Reading and Writing, October 11

[scribblemyname]

This entry is part 10 of 10 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So this morning was one of those mornings where feeling weird and what-have-you, I skipped straight past anything I ought to do and went and read Beneath Ceaseless Skies on my morning work break. It's a double issue. Then I dug through my email and dug up Laurie's story instead of waiting until I was at home this weekend where I already have it saved.

When I feel weird, I read. That's me. When I hurt, I fanfic or write an angsty poem. Otherwise, I write. I wonder what that says about how often I feel weird.

So I finished Laurie's story. Awesomeness. Then I finished editing all 13,574 words of story from inferno goodness—which I only say because it's done. Unfinished stories are not good. They taunt and tease and bother me. This is the first novelette I've written ever. Now, of course, I want to typeset it and publish it, which requires getting a Rachelle-worthy cover which makes me need to buy a stock photo I don't have, which would imply the need for a Kickstarter-type campaign, but this is micro-funding on a micro, micro, micro scale, so…

Thinking.

Maybe I ought to write. Hm. Nope, first I read through the ficlets from thecatisacritic. I'm glad too. I'm still not all that settled down for writing.

Talking with the beta yesterday about maybe doing Nano, which would mean picking a story for it. I'm all over the map on what I'd want to do: Collateral Damage, the Seven Days book, or something in Vardin, or seriously, Lovemark the Seasons. So yeah, on the fence there.

I edited and finalized a story. I'll write more this weekend. Bad me, but it's Friday, so no after-work scribble-time was available anyway.

Count

• Total Fiction: 0 words - Month to Date: 13,881 words
• Total Blog: 291 words - Month to Date: 5,495 words

Finalized Pieces

• "Dowse and Bleed," Kingdoms and Thorn, 13,574 words

Download article as PDF

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I hate those weird moods. They're impossible to do stuff in. I can't read when I get weird, though, so I go into shutdown mode and play video games. I can usually still write when I'm upset (though some of that stuff would never, ever be shown to anyone and should be burned because it's that dark) and it's when I can't write that I worry.

So... Now that Dowse and Bleed is done, I get to read it, right?

I wish I could help with the cover. We got a few stock photos that ended up in a few serial covers, but I don't think any of them are Rachelle, and technically... that wasn't me that got them. I've been trying to keep up with the free images from shutterstock just because, but I only got one that was a person, and again, not Rachelle.

I've been thinking about doing Nano again, too. I can't help you off the fence because I'd be good with you doing Collateral Damage, Seven Days, and probably even Lovemark the Seasons.

[scribblemyname]

I've been there too, where I had nothing I want to read. I can fanfic when I'm upset, but I usually can't write because I can't immerse in it when I'm still immersed in my own hurt. :shrugs: Everyone's different.

Of course! I just haven't figured out whether to email it to you or post it like I ought to. I think I'll email it. Probably.

If I was going to cast Rachelle, it'd be Sarah Gadon (stole the character originally from that actress in Mutant X and a couple other things, though boy did she morph from there), but I haven't found a single picture that matches HER or her perpetual attitude.

Somehow that list does not surprise me.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I think, for me, it's because I tend to use writing as a way out of things instead of a way into them. That probably explains why I can do it almost all the time. Like you said, though, everyone's different.

Email is fine.

I never did watch Mutant X. I think I wanted to, but that was back when we didn't get tv at all.

Yeah, it's hard to find pictures for covers. It seems that the trouble with stock photos is that they tend to be geared toward advertising and Rachelle's attitude isn't one that they'd use for that so much. Sometimes I just go search for the type of person and the emotions I need, but it's come up dry a few times. (It was impossible to find anything I could use for Quinn and the others. :( They just don't do teens like I needed.)

Well, I am kind of predictable. Those are the worlds I'm comfortable/familiar with.

[scribblemyname]

The first season of Mutant X was good; the rest sucked so bad I wanted to wash my eyes out. Loved the cast though, even Emma, who I hated with fiery intense passion in Christy.

Sarah Gadon was a bit character. Unfortunately she dyed her hair blonde and changed her appearance by the time she actually was famous enough to get a lot of pictures out on the web, but here's the one I pinned for my own use: http://31.media.tumblr.com/35f58efd540b25323cdf8a1c3bb7cf2b/tumblr_mqes4qS8ow1qkfy4jo1_500.png. It's not her braid or ponytail or those gorgeous lovelocks, but the angle and the hair color and the look worked.

I think you'd probably like Breath and Mirror (once I write more in it), but Breath runs the problem of not being cohesive. Almost every single piece is a one-off.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Some shows are like that.

That is a nice picture.

I don't know. What I saw of Breath was myths, and I don't do myths. I did like Ever in Love, though, but I didn't get the poems.

[scribblemyname]

Thus, my comment on after I get some of Mirror actually written.

I wrote one myth for Breath: Night Bride. Nothing else was myths at all.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Maybe after you finish more of your big projects.

