inspiration, musings and progress for Stealing Eden, a NaNovel I started in 2012, continued in 2013, and am going to finish ONE OF THESE DAYS! I'm planning to finish it for NaNoWriMo 2016 so stay tuned! (you can see my aesthetic/moodboard posts for Stealing Eden right here! otherwise just browse the #inspiration and #progress tags til I get this blog organized again!)
springdelirium answered your post: “this is embarrassing...”:
I have vague notions about it (I'm a bad ship mate), but what is Stealing Eden about? What excerpts I've read from it it seems very interesting but I'm not sure I know fully what's happening. <3
h’okay so in the year 200X there was a pandemic that swept the planet. it specifically attacked the nervous system and it wiped out most of humanity. it’s 15 years later and we’re not far from Billings, Montana. the people that had an immunity to the disease are trying to survive and by this point have settled into small communities.
our protagonists are five 15-year-olds whose mothers were pregnant during the pandemic and were born towards the end of it. here’s some pics of them.
basically crows (a species that we know to be complex and sapient) are trying to make sure the humans’ attempts to rebuild again will fail and humans will fully die off (or at the very least, never be able to recover their position as dominant species of this planet). they’re working with um, well basically the local nature spirits. they attack in the humans’ dreams with horrifically real nightmares to the point where people stop sleeping and, as this goes on, die off. a crow named Sullivan is leading this movement.
our five kids learn they have heightened psychic/spiritual/whatever abilities (this is related to their being exposed to the disease while they were developing fetuses, it altered their brain). they’re aware of their connection to different elements and are able to learn to cross over to the spiritual realm, where they use those elements to fight against the crows and spirits. they have some help from two crows who are defectors from Sullivan’s movement. as the nightmares get worse and crows attack humans in mobs and ruin the crops, the kids sleep less and less while dealing with the fallout in their small community as people lose hope and begin to die.
a lot of the world-building is fudged tbh but if you suspend a little disbelief I think it works well enough to keep the story up lol.
~~ ask me something about SE to help motivate me a bit?
this is embarrassing and whiny af but umm leave me some thoughts and/or questions about Stealing Eden? if you read it, then things you liked or headcanons or scenes/interactions you wish happened or asking for clarification on something? just to get me a little excited about it??
Brooks Shane Salzwedel aka Brooks Salzwedel (American, b. 1978, Long Beach, CA, USA, based Los Angeles) - 1: Pink Mountain, 2013 Graphite, Tape, Colored Pencils, Watercolors 2: LA 6th St, 2015 Graphite, Colored Pencils, Ink 3: Blue Bones, 2013 Mixed Media 4: Gay Speckled Mountain, 2016 Graphite, Colored Pencils, Ink 5: Bones Of The Mountain, 2013 Graphite, Tape, Colored Pencils, Spray Paint on Mylar, Resin on Panel 6: Unknown Title, 2013 Mixed Media
Digging this guy's cover of this Thrice song. I couldn't find anything decent quality of the original one, actually, and I like his cover better.
we dream of ways to break these iron bars
we dream of black nights without moon or stars
we dream of tunnels and of sleeping guards
we dream of blackouts in the prison yard
heartbroken, we found a gleam of hope
harken to the sound, a whistle blows
heaven sent reply, however small
evidence of life beyond these walls
born and bred in this machine
wardens dread to see us dream
we hold tight to legends of
real life, the way it was before
my goal is at least 500 per day so I more than wrote that.
so for today, I went back and re-worked a scene that’s been bothering me. made it longer, more atmospheric, and gave it more of a point to exist. before, it really lost steam and ended with a half-hearted attempt at transitioning. I honestly can’t tell if it’s even a little bit coherent or if it sounds like total nonsense, but at least I rewrote it to have the new stuff I wanted.
like I usually do a good job of mood and atmosphere, but this needed to be suspenseful and kind of spooky and I reeeaally think it just sounds like a twelve-year-old wrote it. I’ll have to look at it when my brain is less muddy.
I’m very very brain-foggy today, my writing coming more from motor memory than really consciously having any sort of intent. like I feel real checked-out.
an excerpt??
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(this is after Dawn had the vision/dream while out biking, then she headed to Adam’s)
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She frowned. “Well, what about you? When did you sleep last?”
He averted his gaze. “Last night. Bad idea.” He blinked up at the ceiling then covered his eyes with one hand; it was shaking a little. “I've been flashing back to it all day. Back and forth... I feel sick from it. Mom had a nightmare last night, too. She's trying to nap now.” He sighed and dropped his hand to the pillow next to his head. “It was raining in that nightmare, so the weather today hasn't been helpful.”
“Letting ourselves sleep to try and keep our bodies going, it just hurts our minds more, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Dawn shifted to lie on her side. Her gaze traced his profile, up the slope of his nose and over the small hill where his brows drew together, along his high forehead to his messy, spiky black hair. His dark lashes were long and she watched him blink slowly for a few moments, the dark circles drawing swaths like bruises under his eyes. “Is the tradeoff worth it, I wonder,” she almost whispered.
“I can't stay awake. I've tried,” he sighed.
“If this waking dream thing is a new attack,” she said slowly. “I don't know what kind of defenses we'd have left. Our consciousness was our strongest defense against this.”
He didn't reply. After a few moments, he rolled and sat up on the other side of the bed. The plants around his window framed his slouched form, the murky gray light creeping in through the leaves, lighting them so differently than the sun did. It was like the plants curled around him protectively, possessively.
After a few minutes, Dawn could hear Adriana moving around downstairs, muffled clanging sounds coming from the kitchen below Adam's room. It was a soothing sound. It reminded her of when she was sick in bed and her mother was preparing food.
Her thoughts darted to Emily. She had left her mother alone back home despite Sullivan's recent threats. Her stomach clenched. Sullivan had made a lot of threats that she hadn't made good on, but Dawn still found a cold sickness creeping down her limbs. She clenched her hands into fists repeatedly, trying to shake off the tingling sensation in her fingers. “I need to get home to Mom,” she said. She sat up a bit too fast, feeling a little dizzy again from the afterimages of her waking dream, still flashing in the back of her mind.
“Let me come with you,” Adam said, turning to look at her.
“No.” Dawn stood, smoothing her damp hair back from her face. “Stay with your mom.”
He looked about to argue, then his mouth firmed into a tense line. “Okay.”
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