Alexander in India: An Operatic Romance NaNo 2011

A place for everything, and everything in its place: This is the place I dump my NaNo issues. The forums on NaNo itself are annoying and make me want to yell at the forum-runners, they're so not-friendly-to-users.

ETA Synopsis as of 10/31/11...subject to change...

A man from Rome's poorest quarter meets the love of his sexually flexible and politically astute life when Pietro Trapassi, known as Metastasio, poet and lawyer, begins a libretto for Luca Predieri, Bologna's eminent composer of cutting edge entertainments called "operas." Metastasio is in Vienna at the court of the Austrian Emperor, serving time and adjusting to his unaccustomedly humble place in the sparkling cultural scene. His short life has been very eventful, starting from his earlies fame as an "improvvisatore," an improvisational poet of the streets, who receives a topic from a crowd of listeners and improvises a poem from it...in other words, an 18th century rapper.

One lucky day, a Roman lawyer and arts maven called Gravina hears and sees the beautiful young Pietro, and is smitten. He buys Pietro from his father, a poor grocer, with the promise of training him in the arts of poetry and the law. Without a moment's hesitation, Pietro is sold, and begins an entirely new trajectory in his life.

Not without a price, or course. Gravina is true to his word and squires his young protege into the highest circles of Roman arts, and provides him an unequalled Classical education; but young Pietro, willingly if uncomprehendingly, serves Gravina's baser lusts as well. It isn't as though Gravina keeps his pedophilia a secret, because in that day and time, there was no strong Puritanical streak in society against child molestation, and the child's future was immeasurably bettered by the connection, and the parents were parties to the transaction; still, for the child Pietro, there was forever afterwards a sense of himself as worth only what someone would pay for him, and his erotic fixation never wavered from older men and women, the good parents and trusted elders he always sought.

Predieri, the older man by a decade, was head (called "Principe" or Prince) of the Accademia Filamonica di Bologna. He came from a family of distinguished Bolognese musicians, and was quite renowned in his time as a composer of music that singers loved to sing. His operas have not survived to our own time; when you outlive your fame, and leave behind no descendants, your work won't have champions in the next generations. In 1729, Predieri was commissioned by the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor to write the score for Metastasio's libretto Alexander in India, an opera to be presented to the Emperor and his court on a state visit to Milan. This marks the first collaboration between Metastasio and Predieri, though the two had met in Rome in 1722 when Metastasio's best friend, the castrato Farinelli, sang the title role in Predieri's opera Sofonisba. Introduced by Farinelli to the handsome, powerful, and beautifully talented older man, Metastasio is in love at first sight. Farinelli, jealous of his romantic though not sexual primacy in Metastasio's life, sees this and cuts the interview short; Predieri, the Man of the Hour, is barely aware of the star-struck young lawyer and poet, beautiful though he is. After this meeting, the two correspond on occasion, celebrating each others's triumphs in the world of opera. By 1729, Metastasio is in Vienna, the court poet to the Emperor; he's also writing libretti that, amazingly, are so popular and so beautiful that they are set to music by dozens of composers, even long after the poet's death.

As the men correspond in their work on the Imperial entertainment, they discover how good it feels to be, for once, fully understood and accepted as artist, as human, as man. Love blossoms mutually for the first time, despite many miles between them, despite many uncertainties...does he love me, or my position? is he in love with me as I am with him?...which aren't safe or smart to confide to a letter.

While Metastasio, separated from his dearly beloved Luca and living for rare visits made on state occasions, consoles himself with an older Viennese countess, Leonie Althann, and attempts to avoid a reunion with his abandoned Roman mistress the singer Bulgarelli, he falls ever more in love with his epistolary suitor, the intellectual and musically in vogue Predieri. The men create together beautiful worlds of fantasy, brought to life for the wealthiest court in Europe, by the finest singers and musicians of their time. For seven long years, they toil apart, until Predieri secures a position in the Habsburg court and moves to Vienna in 1737.

Thirty years...never together, never apart, never far from each other and never able to be a public couple. What does that do to a man, to hide himself and his love away?

Let's find out.

Okay troops...T-minus thirteen hours and eighteen minutes here in the EDT zone. Here's how it's gonna be:

Pietro: You're a major spoiled brat, and if you get up to any antics that don't please me, I *will* kill youi off before your time. Do not play dice with God. I invented them. And you. Get it out of your head that you can run away back to Mamma Italia because you can't.

