Oh, and in case my first question was, well, hard, I'd ask what was the first image coming into your mind around which you've build the whole story in "Home";)
It’s not that it was hard, you brat, it’s that it was deep, pff… *smiles*
The first image that came to my mind and around which I built the entire story? Now that is easy.
Regina first touching Emma by caressing between her fingers until Emma’s fist loosens.
I saw that, the positions, the approach, the lay out of the room, their expressions, them, their movements, their motivations, all in slow-mo and with a clarity, like I was directing a movie.
And pretty much all of the story just like that. I wrote it in like a weekend and then killed myself over the piece for 2 months. As usual.
I'm not one of those readers who need to know everything about a fic, BUT i adore "Home" and the great analogy you've used there for Emma and Regina, seen as "worlds colliding" and finding their place just by staying together. Many writers have used this concept, but results are not always as brilliant as in "Home". So, question...why have you chosen this particular aspect of E and R as narrative driving force for this fic and how do you adapt it to the different plots of the stories you write?
You know me well enough by now to know that I didn’t choose the “worlds colliding” narrative before writing this piece. Don’t get mad. I realized that’s what it was, well now? When you said so? I mean with the actual concept words.
It’s one of their main narrative driving forces. It’s what gives readers, and viewers actually, this feeling that Emma and Regina are very different but really the same. I just didn’t put words to my thoughts.
Their worlds collide. Then I get this visual in my head that their worlds collide and shatter, like in Shattered actually, and they shed the rubble, but not in that one single freeing gesture, in waves and struggles, until they realize then accept that they love each other, and are in love with each other. And then the real story begins. Which might be all I ever write, in a way. Or two. Or three.
All I was thinking about while writing is that the only person who can truly understand Emma is Regina, and that being apart from each other would kill them. I was thinking about being homesick, and knowing where you belong and where you can never be whole. And is that a world? Is that a place? Is that a person? Is that the peace and personality you manage to preserve of yourself in your own heart?
I mean, even as Carole-Anne did the cover art with an actual line dividing the piece between the two worlds, I still didn’t see “worlds colliding”. And she showed me several drafts.
I guess “worlds colliding” is really one of my main themes, isn’t it?
When I think now about Maybe in My Words, the actual colliding is huge. And it keeps being about them finding their place with each other and their world. Same in A Change of Hearts, same in Shattered, same… everywhere? I mean I go about it differently of course, and I don’t write that as linearly as it was in Home because as you said, Home was kind of stellar that way.
To me it felt like this intense succession of waves, even writing it. I was so engrossed and obsessive, I fiddled with every line, I envisioned every movement, every thought, every aspect of style. It was insane and blistering and exhausting.
But yeah, I think for me the narrative of “worlds colliding” transfers to most of my plots, I think mostly in the characterization of Emma and Regina and how I have them react to stimuli.
“Worlds colliding” is definitely mostly metaphorical in my writings, but I find it sine qua non to how I single out who each of my characters really are, and not just Emma or Regina.
And this has gotten very long…
C.
PS: Thanks for making me think too much, as always. You know I don’t like feelings. Grrr. But yeah.
Emma Swan: Are you usually the leader or the follower?
I would say I am usually a leader. When I follow it's because I choose to and I choose my battles. I lead, but I don't like to make a big deal out of it.
Regina Mills: Who/What is the thing you love most?
The thing I love most... I am not doing love right now. I am not allowing a feeling that intense about anything anywhere near my inner being until I can handle what it carries.
I guess writing is what matters most, right now, when I can do it. It's helping me cope, I think, though I am not certain. it hurts a lot too, and it's hard to keep it fun.
Henry Mills: What are three most important things you believe in?
Believing... *sigh*
I believe we always have a choice and in responsibility.
Once you receive this, write 5 facts about yourself and pass it on to 10 of your favorite followers (´◠ω◠`)
1. I have bought the same brand of bra and the exact same model for the past 12 years. When I am not in France (which I usually am not), I send money to my mom, or I tell her to gift them to me for birthdays or Christmases, so she buys me a couple of them on a regular basis and mail them to me. They make my breast look fantastic. They thought of me when they made this bra.
2. I raised a fawn for a few months. A little deer. She was rescued from a park, their population had grown way too much and the park officials decided to get rid of a few animals. Female and their little ones. My mom lived on a farm, and I was there that summer. We got a call from the truck driver taking them to the slaughter house.
We rescued a few, but my little deer lost her mother. I slept with her for a week in the barn, to feed her milk with a big bottle and eventually, she was so well mannered, she slept in the dog’s basket with the doberman in the kitchen.
There was a huge yard at the back with a high fence, for the wallabies (two other rescues) and the rabbit family. And the cats, like my Toffee, who would always bring me trophies (bird, mouse, etc.) but would laze around in the grass with baby rabbits all over him and never once laid a paw on any of them.
That’s were we kept her. She died a couple years ago, not long after the doberman, a heart attack I think. Her name was Orphée. She loved to steel carrots from the rabbits and for me to read her stories, curled up in my lap.
3. I don't like cooked fish, I never ate it, even as a small child. I love it raw, especially tuna. I was over the moon when I discovered sushi.
4. When I am in America, people always ask me what state I am from, or if I am Canadian. When I am tell them i am French, from France, they look at me like I am a monkey from a zoo. they think my parents must be English speakers, or something like that. So I always have to explain I only went to regular highschool in France and never did more English than that. My accent wasn't really that French back then either. I guess I do have something for languages, although I haven't perfected my German or my Italian that much at all. I want to learn Japanese next. I Have always wanted to.
5. The first two ribs on each side of my rib cage are fused together. It's hereditary, my father has the same thing, although of all his kids, I am the only one to have it. So when I break these, which luckily I haven't, well these ones at least, it would break 2 or 4 ribs at one time. No fun.
woah, i saw you've already answered to every question. Ok, bonus: take a question you liked and answer like you're Emma Swan. ;)
5. Is there someone mad because you’re dating/talking to the person you are?
Mary Margaret and David used to be quite mad about it. I understand that they had their differences with Regina but banning me from seeing her was a dick bad move. But anyway Mar-mum changed her mind after she…after she saw something that she shouldn’t have seen taking place on her bed.I am pretty sure everyone heard her scream “porn". Cora on the other hand, who was transformed into a vase, seemed to enjoy our *cough* union.
