Ok, seriously, we live at over 6000 feet above sea level. No matter how dry it is here, we are still going to get snow. It snows every year, and often MUCH worse than it did today. If you don't know how to drive in a single inch of snow, YOU'RE LIVING IN THE WRONG STATE RETARD!!!
So, my brother's car has broken down, and like the lazy tard that he is, he's taking his sweet time finding a new one. He's had loan money sitting in his bank account for over a month now, and still no car. So it falls to me, as his room mate to drive him to and from work. Normally, this drive takes 10 minutes either way, for a round trip of 20 mins despite rush hour traffic. But, oh, god forbid there should be a SINGLE INCH of snow on the ground. Oh dear god, what do we do, what do we do, how do we deal with this!?!?! Well Aparently people who have been living in this state their entire lives and drive those big 4WD SUVs they can fit their 17 children into, handle a SINGLE INCH of snow by driving 4 MPH.
What is normally a round trip of 20 mins took THREE AND A HALF HOURS!!! Why? For many reasons. First of all, I don't think my spedometer went above 5 MPH the entire time. Second of all, everyone was being WAY overly cautious. Did you know that when you're at a red light, and it turns green, and you take your sweet time getting started because you're afraid of a little snow, the sensor on the light automatically decides that there's no one at the light and it changes to red again within less than a minute? Well, it does. And while some jackass is taking 73 years to press down on the gas pedal, he is ensuring that he and only he will get through the light when it turns green. This backs up traffic at EVERY SINGLE TRAFFIC LIGHT IN THE WHOLE VALLEY by at least 5 blocks, with people sitting at each and every light for 20mins+ just to get through because people who have been living and driving in the snow all their lives can't handle a SINGLE INCH of snow on the ground, adding OVER THREE HOURS to my trip. That wasted my ENTIRE day, because guess what, the second I got home, my brother calls for his ride home and I had to go out and do it again, the second time taking 2 hrs and 45 mins. I had a full tank of gas when I started out today, now it's almost empty. That is an entire $40 that I really didn't have to spare, completely and utterly wasted for no other reason than that people who have been living and driving in the snow their entire lives don't fricken know how to drive in a SINGLE INCH of snow. WTFx3billion people!!!
SERIOUSLY PEOPLE!!! If you can't handle driving in a SINGLE INCH of snow, DONT FREAKIN DRIVE AT ALL!!! Do everyone else a favor and JUST STAY HOME!!! Better yet, move to a state where it doesn't snow at all because you're too retarded to live here in the winter!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Exile chapter 31 draft 4
Finished with the fourth draft of Exile chapter 31 and it can be downloaded here.
Not many changes here, just a few small continuity issues, and one or two stupid things I wasn't really thinking about when I wrote them apparently. After editing this chapter I think that if I ever actually decided to break this story up into two parts, this would make a better ending for the first, there's a bit more closure to things.
One small thing that was added to this chapter in the third draft was a bit with Fayt Nightfang watching from Avalon as the Samirreh conquer Nothengard. That small part would make the perfect epilogue if I were to split the story, but the better thing to do by far is just try to get it cut down as much as possible before i really put thought into splitting it. It's a very short part, only a handful of paragraphs, and really, the only thing it serves to do is remind you that there is an antagonist in this story, and he's still there, still evil, still up to no good, and he's on the verge of winning.
Not many changes here, just a few small continuity issues, and one or two stupid things I wasn't really thinking about when I wrote them apparently. After editing this chapter I think that if I ever actually decided to break this story up into two parts, this would make a better ending for the first, there's a bit more closure to things.
One small thing that was added to this chapter in the third draft was a bit with Fayt Nightfang watching from Avalon as the Samirreh conquer Nothengard. That small part would make the perfect epilogue if I were to split the story, but the better thing to do by far is just try to get it cut down as much as possible before i really put thought into splitting it. It's a very short part, only a handful of paragraphs, and really, the only thing it serves to do is remind you that there is an antagonist in this story, and he's still there, still evil, still up to no good, and he's on the verge of winning.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Exile Chapter 30 Draft 4
So, after sleeping almost two days straight, I'm back to work on Exile again and the fourth draft of chapter 30 can be found at the bottom of this page.
This chapter was new to draft 3 and is another chapter about Patrick and Weasel. This chapter is very long, as all chapters about these characters are, and it is nearly all action. We've got a large battle, a smaller ambush, an epic duel, and the two storylines finally meet when Aaron and Anna show up to save the day.
Despite the fact that this is basically only the second draft of this chapter, I did a really good job on teh first draft of it. There was very little that needed editing, and the things that did were just small things like bad grammer and the need for more punctuation.
For a while I had been considering cutting this story into two volumes rather than going through and chopping it down to size. This right here would have been the breaking point between the two books. We've got climaxes in both storylines and a quick epilogue would tie things up in a nice bow to set up for the second volume, but then i decided I was just being lazy and not wanting to do the work of chopping it down, something that the story itself really needs so i decided against doing it. Beides, as my Agent says, it's much easier to sell a standalone than it is to sell a series.
This chapter was new to draft 3 and is another chapter about Patrick and Weasel. This chapter is very long, as all chapters about these characters are, and it is nearly all action. We've got a large battle, a smaller ambush, an epic duel, and the two storylines finally meet when Aaron and Anna show up to save the day.
Despite the fact that this is basically only the second draft of this chapter, I did a really good job on teh first draft of it. There was very little that needed editing, and the things that did were just small things like bad grammer and the need for more punctuation.
For a while I had been considering cutting this story into two volumes rather than going through and chopping it down to size. This right here would have been the breaking point between the two books. We've got climaxes in both storylines and a quick epilogue would tie things up in a nice bow to set up for the second volume, but then i decided I was just being lazy and not wanting to do the work of chopping it down, something that the story itself really needs so i decided against doing it. Beides, as my Agent says, it's much easier to sell a standalone than it is to sell a series.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas.
