Jennifer Freitag's Blog, page 25

"I Don't Think I'd Know How to Dabble"

pinterestI have two Word documents open on my computer at present, and one of them is Gingerune. 

"What were you typing on?""Gingerune.""Ah, good.""...Why, do I get a cookie if I work on the right story?""Essentially, yes."

If I am not completely stagnant, I am bombarded by everything at once.   I shot forward into Gingerune rather splendidly for a few days, and have hit a few more snags and so my pace has once more dropped back to the elbow-crawl.  Looking over what I managed to write this morning is almost depressing: all that labour, and so little return!  (Of course, it is also Monday, and I have had to do laundry, but I still have the notion that I must be 100% productive 100% of the time.)  I also spent a little time yesterday evening kicking my heels and playing with my next novel; this morning saw me tying a couple of strands together and putting them into a Word document - which is the other document I have open.  I began to play with the openings of a few more novels, all of which I rather like at present.  I have at least four more novels straining at the gate: as I told Rachel in my last letter to her, I don't think I will be lacking for material for many years to come.  They all have pretty sound beginnings, I think: I hope that will comfort me in my attempts to keep my hands off them. 

I'm sure you are all happy to hear about four more novels.  Four.  You read that correctly.  Four.  And they are all rather surprising creatures: I was taken aback by the forms they chose to take.  I'm keeping a notebook for them, and I wasn't planning on taking the notebook with me to Scotland (space, as I have made abundantly clear, is limited), but it is looking as if I'm going to have to drag that beast along too - or else go mad. 

Not that anyone will be able to tell the difference.

One other piece of book news on my end is that Adamantine's manuscript has been sent to a publishing house for perusal.  Nothing has been decided, and I won't hear back from the publishing house until probably after Christmas, but it's something!  One tends to grow giddy over the smallest of progressions in the writing world.  In case any of you were despairing in true diva fashion over Adamantine ever making it out of the gate, well, it's pacing in the paddock.  That's for certain.

Quite the Picture

Somebody - it was Mirriam - reviewed a young adult novel and decided to throw in a bunch of pictures of people who resembled her perception of the book's characters.  Totally frivolous? Yes.  Fun?  Absolutely.  I got to picking around my Pinterest boards and wondering if anyone cared what my ideas were of how my characters look (and, in the process, grumbling about how difficult it is to find spot-on shots for characters).  In the end I thought, "Eh, why not?"  It isn't as if I have any edits or first drafts to work on.

(I have no idea who most of these people are, I only know that they more or less look like my characters.) 

Ginger and Roxane.  Saw this and nearly flipped out.  Roxane's face needs to be smidgeon thinner, but otherwise it's perfect!

Mazelin.  Don't break his smolder.
Margaret, of course!  She looks spiffing in that gold, if I may say so.  I'm a silver girl myself.
Good old Skander Rime.
Okay, yes, I know who this is.  It's Rupert de la Mare, of course!
Spencer.
Adamant.
Rosawn, of Between Earth and Sky.
Sophia, the fairest of them all.
Theodora Pepperspur - she's a hell of a horsewoman, though you'd not guess it for the get-up.
Maria.
Simon.
Goddgofang.  The man should not be allowed out with that smile.
Badger.  A bit younger in this photo than when I write him, but pretty accurate nonetheless.
Bruin.  MUCH younger than when I write him.  This was actually a photo I found for his father as a toddler, but the one is the spitting image of the other in toddlerhood, so I made it work.  Isn't he adorable?
Ioan Perrelli.  Sorry, Abigail.

Jennalaide, characteristically saucy.
Aaron Golightly, characteristically serious.
Conn Dzale.
Avery.

Raymond St. Jermaine.  Got the side of his face kicked in by a horse when he was little.  Looks quite the picture. Nice chap.

