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The Upstairs Archives

~ A random repository of how-to-write and geekery, with an occasional snippet of accidental wisdom.

The Upstairs Archives

Tag Archives: selay’uu (sort of)

NaNoWriMo: The Gentlemen Adventurers’ Society

03 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Uncategorized

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

doctor who, nanowrimo, nanowrimo november 2016, novels, selay'uu (sort of), steampunk, story dynamics, the gentlemen adventurers' society, writing

This November, ill-advised or not, I am participating in NaNoWriMo. Since I am currently waiting for my next class (6:30 to 9:10 pm, I am gonna die if I don’t get out early), I thought I might as well take the time to introduce you to my project and the two main characters.

The Gentlemen Adventurers’ Society is a historical fantasy (pssst, it’s steampunk) novel set in the later years of the Victorian era and follows the adventures of Maeghan LeClere and James Pennon as they try to avert the annexation of a small German princedom by the growing empire of Kaiser Wilhelm I (I haven’t technically fact-checked it yet, fact-checking can wait until the end of NaNo!), an event which might catapult the world with its growing system of alliances into a vicious war (as in, World War I, if it started early.)

Maeghan is a young American woman, orphaned and out to make her way in the world, even if it’s an ultimately unremarkable one. She’s very good at organization, but balks at the idea of being put in charge of things. (I think we already know how we’re going to force some character development, guys.) She’s never done anything notable in her life, but that’s about to change.

James is English nobility–a youngest son, insignificant by birth, practically penniless, and yet too determined a personality to fade into mediocrity or to take a minor government position. Intelligent (perhaps too intelligent for his own good) and with a startling streak of fire in his character, he’s never failed to get anything he’s ever fought for, but he doesn’t quite live in the real world; he’s been sheltered his entire life. He’s never been burned before, and while he knows on a cognitive level that he could get hurt, he hasn’t quite realized it on an emotional one. He’s also a bit oblivious to when people are hitting on him, and it’s a rather unpleasant shock for him to be reminded that some people consider him a marriage prospect. His worst fear–the secret fear that he himself isn’t even really aware of–is failure.

James is a member of the mysterious, prestigious organization known as “The Gentlemen Adventurers’ Society,” a group for upper-class people (men and with some restrictions, women) who don’t settle down easily. Occasionally, they will provide some services–guides, detectives, scientists, students and so forth–on the condition that whatever payment is made is made to the Society, in the place of dues (and the surplus goes to make up pensions for some members who, like James, are sophisticated enough to belong but who don’t have livings of their own.)

Maeghan is travelling to Europe, by coincidence aboard the same airship as James. Working together, they manage to save the airship, and James invites Maeghan to join the Society as his protege. (Don’t look at me like that. Read it and weep, romance fans–there’s not really going to be any in this book.)

However, that’s really only the beginning for the two of them.

Hopefully you all enjoy my recaps of their misadventures throughout the month.

(Rosalie, did I mention that James is redecorating the mind palace for Christmas? Already? And the Doctor is aiding and abetting. Those two are terrible. It was a bad idea to have the Doctor and Charley stand in for James and Maeghan, since they get up to twice as much trouble after discovering their sympathies.)

May LATE Club

12 Thursday May 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

doctor who, late club, places i write, selay'uu (sort of), this doctor who obsession is getting a little out of hand, writing

And here we are once more! Hello, everyone!

This month’s prompt is to tell about my favorite place to write.