It's over. Thank God, it's over. December always nearly kills me. I really kinda hate it. By the way, never make the mistake of driving past a Walmart on Christmas Eve... I was stuck in the traffic trying to squeeze into a parking lot that could squeeze no more cars into it for almost 45 mins just trying to go one block down to get onto bangerter, because of all the retarded last minute shoppers. I mean seriously... you see it coming. It happens on the same day every year. It's not like it jumped you from a shadowed alley and stole your wallet at knife point. Couldn't you maybe have, I don't know, thought ahead and, you know, SHOPPED LAST WEEK OR SOMETHING!!! I will NEVER understand the mentality of someone taht leaves christmas shopping until 6 PM the day before Christmas. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean... WHY? Why would you a.) leave it until there's likely nothing left in stores worthwhile to buy and b.) even want to be anywhere near the crowds of like minded retards like yourself? Hell, I hate christmas crowds so much I do the majority of my shopping online so i just don't have to deal with it.
It's no great secret that I'm not exactly a people person, but I have this thing with loud, noisy, pushy crowds of people. They make me want to climb to the top of the nearest tower with a sniper rifle and start taking pot shots. I have this thing where I hate when people block my path. Especially when they appear to be doing either nothing, or having a conversation with someone else right in the middle of the flow of traffic. It drives me crazy. Normally I have a sort of intimidation factor (which I still find strange because i'm not exactly a very imposing figure and prefer to blend nto teh background rather than be noticed) that usually makes people avoid me, leaving a clear path, but in a crowd there's nowhere for them to go. I do not understand why anyone would ever willingly subject themselves to that sort of insanity. Data does not compute!!! And you know what? If you're stupid enough to leave your Christmas shopping until 6 PM on December 24th YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU ARE FORCED TO ENDURE!!!
So, anyway, Merry Christmas to all, and good riddance to the horrid season for another 11 months. And let me tell you, 11 months is all too soon.
It's over. Thank God, it's over. December always nearly kills me. I really kinda hate it. By the way, never make the mistake of driving past a Walmart on Christmas Eve... I was stuck in the traffic trying to squeeze into a parking lot that could squeeze no more cars into it for almost 45 mins just trying to go one block down to get onto bangerter, because of all the retarded last minute shoppers. I mean seriously... you see it coming. It happens on the same day every year. It's not like it jumped you from a shadowed alley and stole your wallet at knife point. Couldn't you maybe have, I don't know, thought ahead and, you know, SHOPPED LAST WEEK OR SOMETHING!!! I will NEVER understand the mentality of someone taht leaves christmas shopping until 6 PM the day before Christmas. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean... WHY? Why would you a.) leave it until there's likely nothing left in stores worthwhile to buy and b.) even want to be anywhere near the crowds of like minded retards like yourself? Hell, I hate christmas crowds so much I do the majority of my shopping online so i just don't have to deal with it.
It's no great secret that I'm not exactly a people person, but I have this thing with loud, noisy, pushy crowds of people. They make me want to climb to the top of the nearest tower with a sniper rifle and start taking pot shots. I have this thing where I hate when people block my path. Especially when they appear to be doing either nothing, or having a conversation with someone else right in the middle of the flow of traffic. It drives me crazy. Normally I have a sort of intimidation factor (which I still find strange because i'm not exactly a very imposing figure and prefer to blend nto teh background rather than be noticed) that usually makes people avoid me, leaving a clear path, but in a crowd there's nowhere for them to go. I do not understand why anyone would ever willingly subject themselves to that sort of insanity. Data does not compute!!! And you know what? If you're stupid enough to leave your Christmas shopping until 6 PM on December 24th YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU ARE FORCED TO ENDURE!!!
So, anyway, Merry Christmas to all, and good riddance to the horrid season for another 11 months. And let me tell you, 11 months is all too soon.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Exile Chapter 29 Draft 4
Finished Chapter 29 of the fourth draft of Exile last night but fell asleep on my computer before I could post it, woke up with waffle face and 300 pages of j at 2 AM and said I'll fix it tomorrow and went to bed. Oh how I suffer for my art . . . well, not really, I'm an insomniac, I don't sleep much anyway. Anyway, the un-J'ed version of this chapter can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
Just a few changes to the text here to make things more clear, and to give Silmera more realistic things to say while confronting the being that utterly destroyed her mother and used her to nearly exterminate the human race. I've also put in a few more hints that Silmera may be falling for Mal, and how ridiculous the idea still seems to her.
Anyway, whenever I start putting a story together I always approach it in three parts, like a three act play, because that is a very good model for a story to follow. The first act introduces the characters, the setting, the rules, the conflict and all of that. The second act tests your characters. Everything that can go wrong does, and the bad guy seems on the verge of winning. The third act the good guys overcome their adversity, made stronger by it, and use what they've learned to triumph over the bad guy.
Take, for example, the original star wars trilogy. Star Wars introduced the characters and their conflict, rebels vs. empire. The antagonists Vader and the emperor, and the setting, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Empire has our heros fleeing for their lives from the empire out for retribution for the events of star wars. Everythig that can go wrong does. People are captured, luke loses a hand and finds that the man he hates with all his heart for murdering his father actually IS his father. They can do nothing but limp away to safety, leaving a fallen friend behind to his fate. In Jedi, the rebels regroup and gather their strength after licking their wounds for a final offensive against the empire, and Luke comes to terms with the truth, using it against his father to force him to choose redemption and death over remaining a slave to the dark side. The emperor dies, the empire falls, everyone is happy, the end.
In Exile the first act introduces us to our heroes, Silmera and Mal, and the supporting characters, Aaron, Anna, Lilia, Patrick, Weasel, and so on. Our antagonists, Fayt Nightfang, Fayt Stain, the Samirreh as a whole. The setting, the four kingdoms a thousand years after an apochalyptic war. And the conflicts, people of the Four Kingdoms vs the Samirreh, Mal vs. the voice in his head, and Silmera vs. Fayt Stain. The second act sees everything that everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong. Mal loses control of hte Dark God and destroys his village, killing or maiming many of the people he's grown up with. He and Silmera are badly hurt, and banished from teh Hidden Valley forever. They're attacked by a Fayt and Mal is actually turned into a Samirreh by his dark magic. Patrick is sent to take command of the allied army but is greeted with scorn, apprehension and refusal. Silmera is captured by the enemy and Mal learns that he can either save himself and let the world burn, or save the world and walk the rest of his days as a Heretic for his reward. In the end Patrick gets control of hte army and leads it to victory. Mal rescues Silmera and she defeats Fayt Stain. Mal triumphs over the Dark God, removing the curse from himself forever, defeats Fayt Nightfang and foils his plans. Everyone is happy except for most of the main cast who have either died, given up their lives, or been close to someone who has, the end.
