Eh, why not? I actually do have certain things I keep in mind while writing.
1.) Symbolic details. You can’t describe everything in every room a character walks into, nor do you need to. Nobody notices everything all at once. They notice the things that call to what they are feeling. Someone who is down is more likely to notice the drowned weed in the asphalt, while a cheerful person might notice the freshness in the air. Every detail = chaos. Certain details = mood. I usually try to pick a single color, or smell, or temperature of the air for a scene, and all my details call back to that. The scene I’m currently working on in Shades is near the climax, where Saeli is in the middle of trying to get this portal built. My color is indigo. The whole mood and feeling of that scene is in shades of shadow and indigo, and height. Open space. (They are in a tower that’s had a wall blasted away.) This particular scene takes place over the course of a sunrise, so my ambiance will follow the sun. The sunrise is even symbolic. Nobody up to this point except Saeli, Raphel, Mora, and Kaladan know about the portal, but by the end of the scene when the sun rises, everyone will know the secret.
2) Be a pair of eyes. Or a camera. Instead of describing the room to a reader, I try to describe the room as the character sees it. I can’t always do this, and I don’t think you have to for every description, but it can provide a focus for the longer, milieu descriptions that are a pain to write and boring to read. Otherwise, I pretend I am filming a certain space. How would I light the set? How would I arrange the props? Where would I start the shot? End it? What would I zoom in on? At what point does the character enter the set? Etc. A picture is worth a thousand words. Those words had better be coherent.
3) Pave the clouds. In other words, replace abstract details with concrete ones.Don’t just spit out general details about the world and its history. (My first draft is full of this ) Weave that history into snapshots in your characters’ lives, and let the character relate them to each other (with their own spin, of course). Example:
Raphel is giving Saeli the same information both times, but the second time around, he’s also giving specific details about his own life. Telling the reader that the legend exists is not enough: tying it to a character the reader cares about is what makes that information relevant and interesting. A random legend from Verre, though relevant to the story and necessary information for the reader, is just not as interesting as Raphel relating a tiny slice of his past.
4) Walk, talk, and chew gum. My characters talk. A lot. A good half, if not more, of the major conflict in my story is played out through verbal sparring. In my first draft, my characters did a lot of sitting around and talking, which is kind of boring. This time around, I’m making them get up and do things. Move the talk around. Make it relate to what’s going on around them. Quite honestly, there’s still a lot of characters sitting around talking in Shades…but I try to break it up. Saeli might hang onto every word Raphel says for a few beats, but then she’ll pull back for a moment. Or something happens. Even if the characters are sitting in one place talking, I try to make it so that other characters are moving around them, and other things are happening in the same space.
5) Sharpen those stakes. Add characters with conflicting agendas. Add an audience. Add crappy circumstances. Make it so that the only possible solution to one problem is going to cause five other problems. Give characters choices, and make them all bad choices. Make everyone in the story an antagonist to at least one person. The whole Geris subplot evolved because I needed to give Raphel a major problem to deal with. I’m bringing in the whole Mantle remnant to watch Saeli finish the portal in the Temple. That means her caving into Raphel when he kisses her has witnesses…the very people she’d rather die than have them see that.
Just don’t make the problem impossible to solve, and write yourself in a deus ex mechina ending. Or one where you have to kill everyone.
6) Destroy the set. Any scene where a character is physically damaged, the environment had better reflect that. Make messes. Knock tapestries off the wall. Bring the roof down. Blow things up. Start fires. Peril, peril, peril. Peril is fun. It imposes time constraints on characters already under pressure. This is mostly a function of raising stakes, and partially a function of using symbolic details. I had Yuril blow a hole in the city Temple and knock down half the western tower, where Saeli is busy trying to build a portal. (Why? Because she hates anything connected to Scisaxar, and she’s pissed at Raphel, but mostly, because she’s a goddess and she can.) It raises the stakes on Saeli because 1) now the tower is a treacherous space; 2) Yuril and Raphel are now fighting on the Temple roof, which is far more treacherous ground than the balcony would have been; and 3) everyone in the whole freaking city can see what she’s doing. And…the Temple is the most sacred space in the city, and the city is Saeli’s home. Yuril’s action on the Temple mirrors what Raphel is doing to her heart.
