What I'm Listening To: Alexander Rybak - Abandoned
What I'm Doing: Reading, attempting to write, and listening to WW3 going on upstairs. :/
in motion
I'm trapped here in a place I hate, with a woman I loathe. I love everyone but her, and I hate that I'm frozen in place, unable to go anywhere or do anything on my own. I have lofty dreams. I have plans. I want to be constantly in motion, never staying in one place longer than a year or two at most. There are so many things that I want to learn, see, do, experience, and I'm stagnating here.
But even though I want to travel, I want to have a home base somewhere. A pleasant place I can go to recharge, but somewhere I'm not tied down. Somewhere I can drop off all the things I've collected on my travels, so that I don't have to get rid of anything, and a place to go for holidays and family gatherings.
Until I figure out where my home base is, I'll just keep on going, constantly in motion until I complete my quest.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Daily Short #3
What I'm Listening To: Sonata Arctica - For The Sake Of Revenge
What I'm Doing: Getting ready to go to bed. I'm tired.
ornate glass bottle
The house sits overlooking the water, large enough for two without seeming excessive. The couch is the most hideous thing anyone’s ever seen, but as it’s also the most comfortable, no one complains much after they sit down. The large television is flanked on both sides by a movie collection of Blockbuster proportions. Built into the wall behind the couch is a bookshelf that inhabits nearly the entire space, and is filled to the brim with novels of every shape and size. The carpet is plush, and the curtains are dark.
Lining the window sill are ornate glass bottles of every shape, size, and colour. When the sun is coming up over the ocean, the rays of light send colours streaming into the room where they fall against the far wall like waves crashing onto the shore. Sometimes they sit on the hulking, ugly couch and watch the stars come out above the array of bottles, and whisper back and forth in all the languages they know.
What I'm Doing: Getting ready to go to bed. I'm tired.
ornate glass bottle
The house sits overlooking the water, large enough for two without seeming excessive. The couch is the most hideous thing anyone’s ever seen, but as it’s also the most comfortable, no one complains much after they sit down. The large television is flanked on both sides by a movie collection of Blockbuster proportions. Built into the wall behind the couch is a bookshelf that inhabits nearly the entire space, and is filled to the brim with novels of every shape and size. The carpet is plush, and the curtains are dark.
Lining the window sill are ornate glass bottles of every shape, size, and colour. When the sun is coming up over the ocean, the rays of light send colours streaming into the room where they fall against the far wall like waves crashing onto the shore. Sometimes they sit on the hulking, ugly couch and watch the stars come out above the array of bottles, and whisper back and forth in all the languages they know.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
daily short #2
What I'm Listening To: Ghostly Encounters on the TV.
What I'm Doing: Thinking, reading, watching TV, and putzing around on the internet. (Not all at the same time. Not even I'm that good.)
under the influence
It’s like being drugged. The world starts spinning, and the colours blur together, and everything is more intense. Being in love is like nothing else in the world. You’re up, you’re down, you’re happy, you’re sad, you’re pissed off, you’re jumping off the edge of the world into a vast expanse of nothing and it terrifies you, but at the same time you can’t get enough of it.
When you’re in love, you don’t really see things the same way as other people. It doesn’t matter if the other person is ugly, or short, or anything. People may see the person you love as ‘unworthy’ or ‘wrong’ but it doesn’t matter, because you know what it’s like to feel that love, that overwhelming feeling that just drowns out everything else. It can make a person reckless, or stupid; people have done crazy things for love. People put up with abuse – for love. People will kill – for love. It’s insane, this loss of control. But I’d rather be in love for the rest of my life than take drugs.
It’s basically the same thing, anyway.
What I'm Doing: Thinking, reading, watching TV, and putzing around on the internet. (Not all at the same time. Not even I'm that good.)
under the influence
It’s like being drugged. The world starts spinning, and the colours blur together, and everything is more intense. Being in love is like nothing else in the world. You’re up, you’re down, you’re happy, you’re sad, you’re pissed off, you’re jumping off the edge of the world into a vast expanse of nothing and it terrifies you, but at the same time you can’t get enough of it.