Luca: If you mope and moon over Pietro to the point where you're making *me* sick of hearing about him, whatinahell do you expect actual readers to think? Get a spine, fool! He walks all over you when he's young and beautiful, yeah, okay, us old guys have to put up with that if we're gonna get the goodies. But it gets OLD and FAST, so time to teach him a lesson! He's not the only fish in the sea! You have power as Vice Kapellmeister. Some sweet young thing will happily trade his body for a better part. Pietro's been in love with you since 1722. You've never once played the revenge card. It's time.

Farinelli: You dawg you. Pietro loves Luca, you know he does; it makes you mad because you are homoromantic if heterosexual; but c'mon! Leave them alone! This evil plot to make Luca fall in love with you, to make him have an affair with you, just so you can bust them up, is plain old WICKED! The King of Spain PAYS you to have sex with his wife while he watches! Aren't your perviest desires being met already?! I mean, I'm sorry your brother Riccardo had you castrated. Really, truly, I am. And it's just a nasty coincidence that he's got my name. Quit hijacking my sweet romantic fuzzy-wuzzy Vaseline-on=the=lens romantic fantasy!

Countess Althann: I am not the world's biggest fan of women, and you're about the most unappealing specimen I can imagine: clingy, needy, desperately horny, co-dependent; but you *are* rich. Face facts, dumpling, Pietro's bangin' you for the spondulix. He's damaged goods, babe, and Bulgarelli can tell you that he's about half-a-step from Woman's Worst Nightmare: excellent sex, charming manner, icy-freezy-cold heart for the ladies, hot for the laddies. What could be worse? Really...get some dignity to go with the title, k? Sling him out, don't wait for him to stop coming around and answering your letters.

Gravina: What a sleazebag you are. Buying a boy from his family is grotesquely rotten, even if you give him the education he'd never even be able to dream of having without you. His beauty and his innocence and his pretty little butt were your real interest, dirty filthy pedophile! Okay, in that day and time, it wasn't considered anything all that nasty, but you really cause me nausea. I want to ignore you completely, but I can't. Resign yourself, though, you aren't gonna be a sympathetic character.

Bulgarelli: Poor lamb. Older woman falls for young star-stud. You were too good for him. I'm sorry he never loved you back, it hurts me to think of how that must have burned your tenderest parts. Were you surprised, though? You knew about Gravina, and Farinelli eternally offering then withdrawing romantic love, and Pietro's huge huige heart-on for Luca. Of all the cast, you, my dear, are the one I love. I wish I could write a happy ending for you, but that's not how things turned out in this life. I sincerely hope you were happier in your next life.

Everyone else: Do exactly as you're told and there won't be trouble. DIsobey, and you're out.

That is all.

Boy, do you have good control of your characters. I found that surprises helped my word count when I was running out of plot. I can't wait to see what surprises my characters have in store for me this year.

I went to see Scott Westerfeld a couple of weeks ago and his solution to being stuck was to have a character jump off of something. Considering that his YA steampunk series involved dirigible-type of creatures, I thought that was quite brave!

They let me think I have control, but they'll do so many unexpected things by 11/30 that the novel could probably end up titled anything from "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" to "The Slash Dungeon from Hell" and be perfectly accurate.

Tiresome, this socially acceptable form of schizophrenia called "being a writer."

FARINELLI!!!

STOP HORNING IN!!! This is Luca and Pietro's romance, yes you're Pietro's best friend and yes Luca writes the perfect music for you to sing but DAMN DUDE YOU'RE STRAIGHT and these two need some mattress time!!

The whole castrato thing is really skeeving me out, too, but you were so you are no matter how ick-ptui I think it is.

Wait...oh no no no...you are NOT jealous of Luca! No! C'mon, you got women fallin' all over themselves across the continent! WHY do you want Pietro too?? Greedy fuck! He deserves at least a chance at being happy and satisfied, doesn't he? And you, you can't stand sex with men! He loves it! WTF how can you say you love him and sabotage his way-long-shot at happiness?!

I'm starting to hate you.

The Author, but YOU can call me God.