Well, now that I’ve got everything in order, probably my bedroom. 😉

I just moved from one of the intended bedrooms to an improvised room in the basement. One wall is made entirely out of carefully-arranged bookshelves, and the doorway is a tension rod with a curtain. My clothes hang on a series of kitchen storage racks (which, instead of the typical silver, are a dark brown bronzy color) and my desk is one of those really dark-wood affairs right up next to the window, which I can keep open whenever it’s warm as long as I like–it gets cold down here otherwise. 😉

All in all, it looks like something out of the Eighth Doctor’s TARDIS, which is absolutely fantastic, it’s probably my favorite of all the TARDIS interiors. Don’t get me wrong, I love Nine and Ten’s TARDIS, with its organic look and the feel that it’s a real living ship and entirely alien, and I like Eleven’s later TARDIS interior too; it looks really really Gallifreyan! but I really like Eight’s TARDIS the best. Books everywhere! The ordered chaos, clutter, armchairs, and candles that make it feel really lived-in. It just feels right for the Eighth Doctor, who is always wondering if he’s losing his mind or something else, misplacing things, and has nearly eight hundred years of clutter that seriously needs tidying up. He’s so scattered, it’s somewhat sad, but it’s also reassuring–that sense that the Doctor can be so human.

Sorry about the rant. I might be–just a teeny bit–obsessed.

Anyway, here, have some pictures:

hello gorgeous

Concept art. It looks like a gentleman scientist’s mausoleum, doesn’t it? Something out of the eighteenth century. 😉

eighth doctor tardis

This is the best view I could find of Eight’s TARDIS interior, showing the console very well, I think.

eighth doctor tardis 2

And here’s a little bit of a shot showing the bookshelves–not very well. Hey, he cleaned up! When did he clean up?!

Interestingly, I just discovered that Eight’s console looks a lot like Eleven’s, though the rest of the interior is totally different:

eleventh doctor tardis

Here’s Eleven in his second TARDIS interior. Geronimo!

 

ANYWAYS. I also like to write and draw outdoors, but only when I’m not being bothered by big bad bugs. The patio is great for this–up until recently, there was moss all over the place. Then my little sister got into it. -_- Ruined the whole thing.

My mind palace is, inside, even more like Eight’s TARDIS, if that’s even possible, except that the decor is not just bronze but also owls and dragons as well. I tend to just write any old place there, so long as Anakin’s not around to bother me, but my favorites are the vault, the cathedral room, the gardens and the brook. Sometimes I even envision a replica of Eight’s TARDIS gardens because why not and also it annoys him. (One time I didn’t get anything done because Eight and I were chasing each other with dandelions and fake cabbages the whole time. For someone almost a thousand years old, he takes things way too seriously.)

Oh, and by the way…

i regret nothing x8

Erin out.

LATE March Blog Chain

21 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 14 Comments

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 Art of Allusion

30 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

avengers, baroness emma orczy, j.r.r. tolkien, marvel, selay'uu (sort of), star wars, story dynamics, the lord of the rings, the scarlet pimpernel, the silmarillion, worldbuilding

In literature, allusion is a reference to something that will be familiar to the audience; anything from a turn of phrase to a cultural icon, or even a mention of a familiar food. Allusion is a tool, used to anchor the readers and story in a certain time and place. It is also useful in creating its homophone: the illusion of a larger world.

Places like the galaxy far, far away and Middle-Earth are chock full of things that we never see, but are alluded to; “strong enough to pull the ears off a Gundark”, for instance, or “Ancalagon the Black.” Each of these allusions gives us a tiny amount of information about the subject. We know that Ancalagon the Black was a dragon. They also hint at things; Ancalagon the Black must have been a very nasty dragon to merit the nickname “the Black,” and for Gandalf to mention him at that point in the story, he must have been familiar even to hobbits. This gives Ancalagon a bit of a reputation. Having read the Silmarillion, I don’t recall seeing what Ancalagon did, exactly. I do remember Glaurung–also a nasty piece of work–but he wasn’t technically a dragon, he just took the shape of one. Unlike many of the throw-away references in The Lord of the Rings, we didn’t learn much about Ancalagon in the Silmarillion. We didn’t learn anything more about Gundarks until the Clone Wars (which some people don’t accept as canon.)

