Wednesday, July 29, 2009

We've been smoking funny things

In an effort to keep from cutting myself in class today (I jest, but only just), I did a freewrite of thoughts about DT. Basically before today I have a very VAGUE idea about who the "good guys" were, and an even vaguer idea of who the bad guys were. But now, ta-da! I have a lot of it figured out. Not all the details, of course, but I know where I'm going. XD
One thing's for sure, I'm going to have to develop Miranda a heck of a lot more. I knew I was going to, eventually, but it wasn't so much necessary as satisfying my curiosity. ;) And no, Miranda is *not* a planet, you crazy Browncoats.

HHNF is at a standstill for lack of any sort of kind-hearted feeling toward it.

The Stranger is progressing, but I decided I can't post any more episodes until I reach the end, because there's too much madness and I'm not sure how I'm splitting it up.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

it's the night of our nightmares

I've been working on Dimension Tournament, off and on-ish lately, mostly outlining but working on some scenes too. The problem is, what I have (about 13k) was written more than a year ago, so I kinda have to rewrite what I have before I can really move on. That's just the kinda girl I am. So Snazel, I AM working. Trufax. I just don't have much of anything new for you yet.

ANYWAY, I've been thinking a bit about Nanowrimo lately as well, cuz people/Nano have been thinking as well, and I was thinking about Chester again. Anyone remember the poor guy? My nano novel last year, Wyrd, was originally going to star him and Marly. Then, as the plot evolved, Marly faded into the background a bit and Chester/Cheron was replaced by Fenwick, who is a completely different kind of awesome.
Tonight I was thinking about where I could possibly put him, and realized that he would be PERFECT for DimTourn. I mean, really, he's completely homeless and friendless, so a multi-world story where I wouldn't necessarily have to give him an entire world and backstory and everything, would be excellent. Here's a brief character design (not history) for you:

Chester is a 23-year-old gentleman, typically dressed in an all-purple three-piece suit. He occasionally sports a purple fedora as well. His ethnicity is similar to a Native American, although he will not be placed in our world. He wears his hair fairly short. His weapon is a two-bladed spear, about 6 feet in length: each blade is about half the length of the handle and leaf-shaped, while the handle is well-worn brown leather wrapped around a steel core. He himself is just over 6 feet and rather thin. His personality is particularly callous, but he enjoys his callousness and is rather charming about it. He can come across as extremely charming and gallant when he wants to, but his lack of friends and abundance of enemies would tell you otherwise. He has a liking and affinity for cats, however, and is often to be found with one, although he has no constant feline companion. Despite his wealthy appearance, he owns no property. He likes to travel and rarely stays anywhere longer than a week unless he's found something of profit to work on. His skills are in the use of his weapon, gambling, and politics.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

A Fairy Tale

When do you use "further" and when do you use "farther"? That is my question, friends.
I had to write a fairy tale as part of my children's lit midterm (other parts of the midterm include analyzing my own fairy tale....gross). I had to make sure there were some cultural and/or social values included, and I also had to choose 5-7 elements from a list and incorporate them. I chose the prince, the sea, a talking fish, a lion, a golden ball, and a sword. I also had to do it in 2 double-spaced pages, which was DEFINITELY the hardest part of the whole assignment.
Here it is, and my apologies for its utter lameness, clicheness, and overall hoity toity tone. I haven't done a hoity toity in years; it was kinda fun.

