Well, I failed at my task to get a new book to read this past week. Which means I instead spent that time writing. So.... win?
After my post last week the day went very sideways, and so I didn't have the time I thought I would before Writing Group. In fact, I ended up running late, so I sprinted up to the room, and saw that it was already pretty filled. That was kind of exciting, to see the group blossom like this.
Anyway, it also meant that I didn't take the time before group to set up a library card finally, and then borrow the book I was intending. Since group goes until the library closes, I couldn't very well get everything sorted out after group. And, as it turns out, Tuesdays are the only days of the week the library is open longer than my new job, so unless I have another weekday off, Tuesdays are my only Library Days. So, care to guess what I'm going to squeeze in on my day off today?
As for Writing Group, I discovered that Keaton has been with the group since it started five years ago. I had a feeling she was a "charter member" as it were. I'm fairly certain at least DFL is too. It would make sense that the two of them feel most comfortable leading the group if that's true. Although, DFL has been leaning more towards leading the group than actually participating in it. It makes me concerned, and so I tried to encourage her to bring something to read next time. We'll see how that goes. But Keaton being with the group for five years means that she's also been working on her weird anthology concept of "these are all random writing prompts all about Buster Keaton, but there's no true connecting story" for about as long. I'm curious as to why she's stalling on calling the story complete, and either moving on or working on a different volume.
Doesn't matter. There were other people there. There was a new gentleman who didn't think to bring anything to read, so he just listened and commented. Works for us. He is in the same boat as me: likes about three different genres - including High Fantasy - but isn't sure which genre he wants to write in, and/or has no story concept to focus on. It will be interesting to see him grow; it might give me more of a direction myself.
Another "new" member - she was around years ago and finally decided to rejoin the group - was this timid older woman. She was adorable. Her writing was good. However, for some reason because she went with tribal names like Snowy Owl and Shining Moon, three of the people in the room thought she was talking about anthropomorphized animals, like wolves, and were thrown off when the characters turned out to be human. I didn't get that confusion. I just pictured the scene as two Inuits in the woods, so my only confusion was that this was supposed to be a post-apocalyptic story, and I was picturing it as before Alaska was invaded by Americans/Canadians/whomever. To each their own, I guess. If those three were confused, others could be too, and so I guess it was a good thing that she took note of the critique.
We had one last "new" member. Again, someone who had already been a member, but hasn't attended in about a year. She was a really spunky older woman. Her wiring must be different than everyone else, because she was coming up with questions no one else seemed to even imagine asking. They were both very good points, and very left-field points. Frankly, I would have ignored the left-field ones because they were so odd, but the good points were definitely ones to take to heart.
The one gentleman who had been reading us his spy novel - did I name him yet? For right now I'll go with his main character's name: Carson - continued on his story. We had a nice round table about it: critiques, praise, questions about the over-arching plot, etc.
A woman who started coming a few weeks back also read. She's writing personal essays, which are works of non-fiction written sort of similarly to an autobiography, but laser-focused on just one event. She already read about her walking the college track to help her get over her painful divorce. Last week she read about the loss of an old colleague, and how that put her own career goals into focus. Since her theme unintentionally, but beautifully done, is "journeys" or "moving forward" I think I'm calling her Traveler.
We had another round table with Traveler, and the Left-Field woman came up with her many questions. One was that she wanted to know more about the colleague's goals, and how they were parallel to Traveler's. I personally figured it was unneeded information; that it was implied enough that it didn't need to be stated, but maybe other readers do need it spelled out a bit more.
Red - who hasn't been dying her hair, so it's not so red; gonna need to rethink her name - has been in a writing funk, and so we discussed ways to get her back into the rhythm of things. I suggested Ali Luke's concept of starting with just 15 minutes a day. That seemed to really inspire her. "Oh, I can do that. I can take 15 minutes." Thank you, Ali, for inspiring yet another writer! We also suggested that maybe she needed to just work on random writing prompts for the time being; to give her mind a rest from her grim murder/decent-into-insanity drama. She seemed to respond to that idea too. So, we'll see if that means she'll bring something new in next week.
Last up was Sandy. Like all the other published authors I talk about here, no nickname for her to protect her privacy. How am I supposed to promote her and her book once I'm done reading it if I'm using a nickname for her? Anyway, she read a bit more of her draft of her book's sequel. It was more of an establishing scene to introduce all the characters. For me it was a bit lackluster because it was everyone gathering for a barbecue, plus it was confusing because you have David - the main character - Danny, I think - I can't recall, honestly - and his wife Dee. There were just too many D-Names being thrown at me, and I was having a hard time keeping straight who was doing or saying what, because none of them have distinctly different characterists/voices yet. At least, not displayed in that little segment. We'll have to see how she tweaks it, or if she even can. For all I know all these D-Names were already introduced in the first story.
Snuggled about half-way through everyone else was me. I read off "The Fallen Guardian Angel" to everyone. As per usual, most seemed to really enjoy it, with virtually no critiques. The most round table discussion we had was me informing people what fanfiction was, and giving a quick synopsis of "Xenocide" so everyone knew the events surrounding the story I read. I didn't think to explain the Jane character though, and that might have resulted in the only critique I received. Carson felt that Novinha's arguments were so raw and passionate, that you sided with her easily. Comparatively, he felt that Ender's arguments seemed hallow and non-genuine. This is FAR from the truth. While no one else at the table either countered or echoed Carson's critique, it is still one of the few I've ever received. So I wanted to take it to heart as much as possible.
Could I have written Ender completely out of character? Did I make him too meek while fighting back with Novinha? What made his arguments seem hallow? Was it the comments about him already hurting Novinha because of Jane? While not terribly too off, did Carson believe that Ender had an affair with Jane, and therefore his profession of love to Novinha seemed untrue? I didn't stop to think to ask Carson WHY he felt that way, I just nodded and jotted the critique down to think about. And now I'm not sure where I went wrong. It's possible he's the only one who felt that way. It's possible I wrote Ender completely wrong. It's possible that Ender's counterarguments only seem false because Carson doesn't understand who Jane is.
Point being, if any of my readers felt the same way about my latest one-shot, please respond either below or in the comments of the story itself to give me an idea of where I went wrong. Thank you.
Anyway, so that was last week's Writing Group. As I mentioned, life got chaotic, and I didn't have time to grab the book for this week. So, I ended up bringing my netbook to work in order to at least write during the painfully slow times.
I decided to take another crack at "Glitches." For those who may have missed it last week, I had decided to just go with "Glitches" as my working title for my X-Future Reboot story. I'll work out later if that title is already being used, and/or if it's catchy enough to draw people in for a first read.
Anyway, I converted my comic script into a movie one. Not a very good movie one, though, because it includes very few shots or transition marks. It's written more like a stage play, I guess, but it's too complicated to be able to perform on stage. Eh, either way, it's part prose narrative, part script. I figured it was the easiest way to read it aloud to the Writing Group without them being overly confused; hopefully. So it's not written as a proper script, so what? It's not supposed to be a screenplay anyway. I figured, write it out as this weird novel-script hybrid, and then once everything is figured out and talked through in the Writing Group, I can properly convert it back into a comic script.
I just need to figure out where the heck to post it so I can share it with you guys. I don't know if I want to share the WIP though, that's the thing. So, I may just talk about my progress more here, instead of actually sharing something from it each week.
To really try to get my butt in gear about this whole thing, I looked towards Writers’ Huddle. I disappear. I come back. I disappear again. Well, Ali is again starting up the Summer Writing Challenge, and it began yesterday. Seems like a great time for my Grand Return yet again.
As per usual, I have no clue what I want to do for the challenge since I have no direction or focus like everyone else seems to have. So, I decided - for the time being - to go full throttle with "Glitches." I'm aiming to write three more pages for my weird prose-script hybrid thing each day. That way I'll always have something new to read from it for Writing Group each other week.
Granted, I couldn't read ALL that I had if I keep with the 3-a-day pace since that's 42 pages each meeting. The general rule of thumb is that each page of script is about a minute of screen time. That's not even including the time it takes to read the action going on. No way. Too much to read each meeting. I'd take up at least half the time! Still, it would mean I'd have a LOT of "backlogged" writing to read after the challenge concludes and I go back to being a bum about this whole writing thing, or I switch gears. Whichever.
Plus, I'll probably chump out on my days off in favor of cleaning, watching TV, and/or playing video games. PLUS, Spink has her wedding at the end of July, and so I'll probably get a bit overwhelmed with helping her finish organizing that. PLUS, I still have that reading challenge too. So, maybe I should drop that down to two pages a day so I can easily pick up the slack from my days off....
Anyway, that's my game plan for this week: get my July Book from the library to start reading, work on some semblance of a plot outline for "Glitches," and write 3 pages per day for the "script." It may not be something I can then post to share with you to read, but I can still talk about my progress, right?
Showing posts with label X-future reboot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label X-future reboot. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Book Review Time!
Well, folks, I did it. I finally did it. I was so fed up with my netbook's slowness that I upgraded. I now have a fancy new laptop and hopefully you can stop reading me whine about how much I hate computers or that my update got screwed up by technical problems. YAY!
As for the writing for the week, eeeeh, I sort of slacked off again in favor of finishing off the novel I was reading. Once again, though, Orson Scott Card's character Novinha really inspired me. Her pain and anguish just pulls at me, and while I was reading more of "Xenocide" I just kept thinking of her. I missed her in this novel. Aside from obviously Ender - it IS the Ender Saga - the book mostly focused on Novinha's children and three people on a separate planet named Path. So, in my lament of Novinha's lack of appearance, I wrote another real brief one-shot at work. I'm loving that they don't really care that I bring my netbook there to write.
This one-shot contains spoilers for "Xenocide" for anyone who hasn't at least read through the chapter Grego's War, so fair warning about that.
It's not much, but it's enough to read tonight at the writers' group. I've also been debating if I should read what I have so far for my X-Future Reboot comic, which I think I'll officially use "Glitches" as the working title from now on. If I read from the Glitches script it will FINALLY be a Work-In Progress that I've brought to the meetings. Until now I've just brought basic writing samples for basic writing advice. Since I haven't actually received much of any, perhaps reading a WIP will be the way to truly get the most out of these meetings. My only real concern is that I don't really have much going on in the comic because I couldn't figure out how to open it.
Perhaps that's all the more reason to read it off, to ask for advice on how to explain evolution quickly in a comic book setting in order to explain how Glitches came to be in the human race. It's a thought. I'll report back next week as to whether or not I followed through.
One last bit of a semi-writing related insert: Hubby and I had a spontaneous visit from Ronoxym and Cyhyr on Saturday. It was nice seeing them. I miss hanging out with them. Since Ron isn't doing the overnight job any longer, and I have an actual functioning car, perhaps we can meet up at least once a month now. It's a thought.
Anyway, I playfully harassed Ron about his distinct lack of writing this year. He was kind of like "meh" about the whole thing, probably because for him it's just a fun hobby, not a way of life. So if he's creatively tapped out it's not that big of a deal for him to move on to a different hobby. It's a shame though. He has such fun ideas, has writing potential, is inspiring to work with - when he does work on the writing - and even if I'm not co-writing with him, his writing is not only fun to read, but it also sparks something in me that really kicks my writing juices in gear. It really would be a shame to lose that.
Especially since Cyhyr told me that she hasn't updated her blog in so long because she gave up on it and deleted it. How did I miss that? She was one of the most disciplined writers I knew, and she too was like "Eh, baby on the way and finishing up college, more important things." Not that she's wrong on that account, but still, another voice lost from writing and I hope she, her husband, and someone else I haven't mentioned in forever - Omnibladestrike - all return to writing someday. I'd hate for people to never know them through their writing.
Finally, we are up to what has become one of my favorite bits to write for this blog. Probably because it requires little thinking about what to write, as well as something I KNOW I can report on each month. It's time to share my views on the latest book I've read!
I have to admit, that while there were tense moments way more engrossing than in "Speaker for the Dead," over all "Xenocide" just didn't seem to match my love for Speaker. I did enjoy the new characters from the planet of Path, but some of the returning characters just seemed so out of character. It was like Orson Scott Card only vaguely remembered the personalities he created in Speaker, when he started writing them some more in Xenocide. I understand that 30yrs past between the close of Speaker and the opening of Xenocide, but it still felt like some of the characters changed a bit TOO much over those decades.
