LATE April Blog Chain

Tags

blog chains, late, music, story dynamics, tea, writing

Yesterday you got March. Today you get April.

So! The role of tea…

Well, I have two ways I like to drink it. I have a couple of Camp Nanowrimo mugs (no ACTUAL Nanowrimo mugs–hopefully that changes soon, but I missed the steampunk-themed ones, oh darn) which get used on a regular basis, during Camp and all through the year.

Also I have a tea pot and mug that match, and the water stays warmer with the pot. This one gets a lot of use ever since Mom gave it to me (thanks, Mom!)

I drink a lot of tea, when I’m writing or just working on school. Now that I’m finally establishing a YouTube account, I plan on also finally consolidating my unofficial playlists to match. There’s one song I always associate with tea, for a very complex reason.

In-universe… well, normally there’s tea when one of the characters needs to warm up, or has had a shock. (In one case, someone gave someone else a whiskey shot instead. It was actually a pretty fun scene, in my opinion.)

So I guess tea signifies kindness in my writing, which is very much in line with its traditions of hospitality.

L’chaim!

LATE March Blog Chain

Tags

a swiftly tilting planet, a wind in the door, a wrinkle in time, blog chains, characters, doctor who, late, madeleine l'engle, selay'uu (sort of), writing

Go visit Rosalie’s blog, if you’re curious. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of Dead Week and can’t help you much.

Well… a character who I’ve created who will probably never feature in a novel… Casceny! No, just kidding. The steampunk time-traveler heroine may or may not have a novel in the works. Eventually. So far, the time travelers in the Mind Palace are Charles Wallace Murray and Meg Murray (A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels), the Doctor (Doctor Who), and my own characters, Emrys Williams, Casceny, and a young Hispanic lady who is going by the alias of “Maria” at the moment until I can pick out a better name for her. Emrys is first in line and Maria is second (multi-cultural time travel academy, here we come!) But Casceny is still not eliminated from the running.

But she’ll be in the countdown anyway, since right now she’s more of an interest person and an agent of chaos in the mind palace at the moment.

More seriously, Kysherin. Kysherin is my evil muse. Generally a not-very-nice person. Pesters me to write, and then bothers me while I am writing. If I come up with a wonderous thing, she comes up with a way to corrupt it totally. All angst, posted here and elsewhere, is absolutely 100% her fault. (Okay, except for the sensory-overload type, which is me trying to cope with my overwhelming surroundings.)

There’s also Oliver, who is one of my all-time favorite characters, and who Writefury and I came up with. I probably shouldn’t even be talking about him yet, but I haven’t mentioned what he comes up in, so we’re good… you’ll all probably recognize him when he does, though. Technically he doesn’t count because he DOES exist in a project in what Rosalie terms the Erin!verse (which is a composite of all my ongoing projects at any given time.) But it’s not a novel. I just HAD to post about him, since he’s AWESOME, and let me just say, I can hardly wait. ;-D

And finally, there’s Chaos, who is barred from the mind palace for obvious reasons. Chaos is my artistic vent. She always wants to fight and start minor class wars. She’s a teenaged Marxist and anarchist and I sometimes doodle her getting into well-deserved trouble when I’m particularly hot under the collar about something (mostly politics). Favorite pastimes include random vandalism and Luddite-ing with copies of Das Kapital. Needless to say, I never plan on posting anything featuring her on this blog. If she were here, Chaos would claim that she was created as a caricature of Bernie Sanders, but she is a blatant liar and you should not trust anything she says. Ever. (Caricacturing Bernie Sanders would be giving me far too much credit, and I can’t draw Trump.)

The Average Plot of a Tinker Bell Movie

Tags

disney, humor, tinker bell movies

Act I: Someone or something new happens.

Someone enthuses about doing the thing

Act II: “NO YOU MAY NOT DO THE THING”

“because TRADITIONS”

***ANGST***

***weak, barely-believable conflict***

Act III: So you know that tradition/belief?

Well… turns out it was wrong

YAY

and we all live happily ever after, cheerfully destroying any continuity between movies and/or Peter Pan.

