Posted by Mistress of Feathers on Feb 7, 2010 in News
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Posted by Mistress of Feathers on Mar 10, 2010 in News, Writing
Getting back into the writing groove is, well…mostly not really happening this week. I’ve been irritated at myself, which doesn’t help my productivity level at all. But I think I’ve finally put my finger on what the problem is.
I’m reluctant to produce any new writing right now, because I think I’m afraid of it disappearing in another drive crash, or some other technical crisis I haven’t thought of. Part of my mind is sitting there going, “What’s the point if you’re just going to lose it again, and have to rewrite it over and over?” Then there’s another part of my mind that is still hoping there’s a chance of rescuing the stuff I lost. I feel like I’m stuck in stasis, unable to mentally move on because I’m still hoping for a computer miracle. Moving on in my writing would be tantamount to officially declaring that hard drive as a loss…and I just don’t want to do that. But I really need to, because the chances of coming up with an affordable way to save that drive are next to nil.
I discovered that among the stuff that hadn’t been backed up was all my conference notes. Including the names given to me as potential agents and editors that might be interested in my stuff, once I’m ready to query. That’s probably the biggest overall loss I’m looking at right now, and it bothers me more than the missing chapter. There’s no way I can get all those notes back, and there was a lot of good information. Also all my GMC work I’d done on the Mask of Eldarmarch is gone, though honestly I’ll probably be able to put that back together without much difficulty. It’s still a pain, though, you know? To redo something you know you’ve already done.
So I’ve been doing what I tend to do when I can’t write, which is read. I picked up several YA books and have proceeded to gobble my way through them in a matter of days. Yeah, I can tell myself that’s at least semi-productive, but it’s not what I need to be doing right now.
It is times like these when I wonder if I’m really cut out to be a professional writer. I don’t deal with setbacks very well, for one thing. Also, I cannot seem to keep my nose to the grindstone for more than a few weeks at a time. After that, I will inevitably hit a point where I just cannot work on my current writing project for several days. I haven’t found a working rhythm yet, because inevitably once I do start to establish one, something happens and I am thrown off. And I know that once I have editorial deadlines to contend with, I won’t be able to take days and weeks to get back on track. I need to figure out something that works for me, NOW, while I still have the luxury of flexible time.
The hubby and I discussed this a little during supper. I decided that I needed to find some sort of ritual, something I can do when disruptions happen, that will allow my mind to get past the setback and move on. The “just get over it” school of coping obviously doesn’t work very well on its own, as I’ve been trying to “get over it” for a week now. The hubby suggested that maybe what I’m dealing with here is a kind of grief, and that going through the stages of grieving would benefit me.
I think he’s right. My stories are my babies; even losing a chapter is hard for me. I cannot even begin to imagine what my reaction would be if I lost all of Shades, for example. *shudder* At least I know I have the ability to recreate what I lose. I guess the next step for me, at this point, is to do a little research on the stages of grieving, and see if I can find some tips on how to get my creativity back on track.
I have a computer again. I’m back to using the much smaller hard drive that came with the computer, and it’s pretty much stuffed to the brim. The hubby has ordered a case that will let him try to boot the messed-up hard drive outside of the laptop…that’s pretty much going to be our last ditch effort to rescue what’s on it. Getting a new head put on the drive would only be worth the money if it contained information vital to the survival of the Rebel Alliance…or something.
I think I’m going to skip the chapter that got eaten, and go ahead and write the next one. If by the time I get to the end of the story we haven’t rescued that chapter, then I’ll rewrite it. However, I am going to outline how the chapter goes, while it’s still fresh in my mind. I’d just go ahead and rewrite the damn thing, except the thought of doing that makes me so irritated that I just don’t think I can, right now.
Hmm, what is it, Friday? Been doing some reading this week, especially in the wake of Nevermore’s Wednesday digital disaster. (Nevermore is my computer’s name. Bleached Nevermore, actually, is her full name). I finished The Gathering Storm…all 800 something pages of it. I’d say it’s possibly the best one since Crown of Swords, or at least the most enjoyable. The problem with the Wheel of Time series is that it takes so long to set up some of these major events…and thus, you have books like Path of Daggers, where you get all the way to the end and realize that although pawns, knights, rooks, bishops, queens, and kings have all been moved about on the chessboard, nothing of major significance has happened. So when you get an installment like The Gathering Storm, where several elaborate sets of dominoes all come toppling down at the same time, you get a really exciting book.
