I’d been the reason he’d died; Lizzie had been the fallout, the stain of denial and anger coloring these past five years of her life in a haze.
A bit more backstory into the circumstances around Will and the grief the Pierce siblings had to go through during that five year period and, for some moments, still are.
OKAY, so this ask was the reason I switched to comp so please bear with me bc it’s going to get LongTM <3
Read More bc Length
Andromeda: Describe your main characters.
STEPHEN PIERCE -- my ‘Curses Like a Sailor’ Narrator, LoML, the Apple of My Eye, the jaded little Damsel in DistressTM darling that I love to love and love to torment (sorry Stephen). He starts this project off grieving, mourning a man that he thought died and that he let himself believe he was the cause of his death bc Will was trying to be a good man and a good boyfriend and protect him.
He is a very flawed character, his narration is a bit skewed. He was formerly homeless, a veteran of the Vietnam War who actively speaks out against fighting in it and the atrocities that they committed there while also being a proud man to have served. He loves his sister dearly. He wants what is best for her and he is trying his damn hardest to become a man that Will would be proud of after he was gone. It’s hard. He has his hang-ups, but he’s trying. He’s my private investigator and the one working the case that could make or break his new business and who bites off far more than he can chew.
JOUA SOUNG -- Joua...oh Joua. She’s my youngin, the naive-but-not-really 17-year-old that just wants her brother back. And, to do that, she must find her father. She does. She shows up at Stephen’s door and demands that he help her, that he is the only one who can, and she becomes the catalyst that sets every event in this book in motion. Stephen never knew about her. If he had, if he had known her mother was alive and that Joua was there, he would have stayed with them or he would have brought them home to the US. Dia didn’t want that, so he never knew. Joua was fine with that, content with only having stories of her father, but meeting him for the first time changes that.
WILLIAM MOORE -- the love of Stephen’s life, the one he meets by accident or maybe happenstance and communicates with through years upon years of letters. The one who he calls, thousands of miles away, to sob to about losing Dia, losing the woman who was his best friend and who he had cared so deeply for, even if they had never truly loved one another. The man who stayed, who lived with him and loved him and supported him, but who was a prominent figure in his community. Will is smart and kind and brave, a lawyer with a flourishing business and a heart for advocacy in the middle of the ‘80s when so much is happening that impacts him. He is the ghost that haunts Stephen’s memory, the driving force behind why he gets up and why he tries. And, then, he is no longer memory but a reality again, and Will not only has to remember how to become himself again after so many years of losing that, or thinking he was something he was not, of being used for his abilities and then discarded back out into the world to find the answers he needs, angry at himself for not knowing and for the fragments of things he remembers. Will is my anchor for Stephen. He is the light that guides everyone home, even if he’s coded as something a little bit grey after his return.
ELIZABETH PIERCE -- the heart of Pierce Investigation, the kind and the care and the reason Stephen is back up on his feet. Where Will is the anchor, Lizzie is the oak. Strong and steadfast and fiercely protective of her little brother, Lizzie will go to great lengths to ensure that he (and the rest of their family, chosen or otherwise) is safe. She is the Mother and the Taskmaster, a woman with steel in her backbone but raw edges when it comes to those she loves. While she has a day job as a book editor, her connection to the characters in this project stretches further back than that. When Stephen couldn’t pay the rent for his lease because he was shattered by mental illness and grief and so many other things, Lizzie was the one to pick up the pieces. When Will had a problem, wanted to talk through a defense, she was the one he went to (his best friend). When Joua is scared and unfathomably lonely, it is Lizzie’s lap that she curls up in to tell stories of her home and her mother.
Hydra: Tell us why you love your project.
OH MAN. Okay so...I love Operation Eclogues because it’s a lot of things I have never allowed myself to break into before. This is the first serious project that I’ve ever wanted to write in first person POV. This is my first attempt at not only urban fantasy but magic realism (I suppose? IDK I’m still toying with that bit). Despite my stresses in RL and the drawbacks I’ve had drafting this WIP, I’ve never once wanted to abandon it. These characters have taken on a life of their own and I am literally never not thinking about them, even when I probably should be ahaha
I love Operation Eclogues, too, because it gives me a chance to kind of push back against the typical tropes of the fantasy genre, specifically dealing with Shifters. Shifters aren’t just born, here, and it doesn’t matter if you’re POC, half, Caucasian, etc. (Yes, two of my mains are Shifters, but they act as foils for one another, and the other two MCs, who we shall discover have their own type of magic, which is why they aren’t Shifters, too. I intend to make it VERY clear that there isn’t just a lumping of POC as Shifters bc that’s not cool at all). It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female and there’s not a thing like Fated Mates or whatever the fuck that is. It has a basis in science and geographical regions of families and bloodlines and can be triggered in anyone. Shifting is based on a genome, not a “”disease”” like being a werewolf usually is viewed as. Also, wolves feature absolutely No Where in this WIP bc I don’t think people use other Were creatures enough.
I love Operation Eclogues because it’s mine and because I feel like I am the person who can write it. It might take me a while, but I love it entirely and I am proud of what I have accomplished with it so far.
Caelum: Do you write outlines? Why or Why not?
Short answer? Yes. Now, here’s the longer one.
I write outlines when I get an idea for a project. However, I don’t always...use them the way someone might think a typical outline should be used. I leave notes to myself and make comments as I go. It’s kind of like my Draft Zero, a place for me to figure out characters (occasionally) and where I want to go with scenes and how to connect the dots. Once I start writing, I kind of just start going with the flow. If stuff deviates or shifts like it did once I hit Chapter 6 of OE, I just go off a loose following of the events I wrote down. I’ve found that this allows me to organize my thoughts while also giving myself creative freedom. Plus, with larger, more complex projects like my currently on-hold secondary project, it helps me keep track of what I want to do.
Thank you for that ask hun! (and forgive me for the rambling I have many feelings)
