Finally, Some Writing!

Wow, I never went back and wrote a blog post last week. Sorry about that. Not intended. It was just a crazy week, and Wednesday proved too full a day for me to write my post ahead of time, and Thursday I was at work all day. I had all intentions to write the post when I got home on Thursday, or while Hubby was out on Friday. As per usual, things didn't go as planned.

I guess it was for the best, though. I really would have hated to write "I didn't write anything" in yet ANOTHER long-winded, excuse-filled post. Which was one of the reasons I didn't go back to write a post last week. I ended up using that time to actually write some fiction! Egads!

Before my first game as the DM, I had created a bit of a backstory for the tavern the party met at, as well as the town it was associated with, even though it was on the outskirts. It kept me nearly a month to go back to it, but last weekend I finally took the time to sit my butt down and finish the darn thing. Due to the nature of how the story evolved - first tavern, then town, then surrounding area, etc - there is an unproportional amount of time spent talking about this one establishment. I still need more info on the other businesses, the people, the Assassin's Guild, the Thieve's Den, the baron and his family as well as their relationship to the count, etc. In the meantime, though, I feel it's a good start, without it being as overwhelming as my Sandikir culture write up last year.

Also, last year someone commented that not all the Sandikir words seemed to connect to each other in order to make a coherent language. I get that. I'm far from a linguist. I can barely master my native tongue, I can't seem to figure out any other languages - even though they are all comparatively much easier than English - and so knowing language enough to create a believable one is a bit out of my wheelhouse. At some point I'll have to figure out how people were able to come up with their own languages so that I can do the same. That's probably decades from now, though.

The reason I bring this up is that I'm sure I'm going to have a similar issue with this story. I took a variety of approaches to name multiple different things - from landscapes to gods to familial names to business names, etc - and it might seem a bit disjointed from each other. My defense? I took the American approach to things. We're a melting-pot of cultures and languages, and we steal from those cultures and languages all the time to create a diverse environment. You might drive down King's Street, turn left on Rodero Drive, pass Lopatcong Road, and finally park on Lafayette Boulevard. That's four different cultures smooshed together on one simple road trip. They may seem so disconnected, but it works for a diverse culture like America. So, I'm just going to assume the majority of the countries and cultures in Gyateara will be built "melting pot" style.

"Welcome to Ashitar"

On DeviantArt          On FictionPress

I had made sure to finish up this little story, edit it, and post it on DeviantArt as well as FictionPress all by Easter Sunday. Which reminds me. I missed last week's post, and so I also missed this:

I would normally also wish people a happy Passover at this time, but apparently that's still about a month away. Strange that the two celebrations can be so separate from each other when The Last Supper was a Passover meal.... Anyway....

After a bunch of confusion, it was brought to my attention that I unintentionally missed the last local writing group meeting. I had missed the one due to being sick. Then, the Tuesday after visiting my sister was supposed to be the next meeting. I thought that were the case, but I was so - is there a term for "jetlag" when you were just driving four hours away in the same timezone? - that I lost track as to whether it was one or two Tuesdays previous I was sick. Hubby was just as confused, I guess, because he also thought it was still an "off" week. So, last Tuesday I was all set to go to the meeting - although I didn't have anything to really read aside from the incomplete form of "Welcome to Ashitar" - only to get an email stating it wasn't the right day.

The local paper was apparently just as confused as I was, because they had also printed that the 22nd was the next meeting; exactly what I had thought. There was a big email debate as to whether or not the journalist was correct, how we all go the schedule confused, and whether or not we should have meetings three weeks in a row - in case some newbies showed up. Eventually it was decided that the librarians would inform any newcomers of the mix-up, but the meeting would still just wait until this past Tuesday.

The confusion did give us all a great writing prompt, though. So, after a month of no writing group - due to accidentally skipping a second one - I came back a bit triumphant. Not only did I have "Welcome to Ashitar" finished for a read-through, but I also had the writing prompt completed as well:

A newcomer to a writing group gets the dates wrong, and is invited to "another group" that is meeting that night at the library.