The prose is all still very Robert Jordan…Sanderson did a good job with blending his voice into the established one. He’s all but invisible most of the time. However, and maybe I noticed this because I had just finished Warbreaker…but there were a couple of passages and exchanges by the characters that I would stop and think, “That was Sanderson humor. Jordan probably would have written that differently.” This is not a bad thing, by any means. I can’t recall any other Wheel of Time books that actually made me snort out loud in amusement over something a character says. Jordan’s humor has more to do with stereotypes, and the misunderstandings these cause…which are sometimes very, very funny…but in a shake-your-head-in-pity sort of funny, not lol funny. But I think Mat, in particular, could have done all along with a little more of the snarky, sardonic type of humor Sanderson is injecting into his character in this book.
Rand’s character got a whole lot darker than I expected in this book. He’s been getting more dark and distant for about four books now, and I thought they’d pushed that about as far as it could go. And I was actually beginning to be annoyed that they stretched the transformation out for so long. Thankfully, finally, that subplot got started on its resolution at the end of this book.
Egwene has turned out to be an awesome character. She really impressed me in Knife of Dreams, and she has impressed me further in this book. Perrin didn’t get much screen time this time around, which was disappointing in the sense that, now that he’s rescued his wife, he desperately needs a direction, a focus, a reason to remain in the story. He really didn’t get one…they were still tying up the Faile abduction subplot that was already pretty much over with. Perrin’s presence felt a little purposeless this time around. I hope that gets fixed. I really don’t think he came all this way just to end up as someone who stands beside Rand in the Last Battle and calls in the wolves.
I loved the part where Cadsuane starts seeing herself in Semirhage; she needed that. I wished they hadn’t killed off Semirhage the way they did…seemed a little abrupt, and anti-climactic. I actually kind of liked Semirhage, as far as villains go…of all the female Forsaken, she reminds me the most of Nasira (Raphel’s ras, from the prequel I’m planning). The way Graendal was taken care of also felt contrived, as though the author really didn’t know what to do with her and decided to just get rid of her. She really hasn’t done anything (that I can recall off the top of my head.) (Granted, we’re not absolutely sure she’s dead, and Forsaken have this knack for reappearing when they are most unexpected. But, balefire…?)
What else. I finished Elantris today, and wow. That was his debut?? I liked it better than Warbreaker. I may have to procure a copy of my own, simply to have a really good reference on how to pace a fantasy novel. And how to make each POV character and his/her entourage interesting enough that you actually want to follow all the subplots (and not just slog through them in order to get back to the interesting storyline). Sanderson also appears to construct magical systems the same way I do…less mystical, more scientific in nature. I tend to like those better, as part of the fun is figuring out how the whole system works together.
So I’m sitting on the hubby’s computer right now, because my hard drive crashed yesterday. And of course, hard drives only fail when you haven’t backed up in a while.
Wednesday’s Wisdom: Back up your stuff. Often.
Luckily, I had just sent a copy of the second draft out to my critique group, so if worse comes to worse, I’ve only lost a chapter (and some pictures). I’m not looking forward to the prospect of rewriting an entire chapter, especially since I was almost freaking done with the story. The hubby thinks the drive may just have a bad head, which means the data is probably okay. Replace the head, and we can get my stuff back. However, we don’t know how expensive this endeavor would be. It has to be done by a professional, so it could be prohibitively so.
In happier news, I finished the bird decal I’d been working on for the lid of my computer. I’d post pictures, as it’s Thursday, except for the whole not being on my own computer problem.
I’m a bit irritated because I’m really not going to be able to write until we get my drive fixed, or call it a loss and put in the other drive. Seriously, yesterday I was ready to swear off digital storage and just start printing hard copies of my chapters as I finish them. I mean, we’ve only had that drive 5 months, and I haven’t been that hard on it. But apparently hard drives, even the best ones, can literally fail at any moment for no reason at all. No matter how long (or not long) you’ve had them. That kind of makes you nervous, you know? At least paper is relatively permanent, unless your house floods or burns down (a much less likely occurrence).
Man in the Yellow Hat: “Has anyone seen a monkey carrying a vacuum cleaner?”
Passerby: “Was he wearing a cape?”
Man in the Yellow Hat: “I…don’t know…could there be more than one monkey with a vacuum in the city?”
Posted by nightphoenix on Mar 2, 2010 in Novels, Writing
Brendan kissed Saeli today.
And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop him.
