Looking at some of my earlier posts where I was just brainstorming, it hardly feels like it came from the same person.
For sure, I'm not the same person I was 11 years ago. The story I wrote during this time isn't the same as how it started either but it's amazing to reach a point where I can say I finished it.
"Te Busque" will always be my personal code name for the story, but it most likely won't be the name I publish it under.
It'll probably be something like "[insert character name] and the Sirens of Calypso."
The name came from a Nelly Furtado song where it's all English except the chorus, which is entirely in Spanish. An all-Spanish version (except a spoken section) also exists.
The pronounciation is probably way off but on the song, I heard it as "ta boose-kay."
There's also a few characters that have significant involvement so it's hard to know exactly how to include in the title.
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Going back to the beginning, early May 2012 was when this idea started coming together in my head. All starting with a car ride where I'm listening to my iPod. I go from "Sex Shooter" by Apollonia 6 to Nelly Furtado's "Loose" album. Suddenly I'm seeing live performances play in my head to these songs.
Next thing I know, I have a vague idea of the kind of story I want to write. It changed a number of times early on but once I had the concept nailed, I was off to the races.
For a couple of reasons, this story might go nowhere professionally.
Looking into the sources of inspiration that fueled it, there's potential for copyright claims to come out.
The whole concept behind it- dancers creating routines from their personal traumas and some being involved in the world's oldest profession- the similarities to "SuckerPunch" are hard to miss. That movie stuck with me in a BIG way that it was still very much on my mind a year later. Some of the names draw reference to the characters or the actresses that play them. But aside from there being twin sisters and the newest member of the group being the youngest and most naive, there isn't too much crossover.
Then there's all of the songs that inspired various scenes in the story. Sometimes I'll reference the story within the lyrics without implicitly namedropping the song or the singer. I spent so much time entrenched in this project that it's hard to remember which scenes came from which songs or some scenes were reverse engineered. I had an idea for a scene, found the perfect song to describe it and I go from there.
What started as, possibly, a SuckerPunch fanfiction evolved into so much more.
In my mind, I always saw it as a movie. In some cases, even a karaoke musical because music does have a big role in the story as a whole. I've constructed several playlists for different characters in the story to where each of them could even get their own soundtrack. All but a few songs were by female artists- Nelly Furtado, Lady Gaga, and Britney Spears are the biggest three influences.
Bits of my personality and various insecurities went into the characters. And then maybe a sprinkle of 50 shades of grey. S&M was becoming more common in regular conversation because of those books/movies and I thought it'd fit one of my characters.
I also had the idea for a while that I wanted to write a story about female friendships and rivalries. I've done the romance thing so many times as a teenager that I wanted to try something a little different.
Of couse I wound up throwing romance into the mix anyway. Three characters either struggling with the idea of being loved or wanting to get noticed by their love interests.
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So, what's next?
I'm considering posting the chapters on this blog one at a time. First I have to finish a couple of scenes I wanted to write but planned to come back to later.
This was also the first time I wrote something out of sequence. I waited for inspiration to hit and once it did, I let the brainstorming take over. Then I reached a point where I had to fill in the blanks and I'd been on that trek up just a few days ago when I found my ending. And by found, I mean that I didn't know how I was going to end this thing until very recently. I knew it'd be a bunch of happy endings, just not how they come about.
But as I do, I might edit a couple of things out... despite my complete lack of physical romantic experience, there are a couple of sex scenes in the story. Only one comes to mind that's a little over the top. The rest, I painted enough of a picture where you get the idea.
I had one or two scenes written that I ultimately took out because they were too much.
Several of these girls came from horrible circumstances where they were abused/assaulted. I wrote things down for myself so I knew what I was working with, but nothing I think I'd feel comfortable showing anyone else. Especially anyone that personally knows me... I don't wanna have that awkward conversation.
If they weren't so integral to the story, this content would be edited out altogether.
And maybe as I go, I'll include my soundtrack "suggestions" so some sort of idea can be formed while reading...
That's basically all there is to it. I won't be posting anything for a while, but it's an amazing feeling to reach the end. Now it'll be interesting to see it as a whole from the beginning... hopefully it won't have me freaking out because there's some sort of disconnect between where I started and where it alll ended.
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