’re hot, sexy hunks used as sex metaphors!

Professor: Ooooooooooooh. I understand now! *gets wistful look*

[…]

Me: *checks her blog stats* OMG, somebody came from Google Plus! That place is alive!!!!!!!!1 This is the first time this happens. I should write a special ’thank you for sharing my post, single G+ actual user out there!'

[…]

Me: I never meant to put any actual gay stuff in Flight from Hell. Aside from Ashmedai-the-pansexual-devil being a threat in the background. I thought I could just skirt the issue constantly and have Nakir escape him over and over. Then I realized, Ashmedai would go for him in immoral, creepy ways. He totally would.

Linda: *does that dreamy thing fangirls do*

Me: And Nakir’s weak and confused and trying to play reverse psychology at one point and Ashmedai, well… „Lead us not into temptation, because we’ve already been there and proved we were abysmally bad at it.” [note: I have a thing for that ’lead us not into temptation’ saying recently]

Linda: *wiggles her eyebrows*

Me: Not that anything actually happens, mind you. Not really. Not beyond this one thing, this short, clothes-on thing which ends fast and makes the threat and Nakir’s confusion so much worse.

Linda: *does a sad face* I would love to see them together. Maybe all three of them. That would be fun.

Me: Bad idea in the text.

Linda: *puppy eyes* How about in the Alternate Universe Christmas Special?

Me: There is no Alternate Universe Christmas Special.

Linda: There could be. Hey, I knew this author who wrote fanfic of her own stories, ever thought of doing the same?

*conversation dives straight into the gutter*

[…]

Me: So sometimes, I look at the editors’ comments, and they’re, like, so confused, you know? Trying to solve that old question, which for once makes perfect sense: what did the author mean to say over here?

Linda: I only ever get giggles in the margins.

Me: I get confusion. What did the author mean?… And then the author shows up and says, no, no, no, wait! That’s not what I meant! Oh, crap. Let me change it. In chapter two, I had the devil say that thing, you know? *quotes from memory* „For that I, and not your husband, must be their father.” Except the first time I said it like crap and it was confusing. So when the editor modified it for clarity, there was this confused scene between the queen and the devil. He was like, „I won’t be your husband.” And she went, „Good, I’ve already got one of those.” And I went, „ooooh, wait, he was actually saying ‘I’ll be knocking you up myself’. Which is a bit different.”

[…]

Linda: I never thought I’d say this, but I am so happy to get rid of the romance subplot with my story. It didn’t work. At all. So right now I’ve taken the romance down and I’m adding a lot more crazy.

Me: Like?

Linda: Well, there’s a whole new plot with the Physics Department. Some klutzy students did some experiments and that’s why it’s… missing. Carmen goes off to search for the missing South Wing.

Me: You have a vanishing university.

Linda: Pretty much. Oh, and I have to figure out how to put in the vampire bounty hunter. Because I said there would be one – and there will be, dammit.

Flight from Hell – episode 3

Sun, 18 Aug 2013 15:47:36 +0000

Episode three – the final free episode – of Flight from Hell is out.

Quote:

The way he was still touching the maid-clad woman was both disturbing and as eye-catching as erotica written on dirty sheets by a naked writer with a cigarette between his lips and three-dollar whores serving as muses.

Warning: There’s a lot of sex-related stuff in this one (sex Hell, duh). And probably disturbing stuff as well (although I’m sure slash fans and fetishists will enjoy it). If you’re repelled, try to remember that Ashmedai is a sex devil and acts accordingly. If you’re one of the slash fans, please try to remember that Ashmedai is a sex devil and Nakir acts accordingly.

(I’ve been dying to say that since forever)

Read it here.

Flight from Hell – episode 2

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:09:10 +0000

A reminder that the new episode is out and that it’s free to read and free to listen to.

Quote:

[H]e leaned his sword against the warm, reddish stone and it occurred to him that the image created was beautiful in a simple, elegant way. When his sword would drop and his blood would seep into the reddish ground, that would be beautiful, too.

Read it here.

Frustrare

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 10:03:03 +0000

Cel mai greu e să ștergi.

Mă uit pe pagini și pagini de text (8 la dublu spațiu, 2631 de cuvinte) și nici nu știu ce să șterg și ce să las. Sentimentul de frustrare când n-ai o parte rea de care să te legi, n-ai o parte foarte bună pe care să construiești. Îmi vine să arunc la gunoi capitolul și s-o iau de la capăt, doar că n-am condițiile fizice și psihice să rescriu aceeași chestie de o mie de ori până iese. Plus, senzația că nu e totul rău…

M-aș duce în vreo cafenea să șed acolo până rezolv situația, dar n-am chef de muzica niciuneia la care mă pot gândi.