Dear Bulgarelli,

Okay, ladydog, time to talk turkey with me. Right now, you're a pervy woman married to a boy who likes boys, and you two bagging Pietro when he's run out of money so he can be the meat in the sandiwch is seriously skeeving me out. Okay, so, since he's appeasing both y'all's lusts, it makes sense that his family...all four of them...are living in the house with you. You feel guilty, right? And Signor B., he's got plenty of the old spondulix, so no harm done there..but have you asked yourself what goes on while you're out singing?

Honestly, I can't see you falling in love with this spoiled brat of a poet. You know he's boinking you and letting Signor boink him for the money and the protection you give his family. He doesn't love you. You love him? Why? His poetry is, yes, near perfect. But tell me, just 'twixt us girls, what are you in love with about this goof?

Smoochings,
Mudge

Dear Luca,

Pietro is 10 years younger than you are, he's a spoiled brat AND damaged goods, and you don't speak German. Why do you want to join him in Vienna? Srsly dude, Vi. En. Na. His best friend's a castrato, he's dumped his family on his ex-mistress and her husband, the Viennese countess he's banging for money has fallen in love with him. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!

Is falling lin love with him a good idea? Resist!

Your friend,
Mudge

Dear Pietro,

Luca's a boring old man! WTF man? So what he understands your poetry, so what he laughs at your jokes, so what he's made music for your best friend that sets you weeping? He's still an old man, and he's still going to do everything all the other old men have done! You really, really want that? Then get him the Vice Kapellmeister job you know is opening up.

If you can. Luca's gonna be more of a BMOC than you are. How's THAT gonna feel?

Run away! Run away!
Mudge

Wow, this is fascinating. Is this how everyone writes? It seems very elaborate, but I suppose it's how you "get inside the head" of your characters is it?
(I heard that Barbara Kingsolver wrote a version of the Poisonwood Bible from every characters perspective to get a handle on what each person was up to).
I'm impressed Richard.

Richard you just had me laughing out loud and hubby wondering what the hell I was up to! Love this - will enjoy seeing how yours progresses :)

>7 richardderus:, 8 I've put in a synopsis to show where I'm heading. I don't promise that is where I'll end up, but I'm heading there.

I love this, too, Rdear. And the book sounds right up my alley.

1027 words by 2a. Then sleep. Here's the prologue:

What hurts me most, now, is how casually I let him leave me. I spoke dismissive words, devoid even of anger or contempt; I sought to throw off fetters forged from many years' familiarity and many hours of labor shared, many triumphant...seen at this distance, I suppose all of them triumphant...premieres before the Emperor of the day, the favorite of the moment, the courtiers ever-changing and unchanged.

Now, in this wretched coach, on this atrocious road, the breath I spoke those unkind words with seems heavier than the fetters I sought to throw over by speaking them. It is not the first time I have had to learn that lesson. I suspect this to be the harshest of all those classes, for this time I am both master and pupil. There is no one left to scold me but my fool of a self.

I am eleven miles from Bologna, three miles away from the horrid inn where.... I have never been here before, and did not wish to come. I came because, in the thrall of a long lifetime of habit, I opened Luca's letter. One last time, he wrote, one more performance of our enchanted opera, our first child, our happiest memory from thirty-five years of memories, he wrote.

Alexander in India.

Where it began. Where we each found the other half of the one ragged, torn, bruised, unloved soul we shared, and began to build the happiness that I cast aside in a moment of careless speech.

One more performance of this beautiful bouncing boy of our shared imagination, despite the absence of Farinelli as Alexander, despite the distance between us, despite all the obstacles a man of our age faces in organizing a huge cast, a large orchestra, an army of supernumerary singers to be trained in recitativo even in Bologna with its Accademia, that one of a mere forty-one as Luca was then, does not face. Challenges I, a stripling of thirty-one, could not then even imagine would ever exist: Exhaustion. Loneliness. Confusion at every inevitable change, each minor disaster an incomprehensible whirlpool of sound. Now, in my luxurious torture chamber on springs, a gift of an indulgent if bewildered Emperor, I create the phantoms of Luca's last months as he muddles through organizing this one last time he wooed me with as I sat in cold, rainy Vienna last October.

Thirty-eight years ago, we began this journey with a commission. An Imperial command to me, the often forgotten (or so I imagined, I who was so used to my place as cynosure of all eyes) court poet, to create an entertainment for His Imperial Highness on a subject suitable for Farinelli to celebrate with his glorious instrument. Set it to music, Luca was commanded in far-away Bologna, this new libretto by Our well-beloved poet Metastasio, and be quick about it, Farinelli will not be in Vienna for long.

