Indeed, I have not had time to write since I last posted. I am flat-out with personal life stuff...like my internet being jiggered starting tomorrow. I won't be back for a while, but I will be back.
I solemnly vow to post chapter ten when I return.
Later!
21 June 2009
17 June 2009
Yikes!
I did a teensy bit of cleaning up chapter nine because, to my chagrin, I found a couple little nasty spots. I want to go back and re-work the last couple paragraphs too. They seemed rushed to me, but that could be an unfortunate product of skimming for errors. I didn't slow down while reading.
As always, I find myself in a quandary. I have some misgivings, some doubts about chapter ten's opening. This chapter is one of my favorites, content-wise. I wonder if I'm doing it a disservice or taking away from its impact with the opening that's there. I'm tempted to just do away with the crappy bit, but I also realize that there needs to be a bit of build-up before the exciting stuff happens, because otherwise it is out of context and may give a reader whiplash.
All this adds up to more re-writing. And it's not (for once) that I dread doing it. I'm worried about running out of time. The personal life is definitely interfering with my schedule. I'm not going to be able to post starting next Monday. I don't know when I'll be back here, but if I did, I'd say so. Unless I finish chapter ten over the next two-ish days, it will probably be a couple weeks before I can get back to it.
I would love to be able to bang out chapter ten before the hiatus. Writing consumes a huge amount of my time and my energy and I'm already at a low ebb. I am extremely tired. I want, intellectually, to write, write, write. But all I feel capable of, at this point, is watching cartoons. I'm too tired to read, for crying out loud! (Also, I would do horrible things for chocolate right now.)
The good news is that I've been puttering in not-chapter-ten territory. I have nearly two thousand more words of further plotting, with a possible latter half of this story. (Yes, it's sad. I'm maybe a quarter of the way through with editing. The halfway point of the whole story is, I am thinking, the end of what I have drafted out right now...which means the rest of the story isn't in existence yet.)
I'm going to go rest my brain now.
Later!
As always, I find myself in a quandary. I have some misgivings, some doubts about chapter ten's opening. This chapter is one of my favorites, content-wise. I wonder if I'm doing it a disservice or taking away from its impact with the opening that's there. I'm tempted to just do away with the crappy bit, but I also realize that there needs to be a bit of build-up before the exciting stuff happens, because otherwise it is out of context and may give a reader whiplash.
All this adds up to more re-writing. And it's not (for once) that I dread doing it. I'm worried about running out of time. The personal life is definitely interfering with my schedule. I'm not going to be able to post starting next Monday. I don't know when I'll be back here, but if I did, I'd say so. Unless I finish chapter ten over the next two-ish days, it will probably be a couple weeks before I can get back to it.
I would love to be able to bang out chapter ten before the hiatus. Writing consumes a huge amount of my time and my energy and I'm already at a low ebb. I am extremely tired. I want, intellectually, to write, write, write. But all I feel capable of, at this point, is watching cartoons. I'm too tired to read, for crying out loud! (Also, I would do horrible things for chocolate right now.)
The good news is that I've been puttering in not-chapter-ten territory. I have nearly two thousand more words of further plotting, with a possible latter half of this story. (Yes, it's sad. I'm maybe a quarter of the way through with editing. The halfway point of the whole story is, I am thinking, the end of what I have drafted out right now...which means the rest of the story isn't in existence yet.)
I'm going to go rest my brain now.
Later!
16 June 2009
Chapter Nine--Complete!
Here it is! I am reasonably satisfied with it, so I'm posting it now, before I go to bed. If I waited until tomorrow, I might get too distracted and forget to post.
I did indeed end up splitting the original chapter nine into chapter nine and chapter ten. I'm really glad I did, too, because it grew by almost a page again by the time I finished.
Enjoy!
Chapter 9
----------
It was the first week of November, and the house was finished. Kakashi stood in the middle of the first floor, surveying the empty space critically. The weak afternoon sunlight made the room glow. Kakashi watched a particle of dust drift into a groove in the floor. He sighed, looking at the stack of shoji that had yet to be erected. At least the upstairs was done and their bedrooms were, blissfully, walled off. They could argue about the division of the main floor later, once they had actually moved. It was a little hard to imagine where all their possessions would go. The room looked so big like this, the floorboards running off into infinity, the walls blank canvases. Kakashi looked up. Even the ceiling was impersonal. The smell of new wood permeated the air. He found it hard to breathe, suddenly, and so he went outside.
Three feet from the door, Kakashi nearly ran into Sasuke. Sasuke was just standing there, a hand shading his eyes from the sun as he stared up at the house. His chest barely moved with each breath, but Kakashi could see the pulse pounding at his throat, saw the flickering of red in his eyes. He looked stunned. Kakashi felt much the same, though probably for different reasons. Even if Sasuke did explain himself, Kakashi wasn’t sure he’d understand.
He felt a sudden pity for Sasuke. Sasuke didn’t make changes easily, and now, suddenly being done with the house…well, it brought that hazy, far-off idea of someday, maybe living there crashing down into the present. Kakashi stood beside him for a few minutes, watching the sun grow weaker behind the house. Hesitant, he reached out a hand, made to touch Sasuke’s shoulder and wavered. He felt the warmth of Sasuke’s body an inch from his fingers. Kakashi stretched himself out, instead, and hoped Sasuke hadn‘t caught his abortive gesture. Sasuke didn’t want his pity or his reassurance.
“Let’s go back to the apartment,” said Kakashi. “we’ll start packing in the morning.”
A chill breeze picked up. He thought he saw Sasuke shiver. Sasuke’s hand dropped to his side.
“In the morning,” Sasuke said.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at the house one more time. He turned his back on the building.
“In the morning,” Sasuke said.
It sounded like a death sentence, coming from him. Kakashi wanted to tell him to grow up, but it was at least nine years too late. Kakashi turned his back to Sasuke and tried not to feel it was an act of rejection. He couldn’t convince himself. Sasuke was suspiciously quiet. His eyes drilled into Kakashi the whole way back to town. Kakashi felt no relief that night as he left Sasuke in the living room and closed his bedroom door.
The next day, he started packing, beginning in his bedroom. All his uniforms filled one box. His civilian clothes filled less than half of another and, for a moment, Kakashi pondered trying to cram the clothes all into one box. His photographs and books and the contents of his desk went into a third box. He took down the art on the walls. He rolled them up and stuck them in with his civilian clothes. Kakashi tossed in his alarm clock and, as an afterthought, carefully placed his potted plant in the box as well.
The room was bare, save for the still-made bed. He glared at the shuriken-print blanket. He’d have to get another box. It was an unprecedented event. When Kakashi had moved into this apartment, in anticipation of Sasuke’s release from prison, he’d only needed two boxes for everything. He had twice as much stuff now in the bedroom alone. He felt smothered. Kakashi was sure it was somehow Sasuke’s fault. Kakashi slid to the floor and examined the dust bunnies under his bed.
Sasuke had had three boxes’ worth of stuff already when he’d come under his supervision, and Kakashi was sure he had only added to it over time. He didn’t know all of what Sasuke owned, of course, but he could truthfully say that most things in the apartment were not his. Sasuke owned some books, lot of pots and pans for cooking--and really, what was wrong with having just one pot?--and a veritable mountain of bedding. Kakashi didn’t remember Sasuke carrying an especially large bedroll on missions, but then, that was on missions. Carrying more than was strictly necessary was exhausting.
He slid under the bed with a rag, intent on eradicating the dust. Kakashi didn’t usually pay attention to the furniture…not that he had much. There was the eating table and its two mismatched chairs. He had his desk and bed and the desk chair and a stray ottoman. More recently, he’d acquired a futon and a pair of end tables to make it look less insignificant while it floated in the middle of the living room’s space.
Now that Kakashi thought about it, the futon was Sasuke’s too. Kakashi may have paid for it, but it was Sasuke’s bed more than it was a place for company to come and sit. During the day, Sasuke kept his bedding stored in a cupboard. Every night he straightened the frame and made his bed, and every morning he folded it all up again. When Sasuke wasn’t under covers, they sat two feet high on the surface of the cushion. It was amazing how they never dragged on the floor.
Kakashi didn’t know how Sasuke could sleep like that. He himself had had the same, solitary blanket for years and years, long enough for him to have forgotten when he first slept under it. It was a long time. He’d had it all through his last apartment…but before then? It was so hard to remember. Kakashi hadn’t had it while he had lived under his father’s roof. By the time he moved into his first apartment, he’d been busily working his way up to jounin status and that was all that stood out from those dark times. Kakashi wriggled out from underneath the bed and tried to ignore the way his dust cloth was trembling and shaking dust all over him.
Kakashi tossed the rag and stretched. He tipped the alarm clock face-up in the box. He’d wasted half the morning on unpleasant memories, which was exactly half a morning more than he‘d intended to waste. Time to see how Sasuke was doing.
When Kakashi entered the living room, he was, well, shocked. The empty boxes were still stacked neatly by the entrance. Everything looked exactly the same as it had the night before. Sasuke was, technically speaking, still in bed. He was stretched out, fully dressed, over the couch. His blankets were nowhere in sight; Kakashi presumed they were in their cupboard. Sasuke cracked an eye open and fixed it on Kakashi.
Kakashi felt challenged by the look in that eye. It said “You can’t make me pack.” Kakashi itched to do it, to somehow force Sasuke to fill boxes. It was irrational and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. There were jutsu designed to puppeteer, to manipulate, to convince and coerce. He could, in theory, invade Sasuke’s mind and make him think packing was his idea all along. Or he could leave Sasuke’s awareness intact and just pilot his body. That, though, would be crossing all kinds of boundaries, all of them bad.
