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Saturday, May 26th, 2012
stillsostrange
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8:47p
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the name change question. I'm afraid some of you will be disappointed, though. I can't let Varis and Vargas appear multiple times on the same page (much as I couldn't handle Kieran and Kiril), but there will not be any cute in-text reasons for this. (Okay, I say that now, but I may think of one later.) I just have to change it. The first reader who actually notices will get a cookie.
The true lesson to be learned from this is: there's no such thing as a throwaway name. At least if one is writing a series, anyway. One never knows when Random Character Bob will show up again, and when he does, you may regret naming him Bob.
In other news, Agent F just passed out while watching Animal Planet an hour before her bedtime. This is an unlooked for windfall of writing time, if I can manage not to pass out.
current mood:  tired
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sabotabby
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9:04p
Today's deliciousness
Here's a recipe for you. I found it tricky, and I don't think I could have accomplished it on my own, a) because there wasn't really a recipe, and b) because sometimes you slice your finger open peeling pears and someone needs to take over. Also, it's long and fiddly and the time goes by better with friends.
Also, it is delicious, and you should share that kind of thing.
Anyway, I don't know if this kind of thing has a name. Let's call it Reverse Pie.
( recipe and another picture )
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genesisdesire
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12:54p
Nine
Day Two: Nine things about yourself. 1. I'm both incredibly prideful and obnoxiously insecure. I'd say it's an idiotic balance because I'm such a Libra I can't help it, but it drives me crazy. 2. I have a double BA in Theatre and English. I had planned to teach but realized I couldn't handle working in the system. I've somehow managed to not feel like a failure about this. In the distant future, it'd be nice to get a Master's in Communication. From there, I may consider teaching at the college level. 3. Costuming is my personal art therapy. It makes me feel accomplished, it challenges me to push past failures, it lets me feel talented. I turn to my fabric stash when I have interest in little else. 4. It's amazing that I've never broken a bone, since I'm definitely one of the clumsier people I know. I'm told I come by it honestly. We're talking falling off ladders, sliding down mountains, multiple car accidents...and I just get bumps and bruises! I'm a supah hero! 5. My body is sensitive in the weirdest ways possible. I'm allergic to most chemical cleaning agents, along with most commercial scents and body products. I cannot eat anything with citrus, and even the taste will psychosomatically make me ill. 6. Being poly has and remains to be one of the best things in my life. I always thought there was something wrong with me, feeling the 'in love' emotions with more than just my boyfriend. My husband not only makes this feel normal, but permits me to chase the people that draw my infatuation. I feel so fulfilled and so blessed by this. I know I get more love in one week than some people do in a year.
7. The diagnosis isn't medically official yet, since I can't find a psychiatrist in my area on my insurance to evaluate me yet, but I have atypical depression. Putting a name to all the weird moods for the last decade has been immensely validating. Contrariwise, naming the beast makes it scarier, and I'm still working on the tools for that.
8. I am the most rabid fangirl! It's me! (As evidenced that event that line there is a Homestuck joke.) Right now, I'm really into MLP: FiM (hey ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) stillskies!) and Monster High (hi ashbet!), even if some people think they're stupid or juvenile. They make me really happy. I dig some tv, like How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs, Fringe, and the Whedonverse. And I tend to flail about a lot of every day fiction books and magic realism and dystopian stuff and high fantasy and dark fantasy and body horror and sci fi and paranormal stuff and comedy and crime and even cheesy YA.
.....I really like books.
9. I do style myself as a writer. A good chunk of my FL at this time is from LJ Idol, which I tried to do over the last year, but the depression finally set in like an anvil, and got in the way of my creative process. I'm enjoying this meme as an excuse to write about things I might not otherwise. Whee!
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dsgood
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12:50p
Happy Birthday, blythe025!
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ankewehner
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6:26p
Halaefea's Bones
Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there. The wind howls in the hollow tower of Yeranem, mourful sounds like a dirge played on a bone-flute. Legend has it that's what it is.
