Deciding to commit

On writing discipline

Last year, I made the resolution that I would update Ruin at least once a week. My fear has always been that I wouldn't have enough. That I'd get to some point and then the idea would disappear or I'd stop wanting to write, or I'd get distracted.

So the whole year was an experiment. If I could keep up writing one update a week, then I could prove to myself that I could do it. And I did it. A year later, only a couple more updates to go to complete the year and I'm still going strong (with plenty of updates that I feel I absolutely must put out still).

Ruin is the only story I've got in my head, but there is a lot of it, and after a year of battling through distraction, indifference, lack of confidence, I've come out on top of it all and still determined to get it done. I want to write, even when I don't want to write, and I have plenty of ideas left that I want to explore that still surprise me.


For the next year, my main resolution is going to be all about focus training. I'm going to work on writing an hour a day at least five days a week. This will be one hour of distraction fre writing. I'll lock myself in the bedroom with a computer and write. It doesn't matter what I write or what I do so long as I focus on getting something done and take that time to myself.

And no distractions allowed. No internet or email peeking or blog poking or twitter. For starting at least one hour a day.


This deciding to commit thing isn't new for me. Sometimes I just get to a point where I'm ready and then I get determined. So I'm determined. I'm going to write a book, and I'm practicing saying it out loud. (But still not talking about it out loud.)


Also, this is awesome.

On reading writing blogs

So I have started actually reading some writing blogs.

This is something that actually makes me a bit nervous , you see. It sort of goes along with my prior journal entry/mostly peptalk. Since forever I've written only for myself with dreams of sharing my story eventually, though with an understanding that it might never happen. So going along with my last entry, I decided that I would stop closing my eyes and ignoring the world and actually take a look and see what's out there. How can I find a way in if I'm not looking?

But there's something of a problem with me and how this all hangs over me. Right now I'm a girl who likes to write, taking pleasure in sharing the stories I do have with people. There is pleasure just in the act of doing right now.

When you start looking around though at what others are doing and saying (and what they're saying you should do) well then there's the danger. It starts with you simply comparing yourself or your story to someone else's. You start wishing you were more like that person in some way and then there's where it snowballs. Possibly before you've even done anything, you're already counting yourself out.

Or maybe I'm the only one who does that? I'm lazy by nature, so rather than fight (because I am so tired of fighting with myself after being at peace for a few years) I end up avoiding and before I know it, I'm not writing.

So here's my tips for myself on how to read writing blogs:

1. I don't have to read everything. If it isn't important to me, doesn't interest me, or makes me nervous, I won't bother to read it. (This means I'm skipping over pretty much anything that does genre marketing comparisons, thank you.)

2. Not everything applies to me. Some of the blogs I started peeking at would have suggestions on how to come up with ideas for stories and how to make your characters more believable. For some reason, this actually made me very anxious until I realized that I didn't need information on either of those topics. I've got more characters than I know what to do with and plenty of story ideas sitting in the back of my head. I'm good, and I can refer back to rule #1 in these cases.


So that's it. I keep these two rules in mind when I peek at Google reader and see that things in my writing folder have updated. I also started a private list on Twitter and put any writers whose twitter feed I'd like to see in it. You don't have to follow people to put them in a list, so that's pretty cool. My Twitter feed has been cleaned out, and I don't have to read any tweets about writing I might not want to see accidentally. I can peek at the list when I'm feeling nice and strong and brave, not horribly insecure like I was yesterday.




Also! To go along with the last entry, a ray of hope. This woman, at the age of 26, has managed to sell over 10,000 ebooks and in the month of August made about $10,000 in book royalties for stuff she pretty much self published. I admit that it's a little dangerous for me to post this up because I think it's still a lot of luck and timing, but it's just awesome to know that it can be done.

Ereader & electronic life

So I was sort of feeling guilty and sad about wanting to cave in and get an ereader. It means the start of the end of an era. (Which will probably take a very long time, but still, you can almost see it coming.)