7) Kill somebody. Okay, not really. Not every story needs a body count, but every story needs an element of sacrifice. Stories where characters are killed off in pointless and arbitrary ways drive me crazy. That’s not sacrifice; that’s slaughter. The point is that the main character needs to lose something precious to them in order to accomplish the story goal, and it needs to be something that they cannot fully recover. It can be something as ephemeral as innocence, or as concrete as their best friend. Any person “lost” by the protagonist does not always have to die, either…distance and circumstance can separate people as surely as death can. Saeli will lose both of her best friends by the end of the story. Brendan is killed. Cara lives to the end, but the friendship that she and Saeli shared just cannot fully recover from the events of the story. Both are too changed.
(If you write childrens and middle grade fiction, for the most part, disregard this. I think kids up to a certain age like it better if the ending is nice and neat, the good guys all win, and the bad guys all get what they deserve.)
8 ) Give the hardworking hero a treat. This becomes vitally necessary when the protagonist must make a giant sacrifice to win. Give the poor guy/girl something nice for making it through hell alive. Saeli sacrifices the life she knows, her best friends, her innocence, and very nearly her own life to save Verre (first from the war, and then from Raphel). Not to mention that she brings down Raphel by her own hands, and stupid or not, she did love him. Seeing the war end is just not going to be enough for her at this point, which is why I had to bring Naeth back from the dead. He is her unexpected reward. Another example would be in Star Wars. Luke accomplishes the story goal of bringing down the Emperor. He loses his aunt, his uncle, his mentor, his hand, a good chunk of the rebel fleet, and finally his father in the process. His unexpected reward is that his father repented before the end, and is at peace.
That’s all I have for now. If I come up with any others, I’ll post them.
The hubby and I saw The Lightning Thief last Friday. Now I know what Debra Dixon was talking about, that you’ll never be able to watch a movie again without picking it apart. Gah. I was GMCing all the characters AND trying to determine where the hero was on the hero’s journey at any particular moment. (Well, that movie was classic hero’s journey, so…that wasn’t really hard.) It was an enjoyable movie…I liked it. I have to say that now, because I’m fixing to tear it apart. I also need to say that I have not read the Percy Jackson books yet, although I probably will now. So this is just my thoughts on the movie alone.
First of all, my general reaction is that I no longer really like this kind of story.
There are essentially two kinds of hero. There are “safe” heros, the Percy Jacksons. Kids like these heroes, because they are generally nobodies who discover that they are somebodies, and despite their initial reluctance and bumbling around, they end up saving the world and everyone goes home safe. (And as this story is geared tower a middle school audience, I’m not saying this is a bad thing.) These heroes walk through hell, and come out the other side changed, but mostly unscathed, and with the quest item in hand. They get themselves into perilous situations left and right, but in the end, they win the battle without losing anyone or anything really important to them. The friend in danger always gets rescued, and anyone left behind somehow makes it out alive. Good and evil are clean cut, for the most part, and when the hero is given a choice, it is clear which choice he should make.
Then there are heroes like Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. These are the ones who have to scratch and claw their way to what they want, who must struggle for every inch of ground they gain in both their inner and outer battles. They win, but at a very high cost. They get themselves into perilous situations, and get out, but each one takes away a little piece of something that they can’t get back. They walk into hell with five comrades, and stagger out with their last living comrade on their shoulders, his life bleeding away…and then they discover that they left the item that can save the world back in the tunnel. So now they have to choose between saving their last friend’s life, or saving the world…and then they have to live with the knowledge that they could have saved that friend’s life. The hero must pick between a bad situation and a worse one…and he doesn’t always know which is which.
I would have left Percy’s mother with Hades, or killed her off in the end. But that’s because I like the latter kind of hero better, as a writer. I like victory to carry a price tag, the higher the better. Percy Jackson didn’t really emerge from his conflict a changed person…a little more mature, and aware of his parentage, perhaps, but still pretty much the same guy. Also, I find that it bothers me when a hero is able to instantaneously master powers and skills that take everyone else years to learn. Especially when it’s clear that the hero isn’t a prodigy or a genius. Prodigy I can deal with: Aang was a prodigy. But even when he was faced with mastering all four elements in a matter of months (when it normally takes years), he had trouble. Earthbending gave him trouble. Firebending was a disaster the first time he tried it. And he never really did master the Avatar state!
Percy Jackson learned how to use a sword competently in a matter of hours, it would seem (and yeah, I know they compress time for movies, but still)…and after partaking of some of Daddy’s superpowers, he was able to whoop the butt of a girl who’d been training her entire life. And only because Poseidon is a bigger and badder god than Athena…nothing to do with the hero’s own merit or whatnot. If I’d been writing the story, Percy would have lost that battle, and learned a lesson from it.