Many of these jutsu assumed that the recipient was some sort of unaware moron. Sasuke’s mind was strong despite its damaged state. During his debriefing, his interrogation at the hands of the T&I squad, they had used many mental jutsu to pick apart his answers to the questioning, but it was nigh on useless. In the same way that a once-broken bone is strongest at the break site, so too was Sasuke’s mind…and parts of it had broken many, many times. The damage was unfixable at this late point. But if Sasuke could find a way to change, little by little, he might carve out a new direction that went around those damaged parts. It would be painful. Could Sasuke take it?
As much as Kakashi wanted, he couldn’t force Sasuke to pack. So he settled for the next best thing: Kakashi started to do it for him. But, as soon as he had put a single book into the first box, Sasuke was behind him, holding a kunai to his throat. Kakashi let out a breath. The edge scraped the fabric of his mask. Anger and murderous intent radiated out from behind him. He idly wondered whether it was a good thing or a bad thing the kunai wasn’t as sharp as it might have been.
“Put it down,” said Sasuke.
He paused. Kakashi felt the blade at his neck shiver. He heard Sasuke’s knuckles creak. His grip on the haft firmed.
“Please,” Sasuke said. “Put it down.”
His breath washed unevenly over the nape of Kakashi’s neck. Kakashi dropped the box to the floor and, moving slowly, nudged it away with his foot. He was clear of it.
“I‘m assuming this is what you wanted,” said Kakashi. “If you wouldn‘t mind…”
Sasuke removed the kunai. The point caught on a fold of fabric and made a little slice. It was intentional and Kakashi resented it.
He made a strategic retreat to his room. He could feel Sasuke still boiling in the living room, which was not especially out of the ordinary. The incident struck him as being off, though. Kakashi sat down on his bed to think. He fingered the tiny hole in his mask and frowned. That Sasuke didn’t want to pack was obvious. Yet he seemed perfectly fine with the concept of living in the new house, and living in the new house required packing and moving. Sasuke wasn’t an idiot. He had to have realized moving meant packing.
The conclusion Kakashi suddenly came to was so obvious that he was amazed he hadn’t seen it earlier, kunai to the throat aside. Sasuke didn’t want him looking at his belongings. This begged a new question: why? It wasn’t like he didn’t know almost everything there was to know about Sasuke’s stuff. He knew what Sasuke had brought with him in those three boxes. He also knew what Sasuke had bought in the intervening months and there was nothing unusual there.
Kakashi got off the bed and sat at the desk, resting his feet on a box. He knew that Sasuke kept kunai tucked into his pillowcase at night and that a garroting wire kept the edge of Sasuke’s collar stiff. He knew that Sasuke collected and burned the detritus from his personal grooming, which was inexplicably intimate and weird to think about, but Kakashi knew it anyway. He knew the altered shape of Sasuke’s curse seal, despite its being disguised with both genjutsu and physical means. What could Sasuke be blocking him from seeing? If he had hidden anything from Kakashi, anything at all, it had to be bad.
Kakashi couldn’t let Sasuke’s reluctance stall them for long. They had to be out of this apartment in five days. He needed to encourage him to pack. He decided to keep his eye peeled and see if he could figure out what it was, exactly, that Sasuke was hiding. Kakashi poked his finger through the hole in the mask and sighed. He dug through his uniforms, found another mask. Maybe Sasuke would slip up and give some hint or clue. Kakashi peeled off the old mask and put on the new. Until then, he was prepared to wait. They weren’t going anywhere until he found out exactly what was going on.
-----------
How was it? If it is riddled with errors, I apologize. I'm going to look it over after I have some sleep.
If you notice a couple small discrepancies between this chapter and the rest (namely, regarding Sasuke's curse seal and his sleeping arrangement,) I promise to explain the former right now. Sasuke's seal is something I've tweaked from the canon, mostly because what happens with it in the somewhat-recent canon is not in keeping with what I have planned for this story. I know I'm being vague. I'm trying to avoid spoilers. ^_^ (It probably would also be less confusing if I had put up the prologue already, but I haven't.)
As to the whole couch/bed/futon thing, I've probably used these terms all interchangeably and indiscriminately for what Sasuke sleeps on. What I've been trying to convey all along is that Sasuke doesn't have a legitimate bed. He's been stuck with a make-do, temporary set-up for nearly a year.
A total digression: would you be interested in seeing my major events timeline? Not my horifically messy sharpie version, but one that is all nice and neat. It's the sort of thing I like to know about a story, but you readers may not necessarily want the same sort of insider knowledge. Also, at some point, I will be thinking about publishing a playlist/quasi-soundtrack for this fic. I have a working playlist that I listen to while I work on this story, but that's not necessarily the same as the music that really captures the moods of this writing. Any takers? (I know, it's kind of pathetic that I end up with theme songs and stuff for the stuff I write.)
Later!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.
I did indeed end up splitting the original chapter nine into chapter nine and chapter ten. I'm really glad I did, too, because it grew by almost a page again by the time I finished.
Enjoy!
Chapter 9
----------
It was the first week of November, and the house was finished. Kakashi stood in the middle of the first floor, surveying the empty space critically. The weak afternoon sunlight made the room glow. Kakashi watched a particle of dust drift into a groove in the floor. He sighed, looking at the stack of shoji that had yet to be erected. At least the upstairs was done and their bedrooms were, blissfully, walled off. They could argue about the division of the main floor later, once they had actually moved. It was a little hard to imagine where all their possessions would go. The room looked so big like this, the floorboards running off into infinity, the walls blank canvases. Kakashi looked up. Even the ceiling was impersonal. The smell of new wood permeated the air. He found it hard to breathe, suddenly, and so he went outside.
Three feet from the door, Kakashi nearly ran into Sasuke. Sasuke was just standing there, a hand shading his eyes from the sun as he stared up at the house. His chest barely moved with each breath, but Kakashi could see the pulse pounding at his throat, saw the flickering of red in his eyes. He looked stunned. Kakashi felt much the same, though probably for different reasons. Even if Sasuke did explain himself, Kakashi wasn’t sure he’d understand.
He felt a sudden pity for Sasuke. Sasuke didn’t make changes easily, and now, suddenly being done with the house…well, it brought that hazy, far-off idea of someday, maybe living there crashing down into the present. Kakashi stood beside him for a few minutes, watching the sun grow weaker behind the house. Hesitant, he reached out a hand, made to touch Sasuke’s shoulder and wavered. He felt the warmth of Sasuke’s body an inch from his fingers. Kakashi stretched himself out, instead, and hoped Sasuke hadn‘t caught his abortive gesture. Sasuke didn’t want his pity or his reassurance.
“Let’s go back to the apartment,” said Kakashi. “we’ll start packing in the morning.”
A chill breeze picked up. He thought he saw Sasuke shiver. Sasuke’s hand dropped to his side.
“In the morning,” Sasuke said.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at the house one more time. He turned his back on the building.
“In the morning,” Sasuke said.
It sounded like a death sentence, coming from him. Kakashi wanted to tell him to grow up, but it was at least nine years too late. Kakashi turned his back to Sasuke and tried not to feel it was an act of rejection. He couldn’t convince himself. Sasuke was suspiciously quiet. His eyes drilled into Kakashi the whole way back to town. Kakashi felt no relief that night as he left Sasuke in the living room and closed his bedroom door.
The next day, he started packing, beginning in his bedroom. All his uniforms filled one box. His civilian clothes filled less than half of another and, for a moment, Kakashi pondered trying to cram the clothes all into one box. His photographs and books and the contents of his desk went into a third box. He took down the art on the walls. He rolled them up and stuck them in with his civilian clothes. Kakashi tossed in his alarm clock and, as an afterthought, carefully placed his potted plant in the box as well.
The room was bare, save for the still-made bed. He glared at the shuriken-print blanket. He’d have to get another box. It was an unprecedented event. When Kakashi had moved into this apartment, in anticipation of Sasuke’s release from prison, he’d only needed two boxes for everything. He had twice as much stuff now in the bedroom alone. He felt smothered. Kakashi was sure it was somehow Sasuke’s fault. Kakashi slid to the floor and examined the dust bunnies under his bed.
Sasuke had had three boxes’ worth of stuff already when he’d come under his supervision, and Kakashi was sure he had only added to it over time. He didn’t know all of what Sasuke owned, of course, but he could truthfully say that most things in the apartment were not his. Sasuke owned some books, lot of pots and pans for cooking--and really, what was wrong with having just one pot?--and a veritable mountain of bedding. Kakashi didn’t remember Sasuke carrying an especially large bedroll on missions, but then, that was on missions. Carrying more than was strictly necessary was exhausting.
He slid under the bed with a rag, intent on eradicating the dust. Kakashi didn’t usually pay attention to the furniture…not that he had much. There was the eating table and its two mismatched chairs. He had his desk and bed and the desk chair and a stray ottoman. More recently, he’d acquired a futon and a pair of end tables to make it look less insignificant while it floated in the middle of the living room’s space.
Now that Kakashi thought about it, the futon was Sasuke’s too. Kakashi may have paid for it, but it was Sasuke’s bed more than it was a place for company to come and sit. During the day, Sasuke kept his bedding stored in a cupboard. Every night he straightened the frame and made his bed, and every morning he folded it all up again. When Sasuke wasn’t under covers, they sat two feet high on the surface of the cushion. It was amazing how they never dragged on the floor.