I guess I thought that Soul one with the cat cover was a part of breath, something about a jaguar was, too, and I have to admit, the summary and title of "Baker of Souls" was off putting to me. The idea of man being a living soul and God originally breathing life into him made me not want to touch that at all.

[scribblemyname]

Ah. Well, I'm Christian so I believe in souls. Nevertheless, it is quite divorced from religious context here, but you are right that if you don't want to deal with souls, then stay out of this storyworld because I played with breath instead of genes here and the people often call it soul.

The cat was part of Breath, but I have yet to publish that myth, which is like Night Bride, a myth within the storyworld, meaning even the people in the story think it's a myth and most don't believe in it. It's unlike because it actually was a real event that was very not mythic when it occurred. It's interesting to me sometimes to play with the difference between reality as it was and how my characters understand it or hear about it. But I don't do it often.

Jaguar was the name of a girl in an unfinished story. She's no myth to put it mildly.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I believe people are souls.

I do think I'll stay out of that storyworld.

I've done some minor exploration of that myself: Trystan studied myths and there's one that comes up a lot in that story about a woman whose tears created the world, but none of them really believe in it, it's just something they grew up with. There's also a few mentioned here and there in other stories (that's how I figured I could call some of them fantasies even if they defy the usual definition of that genre.)

[scribblemyname]

So we're in agreement in general, but as the people don't understand how it works, there you have it.

I don't blame you for staying out on the basis of we don't want to actually find out where we differ, though I still admit to thinking if that weren't an issue, you'd like the world.

And for the record, that's how all my myths are. As I said, I'm Christian, and I don't even touch origin stories.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

In general, I do like people with advanced abilities/powers, but I have lines about where and how they get those abilities as to what I will and won't read, and even some abilities that I won't read about.

I've only touched on a few things with myths to show the differences between worlds, but I try not to go too far into them, and the woman who wept that created all the water in Trystan's world is not their origin story. It's more about the picture that hangs in the castle that led to Trystan learning a painful secret about his mother and the fact that Anson thinks Lodi looks kind of like it (a claim that Trystan denies and isn't true, it was just the dress that was similar.)

[scribblemyname]

I think the major line here is the one I have to remember sometimes exists: the implication thereof. It's not always how something works, but how it seems to work. I don't have a problem with people misinterpreting me and will take my own merry time to get it untangled in fic, which is why I can deal with the rothnen (their world is too big and too different to be able to address all potential concerns before I novel it) and things that seem like fantasy (Vardin, Breath, etc.) that actually aren't at all. I don't have a line about implications, which is why I don't care if your fic implies all sorts of things you work on clarifying to the nth degree.

Again, everyone's different, and it certainly doesn't bother me if you don't read the world. Breath doesn't promote investment in it because it doesn't actually stick with any character or set of characters. Which makes it even harder to explain much of anything about how the world works when the people themselves don't know how the world works, just think they do.

Come to think of it, Faeology would be more up your alley, but again, there just ain't enough of it yet. I put that book on hold when I realized that Kingdoms and Thorn was exploding. Faeology takes the idea of "fairies" and says what if this was actually a crash landing by a spaceship on an icebound world and "fairies," etc. were all actually nanobots? The only issue you'd have with that one is that the characters call it magic, even though it isn't. So there's that. That implication line.

Yup. I think you're stuck with K&T and Seven.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I can't do implication. I have to know that it's not one of those things that bothers my conscience, or I won't go forward with it. Granted, my lines are convoluted, but I also have that line about stumbling someone else in the back of my mind, too, and I just can't be less than clear in what I write and what I read.

I don't think I'd like that world very much for that reason as well: I am a person who likes to read about people I care about. The world is never as interesting to me as the people in it, so I don't think I'd enjoy one that doesn't have that connection.

I read the blurb about Faeology, and I thought about it, but I couldn't read it with them calling it magic.

So, yeah, stuck with those two, I guess.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments on my story. <3

[scribblemyname]

No problem at all! I love reading your stuff and would've gotten there a lot sooner if I hadn't initially lost it in the inbox!

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

The thing about Laurie is that my heart hurts when I write her. I'm a method actor, right? So I want to be in character to portray what she's feeling. It's difficult to write a lot of her all at once. Unlike Denny, who's so go with the flow that it's easy. Even Tom is tougher than DJ, because he's got that analytical mind. Ugh, universe, these characters. I love them all and wouldn't swap out a single one, but that doesn't mean they're easy.

[scribblemyname]

I have some stories and characters like that. Note that the Thorn Rebellion fic is still on the back burner. Ah, well.

I can see that about Denny. He just flows so well, and then Laurie doesn't. She's stop and go and that's why she and Denny ended up breaking up in the first place, but I admit to knowing that they're better growing from each other and moving on, but in the first part of Laurie's story, I ship them so hard because as a reader, I'm in Laurie and that's talent, my friend. Your method works if I can go from Denny to Laurie and change sides in the argument.

It's hard (like finishing the story from inferno was hard), but so worth it.