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This is a little exercise that David Greenshell shared with me the other day. Take a few minutes and watch the video below. DO NOT SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED!
Category: Life
Milestones & Updates
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Hello, world! It seems like writers spend a lot of time soul-searching in Angst-ville (myself included) so I wanted to share some good news!
1) ARTICLES!
I got some articles published! Fellow writer Mark Squirek is a columnist for the online newsletter Scoop. He asked me to do a pair of articles for his column, “Cover Story,” which discusses the cover art of various comic books. I got to pick any two covers I wanted and write about them! I chose Space Family Robinson #23: “Menace from Uranus!” from 1967 and The Chronicles of Arcea #1: “The Athame” by Vyrhelle. Many thanks to Mark for asking me to write for Scoop and to Mr. J.C. Vaughn, editor at Gemstone Publishing, for taking a chance on a new writer. Also, my deepest gratitude to my friend Karen; editing all of those art papers paid off! Working with Scoop has been a lot of fun, and I hope I’ll be able to continue writing for them.
Liebster Blog Award
A huge thank-you goes out to Endless Edits who nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award! Please check out her site! I was actually nominated for the award a few years ago when I was on Blogspot, but I’m happy that my new and improved blog has been nominated as well!
There are a few rules for accepting the Liebster Award, they are: thank your nominator and link back to their website, answer your nominator’s questions, leave 11 facts about yourself, nominate 5 or more blogs with under 200 followers and give them 11 questions to answer.
So, here are the 11 questions that E.E. posed to me:
Gender, Color, and Sexuality in Characters
I’m currently working on the script for my manga project Astral Rain for the April edition of Camp NaNoWriMo 2014. Well, more accurately, I’ve been working on a lot of background notes, plot notes, and world-building because I noticed that a lot of that hadn’t been worked out in advance. As I was writing, I came across the article “I’m Demanding Better Representation For Black Girl Nerds in Geek Culture” by Chaka Cumberbatch. And that’s when it hit me: all of my characters in Astral Rain are white.
Granted, it’s supposed to be an OEL (Original English Language) manga, and most anime and manga lack people of color. I have no problem featuring white characters, but what surprised me is that the idea of any of the cast of Astral Rain being anything but fair-skinned never occurred to me. And that concerns me.
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#BlogHop – Advice for New Writers
Week 4 of the #Blog Hop for #Writers hosted by Ruth Snyder! This week, the topic is “Advice I’d Give a Newbie Writer.”
It feels a little weird for me to be giving advice. After all, I’m not a best-selling novelist. (Yet.) I haven’t actually published anything. (Yet.) In fact, aside from a handful of dubious short stories and some amateur poetry, I haven’t even finished anything. (Yet.) That is why I refer to myself as an “author-in-progress.”
I could direct you to hundreds of books written by people far more articulate, interesting, and qualified than I am for advice on writing. (I’m including a list of my favorite ones at the end of this entry for the curious and masochistic.) I could parrot the many tried and true sayings that have percolated my brain over the years, like “Have a routine,” or “Write every day,” or “The first draft always sucks; don’t let that discourage you,” or “Everyone has their own way of writing.” All of which are valid pieces of advice. There are plenty of bit-sized tidbits floating around on the internet in the form of brightly colored, friendly-looking helpful quotes in fancy fonts, often accompanied by pictures of a pen, paper, books, or tea. Like this one, for instance:
So I don’t feel like I’ve put in the hours or had the success that would make me qualified to give out advice. But there is one thing that I’ve learned that I’d like to share:
“What do you protect?” Storytelling Shifts Focus
A few days ago, I was listening to the song “Hail the Hero” by Celtic Thunder, and something in the lyrics struck me:
“Hail the hero, strong and true,
Who fought the fight, and saw it through,
Who swore he ne’er would be a slave
And gave his life our land to save.”
Do you see it? No? Look at this line then:
“And gave his life our land to save.”
There’s been a subtle shift in the focus of what is being protected in a story. It used to be that the hero was trying to save a land, a world, or a people as a whole rather than being devoted to an individual. They gave everything “for the land.” Often, rulers were tied to the land in some way, either through mystical means (having a literal bond with the earth) or through responsibility as a prince or princess, a king or queen.