Kakashi didn’t know how Sasuke could sleep like that. He himself had had the same, solitary blanket for years and years, long enough for him to have forgotten when he first slept under it. It was a long time. He’d had it all through his last apartment…but before then? It was so hard to remember. Kakashi hadn’t had it while he had lived under his father’s roof. By the time he moved into his first apartment, he’d been busily working his way up to jounin status and that was all that stood out from those dark times. Kakashi wriggled out from underneath the bed and tried to ignore the way his dust cloth was trembling and shaking dust all over him.
Kakashi tossed the rag and stretched. He tipped the alarm clock face-up in the box. He’d wasted half the morning on unpleasant memories, which was exactly half a morning more than he‘d intended to waste. Time to see how Sasuke was doing.
When Kakashi entered the living room, he was, well, shocked. The empty boxes were still stacked neatly by the entrance. Everything looked exactly the same as it had the night before. Sasuke was, technically speaking, still in bed. He was stretched out, fully dressed, over the couch. His blankets were nowhere in sight; Kakashi presumed they were in their cupboard. Sasuke cracked an eye open and fixed it on Kakashi.
Kakashi felt challenged by the look in that eye. It said “You can’t make me pack.” Kakashi itched to do it, to somehow force Sasuke to fill boxes. It was irrational and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. There were jutsu designed to puppeteer, to manipulate, to convince and coerce. He could, in theory, invade Sasuke’s mind and make him think packing was his idea all along. Or he could leave Sasuke’s awareness intact and just pilot his body. That, though, would be crossing all kinds of boundaries, all of them bad.
Many of these jutsu assumed that the recipient was some sort of unaware moron. Sasuke’s mind was strong despite its damaged state. During his debriefing, his interrogation at the hands of the T&I squad, they had used many mental jutsu to pick apart his answers to the questioning, but it was nigh on useless. In the same way that a once-broken bone is strongest at the break site, so too was Sasuke’s mind…and parts of it had broken many, many times. The damage was unfixable at this late point. But if Sasuke could find a way to change, little by little, he might carve out a new direction that went around those damaged parts. It would be painful. Could Sasuke take it?
As much as Kakashi wanted, he couldn’t force Sasuke to pack. So he settled for the next best thing: Kakashi started to do it for him. But, as soon as he had put a single book into the first box, Sasuke was behind him, holding a kunai to his throat. Kakashi let out a breath. The edge scraped the fabric of his mask. Anger and murderous intent radiated out from behind him. He idly wondered whether it was a good thing or a bad thing the kunai wasn’t as sharp as it might have been.
“Put it down,” said Sasuke.
He paused. Kakashi felt the blade at his neck shiver. He heard Sasuke’s knuckles creak. His grip on the haft firmed.
“Please,” Sasuke said. “Put it down.”
His breath washed unevenly over the nape of Kakashi’s neck. Kakashi dropped the box to the floor and, moving slowly, nudged it away with his foot. He was clear of it.
“I‘m assuming this is what you wanted,” said Kakashi. “If you wouldn‘t mind…”
Sasuke removed the kunai. The point caught on a fold of fabric and made a little slice. It was intentional and Kakashi resented it.
He made a strategic retreat to his room. He could feel Sasuke still boiling in the living room, which was not especially out of the ordinary. The incident struck him as being off, though. Kakashi sat down on his bed to think. He fingered the tiny hole in his mask and frowned. That Sasuke didn’t want to pack was obvious. Yet he seemed perfectly fine with the concept of living in the new house, and living in the new house required packing and moving. Sasuke wasn’t an idiot. He had to have realized moving meant packing.
The conclusion Kakashi suddenly came to was so obvious that he was amazed he hadn’t seen it earlier, kunai to the throat aside. Sasuke didn’t want him looking at his belongings. This begged a new question: why? It wasn’t like he didn’t know almost everything there was to know about Sasuke’s stuff. He knew what Sasuke had brought with him in those three boxes. He also knew what Sasuke had bought in the intervening months and there was nothing unusual there.
Kakashi got off the bed and sat at the desk, resting his feet on a box. He knew that Sasuke kept kunai tucked into his pillowcase at night and that a garroting wire kept the edge of Sasuke’s collar stiff. He knew that Sasuke collected and burned the detritus from his personal grooming, which was inexplicably intimate and weird to think about, but Kakashi knew it anyway. He knew the altered shape of Sasuke’s curse seal, despite its being disguised with both genjutsu and physical means. What could Sasuke be blocking him from seeing? If he had hidden anything from Kakashi, anything at all, it had to be bad.
Kakashi couldn’t let Sasuke’s reluctance stall them for long. They had to be out of this apartment in five days. He needed to encourage him to pack. He decided to keep his eye peeled and see if he could figure out what it was, exactly, that Sasuke was hiding. Kakashi poked his finger through the hole in the mask and sighed. He dug through his uniforms, found another mask. Maybe Sasuke would slip up and give some hint or clue. Kakashi peeled off the old mask and put on the new. Until then, he was prepared to wait. They weren’t going anywhere until he found out exactly what was going on.
-----------
How was it? If it is riddled with errors, I apologize. I'm going to look it over after I have some sleep.
If you notice a couple small discrepancies between this chapter and the rest (namely, regarding Sasuke's curse seal and his sleeping arrangement,) I promise to explain the former right now. Sasuke's seal is something I've tweaked from the canon, mostly because what happens with it in the somewhat-recent canon is not in keeping with what I have planned for this story. I know I'm being vague. I'm trying to avoid spoilers. ^_^ (It probably would also be less confusing if I had put up the prologue already, but I haven't.)
As to the whole couch/bed/futon thing, I've probably used these terms all interchangeably and indiscriminately for what Sasuke sleeps on. What I've been trying to convey all along is that Sasuke doesn't have a legitimate bed. He's been stuck with a make-do, temporary set-up for nearly a year.
A total digression: would you be interested in seeing my major events timeline? Not my horifically messy sharpie version, but one that is all nice and neat. It's the sort of thing I like to know about a story, but you readers may not necessarily want the same sort of insider knowledge. Also, at some point, I will be thinking about publishing a playlist/quasi-soundtrack for this fic. I have a working playlist that I listen to while I work on this story, but that's not necessarily the same as the music that really captures the moods of this writing. Any takers? (I know, it's kind of pathetic that I end up with theme songs and stuff for the stuff I write.)
Later!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.
13 June 2009
Another Chapter Nine update
No, this isn't the full chapter. Yes, I have been working on it. I've made quite a bit of progress, actually, but that progress is all pointing in the direction of (like chapter whatever-it-was) having to split the chapter in half.
With my current editing/additions, it is creeping over the four-page mark, and I still haven't gotten to a reasonable stopping point. I am about halfway through the chapter and, in fact, haven't quite reached the first paragraph of the original draft of the chapter. I try to make it so that there's only one important confrontation per chapter. This allows me to focus better, I think. Anyway, I've ended up putting a new fight scene which dominates the couple of pages it's in, and the aftermath of that fight is going to make a really big break. I can't continue the sort of dramatic tension that's built up so far and carry that tension onward for another two or three pages--within the same chapter--until the huge dust-up happens. (For one, it's a matter of the big fight building up over time...which doesn't happen within the span of a chapter.)
I'm actually getting a bit fed up with how long it's taking to go through the current chapter nine. Plus, somehow, I keep getting roped into backtracking. This morning I spent almost three hours drafting a prologue/less crappy chapter one. It goes into more detail about what happens when I make my changes and my break from the canon work. It overlaps very little--maybe nothing--from chapter one...but I think it's a much better starting place. (I am tempted to skip chapter one entirely: just go from "prologue" to "chapter two." But, alas, chapter one is still necessary.) It is also the only chapter that comes from Sasuke's point of view. Though I still am writing it in third-person limited, you're getting it from Sasuke's end of things instead of Kakashi's. It's kind of cool, I think. I have finally delved into how Sasuke works.
I don't know when/if I will edit and post the prologue. I tried to be as straight-up with it as I could, in order to avoid prolonged editing and expansion of boring expository narrative. I got frustrated at the end and scribbled down about three or four paragraphs' worth of "this happened, and then this, and then finally that." Hopefully it won't be too hard to smooth out.
Man! Pretty soon I'm going to have to put up an index for any stray latecomers...and my own sanity, hahahahaha.
Anyway, I am still grinding away at chapter nine. I probably won't have it up here until after the scheduled outage early Monday morning. (Gosh darn pacific time! How dare you be three hours behind!) I don't think I can finish up in less than thirty-six hours. I need to do things like sleep and. Well. I need to sleep. I can't sleep upright at my computer.
Later!
With my current editing/additions, it is creeping over the four-page mark, and I still haven't gotten to a reasonable stopping point. I am about halfway through the chapter and, in fact, haven't quite reached the first paragraph of the original draft of the chapter. I try to make it so that there's only one important confrontation per chapter. This allows me to focus better, I think. Anyway, I've ended up putting a new fight scene which dominates the couple of pages it's in, and the aftermath of that fight is going to make a really big break. I can't continue the sort of dramatic tension that's built up so far and carry that tension onward for another two or three pages--within the same chapter--until the huge dust-up happens. (For one, it's a matter of the big fight building up over time...which doesn't happen within the span of a chapter.)