What else. I was really liking the way the story modernized many of the Greek myths, showing how things like Medusa and the Lotus Eaters had evolved over the centuries. Even the underworld had a modern “feel” to it, and both Hades and Persephone would not have looked out of place on the streets of NYC. But then, when they finally got to Mount Olympus and the gods’ court, the ancient Greek dress and the armour and the decor just killed it for me. I wanted to see that in a modern context as well…being transported back to ancient Greece was jarring. It made the whole scene feel irrelevant, and almost cheesy. The hubby made a good suggestion, though: that perhaps the Greek gods have wrapped themselves in the trappings of their “golden age”, when men still worshiped them and they were a force in the world…and that they are unwilling or unable to let that age go. I’ll buy that; it’s a good theory. I wish the story had made that clear, however.
Ah: one major myth fail in the movie. The heroes travel to the underworld and meet Persephone, Hades’ wife, who is clearly unhappy with her lot. That’s fine. The problem is, this story is supposed to take place in midsummer. The movie is one big countdown to the summer solstice. If you know the story of Persephone, you know that because she partook of the food of the underworld, she has to stay there for half the year; the other half she spends with her mother, Demeter, and the world prospers. While Persephone is in the underworld with Hades, Demeter grieves, and that’s why we have winter. Thus, Persephone would not have even been in the underworld during the summer! The story could have just as easily taken place over the winter solstice, if they had to have a solstice…so I just don’t get how that detail slipped by everyone.
One last major thing: they screwed up the major antagonist’s GMC, and thereby spoiled any chance of three-dimensionality in his character. First of all, I knew who the lightning thief was almost from the moment we met him onscreen…which was satisfying at the time, but totally ruined the “big reveal” moment towards the end. And then, lightning bolt in hand, they had him give this totally cliche villain speech…and that’s where the mistake was. (Forgive me if I don’t get the quotes exactly right…I’ve only seen the movie once, and several days ago now.)
“Why did you steal the bolt?” Percy Jackson asks.
“Why else?” the thief says. “For power. The gods have ruled long enough; I think it’s time for the second generation to take over.”
No, no, no. G=/=M. Power is not a motivation. It is a goal. Something (motivation) has to drive a person to seek power (goal). Not to mention that the whole I-want-power thing really did not jibe with the rest of Luke’s character. Luke’s inner struggle is that his father, Hermes, abandoned him, as all the gods must abandon their mortal children, and that just never sits well with him. He’s the sympathetic voice for all the lost demi-god kids in this world. “We’ve all got Daddy complexes, don’t we?” he asks at an earlier point in the movie. This is how that scene should have gone:
“Why did you steal the bolt?” Percy Jackson asks.
“Because I want to watch the gods destroy themselves in this war they’re going to start,” the thief says. “Why should we care? They abandoned us; they never needed us. So I say, we don’t need them!”
Now Percy Jackson has something in common with the villain: both have been abandoned by their fathers. Luke might even press the point and try to sway Percy to his side: “Why are you helping them? They don’t care about anything but themselves.” Percy’s choice about whether to return the bolt to Zeus is suddenly a whole lot less obvious, and the conflict is a whole lot more interesting. And Luke becomes a much deeper, more human character.
But…that’s not how they did it. Oh well. Maybe the book does a better job. But overall, an enjoyable movie.
So, let’s see. I think I hunted around for some art to post in here last Thursday, but realized that the one thing I’d been working on was something I hadn’t taken pictures of yet. In cleaning the apartment, I found an unfinished mail-holder, and remembered that I’d once intended to use that to replace the little plastic drawers we’d been using for the purpose of collecting mail. So I drug it out again, and started working on it. Some of it is painted, and some of it I’m going to woodburn. I got to distress a paint finish for the first time, which was fun. I may take some pictures of it so far, and post those. I just haven’t gotten around to it.
Last week was good, in terms of writing, which is really why I’ve been neglecting the blog. Also, I gave myself a half hour in Books-a-Million last week to go through the YA section and pick out all the books I think I *need* to read, eventually.
Here’s the list I made:
Going Bovine ~ Libba Bray
I read her Gemma Doyle trilogy and loved it. She’s actually won some awards for the above, so it must be a pretty decent read.