Cred că cea mai bună chestie pe ziua de azi a fost și o să rămână World of Tanks de la 9 dimineața, cu alți doi care probabil n-au putut să doarmă mai mult (apropo, se dau zile de cont premium gratis). Acum am rămas cu un ceai negru afumat peste care mi-am trânit miere ca o blasfemiatoare a connoisseur-ismului în ceai (Lapsang Souchong se bea cu lapte și zahăr) și cu un capitol de roman care trebuie scris mai bine.

Cred că aș vrea să fac pe Harry Potter – doar că invers. Vreau să mă ascund la mine în cameră și ceilalți să se prefacă că nu sunt acolo. (“I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there” (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets))

Flight from Hell – episode 1

Sun, 04 Aug 2013 13:46:13 +0000

The first episode of „Flight from Hell” is out!

A dying angel, a strange magician human woman, and a carnivorous horse met in sex-Hell. If this was the beginning of a joke, Nakir couldn't wait to hear the punchline.

Check it out on the Big World Network website!

New episode every Sunday, first three episodes free – look for Roxana Kiril 😉

Audio version also available (read by yours truly)

(genre: Horror/Supernatural; rating: 18+)

Presenting: Flight from Hell by Roxana Kiril (coming next week)

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 19:44:37 +0000

My novel is nearly here. Just a bit over a week and, on August 4th, the first chapter/episode will be launched on the Big World Network.

Until then, I’ll be procrastinating with you and sharing little tidbits. Let’s see… where to start, what to say…

About 9 years ago I realized being a writer was an option.

Picture it: somewhere in Transylvania, there is a village. It has a castle (a very tiny castle) and the castle has a domain. It isn’t much of a domain, but there’s a forest that’s been tamed into a park (or a park that went wild and became a forest). And there’s a lake. It’s a small lake, but everything else is tiny, so why not. And on the lake, there is a very small island. And on the island there’s a table with two benches, all covered by a roof. They’re painted in yellow. Around the table there’s around 10 people. They’re writers.

Wellll, the ‘writers’ claim is dubious. I think one or two actually wrote on a regular basis. I certainly did not. But for all intents and purposes, on that occasion they were writers. Because it was a writing workshop and the people who attend those and scribble are writers, no?

So the workshop coordinator asked me: „What sort of stories do you want to write?”

I said, „Children’s books.”

Give me some slack. I was 16. No, I didn’t want to write for a younger audience. I just wasn’t aware that ‘fantasy’ was its own genre. I knew, what?… The Chronicles of Narnia, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland. I wasn’t aware you could write this sort of stuff for, you know, adults. For all of its reputation with vampires and werewolves, Transylvania wasn’t really brimming over with knowledge of this sort of literature. (and I don’t remember if I had even heard of the mysterious ‘anime’ and ‘manga’)

Fast-forward nine years. I’m still writing what I thought back then that I’d be writing, except now I know what it’s called. It’s called fantasy. Except, when I wasn’t paying attention, they went ahead and made up this new category they called ‘supernatural’, so yeah…

Flight from Hell is (apparently) a supernatural story. It’s got an angel. It’s got devils. It’s got Hell and a werewolf and incubi and succubi. And that little ‘18’ in the corner stands for ‘You have to be 18 to read this’. So much for children’s books.

The main characters are Nakir (an angel I stole from the Muslim tradition) and Sara (woman of infamous kick-ass-ery). At the beginning of episode 1 they’re standing in the Hell of succubi and incubi, led by the devil Ashmedai. Nakir, the angel questioning the faith of the dead in their graves, questioned his own role and the justice of God. He never found his way back up to Heaven. And Sara… she tried to bring someone back from the dead. Needless to say, she failed and suffered the consequences.

I enjoy writing every second of it, from the action scenes to the disturbing imagery. But I won’t spoil that.

Just a teaser of what the novel feels like. If both Nakir and Sara had songs that represented them, they’d be something like this:

Sara’s would be „Our Solemn Hour” by Within Temptation:

Because she thinks of herself as larger than life, strong, exploding with energy and fighting spirit. And there must be a woman doing amazing things with her voice in there. She has something about her that’s questioning, confrontational, rebelling – and screaming in Latin and English while comparing herself with Winston Churchill in stressful situations is not entirely out of the question. Definitely prone to thinking of herself in mythic terms.

Lyrics best fitting her:

Is the heart of stone, no empathy inside?
[…]
If we can’t restrain the beast which dwells inside
it will find it’s way somehow, somewhere in time
Will we remember all of the suffering
Cause if we fail it will be in vain

On the other hand, Nakir:

Entirely different sort of beast. Mellow, confused, tired, wary. Uncertain of anything, not much into struggling with fate. Asking himself questions, but finding no answers. And if he dies, well, he’s going to die wishing he didn’t die. He likes thinking the universe has some sort of harmony and order – even if he resents being kicked out of that order.