It means the end of used books and used book shops. No more easily sharing books anymore with friends.

But then as I was looking through my Google reader for the morning, catching up on various blogs (lots of updates this morning!) suddenly I realized a ray of hope. We're reading! All the time.

This is the future. We communicate on a medium where we have to read and we have to write. There is no better way to share our thoughts really. Words are roaming free. It's kind of amazing to think about, and sadly, I don't think I can capture that hope with words.


I will say that eReaders also give me hope for up and coming writers. The publishing industry is cutthroat because it costs money to produce books, right? There's tons you have to pay for, most especially the physical product. But electronic publishing should be easier. I've seen people selling short stories and self published books. I'm sure they don't make a lot of money from it, but still, kind of exciting that it is out there at all.

It's sort of the time for writers right now. It probably means that it will be harder for our voices to be heard, but it at least is possible to put our voices out there.

One of the things I've learned in life is that screaming doesn't help, but sneaking up works. Be where they least expect you. Watch quietly, and take your chance when it's presented. I keep having this feeling that there's a chance sneaking up on me, and I need to keep my eye out. I may have to go after it a little, do some more digging around.

The only scary part of all this are the people. People terrify me and I hate politics. There are ways to walk the line, be involved and not get involved, but it does take a lot of work and sometimes a lot of not working. (I'm great at the non-work!)

Basically, I would like what I want but I would like it the way I want it.

Confidence?

I know I've said it before, but I'm never quite sure where I've shared the story and sometimes I forget to share the story all together. I think as I grow older and more detached from the teen/young adult me, the less concerned I am about that phase in my life. I accept that it happened, that my thoughts about myself were drastically different, and that it shaped the person I am today.


I am the youngest of four, and our ages are spread out very oddly. My oldest sister and brother are 17 and 16 years older than me, and the next sister is six years older than me. So really, as I was growing up, it was me and the that sister. The other two were old enough and pretty much out of the house for the most part.

Problem is that the sister closest to me happens to be crazy. I always say that, and I know it sort of diminishes the story about here. I get a couple of reactions, the normal one being, "Everyone's sister is crazy. We all have crazy sisters." Yeah, I know. But no, something is seriously wrong with her.

At the moment, I'm pretty sure she's simply bi-polar, but possibly schizophrenic . She would have moments of being super happy, and then have horrible moments of being really mean.

I could always tell when these moments were coming. She would stand around being very quiet, just stand there staring at something or nothing, usually out a window, and then she'd suddenly blow up about something, anything. Something she remembered, some injustice or insult she remembered from months possibly years prior that she'd finally respond to.

She was a source of chaos in the house. She was the only person I've ever physically fought with (and won, thank you). She was the only one who'd yell and scream and throw fits, really hateful frightening screaming too. Like someone possessed by a devil sometimes.

My parents never knew what to do or how to handle it. Mom looked for someone to blame for it, even blaming me more than once. (Like I asked to be born, thank you.) Dad would only shake his head and feel completely powerless. He'd look to someone else for answers. Usually, he'd look to me for answers or ask me to be the one to talk to her because he figured that I was close to her age.


But she completely hated me. She was a demon in our house, and I was the focus of her hate. Anything that I did would seem to cause her to have these fits, it was part of the reason that Mom blamed me sometimes.

My sister used to call me names. She'd walk past me and call me an "ugly little thing." People would compliment her when dad took us out, telling her she was pretty and usually completely ignoring me, so I pretty much accepted that it was true. She'd tell me I was a horrible person, and say I was selfish. She had all sorts of things she used to tell me, and after a while, especially being a young kid, I believed it.

I don't remember now how old I was, but I remember this very vivid dream. I was probably 12 or 13, and my sister was strangling me in the dream as my parents stood near by looking anxious, but not knowing how to stop her. I woke up crying. I am pretty sure I remember sobbing so loud that my parents came to see what was wrong, and I told them the truth.

