Musings of the Lorekeeper

...on the effect of excessive mental stimulation, particularly of an academic or similar sort, on creativity.

This is becoming a pattern in my life. The more interesting cerebral stuff that gets thrown at me, the more I come up with ideas for stories. The stories are generally related in no way shape or form to my academic work, but I had SO many ideas while in college. Then after college they sort of faded out (and Japan wasn't the greatest time for them either, though I did have a few good ones and MADE myself work through discipline). But there's nothing like being in school for having INSPIRATION OVERLOAD.

You can see why this is not the idea set-up. Sigh.

Still, I have e-mailed myself notes on a potential GOOD FIX for Azilie's story (it's been bothering me since spring 2008!) AND I also want to get back into TS. (Okay, THAT part is maybe related to being in school because Celeste is in school at that point, but I think that's coincidental.)

For Azilie, I think one potential solution to my problem is to alter the POV model. I was sticking to just Azilie's for this story because her ultimate decision has to be made on her own to be significant enough to work for the story...BUT...that doesn't mean the READER can't see another story and how it works in. I think I may be able to solve the problem if I do that!

So I was scrawling down more notes about this in class in my assignment book because it was all I had on hand at the time.

I also want to note on a semi-digression that I saw the movie "Up" a couple weeks ago and it seemed a lot like my story, but not in any plagiarizy way. Awesome. I think anyone who liked that story will like Defying Gravity, and I'm not just saying so because of people flying through the air. Subtle but significant things about the characters are key here. Yay.

I have to go to a group project meeting now. Bother. Who wants to learn about Affinity Diagrams when I have stories oozing out of my brain? Oh well, at least I have a really good group.

I found another song that totally fits the Defying Gravity soundtrack! I had the TV on while I was cleaning the apartment this morning, and this came on. I stopped to listen and the lyrics totally fit the sad part of Azilie's story.

Check it out!

There's a video, the original Japanese, and an English translation there.

I guess it doesn't matter if a song on my soundtrack is in Japanese since it's not like I'll actually be able to use the soundtrack for anything anyway. ;) But it's fun to put these together and pretend they're "real." Hey, it's real to me and helps me write!

I've started thinking about the story again and think I might have discovered a way to make the end not so terrible. Which is good, 'cause I'm almost done with my current big project, and then it's back to writing!

I realized that this isn't actually a spoiler picture, so I decided to post it.



The song I used to title this picture (a practice I seem to be doing a lot for this story!) is perfect for the soundtrack to the climax of the story. :)

I'm pleased with the sky and Azilie in this picture, but the ground looks terrible. Eh, oh well. I'm still learning with the markers, and I don't have much practice with drawing buildings, especially from high above.

Speaking of Defying Gravity, I thought I'd throw a little reminder out there for any of you guys reading the story for me. I heard from one person right after I sent it out in December (thanks again, shadowfreder!) and then heard from several people saying they were almost done commenting, but then never heard from any of them. And then just after I scanned this picture the other day I heard from arieswriting saying she hadn't forgotten it (thanks Jen!) and that reminded me that I meant to post a friendly little reminder here in case anyone else had forgotten it. I would very much love to hear what you readers think of it thus far! Absolutely no pressure to hurry or anything, but sometimes I can use reminders myself so here's one should you be needing it. ;)

I plan to start up again on this story in March (whether before or after I go to India, I don't know) but for now I am taking a break to work on another creative project, which I hope to complete this month.

Anyway, hope you like this picture!

...WITH A NEW STORY IDEA.

Right while my hands are sticky from peeling potatoes, of which I have 8 more to peel and to cook and mash and have done in 45 minutes.

Right while I'm supposed to be focusing on FINISHING MY BLASTED CURRENT NOVEL THIS WEEKEND.

Right when a gazillion other good ideas are in line to be worked on next.

BUT THIS IS SUCH A POWERFUL IDEA.


It came out of listening to that blasted song again (and again) while peeling potatoes.

I think it's time to move on to the next song on the playlist now, Jessie.

(It wasn't going to be on repeat play until the idea struck me TOTALLY OUT OF THE BLUE and then I had to keep listening to it over and over, y'see....)

(I don't even know the story that goes with that song in the game)...my story has nothing to do with that. It probably wouldn't be obviously connected, though the lyrics would make sense for it.)


(Arghhhhh I hate it when life gets in the way of story ideas. Or maybe when story ideas get in the way of the life.)




TIME TO MASH SOME POTATOES.

Time for another picture from my character portrait book.



It's Chiharrie! She's probably floating but just down near the ground.

The colors on her shirt did not scan well at all. Those Sugared Almond Pink stripes in her shirt are nowhere near sugary almondy pink enough. In fact, looking at the paper version right now compared to the scan, the whole thing looks lacking in vibrancy, but at least the rest of it isn't as striking. Oh well. Overall I was pleased with this picture, and I think she looks enough like her sister while still looking like herself. (They look very similar, but Chihi's puffs are pinker and her hair is lighter.)