"I see you and the Fellows of Lamblight, and I think, 'Here come the pillars of the earth.' "

The Inscrutable Character

pinterest...your thoughts on Ginger's character have made me think that perhaps I have struggled too hard to 'understand' [my character] as a copy of me...and see her for who she really is! Which lends to a question I have been wishing to ask for a while and perhaps you can tell me your thoughts. As we write early on in a tale and encounter those type of main characters who decide to keep secret their temperament and nature to a great deal till chapter eleven in the book; until 'then' how do you work out the ins-and-outs of their character in reference to dialogue, thoughts and interaction with the other characters without becoming too contradictory or confusing? 
joy
This is a splendid question, one which I had not thought of before.  There are countless factors that go into making the "inscrutable character," but hopefully I will be able to touch adequately upon a few of them.  Disclaimer: in writing this post, my subconscious yanked on my sleeve and reminded me that I like to write big, red-blooded people, not teenage girls in high school, and that severely dictated the tack I chose to take while writing this piece.  I have worn down the welcome-mats of the minds of Hercules and Adonis; the brain of the average teenage girl remains shrouded in mystery, even for me.

it's natural
First of all, as a way of limbering up to this new thought process, please remember that people are contradictory and confusing, and while you certainly don't want to make your characters bipolar (unless you intentionally want to write a bipolar character), it makes them realistic to allow them those contradictory beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions with which real people are plagued every day.  Pay attention to that as the writer, but do try to give them as unstudied an air as possible.

the great man
In a conversation with my father about keeping one's mouth shut, he remarked that he considered that great men have often been those who kept their own council.  I had to agree: the people I have looked up to in literature have been those whose gravity and silence have unintentionally lent them what some people might call an aloof air.  They were not blabs.  They kept their word, and they did not speak their words often.  They had integrity because of that, which is something that is often remarked upon in the chapters of Proverbs - and, indeed, is a virtue to be found in all cultures.  This is a trait that is independent of personality.  Some personalities will naturally tend against the keeping of one's council, but it can be done.  Protagonist and villain alike may express this virtue.  I know that mine have.  My protagonist of Adamantine is a great one for keeping his thoughts to himself.  My villain of Plenilune, also, has the habit of holding his cards close to his chest. 

the wild card
Some characters will keep their inside selves secret by presenting a different face to the world.  This is called duplicity.  Sometimes it is employed to keep the character safe, sometimes it is employed to save others; I have used both methods.  Sometimes a character is unaware of this Janus aspect: this is called irony.  And this is where the real problem begins: how do you portray these two sides in these situations? 

The back pocket character.  This is a ploy I use most often.  When I have a character such as the "great man," who plays his cards very close to his chest, I need to have an intimate character to come alongside him and interpret for the reader.  They are generally good friends, or the one is a great admirer of the other and able to be often in that character's presence, enough to get to know that character to a degree unknown to the rest of the people in the book.  To the others, the "great man" may be silent, brooding, distant, abstruse, bewildering, eccentric.  He is looked upon with a kind of mingled awe and misapprehension.  To the friend he is in many ways understood, and in those ways that he is not understood he is forgiven.  This method is used of the famous Artos in Watch Fires to the North.  The book is written from the character Bedwyr's point of view, and so the reader is allowed an outside view of the character Artos.  It would overbear the book too much to get into the great man's mind: we are allowed to see him through his friend's eyes, and so, in a way, we are able to come to an understanding.

"I have perhaps drawn his portrait clumsily, but he was not an easy man to know."

The first person.  In the first person, you get a front-row seat of the character's thought processes.  While he reasons why he is being duplicitous, the reader will naturally be abreast of the situation.  This can be seen in a novel like C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces - an excellent book, full of inner turmoil and duplicity masterfully delivered to the reader.

Making the reader the back pocket character.  I use this ploy in The Shadow Things and Between Earth and Sky.  While the main characters of both stories have good friends, in their way, there is no one quite equal to share the characters' thoughts and so the reflections are divulged through the process of third-person past-tense prose to the reader.  There is a great deal of introspection (though not, I trust, in the dull and drawn-out way that is like being tortured); when the character does do something spontaneous, the reader has come to know him so well that no explanation is needful.  The reader has become the character's friend.