Another thing is that in Speaker two of Valentine's children are named: Syfte and Ren; daughter and son 2yrs younger. Card also stated: "It was Plikt...who taught Valentine...the miracle of each of her five children..." Then you remeet Valentine and her children in "Xenocide" and Valentine describes her family. There is Styfe and her new husband Lars, and then there was Ro, a daughter two or three years younger than Styfe, and Varsam, the lone son who was youngest by four years. Only three children, and the son Ren is never mentioned. Did Card just forget Valentine's family between writing Speaker and Xenocide? Or did Valentine lose two children on the cold, harsh, frozen world of Trondheim? And if it's the later, why wasn't there a single mention of Valentine's loss in Xenocide?
It was also hard for me - and this could just be my own wacky mind - to picture Novinha's children at their appropriate ages. Ela should have been about 48, and the youngest Grego would have been around 36. Yet I pictured Ela about my age, and Grego and Quara a pair of bickering 17 and 18 year olds. Yes, Hubby and I do still act fairly childish at points, but lines like "It looked like a typical teenager's bedroom, complete with Grego's legs stretching up the walls, his bare feet dancing a weird rhythm..." really don't help with reminding me that Grego's character is supposed to be older than I am.
Also, I read Sci-Fi for the Fantasy portion of it. The mysteriousness of "what would happen in the future, or on another planet, or if we had different technology" of it all. However, I myself can't really stand science. For some reason it goes over my head. I guess it's the fantasy writer in me. I'd much prefer to just be wowed by the world working instead of figuring out why. Although, there are plenty of people interested in science precisely because the why of the world working is the "wow" factor for them. Either way, my point is that my eyes glaze over when it comes to science, and a little bit the same with philosophy. Mainly because I'm a visual person, and it's hard to visualize philosophical questions with possibly no true answer.
All of this made "Xenocide" all the more difficult to read, because I like to describe it simply as "Metaphysics and Philosophy: A Novel." I already told celestialTyrant that this could possibly become one of his top 10 novels once he reads it.
The book starts off well enough. A fleet is coming to destroy a planet in order to protect humanity from a deadly virus residing on it that is threatening to spread throughout the universe. Problem is, there are humans already on that planet struggling against the virus, as well as two other sentient alien species who only exist on this planet. Destroying it might save humanity, but it would be a xenocide of those two sentient species, as well as the other lifeforms on that planet. So already there are two sentient species being threatened with extinction, but if they aren't wiped out with the virus, then humanity could face extinction. Then Card throws in Jane, another sentient entity that somehow "lives" in the intergalactic connections between computers across the worlds that humans have colonized. A "living" AI that tries to save the humans on the threatened planet, but doing so exposed herself, and humanity knows that sentient computers are never a good thing. Thing is, Jane is the only one of her kind, so that would be another sentient alien - so to speak - lost to xenocide. Then you have Quara swearing that the deadly virus that the fleet was sent to destroy in the first place is equally sentient, but no one has been able to figure out the language enough to communicate to the virus how deadly and destructive it is. She hopes doing so will convert it from killing humans, and instead make itself as crucial to the life-system as it does with the native sentient species. Which makes things even more complicated. If the humans can figure out how to stop the virus so the entire planet doesn't need to be destroyed, at least one sentient alien - two if you count the virus as Quara does - might still die because they can't survive without the virus.
More and more species' existence are at stake in this hugely tangled mess of morality: who to save; who to let die? It's exciting and intense as you wonder how all the species are going to be able to survive. Then it takes the turn. The eternal question of "What is 'life' and what makes up a 'soul'?" pops up, and Card spends chapters having his characters pop back onto that question as they determine who should live, who should die, and if someone was truly "living" in the first place. It gets really philosophical and metaphysical from there. Thing is though, while he based it all on metaphysical science, the answer he came up with to resolve most of the problems seemed very "Deus Ex Machina" and almost in a literal sense.
Then there were the new characters introduced, the people of the planet Path. We are specifically introduced to a young woman named Qing-jao. She is a very loving and relatable character to start off with, but I'm not a fan of her character development. Side note: I'm equally not a fan of Novinha's development in this novel. In regards to Qing-jao, you get enough insight into her to understand the character development. It doesn't come from left field. Still, she changes from a sweet girl that you sympathize with to one of the most arrogant, annoying characters, at least for me. I'm also not a fan of the conclusion of her story in this novel, or the conclusion of the novel itself.
The novel closes with the main dilemmas IMPLIED to be taken care of, but there is no actual conclusion written out. I won't go into the cliffhanger questions I was left with because they could cause spoilers, but to me there was still at least one more chapter left on what was going on with Lusitania. Yet the novel closed off on Path with Qing-jao in a very unsatisfying way, at least for me. I'd much rather Card finished off with expressly stating what happened on Lusitania and implying Qing-jao's story close, instead of the other way around.
All-in-all, a good read that I tore through easily for the first 350 pages or so, but then after the Grego's War chapter it just gets too metaphysical, philosophical, and Qing-jao changes too drastically - as does Novinha - for me to have really enjoyed the remainder of the book. Still, if people want to know what happens after "Speaker for the Dead" and/or really like the philosophy of "what constitutes life" and metaphysical quandary of parallel universes/alternate planes of existence, then this is DEFINITELY the book for them.
Me? I'm going to have to track down "Children of the Mind" to continue to follow the conclusion of Ender's life, and hope that Card is back on his game, because I feel like he went into a really weird realm with the last half of "Xenocide." Out of the three I've read so far in the Ender Saga, Speaker, while a slow start, is definitely my favorite.
Alright, well it's Chart Time. What book am I going to pick up now to try to finish the month off with, or at least to get started so I can make sure to get my July book done with all the chaos that will be going on next month?
While not a local librarian, Keaton has really been pushing the work of a fellow Writers' Group member. Enough so that I would call her an unofficial "bookseller." Because of this, I think I'll swing by the library a bit before group tonight in order to try to borrow "Reformation," a novel written and self-published by one of our group members. Sadly, I don't remember the woman's last name, but if I can pick the book up today I'll be sure to promote her properly next week.
And thus I charge ahead with this challenge. We'll see what else I charge ahead with in regards to my writing. That's the important one....
As for the writing for the week, eeeeh, I sort of slacked off again in favor of finishing off the novel I was reading. Once again, though, Orson Scott Card's character Novinha really inspired me. Her pain and anguish just pulls at me, and while I was reading more of "Xenocide" I just kept thinking of her. I missed her in this novel. Aside from obviously Ender - it IS the Ender Saga - the book mostly focused on Novinha's children and three people on a separate planet named Path. So, in my lament of Novinha's lack of appearance, I wrote another real brief one-shot at work. I'm loving that they don't really care that I bring my netbook there to write.
This one-shot contains spoilers for "Xenocide" for anyone who hasn't at least read through the chapter Grego's War, so fair warning about that.
"The Fallen Guardian Angel"
It's not much, but it's enough to read tonight at the writers' group. I've also been debating if I should read what I have so far for my X-Future Reboot comic, which I think I'll officially use "Glitches" as the working title from now on. If I read from the Glitches script it will FINALLY be a Work-In Progress that I've brought to the meetings. Until now I've just brought basic writing samples for basic writing advice. Since I haven't actually received much of any, perhaps reading a WIP will be the way to truly get the most out of these meetings. My only real concern is that I don't really have much going on in the comic because I couldn't figure out how to open it.
Perhaps that's all the more reason to read it off, to ask for advice on how to explain evolution quickly in a comic book setting in order to explain how Glitches came to be in the human race. It's a thought. I'll report back next week as to whether or not I followed through.
One last bit of a semi-writing related insert: Hubby and I had a spontaneous visit from Ronoxym and Cyhyr on Saturday. It was nice seeing them. I miss hanging out with them. Since Ron isn't doing the overnight job any longer, and I have an actual functioning car, perhaps we can meet up at least once a month now. It's a thought.
Anyway, I playfully harassed Ron about his distinct lack of writing this year. He was kind of like "meh" about the whole thing, probably because for him it's just a fun hobby, not a way of life. So if he's creatively tapped out it's not that big of a deal for him to move on to a different hobby. It's a shame though. He has such fun ideas, has writing potential, is inspiring to work with - when he does work on the writing - and even if I'm not co-writing with him, his writing is not only fun to read, but it also sparks something in me that really kicks my writing juices in gear. It really would be a shame to lose that.
Especially since Cyhyr told me that she hasn't updated her blog in so long because she gave up on it and deleted it. How did I miss that? She was one of the most disciplined writers I knew, and she too was like "Eh, baby on the way and finishing up college, more important things." Not that she's wrong on that account, but still, another voice lost from writing and I hope she, her husband, and someone else I haven't mentioned in forever - Omnibladestrike - all return to writing someday. I'd hate for people to never know them through their writing.
Finally, we are up to what has become one of my favorite bits to write for this blog. Probably because it requires little thinking about what to write, as well as something I KNOW I can report on each month. It's time to share my views on the latest book I've read!
I have to admit, that while there were tense moments way more engrossing than in "Speaker for the Dead," over all "Xenocide" just didn't seem to match my love for Speaker. I did enjoy the new characters from the planet of Path, but some of the returning characters just seemed so out of character. It was like Orson Scott Card only vaguely remembered the personalities he created in Speaker, when he started writing them some more in Xenocide. I understand that 30yrs past between the close of Speaker and the opening of Xenocide, but it still felt like some of the characters changed a bit TOO much over those decades.
Another thing is that in Speaker two of Valentine's children are named: Syfte and Ren; daughter and son 2yrs younger. Card also stated: "It was Plikt...who taught Valentine...the miracle of each of her five children..." Then you remeet Valentine and her children in "Xenocide" and Valentine describes her family. There is Styfe and her new husband Lars, and then there was Ro, a daughter two or three years younger than Styfe, and Varsam, the lone son who was youngest by four years. Only three children, and the son Ren is never mentioned. Did Card just forget Valentine's family between writing Speaker and Xenocide? Or did Valentine lose two children on the cold, harsh, frozen world of Trondheim? And if it's the later, why wasn't there a single mention of Valentine's loss in Xenocide?
It was also hard for me - and this could just be my own wacky mind - to picture Novinha's children at their appropriate ages. Ela should have been about 48, and the youngest Grego would have been around 36. Yet I pictured Ela about my age, and Grego and Quara a pair of bickering 17 and 18 year olds. Yes, Hubby and I do still act fairly childish at points, but lines like "It looked like a typical teenager's bedroom, complete with Grego's legs stretching up the walls, his bare feet dancing a weird rhythm..." really don't help with reminding me that Grego's character is supposed to be older than I am.
Also, I read Sci-Fi for the Fantasy portion of it. The mysteriousness of "what would happen in the future, or on another planet, or if we had different technology" of it all. However, I myself can't really stand science. For some reason it goes over my head. I guess it's the fantasy writer in me. I'd much prefer to just be wowed by the world working instead of figuring out why. Although, there are plenty of people interested in science precisely because the why of the world working is the "wow" factor for them. Either way, my point is that my eyes glaze over when it comes to science, and a little bit the same with philosophy. Mainly because I'm a visual person, and it's hard to visualize philosophical questions with possibly no true answer.
All of this made "Xenocide" all the more difficult to read, because I like to describe it simply as "Metaphysics and Philosophy: A Novel." I already told celestialTyrant that this could possibly become one of his top 10 novels once he reads it.
The book starts off well enough. A fleet is coming to destroy a planet in order to protect humanity from a deadly virus residing on it that is threatening to spread throughout the universe. Problem is, there are humans already on that planet struggling against the virus, as well as two other sentient alien species who only exist on this planet. Destroying it might save humanity, but it would be a xenocide of those two sentient species, as well as the other lifeforms on that planet. So already there are two sentient species being threatened with extinction, but if they aren't wiped out with the virus, then humanity could face extinction. Then Card throws in Jane, another sentient entity that somehow "lives" in the intergalactic connections between computers across the worlds that humans have colonized. A "living" AI that tries to save the humans on the threatened planet, but doing so exposed herself, and humanity knows that sentient computers are never a good thing. Thing is, Jane is the only one of her kind, so that would be another sentient alien - so to speak - lost to xenocide. Then you have Quara swearing that the deadly virus that the fleet was sent to destroy in the first place is equally sentient, but no one has been able to figure out the language enough to communicate to the virus how deadly and destructive it is. She hopes doing so will convert it from killing humans, and instead make itself as crucial to the life-system as it does with the native sentient species. Which makes things even more complicated. If the humans can figure out how to stop the virus so the entire planet doesn't need to be destroyed, at least one sentient alien - two if you count the virus as Quara does - might still die because they can't survive without the virus.
