note

So while I was busy not falling last night, I fairly literally had a 2am revelation on my story.

Actually, I'd been trying (and failing) to think of a title. The few NaNos I have actually managed to title, I was really, really happy with the titles, they really encapsulated what I was going for. (Even though I never quite got to that point in the first NaNo I attempted, ha.)

So I was trying to sort out how to best encapsulate what this story was about. Not a summary, but the message of it (such as it is), what it's trying to accomplish. And I think I figured it out, I got it all linked together.

I'd been thinking back to my own photography classes, mentally going through the processes of working with film and making prints, and I remembered just how magic the moment always seemed, every time, when you put what looked like a blank sheet of paper into a plastic tub of chemicals, and from nowhere, an image slowly appeared, from nothingness into a ghostly hint into a full, rich, perfect recreation of something you'd seen days ago. Burned into this paper, where the naked eye couldn't see, an image was hidden, under layers of chemicals that could be changed and made to reveal the image, if you just used the right liquid on it. If you touched it just the right way, you'd see something otherwise impossible to view...

And it's the same with the house that Kris is going to find, it has a surface layer, just this old, empty, abandoned house, with little things laying around, layers of dust. But under that, inside of it, there is a presence, I don't know if it's an actual ghostly presence yet, but the house itself has a presence, has an identity. There's a rich depth to the house and the emotions it has held within itself for so many years, a history and a self, and you have to look at it just right to see it...

...I'm not putting this into words as well as I should, but I haven't quite found the words to it yet. Revision January is a ways off yet. ;) But that, THAT is the link, that is what makes the connection between the photographer and the house, that's why she can see it for what it really is, not just another empty shell to be rebuilt or torn down.

And that, once I can summarize it, will be my title.


(On a related subject...I don't know if that's a strong enough tie to make it the whole motivation and climax of the story, I still feel like there should be some link that ties Kris to the woman who lived in the house. But I'll worry about that when I get there, I'm hoping the two of them find it for themselves, and all I'll have to do is record the event. ;)