This is actually a pretty decent drawing for 6 months ago. |
Zarabethe Creates
Satisfying my obsessive compulsions through the pursuit of creativity and personal betterment
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Spoilers
No names, no faces, no colors. Just this picture I drew 6 months ago which tells a very big spoiler for the next several years of the Scepter Continuum.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
I love the Raven Cycle Series Because....
I came in expecting a typical YA pile of mush and was left with really unique, intriguing characters, intelligent discourse, a twisty, unexpected plot, and one of the most original books I've ever read.
This is for an ARC contest of her third book :)
This is for an ARC contest of her third book :)
Thursday, August 14, 2014
The Story Tucked into a Game of Solitaire
I follow this tumblr that is basically a wellspring of writing advice and prompts and really cool stuff to just get people out and WRITING. Today I happened upon this little gem and I let it carry me into the afternoon.
"When I'm looking for an idea, I'll do anything--clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden."
--Kevin Henkes
And underneath that one of the tags read: "That's where stories tend to hide."
This afternoon we had a preemptive Not-Back-To-School party where we took off the afternoon of homeschool and ate doughnuts and played games. I was goofing off, losing games of Solitaire in succession, when this little scene began to manifest itself in my head. Solitaire is really good for things like that: it doesn't require even a third of your concentration to play it well, and I find myself drifting off into writing land frequently. There was one lyric out of a song that stuck in my head, and I couldn't tell you what it originally was, but it transformed into a man saying, "You know we don't do this, (name)." What "this" was slowly transformed into this scene. Don't know if I'll do anything with it, and I left in the original note where I could expand into more background story, but it's actually rather self-contained as it is, and I'm proud of that.
***
"When I'm looking for an idea, I'll do anything--clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden."
--Kevin Henkes
And underneath that one of the tags read: "That's where stories tend to hide."
This afternoon we had a preemptive Not-Back-To-School party where we took off the afternoon of homeschool and ate doughnuts and played games. I was goofing off, losing games of Solitaire in succession, when this little scene began to manifest itself in my head. Solitaire is really good for things like that: it doesn't require even a third of your concentration to play it well, and I find myself drifting off into writing land frequently. There was one lyric out of a song that stuck in my head, and I couldn't tell you what it originally was, but it transformed into a man saying, "You know we don't do this, (name)." What "this" was slowly transformed into this scene. Don't know if I'll do anything with it, and I left in the original note where I could expand into more background story, but it's actually rather self-contained as it is, and I'm proud of that.
***
Roark's surprise was revealed by the
slight straightening of his spine, by the pause before he resumed
pulling his shirt back over his head. The scars that cross hatched
his back gleamed slightly before being covered by his shirt. All
past weaknesses concealed by a plain grey covering. His face was
turned to a profile, but she didn't bother trying to study it for a
response. Roark was too good to show his emotions. His voice was as
stiff as his shoulders.
“You know we don't do that, Leesa.”
He turned toward her then, a carefree look on his face that didn't
quite reach his eyes.
She hugged her knees closer to her
chest. It was these moment she felt the most vulnerable, when she
let her walls slip down far enough that these conversations were
possible. <optional expansion>
“Why don't we do this, Roark?” She
heard her own voice in her ears, and to her disgust it sounded like
she was pouting. She sat up straighter, dropping her knees and
instead holding the edge of the blanket.
“We're both consenting adults. We
are free to make these kind of decisions ourselves--”
“Exactly,” he interrupted her by
foregoing getting dressed and crawled into her space. He knelt in
front of her, nearly in her lap, and she felt his hand on her cheek.
Her face had cooled from the flush it held earlier, and the warmth of
his hand was welcome. She leaned into it, and tried not to look at
his eyes.
“We are making the decision to not
complicate this. You know this line of work doesn't have a long life
expectancy. Let's just have fun when we can and not worry about
anything else, okay?”
She heard the earnestness in his voice,
but she couldn't bring herself to look at it in his face. She never
knew whether he was trying to convince himself or her of that
anymore, and she was tired of trying to guess which it was. She
sighed, and relented.
“Sure, Roark.”
He ruffled her hair like he would a kid
sister. “Good girl.” He leaned away from her and she didn't
bother to hide her glare as she watched him shrug into his shoulder
harness. He checked both guns with a sliding click before
re-holstering them and locating his boots under the bed. He glanced
over at her as he laced them up, and didn't flinch at her scowl. He
saw her tank top tangled in the sheet and tossed it her way.
“Now get dressed Lee, we've got work
to do.” He finished his boots, and slid a black overshirt on to
conceal his gun holster. He gave her a playful wink as he shouldered
his duffel bag.