I'm actually getting a bit fed up with how long it's taking to go through the current chapter nine. Plus, somehow, I keep getting roped into backtracking. This morning I spent almost three hours drafting a prologue/less crappy chapter one. It goes into more detail about what happens when I make my changes and my break from the canon work. It overlaps very little--maybe nothing--from chapter one...but I think it's a much better starting place. (I am tempted to skip chapter one entirely: just go from "prologue" to "chapter two." But, alas, chapter one is still necessary.) It is also the only chapter that comes from Sasuke's point of view. Though I still am writing it in third-person limited, you're getting it from Sasuke's end of things instead of Kakashi's. It's kind of cool, I think. I have finally delved into how Sasuke works.
I don't know when/if I will edit and post the prologue. I tried to be as straight-up with it as I could, in order to avoid prolonged editing and expansion of boring expository narrative. I got frustrated at the end and scribbled down about three or four paragraphs' worth of "this happened, and then this, and then finally that." Hopefully it won't be too hard to smooth out.
Man! Pretty soon I'm going to have to put up an index for any stray latecomers...and my own sanity, hahahahaha.
Anyway, I am still grinding away at chapter nine. I probably won't have it up here until after the scheduled outage early Monday morning. (Gosh darn pacific time! How dare you be three hours behind!) I don't think I can finish up in less than thirty-six hours. I need to do things like sleep and. Well. I need to sleep. I can't sleep upright at my computer.
Later!
11 June 2009
I feel like gloating!
So, I know I mentioned the time-line I was making. I want to say that, having added the major events of my story to it, it works out absolutely perfect. The characters ended up being the ages I wanted them to be, through some miracle of calendar mathematics. (Part of why I made the timeline in the first place was because I had almost no clue as to how old they would be by the time the events of my story rolled around.)
I'm amazed that I won't have to go back and change anything around to fit the "real" flow of events. I had been very careful to use as few definite time markers as possible. This definitely worked to my advantage, though I was relieved that the events happening between summer and November really could happen in that time frame. (And, since those are the most recent events, that means the events beforehand all lined up as well. I'm so impressed that I did it blind!)
I laugh at the messiness of my work. I used printer paper and a sharpie. I have covered three sheets in scribbles and arrows and mysterious lines like "K takes on team 7 (26)" and "2nd week of sept. S guns for konoha." The first page actually goes around and around with arrows, in a vague rectangle of thoughts. I kept seeing just a bit more space on the page, so I'd draw an arrow, turn the paper, and keep writing. Foolishly, I thought I'd be able to fit the entire time line, canon through mine, on one piece of paper.
It is all done, finally. I need to stop patting myself on the back and get back to writing! ^_^
Later!
I'm amazed that I won't have to go back and change anything around to fit the "real" flow of events. I had been very careful to use as few definite time markers as possible. This definitely worked to my advantage, though I was relieved that the events happening between summer and November really could happen in that time frame. (And, since those are the most recent events, that means the events beforehand all lined up as well. I'm so impressed that I did it blind!)
I laugh at the messiness of my work. I used printer paper and a sharpie. I have covered three sheets in scribbles and arrows and mysterious lines like "K takes on team 7 (26)" and "2nd week of sept. S guns for konoha." The first page actually goes around and around with arrows, in a vague rectangle of thoughts. I kept seeing just a bit more space on the page, so I'd draw an arrow, turn the paper, and keep writing. Foolishly, I thought I'd be able to fit the entire time line, canon through mine, on one piece of paper.
It is all done, finally. I need to stop patting myself on the back and get back to writing! ^_^
Later!
Chapter nine is coming...slowly
Chapter nine is coming. It's just coming slower than I had anticipated. I've ended up doing a lot more background research than I had planned for. There were questions I had that I just couldn't put to rest without finding out the answers.
I had to backtrack to find out about Kakashi's apartment in both canon and what I had written...and I have had to do some reconciliation on that count. (That was my entire yesterday.)
And then, today, I've been skimming the entire--ENTIRE--manga series up until chapter 402 to try and put together a cohesive time line, in order to better my own. My brains are swirling with the overload of information, but I now have some interesting details to add to the story. My only regret is that the timeline in the manga becomes less and less precise after a while, which means I can only make fuzzy estimates and suppositions as to what happened when. (Of course, this also allows ample room for creative license. I intend to take advantage of it!)
I am now done researching for this part of it and can get back to writing and editing. It looks like chapter nine is going to end up being another long one, considering I've roughed out a full page more, the contents of which were not covered in my original draft. I'm only just starting on what used to be the first-draft's first paragraph. I feel like I've taken a step backward from where I was...but I'm about to start moving forward again!
Later!
I had to backtrack to find out about Kakashi's apartment in both canon and what I had written...and I have had to do some reconciliation on that count. (That was my entire yesterday.)
And then, today, I've been skimming the entire--ENTIRE--manga series up until chapter 402 to try and put together a cohesive time line, in order to better my own. My brains are swirling with the overload of information, but I now have some interesting details to add to the story. My only regret is that the timeline in the manga becomes less and less precise after a while, which means I can only make fuzzy estimates and suppositions as to what happened when. (Of course, this also allows ample room for creative license. I intend to take advantage of it!)
I am now done researching for this part of it and can get back to writing and editing. It looks like chapter nine is going to end up being another long one, considering I've roughed out a full page more, the contents of which were not covered in my original draft. I'm only just starting on what used to be the first-draft's first paragraph. I feel like I've taken a step backward from where I was...but I'm about to start moving forward again!
Later!
08 June 2009
Progress check
Back when I started writing Entropy, I would back up the files periodically and note down various statistics, including word count. When I came to the point where I said "Okay, this is the rough draft. I'm going to start editing." I had sixteen thousand words and change, all in a single document file.
Since then, I've made separate files for the chapters and I've done a lot of editing. I've taken bits out and put new material in. I got curious about word-count again, since I had, foolishly, not done any backing-up since I made it all into a single file at the end of March.
Today, I took my trusty calculator and I did some math. I am now up to 21,964 words! (And, really, I expect to add more. I'm only halfway through editing what I have written. I have a lot of other stuff planned out but not typed up, too. It's not like the end of the story is the same as the end of my typed material.)
I've added nearly six thousand words, all through the power of editing! That's roughly twelve pages, assuming 500 words a page. (The whole story is about 44 pages long right now.) That makes this story one of the longest ones I've ever written. I tend to cop out after twenty pages or so.
I feel disgustingly accomplished....but I don't really feel satisfied. I know I still have a long way to go with it!
I'm going to work more on chapter nine tomorrow. I haven't really done anything with it except brood over the changes I'm feeling compelled to make. I looked at it again tonight, but I'm just too tired to write anything, and I know that when I'm this tired I make a lot of stupid mistakes...which I would therefore have to correct in the morning. Working right now is counterproductive.
Later!
Since then, I've made separate files for the chapters and I've done a lot of editing. I've taken bits out and put new material in. I got curious about word-count again, since I had, foolishly, not done any backing-up since I made it all into a single file at the end of March.
Today, I took my trusty calculator and I did some math. I am now up to 21,964 words! (And, really, I expect to add more. I'm only halfway through editing what I have written. I have a lot of other stuff planned out but not typed up, too. It's not like the end of the story is the same as the end of my typed material.)
I've added nearly six thousand words, all through the power of editing! That's roughly twelve pages, assuming 500 words a page. (The whole story is about 44 pages long right now.) That makes this story one of the longest ones I've ever written. I tend to cop out after twenty pages or so.
I feel disgustingly accomplished....but I don't really feel satisfied. I know I still have a long way to go with it!
I'm going to work more on chapter nine tomorrow. I haven't really done anything with it except brood over the changes I'm feeling compelled to make. I looked at it again tonight, but I'm just too tired to write anything, and I know that when I'm this tired I make a lot of stupid mistakes...which I would therefore have to correct in the morning. Working right now is counterproductive.
Later!
07 June 2009
Thoughts on Chapter Nine
First off, I apologize for leaving a few spacing errors in chapter eight. There are some extra large blank spaces between a few of the paragraphs that should not be there...and probably some spots where there should be more space. (I use two blank lines for scene breaks, and only one for regular spacing between paragraphs.) I'm going to go back and fix that shortly.
Now, on to chapter nine's stuff!
Chapter nine is another chapter that is going to need lots of work, especially in light of some of the additions I made in chapter eight. As far as the story goes, it's a pretty dramatic point, and I think it needs more expansion to highlight that drama. Plus, there's a bunch more boring exposition that I need to make disappear. (I know, I know. It's always the boring exposition that gets me...)
Also, chapter nine takes place a while after chapter eight. I'm debating whether or not I should try to close that gap a little, or if I should just try to be more clear how long it has been (in the story's chronology) since the events of chapter eight. I mean, I state it pretty plain how much time has passed, but is that going to be too much of a shock/disappointment to the reader?
Let me rephrase. Is it believable or convincing for me to skip over the rest of the construction stuff? On the one hand, I'd love to go into more detail about their adventures in house building, but I also realize that such material isn't helping the story move forward. Chapter eight, for example, had several purposes, several things it added to the story. I'm worried if I do a similar chapter it won't work as well. I'm trying to skip over the more boring stuff...because I could write forever and forever on the details of their day-to-day lives, but I don't think that would make for good reading to anyone else.
(Plus, you know, such a gap is very convenient for me because my knowledge of construction is woefully small. Principles of design and decoration, though.... ^_^ It's too bad I can't see the characters doing a lot of painting and stuff, hahahaha.)
