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UPDATE
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Jun. 26th, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
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It's been a while since I used this journal because this was mainly my journal for when I was doing NaNo. My normal journal can be found at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tyger_raven. However, since I was given a nudge by one of my LJ friends to update this journal, I decided I'd do just that.
There was much rejoicing when I finished this, my first NaNovel. Then I took two months, during which time I flip-flopped between thinking my novel was okay or that it sucked. But, eventually, I decided that at had enough merit that it warranted at least one rounds of editing. I lucked out that I found a couple of writers in my city who wanted to form a critiquing group. This has been the most rewarding part of my writing career to date.
Much of what has become Fairy Dust has changed from the rough draft, and I'm close to being halfway through the first edit. It's showing some promise, but it's also becoming a very challenging project because I keep changing things around to fix one thing that bothered me but wind up creating two or three other issues by fixing the one thing. :-P
But, I'm going to plod along. Whether I have something worthy of publishing or not, I know that this whole process is teaching me to become a better writer. |
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Nov. 11th, 2005 @ 12:16 pm
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I didn't do much writing last night. I sat down to write, but I was trying to watch TV and write. It's just not a good combination for me. Plus I was trying to decide if I was going to show Chase coming to get Eden to take her to the hospital, or if I was just going to skip the hospital scene and start with her trying to sleep after her traumatic night.
I'm still not one hundred percent sure what I'm going to do which will likely hinder my writing until I make up my mind. Maybe I was insane to write that scene of horror. But, if it was the only thing I did to cause Eden mental anguish and give her nightmares, then maybe I can pull her out of this story with her sanity intact. However, I still have at least one more piece of trauma for her, plus there's something that's to come that will radically change her relationship with her family. That's a lot for my young girl to deal with. Yet, we as human beings are very resilient when we choose to be. I believe I can bring her through the darkness with her optimism mostly intact. |
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I reached the end of part one last night. I'm excited because it felt like magic how I reached the conclusion to the first half of Eden's first year of college. So, now it's onward and upward for the last half and Part Two.
And I've made some editorial decisions that will affect the impact of my story from here on out. For the benefit of putting it all down on paper, and for the benefit of my readers (you wonderful, wonderful people you), I'll give a brief synopsis of what I'm planning.
( Read more... )
Until then, here's my Word Progress:
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Nov. 7th, 2005 @ 04:24 pm
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I don't have an excerpt yet, but I do have a word count for the record.
In other news, I really need to make a note that I need to decide where my chapters go in my story. I'm usually so adamant about putting in chapters, but lately I've just been writing the scenes and only putting in chapters that make sense.
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I need some opinions about something that is to come in my book. First off, the love triangle between Eden, Caleb and Chase has radically changed from what I had originally planned (funny how that happens, huh?). Instead of Eden being torn between the two men in her life, I've established that Eden was originally involved with Caleb all throughout high school, but she broke things off with him prior to going away to college. The truth for her was that she just never loved him, but she didn't want to hurt him. Therefore, she used the excuse of going to college as a reason to break it off. She meets Caleb in her first week, and she's immediately smitten with him.
Now, Caleb enters the picture b/c she's gone home for the weekend. Since I've been given a chance to explore his character, I've discovered that he's not the upstanding citizen I originally planned. He's terribly jealous of any guy Eden might show interest in, and he's completely ignoring the fact that she broke things off with him.
Here's the thing I need feedback on. The thought occurred to me that my antagonist could use Caleb to get at Eden (since he can't go after her himself). I'm thinking that Caleb will become more and more mentally unstable to the point that he rapes Eden. The thing is, I don't know if I should go that far. I know that people get a bad taste in their mouth where rape is concerned (as they should because anything violent like that is evil), but I don't want to skip out on the chance to be daring and pack an emotional wallop by not doing it. Any thoughts??
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| » I'm a writing fool!! |
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just finished for the night, and I have almost reached the 15k mark. I'll be done in no time if I keep at this pace.