I really like the three act format because it gives a very strong structure to a story, and a bit of a roadmap of how the story is to progress as you're brainstorming and putting things together. It gives everything that you need for a good story, Eposition, Conflict, and Triumph, and in all the right order. As one of my english professors in college liked to say, "That Shakespeare dude really knew what he was doing." He followed the three act format religiously, and most of his work is still considered to be very good even after four hundred years.
P.S. the Tron remake was better than it looked. that is not, to say that it was a great movie, it just wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. Still, if you've got the money to see it in the theater, it was fun to watch at least once, especially if you liked the original.
Just a few changes to the text here to make things more clear, and to give Silmera more realistic things to say while confronting the being that utterly destroyed her mother and used her to nearly exterminate the human race. I've also put in a few more hints that Silmera may be falling for Mal, and how ridiculous the idea still seems to her.
Anyway, whenever I start putting a story together I always approach it in three parts, like a three act play, because that is a very good model for a story to follow. The first act introduces the characters, the setting, the rules, the conflict and all of that. The second act tests your characters. Everything that can go wrong does, and the bad guy seems on the verge of winning. The third act the good guys overcome their adversity, made stronger by it, and use what they've learned to triumph over the bad guy.
Take, for example, the original star wars trilogy. Star Wars introduced the characters and their conflict, rebels vs. empire. The antagonists Vader and the emperor, and the setting, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Empire has our heros fleeing for their lives from the empire out for retribution for the events of star wars. Everythig that can go wrong does. People are captured, luke loses a hand and finds that the man he hates with all his heart for murdering his father actually IS his father. They can do nothing but limp away to safety, leaving a fallen friend behind to his fate. In Jedi, the rebels regroup and gather their strength after licking their wounds for a final offensive against the empire, and Luke comes to terms with the truth, using it against his father to force him to choose redemption and death over remaining a slave to the dark side. The emperor dies, the empire falls, everyone is happy, the end.
In Exile the first act introduces us to our heroes, Silmera and Mal, and the supporting characters, Aaron, Anna, Lilia, Patrick, Weasel, and so on. Our antagonists, Fayt Nightfang, Fayt Stain, the Samirreh as a whole. The setting, the four kingdoms a thousand years after an apochalyptic war. And the conflicts, people of the Four Kingdoms vs the Samirreh, Mal vs. the voice in his head, and Silmera vs. Fayt Stain. The second act sees everything that everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong. Mal loses control of hte Dark God and destroys his village, killing or maiming many of the people he's grown up with. He and Silmera are badly hurt, and banished from teh Hidden Valley forever. They're attacked by a Fayt and Mal is actually turned into a Samirreh by his dark magic. Patrick is sent to take command of the allied army but is greeted with scorn, apprehension and refusal. Silmera is captured by the enemy and Mal learns that he can either save himself and let the world burn, or save the world and walk the rest of his days as a Heretic for his reward. In the end Patrick gets control of hte army and leads it to victory. Mal rescues Silmera and she defeats Fayt Stain. Mal triumphs over the Dark God, removing the curse from himself forever, defeats Fayt Nightfang and foils his plans. Everyone is happy except for most of the main cast who have either died, given up their lives, or been close to someone who has, the end.
I really like the three act format because it gives a very strong structure to a story, and a bit of a roadmap of how the story is to progress as you're brainstorming and putting things together. It gives everything that you need for a good story, Eposition, Conflict, and Triumph, and in all the right order. As one of my english professors in college liked to say, "That Shakespeare dude really knew what he was doing." He followed the three act format religiously, and most of his work is still considered to be very good even after four hundred years.
P.S. the Tron remake was better than it looked. that is not, to say that it was a great movie, it just wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. Still, if you've got the money to see it in the theater, it was fun to watch at least once, especially if you liked the original.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
I wash my hands of this weirdness...
So, here it is, the day before the day before the day before christmas... and I get home from work at 2...? wtf... Something seems very strange about that. Anyway, I finished chapter 28 of the fourth draft of Exile last night, but it was late so I went to bed without posting it. You can download it at the bottom of this page.
there were only a few minor changes in this chapter, mostly having to do with what Mal does with the Dark God's power and its effects on Silmera. I dunno what I was thinking the last time around with this chapter but it seemed a little more than a little naughty to me this time through, so I changed it to be a little less icky, and a little more cool.
Anyway, this chapter brings some muuuuuch needed action to the story. Things started out with a bang, but then I went through a very, very long process of building the characters and the world around them without much in the way of action. The time for character and world building is over now, and all the exciting things can happen. And unlike anything Michael Bay has ever produced, you know the reasons, motives and emotions behind all of hte characters' actions so you actually care what happens to them rather than being dazzled by cool explosions and flashy things like that, which distract you from teh lack thereof. (not a Michael Bay fan, in case you were wondering, it doesn't take a genius to make a good transformer's movie, yet he somehow managed to mess it up... twice... buttmunch) All of the set up in Part Two was necessary so that you feel attached to the characters as their lives are turned upside down, and they're fighting for their lives.
there were only a few minor changes in this chapter, mostly having to do with what Mal does with the Dark God's power and its effects on Silmera. I dunno what I was thinking the last time around with this chapter but it seemed a little more than a little naughty to me this time through, so I changed it to be a little less icky, and a little more cool.
Anyway, this chapter brings some muuuuuch needed action to the story. Things started out with a bang, but then I went through a very, very long process of building the characters and the world around them without much in the way of action. The time for character and world building is over now, and all the exciting things can happen. And unlike anything Michael Bay has ever produced, you know the reasons, motives and emotions behind all of hte characters' actions so you actually care what happens to them rather than being dazzled by cool explosions and flashy things like that, which distract you from teh lack thereof. (not a Michael Bay fan, in case you were wondering, it doesn't take a genius to make a good transformer's movie, yet he somehow managed to mess it up... twice... buttmunch) All of the set up in Part Two was necessary so that you feel attached to the characters as their lives are turned upside down, and they're fighting for their lives.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
On the seventh day of Christmas...