“That prince isn't going to
assassinate himself.”
Her gaze followed him as he left the
room, and she was irritated when it was blurry with tears. She
scrubbed her eyes clean, and quickly found the rest of her clothes.
She muttered angrily to herself as she shoved her legs into her
pants.
“A simple “Love you, too” would
have sufficed, asshole.”
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Love Letter to a Wayward Friend
Once
upon a time in a world full of stories,
two
hearts of different backgrounds
wandered
into sight of each other.
One
heart was full and round and red, and was
filled
with so much goodness that it spilled out of it
in
ribbons of light that trailed behind it on the floor.
One
heart was shrouded, but if you lifted the hood,
you'd
see that it was covered with old closed up holes
and
scars of past threads.
Here,
you said, as you held out a
shining thread of your hair.
Take
it, it is free, and I am giving it to you.
I
wish to know you better.
No,
I replied, I am
afraid.
I
am full of too many scars, and I don't know if I could handle it
when
you left me behind.
The
heart plucked a thread out of its head,
broke
free one shining piece of goodness,
and
pressed it into the other heart's hand.
It
is only one small piece, I
whisper to myself,
and
it glows so bright.
And
it binds together the holes that are in me.
You
may keep it. I have enough to go around.
Only
when you are ready, spread your own
goodness
to others in the same way.
In
the beginning the thread only shone when
the
hearts were together, and retreated into darkness
when
they were apart.
The
thread that was freely given took root
and
from it grew more threads that healed over the old scars
and
slowly made them beautiful.
The
shrouded heart found it no longer wanted to hide.
There
were other hearts, both brilliant and faded,
and
they were all good in their own way.
All
the heart had to do was offer up one shining thread
one
gesture of acceptance,
and
those hearts began to shine in return.
I
have to leave, you whispered.
There
are others that need my goodness and light,
and
I have to help them.
I
am not afraid, I whispered back.
I
can shine with my own light now.
It
is time to give out my own threads.
I
am not afraid, because where you were
is
not a hole or a scar, it is simply on hold
and
waits for you to fly home.
Because
the spot where you reside in me
is
the shape of colorful rainbows,
desert
landscapes, and flowing rivers.
It
is everything good and beautiful
that
reminds me of you, and
I
do not fear pain of loss.
Because
love does not injure
and
only makes us grow into
more
than we ever thought possible.
I
throw off my shroud as you wind your path away from me.
I
do not need it anymore, because the only marks you left on me
are
proof of love.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Let it Go: Subtly Undermining a Powerful Message
Like every other family that has
children, my entire household has been taken over by Frozen lately.
Middlest girl minion meets me at breakfast in a blue lace cape and
doesn't take it off until school time. We have the soundtrack on
repeat in the background. We took the dvd in to the library for
movie time to share with any unfortunate souls that have not been
bombarded yet. We did not see the movie in the theatre, so when I
decided to finally listen to all the “Let it Go” craziness after
the Academy Awards, and let the kids listen too, they were ravenous
to watch it. Two week of counting down until we bought it, and many
tears shed when they had to wait until after showers and breakfast
that morning.
I had heard a lot of crazy things about
this movie: that it was actually about these two sisters, that “true
love” wasn't the focus, and that they imparted common sense advice
like not to get engaged to someone you just met. I had a lot of
interest in a movie that wasn't all about the girl trying to get the
guy, or that true love is immediate and supersedes everything else,
or that you fall in love with someone as soon as they kiss you. You
know, a movie marketed to children that wasn't over the top, and yet
threw out a lot of the anti-feminist mantras that most princess
movies shove in your face. I was excited to watch and excited to
share it with my girls (and boys!).
Now before I continue I would like to
point out that I usually don't consider myself a feminist in the
traditional sense. I prefer equality and respect, but I prefer it in
both directions, and I feel it is incredibly unhelpful to look down
on women who choose to take traditional roles or have traditional
families. There is nothing wrong with that. I have a uterus. I
make babies. I take care of them. I am a woman, and it is okay that
I do that instead of trying to play both the role of a man or a
woman. For that matter it is okay if someone chooses to do the
opposite that I do as well. When I use the word feminist in this
article, I am talking about the practice of treating women like valid
human beings instead of property or sex objects. You know, basic
human rights.
That being said, “Let it Go” is
really a feminist song, in all the best ways. There is a young woman
who has spent her entire life trying to conform to very restrictive
life by society's norms, and it has continuously grown harder and
harder for her to keep her true self hidden. In a moment of
weakness, she reveals that self to the rest of the world, and amidst
a sea of backlash, runs away. This song is where she finally throws
away her attempts to blend in, and is just herself. I recently saw a
funny gif where someone had photoshopped the words “fuck off”
into the snow magic that Elsa is creating. Crude yes, but also
pretty accurate: she is past the point of trying to please everyone,
and they can just deal with it and leave her alone.