I have another drawing of this style that I just posted too, but I put this one in my regular journal because I thought the subject fit there better. (It's pretty funny to flip through my book of profile pictures now, though. Which one of these things is not like the other...!)

--

Along with another drawing, I have another song for my soundtrack!

Remember how I was griping in my regular journal during the Olympics about how NHK's theme song (a song by a Japanese boy band) just didn't have the right epic quality to it? And then perhaps you recall that I said "but I'm sure later on I'll like it because it'll remind me of watching those Olympics in Japan." Well, that turned out to be somewhat true.

It turns out I have had a new version of Limewire sitting on my computer and, you know, actually working. Whoa, cool. I discovered that accidentally a few weeks ago and have been enjoying looking for music. One thing I searched for was Olympic music, and this song (which I had forgotten about) popped up, so I said, what the heck, I don't resent it anymore; I'll download it for the nostalgia. It's a upbeat little song. And then, listening to it, I realized, HEY, this song fits pretty nicely into the Defying Gravity soundtrack! But I didn't note that at the time because I was too busy being irked at it for not being what I wanted it to be for the Olympics. But all's well that ends well. So I think I shall add it to the list of songs. Even the group's name fits ("Arashi," which means storm.)

涙流すのは　信じてるから
心のノートに　書いた言葉
描いた通りに　いかない時
にじんだ空に　放った言葉

僕の後ろに出来てた道

雨の向こうへ　風の向こうへ　旅は続いていく
今　君の向こうへ　そして僕の向こうへ　道は続いていく

My tears are flowing because I believe
In the words I wrote on the notebook of my heart
When it didn't go the way I'd sketched out
I shouted these words to the blurred sky

The path I made was behind me*

Beyond the rain, beyond the wind, my journey will continue
Now, beyond you, and beyond me, my path goes on


(*I had trouble translating that line. Anyone else have a suggestion on 出来てた, especially with regards to 後ろに?)

Okay, just had to share that. I think Azilie would like this song. You can listen to it if you want, and watch a really stupid music video while you're at it.

--

Goal for this weekend: WRAP IT UP!! Can I do it? We'll see!!! I better get pretty darn close at least. :D

The good news? I wrote over 2,400 words today.

The bad news? I still didn't meet my goal. Granted, the goal was FINISH THE NOVEL, and that's quite lofty. I didn't realize, word-count-wise, just how lofty it was -- scene-wise it seems just a few things have to unfold, but of course, there are still plenty of picky details on which to get hung up in these parts. That's what makes me such a slow writer; I always get hung up on picky details, whether with realism regarding things I don't know much about or about internal consistency (which leads to me wandering through my previous draft looking to see what I may or may not have said before) which is

And it took me all day to do this. Sitting at my computer from noon until just now, at ten to eleven (with a break in there to watch 1.5 hours of West Wing, and to make lunch and dinner, but both of those were quick) so that's still not fast. And I don't think I'll make my lofty weekend goal, especially since I can't just sit around all day tomorrow writing again. (Well, I could, but I need to go buy food, clothing, and toilet paper, and possibly help a friend with computer problems, and I am not one of those writers who is able to plod on with a story while the rest of my life falls into complete disarray. Not having food makes it hard for me to write for some reason.)

But still. I guess this is what they mean about setting lofty goals so even when you miss them, you still have done okay.

Not that I have decided I'm okay with not reaching my goal just yet. Who knows, maybe tomorrow will be even better despite real life's promised intrusion.

But wow, am I ready to be done with this draft. My e-mail is piling up and I've got other projects (new story projects, website project, and oh, MORE GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATIONS WITH LOOMING DEADLINES, and CATCHING UP WITH E-MAIL) to get on with, and I am more than ready to share THIS story with people. I had hoped to be done with it almost a YEAR ago. Geez.

Still though. I guess 2,400 words isn't all that shabby, eh? Not for ME anyway. (Those of you who think otherwise can do me a favor hold your virtual tongues. ;-p I wish I could write faster!)



P.S. Recently I discovered the PERFECT SONG for the climax of my story: "Electric Storm" by Delta Goodrem. Absolutely perfect in tune as well in lyrics! So cool! I play it before I start writing these days. (Along with the rest of my soundtrack, but for this part, this song especially!)

Tonight I resumed editing Defying Gravity! Yay! I was planning to hold off until after the election, but I got inspired to work on it RIGHT AWAY, and who's going to argue with that? :D (Incidentally the inspiration came from some of my political junkying, but I won't get too much into why as I have little time and lots to say.)

