The truth is, I haven't done much in the last few weeks. My day job has been stressful and full to bursting with daily tasks, so I haven't had much time to collect my thoughts, sit down, and write. I have tried, mind you, but I've gotten nowhere. Maybe a sentence here, a slight revision there. Overall, nothing. It's frustrating, as I managed to find the enthusiasm for it back in November, which was an equally stressful and work-demanding month.
However, two new prospects have arisen: one is a freelance opportunity for which I am awaiting a reply. The other is a new gaming-based adventure story. A friend of mine that I have known for five or six years now has come out of "retirement" from running role playing games in order to run a new fantasy adventure. He met with us potential players last Wednesday to discuss it, and we spent an hour or so brainstorming ideas for the world in which we'll play.
The mistake I made when deciding to write the Laurent saga was choosing to do so well after I had begun to live it on a weekly basis. Many of the early adventures and character nuances were lost on me, and I had to reinvent them, now being more familiar with their further-developed selves. It was liberating in a way, to revisit the early, merciless days of my primary character, but even as I was guiding him through the trials and tribulations that contributed to his change of heart, there was a nagging at the back of my head. I had already gone through it once, and attempting to achieve that fresh, raw exhilaration again was trying. I wanted to do him justice on the page, and give the same sense of world-stopping, heart-changing clarity to his epiphanies that I'd experienced with him firsthand. Many times I rewrote entire passages because they were cozying up to cheesiness rather than the epic justice I was striving toward.
This time, I am prepared. The world is yet unformed, save for the ideas we bandied about last Wednesday. I have a character idea and received feedback for her, and I like where she has the potential to go. We are beginning this epic tale at the beginning - level 1, with barely the clothes on our backs to call our own. Oh, and since our faithful GM is the owner of an internet radio station, we'll be recording all of the gaming sessions, so I can always go back and refresh myself on what happened.
Since the world is a branch of one he has already created, and I am but one of nine people collaborating to create this story, I cannot in good faith take full credit for the plot, nor can I endeavor to publish it traditionally. Instead, it will be the main source of fiction for this blog. Tentatively, I will call it as weekly updates on Thursdays, though that may change as we get into the swing of the games.
You can look forward to many sword-and-board encounters, puzzles, traps, political intrigue among ruling families, and a long, winding adventure.
Stay tuned!
-Em
Monday, January 23, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Hello 2012!
Hello again, all! Glad to see you've survived another New Year's.
I like the holiday a lot, personally. It brings out the weird in people, as they desperately try to compose and then complete last minute, temporary bucket lists that might otherwise not see the light of day. While I myself revel and imbibe, I try to take the time to study whomever I'm with - and usually it's a whole mess of people drunkenly trying to make the night memorable. They, and I as well, cling to the words that everyone says, hoping that for once the world will behave like the movies, and some witty one-line catchphrase will escape someone's mouth.
This year's festivities, while memorable on their own, offered me a few snippets here and there that will work their way into my writings. I finally decided on a name for my protagonist for 3.0 (after getting through almost the entirety of chapter one, and a handful of later scenes written out of order, all the while dodging her name), and a few quirks are weaving themselves into her personality.
That said, my outline is still full of question marks after the Big Reveal. I know the choice she has, and the consequences of both (and the subsequent plot lines that could follow), but I have absolutely no idea which she should choose. I suppose I shouldn't worry about it until I get there, but it's the sort of thing that nags at the back of my head when I'm writing. Most of the time, I don't use a formal outline, but almost always do I have an idea of where the story will go, beginning to end, with the really important plot points marking the way. So the fact that I haven't yet decided on an ending is somewhat unusual, and bothersome.
I suppose as I get to know the characters better, things will fall into place. It's an interesting exercise so far, at the least, as I'm writing it in a first person historical present tense. Thus far it has proven itself to be a fun challenge, but I think it effectively gets across the way my protagonist thinks, as I imagine her to be a little stilted, and nearsighted as well.
I like the holiday a lot, personally. It brings out the weird in people, as they desperately try to compose and then complete last minute, temporary bucket lists that might otherwise not see the light of day. While I myself revel and imbibe, I try to take the time to study whomever I'm with - and usually it's a whole mess of people drunkenly trying to make the night memorable. They, and I as well, cling to the words that everyone says, hoping that for once the world will behave like the movies, and some witty one-line catchphrase will escape someone's mouth.
This year's festivities, while memorable on their own, offered me a few snippets here and there that will work their way into my writings. I finally decided on a name for my protagonist for 3.0 (after getting through almost the entirety of chapter one, and a handful of later scenes written out of order, all the while dodging her name), and a few quirks are weaving themselves into her personality.
That said, my outline is still full of question marks after the Big Reveal. I know the choice she has, and the consequences of both (and the subsequent plot lines that could follow), but I have absolutely no idea which she should choose. I suppose I shouldn't worry about it until I get there, but it's the sort of thing that nags at the back of my head when I'm writing. Most of the time, I don't use a formal outline, but almost always do I have an idea of where the story will go, beginning to end, with the really important plot points marking the way. So the fact that I haven't yet decided on an ending is somewhat unusual, and bothersome.
I suppose as I get to know the characters better, things will fall into place. It's an interesting exercise so far, at the least, as I'm writing it in a first person historical present tense. Thus far it has proven itself to be a fun challenge, but I think it effectively gets across the way my protagonist thinks, as I imagine her to be a little stilted, and nearsighted as well.
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