Ghost Mist

End of the Line

2010-09-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

I finished my final two weeks of 'The Artist's Way' program. Here's me doing the check-in for the last week.

1. I stopped doing my morning pages. I feel like they would be more useful to someone in a slightly different situation in life. My life is very hectic and I found that if I only had 15 minutes a day to write - using the time to write my morning pages was a waste of it. Instead, I finished my novella in these last two weeks. That isn't to say that I don't think morning pages are a good tool. What the problem is really is that I start writing and all these wonderful dreams come out and then I don't have time any of them come true before I'm back to writing more dreams. I have another problem too. You're supposed to write morning pages out long hand. My right hand is somewhat wrecked from all the writing I've done when I used to do all my writing long hand and guess what - my arm is starting to hurt all the way up to my elbow. Typing is easier for me. I plan to write those pages whenever I need to figure out what I want - anytime of the day or night.

2. I went and got my hair cut and talked to the hairdresser about art the whole time. I find that I'm always trying to soak up new experiences, but this program has made me far more aware of my needs. Doing these dates definitely got me out of the house more. I can't wait until I have the time to do these more.

3. I think I experience synchronicity every week. I think I had the best luck with my hairdresser. She did a great job and I haven't had a good haircut in forever.

4. I don't think there were any other issues.

Check-in Week Ten

2010-08-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

1. I did my morning pages three days this week. I just had a lot of stuff going on this week and I only got to them three days. It was a bummer, but you've got to roll with it. Reading my morning pages didn't change the way I wrote them. I have been writing like a mad thing for 15 years. I know what I'm like and I'm not ashamed of it. I can read my thoughts and feelings without suffering over how stupid I am. I'm okay.

2. I went to the Heritage Festival in my city. I mostly concentrated on the orient. It was fun. I even tried making some of the food we had there in my kitchen. And guess what? It turned out. I would have liked to go on a second artist date, but it wasn't possible considering my schedule. It was my daughter's birthday and so many other things.

3. I saw a laptop I wanted, but naturally I wasn't going to buy it. I mean, I can't have everything I want. Anyway, so then my butterfly laptop abruptly died and even though my husband worked hard to fix it (he's fixed it three times before), this time it was impossible. So, I got a new laptop and my wish came true.

4. It was really hard to get my writing done when my laptop died. So, I guess that's the only progress to report - work was slow this week.

4.

The Deadlies

2010-07-28T14:11:00.001-07:00

All right, here's what I'm supposed to do for this exercise. I'm supposed to pick out one of a collection of vices out of a hat and then write five ways that particular vice has a negative influence in my life. This may or may not be interesting.

1. Work
- I don't get my target house work done and then I feel gross about myself.
- I think people judge me when my house is less than perfect - or even downright dirty - and that makes me feel unhappy and slothful.
- I can't seem to keep the things I buy nice and I feel wasteful buying them over again.
- I especially feel bad when I have to throw out perfectly good food that I let pass the expiry date.
- I feel like everyone must be more on top of it than me since most women I know have jobs and don't just stay home with the kids.

2. Family/Friends
- My mom puts a negative spin on everything.
- I feel like my mom-in-law always talks down to me until I become a baby in front of her (and it's impossible to ever be anything else).
- One of my brothers always talks to me like I'm an idiot and he has to talk slowly so I'll understand.
- I let friendships with perfectly good people slide because I can't seem to find the time.
- I judge people prematurely.

3. Drugs
- I have never taken a recreation drug in my whole life. I've never even had one drag on a cigarette, so I'm going to skip this. It's pretty straightforward.

4. Family/Friends
- I scare people off because I'm too overpowering.
- I always think that whoever is talking to me doesn't actually want to talk to me and they're just looking for a way out.
- So I give them the way out and they're offended, because oops! They actually wanted to talk to me and then I'm the one who's rude.
- I worry that I don't spend enough time with my kids.
- What's enough?

5. Alcohol
- I have never had a drink in my life, so we'll go on.

6. Money
- I know that I waste about $100 a month on nothing in particular.
- I'm stingy with babysitter money, so then I never get out.
- If I spend money on projects I want to do and they don't pan out I feel like a loser.
- I'm really reluctant to experiment on projects if the money required isn't almost nothing.
- The same applies to classes I would like to take.

7. Food
- I eat a lot of junk that doesn't make me feel like working on my art.
- I don't drink enough water.
- Ice cream is my favourite and I know that I ditch almost any creative activity if there is going to be ice cream.
- I like eating out and I will ditch pretty much anything for crab cooked properly with tons of butter.
- I never order dessert and I should.

Sorry - I cheated a little. One of the vices I pulled was sex and I decided not to write about it. Like it's any of your business. Sheesh!

Check-in Week Eight and Nine

2010-07-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

Before I commence my check-in, I'd like to explain that I slammed the two weeks together. Week eight is about strength and week nine is about compassion. Specifically, it's about having compassion for yourself for wasting your time/life not doing your art. This really doesn't apply to me. I have been working my tail off since I was 13. I don't feel anything when I read the chapter or read the tasks appointed for it. I took some time off because I was sick and I don't feel any guilt over it - so we're just going to move on. I'm sure Julia Cameron would support my decision. Though she might not be particularly happy with me rocketing through the course at this speed - I feel it's what's best for me. I'm even going to be sad when this is over and we only have three weeks left. So, here we go with the check-in.

1. I did my morning pages five out of seven days. I skipped because of the Sabbath and because I was getting up to live a dream - which I'm sure Julia would approve of. That whole day was swallowed up in loveliness, so it's okay. And yeah - I have been tempted to stop doing them. Sometimes I'm in a hurry to get on with my day. But I think I should continue to do them because they're helping me focus on what I really want to do. That way I'm open to suggestions, but not stupid ones. Sometimes my brain devises incredibly stupid ways to waste my time, but if I write out at the beginning of the day what I really want from it - it's more likely to get done. I don't have such a hard time working on my art, but I do have a hard time getting laundry folded and put away, so the morning pages are bringing me into the present.

2. Yes. I went out and bought flowers for my front yard. Then I planted them under the full moon because I couldn't find the time to do it during daylight. Planting flowers at night is weird. It got really dark and I had to turn on my Narnia lamp. Plus, the people across the street were thumping music from the speakers of their car as they all piled in to go to the bar. When they left I started jumping at every sound. I haven't been outside at night by myself in years.

3. I've said it before. Everything is falling into place. Mwhahahahaha. Now if only my book could get accepted for publication.

The Ninth Week.

1. You know, I can't think of any major creative U-turns that I've suffered from. I can't think of anything that's making me cry inside because I didn't do it. And that's not me being in denial. I've seldom had an opportunity that I haven't taken advantage of. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't take a collection of university writing courses that were recommended to me, but you know what? I think those bastards would have just ripped my guts out for a sadistic ego boost. I don't need university students or professors to like what I write. I think those courses would have murdered my artist child and I would have spent the rest of my life making oatmeal cookies from the same recipe. Because the core idea of the course was to read your writing aloud to a collection of students. YUCK! And I did send my book in to a publisher as soon as I felt I was ready.

Skip to:

4. The only other issue I can think of that's important to my recovery is that I finally have an author friend. I have never had an author friend before. I have known four other women who wrote books. Here's the deal with each of them. The first two have been women who I knew wrote novels. They knew I wrote novels and we never switched manuscripts and asked for suggestions or support. The next one is a friend of a friend who writes very badly. Grammar? Crap. Characters? Crap. Plot? Crap. There were so many errors it would take a remarkable amount of sensitivity and tact not to kill her with them. And who wants to do that? So, I didn't say anything. She'll have to figure it out on her own. Last one - her taste is so different from mine that it's not even worth the trouble. I'm trying to write black lace and she's trying to write divinity fudge.

Anyway, I finally have a friend with a similar streak. She's now given me her second novel to look over and I love it. She's read four of my books now too and she's given me pointers on how to improve without making me feel like a dolt. There's appropriate criticism for you. So, there's the beginnings of a sacred circle of artistic friends.

Colour Schemes - Orange

2010-07-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

I am orange. I am vibrant, ugly, and I can't avoid being seen. I am rare - things don't usually come in orange. I am a creamsicle. I am feathers. I am ribbons. I'm the colour of your eyelids when you close your eyes to the sun and the colour of dreams you can't wake up from.

Goal Search

2010-07-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

This may seem a little weird, but just go with it. I think this will work out without me saying what the questions I'm answering are. Here goes!

1. I want to be a novelist.

2. I would like to be approached by a big fancy publishing house, because they want to run a second edition of one of my books that has already been published. (Not that any of my books have been published - this is just a goal that would signify some accomplishment)

3. In five years I would like five of my existing novels published and me earning regular royalties. I'd like to make enough money so that I can say, 'I'm a novelist and I have been published' to idiots who need proof that I'm not a ridiculous blow-hard. And if I made enough money - at a small publishing house than maybe it wouldn't be ridiculous to get a second edition at a bigger house.

4. I could start by sending one of my books to a small publishing house and see if it gets picked up. If it does, I could send in my other books.

5. I already sent one of my books to a small house, so I could start by giving the next logical novel an edit. It needs it.

6. Make a plan. Here's the plan.
--Week One - Edit a chapter a day of the book I want to send in.
--Month One - Finish editing that book within the confines of the month.
--Year One - Besides editing, I have a new book I want to work on. I've got to work on new stuff rather than always concentrating on the old. And if I don't get accepted, I need to find a new publishing house to send my book to.

Check-in Week Seven

2010-07-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

1. I wrote in my morning pages on six days out of seven. Yes, I have been daydreaming risky things. I talked about it last week. No, I'm not really pursuing things I was interested in as a child. I know that's what I'm supposed to be doing, but I already got a lot of my childhood dreams out of the way and I have kids, so there's always more than enough time to play with my kids and do the things I always dreamed of doing. Instead, I'm doing the things I dreamed about doing as a teenager. I'm painting. I'm growing roses. I'm so happy about my roses. Each bush has already bloomed, but now there are 24 new buds on the one bush and 20 on the other. Yee-ha!

2. No, I didn't go on my artist date this week. I weeded my garden and dug mushrooms and felt very rejuvenated, but I didn't do anything special. I didn't even get on a date with my husband. I gotta do that.

3. It feels like I experience nothing but mounds of synchronicity - though I would rather call them answers to prayers. Everything I want is almost instantly at my fingertips. It's like the Garden of Eden. Except that sometimes I get overwhelmed because there's so much going on and happening all at once that I feel like I'm in a time vortex. I'm also tired. It's hard to keep up with all the opportunity.

4. I talked to my sister about this program. She's going to borrow the book when I'm finished. Might as well pass on a good thing.

Check-in Week Six

2010-07-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

1. I did my morning pages four days out of seven. I didn't do them on Sunday because I don't do them on Sunday and I missed yesterday and today. I missed yesterday because I had a disturbance in my schedule and then I didn't get to them until the afternoon and there didn't seem much point by then. Then I didn't do them today because I lost the book I was writing them in. Yes, I do think about how to help myself do my art with them. I felt pretty lost yesterday and today without doing them.

2. Artist dates are what they can be while I'm in this phase of life, so I try to notice beauty where ever I am, but I don't always have time to schedule time to myself - time just happens, so I try to make those times count. They show up when I least expect them. Thus - I just try to be open to noticing things. So, there's a fifteen minute artist date here and an hour and a half there. I do what I can do.

3. I didn't notice how much I kept my dreams and wishes to myself. I was at church and I happened to mention to someone that I wanted to buy tiny ice cream cones, but the place I had been buying them from didn't sell them anymore. The next week that same lady had seen them in her shopping and told me where to find them. It was like when I was a teenager and stupid about Brad Pitt. I didn't need to look for pictures of him - the whole community cut up their magazines and sent me the goods. People are truly amazing.

4. Something did happen that was interesting. I believed that I didn't have a valuable story in me. Well, when I was on a road trip with my family this past weekend, I crossed my legs in the passenger seat and engaged in a little meditation exercise when an idea for a novel crept up on me. No fantasy. No explosions. No fireworks. Actually, it's a story inside me that would be quite painful for me to tell. So painful that I tried to get out of it. First - I didn't write out my idea. Sometimes if I don't write out the idea - I'll forget it. So, I didn't write out a storyboard. Then I told my husband. Sometimes the very act of telling someone else your idea is enough to help me lose steam. But I didn't. Then, I started writing out some character sketches telling myself that I could quit anytime I wanted to. But I wasn't finished and I was bothered by it until I started working on the first chapter. But I keep telling myself that I can quit whenever I want. All I can say is that I have wicked flow because the ideas just keep coming.

Several Assignments

2010-07-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

None of my assignments were writing assignments this week, so here's what happened with my other challenges.

I was supposed to bake something. Well, I cook a lot and I tried to make some things that I don't normally make - which all resulted in failure most paramount. Seriously - disasters all of them. I don't think I was supposed to fail as completely as I did. I think I was supposed to gain energy for other projects and I did - sort of.

Then I was also supposed to practice saying 'yes' to freebie's. Today, when I was buying my nephew's birthday cake (yeah, I know I could have baked that, but he said he wanted an ice cream cake and I'm not adventurous enough to do that just now considering my track record), so they asked me if I wanted anything written on it. It was a cake with a fire breathing dragon on it, so I said 'yes' to a freebie and asked them to put a big beefy arm coming out of the back of its neck. My nephew thought that was great even though the arm wasn't beefy at all. We joked that they wouldn't know majesty if it bit them in the face. Good times.

Lastly, I was supposed to do something to change my environment. I couldn't think of much to do considering how busy I am these days, so I bought a box. I mean I bought a really pretty box that matches my bed skirt and valances to put all my little books in. They were in an ancient shoe box that wasn't big enough for them all.

Check-in Week Five

2010-07-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

1. I did my morning pages on everyday except Sunday and I didn't do about a half a page today because I was daring myself to do something in my morning pages, so I got up and did the thing I was daring myself to do rather than finish writing. I have noticed that I get to a turning point in my morning writing about half way through. Sometimes I come up with interesting insights after that point, but mostly I just whine about having to continue writing.

2. I didn't do an official artist date this week, but I did get to go clothing shopping and revamp parts of my wardrobe. I bought a really wild purple dress. I wonder when I'll get to wear it in public. And I did get out to the movies - the first time in months. It felt great to get out of the house for awhile on both occasions. No, I haven't done anything really adventurous. I wish I could think of something adventurous to do.

3. I have had lots of things fall into place for me as I've thought about them. And I habitually talk to my friends about the blessings I receive when I ask God for them. My favourite is telling people to pray before they go shopping. I have had the most amazing miracles come my way. My favourite was the the time that I dreamed that I went to the Salvation Army and there was a huge children's book sale on. When I woke up in the morning, I hadn't heard of a sale, but I was like - I should just get up and go. I could probably find a couple kids books there even if there isn't a sale. There was. I got 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish' for ten cents and a whole bunch of other books too. Really, I have countless stories about this.

4. There is something else that has been happening lately. I've been having dreams about old friends. I had a friend in school that I have always wanted to apologize to and I've never had the chance. I had a dream a week or two ago that I saw her and told her I was sorry. It was so strange, but in my dream, she told me that it was nothing to worry about and she was sorry that I'd been bothered by it for so long. And when I woke up - I realized that was exactly what she would say. I felt instantly lighter and happier.

I also had a dream that I told one of my friends from high school that I was hurt when she moved away after graduation. I remember helping her pack and I knew that once she left I would probably never see her again. I remember walking away from her house and squashing my hurt so far down into my stomach that I couldn't even feel it. I thought I had successfully severed the feeling until I had that dream. Then I knew I hadn't got rid of it even though I tried because I felt the sting all over again. I really was hurt. And it felt great to get it off my chest.

I've had a few others too, but those were the most remarkable.

Oh, and it's amazing how cowardly I turn when I'm about to send in my first manuscript - to a company who has asked for it no less. My knees are shaking.

Cartoon of Me

2010-07-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

For this assignment, I'm supposed to draw a cartoon of myself indulging in my favourite pay-off, which I previously decided was self pity. Why didn't I actually draw it instead of just searching the internet until I found a pic? Because I plan on using this pic for my desktop for awhile just to see how it effects me.

Just for interest's sake - right now my desktop is a picture of Hugh Jackman in 'The Fountain'. It's not a close up or anything. It's just him walking towards the queen with all those beautiful little floating lanterns in the distance. It was inspiring me, but I still haven't really felt like writing - so how inspiring was it really?

Let's see how this works.

A Supportive God

2010-07-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

This is the post where I write five reasons why I have trouble believing in a supportive god. Before I get started though, I would like to point out that this isn't an assignment I want to do. I'm doing it because I'm aware that it will explore my feels towards a god I believe in. And if I have issues with Him, I should talk to him about them. So, here's why.

1. I've always believed that God would help me do the things He wanted me to do, and for some reason that always made me believe that He wouldn't help me with the things I wanted to do. So, I've believed He would help me with missionary work, institute attendance, my callings in church, employment, and so forth. I just didn't think He had the energy to spare His attention for things that weren't essential.

2. For many years, I didn't believe that anyone loved me besides my mother, so why would God?

3. I also didn't believe that anyone cared enough about me to help me when I asked, not even my mother, so why would God?

4. I keep thinking that I should be pursuing something else rather than creativity. Like my mother says that I should be concentrating on my kids. This chops me up. I have no idea how to do that. I read to them. I'll read to them endlessly. I cook with them. I invite them to do a kid version of whatever thing I'm doing. I'm painting - I let them paint too. I'm crocheting, I let them plastic canvas or bead. But it's never enough. I'm always being told that they're not progressing as they should and I need to do more. I don't know how. I don't even like kid culture. The thing is - for some reason I think the voice of my mother is the voice of God. Not really, but yes - really. And if she disapproves - God must too.

5. Sometimes I'm not sure that my art deserves God's approval. If I'm writing a book solely as a rebuttal to a crappy book I read - that doesn't seem particularly worthy of God's sanction, now does it?

So, with this list - I've done pretty well dispelling 1, 2, and 3, but 4 and 5 are hard. Let's go through each of them again with a little more thinking behind each one.

1. The older I get the more I see that the things I want to do are not out of line with what God wants. I've spoken with Him a lot and I've become accustomed to how He speaks to me now. He wants me to make my own decisions and see what happens. He wants me to have the experience of life and He doesn't want to protect me from minor screw-ups. Well, sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes He does. The point is - He will swoop in and rescue me when I need it and He'll let me fall face first in the mud if I need it. He's really a very wise parent. It just took me awhile to learn how He speaks.

Lately, in my church they keep talking about good, better, and best. Thus, we are supposed to aim for the best things. Somewhere in my mind, that means that we're supposed to dedicate every moment we can to the highest of spiritual things, but that's not really possible. I think we're supposed to remember to take enough time for them and then - live life the best way you can. Sometimes that means watching a movie. Sometimes that means taking a nap as soon as you get up. Everyone has down times. We're human and we deserve them. You can't live your whole life on 100% efficiency.

2. As I have grown up, I see the people who care for my children. There are scads of them. It seems unreasonably pessimistic to believe that fewer people cared for me. Not only that, but my husband's passion for loving me opens a world of possibility and makes life less dreary than ever before.

3. I think my mother unconsciously taught me that no one would ever help me. I remember sitting on a bus stop in my early twenties crying my eyes out and screaming and swearing because it was minus twenty five outside and I had missed my bus. The next one wasn't coming for 45 minutes and if I missed the bus than how could God or anyone else claim to love me when I had had the shoddiest day in the universe and would now have to wait 45 minutes for the bus in the cold and wind and snow? The bus pulled up. That's not my only proof that God wants to help me.

But as I have grown up - I have scads of resources available to me that I didn't have when I was growing up. The only thing a person has to do is ask and I'll dish it out. I just don't know what people need so they have to speak up. I think my mom taught me never to speak up. But she didn't do it on purpose and she's often got angry with me. "If you needed that, then why didn't you say so?"

4. I've often wondered exactly how much God supports me when it comes to raising my children. Sometimes I think he takes care of a lot more than I realize. My negative side tells me that my kids go to special programs because I'm a shoddy mother. My positive side tells me that God knows this is my weak point and He's helping me with my kids with the special programs.

5. I think the reason my writing is unworthy of God's approval because my writing is usually as moth eaten as my soul. I don't think I have an uplifting story in me, so why would he want to drag everyone down?

I'll have to think about this one some more.

Ten Things I Want

2010-07-03T17:37:00.000-07:00

This is something I wanted to do. I'm supposed to make a list of ten things I want to own that I don't. This totally reminds me of The Simpson's episode where Marge is like, "I'm going to stay here and think about things I'd like to purchase. Ooo! I don't have that. Or that." So this should be fun.

1. I want a scooter. I know it's a stupid idea. It's not like we have enough summer here to make it viable and it's not like I have anywhere to go that it's not more convenient to take my van. This one is for sale in my city for $1,400. I want it. BUT! I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to save this little dream of mine for another time.

2. I want a huge crock pot. No. I'm not looking up a picture for you guys. No way. Anyway, I don't think I'll wait longer than a couple years for this dream. It's just that right now I have two crock pots and they seem to be cooking enough of everything for the time being.

3. I want a swing for my backyard. Not like one of those sissy kid swings. I want an adult swing with a canopy and a plush cushion.

4. I want a full-length orange ball gown with sleeves. I know. Where would I wear it? Probably no where. And if I had it, it probably wouldn't be a good thing. I'd probably turn into that crazy old bat from 'Great Expectations'.

I have to take a breath. All this greed is overwhelming me. I don't usually allow myself to fantasize about possessions, because actually I hardly believe in them.

5. I want an ironing board in the wall of my bedroom. You know, the kind that folds out that you find in hotel rooms. That would make things so much easier.

6. I would like a crib. My last crib died after having been moved in and out of rooms too many times. Now I have to use a collapsible playpen. Yeah!

7. I would like a dressing table. And there's really nothing stopping me from getting one, except that there isn't room in my room. My room is already a pretty crowded place and it's not a particularly big place.

8. I would like a DVD copy of 'Shadowlands'. It's not for me, but for my father-in-law. Actually, I have hunted high and low in stores and online for a copy of this to give him. I can't find anything under $40 and I'm almost ready to pay that, even though it's a ridiculous price.

9. I'd like a cell phone, even though I don't admit that in public much. I just don't want to pay a monthly fee and it would only be useful once or twice a month. We're all such home dwellers.

10. I would like a new winter coat. I keep seeing one I like in the Victoria Secret catalog I only get because the lady who lived here before me got it. Except I don't want to pay shipping and it doesn't look very warm. But then, what looks warm besides marshmallow coats and I know for a fact - those aren't as warm as they should be. The warmest coat I ever wore weighted like 25 pounds and was full of goose down. It was my dad's and then mine and then my husband's when we couldn't afford a new one for him. Well, he wore it out and now I don't have anything good. Maybe this winter I'll fork out for something I like.

My Payoff

2010-06-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

This is the post where I am supposed to describe the payoff I get for staying blocked.

You know I'm not sure what my payoff is, but I feel like there's one there, lurking under the surface of me. I can't see it, but I know it's there. I know there's some sick warm dirty little pleasure I get from not getting on with my art. I'm going to make a list of my suspects and see who I looks right when I check out the line up at the end.

1. There's no pay cheque.
2. There's not necessarily anyone who will stand around and admire me.
3. I get impatient with myself because of the learning curve and think 'why bother?'
4. I can get the same thing cheaper at the mall.
5. I can get the same thing with a lot less work at the mall.
6. I feel like there's no money to pursue it.
7. I like doing nothing around the house.
8. I want to be the poor-little-girl-who-never-had-anyone-help-her-in-her-whole-miserable-life?
9. I don't think that my efforts are as good as other people's.
10. I like to smother other people's dreams by discouraging them when I've got nothing on the go.

Okay, there's ten. I think the winners are 8, 9, and 10, but I think the biggest one is number 9. I really think this sometimes and then I feel sorry for myself. I love to feel sorry for myself. I love to sit around and have the most elaborate pity party where I'm the party girl in a faded skirt and a limp party hat.

Why am I like this?

Really. I always had so much confidence when it came to dating. I was always this golden girl who was bestowed with magical powers to attract the guys. I always thought that any guy who was on a date with me was practically floating in a cloud above me. Why was I so self assured when it came to that and so wimpy when it comes to my art?

It's because I think I'm stupid with poor fine motor skills. I think my writing must be stupid. If I sent it in to a publishing company - they'd read it and giggle, "And she thinks even a preteen would be interested in this? What a joke!" And I do have poor fine motor skills compared to other artists. My art is very symmetrical and geometric. It's not fine art. It's a story that I want to tell with a picture instead of a novel. But it's not finely detailed - it's chunky. And anyone looking at it can see the chunks.

I just finished a painting yesterday and I put it up on the piano. This places it next to a painting my mother did when she was 17. CHUNKY! Hers is delicate and precise and mine is CHUNKY! I'm trying not to be discouraged, even though 17 is a speck on my horizon. Yeah - awhile ago.

I think I just like comparing myself to others and feeling sorry for myself.

Check-in Weeks Three and Four

2010-06-29T10:26:00.001-07:00

I did my morning pages six days out of seven. The reason I didn't get my pages done the one day was because I had like thirteen people visiting and I had to get up and make pancakes for everyone. Actually, I find three pages a little much. I usually just want to write two. By the time I've written two pages, I'm concentrated and really ready for the day, but I have to keep writing that third page. Yet, I usually get my second wind for it on about the second paragraph and then I learn something new about myself because I start talking about something weird.

I did two artist dates this week. One was rather forced. I was stuck at a water park watching my baby sleep. Well, I wasn't allowed to read this week, so I was forced to watch all the people who came to the water park. I have come to realize that everyone over the age of 18 has a tattoo and absolutely none of them look good in a bathing suit. Really. Why does anyone want to dress immodestly when they look like that? Did they even look in the mirror before they went out in public? Or think before they got their body permanently branded? Tasteless tattoos. Horribly tasteless tattoos.

I also went to China town and had bubble tea. Not really with tea in it - just a slushy with the bubbles in the bottom. Those don't last like regular slurpees.

I did have things fall together nicely. I already believed in prayers being answered or things I need being given to me in just the way they needed to in order for something to happen. In this case, it had to do with the water park. Normally, taking that many people to that place would cost $475.00, but I was telling one of my friends what I was planning to do and she told me about this group rate you can get if you're taking that many people and order your tix a few days in advance. She saved me $200.

Any other issues? Proudly enough - most of the things discussed in the program are things I already knew. I have already addressed my family issues, so I really brushed by chapter 3. Then in chapter 4 they talk about not reading in order to open yourself up to sensory experiences, which is something I knew as well. If you're always cramming your brain full of someone else's thoughts then how can you possibly think for yourself? So, things are going swimmingly and I'm not having any tantrums or angry outbursts like they describe artists having. Actually, I'm excited to see if there are any concepts I don't know.

The Season I Like Best

2010-06-27T22:23:00.001-07:00

This post is supposed to talk about the season I like best. I like autumn. Why? I think it's because a day is like a year is like a life. Spring is for birth, childhood, youth and probably ends with marriage. It's probably got something to do with June. How June is the month for brides. It's full of wonder and possibility. Decisions for the rest of your life have been made though not lived. That's what summer is for. That's when we fuss and fume and push ourselves into overdrive birthing children and raising them up like grain. In Autumn, we finish up the harvest and marry our children off and do anything left that we want to do before it starts to snow. Winter - poor health and eventually death.

Besides, I said a life was like a day and don't we always feel best after we've done all our work and are allowed to rest?

I would also like to point out as an end note that no matter what happens - I'm always a little bit of a goth underneath it all.

My Ideal Environment

2010-06-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

This assignment encourages magazine clipping in order to discover our perfect environment. Luckily, I didn't have to go to the library and photocopy crusty old pics for this - I could just look online. Here's my imagination gone wild.

For this picture I did a search for tiling. The black and white tiling are what I admire the most. I also quite like the pure white feathers in steel vases in the back. If I were decorating my own room those are the two things I would steal from this room. The rest of the furniture is fine, don't get me wrong - oh, except for that hideous picture of a watch on the wall. Why would anyone do that?

This next picture is mostly for the bookshelves, though I like the rest of the room a lot. The curtains in particular are especially lovely.

Am I such a weirdo that I want an indoor fountain in my living room. This is the one I would choose considering I'm living in a fantasy right now.

My next wish would be this tree bed which I found for sale on an actual shopping page. It costs $15,000.00. Makes you want to get into making fancy beds and raking it in, doesn't it?

Lastly, I'd like a tub. But I didn't drive myself crazy searching for the most ridiculously beautiful tub I could find. I just went for something that was white and looked comfortable. you don't even have to turn off the water with your foot because OOPS! It's within reaching distance. You also don't have to stick your head under the facet or wash your hair with gross water because OOPS! It has a removable shower nozzle. I love this tub.

Time Travelling

2010-06-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

In this post I am supposed to describe myself as an eighty year-old then I am supposed to write a letter to myself from that perspective.

Me as an Eighty Year Old

I sort of expect that my husband will be dead by then. That probably seems dark, but my grandmothers and mother all outlived their men, so I'm only assuming. So, I'll probably be a widow. Let's also suppose that I don't have a major blowout myself and die, which I'm starting to believe is highly probable.

At the end of my life (before I get scuttled off to a nursing home) I imagine that I'll be living in a small town in Southern Alberta. I can't imagine doing a lot of family history work like my grandmothers (because they did it all), but I can imagine going to the temple often. Once I am retired and tired, I'd like to go to the temple every morning from Tuesday to Friday. I'd think of it as going to school. Then in the afternoon, I'd go home to my cozy little house with my little yard and potter around (I started weeding my yard for one of my artist dates and I think I'm in love) and eat a cucumber sandwich before taking a nap on my back porch and then painting or writing or crocheting or embroidering the rest of the afternoon. For supper, I'd make food for guests. I'd always have guests. If I couldn't have my family (and I'd definitely be a great-grandma by then) then I'd have the neighbours. Everyone would love coming because by then I'd be a really fantastic chef. And when they'd come to visit, they'd walk around my house and love every bit of it because all my paintings would be up on the walls. My grand kids would say, "Hey Grandma? Can I have this when you die?" And I'd say, "You can have it right now." And I'd have room on my wall for another picture. I'd still have long hair then too, and when my grand kids woke me up in the night, they'd see my braid going down my back. And if my hair didn't turn out to be a very pretty gray colour than I'd dye it silver/white. I'd be kind of chubby too because I'd make such great food. And when I went to church on Sunday, I wouldn't be shy and everyone in the ward would know me. I'd help out all the time. And I'd still love my husband. I'd love him forever.