More and more species' existence are at stake in this hugely tangled mess of morality: who to save; who to let die? It's exciting and intense as you wonder how all the species are going to be able to survive. Then it takes the turn. The eternal question of "What is 'life' and what makes up a 'soul'?" pops up, and Card spends chapters having his characters pop back onto that question as they determine who should live, who should die, and if someone was truly "living" in the first place. It gets really philosophical and metaphysical from there. Thing is though, while he based it all on metaphysical science, the answer he came up with to resolve most of the problems seemed very "Deus Ex Machina" and almost in a literal sense.
Then there were the new characters introduced, the people of the planet Path. We are specifically introduced to a young woman named Qing-jao. She is a very loving and relatable character to start off with, but I'm not a fan of her character development. Side note: I'm equally not a fan of Novinha's development in this novel. In regards to Qing-jao, you get enough insight into her to understand the character development. It doesn't come from left field. Still, she changes from a sweet girl that you sympathize with to one of the most arrogant, annoying characters, at least for me. I'm also not a fan of the conclusion of her story in this novel, or the conclusion of the novel itself.
The novel closes with the main dilemmas IMPLIED to be taken care of, but there is no actual conclusion written out. I won't go into the cliffhanger questions I was left with because they could cause spoilers, but to me there was still at least one more chapter left on what was going on with Lusitania. Yet the novel closed off on Path with Qing-jao in a very unsatisfying way, at least for me. I'd much rather Card finished off with expressly stating what happened on Lusitania and implying Qing-jao's story close, instead of the other way around.
All-in-all, a good read that I tore through easily for the first 350 pages or so, but then after the Grego's War chapter it just gets too metaphysical, philosophical, and Qing-jao changes too drastically - as does Novinha - for me to have really enjoyed the remainder of the book. Still, if people want to know what happens after "Speaker for the Dead" and/or really like the philosophy of "what constitutes life" and metaphysical quandary of parallel universes/alternate planes of existence, then this is DEFINITELY the book for them.
Me? I'm going to have to track down "Children of the Mind" to continue to follow the conclusion of Ender's life, and hope that Card is back on his game, because I feel like he went into a really weird realm with the last half of "Xenocide." Out of the three I've read so far in the Ender Saga, Speaker, while a slow start, is definitely my favorite.
Alright, well it's Chart Time. What book am I going to pick up now to try to finish the month off with, or at least to get started so I can make sure to get my July book done with all the chaos that will be going on next month?
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| Reading Challenge created by Modern Mrs. Darcy |
While not a local librarian, Keaton has really been pushing the work of a fellow Writers' Group member. Enough so that I would call her an unofficial "bookseller." Because of this, I think I'll swing by the library a bit before group tonight in order to try to borrow "Reformation," a novel written and self-published by one of our group members. Sadly, I don't remember the woman's last name, but if I can pick the book up today I'll be sure to promote her properly next week.
And thus I charge ahead with this challenge. We'll see what else I charge ahead with in regards to my writing. That's the important one....
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Read to Write: Spark of Inspiration
Before I get going on this week's post, I want to send out a belated birthday wish for one of my high school friends who hit the big 3-0 yesterday!
Alright, back to business.
I have spent the week keeping myself busy with things that could possibly be RELATED to writing, but actual writing was not done. Again. This is getting tiring.
I'm at a point where I'm mentally blocked again. I want to just write things. I want to spend my downtime at work frantically scribbling off pages and pages of ANYTHING prose. Instead, whenever I sit at work and go "OK, I'm taking my fifteen-minutes-a-day to write.... NOW." I then spend it scribbling in the margins as my mind goes blank. I'm still not entirely sure if it's due to a lack of inspiration, or an overload of it.
I hopped back on Writers’ Huddle late last week. I haven't been on in MONTHS, and I felt that this dry spell is precisely when I would need the group again. While chatting in the forums, I jotted down all the projects I either have in the works, or planned in the back of my head. There's quite a few....
Of course, the one that's pulling me the most is the one that not only has the second-to-most world building to do, but also presumably has no conclusion. It's meant to be a comic series. While comics, especially web comics, do run their stories and eventually end, there are more like the main staples - Superman, Batman, X-Men, Captain America, The Avengers, The Justice League, Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, etc - that are still running about half-a-century later. With different writers and illustrators, yes, but they're still going. Heck, even TV shows like The Simpsons are the same way. What if "Glitches" is actually a success? That would be awesome, but there would also presumably be no end in sight. No goal to really work towards, just the telling of the story of characters that I love until they stop telling me their stories anymore.
A sweet sentiment, but not one that really helps me out in whittling down that above list. Sad thing is that most of that list are 20-some chapter novels. Nothing quick to finish off so that I have at least ONE completed long project. The closest I have to that is "Please, Let Me Explain" which should be about seven or so chapters long. Problem is, I can't finish it without Ron, who's been very MIA. I can't really blame him. He's working the overnight shift now, and is prepping for his first-born's arrival next month. Still, both he and Phfylburt; I miss reading their writing, because it always sparked my own creativity. So, yeah, it's kind of selfish of me that I'm bummed at their lack of writing lately. Is that wrong???
Anyway, people on the Writers Huddle forum suggested that I needed to ignore writing for a bit, and find other creative outlets: walking, drawing, watching movies, playing video games, or reading books, that sort of thing. Doing so might spark my muse again. Can't say that they're wrong.
Since I haven't been using my downtime at work for writing, I've been using it for reading. Seven days into this month - but in all reality, let's not count today yet since I literally started writing this right after waking up today - and I'm already 236pages into my book for the month. I'd be nearly done with "Speaker for the Dead" if I was reading that this month instead of last. As it stands, however, I am a little shy of half-way through my current novel.
I decided to just go ahead and read "Xenocide" by Orson Scott Card. That way Speaker and its characters were still fresh in my mind. I'll use the book to check off the "Owned but never read" category. I mean, technically, HUBBY owns the book, but what's his is mine and vice versa, right? So it counts as me also owning it and never reading it for nearly five years, right? Yeah. I'm going with it.
Much like in Speaker, Card starts off each chapter with a little intro side-story sort of thing before getting into the meat of the chapter. Unlike in Speaker, Xenocide's intro bits aren't nearly as distracting. They are conversations between two unnamed characters. Having read Speaker recently, I recognized the "voices" being used by the two characters, and was able to figure out who is speaking before each chapter starts. It still gets a bit confusing because sometimes the two characters themselves have similar voices, while distinct in relation to the voices of the rest of the book characters, and so it's a challenge to figure out who is saying what in the conversation. A couple of passes and I think I have them sorted out, though.
I really am enjoying the story. Each chapter adds more presumably impossible challenges instead of ever conquering any, and so the stakes just keep getting higher and higher, and the "correct" path becomes harder and harder to see. It follows the theme present in all the Ender Saga books I've read so far, and possibly every story Card ever writes; I haven't read enough of them yet: be empathetic to everyone, because everyone believes their way is the only correct one, and just because those beliefs conflict doesn't mean either is wrong.
I must admit, Card's language is a bit more elevated than I'm used to, and my vocabulary isn't exactly extended enough to understand some of the words he throws in - truthfully, if I wasn't at work, I'd probably have a dictionary on my lap as I read - and he still tosses in untranslated Portuguese a lot. So, yeah, my eyes sort of glaze over in spots. Still, the majority of the story is engaging because it deals so much with the Human Condition and inner turmoil of the characters; something I enjoy greatly. There's just something about Character-driven plots instead of Event-driven plots that really calls out to me. Maybe it's because I'm a people person. Maybe it's because my calling really should have been some sort of therapist or counselor. I did really want to do something like a minor in Psychology in college because it both intrigued me, and it would help with creating more believable characters. Had to drop the idea though because my workload was too much to finish in four years. I might have to go back and Annex a few Psych classes some day.
Sorry, tangent. The point I'm trying to convey is that while the mystery of Speaker, quickly followed by the love of the characters, really drew me in for that story, the real hook for Xenocide is just the characters. How will they handle, and hopefully avoid, their impending doom, or the massive burdens they bear? Is xenocide of SOME species inevitable in order for the other species to survive? I mean, there are at least five species at stake, and who knows how many more Card is going to throw in before the story's done. So many nagging questions and challenges I'm waiting to see results for! At the same time, though, reading Xenocide is making me think more and more of the events of Speaker.
Which brings me full circle: read to write. The more I read "Xenocide" the more I think about the background events of "Speaker for the Dead": what exactly happened during the twenty-odd years it kept the Speaker to get to Lusitania? We know the broad strokes; the basic history. We know the essentials of what happened, but what about the nitty gritty day to day? How did that history play out?
It was late yesterday, and I didn't get very far, and so I don't have anything to post and share, but I did start writing a fanfic about that very subject: what was the day-to-day turmoil on Lusitania like while they unknowingly waited for the Speaker? I don't want to give any spoilers away, and so I'll actually be writing two different versions of this fanfic. One will have the actual character names in true fanfic fashion. That one will be posted on FanFiction.net when I'm done. The other version will be the same exact tale, but with original names. That way when you go into the story cold, you won't know which characters it's talking about. This version will be posted on DeviantArt.com and FictionPress.com when I'm done. Fair warning, though, in order for this tale to work I still need to keep the key fanfiction elements of the character interactions. So, if you read even my "spoiler free" version, if/when you read Speaker you will get the spoilers anyway. Or at least, it should come to you based on the interactions of the characters; you should be able to plug back in who is supposed to be who. In that case, should I bother removing the names????? I'll have to figure that out before officially posting.
Well, I have a lot to do, especially if I'm going to have that story written up in time for Writing Group tonight. I hope to have it all set for the rest of you to read next week. With any luck, more writing inspiration should strike too, and not just more character/plot builds for my D&D campaign like this past week.
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| Happy Birthday, Stargazer! I'm sure your son is making you feel equal parts young and old right now. :D |
I have spent the week keeping myself busy with things that could possibly be RELATED to writing, but actual writing was not done. Again. This is getting tiring.
I'm at a point where I'm mentally blocked again. I want to just write things. I want to spend my downtime at work frantically scribbling off pages and pages of ANYTHING prose. Instead, whenever I sit at work and go "OK, I'm taking my fifteen-minutes-a-day to write.... NOW." I then spend it scribbling in the margins as my mind goes blank. I'm still not entirely sure if it's due to a lack of inspiration, or an overload of it.
I hopped back on Writers’ Huddle late last week. I haven't been on in MONTHS, and I felt that this dry spell is precisely when I would need the group again. While chatting in the forums, I jotted down all the projects I either have in the works, or planned in the back of my head. There's quite a few....
So.... yeah... my block is not for want of ideas, it's most likely for want of a direction to go in. Right now I'm scattered all over this above list. Whichever I'm in the mood for, I guess, a little X-Future here, some more world building there, maybe sprinkle in some fanfiction.... You get the idea. It's not a good way of doing things at all. The lack of focus is hurting me more than anything. I just don't know where to aim my focus, since I don't know what story is calling out to me.I feel like there's more I'm forgetting, but you get the idea by now.
- "Please, Let Me Explain" is the story I'm co-writing with my friend Ronoxym, but he disappeared in November. The story is about his character Devon returning to the Xavier school after seemingly abandoning it to their enemy. He tries to win back the trust of my character Willow, but she's not biting. He convinces her to use her telepathic powers to read his mind to prove he isn't lying, but when she does so his Id takes over and manifests itself as a sort of Tour Guide through Devon's brain to keep Willow from finding out his deepest secret: murdering a man in cold blood because Devon believed the man had murdered Willow and the rest of the kids at the Xavier school.
- "X-Future: The Second Generation Begins" is my conversion of the X-Future play-by-post role play game story into novelized narrative. I was passionate about this project at first because I love the majority of the story that came out of the gameplay. However, the task has become so daunting that I rarely put in the effort to try to continue it...
- "X-Future: Snippets" are simple little one-shots of the X-Future characters to help me character build, work through headcanon that wouldn't work as legit game-canon, or get back into character for the game. I haven't touched this project in a little while either. Everything I think of for the game characters I almost instantly place in the game itself.
- "Glitches" is my reworking of X-Future into an original work, most likely a graphic novel series. I'm not decided on the title yet, but instead of "mutants" or "gifted" or "super humans" or whatever else Marvel and the MCU has used, I'm going with the term "Glitches" since their mutations are "glitches" in their DNA. This is the project that grips me the most, but it still has a lot of world building and character building that I need to work on.