Throw-away references that may or may not be built on later are important. While the reader probably won’t mentally flag them “THIS IS IMPORTANT!” unless they are a major fan of the book or the series, they do create the illusion that there’s a bigger world off-screen or off-page, and if you do bring them back later, it will be an “oh. OH!” moment for the reader as they recall that you slipped it into the text earlier. (Here’s a hint: if it is important to your plot in any way, slip it in early and bring it up at least once before you need it. That way it won’t fall on your readers’ heads out of a blue sky. That tends to drive people away.)

These allusions are also marvelous in creating a character with a past. Like the infamous tomato sauce incident (I thought I told you not to experiment in the kitchen, Will! The New World hasn’t been discovered yet!), or the moments when Halt or Crowley mention something that happened in their youth without telling the full story, these allusions also broaden a character, just as they broaden a world. You create jucier characters, which readers love, that way. It’s a win-win situation all around.

Would Araluen be so interesting if we weren’t curious about what might be lurking in Russia (the John R. Flanagan equivalent of it)? Okay, maybe that wasn’t a good example. 😛 But would the oliphaunts have made such an impact if we hadn’t been already curious about Harad, after Gandalf mentioned it and that it was nearly always warm there? Would we have been so eager to find out what happened at Budapest? What about Halt and Crowley’s friendship and how they became friends, or why Marguerite was acquainted with Chauvelin at all?

Insert random reference that builds into your world here.

Your readers will love you.

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

Remember how I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?

Yeah, and I threw up?

This isn’t payback, is it?

Now why would I do that?

(Virtual chocolate for anyone who knows that quote!)

Two Stories (And A Spider)

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Tales of a Wandering Bard

≈ 42 Comments

Tags

college, extremely random posts, humor, insanity, life, rambling musings, real life, science, selay'uu (sort of), small rants, stories, yes this really happened

The title is in tribute to Professor V.J. Duke, who suggested that I post on this. It seemed only natural to make the title Punchy-ish, to me. 😉

Now, to get on to what I am really posting about.

I am sorry I have been so absent recently. It’s really a matter of college (which, I think, secretly wants to eat my soul, as I mentioned to the Professor earlier today.) But anyway, something that’s actually fit to print (or rather, two somethings, as the case proved) happened starting on Wednesday and ending on Friday.

On Friday morning, I had been innocently going about my business at my horticulture class, and I saw a daylily (hemercallis spp.) with an actual seed pod on it. Our daylilies at home look something like a cross between a regular lily and a firecracker. (Added to that, they’re a vibrant orange.) They actually have double petals, which is a hybrid thing, which is probably why I never saw them ever actually setting fruit.

Anyway, I thought that if I could get enough daylily seeds, maybe I could start them and grow some daylilies myself. The instructor did mention they would be easy to breed. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, as it turns out, I had a stowaway.

Hidden in one of the seedpods was a fat, round brown spider about the size of a large pea or a petite blueberry. And it must have been happy in my pocket–it was nice and warm, after all.

Anyway, I get home and I want to change after spilling something on my pants, so I take off my jeans and put on a skirt, and I go to take the daylily seeds out of my pocket, and while I’m at it, I feel something fuzzy and withdraw my hand. Oh look! It’s brown and a lot bigger than the other seeds… AUGH! It’s moving!

I jerked my hand away (I didn’t scream, though–you would be proud of me, beloved readers!) and picked up my jeans, holding them at arm’s length; took them to an area of the house with linoleum, and collected a clear plastic cup and a piece of card stock. Then, I move to flush the spider out of the pocket. However, by now the spider has moved to the waistband of the jeans, so I edge him off with the cup and onto the linoleum, trap him, slide my card stock under him, and my mother helps me take him outside.

Mission accomplished.

(Then I went back inside and did a bit of research to make sure I was not harboring a brown recluse *shudders* in my pocket, but that bit of the story is less glorious, so I’m leaving it out. 😉 )

The other story, which began on Wednesday, is a bit more puzzling, and it’s open ended to boot.

