Like there is any question.

Marmee, from Little Women--the Winona Ryder version.
And Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother, ain't bad. :) I even forgive her for not being Jane Wyatt.

(Cross-posted to aerden.)

"Desiderata"

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

--- Max Ehrmann, 1927

This is a post I'm working on for the USS Courageous. The formatting symbols are a requirement of that ship's posting style.
( Post )

How to (Legally and Ethically) Steal Ideas by Holly Lisle

Below is a long, rambling post, half me talking to myself and half me talking to the world at large.

( Long and Rambly Thoughts about Mr. Graves )

( Read more... )

A plot is about a lead character who has an objective, a goal crucial to his well-being. --James Bell, from Plot and Structure

Fantasy

• The Boy from the Sea - Garedin
  
• The Curse of Avriet - Micaul
  
• Dakmir - Alledon
  
• Ealdru - Aerden
  
• The Devil's Due - Zachariah Gregory
  
• The Hangman's Noose - The Gregory family
  
• Lenoir - Paul Lenoir
  
• The Lighthouse Keeper - Simon MacAran
  
• The Twice-Failed Quest - Tereus, Rinavek, Senara
  

Science Fiction

• Vendetta - Ephram Young
  
• Born of Light - Ephram Young
  

Today, I'm working on a short story I wrote for a fantasy role-playing game I used to be in, called Imperial Secrets. It's called "The Devil's Due," and it's set in a pub that is a gateway to Hell. It stars Zachariah Gregory and Nell Tomlinson. I have an idea for expanding it into a book, but I need to tweak a few things before I can do that. For right now, I'm just working on the short story.

Geeze. I came up with a story idea last night. I can see the book cover in my head. I know what this character looks like. It's eerie.

There are vague elements of Babylon 5 and Ender's Game in it. It's set against a war between humans and some aliens who are very alien, called the Naxin. The primary fighters in this war (at least on the human side) are telepaths. The person who can end the war is a man named Matthew Brandon, who works as a recruiter and Selections Director at the company that produces the psionic enhancers which make it possible for the human telepaths to fight the Naxin.

I had created Matthew for another story entirely, but I'm very pleased that I can use him for this. Amazingly, I discovered that if I aged him from 22 to 38, he became a lot more interesting. At age 22, he was just a punk. At age 38, he had experienced some of the war and was a far more responsible person. The difference is just astounding to me.

( CDQ Questions - Lengthy )

What the hell did I do with my character development questionnaire entry for Rakailanasteamurdolandosuravaleuifamiel?

(Yes, I did want to see if I could still spell the name.)

I hope I didn't delete that post...I wanted the CDQ template. Waaah!

( Read more... )

I have increased the target total word count to 100,000 words, as the original rough draft of Avriet was not nearly finished when NaNoWriMo 2004 ended.

• Chapter 1 - 2407 words (2407 total)
  

Breakout Novel Exercise #1 is to pick your favorite hero, describe this person's heroic qualities, and imbue your protagonist with these qualities which you admire.

I chose Dwayne 'Dog' Chapman, because I really, really admire him. Every episode I watch of Dog: The Bounty Hunter, I grow more and more deeply impressed with this man and his family.

Unfortunately, Dog is nothing like Micaul. *buries face in hands* He's nothing like Allistaire, either. Geeze. But when I think of 'hero,' Chapman's is the first name that immediately springs to mind. There are many people I admire, but Chapman is up at the top--I suppose because he is unusual, not someone I am familiair with or grew up with. I could have said I consider my mother a hero--and I do, very much--but I'm used to her. Her heroism has become normal for me, whereas Dog's is way out there.

Maybe I should come up with a hero who is more like Micaul. I'll see.

Writing: I'm quitting NaNo. I'm going to just work on the book and do it right, instead of writing a half-assed rough draft done for speed. Why should I spend all of November writing a rough draft that I will have to take apart at the end of the month and drastically revise because I have to throw out crap that I put in only for word count?

So no more NaNo. I'm just going to work on the writing--properly.

( Table )

Why is it that, when I wasn't working and had plenty of time to write, I felt creatively dead inside, but now that I have a full-time job and a total 3-hour commute each day, leaving me very little time to write, I now seem to have ideas coming out my eyeballs?

It's maddening!

Told from the point of view of my former gaming character, ex-Death-Eater Paul Graves.

