Life and a bit of messing around with one of my proto-novels
Been exhausted-sick the last couple of days. Seems to be a combination of sinuses, depression from husband's horrific work situation, and maybe still some immunity issues/subclinical Epstein-Barr/whatever. Arrgh!
Got at least half a page full of "magic system" info for one of my stories-in-progress after lunch Monday and scribbled them down. Very little yesterday and today except Akka's parents discussing leaving Italy for the US in the 1800s (probably) sometime:
Papa:"Perhaps we should go to America. Plenty of room there, and excellent growing land, I have heard"
Mama: "Settled by intolerant Protestants who despise Italians and would assume we are Catholics also. And they burn witches."
Papa: "They stopped doing that."
Mama: "When? Last week? Close enough to then for associating magic-using humans with evil to still be in the descendants' minds."
We'll see whether any part of that makes it into the story. Oh, I worked out where Akka's name comes from. Mages don't use their real names because of the power they hold, so Akka got "nicknamed" after the first word she said (Most mage-infants say their element-word before "Mama" or "Papa" or "milk" and she couldn't quite get "acqua"--"water"--quite right.
Her real full name at the moment: Rosamaria Elisabetta [last name not decided yet].
Some of the magic-system bit: Most people can control/work well with one or two elements. Akka's are water and earth, like her mother, hence they are herbalists among other things. Dominant elements depend on region: four elements in Europe, five (adding metal) in Asia per real-life traditions. Magic--the ability to manipulate reality--is genetic, dominant in the female and recessive in the male, I think. Psychic abilities are naturally occurring on a range from minimal (most humans) to pretty powerful and also depend on one's elements: pyrokinesis is related to fire, clairaudience to air, etc.
Might dump some of this, but it's there to play with. Philip Pullman says (I'm paraphrasing from his amazing collection of speeches, Daemon Voices,) that a storyteller leads readers on a path through a forest. The more work and thought the storyteller has put into the forest the better the "path" will be. And the forest is easier to create than a really good path that shows the readers just the right things for a good story.
If you have any interest in fiction-writing or like Pullman at all, you must read Daemon Voices The linked review is quite good, but damn it, both that AV Club review and Pub. Weekly name only his male influences, not the women authors and storytellers he references including Philippa Pearce. and some folktale tellers and collectors.
Got at least half a page full of "magic system" info for one of my stories-in-progress after lunch Monday and scribbled them down. Very little yesterday and today except Akka's parents discussing leaving Italy for the US in the 1800s (probably) sometime:
Papa:"Perhaps we should go to America. Plenty of room there, and excellent growing land, I have heard"
Mama: "Settled by intolerant Protestants who despise Italians and would assume we are Catholics also. And they burn witches."
Papa: "They stopped doing that."
Mama: "When? Last week? Close enough to then for associating magic-using humans with evil to still be in the descendants' minds."
We'll see whether any part of that makes it into the story. Oh, I worked out where Akka's name comes from. Mages don't use their real names because of the power they hold, so Akka got "nicknamed" after the first word she said (Most mage-infants say their element-word before "Mama" or "Papa" or "milk" and she couldn't quite get "acqua"--"water"--quite right.
Her real full name at the moment: Rosamaria Elisabetta [last name not decided yet].
Some of the magic-system bit: Most people can control/work well with one or two elements. Akka's are water and earth, like her mother, hence they are herbalists among other things. Dominant elements depend on region: four elements in Europe, five (adding metal) in Asia per real-life traditions. Magic--the ability to manipulate reality--is genetic, dominant in the female and recessive in the male, I think. Psychic abilities are naturally occurring on a range from minimal (most humans) to pretty powerful and also depend on one's elements: pyrokinesis is related to fire, clairaudience to air, etc.
Might dump some of this, but it's there to play with. Philip Pullman says (I'm paraphrasing from his amazing collection of speeches, Daemon Voices,) that a storyteller leads readers on a path through a forest. The more work and thought the storyteller has put into the forest the better the "path" will be. And the forest is easier to create than a really good path that shows the readers just the right things for a good story.
If you have any interest in fiction-writing or like Pullman at all, you must read Daemon Voices The linked review is quite good, but damn it, both that AV Club review and Pub. Weekly name only his male influences, not the women authors and storytellers he references including Philippa Pearce. and some folktale tellers and collectors.