sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
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Posts: 1,509
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Post by sagedautumn on Aug 29, 2007 14:07:12 GMT -5
Wow you blew me away!!!!! I think although I am not sure that Simon still has a thing for her... I am not sure if it's love thing or a revenge thing or what thing it is actually but I feel like there will be a back story to it somehow!!! I loved how you said that the only thing that they have in common is their mutual loathing of their lifestyles! It summed up their relationship perfectly which makes me wonder if their is a paralell between their respective relationships with Gemma.... Does she bring out that vibe as well?? I mean both of them seem to hate their lifestyles but also themselves , although fee's seems to be more conscious self-loathing than Simon's. I always wondered everytime I read the book what motive Simon had to get with Gemma and more importantly what motive did Fee have in order to all of a sudden accept Gemma because remember she became "friends" with her before Gemma shared her little secret.... OK now dazzle me with your analysis!!!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
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Post by neh on Aug 29, 2007 16:22:57 GMT -5
Oh golly sage- it's too early in the morning here for me to delve into the dangerous realm of motives, hehe! But trust me, i shall ponder on it for this very question intrigues me too..... but i suppose, that would also be the question Gemma must be asking herself from time to time.... why me, and how??? I have to say though, if i had Simon running after me, the "why me?!" would take on a very different meaning, coz i'd be far from thrilled! The boy (yes, boy - Kartik is a man, Simon is a BOY!) should be kept away from all females - i don't trust him. I don't trust him one bit, the slimy sleazy git.....
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
|
Post by neh on Aug 29, 2007 17:03:45 GMT -5
In know this is usually your job Sage, and please understand that i do not mean to steal your thunder - feel free to yell at me! But i just checked Libba's LJ, and there's an update. I hope everyone enjoys!
Current Music: Timebomb/Beck Subject: Summer Daze Time: 09:05 am Current Mood: happy I’m heading out for a much-needed family vacation tomorrow. (It’s been nearly three years since we had one—yikes.) We’re going down to Washington D.C. for a week of fun. Can’t wait to see the Spy Museum and Emma Peel’s leather pants along with all things James Bond related.
In the meantime, here’s one more outtake from the cutting room floor of The Sweet Far Thing. This was a scene from the first draft of TSFT. Now I look at it and go, wow, that’s from a completely different novel. Oh well. Sorry about the funky formatting in the passage. Note to self: figure out technology when you get back from DC.
I know after reading the last few outtakes, some people were concerned about “Asha’s body.” Remember, these are the excised bits. All sorts of things have been changed. And that’s all I will say.
Enjoy the last blast of summer. Ice cream! Water parks! Roller coasters! Beaches! Tank tops and flip flops! Hooray!
See you in September.
OUTTAKE We step dreamily back into our own world, settling on the lawn behind Spence. Our bodies are alive with magic, and we cannot rest just yet. This is our time, when the world belongs to us. The night welcomes us and our hopes. It gives us room to dream.
“Watch this!” Ann cries. She’s not a very graceful girl; she’s far too solid for that. But with the magic inside her, it’s as if she’s got wings. She begins slowly, turning round and round until she spirals up like a heat mirage in the desert. Not to be outdone, Felicity and I run fast and hard over dew-wet grass, running till our feet leave the earth and we soar through the spring-chilled air. Like mad ravens, we dart precariously over and under branches. I pick up speed, enjoying the electric thrill of coming so close to injury each time. I do not know why courting death is so very thrilling; it simply is. “Let’s liberate the gargoyles!” Felicity calls, mid-air. She lights upon the roof and Ann and I follow. We can see everything from here. The expanse of lawn with its croquet mallets left out in haphazard fashion. The rose garden sprouting fresh buds. The bricked-over caves where we first met to enter the realms. The lake and the boathouse. I can see the lazy snake of the Thames as it visits Spence on its way through England. And far off, I can make out the spires of London itself. And, of course, there are the gargoyles. There are six of them here. Their stone wings unfurl behind them at the ready. Felicity perches on the edge of the roof beside one. “What do you think? Would I make a fine gargoyle?” She