So over the past few days, I've been clearing up my jump drive so that I can use it as a backup for my documents. I was massively entertained to discover that, once I'd copied all of my jump drive over onto my computer, I had about 90% of the stories I'd ever written and saved as a text document.
In fact, I was so entertained that I decided to inflict the progress I've made over the last eight or nine years on my blog's casual passerby.
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In the beginning... (2003-2004)
I discovered writing around the same time I discovered Neopets. This is a snippet from the first story I ever wrote, which I called "In Another's Eyes" and attempted to submit online. It never saw the light of day, thank God. I was about 11-12 when I wrote this.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. You’ll be all right?”
“Don’t worry! Go on, now.”
I was a nervous young owner, leaving my little Zaffie behind. I was only going shopping, but I was leaving my only-just-grown Zafara home alone for the first time.
Actually, that wasn’t why I was worried.
Zaffie057, known as Zaffie by her friends (well, by me), had a tendency to jump up and down on furniture when excited. And when some eighty pounds of excitable Zafara land on breakable items such as glass tables and lamps, they usually shatter. Just this month our doctor had treated a broken bone, several burnt paws, and various cut and scrapes; I, in the meantime, bought replacement furniture and healing potions for Zaffie.
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August 2004
More Neopets stuff. This is actually the earliest-dated document on my hard drive, although I started writing "In Another's Eyes" earlier.
As you wander through a quiet park in Neopia Central, you spot a Christmas Zafara kneeling on the hard ground beside a bench, concentrating as though spellbound on the earth in front of her. Despite the fact that it is a mild autumn day, she is wearing a blouse and a pale blue skirt that falls below her knees. Curious, you walk over.
The Zafara is clenching a small grey stone in one hand; on the ground where she was just staring, several runes that you can not decipher are scratched in the dirt. Now she opens her palm and holds the stone out, flat in her palm, gazing at it intently, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
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July 2005
The untitled "sequel" to the unpublished first story. I never wrote more than a few pages of this.
“Ren…um, Ren…Wake up, it’s kinda important…”
“Merphgle. I wanna sleep late for a change. Go ’way, Ask.”
“Ren…” Asdsdkdklsadfh prodded me. “Ren, it’s serious.”
“You’re just mad I turned off the water again,” I grumbled, covering my head with a pillow.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m up,” remarked Aludari from the doorway as he flicked on the light switch. I winced at the sudden bright light, and because Asdsdkdklsadfh had poked me harder, on a soft spot of my back.
“Oww. Don’t do that.” I’m never very awake late at night, especially when someone interrupts me from a good dream.
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February 2006
The last Neopets snippet. It's around this time that my writing goes from cringe-worthy to mildly embarrassing.
Crack, crack, crack. Drill after drill after drill. Sweat pouring down his neck and into his eyes. The burning sensation in his arms as the wooden sword jarred with another, again and again and again.
This was just how he liked things, a few hours of mindless whacking at other pets to let out the pent-up energy of another uninteresting day.
“And yer lesson’s up, lads!” The squawk rang out from the head of the room, breaking harshly into the endless rhythm of wood against wood, and the Academy students relaxed (a few ducking as their opponent realized it too late and swept a blow down at their head).
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January 2007
Just a random piece. This features Mai (see the 2009 explanation), but I'm not sure what the context is.
Today was a sticky sort of day. Mai hoped it would rain.
Long, dark hair hung limply down as she leaned out her large window, eyes on the crowd below. How she wished to be there…from all the way up here, she could see hardly more than a ton of dust kicked up from the hard-packed roads. Dust and sand seemed more appealing to her feet than the pointy-toed, uncomfortable shoes she was forced to wear.
She heard a strange coughing noise from her bed and turned. A large dog was lying there, his fur tawny-gold in the sunlight that drifted through the window, splotched with black.
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January 2008
This is from my Ridge universe. Ridge is a city where all the magical folk of New England gather: people with Talent, that is to say, mages; magical creatures; and the Nightstalkers, the criminals, unscrupulous, dangerously Talented, or unable to control their powers. I eventually gave the story up because it was full of whiny teenagers and bad paranormal romance/YA fantasy tropes. I still like the concept, though.
He should have known they’d be at the mall.
It was, after all, a Friday afternoon, and where else would three girls go when they wanted to hang out? He’d certainly passed a good dozen gaggles of teenagers on the way to his own shopping —
But somehow, Bane had a little trouble picturing his friends in the men’s department.