Although I believe the song translates
across all genders and walks of life, it very clearly points at
feminine issues. All her life a woman is held to a ridiculous amount
of standards: she must be demure or she is called a bitch. She must
dress in a certain way or she is called a slut. She must hold
certain kinds of jobs or she faces at the least a lower pay rate, and
usually harassment or not being taken seriously. In action movies
she is relegated to the sex icon or love interest: weak, without
personality, and just there to look at. In this song, Elsa throws
off the prejudice that society pins on her for her gender, and
refuses to play by their rules anymore. She can dress however she
wants. She can behave the way she chooses. She can play the hero of
her own story.
In a way, every single person that
hears this song feels a little bit of this power. Everyone wants to
rise above the part of the victim and be heard. Everyone wants the
freedom to make their own choices without persecution. More than a
song about finding true love, or any other dribble that princesses
usually sing about, this song speaks to the heart and soul of
everyone and gives them control over their own destiny.
Which in a round-about way finally
brings me to the point of this essay: the pop version of “Let it
Go” is a sad mockery of the original and shows just how far we
still have to go as a society.
Now, the remake itself was not that
bad. I am fond of the driving beat they added to it, and they
reworked the song to have a true chorus and have more of the
traditional structure of a pop song. There were a few lyric changes
but they fit in well, I believe. The person that they chose to sing
it has the tone quality and obviously has the ability to hit all the
notes well and hit it out of the park. The problem with the entire
thing though? She chooses not too.
At the end of every phrase, she takes
an exaggerated breath. She does not have to do this: there are
other parts of the song where she holds notes for longer and strings
longer phrases together with no issue. Why would someone have such
pronounced breathing in the middle of a hit song then? There's only
one explanation for it: she is trying to make it sound more sexy.
That is not the only issue: there are
several times in the song that Demi Lovato goes in to hit a note and
instead of “letting go” and belting it out, she pulls it back,
and sings in this breathy, soft voice. Again, she does not have to
do this! There are several times in the song where she hits a note
hard, on pitch, with no hesitation. This is all a ploy to make her
sound weaker, sexier, and inviting to men.
So here you have a song that is all
about throwing off sexist labels and being yourself, and in order to
make it palatable to the rest of the world, you take all the power
out of it. You rework it so that it sounds like an immature girl
trying to engender sympathy to her sad situation (which sounds
suspiciously like a breakup that she is trying to get over) by
getting the attention of the men around her.
One step forward, twenty steps back.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Scepter: A Look Back
Around this time three years ago, I
wrote the first chapter of Scepter.
Now when I say the first, I mean the
first WRITTEN chapter. This chapter would later be dubbed number
fourteen, and now, as it sits here open on my desktop, waiting in the
queue to be edited and then updated to my fanfiction account, it
bears its final number, twenty-three. There are twenty-two chapters
before it, and possibly that many again after it. My chapters
average around 3000 words each, so thus far I have amassed over 75k
words in chronological order in those three years. That in itself
is the size of a respectable novel, and we're a little over half-way
through the story now. I really do expect this thing to hit over
125k words in its entirety.
The story has been through many changes
in that amount of time. When I wrote that first chapter, I was a
different person than I am now. My family, and myself individually,
were going through a very difficult and dark time, and when I first
jotted those notes down in a folder and thought I might do something
with it, the plot line was depressing and vague. There was a hunter,
and her name was Zarabethe. She was a loner by choice. She embarked
on this quest, and became obsessed with finishing it. Even though
she found love, and possible meaning for her life, she threw it all
away in search of this quest. This quest was so old and defunct
that it was obsolete, and would mean nothing to anyone except her if
she finished it. So really it was meaningless to everyone except her. The personality of Zarabethe was patterned off what
I felt I would be if left to my own devices and never felt love or
acceptance. She was cold. She was violent but precise. She ignored
her own needs until it became an emergency situation. The rest of
the world and even her own kind were alien to her. She did not seek
out companionship and did not desire it. She obsessed to the point
of neglecting herself and the people around her. She was never happy
but always sought after the next quest, never realizing what she
needed or wanted. She was like a robot with one dial that turned in
the direction of what she was seeking, and it never wavered. She was
emotionless. I feel like even though I've wasted nine sentences
describing her in the exact same way, I can't stress enough how
extremely unlikeable I made this character. She did nothing but
destroy her entire life over this quest, and then she died alone.
