anachred

Bethany Powell grew up with the marvelous and insidious opportunity to read books almost all day. Mealtimes would have been a hateful event if she weren't also rather fond of food. As her primary talents seem to be music, creating fake histories, and organizing parties she decided to pursue a career related to the only one she is consistently motivated to do: write fantasy

( In Case of Friending, Press [This]  )

Because it's always appropriate to judge a person by their bookshelves...

( Cut for Blatant Cover Images )

Etsy Buy Handmade gossamersong

Down Side To Being Internet Free Most of the Day:

I have a lot more time to be thinking of all sorts of things, including things to blog about. Sorry, kids.



I've been also not watching shows so much close to bed time. This means...
having my own dreams, not based on other stories!


...My primal imagination is A BEAST.

( And tonight we feature unique funerary arrangements! )


Sometimes I don't know how I write such sane stuff, when I get a look Back There.

I'm writing this from someone else's computer. (One of the approx. 10 in the house...)

I am not being held hostage, have not broken anything, or lost my Internet service.
I have, however, decided, to revoke my connection privileges until I remember how to Write for Serious.

I'm kind of using NaNo as an excuse.
I'm not sure I'm going to be focusing on word-count so much as writing ONLY for some time every day.



Obviously, I'm going through withdrawal. I've only scribbled on two pages so far, though I did also create a bad map, racial distinctions, and
decide to make international tensions a much bigger factor in my heroine's Senior Project. I may be here every day just to whine.

But. I DIDN'T get on the Internet probably 8 times before I came out to take a break.




Current Research Roster:
Odd Girl Out: bullying among girls
Introvert Power: reclaiming the internal gifts
Blink: what we know without thinking

"One of the most important of the rules that make improv possible, for example, is the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story - or humor - is to have characters accept everything that happens to them. ... 'Good improvisors seem telepathic; everything looks pre-arranged,' Johnston writes. "This is because they accept all offers made - which is something no 'normal' person would do."    ~ Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

This slightly different in angle (referring to accepting offers, in improv comedy) but is very much in line with what is said in Audition about not saying "no". Shurtleff corrects to actors who say "my character wouldn't do that".

If a character doesn't believe in love at first sight, but loves at first sight, isn't that more interesting? Doesn't that make for story?


Mulling on This

Thinking about this, I'm looking at stories, to see if this is true. Do all heroes say yes when someone else (the reader, for example) would say no?

In Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, the first part of the story is about Buran getting other people to allow her to say "yes"--and before that her father said, "I will teach my daughter chess, since I have no sons".

Frodo says "Yes, I will take the ring."
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell say, "Yes, we will revive magic together."
Eugenides says "I will steal the impossible."



( if you want to read examples from improv... )

This is the sequel to Thirteen Orphans, Jane Lindskold's fantasy where magic of ancient China has been coded into mahjong for the heirs of the Thirteen Orphans: powerful incarnations of the zodiac plus the emperor they served.

The fresh clothing of magic and the interesting background of the characters is really well served by Lindskold's ability to evoke images without bogging down into imagery. The Asian culture gives real color, and depth, too. The weak point in these books has been (to my eye) the rather wooden information-through-dialogue points. When one person shares knowledge, backstory there is no problem. When more than one person is talking about what they're doing, though, it is not fluid.

This bugs me, but not enough to pull me out of the story much.

I recommend this series, and may have to go looking for her other series' to last me until the next comes out...



Random Unfinished Short Opening:

SeBria was sitting on her duffel, looking about like every other cheap commuter in the station when o,Dickon came to pick her up. She swung up and grabbed her bag in a motion fluid enough for a wandswoman, but she was lanky and sat immodestly—he really didn't think he was going to like her kata. Didn't matter though; this was a favor to his sensei.

 

( Read (a smidge) more... )


...this story is one of the ones where I've used odd bits of Japanese culture/language to create something completely different. In this case, the overall concept of martial art and some bits of honor-language. I keep messing with this in short stories: hopefully someday I'll have a powerful enough idea to bring into a novel.

Since all my short stories still sound like Exercises in Fiction.

More Writing Philosophy from Unusual Sources

I think I'm condensing a few different statements into one idea (so I can't find the quote) but in Michael Shurtleff's Audition, he talks about when you're working with a partner who isn't working with you.

This, he says, is valuable, because the harder you have to fight to get across, the stronger the impression.


For me, this immediately clicked into writing terms. The harder the character is fighting toward or away from something, the higher the tension and drama and...ROMANCE.
(again, not in terms of love romance, but narrative romance.)

This made me go back to work on a story in the Aolon book, because of all the stories I've written, that one is tight with that fighting tension.

