A Little About Nova Chapter 23

 

Dear Lile,

My head is still spinning from Rogue's ending and just how much I fell into that serial...are we calling it a serial or shot ? I could "listen" to you talk about your process, hopes and dreams all day. I was re-reading the comments and I feel like the least I can do with my platform is throw some nudges for an update about Red Booth. Either way,  I am so excited for everything coming next!

Speaking of Red Booth, Lile made a comment in my comment section about not mentioning accessibility in NYC in Goodwill. I saw it as Tomas  knowing how to navigate his areas of the city. I think there is mention of him being carried in the basement at the tattoo shop. I brought it up in Years because they are all unfamiliar with the city

 Nova

I wanted to talk about Nova a little bit since this is the first time we are getting  him from an adult's POV. Nova is partly the way he is as a result of free range parenting. He spent most of his childhood and preteen years being watched by Sara and Luce and they both have a very early 80s idea about parenting where kids stay outside the house and just come home before the streetlights come on.

Because Nova is friends with Holland, who is older and had to grow up quickly herself, he tends to get involved in things he is too young for. Also, Haley hasn't done the best job creating the parent/friend boundary.

A loft of his behavior is the behavior he had in the Vice!Verse but I think it comes across differently IRL.

Recap

After their 6th attempt at IVF fails, Haley and Luce decide to stop trying and focus on Nova, who has been getting into increasingly more trouble posting inappropriate pictures and sneaking out to meet an older boy. Just when Haley decides to send him out of state with his sister Isla, he learns his brother died. A brother Luce didn't know about...

We're still in summer 2018, this picks up a few days after the last chapter....

Chapter 23

Playlist

-1- Delicate by Taylor Swift

-2- Piece of My Heart by Janis Joplin

-3-  Now or Never by Halsey

Years 22 Burn Baby Burn

 

SHV with Rogue Hangover: Ummm...hey we wrote and titled this post like two weeks ago and moved it to this week.... right ?

CPShawna: Yeah....

 

Burn

Haley's godson Sky is going to make a couple more cameos and I kind of forgot what how to write him  so I ended up...re-reading  Burn over break ? Burn was this really random thing I wrote but...it's maybe one of my top 5 Vice things ?

I'm not saying it's good, because it really bounces around in genre and tone, but it captures so much of what interests me. It had the SFF element, some mild cyberpunk leftovers from Vice and takes some big melodramatic turns which are always fun to write.

Sky is a lonely kid who always wanted a family and when he discovers he has one he expects to find the loving, functional, whole family he sees on TV and instead finds the exact opposite.  At one point Lansing Prescott is just wandering around drunk and treats Sky like the 3-year-old he lost as he grits his teeth through a  sham marriage with Maxwell so Maxwell can be president because even though he's seen Maxwell's dark side he's still in love with the idea of him.

I think that's why I subconsciously gave Lansing a mini-HEA in this. I'm not sure I  know how to flex my cyberpunk muscle anymore but their is a certain "cold cruel world" aspect that doesn't exist  when I jumped it in modern times. I just want everyone to be okay...but I miss the darkness 😈. 

UPDATE: Uh, so Lile talked about this serial in her Rogue wrap up and I do not remember anyone having sex in front of anyone...it's from a 16yo POV so it wasn't on page but maybe I inferred it ? Now that I think about it...I didn't read the last chapter...it's not my fave, I like the melodrama parts.

Years 21

I really had fun breaking away from prose with that last chapter. The chapter originally opened with Haley at Nova's school and as they fought in the coffee shop they do a reveal of what had happened in the previous year but it felt very info dump-y. 

Years 22 

Recap

Sara Grace turns herself in and spends 11 months in federal prison. She is now free to live her life and decides she wants to spend half the year in New York with  her daughter Twyla and half the year in Las Vegas with Luce and Rias.

Nova is kicked out of school for possession of marijuana and has to go to school online. Despite Nova's mounting behavior problems Haley still wants a baby and after they learn Luce's sperm are nonviable Twyla agrees to be the surrogate and egg donor. In my head that chapter was fall 2017 and this chapter is going to cover about six months later in summer 2018...

Years 22

Playlist 

-1- Rain on Me by Lady Gaga

-2- Sorry Not Sorry by Demi Lovato (I picked this song weeks ago, I swear)

-3- Silence by Marshmello (This one too)

-4- Beige by Yolk Lore

Follow The >>> Years 21

 Hi !

The trailer for this movie about two married men in their late 50s and one of them has an illness gave me some serious Years-ish vibes and is also a great example of what I mean when I say everyone is hot.

I will likely never see this movie (I'm honestly not sure my heart could take it 😥) but I love that this is what 59 looks like now! Colin Firth has some Luce-like features a little.

What I Did Over My Break

I never really had  plan for my break and I didn't get as much done as I wanted. I'm working on the pen-penultimate section right now and it is creeping along sentence by sentence.

No new plot bunnies showed up but I'm okay with that.

Also, one of the future chapters (assuming I don't do some big overhaul) is going to be close to 10K!

Recap

In 1998 Luce Grace helps Alex Haley escape from an abusive relationship with porn producer Kenneth Maxwell and in 2002 they begin dating. Over the next 14 years Haley becomes a nurse, has a son, Luce suffers a stroke and crashes his car leaving him  with traumatic brain injury and paralyzed on one side. The accident puts a strain on their relationship  but find their way back to each other through their shared connection and BDSM. Luce  relaunches their bankrupted company Fallwater on a smaller scale to build fetish websites and supplements his income with a part time job teaching math at a community college.

In 2016 they get married and Luce adopts Nova--who has ADHD and (along with his best friend Holland) has become something of a troublemaker. At 11 the two steal expensive makeup and in the middle of Luce and Haley's  honeymoon they discover 12-year-old Nova has skipped school to spend time with Lindsey Gregory, the girlfriend of a boy who made fun of Nova in a group chat.

 Just as it seems like Luce and Haley have their future figured out they find out Sara turned herself in for running away from police custody in Arizona in 1990 and was able to plead out for a 5 month stint in federal prison...Luce is not happy...

Years 21 (Follow the >>>)

Playlist

-1- Bloodstain by Wrabel

-2- Long Way Down by Tom Odell

-3- Overhwhelmed by  

-4- Your Song by Rita Ora