Spoilers Behind the Cut

( This Film and Its Relevance to My Life )

I just joined a_poetry_club. This appears to be exactly what I was looking for but didn't have time to run, myself.

Somehow, these people have avoided the crappy poets I've seen all too many of in other poetry communities; most of what I saw in this group was either reasonably good or quite good, and it wasn't Netspeak, nor did it sound juvenile. I think this will be a good place.

I noticed that the_bards has been deleted. I'm not terribly surprised; I think the last post in it was one that I wrote--though I haven't looked in a while.

Now, maybe I can get to doing some good poetic work.

( William Rathleigh - For DMs' Eyes Only )

( Notes and Running Word Count )

My submission for this year's Wergle Floop Poetry Contest. I don't expect to win, but it's such a wonderfully silly idea, I had to at least enter. :)

*shakes head* Anyone who has actually seen my poetry at The International Library of Poetry will probably wonder if I've taken leave of my senses. *cackles of evil laughter*


Tea! Wonderful tea!
Drink of our ancestors.
Tea! Wonderful tea!
I daresay nothing is better.

Squeeze the lemon, lump the sugar,
Serve the milk in glass or pewter.
Drink it iced, or drink it hot, or
Drink it your way.

We've gone from Framingham to Quincy,
But we cannot find green tea.
"Have you heard that there's a war on?"
Local tradesmen all agree,
Well, we will not cook your supper
Until you bring us tea!

The Duchess of Morcar's blue carbuncle
Is not as precious as a pot of steaming
Tea! Glorious tea!

From the sphogwarts Harry Potter RPG, Poems written to Lilith Drachenstein Graves

minnehaha poses a good question in pegkerr's journal. I'm going to answer for myself and then ask all of you. What do you all think you're good at, in writing?

Me, I think my strongest skill is in making my characters seem like real people. To me, that's one of the highest compliments I can be given about my writing--though it also helps if the story is paced well, and the plot is good and believable!

I think I write dialogue well, and I like my writing best when my characters have to think about things during the story, when they have to ask themselves important questions. David Gerrold once said that the best stories are those in which the character has to make a decision, rather than merely fight something. I agree with that. I've had at least one character darn-near want to commit suicide because of a bad decision he made. That's the kind of drama I like to have in a story, though not a constant diet of it.

The writer at whose feet I worship is Lois McMaster Bujold, because that woman can plot her way out of a tesseract. She is brilliant. For truly gut-wrenching drama, I like Susan R. Matthews, but you have to have the stomach to read her work. I personally have not gotten past chapter 6 of An Exchange of Hostages. I am dreading the later chapters. C. S. Friedman is also good. From page 1 of In Conquest Born, I knew why her two protagonists would want to kill each other throughout the book. She is also a brilliant writer.

Someday, I hope my writing will be as good as theirs.

Reigns

( Historical Timeline of Avriet )

( Royal Reigns of Avriet )

I found a treasure tfove, today--all of my old notes for Darkside, The Black Council, The Curse of Avriet, and Lightborn. I could dance a jig!

It distresses me, though, that so much of the stuff is worldbuilding, with very few notes on the actual stories. Still, I'll work with what I've got. I've been doing a considerable lot of thinking about Lightborn today, and I want to do more with it.

1. Creating Heroic Characters
   
2. Creating Multidimensional Characters
   
3. Inner Conflict
   

( Cold Study )

...But I'm not getting much value out of it, yet.

So--I have this unnamed wizard in my head who is very chatty, and I enjoy 'listening' to him a great deal--but I don't have a story for him. I don't know what he's there to do.

I think I might go through and use the Cherveaux: Palace of Light character generation sheet and see if I can work this guy up from that. I like the way that the sheet forces you to create all sorts of built-in problems for your character. My character in the game is a variant of Paul Graves, but with a really awful, heartbreaking problem. Unfortunately, the format of the Cherveaux RPG is such that I am not really sure I'll be able to tell his story effectively there. I could write it much more easily in Imperial Secrets, but IMS has changed too much for me to feel comfortable there. It's not the game I loved, anymore. I might just have to write Paul Lenoir's story elsewhere. Cherveaux is a very fascinating RPG, though!

Maybe I should start a journal for him.

At least it would be a story I could tell, as opposed to this very chatty wizard in my head.