Maevidh's mother was angry—she could still feel it in her chest, though she had even left the city. She gritted her teeth.

I Need to Remember...

Maevidh is heir to a witch-queen. She has grown up fighting her mother--they are in each others' minds.*
She has grown up fighting physically, because they are warrior-witches.

At the start of the story, she's fighting off a soldier who claims he volunteered to be her guard, when she suspects he is a spy for her mother or someone else. She is also going to break a treaty with an empire they fought for 60 years only a few decades ago. Agents of the diplomat she both loves and hates are on the hunt for her, and even if she succeeds, she can look forward to being anathematized. Of course, she also fights herself.

It may verge into melodrama at points, but that can be fixed with a little pruning. 
The idea that the more distance there is, the harder a character will fight to get closer has clarified why this story interests me every time I look at it, though the sentences hurt. She's surrounded by people she's fighting.

In the other stories of this book, this is true as well, though not to the same extent. Not just their enemies, but the ones they want to love, and they are fighting.

I need to think about this, and try to approach stories that way again. ...Without the labyrinthine grammar.


*I think i'll need to punch up this element of horror, but I'm pretty proud of the idea as it is...



This is Balthier, my latest spinning project. He and Maevidh may have a bit in common, really...

This image is one of those that is just precarious enough,
with a tension just in the expressions that are at slight odds
(drama--romance, see even in pictures...) that it makes me
want to stare.

And it's on Etsy, advertising the feather ornament in her hair,
by charmschooldesign which is probably not strictly legal,
since the image is taken from a movie. ("Brick")
But in terms of capturing interest?

*Brilliant.*





I have a geek-love on Etsy post in the makings, some day I don't have 5 other things I'm posting about. Goblin King yarn? Bring. It. On.

I am reading Audition by Michael Shurtleff.
It's one of the books where if you are willing to think in metaphor a little, is a perfect writing book, though not about writing. Because it is about art, and about story.

"One great missing ingredient in current acting is romance. Everyone secretly wants romance, but in these harsh, "realistic" days, no one will openly admit it. ... We must be hard, to live in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era of disillusionment.
    But what has made EQUUS such a phenomenal success? Romance. And ANNIE HALL and ...  A CHORUS LINE and  STAR WARS and PIPPIN. Shakespeare's plays retain their undiminished popularity because they are ever-lasting romances. Yet most of the creators of these shows would deny that they are romances. ...Romance has gone out the window. It is time to bring it back."


I think this is a key to the more recent culture of stories.
Twilight, Harry Potter and the Various Face of Evil, The Da Vinci Code...hey, even the goth and then emo youth cultures embraced the drama of the Romance, in a fairly reactionist way.
(Since this book is from '78, as placed fairly clearly in that snippet, I am extrapolating beyond a point the author could.)

Romance being a story that is made up, that focuses on narrative be it an adventure, a journey of maturing, or an affair of the heart.


So. I'm rewriting the ending of one of the volumes of Aolon, The Epic That I Can't Name For The Life of Me. But the bones of the story keep drawing me back, because it is fairly high-scoring in the drama and romance department.

I just need to tear down the melodramatics of its adverbs and give the characters a few better lines.

Crafty Update:  The latest JS&MN yarn, which was tentatively called Childremass...has become a Mirkwood.
These things happen.

Scribbly Update: I think I almost have it, this cadence of the Island, this way of their talking.
Malachi's POV was hazy to me until I stopped to find it, and unknown voice is never good in a book of mine.



The FAVORITE BOOK 1ST LINE meme

1. Pick 10 of your favorite books or series'.
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books

My own notes: some of these will be shamefully easy (at least, in light of who reads this blog). I've paired these so if you want an extra challenge, you can tell me what correlation they have. Some of them are more amorphous correlations, containing various links, and all are acceptable. The first one, though, I have something very specific in mind, and it may be a bit tough if you don't know one or the other... ;) Good luck!

 

1. Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

2. The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling. The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like toadstools had their wicks snuffed out.

( The Other 8 are under this Elegant & Finely Crafted Link )

I've changed my journal title and tag-line, added some of my favorite quotes about writing to my profile...

mostly for a change, partly because I have. More professional, is the general drift.

We note marked failures in this area, but NOW the iron has set in our soul.
VP Elevensies, The Class that knew No Shame!
(Those clams were GUD, speaking of gud.)


I'm working on some more pre-writing for the Pirate's Penance thing.
I found the hero's name: Malachi.

with that settled I can decide things like, what he likes to eat (spicy fish), how he likes to dress (for shinnying up palm trees), whether he has a good singing voice (not really, but he *does not care*).
It's so weird, that feeling of mining this stuff out rather than making it up.

