UFPE - comic progress

Today I worked and worked and erased and scribbled and typed and made shocking, wild progress to... page 2! Yes the Book of Might Have Beens is slouching along. I'm trying to be conscious of varying the layout without being obnoxious about it, in addition to keeping the story progressing at a nice clip and preventing the narrative + story-within-narrative + flashbacks from becoming too confusing.

I only had a panel and a half to draw, but then I had to write up the script for the whole thing, and my head is starting to protest all that typing.

Because I don't remember where I left off last time and because my head continues to protest, I'll just share the final caption of this very complicated page: "He must have been a child, even by human reckoning, yet his tale was as old as my race." I'm not entirely happy with that line, but it does sound like something young!MMC would say. I'll sleep on it.

Short post - epiphany!

I had an epiphany as I was walking home tonight and thinking about the UFPE re-write, which I decided I'm going to do without referencing what I've already written. Or at least, without having printed out pages beside me during the re-write. I realized it's been almost a year since the UFPE was born, and it's evolved so much during that time.

But that's not the epiphany that gave this post its subject line. I was thinking about the Book of Might Have Beens and the Vol. 1 re-write, and I realized that the prologue to the Book of Might Have Beens shows that Bad Guy's early life is a lot like MC's. In fact, Bad Guy is sorta MC's life gone wrong, or hers is his life gone right. They don't line up perfectly, but they have a lot in common.

They: ran away from home, were isolated from their communities and the world at large, found nice people early on, met up with a specific character (I may have mentioned this before), wanted to learn about their heritage and the larger world... I think there were others, but I've forgotten them for now.

However, MC wasn't able to share in her family's privilege in the community, while Bad Guy did share in his family's disgrace. MC ran into mean folks, in the form of Seaton, while Bad Guy had almost uniformly good experiences, or at least uniformly un-bad ones. MC doesn't know anything about her ancestry early on, while Bad Guy does; his quest is more to understand his people. MC is a charming young lady, though she doesn't know it, while Bad Guy is awkward and shy.

The parallels were very interesting to think about. I can't tell if I just wrote them that way because they're such fantasy tropes, or if I was subconsciously being clever. Perhaps it's some of both! I love that their lives followed such a similar path early on and led them ultimately to such different places - Good and Evil, that is.

Writing Prompt - Paradise Falls

Another day, another neat picture, another writing prompt. This one comes from one of my two readers, an article about the inspiration for Paradise Falls in the movie "Up."

I love the looming hunk of rock in the distance, and the clouds hovering over top of it (or they're just way in the background, hard to say). It looks very much to me like the place where the Mage Towers (working name) of the UFPE would be! So let's see, brainstorming or spate o' writing today?

It occurs to me that MC's love interest is a pretty under-developed character. I wrote a short scene with him once, but I wasn't quite happy with it. I think I fundamentally don't have as good a grasp on him as I have on MC and Bad Guy, so... character interview it is! Questions are copied and pasted from past interviews. I'm going to set this when UFPE v. 1 begins.

1. What do you do for a living?

I am a Quisan of the Amethyst.

2. Are any other people living with you? Who are they?

I have many fellow Quisans and Quisenes who inhabit the Teuirs. We are by and large solitary, and there are often days where I never exchange a word with one of them.

3. Tell me about your parents. How well do/did you get along with them

No Quis knows their parents for long. As soon as our talent is discovered, we are hurried off to the Teuirs. I remember one scene: my mother was returning from a long and fruitless day of fishing to find that my aunts had cleaned the house, cleaned me, and prepared a fragrant supper. I do not know they chose this occasion to act so generously toward us, but I have never smelled anything as aromatic as that food. I sometimes wonder where my father was during this scene, for I also remember hoping that he would not miss the delectable odor that wafted through our home.

4. What was your birth order? How many siblings did you have? Older? Younger?

When I left, I had no siblings, but I suspect that my parents had more children after I was gone.

5. Who else was in your family while you were growing up? How did you get along with them?

My mother's sisters frequently visited us in the evenings and on holidays. I remember them but dimly as a chattering, perfumed bunch who liked to sweep me into their midst for pillowy embraces that left me a little dizzy from the clash of scents they wore.