- "The Divine Legends"/"The People of Gyateara" are two stories dealing with my high-fantasy world building, but I'm just soooo bad at coming up with original versions of D&D gods and mythos and populating a world.... I've been working on Gyateara since, like, 2009.... >_<
- "What Is Truly Meant To Be" is a "Hey, Arnold!" fanfic I started around 2010 and sort of abandoned. I do wish to finish it, I just need to find time to rewatch the show in order to re-immerse myself in the source material in order to stay in character. This story is about Arnold, upon graduating high school, realizing he's still in love with Helga. However, when he returns to his childhood hometown to confess his love to her, he discovers that she's now dating her long-time admirer Brainy, whom I believe I renamed Ian. Arnold struggles to deal with losing Helga, while Helga is torn between her current love for Brainy/Ian and her lingering love for Arnold.
- "HA! Midsummer..." I don't even have a crafty title yet. It's another "Hey, Arnold!" fanfic idea. Yes, idea, I haven't even started writing this one yet. The concept is a HA! crossover with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." I really liked this idea since the show itself seemed to mimic The Bard's weird love square: Arnie loves Helga, who loves Arnold, who loves Lila, who loves Arnie.... It's trying to figure out which "Hey, Arnold!" characters best fit the rest of the play's cast that's been snagging me.
- "A Huntress' Love" or something like that.... Sorry for the pathetic title, I suck at those.... This is - surprise, surprise - another fanfic idea, this time focused on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson universe. I once saw a tweet back and forth between Riordan and a reader asking about what would happen if one of the maiden huntresses of the Greek goddess Artemis fell in love. The thought of an Artemis huntress falling into the greatest Taboo of her mistress really stuck with me. I even wrote out an outline for this tale for my "Master Class with James Patterson" webinar series I did last fall. Trick is, I still haven't even developed the two main characters for this tale. I know the one is a huntress and the other is a demigod. Beyond that? Nothing really.
- "Lottie's Tale" another one where I never really even thought of the title, this is just some BS placeholder working title. Anyway, the story is based on a vampire character I created for a live-action role play game I was part of. The concept is that Lottie is on a mission to track down the vampire that killed and diablerized her sire, in other words, ate the vampire's soul; the vampire equivalent to cannibalism. While slaughtering her way through vampire clans, she also follows subtle clues as to why her husband went MIA in WWII, clues that hint that perhaps he's still alive after all. All of this is chaos enough, but poor Lottie is also struggling with the fact that decades of being a vampire, especially an overly murderous one of her own kind, is whittling away at her humanity.
- "Best Served Cold" similar to the above story, this one is about another vampire character I created for game. This one has Neghya - pronounced Nia - on the hunt for the vampire that violently raped her and mutilated her before turning her into a vampire all as punishment for embarrassing and wronging him in the most grievous of ways in his eyes. He wanted to literally take everything from her, and then hoped that she wouldn't reawaken before the sun had ashed her. Neghya has no clue about the world she was dumped into, and must learn how to control her new vampiric powers while trying to track down her Sire.
- "The Race for Destiny", again, I'm sorry about the terrible titles.... This is a NaNoWriMo story from YEARS back, and it's one of the first stories I had set up on Gyateara. A woman from Earth is magically teleported onto Gyateara and struggles to find a way home. In the meantime, the locals believe that she's a prophesied Chosen One of the main four goddesses of the country. The goddesses each pick a Chosen One that best personifies her favored.... we'll call them personality traits for want of a better term.... and if the Chosen Ones come together, or if one person wins favor with all four goddesses, then they will gain the ability to unlock the divine sword Destiny from its chamber. I know, the sword's name is lame, I plead youth ignorance.... Anyway, any who wield Destiny would have the blessing of the Goddesses, and could use the sword to either bring great prosperity and peace to the land, or drive the country into immense destruction and despair; depending on the wielder's heart. Unfortunately, a villain that could very well bring upon the world this great destruction had managed to win favor of two of the goddesses: strength and strategy. The girl from Earth, who was believed to win the Goddess favor of love, and a young man possessing the Goddess favor of valor, must work together to beat the villain in order to unlock Destiny and finally return peace to the young man's world. Oh, and I bet you can already guess that the two main leads hook up; causing the girl the struggle of wondering if she wants to even return to Earth; cliche....
Of course, the one that's pulling me the most is the one that not only has the second-to-most world building to do, but also presumably has no conclusion. It's meant to be a comic series. While comics, especially web comics, do run their stories and eventually end, there are more like the main staples - Superman, Batman, X-Men, Captain America, The Avengers, The Justice League, Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, etc - that are still running about half-a-century later. With different writers and illustrators, yes, but they're still going. Heck, even TV shows like The Simpsons are the same way. What if "Glitches" is actually a success? That would be awesome, but there would also presumably be no end in sight. No goal to really work towards, just the telling of the story of characters that I love until they stop telling me their stories anymore.
A sweet sentiment, but not one that really helps me out in whittling down that above list. Sad thing is that most of that list are 20-some chapter novels. Nothing quick to finish off so that I have at least ONE completed long project. The closest I have to that is "Please, Let Me Explain" which should be about seven or so chapters long. Problem is, I can't finish it without Ron, who's been very MIA. I can't really blame him. He's working the overnight shift now, and is prepping for his first-born's arrival next month. Still, both he and Phfylburt; I miss reading their writing, because it always sparked my own creativity. So, yeah, it's kind of selfish of me that I'm bummed at their lack of writing lately. Is that wrong???
Anyway, people on the Writers Huddle forum suggested that I needed to ignore writing for a bit, and find other creative outlets: walking, drawing, watching movies, playing video games, or reading books, that sort of thing. Doing so might spark my muse again. Can't say that they're wrong.
Since I haven't been using my downtime at work for writing, I've been using it for reading. Seven days into this month - but in all reality, let's not count today yet since I literally started writing this right after waking up today - and I'm already 236pages into my book for the month. I'd be nearly done with "Speaker for the Dead" if I was reading that this month instead of last. As it stands, however, I am a little shy of half-way through my current novel.
I decided to just go ahead and read "Xenocide" by Orson Scott Card. That way Speaker and its characters were still fresh in my mind. I'll use the book to check off the "Owned but never read" category. I mean, technically, HUBBY owns the book, but what's his is mine and vice versa, right? So it counts as me also owning it and never reading it for nearly five years, right? Yeah. I'm going with it.
Much like in Speaker, Card starts off each chapter with a little intro side-story sort of thing before getting into the meat of the chapter. Unlike in Speaker, Xenocide's intro bits aren't nearly as distracting. They are conversations between two unnamed characters. Having read Speaker recently, I recognized the "voices" being used by the two characters, and was able to figure out who is speaking before each chapter starts. It still gets a bit confusing because sometimes the two characters themselves have similar voices, while distinct in relation to the voices of the rest of the book characters, and so it's a challenge to figure out who is saying what in the conversation. A couple of passes and I think I have them sorted out, though.
I really am enjoying the story. Each chapter adds more presumably impossible challenges instead of ever conquering any, and so the stakes just keep getting higher and higher, and the "correct" path becomes harder and harder to see. It follows the theme present in all the Ender Saga books I've read so far, and possibly every story Card ever writes; I haven't read enough of them yet: be empathetic to everyone, because everyone believes their way is the only correct one, and just because those beliefs conflict doesn't mean either is wrong.
I must admit, Card's language is a bit more elevated than I'm used to, and my vocabulary isn't exactly extended enough to understand some of the words he throws in - truthfully, if I wasn't at work, I'd probably have a dictionary on my lap as I read - and he still tosses in untranslated Portuguese a lot. So, yeah, my eyes sort of glaze over in spots. Still, the majority of the story is engaging because it deals so much with the Human Condition and inner turmoil of the characters; something I enjoy greatly. There's just something about Character-driven plots instead of Event-driven plots that really calls out to me. Maybe it's because I'm a people person. Maybe it's because my calling really should have been some sort of therapist or counselor. I did really want to do something like a minor in Psychology in college because it both intrigued me, and it would help with creating more believable characters. Had to drop the idea though because my workload was too much to finish in four years. I might have to go back and Annex a few Psych classes some day.
Sorry, tangent. The point I'm trying to convey is that while the mystery of Speaker, quickly followed by the love of the characters, really drew me in for that story, the real hook for Xenocide is just the characters. How will they handle, and hopefully avoid, their impending doom, or the massive burdens they bear? Is xenocide of SOME species inevitable in order for the other species to survive? I mean, there are at least five species at stake, and who knows how many more Card is going to throw in before the story's done. So many nagging questions and challenges I'm waiting to see results for! At the same time, though, reading Xenocide is making me think more and more of the events of Speaker.
Which brings me full circle: read to write. The more I read "Xenocide" the more I think about the background events of "Speaker for the Dead": what exactly happened during the twenty-odd years it kept the Speaker to get to Lusitania? We know the broad strokes; the basic history. We know the essentials of what happened, but what about the nitty gritty day to day? How did that history play out?
It was late yesterday, and I didn't get very far, and so I don't have anything to post and share, but I did start writing a fanfic about that very subject: what was the day-to-day turmoil on Lusitania like while they unknowingly waited for the Speaker? I don't want to give any spoilers away, and so I'll actually be writing two different versions of this fanfic. One will have the actual character names in true fanfic fashion. That one will be posted on FanFiction.net when I'm done. The other version will be the same exact tale, but with original names. That way when you go into the story cold, you won't know which characters it's talking about. This version will be posted on DeviantArt.com and FictionPress.com when I'm done. Fair warning, though, in order for this tale to work I still need to keep the key fanfiction elements of the character interactions. So, if you read even my "spoiler free" version, if/when you read Speaker you will get the spoilers anyway. Or at least, it should come to you based on the interactions of the characters; you should be able to plug back in who is supposed to be who. In that case, should I bother removing the names????? I'll have to figure that out before officially posting.
Well, I have a lot to do, especially if I'm going to have that story written up in time for Writing Group tonight. I hope to have it all set for the rest of you to read next week. With any luck, more writing inspiration should strike too, and not just more character/plot builds for my D&D campaign like this past week.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Questions Plague My Life
A full week of just the new job is under my belt. It turned out to be a weird scenario in which it's equal parts great and horrible for my writing. I've become lazy, and instead of still getting up at about 7am in order to write and have ample time to get ready before work, I've opted to just stay in bed and snuggle my husband for that extra hour before whining about having to climb out of the covers in order to start my day. I need to work on this. Otherwise, the "write first thing in the morning" concept is a complete wash.
Work is either Feast or Famine; Flood or Drought. While it could also arguably reflect on the basic concept of a Commissions worker, I mean customer flow in this case. I hope that's ALL it refers to, actually, for obvious reasons, because even with just one or two customers a day my coworkers are still bringing home at least $400 paychecks. Not much more than minimum-wage, but still more than what I was making at the retail job.
Anyway, my point is that we'll go about five out of our eight-hour day with no one in the store and virtually nothing to do but sit and wait. The other three-hours, while sprinkled throughout the day, could then have about seven people show up at once. It's a bit insane.
While it's a bit jarring to have a writing flow - or reading, since it seems to be the only way I'm getting my books read from now on - interrupted abruptly by a customer, the fact that I have so much time to think and write is pretty cool.
The other downside is that, aside from dialogue that I can quickly scribble down more-or-less the way the conversation flow would be, I'm not a fan of writing out prose by hand anymore. There's something textual about writing on a computer. I know most writers probably think in the reverse, that there's something special about writing by hand. However, for me, when I get into something I type with fury, and I can get my ideas down fairly quickly. I can't write as fast as I can type, at least, not if I want to be able to understand my handwriting when I'm done. Plus, when I'm in my writing furies I tend to grip my pen or pencil super tight with my excitement. It literally pains me to write something I'm excited about if I'm doing so on paper. The pen/pencil digs into my finger, my knuckles and wrist cramp up, my shoulder tightens, it's not a fun experience.
So, when my Handy Dandy Netbook isn't available, I tend to stick to bulleted lists and Q&A. By that, I mean I write out all the questions I have about a project, and slowly try to tick away at a possible answer. It may lead to more questions with more answers and so on and so forth, but it help build the story.
At the end of my week, I had a pile of bulleted lists and Q&A sheets, but no actual writing. I truly don't know if I should call the week successful or a dud. Especially since a lot of my scribbles were for a D&D plot that was again derailed by my darling husband this past Sunday's game, and the rest of said scribbles were me just remembering where I was in creating the X-Future reboot.
Yup, back on that again. I was actually a bit embarrassed with how the Contessa story turned out. While Phfylburt ended up enjoying it, he had the same concerns I did with the story, and nothing else. What was the point in reading it to my writing group if they, like Phfyl, were simply going to critique the same issues I already had with the piece? Even if they had advice on how to fix it, I'm really not planning on ever going back to it.
So, when all was said and done, I ended up whipping out an old X-Future Snippet to read: It Is So On!
