In an Editorial Mood, Part 2

There are some dangers to getting very involved in a project. One of them is losing track of time - or day of the week (watching the Australian Open, which is about a day ahead of my time zone, hasn't helped there). But, I think it's paying off.

Draft #3 is well on its way, with two pages worth of material already cut out. Unfortunately, those two pages were eaten up by two scenes that needed to be added to make my protagonist a little more proactive. So length-wise, I'm right back at 27 pages. Ah, the joys of editing...

On the bright side, there are plenty of places where my prose can be tightened. I'm a rambley writer by nature (yeah, I know, shocker there), which makes it a matter of how much rambling can I cut without destroying all personality in the piece.

Yeah. We'll just pretend that's as simple as it sounds.

Alright, back to work I go!

In an Editorial Mood

Followers of my webcomic, Strawberry Syrup, were disappointed this week: no page. There is a very good reason for this, of course; sometimes, real life steps in and demands my attention. (It's for reasons like that that a webmangaka needs to have a buffer built up, but, of course, easier said than done.)

Anyways, this particular slice of real life involves a short story I'm attempting to revise, rewrite, and polish up into something I can actually send out, and what I want to send it out for has a deadline of March 1st. Right now, I am focused on making the story flow, tightening up the prose, and getting it down to 25 pages without losing all personality. The story itself is one that I wrote five or six years ago, back when I was still an undergrad and had the writing prompt of, "Someone has a secret."

Me being me, I churned out a YA fantasy about a girl who finds a new reason to be afraid of the dark. While it was received well by the class, looking back at it I cringe at certain parts: the purple prose, the plot holes, the craft failures. But I liked the basic story, so I considered that original work a first draft and started rewriting it for my own enjoyment last summer. Not having an actual reason to really finish a YA story of that length, I ended up setting it aside before finishing the rewrite.

Well, now I have a reason, and Draft #2 has been finished. I'm now working on Draft #3, which will be the last draft before I send it out to my little circle of critiquers. Basically, the idea is to make it the best I can possibly make it, and then see how people say I can make it better.

If I don't run into any major snags or muse blockages, it should be done by this time next week. Here's hoping!

The Case of the Mysterious Missing Book

For everyone out there who spent their childhood with their nose buried in a book, there is that one story, that one that sticks with them for years - hopefully in a good way and not in an emotionally scarring Clan of the Cave Bear way. For me, that book was The House on Hackman's Hill, by Joan Lowery Nixon.

I read this book in second grade. Nearly twenty years later, I can still remember being curled up on the couch, eyes wide and heart pounding as something slowly crept up the stairs towards where the main characters were hiding in the old abandoned house on their quest to find a missing mummy. Its portrayal of Anubis is actually what started my life-long love of mythology.

I can't tell you how well written the book was, or whether it would make all the creative writing students and teachers out there cringe (the fact that it was middle grade genre fiction would probably have a good chunk of them banging their heads right there - they miss so many good reads that way). All I can say is that I loved that book.

In fact, I loved it enough that I lent it out to a friend... and never saw that copy of it again. About five years ago, I ran into a newly reprinted version in the book store by chance and had to pick it up. Unfortunately, I didn't have a surplus of free time right then, and thanks to university burn-out, I didn't really want to read anything, mentally taxing or not, so I put it in a safe place, vowing to read it again someday and try to figure out just what it was that snagged me as an eight year old.

Safe places are the last place you want to put anything you ever actually want to see again.

The last time I remember seeing the book was a few months ago. It was still right where I had left it, still waiting. And I could have sworn I left it there. And yet, when I went to go find it earlier today... Gone. Again. No sign of it anywhere.

Since then, I have scoured my room and the spare room, everywhere I have stashed any books in the last two years or so. No sign of it anywhere. It has, once again, gone missing, this time a victim of the mystical Bermuda Triangle-like vortex that is my room.

No doubt it will someday reemerge, spat back out into our dimension where I can snatch it up and finally reread it again. Until then, I found a few more books hiding in the nooks and crannies that I never got around to reading, so the scouring wasn't a total waste of time!