I think the only reason he didn’t do it in the first draft is because Scisaxar was borrowing his body, and then he was preoccupied with Geris and then Raphel. Well, I moved Scisaxar over to the HP’s body…a necessary consequence of leaving her alive…and moved Brendan onto the scene earlier. Of course the first thing he did was run up and hug Saeli, and I didn’t anticipate that, either. I was going to have him interrogate her about the portal, about why she’s working with Raphel…but when he actually got there, he didn’t give a rip about any of that. The only thing in his head was throwing his arms around the girl he loved and assuring himself that she was really, truly there. I mean, she’s been with the enemy for a month, leaving him stewing over the fact that she may or may not be in love with her captor. Then he survives the attack on Aschamon, and hears that she’s the one who betrayed the school. And then he sees her on the balcony, alone.
I should have known.
I actually did not want him to kiss her, because of some lofty thematic reasons and because it makes his downfall more tragic if he never gets the chance to even touch Saeli. But, unfortunately, I gave him the opportunity and he ran with it. He had to kiss her, once, not because he thinks that will change her mind, but actually because he knows she doesn’t love him like that. He isn’t going to get another chance, no matter what goes down, and he knows that. (If Saeli had displayed any spark of romantic interest in that first moment when she spotted him, he wouldn’t have done it.) It’s quite possibly the most selfish action Brendan ever takes in the story, and I can’t say I didn’t push him to it.
And I can’t say I’m sorry for it. I’ve actually been in Brendan’s place, in that same moment…gods, with that same opportunity…and I never had the courage to do what he did. Maybe his character needed that brief show of strength, because Brendan has to be at least a semi-legitimate rival for Saeli’s affection. He can’t compete with Raphel (hell, nobody can), but I have to make him strong enough and sympathetic enough that the reader knows he would have been worthy of Saeli’s love, had Raphel never entered the picture. I think that’s what makes his character tragic…not because he never took the chance, but because he never stood a chance against someone like Raphel. He deserved a fair shot and circumstance took it away from him.
Also, Saeli should have chosen Brendan and she didn’t. She couldn’t have chosen him, else there’d be no story…but she should have. Brendan plays the part of the Wrong Guy in this particular dark romance…but Raphel is the Wrong Guy for Saeli, personally, and for any gal, in general. He doesn’t know how to love…doesn’t know how to even deal with the possibility. And by the end of the story, Saeli knows it.
There’s a particular exchange from the movie Ice Age that I think rather illuminates why intimidation does not draw people closer to God. I know…deep, right? Here’s the actual passage:
MANFRED: You…check for poop.
SID: Why am I the poop-checker?
MANFRED: Because returning the runt was your idea, because you’re small and insignificant, and because I’ll pummel you if you don’t.
[pause]
SID: Why else?
MANFRED: Now, Sid!
Now imagine how that would play out if you replaced the character of Manfred with God, Sid with a typical person, and changed some of the wording.
GOD: You…repent.
PERSON: Why do I have to be the one who repents?
GOD: Because eating the fruit in the garden was your idea, because you’re small and insignificant, and because I’ll pummel you if you don’t.
[pause]
PERSON: Why else?
GOD: Now, Sinner!
Not quite as funny, at least to me, because I’ve actually heard some of the above arguments used, on occasion. Persuasion by intimidation may yield warm bodies, but it doesn’t yield followers. There, I’m putting my soapbox away.
Voices in the distance, beautiful
Somebody’s calling beyond control
Have you ever felt desperation?
This whole world is filled with loss
We will regret it when we sleep
Promises never meant to keep
When all of the shadows lead
As a good man’s hiding a dream
Do they know that the world’s on fire?
Time has a price we can’t afford
An empty glass and an open door
You get what you paid for in sweat
And a voice says please don’t forget
Do they know that the world’s on fire?
Do they know that the time is now?
Do they know that you gotta stand up, stand up
Let your voice speak out
Do they know that it’s time?
Caught in a maze you can’t escape
The flickering lights, and the colored lens
The walls that we build just close in
Until we decide to begin
Are we distracted by the sun?
The gleaming jewels, and the beating drums
Is it going the distance we fear?
Have you heard that we’re already here?
Do they know that the world’s on fire?
Do they know that the time is now?
Do they know that you gotta stand up, stand up
Let your voice speak out
Do they know that the world’s on fire?
Do they know that the time is here?
Do they know that you gotta stand up, stand up
Let your voice be clear
Do they know that it’s time?
Some will say we’ve gone too far
We’re on the edge and in too deep
Some will say we’re too far gone
You can’t erase the tragedy
Do they know that the world’s on fire?
Do they know that the time is here?
Do they know that you gotta stand up, stand up
Yeah, you gotta stand up
Do they know that the world’s on fire?
