Aidan has two faces.

When Aidan first came into being (way, way before he was ever JD's brother), I pictured this:


And Jared Padalecki is still "officially" the face of Aidan (with the personality of one of my coworkers)... but when I write I am secretly picturing Steven R. McQueen:


I think it is partially because Aidan's storyline has taken on a little bit more of a dark and emo sort of tone than I originally planned, which fits Steven's visuals better. Plus it's easier to picture him as the "helpless" baby brother since he's only like 20 whereas Jared Padalecki is like 30 now.

Who is Tyler Durden?

Okay, maybe not Tyler Durden. Tyler Something (Smith at the moment, I was purposely going for something very vanilla, but I might change it).

Anyways, last night I typed up about 2,000 words that were all Tyler-centric. If you remember, dear (only) reader, I was feeling a bit confused about Team Tyler vs. Team Daniel. This is because I'd forgotten a fundamental truth about Tyler, and the stuff I typed up last night got into that. Like JD, I will always ever-so-slightly regret that she didn't choose him, but after what he did last night, we owe it to ourselves to not make that choice. And if I ever actually have people read this blog I suppose I'll need to delete this paragraph since it is a "spoiler."

The point of this post, actually, is that I am still deciding who to "cast" for Tyler. I don't have one specific person in mind--not even the real-life person he is mostly based on--I just picture a dark-haired, blue-eyed muscley jock.

My top choice currently is this guy, Wes Brown, who you may recognize as Luke from True Blood (he was at the Fellowship of the Sun church with Jason Stackhouse). He's cute, but not OMGCUTE, and has that good ol' boy charm (Tyler is from Texas).


Another possible choice is Michael Trevino, who is on Vampire Diaries (and actually plays a character named Tyler haha). I think he's not quite jockish enough, but I was favoring him back when I was going to play up Tyler's Italian heritage (which I don't think I am doing now). But I still think he's hot so I'm just going to post a photo anyways haha.


And lastly, as I was looking for photos of the aforementioned Wes Brown, Eddie Cibrian somehow popped up (I guess one of those "People who searched for Wes Brown also like...") and Eddie is way too hot to be Tyler (they are all attractive, since it's a fantasy world and there are no ugly people in books, but Tyler is supposed to be the least attractive of the three main males [not that I will ever even write that, but I know it in my head]), but he does have (to me) something Tylerish about him. I am taking his dimples, at the very least. He's also obviously way too old, but that doesn't really matter for my purposes.

The Last Generation

So, in addition to the main characters, the movie of the book will obviously need to cast people for the characters of Major Patriot and Bombshell, two of the most important parahuman heroes of their generation before the Massacre. These are both characters who would have been active in the 80s and will be seen in flashbacks/newspaper clippings/etc.



This is Major Patriot, the leader of the *Insert Most Famous Hero Team Here* and America's Golden Boy. I wanted somebody who was both very attractive and also very all-American looking. Major Patriot would not let himself get a five o'clock shadow, though, so Chris Hemsworth will have to shave. He is the actor who is going to play Thor in the upcoming movie which is how I know who he is (although apparently he has been in other things). Ironically he is Australian, but this makes sense as all of the cutest guys are. He is also 6'3" which is great for an iconic hero like Major Patriot.




This is Bombshell, another member of *Insert Name*. She's unoffically third-in-command. She's into punk rock and wearing studded leather and she's the wild child of the team, but she's loyal and always comes through. The girl in this photo is Hayley Williams (lead singer of Paramore) who I definitely do not want in the movie, but the photo really looked like what I think of when I think of Bombshell. I was originally thinking Rachel McAdams (I want that bubbly personality she has), but when I was googling "redheads" this photo of Hayley came up and it was just right.

Flaws

1) I've changed my mind about JD's real name. It will not be Kira.... I still stand by my reasoning in choosing it, but I need something that is less Porn Star Barbie (in my eyes at least). I got this "Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook" so I might start pouring through it a bit more and give up on the 80s Rock star names.

2) Today I'm at 46,396 words. I have a list stapled to the inside of my notebook of "Scenes Needed" so that's helping me sort of stay on track a bit. Some of them are very specific, but some of them are just things like "Show more of Mara's personality" which can be a little bit harder because if I had an idea for that I already would've written it, right?

3)Team Daniel? Team Tyler? Hell if I know. I thought I'd decided and was writing in that direction, but I keep having second thoughts.

4)Lately I have been thinking about "Fatal" or "Tragic" flaws. What got me thinking about them was actually the Percy Jackson book series, because (since they are so strongly tied to Greek myth), they mention that all heroes must have some kind of fatal flaw. This is a very loose and technically not-quite-right interpretation of Artistotle (who considered it to be more or a fatal CHOICE rather than character trait), but I like their interpretation better.