The three of them were whispering and giggling, heads together as they stood between the wall and a clothing rack; Bane recognized the close-cropped dark hair of one and the ice-blond waterfall of another. Mily and Aislin — so the plain-looking one in the stained T-shirt must be this new kid Ash had been going on about.
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January 2009
A favorite character, who I've portrayed as demon, demon-hunter, various types of shapeshifter or animal, and ordinary human girl over the course of the years. In this bit she's a werewolf.
Stars glittered in a deep navy sky, gleaming down on the crisp night below. Tilting my head back, I could see them clearly; but it was not the sky that illuminated the world down around me. A lone streetlamp guarded the broken pavement of the street I was walking, somehow still fed electricity though it was god-knows-how-old; a faint buzzing noise accompanied its flickering, and I could tell that as long as it had stood sentinel, its time was nearing an end. Passing it, I walked into the cool darkness of a rural night – though I knew this hadn’t been so empty, once.
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January 2010
From the transcript of the most awesome dream I've ever had. The writing's kind of icky, because I was trying to get the dream down before I forgot it.
Someone pounded on my door.
I froze, knowing instantly -- instinctively -- that this was something wrong. For some reason I'd been feeling all day that something bad was going to happen, and I knew in an instant that this was it.
Unwillingly, I rose from my seat at the kitchen table and entered the hallway. The pounding was cracking the wooden door, and I backed away, realizing that the person on the other side meant to break in. The door bulged, then broke with a loud crack. Hands gripped the remains and wrenched them aside.
It was an ordinary-looking man of extraordinary strength.
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January 2011
Another dream transcript. Ditto the blech writing.
I stared down the hill at the mysterious school. It was a sprawling monster, miles across and probably dozens of stories high -- and yet it was hidden, out here in the middle of nowhere. The mages had done an excellent job to hide their secret.
Alexandria slanted her gaze towards me. "Almost time," she said. I nodded absently.
I had first heard of the mages six years ago. I was twelve years old at the time, a baby; but I was a street kid and I should've had some common sense. Instead I showed my first signs of a hero complex.
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January 2012
A goofy little snippet I wrote when I stumbled across the phrase "Why are you injuring my horse?" It was one of those times where you wonder what situation on earth would call for that sentence.
Lucian whipped the bloody knife behind his back as soon as Kieran rounded the corner into the stall. The mare was black, but only a fool wouldn't realize she was injured; she had, after all, just let out a scream of pain and was refusing to put any weight on her left front leg. As her master entered she snapped at Lucian, who backed away hurriedly and only just missed losing his nose behind a click of large teeth.
"The hell, mage?" Kieran skidded to a halt. "Why were you injuring my horse?"
"I was not injuring your horse." Lucian didn't miss a beat.
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Now
Here's a piece of an assignment I wrote for my fiction class. I ditched it because it's rather hard to follow, but I still like the concept. It features the same character, Mai, as the 2009 bit, but this time she's a demon-hunter.
Daybreak and you slant your eyes at us. Morning and we must be gone by eleven; we’ve done our job; the town would reclaim its façade of normalcy. Do you think we swallowed the night whole? Noon; we stop for lunch; you smile red paint, unflattering apron tied tight as if you could pinch yourself into a model’s body. I see you staring at the streak in my hair, old-woman white, and I leave you an extra tip for more blond dye. Three o’clock; winter evening nearing. I greet you; not my brother, with his puppy face and gentle voice; I would not disconcert you with kindness.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
Blog of brag
News flash: I'm a perfectionist.
If, you know, you weren't clued in by my obsessive desire to capture every moment of my characters' lives and every detail of the world they live in. I don't do things halfway. Usually it means I get lots of pats on the back and glowingness, but occasionally it turns into a dragon and melts down my self-esteem.
For some reason it's been hitting me hard this year. Not 100% sure why. Might be that I'm challenged by all of my classes and don't expect a 4.0 in any of them; might be, in particular, my workshop classes, which are giving me hard critique for my writing for the first time in years (if ever). Might be that I'm off-campus and fully out of the music world, which means I'm at a bit of a distance from a lot of friends. Might just be that I'm really, genuinely pleased with the way the year is planning out, and the lizard in the back of my brain is trying to drag me down from that before something turns out to be a disappointment.
In any case, yesterday I was wandering the web and stumbled on this post by the lovely MR Graham. (Read her stuff, by the way. She has a lovely way with words, and I'm amazed by her ability to switch between eras/writing styles/character voices.) I decided that this was exactly what I needed to perk up.
