Sarah's Writing Blog

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  • Spiderling, Chapter 18

    Jeyne Westerling and Robb Stark are a modern day fairytale, a celebrity “IT” couple, a glamorous fantasy for the everyday, working-class Westerosi to aspire to!

    Well, at least, until Jeyne goes missing that is. Then the fairy tale turns into a horror story, where Jeyne is presumed dead and lost in the somewhere in the expansive Stark Nature Preserve, and her handsome young fiance is rumored to be the cause of her dissappearance.

    Brienne Tarth is an outsider looking in on the nightmare, and as a park ranger at the Stark Preserve, she’ll do whatever she can to clear Robb’s name, including working with the arrogant, dickish, and infamous Jaime Lannister, a former cop turned private investigator.

    Brienne and Jaime hate each other, and blend like oil and water, but they’re united on one shared goal.

    Find Jeyne, dead or alive, and find out what happened to her.

    Read Chapter 1 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62897734/chapters/161057680

    Read the most recent chapter here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62897734/chapters/204691301

    Okay, into the meat of the chapter!!

    This chapter, like the ones that are going to follow it, is a slower, more emotional chapter. I like to keep some pacing in mind when writing these stories. Fanfiction is a very forgiving genre when it comes to pacing, but I still like to keep both plots relevant in each chapter.

    Action is going to speed up once we hit the early to mid twenties in the chapter count, and I need the romance to be further established if I want certain moments to have full emotional pay off, so now that I have established a mutual emotional care for each other….I need to instigate some romance!

    In my drafts I always picutred the romantic confrontation to happen the night of Qhorin’s Christmas-but-I-can’t-call-it-Christmas party, because it would be the perfect opportunity. Satin would be there, someone Brienne has had a crush on in the past and on-going friendship with and of course, some others (which I won’t name for the sake of preserving the drama) which would bring up some feelings of jealousy and protectiveness in Jaime, which would then lead to him confronting some other feelings.

    But, I didn’t always plan for the kiss to happen BEFORE the party, and I’m not sure how I feel about the decision, but it’ll be a nice challenge to write. I’m thinking both canon Brienne and Jaime are deeply emotional people who have romantic ideas of love, but are also kind of detached from their feelings and afraid of their feelings. Jaime can’t seem to relate his interest in Brienne’s, Hildy’s, and Pia’s bodies to sexual interest, like he thinks sexual desire is something that he can only feel when Cersei is involved. Brienne is in love with Jaime by the time AFFC ends, but tells herself to think of Renly instead when she rememberrs Jaime in the bath, and her subconcious replaces Renly with Jaime in the dreams.

    So, I’m going to translate this into my story by having some miscommunication about the kiss and their feelings, only for a true confession to come out later :).

    But that’s for later!

    Some more notes on this chapter:

    Sansa’s clothing is inspired by the regalia of the indigenous peoples of Canada and Northern America, in canon there is a lot of parallels drawn between the First Men and indigenous people, so I decided I would add an element of that into this chapter. If you are wondering if Sansa will take a more active role in this story, I will tell you I don’t actually know, she may or may not! We’ll see where the wind takes us.

    Also, I’m imagining, that since Brienne is from a more isolated, rural island, that she has a stronger sense of hospitality and properity than Jaime does, kind of this world’s version of country manners. And the dessert glasses are Satin’s, in case anyone was curious.

    Anyways, I don’t plan these chapter retrospectives and write off the top of my head, so I don’t have a closing paragraph to leave you with! If you have any questions about this chapter, or Spiderling in general, feel free to comment here or on Ao3. Thanks for reading!

  • The New Priests of Moloch

    The past couple days, while the world around me backslides into a fascistic nightmare, I’ve been getting more and more into Gnosticism and other ancient pre-JudeoChristian religions. The Middle and Near East are and always have been fascinating places that give birth to things of great beauty and fear. 

    Before the birth of Jesus Christ, before the formation of the earliest churches or temples, there were many gods in the desert, and many of them were angry. The one that sticks out the most in the modern cultural context (besides, you know, Yahweh) is Moloch, a being of great power and even greater wrath.  Passages in the Tanakh describe the Cannanites sacrificing their young children into a blazing fire to spare themselves of Moloch’s divine rage and then go on to condemn the practice. 

    Anti-semitic, slack-jawed, cowed and frightened Q-Anon conspiracists have taken this cultural memory and turned it into something very literal. They flock to their chatrooms and top-secret Facebook pages and tell each other that Jeffrey Epstein sacrificed the children born of his trafficking victims to Moloch, they send PMs to each other talking about how  Kris Jenner drinks the  adrenaline-laced blood of little children before an altar to preserve her beauty. They create Whatsapp groups where they try to decode the messages of an all-powerful, red-blooded American called Q that some believe to be Donald Trump and then create grand plans to free trafficked children from furniture warehouses and other stupid shit like that. 

