Thursday, November 7, 2013
Writing takes motivation!
Oh dear. You know how many stories have been running around in my head for years and never managed to write? I'll give you a hint - I don't even know! The problem is writing takes constant motivation, which I just don't always have. I need something like Nanowrimo (or just a straight up deadline) to get anything done. I honestly want to be a writer someday, but I know I'm going to have to find somebody to read/comment on my work on a pretty much constant basis, so that I have deadlines for finishing things (anybody want to volunteer?)
So. For stories that I haven't written/finished:
All of this kind of assumes that one day I will have time to write something that's NOT scholarly (seriously, I am starting to hate this paper/week class. I only have three left, but I dread going to class every. Single. Week.)
So. For stories that I haven't written/finished:
- I technically "finished" this one for Nanowrimo 2011, but Transdimensional Lending Library needs some pretty epic editing, as well as at least one sequel to make any kind of sense.
- I am DETERMINED to rewrite my Sleeping Beauty retelling from Diehl's class in 2010.
- Somebody (probably me) needs to write a musical steampunk story. I'm thinking Mozart + automatons here guys. It would be AWESOME.
- I also have an idea that's about us, though mine is more about what our time at Hogwarts would have been like. I've been going to write it for a Christmas present for ya'll for years, and it just never seems to happen. Maybe one day!
All of this kind of assumes that one day I will have time to write something that's NOT scholarly (seriously, I am starting to hate this paper/week class. I only have three left, but I dread going to class every. Single. Week.)
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
So much to write so little time
I'm doing NaNo this year for the first time ever! And I'm very excited about it. So far, I haven't met the 1,600 words a day mark. But I have a friend who wants to finish her novel this year but can't do NaNo's rigorous schedule. So, we set ourselves to doing 750 words a day, which so far I've been able to surpass, so that's exciting.
I don't really have a story I would love to write "if I had the time." I expect eventually I will get finished what I'm aiming for. There is one story however that I'm not sure I have the know-how to write. It's just so in depth and there's so much research and stuff I'm going to have to put into it, and even then I'm not sure how I can piece everything together.
The story itself is a trilogy following three different characters living our world where werewolves and vampires have been living secretly for centuries, trying to integrate themselves into human society and hiding from our governments which know of their existence and have been keeping the truth secret from the public. Additionally, there's an underground human movement to protect and provide aid for vampires and werewolves who need it. Finally, there's an independent hunters group that is working to hunt and kill the undead.
There's just so many intricate working parts, and I don't know how it all works and interacts. And it's complicated, and I just don't know if my brain can handle it. It's in there, and I want to write it, but we'll have to see.
I don't really have a story I would love to write "if I had the time." I expect eventually I will get finished what I'm aiming for. There is one story however that I'm not sure I have the know-how to write. It's just so in depth and there's so much research and stuff I'm going to have to put into it, and even then I'm not sure how I can piece everything together.
The story itself is a trilogy following three different characters living our world where werewolves and vampires have been living secretly for centuries, trying to integrate themselves into human society and hiding from our governments which know of their existence and have been keeping the truth secret from the public. Additionally, there's an underground human movement to protect and provide aid for vampires and werewolves who need it. Finally, there's an independent hunters group that is working to hunt and kill the undead.
There's just so many intricate working parts, and I don't know how it all works and interacts. And it's complicated, and I just don't know if my brain can handle it. It's in there, and I want to write it, but we'll have to see.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Awesome But Little Known Fairy Tales are my Bread and Butter
Damn it, I missed my own topic again! Le sigh. In my defense, though, moving and full time job and NaNo, yada yada yada.
Anyway, at any given moment, I have a multitude of stories clamoring for attention in my head. It gets very loud and very confusing. Once the story is written, the clamoring goes away, but the moment that happens, there’s always a new story idea waiting to take its place.
So! My ongoing, hypothetical works in progress are as follows:
-My massive Next Gen universe that talked about a few weeks ago, and all the individuals stories that entails.
-A Sherlock fanfiction that I really need to finish because if I don’t finish it soon, I’m not going to finish it at all, thank you inability to write against canon.
-An anthology of short stories called Reimagined that will contain all my fairy tale ideas that aren’t long enough to be full length novels. At current count, this will contain nine stories. Two of them are written.
But my current project is my NaNo novel. It’s called Minstrel Queen, at the moment, and it is a retelling of “The Lute Player.” Never heard of it? I am saddened but not surprised. No one has. Which is a massive shame because this story is amazing. It’s been a while since I’ve written a fairy tale According to Cassie, so let’s jump into that.
