Monday questions

Sorry this is so late. I was wiped out last night (went to bed at 9pm, crazy early for me) and my internet was down today until around dinner time. Here are answers to Emily's questions. I'm going to save Joshua's and DL's questions for the next couple Mondays.

Emily asked: What's the weirdest food you've ever eaten?

Hmm, this is hard. Possibly starfruit and kumquats. Starfruit for the taste and kumquats just because they're like itty bitty oranges that you eat whole. I've had quite a bit of international foods, but I'm not sure I'd classify any of them as weird. Though I'm sure some people might think of tadig that way. It's rice that's been deliberately cooked into a crunchy crust.

If I could be any of my characters, which one would I be?

Another toughie. I love many of them. But possibly I'd go with Captain Daira or Jana. They're from the same story and balance each other's weaknesses.

--Captain Daira is tough and disciplined with a mind for strategic planning. She's loyal to her country and fights for justice and honor, even when others think she has none. Right now she's trying to maintain her ideals but she's no longer quite the noble leader she'd hoped to be. She's fixated on proving herself innocent of the false charges which has made her a little bitter and tarnished her ideals. Managing an assorted lot of men doesn't help her focus when some of them are actual criminals.
--Jana is a kind-hearted artisan who gets brought into Daira's camp after her father is hung as a traitor and has to learn all sorts of things about the wider world she'd never dealt with before. She'd been sheltered, but she will be learning how to be a leader even though she won't be the same sort as Daira. Instead she has a willingness to listen, generosity, and encouragement to draw people to her. Jana never sees herself as a leader, but Daira and her men come to recognize those quieter leadership traits.

This whole leadership difference is a major theme. Daira's the obvious sort of societal leader. She commands a group of people with her dominant and confident personality, and they do what she tells them. (Mostly) But then there's a more subtle sort of leadership, leading by example. Jana's kindness and willingness to help others revives Daira's ideals and inspires better actions from most of the men in camp. She becomes as much of a leader as Daira, though each with different strengths. Daira is the sword; Jana is the heart. Together they are a powerful force.

I've always wanted to be a dynamic leader like Daira, but I've come to know that not all leaders have to lead in the same way. Jana is a reflection of my ideal self in the lead-by-example manner. This story is probably dearest to my heart of all of them. I work on it, feel incapable of expressing it, work on other projects, learn more, come back and work on it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I won't give up on their story. This is the one especially for the girl I was many years ago and all other girls like her.

An accomplishment for my check-in

I haven't posted a ROW 80 check-in for awhile. I've been a bad writer and blog reader. I got lazy and didn't write much or read other people's check-ins. This past week though I pushed myself to quit messing around and do more work. I decided to pull out my short stories and see what I could finish off for the sake of typing the end to something at long last. (So many WIPs, sigh)

The short story push is partly from reading a bunch of other people's short stories like The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales, The Secret History of Fantasy, and Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded. I also have Dragons and Dreams from the library and Happily Ever After from the bookstore waiting for me to read them.

My troll story didn't pull me much. I'm still not sure how I want to tackle the middle. I gave my wolpertinger story a try and on the 26th I wrote 343 new words on it and then cut them off and moved them to the remnant file. The direction it took didn't sit right with me. I added 195 words to my half-orc bard story on the 27th. Those weren't bad, but my brain didn't want to stick with it.

But on Friday, I pulled out my Red Riding Hood story, determined to get something finished. I knocked out 1685 words, one of my top word tallies. (300-500 is more my typical sort of count) And yesterday I came in with 731 words including The End. Ding ding ding! Yippeeee!

Oh, it still needs massive work: a completely redone beginning and an expanding out of noted bits I'd had to skip to keep me from bogging down. But I completed it. I've proved to myself that I really can finish a story. I was totally giddy yesterday when I did it. And then I went through and read several check-ins from Wed to cheer on other folks.

I'm still way behind on reading my blog roll, taking today to work on that, but I want to say thanks to the unspoken pressure to get something accomplished on my goals. Finishing a story wasn't technically one of them, but it is something I've had hanging over me for the past few years. Everyone who has ever said good luck, or hope you make it, or some other variant of encouragement here on my blog or other online places I hang out: Thank you.

My other goals might get tweaked later since by the end of this round, I intend to finish the first round of revisions on the Red Riding Hood story, maybe even come up with a title other than RRH. I'm not sure how I want to break down the revisions into smaller check-off-able chunks yet, but I'll work on that too. I'm also behind on posting book reviews here, so I intend to have 4 books reviews during the month of August. Hope you'll check back for them. I think I already know which one I want to cover first. It'll be up tomorrow (if I write it tonight) or Tuesday (after I get back from the Buffalo Museum of Science).