6. What were three things you liked to do when you were a child?

I liked to attend my mother as she fished, though I never had the patience to stay for long. I liked to be swept up by my aunts into a communal embrace. Once I arrived at the Teuirs, I liked to scramble to the bottom of the Great Table in order to gaze upward at the sight. It never fails to leave me in awe. The climb back up, and the amount of time the entire expedition takes, severely limited the amount of times I could partake in such a delight when I was fairly young. At that age, I could rarely maintain my enthusiasm long enough to reach the bottom, especially knowing how difficult the climb is. Still, I was now and then seized by the urge, and I never regretted it.

7. What were you afraid of when you were a child?

When I was first taken, I was so afraid that my parents would replace me with another child and forget about me that I often wept at the idea.

8. How did you respond to the physiological and psychological changes in your life as a teenager?

The Quis, especially with Quisans, counsel great meditation for the inner and outer turmoil of that period. Lessons with young Quis during that transition are very carefully monitored for dangerous outbursts. When one becomes flushed with tumultuous sensations, heavy exercise is also recommended. During this period, I descended and ascended the Grand Table dozens of times. The final ascent was always sufficient to cure me of whatever strange ardor had seized me.

9. What makes you happy now?

I enjoy my work with the young Quis. It is astonishing to watch them progress from lost children to peers, and it is astonishing to think that I too underwent such a change. The bulk of my time is taken up with teaching specialized courses of the Amethyst tradition, but I have also been appointed Special Counsellor to half a dozen Quisans who require additional guidance.

10. What is your greatest fear?

The appropriate Quis answer would invoke the Wars and the harbinger that ever lingers of another Rupture, but frankness is preferable to a facade of propriety. My first instinct is to say that my greatest fear is that I shall never discover anything more about the death of my dearest friend, but I realize that I have a fear greater than that - that one day I shall no longer care.

11. What would you change about yourself if you could?

The Quis always seek to better themselves, but they must also honor their creation. Another appropriate Quis response here, if that did not satisfy, would be - I would change the stubbornness that prevents me from knowing harmony. But so much I have I seen of the dangers of self-delusion that I shall attempt another honest answer, painful though it might be.

I would change... my dedication to my duties at the Great Table. I dream of haring away to seek the truth of (name)'s death, but even my dreams are shackled by a sense of duty heavier than iron.

12. What is it that you have never told anyone?

I have never told anyone that I dream of leaving here, but in the interests of an original response, I shall say that I have never told anyone the true circumstances surrounding the death of my dear professor, nor of the thought-link that existed between one of the Amethyst and myself. The Great Table and its quiet people harbor many secrets, without doubt to our detriment.

13. What do you want?

I want to find the truth, and I want to see the girl whose face appeared in a secret room.


I do have a better handle on Love Interest now though I couldn't remember any of the names of the characters he mentions. Oh well. I do like my names for the various Mage Tower aspects: "Quis" is the name of either the collective of mages or a hypothetical individual (a bit like "on" in French); "Quisan" is a male mage; "Quisene" is a female mage; "Teuirs" is the Towers built upon the tepui, and the Great Table is the name of the hunk of rock itself. "Quisan" and "quisene" I got from the French words for male and female cousins; I wanted the mages to have familial names for each other, but I wanted something a little different from the typical brother/sister, son/daughter convention. "Teuirs" is a twisting of the French word for tower. It turns out that foreign languages are wonderful for these kinds of made-up words!

So it's getting late, and if I want my eight hours of sleep, I must away. Good night!

Prompts - underwater ruins

Today's prompt is from a Blog o' Odd Things I have in my Google Reader. It's a list of "7 Most Fascinating Underwater Ruins," and my favorite is -

"Situated 68 miles beyond the east coast of Taiwan, Yonaguni Islands are a remarkable place for its rugged and mountainous coastlines. The special attraction is the submerged ruins located in the southern coast of Yonaguni: a superb 100×50x25 meters man-made artifact out of solid rock slabs stands erect at right angles. Its is estimated to be around 8000 years old, which is remarkably early for the kind of technology that has been used for carving it. Different theories exist about the possible identities of this structure.