Jouncing along this horrible Italian road...Romans built roads that are used to this day, how is it we their descendants can't make a road fit for a goat to amble from field to field on?...that first letter from Luca to Pietro rises before my tear-filled eyes, my grief-hazed gaze unwilling to see the Italian countryside which will hold Pietro's beloved, so beloved, so disastrously misvalued, lover Luca for so long as God sees fit to rule His Creation.

I made it over 2000 words without a sex scene! That must be a personal best. Of course, now that I'm at 3722 total words, there are now TWO sex scenes. Apparently these characters are going to be trouble from the sex standpoint. I was going to lead up to the subject, introducing some whoopee about 5K words in, but Pietro decided to errrmmm pleasure himself early on, and pleasure the Countess after she watched.

I have NO IDEA where that came from. It was NOT the plan.

Enjoying your updates :)

way to go Richard. for me, well, I'm at 7330 with no sex scene even in sight! Argh. What's up with that!

>14 ChelleBearss: Thanks, Chelle!

>15 majkia: *gasp* If I tried hard, I might make 3K words without someone talking about, thinking about, or having sex, but almost 7500?! I guess my characters are just more well errrmmm randy than yours.

LOL - doing better than me too Majkia - I have a murder, a lot of poop and a lot of whores in my first 4000.

Pietro seems rather fun Richard? :)

>17 BekkaJo: Poop, murder, and whores. When it comes out, I will *TOTALLY* buy it!

Pietro is a real cad. Straight for pay, good in bed, couldn't care less about women or their feelings so he uses them...falls in love with older men, because they think he's beautiful and are thrilled to bits he notices them...his least narcissistic relationship is the one I'm writing about, but it doesn't end happily.

If you're on Goodreads, too, go look at my profile and click on the writing link. It's got the dirty bits posted, if you're curious.

You'd like Malaky in mine... he's much more fun to write than his half-brother, my other view point character.

Totally curious but not on Goodreads... may have to potter over...

Bad day for word count. I'm still working on a big project that never *quite* gets where it needs to be to make me piles and piles of filthy lucre. Closer...closer...and just a little more writing of this, that, the other thing...I am not impressed with government agencies in general, but when you want their money, you play their bloody game.

Total 4115 words. Am too fried to write, right now, so I'm reading.

Sci Fi is not conducive to lots of sex. Well, mine isn't anyway, darn it. Grr. I need to kick these two characters into each others arms... Well, there's a battle scene coming up, that ought to stir their libidos...

Fight or flight? I always think they missed one: Fight, f--k, or flight. Guess respectable academics don't want to sully their withered old-person lips with such vulgarity.

I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck! It's only day 5 - maybe I should do a sex scene to get myself going again.

Hmm perhaps a poor choice of words there...

>23 BekkaJo: Sex scenes are ALWAYS good to jump-start creative processes. Also dream scenes, arrest scenes, and partner partings.

or my preferred mention fo adding word count: Bar Brawls!

Do you visit the Golden Dragon group? They frequently have the most amazing bar brawls going on there.

Last year I had my character step out in front of an SUV and end up in the hospital. That got me a new setting, several new characters, and a way for the girl to spend time with him. Luckily he only broke a leg.

Why did I think producing a first draft in 30 days would be fun? Why? It's not fun. It's hard. And I'm feeling pretty frustrated at the whole idea. (For the book.) Who cares? Why would anyone pick up a book about two guys doin' the nasty in the 18th century?

In other words, not feeling upbeat today.

Keep at it, Richard. Even if no one else ever reads it you will have the satisfaction of accomplishing something that not everyone can. (At least that's what I keep telling myself.)

On the Young Writers side they recommend locking away your inner editor for the month of November - no rereading, no spell checking, no second guessing - just keep forging forward.

Just remember their motto - quantity not quality.

#27 What Mamzel said!

Though ditto - the first few days went well, but the last three have felt like writing through treacle (if you get my rather mixed metaphor). I also am becoming disturbed about my state of mind since, when stuck last night, I entertained myself with a chapter of vignettes of atrocities that happened during the sacking of the city.

Hmmmm...

Go do some writing!

>28 mamzel:, 29 I think I got it!! I've started the story too late!! The *real* romantic conflict happens earlier, when the laddies first meet!! The section I've been writing so slowly and irritably is the MIDDLE!!