I'm going to try to deal with chapter nine over the next few days. My personal life is getting hectic, but I'm still trying to make time for writing every day. I'm sorry in advance for the inevitable delays that will happen over the next three weeks. Anyway, I've got to go and do more stuff that does not involve sitting in front of the computer.
Later!
Now, on to chapter nine's stuff!
Chapter nine is another chapter that is going to need lots of work, especially in light of some of the additions I made in chapter eight. As far as the story goes, it's a pretty dramatic point, and I think it needs more expansion to highlight that drama. Plus, there's a bunch more boring exposition that I need to make disappear. (I know, I know. It's always the boring exposition that gets me...)
Also, chapter nine takes place a while after chapter eight. I'm debating whether or not I should try to close that gap a little, or if I should just try to be more clear how long it has been (in the story's chronology) since the events of chapter eight. I mean, I state it pretty plain how much time has passed, but is that going to be too much of a shock/disappointment to the reader?
Let me rephrase. Is it believable or convincing for me to skip over the rest of the construction stuff? On the one hand, I'd love to go into more detail about their adventures in house building, but I also realize that such material isn't helping the story move forward. Chapter eight, for example, had several purposes, several things it added to the story. I'm worried if I do a similar chapter it won't work as well. I'm trying to skip over the more boring stuff...because I could write forever and forever on the details of their day-to-day lives, but I don't think that would make for good reading to anyone else.
(Plus, you know, such a gap is very convenient for me because my knowledge of construction is woefully small. Principles of design and decoration, though.... ^_^ It's too bad I can't see the characters doing a lot of painting and stuff, hahahaha.)
I'm going to try to deal with chapter nine over the next few days. My personal life is getting hectic, but I'm still trying to make time for writing every day. I'm sorry in advance for the inevitable delays that will happen over the next three weeks. Anyway, I've got to go and do more stuff that does not involve sitting in front of the computer.
Later!
06 June 2009
Chapter Eight-- complete!
Here it is!
Chapter 8
--------
A half mile out from the Forest of Death, Kakashi and Sasuke were building a house and getting nowhere fast. With the Hokage’s approval to build and experienced architects and contractors looking over their plans--to make sure the house wouldn’t fall down around their ears--they themselves were responsible for making everything else happen. Sasuke’s paranoia, pride and, Kakashi assumed, inherent idiocy, meant that not only did all the work have to be personally inspected by Sasuke, but also that he and Kakashi were the only ones allowed to work on it at all. This slowed construction to a crawl. It was a good thing Fire country had long summers and short, mild winters. Kakashi was now expecting that the house would not be done until the start of winter.
Kakashi had made a nice flat piece of land via earth jutsu for the house to sit on, but the two of them had labored for a week to mark off and dig out for the foundation and cellar. Kakashi winced even now when he thought about how the two of them had struggled to agree on a plan for the building…and a suitable location. And materials. They had fought over just about everything, actually. Little decisions got settled with a quick spar. Big ones involved a lot of stubborn silence and prolonged psychological tactics. Sasuke was better at intimidating than he used to be. Kakashi had more patience and could wait out almost anything.
Both he and Sasuke discovered that ninjutsu was simply not designed for the sort of work house building required. Their jutsu could cut through a swath of trees in ten seconds, but those trees were subsequently splintered into oblivion and completely useless as construction materials. Superior physiology, dexterity, speed, and other myriad advantages of high-ranking ninja did not protect Kakashi from the dangers of carpentry. Having one eye made using a hammer damn near impossible, but hammering his thumb repeatedly was more than possible. Getting the nail where he wanted it to go was proving challenging. Kakashi could have used his Sharingan to copy Sasuke’s elegant and flawless hammering technique. It wouldn’t give him the muscle memory to repeat it correctly. He needed to train himself, and nothing would do but more of the same hard work. He bore it stoically as Sasuke hovered nearby. Kakashi couldn’t fathom how such scrutiny was supposed to help. He was, however, glad that no comments, helpful or otherwise, broke the silence.
It was exhausting to do everything the long way. Kakashi had come back from A-rank missions feeling better. As gratifying as it was to see Sasuke covered in mud day after day, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Kakashi had once imagined. Sasuke bordered on perfect no matter what he was doing. He was fast, strong, and seemingly tireless. Aside from the dirt, Sasuke didn’t seem to be affected by the work at all. He never ran out of breath, though as the days wore on, Kakashi noticed more and more that Sasuke was prone to sweating. Not that Kakashi minded. It wasn’t like Sasuke smelled bad. And he himself had no room to complain, considering how filthy he got every day.
Today, they were working to cut down some trees for timber. They each had separate trees so that the likelihood of accidents was minimal. Kakashi firmed up his grip on the axe and swung. He’d spent some time observing Sasuke, watching how he planted his feet on the ground and braced himself with his legs. The kinetic energy rippled up through his torso, flowed along the shoulders and out the arms--and by extension, the axe. Chips of wood flew out of the cut, and every few strokes Sasuke brushed out any remaining debris. Each time he did this, he resumed his stance. Once in a while, he’d wipe the sweat from his hairline onto his sleeve.
Kakashi modeled himself after Sasuke and tried to imagine how it felt to execute that seamless movement. It was a bit like learning a new taijutsu pose. The feet went like this and the balance went up into the calves. The abdominals and obliques moved to channel the force upward into the shoulders, to the arms, to the axe. Kakashi’s blade bit deep into the tree. Not, he noticed, quite as deeply as Sasuke’s, but it was much better than his first attempts.
“Not bad,” Sasuke said.
The unsolicited comment took Kakashi by surprise. He left his axe in the tree for a moment.
“You’re doing quite well yourself,” said Kakashi. What he really wanted to do was ask what this little round of self-congratulation was all about. He didn’t need Sasuke’s compliments. He was more than Sasuke’s equal, even if Sasuke had the edge on him here.
Kakashi made to pick up the axe again. He was preparing to swing when Sasuke spoke.
“Wait,” he said. “Not like that.”
Kakashi froze in place.
Sasuke crossed the forest floor between them, carefully giving the blade of the axe a wide berth. He stripped off his gloves. He molded his hands over Kakashi’s around the handle and shifted their grips a little. Sasuke let go again. He cleared out the cut in Kakashi’s tree, removing a handful of wood and bark. He returned to his own tree. He wiped his hand off on his pants leg. The fabric clung to the sap on his palm. Sasuke shook it off. He donned his gloves and picked up his axe. Kakashi noted that he held his in an identical manner.
“You’ll get a better result like that,” Sasuke said. “Try it. You’ll see.”
Sasuke ducked his head and started chopping again.
Kakashi tried not to puzzle over what Sasuke had just done. He needed a clear head right now, and thinking about the whys and wherefores of Sasuke’s behavior would not help. He tried using the axe with the new grip. The head thunked into the trunk. He snuck a glance at Sasuke’s work. He had actually gotten further into the wood than Sasuke that time. Kakashi thought about thanking him, but he had the distinct impression that Sasuke was now trying to pretend that he hadn’t done anything.
For now, Kakashi would go along with it, though it all made him curious. Where had Sasuke developed his aptitude for hard labor? Or was it more than simply talent? Sasuke wasn’t shirking, that was certain. Did he like this sort of work, then? Kakashi was half-afraid to ask, but he wanted to despite the niggling feeling that Sasuke might not respond well to this line of questioning. Kakashi decided to ease into it.
“Hey, Sasuke. You’re very good at this sort of thing…” He said.
Sasuke only grunted in reply. He didn’t break stride.
Kakashi stuck his axe in a log and leaned against another tree. It wasn’t really break time yet, but he couldn’t be casual while he was working so hard to concentrate on what he was doing. Besides, Sasuke was at his back, wielding a bladed weapon, and Kakashi wasn’t wholly comfortable with that.
Kakashi waited a minute and then tried a little harder.
“I heard that only the harmless prisoners got to do menial labor.”
Sasuke missed his swing and the axe blade landed an inch from the toe of his boot. A large bird squawked and flew away out of the trees. The forest was strangely quiet. Okay. Maybe that was trying too hard.
“This has nothing to do with that.”
He picked the axe up again and swung it harder than he had before.
A chip of wood flew through the air and grazed Kakashi’s forehead. Kakashi let it hit. He decided he’d rather not find out if Orochimaru would be a sufficient goad. Kakashi picked up his own axe again, and they worked in silence for some time.
“It was my father.”
Sasuke’s sudden, stark confession made Kakashi lose his rhythm. He took his cue from Sasuke and kept working.
“I work hard because hard work impressed my father.”
Sasuke wiped his brow and continued, head down and not looking at Kakashi. His face twisted into a frown. His voice was low and rough.
“Not that he ever noticed. Ita--my--he was all my father ever noticed.”
Kakashi took the explanation at face value. It explained the work ethic, maybe, but it said nothing about the force of construction he was now. Kakashi sighed. Maybe he was just getting old.
They worked in silence until lunchtime. Then Kakashi put down his axe and, before Sasuke could say anything about wasting time, slipped off to wash in a nearby stream. It was nice to cool down for a minute, to remove flecks of wood and tree sap before he ate. It was also nice to spend a moment away from Sasuke, alone in the greenness underneath the trees. As indefensible as a forest was, Kakashi had always liked these barked leviathans. With so many trees, it sometimes seemed as if they were pillars holding up the sky. Kakashi had always striven to be that sort of a ninja; deeply rooted, reaching upwards to support something greater than the woods. He snorted. What ninja with his experience still thought like that? He dove under the water and swam. His thoughts floated away.