Hope everyone has a productive week!

Summer goals 2011

Since many of my fellow bloggers have been talking about summer goals, I came up with some for myself. By the end of August 31:

I will write 60,000 words towards one or more stories. That's an average of 652 words/day, entirely doable for me, even with the days I know I won't have much time to write, such as my birthday this month and the family picnic next month. (Write on those days at all? Mmm, probably not.)

I will get my craft business underway. Writing is slow and painstaking, and my family could use some extra money coming in now. If I can make some without having to go anywhere but the store and the post office, I can stay home to write. And crafts make a nice change of pace from the storytelling.

I will stay positive about my work and not let anyone convince me it's worthless. Okay, so that's an ongoing intangible thing rather than something concrete I can point to as saying I accomplished it. But it is an important thing to remind myself about.

Anybody else have any goals for this summer?

Filk Friday: Mal's Song and Browncoat Anthem

No, I'm not done with Firefly yet. There is more I want to say about it if I can get my head wrapped around words enough to describe why it's so moving to me. For now, here are Mal's Song, a filk written about the show specifically, and Believe In You, a song from another show's soundtrack but fits Firefly just as beautifully. Both of these songs give me chills.

Mal's Song


Believe In You (as a Browncoat Anthem)

Roles and Revelations

This isn't one of my usual posts. But I was inspired by this post from Lydia Sharp. She reflected on having tried out acting in high school. I kind of wish I had tried acting in high school. I was another one of those very shy types. In college, I discovered live action roleplaying which is a lot like improvisational theater, where the world is the stage and everyone is an actor. The game I participated in was medieval fantasy themed.

My first character was a gypsy healer. It was liberating to try the role of lighthearted flirt. I did more listening/watching than speaking/acting at first, not really knowing what to say most of the time. But I could experiment with personality traits, because it was just a game, just a character, not me. It was safe.

I got to try other roles as well working for the plot team. I've been a dark dwarf looking for a husband, a farm woman seeking adventurers to rescue her husband, a goblin woman wanting to buy pie, a giant ant, a wolf, even a magical tree. Just to name a few.

But I will say, in that game, I also had the WORST case of stage fright I have ever had. Took me by surprise. And having been in marching band and concert band during high school (and jazz and pep band), I've been through many performances.

The king of Stonegate had been recently been rescued from the Dark Horde and was having a festival to honor the thirteen adventurers who'd saved him. I was playing an elven bard (my second character creation). Count Silvertree, played by one of my friends, commissioned a song from my character for the commemoration and kept it secret from the guy playing the king, one of the chapter owners. One of my friends helped me write it out of game. I thought I was all set. An easy song to sing and an audience of people who weren't going to care if it was perfect, just there to have fun and enjoy what happened.

I nearly froze.

There I was surrounded by all those people, most of whom I knew, but still, I was completely encircled. The king sat in front of me only a few feet away. My hands shook, and my heart raced. I was no longer me. I was that bard, facing her king with a song. A huge honor. Somehow I managed to sing, even provided my own drum beat. He was genuinely touched. Shaky as my performance had been, and without having anything close to a professional voice, I brought him nearly to tears. For real. That stunned me as much as the stage fright had.

If I can make a reader believe in my characters as much as I managed that day to make everyone, including myself, believe that I was a bard, then I will be a happy writer.

Princess Bride

One of my favorite movies has to be The Princess Bride. This movie will always be a classic to me. I've watched it so many times, I can practically quote the whole thing right along with the actors. Not only do I have the movie, but I also have the soundtrack, which is excellent background music for writing fantasy. Fantastic!

This story within a story begins with a boy who is home sick. His grandfather visits, bringing his favorite book. With the promise of "fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles," the grandson agrees to listen to the story.

Buttercup falls in love with a poor farmboy. Before he leaves to seek his fortune, he promises that he will always come for her. "Because this is true love. Do you think this happens everyday?" When she hears he has been murdered by the Dread Pirate Roberts, she is devastated. Prince Humperdink chooses her to become his princess though she does not love him. Then she is kidnapped by a trio of odd characters and followed by the Man in Black.

Swordfights, vows, and hilarity ensues. I hope this movie remains a part of popular culture for a long time. With so many quotable lines and references which have slipped into common parlance, I find it "inconceivable" to imagine this story ever being forgotten completely.