WIP: In the Office

Alrighty, this is from my queue of Works In Progress:



This is a minor character who might be showing up in my chat!RP, but I got the image in my head and had to draw it... and then it turned into an exercise in perspective and whatnot. Exercises are good for me, and perspective is one of those things I usually have to force myself to do. Continuing with the exercise idea, there are a few things I'm thinking about trying when I get around to coloring it. Hopefully it'll turn out well!

Sketch and line art were both done in Manga Studio EX. Have I mentioned how much I love their perspective ruler? It gives a digital version of a horizon line with up to three vanishing points, and - here's the important part - it lets you have the vanishing points OFF the page. You have no idea how helpful that is. Trying that in Photoshop leads to copious headdesking.

Eros and Anteros

Last week, I finished the Valentine Fairy pic and posted it up on my deviantArt page, where one of my frequent visitors asked if she had "plumed" butterfly wings. Thinking I was sorely uneducated in butterfly terminology, I asked what, exactly, plumed butterfly wings were. Turns out, they're the feathered butterfly wings of Eros's little brother, Anteros. Being the mythology nut I am, of course I had to plunge right into researching the guy... and then, I had to draw him.



Eros, little attention whore that he is, insisted on hopping in, too.

In any case, this took three straight days from sketch to posting, which translates to maybe 24-30 hours of work. I'm pretty happy with it. For once, I think I've managed a background that is present but supports the composition of the picture as a whole rather than going, "Look at me! Look at me!" There's a nice, warm atmosphere to it all, and the peachy color scheme really helps Anteros's wings and their eyes stand out, but not jarringly so.

As for those wings... For Anteros, I spent awhile trying to figure out just how one feathers butterfly wings and still has them functional. In the end, just feathering the basic butterfly structure seemed the way to go. That lovely blue comes from a passage on the Erotes from Philostatus the Elder over at The Theoi Project, where he described them as having deep blue, purple, or golden wings. Blue seemed to suit Anteros, with him being the personification of mutual or returned love: soothing, calm, and beautiful.

Meanwhile, his big brother Eros started out with the typical white dove wings, but next to Anteros, they just seemed so bland, and didn't really pop enough in the picture. They needed something more... so I bit the bullet, pulled out the lasso tool, and turned his wings into a hawk's. He's a little more predatory and arrow-happy in nature, so that seemed like a good fit for him.

Now, I know that somewhere out there, there is someone going, "But I thought they were supposed to be chubby cherubs with a head full of golden curls!" Well... artistic license here. I've never really been comfortable with Eros/Cupid being all child-like, especially in the context of the Eros and Psyche myth. I'm far more comfortable with them being attractive adult males. I did intend them as blonds when I started, but it just did not work out. But I think auburn works wonderfully for the two of them.

Overall, I am really happy with this piece. I kinda wish I'd done a step-by-step as I went along. Maybe next time!

An Eventful Week

This has been a rather eventful week... I did get the next page of Strawberry Syrup done, and I'm actually pretty proud of this page. Did some interesting effects, panels were actually filled, the characters cooperated... I am actually pretty happy with page 18.

I'm not sure how things are going to go in the next few weeks. My grandmother passed away yesterday, so my family is dealing with that. We'll see how things go.

Snow!

I love snow. I know, I know, it's miserable to drive in and shovel and scrape off your car windows, but it sure is pretty. Whether it's big fluffy flakes or like a fine sifting of powdered sugar, I love watching it come down and coat everything.

Yesterday, we had that powdered sugar kind, all light and fluffy and fine. As it was covering the back deck, I looked out to see this little fella scrounging around in the snow:



We've taken to putting seed and little goodies for the squirrels and chipmunks on the deck in an attempt to divert them from the main feeds. It seems to be working rather well so far - and our flock of cardinals seem to like the deck, too. In any case, the squirrel here was busily rescuing the walnuts from being buried in the snow, and he didn't seem to mind the impromptu photo shoot. So, I took a few good shots of him.

EPIC FAIL

Yeah, starting off the New Year was an epic fail in regards to Strawberry Syrup. This would be the first time I've missed an update due to something other than illness, uncooperative muse, or hiatus. Those of you who read Monday's post probably saw this coming: I missed this update because my hands and wrists protested the Soul Caliber IV marathon. Painfully.

Yeah, I'll be resisting the urge to draw anything until this weekend at the earliest.