I don't remember how they reacted, but I do remember realizing right then that she was killing me, and I would become a shell of a person if I let it continue any more. And so I fought back. The anger welled up in my chest into a dense ball that I held onto and carried with me to use as a weapon against her. I used it as a shield, and I used it as a mace. I had to fight for room to breath.

But it was one of those things that's both good and bad. Carrying that around with me, I pushed everyone away that I could and I sealed myself up. But I honestly had to. I needed to fight and I needed to heal. And at the same time I still had to fend myself from the ugly names she'd whisper when we passed each other in the house. I didn't have energy for anything else, not friends or hanging out and certainly not love or boyfriends.

It was like my own personal war. I wish I were exaggerating for the sake of this story. But it was honestly a battle to fight her off and learn to fight myself off. I knew that if I undermined myself by agreeing with her, believing I was bad and ugly, then I would lose. So to avoid that, I simply stopped looking at myself. I didn't look in mirrors or reflections and I wouldn't allow pictures to be taken. By completely avoiding myself as if I didn't exist as a physical person it was easier to fight and to make my core stronger.

I found other things about myself I liked. This didn't mean that I felt I was great at those things, it just meant I would do them and take pleasure in doing it. Writing, homework, school work, discussions, video games, reading. I did those things for me, because I needed something to do, and once I completed something, I felt good about it because I had done it and it had come from me.


Perhaps this explains all of my story lines? I seem to have a thing for girls being protected by powers that aren't necessarily good powers. It seems born out of my deep wish that I had been protected, that someone would have wanted to protect me, even if I wouldn't have accepted the protection. I just wanted someone to see that I needed the help.

I'm refusing to look this back over for editing or revising. So this is the first draft I'm throwing up. This is the raw me. I'm really only posting this up because I forget and perhaps because I thought you should know.

The happy maid

I haven't read a lot of period pieces, but I have read a couple and a thought just occurred to me this morning while taking my shower. A lot of the time, when writing about powerful men, part of the package of their masculinity is that they can get any women they want and they usually do.

This of course means they have to have partners. Usually in a period piece this will be peasants or maids of some sort. And these maids are always willing and happy to be with these men. I think this is a romantic idea.

I heard one author say that in the time period she was writing in, the royalty lived like "rock stars." But I wonder about that. If you've got a powerful man hitting on you, especially if this man happens to be your boss (or even your boss' son) what's a maid to do? She's not always going to be willing. She may say yes, but if she feels that she has no other option then it's still against her will.


I've sort of been having issues with this, not in others' work, but in my own. Basically, how to approach this idea properly. I don't believe it's a spoiler to say that Henri is in this situation himself. I base a lot of the Wildlands off of what I've seen of medieval stories and what I know of the Feudal system. Henri is a powerful man, a king in his own right. He's had his share of women, but there's no way 100% of them were willing participants. (*here's something of a spoiler* And in fact, I know he had issues with this when he was younger and more impulsive.)

I've known this for a while, but I'm almost scared to present it! Rape is a tough issue to tackle at all. I wonder if in some people's eyes it makes it impossible to redeem those characters. But I've seen plenty of the type of people who I don't believe would like a character who had raped a woman buying this romantic notion that every maid is willing when a powerful man bats his eyes at her.

I'll just let my mind hover over this idea looking for weaknesses and the best way to illustrate this. I think it's possible to be good and still mess up which means even Brandon needs to watch out. I don't think he's messed up yet but that doesn't mean he won't.

And Theresa needs to watch out too. She's very powerful, and she could easily overpower a man. Women are capable of rape as well.

Inspiration in the strangest places

Saw the creepiest and saddest thing today. From this post on the EPBOT girl geek blog (by the woman who does Cakewrecks)-- not the first video but the second one.