Here's an encouraging sign: though this story still will need tons and tons of work when you guys see it, it's nice to see that it's not QUITE as hopeless as I thought at one point. ;) I mean, I see lots of stuff to clean up just going back in and rereading it to reacquaint myself with where I left off, but it's not as big a disaster as I thought. Some of the things are minor fixes and others are only moderate. Of course, we still have the ending to tackle, but I can at least have confidence that I might get it down one of these drafts. ;)

Also! It's time to celebrate MARKERFEST! I have done several pictures which I have particularly liked over the past couple weeks -- in fact, three of them are from the past week alone. I have been quite busy! (I park in front of CNN on-line video and listen to that as I draw.)

This one is not impressive and also not new, but it gives a starting point to show the progress I have made in just a few weeks with my markers, and it also includes the first time I've drawn two important adult characters. (ninquenis -- IT'S WEDGE BOWDEN! :D ) Here it is:



I wonder what you guys will think of them.

Then, in my new sketchbook that I'm using for just character image pictures instead of scenes, here's the first picture I did:



It's much like what I've done before of Azilie, but this time more realistic. I was pleased with the shading of her face, which is something I'm just learning to do with markers! And her expression is a little scary, but then, Azilie is sometimes a little scary. ;)

I used a source pic for this drawing, and that's worth sharing too:



It's more the expression/posture than the hair (though it's not too far off; Azilie just has bangs) but this girl looks so much like Azilie! So this can be my realistic photo version of her! (I found one of Chiharrie too, but I'll save that for when I do a drawing of Chihi.)

Then on to the next character to get a profile picture:



Here's the second one in my new profile picture book, of Questri. I am pleased with her realism even more than with Azilie's. The background got away from me and I was really upset with it at one point, so considering that, I'm pleased with how I salvaged it and how it turned out, even if it's still flawed. I wish I had done the blacktop in a lighter grey so Questri would stand out more clearly against it, even if this is more realistic.



I am most pleased with this one, with all the details. Though there is one glaring error -- I want to say it's really obvious and that you guys could point it out to me, but if I say so and then you point out a bunch of OTHER stuff instead, I'll feel squelched so I'll just say that it's the open locker between Shanai's legs (or rather, the lack of it). I could fix this on the computer but I was too impatient and wanted to share it with you right away, and working on editing seemed more important tonight. But otherwise the open locker is one of my favorite parts. I did that last, and it felt like the scene really came to life with that detail for some reason. I love it when that happens! And I'm very pleased with everyone's expression in this one, because it captures the character dynamics I was shooting for.

There is one more picture I really want to share (which I did a few weeks ago; it's the one for which I needed to go get cool grey markers!) but it's a spoiler pic! Ack! So I'll have to send it to people who read the draft when they finish. Which is too bad, because I want to share it with people now (as I mentioned, I am feeling impatient!) but oh well, I'll exercise some self-restraint. Since I know some of you WOULD look at the spoiler pic if I posted it and I want you to be surprised at that scene if possible. ;)



(P.S. Do pictures of this size bother anyone? I like to see them all displayed on my journal, but I could cut them if they're inconveniencing anyone terribly. I made the files much smaller than most digital photos are, but if they're not small enough, I'll have to change my policy.)


And now it is much later than I meant for it to be when I got off the computer, so I shall go sleep now.

swankivy sent me another song that she thought would fit my story, and it fits even better than she could have known! Thanks, Ivy!

I already knew this song and have the MP3 on my computer, but I hadn't even thought of it yet. But it fits REALLY well.


"Only If" by Enya

When there's a shadow, you follow the sun.
When there is love, then you look for the one.
And for the promises, there is the sky.
And for the heavens are those who can fly.

If you really want to, you can hear me say
Only if you want to will you find a way.
If you really want to you can seize the day.
Only if you want to will you fly away.
When there's a journey, you follow a star.
When there's an ocean, you sail from afar.
And for the broken heart, there is the sky.
And for tomorrow are those who can fly.

Pretty much everything gets bolded for being directly relevant. :D (Though not all in the first book.)

And I just realized that the drawing I'm almost done with now is a total spoiler pic so I REALLY NEED TO FINISH MY BOOK SOON so you can read it and I can show you the picture. :D

Also, I need more markers. (Seriously, I just spent how much on a set of 72 of them and I STILL don't have every color I need? Hahaha, craziness. But it came with only warm greys and I need cool! There's just no getting around that! Well, I'm going back to Otsu/Kyoto this Saturday so I'll pick some up in either of those places. ;)

I REALLY WANT TO GET BACK TO WRITING. I'm excited about finishing this story, and REALLY excited about starting either the next Azilie story or about doing TS (because, uh, that's a rather political story, truth be told...I think that's already starting to be evident in the parts that some of you guys have read already). The problem is that my thoughts are totally tangled up in my grad school situation. It's kind of like how the only time I played video games at college was during final exams, when I just couldn't do anything else with my free time because of mental exhaustion. But I'm going to try anyway. Or at least vow to have my grad school stuff as done as possible by Election Day, so both my political geekery and my grad school dilemma can be wrapped up and I can finish this stupid draft before the end of the year. Why has it taken a year to do draft 2 when I did draft 1 in a little over 90 days? Grrr.