On Wednesday, my horticulture class was out and about, identifying plants for practice, and we had just gotten to the purple wintercreeper when I saw a pretty red berry in the foliage. I leaned down and picked it up. One of the boys from my class said, “Look, a snack!” I said, “I don’t think it is safe to eat,” and showed it to the instructor, who confirmed that it was probably from the nightshade family. The boy took it and offered it to me. “Enjoy.”

Two Days Later…

On Friday, I went back to the class and had a good time with some new friends I made. However, as we were all admiring the ‘Husker Red’ penstemon, the same boy offered me a mushroom of some unidentified type.

I think he’s making a habit of jokingly offering me things that may or may not be poisonous, but is he just being silly… or is he flirting?

What do you think?

Thanks for dropping by today, and God Bless!

The Mad Tea Party, Old College-style

04 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

a tale of two cities, alice in wonderland, c.s. lewis, charles dickens, humor, lewis carroll, old college, parody, portergirl, satire, secret diary of portergirl, selay'uu (sort of), technology humor, the chronicles of narnia, what have you, writing

With heartfelt thanks to PorterGirl for the loan of her characters, Charles Dickens because Sydney Carton is awesome, and apologies to Lewis Carroll for mangling his dialogue and mistreatment of a scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Mad Tea Party

                For some reason, the sky was mauve. It wasn’t even sunset. The sky was just… mauve. The roses were chartreuse, giving the Queen of Hearts something else to scream about. And the lilies were electric blue. (As anyone who has gardened or studied horticulture much at all can attest, certain flowers are not ever naturally blue. You can see at once how strange this was.)

Deputy Head Porter admired the gardens as she passed. It wasn’t every day that you saw chartreuse roses and electric-blue lilies, though lime-colored zinnias were becoming more common. She ducked under an abnormally tall sunflower with bright red petals and nodding faces and came to the gate in the hedge. The gate led to a path, which led up to a charming little house, with a tree growing next to it. And under the tree stood a huge dining room table, on the grass. Curiously, Deputy Head Porter pushed the gate open.

Senior Tutor, Junior Bursar, and the Dean were all seated, scrunched together, at one end. As soon as he saw her, Junior Bursar thumped on the table with a large spoon, bellowing, “No room! No room!” The Dean was too busy trying to keep his toothpick-and-card tower from collapsing due to Junior Bursar’s enthusiastic table-thumping to say much, and Senior Tutor, who, Deputy Head Porter thought, must be more than a little deaf, was asleep.

“Do you ever talk at less than a bellow, old boy?” the Dean asked. Junior Bursar ignored it.

“There is plenty of room,” Deputy Head Porter said firmly and sat down a few seats away from the others.

“Have some wine,” the Dean said, absentmindedly, as he added turrets, battlements, and a cornice to his tower.

“I don’t see any wine,” Deputy Head Porter replied, staring at the other end of the table. There was one other person at the table; she had missed the fourth person before, due to the other’s position hidden by the hedge. The fourth person at the table was dressed like Sydney Carton, complete with cravat and a damp towel wound around her head like a turban. Stranger still, though, was the fact that she had a partially unfolded card table set up around herself like a screen. She was scribbling away busily.

“Don’t mind me,” this strange apparition said. “I’m not important.”

“Would you like some tea?” Deputy Head Porter said, politely.

“Oh, yes, please,” the stranger said. Deputy Head Porter began to prepare a mug for her.

“There isn’t any wine,” said Senior Tutor sleepily. (1) Junior Bursar snorted.

“What is the velocity of an unladen swallow?” he asked. (2)

“It is in direct proportion to the wind direction and momentum and indirect to the number of minutes the swallow has been flying,” said Miss Sydney Carton. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

“You’ve spilled ink on both,” retorted Junior Bursar.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,” Senior Tutor interjected sleepily.

“Is he drunk?” asked Miss Sydney, who apparently was spending less of her attention on her writing than she had been before. (1)

“No,” said Deputy Head Porter, with solid conviction. Sydney flicked a rock at the carafe full of pink lemonade, toppling it over and drenching Senior Tutor.

