Jul 1
Jane Santos (New Zealander) - Return to the Lagoon (glass mosaic panel, 2022)
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Jane Santos (New Zealander) - Return to the Lagoon (glass mosaic panel, 2022)
I'VE FINALLY FINISHED EVERY BIT OF PLANNING I NEED TO DO AND I CAN START WRITING THE ACTUAL NOVEL NOW
It's my OCs Jane's birthday yesterday (7th of August) so here's some facts about her.
She was born in 1924 and died on the 8th of October in 2002 due to old age and heartbreak. She would be 102 if she were still alive
She's half English on her mum's side and half Spanish on her dad's side
She was born in Manchester, England
Her mum's name is Tracey, her dad's name is Vicente and she has an older brother named Leonardo whose nickname was Leo
She is an ISTJ
She likes to skip stones, cook and bake as she was a chef, go bird watching, go bowling, play chess and do shadow puppets
She's really good at sewing clothes and picking locks
She loves Hank Williams, her wife Helen, birds, cars, true crime and thriller stuff and the movie Double Indemnity
She's claustrophobic, emetophobic, gets freaked out by her own blood but she's fine with other people's and can handle gore as long as it's not her own, and she's terrified of pain or being hurt
She is double jointed
She has a lower pitch voice - kind of think like Vaggie from Hazbin Hotel if you know what she sounds like. Similar to that
She used to get made fun of the clothes she's wear because she didn't wear "feminine" clothes of her time. She wears jeans and leather jackets because her family was a bit poor and she got her brother's hand me downs
She's a lesbian
That's all. For now. Happy (late) birthday Jane.
I'm going to show some moodboards I've made for my four main characters in my novel, and I want to see based on the moodboards, who do you think would be you're favourite
Alma Moore (The main character):
Archie Wallace (My favourite):
Helen Miles:
Jane Santos:
Who do you think you're favourite would be?
Alma
Archie
Helen
Jane
I can't decide
Okay so I have a question. In the book that I'm currently writing (girl meets these ghosts that can talk to her) there's the ghost lesbian couple - Helen and Jane.
The name Jane came from my Granny's name and because the gravestone I saw while at a cemetery that inspired me to write the story had the name Jane on it. The name Helen came from my great grandmother. I think it was less I named her after my great grandmother, and more I liked the name and thought it suited her, because it does.
However my great grandmother Helen, is my granny's mum. So Jane and Helen in the story are wives, and the Jane and Helen in real life where I got the names from are mother and daughter
Is that weird?
Yes
No
Yes but it's fine (because it was unintentional)
Other
Also by the way, the names Helen and Jane have been stuck onto these characters for so long now that even if everyone thinks it's weird I'm still not changing them.
When I named them after those people the fact that the real life people are related did not cross my mind until later on. I was literally just cleaning my grandpa's office, saw a photo of my great granny Helen, and decided that would be a good name.
I'm bored and it's pride so here have some quotes from my novel, Alma's Grave, from the chapter where they talk about queer stuff. AKA: Just a straight up excerpt from that chapter
‘When did you and Helen first get together?’ [Alma said.]
Jane pursed her lips, searching her mind for dates. ‘I think I was about twenty, so she would have been around twenty-two. We had liked each other since before that but we didn’t think we could actually do anything about it. People wouldn’t have approved of us dating back then. I know people have become more accepting of it, but I don’t know how much has changed since we died.’
Alma glanced at Helen and Jane’s shared gravestones and read their death years. 2001 and 2002. They wouldn’t know, she thought.
‘It’s legal now,’ she told Jane.
‘What is?’
‘Gay marriage. Same sex marriage. They legalised it sometime in the 2010s.’
Jane’s eyes lit up with pride and astonishment. She didn’t say anything at first, shocked at how much the world had progressed since she had been alive. A small smile began to form that stretched into a wider one as she celebrated the fact. Alma saw there were tears forming in her eyes.
‘Really?’ she asked in a quiet voice. Alma nodded. Jane released a breath, her fingers fiddling with the dog tag around her neck. ‘Wow. I mean, that’s amazing. I wish we could have seen it. You know, I call Helen my wife, and she calls me hers, but we could never actually make it official. It would have been nice.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before moving it to lay on her shoulder. Alma got the sense Archie had his own hand there. ‘At least other people get to do it now, though.’
‘Would have been nice if it was legal when I was alive,’ Archie said. Alma’s curiosity stirred at that statement.
‘Did you ever get married, Archie?’ she asked, trying not to sound too personal with the question. ‘Or did you have a partner or something?’ She sensed him shaking his head.
