The Twelve Ideas of Christmas #10

From the Taken by Night synopsis:

Former top fashion designer Ara Chenault’s life was destroyed when she was changed by the Morxa, and went from creating couture to becoming a merciless, monstrous killer. Ara finally strikes a bargain with the Morxa who invaded her: in exchange for control Ara must free other mortals from Morxa possession, kill those who can’t be saved, and take revenge on an ancient, evil immortal who changed Ara’s morxa from human to monster.

By day Ara now runs a garment factory in the fashion district; by night she hunts the morxa-possessed with her team of powerful Fury: Glory Patten, who never wanted her unearthly Sirenian beauty and seductive powers; ex-Marine Arturo Chavez, who each night morphs into the centaur Ceron, and who hates everything but Ara; and Kim Smith, whose Chimaeran morxa allows her to shape-shift, and who often can’t resist creating mischief and mayhem, too.

The other Fury don’t know how Ara was changed, or by whom, but she refuses to discuss it. Ara believes she can’t share her burdens with her friends and still be their leader. Thea Wise, Ara’s only human friend, has done enough by financing the factory. Ara’s loneliness seems unbearable, but while both Chavez and Ceron both want to become Ara’s lovers, they don’t know how dangerous she is.

I wrote Taken by Night for NaNoWriMo in 2012 and knocked out 50K of the book in a decidedly rough draft. There's probably about 30K left to write on it. It's one of the most unusual novels I've ever attempted, so I'd like to get it wrapped up and see if I can pull off what I had planned. Taken by Night is Idea #10.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

Intriguing!

December 23, 2019 at 4:46 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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