The giant Halaefea taught mortals the secrets of fire and tools, and the gods of the Heavens killed her for what they called treachery. To make sure neither the other gods of the Earth nor the gods of the Underworld could restore Halaefea to life, they scattered her bones.
Around her spine grew the mountains of Vaenn, and now there are a thousand rumours concerning what could be found in the hollow where the marrow used to be.
Her ribs were scattered in the sea, forming the foundations for the atolls of Gwandeh, Jirael and Mdaeh.
The small bones of her hands and feet the gods of the Heavens scattered over the desert of Kyriemakeitikosh, where to us today each is a lone mountain.
Her long bones they kept for themselves. They carved a trumpet from her right thighbone, and spears for their Chosen from the bones of her arms and shanks.
Halaefea's skull, the house of her mind and soul, half-blackened from the wrath-fire that killed her, they put in the highest heaven, with the greatest treasure that is the sun, guarded by the great army of stars. Her clan can't conquer the heavens to save her, and she is out of reach of the ghost-talkers, even the Greatest Shade itself.
Her left thigh bone, now, Joraen, wanted for a weapon for themself, Koruen, wanted it as a hammer for their forge, Gesion for a flute. They argued among themselves and with their siblings, until Joraen started a fight, in the course of which an end of the bone broke off. Ayanaiss said they should send the bone back to Earth, pretending it a token of respect, and so it was done.
The thighbone struck the ground and buried itself deeply enough to stand firm as a mountain. The gods of the Earth, unable to exact their revenge, mourned their sister, and left her remains in peace, as is all gods’ custom.
Mortals found Halaefea's thigh, the strangest white mountain eyes had ever seen, and settled there, carving their first homes into the bone itself.
And, do you know, sometimes a ghost-talker will say when they stayed there, in the centre of the tower that is the heart of Yeranem, they heard echoes of Halaefea's life, in the wind howling in the hollow where her marrow had been.
Happened when the origfic_bingo prompt "tower" met me reading the title "Learning the Bones of the City" by Lyn Thorne-Alder
This entry was also posted at http://anke.dreamwidth.org/173783.html. You can comment wherever you prefer.
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takumashii
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8:54a
Found my other test book for the Kanji Kentei and took the mock test in the back of that.
172/200, which is "safe pass"! (140 is a passing grade.)
I realize it may sound silly to be proud of myself for having the kanji knowledge of a Japanese 6th-grader, but I remember when I first got the test prep books and I was just astonished by how badly I did. Because knowing how to read kanji doesn't necessarily translate well to being able to write kanji, and being able to write kanji doesn't necessarily mean you'll know enough vocabulary to be able to pick out the right kanji to use in any given context. And even if it's only level 5, it's still over a thousand kanji, after all.
This entry is also posted at http://owlectomy.dreamwidth.org/204689.html. Please feel free to comment here or there using OpenID. The Dreamwidth post has  comments.
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myaru
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4:51a
100 Things #003: I always thought plot and character were the same thing.
Some time ago queenlua wrote about different approaches to writing, in which she outlines the three main elements that might drive a story: character, plot, and theme. "If plot is what's driving a story, the first thing the author thought of while writing the story was probably, "Wouldn't it be interesting if X happened?" [...] If character is what's driving a story, then the character, or the dynamic between some set of characters, is what the author was probably thinking of..." - these two lines caught my attention at first. I wanted to respond at the time, but was still stuck in my LJ-adverse phase, and in any case we barely know each other. I'm fine when people I barely know reply in my journal with something that spans four comments because it means I wrote something worthy of discussion, but I'm also a hypocrite, and am not fine with doing that myself in someone else's journal.
Then, somewhat more recently (for me, a noob to her journal) dawn_felagund wrote on a similar topic: plot arising from character, and conversely, characters arising from plot. As she notes, the word "story" is usually defined as a sequence of events, while things like character motivation are extra, and therefore absent from the basic definition.
I'm going to hit on the plot-wrter vs. character-writer bit first, because theme is a different beast.
