Opening the Vein

Going in circles...

2011-09-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who finds that my writing progression and techniques seem to loop back around to the beginning every so often? Or that there seem to be phases to techniques and productivity?

For instance, I used to outline. Obsessively. It was over-outlining that actually killed more than one project, because I would write myself into a corner. I tend to take deadlines and outlines and any other kind of line seriously. I was one of those kids who learned to color inside the lines very, very quickly, because the idea of going outside the lines and making a mess was nigh-on sacrilegious.

And then, one day, I just decided to go with it. To just write and let what happened happen. I think I can thank my first NaNo for that. While that project was the offspring of an older, outlined project, and thus had a lot of paper fostered in, it was all background information. The actual story was new and thus I just had to roll with the punches as they came.

Now, I'm at sort of a middle-ground. I'd still classify myself very much as a pantser, but occasionally, I find myself scribbling out a tentative plan for the future. Not even a real outline, or anything really in-depth, but a plan for the future nonetheless.

I don't imagine I'll ever regress back into over-outlining, but I do find sometimes that outlining even that little bit can kill an idea, or at least my enthusiasm for an idea. But I don't count that as a bad thing. The advantage that does exist in outlining is that it can show me the weaknesses in an idea outright, in the beginning stages, before I get too emotionally involved.

Of course, sometimes that is a bad thing. I tend to over-think things sometimes and instead of just rolling with the idea, despite the weakness, and figuring out something along the way, identifying the problem can sometimes just cause me to freak out and avoid it.

But it fluctuates sometimes, which is the entire point of this post. Sometimes I find myself writing notes - outlining, if you will - to avoid forgetting things for the future. Sometimes I find myself actually planning out storylines and character development in advance. Sometimes I don't touch paper outside of actual story. It goes through phases. But those phases happen in a pattern. It's weird.

On justification...

2011-07-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

No, the blog's not dead.

Just resting.

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I can be very good at justifying things to myself, especially in writing. For instance, I can totally justify my lack of blogging lately. I graduated my community college and summer craziness began. Hours at work picked up, other projects began, family members moved, I'm getting ready to move, etc. etc. Blogging sort of took a back seat to other activities. I didn't mean for it to happen, and I'm sorry that it did, but it did and that's what happened.

Justified.

Except, sometimes that just doesn't cut it. I mean, I totally could have blogged. I spent way too much time on the internet, watching parody music videos and reviewing other people's stories. I totally could have made the time. But I didn't.

Un-justified.

It's like that in writing. My angel project from months ago was shelved. My reasons ultimately came down to that I couldn't seem to make the characters mesh the way I had wanted and it fell apart. But the thing is... I totally could have made it work. I could have written another character in, or restructured the plot so that it would work. It could have been done, which is why the project is "shelved" as opposed to "dead". It really was because I lost interest, though I maintain that the characters weren't working and that was the reason behind my loss of interest.

Justified?

I'm sure there's many writers out there that would leap at the chance to tell me that is entirely unfair. If I want to be a writer, I have read, I have to actually write. Even on days when it doesn't flow, or I don't feel like it. And normally, I stand by this. I really do. Part of writing is work and it's not always fun. I wonder occasionally why I do this to myself.

But the thing is, I do do this for fun. I don't make a living off of it and while I would love to one day, for real, right now, it's just a serious hobby. Like making fishing lures or raising pet alpacas. If it's not fun, why would I do it? If it became too strenuous, or too expensive, or just too much, I could just stop. Which is what I did.

Still justified?

I'm not trying to make excuses. Well, I am, but it's not because I'm trying to dodge work or something. I still keep writing and putting myself through all the trials and tribulations entailed therein, and I do it without compensation beyond the feeling of a job well done and the occasional word of praise or constructive crit when I'm brave enough to post something somewhere. I do this for me, but as a circle of influence grows, I feel myself feeling more responsible for my writing, like there is someone out there expecting more of me all the time. And I want to live up to it, so justifying things to myself isn't cutting it anymore.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard about it all and feeling sentimental about coming back and writing in general.

The point?

It's good to be back.

Exactly like this, except not at all...

2011-04-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

Despite all appearances, this blog post is not a cleverly disguised advertisement for TVTropes. Even if it is one of the greatest websites on the Internet.
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Personal preferences in writing and reading can be wildly different, occasionally even within the same person's head. Doublethink is often a reality.

For example, I'm not much of a romance buff. I don't like romcoms, rarely venture into the "romance" section of any bookstore or website and just generally don't care for it. However, I do love me a good love story. My shipping goggles are custom-made and quite nifty, with night-vision and everything.

It's quite a strange phenomenon. Thing is, I like my love stories/ship teasing in the midst of something else, as sort of a secondary element. Romantic plot tumors drive me up the wall. Less is more and showing is so, so important rather than telling.

For a minor example, I've been working my way through Gargoyles lately *minor spoiler alert* and seriously fell in love with the minor characters (three "minors" in one sentence there...) of Princess Katherine and the Magus. They have an interesting, downplayed dynamic. It's adorable and it makes my inner fangirl shamelessly go *squee*.

But it was such background information, more character motivations than overt plot. The Magus is obviously doing things because he cares about Katherine and they hang out a lot together, but it's all in favor of the bigger story. We see them together and it is sweet and we know something is there because of how he looks at her, but we don't need it to go into details because we see it.

And it even gets some more coverage in later episodes when *slightly more major spoiler alert* they are in Avalon and raising the gargoyles' eggs. But then, that beautifully subtle character development suddenly goes all dark and tragic on us when it turns out that the Magus never told Katherine how he felt and so she fell for another guy. And he stepped aside because he wanted his beloved to be happy and he had a slight inferiority complex. It gets its own little flashback/monologue and everything and yet... it isn't the focus of the story. It explains why he is doing what he is doing and it makes the end of the episode all the more bittersweet, but it isn't what the show, or even the episode, is about. We get it and there are beautiful little moments were it is explored and focused on, but the story moves on.

It's how I like my romance. And it's odd, because it's also subjective. I'm usually interested in the characters and if they fall in love, they fall in love. They drive the story so that's what the story becomes. But I like it to be limited. Usually. Stick to the story, let it proceed. Don't make everything come to a standstill because two characters are making googly-eyes at each other. It's why rabid shippers have shipping goggles: so we can take the little subtle moments and run with them, rather than have stuff smushed in our face. Then just give us our happy resolution in the end and we're good. (Yeah, cuz I like my happy romantic endings. I'm a sap like that. Every time I watch/read any version of "Romeo and Juliet", I honestly wonder if they're going to manage to stay alive long enough to get together. Even though I honestly can't stand the original play.)

Focus...

2011-03-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

Alternate title: Why I liked Megamind better than How to Train Your Dragon.

Spoilers for both movies below.

So I finally saw Megamind. I liked it. I liked it more than (what many people consider to be) the better/more acclaimed How to Train Your Dragon. HTTYD was one of the first DreamWorks animated movies to take itself somewhat seriously. Megamind plays with its genre all over the place and feels way less serious, but I felt like it was a stronger film.

I'm an advocate of character relationships and development driving a story. I harp on it all the time. It's one thing that DreamWorks films seem to be lacking. It's a bit old-hat to compare DreamWorks unfavorable to Pixar, but it's done for a reason. Many DreamWorks films seem to be lacking some kind of heart that Pixar just seems to exude.

Megamind gets the closest to that heart in my opinion, rather than many peoples' favorite, HTTYD. I was left wanting... something... in HTTYD. Having seen Megamind though, I decided one of the reasons is that love story in HTTYD feels phoned in.

Sure, Hiccup starts the story wanting to become a dragon slayer so that he can impress the girl of his dreams. And she gets to take the freakin' cool dragon-back ride into the sunset. And then she's suddenly giving him a pep talk, supporting him staunchly when before, there was really no indication that she should trust him or vice versa. It just sort of ran straight forward to the support and love, when before that, I didn't feel the mutual attraction, chemistry or growing closeness. Hiccup and Toothless felt far more real and heartfelt, because it was given the time to develop. (Though even that seemed really fast. I dunno... The pacing in that film irritated me for some reason. It just felt so lacking in something.)

The romance in Megamind had the progression happen. All the interaction and time that went into developing Hiccup and Toothless' friendship went into developing Megamind and Roxie's relationship. It was the crux of his Heel Face Turn and her encouragement was genuine, as opposed to the sudden phoning in of cheery words in the third act of HTTYD.

Character development is key. In HTTYD, the relationships all start from scratch. Hiccup and Astrid barely know each other and Hiccup is his whole new thing. We have to see the progression from the very beginning. Which is fine. There are many stories in which this happens and it works fine. Most romances do. But here, it feels rushed and we are painfully aware of the fact that Astrid and Hiccup barely interact amiably from the beginning of the film to the end of it. And suddenly they are close?

In contrast, Megamind starts with relationships already laid out clearly. Minion and Megamind have fantastic repertoire as the bestest of buddies, the clear nearly-scripted roleplaying between Megamind and MetroMan is pulled off wonderfully, and Roxanne and Megamind have this strange flirty smarmy familiarity with each other. The progression still works, however, because we get to see their roles change. They go from these familiar roles to something completely different and we spend the time watching them make those changes. And we accept the rather fast pacing here because we already have a frame of reference for these characters. They all already were familiar with one another (which is, like, the first step of any meaningful relationship) and from there it can change and grow. This was the step that was missing from Astrid and Hiccup's relationship.

Personally, I think the HTTYD would have been stronger without Astrid in the film. Make it about Hiccup and his dad and Toothless. No need for a love interest. More time to focus on those important relationships. Either that, or have her be a more integral part of the film. As it was, she just sort of felt like eye-candy.

In Megamind, every relationship shown was vitally important. Between Hal and Roxie, between Megamind and Minion, between Roxie and Megamind, between Megamind and Metro Man, etc. etc. Take away one, and you lose some of the emotional impact of the film. And the most important ones were given the most time. Minion and Megamind didn't have a whole lot of time singularly devoted to their relationship, but we see constantly them interacting in the midst of other happenings and the two very vital moments of argument and apology were given the spotlight they deserved. It all felt very real and much of it was actually very subtle. In contrast, the romance between Megamind and Roxanne was given most of the focus, seeing as how most of their character development hinged on it.

Is Megamind a perfect movie? No. It's certainly just having fun with itself, some logicality be hanged. It's not a classic film. Some things irritated me, like how quickly Roxie accepted Megamind again after she dumped him (personally, I would have liked to have seen a little more of her emotional turn-around).

But I loved the music (seriously, every time any classic rock started playing, I freaked out my siblings by air-guitaring rather showily), the tongue-in-cheek treatment of super-heroics/villainy, and the animation was freakin' amazing. And it had real emotional impact, which was often treated very subtly. (For real, watch the scene of Megamind being dumped in the rain. Just watch his face. The expressions are almost barely there, but they just exude volumes of his past and his dreams and his despair, in just a few quick shots. Gorgeous.) And it got me thinking, which is always good, yes?

Farewell and thank you...

2011-03-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

It seems to be turning out to be one of "those" years. Similar to how there seemed to be a rash of celebrity deaths a few years ago when Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett all passed away, there seems to be a string of authors dying, all of whom I loved very much as a child.

First, there was Brian Jacques in February, and then I just found out (via Twitter again) that Diana Wynne Jones passed after a long battle with cancer. Supposedly, she was in the midst of a book, with plans for another, and now she's just gone.

She was a powerful influence on me, though I began to read her much later in life. Her writing was an acquired taste that I'm still getting used to, but this really hits hard.

Rest in peace, Diana. I'm going to miss you.

On story pirates...

2011-03-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well. 's been a while, no?

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Every so often, a character swaggers, fully formed, onto the page and demands to have the story revolve around them. I've had it happen several times with several different characters, the latest of whom are running rampart through my hedgehog project, upsetting all of my original idea's plans, but leaving a much more coherent and interesting story in their wake.

It's funny how this can work sometimes. In the most particularly egregious example, a background character I needed for one tiny subplot ended up getting his own entire novel for NaNo. Yes, my leading man Red started as a walk-on who popped into my head completely fully-formed. He came in with motivation, character description and everything. The only thing that really changed from beginning to end was his role in the story and how he acted in it. While his motivation remained the same, he acted a bit different in several different drafts as how I treated him changed.

It's pretty cool sometimes when it all comes together like that with seemingly no effort on the writer's part. It's like having all the work done for you as this character provides you with a blueprint for everyone else in the interactions between the cast members. Other times, it can be a nightmare as it begins to shift everything around for better or for worse.

Because this can be a not-good thing. Dangers of Mary-Sue-dom abound, as does losing sight of the original story. When one strong character begins to shift all the other character interpretations really quickly, it can show how weak the other characters already were and that can throw you into despair. I know it does me occasionally, as I bang on the keyboard in frustration as each new acquisition to the cast seems far more interesting than all of the originals. Then I wonder why bother with the originals if the new guys are so much stronger and more interesting, but then I remember what made me love the original so much that I would want to write it at all and I get all flustered.

For right now though, I'm still infatuated with these new characters. Two of them this time, they suddenly are giving me long-term goals in the story and background stories to explore in the present action and even shifted the dynamics of the cast around enough that I have new relationships to explore that I think are far more interesting than what was there before. Time will tell if this is true, but for now, I'm happy.

In terms of discussion: has anyone else ever had one of these story pirates as well? Also, does anyone else have another name for them other than "story pirates"? Because they are like pirates, in how they catch you unawares and take control of the reins, but c'mon, there has to be a snazzier title somewhere.

Thoughts on characters (part 3)...

2011-03-07T14:56:00.001-08:00

In which there is no crying…

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So I was thinking recently about characters crying in fiction.

Very often, to try and evoke a sense of the character's frustration and build some sympathy, a writer writes about how a character is "fighting back tears" or "breaks down crying" and so on and so forth. I've done it myself. But the thing is, it can lose its effectiveness very quickly.

One thing I recommend very highly when writing is to go back and retype it. I've recently been in a handwriting phase and so everything I write has to be typed up eventually in order to back it up. It seems like a waste of time, seeing as how I could be spending the typing time writing more things, but I find that it gives me some down time to think. I can examine my characters' actions and sort of see ahead to what those actions might lead up to. Plus, it shows me how frequently or infrequently I mention things.

When I'm handwriting, and even sometimes when typing, I tend to be thinking ahead. My writing seems to stretch itself out as I keep chugging along, and I'll be shocked to look back and realize that I've only written a few paragraphs when I think I've written a few pages. And because I think more time has passed than it has, I often find that I've put in things far more frequently than they belong. In my current project, it's one character glaring at another. In a particular past project, it was a character crying.

Crying can be effective, whether it's stoic tears or full on sobbing. But too much gets grating really quickly.

Adults don't cry that much. But then, most adults hopefully don't have to go through whatever you are going to put your characters through, so it could be understood if your characters cry a bit more than normal folks. But you can't show every time they cry.

A lot of your character's life can be covered in a short amount of time when writing and so we are seeing the important snapshots from their life. It's why we don't often see characters in the bathroom or sleeping (unless there is some sort of important event happening then). If every single one of those moments involves the character crying, we lose sympathy for them because we become desensitized to it.

Pick the moments that are important for a character to be crying and just have them cry at those moments. Even as stress builds towards the climax, pick important moments and stick to them. It's an example of fiction having to be unrealistic in order to seem realistic.

Using the game that started this whole "character thoughts" pseudo series, Tales of the Abyss was sort of irritating at a few points about this. Take the character (ironically enough named) Tear. She comes into the game as a complete badass. She's an awesome character with a wry sense of humor, great skills, and not really willing to put up with any of Luke's crap. Slowly over the course of the game, she grows to care very deeply for him as he matures. And his maturation is done in such a way that I can see how she came to love him. But with her falling in love with him comes the tears.

There are quite a few stressful happenstances in that game, many of them revolving around potentially fatal experiences. And every single one of them is worthy of tears for all of the characters. But the thing is, we only really see Tear crying, seeing as she's the one closest to Luke.

Since she didn't cry once over the first entire half of the game, seeing her cry the first few times is really effective. We have the understanding this is serious stuff if it would makes Tear cry.

But after the game goes on for another ten hours, it becomes ineffective. We've seen her cry and as things get worse and worse she continues to cry at each new development. So by the time the final confrontation does come around and she's crying at that, we've lost the impact. We don't care nearly as much.

Fortunately, the other characters are also crying at that point, which brings up the effectiveness again. Some characters that we haven't seen show any emotion other than snide sarcasm or clever evasion are suddenly baring their hearts and the heart strings go "twang". They don't do this until the final confrontation and it makes it that much more powerful.

Now, before this, there were several instances where the characters have no way of knowing that they are only three-quarters through the game and thus by all rights, they should be thinking they're going to die and so should be making these speeches and they don't. It's because the writers know that they aren't at the final confrontation yet and chose to hold off. Except with Tear, which drives me nuts.

My suggestion? Pick two or three moments in the story that are the most gut-wrenching and stick to those. Now, this can be hard to do during a first draft (especially for a pantser like me), but it's something to look for in a second draft. Pick those two or three moments and that's where the characters are going to cry if they're going to cry at all. Even if lesser moments come before and a real person would actually cry there, avoid it. Yes, people might cry a great deal before and after a loved one dies from a terminal illness. I know I have. But fiction is not real life. Have an emotion moment with the loved one in the hospital and another after the funeral. And that's it.

Are there exceptions? Most certainly. Is this healthy behavior? In real life, no. Human beings have emotions for a reason and we cry for a reason. It's good for us. But no one likes a crybaby and characters have it tough in that we judge them much more harshly and much more quickly. Even if they only cry every time it would be normal for a person to cry, because that makes up a good percentage of the time we spend with them, it feels like they are crying at the drop of a hat.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? Arguments? This is entirely based on my own preferences, so by all means, tell me what you think!

Well...

2011-03-03T07:57:00.000-08:00

In which there is much bashful blushing.

So, as it turns out, I was still more sick than I thought (if you watch the video in the last entry, you can hear the beginnings of the congestion that reared its ugly head again) and so I was laid up yesterday and most of today again. So that "video everyday" thing sort of died before it started.

I'm debating whether or not to take another shot at it next week (sort of starting afresh on Monday), but it might not happen.

There are times when jumping in without any sort of planning can be a good thing (i.e. NaNoWriMo) and times when it is not. As it turns out, videoing actually takes me more concentrated time. I knew that, but I sort of didn't think about it. While writing can be done anywhere and at any time (boring classes and long waiting room stays are ideal), a scripted video can only be made at a particular time in a particular place with particular equipment. I didn't really take this too much into account, simply looking at all the free time I have in a day and not really thinking about what was actually available in that free time (there's a reason I write most of the time).

So, that endeavor has been shelved, thankfully before I got too involved or emotionally invested. I haven't given up on it yet, but I'm content in just writing and blogging for a while (and preparing for Screnzy, which is coming up faster than I realized).

Plus, I'm still sick and all I want to do right now is curl up and watch movies.

Announcements...

2011-03-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

Not quite done yet with character thoughts, but been a little distracted the past few days. I got super sick over the weekend and began to watch Gargoyles for the first time.

Oh. Em. Gee.

What was wrong with me? Why didn't I watch this show when I was younger?

Been tearing through the first season and I have to say, I'm hooked.
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In other news, I've been planning a project for the past month or so and it has finally kicked off today! In the spirit of joining the YouTube community a bit more and just because I want to, I'm going to be trying to make a video every weekday for the entire month of March.

First vid of the month already online!

Here's to a successful 22 more!

Thoughts on characters (part 2)...

2011-02-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

Part Two: In which there is a struggle for power...

A good cast of characters will let you get away with a lot. If the reader really cares about them, he or she might be willing to go along with a little more nonsense. Some backtracking or tangents might be a little more allowable, because they let the reader spend more time with the characters.

This doesn't mean that you can sacrifice plot for the sake of your characters though. Even with the greatest cast in the world, a movie will suck if the story goes nowhere. Sure, people will love the characters and quote their lines back and forth, but without something for those characters to be doing, it'd be like watching a bunch of one-liners with no real context.

On the other hand, you can't sacrifice your characters for the sake of plot. If your plot dictates that your character must do something that character would never do in a thousand years, the character can not do that. In that situation, you can only a) change the plot or b) change the character.

Now, I'm not talking about the sort of difficult decisions that face characters all the time. Like, if your character would never kill someone but they are forced into killing for self-defense or as a solider or something, that is different. This is like that same character suddenly shooting someone in cold blood with no provocation at all.

But say your plot demands that Character A kill Character B, when it is fairly clear that Character A would never do such a thing unless absolutely forced into it. The solution? Either change Character A to make them more likely to kill Character B, or change the plot so that Character A is being forced into it.

