[start id / a photo of a bronze-coloured statue on a brown background facing a golden globe of yellow-white light. over the image, in serif font, is the text āa million homes and none of them is yoursā / end id]
A MILLION HOMES AND NONE OF THEM IS YOURS: WIP INTRO
[this is my original work, do not use / repurpose / plagiarise in any form]
GENRE: literary fiction with speculative elements / fabulism [aka a Vibe]
SETTING: south india / a weird other dimension.
FORM: second-person pov, present tense. told in vignettes that are sometimes poems, sometimes recipes, sometimes full scenes and sometimes a single chunk of fancy description.
STAGE: drafting. expected wc: 30k.
TONE: harsh, quiet, seething.
THEMES + AESTHETICS: girlhood vs motherhood, freedom, fear of change, the feeling of missing something youāve never experienced. red lights, nights with no moon, dimly lit motel rooms, reaching for something and finding only air, dust hanging in abandoned rooms, endless roads, dark forests, silence.
CONTENT WARNING: toxic relationships, intense discussions of motherhood and pregnancy, violent thoughts and mentions of death.
SYNOPSIS:
When a young college student returns to her hometown on her motherās request, she doesnāt expect to stay long, doesnāt expect to be wanted back permanently, doesnāt expect her mother to be freshly pregnant and doesn't expect to learn that her father has been dead for daysāher mother selfishly keeping the news from her. Mid-confrontation, the earth below their feet splits open and the two find themselves in a strange, red-tinted world with eerie sounds and skies with no suns. With a mere two weeks left until the motherās child is due, the two must work together to navigate their way out and back home, whether it knits them closer or cleaves them apart.
aka what i refer to as āmommy issues: the novellaā
CHARACTERS:
[start id / a collage of three pictures placed horizontally next to each other. first image is a shot of two hands reaching for each other against a grey backdrop; second image is plain white with black serif text that reads āthe daughterā; third image is a shot of a city at night with silhouette of buildings, the central building illuminated in golden lights / end id]
THE DAUGHTER
our second person narrator!
tfw when you think youāre the shit but also you hate yourself
moral compass is messed up oops [understatement]
all she wants is stability in life but life said fuck you babe
donāt think she sleeps for more than three hours a day actually
is a med student! decided sheād be working to be an obstetrician because it ties in with motherhood and iām pretentious like that
mitski album of her life is be the cowboy
[start id / a collage of three pictures placed horizontally next to each other. first image is a shot of someoneās hands on a windowsill looking at a sparse garden; second image is plain white with black serif text that reads āthe motherā; third image is a shot of a road at night with parked cars and yellow lamposts / end id]
THE MOTHER
that one judgemental aunt in your family
why?? does she keep lying??? for what joy??? iād love to know
no chill whatsoever but this def runs in the family
does she actually know sheās a person whose actions have consequences? idk, she makes good food though
accidentally started associating her with crabs after drafting this one scene and it is such an image to live with actually
aggressively atheist [we stan]
mitski album of her life is lush
[start id / a photo of a woman standing in a dark room facing a beam of light that illuminates the top half of her face. over the image, in serif font, is the text āYouāre both so similar that it prickles. You know she thought you an anchor. You know she needs to touch skin to believe sheās real. You know sheās just as lonely as you. You hope.ā / end id]
AN EXCERPT: She almost smiles at you. You almost smile back. You donāt remember when you stopped making jokes out of everything or when she stopped laughing at them, donāt remember when you started pushing limits to see how far youāre truly allowed to reach, to snap, to be, and when she started letting you, started seeing you as another body in her house, started thinking of you in portions rather than person, started touching her neck and face and heart on Sunday mornings with the curtains still up and the windows still whispering from the night draft to convince herself that at least sheās a real. Youāre both so similar that it prickles. You know she thought you an anchor. You know she needs to touch skin to believe sheās real. You know sheās just as lonely as you. You hope.
and thatās all for now!! i literally impulse started this wip a month ago and itās been super fun because the only rules here were that there were no rules and the story can suck as much as i want, which is something my perfectionist brain really needs. hereās the tag for everything about this project and hereās the playlist. you can send me an ask if youād like to be added to my taglist !