Keep in mind the reason for the duplicity.  Unless the character is naturally quiet, there is usually a good reason for the character to keep his mouth shut.  A character of mine was badly betrayed: he has created the habit of keeping himself to himself to avoid being hurt, and laughing to cover the pain.   He has a naturally spirited disposition which demands a kind of outlet, but he has also a great reason for anger and resentment - which makes the "wild card" aspect of what he might say or do all the more interesting for on-lookers and reader alike!

Keep in mind the reveal.  If you do plan on pulling the sheet off your character's duplicitous nature, foreshadowing is a great ploy.  Everybody loves it.  Drop a few hints!  Make another character suspicious!  You choose!

We are all confusing, contradictory, duplicitous, and ironic at times.  Our characters will be also.  This is a good thing!  But the base of all these reactions, I have found, to make a situation comprehensible to the reader, is friendship.  It is impossible to understand anyone apart from some degree of friendship.  It may be another character, it may be the reader, but someone must befriend the inscrutable character to make any sense out of the inscrutable mind.

I, Thou

pinterestI've had a conspiracy of thoughts.  I was having a conversation with my husband about my relationship with my characters in Gingerune, and not twelve hours later Anne Elisabeth posted a very informative piece on infusing your characters with a part of yourself and still avoiding the pit-fall of the Mary Sue-type.

If you are not acquainted with Mary Sues in literature, they are self-inserts of the author, twisting the author into how he or she fantasizes himself or herself to be perceived: outrageously sexy, inexplicably endowed with convenient martial skills, can tell you the last digit of pi, probably possesses superpowers, half the cast hates the character and the other half is falling over each other in an attempt to win his or her affection.

I'm not really here to talk about Mary Sues today; Anne Elisabeth did an excellent job with that already.  But my problem was tangential to the whole issue of having a part of yourself wrapped up in your characters.  I don't know if any of you have reached this stage, or if it even is a stage, but I hope that you will find this helpful all the same.

There is always a degree of myself in my characters - even in my male characters.  While I always try to push outside of myself (or retard myself) to fit the place, age, and personality of my character, I can see how my own position, age, and personality affect the development of my character.  Adamant portrayed my shyness, naivete, and sheltered misunderstanding of the world.  It took a lot of development to bring out the harder core of the girl as I had to work through layers of my own idealistic attitudes which I found entrenched in my character's personality.  Margaret was almost directly opposite: all sharp edges on the outside, endowed with my cynicism, my quixotic tendencies, my stubbornness - all of the martial features which, in the right context, are acceptable and can be an excellent defense against the world, but once they become habit they are prone to hurt anyone around you.  Human beings are extremely complex, and I can explore such diametrically opposed personality traits which I have in myself by putting them in two separate characters.

But Ginger is different.  You have already heard me discuss how very different Ginger and I are.  Not only are our life experiences vastly different, our personalities are too.  This is one reason why the 500-plunk has been such a life-saver: writing Ginger is hard.  It is an uphill battle the whole way, against my own nature, against my own natural thought processes.  She has parts of me for sure, but those parts are small and far between.

Like any writer, when I began having difficulty writing Ginger I began to doubt my skills.  It is the instantaneous reaction of the writer: doubt.  Doubt, doubt, doubt, some despair, doubt.  All of my other characters came so relatively easily!  From my earliest writings (when I didn't even try to veil that I was self-inserting into wildly fun and fantastic worlds) to the sound footings of The Shadow Things, I could relate to my characters.  Maybe we weren't all that alike - Indi, for instance, while very relateable to me, is a better man than I am, Gunga Din - but somehow we always clicked.  But while Ginger makes sense and is a great character to write and explore, I do not feel as though I am walking around in her body.  And for a long time that has worried me.

But the fact is, Ginger is not me.  None of our characters should ever be us, and Ginger bears that truth out in unavoidably bold script.  I don't know if it is a place to "come to," but I have "come to" the place at which my characters are no longer dependent on me.  It is my task to capture the essence of Ginger, not my place to bring her out of myself.  And that's all right.  In some ways, she is more a real character than some of my others.

