0
Like!Shades update
I committed a grave writer’s sin the other day, and started revising a portion of Shades before the rough draft is done. In my defense, I really can’t help it if good ideas occur to me at inopportune times. Not only am I not done with the ending yet, I was driving when I had the brainwave and had to wait until I got home to play with it.
Shades update
I think I could get the first draft done this week if I really, really worked on it. Literally, if I wrote for 2 hours every day…and more importantly, didn’t spend that time going back through what I’ve already written…I could get there. As always, however, whether that will actually happen shall be dictated by circumstance and the cooperation of a certain three year old.
Then the cutting process will begin. I know of two whole scenes I can nix without even thinking about it, and numerous other bits and pieces. I’m sure I’ll find more once I actually re-read, especially in the first section. The angelic subplot can get cut…I started it on Dheu and then never had the space to take it anywhere. It just kind of fizzles out. The Keeper subplot can probably be streamlined, since it took me three quarters of the story to finally figure out where I was going with it. Let’s see, what else. A lot of Saeli’s interaction with Cara and Brendan at the beginning can be steamlined, if not cut altogether. Naeth isn’t as big a player as I thought he was going to be, so he probably actually has enough screen time…I just need to focus it a little better. I think, like Brendan, he doesn’t actually have to BE on screen to be vitally important.
Interestingly, the process of closing this story is providing more and more material for a sequel. Please Login or Register to view this.
Wow, I just totally went on a sequel tangent. *sigh* I have a lot of work to do before January, and the next two months are going to be ridiculous. I’ve agreed to design the conference booklet for the SCWG this year…which is, btw, really cool, and I’m flattered that I was asked. That has to be done by mid-September. I have to polish off the first draft of Shades so I can start editing it. I want to enter a short story in the SCWG writing contest for the conference…which means I have to write, edit, and polish a 2000 word story by Oct. 15th. (Short stories are not my forte. I have a hard time thinking small enough). I need to finish editing my short story for the Writer’s Digest contest before Nov. 2nd. We have friends coming to visit the weekend of Oct. 17th, and my Hanson concert is the 24th. That’s two weekends shot. Oh, yeah, and my birthday is in there somewhere. (Did I mention I have to have Shades done…DONE, as in: cut, edited, copyedited, polished…by January, if I want to have a complete manuscript at the conference??)
I’m sure I’m even forgetting something in this list.
Which reminds me…it’s bedtime, and I have laundry to do tomorrow.
Short story idea from an unusual source
The hubby and I finally got around to watching Mall Cop. I’d had my doubts about this movie from watching the previews, which made it look a whole lot more stupid than it actually was, but it was surprisingly good. I really liked how the crooks were named after Santa’s reindeer, and how edgy and modern they were. Young, athletic, tattoos, skateboards, trick bikes, etc. There were points during the movie where I actually regretted that they were the bad guys, because they were so cool.
It gave me the idea of assembling a team of anti-heroes, taking pseudonyms from popular culture, and creating an unlikely crime fighting squad. (Yes, I’m sure it’s been done before, but don’t burst my bubble just yet.) Other than Santa’s reindeer and the seven dwarfs, however, I could not think of any salient characters that come in groups (that aren’t already superheros). My first idea was to create a group of children whose mission is to save other children from getting kidnapped by Faeries…and my first inclination was to name them after Grimm’s fairy tale characters. But then I decided to see if I could come up with something better. I spent a few hours online looking up gods and goddesses from different pantheons all over the world…but the ones that people know are overused, and the ones that people don’t know would take too explaining to make them work.
So, I went back to the original idea.
Please Login or Register to view this.
I think the next step is to actually construct a plot skeleton for Rora’s rescue story. I may enter that contest of the SCWG, which means I have to finish this before October 15th. *sigh* And I still have to get Shades done.
Monday, Nov 24, 2008: The birth of Briar Rose
This was written around the time Briar Rose was beginning to take shape in my mind. Nearly a year ago, now.
Nov 24, 2008: Recently I became intrigued with this new movie Twilight that has come out…more because the book series seemed to have so many fans already than out of any real interest in the subject. Vampires have never really been my thing, you know? Well, a few days ago I actually had a whole afternoon and evening to myself (hubby was helping with the youth group retreat, and my mom had Eli for the day). So, after embarking on a quest to gather some new items for my wardrobe (when you’re still wearing maternity clothes and you have an almost three year old, you KNOW your wardrobe needs help!), I decided to spend a few hours reading in a bookstore. Something I haven’t been able to do in a few years, with a baby and now an active toddler.