I know the music is part of what really does it, but just hearing the story sends a chill over up my spine. Five years ago this park was closed in preparation for a storm, and it never reopened. I'm sure it wasn't the first storm they'd had to close down for, and I'm betting they didn't expect it to never open up again. Come January, the entire park will be bulldozed and sold for scrap.

A lot of the destruction is made by the storm, but there's also plenty of destruction made by human hands. It's also interesting to see how quickly nature moves in when people are gone.

Well, in the blog I got this from, someone then mentioned looking at current pictures of Chernobyl and the areas affected and abandoned in the aftermath of that. Well that lead me to this site where a woman goes on a trip to see the old villages that were evacuated. It's clear that English is not her first language, but it seems to really only help the simplicity of her descriptions and at times make her descriptions more poetic.


This is what I want for Ruin. Especially the Chernobyl stuff. There's something there. In Ruin, they have a creation myth, and it's essentially the same thing as their destruction myth (The story of the Two Brothers). I think that something horrible happened once upon a time, and most of the people have forgotten. It still shows up in their myths although heavily veiled and still affects their behaviors (like their almost instinctual fear of the ocean-- although note that Paula was the one who was greatly disturbed while the others with her that day were not).

I imagine Ruin being a large continent like Australia. So that makes me wonder about the rest of the world. Is it still alive? What is there to find? Are there people who still know the truth? And if so, are they trying to protect themselves?

I downloaded that You Tube video and made it into a format that will play on my DS so I can be inspired on the go. I'm also going to watch 28 days later. *shudder* Supposedly, it's a similar idea, though I know it also involves zombie-like creatures. *shudder again*

Just write, stupid

I'm mostly talking to myself there, but if anyone else identifies with "stupid" feel free!

I must say that I'm enjoying sharing writing and stories with other people. I am loving getting links to industry blogs and things like that. I've even started to follow two (yes just two) myself.

The fact that I'm even following two is a huge deal to me. There's a lot of talk sometimes when people discuss literature or publishing that makes me nervous. I think it's that artist within me, the one that refuses to become a sell out, but also secretly wishes we could make a living doing something like this. Because then we could do what ever we wanted and write it off as a learning experience that would be helpful to the craft. A trip to Hawaii would them become an awesome tax write off. (Okay, I'm sure it's not that simple, but my mind is more than half in the clouds most of the time and only recently became infused with a little more reality.)

It can only be a good thing to learn about all aspects of something you'd like to do. Know what to expect and know what to do, and, if you can, make some connections while you're at it. Discussing it can't be all bad either, pondering the significance of the way things are, the way they can be, literature versus genre, levels of snobbishness, etc.

But I don't like it. Talk about categorization makes me particularly nervous. I rally against them, my one cause in a world I am very much not a part of. And secretly, I think it's because I don't know where I fit in, and also because I don't like the idea of fitting in somewhere.

Which is weird, in a way, I guess. Wouldn't it be best to know where you fit? To know that there are others out there like you toiling away at the same kind of story? Don't most people want to connect and find their community, find those other people so they can share and compare experiences and ideas?

And I find that, no, I don't like any of that. It's not that I need to be special or unique. It's that I don't like being pigeon holed. If you have something that's sci-fi, then there will be people who will say, "No, you can't do this and you can't do that." Or worse, people will say you "shouldn't" do this and you "should" do that. This is the stuff I don't like. This is where I feel issues can crop up.

And there's also the fact that I am just slightly anti-social. Things like talking about games, I'm perfectly fine with that. Talking about my writing though is completely different. I still don't talk about it out loud. It just feels weird. I don't talk about characters or story lines, and I don't ask questions unless I'm doing some bit of research or something and someone else knows more about something than me.

Maybe it's just me, but reading about all this stuff seems to make me put strange pressures on myself or makes me feel like I'm not a serious writer because I'm not more involved and because the one really good story (well, stories really, but world story) I'm throwing out as a Sims story which is categorized with a stamp that says "not serious at all."