When you’re in love, you don’t really see things the same way as other people. It doesn’t matter if the other person is ugly, or short, or anything. People may see the person you love as ‘unworthy’ or ‘wrong’ but it doesn’t matter, because you know what it’s like to feel that love, that overwhelming feeling that just drowns out everything else. It can make a person reckless, or stupid; people have done crazy things for love. People put up with abuse – for love. People will kill – for love. It’s insane, this loss of control. But I’d rather be in love for the rest of my life than take drugs.
It’s basically the same thing, anyway.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Ponyo and Daily Shorts
What I'm Listening To: Tom and Jerry (still)
What I'm Doing: getting ready to go to bed/work on DSR more.
I saw Ponyo today. My first impression of it was "WHAT. THE. FSCK?!"
But then the story actually began to develop, and I got into it, and thought, "WHAT. THE. FSCK!?" still. XDD
Overall, it was MAAAD CUTE! I'd see it again, especially now that I know what it's about. I don't think I would have gone to see it on my own volition, but I'm glad I went.
While I was gathering links for the award thing, I saw something pretty cool on Ghiffi's blog. (I've fallen behind on keeping up with my blogger stuff, so I don't know why I never noticed it before; I always knew she posted art, but I just now realised that she posts a 'daily doodle.')
I've decided I'm going to gank it from her, and turn it into a daily short.
Basically, I'm going to take the thing from Twitter (whose name escapes me at the moment) and turn it into a 100-500 word short each day.
I'll start now.
(edit: the twitter page is Writing Prompt)
looking up
She turned her face up to the sky as the clouds ripped open with a rumble of thunder. Rain poured down around her, soaking her to the bone, but she refused to go inside. Blinking against the drops of water, she stared up into the endless expanse of grey, and imagined herself somewhere else. Anywhere else. The location didn’t matter, as long as she was away.
She pictured herself walking through the rain with someone special, someone who was like her – someone who didn’t mind the water falling from the sky. She didn’t know who it was, or if they even existed. But together, somewhere, they would walk through the damp streets holding hands, and they would cross a beautiful bridge spanning a small river.
At the apex of the bridge, they would pause, turn their faces skyward, and then lean forward and share a special kiss.
What I'm Doing: getting ready to go to bed/work on DSR more.
I saw Ponyo today. My first impression of it was "WHAT. THE. FSCK?!"
But then the story actually began to develop, and I got into it, and thought, "WHAT. THE. FSCK!?" still. XDD
Overall, it was MAAAD CUTE! I'd see it again, especially now that I know what it's about. I don't think I would have gone to see it on my own volition, but I'm glad I went.
While I was gathering links for the award thing, I saw something pretty cool on Ghiffi's blog. (I've fallen behind on keeping up with my blogger stuff, so I don't know why I never noticed it before; I always knew she posted art, but I just now realised that she posts a 'daily doodle.')
I've decided I'm going to gank it from her, and turn it into a daily short.
Basically, I'm going to take the thing from Twitter (whose name escapes me at the moment) and turn it into a 100-500 word short each day.
I'll start now.
(edit: the twitter page is Writing Prompt)
looking up
She turned her face up to the sky as the clouds ripped open with a rumble of thunder. Rain poured down around her, soaking her to the bone, but she refused to go inside. Blinking against the drops of water, she stared up into the endless expanse of grey, and imagined herself somewhere else. Anywhere else. The location didn’t matter, as long as she was away.
She pictured herself walking through the rain with someone special, someone who was like her – someone who didn’t mind the water falling from the sky. She didn’t know who it was, or if they even existed. But together, somewhere, they would walk through the damp streets holding hands, and they would cross a beautiful bridge spanning a small river.
At the apex of the bridge, they would pause, turn their faces skyward, and then lean forward and share a special kiss.
My Very First Award!
What I'm Listening To: Tom and Jerry
What I'm Doing: Outlining DSR.
Jenna from As the Plot Thickens nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger award! My very first blog award! I'm so excited! Thanks sooo much to her for it! I'd give it back, if she hadn't already been nominated herself.
The rules are:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated (I'll be doing this when I get home later. I don't want to let everybody know until this post has actually been put up, y'know?)
