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As Friday progressed Grandma made some improvements. She got well enough that DH and I were ordered to cancel our plane tickets and stay put. This morning she had to be intubated, but I understand that she's still doing well enough overall.

So DH and I stayed here. Today we went up the Wal-Mart for some supplies. They were sponsoring a joint project with the Humane Society. We are now the proud slaves of two 14 week old, gray, short-haired, female kittens: Piccadilly (Dilly) and Leicester Square (Lolly).

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Because she asked, here's a partial response to sage_theory's request for cut scenes:



In the beginning . . .

There really is a Grimm's Law. It's a Linguistic rule formulated by Jacob Grimm (also known for recording some fairy tales) that explains how languages like Latin and English can be related. It was a major breakthrough in the field of Linguistics, and is fascinating if you're into that kind of thing. Although I am into that kind of thing, one day I had to endure an extremely boring lecture on it (in my History of English class). My mind started to wander and it occurred to me that Grimm's Law sounded like it should be the name of a Tomorrow People story. I was already toying with the idea of writing a story with a mad linguist in response to a challenge. The two ideas clicked the way two random ideas just sometimes come together.

"The Atropos Project," my first full length completed story, is set within a fan universe. However, for all my talking I've really done very little writing for the universe. From time to time I even feel guilty about that. Not counting Atropos, I have four other pieces in the universe--all of which focus on my original characters. I'd like to contribute much more than I have. Problem is, I'm a very slow writer. Atropos was always supposed to have two follow-up stories. The first, "The Lethe Incident" never amounted to much more than a title. The second, "The Morpheus Solution" got started. A few times. I have a notebook for it with, well, very little written that's worth mentioning. It's mostly page after page of the same scene written in different ways, all of them failing. One line, though, has stuck with me. When "Grimm's Law" first became a thought, the line seemed to have found its home.

That night the Tomorrow People dreamed of a door.

"The Morpheus Solution" was supposed to be a series of vignettes, each from the perspective of one Tomorrow Person, showing their lives had they not become Tomorrow People. As each TP walked through the door in their dreams, they're shown this alternate path and asked to decide which one they want. In the end, Ami decides to stay on the other side.

When the line migrated to its new story, I found myself stuck. What was this door? Where did it lead? Why were the Tomorrow People dreaming of it? And how did that have anything to do with Grimm's Law?

Following the mad scientist challenge, I had a mad linguist. He was named Grimm, of no particular first name. That answered part of it.

Sara Grimm was born with the line "I can hear the ocean." I can't remember what scene she first appeared in, probably one of the dream sequences. I do remember that I really wanted her to be a boy and I just couldn't get it to happen. Clara created herself much later. Their rhyming names were chosen deliberately because of another linguistic feature known as the Centum/Satem split. That refers to the pronunciation of a sound in certain related words in languages that are daughters of Proto-Indo-European. In one branch, the sound is "k" (Centum/Clara) and in the other branch it's "s" (Satem/Sara).

I still didn't know what the door did.

The main TP character of the story was supposed to be my original character Rachel. An early synopsis for "Grimm's Law" talks about Grimm going insane over the futility of language. When he discovers Rachel, he decides that her deafness has kept her untainted by language, which he believes makes her telepathy more pure.

Mad scientists are supposed to perform nefarious experiments. It's easy to understand what kind of nefarious experiments mad geneticists would perform. Or even mad biologists or mad chemists. Someone could probably even come up with some good experiments for a mad psychologist (if that's not redundant). But what kinds of nefarious experiments would a mad linguist perform?

I came up with something really vague that involved lots of being hooked up to equipment. Problem is, even I didn't believe it.

Professor Grimm supervised the aides fitting the electrodes to the students' heads. There were seven students today; Eric was still absent, but the show had to go on. They sat in pairs, facing each other across a desk. The odd man out, a sophomore international student from Mexico, helped the aides set up the equipment. They were still fussing with the setup when movement out of the corner of his eye caught Grimm's attention. He turned to see Sara walking around the edge of the room, coming towards them but staying next to the wall instead of cutting straight across. Frowning, he held up a hand to stay the start and headed over to intercept his daughter.

"You know you aren't allowed in here," he said, his voice low but not scolding. Sara's presence always threw off the test results. That itself would have been worthy of study, except getting her to cooperate was an entirely different matter.

He took hold of her hand to lead her from the room. With an uncanny strength, she jerked her hand from his grasp and pressed her back to the wall as if to get as far away from him as possible. She tried to continue towards her goal, but found her way blocked by a cabinet on one side and her father on the other.

"Necessita help, Doctor?" Alejo volunteered.

"It's under control." As under control as it was going to be, anyway. Sara wouldn't let him touch her, and he knew of no other way to remove her from the room short of sedation. That wasn't an option; it wasn't fair to her to sedate her every time she wouldn't obey. Being like this wasn't *her* fault, and punishing her for it wouldn't help her get better.