I will be working on figuring out what each character's fatal flaw is, but since JD is the hero of the story I have so far just concentrated on her. Her fatal flaw is that she only sees the world in black and white. Good guys do good things, and bad guys do bad things. She has a really difficult time believing that someone (Erin, for example) can do bad things but still ultimately be a good person and be on her side. This results in her being judgemental and unable to forgive, which is really going to hold her back in terms of forming relationships (that she needs both as a person and as a hero). Other than the obvious defeat-the-bad-guy plotline, a lot of the book revolves around her learning to STOP compartmentalizing and judging people, including (most importantly?) herself.

45,919.

And every time I type the bad guy's name, I spell it differently. I really need to pick a spelling and stick with it.

Drawing a Blank.

I just typed up about four handwritten pages, both of which are unfinished scenes. I have "NEEDS MORE" written in red in so many places in that thing. I've started trying to go back and fill some stuff in, but sometimes I have a really hard time figuring out how to end a scene. I just sort of stop writing after the "important" stuff happens.

Today's Word Count: 43,107. Not much higher than the last!

And finally, after months (literally, I was thinking about this back at Ocracoke), I think I've decided on JD's real name. Kira. Which is the name of the bass player for Black Flag (which fits the image I am setting up of her mother as this punk rock sort of superhero, and she would've listened to Black Flag back around when JD was born). I'm not sure though because I had already decided her last name was Curran and I don't know how I feel about the alliteration of Kira Curran. Or Aidan Curran. UGH. Curran might have to go. So much for my sly Gene Kelly reference.

I know this is a short update but it's 11:00 and I've got to get ready for bed.

I don't have a real update. Added about 1,000 words and today I've been working in one of my writing workbooks. I have a hard time writing at home. I tried to go to the coffee shop to write but they closed early due to weather.
Just so I have something to post so that I beat Sara, here are some dollies I made of the main characters today.




Also, here is the opening line of the book:
"When is it acceptable to knowingly take an innocent life?"

For giggles I reread one of the many versions of this story, where it was set in a scifi wild west type world.... And you know, I still like it. I might come back to that one day (with some new characters of course).

So, first off, I'm up to 40,000 words (plus like 100 more). That's only 5,000 away from halfway through.... which on the one hand is good but on the other hand I'm like "holy crap I have to use up those remaining 50,000 words!" Even though I'm probably not technically ready for it, I'm feeling antsy and thinking about making somebody read it, just to see if I need to be nudged in any certain directions.

I'm going to try to write in this more. If nothing else, it'll guilt Sara into writing on her blog more and I like reading hers. Before I go any farther, though, I figured I should do a (very) brief rundown of the main characters (along with photos of the celebrity that most closely represents them in my head) so that in the future if I mention someone I don't have to get into describing them THEN and losing the moment or whatever.

What we have is a group of young adults on a team of parahumans (people born with extraordinary powers and abilities). The team is called Legacy.


JD is the main character and the leader of the team. In her earliest incarnations (like when I was 14), she was just me with a badass attitude, but now I don't think we have much in common other than eye color and a sense of humor. Of every member of the team, JD's the one who most embodies the ideals of a hero. In the book she says to one of the other characters something to the effect, "Everyone else on the team could walk away today and live a normal life. Can you honestly imagine that for me? This is who I am." At the beginning of the book, the only thing that matters to her are her younger brother Aidan and being a good hero/team leader. She has feelings for her teammate Tyler, but that takes a backseat to her brother and the hero thing. A lot of the book (other than stopping the big bad guy) is her learning to lighten up and be human. She's around 22 years old with long strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, 5'5". The actress that now plays her in my mind is really a little more attractive than what I wanted (she should be nice looking but not beautiful).



AIDAN is JD's younger brother. He's 19, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, about 6'1". I feel like I'm losing touch with him a little bit as so much of the focus is on JD and Daniel, but I've got Aidan scenes on my "To Do" list. He's the funny one, and flirts with anything that moves (but more in a joking make-the-girl-feel-good way than in a sleazy way). The more I get to know one of my coworkers the more he reminds of Aidan, so I've been trying to sort of channel him when I write. His sister is his only family and therefore one of the most important parts of his life, but he's not obsessive about it the way JD is. I picture a young ('cause he's a bit older than I am now) Jared Padalecki for Aidan, and he's the second most perfect casting choice (some of the others, like JD, I am just not so sure about yet).