It received mostly good reviews. There were also some valid critiques that I never thought of before, so thanks to the group on those. There was also one main thought among the group: I do really well with mostly dialogue writing. I have to admit, it is my strong-suit.
One of the newer members - she actually signed up last year and disappeared over the winter; kind of like me over at Writers’ Huddle - even asked if I thought about writing screenplays. I admitted that it was one of the things I went to school for, unofficially. She also commented on the fact that I talked about wanting to do a graphic novel when the meeting first started. She stressed that maybe that's the path I should stick with, since, while the prose is still good, it felt like it really wanted to be more visual. I was also informed that if the script is written well enough, a publicist would pair me with an artist, so there's that. Kind of makes me want to try my hand at the X-Future script again...
In truth, it REALLY wanted me to try my hand at the X-Future script again. If I wasn't working on the now-moot plot for my D&D campaign, or doing ACTUAL work, I was trying to hash out more of the world-build for X-Future's reboot. One of the other responses that I got to "It Is So On!" was that I didn't necessarily need to give the group the verbal lead-in of "these are the children of X-Men/Brotherhood mutants living at the Xavier Mansion, these are their powers, and this is the plot lead-in as to who these people are and why they're at each others' throats." They felt it was fairly stand-alone, and that it didn't automatically scream out "X-Men Rip-off." Then again, most, if not all, of those in attendance don't really know comic books, and if they do the knowledge is from the Marvel movies....
Point is, it was encouraging to hear them all tell me to stick with these characters, and to try my hand at scriptwriting some more. True, most of them are novelists, but there are a few poets in the group, and it would be exciting to everyone to have a screenwriter added to the mix. I just need to figure out how to read a script aloud for critiquing.... seems awkward.
Now, the downside to these critiques is that I've come to realize that I'm not exactly the best at prose. I mean, I've always known I wasn't the BEST, but how much I need to improve is a lot more than I originally thought.
I don't like big blocks of text. You probably picked up on that since most of my paragraphs, while probably capable of being grouped together more than they are, are only about five sentences long. My dislike of large blocks of text, which, to me, seem daunting, boring, and slow down the read, leads me to also break up dialogue. I may write mostly in it, but I can't have a monologue go on. How often does that happen in real life? I mean, come on.
The issue, however, is that I don't just have other characters interject to keep the dialogue short and quick, I also have the character put in physical pauses. She'll say something, pause, and then continue her thought, but in that pause she moves. People do this all the time. Who stays still? Ninety-percent of communication is non-verbal. People give facial reactions, shift their weight or position, fall into a physical tick like playing with a ring or tapping a foot, or they gesture with their hands or even their whole body. We are constantly in motion, and I showcase this in my writing.
To my writing group, and perhaps every reader I've had, it's a bit excessive. While they admitted it may move smoother on paper than it did verbally, they were beginning to lose track of where people were in the story. Willow was sitting, then standing, then sitting again. Then she wrestled with Nys a bit, and so Nys was now sitting. And they get up into each others' faces before pushing the other down into a sitting position. I can understand how this can be a bit overwhelming to mentally keep track of if there aren't any actual visual cues to follow.
I think in images, and so I'm constantly blocking out my characters' movements; keeping mental track of who's moving, and how long it's been since a character last moved. Constant flow. Constant movements. It may make sense in visual media such as comics, movies, TV, or plays. Probably doesn't make sense in things like prose.
Writers are supposed to find some happy medium where their dialogue SEEMS realistic, but edits the realism down so it's a bit easier to read and follow. For instance, count how many times you say "um" or "like" or "uh" or anything along those lines. I'm sure you do so more frequently than you think. What about misspeaking? Using the wrong word? Being repetitive in your speech? Losing track of where you were, or being interrupted, and so you start the sentence over again? How about stuttering?
Now think of how many times you witness any of that honest-to-God, true-to-life speech in novels. Not much, right? Unless it's crucial to the characterization or plot, or in some cases, joke, all of that extra stuff that we naturally mentally weed out of conversations writers have to consciously weed out of their dialogue. I tend to leave a bit more in than most to give it a sense of realism other writers don't have, but apparently that's not the best writing option....
Point is, while most writers just have to edit down reality to make their dialogue SEEM real without the mundane and convolution of actual speech, I need to do the same thing with the non-verbal. True, people may move a lot while talking, but it's probably best if I just let the characters talk and let the reader picture whatever movement they want.
It's going to be tough for me, though, because if a writer doesn't specifically state that a character moves, I barely picture movement, and so limiting myself will be tricky.
Coincidental to my decision to try my hand at scripting again, Phfylburt gave me a challenge - due this upcoming Saturday - that seems right up this alley. Namely, an All Dialogue challenge.
This challenge for instance. I haven't started because I need to figure out more information:
Maybe that's why I stay with my crutch of fanfiction writing. Everything is more-or-less spelled out for me already. The environment, the characters, the personalities of the characters, and the basic idea of the antics they get into; the way that world works. It involves very few questions that I need to answer, and so my mind can just focus on the writing.
Honestly? I have no clue how to work on this tripping block so that my mind doesn't go into overload when I'm forced to do something original with little to no direction. Hell, even my main writing question proves how much guidance I need: How Do You Figure Out What To Write About For Your Manuscript?
I can't get anywhere in my writing because I don't even have an idea for a manuscript. One college friend has a basic story idea about young adult twins that just went off on their own in New York City. Keeton in Writers' Group obviously has her story concept of "Buster Keeton" and working around that. DFL in the same group has her pre-historical, "age of Babylon" story. Red stumbled upon her murder-revenge psycho story via a writing prompt that stuck with her. And the man that now comes to the meetings - let's call him PI since that's his profession - has his spy mystery novel.
It's weird to go to group meetings and have everyone else read a new part of their manuscript, asking for help on it, and I'm just reading random stuff that I wrote. None of it connects to each other. None of it - like Contessa last week - really, truly matters to me. They're just exercises to work my muscles, not the actual marathon I'm training for. It's rough not really getting much feedback on what I read in group, and even less helpful when the critiques I do get are on things I'm either never going to continue, or never attempting again.
The concept of me being a natural script-writer though.... that was a good bit to point out....
Joy. Look at me, finding yet another writing hurdle, and no clue how to overcome it. I don't even know if it's worth going to Writers' Group or jumping back on to the long-abandoned Writers’ Huddle and commenting about this roadblock. This realization that I can write with ease, as long as I have a very specific guideline handed to me, whereas actually coming up with plots stumps me for years on end.
Maybe I could become a James Patterson co-author...
In all seriousness, though, what could anyone possibly say for advice if I did decide to ask them? Aside from "keep practicing" or "Yeah, I've been there" or "Which is why writing is tougher than people think" what on earth could anyone say about my issue? If/when I figure this out on my own, what could I possibly say to the next struggling writer?
I know part of it is "Wait for a story to grab you so tight it won't let go and you HAVE to write it," but how much longer do I wait? I've wanted to be a writer since I was, like, nine or something. I went to college to become a writer. I had set out to have my first piece published by the time I was about thirty. Fast forward almost two years, and I still don't even have that Grand Manuscript Concept to work on. If I just passively wait for a story to hit me, when will I get that inspiration? This year? Next year? Five years from now? As I'm telling my kid a bedtime story? When I retire and can spend all day just thinking about stories?
I can't wait for inspiration to strike, because every day that passes I fear a bit more that I'm not supposed to be doing this. Which is a painful paradox, because the only reason it pains me to think that I'm not a writer is because I'm obviously a writer! It doesn't keep me up at night to know that maybe I'm not some great athlete. I KNOW I'm not some great athlete. I came to terms with that when I was in elementary school. I KNOW I'm not a great artist, and so, while I lament not being able to draw what I see in my head - would make things a lot easier for me - I also don't fret over my pathetic stick figures. My heart ACHES at the concept of dying without ever publishing anything, which PROVES that I'm supposed to be doing this!
Yet, that paradox continues. My perpetual struggle of days passing me, making me think that I should give up because I'm not cut out for this, quickly followed by an ache and welled up eyes at that prospect; proving to me that I HAVE to write. I just need to figure out what.
The eternal struggle: What
What am I good at writing? What genre pulls me in the most? What characters in the ether are calling for me to bring them to life? What story will both be fun for me to write, and for someone to read? What story do I have inside me that hasn't been told already? What in/about the world do I see differently than others?
I'll add these questions to the ones above about Phfyl's challenge, I guess. Suppose I should try to see if I can answer some of them, at least, the ones for the challenge due on Saturday....
Work is either Feast or Famine; Flood or Drought. While it could also arguably reflect on the basic concept of a Commissions worker, I mean customer flow in this case. I hope that's ALL it refers to, actually, for obvious reasons, because even with just one or two customers a day my coworkers are still bringing home at least $400 paychecks. Not much more than minimum-wage, but still more than what I was making at the retail job.
Anyway, my point is that we'll go about five out of our eight-hour day with no one in the store and virtually nothing to do but sit and wait. The other three-hours, while sprinkled throughout the day, could then have about seven people show up at once. It's a bit insane.
While it's a bit jarring to have a writing flow - or reading, since it seems to be the only way I'm getting my books read from now on - interrupted abruptly by a customer, the fact that I have so much time to think and write is pretty cool.
The other downside is that, aside from dialogue that I can quickly scribble down more-or-less the way the conversation flow would be, I'm not a fan of writing out prose by hand anymore. There's something textual about writing on a computer. I know most writers probably think in the reverse, that there's something special about writing by hand. However, for me, when I get into something I type with fury, and I can get my ideas down fairly quickly. I can't write as fast as I can type, at least, not if I want to be able to understand my handwriting when I'm done. Plus, when I'm in my writing furies I tend to grip my pen or pencil super tight with my excitement. It literally pains me to write something I'm excited about if I'm doing so on paper. The pen/pencil digs into my finger, my knuckles and wrist cramp up, my shoulder tightens, it's not a fun experience.
So, when my Handy Dandy Netbook isn't available, I tend to stick to bulleted lists and Q&A. By that, I mean I write out all the questions I have about a project, and slowly try to tick away at a possible answer. It may lead to more questions with more answers and so on and so forth, but it help build the story.
At the end of my week, I had a pile of bulleted lists and Q&A sheets, but no actual writing. I truly don't know if I should call the week successful or a dud. Especially since a lot of my scribbles were for a D&D plot that was again derailed by my darling husband this past Sunday's game, and the rest of said scribbles were me just remembering where I was in creating the X-Future reboot.
Yup, back on that again. I was actually a bit embarrassed with how the Contessa story turned out. While Phfylburt ended up enjoying it, he had the same concerns I did with the story, and nothing else. What was the point in reading it to my writing group if they, like Phfyl, were simply going to critique the same issues I already had with the piece? Even if they had advice on how to fix it, I'm really not planning on ever going back to it.
So, when all was said and done, I ended up whipping out an old X-Future Snippet to read: It Is So On!
It received mostly good reviews. There were also some valid critiques that I never thought of before, so thanks to the group on those. There was also one main thought among the group: I do really well with mostly dialogue writing. I have to admit, it is my strong-suit.
One of the newer members - she actually signed up last year and disappeared over the winter; kind of like me over at Writers’ Huddle - even asked if I thought about writing screenplays. I admitted that it was one of the things I went to school for, unofficially. She also commented on the fact that I talked about wanting to do a graphic novel when the meeting first started. She stressed that maybe that's the path I should stick with, since, while the prose is still good, it felt like it really wanted to be more visual. I was also informed that if the script is written well enough, a publicist would pair me with an artist, so there's that. Kind of makes me want to try my hand at the X-Future script again...
In truth, it REALLY wanted me to try my hand at the X-Future script again. If I wasn't working on the now-moot plot for my D&D campaign, or doing ACTUAL work, I was trying to hash out more of the world-build for X-Future's reboot. One of the other responses that I got to "It Is So On!" was that I didn't necessarily need to give the group the verbal lead-in of "these are the children of X-Men/Brotherhood mutants living at the Xavier Mansion, these are their powers, and this is the plot lead-in as to who these people are and why they're at each others' throats." They felt it was fairly stand-alone, and that it didn't automatically scream out "X-Men Rip-off." Then again, most, if not all, of those in attendance don't really know comic books, and if they do the knowledge is from the Marvel movies....
Point is, it was encouraging to hear them all tell me to stick with these characters, and to try my hand at scriptwriting some more. True, most of them are novelists, but there are a few poets in the group, and it would be exciting to everyone to have a screenwriter added to the mix. I just need to figure out how to read a script aloud for critiquing.... seems awkward.