Sara sank to the floor then and, meshing herself to the cabinet, began to rock. Her fists were bunched up next to her ears, arms pressed tightly against her face.

"Go to lunch," Grimm said without turning around. He didn't want the others to see the pain he knew was on his face. "We'll continue this afternoon." Behind him, he could hear frustrated sighs and grumbling as the aides unhooked the students and everyone gathered up coats and gear. He waited until they left the room, then sat down on the linoleum across from his daughter and prepared to wait with her until she was ready to move. Although she'd probably wander off soon if he ignored her and went about his business, he couldn't leave her alone with the equipment. "Someday," he promised, "we're going to laugh about this."

They sat together, separated, the young scientist in his suit and tie, and the teenager wearing the female version of his face and too-large sweats.

"I can hear the ocean," she replied, speaking directly to the floor.

"I know, honey," he answered sadly, because that's all she knew how to say anymore.

Those who've read the finished story will recognize a lot of the above scene. Sara's movements around the room and the last couple of lines got rewritten into the kitchen scene between Alejo and Grimm. The original scene was intended for the back half of chapter 2. Back then, all the chapters were to have linguistics related titles. Chapter two was called Markedness, which refers to the ways in which things are different from each other.

Whereas a lot of that section was just rewritten and reincorporated, the original chapter one got ditched entirely. It was called Universal Grammar. What follows is not the first draft. I struggled for a long time over the opening for the story. The opening that finally got used was actually one of the last scenes written. This is an early draft where I'm trying to anticipate the problems with Eric, set up Sara, and show just how nefarious Grimm really was:

His research project had just started and it was already falling apart. Professor Grimm rubbed a knuckle against the bridge of his nose in concern. Eric had been absent from the morning's class. There had been others who dropped out of the class and the program without word or warning, but their dedication had been suspect at best. But Eric, a sophomore in the English department, was the best thing to happen to him in a long time. The young man was a hard worker, honestly interested in Grimm's research, and his test results were the most promising yet. When he didn't show up, Grimm had had to cancel the entire afternoon's session. He was finally starting to get enough data he could use, and now it looked like he'd have to call a halt to the whole thing.

Grimm stepped into his office, housed in the back corner of the top floor of the university English building. Stacks of papers covered his desk, awaiting his perusal. There were tests to grade, and research papers, and homework assignments -- all the evils of a being professor. In another stack were data to be analyzed and interpreted -- the preliminary results of his research and a necessity in the publish or perish world of academia.

Also awaiting him was his teenaged daughter. She sat in his desk chair, curled into a tight ball, rocking. She looked right at him when he entered, but otherwise gave no notice of his presence. She continued to rock while he stood there. He remembered the days not so long ago when she'd tilt her head and smile up at him and announce his presence with a half-yelped, "Daddy!" Her hair had fallen around her face then, lending an extra youthfulness to her features.

Now she stared through him, making him want to check over his shoulder to see what captured her attention. Her once long auburn locks had been shaved close so she couldn't tear at them. She still smiled sometimes, still laughed, but he could never tell at what.

"Hi, Sara," he said, trying to keep his disappointment out of his voice. "How are you?"

There was a long pause while he waited for an answer, any answer. The only noise came from their breathing and the squeak of the leather as she rocked. He turned with a sigh and took off his winter coat, hanging it on the back of the door.

"How are you?" came a small voice from behind him. He turned back so fast the coat missed the hook and slipped to the floor. Sara rocked a little faster, her arms knotted around her knees. She was staring at some fixed point over his right shoulder, her blue eyes empty, her face slack. "How are you? . . . How are you?"

His hopes crashed; she wasn't answering, just repeating. Echolalia, it was called. Now that he was paying attention, he could tell that even her tone was exactly the same as his had been moments before. "I'm fine," he answered anyway, his voice constricting.

"What are we going to do?" he continued. He'd found that it was easier to talk at her than to deal with her silences, so he talked. He talked about work, he talked about his research, he talked about television shows and music, sometimes he even talked about the future. The future he imagined where his twin daughters were together and healthy, laughing with him over some stupid joke.

The one thing he never talked about was Clara, what had happened to her, where she might be now. There were too many directions he could speculate in, none of them tempting. The only person who knew for sure was Sara, and she wasn't sharing.

"All right," he said, shutting aside his personal feelings on the matter. "Let's see if anything interesting happened yesterday, shall we?" He sat down in the folding chair across the desk from Sara and turned stacks of papers around. He only had to glance at a few pages to see that the results were still too wildly varied.

As many a linguist before him, he was pursuing that grail known as universal grammar: the theory that humans were all born with language encoded in their brains. The theory allowed that the process of language learning was about adapting an existing structure instead of inventing or acquiring a new one. The trick was figuring out what people were born knowing how to do, and what they had to learn. He sighed. With data like these, he could probably prove anything he wanted. Until the next person came along and used the same data to disprove everything.