Now for my letter to myself.

Dear Sapphirefly,

You and I both know you went by that name in your twenties.

Listen up kid! Life seems like it's rocketing past for you at light speed, but that speed won't last forever. You are going to have hours and hours stretching out before you instead of having to cram the things you really want to do into ten minute intervals. Enjoy the pleasures of the time you are in right now, because when you're my age you are going to be alone most of the time. That doesn't mean that your family doesn't love you, but they are going to be on their own rockets and it might be hard for them to get away. You need to cultivate your talents for sociability so that you can make friends where ever you are. That way you can be alone when you want to be and with your friends when you can't stand the sound of your own voice. Trust me. That time will come.

But you know even though you are supposed to enjoy the time you're in, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pursue the things you're interested in. If you don't have anything in your life other than your precious children, things are going to get awfully boring later on.

As for your writing - that's not the most important thing in your world. I think you know that where you're at now. When you write a story, it's because there's something you want to say, but obviously not everyone wants to hear you talk. If you write books, even if you make a million dollars there's no guarantee that your grand children will like them anymore than your mother likes your books now. When you write - it's for the audience at large and not your personal family. So don't expect that to be the heritage that you leave when you die. When you die - there will be family mourners - not fans. But don't let that bother you. The people there will be the ones that actually ate your pumpkin pie instead of those who just read about it. Besides, the rush you get when a fan writes you a hysterical letter isn't as precious as your baby girl telling you she loves you. But go ahead - write - but like anything that you make in this world - don't expect it to last forever. Nothing lasts forever except the love you share with the people around you.

Now go to sleep sweet little girl. You've got a lot of work to do if you want to catch up to me. And anyway, I have to go clean the house since you're coming to live here with me.

I love you.

S.

Five Great Things About Baby Me

2010-06-20T23:02:00.001-07:00

This post is exactly what it sounds like. I get to list five things that I liked about myself as a child, or moments where I loved myself best.

1. I am a narcissist. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. There is no law or reason behind it. No one needs to be chipping compliments at my heels for me to feel this way. It also has nothing to do with my performance in different areas of my life. It didn't matter if I was picked last for sports (and I usually was), or if I couldn't find a partner for a class project, or if I got crappy grades, or if all the boys thought another girl was prettier - I just always felt that I was amazing.

I remember when I was in grade one, a little boy who was richer, smarter and more athletic than I was came up to me and said, "You're weird." Then he walked away and the only thing I thought was, "He noticed how special I am." Actually, now that I remember it, I think he was jealous of my confidence. Even though he had all that stuff going for him - I think losing mattered a lot more to him. I don't need to win every time to be amazing.

2. Storytelling. You know, I have always wanted to tell stories. When I was a kid, I used to love making up scenarios for make-believe play.

Particularly, I wrote a story when I was in grade two that really impressed my teacher. When I had half of it done, she read it (checking for errors) and I could tell by her face that she was blown away by how good it was. I botched the ending and she wasn't terribly impressed after that, but the reality was that I needed to learn how to end something. I'm good at cooking up scenarios. The key is to figure out what adventure you would like to have and then write it.

3. Unspoilt. When I was a kid, I didn't feel dragged down by depression. I think my depression set in when I was about nine, but before that I was so happy. I was happy just by little things.

I was happy when my mom made the snack for my birthday when I was in kindergarten. She made lime jell-o. I was happy when my dad bought me a slurpee on our way home from town. I was happy when I had a dime to spend one penny candies at the store. I was happy when my brother played cards with me.

After I was nine it was almost like I was ashamed to be pleased by such small things when there were such big things wrong in my life.

4. Riding Bikes. This has probably been ruined for me forever by my injured tailbone, but when I was a kid, I loved riding my bike to school. I had a bike with red sparkles and a banana seat, so it was easy to stick another kid behind me. Actually, I had completely forgotten how happy it made me.

5. Irresponsibility. Yeah, like most children, I totally took it for granted that I didn't have to do anything. I love how carefree I used to feel back then. Now, I am so stressed all the time. I keep trying to tell myself that even though I have a lot to do and a lot to worry about that I don't have to worry. If I don't make it to such-and-such appointment, the world will not collapse. I always fear that people will think I'm irresponsible or flighty and the feeling seems to stop me from feeling happy.

I used to feel the freest when I was walking home from school. Usually, there was nothing that I had to do - no where I had to be. I don't remember being bogged down by homework much and just that feeling with my light backpack in my hand as I walked the two blocks home from school was so sweet. I wonder if I'll ever feel that free again.

In My Room

2010-06-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

This exercise asks you to describe your childhood room. To fulfill the requirements of the assignment, I'm going to skip my childhood room and instead describe my teenage room.

I had a plain blue cover on my bed. It had blue ink stains on it from when I used to write in bed and I had a pen explode. That was something about my bedroom when I was a teenager. I could reach out in an direction and pick up a pen (between my mattress and my box spring, on the bedside table, in my bedside table, on the floor, in my hair). I had the most humongous dresser that was stained dark brown. It had interesting carving on it. Actually it was missing a drawer, but somehow that didn't diminish its beauty. I also had a green armchair to throw clothes on. I still have it in my basement. It has been my husband's favourite chair.

Next, I'll describe the walls. I had pictures I had drawn myself, poems I had written and illustrated, posters of art that I found beautiful. I also had two long columns of shelves that were inlaid in my closet and I had put tiny pictures for each shelf like each one was its own little world.

I think my favourite thing was the pen thing. I loved that.

What's my favourite thing about my room right now? Parts of it are so much like the room of my dreams. I really love my headboard. It's black iron swirls and flowers. And I have a black and white picture of my husband next to my side of the bed in a silver frame that makes him look like he was a movie star in the forties. My husband is cute.

But I could definitely stand to do a thing or two to make this place more like my home - like get the rest of my pictures up. I should make that a goal for the summer.

Check-in Week Two

2010-06-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

1. I did my morning pages five and a half mornings. I got only a page and a half written one morning. I noticed that I was recording my troubles and that after I wrote them I felt like I had been consoled or thought of a way to handle them better so that I was less worried. Also I noticed that when my friend called me for our almost daily chat that I didn't feel the need to vent to her and was better able to listen to her troubles. Instead of being filled with compassion for myself, I felt taken care of, so I could offer her a more honest friendship.

I also found that I was extremely excited the first week, and frankly - depressed and down the second. I had all this energy for cleaning and working on all sorts of different projects - especially making dinner. This last week, I was like a lump. It was terrible.

2. Going on an artist date is hard work. The best I could do was that while my husband waited in line at the registry place, I took my kids in the double stroller and went for a walk in the surrounding area. I found myself taking particular interest in the vehicles that were parked there since the shops sucked. I can't believe how many racer stripes I saw painted on Mustangs. I also saw a man playing a violin on a bus stop bench. The thing was, that usually when I'm stuck doing mundane things, I don't often open my eyes to whatever is going on around me. I was just going to stay home with the kids, but then I thought - why not go for that walk?

3. This week I finished chopping up my novel and got it off to my friend for a continuity check. This week I plan to go over two of the chapters that I felt I may have lost continuity and see how they measure. The thing that was the most significant was that I did the last three chapters in one day. That's taking on a heavier work load that I usually do per day. I binged on work then sluffed off with depression for the rest of the week. I need to be more steady. Oh, and my enthusiasm for other projects teetered. I also didn't feel like sending my book in - even though I have a publishing company waiting for it.

Ten Small Changes

2010-06-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

All right, the next item of business is to list ten small changes that I would like to make in my life.

1. I would like to go on an exotic vacation for my ten year anniversary.
2. I would like to get my eyebrows plucked.
3. I would like to buy at least five different white shirts.
4. I would like to have a new item to go on my shelf by my kitchen sink to replace the fish that broke.
5. I would like to learn to drive a Honda Spirit.
6. I would like to get my van serviced.
7. I would like to get a new set of pencil crayons.
8. I would like to finish my painting.
9. I would like to find a new CD to listen to in the van.
10. I would like to get all the crayon washed off the second bedroom wall.

Now, I'm supposed to pick something to be a goal for the week. I'm going to pick the eyebrow thing. I've got 14 people coming to visit on Thursday. I've got work to do.

Me as a Pie

2010-06-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the purpose of this next exercise is to examine six different aspects of your life and figure out where you are satisfied and where you are not. I'm supposed to make a pie chart, but mine didn't load well into blogger, so we'll just pretend it's a pie. Let's go.

Work - 40% satisfied

I used to be satisfied by my job before I had a baby and started staying home with my kids. There's a lot to be said for uninterrupted productivity, which is something I seldom have the pleasure of enjoying. Plus, if I'm home and no one is paying me and no one is checking up on me who has the power to fire me - I tend to only do the things I want to. So important stuff gets neglected. I wish I were better at getting on with it.

Play - 60% satisfied

I like playing with my kids. There's not a lot of adult like play - like going to the movies, or bowling, or playing pool, or eating out. Hence the lack of satisfaction. In the end, my idea of play is shopping for something other than diapers and milk.

Exercise - 30% satisfied

About the only scheduled exercise I get is when I play DDR at night. That's if I can get to my basement. It's amazing how many things can hold that up when all I have to do is get down two flights of stairs. It's not that I don't get exercise. Anyone who has kids can MOVE when they have to. My friends say I'm a good sprinter - especially talented at snatching kids who are about to wander out onto the road.

Friends - 100% satisfied

A few weeks ago, I arranged to have a date with my two girlfriends every Tuesday. I've probably never had such a great collection of friends in my whole life.

Romance/Adventure - 70% satisfied

The only reason I'm dissatisfied is because I have a hard time getting my man alone. I'm trying to convince him to take me to a tropical island next summer for our ten year wedding anniversary. But, if I leave my mom at home (not with the kids) then I know she'll be unhappy. She's got money to travel, just no one to go with. But it's not supposed to be a family vacation. It's supposed to be a romantic getaway.

Spirituality - 90% satisfied

The only reason for the 10% lack is that I would like a little more scheduled time to study my scriptures. I get family scripture study done, but it's hard to get the personal one done.

So, that's where I'm lopsided - WORK and EXERCISE

Five More Imaginary Lives

2010-06-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

Now, we're really getting creative. I have to come up with five more imaginary lives. I actually found this quite tricky and spent quite a bit of time thinking about it. The other list I rattled off quite naturally. Here goes:

6. An Editor

Of course in my fantasy I would like to edit the sort of novels that I write. Sometimes I've been asked to beta read other author's stories. Usually I have a lot of ideas on how they are screwing up. The thing that's beauty about it, is that once I've noticed their problems - off I go to work on my own project and I see that OOPS! I've done the same thing. The point is that I wouldn't like to do this full time, but if I spent my mornings doing this and I got paid for it - that would simply rock my world.

7. A Special Events Planner

I used to work as an assistant for one of these dudes. Actually, I've worked for two. One who was capable and could do everything himself and one who was a complete basket case and needed me to do everything for her. I'd like to learn more about this and at this moment, I'm actually on my way to an event where I did the invitations and providing the entertainment - me! I'm doing the games. I also enjoy doing face painting at carnivals. I think I'm teaching a class on that this fall.

8. Chocolateer

I know it's pretty sad if I'm not even sure if how to spell one of my dream professions, but there it is. I like making chocolates and packaging them and figuring out what to put in them. I don't have near as much fun with other desserts. I'd have fun learning how to do this properly too, but watching someone make chocolates never helps me to learn a thing.

9. Librarian

This isn't because I like books, even though I do like books. I like my little books that I stack beside my bed (half of which I have written). But I like the methodical brainlessness that accompanies scanning books, typing out labels for them and putting them away. I also like helping with the programs they offer for children at the Library. Story time particularly. I like reading to my children. It would be fun to read to groups of children. This is probably where my theatrical presence comes in. Not that I am incredibly dramatic. It's more like - I seem so to others. I don't recall ever auditioning for a part in a play in my life, but I have been in several plays because I was invited to be in them. I've got one of those voices. One of those LOUD voices. That's probably all there is to it.

10. Park Ranger

I once visited a man who was stationed on top of a small mountain. It was a weather station. I wonder how many people had wanted that job. The view was absolutely fantastic and the man who lived there spent all his time oil painting. And how could you not? His painting was really good too, even though he only had one arm. I'd like to be there for a year or more. Listen to myself think. Look at the beauty God gave us. Dream. Dreaming is good.

Twenty Things I Enjoy

2010-06-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

The point of this exercise is to list twenty things you enjoy doing and note the date of when was the last time you did each of those things.

1. Playing Dance Dance Revolution - two weeks ago.
2. Eating crab - a month ago.
3. Drawing - four years ago.
4. Walking in the country - two years ago.
5. Wandering around the downtown core - five years ago.
6. Going to the movies - a year and a half ago.
7. Crocheting - eight months ago.
8. Sitting in an empty house - almost three years ago.
9. Embroidering - a year and a half ago.
10. Hanging out with my friends in a restaurant - five months ago.
11. Eating ice cream - two hours ago.
12. Going on a date with my husband - three months ago.
13. Painting - over a year ago - unless you count the livingroom wall.
14. Quilting - close to two years ago.
15. Taking photographs - a month ago.
16. Bathing (bathes instead of showers) - a few weeks ago.
17. Reading aloud to friends/husband - a week ago.
18. Travelling to the mountains - a month ago.
19. Shopping - two days ago.
20. Writing novels - worked on my last novel on two days ago.

They say these are great ideas for artist dates.

Check-in Week One

2010-06-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

All right, so I'm going to answer the check-in questions here.

1. I have done my morning writing on every morning except Sunday and I've decided not to do them on Sunday. No doubt the creator of the program wouldn't like my intentional skipping, but that's a crazy morning getting everyone out the door for church. Besides - I get refreshed at church and she'd approve of that - so it's sort of a toss up.

As for how I felt writing three pages of brain garbage every day - I liked it. I used to do it through a different medium a few years ago, but I had slipped out of the habit. Doing it again was like going home. Besides, after you toss out the brain garbage - you have a quality brain to work with. Fewer distractions.

2. I did go on my artist date this week. I weeded my yard. I know that seems lame, but I actually got outside. It was remarkable progress. And then this morning, I even went out and weeded under my trampoline. It felt great to get out and sparked my curiousity about nature. Wild Roses have wicked thorns. I was pricked by one before I even knew it was there.

3. Yes, there was something that came up that seemed like it would be a hindrance to my artist progress. My mom would rather I watched movies with her and I live with her and so I foresee a problem.

Three Champions

2010-06-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

The next assignment is to list three champions of my creative self-worth.

1. Christopher

He's been working with me and wishing me well for the past eleven years. He's my muse. And he lets me know when things don't make sense. He always fights for my dream to write, reminds me of my successes, gives me time to work, gives me tools to work, and flatters my ego daily.

2. Rose

She let me read a whole novella to her over the phone over five years ago (way before my writing was any good). She lets me rant when I want. She joins in too. I love that.

After that, I'm not sure who to name. There were all my high school girl friends who let me read my novels to them at slumber parties in the beginning and even of late some of my family members have even begun reading my stuff. And there have been hundreds of online readers who have praised me and followed me and encouraged me.

I've always wondered who I would thank in the opening leaves of my first novel. I'm sending a novel into a publishing company that I got an invitation from in a couple weeks. I'd dedicate it to Christopher and thank him for having brown eyes.

ASIDE:
I was supposed to take an assignment that I was interested in, one I was afraid of, and one I felt neutral towards. The one about the people who have harmed me was the one I was afraid of, the possible lives one was the one I was interested in, and this was the one I felt neutral towards. I'm going to start the next chapter tomorrow.

Five Imaginary Lives

2010-06-10T09:17:00.001-07:00

All right, the next assignment is to imagine that you have five imaginary lives. What would I do in them?

1. I would be a chef.

I really like food and I really like cooking. I don't really have a lot of time for it and my brain has been hopelessly damaged for the number of times I've thrown up - probably over a thousand times - until I have so many sensory issues with food I could die - BUT! I still like food.

2. I would be an opera singer.

Part of the reason for doing this is to unlock your dreams and get you to act on what you write down. I already wander around the house singing when I feel like it. It took a lot of courage not to get rattled whenever my mother comes in (just as a side note - I'm not a teenager, but my mom lives with me since she has bad health). Except that I haven't had a new practice song in awhile. My last one was 'My Immortal' by Evanesence. I was struggling with it when I was pregnant. Pretty much as soon as I had my baby, my diaphragm started working again and I could suddenly sing it right.

3. Accounts Receivable Clerk

I know accounting probably sounds like the most non-creative profession in the world, but I really liked doing it the two times I used to do it. I did it at a University and a Newspaper. It's repetitive, but it leaves a place in your brain free for thought and it comes out right in the end. I like doing paperwork.

4. Art Teacher

I used to teach grade four students art as part of my work experience when I was in high school. It's not that I'm a brilliant artist, but I have loads of ideas for projects intended to spur creativity and enhance fine motor skills. I was also taking an art class at the same time I was teaching this class and HOLY CATS - my art teacher didn't know what the heck he was doing. It would have been a more exciting class if I could have taught it. And that's not me being egocentric. His class was really lousy.

5. Plushie maker

Yeah. I want to learn how to make plushies. I can't even explain how much I want to learn how to do this, but I don't like the patterns I find and the patterns I make myself usually don't turn out as well as I'd like. I want to take a class in this ... when my kids are old enough to stop turning my sewing machine off and on while I'm using it.

END NOTE: Just as a thought I had while I was looking this list over (and I didn't do this intentionally), each one of these professions play into a different sense. Food for the taste and smell, singing for the ears, art for the eyes, and plushies for the touch. Accounting? Well, to feed my need for control and to rest my poor brain.

Three Old Enemies

2010-06-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't used this blog for awhile, but I decided to use it as I map a creative journey I'm taking. I've wanted a copy of Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way' for some time now and I finally found myself a copy. I'm at the end of the first chapter and I'm taking her challenges quite seriously. The first one I decided to tackle was to list three old enemies of my creative self- worth.

1. My Mother-in-Law

Anytime my novel writing comes up in conversation or otherwise, she shoves her head into the novel she's reading with such an active effort that I can't help but feel snubbed. There's a couple reasons this bugs me. The first one is that I make a palpable effort to listen to her when she discusses her creative endeavors (sewing, choir direction), when I am not the least bit interested in either of those things. The second reason I'm annoyed is that the book she's reading is usually a drug store romance novel and even if I'm no literary giant - I can at least give those wenches a run for their money. Sheesh!

The thing that hurt me the most was when my father-in-law read one of my novels. He gave me some criticism, and it was absolutely nothing I couldn't take. He's an English teacher and his opinion has a lot of weight with me. After she told me that he had gone easy on me and proceeded to lecture me about novel writing like I was 13 again starting my very first book. I was working on my 15th book then and felt like I had been made into a complete fool for believing that I had actually made progress. I was a baby and ...

I realized that I would never be anything else to her no matter who I was able to impress.

So, I asked her if I could talk to my father-in-law. I wanted to hear what he really thought instead of listening to her garbled nonsense (it wasn't like she even read the book), and she wouldn't let me talk to him.

2. My Mother

My mother gave up on most of her creative endeavors when she became a mom. She was a painter and had a university professor tell her that she would never be good enough to make a living, even though she had already sold a collection of paintings and everything she'd ever sculpted. That man squashed her dream of being an artist, probably because his dream had been squashed too and then my mother continues the cycle by discouraging me.

Actually, I've fought pretty hard for my writing. I have printed whole novels for her to read and short stories if the novels are too long and she doesn't read them. I don't print them anymore. She's not allowed to read my writing. And she's proud of me now, but only because I have earned an audience.

Here's what my mother's discouragement tastes like:

- Good writers read.
- Are you really going to cut bangs?
- This is the time you should be spending with your children.

This last one really fries me. It bothers me because I know she didn't spend her time doting on me when I was a preschooler. I spent most of my time playing with the neighbourhood kids while she made buns. Like her, I cannot be their playmate 24/7. It's unhealthy for both of us. The last thing is that I don't think she realizes that I am disappointed in her for giving up painting. I would have liked to grow up watching her paint.

3. Me

I'm terrible. I can't even list all the times I've degraded myself and stood ashamed of my work.

- It's not intelligent.
- It's trashy.
- It's boring.

No one can rip me to shreds like I can. The difference is that I'm much better at forgiving myself. That's not terribly normal. Usually, we forgive others faster than ourselves. I just have always figured that no one will make a fuss of me except myself. I love myself enough to throw myself a party and take myself out to the firing squad - sometimes in the same day. The trick is knowing yourself enough to know when either of those actions is appropriate.

I got Fired

2008-05-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

I got fired by my new beta reader today. I don't know how many beta readers I've gone through. I know that it only ever seemed to work out with Kaytala, but I was always the one to end the relationship before and now ... I've been dumped.

This is one of those moments when the people who know me intimately turn their head slightly so they can smile freely without me noticing. I'm really one of those people who deserves to be dropped on their can on a regular basis or their head gets inflated.

My feelings aren't hurt, but they did a good job, so I'm sad to have to say good-bye. Blah.

But there is one interesting thing that's just begun to happen. One of my old friends from high school just began sending me her novel and guess what? I actually find it interesting. That's amazing. I wish I could get stories from more of my friends to read - like Kaytala. But she never sends me her stuff. I wouldn't skin her alive or anything. Cross my heart.

Slave in Heaven

2008-01-29T21:54:00.000-08:00

I'm done with my dilemma. I've made my choice. I'll be a slave in heaven.

This means that I'm done with fanfiction for the time being. I used to be terrified of sending a manuscript into a publishing house or to a literary agent. I know chances of getting something published are like nil, but I want to try. If I post my work online, I know a whole slew of girls will come read it, but I want to see if I can pull of an actual career of it. Even just to have a publisher acknowledge that I don't completely suck would be an overwhelming achievement.

That's what I've decided.

I'm not sending 'Ghost Mist'. I'm working on a new novel, one that I think is probably more up my alley. No one will see it until it's finished, which will be hard for me since I'm used to constant validation, but I have thousands of reviews to ease the pain, so I'll read them when I feel down. Thank you once again to everyone who reviews my work or who has ever reviewed my work.

Even if I crash and BURN BURN BURN - I can still change all the characters to Van and Hitomi (maybe they'll buy that they were supposed to be them all along) and post it on fanfiction.net and then maybe I'll be a star again instead of a slave. For the time being - I'll have to be the slave - there's just no other way for me.

Another Reason to Hate Fanstory.com

2008-01-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, so lately, I have been posting a story on fanstory. Not to worry - it's not a story my faithful readers haven't seen before.

Anyway, I got a review stating that my writing was more 'telling' than 'showing' and most of my dialogue was exposition. At first, I wasn't sure what the heck the reviewer was talking about, because I always understood that 'telling' instead of 'showing' was when an author summarizes events or conversations instead of explaining the exact circumstances by letting the characters act it out. This is something I used to be extremely guilty of, but I've worked hard and it's rare that someone can point that finger at me now without having their opinion dismissed (I think it's lame to write a play-by-play when boring stuff is going on). In this particular chapter, it was completely inapplicable. Most of the chapter was conversation, so I started thinking about what this guy said and maybe he thought that I had a higher ratio of conversation versus narrative.

Now I'm going to talk about the 'exposition' part of his comment. Without plot exposition ... there is no plot. There is no story. Personally, I always thought that putting the plot exposition in conversation was a way to get the reader to enjoy the exposition (explanation) because when two or more people talk about what's happening - they can flirt, make jokes, and build relationships. So, when we put plot exposition in a conversation we're killing multiple birds with one stone. I can't believe anybody would complain about this ...

Which leads me right into yet another reason why I hate fanstory. They advertise that you will get actual advice about your writing from the readers. I think this guy just spouted off that gibberish so that he would get the member dollars. He probably didn't even read my story. Wanna know why I think that? I wrote the guy back - very diplomatically - and asked him to clarify his comment so I could understand better, explaining why I thought his comment didn't make sense and that MONKEY did not write me back.

Sheesh ... I hate fanstory so much!

Too Eager

2008-01-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

Today is New Year's Day and I am going to make a couple of resolutions for the new year - even though I think that sort of thing is cheesy and unlikely to be accomplished solely because a resolution was made on New Year's Day. New Year's resolutions are cursed. Do you know how many people start jogging the day after New Year's and then give up? ... I don't know either. I've never been one of them. My resolutions are strictly to do with my writing, because those concerning other parts of myself are silly - I try to be a good person all the time.

First - I'm going to stop being such an eager beaver. Sometimes when I write, I feel like I end up spewing the chapter out because I haven't got the patience to tell a story carefully and beautifully. I just want everything right now and I'm terrified that I'll lose the reader's interest.

I am stuck in a miserable catch 22 and I don't know what to do about it. I hardly get any time to write too - it sucks. There's no time to write storyboards, write in my journal, write for fun, write seriously, write emails, write letters, get involved in the community and write bylaws. How the crap am I supposed to get better when I have no bloody time?

I'm frustrated.

A Slave in Heaven or a Star in Hell

2007-12-23T20:11:00.000-08:00

So, like I said in my last post, I don't really want to write fanfiction anymore, but ... it's so easy and it's so fun and so many people come to read my fanfiction. No one comes to read my original fiction - it's super annoying when I work so hard on it.

So, I said in my last post that if I wrote another Escaflowne piece it would be one where Van was a vampire. I sat down and thought about what I could write that wouldn't turn into 'Twilight' by Stephenie Meyer (that was a pretty good book by the way. In my view there were only two things wrong with it - which is surprisingly few if you know how I like to rip other people's work apart. The first thing was - I am so familiar with vampire legend and vampire fiction that not a single thought of Edward's was a surprise to me. I knew what he was thinking the entire time - and sometimes he was thinking something a little less creative than I had imagined. The other thing was that there was too much mush and not enough action. I was sitting there skimming over the fluffy scenes going, 'Let's get on with this - it's not like I never made out with a guy before'. Except that both of these errors point directly to mass appeal with teenage girls - so I don't blame her).

But I'm creative in my own juicy way, so I only brainstormed for one day and I actually came up with an idea for a vampire fic that wasn't exactly like every other vampire fic I've ever read or watched. I shrieked with laughter over my idea - put back my head and laughed like a banshee.

When I explained my idea to Jak, he's like, 'Would that work?' like I had just introduced an idea so strange and so corrupted as to be unusable. But I think it will work and heck I might keep writing it on fanfiction.net just to show him that my insane idea is actually playable. That is, if I don't get my butt slammed in fanfiction prison for mentioning Anne Rice in my story. Yeah, I read those books, too, but I wasn't a fan of anything past 'Interview with the Vampire'. I don't really like Lestat - he struck me as kind of ... non fun ... and non romantic, which sucks cause that's what vampire men are are all about - romantic heroes. But I'm not allowed to think about those books, read them, or watch the movies that go with them - I get way too obsessive. And it's super pointless.

I made another discovery the other day. I wrote four or five books before I was 16 and I was thinking that some of the stories from them might be reusable to transform into Escaflowne fanfiction. It's not possible. I was such a poor writer when I was a teenager that no good can come from those old stacks. Any idea I had before I was twenty (remember that 'Dragon's Moon' was from 17-18 and then I didn't write anything for a year or so) is completely unusable. What can I say? I had cotton for brains back then, and those stories were only valuable for practice. Not only that, but sheesh - I could have used a mentor to help me learn how to write properly. I was looking for one at the time - I honestly was - but no one I knew at the time knew anything about writing.

The reason this was on my mind was because I wrote a vampire fic when I was 15-16. It wasn't great, but I bet that someone else would have enjoyed reading it. However, I don't seem to have any ideas on how to start something than for someone to go to a dance club, or a barn dance, or a school dance, or a nineteenth century ball. I've decided this disease of mine either comes from watching too much 'Pride and Prejudice' or from the fact that I really did go dancing almost every single weekend when I was a teenager. And it was great.

I have to end this post now, cause I'm still suffering from my dilemma.

Whenever You Want

2007-11-11T16:32:00.001-08:00

Don't ask me where I ripped off this fanart pic because I can't remember, but isn't it cool?

Anyway, I wanted to write a quick blog talking about my Escaflowne fanfic 'Whenever You Want'.

Yeah, so I started writing it to take my mind off my illness and to keep my skills polished. I decided that I didn't want to have a beta reader for it because that would slow the fic down. You know sending each chapter to a beta and then reviewing the changes when it came back. I had no story board and every chapter was basically a reflection of what I had on my mind at the time. So, I was basically just riding by the seat of my pants - I hate that.

Last night I posted the last chapter. I got told that I rushed the ending - well - heck yes I did. After I had posted a few chapters of this story I came to realize that there was no slowing this sucker down. There were honestly so many different situations that were funny that could have developed from this premise. This was a fetching good premise. Seriously - I could have gone so many different directions with this. Hitomi could have become Dilandau's assistant and by doing so we could have had both Dilandau and Allen have serious crushes on her. Celena could have chased Folken. Hitomi could have gone back to the escort service. Hitomi could have become a model with Van or Dilandau as her agent. Van could have become a real model. Hitomi could have learned photography from Folken and had Van become her model. The boys from the escort service could have actually shown up in the last chapter and I could have had Miguel fall in love with Hitomi. There were so many angles it was SICK. I'm sure there are even more that I haven't thought of. I have to point out that there are also a whole crap load if I had never had Hitomi work for Van as his assistant. If I'd kept her as an escort the possibilities explode.

