Spires of Infinity Chapter 25

I've finished and uploaded the first draft of Spires of Infinity chapter 25, you can download it at the bottom of this page .

This is another transition chapter. It provides a little bit more emotional bonding between Gabriel and Sam, while at the same time fixing Gabriel's timeline to the Apostle's timeline. We now know that Gabriel and the Apostle are in the same place at the same time and that they're both headed for the same thing. We find that the Apostle has been quite busy in the month since she arrived on the wall and drained poor old Kevin Moreley dry. We also get a bit of a look at what the Spires of Infinity might really be, because there is some sort of force that is distorting perceptions of distance and time in the land around them. Gabriel compares this to the effects that a black hole has on the space around it.

I'm trying to go a bit deeper into the characters of Gabriel and Sam here. usually character developement is something I work on in later drafts. We see into both of their pasts, Gabriel talking about his abusive father, and Sam revealing that her greatest fear is being raped, and no wonder really, because she is herself a product of rape, and her single mother continually drilled that fear into her from the moment she was born. The prospect that someone bigger and stronger than her can force her to do something she doesn't want to terrifies her, and in her world that sort of thing happens quite often. Mostly she sees turning out like her mother as the greatest failure she could possibly commit, and being raped is the first step on the journey toward that failure. I realize that rape is a very touchy subject with many people, and not just women, which is why I hardly ever use the actual word in my writing, and more imply what I try not to say. Usually when I go back and start editing I'll see the actual word used more times than I'm comfortable putting in and I'll remove it for a bit more dancing around the issue. I've found from giving my writing to others in classes and to friends that they feel more comfortable reading about rape when the actual word is not mentioned, or is used very sparingly.

Just as Sam doesn't want to turn out like her mother, Gabriel sees turning out like his father to be his greatest possible failure in life. They both see that their time together is coming to a close and they're both feeling like they need to say everything important that they need to say to each other during the time they have left, but men and women being the ways that they are, they're having a little trouble comunicating those feelings to each other.

The first draft of this story is now at 89,072 words out of an estimated 120,000. This has been a pretty good week. I've written nearly 20,000 words between sunday and today. In a normal week I try to hit about 10,000 or so. I know I'm doing good if I can get out at least 10,000 a week, so this week I'm doing REALLY good. I suppose that it makes up for last week where I wrote about 7 words before falling asleep on the keyboard.