So I can't help wondering what I'm doing and what do I plan to do. My head has all sorts of questions she turns over constantly, but then my gut (the voice of reason oddly) pets my head and says, "trust me." She whispers that thinking is bad, and I need to stay away from bad influences. And that I need to just write.

Just write, get it all out without thinking or worrying about things that I really don't care about at the moment. Just keep doing what I do without worrying about what's been done (unless we're completely stealing someone else's idea).

And when the time is right, we'll know what to do. If I manage to make a product that I one day want to sell, then I need to trust in myself and my abilities. For the past ten years, I've been working in retail. Six of those years, I was a gift shop girl who had to learn how to make sales pitches. And over this past year, I've had use that skill making sales pitches to sell apartments to possible tenants and to sell possible good tenants to management.

Seriously, I know how to sell things, and I know how to sell myself. Oh, that sounds bad, like I'm selling out or something. What I mean is that I have trust and faith in myself. Even on the bad days when I hate myself or hate my writing, I know that those moods will pass, and I will continue doing what I've always liked to do.

Show vs. Tell and Negative Space

Beth brought this one up of course which is what lead to the thoughts on this.

When talking about writing, we hear a lot "Show, don't tell." I think after a while it becomes cliche. It's a thing we know about, but we hear it so often it doesn't have any meaning any more. It's so simple and it makes sense, but at the same time it's easy to forget about in the process of writing.

That's why I think we need this new application of an old idea.

The idea of Negative Space is something I learned from one semester of art class I took in high school. The idea is that if you draw the space around the object, you will make the object.

The usual subject is a chair. Rather than trying to draw a chair, we would instead draw the large spaces around the chair. As this site says:

"Why draw negative space? While your brain knows a lot about chairs, it doesn't know much about randomly shaped blobs of space between chairs. Drawing that space, which conveniently defines the chair, prevents your knowledge of chairs from interfering with your reporting of this particular chair and the view you have of it."


I think this can be applied to writing.

Instead of writing about what a character is feeling, write about everything but that. When we do that, it's like drawing the negative spaces between the parts of the chair.

It allows you to write about the scene packed with emotion without letting your knowledge of emotion interfere with the reporting of the scene. It's nothing special. You're just presenting a scene, and in doing that, the emotion within the scene will be defined.

I mentioned this idea to Jay. He said it sounded complicated. But I think it is the natural way we tell stories. The problem is that when we sit down to write, we have this idea that we want to express. We want the reader to know that our characters are feeling a certain way, and we want it to be clear. We actually make it more complicated by doing it this way.

If we just tell their story and paint the picture, the rest will fill itself in.

My Brain refuses to work

Kinda. Mostly, we're being lazy and looking for excuses.

So I've had this and this open as a tab on Firefox. I think it's a good idea to notate them for future reference/ideas. I still haven't completely read them, but I like the ideas behind them.

One thing I'm into in a big way is ancient history and ancient civilizations, especially ones that failed. I think that's apparent in Ruin. I need to do more reading on these topics so they'll be in my subconscious as I'm working.

Also, I put this on LJ, but I should put it here too. A silly animation I made on my DS inspired by one of the grade schoolers who's currently driving me nuts because it's summer and school is out.






Yesterday, they were bored. So they ran into my office. I send them on imaginary quests after zombie alien monsters. Oh, plus I fly the plane. It's my office. But they know where I live. When I shooed them out because I was going to be closing, they ran off to my apartment.

Then they ran back with big eyes. "There's someone in your house!" "And cats!" "And diet coke!"

For the record, there's no diet coke in this house. Ew! But apparently, they'd run over and looked in the window. Poor Jay was relegated to the guest chair which is by the window because the kitties had each taken our chairs and as he says, "Best to let sleeping cats lie." So he was right there when the two of them ran up to the window to peek in.

They came back once after I left the office, and I opened the door to shoo them off again.

