Signing Update (Go away m'lord)

Okay, so I blogged about what I've been up to for the signing in April, but I'm not posting it here. Anyone interested can hop on over to my Xanga account and read about it there. Certain persons are WARNED that if they LOOK they will RUIN THE SURPRISE. *Ahem*

Anyway, the rest of you go on over if you are interested. I hope to have the MAJOR surprise finished in two weeks and then you'll really want to check back and ooh and ahh over my mad skills. So, here's the mirror for this blog:

My Xanga


Enjoy!

Mr. Rochester & Maximilian

Ah, blame Rhu for this. She was talking about Mrs. Peach and Mrs. Apple and the fun that she and her friend had (and before her friend, her sister Kari played that game with her) writing letter back and forth as if they were keeping one another abreast of what was taking place during the war. My friend Susanna and I had a similar game involving a Mr. Rochester and Maximilian, his good friend. You can guess what movies we saw before we read the books (why we picked guy characters I don't know, other than it always seemed like the girls never got to have any adventures or fun) but she was Mr. Rochester and I, was the dashing rather younger and more reckless Maximilian. The game started one afternoon when we went to her grandmother's house, I think it was for her or maybe one of her cousins birthday parties, and it was a sleep over. We were bored as they were a kind and elderly pair of grandparents that didn't care much for young girlish squeals or giggling and there were several of us at that age where we wanted to do nothing BUT giggle. So, we were told the best thing to do would be to explore the upper reaches of the house that weren't currently in use. Susanna led the way and I was right behind her, feeling very out of things as her cousins rumbled up behind me.

The rooms were everything that young girls with a vivid imagination could hope for. Hopelessly crammed with brickabrac and dimly lit with white covers over the beds but not over the shelves bursting with curios they wreaked of stories not told. We got the idea then and there of Mr. Rochester and his ill fated love (which is why he was so moody) and Maximilian who was his rich spoiled and devil may-care friend who had girlfriends all over but never really fell in love. She and I whispered back and forth between giggles which annoyed her cousins and the game, that day, had to be shared. We spent most of the rest of the time hiding notes and letter among the unused rooms, some of them printed, others of them written in a 'lavish cursive hand' and some in a cramped brittle script. There was a mystery in those letters to be solved. Mr. Rochester was looking to meet with Maximilian over some enterprise they had taken concerning diamonds. The letters we scattered throughout the upstairs were suppose to be like a treasure hunt, the one linking to the next. The cousins who were older than Susanna and I insisted that Maximilian and Mr. Rochester be described and I hotly protested that men did not 'describe' themselves in letters to one another, but they pressured me and I remember looking in one of the uncovered mirrors set over one of the dressing tables in the room and thinking 'this is so stupid but Max, what do you look like? ' All I could see was myself in the mirror but I remember looking long enough into it to freak the girls out as I said slowly "He's tall, and has dark hair, and grey eyes, and he's always tanned." At the time I didn't know what olive skin was or I'd have said that instead. Oh, and Rhu, he doesn't sound familiar does he?

Anyway I don't remember what I wrote in the letters all that day (between things like the party and meals and stuff) all I do remember is that Susanna and I had to keep writing letters for the others to keep finding and we had to keep spinning the tail out until late in the night when we were allowed to take flashlights upstairs to our rooms, and finally went to sleep. The next morning, I know Susanna and I hid for a while up in the attic because we didn't want to write any more for the others about Mr. Rochester and Maximilian. They were ours and the other girls wanted them to have girl friends and all that and Susanna and I wanted them to have adventures and Maximilian I was certain would have more daring do and less catching swooning maidens.

I do know that Maximilian was always somewhat of a disappointment to me because Rochester was an easier name to write and sounded cooler. And they would call each other "Dear sir, or mockingly "My dear sir" when they started the letters. If they were in peril (Maximilian had a way of getting into scrapes like dungeons flooding with water) the letters would begin "If I am alive after this I will tell you all" and if he were injured he'd "Have gotten this nice nurse to write the letter for me" and often times he'd put in "The ink is rather hard to come by here so I'm using my own blood". Whereas Mr. Rochester would start his letters by saying things like "My dear chap, you can not go on spending money like this" or "Dear sir, I can not condone your actions any longer" or "Hang it all Maxim, now I have to come and rescue you." Ahhhh, good memories. We had so much fun with them.

Thanks for the memory jog, Rhuness.

My HoverCraft is Full of Eels

Moio sudno na vozdušnoy poduške polno ugrey!

Oh come on, you all know that at some point in your life you've wanted to yell that out in Russian. I mean really, how many times has your hovercraft been full of eels and you've been in frigid Russian waters and desperate to get help from someone but there has been a language barrier? Or maybe like me you've just watched far too much Monty Python's Flying Circus. Well now, this fantastic site can help you with all your foreign language tongue twisting dilemmas.