The Demon’s Lexicon ~ Sarah Rees Brennan
I got lucky, and the West Melbourne library had a copy of this, which I snagged. I finished it last night, actually. I like her writing style and the way she characterizes her people. Sometimes the interactions between characters were a little hard to figure out, but I don’t know if that was just me not understanding teen angst, or what.
Hush, Hush ~ Becca Fitzpatrick
Beautiful Creatures ~ Kami Garcia/Margaret Stohl
The Host ~ Stephanie Meyer
Yes, that Stephanie Meyer. I did enjoy the Twilight series, even if I take issue with some of the characters’ actions and lack of real literary flair. They were enjoyable. I decided to put the above on my list simply from the back cover blurb, which looked interesting.
Wake Fade Gone ~ Lisa McMann
I read Wake last week. Actually, I finished it the same day I checked it out of the library. It is yet another novel I’ve found recently that is written in the present tense…is that becoming a trend in YA literature? Present tense sounds odd in my head when I think about it, but when I’m actually reading the story, my brain just ignores it after a while. The story was well-crafted and the premise was interesting, so I definitely want to get my hands on the next two at some point.
Vampire Academy books ~ Richelle Mead
Blue Moon Evermore Shadowland ~ Alyson Noel
Sabriel Lirael Abhorsen~ Garth Nix
I’ve heard nothing but good things about this trilogy. I think it’s time I discovered why.
Vampire Diaries books ~ L. J. Smith
This is almost the same kind of story that Twilight is, but these actually came out before Twilight (and may have been an influence). The moral, conflicted vampire boy falls for a human girl and the problems that result therein.
Shiver ~ Maggie Stiefvater
I think she even has another book out after this one, but I can’t remember what it’s called. The bookstore didn’t have it, at any rate.
Leviathan ~ Scott Westerfeld
Westerfeld is becoming one of my favorite YA authors. I just recently happened across a book called The Last Days in the library, which I discovered is a sequel to Peeps. (I didn’t know Peeps had a sequel.) I’m in the middle of The Last Days right now. Leviathan is the first of a new trilogy he’s working on, and I hear it’s as good as his others.
Some literary books it’s probably time I read, or read again:
Lord of the Flies ~ William Golding
One I managed to avoid reading during high school, but since it is the most classic and popular use of the kids-alone premise, I should probably give it a shot.
To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee
Another one I wriggled out of in high school. I think I even attempted it on my own once, and found it boring. Time for another try.
Catcher in the Rye ~ J. D. Salinger
Now, this one I did have to read in high school, and all I remember about it was that I really didn’t like it much. But as a writer, I might find it more interesting. It’s kind of one of the original YA stories.
Wicked ~ Gregory Maguire
Not literary exactly, but I’ve heard his Wicked Witch books are good. Plus, I’d like to find out how he makes the witch a sympathetic character.
When they come out:
White Cat ~ Holly Black
I liked Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside…and I hear that Jace from Claire’s Mortal Instruments series makes a cameo appearance. (These gals all know each other, and their characters sometimes slip into each others’ books for fun.)
A Clockwork Angel City of Fallen Angels ~ Cassandra Claire
Carries on some of the characters from her Mortal Instruments trilogy, which I am a fan of.
The Season of Risks ~ Susan Hubbard
The next book in the Society of S vampire story, which is probably the most different and interesting take on vampires I’ve seen yet.
Lies ~ Michael Grant
The next book in his Gone series, which uses a premise not unlike that of Lord of the Flies. I have a story in the queue that also uses the idea of a bunch of kids with superpowers surviving on their own without adults…so I remain curious as to where Grant will take his story.
Yeah, it’s a long list. But it will keep me busy for a while, I hope. I also intend on finishing the Wheel of Time series as the last books come out. Speaking of, while I was at the library, I checked out a book by Brandon Sanderson, who has been entrusted with finishing the Wheel of Time since the original author, Jordan, died. (I do not envy him that project. At all. If you’ve read the Wheel of Time, you’ll understand why.) Sanderson also does a very informative and entertaining podcast called Writing Excuses with two other guys (took me a while to put two and two together, and realize that Writing Excuses’ Brandon was THAT Brandon). The premise of the book I picked up sounded fascinating (and keep in mind, very little in the fantasy genre sounds fascinating to me anymore), so I decided to find out if he’s as good a writer as he seems to be.