Now, the downside to these critiques is that I've come to realize that I'm not exactly the best at prose. I mean, I've always known I wasn't the BEST, but how much I need to improve is a lot more than I originally thought.
I don't like big blocks of text. You probably picked up on that since most of my paragraphs, while probably capable of being grouped together more than they are, are only about five sentences long. My dislike of large blocks of text, which, to me, seem daunting, boring, and slow down the read, leads me to also break up dialogue. I may write mostly in it, but I can't have a monologue go on. How often does that happen in real life? I mean, come on.
The issue, however, is that I don't just have other characters interject to keep the dialogue short and quick, I also have the character put in physical pauses. She'll say something, pause, and then continue her thought, but in that pause she moves. People do this all the time. Who stays still? Ninety-percent of communication is non-verbal. People give facial reactions, shift their weight or position, fall into a physical tick like playing with a ring or tapping a foot, or they gesture with their hands or even their whole body. We are constantly in motion, and I showcase this in my writing.
To my writing group, and perhaps every reader I've had, it's a bit excessive. While they admitted it may move smoother on paper than it did verbally, they were beginning to lose track of where people were in the story. Willow was sitting, then standing, then sitting again. Then she wrestled with Nys a bit, and so Nys was now sitting. And they get up into each others' faces before pushing the other down into a sitting position. I can understand how this can be a bit overwhelming to mentally keep track of if there aren't any actual visual cues to follow.
I think in images, and so I'm constantly blocking out my characters' movements; keeping mental track of who's moving, and how long it's been since a character last moved. Constant flow. Constant movements. It may make sense in visual media such as comics, movies, TV, or plays. Probably doesn't make sense in things like prose.
Writers are supposed to find some happy medium where their dialogue SEEMS realistic, but edits the realism down so it's a bit easier to read and follow. For instance, count how many times you say "um" or "like" or "uh" or anything along those lines. I'm sure you do so more frequently than you think. What about misspeaking? Using the wrong word? Being repetitive in your speech? Losing track of where you were, or being interrupted, and so you start the sentence over again? How about stuttering?
Now think of how many times you witness any of that honest-to-God, true-to-life speech in novels. Not much, right? Unless it's crucial to the characterization or plot, or in some cases, joke, all of that extra stuff that we naturally mentally weed out of conversations writers have to consciously weed out of their dialogue. I tend to leave a bit more in than most to give it a sense of realism other writers don't have, but apparently that's not the best writing option....
Point is, while most writers just have to edit down reality to make their dialogue SEEM real without the mundane and convolution of actual speech, I need to do the same thing with the non-verbal. True, people may move a lot while talking, but it's probably best if I just let the characters talk and let the reader picture whatever movement they want.
It's going to be tough for me, though, because if a writer doesn't specifically state that a character moves, I barely picture movement, and so limiting myself will be tricky.
Coincidental to my decision to try my hand at scripting again, Phfylburt gave me a challenge - due this upcoming Saturday - that seems right up this alley. Namely, an All Dialogue challenge.
It definitely feels like a fun project, but, as per usual, I haven't started because I'm stuck in my own head. Ask most writers and they'll tell you that the ideas are the easy part, it's the execution that's hard. The actual writing of the thing. While my numerous incomplete projects can attest to that, at the same time, I feel like I may be meant to be a ghost writer, because for me the execution is the fun, exciting, easy part. It's those damn ideas that keep me blocked.Phfylburt: You have to write a scene in which two siblings steal money from their parent's wallet....The entire thing must be done using only dialog...The scene should show them setting up for the miniature heist, performing the act, and the getaway. It is entirely up to you if they get away successful or if they crash and burn. No limitations on the length, so you don't need to worry about that.
This challenge for instance. I haven't started because I need to figure out more information:
- What age are the children?
- Are they even children in the colloquial sense? Or are they already adults, such as in their early 20s?
- What sex are the siblings? Both girls? Both boys? One of each?
- Will their sex affect how they perform the theft, or why they need the money?
- Which parent are they stealing from?
- Why are they stealing?
- Are both siblings willing parties?
- Is one manipulating the other? Are both being blackmailed/hazed into the stunt? Is this a dare?
- How much are they stealing?
- What makes them think they'll get away with it?
- WILL they get away with it?
- What danger(s) might they come across on this mini-heist?
- How do I portray that via only dialogue?
Maybe that's why I stay with my crutch of fanfiction writing. Everything is more-or-less spelled out for me already. The environment, the characters, the personalities of the characters, and the basic idea of the antics they get into; the way that world works. It involves very few questions that I need to answer, and so my mind can just focus on the writing.
Honestly? I have no clue how to work on this tripping block so that my mind doesn't go into overload when I'm forced to do something original with little to no direction. Hell, even my main writing question proves how much guidance I need: How Do You Figure Out What To Write About For Your Manuscript?
I can't get anywhere in my writing because I don't even have an idea for a manuscript. One college friend has a basic story idea about young adult twins that just went off on their own in New York City. Keeton in Writers' Group obviously has her story concept of "Buster Keeton" and working around that. DFL in the same group has her pre-historical, "age of Babylon" story. Red stumbled upon her murder-revenge psycho story via a writing prompt that stuck with her. And the man that now comes to the meetings - let's call him PI since that's his profession - has his spy mystery novel.
It's weird to go to group meetings and have everyone else read a new part of their manuscript, asking for help on it, and I'm just reading random stuff that I wrote. None of it connects to each other. None of it - like Contessa last week - really, truly matters to me. They're just exercises to work my muscles, not the actual marathon I'm training for. It's rough not really getting much feedback on what I read in group, and even less helpful when the critiques I do get are on things I'm either never going to continue, or never attempting again.
The concept of me being a natural script-writer though.... that was a good bit to point out....
Joy. Look at me, finding yet another writing hurdle, and no clue how to overcome it. I don't even know if it's worth going to Writers' Group or jumping back on to the long-abandoned Writers’ Huddle and commenting about this roadblock. This realization that I can write with ease, as long as I have a very specific guideline handed to me, whereas actually coming up with plots stumps me for years on end.
Maybe I could become a James Patterson co-author...
In all seriousness, though, what could anyone possibly say for advice if I did decide to ask them? Aside from "keep practicing" or "Yeah, I've been there" or "Which is why writing is tougher than people think" what on earth could anyone say about my issue? If/when I figure this out on my own, what could I possibly say to the next struggling writer?
I know part of it is "Wait for a story to grab you so tight it won't let go and you HAVE to write it," but how much longer do I wait? I've wanted to be a writer since I was, like, nine or something. I went to college to become a writer. I had set out to have my first piece published by the time I was about thirty. Fast forward almost two years, and I still don't even have that Grand Manuscript Concept to work on. If I just passively wait for a story to hit me, when will I get that inspiration? This year? Next year? Five years from now? As I'm telling my kid a bedtime story? When I retire and can spend all day just thinking about stories?
I can't wait for inspiration to strike, because every day that passes I fear a bit more that I'm not supposed to be doing this. Which is a painful paradox, because the only reason it pains me to think that I'm not a writer is because I'm obviously a writer! It doesn't keep me up at night to know that maybe I'm not some great athlete. I KNOW I'm not some great athlete. I came to terms with that when I was in elementary school. I KNOW I'm not a great artist, and so, while I lament not being able to draw what I see in my head - would make things a lot easier for me - I also don't fret over my pathetic stick figures. My heart ACHES at the concept of dying without ever publishing anything, which PROVES that I'm supposed to be doing this!
Yet, that paradox continues. My perpetual struggle of days passing me, making me think that I should give up because I'm not cut out for this, quickly followed by an ache and welled up eyes at that prospect; proving to me that I HAVE to write. I just need to figure out what.
The eternal struggle: What
What am I good at writing? What genre pulls me in the most? What characters in the ether are calling for me to bring them to life? What story will both be fun for me to write, and for someone to read? What story do I have inside me that hasn't been told already? What in/about the world do I see differently than others?
I'll add these questions to the ones above about Phfyl's challenge, I guess. Suppose I should try to see if I can answer some of them, at least, the ones for the challenge due on Saturday....
Thursday, January 7, 2016
New Year; Sick Me
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| Image is Leave The Past Behind And Welcome The New Year by NaBHaN |
I was battling a nasty head cold around Christmas, got over it around the 28th or so, and then got hit with an even worse one on the first. If I wasn't drugged up so I could get through work, I was fast asleep in bed. At least, that's how I spent the first three days of the new year. Monday was the first day I ventured out of bed for any decent amount of time outside work.
I had the intent to use the day off to work on my blog, which may get yet ANOTHER update day change given the frequency I've had to work on Thursdays vs the frequency that I've had Mondays off. However, I also had my bi-weekly writers group meeting on Tuesday, which I hadn't even started working on the writing prompt for.
I wanted to include the links to the prompt in this week's update, and so I tasked myself to finish that first. Problem was, I wasn't really sure where to go with the prompt.
We collectively pieced together a very vague character. Keaton likes our prompts to be as vague as possible so that she and DFL can each use the prompts to write another snippet for their overarching novels, which are fairly different from each other. I get it, but every once in a while I'd like for a very specific prompt and see how each of us tackle something that seems so black and white.
Anyway, the prompt this time had us tackle a character with two motivations, two conflicts, and a random extra element.
The extra element was that we had to include a dog somehow. Instantly, I knew I wanted to write the story through the dog's POV. I figured it would be fresh and unique. Then, I heard Keaton's story with a dog as the narrator. Hmmm. I guess that's yet another way the two of us are similar.
What were the other components needed for the story? Well, the two conflicts were a rival and the loss of something. The two pieces of motivation were recognition and money. Everything else worked fine with my idea of a dog POV, but money? Why would a dog want money? Keaton actually added that as part of the narration. "They say I'm supposed to want money, but I'm a dog. What would I do with money?"
Me? I had to go to my number one sounding board: Hubby. It was his suggestion that the dog is a show dog bringing in lots of winnings, and that his motivation for recognition and money is actually translated to him wanting to win more competitions. The rival could either be an up-and-coming younger dog that could take his titles away, or even a new pet at home that changes the family's focus to a more playful animal instead of the well-behaved and well-trained champion dog that is the narrator.
Great ideas. I loved it. Got the gears going. And then I thought of the Disney movie "Oliver & Company". Much like how "The Lion King" is Disney's animated animal version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", "Oliver & Company" is Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist"; for those who didn't know.
The reason my mind went to the Disney version of the tale was because the company turned the character Georgette into a pampered and prissy prize-winning poodle. She hates that Jenny Foxworth brought Oliver into Georgette's home; taking away the love and pampering that she felt she deserved. She had a rival: Oliver. She was feeling loss: Jenny's love, Winston's time, pampering, etc. She wanted recognition: all the family's attention, and the proclamation that she was all the family needed. She even was a dog that had a reason to want money: it was spent to lavish her with the finer things in life, plus, as a show-dog, she was bringing in the money.
I tried to write it so that the fact that Georgette and Dodger's gang were all dogs, and that Oliver was a cat, was hidden. However, I forgot one key thing. If you aren't in the mindset of "Oliver & Company" you may pick up on the original text of "Oliver Twist". Which means my crafty "you won't pick up on this right away" would shoot me in the foot as people picture the original classic and still be confused where the dog would come into play. Whoops.
That's sort of what happened at the group. The other three women that typically show all have children about my age, and so in their mind the story was the classic. Whereas the classic Dickens writing always bored me - I know, I know, shun me now - and so I appreciated Disney's take on the story as a way of introducing me to the classic tale. To me, Oliver is a orange cat, Dodger is a Jack Russell Terrier with a red bandanna, Fagin is Dodger's beloved homeless owner, and Georgette is a pampered poodle.
Anyway, if you wish to read my story, you can find it on DeviantArt - with some typos, sorry about that - and on FictionPress. Yes, it is a fanfic, but it's part of my writing prompts anthology, and so I kept it with the others on FP.
"The Queen of This Castle"
Now I need to focus on the next prompt we put together. It was a generic setting we each threw one component into. Keaton was wondering why I said it was generic, and frankly, it's again what I said before, she tries to have something broad enough that both she and DFL can use it in their main manuscripts. It's not a bad thing, but she needs to understand how vague these prompts are because of that.
Our setting is Coming Back From A Funeral at Dusk on a Saturday during the Winter months. It's specific enough to be considered a prompt; most prompts on say LiveJournal are just one word like "Peace" or "Spring". However, she wouldn't allow me to throw in things more specific such as "snowy winter" or "rural vs city" or "unattended funeral." She felt it was too restricting. As it stands, DFL's story in the desert can still work. Winter doesn't have to mean cold or snow or even the winter holidays. It just means the three months where there is the least amount of natural light due to the Earth's location in relation to the sun. Also, she can have the funeral be as bustling or unattended or sorrowful or joyfilled as would be appropriate for such ceremonies in 10,000BC. Meanwhile, Keaton can use the same prompt with Buster Keaton in NYC or LA or writing his post-apocalyptic story-within-a-story of two boys in a semi-rural area during a zombie attack.
