Ali's Blog: I named my male-Jace-like main character Robin ... as in the bird :S

{^ and that is why you are never, ever going to lay eyes on my fantasy!}

Well, it has been three days since I last blogged and I have no idea why, but that seems ages ago. Possibly because I’ve filled my days with photographing silly things and doing nothing but read and write.

I read The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones (SO much better than it sounds!) in about 5 hours. That’s amazing! A massive, big, thick fantasy IN THAT TIME?? I mean, over two days and late into the night, BUT WHATEVER.

"Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them."

I’ve been writing slowly. A seriously voiced fantasy, so DWJ’s book was good inspiration. Kinda serious, but funny, too. And that book with the flying lynxes, but I can’t remember the name of it … I’ve also been writing Megan a mammoth email! Megan, who intrduced me to Jinja Safari, which sounds like a great-fun band.

And a story about the four weirdest people in the world sharing a house. Want to see??

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Cat was sitting on a boringly green park bench in the rain, sucking on a bottle of expensive wine her mother ahd left her last time she came over for dinner (it had been a rather failed evening of sandwiches). Cat thought the only problem with the whole scene was the fact you could see the expensive label and there was no paper bag. She’d always liked and entertained the idea of being an alcoholic street bum, but she was from a rich family and thought it unfair to normal street bums that her mother dressed her in names. Also, she’d never really been drunk enough to be an alcoholic street bum, nor was she alcoholic.

--

Dan was walking down that exactly the same street, but was so huddled under his cheap umbrella and thoughts that he didn’t notice the well dressed girl sitting out in the rain. Which was probably a good thing, because Dan came to hate that habit of Cat’s.

Dan, the poor boy, was doing what he normally did. That is, navigate the crowded forest of characters that always strolled into his head. He’d decided to take a break from the pillow case, type writer and empty and lonely house to clear his mind. But all that he’d got was water dripping down his neck.

--

Jacques or Jack was far away from that street in the rain. He was, in fact, sitting at the most awkward birthday party he’d ever had, which was, amazingly, involving both his parents. His English father and French mother and both their spouses and various children of theirs that had popped up when Jacques or Jack wasn’t looking.

He had no idea why he couldn’t be from a normal family that bought you alcohol for your 18th.

--

Naomi was, as usual, sitting in some dazed cloud of shock. She was seated in an airport that looked relatively familiar and had this itching feeling in her stomach that something important was about to happen. Most of the time, though, that feeling got mixed up with being hungry. So she stood up, organised her coins and found some that looked the right shape, and bought some chocolate that looked like it might be from the country she was born in from a vending machine.

--

‘Caterina?’ Her mother said as though she was intruding on a bedroom. Awkwardly. Cat looked up from attempting to read her tea leaves.

‘Yes?’ The tea leaves looked like a wobbly flower. What on earth did that mean?

‘I ...have no idea how to broach this subject,’ her mother seemed to falter for the first time in her socialite life.

‘Don’t worry, mother, I already know about the bird’s and the bee’s,’ Cat offered, not really concentrating on the conversation. She poked her tea leaves with her spoon. It could be a sun. Did that mean wear a hat or you will experience happiness?

‘Oh. Well, no, it’s not that. You know how you insisted on moving out once you turned 18?’

‘Yes,’ Cat liked her cheap, boring house because it was much more quiet than her mother’s house. Her mother, after all, enjoyed throwing parties.

‘Well … I know that it’s a good idea for you to be apart - I swear I see more of you now - and I’m fine to keep paying the rent, but the house you’re living in is going to be sold,’ Cat’s mother twisted at her cloth napkin, biting her perfectly painted lips. Cat just blinked and picked up her mother’s abandoned tea cup.

‘I guess I’ll find another house, then,’ Cat said, staring intently at the cup adn twisting it this way and that. ‘And mother, I think you should wear pants tomorrow,’ the cup sort of looked like a windswept tree. Maybe. There always seemed to be a maybe hanging around Cat’s tea leaf readings and that made her frown.

‘Okay,’

--

Dan swung back over the side of the bed and rested his hands on the splintery wooden floor that seemed above him in a nice, calming way.

And there it was.

That pillowcase. Why? Why on earth is it that the neatest, cleanest, smoothest flowing writing of his mustn’t be shown to the world? When did that come into play? What’s the reason? …...... Well, he knows, of course he knows, one can hardly forget your only parent chucking you and pieces of paper and clothing outside in the middle of winter, but then again, he was always never quite full of food, and he was sure if he allowed himself to just open …..... No, the mere thought of that was upsetting and make him feel ill and all prickly.

No. The day when he decided to open that stuffed pillowcase to the world was not today. He rolled back over and shuffled across the bed, staring at the cracked ceiling on the house that he had called home for the last 4 years.

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I mean, of course it’ll be continued....... I’ve just started on Jacques or Jack’s next bit. Well, typing it all up. xD I have A LOT more hand written. I’m so bad like that.

You’re not going to see my fantasy because it is SO BAD. I’m much prouder of this story. I think the way it ….. flows is …. making me prouder, although it’s harder to write! I’m going for a motherly tone with these four. I do think they need it.

Today I watched as the sensitive and delicate cooking of macarons and didn’t dare do anything, such as stand in front of the clock.