*happy dance* No wonder I wasn't feelin' it. Starting a book in the middle is a lot tougher than building to a known middle. Yay!

Woot! Go forth and type.

there is no way I would stop doing basic edits. primarily because I need to go back to remember what the heck I wrote the day before, since I always veer off target paths. Anyway. I DO EDIT and if you feel like you need to IT IS OKAY!

And you better damn well finish that book Richard cuz I wanna read it!

Oh wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Almost four thousand words before my hands gave out! Tell you what...finding the right "in" makes me v v v v productive. I try really hard to get first lines before I even start a book because, if it's not coming to me there, I can't make anything happen. Since this book starts with a prologue, and since I like that first line ("What hurts me most, now, is how casually I let him leave me."), I was seduced into thinking I had the in.

Not so! Jumping straight to Alexander in India was not the way. I don't know exactly why not, but it wasn't. I think this also explains the sheer audacity of the characters behaving so extremely sexually in the first part I wrote. They're sure it's the middle of the book, and I was thinking it was the beginning. I guess the story's going to be longer than I thought it was at first. *il sigh*

Heya - how're the Italian boys going? I am massively lacking in focus and keep just grabbing chapters here and there to expand on. And I keep making extra characters! Ooops...

If it helps mine will be at least 100k - if not longer. If it ever gets anywhere near finishing...

I've been bludgeoned in the past two days by two books I shelved in the past. Alexander in India has a fairly heavy research requirement. The other two, one about William II Rufus being murdered by his jealous ex-lover the Bishop of Durham (which the facts of his death make very plausible) and one about the impeachment and trial of Lincoln during his third term, defended in the Senate by a black Reconstruction Senator from Mississippi (factual character), are also research-intensive. I love to read, but ye gods I have to grocery shop and walk the dog too!

I spend most of my life trying to keep my head above the endlessly crashing 30-foot waves of stories that make up my view of life. I've always been one who wondered why people couldn't come up with story ideas. I can't escape them! If I live to be 105, and do nothing but write ten hours a day, I might just get through half the *good* ideas I've already got. The bad ones, well...Gawd didn't make enough time to do them, too.

Nothing good is easy, is it? BTW...have you tried yarny.me's web-based word processing/note taking/organizing software? It's helped me keep ahead of the maniacal need to research every tiny detail. Might could help you with its "snippets" functionality.

Here's the new Part I's beginning:

Part I

Rome, 1722

I...no, no, it is not seemly that my voice be the only one heard, I must become he...Pietro could not believe his ears. Sofonisba, so beautiful it made his heart hurt. Sofonisba, his soul's twin, a triumph of musical virtuosity from the young castrato beginning his climb to what seemed inevitable fame, the dear hearrt's darling Farinelli as all were now calling him. His fame was born that night, that premiere night, and Pietro was there to see it happen. Of course it was a feather in Farinelli's cap to have Pietro there, no doubt, as well as a personal solace, comfort, and support. Pietro's poetry was very sought after in Rome that year, and his modest fortune made him a fixture in Rome's artistic circles. The modest fortune left him by Gravina, the entree into society that his Classical education, provided by Gravina, afforded him, the law practice...so deadly dull, the law, but so useful to the members of his social circle to have one of their own to call upon when the law must be dealt with...also left to him by Gravina.

Gravina so much on his mind tonight because Farinelli...met through Pietro's music tutor Porpora, lessons paid for by Gravina...was making his first appearance in Rome, in a role written expressly for him by the Bolognese composer of operas famous for their musical ornament, one Luca Antonio Predieri, which score had cost Pietro a thousand ducats of his inheritance, lent with no expectation of return to the other half of his soul Farinelli. Without the solid ground Pietro had received as a gift from Gravina, he would have been nothing more and nothing less than a Roman greengrocer like his father. Such a life would never have suited him, and on this of all nights, he knew that he was gifted beyond all hope of fair return by Providence. He was hearing music that made God's presence among His Creation undoubtable. He was watching his beautiful...too beautiful...friend make a triumph of some of the most difficult music he had ever heard. He was going to the opening night supper for the entire cast, and the composer, as soon as the performance was given, and it would be a gay event as the reception of the audience for Farinelli's aria was so rapturous that no one could doubt the mood of the players would be happy.