SEVEN THINGS ABOUT ME (That you may or may not find interesting):
1. I'm nocturnal. (Jenna may think this is ganked, but I actually am.) I'm a night-owl - which means I'm at my best at night - and also an insomniac, which means I have difficulty sleeping at night. I don't like sunlight, it hurts my eyes (and this is ganked from Jenna the Werewolf) which leads me to believe that I'm secretly a vampire. Rawr.
2. I collect odd things. Stuffed animals, foreign coins, perfume bottles, key chains, nicknacks (I have a couple of faerie statues, and a tiger, a dragon that glows in the dark... I'm also looking to improve these collections.) Things I find on the ground. (I've got two key cards to something. A hotel, I guess, or a work-place. I found them both months apart, but they're for the same place. People must really hate those cards.) Con badges.
3. I steal shirts and jackets from my friends as 'mementos.' I also replace them with shirts of my own when I can.
4. I prefer to reread the same books over and over than branch out and buy new books. From the library, however, I get whatever catches my interest - which usually includes (if I get ten books) five books that I've read before, and five books that just happened to catch my attention. Sometimes the ratio is 7:3 - seven books I've already read, and just want to reread, and three new books.
5. I hate shopping. But I love new clothes. It's a conundrum.
6. I think that real happiness comes from a new you. Doing something as simple as cutting an inch off my hair can make me happy for days, and when I have the money to buy an entirely new me from the skin out, I get excited like nothing else.
7. I hate watching TV, and movies - unless they're very interesting - rarely hold my interest longer than the first fifteen minutes. I always have the TV on for noise, though, and something to pay attention to when I get bored with whatever I'm doing. I do watch shows on Investigation Discovery, the History Channel, History Internation, and the Science channel, though. (all geeky/nerdy shows.) And recently I've started watching CSI, CSI Miami, and CSI New York whenever I can.
MY NOMINEES (in no particular order):
1. Mami, of Courting Madness
2. Schatzi, of What in Tarnation!?
3. Shady, of Character Assassinations R Us
4. Cheri, of Francophonic Funk
5. Renko, of rare and endangered
6. Jess, of Say What?
7. Ghiffi, of Odyssey
I'll notify them all at some point in the next few days. I'm tired of this now. *lazy/no attention span*
What I'm Doing: Outlining DSR.
Jenna from As the Plot Thickens nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger award! My very first blog award! I'm so excited! Thanks sooo much to her for it! I'd give it back, if she hadn't already been nominated herself.
The rules are:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated (I'll be doing this when I get home later. I don't want to let everybody know until this post has actually been put up, y'know?)
SEVEN THINGS ABOUT ME (That you may or may not find interesting):
1. I'm nocturnal. (Jenna may think this is ganked, but I actually am.) I'm a night-owl - which means I'm at my best at night - and also an insomniac, which means I have difficulty sleeping at night. I don't like sunlight, it hurts my eyes (and this is ganked from Jenna the Werewolf) which leads me to believe that I'm secretly a vampire. Rawr.
2. I collect odd things. Stuffed animals, foreign coins, perfume bottles, key chains, nicknacks (I have a couple of faerie statues, and a tiger, a dragon that glows in the dark... I'm also looking to improve these collections.) Things I find on the ground. (I've got two key cards to something. A hotel, I guess, or a work-place. I found them both months apart, but they're for the same place. People must really hate those cards.) Con badges.
3. I steal shirts and jackets from my friends as 'mementos.' I also replace them with shirts of my own when I can.
4. I prefer to reread the same books over and over than branch out and buy new books. From the library, however, I get whatever catches my interest - which usually includes (if I get ten books) five books that I've read before, and five books that just happened to catch my attention. Sometimes the ratio is 7:3 - seven books I've already read, and just want to reread, and three new books.
5. I hate shopping. But I love new clothes. It's a conundrum.
6. I think that real happiness comes from a new you. Doing something as simple as cutting an inch off my hair can make me happy for days, and when I have the money to buy an entirely new me from the skin out, I get excited like nothing else.
7. I hate watching TV, and movies - unless they're very interesting - rarely hold my interest longer than the first fifteen minutes. I always have the TV on for noise, though, and something to pay attention to when I get bored with whatever I'm doing. I do watch shows on Investigation Discovery, the History Channel, History Internation, and the Science channel, though. (all geeky/nerdy shows.) And recently I've started watching CSI, CSI Miami, and CSI New York whenever I can.