"So you have two cats and a boyfriend?" One of them asked as if he were taking stock of my inventory.

When they left and I shut the door, I turned to Jay and repeated it. He just said, "Well, I kinda figured." XD

My school experience

I rarely ever look back. I'm not one for regret, and I constantly forget things just by blinking. (I hope I'm neer in a situation where someone goes, "And where were you on the night of May 5th?" Because my standard answer is, "Oh, there's been a lot of blinks since then...")

There are some memories that I hold onto dearly though. Usually memories that have atmosphere of some kind even if they no longer mean much to me. Like what it feels like to sit listening to my record player and watching dust swirling around in the sunbeam above me. Or that time, before I'd started school, when I stood staring out the window staring at a huge tree that was in someone's backyard. It was further away than I ever walked (I wasn't allowed across the street) but I just knew it was close. It was a weird moment where I realized that the world outside was both very near and very far to me.


Anyway, so MedlyMisty has been posting up some interesting and semi-introspective posts over at her LJ. They made me think back on my school "career" as it were. This is not the first time I actually have done this. Actually the first time was for my capstone project for my CSU. While I was doing my research, I very much saw myself. It was a strange eye opener.

You know, I actually started out on the low language track? I only remember taking a test in kindergarten, and after that I think it was all on the recommendations of my teachers.

English is a second language for both of my parents (technically a third in Mom's case), and so I came into school with pronunciation problems. I ended up in ESL by first grade even though English was my only language.

Those were some weird memories! I was the only one who spoke English, and we'd play things like Go Fish. I also remember the teacher showing me how to shape my mouth for the letter "L." Eventually, once I could say "world" and not have it sound like "word" I was given an encouraging little certificate and no longer got to miss PE. Which is what made me the most sad.

As I progressed through school, I still had issues. I was in the lower track for language probably stemming from my ESL days and the assumption that I couldn't do it. I suppose at some point, a teacher decided I could do it, and fourth grade started out with me in the high track.

Now as a kid, I had no idea what the hell the tracks were. I wasn't really thinking about stuff like that. Other kids knew, and I think someone told me, but I didn't really care.

After I'd been in the high track in English for a while, it became clear to that teacher that I had issues. I didn't know what nouns or verbs were, and I was too scared to ask. And he expected us to know. But having come from one of the lower tracks where the emphasis was mostly on getting us stupids to read right, I'd never been taught parts of speech.

So I was booted out of the high track and back to a lower track (with a speech and everything from the teacher to try and make me feel better about it without exactly saying what was going on). In the lower track, we would conjugate verbs out loud as out warm up exercise. I remember my little brain going, "What the hell? Does he think we're stupid?" Only probably not in words and definitely not with curse words.

It wasn't until sixth grade came around, and I had a teacher who actually explained what the hell nouns were. She had us doing things like sentence diagrams. I found I enjoyed grammar, my teachers noticed that I enjoyed grammar, and I was on the high track from then on.

Not that it really mattered. In the end, I never realized that I was in a high track until I got to high school and was in honors English. Even then it didn't matter to me. I've never been impressed by myself. I'm just going to do what I want and like to do and taking cues from my gut on when it's time to move.


Anyway, semi-pointless and weird story about my life, lol. That's kinda what this journal is for.

Truth about myself, my story

I feel a need to write something real and honest and direct and my junk shop is the perfect place to put this because there isn't any pressure or expectations. No one but a couple of you actually read it which is why I have it, lol.

So I was doing a lot of thinking this morning, and I realize that I spend a lot of time inside my own head to the point that I can easily, accidentally, forget those around me. It's very much something I just need to do sometimes, and I was even contemplating taking a vacation from loved ones just to see what would happen if I were to stay in a hotel or something for a few days just on my own with no one I know near by.


