A hodgepodge of stuff from a rapidly melting brain

Oo, isn't that image lovely? Melting brain...liquified gray matter...yummy.. *cringes away from that thought*

Ariana is not perfect after all. I didn't think she would be, and though I'm relieved, a part of me wishes she'd picked another means of revealing that to me. Of course, she's not loud and violent like Katie could be at times; she's just...Well, let's put it this way. It's a natural human tendency, when we get tired and anxious and upset, to also become cranky and sometimes unreasonable, right? Ari's no different from the rest of us in that respect...or in most others, I dare say, but that's beside the point. She's not very happy right now, at least she wasn't when I left her this morning. She wanted someething, and couldn't have it, simply put, and...that scene was not easy to write. Quite frankly it made my insides twist up. Weird, since I've seen my little siblings express wants in much the same way she did, and they tend to do it with a great deal more yelling and fit-throwing in the bargain. I didn't know how to handle her; I'm just glad Eryn did.

It's really proving to be an amazing experience, writing through Eryn's eyes. She lives with trials I've never known. Her country is full of political unrest; her father is dead; her husband is in prison and supposed to be executed soon; and she has a younger sister who requires just a bit of extra care in order to prevent magical accidents and promote family happiness and peace. Yet I can identify with her, and understand all these things through her. Maybe because, from my own limited experience, I've learned that extraordinary circumstances don't feel all that different from ordinary ones when one is a part of them.

In other news...I am sooo darn tired. And it's just Tuesday. And I feel like crap. Body aches, headache almost constantly for the last three dasys and I can't get rid of it with any kind of pain medicine. The old anxiety complex has come back, and I don't really know why. There are just so many vague things weighing on my mind. It would be all right if I could take each one out and think over it individually, like articles from a box; but when one comes, the others follow, and it's just too much. I would so love to go and get some kind of soothing treatment or something...but that's expensive, and I don't have money for it right now.

There are six weeks and three days till school is out. Counting down...

One-week anniversary post...for lack of any more creativity

So, this has been up for a week. Cool. So in honor of that, I'm going to make this post thoughtful and random at the same time.

Hmm, there are only two things I can think of to really write about. First, I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. I really want to see the HP movies in DVS because it was just a bit hard to follow towards the middle/end, but for the most part it was pretty close to the book--except it was *reeeeally* condensed. It would be interesting to know how the spells are done visually; quite flashy, I'm sure. Creacher was definitely cast well, as was everyone else, really. Dan R. did amazing as Harry; I thought he would from the interviews I've seen. Incidentally, I've seen nothing else he's been in, so as proof of my crackedness, I amuse myself with the familiar tone of that last sentence. Anyway. I do wish they'd kept the screaming portrait of Mrs. Black in the movie; I really wanted to see that. But all she did was talk to Creacher. :( Bellatrix Lestrange was scary. Like really scary. Like scarier than Voldemort. She doesn't give the haglike impression you might expect; she seems like a real person, not some weirdo out of a distorted fairy tale. Then you hear her laugh. Oh my goodness, that's the scariest laugh I've ever heard. Makes you really think she might just be unhinged after all. And one final highlight, the music is amazing. I want that sound track!