MY NOMINEES (in no particular order):
1. Mami, of Courting Madness
2. Schatzi, of What in Tarnation!?
3. Shady, of Character Assassinations R Us
4. Cheri, of Francophonic Funk
5. Renko, of rare and endangered
6. Jess, of Say What?
7. Ghiffi, of Odyssey
I'll notify them all at some point in the next few days. I'm tired of this now. *lazy/no attention span*
Eversong LIVES!
What I'm Listening To: Something on Investigation Discovery.
What I'm Doing: Brainstorming for the third novel of the Legends trilogy.
For the longest time, I had absolutely no idea what happened in the third book. I had a very basic sketch outlined in a single paragraph. A 'dark star' (comet) appears in the sky, and with it come monstrous black beasts that are seemingly undefeatable. They are the harbingers of a trio of powerful god-like beings that are looking to turn Eversong into their new home.
That... was it.
That's all I've had. For over a YEAR, I've been struggling to figure out the details.
And then, randomly, the word "Lunamari" popped into my head, and I knew that it was the name of a people who inhabit caverns on the northern continent.
I rolled it around for a few hours, and "Starravayn" followed - the name of said northern continent.
When I first created the map of Eversong, I included pictures of a globe with four continents, of which Eversong is the largest. I knew the southern continent was attached to Eversong by a land bridge, and was called Zen'la, the prison of the Dragon God Draevn. I knew Eversong was in the western hemisphere, but I hadn't the foggiest about the northern or eastern continents. Until now.
One day, I'll get my map scanned and show you my horrendous attempt at cartography.
But for now, the world has a name: Mana'riin. Eversong is - and always has been - just one of the continents. Now it joins Zen'la, Kor'l, and Starravayn.
Eversong is a heavily wooded continent, home to elves and faeries, among others.
Zen'la is a frozen wasteland dominated by a massive mountain called Zen'la'eng (which means something, but I need to reread all my notes - I've forgotten a lot of what I originally wrote down.) which is where Draevn was imprisoned.
Kor'l is in the East, and is a massive desert. I'm not sure who - or what - lives there yet, but a name and geography is more than I had yesterday.
Starravayn is in the far north (if it were Earth, it'd be in the Arctic Circle) and is solid ice (much like Anarctica is.) Beneath the ice, the land is practically hollow, a network of holes and massive caverns. The beings who live there have never seen the surface, and live their entire lives underground.
Even as I'm writing this down, more details are making themselves known. (I can't take credit for creating this; I had nothing to do with it. It's like the information is being sent to me telepathically, which brings to mind one of my favourite quotes: "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." - E.L. Doctorow.) I had previously decided to write Return to Eversong for Nano, but the more I think about it, the more excited I am about writing DSR. I may fling RtE out between now and November, and work on DSR for Nano instead.
I feel complete at last, now that I'm writing again.
What I'm Doing: Brainstorming for the third novel of the Legends trilogy.
For the longest time, I had absolutely no idea what happened in the third book. I had a very basic sketch outlined in a single paragraph. A 'dark star' (comet) appears in the sky, and with it come monstrous black beasts that are seemingly undefeatable. They are the harbingers of a trio of powerful god-like beings that are looking to turn Eversong into their new home.
That... was it.
That's all I've had. For over a YEAR, I've been struggling to figure out the details.
And then, randomly, the word "Lunamari" popped into my head, and I knew that it was the name of a people who inhabit caverns on the northern continent.
I rolled it around for a few hours, and "Starravayn" followed - the name of said northern continent.
When I first created the map of Eversong, I included pictures of a globe with four continents, of which Eversong is the largest. I knew the southern continent was attached to Eversong by a land bridge, and was called Zen'la, the prison of the Dragon God Draevn. I knew Eversong was in the western hemisphere, but I hadn't the foggiest about the northern or eastern continents. Until now.
One day, I'll get my map scanned and show you my horrendous attempt at cartography.
But for now, the world has a name: Mana'riin. Eversong is - and always has been - just one of the continents. Now it joins Zen'la, Kor'l, and Starravayn.
Eversong is a heavily wooded continent, home to elves and faeries, among others.