Out of character moments are allowed. We all have them, whether we're having a bad day or something we've never encountered before occurs. But we usually at least acknowledge the differences. If a character who is usually very kind is suddenly brutal to someone, there is usually some reason behind it. It's when there isn't beyond "the plot needed to move forward" that it becomes a problem.

Usually, it's never addressed why that character acted so out of character. It's as if the author didn't even notice that their character wouldn't do that. No guilt, no one else asking what was wrong, nothing. It just happens and is treated like a normal interaction, leaving the reader going "huh?".

Any examples you can think of where a character does something blatantly out of character, just to move the plot forward?

Some thoughts on character (part 1)...

2011-02-19T19:02:00.000-08:00

Part One: In which there is mostly fangirl squee...

First of a few-parter musing. I've been stewing on a lot of character-related things lately and to put it all in one entry would be far too long. Yay for my first foray into multi-part blogging!
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I've never really made a secret of the fact that I am very character-oriented. I wasn't always this way (as evidenced by my flirtations with plot-based outlines) but I'm very firmly convinced that character is key. Plot is certainly vital as well, but you can't have a plot without characters and the plot arises from those characters. You'd be surprised what you can get away with plot-wise if you have characters that an audience can become invested with. Though, on the other hand, you'd be shocked how much you can not get away with character-wise once that investment is made.

A bit of video game talk follows, but I do have a point. I'll get to it eventually, I promise...

Some might remember my ramblings about receiving the sequel to my most favorite video game of all time. I finished it a little while after that and I have to say: I didn't like it as much.

The plot for Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World was quite contrived. It was rather short comparatively and I hated quite a few of the puzzles. But the real gamebreaker was the cast.

The original Tales of Symphonia wasn't perfect. I hated some of the puzzles in that game too, some of the storyline is painfully predictable, and let's face it, upwards of fifty hours of gameplay (just in the story, not going into sidequests or anything) is a long time to spend with a group of pixelated folks. But you want to spend that time with them, even through the frustrating boss re-fights and pushing oodles of boxes around all the time. Their trials and tribulations are so engaging, the relationships, the friendships, between the group are so endearing, so well-rounded that you just want to see it through to the end, to make sure everything is going to turn out all right.

Dawn of the New World, on the other hand, didn't know what it had. The romantic couple is forced into a relationship almost immediately. It seems like the entire point of the game is to show how perfect they are for one another, and yet... I don't really see the attraction between them. Character development doesn't progress to a point where I could realistically see these characters liking each other. Most of the in-game banter is backbiting, most of the original cast has been flanderized for their cameos and it just seems like the members of the party don't really like each other at all. I didn't feel the tight-knit family atmosphere of the first game, the atmosphere I fell in love with. And because I didn't have that redeeming quality, the game fell through for me.

Do I regret playing it? I don't think so. If I hadn't, I likely would have been driven crazy with curiosity. So if nothing else, it gave me some moments of nostalgia and a few lulz. Would I recommend it? Meh, probably not, or at least not until you've played better Tales games.

Because Tales of Symphonia was not a fluke. A few weeks ago, I bought Tales of the Abyss, another (completely unconnected) game in the series and after many gaming sessions that stretched waaaaaay longer than they should have, I finished it just yesterday.

First, because I am such a fangirl, the intro:

I actually hated the music here the first time I heard it. Used to the lovely orchestrations of the Tales of Symphonia beginning, this rockin' intro was a bit jarring. After a time or two though, it really grew on me and I would actually watch the entire thing every boot up. Plus, this remix later in the game seriously gave me chills.

The story here was far more complex than Tales of Symphonia, with a much darker tone and a whole bunch of international politics and the hard decisions therein. But it all boils down to a young man named Luke and his life after he accidentally gets kidnapped. A lot of debating about person-hood, a lot about trust and friendship, a lot about growing up.

It isn't a perfect game either. I hate hate hate the map, the loading time is a little lengthy and sometimes the story is, again, a little contrived. But again, it is the characters that make it worth sticking around for.

I plowed through this game because I cared so much about them. I wanted to see what was happening to them, why such horrible things were going down and how exactly they were going to go down. Even with the occasionally predicable twist, I cared about the characters. The protagonist starts out as a real jerk. He really does. But he has a heart of gold in there somewhere and it shines through enough that you care about him. You want him to get better and let everyone else see that heart of gold. And so stuff happens to him that breaks away his jerkish exterior. But boy does he suffer in the meantime. There is a lot of death in this game, not all of it anonymous mooks. There were several scenes of genuine heartwrench.

But I kept playing, despite being mildly confused at times, despite the stupid map, because I was watching the characters grow together. Unlike in Dawn, where the characters' awkward "attraction" is shoved down our throats from moment one, these characters start out not liking each other. And they have very good reasons not to like each other. But they grow into it, everyone having to give (some more than others) in order to take. And because there is growth, there is change and because there is change, there is a little leeway in what I am willing to accept from these characters.

These characters can fight and I can't be assured that they will make up. They felt like real people in that sense. And if they were to make up, they would have to apologize and really change. A great deal of the story was about people atoning for their mistakes and mistreatments of the other characters. But not everyone does. Because these were people, not ideals. They went kicking and screaming into their plot and they weren't compliant for one minute of it. And it was awesome.

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Part two will hopefully have less of the nerdy game references and more of the actual thoughts on original character development.

Crazy little thing called 're-writing'...

2011-02-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

So, what with Valentine's Day having driven off the advances of the shameless Shiny New Idea and rekindled my love for my hedgehog project, I found myself taking a swing at beginning again.

I've written before about rewriting a beginning over and over again and that leading to stagnation of the story. It's one of the scariest parts about this rewrite: knowing my history with this whole thing. But I think this story needs it.

See, even when I say things like "just keep writing", there remains the Golden Rule of Writing: there are no rules. While, yes, there are rules about grammar and such, even they can be broken if you have a legitimate reason for breaking them. And when it comes to a process, there really is no "right" way to write. I myself never seem to follow the same pattern twice, which is one of the reasons I'm giving myself the go-ahead with this re-write.

I am a pantser through and through and it took me that original six thousand word beginning I had to see that it wasn't working. I had to take it that far to see that it wasn't working, or else I would have regretted a flighty change. This latest beginning is actually something like Version 2.5, being a sort of rework of an actual second beginning idea.

Now, if I were to have followed my own advice and "just kept writing", I would have been banging my head against a brick wall, frustrated by lack of enthusiasm and progress. And, despite the fact that ninety percent of writing is just the muscle action of putting pen to paper and keeping it there, some sort of inspiration is necessary to keep the story going.

And if anything, this is part of my planning process. Testing out what works, experimenting with styles (yay for out-of-order flashbacks and unreliable narrators!), and just generally hashing it out. I can't let the fear of a past failure stop me from progressing, nor let my own sensibilities stifle my story.

Does part of me panic at even the possibility of letting another story head towards the shelf? Yes. Is part of me frustrated at not having gotten it right the first time and now being almost entirely back at square one without having gotten all that far to begin with? Yes.

Is it going to be worth it? I think so. Worst case scenario, as always; I'll have learned something from it.

Anyone else ever rebooted a project more than once in the early stages? Did you ever finish? Still working on it? Relegated it to the shelf?

On slaying the Shiny New Idea (a love story)...

2011-02-14T20:55:00.000-08:00

Because I thought about slaying:

Quite possibly one of my most favorite performances of my most definitely favorite poem.
---
So, a few days ago, I contracted a case of the Shiny New Idea. I blogged about it. And, in blogging about it, I found that I was able to counter it.

See, the thing is with Shiny New Ideas, at least for me, is that they tend to fall apart if I think about them too hard. Actually, this is true for most ideas I have, but the difference is that I'm still excited about my current hedgehog project and so the Shiny New Idea doesn't hold the appeal it did because it is being overshadowed.

And so, on this, Valentine's Day, I'd like to share a short love story about my hedgehog project.

Young Writer's Society has a group called "Your Novel" in which members post short open letters to their novels. Often just a few lines if that, they are a cathartic way of venting frustration or love about a project. Recently, my own posts have followed an arc of sorts.

GryphonFledgling: Dear Novel,

Be patient with me. It takes some time to move from one relationship to the other. NaNoWriMo took a lot out of me and I want to be able to give you my everything. These scribbles in-between are actually working for us, I promise.
Wed Dec 22, 2010

GryphonFledgling: Dear Novel,

It's not cheating, just flirting. I'll come back, I promise. Just give me a little time to realize just how amazing you are and then you'll have the satisfaction of seeing how I come crawling back to your pages.

Mon Feb 07, 2011

GryphonFledgling: Dear Novel,

See? I told you I'd come back. Here's chocolates and a rose to prove my love for you on Valentine's Day.
Tue Feb 15, 2011

The first was right after NaNo, when I was sort of scribbling little scenes and things in lieu of actual writing on anything besides this blog. The idea was there, the want was there, but my heart just wasn't ready for that kind of commitment yet.

The second was right when the Shiny New Idea struck. It was all awhirl, with its glitz and glamor and snarky humor. I saw it for what it was, but I still begged for the time for a little excitement, a little adventure.

The third is self-explanatory. I wasn't dumped, I walked away before I got too involved with something that wasn't worth my time. I went back to something that I loved and that loved me and together we're going to make something amazing.

This is a project meant to last, methinks. Or at least I hope so. Right now we are going through a little rocky spot with regards to a beginning (seeing as how the beginning is going to drive the rest of the story). I'm thinking I may actually have to (*le gasp*) do a little brainstorming / outlining (*more le gasp*).

But despite being at a point where I'm feeling lost enough to want to do that, I feel good about this project. I might regret saying that in three months, when I'm mashing my forehead into my keyboard with frustration, but I've been with this project long enough for the puppy love of a Shiny New Idea to wear off and I'm still giddy with excitement at times.

Because, this project did start out as a Shiny New Idea, if you recall, in the middle of November. But, unlike this last Shiny New Idea, the hedgehog project stuck around long enough to be called a project at all, even to the point of getting me writing again after a post-NaNo funk.

I did write down my Shiny New Idea and maybe one day it will inspire me again, or at least let itself be hacked to pieces and stitched into other stories somewhere, but for now, true love triumphs and the hedgehog story and I march forward together into the great unknown.

Shiny...

2011-02-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

...Let's be bad guys.

Yes indeed.

-----

Well said, cat of questionable literacy but many lulz, well said.

If there is one thing more dangerous than the dreaded Writer's Block, it is the Shiny New Idea.

So you've got a project that you love, and you're working hard on it. Life gets in the way sometimes and the last few days haven't been so hot, but you still feel like this could go somewhere. It's just taking a little time.

Then, suddenly, from the blue, comes a Shiny New Idea. It's an idea! It's new! It's shiny! It seems to flow from your brain like a chocolate fountain, chock-full of marshmallows, strawberries and pound cake!

Suddenly the current project is exposed for what it is; a lukewarm Hot Pocket, full of congealing cheese and mystery meat dressed up as ham for Halloween.

So you want to drop that Hot Pocket and go for the Shiny New Idea, this lovely critter that demands nothing from you, just allows you to channel awesome from brain to pen.

And you do... for a while. But there will come a time when the Shiny New Idea is not so New anymore and eventually it will not be so Shiny anymore. And along will come another Shiny Newer Idea and then a Shiny Shiny Newer Idea and so on and so forth, in a horrible rampage of frustrated inspiration but no production.

The moral of the story? Stick with a project. If a Shiny New Idea pops up, demanding your attention

... indulge it for a minute or two. Take the time to write down that scene that is bugging you. If it turns into a little more than a scene, fine. But know where to put the brakes on.

At the same time, sometimes projects need to be taken a break from. I've blogged before about letting projects go. Sometimes they do need to go. But they shouldn't be dropped like a Hot Pocket. Lain carefully down like the inedible bits of lobster, maybe.

...because otherwise they might eat you?

...

I actually secretly like Hot Pockets.

Bursting at the seams...

2011-02-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

First off, a big thank you to Hannah from Musings of a Palindrome for her shout-outs to me and other small-time bloggers!
---
A sedentary body equals a sedentary mind for me. I find that the less I do in a day, the less I end up writing. It's why NaNoWriMo is such a frantic month, but always one of my most productive, while my writing always seems to stagnate during the summer months when all I do is laze about. Many a writer has bemoaned a surplus of free-time as hindering their writing.

That said, it seems like after a period of non-activity, my brain always seems to start cooking stuff up, just when I don't feel like writing at that moment.

For real, haven't been feeling fantastic lately (everyone else in my family has gotten sick and I'm the only one hanging on to health) and have been sleeping a lot. The other day, I spent the entire day sleeping, eating and playing video games (class had been mercifully cancelled due to snow) and while it was somewhat refreshing, I was frustrated afterward when I realized how little of anything I'd gotten done.

Cut to yesterday, when I had a full day of class and two essays to write. Suddenly my brain seething with inspiration and ideas, but I don't have the time to write any of them down.

Cut to today... The inspiration is still knocking around, but I am still feeling under the weather. I've been browsing the internet, reading a little and just generally not doing anything again. And I'm driving myself crazy because while I want to be writing, I really don't want to be writing.
---
Of course, the key is often to just start writing anyway. As I write and moan right now, I'm feeling the urge to simply grab a pad of paper and start writing something worth writing. So I likely will.

Funny how just taking a moment to purge and whine can actually set you on the path to activity. Anyone else find that they tend to follow any of these patterns? Or do you do something completely different?

Empty...

2011-02-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

I hate double-spacing.

I never really noticed how much I hated double-spacing until I had to write a research paper for Psychology my first semester of college. Before then, the longest paper I'd written for school had been maybe ten pages. It was about breeding mice for a science project and at the time, I was too caught up in mouse-care duties to really care too much about the paper itself. I wrote it, turned it in, got an A, was done.

This research paper was different. Something like fifteen pages and I agonized over that thing for months, writing several different versions, nitpicking over the formatting. And in the end, after all that work, after all that stress, the finished product looked so... soulless.

The extra space between every line made it look so empty, so lifeless. I can't really explain it, but it bothered me.

I still can't stand double-spacing. I don't know why it was that Psych paper that exacerbated that dislike, because I'd worked with it before. I didn't typically write in double-spacing before, usually just writing in single-spacing, then punching the button to spread it out at the end. Now, what with professors wanting a particular format, I generally work with double-spacing from the beginning, making sure to follow the format as much as possible from the beginning to avoid stress later.

And I hate it. Even if I do work from single-spacing in the beginning and then switch before I print, the print-out always bothers me.

It's a silly thing to get worked-up over, but get worked-up I do. I'm so visually oriented and writing holds such a special place in my psyche that things like that get me rankled. The same part of my brain that does this to me is the one that makes me drool over stacks of books and obsessively read every scrap of text I can get my hands on when I'm eating (for real, I especially can't get through breakfast without something to read). Books with funny margins cause me literal headaches and huge walls of text make my eyes slip up and water.

But double-spacing. Oh that double-spacing.

In which there is a great deal of poetry...

2011-02-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

you pretend not to watch me
I pretend not to judge
a half-baked soufflé
too early and it will fall
too late and the cement has set
unyielding, uncaring, cold
just right and the lantern rises
held up by wishes and hot air
careful not to catch on fire
hope it doesn't cool
your hand is warm in mine
grip too tight and bones will break
too loose and the darkness will eat you
having me alone with an empty page
don't blink
I'll make my verdict
---
thumb pad on an ice cube
ridges and slick
---
two steps removed
watching the world go by in slow motion
count the hummingbird's feathers
catch the cold breath in a balloon
let it squeal out in a fog horn
calling in my imaginary friend
keep up with me
moving banana peels from underfoot
chasing fruit flies
waiting for the light
switch it on
write on the bathroom mirror
ghost letters
from the great beyond
two steps away
---
snail shell spirals
warm chocolate curls
---
eyes ask a question
while your smile tries to mitigate it
walking on monkey grass
blades of shattered knives
trying to dance a tango
when one only knows how to samba
a box of chocolates
gun barrel hiding under your ear
not sure whose finger is on the trigger
or if its just a lump in the pillow
I'm not sure of the answer
but ask anyway
---
I'm in class and randomly scribbling things. Stuff happens. I have to admit that the first one is my favorite. I don't often write poetry, but I often seem to find myself inordinately proud of the result when I do, even if it is complete nonsense.

Thank you and farewell...

2011-02-07T21:23:00.000-08:00

Brian Jacques passed away Saturday, February 5.

I got the news from Twitter and I was actually struck with physical shock when I read about it.

I can't say that I was always a big fan of Jacques, but he was definitely a huge part of my childhood. I loved Redwall, even if the other books in the series sometimes seemed to regress into repetition. My younger siblings loved the series and so I constantly was surrounded by the books all the time. I loved his narration in the recording of his books and I actually still use my CD of Redwall to fall asleep sometimes. His voice was just so soothing.

And now he's gone. It breaks my heart.

A daily record...

2011-02-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

faux amis
false friends
sliding on an oil slick of french
thinking you're ice-skating
olive oil instead of hinge grease
gumming up the works
blowing bubbles of smoke
bright pink sludge
filling up plastic bottles until they're dry
cracks in the mask
deer in the headlights
raccoon eyes hiding gecko pads of want
eyeshadow sliding into lipstick
faux animals
fur amis

---
Yay for complete nonsense?

Yeah, that's the kind of stuff I scribble in class when a lecture lapses into boring.
---

There's something to be said for a daily journal. It could be about your daily life or about your writing or for collecting pictures or for writing poetry. Mine is sort of for everything and it goes everywhere with me. I went through phase towards the end of last year, scribbling notes and rants and stuff on scrap pieces of paper, but there is something to be said about having an actual notebook. It makes it easier to keep things together (remember my word of 2011 is to be "collected") and there is really gratifying to watch a notebook fill up, even if it is just with insane scribbles like that above. I'm barely a week into February and already I'm half-way through a notebook I started on the first of January.

Though I think someday I'm going to need to go through my notebooks and binders and write out a timeline for when each one fits so that if I ever need to put them in order, I can without having to actually put them in order on my shelf (seeing as how most of the binders are full-size and most of the notebooks are only like half that size and they would just fit awkwardly).

In defense of fanfiction...

2011-02-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

Before anything else: The wonderful Elena Solodow over at You're Write. Except when you're Rong. created a super-cool new hashtag for Twitter.: #lastlinetoday. At the end of the day, post the last line of whatever you wrote that day. I intend to start, seeing as how my Twitter tends to lay dormant for months at a time when it's not NaNo. Though my last lines tend to be long after I've shut my computer down for the night, so maybe they'll be posted the next morning? As sort of a start to the new day? Hmm...

Now onto actual blog posting!
---
So, in one of my late-night deliriums of inspiration I've been talking about lately, I started a fanfic. Just a short little drabble, brought on by the superficial similarities between two characters of two different fandoms. It's fun and it's something outside of my other projects, giving me somewhere else to flex my writing muscles a little without having to worry about world-building or character casting or anything. I've never really written fanfic before (aside from one alternate character interpretation fic for two minor minor minor characters of Tales of Symphonia that can be found here for the interested) and I have to say: it's hard.

I have respect for fanfic writers. I think I've blogged before about literary sandboxes and whatnot (though I can't find the post and if I haven't, I will soon) and how fanfiction can be really awesome. I enjoy reading my share of good fanfiction (because there is certainly a lot of not-good out there). I mean, good writing is good writing is good writing, right?

I can see where haters of fanfiction are coming from. I mean, most of what you'll find is badly written, etc. etc. etc. and the authors aren't coming up with the characters and setting themselves, but there is something to be said for writing a character that isn't your own.

It's one of the reasons why it is so hard to find a good fanfic. When you are writing your own characters, you're allowed to flub them at first, finding their voices, exploring their psyche and letting them grow organically. But in fanfic, you've got a character already laid out. They've already been made to someone else's specifications and you're not really allowed to tailor them all that much. Out-of-character moments run rampart in bad fanfics because the authors try to fit the character into a role rather than letting the role grow out of the character.

It's hard for someone like me who never knows anything about her characters unless she sees it unfolding in front of her. It's very easy to fall into flanderization and pick just one trait of a character and let that be the basis of the story, which isn't fair to the characters or the original creators.

The whole thing is very foreign to me, but I think it's good practice. It is nice being able to think about how an established character would react to something, rather than trying to make up my own character's opinion on a matter. And that's good for me, maybe teaching me some of the benefits of different styles of writing.

So yeah, I'm having fun with it. That and I'm writing it mostly on WriterFeedPad, which is always a pleasure. Every time I use it, I like it more.

