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Behold, my monster stumbles forth into the light, squinting.

Today marks the halfway point for NanoWrimo.

Bringing Red's story to life has not been an easy journey thus far, nor is the path likely to become more forgiving in the weeks to come.
I've felt more like Frankenstein than a parent. Fashioning from the death, despair, and destruction a miracle of science, not some fresh gift of nature to be molded and formed like wet clay.

Largely this is because the first portion of Red's story has lurked in the back of my mind like a ghost limb in the years since Blacker Than Black came to fruition. She was there, loitering in the shadows, sharp gaze following every shift of inspiration, the ebb and flow of creative energies. Waiting for her time to come.

And in the end, she isn't the one telling her story. The task of narrator falls to someone else. She approves of this in ways I cannot begin to describe. For her, it feels like a relief. The pressure has shifted. The performance anxiety no longer exists. She can breathe, and be, and someone else can worry about whether or not every thought is presented properly, concisely, coherently. So often, hers are not. She has thought sequences that few could track, let alone keep pace. The complication of her internal debate over what she is, and is not, and what she permits to define her, trickle out in pieces as she acknowledges and comes to terms with them, instead of dumping into the reader's lap all at once.

Last weekend the words flowed effortlessly. For the past week, every sentence has resembled a monumental struggle. Her story is roughly a third of the way done. It is the meat, the middle, that is creating the greatest difficulty, this time around. I already know how it ends. Pieces of it are already written. Getting her there, getting the rest of them there... well, some days it resembles herding cats with a feather duster.

I recall writing every sentence three times before I was satisfied, while in the throes of Black's story. There's less of that, now. But all the same, it seems to demand the same amount of effort.

I'll get her to the end eventually. Her, and Konaton with her, the meaning of family once again redefined.

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