Various peeks at "The Stranger" final episodes

There are four remaining episodes. Two of them I've finished and the other two I've outlined. The titles of these episodes are:
THE STRANGER and the Dark and Mysterious Fortress
THE STRANGER and the Dark and Mysterious Dark Lord
THE STRANGER and the Struggle for His Soul
THE STRANGER and the End

One character you'll meet is Arden, one of the agents. I wanted to have him in the story a lot, but it's not working out. He would have been the leader of the agents who attacked the good guys in "Unraveling of Mysteries" but the Stranger got too bloodthirsty there and I didn't want to kill him off. He's the most badass, violent, and loyal of the hundred. ^_^ I kinda love him. He's a short half-elf, half-human. His soul-collecting weapon is a scythe. He doesn't let any of the other agents use a scythe because it's his trademark. ^_^ He's kinda egotistical that way. He has no redeeming qualities except a certain protectiveness for his men, whom he views as his possessions (a trait he gets from the DAMDL, of course.).

Look for the new episodes soon. :D

Soul Collectors

this was never the way i planned: not my intention

I'm just about done with The Stranger: Episode 19. I still feel like it's too self-indulgent and not humorous enough, so I'm going to keep bashing on it today. I have four days left of August to rough and edit the remaining two episodes. Yes, I'm fairly sure that there's only two more episodes after this. I'm still annoyed I couldn't make it a perfect 20. Stupid agents taking too long to die!!!!

The good news is I ironed out the remaining issues in my outline. ^_^ So I know exactly what's going on. I say that a lot but I rarely mean it, have you noticed this??? But this time I mean it. Any problems that exist, I am unaware of them and will not discover them until I'm in the midst of writing. And by that time it will be TOO LATE! BWAHAHAHAHA!

Or I'll just revert to the classic "Rocks fall; everybody dies" plan.

EDIT: Now with photos!!!

The draft of Episode 19, modeling my old drawing board that I unearthed today (now I can say, "Back to the drawing board" even while writing, and it'll be true! Win!!!):
And from the back:
Next up, the proof copies of my two Nanowrimo wins, from CreateSpace. I'm not going to publish through them, but it was fun to get the copies. ^_^
And from the back:

I should know that you're not gonna change

I am technically done with the third edit of "Hell Hath No Furies." However, it's still absurdly short, and I'm trying to decide if I care. Haha. And, if I do care, what I should add. I've considered adding a sub-plot with Adrastus and Minthe, but I feel like that would make the story unfocused. Ya know??? Also, if I gave THEM a sub-plot, wouldn't ALL fourteen of the Athenians want one??? Haha. My beta-readers want more of the gods. Again, I kinda feel like that would make the story unfocused.
I'M TOO CONCISE AND FOCUSED DAMMIT!!!!
Athena and Eros could get more scenes, but I feel like they'd be repetitive. Zeus and Hera could get some scenes, perhaps even a scene with Hades or something.

I have two questions for the comments:
1. Do you like including a lot of sub-plots in a story? Either the kind that are actually very connected to the main plot and only show this at the end, or just the kind that are about people or things nearby the main story.
2. How important is weather to you in a narrative? Do you include a lot of it, do you care, does it matter?

Nanowrimo '09 Thoughts

Here are my current ideas (only four!!! shocking!!):

• The Missing Door: I only have about 10k written on this story, even though I love it and want to finish; but what I have was written last year so I wouldn't feel bad just scrapping and starting over. EDIT: It's a sci-fi/mystery/thriller in a universe where people travel from planet to planet through teleportation devices called doors. Yes, one goes missing.
  
• Eros and Psyche retelling: something like what I did with HHNF. As much as I love the Eros character I've developed, I really have no other ideas for what I would do with this story, or really much inspiration for it. Snazel wants it a lot, though. ^_^
  
• HHNF sequel: This would center around the battle with Perseus, Ariadne's death, and Dionysus' quest to get her and Semele back. I've been wanting to do this since December 07. Lolz.
  
• Drem Escalion: This story takes place in Wyrd's universe, and is a first-person story about an infamous character in Altera's history. I don't have a whole lot sketched out for this story but I would also love to do it. ^_^ EDIT: Drem is known in "Wyrd" for betraying the country, starting a war, killing some people.....basically I'm going to tell the story from his POV, where he tries to explain what he did and did not do, and why, since there a lot of truths and lies in everything he's accused of.

I meddled in the future, in all possible futures...in the end they created me.

I've managed to trap Macana and the Stranger in a completely impossible situation. I made the mistake yesterday (orrrr the day before?) of writing out a fairly comprehensive outline of the rest of the story. It took me 15 minutes of staring at the screen to come up with ANY way for them to win, and the way I wrote is just absurd and cheesy. Although I suppose the heart thing that saved them last time was cheesy too.
So, of course, I sent off the whole thing to my professional "Stranger" consultant (well, not technically pro, but she's pretty amazing ^_^) and we've been batting ideas around since then. We're at the point where the metaphysics are exploding my brain, and I'm considering more and more just killing off BOTH of them. >.> But since the story is (supposedly...it started out this way) a humorous parody of fantasy, I think killing them both off would be rude. *gives Lint a significant glance* I've actually been comparing the Stranger to Lint a lot lately, actually. They both started as just random, silly things for fun by people with few skills and then just turned into epics. ^_^ I think I'm just as self-indulgent as Lint's author is, anyway. Oh, and I DID start writing the Stranger before I read Lint, btw.