‘Nope,’ he said, then amended his statement. ‘Well, I did. I had a girlfriend. But I never really liked liked her, y’know? I thought I did, but I just liked her as a friend. I think I was kinda pressured into it because all my friends had girlfriends. I’ve never really been interested in dating or marrying or–’
'Just romance in general,’ Jane finished for him. She didn’t say it in a teasing way. Just in a way that said she knew her friend's mind and they had talked about it before.
‘Yeah,’ Archie confirmed.
‘Me neither,’ said Alma. ‘I remember feeling weird because my old school friends were getting crushes on the boys in my class and I never did.’
‘That’s exactly what happened with me!’ Archie said, suddenly excited that someone felt the same way. ‘My friends used to make fun of me for being alone. I used to think people were lying about all those feelings and stuff, or exaggerating it. But then my brother told me it was real and I was just weird.’
For a bit of context, at this point in the story Alma cannot see Archie, only Jane (and Helen but she's not here - I might change that later, this feels like a chapter she should be in). She can hear him and has very strong feelings and senses of where he is and what he's doing but she can't actually see him yet.
Archie is aroace, Alma is aromantic, Jane is a lesbian and Helen is bisexual.
I was waiting for the bus and decided to write a little snippet of a scene I'll be writing about soon in the chapter of my novel I am currently working on, so I'm just going to share it out of context here.
Except it's not going to be completely out of context because I'm going to explain some things first for people who don't know anything about my story. Helen, Jane and Archie are ghosts that Alma, the main charcater, can see. At this point in the story she can only physically see Helen and Jane. She can't see Archie yet, but she can hear him and sense where he is. She's tried to draw him based on what she remembered Helen and Jane telling her what he looked like in an earlier chapter:
Alma could feel Archie staring at the paper. In fact, she could feel it so strongly she could practically see his blank expression. He stared at her for a couple more seconds before looking up at her.
‘Why am I ginger?’
Alma turned the page around to look at it herself. ‘Are you not?’
‘No.’
Alma heard a stifled giggle and looked up to see Jane with a hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking with mirth. ‘I wish you’d dye your hair when you were alive,’ she managed to say. ‘You look good with red hair.’
Helen was laughing too by now, but she looked at Alma with slightly more sympathy. Alma didn’t care if they were laughing. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t remember his hair colour, and the rest of her drawing was pretty accurate from what they had told her. All in all, she was still proud of it.
‘I couldn’t remember what colour your hair is,’ Alma explained.
‘It’s brown,’ Archie told her.
‘Light or dark?’
‘Dark.’
Alma nodded. She’d remember that next time if she ever decided to redraw him. Which she probably would. Jane moved forward, getting a closer look at the drawing. She pointed at the t-shirt.
‘You missed some of the stains on his shirt,’ she said. ‘I’d say those are pretty important to his character. They really reflect his personality. But other than that it’s pretty good.’
‘It’s really good,’ Helen piped in. ‘Especially since you did it by memory. Well done, Alma.’
‘Thanks,’ Alma said, awkwardly taking the compliment. She sensed Archie looking at the paper again.
‘I look like a long haired Alastair,’ he mumbled to himself. Alma looked at him curiously.
‘Who’s Alastair?’
‘My friend. He had red hair. And it was kind of messy as well. But he never grew it out.’
I'm bored and want to do more book posting before my dinner's ready so here, have five songs from each playlist I've made for my novel, Alma's Grave, so far:
Alma's Grave playlist (main one):
Vienna by Billy Joel
Baby It's Alright by The Cross
Dream A Little Dream Of Me by The Mamas and the Papas
This Old Ghost Town by The Fratellis
A Dustland Fairytale by The Killers
Alma's Playlist:
Everybody's Lonely by Jukebox The Ghost
Kristy, Are You Doing Okay? by The Offspring
Moonage Daydream by David Bowie
Let Down by Radiohead
Romance Is Boring by Los Campesinos!
Archie's Playlist:
No One But You (Only The Good Die Young) by Queen
I'm In Love With My Car by Queen
Henrietta by The Fratellis
Hotel California by The Eagles
Starman by David Bowie
Helen's Playlist:
Kokomo by The Beach Boys
Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles
Dancing Queen by ABBA
You're My Best Friend by Queen
Twist And Shout by The Beatles
Jane's Playlist:
Shot At The Night by The Killers
These Are The Days Of Our Lives by Queen
The Last Songbird by The Fratellis
All Dead, All Dead by Queen
For Reasons Unknown by The Killers
Helen and Jane's Playlist:
Baby Doll by The Fratellis
La Vie en Rose - any version, but the one I put is Con O'Niell
Dreamers Ball by Queen
A Winter's Tale by Queen
Darlin' by The Beach Boys
All of these are pretty much just vibes, and the songs are also all straight from my playlists which is why there's a lot of the same artists (Queen)