Kakashi surfaced and looked at the sun’s position. He got out of the water. He toweled off with his shirt, which wasn’t very effective considering how dirty it was. A closer inspection of his clothes made him decide to put off getting dressed until he was fully dry. Having wet skin would only transfer more of the grime onto him, though going naked in the meantime wasn‘t ideal either. He lay down on a smooth rock to eat. The stone was warm, the breeze pleasant, and the sun was making quick work of the water that puddled around him.
Sasuke hadn’t come down to the stream, and Kakashi felt, guiltily, reprieved as he repacked the remains of his lunch. Sasuke was…driven to complete the house and he often loomed nearby, impatience undisguised. Kakashi still hadn’t managed to make him understand that he liked to take his time, even if Sasuke didn‘t need much in the way of breaks. A well-rested ninja made fewer mistakes and was less irritable to boot. Considering how abrasive Sasuke could be, he wanted all the patience and even-temperedness he could muster.
Kakashi rolled over onto a dry part of the rock. The heated stone was wonderful on his back. It was only midday, and he was already feeling the impact of his labors. Still, it wasn’t like Sasuke didn’t try to be a good working partner. He’d made a lot of restrictions about the work, but he did his best to do as much of it himself as possible. Kakashi often was forced to guess what Sasuke wanted him to do. He got riled up if Kakashi didn’t intuit the proper order of things.
He was working on drawing out more verbal communication. So far, engaging in conversations hadn’t done much except make Sasuke act more recalcitrant. He was fairly certain that he could get him to talk if he kept at it long enough, but he knew that this would make Sasuke blow up in the worst sort of way.
The breeze picked up, shaking the leaves all along the bank of the stream. Kakashi plucked a leaf out of his hair and gazed at it. He was now practicing not talking, and it seemed to be working. Sasuke made occasional efforts to talk to Kakashi that were not statements like “Put that log here” or “That’s not even.” Talking with Sasuke was still like pulling teeth, but at least he was saying something. With this rate of success, Kakashi wasn’t surprised that Ibiki’s people hadn’t had much luck in “debriefing” him.
Kakashi was dry now. He hopped down off the rock and started putting his clothes back on. He eyed the shirt with distaste. It looked bad, smelled worse, and was still wet from being pressed into service as a towel. He sighed. Looks like he’d be spending the afternoon shirtless. No sense in getting another one dirty today. He rinsed the offensive article in the stream and hung it on a bush to dry. A flicker of movement caught his eye and he turned, throwing a kunai at the same time.
It was a squirrel. Kakashi relaxed and walked over to his boots. He frowned. It had chewed off a couple inches of one of the laces. He wished he’d nailed the fuzzy-tailed rat, but he’d aimed to scare, not kill. He’d pinned a couple squirrel hairs into the dirt, nothing more. He wiped the kunai off and stuck it back in his pouch. Kakashi re-laced his boot, stretched, and headed back to the work site.
Upon reaching the clearing, Kakashi noticed something interesting. Sasuke was sitting on a tree stump, back to. Ordinarily he’d be pacing the clearing, waiting impatiently to get back to work. Kakashi took this as a sign of improvement.
“Yo,” said Kakashi.
Sasuke jumped up, bad attitude radiating around him. Now this was more like what he expected. Sasuke turned, and the scowl on his face morphed into something less readable, more confused than anything else.
“What?” Kakashi said. He watched Sasuke give him a look up and down. Kakashi looked down to see what it was that had caused Sasuke’s bemusement. Kakashi kicked himself. Of course.
“My shirt needed a wash,” he said. “I didn’t want to use another clean one.”
He stretched out, swinging an imaginary axe once or twice for practice. He picked up his axe and his fingers found their way into the grip Sasuke had shown him.
“Your boot lace looks ratty,” said Sasuke. “What happened to it?”
Kakashi took a hard look at Sasuke then. He lowered his axe. It wasn’t like him to notice small things like that…at least, he didn’t make mention of such discoveries. Sasuke was industriously preparing to chop at his tree some more. He was avoiding looking into Kakashi’s face, but that wasn’t anything new. Kakashi stared down at his boot. At that distance, he knew Sasuke wasn’t able to discern the state of his laces. Crap. Sasuke had, obviously, been spying on him.
Kakashi wasn’t sure if Sasuke was just being an idiot in letting him know, or if there was something else going on and this was the misdirection. Maybe he just didn’t care if Kakashi knew. Sasuke had been keeping tighter tabs on him since he’d come back from the mission, but he’d thought Sasuke was over the worst of that. Kakashi decided ignoring the bad behavior would be best. He shrugged. If it worked for training dogs, maybe it’d work on Sasuke.
“Well, there was a certain rodent gnawing on it,” said Kakashi. “I defended myself, but it got away.”
Sasuke held up a squirrel, the lace still in its paws even as it chattered at him.
“This rodent?” He said. “I saw it running by with what appeared to be some jounin-issue gear, so I caught it.”
He took the bit of string and set the squirrel free. Kakashi smothered a few chuckles. Sasuke would be the one to stop a suspicious-looking squirrel in the middle of the forest.
“Thanks,” Kakashi said.
He took the pilfered lace from Sasuke. Sasuke hesitated, just a moment, when he let go of it. It seemed like reluctance. Weird.
“I have a spare,” said Sasuke. “If you want it, you can have it.”
Ah, thought Kakashi. That was it. It was a generous offer, as far as Sasuke was concerned. Sasuke wasn’t in the habit of making such gestures.
“Tell you what,” said Kakashi. “I’ll trade you the old one for the new one.”
Sasuke nodded agreement. He fished the spare lace out of his nearby pack. Kakashi handed over the broken one and threaded the new one through the holes. He didn’t see what happened to the old lace, but he assumed Sasuke would throw it out later, when they next went to town. There was a definite lack of trash cans out here in the woods.
Sasuke waited politely until Kakashi hefted his axe again.
“Let’s get to work then, shall we?” said Kakashi.
Twin thunks echoed underneath the canopy. Kakashi was, for once, very comfortable with the relative silence. They didn’t talk for the rest of the afternoon.
-------
What is interesting about this chapter, I find, is that I think it reads more smoothly than the last chapter. I felt chapter seven needed less work, and this chapter needed mountains, but somehow I think it came out better. I don't know. Maybe the subject matter had a hand in that. I mean, chopping down trees in the forest has different pacing needs than what happened in chapter seven.
I am having some trouble deciding whether I am being too subtle in my hinting at future relationships/characters' frames of mind. Partly, what I mean is that the person whose perspective we see through is flirting on the edge of the unreliable narrator. I'm not sure how much truth the reader can reasonably expect to glean from him. I'm not sure if I'm being too subtle in showing how he is avoiding certain truths...namely, all his feelings.
Am I dropping enough hints so that you, the reader, knows what's what, even if the characters aren't saying it? And, on that same line, am I giving enough here and there to show the development of their relationship, such as it is? I'm not going to write either of them as being terribly showy about all this because I feel that would be taking them into the realms of out-of-character...which I don't want to do. I'm trying my best to show my interpretation of their characters, even if they differ some from the canon.
Anyway, I'm going to have a quick peek at chapter nine tonight and see what needs work. (Sometimes I feel like writing is a roller coaster. You struggle up, and zip down. And then you think it's over, but then you realize no, you're going up again, which means another down phase and probably you'll go up again after that too.)
Later!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.
Chapter 8
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A half mile out from the Forest of Death, Kakashi and Sasuke were building a house and getting nowhere fast. With the Hokage’s approval to build and experienced architects and contractors looking over their plans--to make sure the house wouldn’t fall down around their ears--they themselves were responsible for making everything else happen. Sasuke’s paranoia, pride and, Kakashi assumed, inherent idiocy, meant that not only did all the work have to be personally inspected by Sasuke, but also that he and Kakashi were the only ones allowed to work on it at all. This slowed construction to a crawl. It was a good thing Fire country had long summers and short, mild winters. Kakashi was now expecting that the house would not be done until the start of winter.
Kakashi had made a nice flat piece of land via earth jutsu for the house to sit on, but the two of them had labored for a week to mark off and dig out for the foundation and cellar. Kakashi winced even now when he thought about how the two of them had struggled to agree on a plan for the building…and a suitable location. And materials. They had fought over just about everything, actually. Little decisions got settled with a quick spar. Big ones involved a lot of stubborn silence and prolonged psychological tactics. Sasuke was better at intimidating than he used to be. Kakashi had more patience and could wait out almost anything.
Both he and Sasuke discovered that ninjutsu was simply not designed for the sort of work house building required. Their jutsu could cut through a swath of trees in ten seconds, but those trees were subsequently splintered into oblivion and completely useless as construction materials. Superior physiology, dexterity, speed, and other myriad advantages of high-ranking ninja did not protect Kakashi from the dangers of carpentry. Having one eye made using a hammer damn near impossible, but hammering his thumb repeatedly was more than possible. Getting the nail where he wanted it to go was proving challenging. Kakashi could have used his Sharingan to copy Sasuke’s elegant and flawless hammering technique. It wouldn’t give him the muscle memory to repeat it correctly. He needed to train himself, and nothing would do but more of the same hard work. He bore it stoically as Sasuke hovered nearby. Kakashi couldn’t fathom how such scrutiny was supposed to help. He was, however, glad that no comments, helpful or otherwise, broke the silence.