While some say these ruins are the remnants of the missing Continent of Mu, other archeologists attribute them to be the outcome of unexplained geological processes, although, when you see the finely designed hallways and staircases, this ‘natural phenomenon' idea will appear sheer out of place.

The megalith was discovered quite accidentally by a sport diver in 1995 when he had strayed beyond the permissible limit off the Okinawa shore. The interesting thing about this massive stone building is that it had arches made of beautifully fitted stone blocks bearing resemblance with the building architectural style of the Inca civilization. Debates were rife about the ruins being associated with the prehistoric Motherland of Civilization. Surveying the ruins minutely takes time and skill because of the rough oceanic currents."

Link!

Here's to hoping everything formats correctly. Anyway, wow! Underwater ruins! Giant steps! Missing continent of Mu! Resemblance to Inca architecture off the coast of Taiwan! It sounds to me like the set-up for a Lovecraftian tale, and my two readers will know that I am quite the Lovecraft fan. A quick glance at Wiki shows that the lost continent of Mu did indeed show up in the Cthulhu mythos. Fantastic.

But perhaps I should branch out a little today. Instead of my beloved Mythos and instead of my beloved UFPE (I did a couple more panels over the weekend), I'll try something else.

Oh, now here's a funny idea. Let's see if I can make something of it.

*****

Aurorasdatter was sick of it.

She hated the endless hours she passed wrapped in cotton-wool, shielded from the frightening new turn her world had taken until they were sure that she was ready to face it again. She hated the fashionable psycopathy and the practiced melancolia. She hated everything she had left behind, but she hated even more how much she missed it all.

Most of all, Aurorasdatter hated her name. It was not really a name, or at least not really her name. She would not have one of her own for another nine months, not until she had survived this new world for a full year. It was a morbid custom, but who could accuse these people of morbidity and keep a straight face? And if Aurora should bring another one, another girl, into this frightening world, how would they ever tell the two of them apart?

For all these reasons, and for the vestiges of the spirit of wanderlust that had pervaded her life before the change, Aurorasdatter was running away from her protectors, her teachers, her guides, and her tormentors. She was going to one of their far Eastern enclaves, a tiny place beneath the waves where she could walk about at any hour, without fear of death or discovery. The very thought of living in such a strange, inhuman place made most of them uneasy, but it was that same inhumanity that drew Aurorasdatter. Wasn't that the beauty of this new world of hers, the chance to experience the inhumane?

She would stay belowdecks for the interminable weeks of the passage, surviving off the prey she had captured for just this reason. She could keep him alive for perhaps half the duration of the journey, she estimated, and she would endure the rest of it as long as she could stave off the restlessness that had driven her thus far. A map and an antique astrolabe stolen - was it stealing? - from her own estate completed her luggage.

Aurorasdatter. She winced. What kind of creature of the dark named herself after the dawn, she wondered. She had never met Aurora, not that she could recall; her inheritance consisted of a very silly moniker - daughter of the sunrise indeed - and a group of elders who would have kept her locked in a closet for a decade if she had not taken control of her new life, such as it was. Beneath the gleeful maliciousness and black humor they wore like expensive sable, she supposed that a sort of kindness and fellow-feeling must lurk in their still breasts, but it was a concern that suffocated.

At her feet, the prey moaned softly. Aurorasdatter kicked it irritably, and it quieted. She put her ear to the ship's creaking hull and closed her eyes. Outside, she could hear the waves, shifting and splashing against the wooden planks in a song as old as her people. The wind was older, but it did not carry the same promise it once had, not for one such as she who could no longer brave the open sky with impunity. The waves would welcome her, though. She would walk the carven steps and trace her fingers over the silent, secretive tablets that waited on the sea floor.

