She's at one of those nice little cafes that make up the bulk of San Francisco. No sidewalk tables, but ones at the window, and she squints out at people who pass by. She can hear thoughts rattling around in their heads that would make others want to vomit. But she's used to them; those ugly, selfish thoughts that everyone carries around like baggage. They feel familiar and warm to her, because she's very nearly heard them all.

And then a literal ray of sunshine walks into the cafe, and she grimaces at him, wincing. No one else can see how the sun glints off his hair like a glassy surface. No one can see the tawny, owlish wings, either - which she's glad for.

"Azzy," he greets her, beaming. Literally. She grimaces again.

"Leave me alone, Remiel."

( He ignores her. Of course. )

It still makes him hurt sometimes.

The agony, and the confusion, but he can't do anything about it. He wakes up in the middle of the night covered in cold sweat, starting, nightmares still in front of his eyes. His hands still remember phantom sensations that his head has long forgotten.

( He's smoking a cigarette even though he used to hate it. But who cares about the past, now? Who can afford to? )

He didn't exactly sleep like a rock, in fact, Mirage kept himself alive by awakening from the slightest sounds and noises. It was impossible to sneak up on him when he was asleep. He heard the sound of the door opening, bare footsteps on carpet, unfamiliar breathing... But it was also a detriment, because people arguing three rooms over could be heard as well, and would wake him up, and would result in him banging on their door irritably. They would be incredulous as to the range of his hearing, and tell him to put music on, but he would snap at them that they just needed to talk like civilized people and to stop being so juvenile.

It was a quiet noise that awoke him the following morning, after finding a bedraggled Nighthawk and washing him up and not killing him out of pity and (perhaps, though he wouldn't admit it) loneliness. There was also no use to killing him. Who would he go back to and tell Mirage's location? He'd heard about Tanager's death (being pumped full of lead), and Maverick... well, no one knew where she was. She was Public Enemy Number One at the moment.

( Mirage opened his eyes when he felt, and heard, Nighthawk crawl out of bed. But he relaxed and closed them again when he heard the sound of the bathroom door close. )

When he got back up to his room, the shoddy American sports on the television finally turning him away, he heard snuffling and mumbling that sounded like an adult was making them. Male, in all probability. His first thought was the drunk who was staying in the room across from his. But there was a pathetic-looking bundle of flesh next to his door, clad in sweat pants and a white t-shirt, wiping his nose occasionally, his face obscured by a ragged and oily-looking head of hair.

Fuckin' great, he sighed mentally, walking to his door. The man -- at least, he had male anatomy, his chest was too skinny for a woman's -- looked up at him through the matted veil of hair, and then blinked bright blue eyes. Realization hit both of them at the same time, although his was surprised realization -- the other just looked resigned.

"Mirage," the pathetic bundle croaked.

"...Nighthawk?" Mirage stared at him, the situation too surreal not to stare.

( He was obviously drunk off of his ass, there were dark stains on his sweat pants that could have been blood, and he was shaking. From what, it was hard to tell. )

I don't understand this napalm, silly string world.

I don't understand why I was discarded.

There's too much hate in too small an area.

It shouldn't be able to fit. It's so small, it just explodes.

The loathing and the envy and the hate, in one continuous cycle.

None of us can be who we really want to be.

We haven't figured out a way to hatch from our cocoons.

Napalm, silly string.

Too many stories I've read are from writers who think that all you have to do is write, "so-and-so fight [thing], work over [conflict], and then live happily ever after." They copy stories they've read before, without realizing it, but they can only ever copy them if they don't think about what the purpose of the story is.

For instance, Return of the Jedi is not just about an evil organization's head person being killed, with a bunch of fight scenes and special effects. It's also about a son's fight to get his father back, a woman's fight to admit to herself that she really does love the scoundrel she hated two movies ago, and, ultimately, it's a story about redemption and destiny.

If you write a similar story, but leave out Luke and Leia's struggles, you get a reasonably entertaining story without much in the way of meaning.

That's what I see way too much of. People who are only copying. There's no meaning to their stories, and when there is, it's usually shallow and along the lines of "love conquers all." It drives me absolutely insane. You know those awful movies where there's a big disaster or problem, and it's full of stereotypical characters who mean nothing? That's what I get when I read these stories; it makes me writer-rage.

