I'm having a rough day for writing. I'm not sure where I want to go or what I want to say. I don't know much about the characters, except Valerie. I have vague ideas only.

I was talking about them to Aeryn while we waited for the bus, and she had some good ideas. Their novel is accidentally very similar to mine in the idea, but fundamentally there are a lot of differences. Anyway, they suggested doing a sort of character sketch of the Endless City, you know, political structure, government, all that. Something outside of my actual words.

Here's the vision I have so far: interspersed with action in the hospital (with flashbacks about getting there, life before, etc), she tangles with this prickly, perpetually amused, above-it-all person until she learns more about the Nature of the World. she realizes slowly that

(thought: "You can't realize a thing any other way than suddenly, I think. The seeds might be there, the truth you're not willing to look at, but looking it full in the face is something that happens in an instant. There's no slow progression; there is only not-knowing in the face of increasing odds.")

she realizes the nature of power in this place, well actually first she realizes that it's real, fairly quickly. that they know about the outside, they can act independently of her, even do things she can't do. even control her in ways. control the front. interact with the front. etc. so then she realizes that the power structure is not her idea of fair: a political sort of thing. and she goes on some Quest some Cynical Crusade to make things better. possibly when she starts going too far some Miss Shirley type even locks her away from the front. and stuff like that. i don't know how it ends.

i'm thinking the Endless City is ruled supposedly by a council, which listens to the public and pretends to fairness. but the miss shirley type is the only real person in this council, and she or he is a puppet of the Dark Organization. who oppresses the City how? i don't fucking know. my head hurts. each person each type of person has their own job, their own people they're allowed to interact with, their own amount of freedom. the prison is often arranged to look not like a prison, such as for Valerie.

wow, my head hurts suddenly. i will have to save the intensive thinking for later.

On a lighter note, I got a Sony Clie!!!!!!! It is so fantabulously fantabulous that I can't hardly believe it. It's such a new model that there's no fold-out keyboard for it, though. Hopefully they'll come out with one soon. 3rd quarter 2002, is what stowaway's site said. So. I wait.

We also got tons of halloween candy, but that's entry fodder for a different journal.