The point is that if I'd continued I would have made myself a slave to this story. It never would have finished. I just had to get in there - make Van a jerk - make him apologize and get on with it or IT WAS NEVER GOING TO END. That's what happens when you have no story boards - there's nothing you can do to wind it down because you have no frickin' idea what you're doing. You have NEVER known what you were doing, so if there's a dominant theme than it's by frickin' accident. However, that's not to say that it isn't entertaining, because I wrote it solely for my entertainment, so what if it doesn't have a properly structured plot (and it really doesn't)?

The real problem was that it was keeping me from writing 'Ghost Mist' so I had to finish it. Actually, I still feel bad for not finishing 'The Dance of the Twelfth Moon' (which actually did have a storyboard by the way). So, I had to finish it up.

Now I've had a few people requesting that I write a sequel. I'm flattered and I know there are possibilities for plots, BUT! But it's not really a novel, more like a novella and romantic comedy is not really what I want to write. I want to write adventures where there's running and explosions and intrigue and violence and yelling and hair raising thrills - like my Escaflowne trilogy. That doesn't mean there won't be romance - there will absolutely be romance, but that can't be the only dish I'm serving or I'll choke on my own tongue.

I'm not even sure if I'll write another Escaflowne story - ever. I had an idea for a story about Dryden and Selphie that I thought was sort of interesting and a fic where Van was a vampire would have a lot of appeal for me, but maybe I'm not the one to write them. Anyone want to pick up on one of my ideas and run with it? I sell cheap.

Writing Romance

2007-10-08T19:38:00.001-07:00

You know - I'm really bad at writing romance.

I get complaints from my readers. They say they want more fluff and I'd like to give it to them, but unfortunately I suck at it. I sit down to write a kissing scene and I start staring at the ceiling. After serious pondering I write something lame like; 'He reached for her' then period - space - space. Then I'm looking at the ceiling again and I come up with another winning line like; ' Their hands met' - period - space - space. And then it seriously takes a few more minutes for me to come up with the next sentence. It's SO pathetic! Especially when the next line is; 'His skin felt warm'. And by this point, I've given up describing what's happening and instead I've moved to explain the main character's thoughts, but unfortunately - that's not much funner. I've come up with some genius line like 'And she knew that their relationship would never be the same'. So, I haven't actually described the kiss - either the emotional ramifications or the physical act of kissing. No wonder my readers are unsatisfied and complaining. I'd be annoyed if I was reading it too.

I can't help the physical aspect though. I don't know what could possibly cure me of my squeamishness. If I'm reading something and the author starts on this gory description of someone's tongue or something worse - I get ill. The book will probably meet its demise by being chucked across the room. I'll switch off the lamp on my nightstand and go to sleep instead. Yet a simple line like 'They kissed' doesn't make me happy. The author inside me screams for something with a greater impact.

Do you see how trapped I am?

The chapter I suffered the most from my limitations was a chapter called 'Sister of Night' in 'Mystic Wings'. That's a chapter that's supposed to basically a seduction scene. I agonized about how I should play it for weeks. Finally I sent it to one of my friends for their opinion. She suggested that I use the word 'sensual'. I was HORRIFIED. If I seriously wrote that word in any of my writing and I was reading it later, I would end up choking on my own tongue. In the end, I released the chapter when I was still feeling unsatisfied. The thing was, I didn't think that I was EVER going to feel totally comfy with it, so I figured I might as well just get over it. And yet, I've received comments from several people letting me know that that chapter was one of their favourites.

My dilemma is the reason why I usually revert to describing the character's emotions and thoughts instead of what's actually happening. I realize this is a cop-out and I don't like copping out.

As for fluff, which I always think of as a synonym for 'blowing sunshine' on someone. The greatest example of this would be when one character sits down and explains all the things they love about their lover. This feels really fake to me, but is seriously preferably to their physical demonstration, so - I occasionally revert to this.

But does it make anyone besides me happy? The biggest example of this is in a chapter of 'Mystic Wings'. The chapter is called 'Heart of the Dragon'. Van is pacing by the pool explaining his feelings for Hitomi. He thinks he's alone, but she's hiding and listening to every word he says. When I finished writing this chapter, I thought that I was finally giving my precious readers what they were craving in the fluff department, but I got some serious blow-back on my forums about it. Heck!

But there is one happy thing for me. Chapter 18 of 'Dragon's Moon' was originally a make-out scene, but when I was reworking it I sat there thinking 'this is tacky and it doesn't even make sense'. So, I rewrote the entire chapter so that Van and Hitomi are fighting and they don't even kiss. That chapter has the highest number of hits of ANY other chapter in the serious. Wasn't it great?

But even if that was the case once, most girl readers prefer love to war and they would rather see the characters fall and love and be in love, even if they like angry sparks from time to time. I think I'd rather write war, but if that's the case, why do I like reading romance so much! I must be the biggest hypocrite of all time.

Getting Published

2007-07-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't really had a whole lot of interest in marketing my stories to publishing companies. This has been partly because I haven't got anything that I think I could send to a publisher without getting sued (written too much fanfiction), partly because I'm lazy, partly because I can't stand rejection (even if it's good natured), and partly because I haven't had the faintest idea what to do besides E-publishing and just sending a manuscript to a publishing company. Well, lately I have been sort of educated on the subject (by the only person who has the power to educate me).

Did you know that most publishing companies receive 100 unsolicited manuscripts a day? This means that your average publishing company gets 36,500 unsolicited manuscripts a year. Lots of the companies I've looked at in my spare time haven't published anywhere near that many books in their entire history. To add to that, they say that about 150,000 books are published in one year in the U.S. I'm curious to know how many of those are published by return authors and not by brand new talent. I'd also like to know how many of those books are fantasy, sci-fi, smutty romance, teen, child, historical fiction, mystery and so on. And I'd also like to know how many are essentially fanfiction that is being written with permission (like Buffy books and other series that have multiple authors).

Also, the amount of creative control you get when you write for a publishing company sounds unreasonable. For instance - you might not even get to select the title for your book.

And, you probably won't make any money. It'll take too long for me to explain this angle, so I'll just leave it at that.

I'm sort of left with this sick feeling that the probability of getting something is probably somewhere between winning the lottery and convincing a Hollywood producer to take a chance on you. Yet, you see new books coming out all the time and so it seems like it must be possible.

I've decided that the only thing is to start my own publishing company and see how well I do. Otherwise, I think my online writing career may be the best I'll ever get. But that's not so bad. Occasionally, I get an email from a beautiful girl (always a different one) saying that she spent all night reading my Escaflowne trilogy. She was so entranced that she couldn't put it down. In a way - that's really all the reward I need if the other other avenue includes fear and death.

I Hate Fanstory.com

2007-07-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

You know the more I have to do with that website the more I am completely convinced that it would never help anyone to become a good writer. Okay, that's not completely true. That is me being a spiteful brat. I'm sure it would help with a few things, but I really really hate that place and here's me explaining why.

When you post a chapter, the chapter gets a 'complimentary certificate'. This means that the chapter will be available through a random generator called 'Up Next' where everyone can see it until it gets three reviews. This means that three people, who have probably not read the beginning of the story will be reviewing a single chapter. They have no idea what's going on or how things are progressing. It's like watching ten minutes out of a movie, which is hardly fair to the author, considering that they didn't see any of the scenes intended to ignite the reader's interest.

After the chapter gets three reviews, it goes back to your profile page where no one will ever see it again - unless they intentionally go to your profile page. In order to make the chapter viewable to the common browser, you have to put certificates on it that are purchasable with member dollars. You get these by reviewing other people's work or by buying them with real money. This means that reviewers who are just looking for member dollars while reviewing your work are not uncommon. They are trying to make money to promote their own work, so they aren't reading - just reviewing. This means that unless a reviewer starts pointing out specific things in their review (which most normal people never think to do) you can't tell if they actually read the chapter or not. And even if they did - is their opinion valid when they only read one chapter? Can they really see the tapestry you're generating? What if it's a bridge chapter!?! So, that means that a reviewer cannot accurately comment on the quality of the story, but can only complain about spelling, grammar, and typos. I find this so problematic, because if you have got a really interesting story then aren't those three things the least of your worries? Aren't editors a dime a dozen?

Also, I notice that this site has a huge problem reaching its target demographic. My biggest fans of 'Mark of a Goddess' were men who were born in the sixties. I would never have thought that it would be appealing to that crowd for reading pleasure. If it was an editor I could understand, but I couldn't figure out why these guys were reading.

All this, I've probably complained about before. The thing that has sent me spinning lately is the fact that I lately discovered that there is a word limit on fanstory (because of my browser). I can only post 5000 for a single chapter. Fanfiction.net and Fictionpress.com don't have word limits and I haven't seen a word limit on Mediaminer.com or Writing.com either. I don't have the words to express how painfully stupid I find that. My hubby says, "So why not try using Explorer instead?" I glare at him and say, "I shouldn't have to change my browser. Their system should suck less ... and have a document upload feature instead of making me copy and paste. What are we, in the stone ages?" When I wrote to the system administrator about the error (which wasn't displayed, I had to write him for him to tell me that it was my browser) he told me to divide the chapter into two chapters. However, doing so makes me violate the copyright agreements I must adhere to when uploading a new chapter. You're not allowed to upload the same material twice. It would be unfair with their certificate system. Grrr! And not only that, but that's just how long the chapter is. I'm not cutting it in half.

However, I do have a couple nice things to say about fanstory.com. I usually get answers to my tech support questions almost immediately. I never like Tom's answers, but he does write me back quickly. I also have to say that however inefficient, fanstory is one of the only methods to get guaranteed feedback on your writing if you have no one vaguely knowledgeable to get opinions from. And we all know how hard it is to get original fiction noticed.

But just for one last stab at fanstory, I have to say that mostly I find half their writers so painfully dry that they must be crawling out of their caskets in order to post writing that was old fashioned when it was originally written - decades ago. The other half are using the site for *almost* free therapy, because they post the ugliest parts of their own life and try to pass it off as literature. Right.

For original fiction - I would sent a reader to Fictionpress.com rather than Fanstory.com ten times out of ten. At least people read and write there for the sake of passion instead of validation.

Beta Reading Jungle

2007-05-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think I'm ready to blow my top. I'm not a bad person and I'm not a particularly bad author, but sometimes I think I'm ready to blow my top. I was going to sit down for a healthy rant session here, but I think that would be a bad idea. Instead I'm going to explain a problem of mine.

I like COMPLETE CREATIVE CONTROL when I write something. To have my work hashed over by anyone drives me absolutely bonkers. I don't think that I'm the type of person who will ever get anything published, because I can't stand to have every dang sentence I write picked apart like it's a dead purple frog pinned to a gigantic hunk of wax. I know that this is something that every one who wants to be an author has to learn (how to take criticism), but for bloody sake, I get criticized on not wanting to be criticized.

The truth is that writing for me is a matter of personal expression. If I can't tell the story the way I want to tell it - EXACTLY - then I might as well not have written it. Naturally, my opinion changes and I learn what works better over time, but I have to be the one to learn it rather than the information being handed to me in the form of a ravaged, dissected, slippery, icky amphibian. This is why beta reading doesn't work for me very well. I'm too stupid and too stubborn to listen when someone has something intelligent to say. The problem is - I've been misled before. You see, I love my mother a great deal and she told me that if I wanted to be a good writer then I should read. This is an incredible mound of B.S. and I ate it up. This is SO untrue that it hurts my feelings even now (though I've long forgiven her for it). I've even learned that reading corrupts my inner voice and ruins my writing. A real author writes exactly from their heart and doesn't make patchwork quilts of other people's writing or ideas ... So, now I'm doubtful of every snippet of advice that is given to me.

Another problem is that people who want to write themselves volunteer to beta read for me. This doesn't work. They shouldn't waste their time on my work and should write themselves - ignoring whatever I'm doing. Maybe they think that it'll help them with their work. I think it shoves them into a box labeled 'Sapphirefly's Stuff' when they want to be in a box labeled 'My Stuff'.

You know, if I wasn't such an idiot, I wouldn't need a beta reader at all - not to offend my girl Kaytala. She rocks! And her contributions to my writing have always been the right blend of sugar and spice. But there's always someone on my back telling me that I'm doing something wrong and they want to beta read for me in order to clean it up. And the really weird thing is - they honestly believe they can help me. After long deliberation I learned that I cannot help anyone improve their writing. I don't know what made me so egotistical in the beginning for me to believe that I knew enough to give anyone tips. I was a MORON! [See? Isn't that a great paragraph? I start off saying I'm an idiot and finish off saying that I'm a moron. Way to tie things together!]

I guess what I want to say is that when Kaytala decides that she will no longer do projects for me. It's been a long time since I asked her since I haven't really been working on anything interesting. I'm so pathetically ill. But! When that day comes - I won't be getting a new beta reader. I'll swallow my errors and work harder to improve them on my own, but MERCY ME I've had it up to my earlobes with people telling me what to do. BACK OFF!

Opes! I ranted. Dang.

The End of 'Mark of a Goddess'

2007-05-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

I finished writing 'Mark of a Goddess' the week before Christmas last year, before I got sick. Since then I've received an unusual amount of mail from readers complaining that they didn't understand the end. Here's an excerpt (just for your information):

At this moment, Hitomi suddenly seized on an idea. “Van, look at the test for me.”

“What test?”

“I took a pregnancy test just now. It’s on the vanity. I’m too scared to look at it. What if it’s negative? Please Van,” Hitomi asked, as her eyes filled to their brims with real tears. “Please Van.”

Van sighed. He got up and picked up the test and then the cardboard box that contained the instructions on how to read it.

“What does it say?” Hitomi asked with her hands over her eyes. She couldn’t see Van and his reaction then.

Van didn’t answer her.

“What does it say?” Hitomi asked again, gaining courage and taking her hands away from her eyes.

Van’s chin was tilted thoughtfully. Finally he said softly, “It says that Dragon’s are lucky, little goddess.”

Well, lately (and when I say 'lately', I mean months ago) I received some very strong criticism on my story 'Ghost Mist' because some of the technical points of the story are briefly reviewed from time to time. I was told by a fellow amateur author that there was absolutely no need for repetition - the reader got it. I explained to this reader/writer that I had a lot of experience with my readers not understanding portions of my story that I felt were clearly explained. I found a little review here and there reduced their need to ask me what was going on. But, beloved readers, don't get the wrong idea. I love it when people send me comments on my writing, but I get concerned about the strength of my writing (and my explanations) if people write in that they don't understand. I'm still struggling with the concept - whether or not is better to spell everything out in perfect black and white so there is no room for interpretation, or to just assume that the reader understood the first time.

However, in the case of the end of 'Mark of a Goddess', I feel like there is a need for clarification since I have received so many comments, but I'll warn you right now, you aren't going to get what you want by reading this.

You see, I intended the ending to be ambiguous - so that the reader could have the ending they wanted. A sweet, romantic-type person would want Hitomi to be pregnant at the end of the series. A realistic person would be swayed by the facts that I had already outlined in the story and accept a less than ideal ending.

I have a definite preference, but I struggle between the two choices myself because I see the need to fulfill both desires. I couldn't stand someone telling me that my hardcore story was deflated because of a corny ending and I couldn't stand someone telling me that I ruined the story for them because I couldn't give them a happy ending. I might be letting both sides of the argument down by not picking a team to play for, but that seemed like a much happier alternative than choosing the wrong one.

See? I knew I wouldn't satisfy anyone with that explanation. But I'm still trapped in my dilemma as to whether or not things need to be clearly and precisely described, or whether I can leave things to my readers' imaginations. All I know is that my writing was a lot less popular when I didn't explain things in detail ... and that even after I argued with that guy I still think I'm right about what works best for me. He thought I was arrogant with no reason to be. Well, hahahahahaha, he didn't know anything about my fandom at fanfiction.net, now did he? Ah! That's good balm to put on his cat scratches.

They Made Me

2007-02-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday they made me switch over to the new 'blogger'. I didn't want to because I've noticed a lot of problems with other people's accounts who switched over before me. Grrr! I'd go on a rampage, but Blogger is still free ... so should I really be complaining?

Yesterday I logged onto my fanfiction.net account and saw something that made my heart bound and leap and spring. I finally have one hundred people who have me listed as a favourite author. Not just a favourite story, but as a favourite author.

I'm still so sick and miserable. It made my heart swell to see that so many people enjoy my writing that much. Yay!

The Way I Read a Picture

2007-01-21T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hi! I wrote the following rant to post on fanstory.com. I haven't done it yet because I thought it needed some tweeking. I really want to bawl the heck out of those monkeys. So, if anyone has any thoughts on how I can add a little more fuel to the fire - please comment. Now, without hesitation - my rant:

This is a page out of a Japanese manga called ‘Gokusen’ by Morimoto Kozueko. It is read left to right if you’re not familiar with manga. In the manga Kyo is trying to convince Shin to wear a fundoshi and participate in a local festival. Shin is reluctant and so Kyo decides to show him a picture that Kumiko (Ojou) drew. He’s saying that if Shin wants to prove his manhood to Kumiko then he has to wear it, but his first method seems to shock and horrify Shin rather than convince him.

A great deal can be portrayed through a picture and thus through someone’s imagination. The thing that confuses me here is why so many authors choose to exhibit pictures with their work, possibly as a form of advertisement, possibly to showcase their work, possibly to dress it up, when the art seriously detracts from their intent. You see, Kyo honestly believes that showing Shin this picture will convince him to participate in the festival, but instead Shin is only shocked and creeped out. In the end, it is Kyo’s words that convince Shin and not the picture at all. I think that this is a perfect example of what happens here on fanstory everyday.

When I go through the ‘Up Next’ section, I look for things that might be interesting to me. Nineteen times out of twenty a graphic is displayed with a piece of poetry that is so outside my interests and tastes that it doesn’t matter what the author has written, I’m not going to stick around and read it. The problem with this is that I might have been very interested in their writing if it hadn’t been for the graphic. I clicked on the words they wrote, didn’t I? I wanted to read their writing, didn’t I? But I was driven away because of a hideous picture that narrows the landscape of their writing so viciously as to make me go back to the ‘Up Next’ section without reviewing. This leads me into two important points. One is about advertising and the other is about imagination.

Authors may wish to include a graphic to add a little flare to make their writing appear more appealing – a form of advertising. I can see why authors might want to do something to make their writing stand out when it’s so hard to get more than three people to read your writing on a site like this, but I disagree that it helps. The thing with advertising is that the reader has to click on your writing before they can see the graphic. There is no option to post a picture with your title like with a book cover. The reader has already read the title, the pickup line, possibly the synopsis and chosen to click on the link. I don’t think they need to be sold on the writing any further. The rest is up to the writing.

Next is the infringement on imagination. I am probably a complete loser, but I don’t think I would have started to read like a maniac if I didn’t have this charming ability to make everyone in the book I was reading look exactly the way I wanted them to. That has got to be what I truly love about reading and about writing; the ability to let your imagination take you to where it wants to go. I am almost of the opinion that books shouldn’t have covers. I used to rip the covers off books all the time because the picture on the front spoilt my illusion. They say that you can’t tell a book by its cover. I think they’re wrong. The better authors get better artists to draw their covers. In an amateur setting, such as this one, where people are honestly striving to become strong authors, some lame graphic stolen randomly off a google image search hardly seems to fill the bill. It robs the author of the chance to create a picture in my mind with their words. Instead, they don’t need to say anything – the picture has already shouted louder than their amateur poetry or prose ever could.

It’s also amazing how many authors ‘borrow’ famous art without leaving proper credits and have no idea what the picture is of in the first place. If someone didn’t know who Mickey Mouse was and used that picture here to illustrate their poem, it would be ridiculous. Yet it astounds me how often authors snag pictures from popular foreign cartoons and anime without having any idea what that picture means or what connotations are already attached to it. Or they borrow the work of a genius, which is just as bad. A piece of art that is protected behind glass at the Louvre stands alone and only pales what might be showcased here. The poem may have been charming if only it wasn’t overshadowed by something so unanimously brilliant. The comparison is painful.

Lastly, I want to say that in most cases (I know there are some contests here where someone writes something based on a picture) a picture should not be necessary. A good author will tell the reader what they want them to see. Nothing else should be required. If art is needed, there are plenty of other mediums that use both art and writing – like ‘Gokusen’. That story cracks me up.

A Progress Report?

2007-01-18T19:55:00.000-08:00

I'm sick.

Yep ... that pretty much sums it up. I'm so sick that I won't be writing much in the next few months (not on blogger - but my real writing). I don't want to go into detail about it, but I'm glad that I finished 'Mark of a Goddess' before Christmas because there's no way I would get it done now. So ill am I. I'm bummed about it because I want to work on 'Ghost Mist', but I'm smart enough to know my limits and here's what I know - I might be able to release the next chapter of 'Whenever you Want', but that's as exciting as it's going to get around here for awhile.

So in order to curb my blues, I decided to post 'Mystic Wings' on fanstory. Because of their system, you can only release two items within a 24 hour period - so I've been releasing two chapters a day. If there were no incentives on the website, then I might wait a week between postings, but since there are - there's no reason not to release as quickly as possible. I decided not to release 'Dragon's Moon' because it wasn't properly beta read and frankly - I can't stand to do another editing job on that novel, so I decided not to release it.

Those guys over at Fanstory don't pull any punches. It's good that I'm sick because I can't get up any enthusiasm to tell them off when they bully me. Instead, I just listen quietly and think about what they've said I should improve upon. It's making me appreciate them a little. Too tired to argue or even rake up a little rage. I'm like a friggin' kitten. URGH! ... no really ... way too tired.

Maybe this will help me write 'Ghost Mist' so well that I'll take over the world.

Sapphirefly - Future Plans
The same thing we do every night Pinky - try to take over the world.

See? My brain is de-evolving.

Favourite Parts

2006-12-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

Hiya! I promised that I would write a list of my favourite parts in my Escaflowne series (these aren't in any particular order). Here they are:

Dragon's Moon

I love chapter 18. I love the whole thing. It is the chapter where Hitomi and Van argue before he goes to the stadium. Originally, I had written a make-out scene, but when I was editing it, I was like WTF? And I changed it for a scene where they yelled instead. It didn't really fit, so yelling was a nice alternative. In the end, this chapter has the highest hit count in 'Dragon's Moon'.
I love Dilandau. I wish that I'd made better use of him in 'Dragon's Moon', because I wasn't going to get many more chances to use him. So, I love the part where Van throws a dagger at his head and Dilandau deflects it with the barrel of his gun - hot.
I like that part where Hitomi goes in to talk to Van after he's been shot and they're at Aunt Flo's. I finally work Van and Hitomi's romantic problems out. I think I did a good job. At least I'm satisfied with the way things turned out.
I like that Hitomi is beaten up by the Dragon Slayers after Millerna is killed and the way I portray them in the stadium.
I'm glad I used Millerna in the slot of 'Hitomi's best friend' rather than Yukari.
Lastly, the best thing I did in 'Dragon's Moon' is that I killed off Millerna. I have seriously congradulated myself on this decision at least a hundred times. For one thing, Millerna is a love rival for Hitomi in the series, and I didn't want anything like that for this story. Her personality is boring because she's sweet, intelligent, and a princess. BORING. I didn't start to like Millerna in the series until after she married Dryden.

In a lot of ways, I'm bored with 'Dragon's Moon'. It's not because I don't think it's a fun read, but I have read it zillions of times. I also wrote most of it (like 80%) of it quite a few years ago. I wasn't as much fun then, but the good thing about this book is that it's suspenseful. My beta reader says it's her favourite one for that very reason. Well, the biggest thing it did was provide a launching pad for two more books. There's a good premise, unresolved problems, interesting characters, a world, and a bunch of other stuff. It's not all that bad. I think it turned out to be much better than I thought it would.

Mystic Wings

I love the part where Hitomi goes to The Voltage Room to talk to Dilandau and ends up making out with him on the dance floor. Granted, she doesn't kiss him, but I love that she tries to knee him in the groin when she realizes that he's not Van - HA!
I also love the part where Van sets fire to the church after he and Hitomi get married. I really like that wedding. I like that there are no guests, that the place is in shambles, and that Van's shirt is open (I already explained my angst about the double standard for men and women - girls should be able to wear more clothes, but in the absense of that - men should wear fewer).
I like that Hitomi takes off with Allen on his motorcycle during gym class (I would have loved to do this) and the way her dad reacts when he finds out ... hehehehe.
I was really pleased with the way Yukari worked out. I have never read a fanfic where I have enjoyed her character. I always thought she was just a filler - boring. But in my fic, she has a purpose and once that purpose is fulfilled - she's gone - JUST THE WAY SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE.
And the last thing I liked about 'Mystic Wings' is Dryden. He had so much more character then I thought he was going to when I cast him in his role. He was a friggin' blast to write. I love him!

I wish that the ending of 'Mystic Wings' could have been a little smoother, but in retrospect I don't know how I could have fixed it. I think it went as good as it could have. I know a lot of people got frustrated with this story because Van (precious Van) is gone for 14 chapters. Honestly, if I hadn't thought of the scenario where Hitomi has to get along without him by living with her parents and having to return to high school - I wouldn't have written it. It would have been boring.

Mark of a Goddess

I like the part where Hitomi confronts Dilandau in the chapter called 'The Night of the Dragon Slayers'. She ends up drawing his blood.
I like the part where Van tells Allen that he's married to Hitomi. Seriously, I love every line that comes out of Van's mouth - he's awesome!
I think one of the best chapters in the book is the one where Van convinces Hitomi to transform into Marlene in order to trick Allen - seriously. That is a great chapter on so many levels.
Also, I really like the chapter called 'Barrel of a Gun' where Folken tells Hitomi all about his past. I might have to check again, but I think that chapter had one of the lowest review turnouts. I don't care. I think I pulled it off well, even though it's probably not the sort of thing that teenage girls dig.
I was really pleased with the way Folken turned out. When I was writing him in 'Mystic Wings' I didn't feel like I had a good sense of who he was. I think that got cleared up when I wrote the epilogue. The Folken that came into 'Mark of a Goddess' was MUCH easier to work with.
I think I managed to have great continuity for Eries. She's not in it very much. I think she only appears in four chapters in 'Mystic Wings' and doesn't talk a lot in any of them. But she clearly has a lot of personality in 'Dragon's Moon' because she slaps Hitomi. When she finally gets a chance to talk again in 'Mark of a Goddess', I thought her personality remained the same as when she was introduced. I was really pleased with her.

If I were to take this opportunity to point out my struggles, I'll have to say that Allen was a big fat pain in the can. I enjoyed him when I introduced him in book one and book two, but by chapter 13 of 'Mystic Wings' I was annoyed with him and I didn't stop being annoyed with him until chapter 11 of 'Mark of a Goddess'. I wanted to beat the crap out of him myself the whole time.

Another one of my obvious challenges was that I wasn't sure how to proceed with Van and Hitomi's romance. Having been in a relationship a long time, I know how relationships progress, but I didn't think my readership would be happy with the truth, so I kept on having to come up with conflicts for the two of them to have. Some of them were good and some of them left me with a gross taste in my mouth.

I was also sorely tempted to use Dryden more than Van. I think I avoided the trap nicely, but that doesn't change the fact that the temptation was there. The reason why is shameful - Dryden is easier for me to write than Van.

I also had major problems with the perspective for the final book. Most chapters are people explaining things to Hitomi rather than her experiencing them for herself. There's Eries explaining, Akira explaining, Dryden explaining, Chid explaining, Folken explaining and so forth. That's frustrating. I'm writing my next book in a different style.

I also had a lot of problems with the last two chapters. I had to be very careful what I put in them, just in case I ended up writing a fourth book. In the end, the final chapters contain a lot that would have gone into a fourth book - if I had chosen to write it. I needed to wrap things up in a more ruthless manner instead of protecting my secrets.

Okay - that's enough. I really enjoyed writing this series. I hope all of you enjoyed reading it. Cheers!

Finishing 'Mark of a Goddess'

2006-12-20T13:58:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished writing 'Mark of a Goddess'. I wanted to finish writing it before Christmas because I wanted to give a printed copy of the trilogy to my mother as a Christmas present. I did the finishing touches on chapter 24 and then I printed off 'Dragon's Moon'. It turned out to be 171 pages long when I printed it out. I thought that was pretty impressive. Tonight, I'll print out 'Mystic Wings'.

I had been killing myself over chapter 23. I actually wrote three different versions of that chapter. I haven't got it back from Kaytala yet. I wonder what she thinks of it.

It was amazing how easy chapter 24 was to write once I'd finished chapter 23. I thought I would have killed myself over the last chapter as well, but it was simple to write and the words came easily. I guess that was my reward for eating myself alive over chapter 23.

Well, this is the end of an era. I started writing 'Dragon's Moon' when I was 17 and I worked on the story faithfully for the past year and about three months. Now that it's over, I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to. And I learned a lot about myself as an author. Here are the things I learned.

I am not a good proof reader. No one should have me beta read their stuff. I am sucky. I make so many mistakes.
I need to cut at least three words from almost all sentences I construct. If I think I've written a sentence in the most straight forward way, I need to go away, come back and read it again. Then I need to cut three words to make the sentence read better. I say so many unnecessary words.
I need to be nicer when I review other people's work. I especially need to be nicer when people ask me because they admire me as an author. I have no excuse for being a bag.
I need to be more appreciative to my reviewers - definitely.

But all in all, I'm sort of happy to be leaving Van and Hitomi in the background. I'll work hard on 'Ghost Mist' and make that story a success. Writing from a man whore's perspective will suit my personality better than writing Hitomi. At least, that's what I think.

Scorpion's Reach Storyboard

2006-12-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, so today I'm posting my storyboard for 'Scorpion's Reach'. It was going to be the last book in my Escaflowne trilogy, but now it's not going to be anything, so I'm going to post my storyboard here for good measure. Kaytala told me that it was a pretty roomy storyboard. I think I'll take that as a compliment. It doesn't look anything like my 'Ghost Mist' storyboard, but that's because 'Ghost Mist' isn't fanfiction and needs far more information to make the story complete. For 'Ghost Mist' I have a character profile folder with over twenty characters listed, a locations folder with information on all key settings, the storyboard, and a review of the mythology of the area. Holy crap! Well, enough on that - here's my storyboard that will never get used.