So - please, for the love of all that is literary - think about this stuff when you plan out your fiction. If there's no meaning to something, why would you read it? Sooner or later, after reading a hundred carbon copy stories, your head's going to explode.

Can I pick another choice and do my entire life over? I think I'd be rather good at that. There are some things that I would do much differently, if given the chance. (I think everyone can say that, though.) There are hesitations I'd never make, choices I'd change, people I'd spend more time with, and knowledge that I would acquire much sooner than I did.

I suppose it's just poetic justice that I have to deal with everything as it is.

Someone asked me, a very long time ago, what my parameters were for "that's a good piece of dialogue." I told them that I wasn't sure, but I'd think about it and get back to them. When I had my list, I no longer knew that person, and had also forgotten the question.

So, what makes a good line of dialogue?

It has two purposes that it needs to do reasonably well. One, it needs to express what the character is thinking, or not thinking in some cases, and what they'd say in that situation. Two, it needs to feel like something a person would actually say.

In order to be character-authentic, there are a couple tricks you can do. For instance, you can establish that a character talks in a certain pattern, such as an accent or a dialect. Everyone speaks in a unique way, so you need to think about how each character would be wording whatever they're saying. People from certain parts of the USA throw "like" into every sentence, for example.

Avoid cliches, of course, but some people just talk like that. I can't tell you how many times I'm listening to a conversation and it makes me think, "Did they honestly just say that?" If you can make it work, and, if possible, make it funny, then more power to you.

Dialogue cliches are not just limited to "head them off at the pass," or outrageous puns, but they can also be woodenly structured lines that just feel stale the second you read them. For example:

"Hi, Lisa. How are you?"
"I'm good, Bill. How are you?"
"Fine. Man, my supervisor is a real bitch."
"Tell me about it. Well, see you later."

You've heard that a billion times, on a billion television shows and in a billion movies. It's just terrible. The only thing we learn is that Bill's supervisor needs massage therapy or possibly some chocolate. I don't know why, but writers seem to have this idea that people use others' names constantly. And that's just not true. If you see someone fairly often, it's likely that the most times you'll use their name is when talking about them to others. Of course, everyone is different, but using names like this makes the dialogue feel like it's from the 1950s. Now, let's try to spice up the dialogue a little.

"Hi there! How's it going?"
"Okay. I've got a headache the size of a planet. You?"
"I'd be okay if my boss weren't breathing down my neck about everything."
"I know, right? It's like we're slaves. Speaking of, I need to go turn this report in... See you later."

That's a little better. Right?

If a piece of dialogue is true to what I know of the character (or teaches me something new about the character), advances my knowledge of the plot, or seems like something an interesting or ordinary person could actually say -- that's success, right there.

He listened to the sound of the sirens passing across the street -- and overhead, on the freeway. His bathroom shook with every car that traveled past. The sound of the mirror rattling was like the tapping of skeletal fingers on his wall. He hated sirens. Once in his life, they had signaled triumph and elation, but now they were loud and hollow. They meant something was now gone in this world.

No more giggling and sucking on soft plastic. No more bright toys. Empty rooms.

He heard her fingers tap the door softly, barely audible over the sirens. The god damned sirens. "I'm leaving now," she said, through the door. "Will you be okay?"

It was too late for that question; he didn't answer. She expected none, and he knew it, and the front door opened and closed a minute later.

The mirror might as well have been shattered by the impact.

And, no, I don't mean "novel" as in the "good" sort of connotation. I wish I was referring to it like that, because that would mean I was doing fairly well. Things have been dogged down by an unpredictable schedule, stress, dreading of upcoming stress, and the fact that my muses seem to have abandoned me entirely.

I've been attempting to counter that, and ignite them again, by just going on a mass character-creation spree. I have enough characters to plot out, certainly, so I figured that I might as well tackle them. But even that is not going so well. I'm too anal-retentive to just leave it at, "so-and-so's cousin, once removed, hates spinach." Instead, I have to plot out mother, father, any siblings, etc.