We had some very interesting responses to this prompt. Keaton wrote about two boys in a post-zombie-apocalypse traveling twelve miles to a neighboring community in order to join a writing group. They come across a cult-like community of segregation between the sexes. Men and women are never in the same room - aside from a mother caring for her son, or the process that leads to a woman becoming a mother in the first place.... - and the boys happened to have shown up on the WOMEN'S writing group night. Keaton didn't get to the point where the boys were officially invited to join another group, but the men of the village welcomed them into the community messhall for dinner.

DFL was having some computer frustrations over the past couple of weeks - after her computer was forced to upgrade to Windows 10 - and so her character had the same frustrations, only to have her day punctuated with the news that her group was cancelled for that night. She was then offered a knitting or computing group to join for the night since she was already at the library. The character opted for the computing group in hopes of learning how to better deal with her own computer. She discovers that the room was filled with middle-aged, blue-collar or retired citizens all just as frustrated with the Windows 10 upgrade, and so they were plotting to build a bomb in order to threaten Microsoft. The story was actually so amusing to picture. I almost wish this was in some sort of visual format for me to watch.

Red had continued a prompt from when I was sick: three randomly selected elements worked together. We had done similar prompts in the past. Her three elements were a parrot, Hurricane Irene, and "Something in the pocket". She hadn't made it to the pocket bit, but the rest of the story was intriguing. A young Au Pair is trying to persuade her young ward to make two large changes in his life. The first is to visit either his mother or father; both in different prisons after being caught as drug-runners during the chaos of Hurricane Irene's clean-up. The second would be to switch from homeschooling - which he had done his whole life - to joining the public high school now that his education surpassed what the Au Pair was qualified to teach him. The parrot element had the family pet mimic important background conversations in order to give both the audience and Au Pair the insight into the kid needed to help him with these transitions.

The final member of the group this past week was apparently a new member as of the meeting I accidentally skipped - if not the one I was sick for. The first "regular" man in our group. It's nice to have the new perspective, especially with us women trying to write males. It would be good for us to have an actual male opinion on whether or not we're writing men "correctly".

I'm under the assumption that he was the one that offered up the "writer on the wrong day" prompt, and he used it beautifully. The lead-in to the mix-up seemed a bit unnecessarily long, but his depiction of the main character was fantastic and humorous. He then gets to the miscommunication, and has his character come across an eccentrically gaudy woman of questionable sexual morality. I pictured the woman perfectly, and every line of description had me actually laughing out loud. Most of us were, actually. It must have really reassured him to hear the laughs he wrote in.

Me? Well, I got a couple of chuckles, but not nearly as many as I thought I wrote in. I don't know if it was a matter of my verbal delivery, the way I delivered it on paper, if it's only amusing to people of my demographic, if it was amusing but not laugh-out-loud so, or if it just wasn't as funny as I thought. Either way, the new gentleman in our group stated that he could picture everything well, and it got his attention. I guess that's something, right?

I think everyone was more focused on trying to learn alongside my main character. I had him stumble upon a group of people using the library as a staging location for their Boff group. For those who don't know, Boffing is Live-Action Role Play using foam weapons to act out fight scenes, and usually set in a High Fantasy setting; so people are generally in Medieval or Renaissance style clothing. No one in the room knew what Boffing was, and so as my secondary character Jenn quickly explained to my main character Ian, the room seemed just as interested to know. Keaton even asked a few follow-up questions on Boffing in general.

All-in-all, everyone seemed to want me to continue the story, which was also reassuring. I stopped it where it could be a nice one-off, but it was also open ended enough to lead into more chapters. I'm probably going to focus more on Gyateara for the near future; build up more of Ashitar so that my players have something semi-substantial to run around in. However, I will give continuing the Boff Group story some serious thought.

Until I get to the point of continuing the story, it will wait patiently in my Anthology. Although, I'll probably have to remove it as a chapter once I decide to make it a story of it's own. Oh well, crossing bridges once I get to them and all.