bares her teeth in imitation of its sneering face. “There is a startling resemblance,” I say. “How very droll you are this evening, Gemma.” I give a small curtsy. “What do you suppose they think about up here all day long?” Felicity asks. “Flying away,” Ann answers, and I cannot help but catch the longing in her voice. Felicity swipes her finger down the length of a gargoyle’s long, stone fang. “Should we bring them to life?” “No!” I say too quickly. In truth, I’ve always found the gargoyles frightening. Felicity smells fear. She climbs upon the gargoyle’s back and wraps her arms about its neck. No doubt she would tame it. “Come now, Gemma. You’re not afraid of them, are you? They’re nothing more than bad kitties, really. Aren’t you, darling?” she says, chucking one under the chin as if it were her dearest pet. “What is that?” Ann says, frightened. “Not you, too,” Felicity scolds. “I heard sounds,” Ann whispers. I hear it, too. Someone or something is down below on the lawn. I crouch low by the gargoyle to listen. Scurrying. Footfalls. Whispers. Someone calls out and is shushed. “Elizabeth, will you be quiet?” That’s Cecily’s voice. I look to the others. “Cecily” I mouth. “Those little jackals,” Felicity fumes. “How could they not invite me?” The girls have a lantern. And it isn’t only Cecily, Martha and Elizabeth. They’ve recruited two others to join their exclusive club. Ann looks as if she could cheerfully drown them all. “This is our time. They’ve no right.” “They don’t know we’re here,” I whisper, “and that’s for the best.” “We could frighten them,” Felicity says, a wicked grin beginning. Down below, the girls move toward the boathouse like a great shadow. Even as a shadow, they annoy. “What had you in mind?” I ask. Felicity slides off the gargoyle and lands in a crouch beside us. “We’ll say we are the spirits of the woods and warn them away!” “That’s splendid!” Ann agrees. “I should like to be Ana Washbrand,” she says, using her anagram name, “who was beheaded in these woods by her fiendish husband and now must walk these moors each full moon…” “These aren’t the moors,” I correct. “Shhh!” Felicity hisses. “…in search of revenge!” “Bravo,” Felicity says, bowing. “Gemma?” Ann’s fanciful illusion is sheer genius, and I shan’t be able to best it. “I-I shall be a, uh, a…a girl, ah, a French peasant...who, em, who died. At sea.” Felicity wrinkles her nose at my poor attempt while Ann smiles in smug satisfaction. “Perhaps you could make yourself look as if you’d been dragged around the bottom of the ocean or some such,” Felicity adds. “That was my intention.” It wasn’t, but it is now, and I’m happy to steal it. Felicity hops down from her gargoyle perch. “I shall be the ghost of a beautiful princess imprisoned in a tower...” I snicker, and Felicity glares at me. “Will you let me finish? She had fallen in love with one who was forbidden to her and is shunned by all for her trespass. Her family, deeply ashamed, locked her in the tower until such time as she would repent and take the veil. But she wouldn’t. And so she leapt from the tower’s window, dashing herself on the rocks below. Now, she roams these woods at night, hoping to lead others to their deaths as she was led to her tragic own.” “Splendid, Fee,” Ann murmurs in approval. Felicity’s grin is as feral as the gargoyle’s. “Let’s give those monsters a fright, shall we?” We fly down and blend into the night as best we can, careful to stay well behind them and their lantern. “This will be a night they don’t soon forget.” Ann is made entirely too happy by this, not that I can blame her for it. “Right. Here we go,” I say. I close my eyes and fix the image of a sodden pirate in my mind. I can feel the change washing over me, and when I open my eyes, my hands are an unearthly white. My skirts are wet as well and hung with garlands of weeds from the sea. I’m a haunt, well and truly. Ann has become a headless apparition in a nightgown, her ghostly head cradled beneath her arm. “How do I look?” the head asks. It’s unsettling. “Head and shoulders above the rest,” I reply. Felicity’s apparition is outstanding, naturally. She has two ropes of hair on either side of her head that hang to her knees. Dark, half-moon shadows turn her eyes ghostly. Black blood trickles from her mouth, and her dress is stained with it. “Oh, that is ghastly,” I say. She smiles. “Thank you.” Cecily and her entourage push on, lanterns jostling. They don’t know what they’re in for. We’ll give them a jolly fright indeed. “Ooooo-ooooo!” Felicity moans softly. We wait for the terrified shrieks, the cries and fainting. The girls carry on, unbothered. One girl whines about a rock in her boot. “That was a perfectly hideous moan,” Felicity grouses. “They should be flying back to their beds by now.” “We’re too far away,” I say. “We need to be closer.” Our mischief has brought on