First thing this morning I was reading about the Maldives for him. I think I'm getting the feel of this place, where the story will happen, with it's salt-blue water, rice-with-chiles food, and shabby but still thronged discotheque. Here's to hope...

m_stiefvater   has a great post on why reading YA is in no way a "teens only" domain: The Relevance of YA to Non-Teens

(Maggie's book Shiver, sequel to Lament, debuted at #9 on the NYT Bestseller List this week, fyi.)

She pretty much sums up why I avoid most "normal" (adult-geared) fiction, and embrace even good picture books in my reading diet. And articulates it better than I have been able to so far.


...I mean, the "why" besides the obvious fetish for toy cars and Wonka-type worlds.




Speaking of bright colors...
I'm writing a synopsis for Poisson today. I like writing them, even though they tend to emerge at a snail's pace.

One of the short-list agents requires them, and there's another who may. So. I'm not quite ready to ship pieces of my heart into the wide world just yet.

Also colorful, look at what I got in my Ravelry "Folklore and Fairytales" group swap:


The roving and book are both more awesome than they look. You'll hear more from me later...

This is a meme; it was more interesting this time around. It's partly that I'm doing better with opening lines, especially for short stories, and partly that I've been doing a lot of short stories.


List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you find any patterns. (And flist, I'd love your opinions on patterns you notice.)

1) Harry hated to run away from anything, but he would have made an exception for this garden party. {The Enchanting Miss Tetley}

 

( 2-20, if you're interested. )

Also: My Raven King yarn is done! Come look at it...
 

But this has been waiting for me to post it, forever.

Cultural note to make this more immediately comprehensible: in Japan, almost all stores you bag your own groceries. This is feasible, because they are on the Old World schedule of buying groceries every day or so. You can walk or bike with them easily that way.

Of course, though my mom happily converted, bringing home groceries for 7 was still rather a parade...


The Artist's Distraction



I so know that feeling, babe.

So, I've just realized my writer's fantasy.
Okay, so the most potent one at this moment: it's a publishing-*unrelated fantasy.

To have someone whose opinion I respect sit down, and read through all of my short stories and tell me which ones are any good.
  I know. Beggarly. But there it is. The stuff of my dreams.



Since it's Thursday, and I don't know what to do with you, here, have a little flash fiction.
(You do know this will be bad, right?
And what if I tell you it's a complete rip-off, which is how all my tributes to things end up?
But at least it's short? 1147 words only!)
It no longer has even that recommendation. It is now only less bad. And much less than 2000 words.
Sorry, snoozers.


PS: this is not real fan-fiction. It is an example of how much I canNOT do fan-fiction. Because I have rename people and rework set-ups, and borrow lightly to expand in strange directions.


*just had an odd moment where the world "publishing" felt the same to me as it did before I got so inured to hearing it all the time, seeing it in everything I read. Funny.

I dug out my Spiderman poster to put on my door. (I actually received 2 the year I was 18, an undeserved reward for being annoying about that particular fangirl phase.)

Back to the Superhero Research!



Sky High may be awesome, but it's really just fodder for Backlash Girls. However much I may be whole-heartedly indulging avoidance behaviors toward writing, it's really got my attention right now.

I even stripped the walls of most of the pictures I had up for "Charming" (librarian glam story) since the visuals are turning out different anyway.



Wanna hear a bit?

The Lamest Powervillain EVAR

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said at the mirror. My Han impression wasn't stellar, since for one, I have a definite girl voice (I envy those altos) and for two, I was looking at myself in the mirror. Not the best context for sounding cocky, if fearful.

My Zombie Boyfriend T-shirt (brains over beauty, yesh) is a little too stretched over significant areas, since I've gained a little more weight, and I didn't like my face without the frames Ena gave me. Stupid Carter had stepped on them. Even my gamer-chick look wasn't at its best.

Also, I had calculated that since Teddy hadn't been at the gamer coven last time, it wasn't basketball season, and the newest Halo had hit the Game-Stop shelves he was sure to be there tonight. Doesn't that sound dangerously neat? “What could go wrong?” says the heroine.

But no matter what Ena and Chelsea would be there, so it would be fun.

See how you jinx yourself?

 

 

( How it All Begins )

And yes, the post title is a later quote.

Someone or other may have noticed a lot of fluctuation in my journal theme lately. If not, I'm unsurprised.

I am pretty sure I'm settling on the current one, after my meandering, because I have redesigned my website (though the new one isn't up on the web yet) and this one matches. ^_^

Here's a preview...Any thoughts?