Chapter 1 - Hitomi and Van's Story

Hitomi dreams that Dilandau is telling her not to bring Van to the city. If she brings him then he'll die. Then Hitomi is on her yacht with Van and she's being interviewed by The Historian (Agatha). Some of the questions The Historian might ask her will be:
1. The complete story of the vision she had when she got her abilities.
2. How she met Van.
3. What are her confirmed elements?
4. What other powers does she have?
5. What's her relationship like with her real family?
6. What was her relationship with Akira like?
7. Question about her life span?
Then she could ask Van all the same questions. At the end of the chapter, she gets a cell phone call from her daughter (Eriya). Eriya is engaged to Folken and they want her to come to the city for the wedding. Hitomi and Van are also invited.

Chapter 2 - Back to the City

Hitomi, Van, and Agatha Beech all head back to the city for the wedding. They arrive at Aunt Flo's and Hitomi meets with Aunt Flo, which is still not 100% pleasant, but she has a lot more on her mind now that Folken and Eriya are together. Aunt Flo has also started to date the doctor, so there's a lot less to worry about. Hitomi gives Eriya her congratulations and Eriya is very happy. Shortly after they arrive, Folken takes Van and Hitomi into the den and tells them that Naria took off as soon as it was confirmed that he had chosen Eriya - she was unbelievably pissed off and there was nothing he could do to stop her. Hitomi wants to know where she'd go. Folken says that he can't think of what she'd do besides go to 'The Scorpion' (the Vengence Card), because she was so desperate to be in a contract. So, she's gone to Dilandau. Folken knows that there's nothing that he can do, but is there anything that Van and Hitomi can do? Hitomi says that there's no point in her going to Dilandau, because Dilandau only loves Celena. She won't get what she wants out of him. Folken agrees that she probably won't get the contract she wants out of him, but he'll probably find a way to use her nonetheless. No one knows Dilandau better than Folken. Van questions him about the disbanding of the Zaibach group. Folken says that there isn't a thing he could do along those lines - Dornkirk expected Folken to die around the same time he did - so Dornkirk's plan was to have Dilandau inherit from the start. Dilandau was the whole reason Dornkirk came to the city. So, no one is listening to Folken - he's supposed to be dead. The other thing is that Folken says that Dilandau is a lot different than he was when Hitomi and Van knew him. Folken talks about how much he changed after Celena was taken from him, and then Dornkirk tied him up with those scorpions and now he's different again. Folken's worried that he might try to come after him and everyone else. Hitomi and Van can't do anything at that exact moment, so they go to bed that night. Sleeping in Van's old bedroom. And Hitomi has a dream about Dilandau. She sees him. He's alone in a room scraping a knife against a porcelain doll. His eyes are surrounded in black smudges and then Naria rolls over in the bed - the sheets are covering her, but she's clearly naked. Hitomi wakes up. Holy crap!

Chapter 3 - Shotgun Wedding

It's now March and the wedding takes place in a church in the city (it's still grey and non-fun outside). Van and Agatha are the witnesses. Eriya looks great - and we'll do a long description of her and Folken. The wedding is really quiet and the only guests are Hitomi, Aunt Flo and the doctor. They don't have a best man or a maid of honour, but Eriya looks so happy she can hardly breath. Hitomi has a flashback where she woke up in the middle of the night and told Van about her dream - he's very disturbed. Hitomi talks to him about how the scorpion symbolizes revenge and Van is really worried about Folken and Eriya - especially if Naria is involved and pissed off. At the end of the reception, Van offers Folken his and Hitomi's yacht for a honeymoon. They should go away for a couple months. Van puts them on a plane out to the coast so they can pick up the boat and go for a cruise. He also gives Folken the protection pendant as a wedding present and tells him to wear it himself. Hitomi thinks that was very nice of him. But Van's vexed and troubled. He still wants to take down the Zaibach group and he doesn't want to wait for Dilandau to make enough mistakes for Chid to come after him and Hitomi to let him go - he wants to be preventative, so he says they are going to get an appartment in the city and try again to end this trouble - once and for all.

Chapter 4 - First Apartment

This is the first time that Hitomi and Van are really on their own. They get a little apartment in the downtown of the city. Van gets a job working as an assistant pharmasist at a local drugstore. Hitomi spends the first part of her time going shopping and buying things for their new home. This could be a really fun chapter. We get to talk about her cooking and waiting for Van to come home. Her thinking about not finishing high school.

Chapter 5 - First Visitor

Chid comes to Van and Hitomi's apartment. He's extremely distraught about something. His angel is missing. Sarah is his angel - his mythical creature to help him through his life and his mission. He's very worried about her and he came to ask Hitomi to help him find her. Hitomi searches her mind and tells him that Dilandau has taken her. Chid is furious, but Hitomi doesn't know where to find Dilandau, Naria or Sarah. Van argues with Chid not to go off half cocked, but Chid is furious - he doesn't even know where to go. He ends up fighting Van until he really hurts him and then he calms down - heals him and goes to sleep in Van and Hitomi's room - shuts the door behind him.

Chapter 6 - God's Wrath

Van and Hitomi are sleeping on the couch together. Intimate conversation. BREAK. Chid is determined to go after Dilandau, so he's going to go talk to Merle about where he might be (just in case the police know). Van goes to work and Hitomi sits and tries to figure out where Dilandau might be. Chid comes back and says that a Dragon Slayer spoke to him in the police station. He told him that if he can find a way to turn Celena over to Dilandau then he'll give him Sarah back without any trouble. Hitomi tells him that she won't allow him to give Celena back. She's seven months pregnant (It's the end of March). Hitomi promises him that she'll go to Dilandau pretending to be Celena if Chid can wait until the baby is born. That means he'll have to control himself for possibly another two months. Chid doesn't want to wait that long but Hitomi reminds him that many people have been left in the Dragon Slayers company for long periods of time and only the weak willed change. She'll be okay as long since Dilandau already took Naria as his contract bound woman. Chid finally agrees and sends Dilandau a message via the police officer that he's on his way to get Celena now, but she can't be flown back to America as she's in her third trimester, so he'll have to wait. And nothing had better happen to Sarah in the mean time. They leave before Dilandau has received the message because Hitomi wants to protect Dryden from any unwanted attention (just in case Dilly wants revenge on him too).

Chapter 7 - Paradise Months

They go to the Fassa mansion in Madrid and wait for Celena to have her baby. Here we can do a reunited sequence with Allen, Gaddes, Celena, Dryden, Selphie and Eries. This is also the chapter where Chid heals Celena and her baby so that it is born healthy and Celena is no longer a drug attict. At the end of the chapter the vacation is over and Celena's baby is born. It's a baby girl and her name is Celice. (This is also a chapter where Dryden tells Hitomi that he can't have children with Selphie after all. He's just the same as any other Tarot user).

Chapter 8 - Behind Blue Eyes

Hitomi transforms into Celena and apparently leaves 'Hitomi' to take care of the new baby while they go to return 'Celena' to Dilandau. Van and Chid walk out of the mansion with her as Celena, but Van's messed up by the situation - he wants to be with Hitomi but he can't act like she's herself when she looks like Celena and she can't transform because Dilandau might be watching. Also, Hitomi is afraid all the time. She keeps wanting to turn to Van because of how afraid she is, but she can't. It's really hard for them. They get back to the city and move into a hotel suite until Chid can get a message to Dilandau about their arrival.

Chapter 9 - Scorpion's Reach

So, they get the information of where they are supposed to do the trade off. It's in the basement of the Stadium - a right crappy place because of the complicated layout. Hitomi's grouchy about it. But they prepare to go that night anyway.

They come down the stairs and Naria is there - she's going to lead them to Dilandau and Sarah. She takes them aroudn for a bit before she finds them. Hitomi wants to talk to her about her crappy decision but she can't because Celena and Naria have never met before. And Celena definitely doesn't know that Dilandau has been sleeping with another woman. So, Hitomi has to keep quiet. Once they find Dilly, Naria leads them into the room. Dilandau is standing in a room with a door behind it. He welcomes them and tells them that Sarah is in the room behind them, but she can't come out until he proves whether or not Celena is really herself. First, he rips open Hitomi's top to see if she has his name engraved into her chest. Van can't do anything and he's about to explode. Dilandau still isn't convinced. He starts undoing Hitomi's pants and Van loses it. He pins him to the wall and threatens to kill him. Dilandau says that he knew that it wasn't Celena. Naria looks happy that it wasn't. He says that Van took Celena from him and that makes him want to take Hitomi from him - just to even things out. Chid interrupts with Hell fire and asks Dilly to stop screwing around. He wants Sarah and now that he knows she's in that room, he can't wait any longer - the door has a lock that only he can open - and he made the door from something to stop Chid from opening it with his fire. Dilly says that he didn't keep his end of the deal - he brought Hitomi instead. Although - he will make Chid a deal, because he still has something that Dilly wants. They talk alone in a corner. Dilly looks like he has the upper hand, at last Chid agrees. He goes over to Hitomi and tells her that she and Van are to take Sarah as soon as Dilandau opens the door and go like mad. Van asks him if he's trading himself for Sarah. Chid smiled and says 'sometimes we can't stop people from doing wrong things'. He has to allow Dilandau the opportunity to F&&* up, and so Hitomi and Van are to do exactly what Chid tells them too. Sarah comes out of the door and Hitomi grabs her and pulls her from the room. Hitomi and Sarah see Chid's hair on the floor before the door shuts. Sarah is screaming, but Van pulls both of them from the doors and hurries them up the stairs.

Chapter 10 - Crushing Flower Petals

They are back at Hitomi and Van's apartment (It's been three days). Sarah sits at the windows and watches the rain as she crushes a pillow in her lap. There was no blood when Dilandau killed Chid. Chid had no blood. Hitomi can't believe that he's truly dead, but when she sees Sarah's reaction she thinks that he is, because no one could mourn like that for someone who was not dead. There was no vision - Chid had no children. Hitomi is afraid that she's already become the goddess because of Chid's passing (might have accelerated her progress). She goes into the bathroom and intentionally cuts her fingers for the first time in her life - she doesn't bleed. She cuts deeper, but there isn't a drop of blood. She sqeezes her finger until a drop of blood finally falls into the sink. Then she bandages herself up and goes to mourn for herself as well as Chid by the windows with Sarah. Van went to buy food and when he sees the two of them crying all over each other he rushes to comfort Hitomi, but she won't touch him. She wanted to have children and now she's doesn't think she'll be able to. She tells him there was only one drop of blood. He takes Hitomi by the hand and takes her into the bedroom. She goes to sleep after some non-described sex and when she wakes up she feels comforted. Instead of having children, she suddenly feels that the most important thing in this life is for her to be there for Van. She's his soul mate and it has nothing to do with anything else. He was a neglected child. He would get all her love from now on. Just like what she was trying to give him in exchange for Folken - now she would give him everything that she was because she wanted to.

Chapter 11 - A Burning at Sea

Folken shows up on their doorstep the next day (four days after Chid's death). He's got Eriya with him. He sits down and tells them what happened. He tells them that he and Eriya were attacked on Van and Hitomi's yacht. Dilandau boarded at the dock without being noticed by the captain or crew. Once they pushed off, he came on deck with Naria (had a knife pointed at her throat). He tells Folken that he'd better turn himself over for punishment (by the vengence card) if he wants Naria to live. Folken doesn't even bat an eyelash, but instead moves to protect Eriya. Folken tells him that he chose Eriya and so Naria means nothing to him - Dilandau can go ahead and kill her if he wants. Dilandau puts away his knife and moves to fight Folken right there and then, but Folken won't allow it. He uses all his elements (darkness and air) and gets them out of there. Dilandau burned the yacht (probably killed the three crew members). Folken's there partly to apologize. Folken says that there has been enough crap. It's about time they took down the Zaibach group with full force instead of any of this trash. Van isn't sure what he has in mind or why he's suddenly got all rowdy. Folken says he doesn't take well being threatened by Dilandau.

Chapter 12 - Saturday Night

Hitomi is at home watching T.V. with Sarah and Eriya. They are watching a report on the Zaibach group and how many of them have been caught. Folken gave them all the information he had about everyone and slowly, slowly, they were being caught and charged and prosecuted for everything they'd ever done. Folken and Van were't going to come back anytime soon, so the three of them were having a slumber party. Totally safe because all three of them are Tarot users. They end up eating junk food to celebrate and playing truth or dare. This could turn out to be really fun. But at the same time, Dilandau's going to spazz.

Chapter 13 - The Vengence Card

The next day Hitomi goes to get the mail and there is an express envelope from The Historian. Inside, is an account of The Scorpion. It's a threat by Dilandau to anyone who crosses him. He says that there are certain tarot users he wants to get even with and he's sending this list to everyone through The Historian so that they all know how much trouble they're in.

1. Folken Fanel
2. Van Fanel
3. Hitomi Fanel
4. Dryden Fassa

He also announces that he's killed The Sun God. He's filling his shoes now. Justice is now what he says it is. So anyone helping or caring for these people will be listed later on - so everyone better wisen up. And if they are truly wise - they'll join him. So, it looks like he's planning to create a syndicate out of Tarot users. Sarah says that he's probably realized by now that they are probably the only members worth having. Everyone else is weak. Hitomi gets on the phone and calls Dryden. Dryden says that he won't leave Madrid and nor will he leave the mansion until they've caught Dilandau, because he'll probably come and try to take Celena if he goes anywhere. He doesn't want to take the chance - her baby is so cute! Dryden wants to protect the baby. So they have to hurry up and punish him. But can Hitomi punish him right now? Chid's words keep ringing in her head. Sometimes you have to let someone screw up.

Chapter 14 - Broken Angel

Hitomi, Eriya and Sarah have all been hanging out in the apartment, but Hitomi begins to notice that Saria leaves for hours at a time. Hitomi doesn't know her well. She's a complete wild card and so Hitomi disguises herself as Amano and follows her. Sarah goes to the Dragon Slayer Stadium. She's walking around the parking lot kicking the dirt and bending down to pick up rocks with her hands. She goes and touches the wall of the building and rests her head on the metal siding. Hitomi approaches her and asks her what she's doing behind police lines. Saria says that she's not convinced that Chid's body isn't still here - she wants it. He's probably rotted. She says she doesn't care. She wants to kiss him goodbye. My life might end, but my passion for him will never fade. If only his bones are left - I want them. Hitomi considers breaking into the building in order to look, but decides to call Merle to find out if they can get into the building legitimately. The answer is no - the police haven't finished investigating it. Merle is happy as a clam about the Zaibach group getting put out of business. Hitomi gets off the phone with her and takes Sarah home with her. Hitomi rushes to Van once they're alone and tells him how much she loves him. This will be another good place for a little mush to fill up a bit of space.

Chapter 15 - Dornkirk's Legacy

It looks like Folken and Eriya will be in the city for the next five or six years dismantling the Zaibach group. The police have arranged for a house for them during the prosecutions of the different synicate members. Folken will be the primary witness for most of them. The only thing is that a couple of them are unaccounted for - Dallet, Miguel, and Naria. They can't find them anywhere. Probably with Dilandau. Van has decided to stay and make it his responsibility that Folken lives through this, so he and Hitomi aren't going anywhere. It's meaningless if he dies before all of them get what's coming to them. But it looks like the Zaibach group is finally finished. The police look for Chid's body, but they can't find anything in the stadium, The Voltage Room, or Dornkirk's mansion. Folken has no idea what he's done with it. But what will happen with Dilandau if no one goes after him - he might go after Dryden. Van thinks that he'll probably go after Dryden since Dryden's on his list and he's the only one not involved with the police right now. Hitomi thinks they should try to chase him. Van says they don't know where he is. Hitomi tries to use her vision to figure out his location, but she can only see what he's doing just then and it doesn't help her at all. He's smoking in a nightclub watching girls dance. Naria is behind him. She's rubbing his shoulders, but he's taking no notice of her. Hitomi is realizing the limits of her capacity. She thinks that if she pushes herself to learn her abilities better, she'll lose her chance to be a mother and so she puts Dilandau out of her mind. She's being selfish, but some part of her must be human right?

Chapter 16 - Scorpion wo Sagashite

Sarah approaches Hitomi and tells her that she overheard her and Van's arguement. She wants to know if Hitomi has any idea where Dilandau might be. Hitomi tells her that she had a vision of him at a night club, but it gave no hint as to where Dilandau was hiding. Sarah asks her to please check her vision again. Hitomi closes her eyes and almost gets a glimse of Dilly showering. URGH! She tells Sarah that she doesn't know, but then Hitomi gets the idea to go to his house (his parent's house) and ask them where he is, but to do that she has to confess to Sarah that she was once his friend. Sarah takes it much better than Hitomi expects. She says that all Tarot users are connected for good and for ill. So Hitomi and Sarah go to Dilandau's house to talk to his family. They arrive at the house and Hitomi knocks on the door. Dilandau's mother answers and asks Hitomi to come in. The place isn't very nice and his father is passed out in an armchair in the living room. Hitomi walks in and looks at him - she thinks he's dead. She asks Dilly's mother where he is. She tells them that he hasn't been living at home since before he was friends with Hitomi. She's surprised that Hitomi didn't know that he only visited. She has no idea where he is. Sarah takes Hitomi's arm and takes her out of the apartment. Hitomi asks her if she could tell whether or not Dilly's mother was lying. Sarah says it doesn't matter. She's knows that those people have nothing to do with him. Dilandau's father is dead and has been for over ten years. Dornkirk was Dilandau's great uncle. Sarah says that she wants to find Dilandau because she has to find Chid, but she doesn't know how. Hitomi asks her if she has any powers that will aid her in finding Chid's body. Sarah says no. Hitomi offers to lend her her skills, but the more Hitomi looks at this girl she is less and less likely to believe that she is an angel like Chid said she was. She's not angelic at all. There's something else about her - something sinister.

Chapter 17 - Nobody's Angel

Hitomi goes to Dryden's mansion and is invited in by Belinda. Hitomi says that she wants to have a look at something in the house and she doesn't think Dryden would object. Belinda knows that Dryden would welcome Hitomi and Van into his home for any reason and lets her in. Hitomi goes to the west wing and enters the training gym. It's in perfect condition. Apparently, Van fixed it. She goes in by herself and locks all the doors tightly. Then she transforms into Sarah (Kira). Hitomi tries to use Darkness and it works. An angel has darkness? The Devil had light. Hitomi tries to use light but it doesn't work. Hitomi can't use fire, lightning, ice, and she has no idea how to use earth. Finally, she tries water and it works. Sarah's elements are water and darkness. The next thing Hitomi needs to find is her symbol which should be tattooed somewhere on her body. Hitomi starts apologizing to herself as she starts stripping. But she doesn't have to go far to find the answer. Sarah always wears clothing that goes up to her throat. On her chest is a syth that's about to cut off her head and there are words written across the blade. It says "I would die for you". That means that Sarah is The Death Card. Hitomi does not understand why the Sun God's lover is Death. She's more wigged out than she's ever been and goes into the gallery to find Sarah's painting, but she can't find anything. Why not? She heads home.

Chapter 18 - Dying with Every Inch

Hitomi goes back to the apartment and finds Sarah sitting in the windowsill. She asks her outright if she's a Death Goddess. Sarah says she thought Hitomi already knew. Hitomi tells her that Chid said she was an angel and she didn't think for a moment that Chid would lie to her. Sarah says that Chid didn't lie. She was the only thing that wouldn't die on him - she was an angel. And he used to borrow her sythe. Hitomi asks her if she's planning on killing Dilandau if she ever finds him. Sarah says she wants Chid - that's all. It was never up to her who Chid killed anyway. Why isn't there a picture of her? She says she was born before Chid. She was one of the original Tarot users. What does that mean? Sarah explains that a long time ago people used to worship other things instead of their creator - and some were cursed because of their blasphemy. This was their punishment - to not be able to have children with the person they loved. Almost no Tarot user finds happiness, but Chid and her have been waiting for almost two thousand years for another Goddess and her mate to be born to replace those that killed themselves (the original Tarot users). She needs to find his body. It's more important than anything that the curse on Tarot users be broken, and Chid had almost made it. Now is the time - there are four gods again representing Life (Van) Death (Sarah) Chid (Justice) and Hitomi (Mercy). If they can break the curse than Hitomi can have children, but right now she needs to become the goddess and they need to find Chid's body. Can Sarah resurrect him? She says 'no' she cannot. But she must find him. She wants Chid's body whether they can break the curse or not and she'll do whatever she can to find him. Once again Hitomi is totally won over by Sarah's passion and she dives for a vision of Dilandau. This time he's peering through the window of Dryden's castle in Madrid (looking at Celena).

Chapter 19 - Breaking Battle

Hitomi goes and convinces Van to leave Folken and to travel back to Madrid with Sarah and herself. They have to get Dilly and he's right there. Van is worried that it's a trick to get them away from Folken so that Dilandau can have his revenge. Finally, Sarah says that they don't need him. They have to find Chid. Hitomi and Sarah go alone to Madrid. They find him and Hitomi tells him that Van didn't come because he thought it was a trick so that he could get to Folken. Dilandau smiles and says that it was a trick so that he could get to her. Then we'll have Dilandau and Hitomi fight. Hitomi has to get about 10x more vicious than she's previously been. Sarah interupts and starts to take on Dilandau herself. She says that Hitomi mustn't fight if she's going to become the Goddess. Instead she must search Dilandau's heart to see if he's worthy to be forgiven. Hitomi can't do it. She can't see everything that he's done. There's a pulsing in her abdomen and she's suddenly terrified that she actually became pregnant - that will ruin everything right now. Because she'll be completely stripped of her abilities and she can't remember when her last period was. She's terrified, and so she tries to transform into Dilandau, but she just feels sick - like she's going to throw up. What has she done? In the end, Sarah kicks Dilandau in the head and bolts grabbing Hitomi by the hand and getting them into Dryden's mansion - where he's waiting for them.

Chapter 20 - Selfish Wish

Hitomi and Sarah are in the house and Sarah hauls her away from everyone (except Dryden) who she can't stop from following them (after he's sure that Dilly can't enter). She asks Hitomi if there is any possibility that she's pregnant. Is she still bleeding? Has she become the goddess yet? Sarah looks angry as Hell when Hitomi answers that she was still bleeding last time she checked and it's possible, she and Van haven't been using a contraceptive for the past eight months (at least). Hitomi apologizes and Sarah's like 'not as sorry as you're going to be'. She rips out her sythe and cuts Hitomi on the forearm. Hitomi bleeds and Sarah screams. Dryden doesn't understand, but he arranges for a pregnancy test to be delivered to the house asap. Hitomi has to phone Van and tell him what happened with Dilandau, because she was supposed to phone him to let him know if everything turned out okay. Dryden calms everyone down. Hitomi goes and holds Celice and tries to comfort herself that even if the test is positive, that doesn't mean she won't be able to break the curse in the future and she'll have a lovely little baby.

Chapter 21 - Backlash

Sarah goes after Dilandau in a big way. She's so pissed off at Hitomi that she can hardly breathe, and she leaves before Hitomi takes the pregnancy test. She says she's going to find Chid no matter what and she'll talk to Hitomi when she has something to say to her. Hitomi waits for the pregnancy test to arrive and then she heads back to the city. She doesn't want to take the test without Van. So, she goes home - tells him the whole story and cries on him (at this point she still hasn't taken the test). Folken phones and says that Van and Hitomi have to come to the stadium asap - they found something that the police can't see and he wants Van and Hitomi to help him cover it up before one of the investigators sees it. They go to the stadium and Eriya and Folken are there. There was a trap door under one of the secret rooms (one that Folken knew about because he helped build it and he put sorcery on it to stop people from noticing it). Under the floorboards they find an iron maiden and when they open it up - they find Chid. He's decomposed - a lot and there isn't much left but bones. Suddenly, Sarah comes in and slams the door shut and locks it. She looks like she's going to kill somebody. She looks like she's going for Hitomi, but at the last second - she cuts Van and drops his blood onto Chid's body. She tells him to use his Earth ability to raise Chid - that is the true use of earth. Van does it and it works.

Chapter 22 - Testing the Water

After the happy reunion between Sarah and Chid, Sarah asks Hitomi if she's taken the pregnancy test yet. She says that she hasn't. They send her to a bathroom a few doors over and wait outside for her to finish. She comes into the bathroom and doesn't notice that Naria is waiting on the other side of the door - they stab her through the chest. Really intense, but Hitomi doesn't die right away. She bleeds nastily, but she pulls the knife out herself and drops it on the floor. Her body isn't hurting - the pain is gone. Naria is freaking out - she's never killed anyone before. Hitomi touches Naria's face, who is now trying to stop the bleeding, and she tells her that she forgives her for what she's done. It's okay - and at that moment Hitomi becomes the goddess. The bleeding stops and Hitomi can stand up. She leaves Naria and tells her to become a good person from now on. She goes into the room with everyone else and tells them that she's not pregnant and she's the goddess. (this chappy will have good pyrotechnics - hopefully equal to Van reaching his potential)

Chapter 23 - The End of an Era

Every Tarot user is stripped of their power and Folken ensures that Dilandau is caught and put in prison - much easier to catch now that he doesn't have any powers. Selphie becomes pregnant, Celena no longer lives in fear. Hitomi goes home and introduces her parents to Van and decides to go to a local community college in order to get her high school diploma. Van's no longer a monster and Folken doesn't have the black of the crow's nature to content with anymore - much easier to be a good person. Naria goes to prision, but she's happy to - she wants to repay her debt (three years).

Chapter 24 -

I don't know if there will be one - I think if I did a slight redistribution of chapter info - that would be taken care of in a jiffy.

Scorpion's Reach VI

2006-12-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, so now I've got the opinions back of the three people I asked to read the complete storyboard for 'Scorpion's Reach'. I asked Kaytala (my beta reader), Nightfaux (my creative consultant) and a volunteer - jossi-31 from fanfiction.net. Kaytala seemed to be the most enthusiastic of the bunch, jossi seemed to think that I should do it if I wanted to, but it was it was Nightfaux's passion that won me over to make my final decision. She phoned me last night to beg me not to write it.

So, no there will not be a fourth book to my Escaflowne trilogy. It's time to kill this pig my friends. It's been a good run, but I should just finish up and finally end something properly and move onto something else. I still want to write 'Ghost Mist', 'Half the Moon' and 'Whenever You Want' and even though it burns me up that most of my Escaflowne readers won't transfer over to my other work, maybe I can prove my salt somewhere else with something else. I mean - I really enjoy my level of popularity on fanfiction.net, but I want to be more flexible than Van and Hitomi. I'm really sorry if anyone is disappointed, but in response, I ask that my readers could give my other work a chance. Yuppers!

The rest of my writing on ff.net will probably only be used as an advertising tool for 'Ghost Mist' from now on.

I will post my storyboard for 'Scorpion's Reach' here next time I post.

Scorpion's Reach V

2006-11-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Just finished the storyboard and sent it to Kaytala to see if she thinks it's worth anything. Maybe it's worth writing - maybe not. I plan to let three people read it to see if they like it. Two of the spots have already been taken, but there's one left so if anyone wants to read the storyboard, please comment and I'll send you an email draft and you can tell me if you think it's worth it. Best two out of three and I'll write it. By the way, I'm not sending it to people who just like everything I do. I'm trying to keep it sensible. However, I must point out that a lot of stuff changes while you write - you need to be flexible. So I think the finished product will turn out better than the storyboard. I find that that's usually what happens.

Scorpion's Reach IV

2006-11-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

Well, fanfiction.net finally opened up its large gates and all their back emails came flooding into my inbox like a tidal wave. And I found out something - there's a lot more support for me to write 'Scorpion's Reach' than I thought there was.

I've also figured out a couple solutions to the problems I was having. A couple scenes played out in my head and I almost got inspired. Almost. The thing that's still dragging me down is that - I'm tired - and I can't think up an ending.

Well, right at this second I thought of something that didn't point towards Hitomi becoming a murderer, but it also strips her of her protaganist powers.

Whenever my ... man reads 'Mark of a Goddess', he reads the end and he's so confused as to why Hitomi isn't the one in the heat of things - instead it's Van. But I never heard any readers complain about that. Hmmm....

Anyway - I'm still thinking. I haven't yet come to a decision. I'll post my next chapter when I make up my mind.

Scorpion's Reach III

2006-11-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

This is the third post about the possibility of me writing a fourth book to my Escaflowne trilogy.

Next time, I think I'll post my storyboard for this thing, just for your interest, because I don't think I'm going to write it. I can't think of an ending, and I don't want to start half-cocked. That's messy and against my policy.

There are just the following problems in my writing life:

I can't write this book from Hitomi's perspective. It's impossible. I already fought her like a tigress during 'Mark of a Goddess' and I'm tired of fighting her. I would have to go to Folken's POV at least once in order to make this worth while and I don't want to suddenly change writing styles for the fourth book.
I'm tired of Van and Hitomi. These days when I sit around and think up scenarios - everything good that I think up goes massively against both their characters. Basically, I want to write about a girl who isn't a good girl. I also want to write about a guy who's more of a manwhore than Van. Dryden couldn't enter into the fourth book - he would have no purpose. I think the soul of that thought is that I really want to write 'Ghost Mist' even though I'm a little discouraged. I should pluck up my courage and get on with it.
Everything in the possible plot for 'Scorpion's Reach' points to Hitomi becoming a murderer. I think that should be avoided, because I really wouldn't be able to continue the story after book four. And I would hate for people to say, 'Just read up until the end of 'Mark of a Goddess'. The rest isn't good.'
I did conclusive endings for Allen, Gaddes, Eries, Dryden, Selphie, and a whole lot of other characters. So, these characters are useless because they have no problems to solve. They can't help me with book four.

It's mostly frustrating because I know my readers won't move over to read 'Ghost Mist' and actually, who the *^&* am I to recommend to them that they should? I should just say that I'm working on fictionpress and leave it at that.

You know what else, even though I receive a lot of praise for my work - I still get a lot of blowback that I could do things better. I get all kinds of comments (not on ff.net) about how immature my work is. And that raises questions like, 'Why am I doing this? Am I doing this for fun? Or am I doing this with the hope that perhaps one day I'll be able to get something published? Is getting something published the extent of my goal, or what am I aiming for here?' I wish I knew the answer to these questions, because if I did, I could do something radical.

