lookingland

i dinna quite finish James today. i still might, but i wanted to post what i had so far. i love the riding outfit. it's so snotty. and i love cadmium red (it's such a joy to paint with). i will finish this for sure during the week ~ after i finish drawing the other couple of outfits i wanted to. i also sketched an Emmaline, but have yet to commit her to real paper at this point. we'll see about that.

otherwise i have struggled some today. finished a draft of one of the stories i have been working on, but it feels weak. it's missing something (coherence? cohesion? co-something?). i feel like i really had a strong sense of what i was writing when i started it, but it's muddly now that it's semi-finished (at an alarming 5,700 words). it feels suddenly oddly pointless as a story and i'm not quite sure how to fix that.

Stars in Their Courses

synopsis: James ropes Lewis into trying to have a heart-to-heart with a woman who has been recently raped. Anyone who knows Lewis well enough ought to know this is destined for disaster.

a wee darling: He had left Camp Faiger in heavy buckskin trousers, a worn cotton blouse, a brown worsted coat on the verge of needing patches, and boots so bent and scuffed they appeared to have fought the late war all on their own.

mean things: Interestingly, this one of those rare instances where James isn't actually trying to be a jerk but comes off like one anyway. The meanest behavior actually comes from the woman, who jumps to unfortunate conclusions about everyone else's intentions.

nice things: i absolutely adore how Emmaline defends Lewis (i adore Emmaline, period). i think this moment and the final scene in which James gives Lewis an astrology lesson (metaphorically speaking - which is where the title comes from) are what inspired me to write the story.

random fact: i confess to perpetrating appalling things against the woman character in this story because, frankly, i don't like her. it seems strange not to like a character i created it, i guess, but sometimes characters are just that unpleasant.

I'm going to give the story a once more over and then maybe send it to a few peeps of distinction to get some needed perspective on it. then i can start doing illustrations for it. eeeeek!

: D