Your characters are not you.  Have you ever found yourself butting heads with a character you just could not relate to?  Maybe it isn't writer's block: maybe it's that that character is more than ever his own personality and you are depending too much on your own personality to colour all your characters.  It won't do.  It wouldn't do for me, and until I recognized that fact I was having a lot of grief over Ginger.  (I'm still having a lot of grief over Ginger, but that goes without saying...)  But on the encouraging side, all these people really are stuck in your brain, subject to your existence to maintain theirs.  They are not totally independent of you and you can learn their personalities without sacrificing your own.  It just takes more time with some characters than with others.

people are like that too

Update // Interview // Giveaway // Snippets!

pinterestAugust 11th - Notebooks Sisters 
Interview & Giveaway
Heads up!  The Notebook Sisters are interviewing me on August 11th on their blog (really cute - with owls!): it's going to be all about The Shadow Things, and my writing, and fun stuff like that.  I'm slotted for a Sunday, and Sundays on the internet are typically quiet in my neck of the woods, but please join us all the same!  There will be a giveaway and lots of questions no one has asked me yet (such as, what are my favourite pizza toppings)!  Be there!

Life
Well, I have officially started packing.  I was excited before: the packing now makes everything real and makes things 20% cooler than ever.  My biggest concern is that my husband or I will trip in the dark over the luggage strewn across our bedroom floor, fall, and get a broken neck and then die and we will never get to go to Scotland at all.  At the moment, all of the books on my to-take list have made it into the luggage.  My car is halfway cleaned, I have approximately ninety-four pages until I reach the middle of Practical Religion, and I have not even started on any of the Georgette Heyer books which arrived the other day in the mail.  Yay me!

Some Snippets
I don't have a lot to offer you, but I haven't done an actual snippets post in awhile.  Gingerune's main document is now 134,426 words long (!!) and I actually have some breathless hope of finishing the first draft by the end of this year, which is my goal.  A loose, tentatively-held goal, but it is my goal. 

* * * * *With a scream shredding in her throat she grabbed what seemed like the thing’s shoulders and bore backward, trying to bodily drag it off [Mazelin]. But [it] came whipping round on her with a ghastly face lifted against the roof-beams, eyes great pale disks and [its] mouth hanging open like a lamprey. gingerune
"Why is the bower broken, and why is the lattice in shards?"gingerune
She had a glimpse of a tear-streaked face, wide, red-lined eyes, and smelled the scent of terror. “You pushed me away!” cried Roxane. “I thought you were going to die and you pushed me away!” gingerune
Ginger had an awful crawling feeling in her stomach and, if she was not careful, the dark which had nothing to do with loss of blood began to encroach on her vision. She set her ears back and held out while the scent of scorched fig and grilled meat filled the room, and the men who wore swords at their sides jinked with light as the fire glanced off their metal. gingerune
“Sir,” said Mazelin levelly, “what mischief are you creating?” gingerune
He stepped in closer to Mazelin with the gesture of one wanting to breaking the other off from the group to have a talk with him. Resistant to this pressure, Mazelin placidly stood his ground. gingerune
“Gods and lords of men, and you who crush small men under your feet.” The mask lifted toward them. “Here I sit, listening to your words rattling in the cup as you gamble for my life. Do you think I care?" gingerune
Mazelin came back to tend to the cakes. “A man likes to use his hands now and again,” he fumed, half to himself, “and I have a strong mind to throttle him. The pretentious puppy, the upstart little mercenary, smooth as honey in a cat’s mouth...” gingerune
...out of an armourless helplessness, those were the best words for her to hear. She lay broken under a blank hot sky at the bottom of a cold black pit, an alien in her own country. Not an exile song this time, she reflected: this time it was a song of home. gingerune
Behind me, I heard [the lady] gasp of a sudden as if struck. [My master] turned his head to her, brow searching and bemused. “Is something amiss?”From high atop her Carmarthen mount, the strong wind blowing her veil into blue flame around her white features, she looked down on [him] with the expression of one having caught a momentary glimpse of something holy. She released her lip from between her teeth. “For a moment I thought you looked like Eros.”His cool face broke into the All Hallows’ Smile. “No, not Eros. Adonis.” And he turned in a single fluid motion, brought up the great bow and bent it back, and let the arrow loose with breath-taking speed over the threshold of the steppes. ethandune