“Eh, what?” said Senior Tutor, before collapsing back into dreamland. The Dean completed his tower, and Deputy Head Porter obligingly took a picture of it with her cell phone. Sydney flicked another rock at the tower, which for some reason, did not collapse. Then she threw her pen at it. It stuck there, leaking ink over the playing cards. Everyone promptly forgot about it.

“What a dull bunch of layabouts you are,” the Dean said, staring purposefully around the table. Vindictively, Junior Bursar squeezed lemon into his tea. The Dean didn’t notice. “What was happening before?”

“Nothing,” said Sydney Carton.

“Let’s play a game, then,” said the Dean. “Deputy Head Porter, what would you like to play?”

“Truth or Dare,” Deputy Head Porter said, feeling adventurous. Sydney Carton coughed, though whether to disguise a chuckle or her own surprise may never be known.

“Miss Carton,” the Dean said, “would you like to go first?”

“All right,” said Sydney. “Truth.”

“Do you ever stop writing?” Junior Bursar interposed, before anyone else could speak. Sydney leaped to her feet and hurled her card table off the dining table with a loud bang. It disappeared in a flash and puff of smoke, and Sydney snarled an imprecation at no one in particular.

Startled momentarily awake, Senior Tutor asked, “are you really a mathematical genius?” Sydney sat back down and sighed, smoothing her trousers out.

“We may as well make the rule that Truth answers a question from the field, so long as any question—but not all questions—may be refused, but everyone must agree on a Dare,” she said, much calmer now.

“Was it Junior Bursar who made the card table disappear?” Deputy Head Porter asked.

“Have you ever won a game of chess,” the Dean said, thoughtfully. Sydney grimaced.

“No, no chess victories,” she said. “Junior Bursar did not make the card table disappear; that was my doing. It was an accident!” she protested. No one contradicted, but no one particularly believed her. “As to being good at math, yes, well, according to the tests. But after a point, it’s all a muddle, and I lose interest.” She fixed Junior Bursar with a stern eye. “As to writing, no, in fact, I don’t ever stop writing. It’s addictive.” She leaned slightly back in her chair. “Your turn, Junior Bursar.” However, Junior Bursar seemed to be distracted. He had pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and was staring at it, hitting various icons and then holding it up to his ear. Deputy Head Porter looked at him oddly.

“Is there a problem, sir?” she asked.

“I suppose,” he snapped. “What day is it?”

“It’s the fourth.”

“Two days slow,” the Dean marveled, looking over his shoulder. “Whatever have you done to that poor mobile, Junior Bursar?”

“Senior Tutor is asleep again,” Junior Bursar commented with interest.

“Red herring,” snapped Sydney impatiently, at the exact same time as the Dean. “Jinx! You owe me a soda!” Sydney shouted. (3) Everyone ignored her.

“Wait. It says the exact same time as it did five minutes ago,” the Dean noted. “It’s stopped.”

“That’s impossible, it’s a mobile,” said Junior Bursar.

“Maybe it’s broken,” said Deputy Head Porter, helpfully.

“My watch broke once,” remarked Sydney. “It’s always six o’clock now.” Satisfied with her witticism, she stood up and recited her party piece.

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,

How I wonder what you’re at.

Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea tray in the sky! (4)

                Suddenly, the gate flew open and in marched Lewis Carroll himself. “Are you enjoying yourselves?” he asked, cheerfully.

“Very much,” said Deputy Head Porter politely. Sydney busied herself with her pencil, as her pen was still stuck to the Dean’s card tower.

“Good,” Mr. Carroll said. He glanced at Sydney. “Charles Dickens is looking for you, you know. You’re going to catch it when he finds you!” With that, Mr. Carroll left.

