Saturday, March 3, 2012

Step 6: Reinspiration

I refuse to give up on making this blog an important part of my creative process regarding my writing.

An update: I have started writing the next chapter/section in my notebook. Too much of a hiatus on this has occurred, and it pains me to admit it. I've been distracted by a lot of things, and a lot of free time has been wasted. I shall attempt to finish writing the first chapter in the next couple of days so that I can complete the electronic transcript of what I've written thus far this coming week.

I will be making a list of officially sanctioned characters from other people for use in the story so I may have their permission to not change names.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Step 5: Happy Accidents

Sometimes when you're writing something great just happens to flow out of your head. This happened to me near the end of chapter 1 today, when I was writing my first in-depth use of Monan magic. I've decided that I like the concept of Mona having a sort of willpower to work alongside or against the mage using the spell. Here's how the spell was written:

“Sorry, Matthew, just keep them busy,” Leya shouted, as she fell to her knees and placed her palms flat on the tunnel floor. The ground was very warm. It did not take magic for Leya to realize that they were close to a magma chamber. She willed herself calm, and opened the channels within her that she’d been trained to utilize. She felt the planet’s energies beneath and around her, and mixed a little of her own in with them. She pushed her energy through those channels down through her arms and into the earth, feeling it dissipate as it entered the thick rock. Not breaking contact with the stone, Leya willed the floor to shift. She needed a distraction, and she needed something to separate the dryders. She did not need to kill them, or even get rid of all of them, but she needed to close off the tunnel.

She could feel the planet’s reaction - it had just the thing in mind. A heavy gust of wind played havoc with the dust and dirt in the tunnel as a terrible rumbling began underfoot. Matthew, locked in melee with at least three dryders, slowly pulled the group back away from the queue of monsters behind them, as the rumbling intensified. The floor erupted behind the front line of dryders, lava bursting into the tunnel and flowing down in the direction of the multi-legged army. Shrieks of terror and confusion echoed piercingly through the tunnel as the dryders scuttled back as quickly as they could. Despite their need of fire and their cultivation of heat, lava was still lava, and dryders seemed to burn easily.
Just a post to show I've been working. Took some time off for Christmas and the new year, though. But after working in my notebook at school again, I've rediscovered a need to work on this. That, in itself, is a happy accident.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Step 4: Spacing

I've continued to write in my notebook, and I'm enjoying every minute of it. I haven't written on the comp to finish chapter 1 yet, but that's okay. Sometimes you just have to write where you feel the inspiration. I was able to smoothly utilize a dream sequence insert. That's kind of cool. I haven't written the sequence yet, but it's really easily slipped in at this point.

Woo!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Step 3: Continuing

So I went out of town for Thanksgiving and my great-grandmother's 100th birthday. Obviously being able to work on my story in continuity is far more difficult when I don't have access to my computer. So I decided to take a notebook and do more world planning and even write some stuff.

I wound up starting to write right where I think the first chapter leaves off, and I'm up to 8 or 9 handwritten pages. I've been using spare time at school to write in it, as well. Eventually I'll transfer all of it to the computer and start writing something else in the notebook. I haven't had much drive to finish the first chapter because I've been writing this, but at least it's keeping me on track about writing something in general.

I'll probably do more work on the first chapter this weekend, and maybe even finish it. It's got (*counts*) two more scenes. Shouldn't really take me long to finish, it all just depends on how sidetracked I get over the weekend.

Cheers!
Tig

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Step 2: A Beginning

It's clear from the two following excerpts that I've grown as a writer. The first excerpt was a rewrite that was done two or three years ago. The main point was to display that Matthew (known as Reaper in the previous version) was rather annoyed with Leya's whining. I think I got the point across rather bluntly, but perhaps too omnisciently. Here's the first excerpt:

“Of all places to be during the summer, in the middle of a heat wave,” a young, vividly active woman said as she and a sturdy young man walked through red-hot flames inside a giant underground maze. The walls seemed to throb with intense heat, and the floor burned through their hide boots. The fact that they both wore heavy robes as elemental protection did not help matters.

“Quiet, Leya,” the young man scolded over his shoulder, as he was leading the way. "We don't need any unwanted visitors. I'm not in the mood for fire motes today."

Leya wiped her brow with the sleeve of her tunic. "Hey, this was your idea, not mine, Matthew. I have you to thank for my drenched tunic."

Matthew turned on her quickly. “Leya, call me Reaper. How many times have I told you that? We’re almost to the shrine’s center. Just be a little patient, will you?” he added, wiping his brow with his robe. “Sweat is good for your pores, you know.”

Reaper heard a dry laugh from behind him. "Sweating is good for your pores, but dehydration isn't good for anything. Unless, of course, you're aiming to store my meat for later meals."

"I don't eat Monans. You know that." Reaper bared a fang in a grimace back at his traveling companion.

"I don't know anything about foreign vampires, Reaper. Don't give me that look," Leya replied in defiance.



Now, here is the current version. In this newer rendition, I tried to keep the concept of "Leya annoys Matthew" but this time, less blatantly than before. After all, they'd been traveling together for a while and by now Matthew would be pretty used to her. She's not really that whiny, but it was a pretty bad condition for them to be in:

“Leya, I don’t like it any more than you do,” the man she traveled with said with the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice, “but Mitchell was still days away. It was just faster for us to get it ourselves and bring it to him. If you didn’t want to help, you shouldn’t have volunteered.”

The woman named Leya gave a harumph and pushed her dark bangs out of her eyes - they were plastered to her head, but were just long enough to get annoying when drenched with sweat. “I missed the action last time, Matt, I’m not missing it this time.”

“I told you to call me Matthew. You still won’t tell me what you mean by that,” the man she’d called Matt replied. “Just what is your relation to the incident two years ago, anyway?”

“Another time, please,” Leya replied in a pained whisper, “it’s too hot to talk here. Can we stop for a quick sip?” Before Matthew could reply, Leya brought her pack down from her shoulder and pulled out a skein of water.



Another note on this: yes, Matthew is a vampire, but he's a Monan vampire - in the new version of the story, this is fleshed out far better, and is kept a secret early on. That's why the second quote here has no mention of it.

After comparing the two, I've realized that I've made it more important that Matthew was annoyed in the original rendition. It's present in the newer version, but it's not nearly as relevant to their discussion. I think I'm okay with that.

Also, I'm dreadfully sorry about the lack of paragraphing - blogspot's editor has terrible formatting options. I'm trying to figure out how to do this without doublespacing everything.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Step 1: Introductions

Welcome to my new blog, which I hope to use as a tool to help myself get back into the swing of my creativity. My muse has been AWOL for a couple of years, which is a real shame. I have an entire world inside my head, and I am determined now to utilize it in a meaningful way.

A quick overview on me:

My name is Adam, and I currently live in the southern part of the United States. I graduated from college with a music education degree, and vastly enjoy mucking about on things like video games. I have a far more creative side, which I have failed to utilize well for the past 24 months or so. I am an amateur cartoonist and writer, and hopefully this blog will help me realize some potential on my writing.

About this blog:

This blog will serve two purposes: First and foremost, I will use it as a means of "Showing off" which allows me to receive feedback and show that I've actually done any work on my large-scale projects, most (if not all) of which involve my fictional world - this will keep me engaged in the projects and hopefully help me accomplish something worthwhile; Second, this blog will provide a way for people who are genuinely interested to catch snippets of what I'm writing, and give me actual critiques. I will sometimes post things I am proud of, and others that I am having great difficulty with. Maybe with some outside critique, I can eventually get something done.

I welcome you to join me in my journey to produce something that the world has never seen.