When I read the first post, my first thought was, "I'm both, it just depends on the context." As I've tried to get away from fanfic the last six months or so, I've noticed huge differences in how I approach my original work compared to fan work. When I'm approaching a fanfic, I primarily take the tack of, "What would happen if X and Y were locked in a prison cell together?" and run with that inspiration. Sometimes I start with plot ("How would Tellius end up in a world war and awaken the goddess if the Serenes Massacre never happened?" - which is not the plot of the Chronicle, but could be), but most of the time I'm interested in character interaction.
With no established characters ready, I can't do this with original fiction. With no fully established setting to work with, in addition, I can't even start with more than a bare-bones plot. "An elderly naturalist is pulled out of retirement to study flora on an alien world." It has potential. There's a character - sort of - and a setting-- sort of. But I came up with this to fit the requirements of a call for anthology submissions, so the character isn't even really my idea. They asked for older protagonists, and the setting has to be fantasy or SF; I could've gone anywhere with those guidelines, but the story prompt above (because that's what it is, a prodding to go further and come up with real ideas) is not very creative. They might get five stories with the same premise.
I didn't have much to go on until I considered what kind of story I wanted. You might say I started thinking about theme: is this going to reflect environmental concerns? Should I try to address the issue of colonization, how it can destroy ecosystems? Or will this be a story about age discrimination, or about trying and failing to enact change? Consider writing a fanfic AU for a minute - when you throw a character you know into a different setting or situation, part of the interest (for me, anyway) is to see how they react to different decisions, or explore what changes will happen if you throw them into an environment that would shape them differently. In the same way, it seems to be that this elderly female naturalist will become a different character depending on which situation I throw her into, so at some point - usually the beginning - I need this basic idea, this theme, to direct my characterization and setting details, even if the story ends up changing and suggesting a different one later.
Digression: I see a huge appeal in creating a world and set of characters, and then writing a million books about them - even if the stories end up repeating themselves eventually. That would be a huge advantage when sitting down to do the actual writing. I wouldn't run into the above problem at all. That, I feel, would be the sure way to maintaining one's income. And if the series becomes self-referential and starts fan-pandering, well, you do want to maintain your fanbase, don't you?
Anyway, as I kept thinking about the question of what drives a story, and how that affects its appeal, I came to the conclusion that for me, in my jumbled-up opinion, it all eventually comes out to the same thing. You may be a character writer, but characters create plot-- they have to, in most cases, or people lose interest. If your character sits and stares out a window and does nothing, and doesn't think about much, nobody gives a damn. If she does something-- plot. Instantly. Bam. She does something, and there's going to be motivation in there somewhere, which is created by history, which in turn creates the present situation, and plot. I was told over and over that conflict makes plot, but I think it's more accurate to say character makes plot, and most characters, like most people, are going to be conflicted about something. People create conflict, and the rest is just nature.
Likewise, plot can't happen without a character. You can take a plot-based approach, but it seems to me that in the course of writing your story, you'll take that character you created to fill a role and make him evolve almost by accident. In my experience, one can create a thoroughly thought-out character, fill in all the blanks on the personality and history sheet, and still not know anything about them until you start writing, at which point they take on a life of their own. You never (well, I never) end up with the same character you started out with. And presumably, as you write and get to know these people, you will care about them at least as much as the plot.
So I guess to me, the idea of being a plot or character writer doesn't make sense, because to me they are exactly the same thing. My bare-bones plot up there suggests a character by default. If you cut it in half and pretend that "to study flora on an alien world" was the only idea I had, well, I need someone to enact the plot. No getting around it. But even if I have a whole plot mapped out, and start with that driving my process, the character will eventually become the most important part of the story, and therefore be the driving force. I think this is a matter of layers - the first draft, or first layer, is driven by one thing; the next one might end up driven by something else. But the finished product will probably be moved by each in equal measure.
That's all idealism up there. And I can't lie and say I've never come across a plot writer, because Arthur C. Clarke is one such, and Tolkien didn't spend too much time on individual characterization as I recall. It's there, but clearly is not the focus, especially in something like The Silmarillion. I may love Maglor, but if I'm going to write a story about him, I have to make shit up right and left. All Tolkien gave me were events and some indicators of feeling. If I work only with that, I'll write a cliche.