Like I said, in the meantime, you can find it here:

"Everything for a Reason"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress

I also managed to finish "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" yesterday, giving me my second or third - depending on how you're counting - book completed for the reading challenge. Let's check out that list again, shall we?

Challenge created by Modern Mrs. Darcy

Alright, so I have a few "Schrodinger Books" right now, in which they are simultaneously two different categories until future information leads me to which category they're actually falling into.

Both "Life, the Universe, and Everything" and "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" can fill the "published before you were born" category. LU&E can also fill the "already read at least once" category while SL&TfAtF could also fill the "previously abandoned" category. If I read one more story that can fill the "published before you were born" category, and only that one, I'll shift the other two into the other categories. Otherwise, I'll have to shift either of those Hitchhiker's Guide sequels into that publication category if I read something else for a second time, or another book I gave up on; such as books I should have read in school. ALL THE SCHRODINGER BOOKS!!!!

Now to figure out what I'm going to read next. Also, tomorrow is April First. Not only does that make it April Fool's Day, but it also makes it the first day of the now disbanded Script Frenzy month. Considering Nickelodeon announced a few months back that they were FINALLY greenlighting The Jungle Movie - after the fans fought for it for nearly a decade - I feel like perhaps I should reach out to ChibiSunnie, and we should finally finish our own version of the movie plot before Nickelodeon releases the official one.

So, I must make a few decisions: what to read, what to write, and whether or not to try out Script Frenzy on top of my other fiction writing.

Role Plays Getting Me Back to Writing

Yet another week where I'm avoiding writing this post. Three in a row where I have little to nothing to show for my week. Aside from a mildly-persistent cough and a need for a handful of tissues throughout the day, my cold is gone. Hubby's better. Nothing should have been standing in my way.

And yet I'm again finding myself without time to write. Well, I HAVE found time to write, I just haven't been using it for novel-writing.

The ball is slowly but surely rolling over on the X-Future boards again. We'll see how the fresh blood works this time. I'm hoping for a successful transfusion. The board needs it!

I've been running around as Colette. Formerly celestialTyrant's second character, when his work kept him too busy to play anymore, Colette became an NPC almost exclusively played by me. Basically the same thing as with Crystal, except Crystal was always an NPC. I just get stuck with all the 15yr old girls, I guess.

Eh, either way, it's been fun running around as Colette; finding her character. Sadly, I've been neglecting all of my other girls in the process. I JUST played as Willow and Lia this morning just to say I've done so in the past month. Trish, I'm still figuring out her next move. I may just have her "go with it" simply to move things along in the Brotherhood thread. And the aforementioned Crystal? Frankly, I forgot about her. Mainly because I was focusing too much on the other characters, and Tyler hasn't really been doing much on the board. Let's face it, that's really the only person she's around for.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've slacked off for a while, but I'm back into the swing of posting frequently as Colette, and I'm having fun with her and the two new players. She even has a bit of a crush on one of them, who seems to have a crush back. Ah, budding romance. Super sweet considering they only met each other about fifteen minutes ago game-time.

What can we say? Puppy-love at first sight, coupled by the whole "We're mutants, we can be killed off any minute now; YOLO" thing.

So there's that. At least it's creative and writing. Heck, the player who runs Colette's crush Joseph even joked about how much me and Zebey - the other new player - writes. Can I give myself some credit for that?

I also FINALLY started up my first ever D&D session where I ran it as the DM. I cheated and used a "boxed adventure" - one that was pre-written and sold with a map so the DM just needs to read and do rolls accordingly - but I wanted to supplement it. I didn't want to just be like "Alright. You four are in a party together and are doing this quest. Go." I wanted it to be at least mildly organic. Give them the option, and hope and pray they all decide to go. This was the main reason I told everyone that I needed basic character motivation for adventuring. That way I could present the quest in a manner that would appeal to all the characters, based on their motivations.

