maculategiraffe

Six months before the six-month jump; in other words, right after this.

( Anxious smiles encased in whalebone/ Spines of steel from head to tailbone/ Cannons poised to blast the turning of the tide )

This is the epilogue. It takes place a little more than one year after the events of chapter 49. Yes, it skips a lot of things, and leaves others unresolved; however, I feel the story of “Lee,” in se, is complete with this conclusion.

Many thanks to all those who have stuck with me through this trilogy, and sparkling Arabian Nights-style mountains of thanks to everyone who has ever commented, or friended me, or otherwise made their presence as a reader known. Without the support of readers, I would never have made it this far. You all have turned the once-solitary pleasure of writing into a many-splendored and joyous thing, and while the story and the characters are mine, they owe a great deal to all of you who have loved them along with me.

So now that “Lee” is actually, and at long last, concluded, what’s next for the Slave Breakers universe?

Well, a lot of fill-in-the-blanks one-shots, for one thing. I plan, tentatively, to write most things I mentioned in the survey, and several of the write-in requests. I also need to finish two mini-series that I started a while back-- the one about Jer’s early relationship with Holden and Alix, and the backstory on Greta’s relationship with Holden (as set against the training of a particularly challenging young delinquent named Crimson).

I also have some housekeeping matters to attend-- for example, I badly need to update the index page, friend people back who‘ve friended me, and catch up on replying to comments-- and a metric fuckton of other people’s stories, which I’ve been horribly neglecting in my anxiety over my own baby coming to an end, to catch up on.

After that… well, we’ll see. Stick with me. It ain’t over yet.






( “Epilogue” )

Currently catching up on insanely ginormous backlog of (wonderful, insightful, fascinating) comments, all out of order because I am disorganized and discombobulated. Plan to catch up on reading list tonight, too, unreliable Internet service permitting-- or tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest. And this is the last time I let myself get THIS behind, barring catastrophe, because my God, things pile up. I'm really sorry, y'all. Thank you for your endless patience.


( Chapter 48 )

*ahem* I mean: calm yourselves, my darlings.

(And, er, don't read this unless you've already read chapter 46 of "Lee.")

( On the ending of the last chapter )

I am going out of town for the weekend-- should be back sometime Sunday-- just so y'all know. I may be able to check e-mail and LJ at the hostel where we're staying, but I'm not 100% sure.

(I'm also sick again. My throat hurts and I'm very light-headed and may have a fever. Grumble.)

But anyway, I wanted to write out something I was thinking about, about the writing process for "Lee."

I normally don't talk about my characters as "telling" me things-- not that I have anything against that phrasing when other people do it, but it doesn't generally occur to me to phrase something as "Yves finally told me X thing about himself" instead of just "I finally realized X thing about Yves." Cause, well, I don't know about your characters, but my characters' consciousness does not entail an awareness of my existence as such. So although I love them deeply and there are several metaphors I could employ for the author-character relationship, I generally do not think of them as "telling me things," except by accident when I am spying on them from portable bushes and cunningly disguised character-blinds.

But writing Lee, that's been like--

( You wrote yourself into a corner, safe/ Easy to defend your borders )

I have been catching up on friends list (still not remotely caught up on my own comments, alas, but made a big dent in flist at least) and rocking out to this song (warning: may cause levels of headbanging and/or sock-hopping that are not entirely safe for work). I don't care what any music snobs say about the Killers and their continuing musical development and their odd religious beliefs and their feathery epaulets: I love them, with a love surpassing the love of women. CALL ME, BRANDON FLOWERS. I AM WEARING BUTTON BOOTS AND LONG UNDERWEAR.

*bops*

(though as my husband says, I must be human, as I am definitely no dancer)

In other news, this certainly explains a lot.

In other other news, that thing I said, about only one more chapter of Lee plus epilogue? That, uh, may not work. Oh, the perishing of a million noble outlines for this story.

(Although, those of you who have asked how I'll ever tie up all the loose ends-- hey, what kind of a girl do you think I am? When have I ever tied up loose ends at the end of a story? Remember the end of "Bran"? And the end of "Jesse"? You should see my knitting: loose ends EVERYWHERE.)

Actually, I recently found my very first outline for "Lee," being used as a bookmark in Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Want to see it? It's adorable; it plans for fifteen chapters. (And contains spoilers for all posted chapters of Lee, up to and including 44a and 44b, but not for future chapters, although I guess you might not want to look too closely at what I consider vital information, if you're a big old spoilerphobe. Caveat lector, and all that.)


( The best-laid plans of mice and men )

This isn't really long enough to be a whole chapter, but I thought I might as well post it anyway (especially since half the comments on the last chapter (non-numbered) were like "Yeah yeah yeah fine, now WHAT IS UP WITH [spoiler redacted]????"). (With which sentiment I totally sympathize; I feel that way myself.) So it is Chapter 44(a).




( Lee chapter 44a )

This is a bit shorter and more quickly written than I had strictly planned, because SOME PEOPLE who can WRITE perfectly gut-wrenching cliff-hangers apparently cannot abide to READ them, and I am a sweet and gentle-natured person who cannot hear cries for mercy without heeding them.

(Where is the trust, people? Where is the trust?)

( Lee chapter 43 )

Apologies for any mood whiplash going from Dreadful Puns of Avalon to, uh, this.

( Lee chapter 41 )

A plague o' the hospital guest network, which has been crapping out on me for the past several days and seriously hindering my efforts to take advantage of waiting room time to make a dent in catching up on comments and stories. (That and the fact that Haven Kimmel has a new book out, which I just read in one long thirsty gulp over the last two days. *satiated sigh*) But even when the network is down, my beloved word processor doth not desert me, so: story!

This might be out of sequence, chronologically, with the general Lee storyline (I think it is, but I'm still futzing around with where the next chapter of Lee will pick up, so I'm not one hundred percent sure), so if you want to be sure to avoid spoilers about the identity of the person to whom Holden will eventually sell Lee, don't read this yet. :P

( And if you could save me a place in heaven/ With a clean, well-lighted room... )