The Lute Player – According to Cassie
So basically, there’s this king. And he decides that, for some reason, he absolutely has to go to war. No one has attacked him; he’s just got his heart set on leading a crusade against the heathen land somewhere off in the distance. So he rides off, leaving his wife and kingdom behind.
And then he gets killed. Or at least, that’s what everyone thinks, and everyone mourns him. For three years. During which time, the queen never leaves her chamber, and apparently, no one ever worries about putting anyone else on the throne. For some reason.
But then, the queen gets a note from the king. He’s not dead, just captured. He’s in a dungeon, and he’s asking her to sell their castle and lands and empty the treasury to put together a king’s ransom and spring him from imprisonment. But the queen, being the most intelligent character in this story, looks at that suggestion and thinks it’s really dumb, presumably for the following reasons:
Her idea is this: she disguises herself as a minstrel boy, and journeys off in secret to find her husband. Using only her wits and her music, she makes her way to the heathen land, and when she arrives, she heads straight for the palace and begins to sing.
Her music is so beautiful and enchanting that the heathen king immediately offers her anything she wishes as payment for gracing them with her song. This seems like a really dangerous promise for a king to make, but the kings haven’t shown themselves to be the smartest creatures around, so . . .
But the queen does not take advantage of this. Instead, she says that her journey is a lonely one, and could she have a prisoner from the dungeon to be her traveling companion? Because this woman is cunning, conniving, and intelligent, ladies and gentlemen.
She is taken to the dungeons, she finds her husband, she says “That one,” and without paying a single penny, raising a single suspicion, or attacking a single person, she and the king leave the heathen country for their own.
But here’s the thing. Her husband doesn’t recognize her.
On the one hand, it’s understandable. It’s been three years. She’s disguised as a boy. She’s the last person he expects to come spring him out of jail. They’re in a dungeon, and it’s dark.
But even once they are out in the daylight, he doesn’t recognize her, and she decides to keep her secret for reasons not made clear to us in the story.
When they reach their kingdom, the king “reveals” to her that, hey, he’s actually a king! And he will reward her for what she’s done with anything she can ask for. Again, really stupid promise for a king to make. But all she asks for is his trust and his love.
They part ways. She runs back through the forest and gets to the palace first. She decks herself out as a queen again, and goes into the throne room to wait for his return and, presumably, that jolt of recognition of Hey! It was my wife who saved my ass! She’s awesome, and I will make sure everyone knows it!
But, sadly, the queen married an idiot. And he still doesn’t recognize her, and worse than that, he starts denouncing her in front of the whole court. She’s a horrible human being, she’s selfish and thoughtless and cares nothing for her king. She’s a treasonous traitor because she let him languish in prison and didn’t do a thing to help.
It’s at this point in the story that we should correctly identify that the king is assuming an awful lot of things:
A. That his message made it to the queen.
B. That she would have been able to raise the money and send it to him in the time elapsed.
C. That the heathen king he went to war against for being a heathen would have immediately freed him upon receiving ransom money.
Understand, he’s asked no questions of her. No, “Hey, did you get my note?” No, “Hey, did you send anyone to try and negociate my release?” No, “Hey, I’m happy to see I still have a kingdom to rule. How’d you manage that, by the way?” No. He just jumps right in and calls her a traitor. Doesn’t even give her a chance to defend herself. He just shuns her and meets with his minsters to talk about her punishment.
And the Queen? Well, she slips from the room, returns to her chambers, puts back on her minstrel clothes, grabs her lute, and goes out into the courtyard to play.
Immediately, the king goes, “Go get that minstrel boy and bring him here! He’s the one I have to thank; he saved my life!”
So the Queen, in disguise, is brought before everyone, and pulls her cloak back to reveal who she actually is. The court, unlike the king, recognize her immediately. To his credit, though, he does, too, this time, and he falls down on his knees and begs her forgiveness. She grants it, and they rule together for the rest of their lives.
I love this story, but I do have some questions. I threw lots of the ones I have in above, but as I’m retelling the story, I’m answering even more. I follow Cecy, the minstrel queen, from the age of six through the end of her fairy tale, rescuing her husband, becoming a great queen, etc. But I’m trying to make the king a little more sympathetic, and I’m trying to make the love Cecy has for him feel a little realer. My ending also won’t be quite so neat and easy for King Rowland.
But that’s my project this month. We’ll see how it goes. Only 44,000 words to go, give or take!
Anyway, at any given moment, I have a multitude of stories clamoring for attention in my head. It gets very loud and very confusing. Once the story is written, the clamoring goes away, but the moment that happens, there’s always a new story idea waiting to take its place.
