Progress Report: 2/23/24

The Thing Is
By Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

Hello! It's the new year at last! Chinese New Year ended only a little while ago so I'm allowed to say it's a new beginning. I've been thinking about this poem a lot recently not only because it's probably my favorite poem in the entire world but also how it relates to The Forge, this story that I've held in my hands for so long. It's weird, working on a long project after this other one that I, I guess, "resigned" from, this other five year project that was really beautiful and lovely and so filled with good things. It's kind of strange to look at my own thing and see how empty it is of other people. But I think that is also something I am learning to love?

Currently, I'm working on Enya's arc. It's a bit patchwork, let's be real, but I think it's also beginning to get to a place where I'm really happy with where the story is going, despite not really having finished it all yet. I'm really proud of what I've gotten so far. And it's a lot, it's--something I've also been thinking about is its relation to poems like this poem, and how I want my characters to embody those poems--to embody the struggle and the triumph and the gentle victory of getting to look at life and say oh, you're beautiful. I want Enya, in particular, to be that completely by the end--where Thamarai lives in my brain with her complex relationships with people and faith, for Enya to be there and sit down and get to look at the sunset and just go. Yeah. This is the world I get to live in. It's something about change and hope and forgiveness that itches at me. I love telling this story a lot, even though the backgrounds are going to kill me the way I am avoiding them so hard haha.

Anyway, that's the update! Working through Enya's bit, beginning to slowly map out Thamarai's, struggling with sprites (as always) and absolutely loathing when I have to get to the backgrounds and CGs and all the other visual things, BUT I'm having my fun, so it's all worth it in the end :)