A little pimping...

2011-02-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

So, I'm a member of Young Writers Society, run by the ever-fabulous Nathan Caldwell. It's a online community of writers, mostly aged 13 to 25, with wonderful reviews, a chat room, forums about just about everything, live feeds of friend activity, blogs, and a whole crap-load more. I've been a member for three years and running now and I can't think of leaving. The people are awesome, the site is awesome, it's just awesome.

But there is something even more awesome looming in the future...

Nate is currently working on a sort of sister-site to YWS, called Writer Feed, which he has developed based on all the things he knows now that he had wished he had known about when he began YWS. The idea behind it is social networking for writers, aimed mostly at writers 18+ as a more serious alternative to YWS. It's set to launch really, really soon (the date's sort of nebulous, since Nate's programming in his free time - something like 20 hours of work remain, I understand) and I am super-crazy excited. A review and more pimping will come when it does finally launch (right now, the above link just leads to a spiffy "coming soon"-type page).

But, in the meantime...

Nate has given us WriterFeedPad, which is simply awesome. Similar in concept to Google Docs or other online document sites, it gives you a place online to type up documents and the like. The formatting tools are fairly simple, but for a short story or novel or just notes to yourself, it's perfect. Plus, the really cool things about it are the way you can make a pad public or share it with other users (so that more than one person can be working on the same pad - each shows up as a different color) and it tracks the revisions in real time (and has the niftiest slider bar thing that will literally take you through every change you make in a document in a sort of running film way, allowing you to stop at any time and export that particular place in revision as a document). It's already linked to YWS, but apparently it's also going to be hooked up to WF when it finally launches!

Super, super excited. I've been using WriterFeedPad for several documents already, putting in some handwritten notes and drafts of my hedgehog story and even hashing out some scenes from an idea that just won't leave me alone tonight (for real, it's again around midnight and my brain won't shut off).

An ending...

2011-02-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

Whew. One month into the new year already.

With the end of January comes the end of a sort of unofficial-yet-very-resolved resolution to post every day of the month. I sort of decided to do it after a day or so in the new year when I was being consistent and I never actually made it official because I was afraid that if I said anything, I would jinx my resolve. But now it is over and I can celebrate my completion of another resolution this year already!

That's not to say I won't be posting every day or nearly-every day in the months to come (in fact, I want to keep it up for as long as possible for the rest of this year) but I won't do the "Oh crap, it's 11:49 at night and I haven't posted anything yet" panic that I did a few times last month. It's a good exercise in consistency for me and it helps me hash out a lot of things about storytelling and writing.

For this new year, I'm going to be trying a lot of new things, both in my writing and in the rest of my life, and perhaps in my blog. Anything you guys would like to see me try here? I'm open to suggestions as I turn another corner this year.

Advice to my past self...

2011-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

I was looking over my archives the other day, just sort of skimming through notes and revisions and scribbles and if I were to give my past self a few pieces of advice, they would be:

1) Just keep writing, 2) don't throw anything away and 3) put the date on everything.

They both seem rather simple and sort of "duh", but really, I wouldn't have known back then just how much I wish I'd done those things then.

1) Just keep writing. Even if an idea isn't working or you don't know how it should turn out, just keep writing it. It's sort of the golden rule of NaNoWriMo especially, but it can be applied to just about any other piece of writing. If nothing else, you'll figure out what doesn't work. In the best cases, you can end up with character motivations you didn't see coming or a plot twist that incorporates a throw-away mention you made earlier. In the worst cases, you simply have to throw out some stuff that wasn't working anyway when you edit.

However you won't really throw them away because

2) You shouldn't throw anything away. Even if that one chapter is just awful, the idea makes no sense or it's a conversation from the more bland regions of Blahsville, keep it anyway. If nothing else, you can look back on it and laugh at yourself. In the best cases, you might reincorporate it somewhere in another story or it provides the perfect inspiration for something else. In the worst cases, you at least have material for your future biographers and literary scholars to look back on and write books about.

And to help them out, you should

3) Really, put the date on EVERYTHING. All-caps was warranted there, because you have no idea how many times I've looked back at stuff I know I wrote more than a few years ago and have wondered exactly when I started writing it. Or I find a scribbled sentence or idea and I have no idea when I came up with it. If nothing else, you'll have a timeline of papers. In the best cases, you can track how long you've been on a project and keep track of your consistency and inspiration timeline. In the worst cases... Well, there really are no worst cases here. You just had to take the split second it took to write the date up in the corner. And I really do mean everything. Even if it's just a post-it note you happened to scrawl "two months instead of three?" as a note to yourself for your novel, date it. It makes things so much easier in the future, in ways you wouldn't even imagine now.

Well, unfortunately, I can't tell my past self this, but maybe my future self can put it all to good use.

Sweet lullaby...

2011-01-30T21:08:00.000-08:00

There are times when you run into a book or a movie or a piece of music that is just too powerful. It literally pains you to read/watch/listen to it because it is just too beautiful.

Going through a music phase right now, similar to that of pre-NaNo frenzy, and just aching at the gloriousness that is Joe Hisaishi.

One of my favorites from the first Studio Ghibli movie I ever saw: Howl's Moving Castle (whole rant about that here). Seriously though, the entire soundtrack is pretty much win.

Been listening to a lot of foreign music (and a lot of foreign film/anime soundtracks) lately, mainly because even when they have lyrics, I don't understand the words and thus aren't too distracted. Typically, if I listen to a song with lyrics that I know, I inevitably end up singing (for real, it actually requires concentration for me not to sing along to any and every song I know) and if I sing, I end up typing or writing what I am singing rather than what I actually mean to be writing.

'Inasmuch' still won't leave me alone until I scribble down some notes, but the good news is that I can sleep in tomorrow, so it can keep me up all it wants. I have pretty music to listen to, so I don't mind.

Why...

2011-01-29T20:29:00.001-08:00

...does inspiration have to strike in the middle of the night when you have to get up crazy early the next morning?

For real, I have to get up at five tomorrow for work and 'Inasmuch' just won't leave me alone.

Beneath the mask...

2011-01-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

In fiction, it seems like if you are a) a nice person, you can hide all sorts of mental issues, but if you are b) mean in an attempt to mask your mental issues, everyone can see right through you with their psychiatrist-vision.

For examples of this phenomenon, I present to you a) Tohru from Fruits Basket and b) the titular character from House.

a) Fruits Basket

There's this trope called the Stepford Smiler where a character seems cheerful and all, but is really masking a deep-seated pain or crazy or whatever. The thing is, no one ever seems to see through it except the audience. The rest of the characters remain painfully oblivious until something happens that causes the mask to break.

Exhibit A: Torhu Honda

Just look at those big eyes and bright smile. So cute! She's kind, caring, unrelentingly cheerful...

But then she's so accommodating that she's practically a doormat, has deep-seated self-esteem issues (as does everyone in the show) and just generally has quite a few sucky moments in her past. Yet, the other characters would never have known if there weren't moments where she breaks down and says something she doesn't mean to. No one; not her friends, not her adoptive family, not even her real family. The audience sees it more than the other characters do, because we see her at her most vulnerable.

Contrast this to:

b) House M.D.

Exhibit B: Dr. Gregory House

Bitter, sarcastic, drug-riddled... He's a bit of a mess.

And everyone seems to know why. Patients he's only just met are monologuing at him, telling him all the reasons for why he acts the way he acts. Sure, sometimes he himself tells us about his past, but it's because people have been poking at him, prodding at him, explaining to him (and via him, the audience) why he acts the way he acts and how beneath his jerkish exterior there is a heart of gold.

I picked these two examples because they are particularly egregious. As mentioned, House's patients almost always seem to know exactly what his game is after just meeting him, and Tohru goes for a long, long time without anyone noticing that she was, oh, living in a tent, abused by her family, blah blah blah. In fact, she has to tell them mostly or have people see it for themselves. And the reverse is true in both examples as well: in early seasons of House M.D., no one seems to see how messed up Cameron is and all through Fruits Basket characters are explaining other character's issues to each other in response to bursts of temper.

And it always seems to be this way. If a character is a jerk, another character almost always has to insist that there is actually some sort of good in him and it will almost always turn out that there is. But if someone is indefatigably happy, it could be anything really hiding under the smile.

It's like characters (and I guess people in real life too) would like to think that when something seems all right, it is, but if something seems to be wrong, we have to pick at it until we find an answer.

Any other examples you guys can think of for either extreme? Or, conversely, any examples that completely defy these generalizations?

Laughing at myself...

2011-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Funny that right after I should write an entire blog entry about how I seem to be unable to write anything but angst, I sit down with a fresh notebook and wrote two entire pages of a non-angsty beginning to a second draft.

Yes, I'm starting afresh. Probably something like over six thousand words on my last draft and I'm sort of ditching them and beginning again.

Do I consider those words a waste? Do I consider that time and the act of throwing it all away to be completely pointless?

Nope.

This is how I write.

It's a messy mess of a mess. Full of false starts and redundant redundancy. Those thousands of words I wrote showed me what didn't work and gave me ideas for things that would work. And now I have a quirky beginning, the sort of light-hearted prose I was whining about not being able to write.

The moral: I shouldn't whine about how I can't do something until I try.

Not-so-happily ever after...

2011-01-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

See, here's the thing: I write angst.

I don't want to. It's not like I mean to. But it seems like, because I take my characters so seriously, they start to take themselves too seriously and I end up with these serious stories, filled with psychological issues and just general not-fun.

It just sort of happens, even when I mean to write something a little more lighthearted. I mean, for NaNo10 even, I wrote a zombie story. How can you take a zombie story too seriously? The entire point of a zombie story is to have fun with it or scare the crap out of people. It's a survivor story and because there is no society, you have no rules and so you can go on a rampage of awesome.

But I had to bring character angst into it and it became one of my darker things to date, I think, simply because of the protagonists' lack of morals. It has a relatively happy ending, but still...

Then comes my hedgehog story. I meant for it to be light-hearted, sort of like Princess Tutu, which manages to make me smile every single episode, even when it descends into the dark and heart-wrenching. There is something just so heartwarming about it and funny and cute and just plain sweet, that manages to make the darker moments all the more dark. The ending is happy, if a little bittersweet, but it manages to still feel light and cheerful despite it all.

However, my projected ending for the hedgehog story (at least as it stands) is not really happy. If anything, it's bittersweet, with emphasis on the "bitter". There is a potential for a happy ending later, but the actual last event shown on the page would be heartbreaking (y'know, if I actually succeed in the correct mood in my writing).

The problem is that I can't think of a way to make a happy ending feel like a cop-out. After all I'm going to put my characters through and the world I have established, the happy ending I want wouldn't fit. It would feel like a deus ex machina, or just simply a saccharine ending. It would feel like I was forcing a happy ending on it.

It drives me crazy when stories do this, putting us through so much and then at the last minute pulling the ridiculously happy ending. And while it feels good the first time you experience it, the second time it doesn't feel quite the same. It can feel like a let-down, sort of negating all the suffering that came before it. I'd rather have it end with hope; maybe everything isn't perfect, but there is a knowledge that the future will improve and be happy.

That's sort of what I'm shooting for with my hedgehog story, but at the same time, it just sort of makes me super-aware of how angsty my stories seem to be all the time.

Quite angsty.

Nostalgia and crack...

2011-01-25T19:51:00.000-08:00

So, in being all nostalgic and stuff on my birthday today, I was reading over my old writing, namely from around 2006, and was impressed with the thoroughness of some of it. And shocked that my memory was so bad.

It turns out the bulk of the writing for my old project Ocean of Fire was done when I was fourteen through maybe early sixteen, which is older than I had thought. But reading over the notes and things almost made me want to pick it up again. I wrote a ton of stuff back then, like folders and folders of outlines and notes. I had forgotten just how much it was, even if I do remember having the entire twenty-page original outline up on my wall for a long time.

That led me to thinking about one of my other more-favorite characters from that abandoned project, Meirzen, and how I occasionally feel the urge to resurrect his story the way I did Quina and Red's. And I then had the cracktastic idea to combine his universe with that of my hedgehog story. I don't know if it's actually going to happen, or if it does, I'll just be stealing the world and there will likely be no mention of Meirzen himself (seeing as how if there were, he would end up dying and I don't want to kill him off in case I ever do decide to resurrect his story) but I was just shocked at the audacity of my brain for even thinking of such a thing.

There needs to be a term for original fiction writers and ideas for crossovers and such like that within our own writings. Fanfiction writers have the term crack!fic, where they have the strangest crossovers or ships or simple out-of-characterness, but we original fiction writers don't really get that, seeing as how it's all in our head or in our private universe. No one outside of us cares because no one outside of us has ever seen it. But we do crossovers and cameos all the time. I once wrote something like four pages that contained every main character I'd ever written, all in some sort of secret agent group hunting down their respective antagonists or something like that.

Seriously, we need our own term. Suggestions?

Devolution...

2011-01-24T17:27:00.001-08:00

It's funny how ideas evolve. And sometimes devolve.

For real, my character of Rat is going through quite a lot of changes lately. She started out as sort of a bitter old man, unsatisfied with his lot in life. Then he turned into a bitter young man, a sort of incompetent student convinced he was more talented than he really was. Then he became a she, not even a student at all, but convinced that she was just as good as the men who were refusing to let her join them. Now she's sort of gone back to the original idea, becoming a bitter older woman, closer to the knight's age than she was, and unsatisfied with her lot in life, helping the knight and the hedgehog more out of boredom and to prove to her peers that she actually can, more than out of any real compassion.

It's strange how a character can go through stages of development like that, eventually coming full circle back to the original idea. It shows how sometimes you shouldn't second-guess yourself, or at least be willing to accept that the second-guess wasn't as good as the first idea.

Though, who's to say it won't change again? Ah, writing.

Awesome (except not really)...

2011-01-23T17:41:00.000-08:00

The only thing worse than a truly, truly awful story is one that has so much potential, but squanders it and falls flat on its face. This is worse, to me, because it makes me get nitpicky. A bad book or movie is just bad. You see it, you laugh/cringe at it, and then you move on with your life. You tell jokes with your chums about how terrible it was and you're done.

Wasted potential, however, gets under your skin. There very well might be something about it you liked; character archetypes, set up, art design, production crew, something. There's something about it that looks promising, only for it to be snatched away and thrown into a pit of soul-sucking lampreys.

It's drives you crazy, because it's like someone took a perfectly good chocolate cake

and dropped it into a blender, added corned beef,

lo mein,

salsa

and then a healthy scoop of the scum from the underside of your trashcan lid.

The cake is still there. You know it, but you can't get around all the other stuff that's mixed in.

Too graphic? Too graphic. Here, enjoy the lampreys again.

Obviously, this is a bit of a rant-filled subject for me. My point is, there's a reason why you shouldn't tease the tiger at the zoo.

A prime example for this (y'know, based on my own preferences - feel free to disagree) is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

I wouldn't call myself a fan of everything Burton's done, but I do genuinely like a few of his movies. I love the visual design and nearly every single member of cast for the film and Carrol's Alice books are obviously some of the strangest, most influential pieces of literature in the English language.

And yet, this movie sucked. Despite everything, the story has no life to it. The whole thing is supposed to be about how Alice comes to grips with herself and her choices in life, but there was only ever one real option in Underland (unless, y'know, she's chill with being partly responsible for genocide). There's no conflict. She had more opportunity for finding herself in England. She did more to find herself in England (codfish vs. corsets, anyone?).

Gah, too much to get angry at.

The thing that really drives me crazy is that I have this weird, unfounded urge to want to like this movie, despite having seen it enough times to have supposedly purged myself of that notion. Yet every time I see the cover for this film, I have a moment of excitement, as if it were one of my favorites. But it's not. I seriously don't like this movie. I'm not in denial about it. I am comfortable with not liking it. I just want to know why I want to like it.

And then yesterday, I think I figured it out: it's the music.

The score of this film is just gorgeous. I actually bought the soundtrack recently, it being so easy to write to. I mean, just listen to this hero theme:

Gah, so pretty and epic and inspiring and all that.

And because music is, as I've ranted about before, a glue to make a movie stick, I keep wanting to like this movie just because it has a good score. And, inevitable,y when I end up watching it, I end up pulling my hair out at all the wasted potential.

Do you guys have a particular movie or book that just drives you crazy because it could have been so much better? What is it's redeeming quality that makes you care (however small)?

Ode to sugar and English...

2011-01-22T20:47:00.000-08:00

I love English. As beautiful as other languages are, as deft and elegant as they may be, I really love English. It takes what is best about so many languages and smushes it all together into a complicated marvelous slush pile. English is like a kid in a candy shop, taking a little or a lot of whatever catches its fancy.

But there have to be rules, so that we don't eat ourself sick. Sure, you can play with the rules of punctuation and grammar for effect, just like you can choose to have a crapload more gummy bears than chocolate bars, but the point remains that you have to know what the rules are, what your limits are, before you can break them.

Gah, if only some people would understand this instead of just tossing things out willy nilly.

Predestination…

2011-01-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

I’m very much about character development. I mean, I rant about it all the time, but it’s true. One of the reasons I’m a punster is that if I were to decide a character is to be a certain way and have a certain relationship with another character, and decide the resolution of all this in advance, I am inevitably frustrated that it either a) turns out completely differently or b) supposedly plays out the way I wanted, but completely dead, with no soul or real chemistry.

It’s part of the reason why my angel project was dropped, or at least shelved. I was trying to force two characters into a particular relationship and it just wasn’t working. It didn’t make sense for their personalities as they evolved.

In my current hedgehog project, I sort of wanted Rat to end up with a crush on the knight, but the way it’s going right now, she would have to be a real masochist for that to work. I mean, he’s been downright nasty to her. Not just the antagonistic “jerk with a heart of gold” or anything, but almost genuinely abusive. She brought a lot of it on herself (y’know, scaring him half to death, hurting the only thing that’s giving him meaning in life, “stealing” said creature and disappearing) but for her to end up with a crush on him, there is either something really wrong with her (which, the more I write her, the more I am suspecting) or there is going to have to be some serious character development for both of them.

Which is going to happen in either case, but whether it will turn out the way I initially wanted is up in the air. Yay?

Have you guys ever had a character relationship not turn out the way you planned it, or emerge out of nowhere? Do you know how your characters are going to respond to each other or is it just “wait and see” for you?

Back it up, back it up...

2011-01-20T21:23:00.000-08:00

It's always a tragedy when you lose writing.

Well, I don't think I've actually lost it, or if anything, all I've really lost were some school papers. At least, I think that's it...

Yes, I lost a flash drive that I was trying to back up.

The moral of the story is: back up the files before you lose the flash drive!

For real, it's a good idea to back up frequently, with one copy on your computer and another on something like a flash drive or external harddrive. I even back up some files (should do more, but I've been busy) on Google Docs, just in case (plus, then they are accessible from any computer with internet if I manage to leave my flash drive somewhere!).

The good news is that the reason I realized I was missing this flash drive is because I bought myself a new one. A shiny 8 GB flash drive, as opposed to the 2 GB I had before. I put every single text file from both my old computer and my new computer onto it and I still have over 6 GB left. Amazing. (I haven't transferred pics/music/video yet, but I think those are going on my external harddrive anyway.)

Anyway, a day of shop talk here. Though, on the subject of writerly bling, I bought myself a messenger bag today that has the most perfectly situated compartments ever! Perhaps there will be pics in the future...

One down...

2011-01-19T19:29:00.000-08:00

Remember that one writing goal I made to write a song based on TheyFightCrime.org? Well, I accomplished it!

Yes, my brother and I wrote a song about suave Russian zombies astronauts and chain-smoking widows living with robots in haunted houses who fight Big Bads named Agamemnon McCulley. It's pretty much awesome. We're even trying to hash out some basic piano/guitar accompaniment, which is made difficult by the fact that, while my brother plays some guitar, neither of us play any piano beyond one-handed Christmas carols.

Anyway, in doing that, I've also begun another of my goals, which was to do a radio drama. We've decided our song is the theme jingle for a radio drama currently temp-titled "They Fight Crime". It is incredibly silly, runs on Rule of Cool and is just plain fun. Plus, it's quality time spent among siblings, if you are able to conveniently ignore the knock-down-drag-out fights that happen when someone talks during someone else's take.

This might never be seen outside of a select circle of family members and friends, but we're having fun with it.

How To Write: Gryph-style...

2011-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I was so super late on the uptake on this, only having found out about it on this, the day of, but here is the What's Your Process Blogfest!

Writing process... Hmmm...