Nov. 4th, 2005 @ 12:13 am
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| » It's going so well!! |
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I'm having a blast and kicking word tail.
here's the count:
Nov. 3rd, 2005 @ 05:03 pm
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| » My Job, the answer to writer's block. |
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Okay, I'm doing word wars with people and it's doing wonders for my novel. It helps that I have a loose job structure b/c I'm writing on company time.
Here's my progress:
Nov. 2nd, 2005 @ 04:43 pm
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| » I'm on my way!! |
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Last night, I gathered with two other NaNo'ers in my area for a first minute write-in. We met at 11 pm and talked for an hour (oh and had foods), then when the clock turned 12:00:01, we began writing. I was a little apprehensive that I wouldn't get much done b/c I'm still not used to my laptop yet (it has a habit of moving my cursor around because the mouse pad is super sensitive and is right where my right thumb is. So, I have to hit the space bar with my left thumb to keep it from happening. I can't guarantee that there's much in my opening scene that I care to keep, but the good thing is I wrote 1,157 words in just about an hour. My daily goal is 2,000 and the absolute minimum is 1,677, so I only have to write at least 520 words by tonight (which is a piece of cake).
I plan on letting ya'll see the craptacularness that I've written so far, but I still have to d/l my writing from my laptop to a floppy and then transfer it from the floppy to my work comp. If all goes well, I'll do that over my lunch break and have something for you guys to laugh over and make fun of by this afternoon.
Hope everyone's NaNo experience is going well.
Nov. 1st, 2005 @ 10:57 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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So I was sitting on my thinking throne* again today when the thought occurred to me. Eden is a diarist (one who keeps a diary). I can totally use this to let her include entries in the story on the days that I'm stuck on where to take the story. You know, like after she finds out she's a fairy, I could include an entry or so of hers where she discusses how she feels about what she's discovered. Does that sound interesting?
At this point, I'm more concerned about getting through the project with 50k words than how it all fits together, so I'm always going to be looking for ways I can "cheat"**
Hmm, NaNo will be upon me faster than I think, so I'd best get ready.
- EJC
* for anyone that doesn't know about the thinking throne (which incidentally I just coined that term just now so no one knows about it), this is a less than disgusting term to use for the toilet which is where I, for reasons that elude me, often come up with some of my best ideas.
** I'm not looking for a way to actually cheat since that sort of defeats the whole purpose of NaNo. I guess what I'm looking for is ways I can stall things when I'm stuck without actually stopping the story. Some ways I've "cheated" or stalled with my first novel is to include a scene that has nothing to do with the thing that's got me stuck. Like when I was trying to decide how I was going to handle Cara learning how to travel from earth to the demon world, I just decided to do another scene with her boyfriend and the woman that tried to kill her. That way, the story can progress, time can pass (to which she's learning how to travel off-panel), and still give me time to decide what I'm going to do about my being stuck. I think it worked even though I didn't actually describe/tell how Cara learned to step through the fabric that separates her world from the demon world.
Oct. 27th, 2005 @ 12:36 pm
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| » Almost NaNo time |
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Here it is, less than a week from NaNo and I'm almost completely winging it. In fact, I'm so tempted to switch plots that it's only having this journal with the title of the current plot in it that's keeping me from switching. I still have ideas for "If Wishes Were Horses", so it's not a total loss that I'm sticking with my original plan. It's just that ideas of my "Macabre, Ca" novel keep poking their heads out.
So, I've decided that I'm going to create a fictional college for Eden to attend. Mostly because I don't want to spend the time it would take to research the real school. :-P I went to the Louisville college website and was pretty much confuzzled on where things were. I think I'm going to borrow the layout of my school but make it bigger for Eden's school. I've decided what will happen between Eden and Emily that will give Emily an idea of Eden's secret.