It was a bit rough go at first, but they all headed out, and are having a grand old time it seems. But, as I mentioned, to make that organic introduction to each character as they meet up and bond into a party, I needed to supplement the "boxed adventure." I did this by creating a tavern and neighboring town for them to all meet up in. To try to get SOME writing done before the end of last week, I spent Friday and Saturday working on said tavern and town. I created rough descriptions of both, as well as broad histories for both. Problem being, I completely destroyed the concept of the town while presenting the quest, and I didn't even pick up on it until after the session was done.

The whole concept of the town of Ashitar was that it was a merchant-town run by a baron, because the "boxed adventure" had the baron asking the party to retrieve his ring from some lizardfolk called Kobolds. Well, the wealthy merchants that lived in Ashitar didn't like that the baron ran the joint instead of them, and so they plotted to assassinate him and his family for a generation or two. Stopping these plots created a "weapons war" of assassin guilds, thieves dens, and cityguard barracks. All competing against each other to either keep the baron in power, or put one of the wealthy families in charge.

I built all of this, only to screw it up by having the baron overtaken by the kobolds, kidnapped, and leaving his 12yr old son pleading for the adventurers to help him. He wants his father returned, but the tavern owner suspects the baron is already dead and eaten by the kobolds, and so he secretly asks two of the party members - they lagged behind - to at least bring back the baron's ring so the kid could use it to prove his rightful place as leader of Ashitar.

So, here we are. Level one characters who are going up against some of the easiest monsters so they don't die while trying to level up and become stronger. These kobolds are experience fodder to help grow the characters. These are the things that eventually got to the otherwise superbly protected baron? What. The. Heck!? If the bodyguards are THAT bad at protecting the baron, what prevented the assassins all this time? Are they just THAT bad too? Is Ashitar filled with incompetent morons? Or was the baron overtaken because he didn't have his bodyguards for some reason? If so, then what was the reason? He knows there's continuous assassination attempts on his life, and he had his son and heir with him. Why only four shitty town guards?

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

I hate plot holes!

Now I have to either figure all of that out, or scrap everything I came up with for Ashitar.

I THINK I might have a solution that I figured out while working yesterday. I'll have to play around with it a bit to see how it develops. Thankfully, I'll be visiting my sister and godson for their birthdays this weekend - obviously including visits with Mom and PA-Bestie - and so no D&D this Sunday. Gives me another week to figure out what to do with the baron story. Plus, the party isn't done going through the dungeon, and so I have a little more time there too. The issue now is that Spink won't be available the next Sunday we'd play, and so I don't know what to do with her character that is out adventuring in a dungeon right now, and the Sunday after that is Easter. Maybe switch to Saturday games the next couple of weeks?

Eh, nevermind that, that doesn't have to really do with writing right now. I'll figure that out on my own time.

Point being, I've been at least creative and writing a little bit thanks to my two role-plays: X-Future and D&D. More writing than normal for D&D since I'm creating the world, and the story of the quests and adventures. That's something, right?

Speaking of, I should get back to one of those to try to get SOME sort of word count this week. Once I have the issue with Ashitar figured out I'll try to post my write-up for it. The trick is that I'd want to put it in the The People of Gyateara anthology, but my campaign is currently in the generic D&D world of Greyhawk, to make things simpler for me. Sure, I still created Ashitar and the neighboring tavern, but things like the town's patron deity is a D&D creation, not one of the yet-to-be-created deities of Gyateara.

Another thing to work out, I guess.

Maybe some Spring Cleaning around my apartment will help me unclutter my mind too, and then I can get back to really working on all this writing. Maybe it will also bring Ronoxym back out of writing hibernation, and we can get back to work on Please, Let Me Explain; a year after the last chapter is posted....

A Christmas Gift For You Guys!

First thing's first. I know that Hanukkah is over by now, but life got crazy, which means I missed wishing my Jewish readers a happy one when I skipped last week's post. So, if you celebrate the Festival of Lights, I wish you a belated happy holiday, and hope your Hanukkah was a blessed one.