Do they know that the time is here?
Do they know that you gotta stand up, stand up
Let your voice be clear
Do they know that it’s time?
Brandon Sanderson has officially impressed me. I just finished Warbreaker, which I grabbed because the library had it sitting on their new book shelf. I said, “Oh, that’s the guy that’s finishing the Wheel of Time series, and does Writing Excuses (my favorite writing podcast).” And the inside cover blurb actually looked interesting, in a genre where very little catches my eye anymore.
Honestly, it wasn’t the most impressive or enthralling piece of fiction I’ve ever read, but it was good. I never had the urge to put it down and go do something else. The magic premise, BioChroma, was fascinating, and one I’m tempted to steal from. And he managed to successfully fool me into thinking the good guys were the bad guys and vice versa, which I enjoyed. I’ve seen funnier snark…but not much funnier, and not in the adult genre. YA tends to have more snark, and characters who snip at each other. Sanderson’s snark is sophisticated (which you won’t really find in YA), and I like that.
I picked up his debut, Elantris, from the library the other day, and also I finally got my hands on a copy of The Gathering Storm, which is the next Wheel of Time book. I’ll be reading those over the next couple of days.
Shades is coming along…slowly. Last night I went through the whole second draft, formatting it to send to my critique group. Well, of course, I can’t go through my writing without editing, and thus it took a lot longer than it should have. But I made some good changes…mostly tightening scenes, making them as clear as I can. I’ve been a little stuck at my current spot because I’m about to introduce Scisaxar as a character for the first time, and I really don’t know him very well.
The problem is, I haven’t found a way to relate Scisaxar directly to Raphel, or even to Saeli. He’s still drifting around on the periphery of my main characters, and is thus distant to me. Yuril is much easier to write now because she’s had some stage time, and she’s in love with Raphel. I don’t know how Scisaxar feels about Raphel, or Saeli, or any of the main characters. I’m going to drop him into the scene just after Yuril breaks Raphel’s fingers, and I know that Scisaxar is going to be pissed that Yuril has been blasting holes in his Temple. We’ll start with that, and see where he takes it.
Another thing that I’ve been pondering, and something that might help me with Scisaxar’s character, is that I’ve been trying to determine what the “inciting incident” between the two gods was. Why do they hate each other? What started the war in the first place?
Things I know: 1) On a much deeper level, the war has to do with Yuril’s and Scisaxar’s frustration over the Oath. They pit their followers against each other when in truth, both of them would prefer a direct confrontation. It frustrates them to have to work through mortals, and thus each blames the other even more for forcing them to sacrifice followers. This leads them both to be cruel and distant with their peoples. Cruel, because they don’t understand the source of their anger, and thus they take it out on their people. Distant, because they cannot afford to get emotionally attached to people they are sending out to die for them.
2) Both gods helped curse the Midplains. Raphel is right about that. What Raphel doesn’t know is that they did it as a desperate measure, to stop a certain secret society of people. These were the original gray mages, who knew how to build inter-world portals, who could summon both light and dark angelics, and who were delving into angelic and spirit lore that would have been better left alone. These experiments actually drew the attention of the Keeper of the Oath, who paid a short visit to Verre just before the Cursing. Well, that scared the you-know-what out of Yuril and Scisaxar. The Cursing was both a desperate measure and a panic reaction, and was perhaps overdone.
Now, I have a choice to make. Was the Cursing itself the two gods’ inciting incident, leading them to go to war for more than a hundred years…or did the disagreement start before that, and the gods temporarily put it aside for the Cursing?
If the Cursing was the inciting incident, then the resulting war is genuine. Both gods think that the other handled their part of the Cursing badly, or they blame the other for having to do such a thing, or whatever. They have a legitimate, relatively recent grievance against one another. However, if the gods put aside their conflict temporarily for the Cursing, then the resulting war would have to be a farce. In fact, it’s even possible that the gods were never truly at war in the first place, and their “hatred” is a cover-up to keep the world from discovering the truth.
I honestly like the second option better, because it makes the ending to Shades more plausible. Having Saeli single-handedly convince two gods who genuinely hate each other to stop a war they’ve been at for over a hundred years seems unlikely. But if their conflict isn’t real, her job is much easier. However, it dangerously reduces any empathy one might have for these gods…because that means they’ve been sacrificing their followers for a lie. It makes it look like Raphel was right about them, which will make it difficult for the readers to empathize with them towards the end. It works for the overall story of Verre, because the gods really were preventing something that would be ultimately worse than a hundred year war. But Raphel doesn’t know that, and Saeli doesn’t know that, and so the gods are, to them, going to look like monsters. And the only way I can prove that they aren’t monsters is to reveal a whole lot of information and backstory that I don’t want to cover in this trilogy. That’s what the sequel is for.