See, when Eden starts college, her hair will gradually start turning purple. It'll start out with purple strands, then streaks. But by the end of her first month of school, her hair will look purple. At first she'll just think it's something to do with chemicals playing havok with her hair, but then she'll suspect that it's just some weird mutation that no one's ever heard of. When others notice it, she'll play it down that she decided to experiment with dyes because she really doesn't want to become someone's lab rat as they try to decide what happened. Then, one day Emily will just go, "That color is so radical. I wish I had purple hair like yours." The next morning it'll start gradually turning purple like Eden's did at first. In Emily's folklore and fairy tales class, she'll be reading up on fairies. She'll read up on wish fairies and will remember that she often got things she wished for.
Okay, I'm rambling. I'll come up with a rudimentary plot later.
Oct. 26th, 2005 @ 01:52 pm
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| » NaNo Kick-Off Party in San Francisco Report |
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I was too excited, worn out, pumped, all-in-my-head last night when I wrote about the NaNoWriMo kick-off party to even begin to do it justice. So, let me go back a bit.
( Read more... )
I'm going to try and keep everyone updated on how things go throughout the month. And my sincere hope is that by November 30, I'll be in a celebrating mood because I'll have reached my goal and am a NaNo success!!
Cross-Posted to my regular journal tyger_raven
Oct. 21st, 2005 @ 10:49 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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I'm trying to get into my characters' heads so that I know them when I get ready to write. I'll detail most of the things I know about Eden as a character later, but since she's the main character and the one I've focused on the most, I decided to think about Caleb to try and get a feel for who he is.
And, since Caleb is a neighbor who needed a reason for spending so much time over at Eden's family ranch. That lead to creating his brother, Noah, who is the same age as Jarod, Eden's oldest brother. And since I already created a brother for him, I just decided to give him another brother, Daniel who's close in age to Casey and Corey Chambers.
As for Caleb, being the oldest of three children, Caleb was used to be the mature one. His parents knew he was responsible, so he got a lot of freedom as a young man. His childhood was pretty normal, he was two years old when his brother Noah was born, he liked to play in games like hide and seek in the woods. His mother encouraged him to bring friends from school home to play. At first, he really didn't have much to do with the Chambers clan since their farm is about two miles away from his family's home. It wasn't until Noah started school and became best friends with Jarod that he had anything to do with Eden or her family. But because Noah was his responsibility, he'd often accompany Noah to the ranch.
Originally, Caleb was a year ahead of Eden in school, but in third grade, he got so sick that he missed too many days of school and had to be held back. Suddenly he was in Eden's grade, and since they knew each other already, Caleb eventually started hanging out with her group. That all changed when Caleb was sixteen and his father died suddenly of a heart attack. Caleb quickly stepped into the role of family provider and received a job with Eden's father at the ranch. He still got to see Eden nearly every day, but that would change how they related since she was still in school and he was now a working man.
Well, that's where I've gotten about his background so far. I need to do one of those character sheets, but I have been too lazy. :-P
Oct. 10th, 2005 @ 05:31 pm
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| » Birthdays- Lots and Lots of Birthdays |
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One of the things I feel very important when writing a novel is to know the ages and birthdays of characters, especially if you have a big cast and do flashbacks. So, here is a list of characters and their birthdays. There are more characters here than I'll probably use, but they're a part of the overall story, so I went ahead and named them and gave them birthdays.
The Chambers Family
Hazel Mayflower Chambers (Mother)- April 6, 1962 (42 yrs old)
Jerry Chambers (Father)- January 23, 1961 (43 yrs old)
Eden Chambers (Main Character)- July 4, 1986 (19 yrs old)
Jarod Chambers- May 1, 1987 (18 yrs old)
Muriel Chambers- February 14, 1988 (17 yrs old)
Martha Chambers- February 14, 1988 (17 yrs old)
Craig Chambers- December 24, 1988 (16 yrs old)
Christopher Chambers- December 24, 1988 (16 yrs old)
Britney Chambers- November 14, 1989 (15 yrs old)
Holly Chambers- September 29, 1990 (15 yrs old)
Molly Chambers- September 29, 1990 (15 yrs old)
Casey Chambers- August 14, 1991 (14 yrs old)
Corey Chambers- August 14, 1991 (14 yrs old)
Garry Chambers (Teeter)- November 24, 2000 (4 yrs old)
Larry Chambers (Tink)- November 24, 2000 (4 yrs old)
Emily's Friends
Emily Vandross- July 16, 1987 (18 yrs old)
Caleb Fairmont- June 14, 1985 (20 yrs old)
Chance Smythe- August 27, 1986 (19 yrs old)
Whew!!