So, my own list of awesomeness:
- I'm good with words. Reading is my unparalleled love (sorry, fellow human beings) and writing has been my pastime of choice for the last decade. I have a good grasp of what makes writing solid, on a mechanical (i.e. grammar) level in particular, and I'm employed at my school's writing center. I can turn a good image, my writing flows, and I'm good at making people care about my characters: in my fiction workshop, the prevailing critique has been, "I don't like fantasy/I had no idea what was going on, but I really liked the images/characters anyway!" At first I was disappointed that my stories don't make sense (probably because I've been writing for myself for so long), but come to think of it, that's actually quite a feat.
- I'm a musician. I would probably be on my way to a college degree in it if music wasn't so intensely demanding of my time and passion. I have the voice, background knowledge, and pitch recognition to make a decent singer if I ever get some training. I play flute, recorder, and an eensy basic bit of piano. My primary instrument and love, however, is the oboe. Yep: I can play oboe without sounding like a duck. I make my own reeds, too. If you don't know how difficult that is, go and find an instrumentalist to explain. (You could ask me, of course, but then you're in for a ten-page treatise on the struggles of the double-reed player.)
- I'm an excellent student. This used to be something I couldn't brag about, since it stemmed mostly from natural aptitude instead of dedication; since I've started college-level work, however, I think it's fair for me to include it here. It's not just that I have the genetic component that makes someone a good learner (which I do). I'm able and willing to apply myself and to really take the time needed to learn whatever I want to learn. I can go beyond rote memorization or teacher instruction into the how and why of what I'm learning. And my own interest in learning -- slowly but surely -- is starting to rise up, now that I'm taking classes that challenge me without being overwhelming.
- I'm not someone who gets unduly worked up about things. You know, a cool head and all that. I'm the sort of person who starts laughing when I realize I'm lost on the road -- because, you know, you have to end up somewhere eventually -- and just kind of stares in perplexity when my friends start fighting about the silliest thing. On the rare occasion something bothers me enough to have an argument over, I stick to the topic at hand and avoid attacking the person: not because of my Superior Moral Standing, but because what's the point? All it does is build resentment and derail a perfectly good argument into a fight. I have a close friend who tells me she goes to me for things because I'm rational. It kind of makes me laugh because really, I'm just as messy and mixed-up as every other human being on the planet. But hey, I'll take credit where it's given.
- I'm not much into false modesty. See above. Actually, self-deprecation is a habit I got into when I first started college, and I'm still trying to break back into my normal arrogance. I believe firmly that a bit of an ego is a good thing, as long as you have a friend to knock you down to earth before you try to do something stupid, like jump off a cliff because you think your bones are unbreakable.
- For someone who's never studied it in a classroom, I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of the human psyche. First off, I'm a writer, and in order to write good fiction you have to have a basic understanding of How People Think. (That is to say, by my definition of "good fiction" - which may not match yours. You're perfectly entitled to disagree, but I personally get bored with fiction that doesn't show characters with some mental depth.) When someone comes to me upset about what so-and-so did, my instinctive response tends to be, "Well, they probably did it because of X, which tends to bother them because Y..." Lots of people don't appreciate that approach, but I stick by it (unless they honestly just need a vent). Understanding is the first step to communication, and communication is the only way to resolution. It takes a lot for me to get mad at someone - not just because I'm fairly laid-back by nature (which I am, mostly), but because about 80% of the time I can see where they're coming from. And if I don't know where they're coming from, odds are I've seen enough of their personality to know that it makes sense to them on some level.
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So there you have it! A lovely, long, rambly post of awesome. It was easier than I expected, and it actually helped more than I thought it would! My list of achievements is nowhere near Ms. Graham's, I have to admit - but then, she's a degree and a half and a teaching career ahead of me. :P
If, you know, you weren't clued in by my obsessive desire to capture every moment of my characters' lives and every detail of the world they live in. I don't do things halfway. Usually it means I get lots of pats on the back and glowingness, but occasionally it turns into a dragon and melts down my self-esteem.
For some reason it's been hitting me hard this year. Not 100% sure why. Might be that I'm challenged by all of my classes and don't expect a 4.0 in any of them; might be, in particular, my workshop classes, which are giving me hard critique for my writing for the first time in years (if ever). Might be that I'm off-campus and fully out of the music world, which means I'm at a bit of a distance from a lot of friends. Might just be that I'm really, genuinely pleased with the way the year is planning out, and the lizard in the back of my brain is trying to drag me down from that before something turns out to be a disappointment.