My supervisor gave to me... a day off on the week of Christmas. That was unexpected, but not unwelcome. So I used my time to finish up the fourth draft of Exile Chapter 27 and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
Ok, this chapter had some really major changes made to it. First of all, and most notable, I removed the drinking contest and replaced it with a part of Mal asking if there is any way to be freed of the Dark God without dying or setting it loose. Now, as amusing as that drinking contest was to my insomniatic mind at four in the morning, it really doesn't fit into this story. It was silly stupid humor, and really had no place here. It really only served as a plot device to remove Aaron from the coming fight. I found another convieniant plot device for that, which is less stupid. I thought te drinking contest was a great idea when I first wrote it, and I was a little iffy on the third draft but decided to leave it in as it was the only place where you get to see first hand how dirty Silmera's sense of humor is and how little she cares about propriety. However, I decided this time around that the story itself is better served without it. Instead I lay the foundation, which was somewhat missing in previous drafts, for the major leap of faith that Mal makes in the end.
Other changes that I made include a lot more introversion from Mal as he tries to sort out his emotions, and decide what he really wants out of life from here on out. He's starting to realize now that seeking revenge will only turn him into a monster and might lead him down the same path that Marael took, but he still feels the desire for vengeance. On top of that he's marrying a girl he doesn't love soon while the girl he's beginning to realize that he DOES love is soon to walk out of his life forever and there's nothing that he can do about it. I'm trying really hard to focus on his emotions in this draft and his inner struggle, because without either he's a very flat and boring character and his sacrifice at the end is completely meaningless. If you don't care about him, and sympathize with him, what's the point?
This chapter is really long, and there is not a whole lot of dialog in it, which can sometimes make it hard to get through, but I think that with all of the high emotion running through Mal at this time, it wont be too bad for someone to read through. Most of this chapter is about Mal trying to sort out his feelings, who he loves and why, and what path he should follow from here on. He's basically taking his first steps into being a man instead of a boy.
Ok, this chapter had some really major changes made to it. First of all, and most notable, I removed the drinking contest and replaced it with a part of Mal asking if there is any way to be freed of the Dark God without dying or setting it loose. Now, as amusing as that drinking contest was to my insomniatic mind at four in the morning, it really doesn't fit into this story. It was silly stupid humor, and really had no place here. It really only served as a plot device to remove Aaron from the coming fight. I found another convieniant plot device for that, which is less stupid. I thought te drinking contest was a great idea when I first wrote it, and I was a little iffy on the third draft but decided to leave it in as it was the only place where you get to see first hand how dirty Silmera's sense of humor is and how little she cares about propriety. However, I decided this time around that the story itself is better served without it. Instead I lay the foundation, which was somewhat missing in previous drafts, for the major leap of faith that Mal makes in the end.
Other changes that I made include a lot more introversion from Mal as he tries to sort out his emotions, and decide what he really wants out of life from here on out. He's starting to realize now that seeking revenge will only turn him into a monster and might lead him down the same path that Marael took, but he still feels the desire for vengeance. On top of that he's marrying a girl he doesn't love soon while the girl he's beginning to realize that he DOES love is soon to walk out of his life forever and there's nothing that he can do about it. I'm trying really hard to focus on his emotions in this draft and his inner struggle, because without either he's a very flat and boring character and his sacrifice at the end is completely meaningless. If you don't care about him, and sympathize with him, what's the point?
This chapter is really long, and there is not a whole lot of dialog in it, which can sometimes make it hard to get through, but I think that with all of the high emotion running through Mal at this time, it wont be too bad for someone to read through. Most of this chapter is about Mal trying to sort out his feelings, who he loves and why, and what path he should follow from here on. He's basically taking his first steps into being a man instead of a boy.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Hooray for days off
The one nice thing about working at the post office in december is that I get paid hourly instead of salaried, and overtime during this month is triple pay instead of time and a half, and so to avoid that, I actually get off on my scheduled days off. Something that rarely happens. So, anyway, since I had this lovely day off I thought I'd do something I enjoy, like work on something I'm writing. And so the Fourth Draft of Exile Chapter 26 is done and can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
There was one major change to this chapter in the third draft, which is a part with Fayt Nightfang watching Silmera. I wanted to give the impression sooner that what Silmera did will have consequesnces, and I wanted the antagonist to make another appearance so you remember that he's there, and up to no good. This was a little hard because I don't want to give away too much as to his identity, or his plans at this stage of the story. I did drop a few little clues as to his identity, but nothing really solid. Still, an observant person could probably figure out his identity from this chapter alone, especially when you combine the small part from his point of view to Silmera's thoughts earlier in the chapter about Parth.
Other additions to this chapter were Silmera's memories of Parth and Torren, two things that will come back to haunt her in the ending. Also I added a bit of her fantasizing over what it would have been like to be a normal girl in a little village like Areina. This serves two purposes for the story, it makes Silmera seem more real and makes the reader more sympathetic towards her, and it also shows that even though she thinks that it's ludicrous, she's actually starting to fall for Mal. In the second draft she just sort of thought, well, I guess I'll take him because he's all i've got. When in actuality she's been developing feelings for him all along, and as such things are so alien to her, she just doesn't realize it until the end. Also, added was some dialog and thoughts on the Northern Sage's sacrifice of giving his life to eternal servitude just to have his wife back from teh dead. This is very important to the story, because this is the reason Mal gives up his own life at the end.
The idea of giving a life for a life needed to be introduced earlier in the story so that the seed of it could be planted in his mind. This is a bit of a spoiler for what will happen in the last book of Beyond the Lost Horizon, so if you don't want to know details, skip the rest of this paragraph. Temari will die rescuing Raven from the Black Tower, and the Witch of the North will offer to bring her back for him if he will take her place, because she was mortally wounded fighting one of the Covenant. Keeping with the whole dead is dead and no one comes back from it theme, she is like the Oracle. Her physical body died, but her Demon Core remained, needing a human body given willingly to inhabit, just like the Oracle. The Witch of the North offered her own dying body to bring Temari back from the dead in return for Raven taking her place for the rest of eternity. Raven agreed and the Witch thrust Temari's core into one of her wounds, and Temari was reborn, her regenerative abilities repairing the damage to her new body.