Moving on. I've hardly done any writing in the last couple of days. But I've decided Brin's going to keep a journal so that readers can get to know him better. Stroke of genius, or downfall? Well, we shall see. It's bound to be interesting, whatever else. I've been thinking about Ariana, too. She is the youngest sister of my main character, Eryn. She's fifteen, a mage, and when she was three (far beneath the age when children can begin learning to control their abilities) she did a very powerful bit of magic without really meaning to; she was trying to defend herself from a mad dog bigger than she was. She did defend herself, killed it in a horrible way. But the power of the magic backfired upon her, breaking her mind. For those who wonder what that means, she's not deranged. Just...just...and that's where I lose words. She can't read; she never went to school because emotional stimuli trigger the magic in her, and it gets out of hand and bad things happen. She'll never be able to control it, and though she only vaguely remembers the incident with the dog, it terrifies her when it gets out of control and she finds herself doing strange and extraordinary things without knowing how or why or how to make them stop. She's fifteen now. Can't read or write (though her parents and sisters tried to teach her...if you want to know what happened, you'll have to read the story because I'm not one hundred percent sure, it just didn't work), and the neighbors call her "feeble-minded," but she is wise in her own way. Just for kicks, or maybe my own discovery, I ran her through one of those "What's your mental age" tests. The test wasn't a good one, and the result was not just cruel, but jarring. "Infant?" I think not! Far from accurate. But I knew it wasn't a good test anyway. To judge her myself, I'd say perhaps eight to ten. I'm doing a lot of character evaluation for this story, and I've been trying to see flaws in all of them because I have a bad habit of writing "perfect angel" characters. Kelina is rough and wild around the edges, definitely a tomboy in a society where ladies are supposed to act like ladies. Eryn, though gentle as a dove most of the time, tends to get a bit snappish and argumentative when upset, tired, or just moody. Brin, as I've said before, is a bit of a hothead under certain circumstances. "Uncle" Rendig, though not really an alcaholic, tends to get carried away if you sit the whole jug in front of him and takes more than he can really hold, though he does have remarkable endurance. He's also a political pessimist and hides it by pretending he doesn't care. But Ariana. What about her. She's sweet, she's gentle and affectionate, musically talented, fond of embroidery, which she does fairly well... Sure, she might get a little out of control when she's upset, but who's going to shake their head at that? Of course we won't. We'll understand. The dear can't help it, anyway; it's not her fault she can't keep her magic in check and doesn't have the firmest grip on her emotions; that's a part of her handicap. A lot of people will take it like that, and really it is true. It *is* a part of her handicap. I'm sure she's had tantrums in her time, but I haven't seen any, and as that experience is particularly unpleasant (I've seen a few real tantrums from one older than Ariana), I don't think I really want to go there. We'll let the past be past. So, what flaws would she have? What would not contradict an inherently gentle nature? A flaw is something readers won't find endearing, and disabled or not, we all have them. We can understand and look away or say, "It's just how she is, it's okay," if we want, but every person I've ever known well where some of that has been necessary has had at least one trait that really, really, really got under my skin, whether it was clinginess or manipulative behaviors or temper tantrums. (I'm speaking from very limited experience--and all of those traits have also aroused profound compassion in me at one time or another.) Eryn and Ari are sisters, and what two sisters ever got along well all the time, never aggravated each other? Of course, Ari hasn't had a ton of time in the spotlight yet, so maybe she'll open up more as we go along. I hope so; I hope it comes naturally and I don't have to improvise, because that never turns out very well. But I'm not having any flawless characters in this story, even if I have to resort to the terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. It's just confusing because working with Ari is like working with two in one that aren't separated by anything. Part of her has grown up, and part of her hasn't, and yet they're one; it's not like multiple personalities or anything like that.

Writing is such an adventure, and one meets so many interesting people along the way. Life would be so boring if I wasn't a writer! :)

Bottoms Up

Well, last night, after my post, I was all geared up for forward march. Should've known it wasn't going to be forward march. Nope. It's back to square one...well, maybe not quite, as I don't have medical research to do, but pretty much, from a writing standpoint. The plan? I'm formulating it as I write.