Knowing my luck, this won't even come in handy and I'll never need to know where they spent their second summer.

I wish that I could just go and take a nap, and possibly not wake up for fourteen hours, but a friend of mine is having a going-away party, and I need to be there for at least an hour. Thus, no napping is possible.

But the second I get home, mark my words, I'm passing out.

Though the name might have been a turnoff anywhere else, The Sneaky Weasel was a popular sort of bar, inhabited by people no one would admit to knowing -- not even their own mothers. It was the kind of place you went looking for dishonest work, if one got right down to it, and a clever person could usually fine plenty.

Tonight, when a tall, well-built man with short blond hair walked in, everyone knew him. But no one so much as looked at him. And he didn't look back. This was the code of the Weasel.

( What can I get for you? )

For more than two years of them working together, Jackson Rippner had always boasted that he could take Mirage blindfolded and pin him to the ground in seconds, among other things. This opinion was boosted by the fact that he very rarely saw his partner-in-crime actually fighting, and tended to think that Mirage's bested opponents were just idiots.

Now, in the bright afternoon sunlight, he was finding out how very wrong he was. Jonathon, standing nervously on the sidelines, fought with himself to either tear them apart or get out of there and call a taxi. After all, their deal was up. They weren't really working together anymore. And yet, watching Mirage punch Jackson in the ribcage was like seeing himself get punched, and that was... very uncomfortable. Also, hard to look away from.

They were in the restaurant parking lot that Jackson had parked in. Concerned customers were looking out of the window at them.

( He was spared from getting in between them when a woman with light brown hair ran up and grabbed Mirage's arm. )

Rika Yasuda, a frozen smile on her delicate-looking face, put her phone back down on the table and coughed softly. "I'm sorry. Urgent call from one of my employees. Where were we?"

"I hope it wasn't anything... serious."

It was very, very easy for Maverick to tell that the young crime lord was thoroughly angry about something. She hadn't spent her life around criminals without being able to read them like a book. She was dressed a lot more warmly than usual -- the club, ICE, had that effect on its frequent visitors.

( Just a complication. )

Nervously, adjusting his jacket and tie with almost every new minute, Jonathon Crane stared down at the prompt sheet he'd constructed for the talk. Almost everything was memorized, but he hadn't spoken in public for a while, and his nerves were a formidable force. Jackson, in the driver seat, by contrast, was humming "This Little Light Of Mine" -- for some reason -- and was smiling.

"Will you stop humming?" Jonathon finally snapped.

( What? )

"Are you really serious about going to this thing?"

"Yes."

"They're weird. Old-fashioned. The only savvy thing they have is magic."

"That's why I want to go!"

"I guess it'll be like home, huh?"

( Loki Devaraux smiled sadly. 'A little, maybe.' )

ICE was, logically, a club that centered around a cold theme. The bar counters, seats and tables -- and to some extent, even the floor -- simulated clear, cold ice. It was air conditioned to the nines. There was even a great expanse of water, in the middle, that had an iceberg in it. And when you walked in, if you wanted one, there were coats to keep you warm.

Jackson pulled one of the fluffy coats around him, shivering slightly, as the bartender handed him an icy glass of something alcoholic. Thanking the man, who was dressed like an Eskimo, he headed over to a booth that held a young woman and two thick-looking men -- the owner of the club and her two bodyguards, he knew.

( I was hoping you'd show up )

Words cannot describe how much I hate this question.

It wasn't even a baseball match at night, which could have been mildly understandable; it was during the day. All of the Cullens should have fried right then. It could have saved us the miserable book series. But, of course, who could live without gems like the heroine giving birth and it breaking her spine and killing her?

Stupid Stephanie Meyer.

"So, my thought was, I tell her that there's a really special fan who wants to talk with her. You know, handicapped or something. Maybe a mental handicap. And she's waiting in that little corridor because she's easily embarrassed and thinks that she's here for a free... wheelchair. What do you think?"

Mirage snorted. "You've been thinking about this thing in your sleep, haven't you?"

"It's a job, Roman," Jackson grated. "At least try to seem interested."

( I'm afraid that's beyond me, right now. )