He straightened the stack and picked up the manila folder next it. This one was far more interesting, he knew. This one wasn't research data, but instead a collection of newspaper clippings, abstracts from magazine articles, and neatly typed reports about certain news broadcasts covering the last five years.

This was his hobby as far as the department was concerned; but the true aim of his research as far as he was concerned. In quick succession he read about a fifteen year old girl disappearing off a stage during a talent show in Virginia; of a fifteen year old boy disappearing from a soccer field at the end of a televised game; of a ten year old boy disappearing off a London bus. He read about so-called secret government projects to investigate these disappearances, and of a series of federally protected witnesses who'd been mysteriously murdered before they could testify -- the murderers literally vanishing into thin air.

Mentally he added the other one he knew about, but who wasn't included here: a sixteen year old girl who disappeared while taking her A.C.T.'s one Saturday morning.

For him, studying universal grammar wasn't about proving or disproving an abstract concept, one that had little practical value. It was about solving communication; about finding a way for people to communicate on a level beyond simple language. Like he believed possible of the kids whose moment of fame he held in his hands. Because with one twin's disappearance, the other had retreated into a world that ordinary language couldn't reach. He knew he could bring her out again, if he could find a way of letting her know it was safe. He started to close the file and stopped when he realized that Sara was no longer in the chair.

She stood behind him now, perhaps reading over his shoulder or perhaps just standing behind him. This was the closest she'd been physically in months. He took that as another good sign, that maybe she was getting better. Experience to the contrary, he still took everything she might say or do as a good sign. It was easier that way.

Her hand snaked over his shoulder and touched the school portrait of the talent-show girl included with the article. She was a pretty black girl, starring at something off to the side of the camera. The touch was gentle, hesitant. Still, the newspaper ink smeared slightly beneath it. The hand withdrew, and he turned to see Sara mincing towards the door. She was tip-toeing, but with each step looked as though she were about to start dancing. She left without a word or a backwards glance.

Grimm once again reviewed the article about a certain Lisa Davis. There was no proof that she, or any of the others, could do anything extraordinary. For all he knew, the articles and abstracts were clever fakes and his daughter was . . . .

For all he knew, his research was a complete waste of time. But he had to try.

That he did know.

It accomplished none of my intentions well. In fact, I found much of it to be trite and the rest to be dumb--it was telling instead of showing anything. As much as I wanted him to be, Grimm was not a mad scientist, he didn't know about the Tomorrow People, and Sara's problems can only be helped by a liberal dose of meteor rock. Er, wrong fandom.

The back half of that chapter was Lisa's first dream with Sara.

By this time Lisa was the main character and Rachel wasn't even in the story. The earliest written draft had scenes in a very different order than the final version. Lisa was actually in very little of the story, maybe two or three scenes. The bulk was Sara and her father. This is a scene that was written but never found its way into any draft.

Professor Grimm stood over his sleeping teenage daughter, struggling with her future. She lay
pressed up against the wall as if trying to get as far away from the empty space of the room as
possible, her pillow crushed in the curl of her body.

"I only want to do what's best for you," he whispered at the sleeping form. She gave no
indication of hearing him, which wasn't a surprise. Even awake she wasn't any more conscious
of his presence or his words.

"Professor?"

"Maria," he answered, acknowledging the woman without turning around.

"Perhaps it is not for me to say, but you know she can't stay here. She needs more than you can
give her now."

"Yes," he said, "I've thought about it. I have thought about it, and it continually returns to one
question: Could anyone else do more?"

"The hospitals are equipped for this kind of thing. The staff is trained, years of medical school.
They should know."

"But they don't. No one knows anything. They tell me Autism. Schizophrenia. Do you know
one doctor even suggested possession? Possession! Except that's where the explanations stop.
Maybe I don't hold a medical doctorate, but I am a doctor and I am well practiced at recognizing
when people are using big words to cover up the fact that they don't know anything." He drew a deep breath, "I've heard a lot of big words recently."

"But it's not helping her to keep her here."

"We don't know that."

"Professor, you are gone during the day. I am the housekeeper, which means I am in the house
all day. I see things you don't. Sara floats around here all day; she doesn't talk, she doesn't
participate. Sometimes I turn around and she's just standing there, watching me, and there's this
look in her eyes like she wants to say something important. She looks so scared. I can tell that
for a few minutes she sees and understands everything, just like she used to, and then it's gone."

"She's not hurting anyone."

"She should be in school, or at least with someone who understands how to deal with her.
There's a young woman in there. A frightened young woman."

"She's my little girl," he said. What more was there to say?

Wanting to fix the balance, I rearranged the order of all the scenes to make it more of an alternating sequence instead of each girl being the focus of one half.

That wasn't the last time.



That's it for this entry. I have a lot more cut and severely modified scenes, but I have to find them. Also, most of the commentary was written a year or more ago during a really long sub day. That's all the coherency for now.