Repeat

Tags

completed stories, fanfiction, short stories, star wars

Wow, it’s been forever since I posted any Star Wars stuff on here. Here, have a flash fiction.

Summary: A brief meditation on how history repeats itself. Warning: Dark, with visions of the past and future. Enjoy!

Repeat

                “He is… the Chosen One. Train him.” Qui-Gon reached up, stroking Obi-Wan’s cheek. Obi-Wan felt his skin burn under the touch, bubbling, blistering, crackling, curling up and away. This could not have hurt more if Qui-Gon had had only recriminations to offer.

I failed.

For the first time in his life, Obi-Wan Kenobi understood Xanatos.

The death of a father—it hurt. It should scar.

There was no way to respond to this. There was nothing that could ever compare to this.

He understood Xanatos. He hated it. It burned like poison on his tongue. And he was just as guilty as Xanatos ever was, his hands stained with the blood of his father’s killer. No different from Xanatos.

He could not forgive Xanatos, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t forgive himself.

This was the moment when Obi-Wan Kenobi fell from grace.

I failed.

The charred remains fell away, and he looked forward, through the ashes of the veil.

Around him the Temple burned. Bodies were heaped, scattered in a macabre vignette, like wilted, twisted flowers. He looked into the venomous eyes of—someone—friend, student, brother—I have failed you, I have failed you—I loved you!—and knew that this was what he was. The one who would plunge the galaxy into the dark with all the best of intentions.

Logically he knew that this wasn’t quite true, but the passion overwhelmed him, swamped him, overturned and drowned him.

Train him.

And then, he was walking away, into shadow, guiding the small hands that might offer redemption—back to Tattoine, then, Master Kenobi?—and he knew what he had to do.

Yes, Master.

Housekeeping Things

Tags

assignments, college, family, gardening, nature, outdoors, personal things, raccoons, school, stress

Sorry to have been gone for so long, people. I swear I was doing… important… things…

To be honest, I just had way too much to do. Sorry.

Anyway, I’ve been working on a project that I’m pretty excited about with some friends. We’re making Doctor Who fan audio dramas! *throws confetti* And the blog just went live, I’m working on putting content up there but since I’m still approaching Finals Week and have not passed it yet, it’s going to be an uphill battle.

I’m working on my time-travel story (the one with Emrys.) I had an idea for a sequel, featuring a young lady named Persephone Williams (Seph for short.)

I missed an assignment through no fault of my own. This is the first time anything of the sort has ever happened to me and I lost it the night it was supposed to be due and was cruel to a bunch of people who I should have been kind to, and this is also my public apology, and please pray for me.

Let’s just hope things get better from here on out, because if there’s one thing this semester has done to me, there are three:

1. It has dumped me on my backside in the dirt and then dragged me face-first through a pile of leaves and THEN laughed at me.
2. It has, as a result, stressed me out (like butter scraped across too much bread)
3. It has taught me just how much of a survivor I am. I am not a quitter. On the other hand, just holding on is hard. It hurts. It’s only by the grace of God that I haven’t hit my breaking point yet. I need you guys’ prayers.

On the bright side, I spent the morning outdoors in the wind in the middle of nowhere and thought of ways I could volunteer this summer by renewing a garden at the place I used to volunteer at a lot (I stopped after finding a job–I shouldn’t have, it’s therapeutic and I need to make sure that people know yes, I’m a person, I’m not a machine, I have a LIFE outside this store, thank you very much), bought a bunch of beading supplies so I can hang with the sister tomorrow when not writing my poetry and creative nonfiction revisions, and saw a RACCOON on the deck tonight! (His name is Mr. Coon-Coon and he is my fluffy and I want cuddles with him, even though he’d probably bite me and give me some horrible incurable disease. He’s a big fluffy chubby chap.)

All in all, I think I’m doing pretty well for now. Pray that I’ll keep on being okay (ish).

Oh, and by the way, I might put progress posts for my creative writing pieces on the blog when the semester’s over and if you want a piece of that action, remind me at the end of the first week in May. 😉

Thanks for reading and God Bless!