It really does vary from project to project. Sometimes I get an idea for a character and want to write their story, other times I get an idea for a story that I need to add characters to. For actual writing, I usually just put some characters on a page and have them do stuff, and sometimes I do little test runs, almost auditions, to work out how the story is going to be told. When it comes to editing, I almost always just completely rewrite the sucker, rather than line-by-line edit or anything. My first draft is like a big long rambling outline, really the only outline I do.

To show some of the differences (however minor they might seem) I'll illustrate two of the most different: my NaNo for '09 Scorpion and Sandman and my current hedgehog project Once Upon a Spine. Buckle up and get ready for a rather long and rambly post! Yay?

Scorpion and Sandman

The idea for this actually has a really crazy long story. When I was like thirteen, I had an idea for a story about a blind kid named Bain. It started because I had just had an idea of a blind boy running through a field as if he could see. I think that idea came from "The Lost Year of Merlin" series by T.A. Barron. It was mostly about him, later evolving to include his estranged father who was a disillusioned warlord, and an elf girl who would eventually become Quina.

It took a long time though. Initially, she was some sort of savior character, downtrodden and being trained for her place in the world by a drunken half-elf. He was initially supposed to be some sort of pseudo-romantic interest. Then Quina was supposed to be captured and imprisoned and I came up with the idea for this human prisoner who would fall in love with her and help her escape at the cost of his own life. To my thirteen year-old self, it was all very grand and epic and I loved it.

That itself eventually changed to a slightly more happy ending, with this new character, Red, and Quina ending up together, though they did have a rather long bout of slavery.

The project eventually sort of died, seeing as how a) it grew huge, with no less than eight different protagonists and b) I was so enamored with outlining and planning it all that I didn't really get to writing it. I got through one entire draft of the first book in a proposed trilogy, but then it just sort of died.

Then I had an idea to take each of the protagonists' stories (combining some of them, seeing as how some were intertwined) and write several books that way. I started with Bain, but he eventually evolved into such an emo-tastic tortured soul that he was no fun to write for anymore. But there were two characters who were always a blast to write: Red and Quina.

They were sort of secondary characters, a married couple living in the slums because he was a former slave, still branded, and she was an elf. I loved them to death and when the new project died too, I was actually heartbroken to have to let them go.

Fast forward a few years to NaNoWriMo 2009. (I'd actually signed up for NaNo in '08 and never done anything as I discovered later, having completely forgotten about signing up at all.) I needed a story, I had two characters whose story I wanted to tell. Lovely!

Now, I say usually that I am a pantser, just sort of writing things, but Scorpion and Sandman had a huge backlog of history (seriously, those few paragraphs up there summarize several years of my life). I had some fairly developed characters already and an idea for how I wanted the story to go. And, this being the first time I had done NaNo, I did some simple outlining.

I could still make an argument for my panster status, since those outlines were never really more than a page long and a few of them were made on the fly in the middle of the month, just so I wouldn't forget the resolution I had projected, but that was actually the beginning of my panster self.

As mentioned before, part of the reason the parent project died was because I was so enamored with outlining that I never actually got to the writing. I'd learned a little since then, but it was really the "omigosh, have no time, no ideas, need to write 2k words nao!!!" attitude of NaNo that really cemented that idea of just sort of going "blah" on paper.

So I did. There was a little bit of outlining and a whole lot of previously acquired knowledge, but I pretty much wrote that novel on the fly. I started with two characters with stories I wanted to write and just wrote them.

This project has been on the back burner, in the queue for editing, since NaNo09's completion, but I've never really dug into it hardcore. Mainly because I'm terrified of messing it up. I love that novel so much. It represents so much; the completion of a childhood obsession, the first accomplishment of NaNoWriMo, etc. etc., that I'm afraid of sullying that memory. I'll get over it eventually, I'm sure, and dig into it (seriously, writing about the parent project is making me want to pick that up again), but there's really been no editing as of yet.

Once Upon a Spine
This was inspired by (mm-hmm, here it comes) Princess Tutu, right in the middle of NaNoWriMo this past year.

Actually, I'd wanted to write a fairy-tale princess story for a while. This was an example of just having an idea for a type of story I wanted to tell and sort of sticking things into it. The original idea was for it to be a delightfully quirky story, completely not-full of my apparently trademark angst that I keep finding in all my works. (Hahahahaha, hold on while I finish laughing at my own naivety... To think I thought I could keep angst out of this story.)

It was just the idea of a hedgehog wanting to become a princess that was practically blatantly stolen from Princess Tutu. I wanted to explore what would happen if a character went through drastic changes for a single motivation, only to discover that those changes gave them other motivations as well.

This, I didn't quite jump into immediately. Instead, there was a sort of "waiting" period between NaNo and a new project. It wasn't as bad as it was last year (when I literally didn't write for months after NaNo in some sort of horrible burnout) since this year I did actually do a crapload of blogging and some scribbles of fiction and nonfiction alike in my own portfolio. And, mixed in there, were some little scenes and snippets of ideas for my hedgehog story.

They were sort of previews, sort of teaser scenes that I wanted to include, or that sort of captured the mood I wanted. I don't know if any of them will actually make it into the story itself, but they were fun to test the waters. Got a few ideas for character motivations, and came up with an idea for a potential ending for somewhere down the line.

But then, on January 4th, I actually started writing. Didn't think too hard about it, just sort of picked a narration style, and just started writing. Panster style all the way. There was no history to this project, no built-up knowledge of my characters. Just them, not even named (not even joking) standing there, wanting to know what they were supposed to do. So I made them do stuff. Two of the three main characters have names (Rat and Gareth), but that's it.

It's been like that since then. I write down notes to myself whenever I think of a revelation that I want to remember (like, further character motivations), but mostly it's just been hashing it out and seeing where it goes. It's pretty much a long, extended outline. I can tell you for almost absolute certain that the section I'm writing right now will not be in there, or at least not in the place or form it's in.

Unlike Scorpion and Sandman though, I'm actually looking forward to editing this one. Of course, it might be way too early to tell on this sucker, seeing as how I've only been legitimately working on it for a grand total of two weeks now, but I have a good feeling about it. I sort of know where I want this story to go and even though I know that what I'm writing right now isn't fitting into that most tentative of tentative mental plans, I know that I need to write it. It's the raw "blahsome" for my future "awesome".

Whew... Long and rambly that.

One big sandbox...

2011-01-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

You know, the internet is an amazing thing.

Sure, you have to sift through a lot of chaff to find anything good, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

See, there is so much crap that it actually sets the bar low enough to give folks the courage to put stuff out there. It gives them the gumption to try putting some of their work out there, knowing that even if it's not as great as the good stuff, there's at least something definitely worse out there.

This does, of course, lead to a lot of crap. A lot of crap. With posting things on the internet being free and all, there's no filtering system in place like there is in the publishing industry and so anything and everything is on there.

But there is stuff that is mediocre. It's not fantastic, it has flaws, but it has so much potential that you like it anyway. It gets a following. The creators get practice in their craft and we get free entertainment out of it. Fanfiction, abridged series, podcasts, music, original fiction, short films, animation, blogs, all of that. For everything worth watching/reading/listening to/etc., there are a hundred ones that really aren't. But those things are worth watching/reading/listening to/etc.

I've been scouting out the forums at a few writing sites lately and watching a lot of videos on YouTube and just plain been reveling in the sheer volume of brilliance that can be exhibited there, unhindered despite their flaws. Sure, some of these never would have made it past a publisher's desk, but not always because they are hopeless.

Every endeavor will be flawed. There is no way to improve without making mistakes. But it can be hard when you're all alone. The internet gives us a place to put it out, have a community, and improve among others without actually having to face someone.

Because the internet is anonymous for the most part. I, at least, have a neurosis about showing my work to people I actually know (aside from my siblings, oddly). The anonymity is soothing. I have managed to strike up friendships with folks over the internet and we've become close, but for some reason, that wall that is put up between me and IRL people never gets built up.

I think it's because of the way the internet works and is accepting of everything thrown at it (sometimes to the point of madness). So, despite the crazy, I love you, internet.

Plug time! What has the internet brought you that you love in your deepest heart of hearts that maybe wouldn't be published anywhere but the internet?

For me, it's vloggers. And bloggers. And abridged series. And TVTropes. Thank you, denizens of the internet, for TVTropes.

Non-fiction continues to win...

2011-01-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

I've found that one of the best things for recharging fiction writers is nonfiction reading.

After all, while you should read books and watch movies and all that stuff, sometimes seeing someone else's work is... draining? discouraging? "darn, why didn't I think of something that brilliant?"

It happens to me all the time. Sometimes, when I want to be recharging, instead, I am being drained.

For instance, I just recently re-watched Princess Tutu (and you all thought I was done with that), just to sort of fill up my inspiration meter for my hedgehog story (and because I was making my little sister watch it with me). I was expecting to come out feeling invigorated and excited.

Instead, I felt horrible.

It was just so much better than what I was writing. It moved along, had great characters, was beautifully animated, yadda yadda yadda. It was better than my stuff.

While that didn't come as a surprise at all, it did sort of hit me hard for some reason. (Not that I regret re-watching it. .)

So instead, I picked me up some nonfiction. Namely, a true crime book entitled Satan's Circus, about Charley Becker, a cop executed for murder. It's gritty, it's historical, I've only read about ten pages and it has nothing to do with anything I'm working on right now, but it makes me want to write.

I think it has to do with burnout. Sometimes, even when you love something, too much of it is just sickening. Take chocolate for example. A bar of it is great. Ten boxes has you hunched over a toilet and never wanting to see a cocoa bean again in your life.

Fiction is awesome. I love it. It's what I want to do with my life. It is what I do with my life. But sometimes it gets to be a little much, so diving into something else for a short while can be refreshing. Checking out a documentary. Going to a museum. Reading about something like quantum physics for dummies or whaling. It's just so different that I don't have to worry about making it fit into what I'm doing.

Anything you guys do in particular to recharge your writing batteries?

I hate it when they disappoint me like this...

2011-01-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

Darn you, muse, and your easily-distracted tendencies!

So, last night, I watched Titan A.E. for the first time and was both a) pleasantly surprised and b) bitterly disappointed.

a) The Happy
- It was a gritty, lived-in, rag-tag sci-fi, one of my favorite types of the genre. I love the idea of very different crew members on a small ship interacting and getting along (or not). (Funny anecdote: I kept being reminded of Firefly through the movie, just in little bits and pieces, only to find out that Joss Whedon had been one of the screenwriters. Lulz for perception.)

- The voice cast was surprisingly star-studded. My especial fangirl moment was when I found out Cale's dad's voice (which I had actually commented on when he first started talking) is Ron Perlman. It made me happy.

- It was actually rather adult in tone. Not "adult" adult, but very mature. And quite dark. I mean, there are character deaths on screen, a few rather gruesome. It was nice to see a Western animation that wasn't really for kids and wasn't something like Family Guy or South Park.

- The music was pretty cool, especially the first real rock song that that shows up as Cale is working his dead-beat job.

b) The Sad
- Mostly just missed potential. There were some great set-ups for characters. Cale, the cocky, cynical, "cute but troubled" guy with daddy issues, the well-educated and grumpy weapons expert Stith, the creepily charming Preed (who, btw, was my favorite of everyone we got to see for however short a time). All with huge potential for interaction and unique development that went nowhere. We barely get to see them acting in these characterizations before they're pretty much forgotten about and they are just vehicles for the lines that need to be said in order to get the story moving. The romance between Cale and Akima felt so forced, when it really could have been great, with her teaching him to hope again and stuff. I dunno, it just felt like they were shooting for so much more and it felt completely on its face.

- I wasn't too clear on the motivations behind the characters at all, aside from perhaps Akima and only her because she insisted on making a speech about it every time she and Cale were alone on screen.

- The animation sometimes didn't seem like it knew whether it was shooting for realistic or cartoony. It threw me off a few times.

All in all, it wasn't the worst movie I'd ever seen, but I wouldn't even say it was that good by a long shot. Apparently, it came out at the same time as Treasure Planet and is actually surprisingly (though just superficially) similar to the other movie. But Treasure Planet handled itself better, making it about the characters before it was about the quest. And it's a stronger movie for it, one that actually makes me cry during some scenes, despite its annoying sidekick characters.

But, despite Titan A.E.'s less-than-thrilling review from me... I want to watch it again. It's like it had so much wasted potential that it drives me up the wall and I want to watch it again to find some sort of redeeming qualities in it. I do this with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland too. That was another movie with so much potential that it just never lives up to. But I want to watch it again, to pick it apart, to try to find something that would let me like it.

Plus, my muse is going nuts after sampling such potential and the parts of my brain that were chugging along after Pitch Black are starting back up again. Gah. And I actually like where I am in my hedgehog story too...

Feel the love...

2011-01-14T20:26:00.000-08:00

So, today, I opened my e-mail. In it was a notification for a lovely response to my last post from the lovely Trisha. I read it, smiled, then did a double take because, at the bottom, in what I had initially taken to be some sort of signiature at the bottom of the e-mail, were the words: "You have an award here."

Not quite, seeing as how I wasn't grumpy to begin with and I didn't quite "LOL", but you get the basic idea. Plus, hedgehog!

Indeed, I received an award for my versatile blogging! Which surprised me, since I consider this a Johnny One-Note blog about writing, but hey, I guess there are many parts to writing! Plus, my nerddom covers many fields.

Anyway...

The rules of the award are:

Share 7 things about yourself.
Pass the award to 15 bloggers recently discovered.
Notify the blogger recipients.
Link to the blogger who gave the award.

Okay, here we go...

I have a strange phobia of mirrors. Not really of looking at myself in them or anything, but I'm sort of strangely paranoid about being watched out of my mirrors. Of course, with my history of favorite entertainment (Labyrinth, Phantom of the Opera, and many other books and movies) this is probably not too surprising.
When I was little, like eight or so, I wanted to be an archeologist.Before that, I had wanted to be an artist, so for a little while, I reconciled those two by wanting to be an illustrator for archeology books.
My first introduction to Batman was from a few episodes of the show in the 60's that my parents had taped at the end of a tape with a Disney Christmas special on it. I didn't even know it was on there until one night when I finished watching Lady and the Tramp and was sitting there waiting for the tape to run out (I don't know... I was a strange child). The first one was the episode with the lady magician robbing the bank and falling in love with Batman. "Suspended over a... Holy birthday cake!"
I've never drunk a cup of coffee in my life (unless you count one iced coffee slurpee-type thing once because it was free and I didn't want to be rude) and I don't plan to. First, I'm super-caffeine-sensitive and I get shaky after I drink just a soda, and second, I don't like the taste at all.
I love the idea of cufflinks for some reason and was always jealous of guys for getting to wear them (I blame the Disney version of Peter Pan, what with how Mr. Darling was looking for his cufflinks in the beginning).
I used to be terrified of 80's fantasy movies and the effects therein. Now, they are some of my favorite movies and effects.
I've never read an unabridged version of any Dickens and only one abridged version of Oliver Twist.

And as for who I would bestow this award upon...

Thinking Caps on Chaps by Jon
Holy Nerd-Blog Batman! by CaligulaBob
Aimée "The Great" by Aimée "The Great"
The Thought Process by A.L.Maddix
Don't Shake the Flask by syaffolee
Breaking Into My Shell... by Nicole
The Ink Ribbon Writer by Suzanne
8-Bit Words by Liz Pezzuto
Working Title by Erin Millar
leo fair by Leo Fair
At the Iron Hill by Conrad Rice
Compulsive Creativity by theinsomniakid
Falen Formulates Fiction by Sarah Ahiers
Musings of a Procrastinating Author by Mildred
Enthusiasm Shoppe by Pumpkinhead

And there you have it.

Wasting away...

2011-01-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

See, here's the thing about writing; it's a repetitive motion. Whether you are typing or scrawling, it is a fairly repetitive thing you do with your wrist and fingers. And that can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome.

I have carpal tunnel. I wear a splint at night to keep any pain to a minimum and so far it hasn't really affected me too much. Just sort of a hyper-awareness of my forearm's interior sometimes, or a slow, dull ache. If I do funky things with my thumb or wrist, I feel a pang, but I have to actually be trying for it.

So, all in all, I wasn't too worried about it, until today, when I was flexing my hand and noticed a bit of a depression along the muscles mass at the bottom of my right thumb that isn't there on my left thumb.

My grandma has something similar and had been talking about it the last time I saw her, which probably the only reason I noticed.

It's not much and it's only when I flex a certain way, but it's there. And I sort of freaked out, because muscle atrophy is one of the signs of advanced carpal tunnel.

Now, it may just be me jumping the gun and freaking out about nothing. Like I said, I don't know if my carpal tunnel would really be considered serious (of course, as I type those words, I can feel an ache starting in the back of my forearm) and atrophy is apparently the last stage of nerve damage. After all, I don't have that pit in my thumb muscles at rest and I'd assume there would be some symptoms if I really had advanced nerve damage. It may just be my paranoid self freaking out about an asymmetric feature of my body.

But still...

Space oddity...

2011-01-12T20:04:00.000-08:00

Was reading a little recently about writers' spaces, the places where they write. And I realized, I don't really have one.

I have a desk, sure. It's got an ancient desktop on it that runs Windows '98, one shelf full of dictionaries, binders stuffed with old work, scrap paper and my entire year's subscription of Writer's Digest, and another shelf crowded with my printer and seemingly every stupid knick-knack I own. But I don't write on that desk. I barely use it at all. The computer is rarely turned on since I got my laptop a year ago. Plus, the chair is too short, has crappy support and wiggles unbearably.

I write everywhere but on flat surfaces, it seems. The only times I really write "properly", sitting down in a chair with the paper on a desk, is in class when I'm scribbling during the dull periods of a lecture. Other times I am laying down on my side on my bed, notebook up by my head where I can reach it with my right hand. Or I'm curled up in the new comfy chair at the bottom of my bed, notebook resting on my knees. Or I'm sitting with my laptop on whatever flat surface I can find, tapping away with my arms in awkward positions.

I don't really have a "writing space". And as much as I would love to say that I want one, I don't think I would really use it, or at least hardly ever. Because I do my writing when it happens, when I have a spare moment, when I'm comfortable, I tend to be in odd positions or at odd times. If I get an idea in bed, I'll write it down in bed. I don't want to get up and move to a writing space to get my mojo going. Some of my best writing has been in these strange places, like in the back corners of libraries or in the middle of the campus at school.

There's a danger to trying to make a perfect writers' space, I think. I mean, if I were hung up on trying to make myself the perfect writing nook, I'd be at it all the time instead of writing. It's part of what drives me crazy before and during NaNo, trying to make the perfect environment. It's just a means of procrastination. The best way to write and the best environment for writing is just writing itself.

We're different, different as can be...

2011-01-11T20:25:00.001-08:00

Yay for super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot fan-produced parody musicals and their ability to inspire blog titles.
---

It's funny, how even when you know something, it doesn't really sink in. This past November, I finally sort of got it through my head that my characters don't have to think the same way I do.

It's not that I was opposed to the thought of people having different thoughts than me, I just didn't really write characters that were all that different from my own way of thinking (excepting perhaps the antagonists). However, for NaNoWriMo last year, nearly every single one of my protagonists thought quite differently from me. They approached problems differently than me, they resolved issues differently than I would, and they were just different people.

Not that (I hope) all of my characters have been the same before this, but this was where I noticed a real change from myself. And, just like the narrative style, I'm ripping off what worked from that novel for my hedgehog story. In this case, writing outside my comfort zone.

My narrator isn't much like me at all. In fact, I find myself annoyed by her sometimes. But that's part of her character and she'll grow out of some of the more universally-annoying traits, though I don't think she'll ever come into conformity with how I think. And I don't want her to. It's a new experience for me as a writer. I like it.

Bits'n'pieces...

2011-01-10T19:43:00.000-08:00

Been sort of kicking around the beginning to my hedgehog story, consistently scribbling on it in inconsistent places. For real, I've got the first part on my computer, the second part on pages ripped out of an old spiral-bound notebook, the third bit on the backs of scrap paper, the fourth bit in my writing notebook and now this fifth bit on looseleaf.

In a way, this sort of broken writing is frustrating, in that I can't look at my previous bits to see what I wrote before (seeing as how I don't always have them all together), but for that same reason, it's almost helpful. I can't look back and be discouraged by what came before, and it forces me to keep writing. And I have been. It's been like NaNo all over again, only not quite with the stringent word counts and guilt-inducing failures. Writing every day, chugging ahead without worrying too much about what's going on. It's fun, and without a deadline hanging over my head, it's almost relaxing.

