Well, I’m off again. I wrote about 1,400-odd words today. That’s a victory! And Priest made me so angry I had to go clean something. I suppose that’s a good thing, isn’t it? I know he’s actually not a bad guy, but writing this last scene I hated him, haha. My nickname for him is the ‘Snarky Bastard’ and I say it with affection. He’s a good antagonist for Zero, throwing down road blocks and generally keeping the poor elf from accomplishing his goals.

It’s nice to be writing again. During the good times I wonder why I ever thought I couldn’t do this, why I was afraid to put a sentence to a Word document or even long hand it. The secret is copious amounts of caffeine. I’ve had two pots of tea and four or five cups of soda. When you’re that caffeinated it’s easy to have hope for betterment!

And that’s it for now! Nothing is edited, so I’ll not torture the eyes of you imaginary readers.

See ya~

On a gem hunting foray with my mom, we ended up in Black Market Minerals. I found something there called Ema Eggs. From the card that comes with the stone Ema eggs “are quartz stones that are naturally tumbled in the Ema River in Brazil. A flat polished surface has been cut to see the inside. Some call this the original crystal ball. The fortune teller would tell a person’s future by looking into the ‘window’ of the quartz stone”.

The moment I saw them, a scene for Priest and Zero formed in my head. I even found the perfect stone for poor Zero. I’m excited to try and write it. Maybe it’ll end up being a submission for class next semester. If I can, I’ll put up pictures of the stones that Zero uses in the novel.

That’s all for now~

Well, I’m stalled. Not in a ‘hit a wall’ kind of way, but more of a ‘I lost all confidence in myself’ sort of way. I feel like I’ve let a lot of people– including myself– down recently and it’s sapped my will to do anything clean away. Whether I have or not is up for debate. But this is a writing journal, not a place for my melancholy postings.

I did come to a realization about my novel in this time though! I’ve been poking at it, studying it (yes, studying it is the antithesis to getting a first draft done) and I think I’ve made real progress. Since no one else ever reads this anyway, I feel I can post it here and not let the sand out of the proverbial bag.

I’ve been rereading Les Edgerton’s ‘Hooked” book. He talks in there about the Inciting Incident, or the place where all trouble starts, the Initial  Surface Problem, the thing they’re trying to solve, and the Story Worthy Problem, something I’ve been struggling to understand for a year and a half now. It’s easy, you might say. Well, sometimes people forget how to spell the word ‘the’. Things come quicker to some people than others. Anyway, I’ve never been able to figure out what exactly the SWP was for Old Dominion. I think I have an inkling now.

Zero’s buried problem, the one that’s going to take him all novel to realize he needs to overcome, is his decision to make bad choices. Looking at what I have for the book now, it makes perfect sense. Because he blames himself for what happened the second time he touched the Cursed Prince’s Stone, he unconsciously makes himself suffer by making decisions that hurt him. He’s punishing himself for something that wasn’t his fault. Only he doesn’t know that. He has no idea. The SWP is the “driving force behind the initial surface problem as it’s ultimately what the protagonist must reconcile at the end of the story” (Edgerton, ‘Hooked’ 26). It’s never overtly stated in the novel. I feel like I understand things a little better now. Yay!

And that’s my update for now. Jya~

I dove into my summer writing project with a couple friends. Yay! Writing is much more fun when you know other people who are also laboring along. And it kick drives my competitive spirit, haha.

I’m working on a section for my novel that’s been in the works for months. I’ve done ten different versions before the one I have now. Why it’s resisting being written, I don’t know. I’m missing something. Might be one of those sections that gets outlined, bypassed and come back to later when I know more. There’s something there that I don’t know about yet.

And so I go back to the writing. I have 527 words done out of 3200ish. There’s a couple hours work in front of me still tonight.

I mentioned that I would put up a sample of my steampunk novel and here it is~ This is a little bit of the first chapter.

The story is about an elf, Zero Laylian, who lives and works in the human city of Amara as a smuggler of elven antiquities. A long time ago, the elves of the Central Continent died out. No one really knows why. Except Zero. He’s the last of that lost race. When a man shows up and blackmails Zero into working for him, he has to make a choice. Will he retieve the Crused Prince’s Stone, a weapon that could potentially end all life on the Central Continent, and save the fragile life he’s built in Amara? Or will he reclaim his lost heritage, but lose everything he cares about?

I suck at summary, so I apologize, haha. Click on the link for the chapter:
Continue reading →