    But, as disgusted and embarrassed as these racist, dull, and gullible anti-semites make me feel I have to remind myself that they are the same animal I am. The same urges and desires that I feel, they feel as well. 

    They want comfort and warmth.  They want to be held and reassured because they can tell with their primal, vestigial senses that  something is off about the world that surrounds us. Something blue, vital, and beautiful is missing, and its absence frightens all of us, even those of us that won’t let themselves acknowledge that fear. 

    And, they are right about one thing, Moloch has returned, and his appetite is more voracious than ever.  

    You see, scholars are in disagreement about what, or who, Moloch really was. His status as an actual Canaanite  deity has been a subject of debate since the 1930s, seeing as the word for a child offering was “molek.” Were the authors of the Tanakh condemning child sacrifices to a very real deity, or were they condemning child sacrifice as a practice all on its own?  

    Since then, Moloch has evolved within Christian culture to represent evil itself, a specific demon, a specific  Prince of Hell, a specific type of evil, and, under that new skin, I would say Moloch is very real indeed. 

    He is alive on message boards, as young white men make games of creating new slurs for other people. He is living in the flat, empty eyes of our politicians as they dispense the grand declarations of violence and dissent. He hides under the masks of cowering men and slithers into the barrels of their guns.  

    He was in the street the day that Renee Nicole Good was shot in the head by Jonothan Ross, and came tumbling out of Ross’ mouth as he cursed the woman that he had just murdered as a “fucking bitch.” 

    He does not need an altar, such frivolity is beneath him now. He doesn’t need his followers to claim him as their god, he does not need incense or prayers, or the slaughtering of goats. 

    He has more than enough, he is well-fed and growing hungrier every minute. And what will his new priests feed him? 

    Well, his priests will feed him human beings, like they always have. But the bodies that will tumble into the molek  this time won’t just be infant, they will be of a great variety. 

    They will be dark-skinned and dark-haired,  chained at the ankle and wrist. They will be mentally ill, unwanted and unhoused. They will be disabled, male and female, trans and intersex. They will be the bodies of dissenters, bodies of collaborators, the bodies of those who fought for freedom and those that tried to escape. And in the end, when Moloch has eaten in the world, when it seems like there is nothing else to give, the bodies will start to look a lot like you.

  • The Ghost in the Rock, Chapter 10

    Hello there!

    This is the update for my on-going ASOIAF fanfiction, The Ghost in the Rock.

    TGITR takes place in a modern AU, Brienne of Tarth is a working single mother in a hot, sweaty town in the Riverlands, doing what she can to make a life for herself and her daughter. Jaime Lannister is her co-worker and a source of much irritation (and desire) in her life. She knows little about his past except for the violent crime he committed that saw him disowned from his family fortune and esteemed place in the world.

    One summer night they’re thrust into a terrifying, and inexplicable experience that changes their understanding of the world itself and puts them into grave danger. Suddenly the find themselves working against a supernatural force to save themselves and those they hold dear.

    Read the latest chapter here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66325276/chapters/198672296

    Well hey anyone out there! Been a bit since I’ve had time to write and post a chapter retrospective. I work in retail and the week leading up to Christmas has been a flurry of long hours and back to back shifts.

    But, apologies aside, let’s get into the chapter!

    This chapter is a Hyle/Brienne/Rainbow dominant chapter and, since I’m a Cancer, I love writing family dynamics.

    Hyle is written in the series as a less cool, kind of Proto-Jaime, same irreverent sense of humor, cool confidence and flirty-as-a-baseline kind of personality. But, unlike Jaime, there is very little depth to him. Jaime has a core of sincerity and sensitivity under his mean-girl/jock outer layer, while he is cynical about most of the things others think of as important, he takes his love very seriously.

    Meanwhile Hyle doesn’t seem like the type of guy who cares about ANYONE or ANYTHING with any particular intensity and seems to have a natural repulsion towards deep thought of any kind.In AFFC he’s shocked and angered by Brienne’s continued dislike towards him, almost as if he’s just now coming to the realization that Brienne is an equally sentient being.

    In the context of TGITR he’s more than a few years emotionally matured past that sleaze-ball who played a vicious joke on an innocent person, and while he does feel shame, he feels a stronger urge to protect his self image as a “good guy.”

    I wanted to mirror a dynamic I see in a lot of co-parenting dynamics where one parent has to urge the the other to take their child into account when it comes to planning their life, that parent usually being the the primary-parent. Like in the books, it’s only with Brienne’s insistence and presence that Hyle begins to feel any kind of responsibility or sense of care for others.