Now, to explain why I missed last week. Yes, this will be my generic "life is mad crazy, especially working at a grocery store near the holidays." However, it's more than that. The true reason for missing last week's post was because I was too busy writing a short story!

Yeah!

As I mentioned in my last post, Hubby and I have finally gotten around to watching Game of Thrones. We watched the first two seasons thus far, and it has really inspired us. Hubby created his D&D campaign, and we actually had a few sessions last week.

If I remember correctly, our first session was a couple weekends back - either Saturday or Sunday; can't remember which. We had a tournament with all of our characters. As the princess, I only participated in the archery opening games and then watched the others, which consisted of an obstacle course, jousting, a boar hunt, and melee combat.

Well, my in-character little brother - the heir apparent - ended up killing a cousin of Quarthix's character - Brack - during the melee portion. Whoops.

So Brack's family hosted another tournament in honor of their family member dying nobly in the last one. We did that session the next day. Once again my character Airis only participated in the archery portion before sitting out another obstacle course and wrestling portion. No one died this time. YAY!

Then we did our first individual sessions with our characters. Quarthix's fiance's character traveled home with her younger brother and another companion, only to be attacked by a griffon. She and bro lived, but the other companion and two of their horses were griffon-food.

Hubby's character and two companions - cousin's I think - were attacked by an owlbear. I know Hubby's character got out alright, but I can't recall if either of his companions died.... I WANT to say they all escaped with their lives?

Brack and his younger brother were talked in to going to an illegal dog-fighting ring after all the tournament guests left to travel home. Brack, his younger brother, a friend of Brack's younger brother, and said friend's kid brother all went with this guy Malcolm - another friend of Brack's brother's friend - to the games. They bet a few times, but after a couple rounds the underdog managed to kill the favored "dog" - they were actually wolves. The crowd turned ugly and started a riot, killing the victor in the fight. Malcolm and the man in charge of the fights lead Brack and his group in to the back room, where the wolves were kept when they weren't fighting. While they waited out the rioting crowd, the group played some dice, but Brack's younger brother ended up getting caught cheating. Malcolm - who was the wolves' trainer - released them on to Brack's group, and the man in charge of the fights turned out to be a werewolf. Whoopsie.

Brack and his younger brother were the only survivors. RIP little, possibly 8-yr-old Billy. You at least poked a wolf's eye out... or something.

Then we had my character Airis and her younger brother. The road back to their castle has a toll-road. Obviously the royalty can afford the toll, but the guards told their driver that the road was closed down because of a rockslide or fallen tree or something to that effect. Unfortunately, this meant my group was forced down the unsafe, bandit-ridden road. The carriage was attacked by a group of about eight bandits. All six of our guards, our driver, and both of our horses were killed. My younger brother nearly died after getting his eye shot out by an arrow.

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the Cyclops King.

Injured herself, my character was too flustered to know what to do with her unconscious brother that was too heavy for such a dainty woman to carry. If at least ONE horse were available... *sigh*

So she left him bandaged and with water and food as she walked to the guard station on the other side of the toll-road. The guards there told her that the road hadn't been closed down for over a month; obviously the "guards" on the other side were bandits meant to lead her in to the trap. Fantastic.

We haven't played through it yet, but I'm informed that by the time the guards brought Airis back to the arrow-filled carriage to retrieve her brother he is missing. While she was hoofing it to the guard station another group of bandits kidnapped the future king. Boy, am I batting a thousand.

Can't wait to see what else these characters are going to get in trouble with....

Well, the point of bringing all THAT up is the fact that it again sparked my interest to world-build Gyateara. If nothing else, so that I can run my own D&D campaigns there eventually.