It really is bedtime now, but I just had to add this next song to my soundtrack. I have quite a list of songs about flying people now. :D And other things that fit the story! I should make a list but that will have to wait until it's not so late at night.

I am continuing to rip off musicals to add songs to the Defying Gravity soundtrack. But I found another one that really, really, really fits Azilie!

Okay, so, the reason this song came to mind was that on Tuesday, I was a judge for a junior high speech and recitation contest and one girl did Yertle the Turtle. I was impressed that a Japanese student decided to do something like Dr. Seuss, since most of them wanted to do such uplifting topics such as the death of a leaf in autumn, a woman who died on the Titanic, or people dying in Hiroshima. (Seriously, I heard each of those at least two or three times. Advice to people choosing recitations for students: THINK HAPPY! You can be way more theatrical with happy pieces -- or even angry pieces! one of those won too -- but not sad ones. Geez. The winner was a girl who did Sideways Stories from Wayside School.)

But I digrss. Anyway, Yertle the Turtle got me thinking about other Dr. Seuss things, which brought to mind a musical I saw in Minneapolis last June when I was there with my family. (And apparently my mom and dad are on the way there right now, again. Emily gets so many more visitors than I do. Hey, we're both 14 hours away from home, what gives? ;p ) My aunt there had tickets to this children's theater production of Seussical the Musical so we decided, hey, let's go see it. (We saw Les Mis on the same trip. Yay musical theater!) And I ended up really liking this one song. But then I forgot about it until Yertle the Turtle.

And listening to it now makes me think how much some of these lines could be Azilie's! :D

( A clip of the song on YouTube )

This passage especially fits:

Not a person seems to know.
Not a person seems to care.
There is no one who believes a thing I say...

Well, I'm fairly certain
At one time or other,
Great thinkers all feel this way!

I'm alone in the universe.
So alone in the universe.
I've found magic but they don't see it

They all call me a lunatic.
Ok, call me a lunatic.
If I stand on my own, so be it.

'Cause I have wings.
Yes, I can fly
Around the moon
And far beyond the sky

:)

Isn't that cute and happy?

That won't have spoiled anything for the story (the way Defying Gravity would have if I had commented too much, hahaha) -- it's just the theme that fits so well.

It's a common theme in musicals like these, I guess, but hey, it's hard to have too many stories with this message!


That just made me happy, so I had to share it. And now I'm off to listen to some other music while drawing a scene with my own story's counterparts to Horton and Jojo, with my new markers. (I have SO MANY THINGS I should be doing for the next two hours -- I've hardly been able to sit still and settle all morning because every two minutes I come up with something ELSE I should be doing with my time -- but I have hardly gotten to use my markers at all, so you know what? I'm going to put everything off and DRAW. Yay. And then there's the art fair downtown this weekend and everyone coming to that, and then there's the delayed debate watch party at my house tonight, and then there's more going on tomorrow...ack, so much to do! But no! The next two hours are mine and I shall not be guilted into doing anything else, so help me! ;)

しっかり meaning something like "Getting it together!" or "Getting a firm grip on the task at hand!"

So, I've kind of been dragging on the last 40 pages of my novel. (I know, I know, I'm so embarrassed that I've been editing it for so long now and still have 40 of 110 pages to go.) This is the hardest part, 'cause I basically have to rewrite the whole ending, and this is the big climax and punchline and point and end-all be-all. (Well, no, actually I have more I want to say in sequels, but still.) So I've overwhelmed myself with my inability to make it perfect and sparkling right now. I need people's help.

But I can't get people's help until I've made it perfect and sparkling because it has to be perfect and sparkling before I can show it to anyone.

Hmmmmm.

Yeah, so, I'm hereby resigning myself to just finishing it and sort of taking a shot in the general direction I want the ending to go, and then once people help me and tell me what they're thinking and feeling about all of it, then I can recalibrate and take better aim in the next draft.

That is to say, JUST FINISH THE BLASTED THING, JESSIE!!!!

Okay. Off to edit now. Chiharrie is still yelling at Azilie.

(Gahhhhhhh, there are crickets outside and they are loud. Be quiet crickets! You sound like my shower fan creaking! There, I closed the window so now I don't have to kill them. *sweet smile*)

When I was at the newly discovered Amazing Bookstore of English Language Wonder in Kyoto on Saturday, I (surprise) ended up in the political section. There, after perusing some Paul Krugman books, I found a book of the greatest American speeches of the 20th century. I opened it up, thinking that they had to have a certain speech that has struck me as no other speech ever has -- that's a speech that Robert Kennedy gave in Cape Town, known as the "Day of Affirmation" speech. If you've heard the bit about tiny ripples of hope each time a person stands up for an ideal, this is that speech. I already had the ripple of hope part quoted on my Facebook profile, but I hadn't actually sat down and read the whole speech.