HHNF is being edited. :) I'm still doin' it! Go Go Go! That's really all I have to say about it.
Actually, I've been remembering how much I fail at weather. I don't mean I fail at describing weather (although that's entirely possible). I fail at even mentioning what is going on outside when characters are outside. And in HHNF, when they're outside MOST of the time, I think this is kinda necessary. I meant, this time around, to decide for certain what time of year it was, what weather the area would be getting, and insert at least MENTIONS of this at appropriate places. I've been mostly forgetting to do that. ^_^ So I'm going to do a "weather-round" when I'm done, I guess. Just waltz through and sprinkle some weather. Oh my goodness I am so lame. XD

the sky was thick with crows

Wow so one of my favorite writing bloggers ever posted out of the blue today!!!! She hasn't posted since Nano, I think. Anyway it made me happy so here I am. ^_^

Still working on August goals, despite all the distractions being flung my way!!! Summer is almost over. :( Very tragical.

I have the rough done for the next Stranger episode but still need to rewrite it, and I have (I think) 3 more episodes after that? So I need to get on that.

Hell Hath No Furies is coming along...slowly....This is the third edit and I think I'm going to put it in a dark box in a dark corner somewhere and never look at it again. ^_^ I don't think it's good enough to even attempt publishing and I don't think I could ever get it into shape for it. Which is okay, I just want to finish this edit and put the thing to rest.

I've got him monologuing now, chaps!

I'm going to start again on HHNF tomorrow. >.< I am! It's true. I shall. I'm finally done with all the crazy reading for my class, so I have a bit more time. Although my sister and her new fiance are also coming tomorrow, sooo who knows how crazy that's going to be. :D
Ummm but I have been working on the Stranger a lot! I didn't write anything new today, I mean further chronologically, but I edited two episodes (which are now up, btw) and I've kinda squared away on how I want to divide the rest of the episodes. I'm sad cuz I thought I was going to be able to pull off an even 20 of episodes, but I've had to add one, and I'll probably have to add more. :) I have three more for sure, and one of those will very possibly sprout like five. hahaha. Yeahhhh.

I have yet to touch HHNF this month, but The Stranger is going well. ^___^ I've written, well, okay, I've only written about 2k but I'm TRYING, okay? XD
Last night, as I was trying to fall asleep (been suffering from insomnia lately), I suddenly had one brain-wave after another about stuff that is going to happen in the Stranger. It was hilarious, just all these things previously I had no CLUE about (like, for example, who the DAMDL is or what he/she/it is trying to do....oh yeah, and if the DAMDL was a man, woman, or creature) were suddenly all falling into place. At first I was like, "Yeah, okay, remember that for the morning." but after around the 10th epiphany I just got up and started writing it all down. ^__^
So, in conclusion, I totally know everything now. EXCEPT where the Stranger's soul is. And also, how they're actually going to BEAT the DAMDL now that I've made him/her/it freaking invincible.
*shakes head*

Also, is it just me or has Numair been wittier than normal, lately? I didn't intend to make him the go-to man for comic relief, but that's kinda what he's doing. *glowers at Numair*

not thinkin' bout tomorrow, singin' sweet home alabama all summer long

My fellow writers (specifically Snazel, Merc, and Sparky) are shaming me with their productiveness, so I'm going to make some GOALS! Lolz! And totally complete them. So without further ado:

AUGUST GOALS (look, the letters are all large and friendly!):

• Finish The Stranger roughs for the remaining episodes
• Finish the third edit of Hell Hath No Furies
• Keep up with homework ^__^

After that, if I'm a good girl, I can work on DT. <3

I have written over 1,000 words today, though, it's true. I have this enormous assignment for my children's lit class. Basically we have to read 20 books and write up summaries and answer a lot of questions for each one (this is aside from all the normal writing and reading assignments for the class). It's just absurdly epic. Anyways.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.....

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!

black holes and book covers

I'm sorry I haven't been posting regularly in this blog at all. :( I'm still made of fail, fail, fail.

But happeh news! I got my copy of Hell Hath No Furies today! That is like epicly speedy, cuz I ordered it on the 27th, I think? Or the 28th? No earlier, anyway. My mom kinda freaked out, despite me telling her that it really doesn't mean anything to have a proof copy of a self-published book. :P Or maybe I'm just overly cynical. But I don't think so. Anyhow, Nanowrimo/CreateSpace contract FTW!!

[I was going to insert pictures here but they turned out crappy so I'll try again later.]

Let me introduce you

Once upon a time there was a girl who read the whole world.
The stories she read and the books read her
and the words covered the backs of her eyes.
She saw the whole world and lived amongst creatures of ink.
But then one day the words fled away, and all that was left was the sky.
She cried and she cried but when
she searched, queried, and fought,
the words didn't come back from beneath the earth:
had they died?
At last she looked up, and saw in the sky,
that every it-thou-and-God she had ever read was up there,
lacking only paper and ink.
She sighed, and smiled, and lived all the world.

your intellect is undermined by your insufferable levity.

I am making progress on the Stranger at last! I have an extremely rough and over-long draft for the next episode. Bleh now I just need to rip out its guts and replace them with something approaching readable. Go me.

Script Frenzy Follow-up

Pages: 50

I reached my alternate goal, lol. I'm going to finish the script, and possibly use it as an outline for a novel. The story itself isn't anything I'm going to attempt to publish, as it's 70% silliness and 30% sarcasm, but it's fun. :)
The most valuable lesson I learned during Screnzy? I loathe writing scripts. :D This is a good lesson. It just drove me crazy not being able to "see" everything. Is that an OCD tendency, do you think? I think maybe if I had a steady job writing scripts for theater or cinema, where I had a good chance of eventually "seeing" my script played out, I would be more inspired. But as it was, just writing script kinda killed all drive, momentum, inspiration, etc.

My goals as of now are the ones I've had all year so far, good GRIEF. Finish the Stranger, finish editing HHNF, finish Screnzy script. Wyrd is somewhere on the edge of the horizon, too.