Let's see. I know what I'm dealing with now, at least as far as where I went wrong before and what I need to fix. I know where the line is now between character and outside force, if you will. So it's not technically outside, but you get the idea. That's good. And if my trauma victim were a girl, I'd have no further problems, very likely. I'm a girl myself, I know how woman's emotions work. Unfortunately, Brin is not a girl; he's a guy. A grown, married one. I like him, but I don't know him very well yet. He can be a hothead, that's for sure. He's really brave and a patriot who wants reform in the way his country is ruled. He’s also, from the perspective of a girl, a sweetie. I’ve heard men don’t like to hear that about themselves, but that’s just too bad, isn’t it? *smirks* Brin also blushes easily (for a guy—like when he’s angry…his wife is the only one who can make him blush for any other reason), which I thought was an interesting trait to pop up against the machoness. He’s a carpenter, and does small wood carvings in his spare time. Also hunts, with friends. He’s not into it enough to go at it alone. Hmm…what else? Okay, now I’m making up stuff as I go, but who cares? It’s working. Um, he sings, but only for his wife. He’s a good debater, quite eloquent, and he loves it too, and probably knows he’s good at it, deep down, even if he never says so. He’s in great physical shape, a good runner, has an amazing aim when he throws something (be it a stone or a dagger), and his favorite forms of competition are formal footraces and a board game called kings—a classic, really. Okay, so I know all that now. That’s cool, really cool. That’s more than I knew about him five minutes ago. Now there are just three things to solve.

Firstly, what makes him tick? Not him as a guy anymore, but him as an individual? What does he want out of life. I’d say two main things. He wants a family, and he wants a free, good, happy homeland free of the tyranny that rules it now. He wants his country to be able to really call herself “proud Charlane,” as the old songs say.

Now, secondly, what’s he like on an emotional level? What is it that really gets down there to his core. More importantly for what I’m trying to do here, what’s his breaking point? In other words, what makes him cry? That sounds like a stupid, insensitive question, and Brin would probably get tight-jawed and short with me if I tried to ask him in person (if that were possible), but guess what. I’m the author; it’s my job to ask stupid and insensitive questions sometimes.

The next one is even more insensitive. How does a guy like Brin react to utter helplessness? He’s imprisoned, told he’ll soon be executed, even taken out there and made to dig his own grave, having been told he’ll be tortured into unconsciousness and then tied, put in a coffin, and buried alive in the hole he has to dig himself. Then it doesn’t happen. He digs the grave, and the torture starts, and there’s a highly disruptive event. He’s carted right back to prison and liberated soon after. What’s that going to do to him? How horrific! Really, this ties back to the crying question. Everyone has a point where they lose control, and I’m trying to find his. I don’t want him to be a wimp, I don’t. I don’t believe guys that cry are wimps; in fact, I admire the courage it takes some of them. I’ve seen my dad cry in semi-public (church), and even though it made my insides squirm and my own eyes fill and overflow with unreasoning tears just because Daddy was crying, I don’t know that I could have sat in his place without wanting to run away and hide afterward, which he didn’t. But getting back to Brin. The flip side to that is I don’t want to fall back into old ways, either. I don’t want him to lose his characterization. Sure, this will shake him; how could it not? It will probably do more than shake him; he might never be the same again. And maybe I’m as afraid of that as he would be if he knew. How ridiculous. Maybe I’m going to have to wait and see what his breaking point is, what his reactions are like, and just pray and hope hard that I can keep his character firmly in place. And this is going to be even harder because it’s all from his wife’s POV. You can say I have the option of changing from first to third person so I can write in his POV, and sure I do. But I don’t want to. I like it fine that Eryn is telling the story; in fact, it gives it a little bit of a unique perspective. For once in a fantasy, the tragic hero or the magical person isn’t telling the story; it’s being told by a simple, ordinary young woman who loves them both.

So, thus far, what do you think of my guy? He’s the first one I’ve ever consciously gone into this much detail with. I’m going to have to find a way to work him in more; he didn’t have very much stage time before he was arrested.

On a slightly different note, I’ve begun reading All Quiet on the Western Front, in hopes to learn more. Bit of a hard book. Or I could just come right out and say it’s shocking, eye-opening, and extremely sad—and I’m just at the beginning. Still, thanks to True Patriot for the rec. I love the guy’s style and I think I’m in for another big lesson or two…or ten. I’m hoping to learn more about writing guys, and Brin in particular, by reading more guy literature.