I also checked out a book called Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, who wrote The Giver and Number the Stars, two books I enjoyed from my childhood. Apparently Gathering Blue is a pseudo-continuation of The Giver, and in the last book, the two main characters from each meet. And yeah, I totally just looked that up online…I didn’t know the two were related when I was at the library. Lowry is a prolific and well-respected childrens’ and YA author…so it would behoove me, as a writer, to read the best in my genre, right?
Today I head back to Books-a-Million when they open at 10AM, and continue writing on Shades.
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 18, 2010 in Daily, Writing
Today I managed to write a pretty good chunk of Shades. I got Saeli started in the portal form, and brought the first of my obstacles, Geris, onto the scene. Today I almost managed to write myself into a corner, when the established rules of magic in my world prevented me from doing something the simple way. Please Login or Register to view this.
Anyway, that’s why we’ve taken a break from our regular schedule of bloggish activities. I’ve actually been, you know, productive.
And the apartment is clean! It’s great! I can actually concentrate on clearing up some areas that always get ignored because I’m too busy trying to catch up with a backload of dishes and laundry.
I just happened across a new trailer for The Last Airbender (M. Night Shyamalan’s take on the awesome Avatar series that Nickelodeon put out). Looks pretty cool, though I worry that Aang looks way too serious.
My mother and I spent a good chunk of yesterday cleaning the entire apartment, which left me completely exhausted. I took a nap before dinner, and then after we ate, I laid back down. After about two hours of this, the hubby and I decided to just go on to bed…so we did. Which is why I did not update yesterday.
So…I picked up another vampire book from the library the other day. Too bad our libraries don’t seem to carry any of the newer YA fantasy books that I’d like to read, but oh well. The book I picked up was Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz. which is apparently the first in a series. It was not a bad book…but all the same, I didn’t think it was all that good, either.
The first thing I noticed after the first few pages was that the POV tends to wander from head to head several times per scene, and it’s not always clear whose head you are supposed to be in. One person will enter the scene, and begin talking to another person. You start reading about how Person #2 is internally reacting to Person #1, and at some point you realize that you are now in Person #2’s head. Then Person #3 joins the conversation, and now we start hearing what THEY are thinking. Now I had been informed, in no uncertain terms, by several different sources, that this is one of those things that you Don’t Do in Fiction. Period. After reading a book where it is done, I can understand why they tell you not to do it. It’s confusing. I don’t like having to backtrack in a story because the POV swapped from one person to another and I didn’t realize it. Seriously. Scene breaks! Don’t head-hop.
The story also took a long time to get going. About 65 pages into the book, and the only real significant thing that has happened is that a girl has been found dead. We’ve had a paragraph of description for every main character, and several dedicated to various locations around NYC. These did a pretty good job of painting the ritzy, upper-upper class culture that these characters live in, but they really didn’t create a mood, or add to the tension. And there were a lot of them.
Okay, and I know this is part of that subculture, but it irritates me when I have to hear all about the characters’ wardrobes every few pages. Also, the characters’ descriptions are never anything like how real people would describe themselves. They read like character bios from the inside cover of a manga. For example:
“Schuyler was startlingly pretty, with a sweet, heart-shaped face; a perfectly upturned nose; and soft, milky skin- but there was something almost insubstantial about her beauty. She looked like a Dresden doll in witch’s clothing. Kids at the Duchesne School thought she dressed like a bag lady. It didn’t help that she was painfully shy and kept to herself, because then they just thought she was stuck-up, which she wasn’t. She was just quiet.”
Just before this, we were in Schuyler’s head as she made a comment. Then we had a paragraph of description of what she was wearing. Followed by the above. Are we still in Schuyler’s head? I dunno, because I don’t think most people would describe themselves as “startlingly pretty”, call their own face “sweet”, and describe their own complexion as “milky”. (Unless, of course, they were completely stuck-up. But we’re told she isn’t). The last two sentences are the only ones that sound like they could have come out of Schuyler’s head…as a lot of teenagers see themselves as shy, and think that the world perceives them as stuck-up because they don’t talk to people. I believe that. I don’t buy the rest. Sorry.
And of course, it being a vampire book, we have to have the “big reveal” moment, when the main character discovers that 1) vampires are real and 2) she is one. (Actually, two of the main characters have to face this transition.) As far as reveals go, this one falls pretty flat. I mean, you the reader know that the two main girls are vampires long before they themselves figure it out. (If you’ve read the inside cover, you know before the story opens). So all of the shock, and disbelief, and denial that the characters go through when they figure it out rings false, or falls flat. This is one of the big problems with writing a vampire book right now, especially when the main characters of the story don’t know they are vampires. With so many vampire books on the market right now, it’s hard to believe that any intelligent youth embroiled in a vampire story would fail to realize that they are, in fact, in a vampire story. Such a reveal requires the characters to live in a world in which the current market of young adult vampire literature does not exist. Having the characters react with disbelief and shock makes them look idiotic instead of realistic. This is not the author’s fault, but it is something that could have been handled a little better.