And so it proved. The supper at Bulgarelli's husband's house was thrillingly brightly lit, Pietro's eyes dazzled by the light of so many candles he could scarcely believe even the famously well to do La Bulgarelli could afford such extravagnace.

The brightest light was, of course, shining on Farinelli. Wherever the eye looked, there was the beautiful face, shining from within with the certainty of the triumph of his creation of Sofonisba, and reflecting the brilliance of the many candles.

"Pietro!" It was the soft, perfect voice of Farinelli. "Pietro, my brother, come and meet someone."

"I...I..." Pietro was very reluctant to answer the summons. There was the small matter of La Bulgarelli, a woman whose kindness he depends on for survival, whose bed he graces on demand, whose husband he services, smiling all the while. Learning to smile while accepting the body's many sensations during carnal sport was easy for Pietro, his lessons having begun when he was very young.

"Stop stammering, fool of a poet, and come to meet Predieri. He is father to my triumph. I want him to meet my soul's brother, his other son." Carlo, Pietro silently cursed him, Carlo, can you not see what you are doing to me?

The handsome and smiling face of Predieri hit Pietro in the midriff. The face that hid a soul to rival the gods, the soul that created superb and ecstatic music for Farinelli's unique instrument. The soul that made my eyes flood with tears and my heart flood with anguishing tides of love.

"Gentile Principe Predieri. Your humble servant." Predieri made his bow, hoping that the deepness of the bow would explain the flush in his cheeks and not the degree of his excited embarrassed desire to seize the older man and shower passionate kisses on him.

As Pietro straightened up, he willed himself not to look into Predieri's eyes. He was sure that, if he did, he would lose all semblance of control of himself and cause a scandal with his lustful behavior.

"Avvocato Metastasio! How very exciting to meet you at last. I was acquainted with your late father Avvocato Gravina." Predieri's voice, oh dear God, his voice! thought Pietro helplessly as his body responded most inappropriately to the soft, mellow sound. It completely distracted him from making a proper social response to the Principe's words.

"Pietro! Where are you? The Principe of the Accademia Filamonica is not a man to be ignored," teased Farinelli, sensing the reason for his friend's silence. Oh, he would pay for this, vowed Pietro, now sure that Farinelli had called him there in sport. You know me too well, Carlo Broschi called Farinelli, but I know you too. Wait. Wait.

"My apologies. caro Signor Principe. Carlo here summoned me to meet you, and thank you for it, Carlo, while I was still reliving the beauties of your opera. The story of Sofonisba is so beautifully served by your setting of it. The libretto of my friend Zeno, talented poet that he is, was lifted by it into the realms of genius," said Pietro, at last looking into the dark blue eyes of his worshipped idol. It was as he feared. His body's response intensified to the point it was visible to anyone looking at him even casually.

Farinelli's quick glance at Pietro took in the problem. He spoke quickly, to attempt a diversion of the august personage Predieri's attention. "Caro Principe, command me. I know La Bulgarelli has brought from France a new and exotic wine, supposed by the Sun King's court to be suitable only for the delectation of the gods. May I escort you to the table so we may celebrate our mutual triumph?" Farinelli gently steered Predieri away from the humiliated Pietro's presence, to his mingled relief and misery. He watched the retreating silk-clad backs, lost still in a haze of lust and hero-worship.

"Bellino, what are we to do with you?" La Bulgarelli, mistress, mother, patroness, lover...her beautiful voice was warm and accepting, her words both chiding Pietro's lack of self-control and accepting his lustful response to the famous guest of the house. "Predieri comes to my house for celebration, not for cavorting with handsome stallions who happen to be poets. Ambitious poets. In need of commissions." Pietro finally turned to look at her. She was smiling, as when was she ever not, and her fine black eyes shone with merry mischief.

"You misunderstand me, cara mia. I...well, I..." Pietro stammered to a halt under her smiling gaze.

"I misunderstand nothing, Pietro. You fancy that fine and handsome body, wearing that craggy face, and carrying the soul capable of making such spectacular music. Ever the one to fall in love, aren't you, bellino?" Amusement, indulgence, and a sure and solid love were in La Bulgarelli's words and tone. "I despair of you, really I do! You are famous, Pietro, your poems are spoken all over Rome! The Pope knows your name, the crowds love your words, every salon in the city receives you. And yet you look at a man who, in the end, is known to favor your kind of love over that of women, as if he was out of your reach. He is not in Holy Orders, caro, not that that would stop anyone. If you are so smitten, pursue him! I think he will not run from you very fast."

