New counters

I decided to have monthly counters on this blog as well.
The first is the word quantity I want to achieve and the second shows the days. Ideally the procentage for words is equal to that for the days (or better) but we'll see how that goes...

As you can see, I did well for August already. :) I wrote myself an outline of one "chapter" and curiously writing only as much as the day quantity requires (or a bit more to finish a sentence/thought) has been working exceptionally well.

Killing off my MC

I remember quite clearly that I was quite shocked while reading «The Pillars of the Earth» for the first time. The beginning is told through Tom Builder's POV and then suddenly he is killed. Leaving the reader a bit disorientated for a moment, and then shifting to someone else's POV (Aliena's?).

This and the fact that my Intensive Course German teacher had said something of the effect of "Kill the good guy! Let him die while the others still like him!" (He also said "There always has to be a river" - but that's another matter *g*) has lead to the fact that for some time the idea of killing off Ella has brooded in my mind.

I don't know how this story will end so I cannot say if Ella may play a crucial part. And at the moment I'm writing solely from her POV (not that I cannot change the POV to a different character for some scenes), and I'm having problems of hearing any of the others clearly. So this might be a sign, that I should keep Ella in the story - or not.

So, what do you think? Keep her and see what she does or go for the big wham?

Music

I got the soundtrack of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for my birthday and it's all I'm listening to at the moment (besides the radio in the morning).

I must say I hugely enjoy those orchestral soundtracks like those for all the Harry Potter movies or for Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean.

It's the kind of background music I need to write...

Haiku

Found a haiku generator on Jenny's blog today.

Of the 5 or 6 I generated I liked the following two best:

had to carry my
purchase until i got one
like diana's this year

my grave and weep i
am not there i became
bold and posted a

Irish Blessings

While searching for a sailor's blessing for Jenny, I found this beautiful blessing for the left-behind:


Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there... I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow...
I am the diamond glints on snow...
I am the sunlight on ripened grain...
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you waken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of gentle birds in circling flight...
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry-
I am not there... I did not die...

Experiment

I'll go to bed in a few and get up at 3a.m. again to talk to the Compuserve lot. For them it's 9p.m. then :)

I'll see if I maybe get some-/anything written down, and perhaps I'll do this tomorrow again. And if I get good ideas in the night, maybe I'll do this every weekend.

In the night when all is silent and even the air seems to be asleep, inspiration may strike...

e.e. cummings

I've been watching Emergency Room yesterday evening with my parents. It was the episode where Abby marries Luca.
Abby recited a wonderful poem by e.e. cummings and I thought I'd post it here


i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Mary Sue

The discussion on Jenny's blog, if her Elspeth is a Mary Sue (I personally don't think so) made me wonder about Ella.

So I took the two tests mentioned by precie and here are the results.

Score for this test:
14
The Non-Sue. Your character is a well-developed, balanced person, and is almost certainly not a Mary Sue. Congratulations!

And for this:
Ella is only a little like you. She isn't really very cool: she blends into crowds, she hangs out on the fringes at parties, and wearing shades after dark makes her run into things. She may have sometimes thought that she was special, or destined for greater things, but probably dismissed the idea as a fantasy. She's come in for her share of hurt, but gotten off with minor damage. And she's gotten no slack from you.

In general, you care deeply about Ella, but you're smart enough to let her stand on her own, without burdening her with your personal fantasies or propping her up with idealization and over-dramatization. Ella is a healthy character with a promising career ahead of her.

Score Breakdown
I Love Her, I Let Her Go 5
You Mean Plaid Is Out? 9
I'm Destined For What? 5
Can't Complain 7
Momma HATES Her! 0
Total: 26


Although if you look at the questions, you'll find that they are sometimes difficult to apply to a character in a fantasy world (regarding eye colour, certain behaviour etc.) as that world listens to different rules than ours

Inspiration

I'm a bit stuck at the moment. So today I browsed fictionpress.com (a daughter of fanfiction.net, where I read a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction - there, I admitted it!).