A couple continuity errors were fixed and some language cleaned up to make it more readable, and I've continued with changing speech patterns for all of the main characters to give them more personality
There was one major change to this chapter in the third draft, which is a part with Fayt Nightfang watching Silmera. I wanted to give the impression sooner that what Silmera did will have consequesnces, and I wanted the antagonist to make another appearance so you remember that he's there, and up to no good. This was a little hard because I don't want to give away too much as to his identity, or his plans at this stage of the story. I did drop a few little clues as to his identity, but nothing really solid. Still, an observant person could probably figure out his identity from this chapter alone, especially when you combine the small part from his point of view to Silmera's thoughts earlier in the chapter about Parth.
Other additions to this chapter were Silmera's memories of Parth and Torren, two things that will come back to haunt her in the ending. Also I added a bit of her fantasizing over what it would have been like to be a normal girl in a little village like Areina. This serves two purposes for the story, it makes Silmera seem more real and makes the reader more sympathetic towards her, and it also shows that even though she thinks that it's ludicrous, she's actually starting to fall for Mal. In the second draft she just sort of thought, well, I guess I'll take him because he's all i've got. When in actuality she's been developing feelings for him all along, and as such things are so alien to her, she just doesn't realize it until the end. Also, added was some dialog and thoughts on the Northern Sage's sacrifice of giving his life to eternal servitude just to have his wife back from teh dead. This is very important to the story, because this is the reason Mal gives up his own life at the end.
The idea of giving a life for a life needed to be introduced earlier in the story so that the seed of it could be planted in his mind. This is a bit of a spoiler for what will happen in the last book of Beyond the Lost Horizon, so if you don't want to know details, skip the rest of this paragraph. Temari will die rescuing Raven from the Black Tower, and the Witch of the North will offer to bring her back for him if he will take her place, because she was mortally wounded fighting one of the Covenant. Keeping with the whole dead is dead and no one comes back from it theme, she is like the Oracle. Her physical body died, but her Demon Core remained, needing a human body given willingly to inhabit, just like the Oracle. The Witch of the North offered her own dying body to bring Temari back from the dead in return for Raven taking her place for the rest of eternity. Raven agreed and the Witch thrust Temari's core into one of her wounds, and Temari was reborn, her regenerative abilities repairing the damage to her new body.
A couple continuity errors were fixed and some language cleaned up to make it more readable, and I've continued with changing speech patterns for all of the main characters to give them more personality
Exile Chapter 25 draft 4
I've finally found the time to finish the fourth draft of Exile Chapter 25 and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
This chapter is the beginning of Part 3: Exiled. Four years have passed to the day from when the last chapter ended. Again, I split the story into parts to prevent confusion on the time jumps. You have a break in the story where it says end of part two, beginning of part 3 4 years later, to tell you that this time has passed, and a short bit of Silmera thinking back on what has happened between chapter 24 an chapter 25. The reason for this is very simple, nothing interesting happened in them, and the story is already too long as it is. Silmera tells you everything that you need to know about what happened during the time that I skipped over.
This chapter needed quite a bit of work, as there were many things that were very vague that needed to not be vague. One of those things is Mal's skill with a sword. I never actually said how good he is in previous drafts, and then all of a sudden he whips it out and is epically awesome with it out of nowhere. He was trained extremely hard by a supernatural being so his skills are a step above those of someone trained by a human because he had to adapt to her greater speed and strength, and find ways around them to make beating her possible for someone of his phyiscal abilities. Silmera tells us this in this draft so there's no confusion about his skills. He's not the greatest swordsman in the world by far, as is proven in the ending when he fights a Fayt, but he's good enough to give all but a handful a good fight.
There were several other really vague things that were clarified and such, from here on there are going to be a lot more edits because this is where the storylines start to come together, and there were a lot of continuity errors created by that.
On other news, my Agent has given me a deadline of the end of march to finish Exile, and I'm pretty sure I can make it. He is extremely pleased with the changes I made in the second and third drafts and thinks that he will have a much easier time selling it than he is having selling Beyond the Lost Horizon. The biggest difference is that Exile is just a much better written and thought out story, with really good pacing, some things that were not so apparent in BTLH. Plus he says it's usually easier to sell a book that doesn't have a happy ending to a publisher because it's something that goes against the norm, and publishers like to see that every now and again. So, aparently I'm getting better at this whole writing thing. Hopefully I can get good enough to start selling some books and quit my craptastic day job. not that it's really all that craptastic, it's just not what I really want to do with my life.
This chapter is the beginning of Part 3: Exiled. Four years have passed to the day from when the last chapter ended. Again, I split the story into parts to prevent confusion on the time jumps. You have a break in the story where it says end of part two, beginning of part 3 4 years later, to tell you that this time has passed, and a short bit of Silmera thinking back on what has happened between chapter 24 an chapter 25. The reason for this is very simple, nothing interesting happened in them, and the story is already too long as it is. Silmera tells you everything that you need to know about what happened during the time that I skipped over.
This chapter needed quite a bit of work, as there were many things that were very vague that needed to not be vague. One of those things is Mal's skill with a sword. I never actually said how good he is in previous drafts, and then all of a sudden he whips it out and is epically awesome with it out of nowhere. He was trained extremely hard by a supernatural being so his skills are a step above those of someone trained by a human because he had to adapt to her greater speed and strength, and find ways around them to make beating her possible for someone of his phyiscal abilities. Silmera tells us this in this draft so there's no confusion about his skills. He's not the greatest swordsman in the world by far, as is proven in the ending when he fights a Fayt, but he's good enough to give all but a handful a good fight.
There were several other really vague things that were clarified and such, from here on there are going to be a lot more edits because this is where the storylines start to come together, and there were a lot of continuity errors created by that.
On other news, my Agent has given me a deadline of the end of march to finish Exile, and I'm pretty sure I can make it. He is extremely pleased with the changes I made in the second and third drafts and thinks that he will have a much easier time selling it than he is having selling Beyond the Lost Horizon. The biggest difference is that Exile is just a much better written and thought out story, with really good pacing, some things that were not so apparent in BTLH. Plus he says it's usually easier to sell a book that doesn't have a happy ending to a publisher because it's something that goes against the norm, and publishers like to see that every now and again. So, aparently I'm getting better at this whole writing thing. Hopefully I can get good enough to start selling some books and quit my craptastic day job. not that it's really all that craptastic, it's just not what I really want to do with my life.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
F U DECEMBER!!!