Oct. 7th, 2005 @ 12:49 pm
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| » Wishes Plot Info |
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Premise: Eden Chambers is a young energetic college student with optimism like you would not believe. Her childhood was idealic. Everything always worked out for her family, and her father became one of the biggest Horse breeders in a matter of 10 years. The oldest of 13 children, she's used to being around lots of people, and things take off for her right away. She makes lots of friends and is very popular. There's a reason fortune always smile on her and those around her. She's actually a wish fairy, a member of royalty because they grant wishes without thinking about it. Now that she's moved away to college, things start happening around the ranch and to the family that makes no sense. It's almost like their good fortune has suddenly turned bad. To make matters worse, Lionel Foxx, a powerful business man and werewolf with a taste for Fairies, has decided that he wants to make Eden his next meal. Can Eden's newfound fairy friends help her stay alive? And when forced to choose between two men who are at opposite ends of the spectrum, who will Cara choose, the childhood best friend or the wealthy college student who makes her heart flutter?
Some things that I already know:
- Hazel and Jerry Chambers were a young couple who fell in love despite being from different social circles. Hazel was from a prominent family while Jerry was working class. Hazel had to give up her family and the wealth she'd known because of her love for Jerry.
-Hazel and Jerry always wanted a big family, but for the first five years of their marriage, Hazel was unable to carry a child to term. That would change the night that they found Eden.
- Though Eden wasn't truly their child, Hazel was able to convince a doctor that she'd given birth at home. That doctor signed the birth certificate that gave Eden a human identity.
- Fairies come in many different colors (flesh, purple, green, blue, black, gray, etc). They have the ability to change their skin color to appear human when they desire to walk among the humans. They also are born with wings that are very flexible and transparent. To hide their wings, they fold them up so they lie flat against their backs.
- When the Chambers first discovered Eden, she was her natural color of light blue and her wings were already forming. They wished that there was some way she could appear normal. The next morning, she had changed colors and her wings had disappeared (Due to her wish abilities that kicked in automatically).
- The catch in a wish fairie's ability to grant wishes is that they have to like the person making the wish. If the person is someone they don't know, dislike, are annoyed by, or scared of, nothing will happen.
- There are many different types of fairies with different abilities. Wish fairies grant wishes. There are also fairies that correspond with the seasons, a spring fairy can communicate with plant life and encourage them to grow; a summer fairy has the ability to manipulate heat; an autumn fairy is a harvest fairy with the ability to speak to animals and can control emotions; and a winter fairy is able to generate ice, water, and manipulate the cold. There are representatives of each four types who become Eden's friends, they are Lark, the spring fairy; Meadow, the summer fairy; Dusk, the autumn fairy; and Crystal, the winter fairy.
- Eden is a silverblood, a fairy born with a specific condition where there's silver in her blood. It doesn't have an effect on the fairy, but the silverblood makes werewolves sick, and direct exposure to silverblood can kill them. Therefore, werewolves have made it their goal to kill all the silverbloods they can find. This is why Eden has to be raised by humans. The werewolves wouldn't think to look among humans for a silverblood. I still don't know if her real parents were killed in the process, or if they delivered her to the Chambers and then left her.
I think this is all that I've come up with at the moment. It's going to be a challenge to not start on the book until November 1. Already I get snippets of how the book can start, but I'm sticking to guns and leaving actual writing until NaNo starts.