Perhaps the war began as a farce, but then got personal for the gods. Scisaxar is winning, after all, when the story opens. Maybe he started to press his military advantage and broke the unspoken understanding between him and Yuril. But why would he do that? I have to pull this back to the Cursing somehow. He would have to have some sort of grudge, if not against Yuril herself, then against her followers. Several possibilities present themselves. The most obvious is that Yuril attracts more followers and Scisaxar is jealous. Or he honestly feels that her followers are degenerates, and despises/feels sorry for them. Or they did something that got a lot of his people killed. No, that’s too general. They did something that got one certain person that Scisaxar really cared about killed. That would be a very strong motivation for wanting to win a farcical war.
Ah, an idea. Scisaxar loved a pre-Cursing gray mage, one of the ones in the thick of the angel experiments. The gods decided, together, that the order of gray mages had to be destroyed and the knowledge buried. They devised the Curse between them and set it loose on the Midplains. Afraid for his love, Scisaxar pursued her and pursued her, and finally brought her around to his point of view. He made her a White Mantle, and thus thought she’d be protected. Then, while the Curse was still spreading, she and a whole mess of her cohorts got caught by Cowls. Both gods’ followers had orders to kill or convert any gray mage. Scisaxar’s love refused to become a Cowl, so they killed her. Scisaxar demanded retribution, but Yuril refused, saying that even though the girl had repented of what she’d done, she still had the knowledge. The knowledge had to die. Scisaxar’s grief leaked into the still-spreading Curse, and it devoured the land as well. Once they contained it, followers from both sides were shocked and confused over why the gods would do such a thing. Yuril suggested that they stage a war, and let each side blame the other. The true reason for the Cursing would surely be buried. Scisaxar, afraid of losing all his followers, agreed. The war began, both as a farce and as revenge, on the white god’s part.
That’s very vague, and I can probably tweak it. But it could have a number of ramifications. One, Scisaxar is going to hold a severe grudge against Cowls, and against Yuril for letting them do what they did. It’s not really her fault; Yuril probably wouldn’t have sanctioned killing the girl, but the Cowls didn’t ask beforehand. Scisaxar is going to make sure his own people follow a strict hierarchy that leads directly to him, and he’s going to make sure they never act outside of his jurisdiction. He’s going to be jealous that Yuril manages to attract more followers, but at the same time, he’s not going to take any pains to make himself likable. Something like how a grieving widower would feel about a sibling who gets a lot of attention…jealous, but unwilling to compete. That jealousy is going to be manifested specifically in how he feels about the Raphel problem…because he can see that Yuril loves Raphel the way he loved ____. But Scisaxar’s also the one who will be suffering the most remorse over the Cursing, because he essentially screwed it up. He’ll possibly be the one who is more willing to listen to Saeli in the end.
So the war is both a farce, and personal, but more personal on Scisaxar’s end. Scisaxar’s pain amuses Yuril, but she doesn’t allow herself to think about it too deeply…lest she be reminded of how she really feels about Raphel. And worse, Raphel is exactly the kind of Cowl the white god hates, because he’s a wild card. He does what he wants, and the gods can go screw themselves. It was those kind of Cowls who killed Scisaxar’s love. He’ll hate Raphel, and hate that a Cowl managed to steal yet another follower away from him (first Kaladan, then Saeli), and he’ll hate Yuril for wanting to spare Raphel, and he’ll hate that were the tides turned, he would do exactly the same thing as his sister. No wonder the gods have to abandon the scene…neither of them can act. Their hands are tied by their pasts, and by the Oath. And we’re back to the Oath again.
I think I have a handle on the white god now. Enough to start writing him, anyway.
Wow. Scisaxar is walking into this conflict with some seriously complicated crap in his past.
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 25, 2010 in Creative
I found an interesting blog written by another mommy, which I will have to poke around in a little more. But I thought her aspiring writers pledge was a good idea. I mean, hey, I’m already working on it, right?
I, Nightphoenix, take The Aspiring Writers Pledge to write a book in 2010 with the intent of publishing. I promise to update my progress weekly, ask when I need support and encourage others to complete the task at hand.
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 24, 2010 in Novels, Writing
Sorry, all you over on Facebook, but this is going under the user-only cut. Go visit the actual blog if you’re really interested. http://nightphoenix.com