Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

sroloc--elbisivni asked: multiples of 5 for the ask meme?

Yay!  From this ask meme.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

Whenever I end up writing someone genuinely nice, I’m totally baffled.  Like, okay, in my Falls the Shadow novel, one of the Four Horsemen is named Kit (Famine) and she’s just flat-out a genuine sweetheart.  Will Hargrove, from my unfinished novel Emrys Ascendant, is Too Nice for any of this supernatural shit to be happening to him.  Or Lessa, from Polaris?  Like, yes, she can murder a dude with lightning, but also cartoon birds probably braid her hair in the morning.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Background noise, always background noise, I hate silence, I build incredibly expansive and intricate playlists for my various novels.  And if I’m around people, they have to be background people–I write really well in coffee shops, libraries, ice cream stores, that sort of thing.

15) why did you start writing?

I always told stories, you know?  I was really into playing pretend as a kid, and I started memorizing fairy tales and folklore as a very smol bean.  And then when I was like eight or nine, my beloved aunt (sarcasm) told me that I was too old to play pretend and I needed to stop living in my own world and get my head out of the clothes and grow up.  I was a pretty messed up kid, so naturally I took this as gospel, but I still had stories to tell, so I started writing them down.  Flash forward a decade or so and I’m putting out about a novel every 18 months.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Both!  When I have a few hours I can scrape together without feeling like I’m volunteering to have more dirt shoveled down onto my coffin (literally fuck college so much), I can write straight through that whole time period without trouble.  If I have a whole day, I’ve been known to forget meals or sleep or water.  On the other hand, I also carry a notebook and scrawl down bits of scenes and conversations whenever I’m sitting and waiting for things.  Whenever I’m talking to someone who says something like “I’ve always wanted to write a novel but I don’t have time” my response is usually “No one has time, you usually make time.”  I mean, I sure as hell don’t have time to write novels, I just kind of do it anyway.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

Okay I know this is more than a few sentences but I am!!!  Literally so proud of this!!!  It’s from a story I just now started about…um, basically a story about how I never got over my smol bean rage about the whole “Getting kicked back into the real world as a kid again after growing up in Narnia” schtick.  

“A drink for the Wanderer,” I said, switching from the bland notes of English to the hard lilt of Alleiran and pouring out a dribble of scotch into the northern mug.  “To fire, to travel, to lies and battle.  Bring us home alive and send us out again.”  The familiar benediction warmed something cold in my chest, left me trembling on the dangerous edge of tears.  “Bless your servant, Wanderer, for I am far from home and have no war to fight.” The last part of the prayer was personal, individual.  I had been making the same simple request for years.

I passed the bottle across the table and he took it, tipping it not quite far enough to pour scotch into the southern mug.

“An empty cup for the Lady of Stars,” he said in Alleiran, subdued.  “To storm, to sky, to the fallen light.  Raise us up and let us fly.”  He paused and let out a breath that shook, closing his eyes as if he couldn’t stand to look at me during the personal prayer.  His prayer had been the same as long as mine had.  “Bless your servant, Lady, for I have done great harm that cannot be repaid.  Watch over my sister as she walks between days, where the living cannot go.  Grant me clarity, guard my sanity, show me a bright path.”  He opened his eyes and offered me the bottle, adding quietly, “Save us from the past.” 

speckeltail asked: okay, so, an au where your ocs all work shitty retail jobs

Oh dear Christ.  Okay, let’s see, I don’t make OC’s for fic as a rule, and my OC’s for my original writing all tend to be really aggressive people, this should be fun.  I’ll just pick five at random.

• Sam Lightworth, Horseman of Death and unwilling Antichrist and my fave: she’s the best salesperson in the house, no one is disputing this, she could sell light switches to the Amish and matchboxes in Hell so they’re not going to fire her, but she’s also on so much probation always.  A short list of highlights from the notes in Sam’s file:
  
• punched a customer in the nose for flicking water at her
• found a customer rifling through the shirts she’d just spent an hour folding and almost broke their fingers
• responded to a crying child by setting him on a shelf and telling him that if he wasn’t good she’d sell him (in her defense, it worked)
• threw a grown man into a wall so hard she knocked him out when he tried to grab her ass (the manager doesn’t know how she managed it and doesn’t WANT to know, okay, he deals with too much shit to ask how she sent someone flying without a finger laid on them)
• was found in store at opening with what looked suspiciously like a hellhound (there is a sign, okay, it’s very unambiguous, no pets allowed)

• Max, no last name, my spy-slash-technopath from this novel: she used to work on the floor but she’s shit at selling things and only slightly better at giving directions, so they shoved her in a glorified janitor’s closet with the security system and told her to keep it running.  She helps make sure there’s never any video evidence of Sam’s antics.

• Gwynion, erstwhile Prince of the Unseelie Court and ex-assassination victim, because we need a guy in here somewhere: he’s very polite, which has him one up on Sam, and very efficient, which has him one up on Max, but he’s also…look, the manager isn’t accusing anyone of anything, but no one ever found that one woman who tried to grope Gwynion, okay, the manager’s not saying she disappeared.  He’s just saying they never found her.  There’s a difference.

• Sephie, from this: honestly Sephie doesn’t deserve this, Sephie deserves better than this bullshit and these coworkers, she is a Normal Human trying to pay rent and she needs a drink.  Nonetheless, she gets along famously with everyone and doesn’t mind working the register since Sam isn’t trusted to do it and Gwynion seems prone to causing equipment fry-age.  Sephie is also gunning for the managerial position when their current boss inevitably caves, and stands to make a tidy sum in the pool given the newest hire.

• Angharad “Harry” Ainsel, from this (parts are noted ‘first,’ ‘second,’ ‘third’): the new hire.  The manager almost cried when she walked in, because no one who wanders around with that strange bone crown is going to be a good thing.  She’s almost as good as Sam at the sales end of things, but she’s also making people sign things that don’t look like receipts and has offered to exchange two return items for changeling children.  Also, the bike rack is for bikes, and the no pets allowed thing should cover the bike rack, as far as the manager knows, which means the warhorse is definitely contraindicated.

• Bonus sixth headcanon: the manager quits within three weeks of Harry’s hire (with the apparent intent to move to Bangkok or somewhere similarly distant), Harry and Sephie shake hands as soon as Sephie’s signed her new managerial contract, and the Huntsmaster leaves in the middle of her shift and doesn’t come back to work.  Sephie, when asked how she knows Harry and could she get Sam one of those nice daggers she carried, shrugs and says that her girlfriend has contacts.