All My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready to Go

pinterestMirriam had the audacity to say that August is "the last month of summer," whereupon I began a prompt panic session.  My year is twisted and grotesque: I barely recognize it.  Summer in my area has been remarkably (and I mean remarkably) rainy, so that, other than the mugginess and heat, it has felt a lot like spring.  I am going to miss autumn entirely: heading to Glasgow in September, when their cold weather begins, and with the blighting weather coming in off the sea (apparently, if you want kind weather, you go to Edinburgh), my year has effectively cut autumn out wholesale.  And I love autumn, so I rather resent that.

i'm standin' here outside your doori hate to wake you up to say good-bye
July was swallowed up in Actually Finishing Something.  It went by alarmingly fast.  Now August is upon us and I no longer have that buffering month between me and Scotland.  Of course, I'm massively excited to be going, and the closer I get the more the excitement is outweighing the terror.  We've got our tickets to leave on the 3rd of September and a flat lined up in Glasgow.  I've got my scarf and my sweaters, my boots and my Oxfords.  I'm trying to figure out how to get my favourite umbrella over there.

This is the last month of summer and the last month I'll have here in the States until the middling of December.  I'll be home in time for Christmas.  Mirriam asked what August held for us, and I found myself asking my own self much the same thing.

// clean out my car
// do a massive cleaning of the house (currently in progress)
// get vaccinations to appease the authorities in Britain
// determine how I'm going to amuse myself during the 7-hour lay-over in Newark, NJ
// wrap my niece's present, which will be delivered by proxy in October
// NOT read all the Georgette Heyer books I bought
// continue my diligent work on Gingerune
// do a test-run of packing to make sure I can take everything I want to take
// write a letter to Anna at her new address under her new name (all grown up and savin' China!)
// clean out the fridge so we don't have a biohazard on our hands a month into our absence
// get half-way through Practical Religion, at least
// try not to throw Philip Morville out a window
// find a way to package sunlight so I can take it with me
// finishing reading Plenilune to my husband
// get a whole new website for myself from Bree Holloway Designs!

These are the last days.  I'll be cleaning out my house and putting my soul in readiness.  
"Always you are so glib.""The glibness," he added introspectively, "is a soldier's kind of courage."

Thirty-Two Days in a Month

Actually Finishing Something July
Did you reach your goal?

Not strictly speaking, but not through lack of trying, I think.  This scene has proved to be a kind of watershed and, perforce, very difficult to plot.  I have been inching my way along by 500 words.  I did finish, but I finished today, August 1st.  Close, but no cigar.

If you didn't complete your goal, were you able to make a good amount of progress in your project?

"A good amount of progress" is a relative term.  Also, while I have sat down dutifully and written 500 words before getting back up, and have therefore got my way through this scene, I feel as if I have made little progress in the plot.  Puts one down, you know.  Perhaps I will find someone who is not paying attention to me and I will read it aloud, and that person will say, "Mmhmm, Jenny, quite good."  And I will go away heightened in spirit and write something fantastic.

Did you maintain a writing schedule?  How often did you write to meet your goal?

Half of my time was spent brain-storming (or flogging - felt more like beating my brain-pan than anything else), and the other half was spent in actual writing.  Can't write if you haven't got words.  Hadn't got words.  Piffle.  But when I did sit down to write, I forced myself to push ahead by 500 more words, and often I was able to push ahead a little farther than that.

List some of the musical tracks and artists you listened to most frequently this July.  Tell us why they inspired you and how they fit with your story.

