Full Of Grace
You know, I can't recall now if I ever really believed Innocent would be an easy book to write -- I know I wanted something with a straight-forward top-story (in the vague hope that I could sell it for the top-story while sneaking in everything else under cover of the romance) but since even the romance is a bit challenging I'm not sure how many minutes I could have convinced myself it would be quick and easy mind-candy.

Next book will be the easy one.

I'm still trying to keep Innocent's top-story simple, though. Which makes it kind of hard to write. The latest hard bit being a conversation* on omniscience, prayer, and free will between the hero and... well... the hero.

When people talk about books being clair or noir, or consolatory versus whatever, or comedy versus tragedy (Shakespearean definition of)... I have to admit that most of mine aren't. Some days I kind of wish I could see the world that way, but as I don't... the stories I write aren't. I don't do happy chair-dancing world-saving and I don't do over-angsty everyone dies. (Or happy chair-dancing everyone dies and over-angsty world-saving, for that matter) I'm half-glass girl. (In EO the nice guys destroy each other/themselves, in Middlemost the wrong choices end up saving the world and I just flat out say that 'happy' and 'ending' are value judgements, and in Innocent... )

Innocent is the story of the end of a story, the POV characters being surrounded by backstory that's shaped their lives and which they're trapped into. It's a boy meets girl and saves her from the dragon story where the boy saves the girl, and the girl saves the boy, and then the guy who started the big story saves them and... maybe... himself. Because the top-story hero and heroine can't save themselves... not that they don't try, but there's more to it than killing the monster. It's complicated.

So yesterday I stumbled over a song the not-hero (Edwin Samael) claimed like a pin claiming a magnet -- Sarah McLachlan's Full of Grace -- which I then found on Youtube and am playing obsessively (as you do). That's how I discovered an earlier version of the song -- Fall From Grace -- which Samael also grabbed, as more perfectly describing his past/present (and no, I really don't plan to write a book about his past, what's in Innocent is probably most of what readers will get, although I know a more, with more depth, than I'll be able to fit in -- the prequel to Innocent is the book informally known as Mud, which features a different one of the not-minor characters during WW1, whereas Samael's story is back in the 1780s)


Fall From Grace.

The winter here's cold and bitter, it's chilled us to the bone,
I haven't seen the sun for weeks, too long too far from home,
I feel just like I'm sinking and I claw for solid ground,
I'm pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I could feel so low,
But oh darkness, I feel like letting go.
But all of the strength, all of the courage couldn't lift me from this place.
I know I can love you much better than this.
I fall from grace.
Fall from grace.

It's better this way, I said, haven't seen this place before,
Where everything we say and do, hurts us all the more,
It's just that we've stayed too long in the same old sickly skin,
Pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I can feel so low,
And, oh darkness, I feel like letting go.
But all of the strength, all of the courage couldn't lift me from this place,
Together we crumble and stumble and fall...
Fall from grace. Fall.

I know I can love you much better than this,
So it's better this way...

The later version is

Full Of Grace.

The winter here's cold and bitter, it's chilled us to the bone,
I haven't seen the sun for weeks, too long too far from home,
I feel just like I'm sinking and I claw for solid ground,
I'm pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I could feel so low,
Oh darkness, I feel like letting go.
If all of the strength, and all of the courage, come and lift me from this place.
I know I can love you much better than this.
Full of grace. Full of grace, my love.

It's better this way, I said, haven't seen this place before,
Where everything we say and do, hurts us all the more,
It's just that we stay too long in the same old sickly skin,
Pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I could feel so low,
And, oh darkness, I feel like letting go.
If all of the strength, and all of the courage, come and lift me from this place,
I know I can love you much better than this.
Full of grace.

I know I can love you much better than this.
It's better this way...

And yes, the top-story is a romance... and Samael is where he is because he fell in love.

And, I do find there being two versions of the song curious. Fateful even. I don't usually find a whole lot of music to make up specific playlists, and Innocent has been particularly unmusical (it likes 'When Water Comes to Life' as well, but shares that a bit more with Mud and Ashes... the way Ashes shares 'On the Other Side').

And after I'd played it a couple of times, Jacob started singing with Fall From Grace and hoping I'll find a way to help him get just a little closer to version two -- there's even less of him in the book than Samael, and most of that is bad. (The rest of his story... wouldn't fit.) But I think I can give him a chance.

::grins::

Anyhow, right after I knew how Jacob's story ends, and that I've ended up feeling sorry for him, I understood how Innocent fits with Mud and Ashes. It's always been a bit of a puzzle to me how I ended up with a WW1 prequel -- well I know the mechanics but... -- and a WW2 sequel, to a book about a peaceful village. Now I have a feel for the connection, from one little bit of conversation between the two heroes and some sympathy for the devil... Innocent is the small scale example for the big-picture in Ashes... and if I want to write that story, and ever write Ashes, I'm going to have to try and sympathise with the bad guys in there as well.

I learnt a lot about this book and its kin in the past twenty-four hours.

Doesn't make it any easier to write, though :D


*where conversation is a couple of exchanges** before we get to the 'this is my plan/your plan can't work' bit

** including another reference to rabbits... I swear I didn't know I was writing a Watership Down homage (until, yesterday, I was reminded of Bigwig and the shining wire and am now describing Innocent as The Wicker Man meets Brigadoon meets Watership Down) :D