Writing Fun, Sword Care, and Evil Flipping Trips.
...This is just to keep my line of dramatic-sounding post titles.
Pull my finger. =D
Randomness aside... I've become a hermit the last while writing for the most part. Until I got dragged out of town by the folks to check out Powell River. See, I LIKE looking at houses. I love it, in fact. But I like being able to look around INSIDE houses - not just driving by them IN THE CAR. So I quickly went from being thrilled to leave town, to bored out of my mind and tired constantly. You see, riding in the car always puts me to sleep. I can blast heavy metal music at the loudest tolerable volume through my MP3 and STILL fall asleep in a car. There's just something about it. After a certain amount of driving, I fall asleep. And nothing stops me.
So after doing this EVERY day, and then not getting back to the beach house until 6-8pm at night - I couldn't do ANYTHING I wanted. Too little time until dark fell to bike. I have to allot extra time for all the hills there. Beach? Well, there's only so much to do out there. Loved seeing Charlie (dog) chasing all the birds though.
Shopping? Most stores closed at 5pm there, and we were out of the town, about 15minutes out by car. Easy enough to bike - if only it was FLAT. But the hills...basically, I would go downhill towards the town after climbing out from the beach house area, but coming back UP would take bloody forever for me.
So, I was stuck in the house. Nice house. Shitty TV. But I'm spoilt, I'll admit that. (It was one of the old...what are they called? something-tube ones. NOT a flat screen, not even a chunky flat screen. And it was really tiny, about the same size as my computer screen. And you could see every pixel.) And it didn't really bother me that much. Now I'm just being a nit pick.
I did enjoy bits of the trip, either way, and feel better for doing it, but the majority felt like a waste of time to me, and it really frustrated me. Waste of time because we can't buy a house down there this year...so why all the driving around looking from a car?
I had one really good day on Texada Island though. Got some fab shots of Charlie there too that I'll post on facebook soon. Really pretty there.
---
Besides that, in between all my car-sleeping, I was working on my story-in-progress, Dangerous Skies. I had hit a really slow, hard, awful bit before we left, and I knew something was bugging me...but what? It was driving me nuts.
So as per usual, I used all of the driving portion of the trip thinking through the story, trying to weed out the problem.
May I add, the problem is often so obvious I kick myself for not noticing 5 hours BEFORE all the brainstorming?
It didn't really click until I started writing down some of those thoughts tonight, but now I know what's been nagging me for a while. And its not like I haven't acknowledged it before, persay - I just thought it was an issue that I could put off fixing until I finished writing the rough draft.
But no. Tomorrow, I'm going through and just quickly doing some rough tweaks of the draft to "patch" the problem now I realize how much it's disturbing me.
Guess what it is?
Drandez isn't being terse enough.
Yes.
That is the essence of my agony.
Doesn't seem big. It can wait till the end of the draft.
No.
Why?
Drandez is very, very conflicted about my main character, Sekaya's, arrival in his world. She wants to attack his master (her father) and do a complete character assassination of him (not literally - she just wants to inflict pain on him and verbally terrorize him) due to her feeling he had abandoned her mother and herself. She's not a complete idiot - she knows she doesn't know everything, the entire story and the events unfolding. But she figures her father's absence killed her mother several years ago, when she tried to go back to him, failed to work the transportation magic right, and consequently fell from a cliff and dashed herself across the rocks. Her father tried to stop her from coming across, and while Sekaya acknowledged she was being bull-headed about it - it only made her want to do it more. If her father says no, she will say yes - even if it's dumb. She's too prideful to back down from a chance to rebel against him.
/end Seka backstory.
Either way...Drandez finds this all out in the first few minutes he spends with Sekaya due to her wild telepathy. And this really sets him on edge. He is very protective of his "master", and thinks of him like a father. With Sekaya arriving, he already disliked her, as he fears her replacing him in his master's eyes. Her arrival also means the end of his remaining power in court, and forfeiting his master's province to his blood heir - something Drandez abhors being forced to do, as he craves power. He wants to control his circumstance.
Despite all these reasons to instantly dislike her, however - he finds himself drawn to her. She doesn't know the rumors that he "killed" his master. She doesn't know anything at all. She doesn't know he often does the dirtier wishes of the council, or that everyone at court but the elders fear him showing interest in them. He's been an outcast ever since Kao, his master, went into a coma several years past.
So when she treats him like just another person, and doesn't tip toe around him, fearing his reactions...it's like a breath of fresh air for him. It reminds him of what his life was like before Kao went into a coma, before Tyrael hated him, before the court feared him - before even the province he was brought up to care for turned on him.
So, no matter the fact he knows she isn't good for him or his plans, and he'd be better off disposing of her in some way - he can't.