I listened almost exclusively to Loreena McKennitt's performance at the Alhambra, which is one and a half hours long, so I can put it on and let it go without having to poke Youtube every three minutes.  Most distracting.  I particularly like this video because, while Gingerune is not at all Celtic, her music often bears an Eastern flare which is excellent for the mood.  Very few of the songs in this performance have anything remotely to do with Gingerune, but I like them, and playing music that I like sets me in a good frame of mind to feel any equanimity toward the whole writing business.  My favourites are "The Bonny Swans," "The Stolen Child," and "Bonny Portmore."  Of course, I can sing very little of any of them.

Snippets!  Share as many or as little as you choose.

"Egyptian princes,” he added with a delicate upward kick to his lip, “do not countenance shabby driving. Perhaps—” He, too, stopped at his perhaps, but in a moment he chose to go on. “Perhaps later, when you are feeling better, I can take you out for a real drive. You would like it. There is nothing to compare.”gingerune
The Earth-Master appeared only slightly mollified to find he was not, after all, to be used as a target for blame.gingerune
Everyone began looking at Ginger and Ginger, responding as she always did to such attacks, felt her blood drain from her face and her lips part a little from her bared teeth. gingerune
—then the soldier was on top of the archer, his movements made heavy by pain. Ginger pulled Roxane aside, falling back as the soldier grabbed the archer by the ears and slammed his head into the marble flags. Athanassoulis hung on for two more crashing blows and then his body fell open, the bow cascading out of his grasp and the sheaf of arrows clattering across the floor.gingerune
Pick a character from your July writing project and describe his or her daily wardrobe. Imagine how this character would dress is he or she were living in the year 2013.


Gingerune by jenpenslayer featuring bracelet charms
We'll do Ginger, since Ginger is my main character.  She wears (for her culture) very simple clothing: belled skirt (which would be pleated if she had the opportunity to iron it), fitted bodice and three-quarter-length sleeves, all in white and without embellishment; she owns no shoes.  In today's fashion, I've fitted her out with a salmon-coloured maxi dress (she can get away with maxi dresses: she's tall), a plain pair of gladiator sandals with heels, heavy bracelets, and some sharp turquoise jewellery to set off her freckles and violent red hair.

Bonus Question (skip if so desired - I shan't be offended)! What was your favorite part of Actually Finishing Something [in] July? What could be done next year to improve the challenge?

 I was very glad for the motivation which this challenge lent to my writing, especially since the scene I just finished was such a finicky one. 

thanks, Katiebug!

Paper Is Heavy

I have a little over a month before I head off to Scotland until December, and I face that fact with a mingled sense of excitement and panic.  Travel problem du jour is: are my husband and I up to date on our vaccinations?  Tomorrow there will be a new travel problem.

I have started several well-meaning lists of books I want to take along with me.  I can barely go to the grocery store without a book, let alone a new country (well, actually, it's a very old country, but you know what I mean).  Space and weight will be limited, but not my frantic desire to scoop all of my books into my arms and toddle through the airport with them.  Bah.

practical religion - j.c. ryle
georgette heyer novelsa severe mercy - sheldon vanaukensin and salvation - lesslie newbiginthe mind of the maker - dorothy sayersmoonblood - anne elisabeth stengl

These are the current runners-up in the list of books to be taken.  The Mind of the Maker is a reread and may or may not make it into the suitcase.  I might take it along and read it aloud to my husband: we'll see.  I'm currently reading Practical Religion, but it is massive and I doubt I will finish it in the month of August.  We will see about that also.

I just blazed through The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer and loved it!  Abigail heard about it from someone, and I noticed Anne Elisabeth Stengl was in the habit of enjoying Heyer's works, so I borrowed Abigail's copy of The Grand Sophy and shot through it in under a week.  Stitches! hilarity!  I loved it!  I'm almost ashamed to say I enjoyed it more than Jane Austen, in a way...  So I put in an order for a few more and hopefully I will have the sense and will-power to not devour all of them in August.