Never been a really big fan of christmas. Sure, the christian meaning of the holiday is cool and all, celebrate the birth of the savior of mankind and such. However, the comercialization, the obligations to buy gifts or cards for people you barely know and couldn't care less about, the crowds everywhere you try to go to shop, the traffic, the decorating, the people spending money they dont have on gifts their friends and family don't need, and the general hostility of pretty much everyone you meet on the street during the weeks before christmas annoys the crap out of me. What does ANY of that have to do with any of the other things that Christmas has come to stand for? I say come to stand for because it used to be a pagan holiday back in the day, but was adopted by the catholic church when rome made it their official religion and tried to integrate it into their society.
On top of that, work at the post office is HIDDEOUS during december. Normally a mail route will have 10 packages, maybe up to 15 per day. In december it's 60-100. Normally you'll have 6-7 trays of mail to deliver, in december it's 10-15. So yeah, I've really come to dislike Christmas as it has become. I haven't even got a christmas tree for my apartment. Not only do I have nowhere to put it, I've ALWAYS hated decorating. I always got forced to do it for every holiday that you can imagine when I was young because my parents were always really big on slave labor, (why do something when you can make your kids do it for you?) and it became a hated chore rather than a fun activity. The only things I hate more are carving pumpkins and coloring easter eggs. It's kind of like how my family didn't own a TV until I was like 10 (not because we couldn't afford one, but because my parents didn't want us spending our lives sitting in front of it watching) and all we had to do before then was play board games for entertainment, giving me a rather deep dislike of board games that lingers to this day.
And, of course, I had a goal to finish the fourth draft of Exile before the end of the month, but because work has been so incredibly horrible I get home after dark, take a shower, maybe eat something, then drop dead of exhaustion on my bed and do it all again the next day. So yeah, I hate christmas, not because I'm against what it supposedly stands for, but because I hate the current day society's bastardization of it. I suppose I could do the whole, well the world can do what it wants, I'll celebrate in my own way sort of thing, but really, that's too much effort and totally not my style. my style is to complain loudly and bitterly, piss and moan, piss and moan, and generally be unpleasant to be around. I'm surprised I don't get punched more often... I can darken the mood of any party with the best of them BWAAHAAHAA!!!
On top of that, work at the post office is HIDDEOUS during december. Normally a mail route will have 10 packages, maybe up to 15 per day. In december it's 60-100. Normally you'll have 6-7 trays of mail to deliver, in december it's 10-15. So yeah, I've really come to dislike Christmas as it has become. I haven't even got a christmas tree for my apartment. Not only do I have nowhere to put it, I've ALWAYS hated decorating. I always got forced to do it for every holiday that you can imagine when I was young because my parents were always really big on slave labor, (why do something when you can make your kids do it for you?) and it became a hated chore rather than a fun activity. The only things I hate more are carving pumpkins and coloring easter eggs. It's kind of like how my family didn't own a TV until I was like 10 (not because we couldn't afford one, but because my parents didn't want us spending our lives sitting in front of it watching) and all we had to do before then was play board games for entertainment, giving me a rather deep dislike of board games that lingers to this day.
And, of course, I had a goal to finish the fourth draft of Exile before the end of the month, but because work has been so incredibly horrible I get home after dark, take a shower, maybe eat something, then drop dead of exhaustion on my bed and do it all again the next day. So yeah, I hate christmas, not because I'm against what it supposedly stands for, but because I hate the current day society's bastardization of it. I suppose I could do the whole, well the world can do what it wants, I'll celebrate in my own way sort of thing, but really, that's too much effort and totally not my style. my style is to complain loudly and bitterly, piss and moan, piss and moan, and generally be unpleasant to be around. I'm surprised I don't get punched more often... I can darken the mood of any party with the best of them BWAAHAAHAA!!!
Friday, December 10, 2010
End of Exile Part 2
I've finished chapter 24 of the fourth draft of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
This chapter marks the end of part two, as I said before I split this story up into parts, each break being when a period of time passes "off screen". The break last time was 14 years, this time it's 4 years.
Chapter 24 was one of the chapters that was almost completely rewritten from scratch in the second draft, and didn't recieve much attention in the third as I was focusing on different things in that draft. Also, it appears taht this was one of those chapters I wrote in the middle of the friggen night when i couldn't sleep, because a lot of things like sentence and paragraph structure were pretty messed up and sloppy in this chapter. It was screwey to the point that I had to completely rearrange several paragraphs and fit in new ones to make sense of what I'd already written. That is the reason for the delay in getting this chapter done, it needed some deep overhauling. Also I had Mal doing some things that completely contradict his attitude later in the story, so I had to change that to make Lilia the aggressor, which actually takes less work than you might thing, strangely enough. There's a chapter later on that was from Silmera's point of view in the first draft but was changed to be from Mal's point of view in the second with very little change to the actual material.
Anyway, so the story is skipping ahead 4 years from here, because really, nothing happens in those years worth mentioning that isn't mentioned later. Pretty much all you miss is Malcolm Thatcher: The Emo Years, which we can all do without I think. Plus, this story is long enough as it is. The fourth draft is currently at 303,499 words, and at least 1/3 of that needs to go in the next draft. To do that I will first look at the story as a whole and say to myself, all right self, what here does the story absolutely need, and what here can it get by without. Then I'll go through it pretty much line by line and do my best to say the same thing in fewer words. That cuts out more than you might think. I cut 90k words out of Beyond the Lost Horizon, and I really only chopped out two chapters, one that was basically a retelling of something that had already happened earlier in the story, and the other a running gag that I decided was a little too stupid to remain in the finished manuscript. The rest was just rewording things so that it said the same thing in fewer words. Well, that and I rewrote huge chunks of the ending because it was a little too drawn out and frankly anti-climactic. After the final climactic confrontation, people don't really want 3 chapters of resolution, they want one at most, so things got way compacted and the story is much better for it. And Exile will be too, once I start chopping. Everything I cut out is better off cut out, and most of it isn't even really cutting, just rewording.