But there it was, of course, in the book I found in Kyoto. So I stood there and read it. This was another of those Profound Moments for me, kind of like when I was riding the ferry across Sydney Harbour with the perfect soundtrack.

Not only was the speech inspiring in the ways I had expected, but I also came across this passage:



Our answer is the world's hope: It is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress.

This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.



This passage suddenly let me make sense of what I'm doing with Azilie's story. And I wasn't even thinking about Azilie at the time. But there it was -- these sorts of answers always come when you're not looking for them. I have been worryiing for a while about getting the real point of it across; it's not about a whiny kid who doesn't want to grow up. It's about something much more profound than that. In the first volume that still won't be entirely clear, but later it will be. The second quoted paragraph above is going to have to be the next book's epigraph. I mean...wow. That was so cool. It's perfect. That's it exactly.

That's what my story is about.

By bringing so many unexpected things together, this moment let me to make peace with something I've been frustrated with about the whole project. I wish I could convey it to all you guys but I guess it's just between me, Azilie, and the ghost of Bobby Kennedy. But it was pretty profound. I almost teared up.

I can keep writing my story now.

(Well, actually, I'm sick, so I'm going to wait until my brain is functioning again. There's always something, isn't there? But it's hard to write when you're hacking up your lungs. Sigh.)





If you want to hear or read the whole speech, by the way, here it is. :)

Yep, so that's officially my title right now. (I say officially even though it could change. But right now it has an official title and that is important to me!)

And I have another song to add to the soundtrack for my story. It fits almost as well as Defying Gravity! How cool is that? And this time it's a song that I've known and liked for a long time now, since leithal sent me a CD by the Finnish acapella group Rajaton back during my senior year at K.

The song is "You Can't Stop Me!" Here are the lyrics:

When that happened to me at first I could not see,
but then I decided not to close my eyes!
And then I found a way, and impossible way...
So you said! But it made me fly right away

Now I'm just like a token, spinning in a trance
But surprise! I don't fall and I don't choose either side!
I keep rolling around in a dance I just have found.
The laws of nature make exceptions somehow?

You can't really stop me now!

I keep balancing on but I'm good because I'm strong,
I turn when I see you reaching for me.
And it still makes me laugh when you thought you had had
all of me- but you see: I keep changing on.

You can't really stop me now!

And the tune is absolutely right on for Azilie's personality.

This one is okay to share the lyrics of because while it's obvious to me how it fits, it's not as blatant until after you read the story. :)


I now have four songs "officially" in the soundtrack, and a few more sort of floating in my head to see if they fit. I do love finding songs that can help represent my stories!


Editing update: it's going slowly. I won't make my deadline. But I'll have done pretty good for trying to make it, so that's something. I'd say my achievement is something like placing 5th in the Olympics. Still not too shabby, though I didn't quite make it on to the medals platform, let alone reach the gold. Oh well. There's always the next Olympiad novel! (Plus there's still some time to come back and try for a bronze. We'll see! My deadline is officially August 31, so....)

I did it! I got past the major difficult scene! This scene was tough enough that I hadn't even written it in the first draft; it was just a bunch of notes saying what was supposed to happen there. And it's done! Woooo!

Okay, that's all. I just had to record this in my journal. I have several more difficult scenes in need of severe self-critique and rewriting, but to have one scratched off my list is definitely a good feeling. :) With a little help from early draft readers, this scene might turn out to be a good one after all.

(This doesn't mean I've solved the issue in my previous post, however, so should you wish to comment on that, your post will not be wasted. ^_~)

Show, don't tell. How often are we told that as writers? But I think this advice is simplistic. Showing is much more interesting than telling, but you can't -- and don't want to -- show everything. Some things are better summarized because they are only of background importance and attempting to show them would bore and lose readers. Don't you agree?

Orson Scott Card wrote up a very nice article for writers on this subject which I read about a year ago; unfortunately, I can't link it because it was (whoa) on paper, and I can't even quote it because the book is on a shelf over 6,000 miles away. But it was a very good book. It helped me feel less like a dangerous rebel in my belief that you shouldn't always try to show everything.

So, if I can presume we are in agreement on this point (but if we are not, or if you simply want to discuss the topic further, please do! I find it interesting and important), I will go on to say that sometimes it's hard to tell whether you should show or tell.