That was when a sort of truth hit me about Ruin. This is a story I've really been working on since I was an angsty teenager. It contains a lot of me inside it, and a lot of repeating themes. In a way it had me worried because I could see it, and it was almost like that was all I was writing and all I could write.

Beth brought up the "virgin myth" thing last chapter. I was keen to explore it because it's something I recognize in my own work frequently. An innocent, usually a girl, needing some form of protection.

But then as I really got thinking about it, I realized that the theme that keeps popping up isn't one of an innocent girl needing protection. The theme that keeps popping up is actually someone being in a place she (or he) doesn't want to be in and doesn't feel she fits in, trying to survive like she's treading water.

A lot of the time it deals with someone on the outside looking in or watching something going on around them with an inability to change things.

In these situations, what can you really do? You can't control the forces around you, so your only option is to control yourself and make yourself as close to the person as you would honestly like to be if you could.

So that is the truth about Ruin's actual repeating theme.

Motto for life

Ten rule for writing fiction by multiple writers.

I love Neil Gaiman. He's is the most accessible when it comes to his craft. He's friendly and outgoing, and actually answers questions. Seriously when does he find time to write?

So his tips are particularly awesome. He thought up eight, but this one (his last one) really struck a cord:

"The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.)"

This is indeed a rule for life and writing. I learned this from my days working at Target. If someone asked you a question, and you sounded unsure, they were more likely to get angry with you. If you sounded sure, and you said with confidence, "I don't know," people would always go, "Oh, okay."

The first tip I give anyone at work is to say it with confidence. Even if you're giving them a non-answer, people like to hear you say it like you know what you're talking about. I am always amazed that this works.


The other day, I realized that when I get writer's block, it's because I have stopped trusting myself and my ability to tell a story. I'll start writing and then stop (if I even begin), unsure of how to proceed or where to go. On strong days, I will just say "fuck it" and write whatever comes to mind freely and decide to fix it later.

There is a self assurance on those days that's almost presumptuous. When the voice of that editor hops in to pick at whatever I'm doing, I will think on those strong days, "Ah, it'll be okay. I can do anything. Even fix this trash." (And rest assured it is usually trash when I start. I'll do anything on those good days to get writing, once even writing a sex scene that would be taboo and which may never happen in the story. But it could happen, and so that gave me some insight into a character which I thought was strong, because everyone has a weakness.)



"So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter."


And that I think I can do. Most days. Any of those other days can go to hell.

Finally Found Them!

I knew I had some old pictures somewhere of the area. I was sort of needing inspiration for CAW, and what better way than to look at pics of the area?

A friend of ours came out from Virgina to visit with us here in California. So while we were trying to take her out places, I snapped a few pics of the area. It probably won't look like what you expect. So I hope anyway.



This is a shot of what we see when we're heading out of town on the highway. (Cause there is only one out of town.)


Another shot of the highway.


A shot of some of the hills.


I used to play Star Wars Galaxies, and I had my character start on Corelia (which is Han's home world planet in case you didn't know). Well, the planet of Corelia, in game, was always very familiar. It looked a lot like this. So much so that I always wondered if they weren't working out of Silicon Valley which is actually very near us (about an hour away, which is near-- see how sparse those hills are?)




The Red Barn that's of course supposed to say "Antiques," but it cracks me up that it says, "Ant ques." I always have an image of ants lining up waiting to purchase their junk.



Here we move closer to home. This is a shot from Carmel Beach. It's only 20 minutes from us, but it's a different feel from a beach in Monterey Bay.


If you turn, you'll see one of the holes at Pebble Beach. It's a famous golf course which some people know and some don't. The AT&T Pro-Am stops by here every year bringing along with it star athletes and celebrities. Huge deal for us. It seems the local favorite is always Bill Murray. Or so the news papers used to tell us.



A view that's basically home.

This is a shot from the Aquarium. We live in a little bay which is also a protected sanctuary. The strip of land we're looking at (across the way) is about where I live. That strip right there is probably two towns.