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2013: The Year in Review
Wow. It’s hard to believe today is the last day of 2013. Every year time seems to run faster, and I’m constantly reminded not to take a second for granted. There’s so much still to write, to read, to do…
But, before I get maudlin, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has come to The Cat’s Cradle to read, like, and comment on my entries. I hope that you’ve enjoyed them and maybe even learned something from them. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me through the transition from Blogspot to WordPress and to all the newcomers who found me once I got here!
While I’m rather glad that 2013 is over (it hasn’t been the best year for personal complications), I am astounded looking back at everything I have managed to accomplish. It’s too easy to get stuck in the trap of thinking of all the things you could have/should have/would have/meant to do but didn’t, and I hate that loop. So I’m going to remind myself of what I accomplished this year, and encourage you to do the same. It might not seem like you’re doing much in the daily grind, but it all mounts up after a while.
Sending a submission is like fighting the Empire…
…there’s always another Star Destroyer. The battle is never-ending. A victory for the Rebel Alliance, no matter how epic, doesn’t mean the end of the war. That’s a bit how I feel right now after finishing my 10,000-word submission for the Jim Henson Dark Crystal Author Quest. I feel like those cheering Rebels on Hoth right after they hear the announcement: “The first transport is away! The first transport is away!”
Yes, the first one made it through. And that feeling of victory when facing impossible odds is euphoric. But they have to try to get the rest through the blockade as well. And even if they make it off Hoth, the rest of the Empire is still out there, waiting for them.
This might not seem like a victory. After all, I’m just one among many. I have no idea what is going to happen next. Will my entry be considered? Accepted? Ultimately win or be rejected? I have no way of knowing. But I started writing my Dark Crystal entry 5 months ago. July 1, 2013, I used Camp NaNoWriMo to pound out half the novel. I kept writing all the way through September. October was sporadic writing followed by editing, then November was dedicated to my wonderful beta readers. Their feedback helped me chose what portion of the novel to send as my submission. I hit the “Submit Your Entry” button on November 30, exactly five months after starting this project.
Continue reading “Sending a submission is like fighting the Empire…”
Doctor Who: Time, Space, and Fandom
It’s been a while since I was this obsessed about a show. More than a show; an entire universe spread across many different kinds of media. One of the most appealing aspects of Doctor Who is that it exists in so many forms, allowing for a wide array of stories and expression. And one of the most challenging aspects of Doctor Who is that it exists in so many forms, making it very difficult to track them all down.
I’ll say right up front that I haven’t watched any classic Doctor Who. I really hate watching a series out of order, but since there are 100 episodes missing from classic Who, I was reluctant to dive into the franchise at all. However, my friend Storm Elf assured me that I could start with the 2005 series that introduced the 9th Doctor and I would be fine, since there’s a 16-year gap between classic Who and its reincarnation. We watched the first episode together at Katsucon and later she hosted a Doctor Who viewing for the next few episodes. After that, I went through a lull where I didn’t watch any Doctor Who. But in late September 2013, after listening to several Sapphire and Steel radio plays, I felt in the mood for some more weird time-related stories and decided it was the right time to start up Doctor Who again.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Fictional Values
Constructing a new world filled with interesting climates, cultures, and characters is a lot of fun, but it also requires a great deal of work. There are so many details to attend to in order to keep everything fresh and interesting. One of those many details is the societal values of your various cultures.
This is something that has always been prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy, but it really didn’t hit me until I started playing Mass Effect. Each of the alien races have a certain defining characteristic, a societal value that defines them as a culture and/or species. For the turians, honor and responsibility. For the asari, it’s diplomacy and psychic awareness. For the salarians, it’s scientific achievement and espionage. For the krogan, battle and conquest. Granted, part of this distinctness comes from being nonhuman; many such races have an overarching characteristic that gives people a starting point in order to relate to them. But even human cultures and societies can have a defining value or values.
The Cat's Cradle : On Hiatus! 