I don't do scheduled writing time, but this is becoming my writing task for the day. If I were to say "first thing every morning, I will write", I would drive myself crazy because I wouldn't be able to keep that commitment, what with how my daily schedule changes so much every day. However, if I sneak in writing in the spare moments - like today, when I got in a solid half-hour of writing (two and a half pages of looseleaf, baby!) while I was waiting to pick up my brother from guitar practice - I get writing done, feel accomplished, and avoid boredom.

Basically, writing becomes my time-killer, rather than watching television, reading magazines or twiddling my thumbs. My poor video games are feeling a bit neglected, but I'm getting writing done and it's awesome.

Music of the write...

2011-01-09T20:51:00.000-08:00

One thing that film gets that prose doesn't: music. And I am super-jealous of it.

For real, I was listening to some of the soundtracks to my most favorite movies/shows/games recently and was literally just plain aching. I mean, music manages to bring so much into a story, playing with your emotions almost subconsciously, connecting you to characters and situations more quickly and effectively than just showing them would have. Music can stick with you long after a story fades, or be the glue that makes a story stick.

For instance, years ago, I watched the movie Escaflowne:

(Yeah, don't believe the cover... it's not good. The show it's based on, however? Utterly fantastic.)

It's not that great of a movie. I mean, it's okay (it is really, really pretty to watch), but not the greatest (the English dub really ruined it for me too...). It was one of my first encounters with anime and while the story didn't impress me all that much, the music. Oh gosh, the music.

In particular, there was one song, sung by a minor character a few times through the course of the movie.

This. song. haunted. me.

I mean, for years.

(Related: Yoko Kanno is a genius among mortals. For real, check out her music - soundtracks especially.)

It was what actually made me watch the series years later when I found it on TVTropes, the sheer nostalgia of that one song.

I love this song so much that I actually bought the soundtrack, it being the second CD I ever really bought and the second soundtrack I purchased (the first CD and soundtrack being the Labyrinth soundtrack).

This song stuck with me much, much longer than the movie itself did. Or rather, the movie stuck with me because of that song.

Music is important to writers, regardless of medium or genre. I listen to music all the time when writing (mostly my ever-growing collection of soundtracks for their virtue of having no words that I could sing along to and thus write down). It taps into some deep, visceral part of us and humankind at large.

It can make something seem epic (really, try doing anything to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack without feeling just a tiny bit awesome) or subtle or emotional or flippant with just a few notes. It can build or deflate tension.

It can also make or break a scene, as evidenced by those scenes/movies when the soundtrack is way too over-the-top for what's going on, or too underscored. But even then, the power of the music is demonstrated in the way that it does make or break the scene.

It makes me jealous. It really does. The closest we writers get is collections of music that we pick out for our novels (there are many folks who do this, especially around NaNo - making lists of music that relate to or inspire their story) or original music like what Maggie Stiefvater did for some of her books. But regardless, we lose that scene-by-scene synch that films get. Even if a reader listens to the music while reading the story, they lose the moment-by-moment impact and timing, since everyone reads at a different rate.

The closest we could get, I suppose, is an audio book with music, similar to some of Brian Jacques' Redwall books, where the song lyrics he writes are actually sung. But instead, there would be actual music throughout the whole thing, in the background. Which now I want to do. Like, start a company to do. The difficulty would be original music for even a fraction of what is often a several-hour epic read.

Motivation...

2011-01-08T19:33:00.001-08:00

Motivation.

It's key for characters. You get a couple good characters, give them some motivation, and throw them in a setting and plot will happen like crazy. I've always been far more character-oriented than plot-oriented, just because plot comes from characters, so you just worry about the one and the other follows.

But motivation takes some exploration to find. Right now, I'm still finding my characters' motivation. It's how I write. I just sort of stick characters together, let them interact, let them blather on about unimportant stuff, until I find something, anything that's important to them. You get those one or two things and make that character work for it. And it can change. It often does.

It's why my first drafts are so messy. I mean, it's said that you will cut out the first three chapters of your first draft. It's certainly true for me, since that's when I just sort of hash around and mess with everything. I never know what I'm doing going in. The first half of my NaNo is seriously just me poking things and seeing what jiggles.

So right now, I'm playing with the idea of motivation for my characters. My narrator is just sort of complaining right now, but I have an idea for future motivation for her. But as for my knight and his hedgehog, I'm sort of kicking around layers of motivation. I mean, the hedgehog wants to become a princess. However, that's not enough.

To continue my references to Princess Tutu, (I just rewatched it this weekend), there are several layers of motivation. It starts out simple: Ahiru wants to save Mytho. Everything she ever does is in pursuit of that goal. But as she continues to work towards that goal, she accumulates more goals. She wants to remain a girl. She wants to be with the people she loves. She wants so much more than just to save Mytho, even if that is her primary motivation. It comes down to the point where she isn't even sure if that, her original goal, is still want she wants anymore.

Plot unfolds from that.

So I guess I'll just be hashing around for a while, putting down as much blahsome as much as possible. The editing will come later, actually sorting through it all to find the awesome (or least sucky) hidden in there.

headdesk...

2011-01-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

If you are ever in doubt about whether or not you should bring a particular notebook with you on a trip, you should wonder what the crap is wrong with you.

Yeah, I'm out of town right now and I didn't bring my stack of scrap paper with me. I have my new notebook, but it's sort of my diary-type notebook for writing, rather than a place to seriously write (just because I want to be able to collect all of my writing in a folder for this project). But, due to the fact that the hotel's notepad is seriously unsuited for serious writing, I'll likely just write in the notebook and type it up to print it out and collect it in the notebook.

But seriously, if it's ever a question of whether or not to bring paper, the answer is always "YES!"

Blah, blah, blah...

2011-01-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

Omigoodness, but my narrator talks a lot. I mean, a lot.

I'm blatantly ripping of my narration style from NaNo this past year, using a first-person narrator for a lot of it, interspersed with some third-person and some storybook-like interludes. And I'm remembering (again) why I usually don't do first-person narration.

Because my narrators talk. A lot.

I think it's because it's in their head and their head ends up being a lot like my own head - rattling down the tracks, only to stop every three seconds to notice/explain/wonder at whatever shiny/non-shiny/slimy/furry thing happens to cross said tracks. Which is all well and good inside someone's actual head, but not so great for telling a story.

Nevertheless, I'm doing writing and if nothing else, the first-person infodumps are helping me hash out the world itself (seeing as how I typically do little to no actual worldbuilding beforehand).

The difficulty is going to be to keep my narrator from coming across as a femi-nazi. Which she sort of is. But it's not what this story is about.

Endings are hard...

2011-01-05T20:22:00.001-08:00

So I watched James Cameron's The Abyss for the first time.

It drove me nuts.

*spoiler alert*

I understand, James Cameron, endings are hard. When you work so hard for an hour and a half to build suspense and tension, it's hard to create a climax that matches that sense of suspense. It's why horror movies often have the lamest endings and psychological dramas devolve into action sequences (I'm looking at you, Red Eye). It's hard to end stories.

But really. Really.

I mean, I was sucked into The Abyss from the beginning. I seriously have a phobia about suffocating/being drowned (which fall under claustrophobia and aquaphobia, though I'm not afraid of tight spaces or water, just dying of oxygen deprivation) and with a setting much like one of my favorite movies Alien, what with tight spaces, not being able to get help from the outside, and a very squabbling-family-like, lived-with quality to the cast and set, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the movie. Not to mention that the scientific accuracy (for a big-budget movie) was impressive, so I was satisfied with its level of integrity, underwater aliens and all.

(Though that does bring to mind a question: Why couldn't they have been sentient terrestrials, rather than extraterrestrials? I would think that would be much cooler. Moving on...)

Then came the suicide dive Bud goes on. Which is all good and fine in and of itself, until he actually got saved. From then on out, I was frustrated beyond belief. A few questions that came to mind:

- How is he surviving that far underwater? Are the aliens doing it? Why would they do that? I mean, they live in water, how would they know to depressurize him?

- Alien city? Why? Why do we have to reveal everything about them? Why can't they stay a secret? Mysterious helpers?

- Why do the aliens have a) hands and b) eyelids?

- The insta-depressurization thing makes no sense. (Not a question, but omigeez, for realz?) I mean, the aliens are deep-sea critters, apparently. You don't just bring deep-sea critters up into air-pressure. They pop.

Yeah, all of these questions threw me right out of the story. I mean, when you establish your world as one of nitty gritty reality, with the main threat for the first half of the movie being a man afflicted with a very real condition and dealing with very real, human problems, when you suddenly switch genres on us and make it an all-out sci-fi with Tron-alien-lights and everything, the audience gets thrown out of the story.

I had this problem with Atlas Shrugged too. I mean, I was hooked through the first half of the book. Sure, I didn't like the characters that much, but I was interested in the railroad. The railroad and the real-life financial dramas that were taking place around it were fascinating. Then John Galt's valley shows up and it becomes some sort of dystopian fantasy ala 1984. It was stupid, it was sudden and it suddenly became about ten times more preachy than it had been already. I was thrown out of the story and I only finished the book to be able to say that I had.

Endings are hard, I understand. The temptation to make everything all gooshy and happy is very, very strong. But you have to resist. The far more realistic ending of The Abyss would have been for Bud to die. He drowns down there, everyone else gets saved just in the nick of time, they are all scarred and sad, but they make it out. It'd be like the ending of Armageddon (which was totally a comparison I drew right from the beginning when they both had oil rigs and Bruce Willis look-alike main characters - seriously, Ed Harris kept reminding me of Bruce Willis all through the movie): in Armageddon, Bruce Willis makes a heroic sacrifice, dies, and everyone else is saved.

Granted, that would have been a totally bittersweet ending and I'm not sure where the aliens would have come in, seeing as how they would have pretty much been useless, but that isn't entirely bad. This movie could have been really good, just making it about the sub going down and the things that happened afterward. Make it an accident that the sub went down and blame the hurricane for everything else. No need to bring the aliens in. They felt shoehorned in by the end, having no real bearing on the characters' growth or their situation.

I understand, James, I really do. Endings are hard. But really... Just, really...

(Note: I haven't seen the Director's Cut, which apparently does some better jobs of explaining some stuff by restoring footage. Or so I hear. I wouldn't know. I haven't seen it. But really, we shouldn't have to just rely on the Director's Cut to tell a complete story.)

Viruses and Hedgehogs and Lampreys, oh my...

2011-01-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

“Language is a virus from outer space.” – William S. Burroughs

It is my firm belief that writers are highly susceptible to the virus.,We are obsessed with manipulating and exploring language. We are also the primary vectors by which it propagates, evidenced by our mad drive to shove our virus-laden pages at other people.

My brain is riddled with cosmic microbes and I must share them with you!

~ Paul E. Holmes, on a blog comment at Chuck Wendig's Terribleminds

Yeah, it stuck with me for some reason.

In writing news, I actually did some today! Yay me and actually starting a project when I said I was going to! The writing isn't great, but it's a first draft. I'm just telling myself that over and over again as I hash out a rough roadmap for the story.

I can't plan beforehand. Really. I end up overthinking and tinkering and not actually writing until I've convinced myself it's a lost cause. Much better for me to just jump in without looking to see how far I actually have to swim or how there's a pit of lampreys between me and the end.

Somehow, it all works out...

2011-01-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

Strange how I can spend so much time trying to think of character motivation and development and arcs and whatnot and not actually write a word, then just sort of come up with a change and let the characters run with it and end up with stuff that is a million times better.

So, there was this magician character I had planned for my hedgehog story. He was originally a guy. But what if I was to make him a girl? Suddenly, there is a great deal more opportunity for growth than there was before, just by changing the dynamics that will automatically arise from her interactions with the rest of the characters.

Yeah, yet another glowing example of how much of a pantser I am, that I literally do much better when completely winging it than when I try to outline/plan/develop the story beforehand.

Tomorrow, I vow to begin writing.

Collection...

2011-01-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

So I have a new notebook for this year and I love it so far (unlike a certain purple velvet affair... *shudders*). But the trouble with a writing notebook is that I'm never quite sure what all to put in it. Inevitably, if I muse all the time in it, I will lose valuable story information from my current project in the wells of other general rambling and angsting. However, if I don't muse there, where am I supposed to muse and what would be the point of having a notebook? It's a fine line.

As is, I'm musing everywhere, collecting looseleaf in a folder specifically labelled for my hedgehog process and making notes to myself in both folder and notebook about what's in the other one so that I can reference back and forth. Probably will be hectic and irritating in the future, but like I said at the beginning of December, the goal for this year is "collected", not necessarily "organized".

So...

2011-01-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

Hello to you, 2011. Come in, make yourself at home.

It's funny, even though I was blogging and doing some scribbling, I felt like I was waiting for something to end or something to begin before I really dug into writing. Probably a holdover from NaNo still, what with being married to deadlines for the month. It might also have to do with the crazy work schedule I've been dealing with. Whatever it was, I was sort of subconsciously waiting for a corner to approach so I could turn it.

And now it's the new year. I don't feel any different. But at the same time, I do. It's like... I have a whole new year!

So, with the turning of that particular corner, I'm jumping into writing. I've still got two days of heavy work to go, so it might take a day or two before it happens, but it will happen. I've got a free week before school starts again and I don't intend to let it go to waste. Sure, it will be filled with oversleeping and copious amounts of video games, but I will be writing. I will get writing done.

It helps that I think I've figured out how to actually begin my hedgehog story. It involves jumping right into a relationship, rather than trying to establish it from the beginning. I think it might work.

Farewell to 2010...

2010-12-31T19:43:00.000-08:00

It wasn't all that bad of a year. It wasn't particularly memorable or flashy, but it was a solid year. Most of it went by in a blur of monotony, but it had its moments that make me smile. It didn't give me much in the way of completed projects, but it gave me a lot of ideas for projects to be completed. It kept me with a family that loves me and that I love back. It gave me some new friends and connections with old friends.

That said, I look forward to 2011. There's going to be some big stuff coming, I can feel it.

Farewell to Reverb...

2010-12-31T19:39:00.000-08:00

December 31 – Core Story What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)

As much as I would love to be able to look back and see a central story of ME, it's hard. I mean, it takes so much sifting and cutting and abridgment to find any kind of linearity in a person's life. Sure, in hindsight, maybe, which is biographers can do it, but for a person caught on the inside, it's hard.

That said, I've noticed a few things about myself just in Reverb this year.

1) I tend to obsess about things for quite a while. Like, I watch a movie, or read a book, or have an idea, and I harp on it for a long time afterward. Not that this is a bad thing. As one of my most favorite YouTubers pointed out (among other things) in this video, this is called "being nerdy". And one of the great things about nerds is that we can revel in our unabashed enthusiasm for things.

2) I tend to apologize a lot, or guilt trip myself for things. Actually, I've known this about myself for a long time. For an example of me doing this, just look to all the times I complained about a Reverb entry not being writing-related. After all, this is my writing-related blog. This, even though I told myself at the beginning that the point of Reverb was to keep me writing. And any writing is writing-related.

3) My life revolves around writing. And I think the story of finding yourself as a writer is so intertwined with finding yourself as a person that the two are inseparable. It takes so much development from a person to make a writer and for a writer, being a writer makes up so much of themselves as a person.

I guess you could call number three something of a core story.

I like to gift...

2010-12-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

December 30 – Gift Prompt: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year?

(Lots and lots of non-writing-related posts this month. I'm adding another goal to my 2011 goal list: do more writing-related post.

Also: Do more writing so I have writing-related things to talk about.)

Emotionally (even if the giver doesn't realize it), it was that broccoli and cheddar soup I keep talking about. Tangibly, I'm going to go blatantly materialistic and direct you to this rant I did in another blog a day or so ago, as it explains the gift and why exactly it was so memorable.
---
It starts in 2006. My younger brother brought home a Game Cube and a box of games he had bought second-hand for fifty hard-earned dollars.

We had never owned a game system before. Sure, we did some computer gaming, and I think my other brother might have had a Game Boy Advance by then, but consoles had been something we had only dreamed about. Our childhoods had been simple. I'd played Mario Bros. on my cousin's Nintendo before and some sort of racing games on my other cousin's PlayStation, but this was a huge step for us.

I wasn't interested at first. The box had been full of first-person shooters, and some hack-n-slash and racing games, typical fare for the twelve-year old who had sold my brother the system. I didn't find video games all that interesting (though Mario Kart was awesome), being much more of a book/movie/writing person. But at the bottom, in practically unopened condition, was this:

It was intriguing. I hadn't gotten into anime yet and so the art style was the first thing that caught my eye. It was colorful and delicate and promised something epic, in contrast to the likes of Need for Speedand

.

I was even more intrigued when my brother popped in this strange game on one particularly boring afternoon. We had just moved into our new house and the television was in the living room, the center of high-traffic in the house. We don't have cable and we didn't have internet hooked up yet, my books were in the process of being unpacked and my brother was using the TV, so I plunked down next to him and watched.

This greeted me. I mean, how can you not be impressed by that?

So he started to play.

This is where it gets a little funny. I started a game almost immediately after he did and so for a while, we were neck and neck with game progress. But we had hit a snag. The first boss was hard. I mean, likehard, what with us being complete RPG newbies and all, not understanding the concept of leveling up. So my brother restarted his game (don't ask me why - it seemed like a good idea the time) and played all the way through to that boss again. And again. And again. He must have done this like five times. We had the opening narration memorized, down to inflection and timing. My game sat dormant, waiting to see how my brother would fare.

Eventually, we broke through the boss and plowed ahead. From then on, I overtook my brother's progress in leaps and bounds. I could literally sit there for hours and watch the story unfold in front of me. And what an epic story it was.

Apparently, I hit the jackpot with my first role-playing game. Not to knock Zelda (because I will myself admit that the only Zelda game I've played is a few hours of A Link to the Past) but Tales of Symphoniahas character development and story galore. It starts out as a bit of a cliche storm in terms of a fantasy novel's "You are hero. Go save the world", but the characters are so engaging, their lives so wonderfully explored, that I kept on playing (that, and I had no experience with anything else in gaming, so I was hooked). Later on, the "quest to save the world" takes a turn for the dark and crazy and no matter how troperiffic the story or cliche a twist might be, you somehow don't see it coming. I had moments of actual physical shock at twists in this story (and one that I totally jokingly predicted not two hours into my first time playing the game that, when it played out exactly as I had predicted, made me fistpump at my own genre-savviness). I came to genuinely care about these characters, just as much as I would favorite characters from a movie or book.

It took me over fifty hours to complete ToS. Two discs of sheer awesome. I remember, about mid-way through the first disc thinking "This is it? This is the end. But there's a whole other disc. What is going on?" and then a twist came and a character was introduced and I was like "Oh, I can see how there's going to be another disc." And I rabidly looked forward to it.

The story changes several times over. You think you're going to do this one thing, that this one task is what you are going to spend the entire story doing. Then it isn't. It just leads to a completely different task, one equally important. And the change is seamless. It wasn't like

and off to something else. The characters would come to what they thought would be the climax, only to see that it wasn't what they thought it would be. There was something wrong with it. They needed to change it. So off to fix this problem with you hardly realizing that you haven't finished yet. It just seems like such a natural progression. Everything builds and builds, getting more and more tangled, until the end, when it all pays off.

Everyone in the reviews always talks about how innovative the battle system for this game was and everything, but that was always secondary for me. I wasn't a RPGer. I wasn't even a gamer. I was playing for the characters.

This game ruined me for a lot of other role-playing games, and indeed, games in general. In the years since finding this game, I've yet to be as impressed by anything else. Granted, I'm still a gaming n00b. Everyone tells me that Final Fantasy brings in the stories and characters as well, and I'm playing IV and own X (got that for Christmas too - haven't played it yet), but haven't yet found one that connects with me as much as ToS did. A lot of everyone tell me that I should play Kingdom Hearts. My brother owns 1 and 2, but I just can't seem to get into them. Maybe it's a matter of muscling through to the good stuff, but I've been stopped in the first half-hour multiple times just because I found it boring. In the ever-present conflict between "character-driven" or "plot-driven", I swing very heavily towards "character-driven". Plot grows from character. And hoo-boy, does ToS deliver immediately.

Not to mention it's pretty. I mean, the graphics aren't always perfect, but it's pretty to look at. The music is gorgeous, the colors are beautiful and the voice acting is great. Even the worst of the performances is only minimally annoying. And the best of the performances manages to tug at your heartstrings.

I've played ToS several times. No joke. This game that takes something like thirty hours minimum to complete has forced me to complete it at least three times. It sounds sad, it sounds lame, but I love this game that much. Not to mention that there are several slightly different endings you can get depending on your characters' interactions with one another. My brother ended up giving me the game because I was practically the only one who played it (though my siblings would gather around during my sessions to watch it all go down, as if they were watching a movie marathon).