I picked up the book Twilight. I’ve discovered over the years that when they decide to make a movie out of a book, chances are the book is at least worth reading. This book series, durned if I knew it was a series, seems to be especially popular among the high school female crowd, and a few chapters into the book I began to see why. I mean, come on, what hormone-riddled young female mind can resist a story about a totally hot guy who also happens to be a vampire? And a good vampire to boot! *imitates a swoon*. I couldn’t finish the book in the amount of time I had, and the next day I realized that I had doomed myself to madness by starting it at all. I went to the library, although it had occurred to me by then that I wasn’t going to find this book there. Not with the movie out. I put myself on the waiting list with low expectations. The good news is the Brevard County library system has 52 copies of the book in circulation. The bad news is that there are now 201 people on the waiting list. Yeah, so much for getting a hold of that one anytime before Christmas. Haven’t seen the movie yet…not sure I want to until I’ve finished the book (also not sure if I’ll be able to convince the hubby to see it with me). I used my morning time while Eli was in school today to go to Books-a-Million and read more. Tomorrow I will do the same. I might get it finished by then…we’ll see. It’s a fast read and I’m a fast reader.
Stories like this are like candy to me…sweet going down, bit of an addictive element to them, but not much substance in the end. Although, being only about three quarters away through the first book, I can see that the author may take the tale beyond the expectations of the genre, which I would like. I’m enjoying it anyway; it touches on the part of me that misses the heady feeling of crushing on a guy and the part that loves tragic romance. Not the Romeo and Juliet kind, but more of the Lyra and Will (His Dark Materials) or Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan (Pirates) kind. Separation for the sake of the greater good makes me teary eyed. Although, if I’m reading the elements correctly, Bella is well on her way to becoming a vampire herself. I mean, she has a flighty mom who has a boyfriend, a bachelor dad who has done well enough without her for years, and she’s already left behind the home she really liked. She has no real ties to anyone except the one she’s forging with Edward. If she’s not a vampire by the end of the series, I will be extremely surprised.
You know, I didn’t start this post intending to write a book review. I was actually going to talk about vampires. Remember me not being a vampire person? Overdone genre, in my opinion. Almost as bad as the person turning out to be an alien or an android, you know? You see it coming from a mile away. However, between the Vampire: The Masquerade role playing book I have and now Twilight, I am beginning to understand why they are so fascinating. There is an element of tragedy to their very existence that is appealing, from a writer’s point of view.
Plus, I’m excited because I had this story concept with two very neat characters sitting on my computer that I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to write. Gritty urban fiction is just not a genre I’m comfortable with, and that’s what this story seemed to want to become. However, if I introduce a vampire-werewolf twist to the plot and add some shamanic elements…suddenly this is a story I can do justice! Having a werewolf as a main character, I can even tie in my whole shapeshifter conceit…I have created an entire hidden society of “changers” that ties everything from werewolves to centaurs to dragons into a common background. Of course, if I make my protagonist’s lady love a vampire, I may have to create a similar rewrite of the undead…I think I can create a world where both are equally likely. Oh, so many fun elements I can tie into this, especially if I also make the main character a shaman on top of being a werewolf. Can you imagine trying to do a soul retrieval for a vampire?? Never mind the fact that vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies…
Eh. I need to finish Shades before I go nuts with this. And then I need to finish Mask of Eldarmarch. And then I was going to do Dreamcatcher…the above story concept was nowhere near the top of my to-do list. I may bump it up a bit, now that it has more direction and potential, but it may be a number of years before I come back around to it. Hey, at least all the Twilight hype will have died down by then!
To Wake a Windmaker
Dragon Singer wasn’t the only idea percolating in my head while I was gone. The property in Tennessee has some spectacular scenery, as does the drive to and from. I was sitting out on the back porch on Monday, watching the wind blow through the trees. The motion of the branches made it look like the trees were talking to each other, and that when the wind wasn’t blowing, the trees looked frozen, like they were waiting for the wind to blow again so they could keep talking. So I thought, what if there was a world where the wind was the means by which the trees talked…and what would happen on such a world if the wind stopped blowing?
Please Login or Register to view this.