a round of giggles. We can hardly walk for laughing. “Who’s there?” Cecily swings the lantern ‘round, illuminating the patch of ground where we had been standing. We’ve ducked in time. Two tall trees shield us from the light. We have to put our hands to our mouths to stop our laughter. “We shouldn’t be out,” someone says. “Yes, let’s go back,” another agrees. “It’s only the wind,” Cecily assures them. They set out again. We let them carry on a ways before trailing them with careful steps. When they’re nearly to the boathouse, Felicity peeps in and out of the trees. “Turn ba-a-a-ck!” she intones in her gravest voice. “These woods be haunted!” The girls scream. “What is that? What is that?” Ann gives me a sharp push, and I stumble into the clearing. I move my arms up and down. “Aaaaah,” I drone. I sound for all the world like a sick animal, and I shouldn’t frighten a cat. The girls whirl around in terror. The lantern is dropped and the glass breaks. They are plunged into total darkness save for our supernatural pallor. And that is when Ann makes her appearance. Moaning in flesh-crawling earnest, she reaches up slowly and places her hands on either side of her head. “You have been warned!” she bellows till it makes even my spine go cold. The girls stare at her, trembling and speechless, and as they do, the ghost of Ana Washbrand, God rest her soul, removes her terrible head. The girls unleash a screech that could wake the true dead—or at the very least Mrs. Nightwing—and stumble over each other in their rush out of the woods. We fall back laughing into the carpet of new grass. “I could do this every night,” Ann gloats. Felicity giggles. “Did you see how they scattered? Just like mice. I can’t wait to see their faces tomorrow at breakfast.” Strange lights weave in and out of the trees. I blink, but I still see them. I sit up quickly. “Do you see that?” “See what?” Ann asks without moving. “Those lights over there.” Felicity gives me a hard look. “We shan’t fall for it, you know.” “I see it, too,” Ann says. “It’s coming from the road.” Without another word, we steal toward the road for a closer look. It’s a caravan of some sort. Through the trees, we can see the wagons rolling into the night. There are seven in all. They’ve hooked their lanterns on the sides, and the bumpy road sets them to jostling. “The gypsies,” Felicity whispers. “They’ve come back!” The gypsies. I can’t help hoping that among their number is a certain Indian boy I haven’t heard from since I left his quarters in East London. Kartik.
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by sagedautumn on Aug 29, 2007 20:06:38 GMT -5
Oh no please by all means!!! I don't mind!!! I actually liked this bit she wrote I kind of wish she kept it in!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
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Post by neh on Aug 30, 2007 21:48:57 GMT -5
Yes, me too - if only for the concluding moments. mmm..... Kartik......
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by sagedautumn on Aug 31, 2007 12:42:08 GMT -5
HAHA!!! I can see you just drooling for HIM!!!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
|
Post by neh on Aug 31, 2007 18:41:08 GMT -5
Hehe, i know - i'm such a schoolgirl with this! It's very rare that i have ever had such a crush on a fictional character.... by golly i can't wait to see, if the book is greenlighted and filming commences, who they pick to play him! In fact, i am opften pondering who would lay who... and whether the concept would transfer well to film at all. Some things are just better left in book-form, because that is where their material can be without seeming corny or contrived or any other myriad of negative things that film can do to solid source material.
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by sagedautumn on Aug 31, 2007 18:46:19 GMT -5
Yea, I'm worried about Twilight becoming a movie because that could be really really CORNY!!! What actor/actress do you think will suit each character??? Fee Gemma Ann Pippa Kartik Mrs. Nightwing Miss. Moore Mrs. Doyle Mrs. Worthington The Colonel
Start IMDB-ing!!!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
|
Post by neh on Aug 31, 2007 18:55:15 GMT -5
Oh yes, Twilight is DEFINATELY a big worry.
Ok, i have some ideas for random castings.
Gemma - Rachel Hurd Wood Pippa (possibly) Emily Browning (an Aussie yes, but she's dam good with accents) Fee (possibly) Emma Watson (i'd like to see her in a polar opposite role from Hermy - plus her hair is naturally dark blonde) Kartik i have NO IDEA, but he has to be beyond gorgeous and en extremely skilled actor, or the intensity and seriousness of his nature just won't work Miss Moore - Kate Winslet (i can't remember if she matches the physical description at all, but i just adore her)
as for the others, i'll have to ponder some more...