If my goal is to get something published then I should just write 'Ghost Mist', send it to my sister-in-law, let her skin me alive, then I should send it to my father-in-law and let him skin me alive. Then if I took all their suggestions, I could send something to a publisher. But I have this sinking feeling that my heart wouldn't make it past my sister-in-law. After she was finished with me I would be so disheartened that I might never show anything to anyone ever again. It isn't that she would mean to be mean to me, but I wouldn't be able to handle having my heart ripped out and sent through the meat grinder. She would tell me the truth and I wouldn't be able to handle it.

If my goal is to be acclaimed on ff.net - then I've already achieved it as far as I'm concerned. Either that or I should start writing fanfic for Kenshin and see if I can earn a hundred reviews with a single chapter (lol). Actually, I know that wouldn't be as satisfying as I think it would be. Afterwards, I would still feel parched.

If my goal is to write for teenage girls (this is what I always believed my goal was) then I should never stop writing Escaflowne fanfiction. However, this cannot be. My brain requires more stimulation than this. Either that, or I should take one of my older novels and transform it into an Escaflowne fanfic. Why not? I mean, it worked with Dragon's Moon. That's the only way I could enjoy writing Escaflowne fanfic. Figuring out a way to make my old stuff passable. HA! I should try this. Just for kicks and giggles.

Lastly, if my goal is to write for fun then I should tell off anyone who tells me that they found an error in my work. You know - I've never once believed that I do this for fun. It's more of a sick compulsion that I can't seem to kick than a hobby that brings me pleasure. I like reading my stories. That's mostly what brings me pleasure. I think I write better than anyone. I write novels I wish other people would write. That's all. I guess I also like getting into other people's heads and having them obsess over my story. I like that too.

Blah - now I've written myself into a knot. This is how I feel, but what I've explained means that I don't know how to escape the trap. I write - some people won't like it. Some people know more about writing than me. Well, that's good for them.

Scorpion's Reach II

2006-11-17T20:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is the second post about a fourth book to my Escaflowne trilogy.

So I sat around and thought about this very seriously ... for hours and hours and HOURS. And I'm basically here to say that if I do this - it's going to be a lot darker than my other Escaflowne stories. It's going to make everything else look like 'Strawberry Shortcake on Icecream Island' compared to the dark that I'm going to bring out of the rabbit hole. I will have never written anything quite like this before, but basically, I've just danced around the fire with my previous works. If I continue I'm going to get burned and everyone is going to walk away a little less innocent.

Just a warning - I may have to move the rating up to M for Mature.

Scorpion's Reach

2006-11-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

So, this post is about the possibility of me writing a forth book to my Escaflowne trilogy. I honestly didn't think that so many people would be interested in me writing a fourth book. In my author's notes for the last chapter of 'Mark of a Goddess' I asked everyone to say so if they wanted to have a fourth book. I was absolutely stunned by how many people said that they would be interested in a fourth installment. I didn't think there would be that much interest.

Right now, I'm really not sure if it's something that I want to do.

One of the major flaws of my Escaflowne trilogy is that it's written in limited omniscent. So, I can only write from Hitomi's point of view. Up until now - that has sort of irritated me - but I wanted to learn to write with boundries, so I dealt with it. But, now I have a way of fixing that without betraying the style I started with. Hitomi could have visions of things as a third party - so she could see things happening that she hasn't been able to see before. And that could be really helpful.

So, stuff that will have to happen if I do a fourth book? Sorry, if this is spoiling anything for anybody, but I need a place to write some ideas and see if I can get anything interesting out of it - at least enough to fill 24 chapters. I don't know if I have enough material to fill 24 chapters.

Folken will have to decide if he's going to choose Naria or Eriya as his contract bound woman. I know he doesn't actually make a decision in the series, but within the bounds of my story - he has to choose only one of them. I was leaning towards him choosing Eriya. She seemed to have a better attitude and be a trifle less evil than Naria. And I'm going to need Naria to be all the evil she can be plus a little bit more.

Next - in case some of you haven't figured it out. Dilandau is the person who inherited The Devil's tarot abilities. And also in case you didn't know - scorpions symbolize revenge. So, I think I'd call the book 'Scorpion's Reach'. Actually, this is the part of the book that would make me extra happy, because I really like working with Dilandau. And since he's all vengeful - he'd have to go after Hitomi and Chid directly. So, like the series, he would be aiming for revenge - except mostly against Hitomi (that makes Hitomi a bigger part of the action). So, for that - I think this would be fun.

Dilandau would also have to pair up with Naria, which would make for an interesting dynamic. For one thing, he's like eight years younger than Naria and she'd want him for her lover. So that continues our 'age differences' theme from the other books. But you see, Dilly would resist something like that, because in his heart - he only cares about Celena.

Then there's Van and Hitomi. So, in the first book we had the first flowers of romance - first kiss. In the second book we had the wedding and the separation. In the third book - active sexuality (though not described). So, what's left? That's right. In a normal relationship that advances naturally - Hitomi would be pregnant now. I still haven't decided on that path yet. I was going to leave 'Mark of a Goddess' really open so that the reader could decide if Hitomi was able to have children or not. But if I do another book - I'll definitely have to answer the question. Hmm ... Personally, I had kind of been leaning towards her not being able to have children, but I was never planning on answering that question. It was always the plan to leave it open. But if I did a fourth book - I would pretty much have to answer the question with a 'yes'. So, basically, Hitomi would be pregnant for the entirety of the next book. The time frame for 'Mark of a Goddess' has been around three weeks. So, yep - Hitomi would probably wouldn't even get to delivery time before the end of the fourth book. Not only that, but writing a book that has anything to do with pregnancy sounds like non-fun to me. I couldn't get enthusiastic about a project like that. Everyone always tells me to write what I know about, but MAN ALIVE - that wouldn't make me happy. I would just relive some of the least fun moments of my own life.

So, if I didn't have Hitomi being pregnant - what else could I do with the plot? I've already heard a lot of noise that if I cut Hitomi off from motherhood - I'll be pissing off a whole section of my readers. I know a lot of people think that I shouldn't have that sort of thing on my mind while I write, but I can't help it.

What I really mean is - how could I deepen Hitomi and Van's love at this point without having them have children? I've already threatened their relationship with a separation and tempted Hitomi with other men. Not a lot coming to mind here - but this is one of the problems that I will brainstorm after this.

The other thing that could happen that would bring them together is that Dilandau could murder Hitomi's whole family. I originally had that happen in the first book after Hitomi is dragged out of the apartment by Dilandau's thugs. But at this point in the story - it would be so brutal that Hitomi would be a freaking mess. Not only that - but I think that might alienate my readers. Doing something that drastic is pretty nasty when they've been reading for over 300,000 words. But it would cause Van and Hitomi to get closer together in a way that hasn't happened yet. Hmmm - that sounds a little hardcore. Maybe too nasty.

The next thing that is probably a necessity is that the location of the story might have to change. I'll be giving up the setting of Dryden's mansion by the end of 'Mark of a Goddess'. The most natural thing would be to move the story to Madrid, but frankly - there is no friggin' way I'm falling into that trap.

Chid is going to have to be a main character from now on. Folken will have to wait in the wings for awhile - though I can see him having a part to play eventually. I can't see Allen being useful at all anymore. I could start out the book with Hitomi being interviewed by The Historian. So that's a new character I could bring in. I also have no clue what sort of role Dryden and Selphie would have in the next book. Or Gaddes and Eries for that matter. I'm done with Aunt Flo and Merle and I was just contemplating killing Hitomi's whole family. Hmm... that's looking like a better idea by the minute. But that means that I haven't got a whole lot of characters to work with. Let's see I've got:

Hitomi
Van
Dilandau
Chid
Naria
Folken
Eriya
The Historian
Dallet
Miguel

That's not good folks - that's half the cast of 'Mark of a Goddess'. When I made up my character sketches for 'Ghost Mist' I think I ended up with 25 characters. Ten is pathetic beyond all reason. I don't know if I can even pull of a story like this with only ten characters. Let's see - how many did I have for 'Dragon's Moon' - that might help me think.

Hitomi
Van
Millerna
Mrs. Kanzaki
Eries
Allen
Merle
Aunt Flo
Dilandau
Miguel
Chid
Celena
Gaddes

I had 13, but it only gets worse as we go along - I just add more and more and more. I think I've used all the remaining characters from Escaflowne. I'll probably need some more characters and they'll probably all have to be original since I've already picked Escaflowne's bones clean. Dang it! I wish I hadn't already used Amano - he could have saved my can right about now. Dang!

Blah!

My Selfishness

2006-11-10T16:21:00.000-08:00

You know, I get less and less conceted about my own writing everyday. I've been sort of sloppy lately and it's only been getting worse. I haven't had a lot of inspiration and I've had even less motivation. I'm in a dry spell and yet I don't stop writing because I somehow feel obligated to finish what I started. Some people even want me to write another Escaflowne book. I could probably do it, and I could probably think of a plot that wouldn't suck, but I can't imagine my readers actually following me through another 24 chapters. I think they'll get bored. Everyone got bored during Van's 14 chapter absense in 'Mystic Wings'. They just don't understand. If Hitomi is going to be heroic, then Van can't be around. But I was told that the parts where Hitomi went to The Voltage Room without him were boring.

Ah well, what do I know about writing? I know plenty. Actually, the more I read about the subject I'm startled by how much I already know. But simply by my personality - I know that whenever I think I know something - I am only scratching the surface. I'm the type who knows how to B.S. my way through anything. I always sound self assured and conceited. People love taking me down a notch. People love hearing three little words out of me and they're not 'I love you' - they're 'I was wrong'.

I've just finally learned something - NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF HOW THEY WRITE. They don't want to hear what they're weaknesses are.
I know what mine are. I suck at sentence construction. Isn't that weird? But it's true - it's a huge flaw. You know what else I suck at? I suck at allowing my characters time to interact when it doesn't have anything to do with the plot. You know what else? I suck at adding those little details that people love. You know what else? I suck at agonizing over my story. I hate leaning over already finished material and scrutinizing every damn word. I want to pick the perfect word for something, but I only have so much patience over it before I pick a serviceable one and go. And that's how it goes. When I hear people comment on any of these things - I've honestly given up being irritated and instead it's just like: "Yep. I know - I'm still sort of sucky. My bad!" But I can only have that kind of attitude when I haven't spent much time with the story. That's when I write it, go over it a couple times, send it to my beta reader, read it again and post it. Then I don't care what they say because I can hardly remember what happened, or what I said.

You know I was trying to be more grown up in 'Ghost Mist', and so there were longer paragraphs and people actually told me it was a flaw. Well, heck, then I'm never going to grow up. And if I never grow up, then I'm going to be living in Neverland until I'm OLD. And then I'll have lost my chance.

But in a way, I'm getting exactly what I want. I'm writing for my demographic and a lot of people have written in and told me how my story captivated them. I should be happy. I just wish that I didn't have to scam off someone else's idea to get an audience. BLAH!

I've got to stop now. I'm getting too depressed and I don't even think I have a reason to be depressed. Everything has been going swimmingly.

Writing Guidelines

2006-11-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Today, I was reading the Mystery Newsletter I get on writing.com and it had this list of pointers for authors in it. I'm mostly saving it here as a reminder to myself.

When you are ready to start revising your piece, keep these eight things in mind.

1. Read it aloud. Your ears will catch awkward wording your eyes missed. If you are stumbling over parts, or having to go back and re-read something, then it needs to be either reworded or expanded.

2. Listen to your characters' dialogue. Does it sound natural? Does it fit the characters? Be sure you don't have too much dialect in your dialogue. Ya'll is a nice way to show a character is from the South, but if every other word out of your character's mouth is ya'll, then it can get tedious to read. Remember a little goes a long way.

3. Tie up all the loose ends of your story's plot. If you have a minor plot line going be sure to end it. Don't leave your reader hanging at the end wondering what happened to Tony when he went off down that dark alley to help the main character look for clues.

4. Avoid using the same word over and over. Every writer does this, even the most famous. If you are careful, you can catch these minor repeats and replace the overused word with a more suitable one. Buy a good thesaurus and use it.

5. Beware of run-on sentences. A sentence with too many clauses and phrases can be confusing. Try breaking a run-on sentence into two, or shortening it.

6. Be careful of words that sound the same, but have different meanings. They're-there-their all sound the same, but don't mean the same. Same with it's-its. Remember your spell checker isn't going to catch these kinds of typos, you have to.

7. Use exclamation points only when one of the characters, or the writer, is actually exclaiming. It was a wild, exciting ride. Period. No exclamation point. But with, "What a wild, exciting ride!" the exclamation point is right. Be sure to use question marks correctly too.

8. Use your spell check or dictionary to make sure that words you're unsure of are spelled correctly. Spell checker will catch probably 95% of all misspells. The rest you'll have to catch by reading your piece.

Having another person read your work and circle any parts that don't make sense, or need to be revised, will also help you polish your prose. I know some writers, especially new ones, have trouble allowing others to read their work. But that is part of the writing process, allowing the outside world a look at your story.

According to these standards - I am a goddess. Why do I still have so much to work on then? Blah. My sentence structure is naturally confusing. It's because I watched all those 'British Literary' movies when I was a teenager. I'm never going to get that taste out of my mouth and they use unnecessary words all over the place. Especially the ones that take place in the 18 hundreds.

I'm prolly better than I think, and I don't actually think I'm a goddess. I'm more like - a mortal.

Starting from Scratch

2006-10-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, well today I posted the first chapter of Ghost Mist on fictionpress and fanstory. I'll probably get my can in gear and do the rest later. Yeah, I really built up an empire (not an empire) but maybe a small following of readers on fanfiction.net and now I'm starting from scratch again, because I changed genre's/categories and websites.

I knew my Escaflowne readers wouldn't follow me over. I thought I was placing my hopes really low when it came to getting reviews on my new story. I'll just have to keep working hard and see if I can make my stuff appealing to a different crowd. Do I think this likely? Probably not.

Actually, I'm not super discouraged. I just sort of expected the crowd on fictionpress to be more rewarding than the crowd at fanstory. It's weird how these things work out, ne?

The Dawning of a New Book!

2006-10-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

I just sent Kaytala the first chapter of 'Ghost Mist' for her to beta read! This is a tremendous accomplishment for me - promotions for EVERYBODY!

This time I had a boy read it and give me feedback. I want it to be an accessable piece that is readable for men and women alike, so I had him check it out and tell me what he thought. He made me work harder! Grrrr! It's so weird when he makes me work harder, because he's one of the few people I will allow to crack the whip over me.

Anyway - I'm SUPER happy because that means that the first chapter will probably be ready to come out THIS WEEK. YAY!

Maybe I can even get it onto writing.com before they end my upgraded membership ... HA! Ya right! They're going to kick me out on my can before that happens, but ... I'll take courage and satisfy myself with the three other archives I plan to post on.

Which reminds me, I should also get my can in gear and post the rest of MoaG on mediaminer.org. I'm such a lazy one! `-^1

Ethics

2006-10-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Imagine yourself dead.

I know, that's a great way to start a post, but seriously - imagine yourself dead. Imagine that you've lived a fantastic life as a novelist and now you've passed out on the operating table while having open heart sergery at the tender age of 67. Now instead of floating away on a cloud, you're in a tangible place - a room filled with filing cabinets. In these filing cabinets are the statistics of your life. Mostly it's stuff you never knew. It's information about people you influenced with your writing. The room is hot and suffocating, and you knew it would have to be - you were a New York Times Best Seller.

Wouldn't it be disgraceful if after everything was tallied up, you did more harm to society than good?

You see, I was talking to this online writer the other day. She said that she never used bad words in her writing because it would be degrading to herself and to everyone who read her work (that's my short version of what she said). I asked her if there was smut. She said that if there was a love scene it was only implied rather than described. So, I sat there and seriously asked myself about my ethics while writing.

She really got me thinking, but the thing I always think when I write is that my characters are not me. Instead, they are a reflection on how I view everything around me (including other people's storytelling). It was a huge barrier that existed in my mind before I could let characters be people that I am not - but only observed (even just characters and not real people at all). Yeah, I don't stab people, but Hitomi did. I don't burn down buildings, but Van does. I don't kill people, but Dilandau did. The list like this goes on. I guess I always thought that my writing was fantastic enough that no one would ever take it seriously. I don't write skank, or at least I try hard not to. Usually, I feel like that translates into 'I can't write romance', but that's beside the point.

As for the bad language in my writing. I remember the first time I used the 'f' word in DM. It was because I didn't think the readers would take the situation seriously if I didn't. Would a person holding a gun to your head have a clean mouth? Probably not. My first boss at a university didn't even have a clean mouth. Nor do I know very many people who do.

Am I being bad? I'm not sure. What I write is entertaining, not enlightening - but is that really so wrong? I haven't been able to decide.

I do plan to keep the language cleaner in 'Ghost Mist', but honestly 'Ghost Mist' is a really clean adventure story. Adding skank/slash/swearing in it would take up valuable time that could be used explaining important stuff. I'll have to think about this some more.

Writing is a reflection of what's truly in your heart, but so is everything else in life that a person does. I'm sorry that I'm not perfect, but who is?

Simple Rhymes

2006-10-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I haven't spent a great deal of my life thinking about poetry. When I think about writing, my passions run like the following:

Novels
Rants (essays)
Poetry
Novellas
Short Stories

My favourite poet is William Blake and that's mostly because I love it when people get angsty about politics. Don't you just get shivers when you read London? "Runs in blood down palace walls" It makes me excited and grouchy as &*T*&^.

Anyway, lately I've been forcing myself to read a little on fanstory. Mostly I read poetry, because it's a shorter time commitment, and I don't have too much time to screw around with that sort of thing. Whenever I go there I get more and more convinced that it's a place for people over the age of 35 to experiment in a sort of group therapy. Seriously, I think I've only read one thing there that didn't make me want to start chewing off my own tongue. It was a poem about Nascar racing and actually it was pretty good. But otherwise, it seems like the sort of place where people write lame 'who done it's and record their role playing escapades. I have a lot more respect for that sort of thing than I'm showing here. I just don't normally read either of those and so it's hard to get excited about genres I can't sink my teeth into. But the point is that I've mostly been reading poetry.

When I write poetry, I try to tell a story. Usually it's a story that would probably be more effectively told if I was willing to write a short story about it, but most of the time I'm not interested in taking that much of a detour from my regular writing menu to write something that's just a bug in my brain. So, I write a poem to remove the bug and give me some more brain room.

I usually write freeverse, but no matter what I write I keep score of the number of syllabels I use in order to make sure it ticks like a clock if it doesn't rhyme. That's because I don't really have a skill for coming up with unique rhymes and I can't stand writing something that's too simplistic. It makes me want to gag and die if I write something that's too common. Not that my poetry is really amazing, but it can't be run of the mill or I see no purpose in writing.

Last time I was on fanstory, I was reading this poem and I couldn't believe it, but this guy really rhymed 'park' with 'dark'. I couldn't friggin' believe it. His poem was not intended for children - it was intended for adults and I was endlessly confused at his style. I wrote him back and said something like: "I'm really sorry, but the meaning of your poem was completely clouded out by the fact that you rhymed 'park' with 'dark'. The only thing I could think of was; "Look what we found in the park in the dark. We will take him home. Will will call him Clark. He will live at our house. He will grow and grow. Will our mother like this? We don't know." I seriously haven't read Dr. Seuss in ages, but holy shimoly! Are we writing for adults or preschoolers here?

I'm probably too grouchy, but I can't understand the satisfaction of writing cute sing-songy rhymes for something that doesn't involve singing to my daughter. Sharing something on fanstory means that your audience is adults (mostly aged 35 to dead) so why would they be interested in reading something like that unless they were planning to rip off your idea so they could cross-stitch it on a pillow? But would an adult expression poorly written really classify as cute then?

Weirdos.

Ghost Mist Progress Report 1

2006-10-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I had been working on revising my storyboard. I have never written such a detailed storyboard. I started writing it out long hand in a little book (I know you know the kind) and I only got to chapter eight before I had filled the entire book. Each chapter has an average of 38 points. So I started writing in another little book (please note that this doesn't include character sketches, location descriptions, or the mythology), and I believe I got to chapter 12 in the next little book. As far as I'm concerned, I've only finished writing the storyboard for the introduction. Twelve chapters for an introduction? Even I don't know if that's a good sign or not. It's even been taking me a considerable amount of time typing my notes into my netnote program - ARGH!

But today, I decided to take it to the hoop and write the first chapter, even though I'm not done the storyboard. So, I bet you're wondering why I'm breaking my own rules. Well, I have already written this novel before, I'm just gutting it so hard that it'll hardly be recognizable as the same thing. So, the whole old novel acts as a storyboard in many ways, so I don't exactly feel like I'm cheating, but I do wish that my storyboard was done.

I keep telling myself that it's okay, because I didn't have 'Mystic Wings' all planned out while I was writing 'Dragon's Moon' and I didn't have 'Mark of a Goddess' planned out while I was writing 'Mystic Wings', so it's okay. The story is going to be the same and the mythology is going to be the same so I just need to pull the two things together.

The thing I've been struggling with is Fillix. He's the second main character and I love him, but his story line isn't as intense as Tesai's, so I'm having a hard time accepting the comic relief aspect of this tale. But I NEED comic relief or my readers will expire from shear ... pantihose.

Regardless, I just finished writing the first chapter, and I think it went pretty well. It turned out to be about 3500 words. Now I know my usual readers spazz if it's less that 6000. However, I'll be attempting to scrape in a new audience as well as the old one, and I feel like I would be doing myself a disservice if I wrote really long chapters to begin with. I'd probably bore my new readers. I can have the fun of writing longer chapters once my readership for the story is established. Actually, I think that I'll earn a boy following for the first time ever with this story. It's not very feminine and though it has a strong romantic plot, it is more action oriented with lots of fighting and snappy dialogue. We'll see. I've got a boy reading it right now. Maybe he'll like it^^.

The Blanket Scenario

2006-10-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

Hehehehehehehe. Today is a good day. I'm in a good mood and I've thought of an extra special topic to speak on today (hehehehehehehehe) - ahem - the blanket scenario. I'll bet you're wondering what the blanket scenario is. Well, wonder not. Today I will talk about the two most obvious romantic scenarios. Maybe I'll do more later, but for now - only these two.

The Blanket Scenario
The Alley Scenario

First off - The Blanket Scenario

This is when the main boy and the main girl somehow end up stuck in closed space (a place they cannot leave) with no heat and ... only ONE BLANKET. There are a zillion of these on fanfiction.net for every genre. But since it has been pointed out to me - this scenario appears everywhere. It's really disgusting. The other day I was reading a cheesy little romance novel and it showed up there. I was lying on my back flapping the cover back and forth like it was a birdy and seriously contamplating chucking it out the window. I would have been setting it free, right? I've also seen it in many MANY mangas. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like this situation has been used so many times that it's hard not to wonder exactly what satisfaction the author got out of writing something so ... ordinary.

Second off - The Alley Scenario

I'm a little more forgiving about the alley scenario. I wonder why. It's probably just because I think that the essense of it is more appealing. This is when our main girl is walking alone down an alley at night. As she's walking she's attacked by thugs. Then all of a sudden a mysterious shadowy male character appears out of nowhere and kicks the crap out of every last one of them. She's accidentally knocked unconscious, so she can't thank him or get up and leave. Instead, he doesn't know her and so he does the only reason able thing ~_^ ... he takes her home with him. Why that makes sense is beyond me. Later, she wakes up at his home and the mystery of the person who saved her is half way revealed. We still don't know why she's somehow in different clothing and why it was necessary to change her out of her clothes. This is what bugs me the most about this scenario. There is almost never a legitamate reason to change her clothing. I guess it adds a creepy demension to it that women, who are not me, find appealing.

Okay, that was sorta fun. I've been thinking of shutting down this blog and just doing Wild Moon Swings. I think I'm getting too big for my breeches.

My Voice

2006-09-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

If I were asked what my favourite thing about C.S. Lewis is, I'd have to answer that I love his writing habits. It wasn't until later in his career, but towards the end he used to write, then go over the piece once with a pen, and then he'd sent it to his editor. Isn't that beautious? I think so. I think he's fantastic.

When I was a young little bull frog, I used to try to write in the style of the ancient gothic romances that I used to read instead of in my own voice. When I look at my really old writing I wonder exactly who I was trying to kid. It's not me. When I write I feel like one of the most important aspects of the piece I'm writing is self-expression. How I view others and the world around me.

You see, I've been trying to figure out how Tesai in Ghost Mist is going to sound different from Hitomi in my Escaflowne stuff and you know what? They aren't going to be that different. Even if I switch to a different perspective, I may describe things differently, but it's always going to be my voice that follows me around. I really struggled with this concept while I was writing chapter 8 of Mark of a Goddess because I had to write from Akira's perspective and I felt that it should be different than Hitomi's perspective. I really felt that no one appreciated that I was trying to make it different. It was also a written document as opposed to the internal monologue that goes on in Hitomi's head, so I felt like it should be distinctly different. Welp, no one seemed to appreciate it. I think I'm learning that it's okay to use my voice no matter what I write. Things seem worse when I try to be someone I'm not.

Anyway, that's what I think C.S. Lewis learned. That if he spoke with his own voice than he always knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. What could be a better accomplishment than saying EXACTLY what you want to?

Just to cap this off, I'd like to make a quick list of the things I accomplished in my Escaflowne trilogy that really pleased me. There were a few things that pleasantly surprised me.

Eries. Her character's original name was Nicole and she wasn't anything like the Eries that came out once the novel was renamed Dragon's Moon. I wasn't sure how her character was going to fit in, because the original character was very happy and cheery and the Miguel character was in love with her. Also, Nicole was Jeremy's girlfriend (Allen's). I obviously had to cut all that, but I was really pleased with Eries - especially in the chapter called Poolside Confessions. I love how she's difficult to the last moment.
Chid. I love Chid back in Dragon's Moon. There's one part where he's flipping through channels on the T.V. He's standing in front of the T.V. with a remote in hand and his feet spread apart on the carpet and the image I have of him in my head of that moment is really ... unforgettable. When I wrote it the first time, things got really confusing once they got to the farmhouse. I was running out of steam the first time I wrote it, so it was getting really sloppy, but for some reason Chid doing that cleared my brain and helped me see the scene clearly, so that I was able to write the rest of it.
Van burning down the church after their wedding. I don't know why, but I flipping love that.
Hitomi jumping on the back of Allen's motorcycle and skipping gym - excellent.

I'm going to stop there. I'll have to write a big flashback show here after the last chapter is released.

Beta Reading Jungle

2006-09-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not a very good beta reader. Anyone who has had me beta read for them knows that I am seriously lacking. My problem is that I usually don't buy different aspects of their story and I can't keep my friggin' mouth shut. I've become much better at this recently. I'm probably a weirdo, but I think my creative consulting has become more valuable lately, and I am the type who remembers to compliment when I see something good. So, I'm not all bad, but I'm definitely a grouch.

As for a beta reader for myself, I've had lots. Here they are:

Beta Reader No. 1

Kalis Deleira - This girl wasn't bad. I did a Slayers beta exchange with her a couple years ago. I like to update once a week and as I recall, she couldn't keep up with me. But a majorly nice kid. I think she posted my Shadow Magic: Zelgadis and Lina on her webpage. Darling!

Zue - This girl was a writer I admired. She wrote a Slayers fanfic called Hit the Ground Running, which was very enjoyable to read. But I think I wrote too fast for her too, but to be honest - my work didn't interest her so eventually our relationship just trailed off and ended, but that's okay. She's still a good writer, except that she hasn't been on ff.net in ages.

Shavaineth - I argued with this woman so much. I wasn't a huge fan of her writing and she didn't write very much so it was hard to admire her and the work she did on my writing was always too detailed. She would rewrite entire paragraphs until she was satisfied with them and when I asked her her opinion on stuff she would usually raise the skank to a level I was uncomfortable with. So I always felt that she overdid it until it wasn't my work anymore. She was a good friend to me in a lot of other ways though. We just couldn't get along regarding writing.

Kaeru Shisho - This one is part of a writing team that writes on ff.net. The frog portion I believe (frog and rat). She (I think) writes good stuff and doesn't stop writing. She gets really good acclaim for what she writes too. Another person from when I used to write Slayers stuff. I learned more from frog's comments than anyone else's ... ever. Occasionally, I write her little love notes to say how much her comments helped me. I never would have been able to get my Escaflowne stuff to be as good as it is without her telling me exactly what readers want and teaching me how to deliver. I would still be going to her if I was still writing Slayers stuff. She was awesome!

Kaytala - By the time this girl found me I was pretty jaded towards beta readers. She wrote me on ff.net about DM and told me that I made lots of mistakes and I grouchily asked her if she wouldn't mind sending me a list, which she did. So, I gave her a quiz on how to be a good beta reader, because I was sick of working with people who were more of a liability than an asset. People took too long to get the work out, and I still wanted to update once a week. She answered my questions well and then she became my beta reader and she was the best one I've ever had for just doing the work and not hounding me about my lack of description (not my strong suit and I get tired of hearing it. I know my writing is pretty bare. I've gotten a bit better, but I KNOW - I UNDERSTAND - LEAVE ME ALONE). She also got it done quickly and gave me her thoughts on the chapters. She was wonderful, but she's gotten really busy and so she's gone away. I'll gonna be bummed for awhile about her departure.

Sharlee - Yup. We've been working together for two days since I've been trying to fill the void Kaytala left. I went and asked her if she wouldn't mind doing it and I'm still shocked she agreed. I'm such a crank.

Anyway, that's my story about the beta readers in my life. I get dumped all the time. I must be hard to work for. Thibbit!