A warm rush of grateful happiness flowed through Pietro. "How have I deserved you, cara mia? How is it I can be blessed with the gift of your heart?"

"I do not know," she replied as she turned away to see to her guests. "But you have been, and there is Cardinal Mazarin! Your Eminence!" she called in a cooing voice, making her way to the Prince of the Church's side as she left her charge behind in a cloud of heliotrope.

29,000 words. Cresting the rise, I think.

yay, go!

Jealous! You just zooomed past me.

There's not even dust left to make me cough, I'm so far behind. Argh!

I am doing anything and everything I can think of not to write the Big Fight Scene.

Came a point in the boys' relationship when everything changed, and neither of them ever went back to the same level of productivity and quality that he'd experienced before. (This is in fact true of both real men, their respective careers went waaay downhill the same year.)

So, why? Well...it's a love triangle thang. Poet has to choose between straight love-of-his-life singer and gay grand-passionate-love composer. He chooses wrong, no matter which choice he makes, but...well...it's hard to make the boys so happy for a meager little 8 years and then pull the rug out from under them for the rest of their lives. I feel so mean! And I like happy endings. I'm sorely tempted to diverge from reality and let them live happily ever after.

But I can't bring myself to lie like that. *sigh*

But it's a good sign that they are real enough that you don't want to screw with them. They'll be okay.

Oh and your pic on your thread de-railed my NaNo into a gay naughty scene. What's that all about? That was my character totally making a decision all for himself. And no - not that explicit, cutting away before they get too naughty. More lots of decription of sweat beading on the muscly guys back. Oh and my narrative guy not knowing why he lets the other man dominate him the way he does - and then not caring.

Oooh, a little lavender rebellion in the ranks! Always a surprise when they toss you a curve-ball like that, eh what?

just wanted to chime in...great thread.

>44 brianjungwi: Thanks, Brian! Always nice to see a new face around these parts.

It's madness! He wasn't even supposed to be in the novel. The he shot a man who was torturing a cat and pushed his way into the narrative. AgH!

>46 BekkaJo: He...he...shot a man who was performing a public service?! How horrible of him!

It's okay - it was more the method than the action that pi%%ed him off.

Plus some cats kept me awake screwing the other night so a whole lot of them are getting killed off in my book in passive literary retribution.

lol

I'll have to go find some cats to torture, so someone will shoot me. I wrote the fight scene. I hated it, but the plot demands it.

A little bit of cat-torture might make me feel less like the scum of the earth.

Oh hun! I'm sorry its so harsh. Any chance you can wriggle a little bit of happiness back in for them?

I promise to go write some kitty torture for you right now.

>51 BekkaJo: You're a real pal. *sigh* Still depressed.

#52 Not so much - I got distracted and made a pretry girl rip her own face open. When did I start writing horror again?

I sooo promise cat torture is totally on the agenda!

And how about jumping a few years - let them get over the pain. Then there can be a whole array of other people/experiences for them to find? And of course relate back to the love lost?

Part of the reason this is so painful is that there are no ways for them to separate effectively. They work for the same Empress, and they are both involved in Court life at the same level (far below the top, but still visible), so constantly rub the wound open.

It's a twenty-year span after the fight before Luca retires to Bologna. Where the source of the trouble, Carlo, has also retired, rich and powerful. It's always melancholy to write about real, adult problems and issues in an honest and realistic way.

Although the way I feel about it now, I think I'm writing horror, too.

*hugs*

Sorry your writting is process is frustrating you! I wish I could write, but alas I can not
Sending hugs

FIFTY THOUSAND AND NINETY-TWO WORDS.

I made it! I made it!

And now, because there's a publisher interested in it, I'm going to get back to work on the other book. This one will await its fullness and completion. But to tell the truth, I really like Luca and Pietro. Carlo I could do without, but the boys are pretty wonderful. Just all sgangerata from too much pride, too little flexibility, and BAD FRIEND CHOICES.

*Shocked face*

I'm really glad for you - but AGhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well done you though :)

>58 BekkaJo: Thanks, Bekka! It was a push, but I did it.

Great job, Richard! Yay!

Thank you! I know you're over the 50K hump, too, so brava!

Way to go, Richard! Congrats!!!

Thank you, Mary!