Once upon a time there was a prince who lived in a castle by the sea. His father the king ruled over his people, the Marans, who all had a great love of ships and seafaring. The prince, too, loved ships, and when he was fifteen years old he began to build himself a seaworthy boat. When he was 20, it was finished: a beautiful light ship, fast and sturdy. He named it the Spearfish. Obtaining leave from his father, the prince sailed off on his first sea-voyage alone. He had decided he would not return home until he found something of value, or something to prove that he was worthy of being the king’s heir.
His voyage started smoothly. He visited several nearby islands, and then ventured far away from the mainland, farther than he had ever gone before. After many days he had nearly depleted all of his food. The prince tried to catch a fish to feed himself, and at last caught one. It was very large. The sun sparked off its silver scales as the prince dropped it on the deck of his ship, about to kill it and clean it. To his surprise, the fish stared up at him and spoke!
“O Prince, please do not kill me. If you release me, I will show you to an island no man has seen before!”
The prince, amazed that the fish could speak, felt sorry for it. He put it back in the water, even though he did not believe the fish would actually show him to land, and said, “Be free, fish!”
The fish swam around the ship, happily, and then poked its head out of the water and said, “Now, if you follow me, I will show you to the island, where my mistress lives and rules over the animals.”
The prince, still not sure if he believed the fish, decided to follow it anyway. He followed it all of that day, and just as the sun was setting, they reached land. The prince did not recognize the island, but moored his Spearfish and went ashore. Just as he set foot on the sand, a woman came walking out of the trees toward him. She was very beautiful, with golden hair and bright blue eyes.
“The fish has told me of your kindness,” she said. “Now I am hoping you may help me as well. I have lost something very important to me, my magic golden ball. It was stolen from me by a lion; he ran off into the woods. Could you go after the lion and get it back to me?”
The prince, although surprised by this turn of events, told her he would. After all, she was a beautiful lady, and he was a young man. He started off in the direction she indicated.
A few miles into the trees, the prince found signs of the lion. He followed them, eager but cautious. He tracked the lion to its cave, and saw places where its hair had rubbed off, but of the lion he could see nothing. The prince walked carefully up to the cave and peered in. He saw a glint of gold somewhere inside so he entered. There at the back of the cave was the golden ball! The prince hurried over to it and picked it up; it was cool in his hand.
At that very moment he heard a growl, and turned around. There was the lion, blocking the entrance of the cave! The prince drew his sword with his right hand, holding the ball in his left.
“Give it back to me,” the lion growled, threatening the prince with a massive paw. “It belongs to me.”
The prince shook his head. “It belongs to a lady. She has asked me to give it back to her. I will not fail.”
The lion roared furiously and leaped at the prince, who dodged aside. The two battled in the cave, one using teeth and claws, the other using his sword, until at last the prince saw an opening. He ducked under a swipe of the lion’s paw, moved in, and was about to run his sword through the lion’s chest when the lion looked down at him, and the prince locked eyes with it. He dropped his sword with a clatter, and instead held the golden ball out to the lion.
“Here is your treasure, lady,” the prince said.
The lion roared, and then transformed back into the beautiful woman.
“You have done well,” she said. “You are both kind and clever. You are worthy of being king after your father.”
After that, the magical lady from the island went home with the prince in the Spearfish, and when they arrived back at the castle, she became his wife, and they lived happily ever after.

Things will not calm down. They will, in fact, calm up.

Work on the Stranger continues! At a belabored pace. I'm so amused at how confused I am now about the last few episodes. There's sooo much that has to happen, and not really any of it can be assigned to one episode or another? So I don't know if it should just be a massive four-parter or what. :P I've written quite a lot, I just can't really decide where the episode should stop. Soooo yeah.

In other news, I have to write a fairy tale for my children's lit class! *excited* It has to incorporate a few elements from a list that we were given, and has to have some sort of a moral lesson. I haven't really gotten inspired yet but I'm going to do some freewriting today and see what happens. I know I'm going to use a prince, possibly not as my hero.

Monday, July 13, 2009

I am, therefore I fail. ;)

I started writing the next Stranger episode today, and realized I could NOT, because I screwed up about five things in the episode I just posted. Soooo I'm pulling the episode for now until I can fix everything. *shakes head* I think I was asleep when I reviewed my continuity checklist for that episode. :P

Hahahahaha funny story, too! I realized (in class today, good grief) that I could totally write a spin-off series and call it, "The Stranger: Atlantis." That made me choke back a laugh in class, let me tell you. I'm NOT, of course, because...that would be stupid, plus I really just don't want to write that much about the destiny-obsessed crazies over there.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

"That's the dramatic warning I was expecting."

"Ohmigosh, no wai!"

I wrote today! I totally did! And it wasn't for school, or blogging!
I finished the next episode of the Stranger. It needs a lot of editing, though, cuz it's too long and really rambling. :P I'll try and work on it later today, I guess. After this one, there's only 3 more! Yay! I HAVE to finish by September 6th, because there is NO way it should have taken a year to do the series. :P Let's face it.

I have to go do stuff now, but then I'm going to force myself to come back and edit some of HHNF. I want to finish the third edit of that before the summer ends. *fierce* I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.....

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

something for snazel to read

I'm in a serious writing....I dunno....hell? Any self-motivation that I managed to scrape together during my short life has completely fled away to the far corners of the galaxy. Any inspiration or desire or liking for writing went with it. I think they're having an affair, personally. I try to write, and get a couple sentences down, and then I wince at the pathetic-ness and slink away. I have soooo many projects that used to be fun that I *could* work on. I just don't. I don't force myself to write every day like I should. It's summer, so I finally have TIME to work on projects, and I don't.

On a slightly more positive note, I *am* helping snazel to write more. Not that she wasn't doing an excellent job of productivity before. ;) One of my favorite bloggers, Merc, wrote this post about how to finish stories. I sent it along to snazel, who immeditately asked me to physically threaten Varesh Elm, a character of mine. He's one of the leads in Dimension Tournament (working title, it really needs an actual title, lol) and also stars in this short story. If she fails of her goal, I'm going to be really annoyed cuz I'll have to kill him. And I would really rather not. *glares severely at snazel* I will do it, though.

Anyway, as I said, nothing productive, enlightening, or even particularly entertaining in here, but go read Merc's post! Follow her! Adore! Worship!