LAST EDITED ON Aug-29-01 AT 06:07 AM (EDT)

>>His family. He has got one...
>
>We don't by any chance know his father, do we?

No, but we know one of his distinguished early ancestors, and a member of his contemporary extended family, if we have the sort of grounding in fantasy and SF that I have, anyway.

>>Rina Dragonaar, now, she wasn't planned the whole time.
>
>Well, three cheers for that happy accident. I'm certainly sold. :)

(The scene: Gryphon's office at the Eyrie Productions studio complex in Worcester, previously seen in the meta-continuity segments of NXE Bonus Theater!!)

"Hi, I'm here for the major supporting character role?"

"Um, we haven't got any major supporting character roles open right now. The only role I'm looking for right now is the random Pilot Officer who escorts Devlin to the flight deck."

"Yeah, I know. That's me."

"... Oh."

"Hey, is that my description you're writing there? Scratch that comparison to Azalynn, Chief. I'm short - " (bounce) " - but I ain't petite."

"... Um... Yeah. Look, why don't you wait in the hall? That's really distracting."

"Sorry."

Just another day at Studio 7-G. (Frankly, I think Rina's a runaway from a Fred Perry porn short, looking for more challenging dramatic work. :)

>Otherwise, I think I need a sedative. That portion was decidedly
>manic in a most controlled way. Were you going for getting the reader
>to hold their breath for the entire read, or what?

Not really - I had a concept, so I decided I'd just run with the flow and see how it came out. It started out kind of slow and felt a bit awkward - some creative flows are like shoveling sand and some are like breaking rocks, and Courtship was like breaking rocks for the first few scenes. After I got them to Gamilon, though, things picked up.

While I'm on the subject - the Symphony creative process has been really interesting thus far. A lot of things are developing that I hadn't anticipated... like the fact that it'll take probably five entr'actes, an interlude and an intermezzo to fill the gap between the Fourth and Fifth Movements, despite the fact that that's only four weeks in which nothing of any particular significance happens in the world at large. I can't recall anything like this having happened before; I've digressed from time to time, but usually if I've had an arc plotted, what comes in under it will wait to be backfilled later if the opportunity arises. That's not happening here.

What's happening instead is that the characters are all basically demanding that screen time be given to their development as people outside the context of the main arc as well as within it, before that arc sweeps them up into the next major development Hunted Rose. Hence A Question of Faith, The Courtship of Princess Dessler, Ohtori Academy Spring Semester Blues, and the remaining unfinished bits, whose current working titles are (in chronological order):

• On the Road, Part 1: Hogtown Rhapsody


• On the Road, Part 2: The Rose that Blooms in the City of Light


• Just Like Any Other Wednesday and


• Interlude at Bancroft Tower in D Minor.

I'm especially fond of Interlude at Bancroft Tower; it was the first piece of the Symphony to be actually completed, since it slammed its way out of my head in a single night while I was supposed to be working on Wounded Rose and, in doing so, completely, pre-retroactively (go figure that) changed the character of what was supposed to be a minor, comedy-oriented subplot in Christmas Rose.

Naturally, as I'm that fond of it, it'll be the last of the things I can actually release. Sigh.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/