Creating a World

2006-09-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

This might seem like cheating, but while getting ready to write 'Ghost Mist' I went on a little field trip through the internet looking for pictures that sort of described what I wanted for locations for the story. Normally, I don't do this sort of thing, but I need to make a little brain room for myself, so I decided that I could use a visial aid for locations to help inspire me. But I have to point out that when I went on this little field trip I did not make compromises. I saw a lot of really beautiful pictures , but I only selected ones for this photo gallery that already described what I had in mind. So please enjoy. This is a picture of what I imagine the Demon Goddess Lyla's shrine would look like. The only thing is that I imagine that the pool would be larger with a couple shoots of water springing from the still surface, but other than that - I think the pillars and the scenery outside neatly describe what I want her shrine to look like. Tesai's coffin is laying at the bottom of the pool. I'm also thinking that Lyla's throne is the perspective we're looking at the room from.

There is water in this picture and that's sort of regrettable, but only sort of. I think it adds a nice touch. This would be a picture of The Silver Bottle Plains. The grass is white there, and it was very difficult to find a picture of white grass since there doesn't seem to be much of an example of white rolling plains in our world. I mean, we have white grass, but it doesn't look the way I want it to. The other good thing about this picture is the dark mossy background that seems to indicate a depth to the place that is not necessarily pure. Nice, eh?

This would be a picture (not actually, but we're pretending) of the city of Starlach, and more specifically - the castle. There is mist on the ground, and so it's white, but I mean for Starlach to be set in the middle of the Silver Bottle Plains, so the mist works in this case because it's white like the grass is supposed to be.

This would be a picture of the forests of the Duchy of Aurantium. The trees there are orange in their prime instead of green. When they turn, they turn black and fall into the bluest sea. When the orange leaves fall - it's a terrible omen.

Finding this picture was sort of a miracle. It's not exactly what I want. I mean I don't want the tropical forest in the background. But the shape and style of the fountain are so much like what I want for the fountain that is in the middle of Spindle Wood. The fountain in Spindle Wood is in the middle of a burned-out clearing, so there would be nothing but ash around the fountain (no grass at all).

OOOO! Now I'm starting to get really excited.

Plushing it up!

2006-09-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so remember how I always say that I have a really hard time writing description? Well, it's still 100% true. However, I think I may have found a way to deal with it.

Generally, when I write I focus so hard on what people are saying and the plot line that I don't focus on the description- it's secondary so I sort of pretend that it's not there at all and keep going. Basically, unless the description is crutial to the plot, I generally don't even worry about it when I write the chapter for the first time. Naturally, this creates the kind of lack of description that people generally see when I write.

So, when I was writing 'Mystic Wings' I was honestly surprised at how far a little bit of plot went. I'd say, 'I want to do this, this, and this in this one chapter', and the chapter would turn out to be way longer than I expected. So, when I started writing 'Mark of a Goddess' I sorta started giving fewer instructions as to what I wanted to happen in a single chapter. So now when I finish a chapter it's only about 3000 words, and frankly, that's not good enough. People like the longer chapters and I've been pumping out some bigger ones, so when I wrote chapter 14 'The Dragon vs. The Sorcerer' I finished and I looked at my word count and it was only about 3200 words and I was sitting there going 'crapity, crap, crap, CRAP!' So, I started looking at the chapter and seeing what was missing in it. I think it was pretty obvious what I was missing - a giant opportunity for fun! So, I went back and inserted the said 'fun' and when I was finished I went to look at the word count - 4200. Go ME! I was pleasantly pleased.

Anyway, the point is that without this extra stuff that I added, the chapter would have been left extraordinarily naked - which wouldn't have been a good thing in the least.

I think I've been pressing myself to get my chapters right the first time instead of offering myself the opportunity to write them several times with different concepts in mind. In my case, it's fine to type out the chapter all happy with the dialogue and the action the first time I write it, but I need to forgive myself for not always being able to focus on all aspects of the story during the initial writing process. So, I should just give myself a cookie and let myself go over the chapter as many times as I need to in order to perfect the description (since I'm so crappy at it).
Today I added an extra 1500 words to chapter 17 and that made me feel pretty pleased.

Just a Little Update

2006-08-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I said that I went on vacation this past weekend. So, my goal was to write up to chapter 20 of MoaG. It was an unrealistic goal, but if I don't think big like that then it gets boring. I did get up to chapter 18 though. I just got dragged down because chapter 13 was so flipping hard to write. So hard. It was aggrivating the heck out of me.

Such a delicate balance.

After chapter 13 was sent off to Nightfaux and Kaytala for examination, I could work on other stuff while they tried to help me figure out how to fix that horrid piece of pure trash. I didn't think I was ever going to feel happy about the way that chapter was going to play out, but in the end - I was pretty happy.

But seriously, once I didn't have to think about chapter 13 - I just flew. It was incredible. I just sat down and pounded out the story because I knew exactly what I wanted for chapters 14 and 15. They were a snap to write. Chapter 16 and 17 turned out to be a little more complicated, but still good. I didn't have many notes for chapter 16, so I had to B.S. it. But anyone who knows me knows that I'm a championship B.S. artist, so that worked out well. I'm glad that I didn't postpone it so that I could try to generate more ideas - the way it played out when I improvised was quite good. I relied on my notes for Chapter 17 very heavily for that chapter. I would have just stared at my computer screen blankly if I hadn't had notes. They saved me. I was seriously sitting there going, "Okay? Now what's supposed to happen?" I need to go over those two chapters once more and then I can pass them off onto Kaytala. That makes me four chapters ahead of the game. Wicked eh? Maybe if I keep this up I can finish the whole book in three weeks and start working on my next project. That's wishful thinking for you. Not even I am that good. I get drained just like everyone else.

But I hate myself when I get drained. It's not that I can't come up with ideas for writing, but I also can't come up with ideas for life. Every part of my life suffers when I finally deflate.

Anyway, chapter 18 ... I'm not quite finished it yet. It's one of those chapters that everyone has been waiting for (chapter 17 is one of those chapters too), cause I'm coming to the end. Actually, everyone has been talking about chapter 18 on the forum and stuff (even though they don't know it) and I feel a little pressure to make it a little more awesome than the regular. But it doesn't seem awesome to me. I've known what would happen in this chapter for some time, so I guess I'll just have to make the plot carry itself and I'll go take a nap.

An English Moment

2006-08-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I am a freaking brat. This is something that is not always true about me, but when it comes to my writing - I am a freaking brat. Also, just as a side note: one time I was talking to my boss at work about how I was jealous of a certain professional writer that I know, and I told her that I never get jealous over other things besides writing. I never get jealous if a girl is prettier than me (I have a Scarlett O'hara mentality, which means that I think I can charm the pants off someone without having to be pretty - I can convince anyone I'm a darling if I want to with my personality rather than having to rely upon my appearance), and I never get jealous over other girl's boyfriends (this only counts for when I was still in the dating game - I've been out of it for some time), and I am NEVER jealous over money - only writing. This is the way I am. I don't care enough about all those things to get ripping mad over them. I just don't care about them, but writing is something that I care a lot about and it makes me behave unreasonably. So, when I say that I am a freaking brat - I mean it.

One of the symptoms that I am a brat is that I will only take harsh criticism from people who have proven that they're better than me. If someone doesn't write better than me then (depending on their comments, which are sometimes meaningful) I am more than likely to file it under 'g' for 'garbage' in my brain. This is because I'm a giant baby when it comes to criticism and my writing career is taking me to a place where everyone wants a piece of me and people like to pull me in different directions. So, in order to maintain my sanity and in order to maintain my vision of the kind of writer I want to be - I must be choosy about who I take hardcore advice from.

So, this past weekend, I was on a little vacation. I was visiting the English teacher in my life. Oddly enough, he never taught me an English class, and I am always sorry that I couldn't have been in his class. It was impossible at the time, but since I know him personally, I get to lay all my writing troubles at his feet and listen to his advice. But since I get the impression that he's not very interested in talking shop with me, I have to keep my comments and questions brief, so these are always rare moments. Once again I feel the bitterness of not being able to find a mentor that will hold my hand periodically as I proceed along my path to being an exciting writer. I've been cranky about this fact since I was thirteen and I have almost started to accept that I am never going to find that person. So, I don't have that kind of relationship with the English teacher in my life. Instead, I can only ask his opinion a couple of times a year.

So, I told him my troubles and he told me the following, which I will try to quote as accurately as possible (probably impossible).

"It's exactly like when you take your car to a mechanic and he does a wonderful job fixing your car, but when you get home you get out of the driver's seat you see that he accidentally dropped a spot of grease on the seat. You're wearing a new suit and he's totally ruined it because of his carelessness. He's still an excellent mechanic, but because he didn't take care for the details he becomes a terrible tradesman. People like details."

The interpretation of this story - I am the mechanic. I looked at him and I almost wanted to cry or slide onto the carpet and put my head on his knee because I needed comforting. He saw straight through me. He saw me as the mechanic, which I clearly am. This is the story of my life. If I make an error - it's usually the little things instead of the big ones. I'm the type that doesn't mop the baseboards. And yeah, it would make me uncomfortable if someone noticed dust there. But when kids review on fanfiction.net, they usually don't point out how many mistakes I make. The true reason why - they don't know what's correct so they can't call me on it.

I didn't cry myself to sleep, but the older I get the more I realize that I need to go back to college for this. Otherwise, I can never compete with those who really know their stuff. This really hurts me since I can't do that. I'm not even sure I want to be the kind of writer who caters to publishing companies. When I read the criteria for manuscripts, I usually cringe. I don't want to write what they want to publish.

The truth of it is - I am not hardcore enough to write what will sell without paying attention to what I want. I can't write anything I'm not passionate about, so I can't write for them. I am going to be an online writer forever and I have to decide right now if that's good enough for me.

Hmmm ... I really am lazy.

Slump

2006-08-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so anyone who's been reading my blog or anyone who knows me personally, know I've been in a slump for the past little while. I think it started about three weeks ago. I've been so bummed about writing and feedback and blahhhhhhh........

Long story short - I've been really bummed.

Over the past few days, I really got my second wind. I just finished writing chapter 15 of 'Mark of a Goddess'. Can you believe that? I almost can't. I can't believe I was able to scrape up any inspiration at all. I think there's only one reason why I've wanted to continue. Once I started writing chapter 13, I started to get excited about the story again. I've been dying to write this plot arch and working on it was really fun.

I've also been thinking really hard about what I want to do with myself once 'Mark of a Goddess' is finished. I've been wondering what I should do next. I have two ideas for novels that I haven't completed to my satisfaction. One is called 'Ghost Mist'. I think everyone knows about this because I've been trying to promote it. It's original fiction. The second one is called 'Half the Moon'. Both of these ideas are old ideas of mine and they've been stewing in my head for a long time - both of them. I had been thinking that I'd do 'Ghost Mist', but after quite a few long conversations with a hardcore fantasy reader, I think maybe I shouldn't. 'Half the Moon' is sci-fi. I think both of these are amazing stories, but I know that I won't be able to scrape up half the readership that my Escaflowne stuff has been able to generate. I find this so depressing, especially when original fiction is SO much harder to write. No seriously - anyone who has any illusions about this - abandon them NOW. Fanfiction is WAY easier. Even just the help of giving you the appearances of the characters is LOADS of HELP. That sparks your imagination. If you have to invent the characters yourself than you're screwed.

Welp, in order to answer this question, I'm going to go post a poll on 'Wild Moon Swings' just to see which story would be more popular. Both of them are fairly advanced ideas, so I could do either one.

I'm on my way!

Action Romance

2006-08-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, so today I thought I'd talk about the weirdest realization about my writing. I have this problem when I write. I write crappy romance and good action. Why is this? I don't even like action as a genre when I read. I have only read a couple books in my whole life that could be classified as 'action'. The genre bores me to death, so why am I so good at writing it when I don't enjoy reading it? Then there's the problem with romance. I love romance. That's usually my favourite part of anything, so why do I suck so much at writing it. I have thought about this long and hard and I think I've finally figured out why this is.

When I write a romance scene I cannot write one of the following situations:

Something I have experienced myself.
Something I have read.
Something that I think of as corny. It's okay to be a little corny, but I think it's a fine line and I'd rather not read something I wrote that makes me want to gag.
Something skanky. This is so bleeding hard, it's ridiculous. No - seriously. Since I like to write things that are a closer reflection of true human nature - this is near impossible. People do stuff ... but I don't like to describe it. This is a trap that I have to work so hard to avoid.

But when it comes to action - I am so inexperienced that I describe everything - which makes it better than the romance I write. I leave out the sensual (anytime any author uses this word in anything they write - I seriously laugh out loud. I cannot take this word seriously - it makes me laugh at the poor loser who wrote it and deminishes my opinion of anyone who uses this word. It just strikes me as too ridiculous), exotic details because I think everyone is well acquainted with what it's like to have some guy ... something or other.

When I write action, I just write what I imagine it would be like and I get far more into it. Which is the whole reason I write action better.

So, I think I'd probably write better romance if I hadn't drowned myself in romance novels/movies/poetry.

How weird is that? My inexperience is actually an aid.

The Difference in Archives

2006-08-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, so now that I've been working on fanstory.com and writing.com a little more I can finally flesh out my response to the communities.

I'm not sure what the average age is on ff.net but I have gotten the impression that there probably aren't many people there over the age of 25. However, I also wonder if people lie on their profile and say they're young when they're not. I was looking at one profile for someone who wrote a story that could only be described as a bodice-ripper. She said she was 15, but I somehow doubt it. I know that I couldn't write like that when I was 15, but then there is the possibility that a) she read a lot of bodice-rippers herself so it wasn't difficult to try to immitate one, or b) it had been five years since she updated her profile, or c) was involved with screwing around and evaluating it at age 15, or d) my first thought - that she was lying about her age.

Anyway, if the oldest writers are on ff.net are 25, then I haven't got long to live there before I'll be too old to participate anymore. Well, honestly, I don't think anyone is too old, but if I stay on after 'Mark of a Goddess' it'll be because of a decision to stay where it's safe instead of trodding the wastelands that are other archives. OR - it'll be because I want to goof around and write fanfiction for amusement. I can tell myself whatever I want. Now, I'm going to tell y'all how the other archives work and why. I know - this is going to be long and painful. I'll do alphabetical order just for your amusement.

Fanfiction.net

Fanfiction.net doesn't allow scripts, or original fiction, but there's very little else that it doesn't allow when it comes to stories. There's not a lot of criticism, because if the story isn't good than there would be no reason to read it. So, there is no incentive to review except to be nice. People only review when they want to. Also, fanfiction has the added bonus of being something that a reader is already familiar with, so just by the nature of the fiction that is posted there - you already have an audience depending on which fandom you pitch to. Generally, the audience is young, so you can pitch things to a funner crowd and they'll accept it (AKA - blanket scenarios). Fanfiction.net also offers a pleasant layout that is easy to navigate and the screen isn't full of a lot of extra ads and crap. It has tons of functions and the very best part - IT'S FREE!

Fanstory.com

I probably said this before, a reading account on Fanstory is free and a writing account costs. So, I bought a two year membership, and I still can't decide if it's worth it. Fanstory has a fairly elaborate set up. Here's the deal. You post a story, poem, chapter, and it can go into one of two modes - workshop and published release. When it's in the workshop mode, you can still work on it and people can still review it. When it's in the workshop mode your reviews don't count towards your author ranking. When you move it into the published release section and your item (poem, story, chapter) will stay in a random generator that offers extra writing dollars for reviewers until it gets three reviews. Once it gets three reviews it goes back to your profile - where it may never be seen again. Naturally, these rankings count towards your ranking. So, if you want your story to be seen by the public again you must put a 'certificate' on it that offers readers member money for reading your story. You earn member money by reading other people's stories or by purchasing them with real money. Once your item has 15 reviews - it goes in a 'recognized' area which is very much like what the regular listings look like on ff.net. I both think this is a great and crappy system. It's crappy because someone could easily read their can off and get so many certificates on one item so that it would easily get 15 reviews (and be a sucky piece of writing). And a great system because it forces people to review (Yeah, I'm bitter about people who read and don't review).

After looking around there a bit, I'd say the average person at fanstory is between the ages of 35 and 55 - which is a MUCH different audience than I'm used to catering to. That's why I think I may have made a mistake. I have never even thought about pitching my stuff to a group older than me.

The last thing I want to say about this site, and I've said it before - searching through it to find something good to read is like traversing the highway to hell - you're never going to find what you're looking for.

Oh, and one more thing about fanstory - YOU CANNOT DELETE YOUR STORIES.

Fictionpress.com

Fictionpress is a lot like fanfiction, except not as popular. Does anyone read stuff there? I think someone must. I know I read fantasy poetry there, but other than that I haven't read much. Marketing original fiction when there is no incentive for reviewers is really hard. I've already this in great detail in another post, so I think I'll leave this topic, but with that said - it's still FREE!

Mediaminer.org

Mediaminer allows original fiction as well as fanfiction. It's got a more complicated review system so that stories can receive rankings, but there aren't many readers there. Most things don't have any reviews at all. The site isn't as pretty as ff.net or fictionpress, but it's still clearly more organized than fanstory - and it probably has as many people hanging out on it. Anyway - it's FREE as well, and offers no reader incentives. And as memory serves - it also allows dirtier stuff than ff.net and fictionpress - like mature stuff.

Writing.com

This place is like a combination between Mediaminer and Fanstory, but with a whole other twist that I honestly don't completely understand - like they conduct polls there for business. Anyway, here's how it works for the average little monkey who has no money. With a free account on writing.com, you are allowed to have five 'items' up at once (poems, short stories, chapters). These guys have a member point system as well. You can offer members points for reading your work (minimum 100 points), and when you read and review something you like, you can also send some of your member points to them as a present. With a Basic account, you can upload 25 items and with an Upgraded account you can upload 250. I have an Upgraded account for three months - it was a present from someone I don't know. But I don't know if it's going to help me. Even with the reward system it seems that the reviews are as sparce as they are on Mediaminer. It's hardly worth the trouble to upload. Not only that, but I wish this account had come when I was ready for 'Ghost Mist' instead of wrapping up 'Mark of a Goddess' - bad timing, eh? I don't really want to sport my old stuff. But I like the atmosphere at writing.com better than at fanstory. It seemed warm and friendly. But obviously, if you want to post a novel, a free account just won't cut it.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to say one more thing about fanstory. When you receive a review, there's a window that allows you to send the person who reviewed a message. In this message to the reviewer you may only ask for clarification on what the person said and/or thank them. You may not defend your story if they were harsh - that's against the rules. Fun eh? That place makes me want to die.

Basically, if you want your work read there are only two places to go - fanstory and fanfiction. One's easy and the other's heavy. But, it's weird, because I always wanted to write for teenagers - because they're full of hopes and dreams and angst. Adults are about as much fun as paying child support.

I think I'm going to be on fanfiction.net forever.

Five Kinds of Screw-ups

2006-08-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

So, today I thought I'd list five different kinds of screw-ups that a person can make while writing.

Screw-up Number One - Typos

This is a misspelled word or a grammatical error. These are so frequent that online archives will chew you out for not at least attempting to do this one right. So, you can report abuse on ff.net if someone really doesn't do this well and they'll probably get their stuff removed for playing poorly. Anyway, this is stuff on the small word or sentence level.

This is the biggest reason I'm a lazy author. Meaning, that I try to do this one well, but frankly, if I don't catch the mistake and my beta reader, Kaytala, doesn't catch it than I probably don't care. I'm not nit picky and the longer my chapters get (by demand) than the more room for error there is. Looking for these sorts of mistakes bores me, and not only that, but after I have read a chapter a certain number of times - the mistake starts to look right. There are arguments that I could probably use another beta reader besides Kaytala in order to catch any and all teensy mistakes that may or may not occur in my writing. Blah! Even thinking about this bores me as well. I have had more than one person beta read chapters before - far in the distant past - and even thinking about wading through two people's notes on the chapter sounds ... unpleasant. Don't get me wrong though - I love Kaytala and her comments. She's a gem! But without the reassurance that the second beta reader would be EXACTLY like her I'd rather not participate.

However, right now I have a couple people beta reading chapters for DM. If one of them turns out to impress me than maybe I'll think about it.

Screw-up Number 2 - Order of Events

When I was a little munchkin I remember learning how to write instructions for things in the form of a paragraph in language arts class. So, this is when someone screws up on the order of events. This is to describe an error in the order of sentences - once again on a pretty small scale. So this is errors in paragraphs. Basically, to describe this more accurately, this is when someone arranges their sentences in an order that disrupts the logic of the reader.

I remember that I used to have a lot of trouble with this when I was in my teens and writing on loose-leaf paper instead of on a computer. I'd write something and then I would be too lazy to rearrange the order of events so that the paragraph would make more sense. There wasn't room and often I didn't have enough paper. But since the advance of 'point and click' this has become a much smaller problem.

Also, since my adult life I have written a multitude of procedures manuals and oddly enough - this has helped me tame this problem. The thing is when I write a procedures manual, I write it so clearly and so thoroughly (explaining what is done and why so completely) that ANYONE off the street should be able to come in and do the job the manual was written for without screwing everything up or setting the building on fire. Needless to say - updating these things used to make me want to die, but if I was gone, I always left plenty of information so my boss or replacement weren't left in the dark about what needed to be done.

Apparently, sometimes I still make this mistake - and it really pisses me off since I've come so far with it.

Screw-up Number 3 - Scenario

This is a screw-up on a larger scale. This is bigger than sentences or paragraphs - this is a screw-up the size of a chapter. This is when a scenario (or subplot) of a story has a bad premise. This usually occurs when the author misreads a character and designs a plot around circumstances that wouldn't occur because of a character's personality. This also can occur when there is a gigantic break in the story where a bunch of time has passed, and when the author picks it up again - the heart and soul of the story is gone. This screw-up has the ability to pour tomato juice down your brand new white dress (ruin the rest of the story), but not necessarily.

I think my biggest example of this was a certain chapter in 'Mystic Wings' called 'Heart of the Dragon'. This is the chapter where Van is sitting by the pool talking to himself. Man alive! That was a majorly unpopular chapter. There were a few people who liked Van and lot of really vocal ones who didn't. There were lots of people who didn't like certain things he said, or the way he said them, or - the list goes on. Personally, I like Van in that chapter. Maybe it's not my favourite chapter to highlight him, but I like that he's uncertain and feeling lost. So, I wouldn't change it - no matter how many people complained. At best, I think it was an accurate depiction of what girls that age want in a man - weakness is not acceptable. At worst - I write crappy romance and need some more practice. The thing about that is that when I write romance I can't write:

Something I've read in someone else's book;
Something I've experienced myself; or
Something skanky.

That leaves precious little.

Screw-up Number Four - Mythology

This is when you are making up your own world, your own power system, your own mythology and to screw it up is when you haven't got your facts straight. This is sad, because you made them up yourself.

Yep - I do this sometimes. There are a couple screw-ups in my Escaflowne series and I know where they are. I know there are at least two - maybe more. DON'T LOOK FOR THEM! As far as I'm concerned this kind of screw-up is permitted in fanfiction, because you can't market fanfiction or sell it. To go fix these two mistakes would be so much work that even thinking about it makes me want to cry. I'm not going to fix them, and I'm not particularly bothered that they are there - it doesn't ruin the story or the plot. It's just my own private screw-up. However, I have to say that this is not okay in original fiction. If I found errors like this in something I could sell - I would be really disturbed - really disturbed. But for fanfiction -- it's hardly worth the effort. If anyone noticed - goodie for them.

Screw-up Number Five - Overall Plot

This is the biggest screw-up anyone can possibly make and yet it's amazing how often this one happens. This happens the most often when authors neglect their stories and go do something else for months on end. This also happens when authors don't have storyboards and have no direction for a piece. They end up getting dictated to by tiny details they threw in during the first chapters when they had the premise and introduction all worked out. In the end, they are not in control of their story and end up getting pushed around by it instead of reining it in - if they finish it at all.

This happens all over the place on ff.net. It's probably the most common problem, but this is the area where I truly shine. The only piece that I can say had this problem was a Slayers novella I wrote called 'Shadow Magic: Xellos and Filia'. I wrote nine chapters and planned on cutting it off, but it was more popular than anything else I'd ever written on ff.net at the time, so I continued it for a few more chapters, but I HATED IT! I only did it cause it was popular. I only posted it on ff.net because it was popular enough on my website to warrant it. I got requests from fans for me to post it. BUT I HATE THAT STORY! It was SO weak, and honestly pathetic. The Slayers audience isn't as big as the Escaflowne audience, so it has a lot fewer reviews than my Escaflowne stuff, but for the Slayers section - it did very well.

So, just to finish off I'd like to say one thing - I usually know when I screw-up, thanks.

Like a Ghost

2006-08-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

So, I said the other day that I was eaten alive on fanstory. Yeah - that's what happened. So, this is my post about the after affects of having my head chewed off.

I still feel like crap.

This time it feels like the wound goes so deep that it doesn't seem like it'll mend very easily. It's not just that, but it's other things too. In the end it amounts to one thing - I'm discouraged.

I've had some really good encouragement on my stories, but when I get chewed into, no one ever comes to my defence. I always have to fight for myself ... and that really hurts me. It's like, where are all those people who thought my story was great? They're no where to be seen.

Lately, I have been thinking about Tolkien a good deal. Maybe because I was power-watching Lord of the Rings or maybe because his name just keeps coming up. For me, he's an important person, because I have no intention of reading his books because I don't admire his writing style, and yet I still admire his imagination and elements of his ideal. He did not get Lord of the Rings published until he was 62 and even then he had serious doubts about whether or not it would be successful. Let me explain my idea about him more thoroughly.

You see, I had the super extended version of The Two Towers and so I was watching the segment about how the screenplay was pulled from the books. In the commentary, one of the writers who worked on it was explaining why they did something different with the character of Faramier (please forgive me if the spelling is wrong - I'm too lazy to look it up). She said that in the book, Faramier didn't want the ring and was an all round decent chap who offered Frodo and Sam tea, and how devestating to the plot that was. She said that Tolkien had spent all this time working to convince everyone that the ring was a dangerous item that could corrupt anyone and because Faramier did not want it than that essentially stripped the ring of all power. So, I was sitting there thinking about this. Tolkien is really legendary, and yet there are people who still rip him up. And you know what - that author was completely right about the change in Faramier's character. The thing is ... Tolkien wrote the way he wanted to.

Tolkien's way of story telling isn't exactly conventional - something like what he wrote would probably get eaten alive by a publishing company now. Each book would probably been trimmed by a hundred pages or more - each.

On the other hand, he has been able to inspire generations and spark the imagination of millions - telling the story exactly the way he wanted to. Is that not writing at it's best?

In my opinion - this is the drawback when there is only one person working on a story - it's going to be imperfect (like Faramier). There's only one perspective (the lonely author's), so it's not going to be perfect. One perspective alone is NOT PERFECT. Thus to attain perfection (not just from a literary standpoint, but also from a marketing standpoint), there needs to be several people working on it. This has been a bridge I have had to cross on more than one occasion - especially about creative consulting. It has come to my attention that I wouldn't work well with a partner. Either I would be a burden around their neck or they would be a burden around mine. There would be no happy ending and the entire creative process would turn into hell for me and them. I work best alone, and it's taken me a long time to learn this.

So, I am still completely deflated. I'm begining to understand that I am two things as an author.
Number One - I'm lazy.
Number Two - I don't care.
I just want to have fun telling my stories. I get better as I go as I make more and more people happy with my work, and if I don't get any better, I at least want to have a good time. But even though I've come to this grand conclusion - I still feel discouraged.

Eaten Alive

2006-08-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I uploaded the first chapter of 'Dragon's Moon' on fanstory.com and on writing.com. The pickings are pretty slim, but one person read the first chapter on fanstory. That was weird. Actually, I went and checked out his profile and it was a MAN old enough to be my FATHER. Needless to say, he ripped me a new one. No - seriously! This was the likes of which has probably never even been SEEN on fanfiction.net. This was different - he ripped apart every bit of my story - every bit.

At first I was really insulted. I didn't think it was that bad, so I went to his profile to find out why he was such a jerk, and he turned out to be a MAN old enough to be my FATHER! In my opinion, it's a miracle he made it through the chapter at all. If I were him I definitely would have quit.

The major things that he got after me for were that Hitomi is not really introduced as a character and he thought the few paragraphs about Marlene should be pitched entirely - he had no idea why I included it at all. He also thought that the story was really setting heavy.

I wrote him back and told him that fanfiction was not the same as general fiction - at all. That most of my readers are really familiar with the characters and if I were to go on a descriptive tirade about Hitomi's characters - my readers would bolt. Also, that Marlene is not a well established character in the series, and if I don't take the chance to tell a little about her personality now - the chance will never come again. I also told him that the setting is key in this case because it's different than the regular Escaflowne one.

He didn't write me back.

Oddly enough, I had only had to deal with this level of criticism a few times in my adult life and it was weird how I reacted this time. I sorta flaked out.

The first time - I had no respect for the person who decided to subject me to their criticism, so I threw their comments out the window once I got wind of what they were doing. The second person's comments I took to heart. They were a respected author on fanfiction.net, so I really took her words to heart. It was painful, but I got better because it.

The thing is with this release of the first chapter of DM - I'm not following my own advice here. I hate it when people ask me to check out their work when it's old. I wrote the first chapter of DM when I was 17 and I've only done revamps on it since. So, it's too old to try to learn from anymore. It's time to let it die and move onto something else. But that seems hard since I'm still working on MoaG. Blahhh....

I'm still going to release it, but I'm not doing any revamps on it after the first 20 chapters are beta read. I'm just going to post it and see what happens. And if I get eaten alive again - so be it.

Fanstory.com

2006-07-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, because I'm looking for new and glorious ways to promote my new book 'Ghost Mist', I joined a couple new writers' archives lately. The one I would like to talk about today is called fanstory.com. When I got there and really started learning what was available - I was totally floored. Normally I wouldn't complain, because free anything is just that - FREE. But to be able to post writing on this site, a membership is required and in order to obtain this membership - you must PAY. So, when I got all hooked up, I was so surprised and horrified at the lack of competetive features that this site has to offer that I wrote them a letter outlining what I felt were the five hugest flaws. For your interest - here is the exact letter I sent them. If you read over the points - users of fanfiction.net will be shocked.