Rachel Heffington keeps pestering me (politely) to read A Severe Mercy, and I'm looking forward to packing it up with me to take to Scotland.  I have enjoyed Lesslie Newbigin's writing, and my copy of Sin and Salvation is hardback and looks sturdy: just the sort of little book to take along on a trip.

I'll have to tell you in September what I really wind up taking.

having said all this, I will now flee from procrastination and the wrath to come, and continue working on gingerune

Like a Thousand Secrets She Would Never Know

pinterestActually Finishing Something JulyWeek Four
How goes progress?

Like a veritable milieu of high language.  I have no very clear idea how the next scene in Gingerune is going to unfold, and it doesn't feel like the sort of scene I can just walk into and hope it will come out all right in the end.  And inspiration has been a little lax lately.  It doesn't help that some of my other Muses have been dragging me off by my hair.  But the 500 plunk has seen me through some bad times; I hope to slip into the next scene gingerly (ah ha) within the next day or so and hopefully something will come of it.  "So say we all."

Snippets!

I haven't been able to do snippets in a while.  The question allowed for two, but I think I will share a little more as a kind of peace offering to you.  Enjoy!

You were under the bull’s hooves that time, she thought to herself. Slowly, achingly, she made her flogged body relax. You’ve come out again. Oh God of Mazelin, how many times am I going to be thrown under them?gingerune
No fish came, hard as she tried to conjure. Lying on her side, strangely comforted by the street-talk with which Roxane peppered her Earth-Master, Ginger began the long climb back to sanity. She knew it would take a long time: last time she had nearly been crushed by a bull it had taken her over a month to make herself look at a bullock without trembling all over. She knew it would take a long time, but Mazelin did not have a long time. He could not hold her and the world together if he was falling to pieces himself.gingerune
With the air of a queen Roxane sprang up into the bed of the car, clutching the high scalloped side with her head turned away from her driver. Teeth set in a silent laugh, Athanassoulis climbed up after her, wrapped the reins around his wrists, and leaned back casually, waiting as Mazelin lifting Ginger into their chariot and got a feel for his team.gingerune
Her daughter’s voice turned hard. “If anyone or anything comes, I will rip off their heads with my teeth.”gingerune
I think we got much the same impression at the same time: a heap of golden curls, a foreign-style gown heavily embroidered with silver crystals and gold thread, two laughing blue eyes and a prim, mocking mouth smiling at us out of a flawless face. I suppressed the instinct to whistle and glanced at [my master], expecting him to be waving me back. Instead I found a man I had not known before. Always polite, ever the well-bred gentleman’s son, I found [his] heritage of blue blood and feudal supremacy had awoken with a vengeance. The young man stared down at the lady with the flush of possessiveness in his face. ethandune
[His father] smiled. “Yes. When we fall for our women, we fall for them hard. Rather fantastic, I take it, is the Lady Jennalaide?”“Nonpareil!” ethandune
There was a sound of footsteps behind us. Flinging a desperate glance over his shoulder, [my master] said, “I’ll do my best to keep the tigers at bay. Go on!” And he grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her about—one got a glimpse of a magnificent hour-glass in warm alabaster—and shoved her back into her room. ethandune
"I'm not shape-shifting into a woman! There are some things a man draws the line at!"ethandune
Do you have a Pinterest inspiration board? Share a few images with us!

ethandune: pinterest

ethandune: pinterest
gingerune: pinterest
gingerune: pinterest
How would the main character of your story react if she were introduced to you?

That is really hard to say.  I don't know how I appear to other people so I couldn't tell you accurately what Ginger might think of me.  My initial impression is that she would not think much of me, really.  She might come to appreciate my brain, maybe, if she were excessively charitable...  But in general I don't believe I am much to crow about and I doubt anyone, much less someone as frank and disobliging toward women in general as Ginger, would care a penny for me.  My only comfort is that I don't believe she would out-and-out despise me.

Introduce us to one or two of the secondary characters in your story.