That's Drandez as condensed as I can get it. I know some friends of mine can't believe he's this insecure. He's very good at fronting. But he is quite broken behind his mask.
Either way - I pigeon holed myself in my writing. In my eagerness to get to the Drandez/Seka relationship later in the book, I made him too mouthy at the beginning, too talkitive - so now, I'm stuck writing them being too familiar, too friendly. They are NOT friends. Drandez doesn't ever intend to help her - only avoid her. He gets dragged into helping her at the last minute after telling himself otherwise. He doesn't set out to be an ally. He only steps in when his "breath of fresh air" might be snuffed out, leaving him gutted. He keeps her around for just that purely selfish reason, and otherwise watches her flail about the court and learning its ways.
When he EVENTUALLY allies himself with her - he creates a monster. But she's nothing of the sort at the beginning, and I'm is no where near the part where it changes so drastically.
So why does he TALK so bloody much to her right off the bat?! Answering every little question, flirting, showing off, making deals...Why should he be bothering with that, after this usurping little brat shows up on his mountain home's doorstep? He would NOT react this way to such an infraction.
THAT'S the problem.
So, I have to go back through what I've written tomorrow, and cut chunks off his dialogue. I need him to be as short and to the point as possible, only answering her numerous questions when he can't avoid it. It means...no inner garden scenes like I wrote yesterday! He won't be near the point yet of taking her to private place to form plots to turn the court upside down.
But...I can still keep the nightmare scene. He is allowed to have a few slip ups, a few softenings in his character where he expresses concern at a crucial point for Sekaya. But when he reassures himself she's fine - mask back up, he becomes a veritable deaf-mute, and he refuses to help her in any way.
>.<;
---
And my swords. My poor bloody swords.
I hate hanwei sword oil.
Don't get me wrong - it works well! But I suck at using it. When my visa is paid down more, I'm getting some of that renaisance wax stuff to coat my two blades. Apparently, it lasts MUCH longer than an oil application. Practically ages. So forgetting to check their condition won't be such a large problem.
Considering both swords are my rough ideas of Drandez's swords...they are my babies. I'm a bit annoyed I'm not doing well with keeping them up with the oil, though they're still in great condition. Just keep giving me scares of late. I think I have a tendency to apply too much oil.
Ah well...bed for me. By the time I sleep, It'll be 4am and I have to get up for 8:30am to walk dogs. And then after that, vet appointment for Ambrosia the ferret! Oh fun. I'm definitely going to go back to bed again for three hours after all that tomorrow...
Pull my finger. =D
Randomness aside... I've become a hermit the last while writing for the most part. Until I got dragged out of town by the folks to check out Powell River. See, I LIKE looking at houses. I love it, in fact. But I like being able to look around INSIDE houses - not just driving by them IN THE CAR. So I quickly went from being thrilled to leave town, to bored out of my mind and tired constantly. You see, riding in the car always puts me to sleep. I can blast heavy metal music at the loudest tolerable volume through my MP3 and STILL fall asleep in a car. There's just something about it. After a certain amount of driving, I fall asleep. And nothing stops me.
So after doing this EVERY day, and then not getting back to the beach house until 6-8pm at night - I couldn't do ANYTHING I wanted. Too little time until dark fell to bike. I have to allot extra time for all the hills there. Beach? Well, there's only so much to do out there. Loved seeing Charlie (dog) chasing all the birds though.
Shopping? Most stores closed at 5pm there, and we were out of the town, about 15minutes out by car. Easy enough to bike - if only it was FLAT. But the hills...basically, I would go downhill towards the town after climbing out from the beach house area, but coming back UP would take bloody forever for me.
So, I was stuck in the house. Nice house. Shitty TV. But I'm spoilt, I'll admit that. (It was one of the old...what are they called? something-tube ones. NOT a flat screen, not even a chunky flat screen. And it was really tiny, about the same size as my computer screen. And you could see every pixel.) And it didn't really bother me that much. Now I'm just being a nit pick.
I did enjoy bits of the trip, either way, and feel better for doing it, but the majority felt like a waste of time to me, and it really frustrated me. Waste of time because we can't buy a house down there this year...so why all the driving around looking from a car?
I had one really good day on Texada Island though. Got some fab shots of Charlie there too that I'll post on facebook soon. Really pretty there.
---
Besides that, in between all my car-sleeping, I was working on my story-in-progress, Dangerous Skies. I had hit a really slow, hard, awful bit before we left, and I knew something was bugging me...but what? It was driving me nuts.
So as per usual, I used all of the driving portion of the trip thinking through the story, trying to weed out the problem.
May I add, the problem is often so obvious I kick myself for not noticing 5 hours BEFORE all the brainstorming?
It didn't really click until I started writing down some of those thoughts tonight, but now I know what's been nagging me for a while. And its not like I haven't acknowledged it before, persay - I just thought it was an issue that I could put off fixing until I finished writing the rough draft.