Hello,

I joined upgraded my membership here on fanstory yesterday and since joining, I have to ask some questions regarding this website. They are not included in the FAQ.

Before I start, I would like to say that I appreciate the goal of this website, and that I ask these questions in the spirit of actually hearing the answer why these things are the way they are. My goal is not to drive anyone crazy, but I earnestly would like to hear the actual answer to these questions.

1. Why can't you upload a WORD or a plain text document when adding new items rather than having to cut and paste?

2. Why is there so little room for a synopsis? I find this the hugest flaw of the site, because not only can I not use the power of my words to invite those that would have a special interest in my story to read it, but I also have trouble finding things to read that interest me. From the space provided there is so little room for description that I have no idea what a story is until I open it. I have only been hanging out here for one day, but already I have heard complaints that reviews and views do not align - could this possibly be because someone has no idea what they're actually reading until after they've had a look at the story itself? Clearly, the proportion of reviews vs. views is a problem anywhere and I see that this site STRONGLY encourages reviews - which is why I'm confused at the layout.

3. Why can you only select one genre to list a story under?

4. Why are there only five topic threads in the forum sections? Because there are no sub-sections and also no search engine, I find it confusing how anyone could find something useful. The only way to find input on what you're looking for would be to start a new thread, when there are probably 200 other threads that could easily have answered a person's question.

5. This is more picky - but why are the icons all so large and frankly - weird? The space used to advertise one story makes no sense to me. Why is so much space wasted for an icon that could be a quarter the size and remain just as meaningful? Not even emoticons have to be big in order to portray a smiley-face.

I am totally floored at the odd way this site is organized - so confused. I'm sure you have goals as the moderator/webmaster/webmistress/administration/person-in-charge in order for this to be profitable for you, and I understand all that. I still can't help but think that this place could be a thousand times better - both for you and for every single user. It could be more beautiful, more efficient, more effective, and a shear pleasure to surf.

Please don't take my criticism as mean-spirited, but please take it to make this site the very best writer's archive online.

PLEASE! I already paid for two years! Or at least tell me that this place is under construction.

With Love (real love),

Sapphirefly

This is the response I received.

Hi,

First, thank you for your feedback. I'm guessing that you are in the computer field (a developer or QA tester) because you did a wonderful job of pointing out areas that can be improved. The site has been under construction for six years. The site is constantly being worked on to address concerns.

Let me address each of your points.

That has never been brought up before. I don't know that there would be a big benefit of uploading from Word or a plain text document versus pasting. But an interesting idea.
I'm not sure if you are referring to the "What has happened so far" synopsis or the description of the book. But for the "What has happened so far" summary we want to get the reader into reading the actual chapter rather then spending a great deal of time reading a synopsis. So the site forces the author to use as few words as possible.
That has also never been brought up before. I'm not clear on why you would want to select a second genre.
This is a good point. The forums are very active and could use an upgrade. They are custom designed for the site so a future upgrade could very well be directed at them. 99% of the development effort goes towards the writing portion of the site. But I do agree that an uprade of the forums would be well received.
Another good point. I have updated the wish list.

Regarding your last note. I think you have more to say. Please don't hesitate to say it. Most changes are a result of user feedback. It's greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Tom

I thought his response was extremely polite. Don't ya think? I was quite pleased with it. However, I still think the site is hugely lacking. HUGELY.

You have to cut and paste a plain text document into a window in order to upload - this seems really old fashioned to me. You are also allowed more characters in the title of your story than the synopsis - I can never find anything I want to read. The genre's seem so rigid. Dragon's Moon is at least four genre's and the only genre I'm allowed to select is Fanfiction. It's never going to do well (but I should be more optimistic since I haven't tried yet). I also didn't tell him that I have a five topic forum with unlimited threads available to me ALONE on fanfiction.net - for free. Or that the icons look like free ones you get off a clip art webpage - really really unappealing.

So, I wrote him back and told him that I would help him make his webpage good for fresher writers who like userfriendly sites. Pretty brave, eh? He turned me down - FLAT. But my spirit isn't crushed. Oh no - the scientist in me is taking over and taking an interest.

I'm going to try an experiment. When 'Ghost Mist' is ready, it will be released on fanstory (since I already bought the membership and don't feel like chickening out) as well as fictionpress.com. For myself though, I'm only going to promote the story on fictionpress. I want to see if my work promoting my story online is tougher than their site - since they're working so hard to get promising talent recognized. I don't mean that sarcastically - I mean it sincerely. People are supposed to get good enough for publication there, so let's see who manages to wrangle up more readers - me or them? Honestly, it won't be much of an experiment since I'll be the winner either way - unless my story sucks - in which case ... yeah. But my story isn't going to suck. It's going to rock!

Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

After my Pity Party

2006-07-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, so after I finished having my 'once a month' pity party - I got up and I got to work.

So, this time when I got to work, I went and worked steadfastly on the character sketches for 'Ghost Mist'. I wrote 22 character sketches, and whoa - that's a lot. I'm beat, but I'm feeling a lot better. I didn't do character sketches for DM, MW, or MoaG, because in my opinion character sketches are for quick reference when I can't remember what a minor character looks like. Sad eh? If it wasn't for that then I probably wouldn't write them. Just for your interest and edification - these are the critera on one of my character sketches:

Name
Age
Hair Colour
Eye Colour
Height/Build
OCA (other comments on appearance)
Weapon
Personality
Other

I also hurried up and got busy making a map for the world 'Ghost Mist' is going to take place in. I know that this is a pretty ugly map and it'll probably go under the knife before I actually get to the serious writing stage, but I thought I'd share what I was able to come up with so far. Yep - there's already been another town added on my rough draft that didn't quite make it here.

There are three more reference documents I have to make before I can even start writing with a clean conscience. I need to write:

The side quest with the second main character has not been going well. Without that side plot, I am no where near having a complete storyboard ... blah ... where should the story go from there? I know the end, but this one plotline has a lot of potential and yet I'm finding myself stumped. Blah...
I'm also experimenting by making the clothes for this all impressive fantasy story totally different from the old boys from LOTR. I had never given serious thought to costume design before, but this time - I really need it. I've been reading about fashion in order to come up with a style I like for both the women and the men. Hey, you guys know what a bum ring is? ... exactly what it sounds like. U-huh. And I've learned stuff about posture and fashion as well. Know why women have had such great posture in the past? It's because their dress had a steel frame. I'd have awesome posture too.
And lastly, I really want to create a world that I'll enjoy describing, since I am so weak at description. So, in order to help myself improve, I'm going to write poems, or short paragraphs of description as a little tour booklet for each place on the map. Hopefully, the landscapes will be as enthralling as my dialogue ... uh ... yeah - not bloody likely, but we can pretend.

So, when I started writing this blog, I was sorta hoping that 22 character sketches would be enough, but as I've sat here thinking - I'm positive that I need another three. Sick, isn't it? This book of mine is going to turn out to be as long as MoaG and MW put TOGETHER.

Blah...

You know what else? I need to lighten up. It's like a morgue over here. If I don't start being more fun, I'm going to end up eating my weight in chocolate.

Me and My Archives

2006-07-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, now I am a member of FIVE writing archives. I didn't even know there were five, but I've managed to join all of them. So, now I'm part of:
-fanfiction.net
-mediaminer.org
-fictionpress.com
-fanstory.com
-writing.com
I think I'm going blind. It's making me even more excited to finish 'Mark of a Goddess' and get on with 'Ghost Mist'.

There's another reason I'm excited to get on with 'Ghost Mist'. You see, when I finish that one I'm going to give it to a certain person that I admire for them to read and critique. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that if this person doesn't see potential in it then that means that I'm no where near sending something to a publisher.

Yet, at the same time, since I post my work on all these archives, one would think that I wouldn't be shy about sending something to a publisher. One would think ... but somehow I can't seem to be that sensible. No way! Besides, when have I ever been sensible?

Anyway, so far out of all these archives, do you know which one I like the best? That's right - fanfiction.net. And not just because I get the more attention there than anywhere else. It's also because it's free - so I feel like people really read my stuff because they want to. There's nothing in it for them, and I like that idea the best. I really do.

At fictionpress.com it's nearly impossible to get someone to read your work, so that's out.

Media Miner has a far more advanced review system than ff.net, so you've got to love that. If only more people hung out there. But their interface isn't as nice as ff.net.

Fanstory's layout makes me want to die, but I like their reward system, so I still might upgrade my account there. Plus, even crappy stuff gets reviewed by like 50 people.

Writing.com is the one I'm the least familiar with, because I just met them last night, but so far, I think I'm going to have a good relationship with them as well. Their layout is just as polly-wolly-crappy as Fanstory's though. Maybe I'll have to revise my statement about that once I get to know them a little better.

Storyboards

2006-07-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've written a post about this subject before and I probably have, but this should be a little different than last time, so hopefully it'll offer something worthwhile.

Okay, here's for you Demon-aura,

Storyboards - My Way

For my own storyboards I use a program called Netnote. It's a post-it note program the displays little coloured windows (on top of ALL other windows - an extremely useful function). If you're interested in it you can download it for free from this website http://www.alshare.com/, but it's not necessary to write a good storyboard. It's just the software I use. Before this, I used a little book I bought at a dollar store, so it doesn't really matter.

So, let's see. I wrote the storyboard for 'Mystic Wings' in a little book. Afterwards I went through and I had written a 56 page storyboard with additional notes and research. The storyboard for 'Mark of a Goddess' is on Netnote though, so I can't gauge its length in the same way.

I've decided to release my storyboard for chapter one of 'Mark of a Goddess', for your interest and edification.

Chapter One - Cold as Stone

- Hitomi and Van start making out and just as he takes his shirt off they both have a Tarot vision
- From Hitomi's perspective at first it seems like Van attacked her because she's thrown against the headboard of the bed so violently
- Then she has a vision of two gem stones. They are Naria and Eriya's symbols
- Hitomi wakes up and sees that Van fell off the bed as he was knocked out too
- Van puts his shirt back on and says they need to go talk to Dryden
- They find Dryden in his bedroom packing his clothes with such vigor and speaking rapidly in Italian to Selphie
- Van interupts and Folken says tht his cousins have received their power and that he's got to get out of the city right away
- Why?
- He explains about Naria and Eriya and how they are both wildly in love with him and how he doesn't want them back. He wants to be faithful to Selphie and if they come near him, he'll flirt, they'll misinterpret it and he'll be screwed
- Hitomi asks about grief and he says a new symbol takes over and a person might not grieve much
- He says he hasn't got much time to clear out of the city, but he has to go to a place where they can't find him
-He's on his way out when the doorbell rings

This is my original storyboard, so there are some things that are missing from it, because they were details that weren't yet worked out. For instance - the details of the Tarot vision aren't included. I hadn't yet decided what Naria and Eriya's rocks were going to be yet. That was the last detail worked out.

But there have been instances where I've had the story worked out a lot less than this. In my original storyboard for 'Mystic Wings' the original plotline for chapter nine (An Old Flame) was as follows:

-Hitomi goes to The Voltage Room to see Dilandau.

That was it.

I sat and stewed over it for a couple weeks wondering what I could do in that chapter that would be exciting and I came up with what is now chapter nine. It's my favourite chapter in 'Mystic Wings'. So as I was stewing, I came up with the following questions that had to be answered in the chapter.

-Why does Hitomi decide to go to The Voltage Room?
-What sort of place is it?
-What kind of music do they play?
-Do I want to make this a songfic?
-How can I show off Folken's abilities?
-What's Hitomi's relationship with Dilandau like?

Once you start asking yourself questions, you can usually see your way through to answering them and coming up with something great. But I also have to point out that I've never written a storyboard so scanty as that one. It's an extreme example.

But besides writing a storyboard you should have other supporting documents to help you as well. For instance, you could have character sketches (original fiction moreso than fanfiction, but it still may be necessary), research papers, and a timeline. For my Escaflowne series, I have a list of tattoos/abilities/elements for all the Tarot users. For me, a timeline only helps me with the weather and what month of the year I'm on.

If you have any other specific questions on the storyboard, I'll answer them on the forum, I think. Cheers! This was fun.

Foreshadowing

2006-07-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

This is for you Demon-aura!

The Art of Foreshadowing.

Okay, so I promised I would go away and think about how to do this effectively and then I'd come back and write a detailed post on it.

I would say that effective foreshadowing is a reward of a well planned story. I was thinking hard on how to describe how I do this and the only way I could think of was painting a wall. Not a mural, but just painting the wall white. You paint up, you paint down and then you paint up again - with the roller. So let me describe each one of the strokes.

Painting up - the first time.

When you are first contriving your story you come up with a rough outline - your storyboard. Often times, this isn't the most detailed of articles and actually that's a good thing. But you have to have a plan as to where your story is going. The key is that you HAVE to know the climax. The climax is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY (that's why this is an upward stroke).

Painting down - the downward stroke.

Once you have the climax worked out, then as you go over the events that lead up to it (going backwards over your storyboard), you'll probably notice a few things that need to be slightly changed or corrected in order to lead the reader in the right direction - towards the climax - without interfering with what you've already decided needs to happen. These are usually changes to your storyboard.

Painting up - the last stroke.

This is when you're actually writing the story. Since you know where the story is going and you know what's going to happen along the way - VERY WELL (you should practically have the important parts engraved in your brain by now) then you will naturally add little harmless bits of information that lead the reader along the correct path. Just a word here - a sentence there. That's effective.

You see, I don't think it's enough to simply have 'an idea' of where you want to take the story as you write it. You have to KNOW EXACTLY what's going to happen and how.

You might think knowing all the secrets yourself before you start will ruin the creative process for you, but in my opinion - that's thinking like a reader who's seeking to be entertained by their own story. Those are the thoughts of a lazy author. This is hard work. The author doesn't get the same sorts of thrill out of their work as a reader. Creating a great piece of writing has a different sort of thrill to it than reading. It's a different kind of high. And creating a believable suspense/climax is not for the weak of heart. The reader gets to enjoy the outside appearance while the author stands in the back holding one of the puppet strings between her teeth and another one between her toes, because her hands were full ages ago.

I also have to point out that the longer the fiction is, than the more opportunites there are for creating suspense. The shorter the piece - the fewer options. Obviously a reader can't be clawing their eyes out wondering what's going to happen next if the piece is a one-shot and takes 20 minutes to read. So, suspense/mystery is for novels and serials.

Okay, so those are my thoughts about foreshadowing. I'm the storyboard queen in case you didn't know. I think most problems in writing can be fixed by writing a good storyboard. It prevents writers block, organizes you, gives you a timeline and gives you a good idea as to whether or not you've got steam enough to write it. If you can't make it through your storyboard - you shouldn't be writing the dang thing to begin with. Since you know how it's going to turn out and you can see the whole story for what it is - you can gage your enthusiasm. One of the perks about this is that you'll always finish your stories and you won't have unfinished garbage haunting you.

Cheers!

When I'm not Around

2006-07-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

So, when I'm not here writing, I'm usually working on Mark of a Goddess. That's what I've been doing for the last few days. Yup - working on Mark of a Goddess. Just for the sake of making me feel like I've accomplished something - I'm going to write how that's going here.

Today I released chapter seven. Ya know, usually by the time I release a chapter, I'm so freaking bored with it that I can't believe that anyone could enjoy it. But that chapter was a wrap-up chapter. It ties up a couple loose ends, so it's not exactly the sort of chapter that leaves everyone pining for more. Hopefully, it's more the kind of thing that makes the reader feel like a piece of the puzzle has slid perfectly into place, so there's one less thing to worry about. I'm trying to tie things up before I engage in the major conflict, so this is one less step that I must take. If I don't start tying things up now, then it will be rushed at the end. So, I've started to wrap up on chapter seven - sounds early, doesn't it? I disagree. Now is the perfect time.

Chapter Eight is a side quest, so it's actually proving to be the most difficult chapter in the book. It's practically a one-shot that has to fit in with the world I've already created, so I have to tread softly. I've been trying to get some creative consulting on it, but it seems Nightfaux and Kaytala have both dropped off the face of the planet, so I may not be able to update on time next week. If things keep on going the way they are now - I might not be able to update for a couple weeks ... I know - I'm so unnecessarily dramatic.

Chapters nine and ten are done to my satisfaction. They just need to be beta read now.

I've been working on chapter eleven for the past few days, and I know it's going to need an editing trip in a week or so, but it's so delicious that I practically have to count calories. I just finished it. And oh - it's great. I read a little bit of it to my . I thought that he wouldn't like it because it's so ... girl directed, but he thought it was really cute, so I'm super happy.

I also wanted to start releasing a 'best line written today' thing like jomiel and chocolatelova, but everything I write is a spoiler. I just don't do long stints of description, so there's nothing like that in my writing. Maybe that's a REALLY BAD SIGN.

Not my Place

2006-07-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to talk about a kind of fiction that rips me off. I guess I'm not majorly angst-ridden about this - I just think it's a pointless waste of time.

This is when someone takes a story that has already been written and tunes it to existing characters from another story. There are a couple of these that I like. For instance, when someone writes a myth (like the Cupid and Psyche myth or the Persephone and Hades myth) and uses anime characters. Myths are so vague and can usually be summed up in three poorly written paragraphs. They've got gapes in their description the size of the Sea of Tranquility. This, I can tolerate, and I've got a couple that I really like.

But, when someone takes anime characters and sets them to an already existing novel ... it's like - what's the point? My favourite book of all time is called 'The Blue Castle' by L.M. Montgomery. I love this book so much, but I would never think of stealing her plot and casting Escaflowne characters to it. The reason a plot works the way it does is because of the characters so if you steal characters and set them in a pre-made plot, you are going to spoil one of them.

For instance - the anime characters may not behave in the same manner as the characters in the original story you're ripping off, so the story will have to be altered to accomodate the new (unintended) characters. Or it goes just the other way - you make the anime characters behave in a way that is contrary to their nature in order to accomodate the plot. See?

In my mind, this just doesn't work. I don't know why people bother doing this. It just strikes me as SO pointless.

Not to mention that since it's fanfiction - you're already stealing half your idea (or maybe someone's whole idea if you're doing an insertion). Is it really okay to steal the other half of your story as well? I don't think so. In general, I have to say that this is extremely poor practice and fanfiction is already sort of pathetic, because you're outright stealing someone else's idea. Not that I don't do it too, so I can't criticise others ... but STILL!

Like I said, this doesn't outright piss me off. I've thought of writing something that fit this bill in the far distant past, but whenever I thought about doing it - I got bored. I don't know how anyone can actually make it through writing something like this ... I get so bored even thinking about it.

The Process

2006-07-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I got a request for general writing advice, and it sort of sparked my imagination and made me want to talk about the process that my writing goes through before I release it. These are all brief descriptions, so if anyone wants to hear more on a specific subject - please request it.

Inspiration

I was going to write a whole post on this awhile back, but then I got jaded and couldn't remember what inspired me. I usually get inspired by one of the following things:

A really good song.
A really attractive man.
A really good story.

The last one probably doesn't do a whole to express my feelings on this subject, but when I get a good idea for a story - the story itself will spur me on to write more, because I just know that it's a story that has to be told.

Story Boards

I'm certain that everyone has heard me toot my 'write a story board' horn, and if you haven't heard it - hear it now. Unless you have EXTREMELY established characters than it's ridiculous to work without a net. This will improve your writing on so many different levels it will boggle your mind. So, if you don't do it - start TODAY.

Do things Out Loud

I've talked about this part of my process recently, so I'm only briefly going to touch on this subject. Tell yourself your story out loud. This will help you work out holes that you didn't account for in your story board. It will force you to make things more detailed and encourage you to accentuate the good parts. It will also help you make things more believable, so the audience will be more drawn into your tale. I also encourage people to read their writing out loud to themselves several times before posting.

Stew

This is a great writing tool. This is when you slam your book shut and you walk away from the project. Come back when you're fresher and when you've had time to think away from the project. You'll naturally come back way more charged. I find that when I write a chapter, I have to take a break of about four days inbetween. But I think about my story ALL the time when I'm writing it, so I come up with ideas on how to brooch topics while I'm stewing.

Hacking Through the Bush

This is no fun whatsoever, but sometimes it's necessary. This is when you have a chapter in your storyboard that you don't want to write, but you can't get on with the good parts in the story if you don't write it. I sit down and I write it anyway. I write as much as I can stand. I type and type until the chapter is done, and all the important points in my storyboard have been hit. Then I go away. Normally when I do this, I have to edit the chapter myself at least five times before I have found a way to make the chapter likable. This is like hauling up a hill so you can see the view - it's worth it. A good example of this in my own writing is the chapter called 'Chain Reactions' in Mystic Wings. Holy crap! I wasn't happy until I got the idea to break it up into headings and then it was better. WAY BETTER! But I still put more work into that chapter than any other chapter in the book.

Creative Consultation

This is sometimes necessary for even the most experienced writers. I go to my good pal Nightfaux for her input. The only thing I can really say about this is - don't let yourself get run over by anyone. It's still your story, so you do what you want to with it. However, it's obviously necessary to sometimes get an outside opinion.

Beta Reading

Someone to catch your errors. I'd encourage everyone to get one, but if you can't for some reason, or if you don't want to - the next best thing is to read your story out loud to yourself. You'll catch a lot of mistakes yourself.

There's a quick overview for you.

Virgin Harem Story

2006-07-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

So, the other day I was reading a 'Virgin Prostitution Story'. I think the way you define a 'Virgin Prostitution Story' is that you let the reader know in advance that there is no way that the main character is actually going to have to have sex, so this is just the fun of waltzing around the concept without actually having to do anything truly smutty. I love it! I'm totally all over this concept. It's so up my alley that it's truly frightening.

Except, I wouldn't want to write a prostitution story. Instead, I'd want to write a harem story. Actually, I've been wanting to write a harem story for years. The problem is that although it would be a hoot and a half, I can't seem to find the time to do such a thing. It's really vexing. But because I don't think I'll actually have a chance to write it, I thought I'd write the premise down and see if any of the readers of this blog would find a story like this interesting. Then I'd see if it was worth the time. I figure it would be a four chapter story, and it would probably take me a little over two weeks to write.

So, let's list the story's attributes:

It would be a VanxHitomi thing with Millerna, Marlene and Eries in it, but ABSOLUTELY NO other Escaflowne characters.
So, Hitomi would be sold by her family into the service of the Sultan and when it's noticed how stunning she is, she's yoinked off to the harem before she even gets accustomed to living in the palace.
The harem of the Sultan is quite large and it's awhile before he gets the chance to see Hitomi, so she's safe to begin with.
So, the Sultan has three wives - you got it! They're Marlene, Eries and Millerna (not sisters). Now in case you didn't know it. A woman becomes a wife of the Sultan when she bears him a son. So, all three of these woman have sons. But the thing is, that the youngest of his wives - Millerna, was suddenly missing from the harem. Her son was a year old and it was certain - his eyes were brown. Neither Millerna nor the Sultan have brown eyes, so there's a rumour that Millerna was unfaithful to the Sultan and her son is actually the son of the Sultan's right-hand-man - Van. So, all the women in the harem think that Millerna was taken away and killed because of infidelity.
So, Van is the Sultan's right-hand-man. He was sold as a slave as a child and even though he's a man now, he still wears the arm bracelettes of a slave. He refuses to take them off. Hitomi sees him around the harem. He's allowed into the harem from time to time on business, so the women think he was 'fixed', but once the rumour started up about Millerna, everyone is starting to suspect that he wasn't.
Then Hitomi meets the Sultan and she interests him - MAJORLY. So, Van is sent to 'prepare' her for becoming the Sultan's lover. But will he be able to keep his hands off her himself?

HAHA! That's the premise. I think it's hilarious. Maybe I'll get a chance to write it. Probably not. What a pity!

Writing Advice

2006-07-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have tried to write several posts about my receiving advice on my writing and my giving others advice on their writing.

I have to admit that I am mean when I analyze someone's writing, which is why I should never be asked to do it unless they are ready for the onslaught of fear and death that I'd drop on them. Someone has to be ready for that kind of action and be completely prepared to deal with the consequences. But most of the time, I would rather not do it. I don't really like hurting people's feelings, because nine times out of ten - I don't think they're ready. I've only ever read one person's work where I was supposed to give an opinion and I didn't think they needed much extra work done on their project. I don't think experienced writers go around asking for opinions.

Anyway, the following is a list of items that I would insist upon in order to be prepared to give an opinion on a piece of writing.

The writing must be current. I don't like it when someone asks me to look at something that they last looked at a couple of years ago. That has happened to me a couple of times and I find it most unpleasant because I go through it and give them my suggestions and they scream at the top of their lungs that they can do better, but that the piece was written two years ago. Why did they give it to me in the first place then if it wasn't an accurate display of what they can do?
Don't ask me to beta read. I would do this for someone if I was doing it on a betareading exchange, but other than that 'no'. There are a couple of reasons why I wouldn't want to do betareading. The biggest reason is that I don't believe that a betareader should have a whole lot of creative control. If they're beta reading, they should just be looking for errors, and making sure that everything makes sense. The reason for this is that a beta reader can easily step beyond their role and try to start writing the story themselves. This is not good - whether I'm doing it, or whether it's being done to something I'm writing. If someone wants my creative advice (in my opinion, it's the more precious of the two skills), then that's one thing - and I'm more comfortable giving general creative advice rather than picking over every sentence with a fine toothed comb. Because once I start picking - I'm afraid of going overboard.
Lastly, I have had this happen a couple of times, but it's when someone asks me to take a look at something I'm uncomfortable with reading - like smut or slash. I never read anything with graphic nudity in it and I don't like vicious needless violence.

Okay, so now I'm going to write about when the tables have turned and I'm on the receiving end of the 'advice'. I get quite a bit of writing advice since I write on several different archives. I'd say that it doesn't take much to separate the men from the boys when it comes to good advice, but it's not that simple. I've had a couple of regular reviewers on ff.net who really know their stuff, but it's more like she or he drops a line asking one specific question and then takes off before I get the chance to answer.

For me I have a hard time taking writing advice under the following situations:

The person knows me personally. I stopped asking people I know to read my writing a long time ago, and I'm not about to start that practice up again any time soon. Because they know me - nearly everything that comes out of their mouth has to be discounted - even praise. Don't get me wrong though - I'll let people who know me read my work, but most of the time people who say they'll take a look at my writing won't, so there's no point.
They don't write themselves. I know quite a few people who writing - both online and off. Some of them I'll listen to and some of them have such different styles than me that I literally gag when I read their work. So, a simple perspective from someone who writes isn't enough - I have to respect them as a writer.
Lastly, maybe they don't have to be a writer and maybe it's okay if they know me, but they have to love me so much that they don't mind giving me bad news and they don't mind pushing me to be better, because they want me to write the BEST THING. So, for those few people - they can say what they want - I know they want to help make me the best author! I'm their star, so it's okay if they shoot arrows at me. I guess my point with this last point is that I can't take advice from people who want to drag me down.

Worked Up

2006-06-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my upload date for 'Mark of a Goddess' is usually Wednesday night around midnight, but when I tried to upload this week, it didn't work. No error message. No note from admin at ff.net telling me that I sucked and was having my priviledges revoked for a week or a month or something. Nothing. So, I sent a ticket to the bug people and asked them what was wrong. They'll look into it when they have a chance.

I also have an account at mediaminer.org on the side, but how to say? MY STORY DOESN'T GET A LOT OF ATTENTION THERE! It has gotten pretty good feedback for that site, but good feedback for mediaminer is like 4 reviews and not per chapter - for the WHOLE story.

Okay, so I set up my forum on ff.net before I went to upload the chapter. And in case you didn't know it, once I set up the topic thread, even though I have administration rights - I still can't remove it. So, people went to the forum and seemed sad that they couldn't read the chapter. Not even very many people acted sad and I caved and told everyone that if they really wanted to read it then they could private message me and I would let them read the chapter - my whole plan being to direct people one by one to mm.org. I decided that this would be a reasonable sacrifice because I'd know who was going to read it (because they PMed me) and then even though my review count on ff.net would suffer, maybe I could get five or six people to review on mm.org for 'Mark of a Goddess' which currently has no reviews. So, then the next thing I know someone is announcing on my ff.net forum where everyone can see the chapter.

I got totally RIPPED OFF! So now anyone will know where to get it. I wrote a cranky message on the forum but it came no where near expressing how tanked I was that I got so totally ripped off. So, no one reviewed on mm.org and they're talking about the chapter on ff.net - ARGH! How unethical! It's my fault, so I feel even worse.

You know, I don't write so that I can have people's validation. I would write if I lived on a deserted planet with no one but fish for company, but I definitely upload my stories on the internet for feedback and approval and comments. I feel like I work really hard to give my readers a good story that will be fun to read and today I feel completely shafted.

Yeah, I'm probably going to lose one of my best reviewers because of this mess, but you know how many damn people are reading this story who aren't giving any feedback at all? It's shocking and disgusting. When I look at my hit counts, I know I'm being totally screwed over. Even my best friend's little sister faithfully reads every week, but I never hear a peep out of her - and she even friggin' knows me!

Everyone knows how valuable reviews are and they withhold them because they want to make their own work look better, so they can't review for a popular story without making it seem even more popular. But people want to read the popular stories, because they know they'll be a good read. I am DEAD serious when I say that if I read anything, I review EVERY CHAPTER. I think it's only common courtesy and not doing it makes writers hypocrites when they're pleased to get reviews themselves. I thank people who read my work and but my real way of thanking them is to review every chapter I read. If it kept my attention long enough for me to finish the chapter, then it deserves something!!

Yeah, I'm really mad! And I'm also really sick today, so I might not be behaving rationally.

I mean my story isn't really an important thing in the grand scheme of things. It's just a stupid little story that I'm writing to try to prep myself for bigger and better things, but at the same time - I really put a lot of time into it - and so in lots of ways, it seems like my life. It's crap like this that makes me want to give up MoaG and go straight to 'Ghost Mist'. I've decided to open a fanstory.com account when chapter one is ready. I'm not a fan of fanstory.com, but I want to see if their services are worth it. I might be able to learn a lot going through their site, so I think I'm going to give it a try.

