Hi! It’s me! The Creator!

And, umm… that was a really hard story arc to write.

The truth is, her LA trip could have gone in all sorts of different directions, and I thought of quite a few.  Some of them were actually really dark, and I dismissed those pretty much out of hand.  They might have made for a good story but that’s not the kind of story I’m writing.  Some of them involved a more adversarial Rebecca, a more abusive Robert… there were lots of ways it could have gone.

Obviously, I decided on this one.

I think it turned out okay.

The interesting thing is, that Lily screwed up.  I mean, she really screwed up.  Lily is not a perfect character by any means.  She’s a kind, sweet girl who would give you the shirt off her back, but she’s really gullible and kind of easy to manipulate.  So when her new friends dared her to wear, basically, a string bikini that was too small for her into the kitchen to get some hot chocolate, well, she did.  It was stupid, but she did it.

And, well, she paid a price for that.  No one wants Sabby yelling.

I also used the opportunity to explore her and Beth’s relationship a little.  Beth is ver jealous, but one reason is that she feels left out, and it’s true, Lily did kind of forget about her.  It’s not that she did it deliberately, but let’s be frank – Lily… what’s the right way to put this… has two or three different families, and she kind of separates them in her head.  There’s Dave and Sabby and Beth and David, that’s one… there’s Emiko and Ai and her Japanese family, that’s two, and then there’s Robert.  That’s three.  Beth picked up on that.  Lily didn’t.

And Robert turned out to be an interesting character.  He’s made a pretty good life for himself, and he’s willing to include Lily in it, but he’s not like Dave.  He’s a lot more amoral and materialistic, willing to lie and maybe even cheat to get what he wants.  I think Lily has kind of picked up on that.  He’s not lying about how he feels about his family, but he’s… he hasn’t really lost who he was when he took advantage of Emiko and, well, knocked her up.

He’s basically a grown up frat boy with a family.  And all that entails.

So, it turned out to be a much more interesting story arc than I had thought.

I moved to a new place, and there’s a bit more room, so I’m playing with the kinect for 3d full body acting.  It kind of works.  And, well, kind of doesn’t.  I need to play around with it some more.  Truth be told, the better I get at it, the less comfortable I am, and maybe that’s a good thing.

Well, coming up on two years and 300,000 words, so,..  onwards, I suppose.

No one reads it, really, so whatever.