As this story will be Fantasy I had a look at their Fantasy section. I haven't read much yet, but what I've read hasn't really been that inspiring.
And I'm afraid if I like something I won't be able to leave it out of my story...

I saw Diana's post on First Lines today, over at Compuserve, and gave it a try. I hadn't even considered the beginning before, but I sat down and thought on it a bit, and I guess I got something, I can work with.

So how do you like this?:

Receiving a letter with the government crest on it was always a bad thing; but this was exponentially worse.

Aftermath

Today I'll be busy with cleaning away the rest of what's left of my birthday party.
But hopefully I'll be getting back to writing tomorrow.

I noticed that what I've written lately has more often than not been rather gloomy. Perhaps I'll write a cheerful birthday scene. Not for the stoy itself but for me. :)

Birthday

It's still my birthday for another 2 hours and 47 minutes...

I'm happy and exhausted. :) The weather was behaving in my favour, after it had been cloudy and rainy the last few days, the sun was shining today.

As for presents: For years and years I've been trying to get my family to get me books. But they couldn't be persuaded. Only every now and then I got one (like Diana's).
This year my wishlist consisted of almost nothing else but books and gift certificates for books aaand... I got them :) For the next few weeks I'll do nothing but browsing my bookstore. :)

Oh well...

...or not.

I've been feeling ill all day, went home earlier than usual. The kind of ill, where you don't really know what to do with yourself.

Perhaps I should write about it - they do say you should take inspiration from things around you, no?
And Taisha will not be used to the food the others have with them on their journey (her being born to a high family)...

Communication II.

When I sat down yesterday evening to write a bit, words suddenly appeared almost by themselves. I love it when they do that. :) It's so much nicer than forcing myself to WRITE and truggle with sentences I don't like.
Not a mushroom character, but a mushroom scene. :)
I experimented with my communication idea and the result can be found on the right under "Excerpts".
I'll add a few more snippets every now and then. Depending on how much I like them and if they seem "public worthy" ;)

Summary

You're probably wondering what this story of mine is all about.

Here's a summary (what I know about the WIP so far):


This is Fantasy and plays in a post-war world (“country” A has fought against “country” B; I’ll have to work on the reasons). There are many orphaned children, most of them living on the street, mostly in gangs that steal and plunder, and are generally being a nuisance.
After several years the government decides to put a stop to that and enacts a law, that allows it to put two single persons together with two children from the street; or a childless couple – married or not.
The first part starts when the MC Ella gets a letter telling her when and where to meet her ‘partner’.
Ella is in her late twenties - I think - has fought in the war, has been in the Resistance, has always been on her own (although she has almost been engaged to one of the other Resistance members, but we find that out only much later), and definitely doesn’t want a family. Ruwen, her partner, is the same age, has had nothing to do with the war (for reasons he has yet to tell me) but knows the politics. They are assigned to Leandra, a 14 year old girl and Jesper, a 5 year old boy. In the course of things they take on Levin, 16, as well, because they find out that he’s Jesper’s brother.
They try to live together, but especially for Ella that’s very hard, because she’s not willing to make room for other persons in her life.
It becomes obvious – at least to Ella – that if things continue to develop as they do, there will be another war soon. Before she can decide what to do - because by now she does consider her family members, not to forget that she has fallen for Ruwen - Levin leaves to join the new Resistance and that makes up her mind for her to go as well. Ruwen is very angry about that, and Ella leaves with the knowledge that she will probably never see her children again.
Ella visits one of the ‘old’ Resistance members, but he is not willing to risk his family and his life just for Ella’s assumption, because he’s not certain that there will be a war again. After he tells Ella that her almost-fiancé is dead, she leaves and joins the New Resistance.