So, since drawing is out of the question for the moment, I've been sifting through the internet's selection of children/YA magazines, looking for something I might be interested in submitting to. Most of the stories I write fall into the middle reader or young adult range. I'm not much of a short story writer and the only one I've found so far that accepts novellas is currently backlogged with accepted material, but we'll see if I can't come up with something.

Continuing with the whole writing idea, I'm going to set my NaNo 2009 aside for a bit. It's just dragging, and working on something shorter might actually help. Give the ideas a chance to percolate, return with a fresh eye, all that fun stuff so I don't feel like I'm slogging in circles through knee-high snow. Sometimes, taking a break is actually a good thing!

Soul Caliber IV

A little over a month ago, I finally got a PS3 as part of a deal with a new TV. It also came with a free movie and game, but alas, the game choice was not something that really got my attention.

Then yesterday, my brother brought over a few of his games. He seems to have an intense interest in getting me to use my PS3 for more than a glorified Blu-Ray player. In any case, he brought over Soul Caliber IV.

Now, I've been a Soul Caliber fan since the days of Soul Caliber II, when the AI in our insanely evil little Dreamcast learned to beat the hell out of just about anyone who showed up. I swear, the thing was conscious. My brother left it on one night, playing itself in an endless battle between the two characters who could be any character, and the next day, there was no beating it until John brought out Siegfried and put its butt back in it's place.

Scariest part was that it actually gave up halfway through that team battle. Went from striking and countering and guard impacting to just... standing there. It recovered a day or two later, once it finished sulking.

Then, it started on the corpse mutilation. You see, once the computer KO's you, it's supposed to just stand there and wait for the next round. Not ours. It started with Cervantes. See, Cervantes has a move where he leaps up into the air, disappears, and comes slamming his swords down on the opponent halfway across the stage. So it started where the KO would sound, and the computer's Cervantes would take one step after. The next time, it managed the leap. The time after that, it teleported, but without delivering the blow. And finally, it came crashing down on my prone character with all the force Cervantes could muster.

After that, it was as if the dam broke. Any Dreamcast-controlled character could just walk right up to you after you'd been KO'd and start beating the heck out of your poor prone body. According to our stunned friends who had their own Dreamcasts and their own versions of SCII, this was not typical behavior.

Of course, those friends also came in, confident that they'd have no problem going through our arcade on Medium when they could beat theirs on Expert with ease. Yeah, they didn't make it too far...

So yes, when John brought over Soul Caliber IV, I could hardly wait to give it a try. Annnnd then proceeded to play it until 6am. -_-;; Story mode's a little... lacking, but it's got the same familiar play style that I love and there's still the arcade mode. I still have another mode to try, which will probably keep me busy tonight. Also: loving the character creation. It's one of those fluffy little extras that reeeeeally aren't necessary, but it is fun. Looks like I can make up to 50 characters, so I've got 48 more to go once I feel like I understand the game better. The over-complication, I'm not too fond of, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon.

Now, let's see if I can keep it to just a few hours tonight. ^_^;;

Happy New Year!

Yep, it is officially 2010! Time to get used to writing a different year, recover from the holidays, and break out the resolutions.

Personally, I am terrible with resolutions. My willpower is something akin to that of a fox just outside an open chicken coop door, so I'm not so big on resolutions. Maybe I've just never done them right - possibly because I always seem to go for the abstract.

Let's take the old standby of weight loss as an example. Resolving to get in shape? Admirable but abstract, no concrete goal. Resolving to exercise three times a week? Concrete goal, something I can really sink my teeth into and chart my progress. I can take that and say, "Okay, I can work up to exercising thirty minutes three times a week, and once I'm there, work it up to sixty minutes! Weight loss, universe willing, will follow!"

This year, I'm going to set myself a few concrete goals, things I can work on that aren't setting myself up for failure. Therefore, this year I am going to:

• Finish that short story that's been sitting around on my hard drive for the past year, polish it up, and send it out.
• Finish a novel and get it to the point where I let other people read it. All goes well there, send IT out!
• Finish that pic of Heph's workroom that I've been playing around with since May.
• Keep up with this blog for the next 12 months.
• And yes, start exercising three times a week.

There. They're out there, they're concrete, and I think they're doable. Wish me luck!

Final thoughts on this first of January, 2010: hope the coming year brings luck, health, and good memories for all! Happy New Year!