It was exhausting to do everything the long way. Kakashi had come back from A-rank missions feeling better. As gratifying as it was to see Sasuke covered in mud day after day, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Kakashi had once imagined. Sasuke bordered on perfect no matter what he was doing. He was fast, strong, and seemingly tireless. Aside from the dirt, Sasuke didn’t seem to be affected by the work at all. He never ran out of breath, though as the days wore on, Kakashi noticed more and more that Sasuke was prone to sweating. Not that Kakashi minded. It wasn’t like Sasuke smelled bad. And he himself had no room to complain, considering how filthy he got every day.
Today, they were working to cut down some trees for timber. They each had separate trees so that the likelihood of accidents was minimal. Kakashi firmed up his grip on the axe and swung. He’d spent some time observing Sasuke, watching how he planted his feet on the ground and braced himself with his legs. The kinetic energy rippled up through his torso, flowed along the shoulders and out the arms--and by extension, the axe. Chips of wood flew out of the cut, and every few strokes Sasuke brushed out any remaining debris. Each time he did this, he resumed his stance. Once in a while, he’d wipe the sweat from his hairline onto his sleeve.
Kakashi modeled himself after Sasuke and tried to imagine how it felt to execute that seamless movement. It was a bit like learning a new taijutsu pose. The feet went like this and the balance went up into the calves. The abdominals and obliques moved to channel the force upward into the shoulders, to the arms, to the axe. Kakashi’s blade bit deep into the tree. Not, he noticed, quite as deeply as Sasuke’s, but it was much better than his first attempts.
“Not bad,” Sasuke said.
The unsolicited comment took Kakashi by surprise. He left his axe in the tree for a moment.
“You’re doing quite well yourself,” said Kakashi. What he really wanted to do was ask what this little round of self-congratulation was all about. He didn’t need Sasuke’s compliments. He was more than Sasuke’s equal, even if Sasuke had the edge on him here.
Kakashi made to pick up the axe again. He was preparing to swing when Sasuke spoke.
“Wait,” he said. “Not like that.”
Kakashi froze in place.
Sasuke crossed the forest floor between them, carefully giving the blade of the axe a wide berth. He stripped off his gloves. He molded his hands over Kakashi’s around the handle and shifted their grips a little. Sasuke let go again. He cleared out the cut in Kakashi’s tree, removing a handful of wood and bark. He returned to his own tree. He wiped his hand off on his pants leg. The fabric clung to the sap on his palm. Sasuke shook it off. He donned his gloves and picked up his axe. Kakashi noted that he held his in an identical manner.
“You’ll get a better result like that,” Sasuke said. “Try it. You’ll see.”
Sasuke ducked his head and started chopping again.
Kakashi tried not to puzzle over what Sasuke had just done. He needed a clear head right now, and thinking about the whys and wherefores of Sasuke’s behavior would not help. He tried using the axe with the new grip. The head thunked into the trunk. He snuck a glance at Sasuke’s work. He had actually gotten further into the wood than Sasuke that time. Kakashi thought about thanking him, but he had the distinct impression that Sasuke was now trying to pretend that he hadn’t done anything.
For now, Kakashi would go along with it, though it all made him curious. Where had Sasuke developed his aptitude for hard labor? Or was it more than simply talent? Sasuke wasn’t shirking, that was certain. Did he like this sort of work, then? Kakashi was half-afraid to ask, but he wanted to despite the niggling feeling that Sasuke might not respond well to this line of questioning. Kakashi decided to ease into it.
“Hey, Sasuke. You’re very good at this sort of thing…” He said.
Sasuke only grunted in reply. He didn’t break stride.
Kakashi stuck his axe in a log and leaned against another tree. It wasn’t really break time yet, but he couldn’t be casual while he was working so hard to concentrate on what he was doing. Besides, Sasuke was at his back, wielding a bladed weapon, and Kakashi wasn’t wholly comfortable with that.
Kakashi waited a minute and then tried a little harder.
“I heard that only the harmless prisoners got to do menial labor.”
Sasuke missed his swing and the axe blade landed an inch from the toe of his boot. A large bird squawked and flew away out of the trees. The forest was strangely quiet. Okay. Maybe that was trying too hard.
“This has nothing to do with that.”
He picked the axe up again and swung it harder than he had before.
A chip of wood flew through the air and grazed Kakashi’s forehead. Kakashi let it hit. He decided he’d rather not find out if Orochimaru would be a sufficient goad. Kakashi picked up his own axe again, and they worked in silence for some time.
“It was my father.”
Sasuke’s sudden, stark confession made Kakashi lose his rhythm. He took his cue from Sasuke and kept working.
“I work hard because hard work impressed my father.”
Sasuke wiped his brow and continued, head down and not looking at Kakashi. His face twisted into a frown. His voice was low and rough.
“Not that he ever noticed. Ita--my--he was all my father ever noticed.”
Kakashi took the explanation at face value. It explained the work ethic, maybe, but it said nothing about the force of construction he was now. Kakashi sighed. Maybe he was just getting old.
They worked in silence until lunchtime. Then Kakashi put down his axe and, before Sasuke could say anything about wasting time, slipped off to wash in a nearby stream. It was nice to cool down for a minute, to remove flecks of wood and tree sap before he ate. It was also nice to spend a moment away from Sasuke, alone in the greenness underneath the trees. As indefensible as a forest was, Kakashi had always liked these barked leviathans. With so many trees, it sometimes seemed as if they were pillars holding up the sky. Kakashi had always striven to be that sort of a ninja; deeply rooted, reaching upwards to support something greater than the woods. He snorted. What ninja with his experience still thought like that? He dove under the water and swam. His thoughts floated away.
Kakashi surfaced and looked at the sun’s position. He got out of the water. He toweled off with his shirt, which wasn’t very effective considering how dirty it was. A closer inspection of his clothes made him decide to put off getting dressed until he was fully dry. Having wet skin would only transfer more of the grime onto him, though going naked in the meantime wasn‘t ideal either. He lay down on a smooth rock to eat. The stone was warm, the breeze pleasant, and the sun was making quick work of the water that puddled around him.
Sasuke hadn’t come down to the stream, and Kakashi felt, guiltily, reprieved as he repacked the remains of his lunch. Sasuke was…driven to complete the house and he often loomed nearby, impatience undisguised. Kakashi still hadn’t managed to make him understand that he liked to take his time, even if Sasuke didn‘t need much in the way of breaks. A well-rested ninja made fewer mistakes and was less irritable to boot. Considering how abrasive Sasuke could be, he wanted all the patience and even-temperedness he could muster.
Kakashi rolled over onto a dry part of the rock. The heated stone was wonderful on his back. It was only midday, and he was already feeling the impact of his labors. Still, it wasn’t like Sasuke didn’t try to be a good working partner. He’d made a lot of restrictions about the work, but he did his best to do as much of it himself as possible. Kakashi often was forced to guess what Sasuke wanted him to do. He got riled up if Kakashi didn’t intuit the proper order of things.
He was working on drawing out more verbal communication. So far, engaging in conversations hadn’t done much except make Sasuke act more recalcitrant. He was fairly certain that he could get him to talk if he kept at it long enough, but he knew that this would make Sasuke blow up in the worst sort of way.
The breeze picked up, shaking the leaves all along the bank of the stream. Kakashi plucked a leaf out of his hair and gazed at it. He was now practicing not talking, and it seemed to be working. Sasuke made occasional efforts to talk to Kakashi that were not statements like “Put that log here” or “That’s not even.” Talking with Sasuke was still like pulling teeth, but at least he was saying something. With this rate of success, Kakashi wasn’t surprised that Ibiki’s people hadn’t had much luck in “debriefing” him.
Kakashi was dry now. He hopped down off the rock and started putting his clothes back on. He eyed the shirt with distaste. It looked bad, smelled worse, and was still wet from being pressed into service as a towel. He sighed. Looks like he’d be spending the afternoon shirtless. No sense in getting another one dirty today. He rinsed the offensive article in the stream and hung it on a bush to dry. A flicker of movement caught his eye and he turned, throwing a kunai at the same time.
It was a squirrel. Kakashi relaxed and walked over to his boots. He frowned. It had chewed off a couple inches of one of the laces. He wished he’d nailed the fuzzy-tailed rat, but he’d aimed to scare, not kill. He’d pinned a couple squirrel hairs into the dirt, nothing more. He wiped the kunai off and stuck it back in his pouch. Kakashi re-laced his boot, stretched, and headed back to the work site.
Upon reaching the clearing, Kakashi noticed something interesting. Sasuke was sitting on a tree stump, back to. Ordinarily he’d be pacing the clearing, waiting impatiently to get back to work. Kakashi took this as a sign of improvement.
“Yo,” said Kakashi.
Sasuke jumped up, bad attitude radiating around him. Now this was more like what he expected. Sasuke turned, and the scowl on his face morphed into something less readable, more confused than anything else.
“What?” Kakashi said. He watched Sasuke give him a look up and down. Kakashi looked down to see what it was that had caused Sasuke’s bemusement. Kakashi kicked himself. Of course.
“My shirt needed a wash,” he said. “I didn’t want to use another clean one.”
He stretched out, swinging an imaginary axe once or twice for practice. He picked up his axe and his fingers found their way into the grip Sasuke had shown him.
“Your boot lace looks ratty,” said Sasuke. “What happened to it?”