So! My ongoing, hypothetical works in progress are as follows:
-My massive Next Gen universe that talked about a few weeks ago, and all the individuals stories that entails.
-A Sherlock fanfiction that I really need to finish because if I don’t finish it soon, I’m not going to finish it at all, thank you inability to write against canon.
-An anthology of short stories called Reimagined that will contain all my fairy tale ideas that aren’t long enough to be full length novels. At current count, this will contain nine stories. Two of them are written.
But my current project is my NaNo novel. It’s called Minstrel Queen, at the moment, and it is a retelling of “The Lute Player.” Never heard of it? I am saddened but not surprised. No one has. Which is a massive shame because this story is amazing. It’s been a while since I’ve written a fairy tale According to Cassie, so let’s jump into that.
The Lute Player – According to Cassie
So basically, there’s this king. And he decides that, for some reason, he absolutely has to go to war. No one has attacked him; he’s just got his heart set on leading a crusade against the heathen land somewhere off in the distance. So he rides off, leaving his wife and kingdom behind.
And then he gets killed. Or at least, that’s what everyone thinks, and everyone mourns him. For three years. During which time, the queen never leaves her chamber, and apparently, no one ever worries about putting anyone else on the throne. For some reason.
But then, the queen gets a note from the king. He’s not dead, just captured. He’s in a dungeon, and he’s asking her to sell their castle and lands and empty the treasury to put together a king’s ransom and spring him from imprisonment. But the queen, being the most intelligent character in this story, looks at that suggestion and thinks it’s really dumb, presumably for the following reasons:
- If she sells the castle and the kingdom, what exactly is he hoping to come home and rule?
- If the heathen king hasn’t demanded a ransom/killed her husband already, what is the likelihood that he’s aware he’s got another king in his dungeon?
- Related to that, if he isn’t aware, isn’t showing up with a kingdom’s worth of gold gonna be pretty suspicious and give this king grounds to demand even more?
- Who are you gonna sell the kingdom to, who are you going to trust to take that much money into foreign lands, and how are you gonna transport it?
Her idea is this: she disguises herself as a minstrel boy, and journeys off in secret to find her husband. Using only her wits and her music, she makes her way to the heathen land, and when she arrives, she heads straight for the palace and begins to sing.
Her music is so beautiful and enchanting that the heathen king immediately offers her anything she wishes as payment for gracing them with her song. This seems like a really dangerous promise for a king to make, but the kings haven’t shown themselves to be the smartest creatures around, so . . .
But the queen does not take advantage of this. Instead, she says that her journey is a lonely one, and could she have a prisoner from the dungeon to be her traveling companion? Because this woman is cunning, conniving, and intelligent, ladies and gentlemen.
She is taken to the dungeons, she finds her husband, she says “That one,” and without paying a single penny, raising a single suspicion, or attacking a single person, she and the king leave the heathen country for their own.
But here’s the thing. Her husband doesn’t recognize her.
On the one hand, it’s understandable. It’s been three years. She’s disguised as a boy. She’s the last person he expects to come spring him out of jail. They’re in a dungeon, and it’s dark.
But even once they are out in the daylight, he doesn’t recognize her, and she decides to keep her secret for reasons not made clear to us in the story.
When they reach their kingdom, the king “reveals” to her that, hey, he’s actually a king! And he will reward her for what she’s done with anything she can ask for. Again, really stupid promise for a king to make. But all she asks for is his trust and his love.
They part ways. She runs back through the forest and gets to the palace first. She decks herself out as a queen again, and goes into the throne room to wait for his return and, presumably, that jolt of recognition of Hey! It was my wife who saved my ass! She’s awesome, and I will make sure everyone knows it!
But, sadly, the queen married an idiot. And he still doesn’t recognize her, and worse than that, he starts denouncing her in front of the whole court. She’s a horrible human being, she’s selfish and thoughtless and cares nothing for her king. She’s a treasonous traitor because she let him languish in prison and didn’t do a thing to help.
It’s at this point in the story that we should correctly identify that the king is assuming an awful lot of things:
A. That his message made it to the queen.
B. That she would have been able to raise the money and send it to him in the time elapsed.
C. That the heathen king he went to war against for being a heathen would have immediately freed him upon receiving ransom money.
Understand, he’s asked no questions of her. No, “Hey, did you get my note?” No, “Hey, did you send anyone to try and negociate my release?” No, “Hey, I’m happy to see I still have a kingdom to rule. How’d you manage that, by the way?” No. He just jumps right in and calls her a traitor. Doesn’t even give her a chance to defend herself. He just shuns her and meets with his minsters to talk about her punishment.