I currently need to convey to the reader that a certain character is uncomfortable with Azilie. I can do this by having long scenes that are of shallow (though not non-existant) value, hoping people pick up on the signs, or I can just sum it all up saying "But [Character] was acting weird." It's not as interesting as gathering that yourself, but I'm not sure the scenes that would be necessary for the information gathering are interesting either.

This is not my favorite part of the book. It's proving very difficult and I don't expect I'll make my deadline because of how much I'm stuck on this part. (I'm even getting bored with it myself by trying to write it out in an interesting "showing" way, which is what makes me think maybe it can't be done. Or at least not by someone of my skill level.) I thin I am going to just go ahead and write the "telling" scene but save the "showing" stuff in case readers complain about this later on. Maybe I can fix it later when I'm not sick of the scene.

Any thoughts, however winding and indefinite, would be appreciated! Have you faced this in your writing? How did you resolve it?

Yep, that's right, I actually added a new story to the Carlson Septuplets page today. Enough 12-year-olds were e-mailing me saying that the site was getting boring that I decided to do something about it. (I do appreciate those 12-year-olds' impatience since it's a sign of interest! In fact I appreciate it from any age group. :) As it turned out, I had a story written mostly in 2005 that was nearly finished already -- at least, rereading it now I realized that it was, if I just made it a simple sort of glimpse into their lives. It's sort of an experimental fluffy story that I don't expect to impress any literary critics, but I hope people who like the Septuplets' stories will get a smile out of it. :) It's called "Playing with Normal Kids."

The Official Carlson Septuplets Page is here, should anyone wish to drop by and take a look.

I notice (and readers here will likely notice too) that I quite enjoy writing about the daily life of kids. The Septs in this story are a year younger than Azilie is in her story. I feel like I am spending a lot of time in the early 90s lately. (And the 1960s but that's a whole nother story. And whoa, it's weird to write something out with an infix like that, but that's how we say that, isn't it? Strange. ;)

I also added a new picture! I started drawing this for their birthday, which was on July 12, but of course it took me a lot longer to finish than I hoped.



I am not entirely pleased with it. I worked really hard to get them to look like they all share they same DNA, and I'm pleased with the results for a first try, but it means that most of them have the same flaws. At least they all have the same noses and rounded short bulb on the end of the nose, but the eyes are not the same. Melissa (2nd from left) turned out the best (another JET here said so without my prompting) which is to be expected because I used a source picture for her. (I also used one for Megan, on the far right, but she was the first try and the first try is always a little off for me. But I'm still pleased with her.) Mary, Michelle, and Monica (the three in the middle) turned out the worst, I think. But I didn't use source pics for any but Megan and Melissa (because I couldn't get source pics that all looked alike enough) so I suppose that is okay -- for a first try, anyway. I'll have to do better next time. One thing I think I need to work on is the eye shape. Melissa's was right on (with the source pic and all) but the others got a little weird. It's a subtle thing but once I look at it carefully, it's obvious. Of course, I only notice these things after I've finished, and these pencils (and this paper, come to think of it) are not very forgiving. Oh well. Also, my last realistic drawing was cited by one friend as having chipmunk cheeks; I think this one is better in that regard while still having cheeks defined as I think that's a trait that the Septs do have. I gotta figure out a good balance for that. (Whereas when I draw Asian characters, which I may be trying for my next poster, their faces will look different in that respect, as will some other Caucasian characters. TS's Indigo, for example, has a very level sort of face.)

Overall, I think I can do better, but for a first try at drawing seven genetically identical girls, I guess it's okay! It's now up on my wall near my TS realistic drawing (with my Polar Lights aurora poster in between them). Now I just need to do one for Chloe's story and one for Azilie's story* and then I'll have realistic posters of all my major projects, yay!

(*I'm referring to Chloe's story as such now because Aka-chan is no longer an acceptable title. Whereas Azilie's story has a title in MY mind but I'm still not sure if it's an okay title. But more on that later.)

Oh, and I don't think I ever showed you the latest gift art I got!



It is such a treat to get gift art! :)

Meanwhile I didn't get to work on Azilie's story tonight (for the second night in a row) but I had a good excuse. But it involves someone else's business so I must not share it in this forum. Oh well. You'll just have to take my word for it. ;) I hope I can work on it tomorrow, though! I'm never going to make my goal at the rate I'm going.

Chapter Eight is proving a lot of work, mostly because it was just a bunch of notes mingling with paragraphs only loosely tied together, and now I have to make a real chapter out of it.

The first version I did was, frankly, boring. It was boring me even as I wrote it. The action was too subtle; there were too many small conflicts spread across too many characters, leading to a situation where I had to "tell, not show" to keep any individual thread from seeming to be more important than the others. Really, it's just a big mess in the intermediate school social world and Azilie is painfully naive about it...and it's just tedious to write. I had it all figured out what needed to happen, but it was tiresome writing it. But I DID write a lot of it, and made moderate progress last week.)