In the second part Ella does not find Levin, because he’s with another group, but she meets many new people, e.g. the brother, Adrien, of one of the members of the old resistance, that Ella knew well. The group decides that since the other “country” has found an ally in a third “country” they will defeat them from within with the help of the dragons that live on the border between “country” B and C.
On their way, Adrien is kidnapped and tortured to tell their plans, and in the curse of things he’s suddenly married to “country” B leader’s daughter. She flees with him and they rejoin the group. Of course everyone is wary of the wife, but Taisha earns their trust with background knowledge.
They meet one of the dragon’s keepers then, but before they can convince him to help them and persuade the dragons, this keeper is killed. (He’s called Abosaa right now, red-haired and the dragons love snow so he’s always surrounded by its smell. Is there a bell ringing? Well, I need to find him another name, but Diana’s book came to mind when I thought about him…).
Adrien has some problems with Taisha along the way, because he isn’t used to her yet and she’s used to people obeying her and is a headstrong person.
Their last option is one Ella doesn’t want to think about, because the person that could help them is the reason that she has abandoned and then lost her family (the first one; mother, father, siblings) and then joined the Resistance. But Adrien knows about it and “betrays” her by telling the others. Ella then agrees to take them to this person, and he is willing to help.

You’ll have noticed that there’s no end yet. The Resistance uses this mysterious person’s help (he sends a special army) but other than that… I don’t know. Will they be victorious? Will Ella find Levin? See her family again? What about Adrien and Taisha?
I do not know. I guess I’ll find out…

Communication

My thinking of yesterday didn't leave me alone, and while I lay wide-awake in my bed last night, I thought about possibilities how the "wizards" in my story might communicate, and I think i finally figured it out.
This will of course need some more consideration and I will have to work out the exact possibilities and limits of this method, but it's a start.

And at least three new scenes started to develop, making up for yesterday's lack of progress.

Samt und Säbel

Eve's book arrived on Friday. I was very exited. :) I could only open it on Saturday and have only read a few pages so far, as I have - as usual - several books in the read at the same time.

I accompanied my sister to a casting for a TV show today, and had to wait a lot while she was in answering questions and such. And stupid me had forgotten to bring any book. How I wished to be able to read Samt und Säbel then....

So I decided to write some bits down of my own story and guess what? I forgot my pen and paper. Aaaargh!!
I had no choice but to stare out of the window and think, but I fear due to a heavy headache I had the whole day, I forgot half of it again. So much for making any progress... *sigh*

Fog

Today it's so foggy, I haven't seen the other side of the street - or the tree directly in front of my window, for that matter - all day.

Later on I will go jogging again. Hopefully the wather will have cleared by then.

I will need to prepare for my birthday next week and on Sunday I'm in Cologne, so there won't be much writing done this weekend.

I wanted to do the August X, perhaps I'll find time on Sunday evening...

Joggen

Zu Anfang will ich kurz erwähnen, dass ich höllischen Muskelkater habe.
Ich bin Montag das erste Mal seit 3 Jahren wieder gelaufen - 18 Minuten, nach Plan - und klar, das gibt Muskelkater. Der hat mich auch heute beim Laufen nicht gestört, aber jetzt, wo ich hier sitze...

Da es geschüttet hat wie sonst was, habe ich meinen Ipod nicht mitgenommen. Im Nachhinein habe ich festgestellt, dass ich den so hätte anbringen können, dass er unter der Regenjacke nicht nass geworden wär. Aber hinter ist man immer schlauer. Also habe ich mir überlegt womit ich mich ablenken könnte. Und klar, dachte ich, denk mal über deine Story nach. Aber ich hatte nach diesem Entschluss keine zwei Schritte getan, da war mein Kopf auch schon leer. Ich konnte mich gar nicht auf etwas bestimmtes konzentrieren, meine Gedanken sind einfach so überherrgeschwirrt, aber wirklich gedacht hab ich nicht.

Kann ich meinen tollen Plan, beim Joggen übers Schreiben nachzudenken, also direkt an den Nagel hängen. Nun gut, eigentlich hatte ich dann jetzt vor an der August Aufgabe im Books and Writers Forum teilzunehmen, aber da habe ich jetzt auch keine Lust mehr zu. So wird das nie was...

Ich brauch ne Motivation

Änderung

Ab sofort werde ich auf deutsch weiterschreiben, denn ich denke, dass ist für die, die - hoffentlich - hier ab und zu vorbeischauen, einfacher.