.231 x alive and strong

It's a frickin miracle that there's just so much usable stuff in my original (unfinished!) draft of Blood and Heat. I did almost zero preplanning for it. What planning I did was quick jotting things -- the five gods from Grey's homeland, the fact that his homeland is two kingdoms that used to be one, a brief geography type deal. 90% of the world, plot, etc. was just born from the writing process itself. It's so exciting to think about, to know that I'm capable of that, because I did it before. So yes, I'm getting super excited about it. I think this could be a very productive nano. Even Danny approved of the plot when I outlined it to him (omitting, of course, the fact that there's a little bit of gay tossed in).

Although he tried to start lecturing me on the necessary structure and archetypes of books and such. I find it hilarious since I read way more than him. He's basing it mostly on movies, which only goes so far in usefulness. He said something about starting the story off with the bad guy so you know what you're rooting against, then pan to the hero doing something... good and heroish. Haha. And he was doing the equivalent of disapproving finger-wagging at the fact that I write limited third person, only in one character's head. He said we need to know what's going on in other corners of the universe. Which I believe is a very useful tactic -- panning to Voldemort to see what he's up to and such -- but not always strictly necessary. In this book, for some reason, Grey came to me as the lead, and he's the only perspective I needed. It's funny since you'd think Kayden is the main character since he's the one with the duty and ability to awaken the extinct dragons, but... no. And I'm glad I did it that way because it brought to life the later plot of the story, with the war in Duos. That was all in Grey's past, but it becomes the future of the story. It's certainly not something I planned at the beginning of the story. It just sprang into being. It's almost like... JK Rowling saying that Harry sprang fully formed into her mind. Grey is something like that. This story almost has a life of its own. Not like Eysuria. That one's a constant struggle, a constant evolution, and I can see my hand in it anywhere. I much prefer the other method. Letting it happen as it does. It's not so much of a fight then.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever write Aerlun's story. What's missing that it won't resolve itself properly in my head? Maybe there are just other stories to write first. But no other story is like it. Fanfiction, Blood and Heat... it may not spring to life fully formed, but once the story begins to form, the changes to it as it develops are very minor. It is still always, in essence, the same story.

Blah. Enough dwelling on that. I've got promising writing ahead of me. Almost don't want to wait for November 1st! In fact, really don't! Haha. We'll see how I handle it.

.232 x more writing stuff screeee~!

Went through my old writing notebooks. Found lots of interesting stuff. Sad thing is that the fullest any of the writing notebooks is probably only 10% full. I love notebooks too much -- I would buy a new set. Blah. But anyway. I was looking for mostly stuff relevant to Blood and Heat, of which there was very little. In the future if I need to look for Eysuria stuff I'll have more to look through, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

I found these notes I took... I think partly from watching some discovery channel type special and partly from reading through limyaael's rants. Like "Aim for the neck and groin for quick death, heart shielded by ribs and hard to get. One swing taking an enemy's head unlikely," and "False perception in teenagers and adults. Thinking someone is trustworthy and being wrong, that sort of thing. Not all are freaking empaths, they make mistakes, remember that." And lists of things that grow in certain climate zones and what types of alcohol come from which crop.

Which is broadly helpful to any of my writing, Blood and Heat included.

I also found an explanation of several magic systems I've invented, including that of Eysuria, that of Somnion (Blood and Heat), and two extraneous magic systems that don't have a home. That in particular really made me happy because these are things I could build into new stories after Blood and Heat. I think I'm relatively decided to stop trying to merge all my plot ideas into Eysuria and just let Eysuria rest until it lets me know it's ready.

I'm debating whether to start NaNo early. As long as I maintain the spirit of the thing. And mark the start of November to separate my word count during the official month from my total word count. But I'm not really that worried about it yet. The urge to start isn't overwhelming yet.

Uh. Oh yeah. I got a low C on that midterm I was worried about. Which really and truly sucks, but I can still get a B in the course easy. I still have this irrational urge to drop it and start over next semester but I guess it's just my perfectionism rearing its ugly head. I would totally drop a C class, which is bad enough, I bet most kids wouldn't. But there's no reason to drop a B, I mean really.