Then today I was struck by a much better way to have the events unfold -- and one that suits Azilie's character even better, since she does enjoy being at the center of attention -- and now I am rewriting all I did last week. It's frustrating to have spent all that time writing and outlining so much only to scrap all that and go back to where I was a week ago, but then, that's how this sort of writing goes. You don't settle with the boring version just for the sake of having it done; you go back and rewrite it as much as it needs so you have the best possible story, no matter how much time and effort it takes!

I hope it doesn't take TOO much time, though. I don't know if I will make my August 31 deadline, but I'm going to try! After that I have to start grad school applications, so I'd really like to have a complete second draft by then.

Still, it takes the time it takes. Just so long as I am not loafing, I will have to be okay with that.

The trouble now is trying to save the parts I did like about the old version. And also figuring out when the blow-up with a certain few other characters should happen. And I have to go back and figure out when gymnastics tryouts would be, because right now Questri and her fellow gymnasts seem a little obsessed. Argh, there are still going to be so many loose ends in this thing even when I finish the second draft. How frustrating!

But I have made progress today, too! Tomorrow at work I have to do lesson plans, but I also hope I can get a good amount of New Chapter Eight written.



Oh, and on the title dilemma -- this actually caused me to lose sleep, I was so frustrated about it, and am giving it so much thought. I will have more to say about that in a few days, probably.

...it's probably better if I don't describe the electric crackles Azilie is seeing in this scene as "just like the sparks that had flickered in the microwave that time when Chiharrie microwaved a bowl with a metal spoon in it."

Right? ^^; Heh.

(I know about this because when I was about seven and my sister was four, we turned on a bunch of microwaves in an electronics boutique that had spare parts in them and watched the crackling in awe. Oooooh. And don't blame our parents; blame the store for leaving parts in the microwaves even while plugging them in and putting them down at levels where small children can turn them on! I don't recall the store burning down in any case. ^_~)


Meanwhile, I feel like I've made myself too stupid to write by jostling my brain around trying to get water out of my ear. I think I've had water in my ear for a week now. That's bad, right? But then I made it worse today by going to the pool.


But through almost two hours of struggling with my story, just when I'm about to give up and go make dinner, NOW it seems to be working! This is a pretty important scene and yet one I can mess up pretty badly scientifically (and also suspension-of-disbeliefilly). It should be fun to write but it hasn't been because I've been agonizing over it so much. But I think I might have it now to a point that is passable for giving out in the first public draft! Yay! So I can move on and consult scientists later. ;)

Back now to writing!

Here's my latest drawing! I've been doing a lot of art lately. It's fun. :)

The last picture was almost a new medium for me (I've used nice art pencils before, but never to do a large finished work), and this is almost a new medium too, since I haven't done a full marker drawing since the days of Crayola washable markers. Since these are a combination of ultra-fine point Sharpies in 24 colors and some Copic markers (professional-quality Japanese art markers) that I bought individually at Loft, I'd say this counts as a new medium for me.

I still have a lot to learn in how to use such nice markers, but I'm pleased with this as a first try! I want to work on getting the backgrounds to be smoother, since I hear that these markers are supposed to make that possible.

The picture is of Chiharrie and Azilie over the entrance to the Lagoon in Coral Grove. To do the ocean background, I used a poster I bought in Cairns which is now up on the wall in my living room. And my favorite tidbit about the creation of this picture is that the light green of the shallow water is a marker called "Coral Sea," which I bought as an "extra fun color" (in addition to various skin and hair tones) because, hey, I went to the Coral Sea! And I figured it'd be useful for this drawing...and I was right. It really is exactly the color that the water in my poster is. Very cool. :)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this latest artistic update. ^^

I've got a new picture for Twilight Star!


(Click to enlarge)

Once I finish Azilie's story, I really want to get back into working on Twilight Star. I am full of ideas to make it more condensed, more interesting. I also am tired of staring at computer screens, so drawing is a good way to work on a different project while getting away from the computer.

The characters shown are of course Celeste in the middle, with Indigo, Gabriel, and Mikaela down in the left corner, Cozoqui in the lower right, Celeste's grandma, grandpa, and uncle to the right just above her (whom I've never drawn before! Older people and men? Whoa! A challenge!), Kymathece, Esti, Sorl, and Izick (whom no reader has met yet) up in the right corner, and a mysterious young woman whom I shall not even name yet in the upper left.

This drawing is noteworthy because it's done in a realistic style. Fotosearch.com is my new favorite site for finding source pictures! It really helped me a lot. I'm not the best when it comes to realism (not that I'm anything special with cartoon style either) but I am rather pleased with the way this came out, for someone who's rusty with the style and medium and all. The paper was also cheap 100 yen shop paper and kept pilling up when I tried to erase multiple times. So it does seem a great victory to have bent it to my will!