What does any of this have to do with Christmas?

Since that first purple lunchbox of a Game Cube came into my brother's life, he had lusted after a more advanced system. I didn't really care. I still wasn't much of a gamer and between Mario Kart Double Dashand Tales of Symphonia on said lunchbox, my needs were more than satisfied. I'd leave gaming alone completely for months, even nearly years, at a time, then pick it back up for a month or two, then go away again. I had other things to occupy my time.

Not so with my brother. He upgraded to a PS2 the minute he had the funds to buy another second-hand system from another friend. What he really wanted was the XBox 360.

Flashforward to the release of the Nintendo Wii not to long after the Game Cube wandered into our house. I was still my un-gamer self and I though the whole thing was kind of stupid. I mean, in the beginning, the choices for Wii were pretty minimal, certainly not appealing to someone who had been spoiled on ToS. It hadn't been that long since I'd gotten it, after all.

Then, a little later, I saw an advertisement for this

A... sequel? Cue the drool.

It wasn't that I instantly wanted a Wii because of this one game. It was more like I hated the world for not giving me the ability to play this game on a system I already owned.

Time passed. I slowly got into anime and games, mostly thanks to my discovery of TVTropes (which I wish, for the life of me, I could remember how I got into). A lot of it, if not most of it, happened this year and last year. I bought myself a DS and began my slowly-growing collection of GameBoy Advance and DS games (total count: 6). I bought myself Tales of Phantasia, the first game in the Tales Series (a group of unconnected games, similar in concept to the FF franchise), mostly because ToS is a long-distant prequel of sorts to it. I bought Tales of Legendia, another game in the series and am working my way through it (though the voice-acting is getting on my nerves in quite a few places).

I'm slightly frustrated ("slightly" being one of the understatements of the year) that there are several Tales games for the DS (which, being the DS, is much more convenient for me than a console) but none of them have been localized in the US yet. I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with the franchise, but it's like finding out that your favorite foreign author had one brilliant book in your language, but none of the others had been translated. You know they're out there and you want to try them out, but they don't exist in a form you can digest.

What does any of this have to do with Christmas, Gryph?

Well, for Christmas, we got a Wii. It's been long overdue, seeing as how we kids had pooled together the money years ago, but hey, we got it. And Christmas morning, I came upstairs to have this exchange with my sister and brothers (who had been up since four in the morning and had, as such, been through everyone's stockings already).

"Hey, look in your stocking!" they clamored, crowding around me as I flopped on the couch.

"I thought we weren't opening presents until after church?" I was grumpy, mainly because I was trying to be a good Jesus-lover and put him before my own wants. It was hard.

"Just look!" They shoved my stocking at me.

I tipped out the contents of my stocking and then let out a very undignified squeak (I swear, a legitimate, uncontrolled squeak).

There lay Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World in my lap. Cue the drool.

I had asked for it, sure. I'm notorious among my family members for being vague about what I want for Christmas. Sure, I nerd out about everything I love, but honestly, with money of my own, I'm willing to buy what I want. If I can't afford it, I don't need it that badly. Not to mention that despite the fact I've pointedly asked for a DVD of Labyrinth for the past three years, it's never come. But, when the pressure came from all sides this year, I grudgingly wrote a list. A very specific list. Title drops galore.

I should have put down Labyrinth this year, but I was jaded. Foolish, foolish me.

I got everything on my list. Granted, it was just two games, a sweatshirt from my old high school and that final push for the Wii, but I didn't really expect to get the actual things I asked for. I've always been happy with my gifts at Christmas, even when they aren't what I ask for (not to mention that I actually bought myself presents this year, including, but not limited to, the complete DVD collection of Princess Tutu).

But this time I did get what I asked for. And I was a happy Gryph.

Been playing through it for a while now and I have to say, nostalgia city. I would not be surprised if, after completing the game, whenever that happens, I go back and do another run-through of ToS. Just hearing the music is making me all warm and fuzzy, not to mention seeing my favorite locations from the original in their new Wii dressings. The main characters are new to the game, the original band of protagonists being more secondary (and I have to admit that I am trying to avoid fan!rage about the voice cast changes for some of them), but every time I bump into a familiar face, I get this big stupid grin on my face and happily ramble about it to whoever's in the room until they tell me to shut up and get back to playing.

My siblings are again sitting around me, watching the story unfold as if it were a movie rather than playing it themselves, and that's as much of a nostalgic kickback as the game itself.

Happy Gryph. Happy, happy Gryph.

Right here, right now...

2010-12-31T11:06:00.000-08:00

December 29 – Defining Moment Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year.

One of the funny things about 2010 was its intense lack of defining moments. They were very few and far between, mostly being just getting from one day to the other. But as for those I can actually remember.

- Turning 19 in January.
- Getting a job in March.
- Creative Writing class and Mythology class this past semester.
- Going to a write-in this November.
- Soup this December.

Mostly, this year has been a year of progression. If anything, more of the moments have been of a revelation than of an actual event. It's more of a realization about what has happened than of something momentous happening. It's all been building up so gradually that I barely notice.

A to-do list...

2010-12-31T10:58:00.000-08:00

December 28 – Achieve What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

As for what I want to achieve, I have several other posts just in the Reverb series this year. As for accomplishing them... I'm not sure. There is always the sense of satisfaction that comes with achieving a goal (I'm looking at you, NaNoWriMo), but sometimes the goal doesn't turn out the way you want it to. I'm really, really shooting for happy. Not completely satisfied, because I want to always be improving, but at least proud of my accomplishment and a hunger to do more.

Another thing I want to try this year is to get published. Probably just a short story in a journal somewhere, but I want to test the publishing waters this year. I've never really done so and I want to get some experience in getting rejected and (hopefully) accepted.

Ha, I have to go to work for pretty much the rest of the day today, so the ten things I can do will probably be very simple, but we'll give it a shot:

1) Finish my catching up for Reverb (seeing as how, you know, it's the 31st today and all that).
2) Scribble out some brainstorming for my hedgehog story if I have any free time.
3) Maybe a haiku?
4) Finish everything on my checklist at work at a decent time.
5) Remember my food for work.
6) Eat my food at work (you'd be surprised how frequently I forget this).
7) Maybe think of some resolutions and goals for 2011 and actually consolidate them into one list?
8) Get to sleep at a decent hour.
9) Decide on a theme for the first post of 2011.
10) Gather inspiration for my kennel blog and have an outline of an entry?

Whew, I have a lot to do today at work...

Mundane angels...

2010-12-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

December 27 – Ordinary Joy Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

This prompt just reminded me of all the thought I've had this year about writing about the details. The simple little joys. The way my oversized flannel shirt fits me horrendously, but brings out my eyes and skin wonderfully. The fact that my pajama pants have polka dots on them. The way my little sister writes down notes for everyone whenever they leave a piece of paper or word document unattended when she's around.

It's hard to pick out just one. It always is. Mythology class got me thinking about them a lot, but I don't know if I'd classify any specific moment in that class as being joyful. More like contemplative. And how ordinary does it have to be? I could think of my brother and sister throwing me the simplest of surprise birthday parties, but does that count as ordinary because it was so simple and obviously homegrown by two adolescents, or extraordinary because it was my birthday and they were trying to make it special?

I guess I could always pick out soup. Broccoli and cheddar soup, to be specific.

I blame the holidays and work...

2010-12-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

Quite a bit to catch up on before 2010 ends, no? Here's a start.

December 26 – Soul Food What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?

Okay, I'm going to do some tweaking with this prompt to make it about writing (though I did eat some fantastic kebabs this year at a little mom'n'pop place about half an hour away. I went with friends, we had a great time and the food was heavenly).

Revised prompt: Soul Food What did you take in this year that you will never forget? What went into your brain and touched your soul?

I didn't do a whole lot of memorable novel reading this year. I could list books from the past few years that I've read and that have stuck with me or influenced my writing, but they were all in years past, not really 2010. I didn't have a lot of time in 2010, or at the least, didn't read books that really made an impact.

Outside of books, however, I read a lot. I was on the internet a lot for school and such (*cough procrastination cough*) and I read a lot of articles. A lot of blog posts, a lot of articles, a lot of TV Tropes. It's hard to pick a defining one.

Outside of reading, I got involved much deeply with YouTube. There is so much more on there besides silly cat videos and shots of people getting themselves hurt in improbable ways. Amongst my greatest finds were the VlogBrothers (especially their "Thoughts from Places" series and just general wackiness), Wheezy Waiter, and bandgeek8408. All with their own brands of wacky, but occasionally the beautiful insight that makes you ache with its truth. Beautiful, beautiful things.

2010-12-25T20:52:00.000-08:00

First off, Merry Christmas! I hope you had a lovely day!

Second off, again, another prompt that has little to nothing to do with writing.

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

You know, I actually have very few pictures of myself from this year. I just didn't get in front of a camera all that often. And those that I do have of me are mostly the silly ones that happen when you put me in front of a camera. Silly faces, bad hair, nonsensical pointing at the closest shiny/nerdy object...

And then there is this:

There's a reason I have this as my profile picture. Actually, several...

1) Batman! And Keaton!Batman, who I find to be my favorite actor for Bats.

2) Nerd, nerd and nerd! This is me, being a nerd. I am a nerd, I'm proud to be a nerd. I seriously saw this stand-up at my library and within a few days, I was back, camera in hand, to get my picture taken.

3) Library! I'm a writer, I'm a reader, they give me free books and occasionally chances to get my picture taken with a cardboard cut-out of one of my heroes. I spend many, many hours a year in the library.

4) Orange! Notice my lack of fashion sense. It's something I've carefully cultivated over the years. Actually, I'm slowly losing my touch for such unabashed tastelessness, but here is proof that I did once have it.

5) Pale! Geez, am I pale. That's not because of lighting - I really am that color.

6) Attitude! Actually, that attitude is totally affected. I started giggling immediately after this picture was snapped. But I would like to think that the fact that I had the courage to be standing right near the computer area, completely visible to the entire library, and pose next to Batman shows that I can go to great lengths for things I care about. And not all of them are comic book icons translated into film translated into thick printed paper.

My brother took this picture, being a rather good sport about me dragging him through a public library so I could pose next to a piece of cardboard. He was even kind enough to - on his own suggestion - take several to make sure at least one would turn out. Turns out it was good he did, because I was blinking in two of the others.

There's ME.

Don't worry, be happy...

2010-12-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK

What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?

Oh, so many moments. It's like God's up there somewhere poking me periodically so I don't forget he's there.

One of my favorites though (and this has nothing to do with writing) is coming home after a crappy day at school and finding that my siblings had made cookies. And not only had they made cookies, but they had saved me two. And not only had they saved me cookies, but they had specifically made those two cookies for me with our Halloween cookie cutters. Cookie cutters that were shaped like bats, so that I had two Bat-Symbol cookies. Holy delicious awesomeness, Batman!

Why, hello there...

2010-12-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

Catching up on the Reverb prompts I missed for the past few days...

December 23 – New Name

Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?

Jessica Collins. Because I love the way my hand flows when I write it.

Away, away, come away with me...

2010-12-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

December 22 – Travel: How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?

I did a lot of traveling this year. Not really anywhere particularly far away or out of the ordinary (in fact, it was mostly just to college and back), but it did a lot for my growth as a person. I'm getting used to this 'being my own person' kind of thing. I walked around downtown by myself a lot more and went to a few museums and art studios.

As for 2011, I'd really like to go to some more studios and museums. Maybe some concerts and performances. More just places I'd like to go than actual traveling, but I do want to go on a roadtrip in the future, maybe summer of 2011. Not quite sure where yet. Somewhere far away, with plenty of stupid stops and wacky hijinks along the way.

Back to the future...

2010-12-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

December 21 – Future Self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?)

- When an opportunity comes up, take it.

- Don't be afraid to share your work or explain it a little, but don't go overboard and scare people off with your "OMG, guyz, look at the purty I have created all by myself!!!!111!!".

- It's okay to suck. People have been sucking since the beginning of time and the world's still around with a lot of cool stuff in it.

- Keep putting the date on everything! One day, you will want to know when you wrote that!

- Go to the museum a little more. Do some more research. Get out of the house for your craft!

As for ten-year-ago me:

Hey there!

You've been experimenting lately with storytelling. Remember that horse story you wrote? It's pretty cool. I still have it, still in its folder. Well, in about a year or two, you are going to be taking storytelling a lot more seriously. The first fantasy epic is going to rock major socks, but you're going to have to eventually give it up. It's okay. You're going to learn a lot from it. It's good for you, I promise.

Don't obsess about Kevin in the future too much (yeah, I know, right now, boys are gross). That'll work itself out. You don't get together, but it doesn't hurt. I promise.

You look cute with short hair and no bangs. Don't let Mom make you get bangs if you don't want them.

You're going to get that little sister you've always wanted. She's going to be a clingy pain sometimes, but that's what little sisters are for. She's usually pretty cool, wanting to do everything her big sister does. She even wants to write a story too. You're going to be a big influence. Try and be a good one.

In ten years, you're going to be sitting at your computer, trying to think of things to write to your nearly-ten-year-old self. It'll feel really short, really lame, and not very helpful at all, but know that it was done with love. You're going to turn out all right, kid.

~Your Future Self

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

2010-12-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

December 20 – Beyond Avoidance What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

- Should have written more. Like, a lot more (trying to fix that now).

- Should have read the box of library books sitting across my room (seriously, some of them have been out for, like, months).

- Should have watched the last few episodes of the last season of Beauty and the Beast (for real, that has been out for months... I want closure, I just can't bring myself to sit down and look at Elliot's mullet again).

There's always going to be "shoulda, woulda, coulda"s in life. But all of the above were avoidable. Like, easily avoidable. But that means that they could still happen. I just need to stop watching YouTube videos and start on Maddigan's Fantasia.

In hindsight...

2010-12-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

So, I just recently got my Createspace copy of my NaNo novel and flipping through it and thinking back on it, there are many things I both like and dislike about it. (For the interested, Glass and Salt can be found in all its unedited NaNotastic glory here.)

Things I like:

- I like the narrative structure. I have three different kinds of narration: a main 1st person narrator (Chevy), a secondary 3rd person narrator (Ian) and a sort of interlude narration that is fashioned after simplistic fairy-tale type storytelling. I like the way it works. I might be using something similar for my hedgehog project (yay for blatantly stealing from myself!).

- I like Chevy's voice. It's like my homage to Mal from Firefly. I didn't mean it to be, but as I read it, I am reminded of our favorite space western captain.

(Because we all know our favorite pirate captain is Barbossa.)

- I like the ending. It comes out of nowhere, involves the death of innocent zombies and really resolves none of Chevy and Mel's problems I'd been hinting at as if they were important. I have no real basis in my love for it. I love it anyway.

Things I don't like:

- I don't like how I kept forgetting that Chevy was claustrophobic. I mean, for real, you would think that would come up a few more times. But it doesn't. Because I forgot about it.

- I don't like how angsty it got, with a lot of coming and going without doing anything. It's like I couldn't bring myself to actually make something happen (I think that's why I like the ending, because I finally bit the bullet, stopped trying to make the characters resolve their differences when they clearly weren't interested in doing so and instead just proceeded to eliminate the problems by lopping their heads off - literally in some cases).

- I don't like that I forgot to align the right edges of the text in my printed copy. Oh well. Each year, the Createspace copy gets a bit better-looking. Next year (if they do it again next year), it will be that much more awesome.

In which there is a video and healing...

2010-12-19T20:59:00.000-08:00

December 19 – Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011?

(It seems like all of my subjects have to do with the past few months, rather than, you know, like the entire year. I blame the "disjointed" schtick of the whole year that I talked about on day one of Reverb.)

I go through periods in writing. I have peaks and valleys. Sometimes, I am high on myself. I am feeling awesome, writing a crapload, feeling deep, feeling funny, feeling fine. Half the time, I'll go back a month later and not know where half the stuff I write came from, but still feel really good about it. I have a notebook (my "Idea" notebook, so called because it was my writing journal and it had a lightbulb that lit up and "idea" scrolling across it when you tilt it up and down with that 3D effect thing) from last year that was entirely filled during a high point in my writing and just reading it makes me happy. Just holding it makes me happy.

...

Yes, I went and pulled it off the shelf and have it next to me right now. Yes, I feel happy.

There are times, though, that I feel as if I am worth crap. Like, crap. I can't get myself to actually put pencil to paper, let alone actually make words come out. And there are times when I am writing, but I know that what I am writing is stupid, is silly, isn't worth reading.

I was going through a phase like this just before NaNo. I'd been slacking on YWS and that was making me feel bad, my blogging felt stupid, I wasn't writing anything and it all sucked. Not to mention my writing class was driving me nuts (I swear, I get so much mileage out of that class... I predict quite a bit more too). I mean, it was just so serious and at a time when I was taking myself too seriously and angsting about it.

But NaNo helped me with that, as it usually does. And in NaNo were the NaNoers of my write-in group.

I feel bad. I haven't kept up with them too much in the past few weeks. But in following them on Twitter and Facebook, I discovered Reverb, which got me in a groove for blogging. Which, in turn, has gotten me in a groove for everything.

Maybe there is something to this scheduled writing thing. Perhaps not a writing time, because my schedule is hectic enough that I would rather sneak in a YouTube video of a funny man talking about deep things in a nerdy way (I'm looking at you, John and Hank Green) than my crap writing, but knowing that I need to write something every day is good for me (I already have another month of challenges set up for January and you've seen my list of things I want to get done in 2011).

So, I would say that Reverb has been healing me. I go through peaks and valleys, but, because of Reverb, the post-NaNo valley was avoided. Normally I slump into post-NaNo inactivited, just having finished a huge undergoing and just sort of looking around in a daze. But this kept me going, which got me thinking, which got me listing things I wanted to do and ways in which I wanted to do them and I'm creating. It's awesome.

Thank you, Reverb.

Bring it on...

2010-12-18T18:18:00.000-08:00

December 18 – Try What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

I actually am compiling a list of things I want to try next year. It's not super long as of yet, but here it is for what it's worth (mostly writing-related):

- NaNo documentary
- write "They Fight Crime", a song based on this website
- some sort of interactive story, possibly involving video
- mah hedgehog story
- at least two short stories
- at least one short film
- "Inasmuch"
- at least one other script

In terms of things I wanted to try this year, the list is even shorter. I didn't really have set goals.

- NaNo documentary (yeah, it was supposed to happen during November and December, but with the new year rapidly approaching, it's gonna have to wait)
- my angel project

The documentary actually had some footage filmed that needs to be edited. I just didn't/don't have time for it as of yet. And the angel project had actually a bit of research and scribbling done, but it just fell through, relegated to the "to be scavenged from" folder.

I'm excited for 2011.

Playing with ketchup...

2010-12-18T18:03:00.000-08:00

EDIT: Retroactively noticed this was my 100th post. *happy!dance*

---

December 17 – Lesson Learned What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

I'm telling you, these prompts are coming at the best times. I'll have something on my mind that I want to ramble about

You know, I learned a lot of lessons this year. But I think one of the more important ones is one that's been being slowly pounded into me this past year. And that's not to take myself too seriously.

I mean, you would think I would get that after NaNoWriMo two years in a row before this, but not so much. It took a class that took itself really seriously and a great video by a great YouTuber to help me see the light. Oscar Wilde was very correct when he said "It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously."

The story behind the class has been beaten to death here already. Basically, the prof took it really seriously. Which is awesome. I mean, I probably would have hated the class if the teacher had thought writing was a joke. But he took it seriously in a way that was taking it a little too far. Writing can be done for the sheer enjoyment of writing, not just for a living. I learned, through him taking what I wrote super-seriously, that I don't have to take what I write super-seriously.

The story behind the video actually involves a bunch of other videos as well. The video in question is actually a submission for this year's Project for Awesome (a day of charity awareness sponsored by the awesome VlogBrothers who you should totally check out). And while Project for Awesome is indeed awesome, it brought me down a little when I realized that I had done so little to be awesome for other people. Then I watched this video and I realized that even the smallest things can be awesome. You don't need to do something huge to make the world suck less. (Also, not to brag - well, not too much - I'm one of the gang vocalists in that video.)

So yeah, pretty much, it came down to realizing that I can do what I can with what I have and that's the best thing I could do. Work within your means. I mean, I work at a kennel that fosters homeless dogs. Right there, right at my job where I get paid, I am helping the world to suck less, savings dogs from neglect and abuse and making it possible for families to adopt them and love them and let them grow old and fat and happy. Right there, without any extra effort on my part, I am doing awesome. Every step I take after that, every can I drop into a food drive box, every pocketful of change I toss into a Salvation Army bucket, every silly blog entry I write, every review I leave on someone's creation, is just more awesome.