Overall, I’m not all that enthused with this story…not enough to read the next book in the series. (Even the House of Night books were more interesting than this one, and I have enough issues with HoN to fill a whole other entry). I think, if I am going to explore any more current vampire books, I will pick either the Vampire Academy series or the Vampire Diaries series (which inspired Twilight, if I remember right).
Well, I never did get around to posting something in here yesterday. Alas, alas. However, I’ve been pretty productive with my writing, so I say that makes up for it. I finished the chapter that was bogging me down, and am a good ways into the next one. I find myself making Raphel much nicer this time around, in the way he says things..which is interesting, because I’ve apparently also been making him meaner, too. There is a definite disconnect between his words and his actions, and the gulf is growing as the story goes on. He will do something awful to Saeli, but then he will list all his reasonable, unavoidable reasons for doing so, and show himself to be as worried and frustrated and human as she are, and he doesn’t like doing stuff like that, but…and Saeli finds herself nodding her head in agreement without a clear idea of how she got there. It’s all very underhanded. He knows if he’s outright mean, he’ll scare her off for good.
I’ve also been working on a book cover idea. It’s a scene that doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the story, but is rather a nod to the initial dream I had that inspired the story in the first place. I was with some dark-clad people, and we were hiding in a big city from a group of cold, white-robed people marching down the street, chanting like monks. I wasn’t one of the dark people, though, and I had the impression that I was actually supposed to be with the white-robed ones. But I wasn’t really one of them, either, though I was more like them than I was like the dark ones. But the dark ones weren’t really so bad, I found. (Thus, Saeli’s unique position in the world was born). Originally I had called the two groups the Blacks and the Whites, but it was suggested to me that those names were much too un-politically correct, and I agreed.
Scan:
This is the scan of the original drawing I did. It’s cobbled together from a bunch of different sources, which I put together in Photoshop and printed out. I then did what many might consider cheating, and traced straight from that composition using a lightbox. I would torn my hair out trying to get that architecture right otherwise. I’ve had to tweak the image sufficiently that I no longer feel guilty about it. (Wait…no. I never felt guilty about it. Oh well.) It looks weird at the bottom because the drawing is bigger than the scanner, and so I had to scan it in two pieces. The drawing isn’t going to show up on the finished piece; it’s only a guide for my Photoshopping. The figures in the foreground are Raphel and Saeli (if that wasn’t obvious). That is the High Priestess leading the line of professors; I haven’t decided who the others are (if anyone). That’s supposed to be the city Temple in the background.
Value sketch:
I learned about the concept of an underpainting in one of my Stetson classes, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually *needed* to do one. The purpose of the underpainting is to figure out where all the lights and darks will be. Because my source images came from so many places, my source composition had no consistant value scale whatsoever. (Plus, they were all daytime images, and this is a nighttime picture). The final image won’t be sepia-toned.
Where I’m at now:
Here’s where I’m at in the coloring process. I made the scene take place in the purple hour, Saeli’s favorite time of day. Right now I’m just filling in the flat colors; I will go back in different layers to put in the shadows and highlights. White buildings at night are interesting, to say the least. Black and white clothing isn’t much better. I’m trying to make it so that the grays on the left side of the image are made from purples, and the grays on the right are made from yellows, so that I have a warm gray/cool gray contrast. Saeli is pretty dead neutral.
The amount of work I can get done when I’m not at home is astronomical compared to what I do at my desk. I wish Books-a-Million opened earlier than 10AM. Places like Panera Bread and various coffee shops open early, but you really aren’t supposed to just sit in there without buying something (some places have a policy), and that could very quickly get expensive. I suppose I could sit outside and work (maybe when it gets a little warmer, heh). I got a lot of writing done Monday…if I can do that on all the days when Eli is at school, I can have the first book of Shades done by the end of March, which is my goal.
) Weave that history into snapshots in your characters’ lives, and let the character relate them to each other (with their own spin, of course). Example:
I also need to say that I have not read the Percy Jackson books yet, although I probably will now. So this is just my thoughts on the movie alone.