This is a rambling, introspective post about my sphogwarts character Paul Graves/Gareth Adams. Feel free to ignore, if you have no interest in Harry Potter role-playing or this character. (g) I'm going to discuss things which only people familiar with the character will know, and I won't explain things for the uninitiated, in this post.

I took a color quiz for Paul/Gareth, today. I figured he would test as having a type A personality--very business-oriented, always on the go, always very busy, etc.

Instead, he turned out to be philosophical, unconditionally loving, and intuitive.

It was weird, how many of the things he had done in his life were not really the things he valued or wanted in life--and I don't think he really saw that, until now.

Yet it's like there are four aspects to him--I call them the teacher, laranzu (for lack of a better term), priest, and businessman aspects, because there are things about each of those aspects that Paul hoestly does love.

Teacher: I think he has been completely stunned at how much he enjoys teaching. There are aspects of teaching which satisfy Paul and make him more joyful in certain ways than he has ever felt. It fills hollow spaces in him that he never even knew he had. He has found patience with his students that I never thought he had in him. I was afraid Paul would be a very impatient, almost savage teacher--but he wasn't. That surprised me. He's hard on his students, yes, but not nearly as intense with them as I expected.

Laranzu: Laranzu is a term from the Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It means someone gifted with the ability to use laran or ESP. Paul is a pretty cracking good wizard and legilimens. I made him good at legilimency because he is mostly crap at using crucio and thinks Avada Kedavra is dishonourable, so rarely used it in the DE, except when ordered to. I wanted to give him some limits, because I was afraid that he could too easily become a supersona. But since I needed for him to be in the DE, he had to be useful to them in some way, so he became a talented legilimens and a specialist in the Imperius Curse.

I discovered while writing him that Paul loves legilimency. It was very scary, discovering this. He thinks legilimency is the most intensely satisfying mental challenge in the world. It's difficult to learn, difficult to master, and requires a lot of concentration, artistry, subtlety, quick thinking, and patience to do well. He has never encountered any skill more intellectually difficult than legilimency, and performing it has in some ways been one of his greatest joys.

That is just creepy, considering what he did with it in the DE.

Priest: Priesthood is something that Paul is only beginning to learn, and I know it will take him years to progress anywhere in it--and he knows this, too. Being a priest is going to require a significant change in his thinking patterns. Right now, he still thinks too much like a hunter, and escape rather than fighting is still an alien concept to him. He doesn't even really like living under witness protection; he only does it because it is necessary and because Lilith would have his head if he didn't. (g) He would much rather have walked right up to Voldemort and a mob of Death-Eaters, told Voldie exactly what he thought of him and the DE, and fought the guy until he was crucio'd or avada'd to death. He would have done it, too, but I wanted to continue writing him, so I didn't allow it to happen. Paul is pissed off with me, for that.

He really, really hates Voldemort---and one could argue, himself. This is going to cause him problems in the priesthood area, I think. He's going to have to overcome the self-hatred before he can truly progress as a priest.

Businessman: I get the sense that Paul both enjoyed and disliked being a businessman. He enjoyed it when there were problems he was needed to solve, but when it ran smoothly, he was bored with it and found the day to day work tedious in the extreme. For this reason, he tended to start long-term, big projects, such as expanding into the Muggle market. He had vision, but I think it was mainly to keep himself from being bored stiff.

Multiple Personalities: In the game, we had a plotline for a while that featured people plitting into two different aspects of themselves, rather like Captain Kirk did in the Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within." I have since wondered what personalities Paul would split into.

Would it be the Good and Evil sides of him? Would it be the Paul and Gareth sides? Would he split into these four aspects I've described above?

I've noticed that his DE-ness has diminished a lot since he assumed the shell personality of Gareth. In a way, this bothers me. Writing him as a reluctant DE was fun, because he could have a good heart, but do the occasional ruthless thing--and then I could have him angst about it for a while. *snicker* But I do miss the ruthless streak. I like having a character who scares me sometimes, because it's exciting. When he's like that, I don't know what lengths he'll go to, and I'm eager to find out. There's been only one time when he was ruthless that I hated it--and so did he.

He's not very ruthless as Gareth, and I miss it so much. There really were times when I wondered if I should have simply let him die in a blaze of dark glory.

Yet he tells me now: "But then, I would never have gotten to teach. I would regret losing the chance to do this."

There are so many aspects of this man's personality. It is wondeful, but also frustrating, when it comes to writing him and deciding what I want to do with him.