He carries burdens and fears – and the deep, deep thought that he deserves it all. Even if he doesn’t want it. Closer to resignation than desire to escape.

Lyrics for him:

Been a long road to follow,
Been there and gone tomorrow,
[…]
Is somebody there beyond these heavy aching feet?
Still the road keeps on telling me to go on…

Something is pulling me
I feel the gravity of it all

Both neat songs, but they don’t fit. And that’s why this story might be supernatural, and apparently it’s horror, but nobody ever suggested it should also be romance.

Teeheheeheee! Varianta audio de la roman sună bine.

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 13:55:04 +0000

Deci, deci, deci! Romanul meu (Flight from Hell, pe monitoare din 4 august :P) o să aibă și o variantă audio. Citită de mine, că de ce nu (între noi fie vorba, momentan îmi urăsc vocea și accentul în engleză. Vocea din inerție, accentul pentru că citesc mult mai puține r-uri decât există în text. „Dă scai uăz ă daacă șeid ăf red, tingin toods dă cală ăf crasted blad.”)

Așa. Nu e cea mai splendidă citire evă, dar merge destul de bine (o prietenă pe care aici o voi numi Linda pentru că altfel face colecție de nume și pseudonime, spune că e mișto. editoarea e de aceeași părere). Chestia care îmi place e că mi-au pus niște muzică la început și la final de capitol – o melodie întunecată, lentă, în care ți se pare că auzi tobe în caverne și lupii te urmăresc din spatele zidurilor. E perfectă 😀

În curând o să am și o copertă (mi-au arătat deja o variantă, dar încă e în lucru).

Am deja 2 capitole care au trecut prin piguleala editorială, 2 care așteaptă la coadă și scriu de zor la capitolul, pentru că mă prind termenele-limită din urmă.

Thoughts around my novel

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 07:17:30 +0000

I’ve finished recording the audio version of the first episode of Flight from Hell and I’ve sent it off to the Big World Network. Meanwhile, I’m writing episode four, which turned a bit surreal on me. Novels do that, I think. Surprise you. You think you have stuff figured out and then there’s this extra bit of richness or of fun lying about, ripe for the writing.

Flight from Hell is the sort of thing you don’t plan on writing. Its setting, its plot, its characters – they were all a side-story in another story, the sort of thing where someone goes „Sara?… Sara was in Hell. And now she’s damaged goods.”

But one night I was bored and I felt like typing a bit of crazy, a bit of oppressive atmosphere, a bit of sharp bitterness against the world. Unkind characters and a hostile universe, things going wrong even when they go right, beauty found in bleeding and in pain. Flight from Hell was meant to amuse me during a sleepless night, but since I liked the idea of publishing I sent it off to the Big World Network, alternately telling myself that it would be the best thing they ever published and the worst and most unfitting story that’s ever been sent to them. Sometimes I feel like I need narcissism to get read, megalomania to withstand the onslaught of criticism, masochism to read suggestions for improvements. Otherwise I’ll only remember that outside of me there are written worlds so beautiful that they make me cry and I’ve never managed to get to that point. The crush would be too great, so I do declare myself brilliant. I must be.

Episode four of Flight from Hell is surreal and I’m letting it carry me around. I know where it must end (perhaps that particular bit will end in episode five, if I can’t squeeze it all in ten pages), but the road there can wind any way it likes. I’m having fun with ideas, alternately putting them on the page and washing them away, remembering what little things need to be in there and editing them in or out, spinning them around until they look like they’ve always belonged. Which they did, I suppose. Stories are marvelous that way. By the time you write them to the end, they will have always been meant to be that way.

What fascinates me is that I’ve always known Sara. She was around long before this novel, doing things, fighting, failing, trying, loving, broken, going on. I know what she thinks, I know who she is. I know what she thinks of Nakir, of this angel she chose for a companion, of Hell, of escaping, of herself. I know her fears and desires and motivations, the whole bit. I thought at first she’d be the one lending her voice to Flight from Hell, but Nakir took over. I’m just getting to know him – and he barely knows anything of Sara, but he’s watching her from behind, guessing, thinking, speculating, judging. I’m writing what I don’t know, against that silly advice of writing what you do know. Where would you be, if you always did that?… Spinning around in circles, that’s where I would be. No, exploration is the best way to go, the way I see it.

I can’t wait to see it published. And I’m curious about what cover they’ll come up with, what little song bit before the audio version of each episode. I have no talent for visual arts, no idea what I’d want as a distinctive sound. I’m waiting to see those to figure out what others think Flight from Hell is like, to see what they see it as.