In any case, yesterday I was wandering the web and stumbled on this post by the lovely MR Graham. (Read her stuff, by the way. She has a lovely way with words, and I'm amazed by her ability to switch between eras/writing styles/character voices.) I decided that this was exactly what I needed to perk up.
So, my own list of awesomeness:
- I'm good with words. Reading is my unparalleled love (sorry, fellow human beings) and writing has been my pastime of choice for the last decade. I have a good grasp of what makes writing solid, on a mechanical (i.e. grammar) level in particular, and I'm employed at my school's writing center. I can turn a good image, my writing flows, and I'm good at making people care about my characters: in my fiction workshop, the prevailing critique has been, "I don't like fantasy/I had no idea what was going on, but I really liked the images/characters anyway!" At first I was disappointed that my stories don't make sense (probably because I've been writing for myself for so long), but come to think of it, that's actually quite a feat.
- I'm a musician. I would probably be on my way to a college degree in it if music wasn't so intensely demanding of my time and passion. I have the voice, background knowledge, and pitch recognition to make a decent singer if I ever get some training. I play flute, recorder, and an eensy basic bit of piano. My primary instrument and love, however, is the oboe. Yep: I can play oboe without sounding like a duck. I make my own reeds, too. If you don't know how difficult that is, go and find an instrumentalist to explain. (You could ask me, of course, but then you're in for a ten-page treatise on the struggles of the double-reed player.)
- I'm an excellent student. This used to be something I couldn't brag about, since it stemmed mostly from natural aptitude instead of dedication; since I've started college-level work, however, I think it's fair for me to include it here. It's not just that I have the genetic component that makes someone a good learner (which I do). I'm able and willing to apply myself and to really take the time needed to learn whatever I want to learn. I can go beyond rote memorization or teacher instruction into the how and why of what I'm learning. And my own interest in learning -- slowly but surely -- is starting to rise up, now that I'm taking classes that challenge me without being overwhelming.
- I'm not someone who gets unduly worked up about things. You know, a cool head and all that. I'm the sort of person who starts laughing when I realize I'm lost on the road -- because, you know, you have to end up somewhere eventually -- and just kind of stares in perplexity when my friends start fighting about the silliest thing. On the rare occasion something bothers me enough to have an argument over, I stick to the topic at hand and avoid attacking the person: not because of my Superior Moral Standing, but because what's the point? All it does is build resentment and derail a perfectly good argument into a fight. I have a close friend who tells me she goes to me for things because I'm rational. It kind of makes me laugh because really, I'm just as messy and mixed-up as every other human being on the planet. But hey, I'll take credit where it's given.
- I'm not much into false modesty. See above. Actually, self-deprecation is a habit I got into when I first started college, and I'm still trying to break back into my normal arrogance. I believe firmly that a bit of an ego is a good thing, as long as you have a friend to knock you down to earth before you try to do something stupid, like jump off a cliff because you think your bones are unbreakable.
- For someone who's never studied it in a classroom, I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of the human psyche. First off, I'm a writer, and in order to write good fiction you have to have a basic understanding of How People Think. (That is to say, by my definition of "good fiction" - which may not match yours. You're perfectly entitled to disagree, but I personally get bored with fiction that doesn't show characters with some mental depth.) When someone comes to me upset about what so-and-so did, my instinctive response tends to be, "Well, they probably did it because of X, which tends to bother them because Y..." Lots of people don't appreciate that approach, but I stick by it (unless they honestly just need a vent). Understanding is the first step to communication, and communication is the only way to resolution. It takes a lot for me to get mad at someone - not just because I'm fairly laid-back by nature (which I am, mostly), but because about 80% of the time I can see where they're coming from. And if I don't know where they're coming from, odds are I've seen enough of their personality to know that it makes sense to them on some level.
-
So there you have it! A lovely, long, rambly post of awesome. It was easier than I expected, and it actually helped more than I thought it would! My list of achievements is nowhere near Ms. Graham's, I have to admit - but then, she's a degree and a half and a teaching career ahead of me. :P
Friday, September 14, 2012
Violence and Hatred
So I've been following the reaction to the anti-Muslim film/attack in Libya - not religiously - just reading the occasional article as it pops up in my Yahoo feed. I got to this article and had to stop reading it halfway through.
It wasn't because I was angry at the protesters. It wasn't because I found the violence particularly shocking. It was because all I could think was, How sad.