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by sagedautumn on Aug 31, 2007 19:03:50 GMT -5
I thought
Nicole Kidman could be a good Mrs. Worthington or Mrs. Doyle (she's a real red head) but Mrs. W part would suit her because she has that cold detached sort of face!
Gemma- Rachel McAdams.. Emily Blunt (she was in Devil Wears Prada and played Emily)
Pippa: Alexis Bledel
Fee: .... I don't know!!
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by sagedautumn on Aug 31, 2007 19:05:39 GMT -5
OOH!
FEE; Scarlett Johanson
Isn't Rachel Wood the girl dating Marilyn Manson??
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
|
Post by neh on Aug 31, 2007 20:28:44 GMT -5
No, no - that's EVAN Rachel Wood, whose an American actress (who i also like, even if the Manson thing worries me) Rachel Hurd Wood is an English actress who was in Peter Pan, An American Haunting and Perfume (where she had STUNNING red hair) In general i'd prefer an all-British cast if they can wrangle it, like they did for Harry... and, though i love each actress you mention Sage (apart from Nicole who annoys me, i have to confess) the ones for the girls seem too old in my mind.. coz these character are 16/17/18 aren't they?
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by sagedautumn on Sept 1, 2007 20:41:44 GMT -5
True!!!! I just wish they would hurry up already!! I remember her in Peter Pan! She was so cute. I have their fairy tale dance song in my ipod I like to listen to it when i want to mellow out! You are right Nicole annoys me as well. She is just SOOOO stiff. I hate it when people say she is so pretty and graceful she has devil eyebrows they are so unnatural but I guess that is what botox does to you!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
|
Post by neh on Sept 1, 2007 21:01:34 GMT -5
HAHAHAHAHAHA! *applause* Well said sage, well said! *gosh, i'm mean....* But yes, i hope that plans for filming both Twlight and AGATB can hurry on up, and that casting will occur soon - all this debate and theorizing just isn't the same as having the real thing certified. But golly, i do hope they choose a strong, solid cast in both cases - that way even if they butcher the plot and hand them an awful script (and golly, they had better not!), they may still be able to save the work! Chemistyr is the big thing also - in the case of AGATB, there has to be something genuine and believable between the 4 girls or the whole thing is gonna fall flat on it's face before it's even a third of the way through. I really truly can't emphasise how worried i am about the casting of Gemma, Fee, Ann and Pippa.... *fidgets and frets*
Yes, i too think Rachel is adorable and so natural in PP and i love love love The Fairy Dance track also - it has to be one of my fav orchestral pieces from film, which is saying something as it has to contend with basically everything Thomas Newman has ever done!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
|
Post by neh on Sept 16, 2007 6:11:59 GMT -5
Hehe, she has struck again! September 15th, 2007 Subject: White Punks on Dope/The Tubes Time: 03:12 pm Current Mood: weird Hey campers, I'm so sorry about the website having a temporary meltdown. How very Hollywood of it. But it should be fixed now. Theo, my god of technology tells me it is all good now, and I believe him. (I just looked it up and everything seemed cool. I murmured to it, "Who's a pretty, pretty website? Who's gonna be a good, good website and behave? You are! That's right, you are!)* I'm making my way through first-pass pages (copyedited manuscript) of The Sweet Far Thing right now and up to my eyeballs but I'll update later. BUT...I just wanted to say that I will be reading at the Brooklyn Book Festival tomorrow, Sunday 9/16 at 2:00pm. I'll be on a panel with New York Times bestselling authors Cassie Clare (City of Bones) and Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely). We're speaking about dark fantasy. Ooooh! What shoes, what shoes...** So here's the website for more info: www.brooklynbookfestival.orgAnd yes, I will be reading from THE NEW BOOK! MWAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!*** I hope to see you New York people there! * I'm a freak. **But I'm a freak who cares about her footwear. ***Just bought a copy of Evil Laughs for Dummies on the internet. I'm working my way through the "I'm Going to Hold the World Ransom" chortle, the "I'm Drunk with Power" guffaw, and the "Let Me Tell You All the Ways I Am Going to Kill You First" chuckle.
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