    I also thought it would be realistic to include the clashing parental styles, I imagine Brienne as being a more emotionally mature parent, going out of her way to explain things to children and actively guide them as we see her do with Podrick Payne. Hyle in canon says he think’s children should be ignored until they reach puberty, which mirrors how a lot of people think of children even in the modern day; almost-people who exist to serve the emotional and practical interests of the adults (the real people) around them.

    Now moving onto the phone call with Jaime, I would say it is my least favorite part of the chapter. I like writing mutually antagonistic Braime, comfortable familiarity Braime, and mutual pining Braime. I’m in an odd place in this chapter because Jaime and Brienne aren’t in any of those positions with each other at this point in the story. J

    Jaime is in love with Brienne. She is suspicious of him. They’re both connected through their mutual care for Tyrion/Tysha and their shared responiblities at work. They are tacitly polite flip-flopping between moments of flirtatiousness and genuine dislike (from Brienne’s side).

    It was tricky to write, I don’t want to overdevelop the relationship, but don’t want their later romance to seem unfounded. It’s a long way to Casterly Rock you know?

    But, I like writing a them as coworkers, I think one of the most charming Braime hallmarks is how well they work as a team. They have an immediate understanding of each other that they don’t have with any other characters and I just love how they bounce off of each other, even when they hate each other!

    Oh, and before I go, a note on Tysha’s characterization: I am essentially making another OC in having her play such a large role in the story. All we know about her in canon is that she’s a young girl who is briefly in love with the equally young Tyrion and then horrorifically abused and disposed of, another crushed human being under the wheel of feudalism and a device in Tyrion’s story. So, I decided to make her into an artsy and kind, but slightly self-centered young woman.

    I thought that since Tyrion is kind of over-dramatic at times, self-centered and interested in philosophy and science that an over-dramatic, self-centered art school graduate would just to his taste. I actually quite like the woman that I wrote into this story, I’ve known her so many times in my life and in so many places, and she always lights up a room.

    Anyways, that’s all folks! Thanks for reading if you did, and there is more to come!

  • The Ghost in the Rock, Chapter 9

    Hello there!

    This is the update for my on-going ASOIAF fanfiction, The Ghost in the Rock.

    TGITR takes place in a modern AU, Brienne of Tarth is a working single mother in a hot, sweaty town in the Riverlands, doing what she can to make a life for herself and her daughter. Jaime Lannister is her co-worker and a source of much irritation (and desire) in her life. She knows little about his past except for the violent crime he committed that saw him disowned from his family fortune and esteemed place in the world.

    One summer night they’re thrust into a terrifying, and inexplicable experience that changes their understanding of the world itself and puts them into grave danger. Suddenly the find themselves working against a supernatural force to save themselves and those they hold dear.

    Read Chapter 1 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66325276/chapters/171008536

    Read the newest chapter here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66325276/chapters/194019386

    Notes on the chapter:

    This chapter was largely delayed due to some struggle with motivation and writer’s block. I re-wrote the first half of the chapter two times and I’m still not entirely pleased with it. I worry that in my attempt to cultivate a narrative thread of interpersonal drama that I might alienate readers who are reading solely for the ship. While I want to write my story, I still want people to READ my story ya know?

    I’ve been finding I really like writing about crappy ex/current boyfriends about as much as I like writing steamy romantic tension. I love the tension that comes from the characters hating each other and then realizing they’re stuck with each other for the rest of their lives.

    The second half of the chapter includes on the bigger scares so far, and I think the scene came out okay. I feel like there should be more but I continue to re-read it and find nothing else I can do to improve it, even though I WANT to improve it. I’m worried that some of book!Brienne’s bravery and calm has been lost slightly in this chapter. But there’s not really a canon-model of how Brienne reacts to profound horror until the last two chapters of AFFC, and she spends much of that time restrained and made powerless. I think a Brienne with the ability to react to a supernatural threat would react, and would react as sensibly as she could under the circumstances.

    Another gripe I have with this chapter is I feel like my descriptors are a bit lacking. I can’t read something that’s overwritten but hate it when no settings or environments are described. I am that meme of Spiderman pointing at himself.

  • My first post!

    Hello there! I’m glad you’re here, if anyone is here at all.

    My name is Sarah (not to be obvious) and this is my writing blog (shocker I know.)

    I plan on posting content related to my fanfiction, updates, chapter overviews, ideas and the like. I also plan on posting about my original work as well as the occasional thought blurb or recipe.

    If you’re here this early on I am going to assume it’s from the link in my next update of one of my WIPs, The Ghost in the Rock. That update has been a long time coming but I’ve been feeling very drained lately.

    I’m very excited to use this blog as a tool for furthering my writing skills, and if you’re here I’m grateful!

    Hope to see you soon!