Zen'la is a frozen wasteland dominated by a massive mountain called Zen'la'eng (which means something, but I need to reread all my notes - I've forgotten a lot of what I originally wrote down.) which is where Draevn was imprisoned.
Kor'l is in the East, and is a massive desert. I'm not sure who - or what - lives there yet, but a name and geography is more than I had yesterday.
Starravayn is in the far north (if it were Earth, it'd be in the Arctic Circle) and is solid ice (much like Anarctica is.) Beneath the ice, the land is practically hollow, a network of holes and massive caverns. The beings who live there have never seen the surface, and live their entire lives underground.
Even as I'm writing this down, more details are making themselves known. (I can't take credit for creating this; I had nothing to do with it. It's like the information is being sent to me telepathically, which brings to mind one of my favourite quotes: "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." - E.L. Doctorow.) I had previously decided to write Return to Eversong for Nano, but the more I think about it, the more excited I am about writing DSR. I may fling RtE out between now and November, and work on DSR for Nano instead.
I feel complete at last, now that I'm writing again.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Mock Covers!
What I'm Listening To: Practical Magic
What I'm Doing: Watching Practical Magic and trying to think of something interesting to do.
A while back, I doodled up what I imagined the covers of the Eversong trilogy would look like. Unfortunately, I'm no artist, and it came out looking... rather silly.
So, when a friend of mine on the Quill and Ink Forum posted the mock-up covers of her novels, I was intrigued.
And immediately started work on my own.
Lo, behold! A sneak peak at the covers of the Legends of Eversong Trilogy!
What I'm Doing: Watching Practical Magic and trying to think of something interesting to do.
A while back, I doodled up what I imagined the covers of the Eversong trilogy would look like. Unfortunately, I'm no artist, and it came out looking... rather silly.
So, when a friend of mine on the Quill and Ink Forum posted the mock-up covers of her novels, I was intrigued.
And immediately started work on my own.
Lo, behold! A sneak peak at the covers of the Legends of Eversong Trilogy!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Mystery
What I'm Listening To: Alexander Rybak - Foolin'
What I'm Doing: Reading. A lot.
This is probably going to be quick and dirty; I felt guilty for not posting anything for nearly a month, and I just had a thought that I felt deserved to be written down.
I'm reading fanfics at the moment, and this particular one is by a 'big name author' in the fandom. That said, I expected her to be really fantastic.
It's... okay, but it lead to my complaint.
There's no mystery. It's a novel-length fanfic (over 98k in words) but so far there's been no 'page-turning' to it. It's just... 'fact. This happens. That happens. He's bored. He's sleeping with someone to stave off boredom. He's spying. Here he is. They meet.'
There's no 'what is he doing here? Why did that happen? Who was that? What's going to happen next?"
No mystery!
It's a strange thing to realise, that I'm actively becoming a better writer; I can see it easily, when looking at my writing from several years ago, versus now. Even when looking at more recent things Pre-Book, versus Post-Book. (fanfics I wrote before I attempted Eversong and Eden's Gate as opposed to what I've written since those two novels.) But to KNOW that I'm seeing what makes a bad writer, or a 'not-good' writer, and to be able to apply it actively to myself, is a strange feeling.
What I'm Doing: Reading. A lot.
This is probably going to be quick and dirty; I felt guilty for not posting anything for nearly a month, and I just had a thought that I felt deserved to be written down.
I'm reading fanfics at the moment, and this particular one is by a 'big name author' in the fandom. That said, I expected her to be really fantastic.
It's... okay, but it lead to my complaint.
There's no mystery. It's a novel-length fanfic (over 98k in words) but so far there's been no 'page-turning' to it. It's just... 'fact. This happens. That happens. He's bored. He's sleeping with someone to stave off boredom. He's spying. Here he is. They meet.'
There's no 'what is he doing here? Why did that happen? Who was that? What's going to happen next?"
No mystery!
It's a strange thing to realise, that I'm actively becoming a better writer; I can see it easily, when looking at my writing from several years ago, versus now. Even when looking at more recent things Pre-Book, versus Post-Book. (fanfics I wrote before I attempted Eversong and Eden's Gate as opposed to what I've written since those two novels.) But to KNOW that I'm seeing what makes a bad writer, or a 'not-good' writer, and to be able to apply it actively to myself, is a strange feeling.
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