Inner Monologue

Samm: "Page 7?" [Talking about Ritzko]
Me: "Yeah, I just couldn't get into it."
Samm: [gives me a look]
Me: "That sounded bad, didn't it?"

As the author I shouldn't have said it, but its true! I just don't get hyped up over vampire novels. Don't get me wrong, I do like Ritzko, but its something I have to be in the mood for, and it seems really, REALLY dumbed down compared to Artemis.

Speaking of, here's a taste of Van Dean's dialogue, not as bad as a few of the things he says later, but its racy enough to give the reader an idea of what he plans to put Artemis through. Sad and good part is that I don't really have to re-write much of the dialogue, his from the first draft was near perfect. My only quandary is why didn't Artemis go more insane in the first draft?

I swear the only good part about these next few chapters is that Kamen finally gives Pandome a reason to cower with him, that and of course what ACP really stands for.

“Quid pro quo.” His jaw tightened, “And my dear, my whims change quite quickly. You’ll find it hard to keep up if you truly wish to save your Covington.”

She wiped the tears from her face and bit the inside of her mouth. “You’re turning this into game.”

He looked at her for a second before allowing a sinister smile to cross his face, “It is me you want to save Covington from, isn’t it? I want you. You understand that, don’t you?”

Tons of excerpts in here, stuff that won't be posted on DA, but I think I may have posted a bit of one of the excerpts on a previous entry. I'm having a hard time making headway at this point, mostly because of the content, I can't seem to write one of the scenes without feeling sick, and although I do plan on omitting it from the final project (the chapters will jump from 49 to 51seamlessly and only someone paying close attention will notice), I do need to know what is said in order to make things work after March 0.

That being said, this is completely out of context, but heart-wrenching nonetheless:

"I’ll believe anything you tell me.”

“The sky is red.”

“And a beautiful shade.”

Playing around with the idea of Ambrosia, I've decided to push up Kamen finding the jar, and decided to actually show the discovery. Including a few bittersweet memories of Lillaine, and actually eating some of the poison himself (it isn't like it would effect him anyways.)

“It’s sweet, but not too sweet.” Artemis said with two fingers to her mouth, her eyes still searching the black waves. “It’s delicious, but disgusting at the same time. First it was stuck in my mouth, but then it moved down my throat, and I can feel it in my chest now. I feel heavy, like I’m stuck in a nightmare.” She looked at him, easily meeting his curious eyes, “What is that?”

Van Dean slowly shook his head, “I’ve never felt anything like that, I couldn’t say.”

Arrogant Kamen is someone I want to strangle a little, and I've been told others feel the same way, but it still feels good to give Van Dean a rival that he can't touch, especially with how things seem to be spiraling downwards. Artemis really seems to have become a pawn at this point in the story, and for all practical purposes she's not really doing anything except for going insane. To me this only seems to make the final action in book 1 more inevitable.

( "I'll eat your heart." )

Somehow it seems like the roles of Kamen and Rei have become a little jumbled, once Kamen's got no reason to play nice with Van Dean he reverts to the Kamen from the original story, the guy playing hello kitty island adventure on a stake-out and panicking while sliding through Gorgosa on a rope into a death-march (jesus, were the original shenanigans really this wacky?). It works though, he melds perfectly with his Victor Covington persona, and becomes a little more gritty than the oath-bound tragic hero.

( "You guys are stalkers." )