TYLER is one of the two main love interests, and the one that JD's had a crush on for a few years. He's a good guy, but kind of your typical dumb male when it comes to relationships, and he makes some pretty bad choices. His first meeting with JD and the reason she ends up liking him aren't in the book but I may write them for my own sake (plus when I hit it big I can post it on the Website to make the fangirls happy). My problem with Tyler has been establishing why he'd be worth having feelings for in the first place when all we seem to see is him screwing up... so I've been working on that and I'm a lot happier with it now (lucky I have those 50,000 words to use up). Tyler's the other funny one of the team, but in a more sophomoric way. Aidan's humor is charming and flirty while Tyler's is more likely to involve burping or playing a practical joke. I haven't exactly settled on an actor for him, but in the book he's 23, 5'11" with a black faux hawk and light blue eyes. He can't ever turn off his powers (stronger, faster, better senses) the way the others can, and therefore they create a stronger sense of who he is than the others. He's just the huge (musculature-wise) funny guy. Of all of the characters in the book, he's the one most closely based on a real person that I knew. The actors in the photo are two of the top contenders to play him in the imaginary movie (They happen to be on the same TV show so I have a picture of them together).


ERIN is out of place on the team, and hopefully you'll find yourself wondering why she's even on it in the first place. All of her actions are based in insecurity--she thinks her only value comes from sexuality, which unfortunately becomes true because she believes it. She's got a good heart when you get down to it, but she's self-centered and puts value on the wrong ideals. She's sort of the anti-JD, and this comes through in their interactions. Erin is 5'8" and curvy, and always dresses to impress. She'd never leave the house without a planned outfit and full makeup. She has dark curly brown hair and dark blue eyes (dark enough to almost look purple, like Elizabeth Taylor). She's somewhere around 23. I sort of picture her as Katy Perry's less attractive sister.


MARA is the youngest and newest member of the team--she's a few months shy of 18 when she joins. She's half Japanese, and I've sort of run with the stereotype a teeny bit in that she's the most calm and balanced of the team (sort of got that Zen thing going on). She's a Hot Topic kind of girl and loves to read (she's obsessed with Twilight, although it never specifically names the book), with pink streaked hair. She's 5' tall with light brown (almost honey colored) eyes. Mara's the one I had the hardest time defining, but in the end I think she's come through as being a good friend to JD and easily the wisest person (despite her age) on the team. She's just genuinely content with her life and wants everyone else to be too. She's also got a pretty big crush on Aidan but I don't know if that will actually be mentioned in the book--just one of those little things I know about the characters as I'm writing. He could do a lot worse than Mara--and he will. As for what I picture in my head when I think of her I have no idea. I generally just think of a smiley face with pink hair, since that's who she is. I just googled "young Asian actress" and looked around until I found someone who was Mara-esque. For the past ten years Mara has been half black until Rob talked me into making her Asian. I almost switched it back but I've had fun with her new backstory.


DANIEL is the third corner of the love triangle and probably the second most-written about character in the book. In the beginning, in the various incarnations of these characters, Daniel was the JD character's best friend and always ended up with the Erin character. At some point in the past few years (while I was in Augusta actually), I realized that in all of these different, JD has tried to break them up. In those versions, she was wholly devoted to the Tyler character. But I realized that I was always reluctant to let her actually end up with Tyler, and she was always trying to get Daniel to leave Erin (although for genuinely platonic reasons.... Erin was always cheating on him).... and that sort of got the wheels turning and I imagined that maybe JD was trying to tell me something (writers are always saying that their characters tell them things but it was the first time it had happened to me). Anyways, in this version, Daniel is a parahuman but he's not a member of the team. He's pretty much the complete opposite of Tyler in that he's caring and sensitive and just seems to understand people, but that's not really fair since it's part of his powers. He'd probably be the same way even without the powers, though. He can provide the yin to JD's yang, if she'll let him. Daniel is around 24, with shoulder-length light blonde hair (usually pulled back into a low ponytail) and grey eyes. He's 6'4" and is unquestionably portrayed by Travis Fimmel. The moment I first saw Travis (I remember it, freshman year of college), I gasped and said "That's Daniel," and he always will be. If only I had such an easy time casting everyone else.

In roughly chronological order, here's an in-progress playlist for the book. The first song, Butterflies and Hurricanes, is sort of the theme song for the entire book.
EDIT: Until I get the HTML figured out (I'm not really a computer whiz), if you really wanna see what's on there you can click the button "Pop Out Player" and that'll pull it up.... stupid HTML whatever that means.

An update in which nothing is updated...

So, it's been about 7 months since my last post and when you get down to it I'm only 1,000 words farther in. Actually less, since I've getting ready to delete the page-long prologue altogether. I have been working somewhat regularly (give or take a few months) on this, but a lot of what I've been doing has been rewrites and removals. I think the story has improved but not necessarily expanded much. I've also been doing a lot of outside work on it, like working on character profiles and things of that nature. Good for the book in the end, but doesn't "seem" productive.

Which brings me to a decision. Word count-wise, I'm roughly 1/3 finished with the book. Plot-wise, I've already put in most of the main events. Other than character filler and fleshing things out, I don't have a lot more "meat" to add to the plot pot. So.... I had quite a lot of the sequel planned out... do I need to go ahead and put most of this plotline into the first book? Just worry about ONE book before I try to plan a sequel/trilogy?