Oct. 6th, 2005 @ 04:37 pm
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| » First Post |
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Welcome to the first post for my journal that will be used for detailing my NaNoWriMo project. The story is called, "If Wishes Were Horses" and tells the story of a young wish fairy who is abandoned as a baby and taken in by humble horse farmers.
Character List
Eden Chambers- Eden is a bright, kind, and bubbly young woman. She was raised by Hazel and Jerry Chambers, a kind couple who had always wanted children, but up until they found Eden, they had been childless. From the beginning, Eden looked a little different, but because Hazel had wished there was some way for Eden to look normal, Eden's powers kicked in and fulfilled her wish. So, Eden was able to have a normal childhood including being an older sister to her 12 brothers and sisters.
Eden excelled in school and because her parents wished that she could go to the best school possible, she was given a full scholarship to the college of her choice. However, shortly after she left for college, tragic things started happening at home. Could it be that she was the family good luck charm and all the family's fortune depended on her?
Eden looks like a typical young woman. She's got long blonde hair that sparkles when light hits it. Her eyes are a dark blue that shines and is among one of her most attractive parts. She has a petite body that she's kept in good shape through hard work and exercise. And because she was born with a high metabolism, she's able to eat whatever she wants without gaining a pound. However, she's learned to hide that fact because she's learned that her ability to eat anything without consequences makes other girls jealous. She likes to wear her cheerleading outfit as many times as she can, but when she needs to dress normally, she chooses to wear whatever is the latest fashion. Her parents have always sacrificed their own personal wants for their family. But when the farm starts suffering, Eden chooses to take a part-time job to pay for her clothes and books.
Hazel Mayflower Chambers- Hazel caused a scandal with her high society family when she fell for Jerry Chambers, a member of the working class. She gave up her family and money for love, and she never regrets a minute of it. Her dream was to be a good wife to her husband and raise a big family. She was saddened when after five years it appeared that she was unable to have a child. The couple were unable to adopt because they didn't have the money. And then they're little miracle happened when they found an abandoned newborn on their doorstep. Even though she looked different, Hazel fell in love with little Eden the moment their eyes met. When the next morning Eden looked human, Hazel and Jerry thought that maybe their eyes had been playing tricks on them. They would never know that they had taken in a fairy child. And not just any fairy, she was a wish fairy, able to make anyone's wishes come true except for her own.
Hazel had been a petite young woman, but after her twelfth child, she was a little more pudgy than she'd planned. However, she never begrudged the loss of her figure because her children were the product of her life-long dream. Now, she lives to take care of her children and hopes to one day be a grandmother many times over. And despite Eden not being her real child, she loves all her children equally. Her hair has turned white, and she's the spitting image of the kindly young grandmother always wearing her apron because of all the time she spends in the kitchen.
Jerry Chambers- Jerry had been an idealistic young man declaring that life had something better in store for him than the life of a potato farmer. During one of his frequent visits into the nearby big city, Jerry found the woman of his dreams, Hazel Mayflower. Suddenly, his dreams turned to providing a life for himself and wooing his sweetheart. For the first couple of years of their marriage, he worked on his father's farm saving up enough money so that he could raise the horses that he loved so much. The first few years were incredibly difficult, and when Hazel thought she'd be unable to have children, their lives seemed destined for tragedy.
However, as much as things got rough, Jerry refused to quit. A year after they discovered Eden, things suddenly picked up. Within five years after starting his farm, he was raising thoroughbreds that were considered the best horses in the state. Many people were willing to pay him thousands for his horses. When a racetrack was built within a few miles from his farm, his business almost tripled with people wanting to stable their horses with him.
Jerry is a strong man with a wiry frame. His thin frame betrays his strength, and though he would never be considered handsome, he has a charm about him that sets all the women and men at ease. However, everyone knows that he only has eyes for his wife. His hair is a dusty brown color that's always a little too oily and looks slick even when dry. He has light blue eyes that look like liquid ice. His charming nature and permanent smile are his most attractive features.