(If you wanna give me an opinion on whether my journal really does match okay, I'd love it.)

You can't tell this small (click on it to see a bigger image), but I've got a watercolored look on some of the graphics. I think it matches the image of what I've been writing, especially lately. Much better than the dark, trying-for-cool current style...




Just a warning: when I'm done bouncing between taking care of Justice (my pal, who must be 8 mos. now?) and trying to get my brain around the new project, I think I'll be posting more on manga or something. The stuff that's been fuzzing the betweens of the two jobs...

Aaaah...

The scents of fresh air from the real world make me feel like I'm alive again. It's warm enough here we've had the windows open the last few days. I keep being hit by vivid memories invoked by the different qualities in what I'm breathing.

I'm at the most maddening point in the cycle of writing--I'm ramping up to a specific project, but I'm also freed up enough there are tantalizing words for other stories flying around.
From the most maddeningly alluring on down:



The Backlash Girls

We were the trio that sneered from the Geek Table. The Anti-Cool. We mocked whatever was too popular, loved what wasn't. If everyone was in love with William Mosley, we were so onto that poser. If big pants were in, we had lots of phrases to describe how ridiculous everyone looked.
No, we weren't that lovable. And we were okay with that. We have our own crowd and our own indie fashion sense, what more could we want?
Apparently, superpowers.
Obviously, being Anti-Cool, we didn't frequent malls or even the movies. me and Chelse like the arcade and dragged Ena with us. We all like cosplay. There's a pizza place that does a late-night Friday buffet, open to the LARP clubs. ...

When these girls get inflicted with superpowers, things start to get ugly... because they aren't going to be pop-stars, no matter how much super-branding they have to put up with.

Ah, the joy that is snobby geek adolescents...


Retiring is Suicide (working title I made up just now)

On Friday, Jesse realized that the band was dead to him.
On Saturday, they were in Texas again and he got on the stage with an electric smile. What was sickening was that it felt just the same as the last two years up there, it had been dead and he hadn't even known.

...he commenced to try and break up the band, only to find out it's a werewolf pack (or somesuch) and they're not going to let him go...


Death is not the Rock-Bottom (working title I made up for symmetry)

My cell phone is dying.
I mean, it's not enough that I'm in the puke-your-human-blood-out stage of undying--I have to lose my one gift ever from my dad?
Life makes no sense.


*shiny, shiny stories, how we loves you...until we have to write you.*

I'm working on my Lady Ninja Librarian story (aka, Librarian Glam) story world-building and brain-feeding.
It opens at a very specialized girls school, and I need your help with a very essential part of it:
    girls being jerks.

So...Tell Me A Story:


Can you give me an anecdote about Catty Remarks (or bitchy remarks...) for my arsenal?
Clever is better, because these are smart girls, in general, but we can all be dumb. So whatever you can come up with is helpful.

Of course, girl-to-girl stories are what I'm going to be writing, but if you have anything to contribute, guys, go ahead!

...if any of you want to pass on my request, feel free.

moooooooooou. [pardon my Japanese.]

If there's one real occupational hazard of being a writer, it's having your brain kidnapped by any passing story.

I'm not kidding. I really think this must be dangerous.

Right now, the undertones of Cupid & Psyche in a Korean comic called Bride of the Water God.

What's strange is that the sequence that brought the thought to mind was totally unrelated, when I stopped and thought about it--except for the sacrifice to a monster/god element in the story already.



The Water God is in the shape of a child during the day,  transforms once night falls--and of course his "bride" doesn't know this, and is trying not to fall for the more age-appropriate guys around.

Anyhow. Maybe just the night motif was strong enough to put it in my mind... And then one of the frontpieces was this:



I'm now off-again/on-again thinking about how to write a story with this basic idea behind it (the Psyche thing, not the Water God thing). Not like I haven't read at least one highly superior retelling so that I ought to leave well enough alone. (But I never do...)

And I have a million other things already started.

The colors and art on the covers are beautiful, by the way. They have the partly photorealistic and then aged colors, though, that make that kind of art look...taxidermied, to me. Which actually kind of works for this comic, but anyway...

I'm working through the end of The Return of Mr. Birch.

This is the last volume of the Conspiracy of Cons...Mr. Poisson's story, but also Alan Birch and Molly Carnie's.

Hoo, boy. If any, this is the book that is going to need to be gutted and rethought and painfully reconstructed.
It's powder-room politics, and mental intrigue and nothing seems to happen but relationships.
And yet, today we are killing the Duke. In a very Birch-appropriate way, which is a relief...

Anyway. Can't be helped. Not until I've written and thought about it.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to review comics for you. Oh Joy!