E.S. Posthumus - NaraDragon Singer
I am back from Georgia. I could spend time describing the whole trip, but I have things I’d rather talk about.
Time and a sword
It’s 8:21 AM as I start this, and I’m awake. Which is frankly ridiculous when one considers what time we went to bed last night.
I woke up this morning with an interesting conceit. A man and a woman, separated from each other by time and connected by their possession of a certain sword. (It doesn’t have to be a sword, but that’s what it was in my mind before I woke up). That’s really not much to go on, but I think I would actually kind of enjoy building this one from the ground up. It would make for an interesting love story. I’m not too sure how I’d want to play it yet.
The effects of television before bed…
…is that one’s dreams end up being a conglomeration of images from said TV shows. The oddness and non-linearness of the dream will typically depend on the variety of shows watched in a short time, and how different those shows are from each other. So what do you get when you watch half an episode of Prison Break, take a break to watch a full episode of Merlin, and then resume the PB episode?
Well, apparently you get a very unfulfilled dream. I spent most of it trying to chase down this blue-eyed psychic I’d fallen for in New York City, who had to go away for school or something. It occurs to me now that this is the second time I’ve dreamed about NYC this week…interesting. (And you know you spend too much time on Facebook when you start dreaming about using it to find someone). I was frustrated for much of it, but there was also an overarching sense of regret for an opportunity missed somewhere. There were also schooners, my dad, and people flying around with helium balloons, which my subconscious decided to throw in for kicks, I guess.
I seem to have basically five types of dream. (These are the ones that I remember, mind). The first is the “re-hash the day” dream, which the above would probably fall under. I’ll usually have these after I’ve seen a powerful movie, finished a good book, or done something new and exciting that day. Last night’s blue-eyed psychic was some bizarre combination of Michael Scofield and Mordred, and would be a prime example of that. Occasionally I will be almost lucid in these; I’ll go back and rearrange elements of the dream, but it usually doesn’t occur to me that I’m asleep. These rarely help me in my writing unless they also happen to be:
Strong emotive dreams: Those dreams where the part I really remember upon waking is whatever emotion I was feeling. Like being separated from someone and knowing I’m never going to see them again (that was last night’s). Or feeling a very strong connection with someone. Or the rush that comes from using a magic power or kicking butt with martial arts or something. Rarely lucid, as I’m too wrapped up in what my dream self is experiencing. The plot of the dream isn’t as important as the emotion, and the emotion is something I can recall later when writing a scene. If I can recreate that feeling with words, then I have something. Writing is all about evoking an emotion in a reader.
Story dreams: The dreams where I wake up and think, “That would make a great story.” I always write these down; they are my primary source of inspiration. Practically every major novel idea I’m working on now started out as a dream. Sometimes it takes more than one to create a plot. Shades, for example, was born from two completely unrelated dreams. Such dreams vary in the amount of detail they provide. Some are little more than an opening premise (Mask of Eldarmarch), a vague direction for a story to go in (Briar Rose, Pandora), or a screen shot of a powerful scene. Some are nearly complete and take only minor tweaking to make them work (Dreamcatcher, 134340). Some give me a great, complex plot that I then have to populate with people (Eagle, Falcon, Owl and Crow). Sometimes I’ll only get a great cast of characters, names and everything. (Valkaria started as dream where I met all the mice and got a sense of their personalities).
Message dreams: Where my subconscious (or someone else) is trying to tell me something. Very cryptic and symbolic. These have more to do with my spiritual life than my writing life, and are powerful when they happen. They don’t happen very often (so when they do, I tend to pay attention). Only lucid in the sense that if I am called to make an important decision, I know it’s ME and not a dream-self making that choice.
Pure lucid: These tend to happen in the morning, after I’ve woken up once and fallen back asleep. If I can hit that perfect place between sleeping and waking, I can walk out of my head. I’ve gone around the apartment like this, and a few other places. I’ve seen some truly strange things while doing this, but it’s a hard state for me to maintain. I’ll typically either slide into a true dream or wakefulness after a few minutes.
It’s not as fixed as I’m making it sound. These dream types blend together a lot, or I’ll start with one type and have it morph into something else. I decided to post last night’s dream here because that sense of regret was so strong. I think I can recreate that in a story.
Me, Briefly
Mariah Dennison, fantasy writer and artist. I have finished the first book in a trilogy, and am currently working on the second.
Find me!