****

I have a tendency in speculative fiction to keep secrets unnecessarily from the audience. I know it's a bad habit, but who wants to reveal right away that their main character is a vampire? Maybe it's okay in this context, at least. The shifts in tone in this piece boggle me, but it was fun to write and fun to imagine. Way underneath the ocean, surely it's dark enough to vampires to hang out all day without worrying about a deadly sunburn. It would be cool if they had entire cities underwater. Maybe she's getting into more than she knows! Maybe there's a reason these guys kept themselves away from the rest of vampire civilization.

I'm not sure if anything will ever come of this, but nothing has to. It was a fun piece to write and a fun task to try something beyond my first (or second) instinct for a prompt.

UFPE - Comic update

Too long has gone by since I worked on my comic, partly because I was on vacation and then everything disappeared in the jumble of an open suitcase. And partly because it always seems like such a time commitment to work on it, even though the panel I just worked on took me maybe ten minutes, and that's including thinking up the dialogue and the set-up of the entire page. I should just focus on doing one piece at a time instead of being intimidated by the size of it.

Anyway.

I finished the outline of the Prologue for the Book of Might Have Beens, which may or may not get a title besides "Prologue." There are going to be fifteen pages, chronicling the night of his then-young life that changed everything for Bad Guy! It's riddled with the kinds of cliches that constitute the very fabric of the UFPE: a dying grandmother revealing the Family Shame, teenage (for an Elf) angst, flashbacks galore, a stirring tale of days gone by, and of course, casually spoken words that turn out to have Major Significance. The person who says these earth-shattering words also appears in the UFPE V. 1, as I may have mentioned already. I'm debating letting him discover what he spawned with that conversation, and though I can't see it happening in the UFPE chronology... well, that's what the Book of Might Have Beens is for!

I also drew up a sketch of the first panel of the second page, and I'll probably draw one or two more tonight before bed. Last time I wrote out the script first, but I'm in a pencil-and-paper kind of mood right now, and I much prefer a computer for actual writing. In this panel, we see a young Storyteller standing on a barrel, gesticulating grandly as he tells his story (which appears to us only in bits and pieces), a young Bad Guy watching him agog, and some blurry people in the background who are much less interesting than the story. The top caption says, "I did not yet know it, but that was the day I found my destiny," and the bottom caption says, "Or perhaps my destiny found me."

Very short story - prompt

The prompt for this week at the Livejournal writing community of which I'm a member is: Monument.

Based on bits and pieces of real life, plus a healthy dose of the sort of quiet desperation I get while standing in lines on humid days, I present - Monument (endless wait).

***

He takes her to the monument like it’s supposed to mean something, but all she can think is that she’s hot and a little dizzy from the press of the crowd. His words about duty and honor thrum dully in her ears as she tries to eavesdrop on the conversations of the people around them.

“All I’m saying is: time travel, alien pheromones, old Kirk, and new Kirk.”

“I would kill someone for a pretzel and a Fanta.”

“Now turn your hand up, like you’re holding it!”

“God, I wish people would stay behind the barricades. I can’t even see anything because that guy,” here the speaker’s voice rises sharply, “is leaning over the barricade.”

She’s embarrassed because ‘that guy’ is with her, and he is leaning over the barricades, and she’s angry because if it were so bad, why couldn’t they just ask him to move back? She’s tempted to turn around and snap at them to do something or quit bitching, but instead she closes her eyes and tries to catch a hint of the coy breeze that’s been stirring her hair at odd moments during this very long day.

The sun is too bright when she opens her eyes again, and the monument is still there, and he’s still talking. The nerd is still elaborating a fairly horrifying scenario involving warp speed eleven, William Shatner, and a mirror universe as the snotty tourists behind her continue to whine, and she realizes there’s only one way out of this.

She tugs his hand. There’s no response because this is his favorite part of the park, so she wraps the fingers of her other hand around his elbow and jerks it so hard that he stumbles into her. He finally stops his droning as an expression of confusion and rising irritation crinkles his forehead.

“Wha-” he begins, but he can’t finish because she’s kissing him so thoroughly that the conversation she’s been listening to dry up into mildly scandalized murmurs.

The breeze flutters the hem of her shirt, and the first drops of rain patter her cheek. His hands settle in their accustomed spots, and the afternoon isn’t a complete waste after all.