And the Queen? Well, she slips from the room, returns to her chambers, puts back on her minstrel clothes, grabs her lute, and goes out into the courtyard to play.
Immediately, the king goes, “Go get that minstrel boy and bring him here! He’s the one I have to thank; he saved my life!”
So the Queen, in disguise, is brought before everyone, and pulls her cloak back to reveal who she actually is. The court, unlike the king, recognize her immediately. To his credit, though, he does, too, this time, and he falls down on his knees and begs her forgiveness. She grants it, and they rule together for the rest of their lives.
I love this story, but I do have some questions. I threw lots of the ones I have in above, but as I’m retelling the story, I’m answering even more. I follow Cecy, the minstrel queen, from the age of six through the end of her fairy tale, rescuing her husband, becoming a great queen, etc. But I’m trying to make the king a little more sympathetic, and I’m trying to make the love Cecy has for him feel a little realer. My ending also won’t be quite so neat and easy for King Rowland.
But that’s my project this month. We’ll see how it goes. Only 44,000 words to go, give or take!
Crackle It Goes
I wanted to weigh in briefly on last week's topic: a finished attic with golden hardwood floors and gabled windows.
This week: Are any of you familiar with my Lightning Farmer concept? It began as quite fantastic: a society that opperates under the assumption that the world is governed by the laws of the Story. History does not loop but is assumed to be cyclical: every few generations there is a Hero, an Enemy, and a War. It began in my head with a supernatural aspect; higher beings that weighed in on the Story and influenced it based on their favored champions much like mythology.
Now I think the supernatural bit is unnecessary, because the characters have enough to deal with as they wrestle with the roles that have been thrust on them as members of the Story. Without those higher beings it is only society that puts people into categories of Hero or cannon fodder, and who are they to make that decision? People behave almost like those constantly conquered rat people from Dr. Who rather than stand and defend themselves and their homes because they're ordinary and it's not their role, it's the Hero's.
I'm toying with making the main character actually not the main character because the point is that most people dismiss her (which makes me think of the Wheel of Time's method of story telling).
On another note I saw Ender's Game yesterday and am halfway through the book.
Love you!
Saturday, November 2, 2013
So Many...
I really do wish I had the time to do NaNoWriMo. There are numerous stories in my head that I would love to flush out, if for no other reason than I've only ever completely finished ONE of my novel-length story ideas. It's not even a very good one, either...
First and foremost would be my Oz / Wonderland / Neverland series. I'm pretty sure everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? It started in senior year of undergrad as a final project for Heath Diehl's (Re)Visioning Oz class, a class that I had to drop. The story idea, however, has remained, and I've been slowly working on it bit by bit. The trouble is, there are still some major plot points that I still can't decide upon, along with relationships between the characters that my head refuses to finalize. Only when I finish with Oz can I move on to Wonderland, and only after Wonderland is done will I be able to start brainstorming for Neverland. Maybe someday, when I'm all established...
But I also have a set of characters that I would love to write a story about, I just don't know what that story will be yet. Basically...erm...they're kind of based on us. I have sketches done already, and character profiles, but what I'm going to do with them is still up in the air completely (or...should I say up in my head...?). I'm going back and forth between doing a fluffed-up version of our lives in undergrad or doing something ridiculous and putting things like werewolves, fairies, goblins, and other fantastical creatures in there too. I think it would be cool to do a semi-autobiographical series, but that just sounds so BORING!! I'm not used to writing things that have nothing to do with magic or ancient times or enchanted this-and-thats.
There are a couple of others, but those are the big two. I have a set of comic ideas that I would love to work on as well - just little comic strips about my animals and the idiocy of daily life with goofy pets. BUT I'm horrible at drawing animals, so that means practicing, and practicing takes time...which I don't have much of in the way of "free" time.
I love these topics, where we get to spout off about our artistic endeavors. I can't wait to read the rest of yours! Have good weeks, and I love you guys!
Friday, November 1, 2013
It's NaNoWriMo Time!
Hey there! Topic time!
So, it's November, which for me means it's NaNoWriMo. I'm setting out to write 50,000 words this month. I may be crazy.
Here's the topic:
What story is in your head that you'd love to tell if you had the time?
So, it's November, which for me means it's NaNoWriMo. I'm setting out to write 50,000 words this month. I may be crazy.
Here's the topic:
What story is in your head that you'd love to tell if you had the time?
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