It is a fascinating site and one that I have spent hours on while working on the Chatter Sheets for work today. I know I know, focus, focus. *Whine* I like and admire Wayne Batson and Bryan Polivka but I'm tired of writing about their writing. Besides, it's for work and I'm doing it off the clock and not getting paid so a little distraction is allowed I think.

Anyway, if you seek distraction or want to dive deeper in the glory of different languages check out www.omiglot.com

But plan to stay there for a while when you do go.

~Scribe

Touching History 128 years old

Mom found this today going through a box of old photos, and Dad and I were in awe as well as rather moved. It's my great-great grandfather's petition for citizenship here in the United States. And it's dated 1880.

Chatter Sheets

I am tired, today was not kind in any way other than it has agreed to end.

I am currently writing chatter sheets for the upcoming event and doing my level best not to sound like the AP updates that scroll across the bottom of the news feed on the cable channels. Bryan and Wayne were very nice and got back to me ASAP about when they are available which makes my job easier, but I fear I'm still sounding dull as ditch water about the two of them and that is not my intent. Ah well, my coworkers can make them sound better as they talk to the customers. I wish I felt more creative.

All right topic skip!

I've tried this last week to post my final thought on villains Blue, no less than five times. Twice Windows has crashed (making me hyperventilate until I remembered I backed my writing up on my flash drive) once there was a power outage and twice Blogger has refused to put the post up here. I think, Blueness I'm going to have to e-mail it to you at this rate or better yet, pop by and we'll have coffee and an informal writer's meeting. Anyway, on to other topics because I have received chastisement for not posting as regularly as I have before. Imagine that, tarbs want to know what is going on in my life.

First, writing news/update as demanded. My antagonist has been named (which is a triumph) because I really am weak at naming people. I also know that he's going to be a cross between Iago from Othello and Elijah Price from Unbreakable. I don't mean an exactly 50/50 split of course, I can only snitch so much, but now I have a general frame of reference for how he thinks *AND* what his motivation is and why it is important to the main plot of the story!
Now, in my outlining I can move foreword with things and create the incidents needed to move from point a to b to c to d to e and so on. I can't begin to tell you how much having him roughed in has helped. And for those wondering about my snitching this and snitching that, remember it has all been done before and you can't copyright ideas or plots or archetypes, and writers have been stealing from one another since the time of storytellers. To further your understanding of the legal stealing, I heartily recommend the following books:

The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines Sixteen Master Archetypes by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, and Sue Viders.

In here not only will you find the 'type' of your character(s) but also how they best interact with other 'types' as well as examples pulled from well known books and movies that help you further understand the ideas.

Theme and Strategy: How to build a strong narrative structure to help your fiction stand tall, run fast, hit hard and soar to success by Ronald Tobias. ISBN # 9780898793925

This book is worth its' weight in gold and is one of the oldest ones in my library. I reference it a lot and it's worth the price for the list of plot summaries in the back. Here, you'll find the 36 master plots that have been around since the time of the Greek playwrights, and possibly before. These are the ones that everyone uses and Tobias helps you to ferret out plot(s) from well known books. If you don't have the resources to buy a copy now, get it from your library and buy it later. (Currently shown as out of print but available through B&N's used section, Amazon's used section, and Alibris)

The Creative Call: An Artists Response to the Way of the Spirit by Janice Elsheimer


This one will challenge, rebuke, and echo Wayne Batson's cry of "Get off your chairs, and create" that he posted this week.


Okay, that's about it for the writing, lettsee what else do I have to report?

Oh, I'm in charge of another author signing, this time with Wayne Thomas Batson and George Bryan Polivka as our featured authors. I've got about six weeks to find props, make props, figure out staging, figure out advertising, and get the staff in three stores primed and ready for the event. And this time, I've sworn I'm not going to let it take over my life as it has before. So far, so good. I'm still working on my story as well as setting up for them.

Mom and I went to the Delaware Museum of Art last Friday and had a blast looking at the Pre-Rafaelite exhibit and the Tiffany Windows which were breathtaking.

This past Friday in an attempt to get more fun in our lives and continuing last Friday's venture into the realm of fun she and I went and saw Fools Gold in the theater and it was rather good, except for a moment of full frontal nudity that had no reason to be in the film at all. I hate that kind of crap. But really, the movie was well written and had some strong themes woven throughout, I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I'm going through and point-outlining it as an exercise to see just how the writers put it together.

And now, I'm going to go and be fascinated by Cyrillic alphabets.

~Scribe