I used my artist's set of pencils to draw it -- that is, not No. 2 lead, but F, H, HB, B, and 2-9B. This is the most ambitious piece I've made with those, so yay! Even though I got the pencils back in 2000 for Christmas, I still thought to bring them to Japan with me. I'm used to drawing in color, so having to represent color in black and white -- and even more than that, to represent light, since that's a big part of this picture! -- was a fun challenge for me.

The picture is now on the wall above my computer desk, near my glowing star curtains and aurora poster. I think it fits there quite nicely. It's about 15"x10" in real life. This was much too big to fit on my school's scanner, so I had to scan it in halves. Stiching it together was a bit of a pain since the scanner did the greyscale differently for both pictures, but thanks to some creative cutting and the dodge and burn tools, I think I mostly made up for that. Yay! I'm annoyed that you can still see the stitching on the right side (I guess I scanned it at a slightly different angle each time -- I didn't flush it to the corner of the scanner because that was doing some weird thing where it cut off the edge of the piece) but oh well, considering the trouble it took to scan this, I'm happy it worked at all.

If you have comments about the drawing or story I would of course love to hear them! :)



Speaking of artwork, I just thought I'd share that I got gift art from a 12 year old Septuplet fan on Monday! It really made my day. I love getting art from my friends who are experienced artists, but it's a different kind of special to get something from a kid learning how to use a paint program and enjoyed my stories enough to draw the characters. I had never heard from this reader before, either. Really, really cool. :)


(Click to enlarge)

Or click here to go to the picture page and scroll down to the gift art section to see the new pic, the Group Shot by Micha. I set something up to forbid direct linking to JPGs by people who were stealing my images and bandwidth, but now I can't seem to unset it. It was supposed to let me specifically allow linking from LJ, too, but that doesn't seem to be working and I have no energy left to fight computer battles right now. But it's cute and makes me happy and I want to share it so I hope you'll go take a look!)


Editing update: I'm on page 42 of 120 on draft two of Azilie's story. (Which really needs a better title one of these days. Usually titles come to me somewhat easily, but not this time.) Actually, I did a fair bit of work on it (writing a new scene that it really needed) and yet that change the page count since yesterday, since it just filled in empty space at the ends of chapters. Hmph. Oh well. I really hope to be done with this draft of it by my birthday. Unfortunately, the second half of the editing will be harder than the first, since the end basically needs to be rewritten. But then, I have lots of time during the summer vacation to work on it, so I'm optimistic. (For most of July and all of August, I have no class, but I still have to go to work. I'll be taking my computer to work on my novel in the 職員室 [teachers' room].)


Okay, that's all, but if anyone feels like chatting about writing or drawing, please do feel free to strike up a conversation via e-mail or comments because I'm all excited about this subject right now. ^__^

Don't you love it when your image manipulation and HTML/CSS all just falls in place?

I say this like this has happened to me before. Hah!

Yep, it's a minor miracle. The doodles I made the other day with my new markers (some a prize from swankivy and others purchased on a trip to Kyoto with serialfiller) turned out great on the first try. Then I scanned them at work today and came to play with them in the GIMP. Usually it takes me a fair amount of determined trying and tweaking before I get them the way I want them, but today in about an hour of playing around, I had them exactly as I had long imagined them. Woooo! That was so easy that I'm afraid my computer will burst into a firey ball in my lap just to balance things out. I'm ever so pleased with the result. Maybe this will motivate me to get the new layout done sometime semi-soon, but it will require a lot of revising of all of Skygawker.com, so I've been putting it off until I finish Azilie's second draft.

The GIMP is great, by the way. I'm not used to it, but I'm slowly learning it, and it's a very powerful and high quality image maniuplation program. Once I learn it well enough to judge, I might even like it better than Paint Shop Pro, which is saying a LOT, because I love Paint Shop Pro. (That was the one program I really missed on Linux, so it'll be a wonderful thing if the open source version is just as good or better!)

I have soooo many projects I'm working on. (This is not news. This has been my life for the past...um, 20 years? But we're at an up-swell in project levels even for me.) I have a (moderately time-sensitive) essay I'm working on. I have the new layout. I have some more drawings I'm just really inspired to do (both monochrome pencil and marker, since I got some nice comments on my former abilities recently and, on the later, because I have new markers). And of course there's that pesky draft sitting around unfinished! I really want to get that done soon. But I think I'd be really happy to get at least a few of these other things done in the meantime, so I don't feel stuck on just one project, even as much fun as I am having with that project.

And in 45 minutes Myra and Katie are coming over to watch a creepy crazy conspiracy movie on which Raf wants to know my opinion. That seems like a good use of time too. There's always so much good stuff to do!

Anyway, I feel like I made a major accomplishment tonight, so yay.