I realized today how closely Love's Shadow and Winter's Light truly are. LS is really the darker side of the story, and WL the lighter, making the titles so perfect! I realized as I came closer today to ending the monstrous 332-page WL some truth about LS and added a paragraph onto the end of it. I scarcely think that will explain what I realized, but it's at least a start. The thing about my writing is-- whatever wicked thing I want happens. I knew Nichol shouldn't be with Luther because he's a serial killer... even within the confines of my story it can't happen, in that world. Nichol knows it can't, but still she loves him. And so I make the story carry on... and I wondered if perhaps the story was only half-written... and I needed to write a sequel. I think I do. Just as LS is the sequel to a story I wrote long ago-- and in this strange world my characters never quite find what they're looking for, so a sequel is always needed. WL is more boring in that way. Madeleine is the least wicked heroine I ever made-- and Luther is a more conventional villain, and his weird little peculiarity that showed up today is almost harmless. Really, his harmlessness is perhaps what keeps Madeleine's heart from stirring. I'm not sure. But writing... this is what I always wanted. This is the best way to live. I'm so glad this is my life.
And we ordered my dollfies!!!! OMG!!!! Bess and Hennessy will get a site soon, very soon!
I dreamed in darkness, cold and alone. Phantasms shifted around me, frightening me, but I was powerless to escape them or even move, as I was sealed in a casket. I thought of the Queen, my Stepmother, and tears dripped from my eyes as I considered the quasi-poignant moments we had once shared, when we might have been considered to be close, when the Queen had nearly been a mother to me, and the face of love had shone radiantly upon me, before eclipsed again by the storms of Venus. I thought of the huntsman, stung to consider that my only friend had been poised to betray me, to kill me, and again in my mind I felt the horror of his shadow, of waiting while he came behind me, knowing there was no escape for me from a death he would inflict. My heart lifted as images of the Prince entered my mind, his grace atop a white-maned horse, always out of my reach, just beyond the words I longed to speak. If only there had been more time for us to fall in love. He might have saved me from those...