Me? I'm still seeing where this prompt takes me. Seeing as how I still don't have even an idea for a manuscript to work off of. X-Future definitely translates better into a more visual medium, and so a TV/Netflix/Hulu/webseries or a comic book series would work best for it. It still needs a manuscript, but not the prose/novel that I was aiming for. I'm also still attempting to work on my Gyateara world build, and so I'm nowhere near actually writing any stories in that world.
There has been some deaths on X-Future, although, I don't recall if we ever established a day of the week for any of them. The one I'm thinking of was definitely in the late summer/early fall months, so that might not work. Then again, we never did comment about the deaths that came just before the initial 2yr time jump. That happened just before winter break. Not quite winter, but with the rummaging through rubble, the actual funeral service(s) may not have taken place until late December/early January. I might be able to do that. This way I'm not the only one just writing random prose unrelated to each other.
Then again, I may just stick with what I've been doing. Who knows what stories may come to life with these prompts. Red, for instance, may go back to an earlier prompt with this setting one. She had a character who was going mad after her boyfriend left her, and now she's plotting to kill both him and two people in her past she felt wronged her. We were all talking about how much fun it would be for her to use this funeral prompt as a continuation. I said I wanted to see how the narrator kept her composure at the funeral so that people didn't realize how excited she was about the death.
Also, back when I did the daily prompt challenge for "Hey, Arnold!" fanfiction, I actually had a few related prompts. It just seemed perfect to have one continue the story left from a previous prompt.
Hopefully, it won't take the full two weeks to figure out what I'll write. Either way, if I don't have it ready by next week I will certainly have it done the following one.
In the meantime, I have another challenge. Phfylburt is in the picture again. With his new little one, although she's apparently very easy going, he hasn't had the time or inspiration to write lately. However, he's always wanted to learn how to draw, and he has just enough time to practice that daily. He's been a bit mad about slacking off, though. So I issued him a challenge.
He would give me a new writing prompt every Sunday, and I would give him a new drawing challenge. The following Sunday, we will exchange what we did, and issue another challenge for the week. Technically speaking, he's supposed to show me at least five different drawings he's done throughout the week, but as long as I get the drawing I requested, I can let the others slide.
Now, poor Phfyl thought he was easing me into this new challenge set-up. Thing is, he asked me to do one of the most challenging things for me: poetry.
I used to write poems a lot in middle school. Looking back at them, I've realized they're terrible. My college ones weren't much better. The ones I attempted to write for Helga in my "Hey, Arnold!" stories are just as bad. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I can't stand vague, thought-provoking writing. I don't want a pretty simile about your soul and the colors of the rainbow when you meet different people. I want to know the location of every battle scar on that 6' 2" Puerto Rican man with cocoa-bean brown eyes, brunette hair so deep it appears black, and a crooked smile due to his previously broken jaw.
Every time I attempt poetry it always seems like a pathetic forgery. Like someone telling you they'll make you a fabulous Thanksgiving turkey dinner, and then plops a Tofurky in the center of the table; worse yet, the tofurky is barely shaped to look like an actual bird.
If this isn't bad enough, the challenge is to write a 12-line poem that describes nothing. NOTHING! No description! WHA!? Hit the ground running, I guess. Sink or swim. Well, the point was to challenge each other in order to better them. So he swung hard without even knowing he did.
It may not be pretty. It may not be poetry. But by gum, I'll have a 12-line poem ready to post here next week! I just need to write it still....
Because of my illness-induced impromptu vacation, I actually have a lot more to talk about. However, this seems to be getting a bit long. I'll save it for next week, or perhaps an extra blog post to try to get me up to 52 this year!
Oh yeah! I never officially stated my resolutions for this year! Yup. Definitely need to work on another post. Now that football's regular season is over and the playoffs have started, I should have more of my evenings free. That should open up some more time for me to write and sneak in that extra post. However, Ronoxym and Cyhyr are supposed to visit on Saturday. And my nephew's baptism is Sunday. Still, I'll try to get something ready for Mondayish. So, keep an eye out.
I'm also going to use my first post of 2016 to yet again plug the fact that you can fave my blog and/or join a mailing list. The mailing list simply drops this blog right into your email for ease of access. Plus, you don't have to worry about maybe missing a post since my update days are never set in stone. I swear that's it. You won't get any promotional mail from me or Blogger. You won't get any spam. We don't send out your email address to anyone. Just a simple: "You've Got Mail: The Rogue's Scribe Updated; here it is!"
Sound good to you? Then just go to the right side bar; you'll have to scroll back up to the top. Do you see my "About Me"? Good. Right above it is the option to input your email address to join the mailing list. Simple as that. Then the blog will be delivered right to you like a faithful Sunday morning paper.
If you want to fave my blog and just check in on it via your Blogger dashboard, simply set up a Blogger account if you haven't yet. If you are on Google+ you have an account already. Simply go to Blogger and it will bring you to your dashboard. Scroll down a little bit and you'll see "Reading List." From there you can add new blogs. You simply click "Add" and then drop in the url of this blog. You can then choose whether or not to follow me anonymously before clicking "Follow." You're done! You can now just log back into your Blogger dashboard, go down to Reading List, and read the latest entry of this blog and any others you are following.
You can also include my blog in your RSS feed; basically the same thing as favoriting it on Blogger. For those of you who don't know what an RSS is, then don't worry, the other two options work fine. For those of you who do have one, just above the option to sign up for the email is a place where you can subscribe to my posts, the comments, or both via your RSS. You can subscribe via NetVibes or My Yahoo!
One last way to stay up to date with this blog. I post on Twitter. I don't really do much else on Twitter any more - I'm addicted enough to Facebook to add Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, or Pinterest - but I do post when I update my blog. It's as simple as following @LycoRogue.
Alright, I really should get some work done, either on the funeral prompt, my poem, or some of the cleaning I need to do around here. Catch you guys next week, and have a happy new year!
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Wednesday, August 5, 2015
2015 Summer Writing Challenge Final Week - Multiple Man
This past week was even more pathetic than the one before. Shortly after publishing last week's post I attempted to drive out to my sister-in-law's to meet my nephew. Sadly, my car died on me while making the trek. It's been an annoying week of getting to and from work while also attempting to revive my car. We managed it - it takes a bit, but it starts up now; won't be taking it out of town, though - and so hopefully the next month won't be as stressful.
However, added chaos and nearly hitting my breaking point at work put a complete halt on my writing. I was so embarrassed to check in on this last week of the challenge. I had to let people know that while I did attempt to work on Multiple Man's rework this week - just like with Shadowcat last week - I didn't really get much further than what I had already come up with a few months ago.
Because of that - again, just like with Emily last week - a lot of what you're seeing in the below bio I thought up as I was writing it here. For instance, I had a fairly strong idea of what I wanted Cody to look like, but I didn't get around to writing it before Sunday, and as I wrote it out here different little things popped up. Such as the fact that he has scars, freckles - and Keahi's reaction to them - always wears sneakers, and that he needs reading glasses. Most of the backstory was created this morning as I was writing this, as well as Cody's hobby of gardening.
Well, ironically, the week that I feel I did the least amount of work towards the writing challenge happens to also be the week that I win the random draw of a $10 Amazon voucher for participating. So, that's a positive for the week!
I don't have an e-reader, and so I downloaded the PC version of Kindle, and then purchased the three e-book short stories that Rick Riordan wrote as Percy Jackson/Kane Chronicles cross-over tales. He wrote them as incentive to buy the paperback versions of some of his books, but knew that some people won't buy the paperback since they already had the hardcover - me and Hubby being such people - and so he later released the stories as e-books, and I had been meaning to buy them for a while now. So, thanks, Ali Luke, for the voucher prize, and the ability to finally have these stories!
The only thing I really did this week for the challenge was Ali's Mini-Challenge for the week; figure out what I'll be doing with the momentum from this challenge. As I mentioned last week, I had already decided a few weeks ago that my writing group - Struggling Writers Society - would be doing its own month-long writing challenge in August.
Well, it kept me until about 11pm on the first to finally decide on what my challenge would be, and post on the group's event page. In the end, I decided that I was going to keep the momentum going with X-Men.
I haven't touched X-Future: The Second Generation Begins in almost two years. Mostly because of how tedious it is to sort through all the posts in order to come up with the plot I'd translate into prose. Well, that's my challenge this month. I want to get at least one new chapter up before August 31st.
Not really off to a good start. It's the fifth and I have yet to even open up the forum to start cataloging the posts I'd be translating. I'm hoping to whip my butt in gear now that the car is running and the Writers’ Huddle challenge is finally done. I'm hoping to at the very least have the posts figured out by Sunday, and the posts I'll be reworking into prose sorted by my next post next week.
I'm also thinking of letting you folks know how I did with the other mini-challenges Ali pitched our way.
Here's to a more productive writing week again.
However, added chaos and nearly hitting my breaking point at work put a complete halt on my writing. I was so embarrassed to check in on this last week of the challenge. I had to let people know that while I did attempt to work on Multiple Man's rework this week - just like with Shadowcat last week - I didn't really get much further than what I had already come up with a few months ago.
Because of that - again, just like with Emily last week - a lot of what you're seeing in the below bio I thought up as I was writing it here. For instance, I had a fairly strong idea of what I wanted Cody to look like, but I didn't get around to writing it before Sunday, and as I wrote it out here different little things popped up. Such as the fact that he has scars, freckles - and Keahi's reaction to them - always wears sneakers, and that he needs reading glasses. Most of the backstory was created this morning as I was writing this, as well as Cody's hobby of gardening.
Boy, I'm good at writing backstory on the fly when I'm typing it here. Why can't that work the rest of the week when I'm writing the bios for the challenge?New Name: Cody
Basic Info: Age Not Figured Out Yet, 5' 11", 155lbs, Brunette, and green eyes
Powers: Tweaker Glitch; Sub-category: Soul-Splitter/Cloning
Cody is capable of converting a fresh drop of his blood into an exact copy of himself. These can be mindless drones with “hive mind”, but Cody has to spend all of his mental ability “remotely” controlling them. So, he usually defaults to the “Soul Splitting” part of his powers. This means that when he makes a copy he can make it autonomous by “gifting” it some of his consciousness.
The clone has the knowledge and personality that Cody selects - usually subconsciously via deciding what he wants the clone to do - and it is “locked” away from him while the clone exists. He can still “remotely” tap into that knowledge and personality as long as the clone is close. Cody’s ability to tap into the part of him birthed into the clone diminishes with distance. It completely “locks away” if the clone is ever 200 or more miles away; basic knowledge learned is a default that Cody would never have to “gift” to a clone and therefore will never lose it. If the clone is ever killed, that part of Cody’s consciousness returns to him; along with any new knowledge it may have picked up while away from him. However, the trauma of the clone's death gives Cody a migraine. He can also reabsorb a clone to get rid of it without causing that trauma. To do so, Cody needs skin-to-skin contact.
The almost instinctual reabsorption of the clones is due to his "soul" craving to be whole again; it's almost a gravitational pull. To prevent himself from accidentally absorbing a clone before he wants to, Cody tends to wear gloves and as much other clothing as possible while he has a clone nearby. Also because of this pull to be whole again, the closer the clones are to Cody the more mental control over them he has; allowing him to dictate their actions with little to no argument from them. Cody has had a few clones that wandered far enough from him to feel true autonomy, and it was a struggle to bring them back into the fold.
I may or may not create a story arc centering around Cody's darker side of his personality splitting off as a runaway clone that Cody was never able to track down and reabsorb. This would explain why he's so cheerful most of the time, and it would be fun to see the interaction once the runaway clone finally returns - or runs into Lia.
He can create multiple clones at the same time via multiple drops of blood. In turn, each of the clones may use their own blood to create clones of their own; breaking off some of the personality Cody gave them to put into the clones they make. So on and so forth. Cody can also decide how much or how little of himself to give each clone. The amount of himself he inputs into each clone determines both how many clones he can create in any given time, and how many clones the clones can create. The death of any clones Cody's clones create will give the clones migraines, just like Cody. If more than three of Cody's direct clones die and return to him within a half-an-hour his migraine gets so bad that he is completely immobilized. If six or more are killed within a half-an-hour of each other the trauma is so severe that Cody falls into a coma that lasts an hour for each clone past the initial six that were killed.