How sad that hatred governs the actions of so many people - and not just in the Middle East, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it is deplorable that anyone would create a film with the express intent of denigrating a religious figure. Dislike of a faith does not give you the right to disparage it. To disparage a religion is to disparage the very foundation of a people's morality.
How sad that so many people feel the need to resort to violence. Maybe I am sheltered and misguided, but violence does not, to me, mean that something is wrong in a person's soul. It means that something is lacking - that these people do not have an outlet for their anger; that they have no other voice; that they do not understand what damage violence will do to their world. And I say their world - because violence within their homes will damage their children far more than it will damage ours, an ocean away - but I say also the world at large. Violence is what we resort to when we believe that it is the fastest route to safety, or that there is no other route. But as long as violence exists, safety can be nothing more than a fleeting dream.
And as I was reading, I also thought, This is what we write stories about.
Cultural and religious conflict shape the backdrop of my book. All of my characters are influenced by it in some way. Ker, as the son of a foreign slave, was alienated as a child because of his mother's religious beliefs. Lux faces disdain and mild abuse as a slave and a male mage in a country where magic is women's work. Eri's entire life is shaped by cultural conflict - she was born of a marriage of state, a fragile, doomed peace, and as a result has spent most of her life bouncing between cultures, not knowing where she belongs. All three characters come from wildly different societies, and their story takes place across a canvas of intolerance and war.
But I do not write about violence because I enjoy violence. I do not write about hatred because I believe that hatred is a healthy way of life. I write these things to understand them, and to, in some small way, impose my will upon them - to say, I can see an ending to this. I can make this end.
Even in stories where there is no happy ending - and I will tell you right now, there is no way that Ker's story can end happily - I will write for compassion. Because if I do not understand you who do these things, understand why you must resort to violence and slander and hatred, I will not do any better than you do.
So I will not say: I am angry. I will not say: I hate. I will say: I am sad, so very sad for the world that still feels these things, and for how little is in my power to change. I will make change where I can - in my home, in my world - not with anger, not with righteousness (because righteousness is blind), but with as much understanding for the world around me as I can muster. And I can only hope that this change will grow outward, and that someday it might touch at least the edges of places where hatred still reigns.
It wasn't because I was angry at the protesters. It wasn't because I found the violence particularly shocking. It was because all I could think was, How sad.
How sad that hatred governs the actions of so many people - and not just in the Middle East, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it is deplorable that anyone would create a film with the express intent of denigrating a religious figure. Dislike of a faith does not give you the right to disparage it. To disparage a religion is to disparage the very foundation of a people's morality.
How sad that so many people feel the need to resort to violence. Maybe I am sheltered and misguided, but violence does not, to me, mean that something is wrong in a person's soul. It means that something is lacking - that these people do not have an outlet for their anger; that they have no other voice; that they do not understand what damage violence will do to their world. And I say their world - because violence within their homes will damage their children far more than it will damage ours, an ocean away - but I say also the world at large. Violence is what we resort to when we believe that it is the fastest route to safety, or that there is no other route. But as long as violence exists, safety can be nothing more than a fleeting dream.
And as I was reading, I also thought, This is what we write stories about.
Cultural and religious conflict shape the backdrop of my book. All of my characters are influenced by it in some way. Ker, as the son of a foreign slave, was alienated as a child because of his mother's religious beliefs. Lux faces disdain and mild abuse as a slave and a male mage in a country where magic is women's work. Eri's entire life is shaped by cultural conflict - she was born of a marriage of state, a fragile, doomed peace, and as a result has spent most of her life bouncing between cultures, not knowing where she belongs. All three characters come from wildly different societies, and their story takes place across a canvas of intolerance and war.
But I do not write about violence because I enjoy violence. I do not write about hatred because I believe that hatred is a healthy way of life. I write these things to understand them, and to, in some small way, impose my will upon them - to say, I can see an ending to this. I can make this end.
Even in stories where there is no happy ending - and I will tell you right now, there is no way that Ker's story can end happily - I will write for compassion. Because if I do not understand you who do these things, understand why you must resort to violence and slander and hatred, I will not do any better than you do.
So I will not say: I am angry. I will not say: I hate. I will say: I am sad, so very sad for the world that still feels these things, and for how little is in my power to change. I will make change where I can - in my home, in my world - not with anger, not with righteousness (because righteousness is blind), but with as much understanding for the world around me as I can muster. And I can only hope that this change will grow outward, and that someday it might touch at least the edges of places where hatred still reigns.
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