This chapter marks the end of part two, as I said before I split this story up into parts, each break being when a period of time passes "off screen". The break last time was 14 years, this time it's 4 years.
Chapter 24 was one of the chapters that was almost completely rewritten from scratch in the second draft, and didn't recieve much attention in the third as I was focusing on different things in that draft. Also, it appears taht this was one of those chapters I wrote in the middle of the friggen night when i couldn't sleep, because a lot of things like sentence and paragraph structure were pretty messed up and sloppy in this chapter. It was screwey to the point that I had to completely rearrange several paragraphs and fit in new ones to make sense of what I'd already written. That is the reason for the delay in getting this chapter done, it needed some deep overhauling. Also I had Mal doing some things that completely contradict his attitude later in the story, so I had to change that to make Lilia the aggressor, which actually takes less work than you might thing, strangely enough. There's a chapter later on that was from Silmera's point of view in the first draft but was changed to be from Mal's point of view in the second with very little change to the actual material.
Anyway, so the story is skipping ahead 4 years from here, because really, nothing happens in those years worth mentioning that isn't mentioned later. Pretty much all you miss is Malcolm Thatcher: The Emo Years, which we can all do without I think. Plus, this story is long enough as it is. The fourth draft is currently at 303,499 words, and at least 1/3 of that needs to go in the next draft. To do that I will first look at the story as a whole and say to myself, all right self, what here does the story absolutely need, and what here can it get by without. Then I'll go through it pretty much line by line and do my best to say the same thing in fewer words. That cuts out more than you might think. I cut 90k words out of Beyond the Lost Horizon, and I really only chopped out two chapters, one that was basically a retelling of something that had already happened earlier in the story, and the other a running gag that I decided was a little too stupid to remain in the finished manuscript. The rest was just rewording things so that it said the same thing in fewer words. Well, that and I rewrote huge chunks of the ending because it was a little too drawn out and frankly anti-climactic. After the final climactic confrontation, people don't really want 3 chapters of resolution, they want one at most, so things got way compacted and the story is much better for it. And Exile will be too, once I start chopping. Everything I cut out is better off cut out, and most of it isn't even really cutting, just rewording.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Exile chapter 23 draft 4
I've finished the fourth draft of Exile Chapter 23 and you can download it at the bottom of this page.
This chapter was new to draft 3 and is the first chapter from Patrick's point of view. You get to see his stress over the war, his frustrations with his impotently small army, and his troubles with trying rather unsuccessfully to court Weasel. This chapter is pretty important as it establishes Patrick's feelings toward her, and it also lays the groudwork for something extremely stupid and uncharacteristic that he does in the end. I'm trying to go with a sort of love in the absolute worst of times sort of theme with this storyline.
This chapter needed a crapton of work since this is basically just the second draft of it, which is why it took me so long to get through. And, like all chapters with these characters it's rather long to fit a huge amount of material into a single chapter so as not to break up the main storyline with Mal and Silmera too much. Sometimes I look at something I've written and it makes no sense at all and I scratch my head and wonder wtf I was trying to say with it. Sometimes I can't even get the context from the rest of the paragraph around it it's so bad XD.
This chapter was new to draft 3 and is the first chapter from Patrick's point of view. You get to see his stress over the war, his frustrations with his impotently small army, and his troubles with trying rather unsuccessfully to court Weasel. This chapter is pretty important as it establishes Patrick's feelings toward her, and it also lays the groudwork for something extremely stupid and uncharacteristic that he does in the end. I'm trying to go with a sort of love in the absolute worst of times sort of theme with this storyline.
This chapter needed a crapton of work since this is basically just the second draft of it, which is why it took me so long to get through. And, like all chapters with these characters it's rather long to fit a huge amount of material into a single chapter so as not to break up the main storyline with Mal and Silmera too much. Sometimes I look at something I've written and it makes no sense at all and I scratch my head and wonder wtf I was trying to say with it. Sometimes I can't even get the context from the rest of the paragraph around it it's so bad XD.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Gas money ftw
Sales for the Beyond the Lost Horizon E-book are AWESOME, it's sold a whole 20 copies from the amazon kindle store since July. soooooo, what's $20 divided by the five years that it took me to write it...?
/sarcasm off
Seriously though thanks to the people who bought it... all 20 of you... you got me 2/3 a tank of gas, which is awesome.
Needless to say, I'm not quitting my day job quite yet ~_^
/sarcasm off
Seriously though thanks to the people who bought it... all 20 of you... you got me 2/3 a tank of gas, which is awesome.
Needless to say, I'm not quitting my day job quite yet ~_^
Friday, December 3, 2010
Exile Chapter 22 Draft 4
And yet another chapter of te fourth draft of Exile is up for download at the bottom of this page.
There have been some significant changes between the second draft and the fourth draft of this chapter. Mostly these changes have to do with the addition of Patrick Eamon's character, and things that he has done in his chapters, namely discovering the symbol that the Samirreh are carving into the Four Kingdoms. I've also delved a bit deeper into Silmera's feelings on having and needing to have a child so that she'll have a reason to live again. She's desperate, grasping at straws. It was no coincidence taht I had her relate a story of a man clinging to a root that would not support his weight over a cliff. I had her relate that story not only because it illustrated her point to Mal, but also because it illustrates how she feels now to the reader. She's barely holding on, clinging to something that wont hold her weight, praying for someone, anyone to reach down and give her a hand.
Also a little explanation on the words that Silmera uses as curses. She is a Heretic, basically my version of a vampire and a werewolf rolled up into one, with a tad bit of Japanese demon tossed in just for the heck of it. I will admit that I got the idea from watching the movie Underworld, so sue me. Anyway, her life revolves around blood. She needs to drink it periodically or she'll die the most horrible death imaginable. Her own blood is deadly poison to anything that isn't a Heretic, and she has to live her life with extreme care not to bleed on anything or anyone that she doesn't want to die the same horrible death that she would if she doesn't drink blood. Since blood plays such a large part in her life she uses it as a curse, bloody this, bleeding that, blood cursed whatever and so on. I didn't just toss it in because it's the least offensive way of swearing I could think of, there's a real reason that she uses these words as curses.