But no. Tomorrow, I'm going through and just quickly doing some rough tweaks of the draft to "patch" the problem now I realize how much it's disturbing me.
Guess what it is?
Drandez isn't being terse enough.
Yes.
That is the essence of my agony.
Doesn't seem big. It can wait till the end of the draft.
No.
Why?
Drandez is very, very conflicted about my main character, Sekaya's, arrival in his world. She wants to attack his master (her father) and do a complete character assassination of him (not literally - she just wants to inflict pain on him and verbally terrorize him) due to her feeling he had abandoned her mother and herself. She's not a complete idiot - she knows she doesn't know everything, the entire story and the events unfolding. But she figures her father's absence killed her mother several years ago, when she tried to go back to him, failed to work the transportation magic right, and consequently fell from a cliff and dashed herself across the rocks. Her father tried to stop her from coming across, and while Sekaya acknowledged she was being bull-headed about it - it only made her want to do it more. If her father says no, she will say yes - even if it's dumb. She's too prideful to back down from a chance to rebel against him.
/end Seka backstory.
Either way...Drandez finds this all out in the first few minutes he spends with Sekaya due to her wild telepathy. And this really sets him on edge. He is very protective of his "master", and thinks of him like a father. With Sekaya arriving, he already disliked her, as he fears her replacing him in his master's eyes. Her arrival also means the end of his remaining power in court, and forfeiting his master's province to his blood heir - something Drandez abhors being forced to do, as he craves power. He wants to control his circumstance.
Despite all these reasons to instantly dislike her, however - he finds himself drawn to her. She doesn't know the rumors that he "killed" his master. She doesn't know anything at all. She doesn't know he often does the dirtier wishes of the council, or that everyone at court but the elders fear him showing interest in them. He's been an outcast ever since Kao, his master, went into a coma several years past.
So when she treats him like just another person, and doesn't tip toe around him, fearing his reactions...it's like a breath of fresh air for him. It reminds him of what his life was like before Kao went into a coma, before Tyrael hated him, before the court feared him - before even the province he was brought up to care for turned on him.
So, no matter the fact he knows she isn't good for him or his plans, and he'd be better off disposing of her in some way - he can't.
That's Drandez as condensed as I can get it. I know some friends of mine can't believe he's this insecure. He's very good at fronting. But he is quite broken behind his mask.
Either way - I pigeon holed myself in my writing. In my eagerness to get to the Drandez/Seka relationship later in the book, I made him too mouthy at the beginning, too talkitive - so now, I'm stuck writing them being too familiar, too friendly. They are NOT friends. Drandez doesn't ever intend to help her - only avoid her. He gets dragged into helping her at the last minute after telling himself otherwise. He doesn't set out to be an ally. He only steps in when his "breath of fresh air" might be snuffed out, leaving him gutted. He keeps her around for just that purely selfish reason, and otherwise watches her flail about the court and learning its ways.
When he EVENTUALLY allies himself with her - he creates a monster. But she's nothing of the sort at the beginning, and I'm is no where near the part where it changes so drastically.
So why does he TALK so bloody much to her right off the bat?! Answering every little question, flirting, showing off, making deals...Why should he be bothering with that, after this usurping little brat shows up on his mountain home's doorstep? He would NOT react this way to such an infraction.
THAT'S the problem.
So, I have to go back through what I've written tomorrow, and cut chunks off his dialogue. I need him to be as short and to the point as possible, only answering her numerous questions when he can't avoid it. It means...no inner garden scenes like I wrote yesterday! He won't be near the point yet of taking her to private place to form plots to turn the court upside down.
But...I can still keep the nightmare scene. He is allowed to have a few slip ups, a few softenings in his character where he expresses concern at a crucial point for Sekaya. But when he reassures himself she's fine - mask back up, he becomes a veritable deaf-mute, and he refuses to help her in any way.
>.<;
---
And my swords. My poor bloody swords.
I hate hanwei sword oil.
Don't get me wrong - it works well! But I suck at using it. When my visa is paid down more, I'm getting some of that renaisance wax stuff to coat my two blades. Apparently, it lasts MUCH longer than an oil application. Practically ages. So forgetting to check their condition won't be such a large problem.
Considering both swords are my rough ideas of Drandez's swords...they are my babies. I'm a bit annoyed I'm not doing well with keeping them up with the oil, though they're still in great condition. Just keep giving me scares of late. I think I have a tendency to apply too much oil.
Ah well...bed for me. By the time I sleep, It'll be 4am and I have to get up for 8:30am to walk dogs. And then after that, vet appointment for Ambrosia the ferret! Oh fun. I'm definitely going to go back to bed again for three hours after all that tomorrow...