Alone, bad. Friend, good...

2010-12-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

December 16 – Friendship How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

Sudden burst. Over a chicken, swiss and bacon sandwich at Arby's.

This even relates to writing too! Awesome.

We grew very comfortable with each other in creative writing class. Like, sometimes too comfortable. I learned a lot of things about people that I didn't want to know. But I still liked them. But while we were comfortable with each other, I never really hung out with any of them.

Until one day, when me, a classmate and a friend that we both knew outside of class all went to Arby's for lunch and just generally had a nerd-fest. It felt like we had always been close friends, had always been hang-out buddies. It was nice to know that there were people out there in real life in my community (you know, not just on the internet) who liked the same things I did.

Awesome.

Don't go away...

2010-12-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

December 15 – 5 Minutes Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

Not all writing-related here. Five minutes and go!

---

Everyone remembering my birthday because my brother told all of YWS about it. Multiple phone calls from friends and a surprise party thrown by said brother.

Creative writing class and the kooky antics therein (Cujo, duct tape as the key to meaning).

Riverby books.

Job interview with Percy the Corgi-mix.

First day at work.

Soup (broccoli and cheddar).

My grandpa holding out until 2 am on January 26th. Thanks, Grandpa, for waiting, selfish as that "thank you" is. You were an awesome grandparent.

Volleyball coaching and our two wins in the last two games (kinda sad that they were both against the same team).

Princess Tutu.

NaNo and the wonderful write-ins.

Newseum and White Sox.

Live violin outside the school.

The other dude running the red light and smashing my bumper. Then, a few weeks after fixing said bumper, I back the car into the tractor.

Writing, writing and more writing.

---

Yeah, I feel like I should have been able to remember more. The trouble is, a lot of the moments I want to remember happened in '09 and I keep thinking they were this year. 2010 went quickly when I think about it. A lot of wonderful moments that were rather like the moments before them. Picking out the special ones, trying to decide which rise above the others, is not fun and unfair to all the other perfectly mundane but perfectly wonderful moments. I want to remember the whole year, not just these little snippets.

This prompt actually depresses me, the more I seriously consider losing my entire memory of 2010. There's a lot of memory, a lot of shaping, a lot of ME that would be lost. It's just a sum movement rather than individual spurts.

Congratulations, you've won...

2010-12-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

December 14 – Appreciate What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

The internet. Oh, thank goodness for the internet.

It gives me automated, archived, and free textual communication in the form of e-mail.

It gives me instant access to the combined knowledge of most of the world's population.

It gives me the random funny cat video.

It gives me communities of people that will never meet in real life, but form the best group of supporters you could ask for.

It gives me a platform to host my ramblings and scribbles on, without having to weave my way through a maze of publishers that would likely (and very rightfully so) kill them before the helpless public was subject to them.

It gives me TV Tropes.

Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you for the internet.

I pretty much express my gratitude for the internet by using the internet mostly-daily. And occasionally posting about it on itself.

Awesomesauce on rye...

2010-12-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

You know what's awesome? Automated writing.

Okay, so it's not quite automated, but Celtx has got to be one of the coolest things I've played with as a writer.

A friend of mine is making a film. He sent me an outline and I'm writing at least a draft of the script. Super cool. Only thing is, except for a foray into scripting for Screnzy that involved a mangling of the television script format, I have no experience with script writing.

My friend presented me with Celtx (which offers a free download!) and I pulled up a window to begin poking around the "Screenplay" option.

Omigosh, there is so much there, so much already formatted for you, so much to add in. Character bibles (useful for television scripts), lists of people who might be needed for a particular scene, so much! I don't know how to use half the stuff and half the things it offers are things I know nothing about, not being a filmmaker by trade, but it is pretty awesome to be experimenting with.

It has other options, like comic books, text, stage plays, etc., and I can't wait to start playing with those too. It makes me want to stretch my creative fingers into other mediums beyond just the novel or short story.

Perhaps I shall use it for "Inasmuch" whenever I get around to that sucker.

The untruth of this is truly untruthful...

2010-12-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

I lied.

In this post, the very first post of Reverb, I said that I hadn't completed anything in 2010 besides NaNo (and now my short story for Creative Writing).

That's not true.

Trawling through my flashdrive at the end of the semester, throwing away temporary files and multiple copies of assignments, I'm finding papers and projects that I did all throughout the year. Completed papers and projects.

Now granted, they weren't necessarily things I wanted to be working on, and they are nearly all non-fiction, but I was writing. I did finish stuff. And, reading an essay I wrote for History this spring, it was stuff that I'm proud of. I might not have liked doing it at the time, but reading over it now, I like it. I feel smart and writerly and bold, like I can actually accomplish something. And I have a lot of it.

Yay me.

The deep end of the swimming pool...

2010-12-13T07:42:00.000-08:00

December 13 – Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

In progress. I'm currently doing the pre-writing doodling and scribbling and brainstorming, sort of wetting my toes in preparation to cannonball right off the diving board.

My next step is to actually start writing. I've sort of been putting it off, keeping myself limited to the scribbles and rants about other things while school is still going on, for fear that I'll get distracted by my new shiny. But school is over now and so I plan to do the jumping.

The thing to be avoided, of course, is the dreaded "I have tons of time to write, but no motivation". Therein lies the actual challenge of this whole thing.

ME...

2010-12-12T19:46:00.000-08:00

December 12 – Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

I'm going to admit that this particular prompt sound incredibly New-Agey. Not that there's anything wrong with New-Age-ness, but it's not particularly my cup of tea. But I'll run with it.

I've never really noticed a gap between my mind and body, anything that wasn't ME. I am ME and that's who I am. That said, there are times that I feel more ME than usual. That's most often when I have a slightly-dull pencil and an old stack of lecture notes that were printed off the school computer, leaving me with mostly-clean backs of scrap paper. It's in the stolen moments, the times when I have an idea, a feeling, a scene, that has to be written at that moment, no matter what's going on around me. There's just this single-minded drive to get something done and even when it turns out to be crap, I'm still happy with it. It's ME.

That, or when I've had a really great day and am singing way too loudly to music while I make myself some good food. There's embarrassing dancing and air-guitar riffs. And it's awesome. It's ME.

Ketchup...

2010-12-12T19:40:00.000-08:00

December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

And here's where it becomes difficult to make these things work for writing. Ah heck, we'll take a swing at it anyway...

1) Self Doubt. For real. There are times I just need to get over my crippling insecurities, pull on my big girl panties and just write without worrying about how horrible it is.

This goes hand in hand with...

2) Perfectionism. Having high standards is one thing. Demanding that everything come out exactly right the first time is quite another.

...which can lead to...

3) Guilt. Sometimes, you miss a day. Sometimes something happens. It's okay. Not a big deal. No need to stress about it.

...in direct contrast to...

4) Fecklessness
and
5) Laziness. Sometimes, you do need to kick yourself in the pants to get something done.

6) Wangst. In both real life and my writing. This is "duh" in real life. In my writing, I seem to have been leaning towards the wangst a bit. Angst is fine in fiction, provided it doesn't become excessive and annoying. But because I tend to write character-driven pieces and my characters all seem to want to have whiny pasts, the wangst piles on. I need to cut it out, to realize when something is becoming too much.

Other, less serious things I don't need in writing...

7) Pens that run out of ink.

8) Stupidly designed notebooks (or the guilt of not filling them up because they are stupid to write in... curse, you, lavender velvet contraption that is so not writer-friendly!).

9) Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (though there's really no helping it now that I've got it...).

10) Not knowing what to write.

11) Cardboard.

Mmm, got to scraping a little, I did there. It's what I get for trying to twist these prompts around to writing. But it's what I want and according to number two, I can allow myself to hit a mark less than perfect.

Most of this is just mindset. And, oddly enough, all I really need to do is not think about avoiding it. I think about it too hard, I inevitably find myself angsting about it, and then bad things happen. The key is to just go with the flow.

The blind presenting suggestions to the sighted...

2010-12-09T21:59:00.000-08:00

December 10 – Wisdom Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

I think it was to let my angel project go fallow for a while at least. I think it's likely mostly-permanently shelved, but of course there is always the chance some part or other will be resurrected and transplanted somewhere else. But it's knowing when to leave well alone that makes the difference and keeps you from beating your head against a brick wall.

I've let projects go in the past and it always hurts. The Sphere and the Singer, my first attempt at a fantasy epic, was started when I was eleven years old. I worked on it and worked on it for years, writing and rewriting the same beginning and scenes over and over again. It went nowhere. It stagnated even as I tried to breathe new life into it time and time again. It was painful when I finally put it on the shelf. I had grown so much in the years I worked on it that it was no longer recognizable. It had grown like a tumor and all that I could do with it was cut it off. I still find elements of it here and there in my writing and I still have fond memories of Gregory, Chris and Burt, but they've been more or less retired.

Sometimes I'm ashamed with myself for letting projects go. I mean, if I put that much effort, that much promise into a project, am I really going to just drop it like that? Isn't that quitting? Giving up? Surrendering? Can't you just make it work? I'm a believer that to get something done, you have to do it. Just relying on bursts of inspiration isn't going to work.

However, I still allow for the occasion of the dead horse and I won't force myself to beat it. Sometimes a project just becomes too unwieldy, too close, too much, and the best way to deal with it is to put it aside, let some distance happen, some objectivity take root, and move on to something else. Maybe you'll come back to it. Maybe you won't. In any case, you have learned something from that experience, even if it's just to "never try something like that again".

Un-solitary...

2010-12-09T21:28:00.000-08:00

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

The NaNoWriMo write-ins. Oh, the NaNoWriMo write-ins. I have always written solitary. It just seems like writing would naturally be a solitary pursuit. Sure, you can have people read and talk about your work with you, but the writing itself is a one-man job. But then I went to a NaNo write in at a local bookstore.

I was a little late and I wandered through the bookstore, looking for something, anything that looked like people writing. Right smack in the center of the store, clustered around a little table sandwiched between the music display and a six-foot fountain, there were three or four people hunched over laptops. I sort of walked by them once, pretending to browse, trying to work up the courage to ask if they were NaNoers. I mean, if they weren't, I'd have to explain myself and look like an idiot as I wandered the store to find the actual NaNoers.

I sidled up apologetically.

"I feel a little silly, but are you the NaNoWriMo people?"

Suddenly I was surrounded by the gushing welcome of writers to one of their own. They ushered me into the cramped space, arranging chairs and laptops so I had table space. My knees were pressed uncomfortably to the table leg and my backpack nearly tripped several people where it peeked out from under the tiny chair, but it was marvelous.

Almost the first thing I did was yank the bookmark out of my notebook. It apparently hadn't been glued in too well, because it just popped off in my hand as I tried to flip it out of the way. I stared at it for a moment.

"Oh, that's not cool," I said in a tiny voice, still afraid to talk, as if I might be interrupting.

"What?"

"I pulled my bookmark out." I held up the sad little scrap of ribbon. Again, the gushing began, an outpouring genuine sympathy. It was such a wondrous, comforting display. I was at home. These were my people. I could write with them.

The evening was spent in mostly-silence, with little bursts of conversation about nerdy things, writerly things, serious things, before going back to writing. I spent three of the happiest hours of my writing career there.

I went back the next week.

A little ramble through Never Never Land...

2010-12-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I submitted my info for the Createspace copy of my NaNo novel. We'll see what it looks like when it gets here. *nerves*

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

(You know what I love? Coincidences. Coinkydinks. Lucky manifestations of fate. Times when you have something in mind and then that thing pops up, like say, in a prompt for your blog.)

I wonder sometimes about myself and how people in general can view the world in such different ways. A perfect example would be Princess Tutu (obsessed? me? what would make you say that?). If you were to look up a review online, one of the first things people will say is that it's weird. Like, apparently, really weird.

I didn't notice. Sure, there were some unusual things going on (like animals in clothing, a duck who turns into a girl, an incorporeal dude ranting about a story), but I didn't find it "weird". It seemed perfectly normal within the context of the story. I wasn't confused. I wasn't put off.

Similarly, Neon Genesis Evangelion. The series has a reputation for being a strange, strange thing. The last few episodes in particular, as they suddenly devolve into surreal, abstract navel-gazing. Again, I didn't have a problem with it. So many people talk about what a mind-screw the whole thing was, but it made sense to me. Don't ask me to explain it, but I understood it.

So yeah, things that apparently are supposed to be confusing make sense to me. Just don't ask me to explain them.

Also, dreams. My dreams tend to follow a story. The story may not make much sense and the premise may change several times, but it's a story nonetheless. And I'm the only one in my family that way. Everyone else gets little moments they remember, or they don't remember their dreams at all. I have epics going on in my head every night.

I didn't think this was too odd until my prof mentioned dreams in creative writing class. He was talking about how dreams literally have no limitations, so they are the strangest, most random things. Unless, he said, your writerly brain works out a story to put them to.

So, do writers and storytellers have a different way of dreaming from other people? Do we take all the little tidbits and force them into a story, even subconsciously? This is something I actually really want to know, or whether it's just me.

Magnetic poetry...

2010-12-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

I love Magnetic Poetry. Somehow, having a word bank to create poetry from rather than having to decide on the words yourself makes it a little more friendly, a little more accessible, a little less daunting.

---

the sky sings a song under my bed
the stars look for socks
the sun practices jetés in the mirror

the moon scrambles eggs in a non-stick pan

All the (not) lonely people...

2010-12-07T18:10:00.000-08:00

December 7 – Community Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Oh wow, so many communities this year. There are the write-in folks for NaNoWriMo (so awesome and supportive and funny and yeah), the blogging community that I am slowly getting into (with its wealth of fantastic, emotional, hysterical writers), the YouTube/film community that I am sort of lurking around (oh gosh, too much awesome for one internet to contain), and my creative writing class (with the people who tell me too much about themselves and things I don't want to know about them, but manage to make me laugh and think).

In terms of 2011, I want to get more deeply involved in all of these communities, except for my creative writing class, which ends next week (on the one hand, I am excited - my stupid short story is done! - and on the other hand, I am sad that I will not be hanging out with those cool/awkward folks twice a week anymore).

Thank you, internet...

2010-12-06T19:43:00.001-08:00

I've been blog browsing a lot lately. Reverb10 and the lovely list at Dining with Small Monsters have been feeding an itch that started quite a few months ago. Google Reader got me through some tough spots in November. Ever since discovering the wonder that is the RSS feed, I've been subscribing to scores of blogs from writers and authors alike, webcomics that make me want to cry while I smile, and a crapload of other goodies. Just recently, I actually finally subscribed to Neil Gaiman's blog.

There's something to be said about reading about people's lives. Some people brush off their activities, preferring to jump into what they were thinking about rather than their physical actions, some people will linger on the smallest details. Some people manage to make their lives sound like novels and some people are abrupt and funny and satirical.

I mentioned Neil Gaiman because, reading his blog, I felt so comfortable. There are some blogs that are "informative". You read them like a newsletter. There are blogs that are deeply personal, almost exclusively so, making references and in-jokes that no one but the author understands. There are blogs filled with random thoughts, or carefully crafted humor. Gaiman's blog felt like a conversation, like a storyteller weaving his magic about the simplest things, which is what it was. And it was beautiful, even when it talked about things that I didn't understand because I have no history with them. The entire thing felt so careful and yet so relaxed. It made me happy just to read it, even without context to what he was writing about.

I have a hard time writing about myself in anything that resembles beautiful writing. I feel presumptuous when I do so, like my life is too boring, too mundane, and trying to add deeper meaning makes it silly and that I'm silly for doing so. But at the same time, I want to talk about the little things I notice, tie my life together into a story, write something that will take people's breath away. But I don't know if that's me, if that's my voice. Perhaps that's something I can cultivate.

All I can say is thank you to the people who bring us the internet. It is such an amazing thing in being able to read the wisdom and nonsense of others, as well as put out my own musings and scribblings.

Simplicity...

2010-12-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

If not here then definitely in my head, I've bemoaned the fact that writers get no bling. Sure, computers, pens, notebooks, programs... But when it comes down to it, we don't really need them. Plain old paper-n-pencil works just fine. We don't really need anything else.

Then it hits me.

We don't need anything else.

So much to do, so little free time...

2010-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

Mah NaNo novel: Glass and Salt. Used a G-2 fine point blue ink pen and a Picadilly medium notebook with college-ruled pages for the first half or so, then switched to my trusty Compaq, Write or Die and Word '07 when I realized that there was no way handwriting was going to get me to 50,000 in time.

Omigosh, there is so much I want to create right now. A short list:

- a novel about a hedgehog princess
- a short film about robots in love
- a song about fighting crime
- poetry

There are times I feel like artists and musicians are more artistic than writers. I mean, they get to use materials, to make images and figures and shapes and things you can touch, see, hear and smell. There's such a beautiful tangibility to what they do. Writers can only grasp at it, try to spell out what they want a reader to envision, rather than just making it and letting them see it for themselves.

But then I see a page of handwritten scrawl, and run my fingertip over words that have been pressed deeply into the grain of the paper, and smell the way the oil from my hands rubs off onto the fibers, and listen to the gentle hiss of the pages rustling together and I feel better.

The shelf...

2010-12-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

(These prompts could be so depressing if I were writing about things other than writing.)

There is a reason why my writing this year was so disjointed. I did have a long-standing project for a while, begun in February, if my notes are correct, but I eventually shelved that. It had been based on the "Mundane Angel" poem series I scribbled last year and a particularly vivid dream. It became an idea for a novel that actually had some research put into it, but it was finally shelved because I lost sight of what it was supposed to be about. And despite the niggling voice in the back of my head telling me I should have worked with it some more until it worked, I don't really regret shelving it. I can always pick it back up and I have other things that I can move on to.

Looking for more...

2010-12-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

(*whoot* Back to 'writing' as a theme.)

I can't say as I deliberately went about cultivating a sense of wonder. It wasn't a conscious effort on my part. However, I would have put down my creative writing and mythology classes as having been the greatest sources of wonder this year.

I'm not saying they were both fantastic classes. I've ranted about my creative writing class before and my mythology professor wasn't too good at encouraging original thought and discussion, but neither of them were particularly horrible. The most frustrating thing would be that we would touch on something for the briefest of moments and then move on, or we would beat a particular subject to death without really getting to the core of it. Partially due to frustration, I would scribble out rants and musings about such subjects, expanding them or exploring other facets that the class didn't.

Mythology in particular led me to a lot of realizations about writing and myself. The idea of the vast reaches of the human race being connected by the thing that is myth, and myth being so ingrained in all cultural products, and the idea of writing, of storytelling, of understanding the human condition. It's just so incredible how much potential there is out there, for anything, and how much of it gets wasted, and yet how much of it is used.

It's a matter of just being bored in class and wanting more out of life. And I think that's the best way to cultivate wonder. Want more out of everything. Not selfishly, but just looking for more meaning, more reason for being, more 'oomph' in everything.

Jones and Miyazaki...

2010-12-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

I've found that the best way to get something done is to stop whining about how it isn't done yet and actually do it. The hard part is convincing myself that the truth of this is truly truthful.
----
In the wake of NaNo, I've been spending some of my newly-freed-up time rereading Howl's Moving Castle and its sequels and I just have to say... I love them. I mean, they're confusing as all get out sometimes and the end always involves every character even briefly mentioned in the book being thrown together into mass chaos and the endings are always saccharinely happy, but I really, really like them.

And, due to the way my exposure to both turned out, Howl's Moving Castle the book will forever bring Howl's Moving Castle the movie to mind and that leads me into my love affair with Studio Ghibli.

They make great films. The animation is lovely, the characters are heartfelt, and all in all, they just have a simple "feel good" feeling about them. Even Princess Mononoke, one of the darker, bloodier films, makes you just plain feel good. (I'll admit to not having seen Grave of the Fireflies, which I understand is mindblowingly sad and depressing.)

And, because they are on my mind, I felt like going through a timeline of how I discovered the wonderfulness that is both Diana Wynne Jones and Studio Ghibli.

(I have a feeling this may be long and rambly. Beware.)
---
I have my library to thank for it all. I have my library to thank for a lot of things, but to list all of them would take too long, so I'm just going to restrict myself to this one particular thing.

Summer reading recommendations. My library does them. I'm sure your library does them. Up popped Howl's Moving Castle the book, mentioning that it was also made into a movie. Don't ask me why I put the movie on hold before the book, but that was how it went.

I watched the movie. This was one of my early introductions to anime and my first to Studio Ghibli. I fell in love. The atmosphere, the characters, the music. All lovely. It was a sort of whimsy, filled with hope despite any darkness that loom.

