Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Quin. The main character from my nanonovel. He looks just like I picture him, if somewhat scarier. He's a nice boy, though. A severely fucked up drug addict and sometimes corporate assassin (he has to raise his drug money somehow) but a nice boy.
Becky had too much free time at 3:43 PM

Monday, February 25, 2002

Thursday, February 21, 2002

Kaiya (here's the sketch, which I like better, actually). She's cool, yo. I like her outfit.

Ilyan Kelanister, angel of sacrifice. I had fun scribbling to make the background. Mmmm.... Ilyan. My only character with facial hair who isn't evil.
Becky had too much free time at 12:12 PM

Wednesday, February 20, 2002

After reading Vera's writing blog I feel really inspired to talk about the origins of all of my writing. Or rather, a complete history, detailing every major project I have ever attempted, and what became of it.

The first thing I clearly remember writing clearly (aside from this thing and stories required for school), ie, my first Project, was fifth grade or there abouts. I just found the notebook. It frightens me, makes me laugh out loud at myself, and shudder. Lots of shuddering. It was called Crystal Tear, and was about a world that was shaped like a tear, and there was some sort of magic crystal that had been broken, and a group of oh-so-grown-up teenagers (I think the oldest was 15, but give me a break, I'd have been about ten myself) had to find the pieces and put them back together. Which, if fleshed out a little, wouldn't be that bad a plot for a very basic young adult fantasy novel. I remember writing it really clearly, while I was having lunch with Mom in Manos Diner, which is odd, because Mom hates that place. But I was writing at the table and discussing it with her.

I actually pulled that story out, dusted it off, and began rewriting it a few years ago. The writing was better, the plot was not, and I didn't get any farther than I had the first time. (About ten pages.) And its somewhere in the domain, but I'm not telling where. You'll have to find it for yourself.

The next few years, writing wise, are vague. I wrote a lot in my journal for sixth grade, something about a baby sitter and some awful children who were not-so-secretly based on my nephews and niece (sorry, guys, I love you, you know that...). Also, non-journal, something about some people who were sucked into a world that was being destroyed in a fashion that it just now occurred to me was similar to that of The Nothing from The Never Ending Story. I think. All I remember clearly is that there was a troll who spoke like Bizarro Superman, and a thief of some sort. But then, that's more or less a given for me.

So then seventh grade hit. And I started writing a lot. Like, a lot. Rachel helped me come up with a few characters, though I doubt she remembers; their names were Mythan, Breena, and Arant. Eventually this fleshed out into the Land of Seven, with a cast of characters roughly the same size as the number of soldiers who died in the Civil War, and an overarching plot where someone eeeevil was trying to take over the world, and our heroes had to stop him. So plot is a bit of an overstatement. But that overarching thing took place after a series of about fifteen stories about various people from that world, and how they got to be friends, and where they grew up, and...

Ok, I was really proud of this. And I think I had a right to be; for a seventh grader, it was pretty impressive. I wrote volumes about those people. And then, when Evil had been vanquished, I turned to their children and wrote some more. I had the history of that world worked out to about 20,000 years. No, really. There was Jeena and Jevin, and then about 5000 years later, after Jeena almost destroyed the world, Jevery, who put it back together, and then 10,000 years after, the Land of Seven was founded, and maybe four hundred years later were the people I usually wrote about (and Mythan and Breena's daughter put the world back together again. Or destroyed it again. I forget which.)

By this point, I was working 95% on the computer. It was good in that I was far more productive, as I can (and have been able to since about fourth grade) type far faster than I can handwrite, and since my handwriting sucks, it also made things legible. The downside is that I no longer have any of this. It was done on an old green-and-black-screened IBM Compatible, so old it couldn't even be upgraded to Windows. Before we changed computers, I saved it all on disks, of course. Five and a half in floppy disks. It's possible they still exist somewhere, but... Alas, I shall never see my stories again. and I'd love to, just to laugh at myself.

Anyway, as a side note to the Land of Seven were some islands, and they happened to be going through a war for quite a long time, that happened to have been started by a pirate named Islan, and he happened to have a great-great-great-etc. granddaughter named Islana.

The islands were originally a really minor part of the whole Land of Seven deal, and held very little interest for me. Which makes me laugh, because now the islands are my most major project ever, and the mainland is really just a footnote to them.

But after figuring out what happened to Islana (who originally fell in love with the precursor to Dysis, a nice young priest named Khevyn, and incidentally, in the original version, Ocan was a goodguy and more or less filled the same function as Taylin, what with being in love with Islana's mother and all,) I started to write about some other people on the Islands, which by this point, warrented a capital letter. There was Islana's mother, Klea, who (surprisingly) didn't evolve into anyone except for bearing a few very VERY slight similarities to Jereh, and some random kid named Kalin.

I wrote a really short scene with him, and then thought nothing of him for about a year and a half.

My interest in writing was sort of over taken by online RPGs at that point. I wrote about seven stories about a girl named Casadara for a group called Hayalth, as well as a lot of minor characters for her. There were the various Sailor Moon RPGs, not to mention a scarily huge fanfiction that I suspect reached its peak in ninth grade. Ninth grade was also the peak of the Groovy Stories, and those took up a lot of my time. So the Land of Seven died off for the most part, and the Islands didn't really matter either.