I'd say more about theme, which was the whole point of writing this entry, but that'll take another six or seven paragraphs, and this is already too long.
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pottersues
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1:43a
Here is the last day of James Potter II week.
TITLE: The Marauder & the Hybrid
PERPETRATOR: Izzie Jackson Guess what fandom they've also written for?
SUE-O-METER:  (toxic)
FULL NAME: Renesmee Cullen, James Potter
SPECIES: vampire hybrid
HAIR: na
EYES: na
MARKINGS: na
POSSESSIONS: na
CONNECTION TO CANON: She and James meet up at a log cabin and the two unsupervised minors who I have no clue who they met start making out in the first chapter. The second chapter is “family” finding out about their relationship because they're tired of not knowing. And then more stuff happens which I can't decipher the point of.
ORIGIN: James meets Renesmee when he takes a trip to America for the summer. Renesmee hates being paired off with Jacob and so she has a relationship with a girl in order to rebel. Bella and/or Renesmee are pansexual. (I think the Suethor needs to learn the difference between bisexual and pansexual... they are similar but mean two very different things. I don't think Renesmee is “gender blind”, not if she had the relationship with the girl to rebel against her father. She obviously knows the differences in gender all to well.)
SPECIAL ABILITIES: James is allowed to go to America during the summer despite only being fourteen. I say fourteen because he was allowed to go the year before. To the humans, she was a prodigy and graduated from high school at 'fifteen' when in reality she was only five. Now she was attending college with a stellar GPA of 4.9 and a BA in Fine Arts after two years.
NOTES: The chances of the Suethor not yet being out of high school is very high. It honstly isn't possible to earn a GPA that high in college. High School, yes... but not College. I'm also not going to say earning a BA in two years is impossible, but the chances of doing so are way to slim. Not to mention she picked a degree which focuses not on intelligence but ones actual talents.
( The world just doesn't work this way. )
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Friday, May 25th, 2012
pottersues
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10:37p
Here is the second to last day of James Potter II week.
TITLE: Catastrophic
PERPETRATOR: chasingafterstarlight
SUE-O-METER:  (awful)
FULL NAME: Jade West
SPECIES: pop star in training
HAIR: medium brown, died black later on
EYES: blue-green
MARKINGS: tattoos, streaks, piercings and she stands at 5'7
POSSESSIONS: a mirror
CONNECTION TO CANON: Her boyfriend Beck and Tori are kissing in class and Jade walks in late. She storms off and comes across a mirror and wishes to go to another world. She gets sucked into the mirror and she meets James Potter. James decides to take her to his family (I don't know where they're supposed to be...) because his dad takes in a lot of stray stuff. They don't bother to investigate her background and they all flu to Godric's Hollow/ She spends the night and then says “And my city is called Hollywood, where all the big stars live.” (Hollywood is NOT a city folks, but I am sure you all know that.) She then tells them she doesn't exist in this world... despite the fact she could have in reality simply traveled half way around the world Aka, she has no proof she's actually left her own world. She admits that she has the knack of ruining other peoples lives to complete strangers too. She gets chummy with James and they start kissing after a couple of days. She then has to go back via the mirror to her own world. The reason is James gets hurt while they're flying on brooms and when she sees magic being performed she decides she doesn't belong for no logical reason despite the fact there is many an indicator she finally feels like she belonged somewhere. Everyone at her school located in the city of Hollywood is excited because she is back. She tells Beck she is tired of his mind games despite the fact it is typically her whose causing problems in their relationship and I'm honestly not sure where that came from. She misses James.
ORIGIN: For those who don't know Vitorious, it is a Disney show about a girl who manages to get into a special school for kids who want to get into show business of some sort. Jade is one of the characters from the show and she is the stereotypical Goth girl.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: She's able to decide she doesn't belong somewhere despite the fact she actually feels best where she is now.
NOTES: I'm still chuckling at the Hollywood is a city thing. I'm not sure if it is a line she says in the show, but if it isn't...
( ... )
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Saturday, May 26th, 2012
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frustrated
![[insanejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sick