June 29, 2014 in 750 Words

So tired... I think I'm never going to have kids. That's all I have to say about that.

NaNoWriMo is in a couple of days and I'm no closer to the start or core of my story than I was last week. Let me figure it out...

Julie's a normal, everyday slum brat. She goes from home to the pathetic excuse for a school that they have, and spends most of her time tutoring other, younger kids, or maybe reading in the back. School doesn't take long... or maybe I skip that totally... I know she's about 16 or so. Maybe there's no school for kids her age. Yeah, that's it... there's no school for kids her age, I mean, what are they going to teach her? She knows how to count and read and everything else is up to her. She spends the day looking for food and work. That gives you an idea of how the slums are, where she slides from gang territory to gang territory, looking around and mentioning the poor... the people on trance (save that for when she gets home and talks about her mother)... maybe talking about the squalling children, the dirt, the lack of fresh food. Have her go from the center, where she's looking up at the high city to the edge of the city, slipping out the gates. In a very Hunger Games thing, have her wander around outside the city.

Outside the city she's able to move freely, able to run and drink in the fresh air and the like... maybe she goes to the river and catch a fish or two from the stream, cooking one and then bringing one home to her mother. Make the whole going back into the city kind of like slipping back into hell. Next part should be a general explanation of how the city is set up and the like. Maybe have it that she's propositioned by a pimp on her way back to her house, and she has to fight to keep her fish, just stuff to make it so that she's not living in a happy place. It's not a good place, there in low city and I want people to know that.

Introduce Rubi, her whore friend... maybe she runs into Rubi, or maybe she goes to Rubi's place of business, a grubby alehouse in Julie's dad's corner of the city. She goes into the bar and asks for Rubi and is told by the barkeeper that Rubi's working and can't be bothered. Maybe trade for something to eat and drink, wait and talk to Rubi about how she feels watched or something about that. Something to set up the fact that there's someone following her.

Maybe slip that in at the beginning. She walks down the street, someone follows her, that sort of thing. Foreshadow! So... she goes and does that.

Now, thinking about her powers... it should come out in emotion, maybe Rubi gets stabbed by one of her "customers" and Julie goes to try to help while freaking out and puts her hands on Julie's abdomen and the power in her brain flexes and voila, Rubi's healed, but Julie's crying out in pain or something. I don't know though. I mean, the hardest part about this, in my opinion is figuring out how her power works, I want it to be awesome but how would it work realistically? She finds out about it with the pain and whatnot of her friend Rubi, but the question is... does it transfer merely the pain of the injury, or does it transfer the injury completely? If it transfer the pain only, then is there any way to heal it? And how long does the pain last? Does Julie get into trouble for going and carrying on after someone else gets hurt and then healed? Or if it's the injury, could she die from the blood loss and the like? I think it should just be the pain at first and keep it to semi-painful? I don't know about that one... later one, maybe then she can transfer the actual injury.

The reason why the Ieva project wants her and sends Adrian down to her is that her powers are evolving to a point where they can actually see the results and the like. Yes, that makes sense. Ieva project's been looking at her and keeping track of her all her life... during her life they get all sorts of weird stories about her... about how people who feel bad or sick feel better around her, while she ends up leaving early due to injury, and now they're trying to figure out what to do with her when she flat out heals someone for the first time.

Hmm, now I need to figure out what's going to go on next, but at least I have a starting point, I feel better.