Kakashi took a hard look at Sasuke then. He lowered his axe. It wasn’t like him to notice small things like that…at least, he didn’t make mention of such discoveries. Sasuke was industriously preparing to chop at his tree some more. He was avoiding looking into Kakashi’s face, but that wasn’t anything new. Kakashi stared down at his boot. At that distance, he knew Sasuke wasn’t able to discern the state of his laces. Crap. Sasuke had, obviously, been spying on him.
Kakashi wasn’t sure if Sasuke was just being an idiot in letting him know, or if there was something else going on and this was the misdirection. Maybe he just didn’t care if Kakashi knew. Sasuke had been keeping tighter tabs on him since he’d come back from the mission, but he’d thought Sasuke was over the worst of that. Kakashi decided ignoring the bad behavior would be best. He shrugged. If it worked for training dogs, maybe it’d work on Sasuke.
“Well, there was a certain rodent gnawing on it,” said Kakashi. “I defended myself, but it got away.”
Sasuke held up a squirrel, the lace still in its paws even as it chattered at him.
“This rodent?” He said. “I saw it running by with what appeared to be some jounin-issue gear, so I caught it.”
He took the bit of string and set the squirrel free. Kakashi smothered a few chuckles. Sasuke would be the one to stop a suspicious-looking squirrel in the middle of the forest.
“Thanks,” Kakashi said.
He took the pilfered lace from Sasuke. Sasuke hesitated, just a moment, when he let go of it. It seemed like reluctance. Weird.
“I have a spare,” said Sasuke. “If you want it, you can have it.”
Ah, thought Kakashi. That was it. It was a generous offer, as far as Sasuke was concerned. Sasuke wasn’t in the habit of making such gestures.
“Tell you what,” said Kakashi. “I’ll trade you the old one for the new one.”
Sasuke nodded agreement. He fished the spare lace out of his nearby pack. Kakashi handed over the broken one and threaded the new one through the holes. He didn’t see what happened to the old lace, but he assumed Sasuke would throw it out later, when they next went to town. There was a definite lack of trash cans out here in the woods.
Sasuke waited politely until Kakashi hefted his axe again.
“Let’s get to work then, shall we?” said Kakashi.
Twin thunks echoed underneath the canopy. Kakashi was, for once, very comfortable with the relative silence. They didn’t talk for the rest of the afternoon.
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What is interesting about this chapter, I find, is that I think it reads more smoothly than the last chapter. I felt chapter seven needed less work, and this chapter needed mountains, but somehow I think it came out better. I don't know. Maybe the subject matter had a hand in that. I mean, chopping down trees in the forest has different pacing needs than what happened in chapter seven.
I am having some trouble deciding whether I am being too subtle in my hinting at future relationships/characters' frames of mind. Partly, what I mean is that the person whose perspective we see through is flirting on the edge of the unreliable narrator. I'm not sure how much truth the reader can reasonably expect to glean from him. I'm not sure if I'm being too subtle in showing how he is avoiding certain truths...namely, all his feelings.
Am I dropping enough hints so that you, the reader, knows what's what, even if the characters aren't saying it? And, on that same line, am I giving enough here and there to show the development of their relationship, such as it is? I'm not going to write either of them as being terribly showy about all this because I feel that would be taking them into the realms of out-of-character...which I don't want to do. I'm trying my best to show my interpretation of their characters, even if they differ some from the canon.
Anyway, I'm going to have a quick peek at chapter nine tonight and see what needs work. (Sometimes I feel like writing is a roller coaster. You struggle up, and zip down. And then you think it's over, but then you realize no, you're going up again, which means another down phase and probably you'll go up again after that too.)
Later!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.
Chapter 8-- later tonight!
I've gotten chapter eight to a nice stopping point. I like it when I can kind of make chapters be self-contained. Not to say that I'm making a story arc and connecting a bunch of one-shots together. These are definitely chapters in the same, continuous story. I just like that this one didn't have a protracted beginning that lapped over terribly from chapter seven and a sloppy connect to chapter nine. I hate it when I can't figure out good breaks between chapters.
I'm going to take a break--maybe eat some dinner, yeah?--and do some further editing in an hour or two. Chapter eight grew to a good four pages when I wasn't looking. But, the good news is that, with the exception of the very newest addition to it, it has all been edited at least once already.
By the time anything gets put up here, I've already combed through it two or three times. When I read a chapter over, I kind of do continuous spot-editing. I just need to look it all over in general, and pay particular attention to the latest bits I've put in. The temptation is, of course, to edit and edit until it's completely different from what I have just finished. I try to cut myself off after three total edits.
Anyway, stay tuned!
I'm going to take a break--maybe eat some dinner, yeah?--and do some further editing in an hour or two. Chapter eight grew to a good four pages when I wasn't looking. But, the good news is that, with the exception of the very newest addition to it, it has all been edited at least once already.
By the time anything gets put up here, I've already combed through it two or three times. When I read a chapter over, I kind of do continuous spot-editing. I just need to look it all over in general, and pay particular attention to the latest bits I've put in. The temptation is, of course, to edit and edit until it's completely different from what I have just finished. I try to cut myself off after three total edits.
Anyway, stay tuned!
To Filter or Not to Filter?
Well! Entropy is currently about halfway to its intended destination of its main characters getting it on. With that in mind, I'm considering the pros and cons of filtering for adult content. Pros include, obviously, not getting sued by enraged persons stumbling across my blog and avoiding the possibility of Google shutting me down for what could be construed as breaking the rules.
When I first signed up for a spot here, I looked over the adult content policy very carefully, with an eye towards the future possibilities of sex scenes in my writing. The hard lines of the policy dictate that one must filter for adult images and/or video. There is no rule about written "adult situations."
However, I kind of see it as a courtesy to filter. I'm pretty sure not everyone on the internet is going to want to have what I will post right in their faces. However, I'm not sure exactly how the content filter works. Does it do a blanket for the entire blog, or just specific entries? Ideally, I'd like to be able to do it on a case-by-case basis...because I find it equally unfair that people would have to skip over all the other, non-sexually-based writing, just because my blog warns them that there may be some naughty stuff. It's not like I'm running a porn shop here! Writing that happens to contain occasional sex, is not the same as nothing but sex that's in written form. (It's like the difference between all squares being rectangles and not all rectangles being squares.)
The good news is that I don't have to make any real decisions until later. Maybe I should do a trial run and see how the A.C. filter will affect the blog?
Anyway, I'm going to be working on chapter eight this weekend. I plan to be done by Sunday evening...but I'm not-so-secretly hoping that I'll be done by bedtime tonight. I always think I'll be done faster than it turns out being, though, so don't hold your breath. ^_^
Later!
When I first signed up for a spot here, I looked over the adult content policy very carefully, with an eye towards the future possibilities of sex scenes in my writing. The hard lines of the policy dictate that one must filter for adult images and/or video. There is no rule about written "adult situations."
However, I kind of see it as a courtesy to filter. I'm pretty sure not everyone on the internet is going to want to have what I will post right in their faces. However, I'm not sure exactly how the content filter works. Does it do a blanket for the entire blog, or just specific entries? Ideally, I'd like to be able to do it on a case-by-case basis...because I find it equally unfair that people would have to skip over all the other, non-sexually-based writing, just because my blog warns them that there may be some naughty stuff. It's not like I'm running a porn shop here! Writing that happens to contain occasional sex, is not the same as nothing but sex that's in written form. (It's like the difference between all squares being rectangles and not all rectangles being squares.)
The good news is that I don't have to make any real decisions until later. Maybe I should do a trial run and see how the A.C. filter will affect the blog?
Anyway, I'm going to be working on chapter eight this weekend. I plan to be done by Sunday evening...but I'm not-so-secretly hoping that I'll be done by bedtime tonight. I always think I'll be done faster than it turns out being, though, so don't hold your breath. ^_^
Later!
03 June 2009
An anniversary, perhaps?
It just occurred to me that Entropy (aka the fic o' doom) is the first time I've seriously tried to write a non-original, fandom-based piece in ten years. That's a freaking long time. (Truthfully, in that ten years, I wrote exactly three paragraphs of a fic for Weiss Kreuz that I never finished. It's still on my hard drive somewhere, I'm sure.)
And now, being so absorbed in something so fictional--because fandom is a reinvented fiction--I'm thinking about writing something more original, a few steps closer to the truth. There are avenues I've not yet really explored in my writing, and I want to. This isn't to say I'm going to slow down on Entropy. I'm curious to see what happens when I try to write two different things at once. Maybe it will do good things. Maybe it'll crash and burn, but I doubt it.
Plus, it should be interesting to juggle perspective. (Considering that Entropy is third-person limited and I plan on making the new piece first person. I have no idea what tense it'll end up being. Probably past. Me and present tense don't really get along.)
I'm working, slowly, on chapter eight. I feel scattered at the present time. Or maybe divided. Anyway, it's been hard to focus on editing, but I shall persevere.
Later!
And now, being so absorbed in something so fictional--because fandom is a reinvented fiction--I'm thinking about writing something more original, a few steps closer to the truth. There are avenues I've not yet really explored in my writing, and I want to. This isn't to say I'm going to slow down on Entropy. I'm curious to see what happens when I try to write two different things at once. Maybe it will do good things. Maybe it'll crash and burn, but I doubt it.
Plus, it should be interesting to juggle perspective. (Considering that Entropy is third-person limited and I plan on making the new piece first person. I have no idea what tense it'll end up being. Probably past. Me and present tense don't really get along.)
I'm working, slowly, on chapter eight. I feel scattered at the present time. Or maybe divided. Anyway, it's been hard to focus on editing, but I shall persevere.
Later!
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