Anyway, I'm not uploading anything new on MoaG until something happens to make me feel warm about my readership again. Until then, even if I do work on MoaG, I won't be uploading.

AU vs. Continuation

2006-06-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to write a post about Alternate Universe fics versus continuations fics. Ready? I'm going to go hard.

I think the success of a continuation fic has a great deal to do with how old the fandom is. I used to write contination fics for Slayers and none of them were as successful as my Escaflowne AU fic. I think a lot that has to do with the fact that I was a weaker author back when I was writing Slayers. However, I plan to defend my views. I think there are only so many ways to continue a story that are plausable. So, once a fandom has been around for awhile, naturally most of them are going to get done in one way or another. Basically, the author of the fanfic has to come up with a whole new premise for a story (p.s. I'm not directing my comments at you Jomiel - I think your story has a lot of potental - these are only comments in general). I think people who go read fanfic read a lot of continuation fics and so in order to keep their attention, you have to write something that's freaking different. Personally, I'd rather not chance it anymore. Everything has already been done.

On the other hand, if a story has an unsatisfying ending and the fandom is just blooming - you really have an opportunity to get everyone and their dog reading your story. I haven't read the end of Gokusen yet (cause it's not available), but you better believe that I read tons of continuation fanfiction for it. If I'm reading anything online - I'm reading Gokusen. And I'm one of those darling people who reviews for every single chapter that I read. It's the only way I can stop myself from turning into a gigantic hypocrite.

My favourite online continuation story is called 'Indeterminite Maturity' by misanoe. It's a Gokusen fic and I love it. It's so enjoyable that I sat slapping my knee the whole time. It was so great!

So, alternative universe fics. When I read online, I also like to read AUs. My two favourite fanfics of all time are AUs. One is called 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' by Yugure. It's a Slayers fic where Zel is a vampire. I have as much as the author has written posted on my website. I got her permission - I love it so. My next favourite is called "Wings of Love" by Earth Star. It's the story of Cupid and Psyche with Zel and Amelia - very cute.

Obviously, you have a lot more breathing room when writing AU fics, because you don't have to have any specific knowledge about the series/setting/plot and stuff like that. You can make it up as you go. Of course, making it up sounds easier, but I don't think that's necessarily true. So, I guess it depends what your strengths are. My sister says that she's only creative under tight constrants. If you set her loose and tell her she can do whatever she wants, she's totally lost, but if you give her a budget, a deadline, a direction for the project to take and stuff like that - she'll blow your socks off with what she's able to accomplish. So, for her, writing a continuation fic would probably be easier. So, I think it depends on your personality - are you the sort of person who renovates or the kind of person who starts building fresh? However, I must point out that in order to be a good author - you must be able to do BOTH of these things.

You only need the characters in order to write AU, but it amazes me how many of authors botch this and don't stay true to the characters at all.

As for myself, I don't plan to write another continuation fic as long as I live. I like writing something that's different. Something completely unlike anything anyone in the fandom has read before. Now I'm off to Wild Moon Swings to talk about my AU fics. I've had some musings about my fic lately.

Creative Disputes

2006-06-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today I thought I'd talk about the challenge I'm currently having with my book 'Mark of a Goddess'. I'm have a creative dispute with myself. Actually, I really have creative disputes with no one other than myself. I may give advice, but I don't really care what the final decision is if I'm not the one writing it. That may seem cold, but I don't really have the brain room to worry too much about other people's projects. As for receiving creative advice - it's amazing how little of it I'm actually given.

I'm probably scary ~_^!

Anyway, the next chapter of MoaG isn't ready because of one sentence. One sentence is holding me back. Two words, to be precise. Just two words are holding my leash and not letting me run and prance like a country puppy. How twisted! But, I cannot release the chapter until I figure out how I'm going to handle this problem.

First let me define how a creative dispute arises:
1. The chapter is always already written and usually it's already been beta-read.
2. An inconsistancy has come up that I didn't account for in my original storyboards.
3. If no one ever saw the story, I would never notice it, because normally it's pointed out by my beta reader, my best friend, or someone who's reviewed on fanfiction.net. It's not that they notice that there is a problem, because usually the real problem is in a chapter they haven't seen yet, but they foresee a problem that I just didn't see coming (yet another great reason to release one chapter at a time). I have definitely caught a handfull of mistakes because of one specific reader on ff.net.

In this case it was pointed out by my beta-reader and I haven't been able to think of a solution, even though I've been thinking about it steadily for over a week. Grrrr!

So, I've been trying to remember some of the ways that I've solved these sorts of problems in the past.
1. To think about it.
2. To not think about it.
3. Tell the story to myself out loud. This is a great tool. I figure out so many problems this way. Just as a side note I had no idea what I was going to write for an upcoming chapter of MoaG. I just had one line of instruction to go on, and by explaining that part of the story to myself, I was able to come up with something that really worked.
4. Focus on the deadline and write the solution 2 minutes before releasing. How does that saying go? "Desperation is the mother of invention" or something like that. I totally believe in this. So, if I don't come up with something before hand, I'll force myself to figure something out Wednesday night.

If I really do end up working it out on Wednesday evening - I'm crossing my fingers that whatever I release doesn't suck.

Writing with a Partner

2006-06-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

This blog was spurred by a comment of algelic's on jomielll's blog. I was about to make a comment on that when I realized that I have a lot to say on the subject, so I'd better write what I think over here and use my own space instead of someone else's.

I'd just like to start out by saying that I've tried to write with other people a couple times and it never works out. Don't get the wrong idea - there has never been any blood spillage or anything like that. It's just that my dedication to the story is always above and beyond my partner's, so the work isn't evenly distributed. If that doesn't bother you, then there's no reason why you shouldn't work with a partner.

Right now, I have two people I work with - my charming beta reader Kaytala (who I love to the moon) and my best friend in real life, who will shortly be introduced as Nightfaux I believe (I named her^^). Nightfaux is my creative consultant and she generally sees my chapters before Kaytala. Both of them stop me from making an ass of myself (it takes BOTH of them).

Kaytala is a gem because she knows how to beta read for me in a way that doesn't make me feel like someone is stepping on my toes. Not an easy thing. I made her take a test before I would let her beta for me because I haven't had good experiences with beta readers in the past. Mostly, they just took too long because they have lives outside my story. But there were other problems too.

The point is - if I had so many problems with a beta reader than how much trouble would I have with a partner? ... Ew!

But, I can definitely see the bonuses. For instance, I suck at writing description and romance, but I'm good at writing action and dialogue (at least that's my analysis of my strengths). So, if I found someone who wanted to write description and romance while I wrote the action and the dialogue - we'd totally have it made. However, I still get the feeling that creative conflicts would arise.

The last thing I want to say on this subject is that I think it would be possible to do a team effort if you saw your partner in person, but if it was someone you only knew online - it wouldn't work - at least not for me. Unless you don't really care how the story turns out.

Side Quests

2006-06-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

I feel like a monkey, but these past few days I have been working on my side quest chapter of 'Mark of a Goddess'. I never thought I would be writing a side quest, since generally side quests sort of unnerve me when I read for pleasure. But I've been paying close attention to the process since I've never done it before. Usually, I'm really concentrated, so this was a really new experience for me.

For one thing, I found it was a lot like writing fanfiction for your own work. I had a few characters that were old and two that were new. So, I could lean on the established characters while I concentrated my efforts on the new ones.

I wasn't writing about anything that applied to the main story line so it was also like taking a break from MoaG, which was nice, since I've been nearly tearing my skin off (I want to write Ghost Mist so much!! It BURNS! It BURNS!). It was fun to write in a voice that wasn't Hitomi's. It was a good change.

Let's see, what else did I get out of it? Oh yeah, I got to concentrate on a romance that wasn't Van and Hitomi's. That was a relief as well. It's hard to describe a good relationship when it's as old as Van and Hitomi's without talking about sex directly. I try hard, but I'm not sure how well I do. I suspect that I'm not very good at pulling the old heart strings with romantic rosebuds, which is weird because I always thought that romance was one of my strong points. Lately, I'm discovering that it's not. It's probably because I'm an analytical bag. I've probably spent too many hours listening to debates to be a smooth talker. I'm better at writing the fight scenes - at least that's what I'm getting out of my reviews. Well, some people think I do well at romance, so I shouldn't trash myself too hard. Anyway, my side quest is more heated and it's from a woman's perspective that is much older than Hitomi, so I don't mind getting a little more descriptive. We'll see how well it goes.

I enjoyed the experience. Hopefully, my readers won't be too cheesed about me taking them off the beaten trail for a minute or two.

The Colour of Angst

2006-06-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so today I'm angst-ridden. Why? Cause I am. I wanted to write about something on my giant list of things I wanted to cover on this blog, but instead I have discovered that I only want to talk about how angsty I'm feeling about my writing. So, why am I feeling angst-ridden? Cause I am. Grrr!

I don't actually have a good reason for being angst-ridden. If I had a good reason, I could talk myself out of it, but seeing how things are ... thibbbit!

Okay, so my story 'Mark of a Goddess' is progressing nicely. At least I think it is. I'm trying to work hard on it so that I can put it behind me and work on 'Ghost Mist', but there's a problem. I keep going back and looking at my old stacks for that story and realizing how much I suck. I think I'm getting dilusions of granduer regarding that whole series. I think I've been thinking in my head that they're better than they are. When really, they're only average ... maybe below average. I asked Kaytala if she thought I was losing my edge and she says 'no', but when I look at my old stuff - I feel crushed. For instance, I can't stand to read the first chapter of 'Dragon's Moon'. I have read and edited that damn chapter at least 200 times and I can't stand to even look at it, but when I glance at it for some reason or other - I'm sickened. Holy crap it sucks! How did anyone even wade through that garbage to get to the better stuff. But I can't edit that chapter again. I've been editing it for years and I'm not going to edit it again unless someone is going to pay me for it.

Then there's 'Ghost Mist'. I feel like this is better. When I cook, I've taken to explaining and telling the plot to myself (since I already know 'Mark of a Goddess' inside out and backwards). And so even though my storyboards are not 100% complete, it feels like I'm seven years old again and I've got two dollars that are burning a hole so deep into my pocket that they're scorching my leg. I want to write it SO badly.

But I really feel like I have no right to complain. 'Mark of a Goddess' is doing well. I've been very blessed with interested fans, and because of my writing, I've been able to make some new friends. So, I really don't have a right to be so angsty. But *whine and bottom lip trembling* I really want to be angsty.

Writing about your Dreams

2006-05-29T18:54:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I get tempted to write stories about the dreams I have while I'm asleep. People are generally fascinated by dreams, and I'm not much different, even though I abhor going along with the crowd. So, I want to write stories about my dreams, but even though I've been trying to do this since I was 15 I have to comment that I have met zero success. Unless I'm dreaming about the story I'm writing then for me ... writing about my dreams is an absolute dead end.

Why? Well, I'm glad you asked.

I think there's only one reason why it never works out. My dreams are very vivid and scatterbrained, meaning that they focus on the details rather than on a general plot guideline. So, I sit down to write and there's this idea in my head. I'd describe the idea as elusive and the idea never comes out on paper the way I want it to.

Once when I was a very little girl I had a dream that I was in this water, it was dark and I got the feeling I was in an ocean in a movie (not a real ocean) and I was desperately trying to climb onto this rock, because I was terrified of the water. Then once I got onto the rock, it started to move, and I realized that it wasn't really a rock, but it was a sea monster. I'm afraid of whales, just in case you were wondering. Now, that's a little interesting, but all on it's own it's nothing more than a fragment of a story - not even an idea for a story if you ask me. And your idea never has a chance to solidify before you've forgotten the most important parts of your dream, and you can't continue to write the story, because you don't remember your dream clearly.

It's just that lately, I have been brainstorming the details of my story 'Ghost Mist'. Maybe I've been thinking about it a little too hard, but I had a dream this afternoon about a black butterfly. This butterfly had about a 40 cm wingspan and it had no head. It was sort of built like a stingray, and had two brillantly orange tiger eyes. It also had two long arms that had little hooks on the ends of them - and naturally I was terrified of it, but it's eyes were so beautiful that I couldn't look away. It's weird ... but I think I'm going to try to find a role for this little guy in 'Ghost Mist'. Oddly enough, there's even a part for him. I'm trying to expand myself into a mindset where an animal could have a role in one of my stories too, so maybe he can hang out with a couple of my other animal characters.

I'm turning into a weirdo.

Anyway, if this works out, then it will be the first time I've ever had any success incorporating my dreams into my stories.

The Strategy

2006-05-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, so lately, I've been trying to brainstorm how I can get my new non-fanfic story to get some attention online without resorting to paying the $6 a month for a writing account at fanstory.com. Don't get me wrong - $6 isn't that bad, even though I have this strange premonition that they probably want it in American dollars. I just think that I would rather not use a site to post my stories on that I never read anything on. Not only that, but I feel like starting my own online fiction archive whenever I go there, or at least emailing the creators of fanstory.com to tell them why their layout is like a pit of fire and brimstone.

Anyway, here are my strategies for advertising my new fic 'Ghost Mist' online.

Utalize my website. My website gets a little traffic. Not a lot of traffic, but it gets some and I need to take advantage of that. So, I was thinking of opening another main page called 'Other fics'. I don't think I'd include 'Dragon's Moon', 'Mystic Wings', or 'Mark of a Goddess' on this page, but I could advertise them as well and put their links up as well as the links for 'Ghost Mist'. Besides, just thinking about converting all those chapter to html makes me feel dizzy.
Advertise on fanfiction.net. Of course, this is going to be my biggest tool. In the past, I've always uploaded new chapters of my Escaflowne fics whenever I've gotten too far ahead of myself, but if I want to advertise 'Ghost Mist' then I'm going to have to stop that. I'll have to stick to updating only once a week. You see, I'm not allowed to work on 'Ghost Mist' until after 'Mark of a Goddess' is complete. So, if I'm a really good girl and work hard on 'Mark of a Goddess' then maybe I can finish it before I have to upload chapter 12. Then I could start working on 'Ghost Mist' and hopefully get a few chapters written on it before 'Mark of a Goddess' is complete. Then I could advertise 'Ghost Mist' with every single chapter I release on fanfiction.net as well as on my profile page and my forums. Hopefully, I'd be at a stage where I was releasing one chapter a week of 'Ghost Mist' at the same time as 'Mark of a Goddess'.
Hopefully, I'd also be able to scare up some readers on fictionpress.com as well. Hopefully.
I can also do the same thing on mediaminer.org as fanfiction.net and advertise with each chapter. I've been releasing on mediaminer all this time ... so hopefully some readers from over there will come too. I can advertise on my profile there too.

The thing that's going to be the most difficult about this transition is that lots of people just aren't interested in reading original fiction, so it's not going to matter how well I write - my readership is probably going to be cut from in the hundreds to probably about five (and only two of them will review). I can't imagine that any but the most hardcore are going to follow me over - no matter what I say. So, my feelings are probably going to be majorly hurt. But *cheerful smile* I can't let that get in my way.

Besides, right now, I'm just enjoying 'Mark of a Goddess'. I wasn't planning on rushing that one or anything. I wasn't exactly planning to write fanfiction anymore after it finished - not because I have issue with fanfiction, but because I don't really have any muses left. I like Gokusen and so I tried to write a Gokusen fanfic, but it was flat. I guess if I did do anything, I'd go write a Kenshin AU piece. I don't know how well something like that would d0 - they seem sort of fanatic over there in Kenshin world (I've seen one-shots get 130 reviews) . So, I was just planning to enjoy 'Mark of a Goddess' for what it is. Then after I write 'Ghost Mist', I'll be able to have the courage to approach a publisher with one of my 'other' projects. Probably not though. One of my online buddies thinks I won't be ready for that in two hundred years, and she's probably right. I'll probably get shot straight out of the sky.

I always feel sick when I think about sending something to a publisher. Like - really sick to my stomach. It's probably because very shortly, I will be celebrating that I've spent half my life trying to get something published. And if I haven't published something - anything - by the time I've spent two thirds of my life writing my can off - I don't know if I'll be able to continue ... writing that is. I am not sure if I can help it. It makes me so depressed to think about getting rejected - I see nothing but black clouds. Welp, I need to stop being so depressing and look up a recipe for fortune cookies. I wanted to make some today. I guess I can use all the luck I can get.

Novels

2006-05-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight the brainstorming idea that caught my attention was novels. I plan to list the novels I have written and what I learned from writing each one of them.

They Need You More than they Love You

I started writing this one at the beginning of grade eight. It was 111 pages on loose leaf paper, and I did actually finish it, which I think is a little unusual considering that it was my first attempt at writing a novel. It was a romance novel set in Australia about a love triangle. But in the end, I had portrayed both of the male leads as complete jerks who were power hungry ego maniacs - like in all those romance novels I had been reading. But when it came time to finish the story, I found that I didn't want my main girl to get with either one of them, so instead of going back and fixing someone's character, I ended the story by her running away. I think I ended it this way because I was lazy and not because of any specific urge that I have to run away from bad situations. I didn't keep this story. I have kept all my others, but this first one I soaked in lemon juice and threw directly into the trash. Why lemon juice you ask? I have no idea - I was kinda weird and morbid back then, so even I can't explain myself.

The only thing that's interesting to note about this story since I can't remember a whole lot about it (not even the character's names) is that one chapter was a songfic. I had never seen a songfic before, so I think that just shows that my interest in writing is as old as my interest in songfics. And I don't think there is anything particularly special about that.

The Personality

This was a romance novel set in 19th century England. If you're wondering if I had been reading a lot of period romances, like Jane Eyre and stuff like that, then you would be right. This one was also written to completion while I was in grade eight. Was it any good? No. Of course it wasn't any good. Why would it have been any good? But I passed it around and let all my friends read it, and as I had written a fairly good kiss scene in it, it passed as good enough for my friends to read. For a long time, I thought that this book was great and it wasn't until I started editing it, cause I thought it was good enough to do over, did I realize how absolutely crappy it was. For starters, the thing that was the most wrong with it was that I'm not English, or Australian, so I had no bleeding idea what the freak I was talking about. So, that's what I learned from this venture. Either do a setting, like where you live, or make it up from scratch.

All Winter

So, with my new knowledge, I was ready to try again. I was writing another romance novel, but it was taking place in my country - except 90 years ago. I learned two things from this novel. Thing number one: people have to kiss on the lips in order for the audience to be satisfied. Thing number two: it didn't do me any good to write a story that took place where I lived if I didn't do the time period right. What did I know about what life was like 90 years ago? NOTHING. So, then I learned about time periods. Write your time period and where you live. But I thought that was boring.

Zeotrope

So, before I started grade nine, I started working on this beauty. It was a fantasy novel that was not predominantly a romance novel and there were other characters that were interesting that were not one of the main leads. That was something that I really had a problem with in my other stories. If the character wasn't a person who was directly related to the romance then I didn't really write them. So, when I wrote before, I had two or three main characters and the rest were stock characters. This time I improved on that greatly, even though it wasn't actually intentional. Also, the romance was underplayed and the story was stronger. Unfortunately, I was sort busy with my 'real life' right smack dab in the middle of this story. I probably should have realized that the story was lost because I waited too long before starting the next plot arch (probably four months had gone by), but I didn't want to give up on it. I kept writing it, but the story ... died. I think I rushed the ending to impress a boy. Yeah, that's what happened. I wanted a boy I liked to read it, so I rushed the ending. He read it and was honest enough to tell me that he wasn't impressed with the resolution. I don't remember being horribly embarrassed, but he was three years older than myself, so I shouldn't have given it to him to begin with. It was awhile before I got back in the saddle.

Fallen Angel

This was when writing really got fun for me. I started writing this at the beginning of grade ten. I had been reading nothing Anne Rice books and was writing a vampire knockoff. So, when I look at it I am a bit ashamed that I couldn't come up with something more original than that. So, it was all about vampire love, and man oh man, do I L-O-V-E vampire love! Seriously, it is one of my all time favourite things.

So, it was set in 19th century France. Notice how quickly I abandoned my hard-earned lessons? What did I learn? I learned to have a blast while writing. Sure, it was historically inaccurate. And sure, it was probably not a good reflection of the French (who I know virtually nothing about).
And it was probably distasteful in a hundred ways, but all the same, I had a fun time writing it.

The Darkened Wave

This is 'Dragon's Moon' in it's oldest form. I set it in a place that was familiar to me, even though I was raised in a tiny town instead of a city, but 'the city' in the story is based on a city I used to visit quite frequently as a teenager and now live in. This story was a culmination of the things I learned, but it still sucked. I started writing it during the end half of grade 11, and finished writing it during the first semester of college. But, it had it's good points. I started writing a backwards storyboard for it. Meaning that after I wrote a chapter, I would write the important things that happened in a note book for future reference. It was also the first book that I wrote mostly on the computer. Before I had always written my stories on loose leaf paper that I kept in a folder, which is really not the best way to go about such things. On my hard drive, it's named 'coil' because I started writing it in a coil notebook before I had a title for it. I've kept it separate from 'Dragon's Moon' so if anyone's interested in seeing it - there's worse language, more violence, and it's more skanky. Let me know ~_^!

Shadow Magic - Zelgadis and Amelia

My 'real life' kept me from writing for about a year and a half after that, possibly more. When I started writing again, I wasn't writing novels. I wrote a couple short stories and a few poems, but I mostly wrote magazine articles to try to reawaken my passion for writing and stop me from going crazy. Then I got into writing Slayers fanfiction, and this was the first novella I wrote. The concept was mixed with a novel I started writing when I was 15 called 'Singing Magic', which was the story of an elfen princess who is forced to marry this dark elf she doesn't love. So, she gets sent to his older brother's castle to learn magic from him (he's a sorcerer of the highest order) and falls madly in love with him, and at the end of the story it turns out that there are no brothers, but that both her husband and his older brother are the same person - making everything perfect. This story - I wrote it three times. The first time, I made the main girl sound like a cheating whore. The second time, the dark elf that was her husband was too good and there was no reason for her to be unsatisfied with him. The third time - I wrote it Slayers style, which was a major improvement, because I kept writing myself into a corner. This was my first time writing a story board, so the story isn't as consistant as my later work. I was experimenting. This is also a story that has four or five songfics as chapters. They were an excellent crutch to get me moving.

Shadow Magic - Xellos and Filia

This is the one I wrote where Xellos has a multiple personality disorder and he thinks he's a guy named Lex half the time. I wrote most of it in one week and thought that it was pretty polly wolly crappy. I was trying to write something as good as SMAZ, but it wasn't as good. At least, I didn't think it was as good. However, I got fanmail for it before I started releasing it on ff.net. It was only on my website, and my website doesn't get a lot of traffic - at least it didn't back then. So, I released chapters 1-8 on ff.net and it did better than any other Slayers story I ever released. So, then I was compelled to rewrite chapter nine and finish the story properly, but I didn't want to. I mean, I really really didn't want to. I used songfics in this one too, but I wasn't interested. I don't like Xellos and Filia as a couple and writing a fic for them was stupid. No passion existed at all during it. I don't even know why I started writing it to begin with.

Shadow Magic - Zelgadis and Lina

Now this was something I could really sink my teeth into. I actually really like this story, however, when I read it, I know I could have done it better. There are a couple killer chapters though and when I look back I see that the thing I'm missing the most is description. If I had been willing to drop another 20,000 words into it - it would have been GREAT! However, even though it's better than SMAZ and SMXF, it still didn't rake in many fans.

Shadow Magic - Xellos and Lina

This story was my PRIDE and JOY. Seriously. I worked my can off on it, and it was so incredible that it made my heart melt. But, no one read it. So, I took it down from ff.net and worked on it again. Then when I was ready I released it again under the title 'Shadow Magic: Pictures of You' and still - no one read it. I couldn't figure out what was wrong when it was SO perfect. I had it beta read by three people, and still no one read it.

Finally, I decided that the Slayers audience likes comedy the best and this story is not comedy - it's drama. It's not even very romantic. It's serious and tense and hardcore and ... wonderful. At least, I think so. Anyway, this story isn't up on ff.net and it never will be.

The Dance of the Twelfth Moon

This is a stupid regency style romance I wrote while I was sick to try to take my mind off of how miserable I was. The last chapter has never been written and I'm not sure if I care. But still, it worked very well to get all those romance urges out of my system. I don't want to write romance solely, so this probably cured me of the tendancy. At least, let's hope so, because, according to my readers on ff.net - I suck at writing romance.

Mystic Wings

'Mystic Wings' is the best thing I've ever written to completion. It really is. The revamped version of 'The Darkened Wave' into 'Dragon's Moon' is quite good, but I didn't enjoy writing it as much. I really enjoyed writing 'Mystic Wings'. Like I said before, I nearly called it 'Missing Wings' and right now - I wish I had. I know that my writing is still sort of crude, but I have great hopes for myself. I'm proud of the length and depth of this book. I love it. It thrills me.
'Mark of a Goddess' is the book that comes after and I hope that I do a better job on it.

Okay, so that takes me up to date. Please bear in mind that I wrote lots of other novels that I didn't finish. These are just the ones that I feel I completed. Wow. I wrote a lot.

Original Fiction Online

2006-05-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

So, tonight the topic on my brainstorming list that caught my eye was 'Original Fiction Online', so that's the topic I'll be tackling.

Like I've said in previous posts, my novel 'Dragon's Moon' was original fiction to begin with and I tried to release it on fictionpress.com as original fiction. I got one review for the first two chapters. In a fit of irritation I took it down and gave up on my project to revamp it. I couldn't believe that only one person wrote in.

So, I was poking around the Escaflowne section on fanfiction.net one day and was looking at the stories that got a lot of reviews. I had been thinking of writing an Escaflowne piece, but nothing was coming to mind. Once in a while I used to stroll into the Escaflowne section and read some alternate universe fics. Those appealed to me a lot more than the continuation stories. I don't know why. I think it has something to do with the fact that I really feel like Escaflowne ended. Yeah, Hitomi and Van didn't kiss, and everyone was majorly unsatisfied, but did they really need to kiss? That's what I asked myself when I watched it the second time. And 'no', I don't think they really needed to, so I don't care to read continuation fics ... I really don't care. *deep breath* Anyway, I'm getting off topic. So, I was reading the stories that got loads of reviews. I had never had a LOT of reviews with my Slayers stuff, but I did manage to draw in a more mature audience, which is complimentary for me, I guess. But I was noticing that a lot of the stories that did well in the Escaflowne section were extremely vapid, and as I read them I was reminded very keenly of my first attempts at writing. The story of mine that they reminded me the most strongly of was 'The Darkened Wave' which is now called 'Dragon's Moon' and so I decided to give it a try - combining my original concepts from 'The Darkened Wave' with Escaflowne characters and turning it into something fun - 'Dragon's Moon'.

I felt like I was compromising my priniciples to do something dirty like that - adding someone else's ideas to make my story marketable - however, since I started writing eleven years ago, I have had the most impossible time getting people to read my stories. So, I felt like I was being too ridged and that I'd never get anywhere if I didn't pitch my story to an audience that would give it a try.

If you want to write original fiction online then you have two options - fictionpress.com and fanstory.com. Let's talk about them and their pros and cons.

Fictionpress.com
Pros

It's free web space.
The layout of the site is great and it's easy to find things if you happen to be looking for something.
The review function.

Cons

It's nearly impossible to get an audience over there - which is a HUGE setback.
If someone actually does review, the likelihood that they'll give you some useful advice is like nil.

Fanstory.com
Pros

They guarentee at least three reviews per entry, be it a chapter or a poem or a short story.
The people who review are hardcore writers and they want to help you improve.
People who have and do post on their site have actually published books and made money.

Cons

It costs like $6 a month to keep your writing style account.
The way the site is organized is like looking at a lake of fire and brimstone and being told that you have to traverse it without shoes. Seriously, it would take a million years to find something good to read there.

I get emails from the fanstory people all the time asking me to join them on a more perminant basis. I only have a review style account there - which is free. And I've tried to find something to read there to see if I like the site, the process reminds me of doing something like this: You walk into your local library and head to the fantasy section. You can't see the books, and so you can't see the binding, or the covers. Instead you simply grab a stack of books and sit down reading the backs of them until you find something interesting, except that it's poorly written, uninteresting and as if to add insult to injury - it's also unfinished. The author's there are no better than anywhere else and they update when they feel like it - it could be months before you get the next chapter. And because everything isn't written at the same time, it's inconsistant. The author grows up as a person inbetween chapters because they wait so long between things. How agrivating - no wonder no one wants to read original fiction online. It takes forever to get into, because they are brand new characters in a brand new situation. Drive me up the wall! I seriously want everyone who writes online to be as dedicated as me.

You know what would fix everyone good? If they had to FINISH their story before they could start posting the first chapters. There would be about a tenth as many stories online because the lazy writer's muse would die before they finished - and they'd never get to post any chapters.

Anyway, I have a story I'm going to try to release on fictionpress.com after I release 'Mark of a Goddess' on fanfiction.net. I'm going to advertise it hardcore and see if I can get a following. I really doubt it, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Writing Down in Flames

2006-05-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've decided what I'm going to use this blog for. I'm thinking I'll tear down my forum at fanfiction.net that discusses writing and only discuss writing philosophy here. I've been noticing that I've been dedicating too much of Wild Moon Swings to my discussions about writing, so I am going to use this new blog to discuss writing and my opinions about it. I'll use Wild Moon Swings for ranting - like I'm supposed to. hahahahaha.

So, right now I'm going to brainstorm 15 things about writing and then I'll take off for tonight.

Brainstorming
Post Modernism
Story Boards
Settings
Songfics
Poemfics
Perspective
Character Development
Character Descriptions
Business Writing
Style
Professional Writing
Fanfiction Online
Original Fiction Online
Essays
Poetry
Novels
Series
Plays
Genres

Holy crap - I got 20. Never would have guessed. Okay, so we've got twenty. That should keep me busy for about three weeks. Excellent. Cheers!

Starting a New Blog

2006-05-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

Why am I doing this? I know why I'm doing this - because writing on a blog makes me feel better about journal writing, so I thought I'd give it a try. I may delete it if I don't like it.