It took me a long time to get to the book itself. I'd actually read Diana Wynne Jones before (Year of the Griffin, I think...) and I'd always found her a little off-putting. She does have a style that sort of zooms along in the strangest way, details that will be immensely important sort of being skimmed over and requiring the reader to think about what they're reading as they read it in order to make sense of it. That hadn't been my thing at the young and tender age of maybe twelve or thirteen (I think?) and so I'd sort of skipped over her. But the movie made me want to read the book and so I did. I liked it a bit, but my love for it has grown over the years with each rereading (and the fact that I keep rereading it says something) and today it is probably in my favorites list.

Anyway, I watched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind next. Again, I have the library to thank for that. I was browsing the shelves and came across the manga for Nausicaa (which, by the way, I highly recommend) and picked it up, recognizing the name "Miyazaki". I read, I think, the first three volumes before I watched the movie. Loved it. Loved the movie. Was deeply in cinematic love with Studio Ghibli.

I think it was Castle in the Sky that was next, then the others after that sort of run together into a blur. I watched them all one right after the other, but I'm not sure of the order anymore. All of them were marvelous. Even the weaker ones were still fantastic. Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa are some of my most favorite movies of all time.

Diana Wynne Jones is still a taste I'm acquiring, I think. I know that there are some people out there who love anything by a particular writer, but I'm much more of an individual book person. Not that I don't get excited to see a new book by a particular author, but I try to take each new thing in stride. Of course, I'm a complete and total hypocrite in that I will instantly buy, borrow or steal my way into a Pixar or Studio Ghibli movie (though I do have my doubts about Cars 2), but I am testing the waters of her other books again and seeing what comes of it.

Freedom is...

2010-12-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

December 3 – Moment.

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

This is difficult. I could pick out particular moments in my life when I felt most alive, but none of them really happened this year. But, if I were to have to fudge it and pick one from this year, I'd have to pick sitting in a tree on my friend's college campus. It really has nothing to do with writing, beside the fact that I'm writing it here.

I'm at community college right now. I live at home with my parents and drive to class every day. Been doing this for a year and a half now and just one more semester to go before I transfer to a four-year school. However, about a month or so ago, I went to go spend the weekend with my friend at her four year school.

There's something to be said about the freedom that comes with moving out. I'd never experienced the complete lack of other people depending on you before. It's always one thing or another at home. If it's not that there's some chore you have to do, it's that the car needs to be back, or you need to be home, or someone needs to be driven. Or, even when there isn't anything to be done, there is the chance that something will come up. And you're obligated, because you are at home and are under your parents' roof, to help out or be there or something.

Away, that disappears. There might be other obligations that come up with friends or class or anything, but it's a different kind of obligation. You got into them because you wanted to, not because you were born into them.

So, sitting in the tree, nearly twelve feet off the ground, on a branch big enough that I couldn't wrap my arms around it, I was free. It was cold, because I was in short sleeves and it was getting dark. It smelled like autumn, like pine needles, like the precursor to ice. It was remarkably quiet on campus for the hour, it being a Saturday and everyone being away. There was just the sound of my and my friend talking, laughing about something or other, with the quiet thumps and rumbles of construction a block or two away. Everything was just starting to turn brown. The volleyball court beneath us was muddy. My heart was beating just a little too fast, because, despite my bravado in clambering all the way out to the end of the limb like I had, I was twelve feet in the air over a solid concrete sidewalk and the way the wind blew on me, I didn't feel quite secure.

But I was there and there was no one telling me to get down, or telling me that I needed to come eat dinner. In fact, there was no one telling me to do anything. My friend and I were free to do what we wanted. We ended up sitting on that tree for a long time, then wandering around the campus as it got dark. We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas at nearly one in the morning. We were our own people and for someone who's always been considered a responsible adult by everyone she knows, it was nice to be able to be irresponsible and not feel like I was in fact being irresponsible because there was simply no one to be responsible to.

Inasmuch...

2010-12-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

December 2 Writing.

What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

A typical day (inasmuch as I can have a typical day):
- Wake up as late as possible.
- Shower.
- Eat breakfast.
- Go to class.
- Browse the internet. E-mail. RSS Feeds. TV Tropes.
- Do homework.
- Writing.
- Browse the internet. Blog. YouTube. TV Tropes.
- Eat lunch.
- Go to class.
- Laundry. Chores. Stuff.
- Writing.
- Browse the internet. TV Tropes. YouTube. Webcomics.
- Eat dinner.
- Get ready for bed.
- Read.
- Write.
- Browse the internet. TV Tropes. Fanfiction. Original fiction.
- Sleep as long as possible.

There is a lot of internet browsing that I could definitely cut out. It's what I do probably the most of per time unit. I mean, at least an hour a day. I blame the accessibility of my laptop, the ubiquitousness of wi-fi and my slight obsession with the brilliance (and lack of) of others. I could definitely be fitting more writing in there in places.

But at the same time, I don't want to give up my internet browsing. It's not always the most intelligent fare, but it inspires me. It shows me what's out there. It gives me ideas. It feeds my writer.

I could just probably stand to do a little less of the Literal Videos and more of the pencil-to-papering.

Speaking of which, and since I love the word 'inasmuch', I'm naming my future-writing play idea "Inasmuch". Doesn't have a meaning yet, I don't have much of an idea beyond that I want to write a play-within-a-play, and I don't know when I'll get around to actually writing it (Screnzy? Seeing as how I'm diving headfirst into my hedgehog idea right now), but that is what it will be called. Updates whenever anything happens with that.

Yay for writing!

Thus begins a new challenge...

2010-12-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

For the month of December, I'm participating in Reverb10, mostly to keep myself blogging in the wake of NaNo, when I usually descend into a period of non-productivity as I try to recharge my creative batteries. So, if you liked my meme-ness during the month of November, you'll love Reverb in the month of December. If you hated the meme-ness, too bad. This is my blog. Blah.

In the interest of keeping me on task with writing, I'm going to try to maintain a writerly theme with the prompts from Reverb. No idea what the prompts will actually be, but here's to jumping in feet first and seeing where I land.

On to prompt one!

December 1 One Word.

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Boneless.

In retrospect, this year, writing-wise, felt very disjointed, in that loose-limbed way you get when you've exercised too hard and do the wobbly-kneed walk of the over-exerted. (Ode to my love affair with the hyphen...)

I did a lot of writing over 2010. I really did. But it doesn't feel like it because I didn't really complete anything. I have eleven months' worth of scribbles, blog posts, story scenes and half-filled notebooks, but, with the exception of NaNoWriMo, no finished projects that I can recall. There is no skeleton, no backbone, no cohesion to the year, just a lot of small jerks of inspiration.

I wish there were a way to pull up everything I'd ever written in a particular year, anywhere, and put them in one place so I could read it all. The reviews, rants, nonsense and deep pondering that I've done and likely forgotten in the months after. There is a lot to be said for the random bits of insight and inspiration that don't really fit into anything but are just waiting to be developed into something more.

As for 2011, I'd like for it to be "collected". Not necessarily organized, not necessarily finished or edited or even comprehensible, but I'd like to be able to, in December of 2011, go back and do just what I wished for above - have a stack of all the disjointed, half-baked, glorious thought and just be able to swim in it.

Imagine, if you will...

2010-11-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

A writer in the wake of National Novel Writing Month is not a pretty picture. Imagine, if you will, a person with slightly greasy hair, wrapped in blankets that need washing, wearing an unattractive oversized turtleneck, having eaten an ungodly amount of little candy-coated chocolates and typing sporadically while watching silly videos on YouTube. You would have imagined me at this moment.

The good news is that I friggin' won NaNoWriMo. 50,006 words, baby! The cheering of the victory video by the OLL was recorded especially for me!

However, as noted above, I'm usually a mess in the aftermath of NaNo. What usually happens is my writing drops off for several months. It's a trend that I've noted for both of my previous Novembers and I intend to avoid it this year. Fortunately, I have an idea that I'm excited about (it involves princesses and hedgehogs!). I think that excitement will help my productivity level from diving off a cliff this December.

Another thing I'm trying out is Reverb10, a blog challenge someone in my NaNo buddies recommended. Yet another thing to keep my muse from hiding under the bed for months. Plus, I have a bunch of scribbled notes and ideas for blog entries if not short stories, so I think that I could actually fend off the dreaded post-NaNo shlump.

One last meme entry:

Day 30 - Share a link to either your NaNo profile or a location on the internet where your story can be found. If someone offered to beta read for you, would you be willing to do the same for them during the subsequent editing process?

Actually, here's a place you can read all three of my previous NaNo novels: Scorpion and Sandman ('08) Dirt Queen ('09) and this year's Glass and Salt.

As of this writing, Dirt Queen and Salt and Glass aren't fully uploaded, but they will be very soon. Right now, I just want to dive into the pile of library books I've been ignoring for weeks and watch some more Tin Man (which I started yesterday and which probably is the reason I was writing all the way up to November 30).

To be truly honest, I don't think I'm going to be editing this sucker any time soon, so a beta reader would not be necessary. I'm perfectly willing to beta for anyone interested though, as long as they're willing to work with a full-time student, part-time kennel worker's schedule.

I are a winner! *whoot*

Something like thirty-six hours left...

2010-11-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

Blah... Somebody shoot me, please. My short story for Creative Writing is due in two hours and I'm just now sort of kind of getting to it, moving some previously-written stuff around and trying to frame it with a second narration. And it sucks. It sucks so badly. I wish I could change it, but I've already sort of committed to this story. I can only hope that either a) no one else remembers today is the due date (it would not be a first for this class) and we can postpone turning it in or b) I actually get the thing done in two hours and it isn't as bad as I think. But, for serious, I hate this friggin' story.

The only good news is that I finally got the characters to age up into sixteen year-olds.

My NaNo on the other hand, despite having given me grief the entire month, is back (sort of) on my good side. I sort of kind of have finally gotten around to the character's motivations, discovering meaning behind their actions and whatnot. Sort of. Still a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. In mere hours... *hyperventilates*

Just two more meme entries to go!

Day 29 - Name one thing in which you indulged as a treat to keep yourself motivated and writing that you wouldn’t otherwise have done.

You know, I indulged in lot of things this month that I don't normally do, but none of them were really writing-centric. I think the only thing I really did to get myself writing were 1) to promise myself that I would write my hedgehog story if I made my word counts every day (and that didn't really happen) and 2) I climbed a mountain about mid-month to novel at the top. It was more to just say I had done that than to bribe myself into writing.

P to the R to the OCRASTINATION...

2010-11-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I really need to be writing. Like, a short story for English that's sort of due tomorrow, but was pushed off and forgotten in the hectic-tasticness that is NaNo this year. And it sucks. I mean, really. It's what comes of having to write a genre that I never write in, namely, genre-less writing. "Literary" fiction. I suck at it. I create this box in my head and have such a hard time crawling out of it. And I am trapped in this box with two six year old characters who refuse to let me let them grow up. I mean, how do you handle six year olds who are in "like" with each other?

And the rubber duck. Oh, the rubber duck, how I hate it.

Look at its beady little eyes.

I think Scrubs is going to die. Actually, I'm certain of it. What I'm not sure of is how his father is going to react to it. I mean, he has a one-shot pistol. I said that specifically. He's already fired his one shot. So how is he going to shoot Scrubs again to kill him? And how is he going to react afterwards? How is Ian going to react? Gah... Here's hoping I can wrap it up in just over 9k words.

Meme-ness:

Day 28 - Name one thing you shafted all month in favor of participating in NaNo.

That short story I was talking about before. (Funny how these meme questions seem to be corresponding to what I'm talking about. I don't plan it, I swear.)

Less than ten thousand to go...

2010-11-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

I'm in the home stretch. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do this. But now I am!

I just had Scrub's own father shoot him. Why would I do that? I'm not even sure if he's going to die yet or not. I mean, he's the doctor, so who's going to fix him? And I already had one character get non-fatally shot. Two might be pushing it. I don't know. I don't really know what made do that, beyond perhaps the arguable temporary insanity brought on by Write or Die sessions.

To paraphrase Mr. Smith:
"Meme, meme, meme..."

Day 27 - What’s your word count now? Are you satisfied with your progress or panicked that you won’t have enough time to finish by November 30?

As of this writing, I am at 40,315, after making a crazy turn around in the past two days. Not super happy with my progress, but certainly fairly certain that I will finish in time. At least, I'll make it to 50k. Whether or not this story will manage to wrap itself up is an entirely different matter (see the above note about the shooting of Scrubs).

In other news, I saw Disney's Tangled today. I liked it, but the flaws that did exist kinda really bothered me. I just want a good fairy-tale movie, people! How hard is that? Perhaps more details will come later...

Being held back from writing by writing...

2010-11-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

So, there's only four days of NaNo left. I'm about 7k words behind what I should be for this particular time in November, but I swear I will make it. This resolution is helped by the fact that I've been crazily typing, which goes much, much faster than handwriting. (I really do think I could have done this by hand if only I hadn't been quite so busy/lazy this year. Last year it would have been a pushover, handwriting and all.)

Anyway, I feel as though my creative energy is being stifled by NaNo. There is so much I want to be doing, but I have to be NaNoing. And on the one hand, I resent this, and on the other hand, I almost appreciate it. After all, it's only a month and you have to practice disciplining yourself sometimes.

Been reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. I've found that there are two kinds of writing advice that I like: the snarky, vicious and personal (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, "TERRIBLEMINDS" a blog by Chuck Wendig) and the tranquil, almost-New Age (The Right to Write, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg). And I get through the tranquil, almost-New Age by balancing it out with the snarky, vicious and personal. All of them often have the same things to say, just different ways of saying it.

Seriously, I have so much I want to be writing. Scribbled rants, blog posts, essays, stories, scripts, poetry... I want to make words! Curse you, NaNo, and your guilt-inducing word count deadlines!

On that note, more of the meme:

Day 23 - Do animals play any part in your story? If so, how do they add to it?

I have goats. Mostly because I needed a source of milk. Because fae apparently hate milk in my novel.

Day 24 - Is religion featured in your novel at all? If so, which ones? If it’s/they’re your own creations, describe it/them and how it/they play(s) a part in your characters’ lives.

Meh, not really. I'm sure there is religion in these people's societies, but it hasn't come up in my novel.

Day 25 - What are the names of at least two of your main characters? How did you choose their names?

Chevy Lancer and Ian Woon.

"Lancer" was originally supposed to be Chevy's part in the story (based on this trope) and I really like the name "Chevrolet".

"Mr. Ian Woon" is an anagram of "NaNoWriMo". I needed a name, someone on the internet was far more clever than I, and so a throwaway-character-turned-main was christened.

Day 26 - Was any research involved (historical or otherwise) in your NaNo prep?

"Research"? We have not this word in my country.

Ventilation is your friend until it becomes hyper...

2010-11-22T19:11:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it sort of sunk in that there's only eight days left of NaNo and I'm at maybe 28k. I have dropped my commitment to handwriting and have instead simply committed to finishing.

But, before that, just so I don't get any further behind on another commitment, heeeeeeere's me-me!

Day 18 - Who is the antagonist in your novel? What drives their actions?

Erm, that's still up in the air right now. Bluejay? I think? Mainly he's driven by his personality as a fae, that he wants something and will not stop until he gets it. It's just how they operate. Though, once he gets what he wants, he's likely to decide that it's not quite as interesting as he thought and forget about it. And when that thing is a person, that's not so hot.

Day 19 - Which authors or books have inspired your own writing the most, and why?

Erm again, I'd say probably Jack London and Bruce Coville, mainly because they were the ones who really made me think I could write. I was obsessed with Jack London for the longest time as he introduced me to wooden ships, iron men and the freeze-your-tush-off landscape of the Klondike and the adventures therein. Bruce Coville was a final push into the idea that I myself could indeed write an epic fantasy. At like, age eleven.

Day 20 - If you could meet one fictional character from any book you’ve ever read, who would it be, and why?

Wow. Erm for the third time... I'm going to have to take a rain check.

Day 21 - With about 10 days left to this arguably traumatic experience, what are your plans and goals for your novel, should you successfully complete it?

Blah! Eight days now. I honestly don't know if much is going to happen with this novel. It's more of just a purging than a serious project like my '08 novel was. Speaking of which...

Day 22 - If you’ve participated in or won NaNo before, what happened to your other novel efforts? Still in the revision process/querying publishers/scrapped it immediately/etc.

'08 is still in editing. It has been in the same stage of editing for about a year and a half now, but I don't want to abandon it. It's probably the piece of writing that is the closest to being called my "baby".

'09 was a bit more NaNo-ish and so would have to have a lot more changed to even make it begin to be plausible as the story is intended to be, and I don't actually like it as much, so it's sort of a shelved thing.

Been using Write or Die madly and have about a thousand words for the day so far under my belt. I intend to at least put three more ten-minute sessions under my belt before the day is out.

Dear Bruce Coville...

2010-11-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

originally written Wednesday, September 15, 2010

posted here for illustration of this point

---

Dear Bruce Coville,

You don't know me, but I have been a fan of your books since I was around ten or eleven. I understand you're well-known for your quirky books like My Teacher is an Alien, but I'll admit I've only ever read your fantasy work, such as the Magic Shop series. I loved loved loved Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. But the work that has influenced me the most has been The Unicorn Chronicles.

There were only two books, Into the Land of Unicorns and Song of the Wanderer, when I first discovered Chronicles. I searched in vain for more, since it was obvious the story was meant to continue. I asked librarians. I used my abysmal internet skillz to see if you had died or had given up or if I was just stupid and the library lacking. But to no avail.

Years went by. Then, one day a year or two ago, I happened across the third volume in the series. Eagerly, I snapped it up and read it in scant hours.

Years more went by until yesterday, when I was deliberately combing the shelves and found the fourth volume. I snapped that up too and stayed up until one in the morning finishing it. I was exhausted today in my early-morning class, but having finished a beloved series from my childhood was well worth the hours of lost sleep.

In the letter before the fourth volume, you mention that you started the series in 1991, the same year I was born. I discovered the books at about ten or eleven, meaning that the books I read were at least several years old. Having looked it up, the first was published in '94, the second in '01, third '08 and fourth just this year in '10. This series has taken my entire lifetime to be published.

I am one of the readers you mention in your letter who started reading the series in childhood, have since grown up, and yet were still wanting you to finish the series. I noticed too that your books seemed to grow up too. The series went from a simple escapist story of a girl going into the land of unicorns that was perfect for my younger self, to an epic with its own take on myth and legend, dealing with mature themes like death and love and family, that was a very satisfying read for my present self. I was able to enjoy the work as much for itself as for its nostalgic value. And for that, I thank you, even if it took you nineteen flippin' years to get the darn thing out.

Sincerely,

~ a fan

Opening the Vein

Going in circles...

On justification...

Exactly like this, except not at all...

Focus...

Farewell and thank you...

On story pirates...

Thoughts on characters (part 3)...

Well...

Announcements...

Thoughts on characters (part 2)...

Some thoughts on character (part 1)...

Crazy little thing called 're-writing'...

On slaying the Shiny New Idea (a love story)...

Shiny...

Bursting at the seams...

Empty...

In which there is a great deal of poetry...

Thank you and farewell...

A daily record...

In defense of fanfiction...

A little pimping...

An ending...

Advice to my past self...

Sweet lullaby...

Why...

Beneath the mask...

Laughing at myself...

Not-so-happily ever after...

Nostalgia and crack...

Devolution...

Awesome (except not really)...

Ode to sugar and English...

Predestination…

Back it up, back it up...

One down...

How To Write: Gryph-style...

One big sandbox...

Non-fiction continues to win...

I hate it when they disappoint me like this...

Feel the love...

Wasting away...

Space oddity...

We're different, different as can be...

Bits'n'pieces...

Music of the write...

Motivation...

*headdesk*...

Blah, blah, blah...

Endings are hard...

Viruses and Hedgehogs and Lampreys, oh my...

Somehow, it all works out...

Collection...

So...

Farewell to 2010...

Farewell to Reverb...

I like to gift...

Right here, right now...

A to-do list...

Mundane angels...

I blame the holidays and work...

Don't worry, be happy...

Why, hello there...

Away, away, come away with me...

Back to the future...

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

In hindsight...

In which there is a video and healing...

Bring it on...

Playing with ketchup...

Alone, bad. Friend, good...

Don't go away...

Congratulations, you've won...

Awesomesauce on rye...

The untruth of this is truly untruthful...

The deep end of the swimming pool...

ME...

Ketchup...

The blind presenting suggestions to the sighted...

Un-solitary...

headdesk...