“Hasn’t anyone heard of cosplay?” Miss Sydney grumbled, as the others leaned back, aghast. Lost for words, the Dean picked up his cup and tried to sip at his—now overly sour—tea.

The mad tea party dissolved in absolute chaos a moment later.

Footnotes

  1. See “The Committee for the Prevention of Drunken Behavior.”
  2. I have never seen Monty Python. I just thought this quote was hilarious.
  3. This is something my dear friend Iris says when we say the same thing at the exact same moment.
  4. This one is actually a bit more complex. To quote “Lewis Carroll: Photographer”, by Helmut Gernsheim, Chanticleer, 1949 (found in “The Annotated Alice,” annotations by Martin Gardener, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2000,) “At Christ Church the usually staid don relaxed in the company of little visitors to his large suite of rooms—a veritable children’s paradise. There was a wonderful array of dolls and toys, a distorting mirror, a clockwork bear, and a flying bat made by him. This latter was the cause of much embarrassment when, on a hot summer afternoon, after circling the room several times, it suddenly flew out of the window and landed on a tea-tray which a college servant was just carrying across Tom Quad. Startled by this strange apparition, he dropped the tray with a great clatter.” Frequent readers of Secret Diary of PorterGirl will catch the reference, and why I included this particular piece of trivia.

For those who were wondering, yes, I am the bashful, impatient, ridiculous Sydney Carton cosplayer. It wasn’t an intentional self-insert. At first, it was actually supposed to be Lewis Carroll himself in the fourth chair, but then the card table made an appearance (and eventually disappearance) and it turned out to be me… Aslan save us all. (Does it count as Mary Sue-ness if the self-portrayal is deprecatingly honest?)

The Upstairs Archives Blog Birthday!

02 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

anniversary, blog birthday, blogging, celebrations, coruscantbookshelf, friends, insanity, iris, selay'uu, selay'uu (sort of)

Hello, my dear readers!

I’m posting for something very special today. Yes, it’s the blog’s birthday!

One year ago, I started this blog to connect to my friends who blog. I wanted to put my stories where people could read and enjoy them. One year ago, this post started it all.

And now, one year later, I look back in awe at all that’s happened.

  1. Incredible amounts of insanity has been shared.
  2. This blog has gained Allies!
  3. Tales (such as Bound to the Flame and The Hero’s Dream) have been told.
  4. Selay’uu was launched, to much acclaim, and (hopefully) evoking much laughter.
  5. Last but not least, I began to figure out how to use html shortcuts, and learned that there is no real substitute for experimentation when it comes to the Internet (so long as one does not say something unforgivable, or forget one’s manners.) Also, I began to learn how to use the blogger’s key tools, such as scheduling, saving drafts, categories, tagging, and how to set posts as password protected (though I have not tried it.)
  6. Erin-isms, such as typo turkeys, plot cobras, and poison ink were introduced to the world.
  7. I got my hair cut. (This has nothing to do with the blog, but it sure makes me look different.)

But for a celebration, I’m not quite sure what to do… Perhaps you all can help me decide. 😉

Now, for the “State of the Archives” address. ;-P

Statistics are as follows:

Seven (7) Pages

Two hundred six (206) Posts

Two thousand, six hundred thirty-five (2635) Comments

Five thousand, eight hundred four (5,804) Views

Approximately five hundred four (504) Likes

One hundred thirty-one (131) Followers

And finally, I’d like to thank everyone who helped me to get to where I am now.

Coruscantbookshelf (aka Rosalie), who introduced me to WordPress in the first place.

Iris, who was forever encouraging (Also my BFF IRL!) and one of my long-time readers, even though she didn’t get her own blog or WordPress account until recently.

Professor V.J. Duke, who was crazy when I needed craziness (and Punchiness!) in my life.

PorterGirl, who helped and encouraged me to get the Selay’uu section of the blog started.

There are lots of others (if your name isn’t on this list, don’t worry, it’s probably on my “Allies” page 😉 ), so don’t be offended; I just named the people I could think of at the moment.