I'll give you Lysane: typical dark Grecian beauty, locally celebrated flower seller with a promising match with an iron-worker.  She is kind, just a little soft in the brain, imminently respectable - everything Ginger is not. 

If one of your characters were allowed to choose a super-power, what would it be?

Nothing so easy!  Ginger would possess the ability to go from place to place without crossing the distance in between.  Where I come from, we call it "world-bending."

We're nearing the end of this summer challenge!  Is the completion of your goal in sight?

If I can get through this next scene by the end of July, I will be momentarily satisfied.  It shouldn't be too hard; my scenes aren't usually that long.  But what with the trip to Scotland happening around the end of August, beginning of September, I may be down-shifting so that I don't stress myself out too much between packing, planning, and plotting.  But I think I will manage to make this July a success.

Too bad, you're late for Actually Finishing Something July, but you can still visit it here!  That's the nice thing about the internet.

O For A Muse of Fire

What do you use to get your creativity flowing again?

gingerune
GIMP, apparently.  But no, really, what do I use to get my creative juices flowing again when I have neglectfully let them stagnate?  In a perfect world I would not be allowed to let them coagulate, but here we are and there it is, you know, and so the question stands.

500 plunk

Thanks to Kendra, I now have a title for this exercise - this exercise which I did not myself invent.  If you don't need anything more than a kick in the pants, this is a great way to make yourself buckle down and work a little harder, darling.   In short, sit down and make yourself write 500 words before you are allowed to get back up.  There are no other rules.  The words don't have to be the best.  You should certainly try to do your best, but don't sweat the small stuff, as Applejack says.  This is a case of pushing yourself more than it is of pushing your characters.  Just move the plot along 500 more words and find where that puts you.  I usually find it has got me into the swing of things and I'm willing to push beyond 500 after that.

the shadow things

read well and rightly

You will always hear me say you must read, because it will always be true.  But in this case, make sure you are reading the right books.  I have finally reached a place in Gingerune at which I can go read about the Norman invasion of England if I like (which I do want to read that book at some point) and not have it unduly affect my writing, but I don't think it would be wise for me to make a reread of, say, Jane Austen because her dialogue would probably undermine my own.  I could probably get away with a reread of Knight's Fee, though.  Keep in mind where you are in the writing process:

do you need research material?do you need prose inspiration?do you need help defining your characters?
While you never want to steal from other people, half the art of writing is learning how to take other people's work, break it down into its essential components, and refashion it to help create the story you have in your own head. (WRITING IS ALCHEMY.)  You cannot create ex nihilo: there is no shame in admitting this fact of nature and getting help.

plenilune

poetry and music

I know this is kind of an odd thing to throw out there, but poetry and music (which is poetry set to harmonious noise) are very important to people and have been throughout human history.  They are important for you, they are important for your characters.  Writing a fairy-tale?  Dig around online or at the library for Tennyson or Spencer.  For music, I've been putting on Loreena McKennitt's hour-and-a-half-long performance at the Alhambra, which has lots of eastern-style music thrown in.  It is very inspirational and mood-setting. 

talk at people

We're assuming here that you have a general idea of what your story is going to be, but you're stuck and you don't know where to go.  Think-vomit at people.  Spill what you have, what you think you might have, what your problems are.  Sometimes, getting everything out helps shake answers loose that you did not know you had already.  And if you don't manage to shake anything loose yourself, your friend may have some excellent points with which to aid you.  If nothing else, at least they will be able to share your pain when you are done talking.

adamantine

imagery

There are days when I have to go trawl my own Pinterest boards to restore the visual images I had of my story-worlds.  And then there are days when I get it into my head that I am artistic and I make collages, as you see...  These activities are mind-numbing in a way, and if they don't help me get a good visual image back, they do at least make me fed up with GIMP and the internet so that I want to do nothing but make pretty words in my document just to restore some sanity to the world.

This is less a case of things I use and more things that I do.  But I hope that helps the inquirer and anyone else who was looking for some assistance.  Ciao!