Emily Vandross- Emily is Eden's college roommate. She's a spoiled rich girl used to getting her way despite her mother's insistance that her father overindulged her. When she arrives at the college, she's assigned the same dorm room as Eden. They hit it off right away because Eden's so easy to get along with, and Emily soon finds that she can manipulate Eden to her advantage. While she's an opportunist, she's not malicious. Yet, she might not be the best influence for Eden. Emily is one of the first people to catch on about Eden's gift for granting wishes. She has no problems with using it to her benefit. If a professor doesn't like her, she waits until Eden gets back to the dorm and wishes that the professor would change their opinion of her.
Emily has long wavy black hair that she almost always wears pulled back in a bow. She had a model's body, but her face is that perfect face that is usually found on a barbie doll or a painter's picture of the ideal woman. Because of her beauty, Emily never has a problem meeting a boy. She dates around quite frequently, and if asked how long she's been socially active, she has no shame in admitting that she's been dating since she was fourteen years old. She likes to wear preppy clothes that are perfectly matched, and her favorite outfit is a plaid woolen skirt that's so short that it's almost not there, a black sweater, and black leggings. She wears outfits that are cutesy so that her father approves, but sexy and provocative enough that she attracts all the boys. Emily is the campus sexpot; all the boys are in love with her and all the girls want to be like her.
Caleb Fairmont- Every girl probably has a Caleb. Caleb is the awkward next door neighbor who's been one of your best friends for as long as you can remember when suddenly one day something changes and there's all this sexual/romantic tension between you two. For as long as Eden can remember, there's been Caleb. When he needed work after his father was injured when he was sixteen, Eden's father, Jerry, hired him. Caleb quit school so that he could provide for his family, and by the time Eden goes to college, he has become a valid part of the Ranch's staff. In fact, every time Jerry goes to the race track to deliver horses, Caleb goes with him. Though Caleb is interested in Eden, he respects her enough not to push his attentions on her. He just lets her know that should she desire more than a friendship, he'll be more than happy to oblige.
Caleb is skinny coming just shy of being skin and bones. He has enough meat so as not to look frail or sickly. He has recently decided to do something to add mass to his body. He's not a weakling, but he's never really felt the need to work out since he works so hard at the ranch. By the time the story starts, he's been going to a gym for about a couple months. He's just now starting to show muscle mass, which means that Eden will just now be starting to see how attractive he is. He has dusty brown hair that could also be considered dirty blond. He likes to keep it short in the back and long on top. Often his bangs are so long that the hair falls into his eyes. He likes to wear practical clothes, a t-shirt and jeans with the occassional dress shirt and khakis when he wants to "dress up". His favorite article of clothing are his work boots with steel toes. For the last three years, it has been Eden's mission to get Caleb in a pair of fancy dress shoes.
Chance Smythe- Chance Smythe is just about the exact opposite of Caleb Fairmont. Chance was born to a wealthy and powerful family. His parents were so obsessed with power and maintaining their social stature that they couldn't be bothered to care for their children. As a result, Chance has spent more time with his nanny, governesses, and later on social coaches that he doesn't really know much about his parents. When Chance was old enough, he was sent to the most prestigious private school which also happened to be a boarding school. Chance only came home whenever some social function dictated his presence would be required. As such, Chance grew up a very resentful, sulky young man. As a teenager, he became obsessed with psychiatry after an incident at school landed him in therapy. He would have chosen Psychiatry as a major except that his father would have never approved. He therefore had to choose Management and Marketing. In his spare time, though, he still reads up on Psychiatry.
Chance is a very handsome young man. He is an avid sportsman, so his body is in peak physical condition. He is 6 foot tall with black hair. His hair is wavy when he lets it grow out, which is often. He has black eyes, yet they glisten giving off the effect that you could drown in his eyes. To further prove how different he is from Caleb, he always wears the best clothes and is often well-dressed even for a casual date. The only time he "dresses down" is when he's practicing for whichever sport he's involved in.
These are some of the major characters. More to come later.
Oct. 4th, 2005 @ 11:49 am
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