Stories are a way of life

 So I'm back.

What to say? I've been writing and brainstorming and drawing more in the last few days than I have in awhile. It's...like being on a sugar rush but with ideas and stories and characters. I'll probably try to go a little low key this weekend, so as not to burn out.

But as to the actually Challenge #2 (Nights of Heroes)...

Well, spend a lot of time today setting up how I wanted to start it. The revisions I've done up to this point had suffered from a lack of focus in the first scenes: what the characters want, what's happening, that sort of thing. So I asked myself, well, here's what I worked out:

What’s supposed to happen in the scene?

What would I want readers to know or understand about him first? And so on?

1.      He’s good, but not enterprising. He’s giving, but not attached. He’s an optimistic realist without ambitions (for reasons)

a.       How do I show this?

                                                              i.      Gives bread to children – he’s nice and selfless and giving

                                                            ii.      Helps fix a roof – he’s hardworking and giving and helpful

                                                          iii.      Finds shoes for someone – he’s nice and giving and mindful of others

                                                          iv.      Retrieves a doll for a child – he’s nice and kind

                                                            v.      Rescues an animal – he’s nice and protective and good

                                                          vi.      Steals back money for a poor tailor (family/father flashback) – good but underhand, and empathic and selfless

1.      Also sets up that he can steal

(I decided on the last option.)

So I now have a focus and something I aiming for. It helps.

Furthermore, I played out a major character backstory (+ another story quick synopsis that said character is part of) in my head this morning. And it gave me so many feelings. The character and the story and I just -- I finally got, I think, what Robin McKinley meant in her author notes in Rose Daughter when she talked about how a story -- a real one -- is like a puppy. You'd know when she came across one, rather than a stone. 

See, I have other stories that I really like the ideas of them. And I have at least one story that I like the characters in. But I realized there are the stories that are interesting (they have idea I like and when I explain them to myself it's about the precision or what I'm showing in the story). And there are stories that I just have strong FEELINGS for. Nights of Heroes is one of them. My Moon-demon Lineage is another. This other story I outline this morning is. And the good ideas or themes in the others, I can still use them in other work. I don't need to tell that theme in that story. It just felt like a really important thing to realize.

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part of the Every Single Day for my charity challenge to WWF | next update will be on 9 Jan 2017!

Because I am not one for creative titles.

Any kind of journal-like blog I have will usually change a lot as time goes by. I doubt this will be an exception.

Anywho:

Yesterday I finished typing up my NaNoWriMo from last year. (Yay!) It's still really, really, really rough, but I kind of love it? Like I don't know if that's the OTGW influence or because I really love the main character or the atmosphere (yay! colonial USA New England setting). Or maybe it's all of it. Anyway, I have a soft spot for it. I probably won't think about getting published for awhile. I have enough other things to work on.

Today I wrote some more in my "Tales of the Moon" which is my (hopefully last) attempt to complete Wild Moon, White Tree my mythological demon and moon lineage story. My goal is to write 100 words every day. It's going pretty well. Even if I forgot yesterday. (I've been having low-key bad days). But I DID write 444 words today. I thought it was pretty.

I'm also working on trying to finish some "Nights of Heroes" short stories. Cause I love a lot of those characters. I have one completely done, one that needs a final edit, one that needs the climax and some cohesion, and two that need to be written. Actually, I've discovered that it's a lot quicker for me to write if I have a clear idea of what I'm writing. For example, I just wrote a short story (3,500 words) in two days but I knew precisely what would happen. The first NoH short story (5,500 words) I finished way back in November I wrote in three days. Again, I knew what was going to happen and what the conflict was. I wonder if that's what it is. Having a precise idea of what's going to happen AND what the conflict is. In the case of the short story (5,800 words) that needs a final edit, I actually had it done, but when I re-read it, I realized the plot (which had Riding Hood allusions) wasn't working. So I rewrote a huge hunk of it. And then I re-read that and I decided there was a scene that didn't work and rewrote that. And that's where I am now.

To expand a little on what I mean about "having a precise idea", it's the difference between writing (in an outline): those character meet vs said character bangs into said character after slipping on ice. One gives me a scene, a way to focus on description and action, a way to write the scene from the character pov I've chosen.