If you stand at the beach in the bay, you can see the land curving. If you look out on the horizon, you can see two points of land that look like they're reaching for each other. It gives a false sense of security though, and many people fall for it. In actuality, there is a canyon in the bay that is huge, so the water is actually very dangerous because if you get too far out and don't know what you're doing, the undertow will get you.


I've spent a lot of time growing up here thinking about how not only how you're raised affects you, but your environment too. Everyone reacts differently to the stimuli of course. But what I grew up with is a hearty respect of nature. Every so often, I get someone from the east coast who ask why there aren't more hotels on the beach and that always makes me pause. In those instants I realize the effect growing up here has on my thinking.

That's why it's so awesome when we travel.

You'll see how this observation makes its way into ruin. And how my landscape will eventually make it's way into the story too. I haven't really worked on CAW this month, but I count about four weeks before I need my world to be ready. SO my next project is definitely going to be that.



As a bonus, I'll leave with the shot that made us perverts in the car start laughing. We had to snap this shot after we laughed so hard in disbelief on the way in. This shot was probably on the way out.


It's supposed to be "Three M Carpet." Apparently, no one has ever told them of the connotations of "MMMM, Carpet!"

About Character Names

All the characters in Ruin were named long ago, probably too long ago for me to change now without feeling weird.

But I read something today. Someone wrote a little tute (okay actually a semi-long tute) about naming characters. One of her tips was to have the name have some meaning to the character. Don't be overt about it, she suggests, but do think about it.

So I decided to look up names.



Paula means small. Fitting considering her sudden misplacement. Plus, if you've noticed, she's on the larger end of the slider scale in comparison to the other characters who have been working hard to survive.

Henry means home ruler. (Henri is the french version.) Cool. I must have seen that coming, I mean King Henry and all.

The meaning for Brandon was a little difficult to find, so I'm not sure it's right. Basically it's named after a place, but there are other obscure meanings, one that is super fitting and I will not reveal.

James means "he who supplants" and was the name of one of the apostles of Jesus who may have also been his cousin.


Edith means "strife for wealth" which is also fitting if you think about it.

And Michael, that one made me laugh out loud. Did you realize that it means "he who resembles God?"

Picture dump

Sometimes I get into these kicks where I really want to draw. I used to visit Gaia Online a lot. (That's actually where I met Jay.) It's a very visual forum. You get little avatars you get to dress up. so there are a lot of artists that make Gaia Gold for pixel clothing by drawing avatars for people to put in their signatures.

I was not one of those people.

I used to visit the free art forum where people didn't care how you drew, and if art turned out good they'd tip you. So I got a lot of art that way because I'm not picky. I also gave out a lot of art that way.

So without further ado, I present a lot of free scribbles I had stashed away in my photobucket from way back when.















That last one is a favorite. I like to draw flowing hair.

These are of course only the ones I like, so this is roughly half of the ones I had. When I draw it's usually about a 50% chance of me turning out something that I can show to people. Drawing is a frustrating endeavor for me so I don't do it often.

Oh, and if you can read some of these signatures, some of them do say "Nana." My name on the site is Banana-nana, so even my RL friends would call me Nana. (Which lead to one friend calling her Nana when she meant to call me.)

About this Blog

Consider this something of an experiment. I'm feeling very creative lately, being surrounded by creative people, and I'd like to nurture it in whatever form it comes.

I pretty much write. About everything.

But I also enjoy drawing a doodle or two and ranting or raving about books or new things I've learned or other generally nerdy things. So this blog might get some of that too.

Because I don't always feel the need to talk, but I do like to write.

Links to other blogs of mine

All in one handy place!

I'm not usually very a very social creature, so I'm surprised I have so many blogs now.


My personal LJ, always open to all. (The boring details of my life)


Ruin, an old story of mine brought to life using The Sims 3.


Tierra de Legado, my game play blog for Sims 2.