#graveyard project

ANNIHILA: 26, Witch, Keeper of the Dead, Questionably Human

“You’re following me,” she says, smiling despite herself. The gray shadows of hands against the wall twist frantically, shoving excuses at her. Her laughter cracks the silence in time with the crackle of the fire, sparks popping in the hearth. “You are!”

“Not following!” Elias insists, stopping to push away some mis-signed words. “Maybe. You’re warm.”

“Graveyard Angels”

Laurell Hill Cemetery- 2013

Some more random facts since I’m apparently liveblogging this whole thing like an idiot:

Annihila was raised at the cemetery but lived with her uncle and his husband for a few years to attend public school, until she decided she didn’t like it (”But mooooom, everybody is so loud and boring!”) and was allowed to be home-schooled.

Ghosts and spirits are the same thing but like... spirits are older and/or more pretentious. They’re the ones who take Being Dead And Foreboding very, very seriously, and quote Inferno out of context; whereas ghosts are the ones that like to steal Annihila’s sheets and yell “CASPER COSPLAY COME GET IT” at 3am and will, like, paint the rosebushes a subtly off-shade color in the middle of the night and place bets to see how long it’ll take Annihila to notice

They place bets using tarot cards. Tarot cards are the currency of the entire graveyard. They’re dead, so who cares if they piss off the fates by being ““disrespectful””? 

Ghosts can and will leave the cemetery.

Spirits can and will drink all of Annihila’s wine if she doesn’t guard it carefully.

Annihila can and will move the troublesome undead to the shitty parts of the cemetery if they don’t behave themselves. 

She doesn’t know anything about her father. Her mom said he was dead, but if that was true where was he buried, and why didn’t his spirit come visit? Is he really dead? Is he even human?? Who knows. Not her.

There is something odd at work in the forest beyond where she dumps the mafia’s bodies but it has never revealed itself to her

Sometimes it tries to enter the graveyard

I wrote this last night with a lot of coffee in my body so I was able to give a somewhat comprehensive answer for once in my life!

My main WIP right now is a second draft of the novel Give My Love to the Ocean (it’s getting a new title soon, probably). It’s a contemporary/literary novel with elements of legal thrillers and dark romance incorporated, in which professional idiot and sometimes criminal defense lawyer León San Andres has a passionate affair with Vicente Rivera, a corporate executive for an international boat manufacturing company--only to discover that Vicente is also the heir to an international crime syndicate, the Hagonoy Cartel. From there his relationship with Vicente escalates and León becomes the cartel’s main defense lawyer in the States, where ultraviolent turf wars have broken out along the west coast. León struggles with anxiety and his own traumas, but he’s also a sassy, ambitious, self-destructive moron who likes cheap beer, tequila, quiet nights in, and literally any event that involves free food. Vicente is... painfully confident, and painfully intense. He’s got an insane amount of drive, terrible insomnia, and only drinks expensive wine. Other characters include Seven, Vicente’s childhood best friend and right-hand man (charismatic, extroverted, a romantic, a Fool); Ana, León’s best friend and fiancee [it’s... a marriage of convenience thing] (PsychD student, wine connoisseur, confident, heart of gold); Violeta, Seven’s fiancee (ex-yakuza, aloof, intelligent); and Benjie, one of León’s clients and a distributor for the Hagonoy Cartel (young, terrified, weasel-like).

I’m also working on a novella, Layers of Hell, which is a cyberpunk retelling of Hades & Persephone. In a future where the pantheon of Old Gods abandoned the world during the War, the survivors of the War live in city-towers over what was once the city of Seattle. Persephone lives in the city-tower of Demeter, working through deep simulations to research ways to develop agriculture in the destroyed world. Hades is a Venter, a rare and secretive class permitted to move between city-towers, maintaining the ventilation systems that filter out the radioactive air from Outside. Their relationship, an illicit thing on its own, gives way to even more illegal things--like figuring out that what they’ve each been told about the Outside doesn’t line up, and neither of them knows the truth.

And lastly I’m working on a contemporary fantasy project, Graycrest Memorial Park, which is a loosely connected series of short stories about Annihila, a witch and the graveyard keeper of Graycrest Memorial Park. In a reality where ghosts regularly wander back into the world of the living, Annihila has her hands full with organizing the dead and their games of tarot poker... and the oldest ghosts that suggest she isn’t fully human... and disposing of the bodies the Mafia brings her... and beating back the terrible, hungry thing that lives in the woods behind the graveyard. Annihila is independent and sometimes seems aloof, but she cares deeply. The only other major character so far is Elias, the love interest, who died when he was 19 in a military training accident [he was an Army soldier]. Elias is a soft guy--the youngest of four siblings, a bundle of anxiety, a gentle soul, an absolute weapon at tarot poker. 

Graveyard Project- “Guardian Angel” 2013

Laurell Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia PA 2013

One of my first photography projects was graveyards. I’m still pretty passionate about photographing them when I get the chance though, and will probably end up being the majority of this blog.