Curiously Cryptic

[wayfaringwordhack]

I'm going through plot notecards I wrote back in Mayotte (the same cards that feature in the icon I'm using here, actually), which means I wrote them years ago* and don't always remember exactly what I was thinking. Take this gem for example:

X sleeps with Y; not shedding blood.

Huh? I have absolutely NO idea what I was talking about. Whose blood? Why sleeping together and blood on same card?  Nope, no idea.

Ah ha!  Being the unfocused, distractable idjit multitasker that I am, I am continuing to read, edit, and file the cards as I type this entry, and I just came across a card that explains the above reference to bloodshed!  I'm not as daft as I think I am.  Er, or something.


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* So long ago that three of the five POV characters had different names. :P The joys of plotting before worldbuilding

Comments

[pjthompson]

My immediate thought was: pregnant.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

That occurred to me, but since X is male and it is from his POV, that didn't seem right. However, it turns out that after sleeping with women, he would shed some of his blood along with a prayer that they didn't get pregnant. The idea behind the not shedding blood after sleeping with Y is that he has come to care for her.

So, almost right. :P I don't think I'm going to incorporate this idea, though.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Fascinating!

[pjthompson]

Well, as Francesca said, it's a fascinating idea.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I have it filed away just in case I change my mind. :P

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Ha! I hadn't gotten that far, but good guess.

[pjthompson]

Ha--I don't know what is says about me. :-)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I have a note that I scrawled on paper and stuck to the fridge on my way to bed (too tired to come to my desk):

long marches

black grasshoppers.

I know that "long marches" was an idea I had for a poem, and I know "black grasshoppers" was a detail I wanted to use in my Pen Pal novel but... I haven't the faintest idea what I wanted to do with the black grasshoppers. Next time, I need to scrawl MORE.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

That is the way with brilliant thoughts, I've found: they are fleeting.

They are so perfect, so right, so seemingly substantial you're sure the merest phrase will recall your genius from the cubbyholes of your creative mind when at last you give the idea your full (fool?) attention.

[pjthompson]

Maybe we should start a blog for lost ideas. :-D

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

But would we be able to find the blog, much less remember it exists? ;)

[pjthompson]

So true!