The summer between ninth and tenth grade, I went to camp for six weeks. A few days before I left, I was looking through some old files, and found that one of the only things that had made the switch from Old Computer to Less Old Computer was the short scene with Kalin. I thought nothing of it... Until I couldn't get him out of my mind all summer.

I have no idea. Maybe it was devine inspiration. I had planned to spend that summer finishing up my Sailor Moon fanfic, which I never did, and refurbing some of the Land of Seven stuff. (I had just come up with a character named Kaiya, who replaced about half of that cast of six million billion, and with her, cleaned up an antagonist named Daevan, who I luuuuuuuuurve.) It never got beyond the barest planning stages, as that summer I spent falling in love with Kalin and creating Serissa.

I'm not sure how I killed the tenth and eleventh grade. I only occasionally wrote snippets about Kalin (among them the before-the-credits scene from the very first episode) and sometimes Islana; I occasionally brushed off Kaiya and Daevan and their group. I tried my hand at sci fi every now and then. I started Sword of the High King in eleventh grade, which is another fantasy world project, in which there are some elves, someone evil, some jewels... I don't know. I wasn't that worried about plot.)

But most of the way through eleventh grade, I found out I was getting (read: begged my parents to get me) a domain. I had a few things that might count as "content," but they were mostly crappy poetry. Hmmmm, I said to myself, I'll need some content for that thar domain thing-y." So I figured what the heck, I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen to Kalin, so I pulled him out, wrote an outline, and got to work.

After chapter four, the outline and the story parted ways. I sometimes reread the old thing to make myself giggle. I would post what it involved here, but it's just too dumb. Snerk.

Anyway, I began writing like a fiend. Or at least, sort of like a fiend. I wrote about Kalin. A lot. Maybe not quite the same volume as I had about the Land of Seven people, but this was markedly better, had something resembling a "plot" and "characters that didn't suck" and things like that. Ocan and Klea's roles were taken by Taylin and Slenna, who did them quite a good deal better, might I add. I began planning the rewrite of Islana in the back of my mind; Khevyn and Islana weren't in love any more; Khevyn became Dysis, Islana's mother disappeared from my interest all together in favor of... (spoiler). Cleran devoloped, his past changed around three or four times before I liked it, and he became the pathetic wretch we know and (I) love. Oh, and Ocan became eeeeevil.

A year and a half (give or take) later, and Kalin was done, Islana's story began, and that's about where I am now. And, because I'm now pretty sure how Islana's story ends, I'm planning a third season, that will (hopefully) reincorporate some of the original Land of Seven stuff. Maybe.

I'm actually pretty happy with my writing at the moment. It's not great. But for someone my age, it's pretty darned good. It's no where near publishable, yet, but it will be someday. I'm pretty sure of that. I have some things to overcome yet--doing things because they seem like a good idea at the time, even though they royally screw up the whole plot. Oh, and I have to kick the Mercedes Lacky influence. It's a lot more subtle now than it used to be, but having just reread two of her novels, I almost shudder to think of how blatent it is in some ways....

Anyway. Yep. I write a lot. Go me.
Becky had too much free time at 6:36 PM

By the way, and I'm just curious here, does anyone read this page?
Becky had too much free time at 4:12 PM

"Any final words?"
The Knight's voice was cold, but held no accent. Elthis wondered how he knew their language so well, but didn’t care. He didn’t care about much of anything at this point. He'd seen too many people die that night, and knew he was going to be the next.
It wasn't supposed to happen like that. He had caught a few Knights in the forest, was holding them prisoner. But apparently, their leader—whoever he was—wasn't going to stand back and watch their executions. They hadn't been prepared for the strike. They still had no idea how the Knights got in without them knowing; no idea how it had happened.
All Elthis knew was that they had gotten in. They had caught the Warriors off guard—the fight was barely a fight. It was a slaughter. He hadn't been killed in battle, though. He was here now, with the handful of other survivors. Tied in a row, completely immobile.
His life was flashing before his eyes: growing up, finding Ocando, becoming a Warrior, marrying, his daughter's birth, his wife's death, losing his best friend, recovering his best friend, growing older, That Slave, his daughter's wedding, his grandsons' births, battles, and now he was here, looking up a sword at a Knight.
Elthis smiled slightly. He was about to die, and there was no way out of it. "Let me take my own life."
This must have been how he felt when he stared me down that night. This must have been what it was like when his heals scraped the edge of the cliff.
For years, it bothered Elthis how much he thought of that particular slave, but now... Now, it just seemed appropriate.
The Knight raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
If that slave could do it, so can I. I don’t want them to tell Shoris and Kerev that some Knight killed me. "So my grandchildren can be proud."
"It's a stupid thing for them to be proud of," the Knight commented, but nodded, and handed Elthis a knife. It wasn't as though Elthis could do much of anything else with it, by the time he’d cut himself loose, the Knight would have killed him.
He took a deep breath. Ocando hold me.
He did the deed. He died nobly. That was the only consolation his family had, but ultimately, it would be enough.
Becky had too much free time at 4:10 PM