In my experience, people tend to use words that describe what is most dear to them as curses. Someone who uses the word f**k in excess is normally someone who is mostly preoccupied with f**king. Someone who takes the lord's name in vain is typically religious, or was raised in a religious home and uses the curse for shock value or as a way of putting himself aside from his roots. To someone who is deeply religious, using the lord's name in vain is a far more potent curse than saying f**k. So, in wiritng, when you want to have someone swear, you first have to figure out what is most important to that person, then you can come up with curses that revolve around it. It makes the curses seem more real if you do it that way. One of the largest parts of Silmera's life is blood, either seeking blood to drink and put off a gruesome demise, or keeping from bleeding on anyone or anything by accident and killing them. It's her curse that she has to live with it, and so she uses it as a curse.
There have been some significant changes between the second draft and the fourth draft of this chapter. Mostly these changes have to do with the addition of Patrick Eamon's character, and things that he has done in his chapters, namely discovering the symbol that the Samirreh are carving into the Four Kingdoms. I've also delved a bit deeper into Silmera's feelings on having and needing to have a child so that she'll have a reason to live again. She's desperate, grasping at straws. It was no coincidence taht I had her relate a story of a man clinging to a root that would not support his weight over a cliff. I had her relate that story not only because it illustrated her point to Mal, but also because it illustrates how she feels now to the reader. She's barely holding on, clinging to something that wont hold her weight, praying for someone, anyone to reach down and give her a hand.
Also a little explanation on the words that Silmera uses as curses. She is a Heretic, basically my version of a vampire and a werewolf rolled up into one, with a tad bit of Japanese demon tossed in just for the heck of it. I will admit that I got the idea from watching the movie Underworld, so sue me. Anyway, her life revolves around blood. She needs to drink it periodically or she'll die the most horrible death imaginable. Her own blood is deadly poison to anything that isn't a Heretic, and she has to live her life with extreme care not to bleed on anything or anyone that she doesn't want to die the same horrible death that she would if she doesn't drink blood. Since blood plays such a large part in her life she uses it as a curse, bloody this, bleeding that, blood cursed whatever and so on. I didn't just toss it in because it's the least offensive way of swearing I could think of, there's a real reason that she uses these words as curses.
In my experience, people tend to use words that describe what is most dear to them as curses. Someone who uses the word f**k in excess is normally someone who is mostly preoccupied with f**king. Someone who takes the lord's name in vain is typically religious, or was raised in a religious home and uses the curse for shock value or as a way of putting himself aside from his roots. To someone who is deeply religious, using the lord's name in vain is a far more potent curse than saying f**k. So, in wiritng, when you want to have someone swear, you first have to figure out what is most important to that person, then you can come up with curses that revolve around it. It makes the curses seem more real if you do it that way. One of the largest parts of Silmera's life is blood, either seeking blood to drink and put off a gruesome demise, or keeping from bleeding on anyone or anything by accident and killing them. It's her curse that she has to live with it, and so she uses it as a curse.
I hate editing
I've finisehd the fourth draft of Exile chapters 19-21 and my brain is about to melt from it. You can download them at the bottom of this page.
mostly minor changes, I did add a bit of humor in to emphasize Aaron's excentricities and lighten the mood a bit. This story is really rather dark, and there's not much to break it up. I have no idea what I was thinking when I started writing it, but really, very little that is good for the characters actually happens in this story. I mean, they learn and grow as people, but a lot of them meet horrible ends, or have their lives irrevocably destroyed in some way or another by the ending. There's a very tragic ending to this very dark story, and I've been trying to put a few things in to lighten the mood, but there's not much I can do. I must have been super depressed when I wrote this thing, or in the mood to watch someone that wasn't me suffer. Which is somewhat stupid because there is a little of me in all of my characters, so i'm bsically making myself suffer in making others suffer but whatever. And now I'm rambling incoherantly because my brain is melted from all the editing work I did today.
Editing work + ADD does not mix, just FYI. I mean, there's the whole, this is my story, wow I did a good job writing this, awesome, aspect of it. And then there's the whole I've been sitting here for hours with nothing else to do but read something that I've not only read 12 times before, but also played out in my head 300 times before actually sitting down to type out aspect. It's really driving me crazy, but I've got my agent practically breathing down my neck and I think that if I don't actually produce something he can sell quickly he's going to drop me. Sooooo not much choice but to keep going and pray I don't go insane and murder someone over the nex few weeks.
mostly minor changes, I did add a bit of humor in to emphasize Aaron's excentricities and lighten the mood a bit. This story is really rather dark, and there's not much to break it up. I have no idea what I was thinking when I started writing it, but really, very little that is good for the characters actually happens in this story. I mean, they learn and grow as people, but a lot of them meet horrible ends, or have their lives irrevocably destroyed in some way or another by the ending. There's a very tragic ending to this very dark story, and I've been trying to put a few things in to lighten the mood, but there's not much I can do. I must have been super depressed when I wrote this thing, or in the mood to watch someone that wasn't me suffer. Which is somewhat stupid because there is a little of me in all of my characters, so i'm bsically making myself suffer in making others suffer but whatever. And now I'm rambling incoherantly because my brain is melted from all the editing work I did today.
Editing work + ADD does not mix, just FYI. I mean, there's the whole, this is my story, wow I did a good job writing this, awesome, aspect of it. And then there's the whole I've been sitting here for hours with nothing else to do but read something that I've not only read 12 times before, but also played out in my head 300 times before actually sitting down to type out aspect. It's really driving me crazy, but I've got my agent practically breathing down my neck and I think that if I don't actually produce something he can sell quickly he's going to drop me. Sooooo not much choice but to keep going and pray I don't go insane and murder someone over the nex few weeks.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Exile Chapters 17&18 draft 4
I've finished the fourth drafts of Exile Chapter 17 and 18 and they can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
Again, not many changes to these chapters, just a few small edits here and there, which is why they're done so quickly. It's my goal to finish this draft by the end of the year. I'm about 28% finished now.
Again, not many changes to these chapters, just a few small edits here and there, which is why they're done so quickly. It's my goal to finish this draft by the end of the year. I'm about 28% finished now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)