First Meeting

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

angels' reflections, camp nanowrimo, camp nanowrimo april 2014, characters, creative writing, jay wallace, nanowrimo, nanowrimo 2013, novels, selay'uu (sort of), stories in progress, story dynamics, writer, writing

Recently, I received a prompt on the Nanowrimo forums, that sounded too good to pass up to me, and I thought the readers of my blog would also like to see it!

Enjoy!

Prompt: How did you first meet your main character? How did you come up with the character?

I first met Jay Wallace when I was washing dishes. Granted, I was pretty annoyed with my Dad at the time–after all, washing dishes is a job that was relegated to my younger brother and later my younger sister after I started college–but that’s not really a true block to inspiration. So there I was, with suds on my hands, when in saunters a young man five or six years my junior. He’s dark haired, with hazel eyes that are exceptionally clear and piercing, high cheekbones, a somewhat prominent, straight nose, firm mouth… He’s smallish, slender, slight build, looks underfed, is wearing a ragged shirt and a tattered pair of pants that barely reach down to his calves, is barefoot, and over everything else is a threadbare, worn, yet still presentable and thick woolen cloak with no hood and an attached capelet. “I’m going to be in the resistance, won’t I?” he asks, and then I realize I’m cheating–he is the Elayatar incarnation of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but then, who needs to know that? After all, he’ll soon be a character all his own.

Jay Wallace is one of the two main protagonists of the novel Angels’ Reflections. You can read about this novel on my Novels page, or on the Camp Nanowrimo website.

April 2013 (Book 1: The Broken Dream)

July 2013 (Book 2: The Child of the Promise)

April 2014 (Book 3: All Roads Lead Here)

TCWT: The One Thing I Wish I’d Known…

12 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

lord of the rings, oocs, out of character syndrome, selay'uu (sort of), star wars, story dynamics, teens can write too blog chain, writer, writer trouble, writing

when I started writing… back in the days when I still had braces and those cute round glasses (now I have the fashionable squarish ones–grrr…) when I was nineish-eleven-thirteen….

Like my friend Rosalie, I have a whole bunch of things which I wish I’d known. Not least among them that, over time, I’d be turning out stuff which occasions people (rather rudely) reading over my shoulders (yes, even both shoulders sometimes!) as I write. *scowls at the culprits* Yes, I’m talking about you… 😛

But the one big one for me would have to be that I wish I knew, firstly, how much editing it would take, and secondly, how very addictive it would prove. But more than being just addictive, it has also been very rewarding.

Other than that, there’s mostly a lot of editing. And then there are the days when nothing seems to work, and… well, coffee. No, tea. And I haven’t actually finished a mug of hot cocoa in one sitting in what feels like years. Awk-ward!

Suffice it to say, there will be horrible, horrible days when nothing seems to work and you just want to tear your hair, but all in all, it’s very rewarding. And finishing a novel–to the conclusion–may be an unreal feeling, but it’s also euphoric.

What was I talking about, again?

Oh, and check in at other peopleses’ blogs. They has insights, my precious.

NO! GET OUT, Gollum! You’re not wanted here! OBI-WAN, HELP!!!

Sorry, dark day in the mind palace… (If you recognize that quote I will love you forever)

5th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

6th – http://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

7th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

8th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

9th – http://lillianmwoodall.wordpress.com/

10th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

11th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

12th – https://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

13th – http://theweirdystation.blogspot.com/

14th – http://taratherese.wordpress.com/

15th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

16th – http://eighthundredninety.blogspot.com/

17th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/

18th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/

19th – http://thelonglifeofalifelongfangirl.wordpress.com/

20th – https://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/

21st – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://roomble.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://thependanttrilogy.wordpress.com/

24th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ – The topic for August’s blog chain will be announced. We hope.

Are you still here?! Wow. *tackles Gollum and leaves him tied up to the ugly bench that mars our backyard’s beauty* Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

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