I'm sure my one reader who cannot attend the flensings is dying to know how it went. It went well! Overall people enjoyed the story, the larger universe, the characters, the runic art, and some little turns of phrase and description I threw in. The criticisms were helpful: further develop the Miqo/Kinarre relationship (perhaps with a scene at the bar), make clearer what's causing all hell to break loose, tie the larger story together somehow, bring the characters together to make these short stories mean something larger, re-visit some specific passages, end section with some sort of closure.
I'm thinking right now that I'll have the two agents of Jemma-Verse II be the thread that ties these together; I also like the idea of news articles and things floating through the story, seen by characters in different stories. My biggest problem is figuring out where the larger story goes (and for that matter, where exactly it begins - with Jemma or even earlier?).
Another big challenge will be bringing the characters back to continue their stories; as I've been thinking about it, Jemma and Elorna were killed. But that's actually not necessary to the over-arching plot, so I can mess with that. I was thinking I could either have the agents continue to be the Good Guys fighting the Bad Guys who have abducted (but not [yet] killed!) our heroines OR I could have the agents be unwitting pawns of the Bad Guys, and then they could have their own story, interspersed through the other stories, of finding out what they're doing. In that case, the Good Guys have abducted Jemma and Elorna to keep them safe. Maybe it's because I've been watching Alias lately, but I really like this second idea. The agents should get their own story beyond just the police investigation, after all! I was recently talking with one of my loyal readers about digging further into the agents' characters, and this would be a really fun way to do it.
I'm not wedded to anything, and this semester I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to do. But dang, I can almost see this turning into a Real Novel! It really helps that I can work on this in short bursts with these sections, so it doesn't feel like I have a gigantic stretch of Tens of Thousands of Words staring at me.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Jemma-Verse III: Fun Things
As I mentioned, two ideas from my brainstorming session about Jemma-verse Story III really stuck out to me: magical climate change and postmodern runes. Today during a class where students presented their research ideas, my laptop battery died and I was forced to write my questions for the presenters in my notebook. When I wasn't thinking up questions to ask (because I know I really appreciate people at least pretending to show interest in my presentations), I was doodling some of the postmodern runes that will appear in the MC's pet exhibition.
In the story already is a piece which looks a little like a camera. When someone stands in front of the circle, blobs of color appear on a canvas behind the piece. Magic! These other pieces I'll have to mention because they were a lot of fun to draw and ponder. One looks like a bowl of fruit, which you lick; it's perfectly sanitary! Another looks like an origami crane; it just flies around and maybe makes a noise. Another is a structure of some sort built entirely out of spheres. Another is a carved heart inside a vase; when you touch it, it may or may not zap you. My favorite two are: the reverse Jackson Pollack (it's a painting with squiggles of paint on it, but when you walk past it, the paint flies backward and spatters on you!) and the mouth, which has a lot of scary teeth. When you touch it, it bites you and you bleed - but when you step away, you're all better!
And now I must return to the story itself. I had such fun drawing these, though, that I thought I'd share them with my two loyal readers.
In the story already is a piece which looks a little like a camera. When someone stands in front of the circle, blobs of color appear on a canvas behind the piece. Magic! These other pieces I'll have to mention because they were a lot of fun to draw and ponder. One looks like a bowl of fruit, which you lick; it's perfectly sanitary! Another looks like an origami crane; it just flies around and maybe makes a noise. Another is a structure of some sort built entirely out of spheres. Another is a carved heart inside a vase; when you touch it, it may or may not zap you. My favorite two are: the reverse Jackson Pollack (it's a painting with squiggles of paint on it, but when you walk past it, the paint flies backward and spatters on you!) and the mouth, which has a lot of scary teeth. When you touch it, it bites you and you bleed - but when you step away, you're all better!
And now I must return to the story itself. I had such fun drawing these, though, that I thought I'd share them with my two loyal readers.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
New Story
Because I am a demented human being, I once again volunteered to be the next sacrificial victim for my writers group. This is not demented because they're all insane flensers - they are, but I'm almost used to it by now - but because I have so much else I should be spending my time on, like my two papers and the two presentations that go with them that are due this semester. One of these presentations is due a week from the day of this posting. Oh God.
The story is another tale of what's coming to be known in my head as the Jemma-verse. So far I've produced two short stories, but with this one I think I should admit to myself that I'm really creating a novel here out of these vignettes. I have other ideas for big writing projects, but I don't want to start those out of writers group-induced "oh noes I have a week and a half to write this" panic. And once I got to thinking ideas and scribbling them on the back of a law review article, I had two concepts that I will not be able to put down until I have them fixed in a tangible medium: postmodern runes and magic climate change.
Actually, the runes aren't exactly postmodern because these people don't use that term to describe that sort of art, and the magic climate change is both highly accelerated and very localized compared to actual climate change. The MC of this is a museum director whose story opens with (probably) her dealing with the latest art exhibition of runic art, though it'll be called something different. For some mysterious reason--magic climate change induced by super-secret gov't testing of magical weapons--the pieces are't working right, and of course the artist(s) are being very difficult about it.
I sketched out a very vague plot arc for this which may well change when I sit down to write this. I have a bunch of homework right now, so this will probably wait for the weekend, but I'm suddenly excited about writing again! My evening classes have been terrible about deflating my enthusiasm because my most creativity productive time has been eaten up by class, travel time, and late dinner. But that class ends at the beginning of March, and I think this story will be a great start to shove me back into semi-regular writing.
The story is another tale of what's coming to be known in my head as the Jemma-verse. So far I've produced two short stories, but with this one I think I should admit to myself that I'm really creating a novel here out of these vignettes. I have other ideas for big writing projects, but I don't want to start those out of writers group-induced "oh noes I have a week and a half to write this" panic. And once I got to thinking ideas and scribbling them on the back of a law review article, I had two concepts that I will not be able to put down until I have them fixed in a tangible medium: postmodern runes and magic climate change.
Actually, the runes aren't exactly postmodern because these people don't use that term to describe that sort of art, and the magic climate change is both highly accelerated and very localized compared to actual climate change. The MC of this is a museum director whose story opens with (probably) her dealing with the latest art exhibition of runic art, though it'll be called something different. For some mysterious reason--magic climate change induced by super-secret gov't testing of magical weapons--the pieces are't working right, and of course the artist(s) are being very difficult about it.
I sketched out a very vague plot arc for this which may well change when I sit down to write this. I have a bunch of homework right now, so this will probably wait for the weekend, but I'm suddenly excited about writing again! My evening classes have been terrible about deflating my enthusiasm because my most creativity productive time has been eaten up by class, travel time, and late dinner. But that class ends at the beginning of March, and I think this story will be a great start to shove me back into semi-regular writing.
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