To prevent losing himself completely, he caps his clones at 25 clones of himself. There is further restrictions on the cloning. The actual mechanics are still being ironed out, but the fewer clones Cody makes, the more clones his clones can make; and the more generations of clones can be made before the only thing left are Hive Mind clones. The more clones Cody spawns, the smaller portion of his “soul” goes into each one, which means less personality to split into other clones. Generation chains are shortened. At 25 clones from Cody, each clone can only make Hive Mind copies because it doesn’t have enough of Cody’s core to split into other clones.
While it still hurts - and always will hurt - to draw blood in order to use his power, much like a diabetic who has to prick their finger constantly to test their blood, Cody has become used to the pain of blood draw from his fingers.
Physical Appearance: He keeps himself in good physical condition for a man his age, but he's not nearly as strong or buff as the other adult Glitches around the orphanage. He exercises to stay fit, not to be strong. He has light brown hair that he keeps in a short cut; just long enough to run your fingers through. His light green eyes are vibrant and have a sparkle to them; it's one of the first things that attracted Keahi. He keeps himself clean-shaven, and his face is a little round.
He doesn't have any piercings or tattoos, but he does have a bunch of little scars scattered throughout his body - mostly around his joints; wrists, knees, elbows, fingers - both from his klutzy childhood and from use of his powers later in life. He has a tiny scar just under his lip from when he bit through it in his youth.
He has a few freckles under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. They've faded over time, but they become prominent in the summer when he has more sun exposure. Keahi thought they were adorable and would love to stroke ones on his nose like he was a cat.
He has a typical "dad" look to him. He wears casual slacks most of the time, but switches into worn jeans whenever he's doing an activity where he might get dirty: playing with Lia outside, doing yard work, construction/maintenance on the house, camping, etc. In the summer he's particularly embarrassing to Lia by wearing shorts; showing off his "pale, chicken legs" as Lia complains. Thankfully, he's not QUITE dorky enough to attempt the socks and sandals, but he does wear sneakers with white tube socks fully extended about half-way up his calf; almost as embarrassing. When he wants to take Lia to the beach or public pool - a rare occurrence, especially after Lia's powers manifested - Cody "dresses up" by putting on good old Bermuda shorts. Lia is NOT pleased with those. He'd probably even wear corduroy in winter if he could find any for sale anywhere.
As for his tops, Cody wears faded band or sports t-shirts with his jeans and shorts. The rest of the time that he's in his slacks he goes for light polo shirts, casual button-downs, or sweaters. In the spring and fall - or mild winters - when it's just a little chilly, he's been known to throw on sweater vests; argyle ones most often. Regardless of how casual or fancy he dresses, unless he's going to a formal event where dress shoes are expected, Cody will always be in sneakers. Being a single father for the majority of Lia's life proved that one should almost ALWAYS be in sneakers and ready to run after the child.
Not quite embarrassing, "Stereotypical Dad" enough yet, Cody's eyes are starting to fade. The guy has to whip out reading glasses. At least Lia convinced him to make THOSE a bit more fashionable. Simple, thin, black frames that fit his rounded face well to make him appear more sophisticated. All he needs is house shoes and a glass of Scotch after work and he'd probably be a typical 50's father.
Cody's color scheme has earthy spring-like tones. Light brown - typically just his pants, but brown accent in his shirts as well - and green, with a splash of yellow and blue.
Because his power is blood-based, he wanted a way to always be able to draw blood if the need arose. Before meeting Keahi, he would have a pin on him at all times. It would take a moment to undo it from his collar and prick himself, but it was otherwise fairly efficient. Although Keahi wasn't a fan of her husband having to injure himself, she wanted to make sure he could draw blood a lot faster if needed, and so they customized his wedding band. It's a bit thicker than a typical ring, and there's a secret latch that's hard to accidentally open, but one he can easily flick open with his thumb. He then can prick himself on the needle point of the latch.
The cartoonish nature of Chibis probably won't make this very useful to anyone besides me, but this is how I picture Cody:
Chibi Cody is so adorable and unthreatening... <3 data-blogger-escaped-td="">
The inspiration for Cody's ring; from the anime "Attack on Titan."
While not as impressive,
a Real World version of the above ring.
Personality: While it's not exactly a personality trait, Cody's klutziness and accident-prone youth made him very awkward as a kid. He was generally very friendly and outgoing, which helped him forge tight friendships and had him be likable by most of his classmates, but his awkwardness kept him from really connecting with too many people. His spontaneous cloning whenever he injured himself made him even more of a target for teasing and shunning, but even so, he kept a fairly positive outlook throughout most of elementary and early middle school.
When he was a young teenager the fact that his powers only manifested via blood, coupled with the knowledge that Glitches were considered second-class citizens and his very small friend circle, put him into a typical "gothic teenager" phase. While he never went so far as to purposely cut himself, he did become obsessed with blood and dark imagery.
Just before graduating high school - after nearly mastering his powers - the gothic phase ended and he returned to a cheerful, friendly, outgoing person. He was still a bit awkward, especially around women. This awkwardness was another winning trait in Keahi's eyes.
He remained optimistic and playful, losing most, but not all, of his awkwardness while with Keahi. Even now, especially around Lia, he tries to remain that person.
After Keahi's disappearance, the "helicopter parenting" that he learned from his own parents kicked in. He was terrified of losing Lia as well, and now he didn't have Keahi around to reign him back from the only type of parenting he knew. On top of that, his powers allowed him to take "helicopter parenting" to the extreme: ALWAYS having either himself or a clone with Lia at ALL times except for when she was at school; the school wouldn't allow him to hover.
He is EXTREMELY protective of those he cares about, and has no problem bringing out a terrifyingly dark version of himself to do whatever needs to be done to keep his loved one safe. While he doesn't get angry easily, he can become very scary when he gets frustrated.
General History: Cody used to be a huge klutz and very awkward when he was young. He was constantly injuring himself accidentally. Because of this, his parents were a bit overprotective of their accident-prone child. This helped instill the idea of "helicopter parenting" in Cody. It also kept him a bit on the outskirts of his class's social circle. He had friends growing up, but it was a tight-knit group of five. While he was liked well enough that kids wouldn't go out of their way to tease or bully him, he was still awkward enough that they had no problem teasing or laughing whenever he tripped up.
Cody's powers manifested when he was about 10, and that made things even more awkward for him. Now, whenever he would draw blood - which was fairly often given how accident-prone he was - at least one clone would spontaneously appear. Now people would tease him for the clones. This teasing was added to the intensity of the knowledge of his powers and what it meant to be a Glitch. He became Gothic between the ages of 13 and 17. He re-invented himself over Christmas break his senior year of high school - finally coming to terms with everything - and became his normal bubbly self. Not to many students liked him though, despite his attempts to befriend and help others. Mostly because he had his powers under control and used his clones to help himself study: allowing himself to study all of his subjects at the same time and then reabsorb the clones to get the information. He skyrocketed to the head of the class, but everyone called him out on the "unfair advantage" of having almost infinite amount of time compared to everyone else. Even though he was the top of his class when he graduated, this "unfair advantage" resulted in him simply being able to walk and receive his diploma, with no other acknowledgement of his GPA or the multitude of extra-curricular activities - clubs and sports - he participated in.
It stung to be shunned like that, but it helped him connect more with Keahi - who was actually kicked out of school due to her being a Glitch - and help her become courageous enough to attempt college after all. Plus, the Glitch-friendly Hawaii Pacific University appreciated both the vast array of extra-curricular and top GPA. They saw it as proof that even if he were to use his powers, it would be for positive development.
Cody and Keahi had a typical college relationship after he convinced her to go to HPU with him. He proposed to her when she was a senior at the college, and they got married shortly after graduating. Using his powers to absorb as much as he could while in college, he was able to quickly climb to the top of his field. Although I'm still not entirely sure what "field" that is.
While this is still subject to change, as of right now I have it set up that Keahi and Cody end up moving to Colorado to be closer to his family. The trick with this - which is why the location may change - is that Colorado is a great distance out of Cody's clone-range, and I wanted him to leave a clone at the family home while he's working at the orphanage. That way Lia has her childhood home to go back to if she ever wanted to return to a public school and/or after graduating from Emily's school. Having the family home be in Colorado would mean either
A) Cody sells the home which will be a huge shock to Lia's system since she was expecting Emily's school to just be a boarding school and she could come home during holiday breaks,
B) Cody either leaves the home with family with the understanding that he and Lia can take it back at any time, or he leaves it unattended completely over the years, or finally
C) Cody locks away a piece of himself as the clone lives it's own life out of Cody's home.
I'm rambling...
Cody started up gardening as a means of meditation, as well as further training of his powers. It is incredibly easy to prick one's self while gardening, and it's incredibly helpful to be able to clone one's self while doing yard work. Anyway, Keahi got pregnant with Lia a couple years into the marriage. They were a loving, playful, happy family for about seven years. Then Keahi heared about the environmental turmoil in the Ring of Fire portion of the Pacific, and wanted to join other Evoker Glitches in helping calm the area. After much debate, Cody agreed to her helping with one of his clones as her guardian. It changed his personality slightly to be without that part of him while it was with Keahi, but he tried to not let it affect Lia.
When his clone was killed, he created a new clone out of all of his compassion and paternal instincts in order to leave the best guardian he could for Lia, and then raced off to where Keahi was when she was attacked. He spent a little over a month attempting to find her, but even with his paternal self locked away in his guardian for Lia, he still desperately missed his daughter. He eventually gave up his search and returned home. He still makes a week-long annual pilgrimage to Keahi's last known location in attempt to find more clues about her disappearance.
Terrified of losing his daughter too, he vowed to NEVER let her out of his sight; a slightly empty vow since her schools wouldn't allow him to hover over her. He did debate homeschooling her so he could be around her 24/7, but he realized how much she needed the socialization and normalcy. The rest of the time, however, even when on his pilgrimages or at work, he always left a clone behind to be able to watch over his daughter. His own over protective parents didn't really see much wrong with what he was doing, and so without Keahi around to tease him about being ridiculous, no one reigned him in.
Lia's powers actually manifested when she was yelling at her father about not allowing her to grow up and be independent.
Due to being at the top of his field, Emily and Ryder reached out to him to assist with the orphanage and school when it evolved into a boarding school to help Glitches learn to control their powers. He turned them down originally, wanting to stay in his family home in case Keahi found her way back. He also wanted to keep his focus on his own child, not split it with children of other people; as noble as that is.
When Lia's powers became too much for him to train her alone, he called Emily up to see if their offer still stood. When she gladly welcomed him to join their staff, he sent Lia ahead to start her training while he tied up loose ends at home. Lia was ecstatic at first - thinking she was finally getting some independence - only to be mortified by her father's sudden appearance at the school as part of the faculty.
Well, ironically, the week that I feel I did the least amount of work towards the writing challenge happens to also be the week that I win the random draw of a $10 Amazon voucher for participating. So, that's a positive for the week!
I don't have an e-reader, and so I downloaded the PC version of Kindle, and then purchased the three e-book short stories that Rick Riordan wrote as Percy Jackson/Kane Chronicles cross-over tales. He wrote them as incentive to buy the paperback versions of some of his books, but knew that some people won't buy the paperback since they already had the hardcover - me and Hubby being such people - and so he later released the stories as e-books, and I had been meaning to buy them for a while now. So, thanks, Ali Luke, for the voucher prize, and the ability to finally have these stories!
The only thing I really did this week for the challenge was Ali's Mini-Challenge for the week; figure out what I'll be doing with the momentum from this challenge. As I mentioned last week, I had already decided a few weeks ago that my writing group - Struggling Writers Society - would be doing its own month-long writing challenge in August.
Well, it kept me until about 11pm on the first to finally decide on what my challenge would be, and post on the group's event page. In the end, I decided that I was going to keep the momentum going with X-Men.
I haven't touched X-Future: The Second Generation Begins in almost two years. Mostly because of how tedious it is to sort through all the posts in order to come up with the plot I'd translate into prose. Well, that's my challenge this month. I want to get at least one new chapter up before August 31st.
Not really off to a good start. It's the fifth and I have yet to even open up the forum to start cataloging the posts I'd be translating. I'm hoping to whip my butt in gear now that the car is running and the Writers’ Huddle challenge is finally done. I'm hoping to at the very least have the posts figured out by Sunday, and the posts I'll be reworking into prose sorted by my next post next week.
I'm also thinking of letting you folks know how I did with the other mini-challenges Ali pitched our way.
Here's to a more productive writing week again.
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