Grr, argh...

Had some shit, but didn't like it.  Tried revising, didn't work.  Writing from the fugue's "perspective" is neither as easy, nor as fun, nor as... intelligible as I'd like it to be.  Though I suppose I expected that last one.  It is the fused consciousness of several distinct and dissimilar spirits who only banded together as a last-ditch effort to not die while trying to drive out an eons-old alien from their territory, after all.

I know I said I was gonna try to get over this hang-up I have about writing things out of order.  But it just bugs me that Whispers at the Window and Showdown in the Desert are... well... they're out of order.  So that whole roll I was on is just fragments of scene ideas, plot elements, a few snappy lines, and hastily-scribbled notes... which, I mean, really helps with the whole "plunge headlong into insanity" aesthetic I've got going on, especially with the coffee stains on my zodiac chart & everything.  But I can't post that and have it make sense, dammit.  At least, not until I post a couple intervening things, first.

Ooh!  I do have this, though, looking through my "ramblings of a crazy person" notes.  I won't end up using it after all, as it's from back when Ferraille was a much different character - she wasn't even named "Ferraille" back then, and though I updated the note to reflect that, it never got updated to reflect her newer personality, and now I think this bit's just not a good fit any more.  I guess now is as good a point in time to share it as any, as it was one of the earlier bits I wrote for this book.  Like, before I even picked it back up again, meaning this is about a year old here (I know it was after reading this, published 6/12/2012, but not long after, as the document containing this fragment was created 6/5/2012).  So yeah, below the cut is half a page of actual deleted scenery that's definitely for the cutting room floor, though I wish it would've worked out somehow.


                “I have done many things,” Ferraille said with a shrug, “Some good, some bad, almost all of them to do with death.”               
                “I fail to see how your death-dealing deeds could be good.”

                “Well, OK, maybe not good in themselves, but for the greater good.”

                “Even then,” he said impatiently.

                “All right.  Look:  that Hitler guy, invaded Russia?  Made the same mistake as Napoleon?  Damn near lost him the war at a stroke, am I right?”

                “Sure.”

                “Now everyone’s like, ‘Ooh, you go back in time, you gotta kill Hitler,’ it’s like a damned rule or something.  But I think there’s a bigger question that people like you are missing.”

                “What’s that?”

                “The question is:  why didn’t anyone in Germany know better than to invade Russia?”

                He thinks for a moment.

                “I don’t really have an answer for you.”

                “That’s fine.  I just want you to ask yourself – what if – I mean, someone in Germany was bound to rise to power, right?  The German people were still just as humiliated after World War I, just as ready for a scapegoat, and just as primed to make a move for world domination.  Those are facts.  And what if there was this really savvy strategist who knew not to invade Russia, who had actually heard of Napoleon and learned from his mistake?  And what if someone else spotted that guy, saw how things would go if the soon-to-be Axis powers would’ve won the war, and took him out?  So instead of the savvy strategist commanding the German army and not invading Russia, you get the art school reject with another little-guy complex who’s just itching to show up the world by taking out Mother Bear.”

                “Wait, are you saying you manipulated German politics just to make World War II turn out a little bit nicer?”

                “No, of course not.  That’s just an example.  The actual shit I did was usually much more subtle and complicated and I don’t want to talk about it.”