So, while at work between the 10th and 17th I was thinking of a specific group of people that live on Gyateara, and their faith. The inspiration was basically the Dothraki tribe from Game of Thrones. They are nomadic, barbarian, war-like people. They don't value money at all, but they have no qualms with ransacking a village in order to get food, water, and even slaves and women if they need any of the above. The main thing they value is their horses; believed to be part of their very souls once they pick a horse. I'm obviously not a fan of the raping and pillaging they do when they conquer someone, but that aside, I'm fascinated with the Dothraki. I really wanted Gyateara to have people like them. So I came up with the Sandikir people.

I really, REALLY wanted to introduce you guys to them after mentally working so hard on them all week. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to writing their story prior to last Wednesday due to playing the D&D sessions; plus Christmas preparations.

When last Wednesday rolled around I decided I still wanted to give you folks SOMETHING to show for all of my brainstorming. Especially since I haven't produced anything of note for over a month. I didn't want to tell you all yet again that I had a story building in my mind, but I didn't have anything for you fine folks to read.

I was determined to have the story written out first, and then write out the blog with the link to the story included. Issue was that the story took on a life of it's own - plus I was paused for about an hour or two - off and on - because of researching I was doing. See, one of the key components of the story is a race of Dire Wolves. I didn't want them quite as large as the Dire Wolves you find in D&D, but I did want them to be larger than an average gray wolf.

Originally, I was just going to randomly throw in a size that seemed about the height I wanted them to be. However, I realized how key these creatures are in the story, the culture of the people I'm writing about, and the world of Gyateara as a whole. So I wanted to get them right. I researched wolf sizes and broke down the proportions of the wolf's body so I could better build the right anatomy for Gyateara's Dire Wolves.

I also kept coming up with parts of the Sandikir culture that desperately needed their own terms - Sandikir terms. There was no way that I was going to be able to come up with a full new language, but I HAD to come up with these new words. I used one of the generators I gushed about last time. Thankfully, Fantasy Name Generators did have a language generator. Unfortunately, it still kept me a WHILE to figure out all the terms. I ended up with a list of about 13 new words!

Although, I am proud to state that I came up with Sandikir, Rikmahja, Rikvu, Mahmurja, Konsirph, Likjun, Plinva, and Miknar all on my own! That's over half of my Sandikir terms! I also came up with the names of the three pups by myself, too. YAY!

Now, the story started out as yet another chapter in my The Divine Legends anthology. I was going to simply write the divine "origin story" the people believed in. I had so much of their culture figured out, though. It felt weird to know it and not have it documented somewhere. Granted, I won't be so heavy-handed with "this is how they live and what they believe" in an actual story or D&D campaign. Still, I wanted to make sure to get the culture down on paper - figuratively speaking - while it was fresh. This resulted in me creating a new anthology that talks more about the cultures of Gyateara: The People of Gyateara

Well, the story kept growing and growing until it ended up just shy of 2600 words. I really should expect this by now, I mean... seriously... when have I ever written anything that was short!? I also tried something new. I wrote the story with the narrator talking directly to you as if the narrator were a sort of "tour guide" for the people you - the reader - stumbled upon. Not entirely sure if it works, but you can let me know what you think of it.

"The Land of the Sandikir"

On DeviantArt          On FictionPress

Anyway, with the story FINALLY done, I went to publish it and then work on the blog. Problem being that it was now about 3pm, and I needed to pick up my husband. I had to wait until I brought Hubby home from work before I could publish the tale up on DeviantArt and FictionPress. Once that was done I STILL couldn't get to the blog post.

I had laundry and dishes and other such chores to get done. I was exhausted when everything was complete. I finally gave up and figured I'd post a day late. Then the true chaos of The Last Week Before Christmas kicked in. I had gifts that needed to be finished. My home wasn't completely clean yet - still isn't. I never got around to putting up any decorations aside from our advent calendar and the Christmas tree with no ornaments on it. To this day, I still have most of our presents that I need to wrap.

Totally failing this Christmas thing this year....

But at least I have this one gift for you guys. The story that stopped me from posting last week. Hopefully that and this long post is a good enough gift to thank you all for being such faithful readers.

Love you all, and have a merry Christmas!