For a long time this was the end of it.
She achieved what she wanted: to be by herself. To find what she
was questing for. And it consumed and destroyed her. The end.
After all, that's a realistic ending, right? We hear stories about
that all time: addicts who go on unchecked and are found overdosed
in the alleyway, penniless and emaciated. Sure, a lot of addicts
reform, and some even ride that line between power and ruin, but a
lot just pass into the next world without even an ounce of regret.
I wanted her to be a mother in the
story, possibly to heighten the similarities between the two of us.
But I didn't want her to be a good mother. In the very darkest
corners of my mind, just a shadow really, not even a fully formed
idea, the child did not survive. She would never out-right kill a
child, not even I could write that atrocity. But maybe she just
didn't care about her own personal safety, and fell too many times,
and caused a miscarriage. Maybe she took such poor care of herself
that when the baby was born it was too frail and died. The most
likely scenario though, was that she was so obsessed with the quest
that even after carrying a baby to fruition, then giving birth, she
would simply strap the child on and keep going. Maybe she would
successfully care for the child and they would both make it. Maybe
she wouldn't, and it would die alone in the wilds somewhere. Maybe
she would become self-aware enough to realize how poor of a job she
was doing, and give the child up to someone who could care for it.
There were a range of possibilities, and none of them happy.
I wrote the first chapter of Scepter in
early spring of 2011. Then I set it aside, and did nothing for at least twelve months. My home life was busy. During that time, I got
pregnant with my seventh child, and things in my marriage were
getting wrung out and then fixed. I looked deep into myself and came
to a lot of realizations about the kind of person I was. Some of it
was downright scary, but they were not the only parts, and definitely
not the ones I intended to let lead my decisions. I gave birth to
our seventh and last child at home in our bathroom. My husband went
back to school to pursue something he loved. We joined and then left
a church. The rest of the kids grew and lived. Sometime in 2012,
around June I think, I sat down and wrote another chapter. By this
time I'd decided that no matter what, the child would live.
Zarabethe would realize at the last moment that she was responsible
for this life, and she would step up to it. I started to think
seriously about actually plotting this story out and completing it.
I wrote three or four chapters during this time, and I really began
to get into the joy of writing. Around this time, I started to talk
to my husband about the story, as I wanted to incorporate his
character into it. It was stop and start, and I was a little
reluctant to involve him creatively. This was my BABY, after all.
It was sometime during that period that I decided that the story
needed to change again.
With the way I had written Zarabethe,
no one would like her. Most importantly, the romantic lead, a man of
normal emotional depth, would have no interest in her at all, and
even if he did initially, she would very quickly put him off and he
would not pursue her. And I realized I did not want that kind of
ending. Inadvertently, my life had changed for the better so much
that I believed in a happy ending again. I didn't want her to
destroy her life for this quest anymore. Which meant I had to make a
decision: happiness and family, or finish the quest. With it boiled
down to that, I added one small but crucial personality detail to
Zarabethe. She was still all of the above, but she knew that she was
not normal, and she desired to change.
The details of the story are still
going through alterations, but since I made Zarabethe want to grow
and change, everything finally clicked into place. I set all my
chapters aside, opened up a new document, and started chapter one.
By the time I got to chapter four, I made a fanfiction account and
admitted to myself that I was dedicated to seeing this through.
There have been a few deviations. With
the success I was finally having at writing out the story of
Zarabethe and Elforen (who now had equal billing, and wasn't just a
side character), I began talking with the husband about how our other
Warcraft characters interacted. They didn't all have to pair off
into romantic couples, but maybe they were siblings, or just worked
together. My husband can be quite creative himself, and he spun me a
tale of his death knight, and what kind of person she had been before
she had been turned, the details of her capture, and what kind of
person she was now. We tended to pair his death knight with my
priest, and I had always thought of my priest as this innocent,
compassionate person who just wanted to help people, and with the
knowledge of his death knight's past, the story just seemed to fall
into place. I wrote the first chapter of Mercy in two days, and I
was really proud of it. I had started out writing one thing, ended
up with something else, but it did exactly what I wanted it to
without really trying. My husband loved it. He had been a little
interested in Scepter, especially since his character was involved,
but Mercy he would not stop talking about. Other people who read it
kept talking about it. I felt the first strings of the idea that
maybe I could write something good enough that other people would
want to purchase it and read it.
I wrote the four long chapters of Mercy
in between writing parts of Scepter. I still tended to write things
out of order in Scepter: the story was so long and winding and had
so many good potential emotional turns, that I wanted to write the
good stuff first. I stopped publishing out of order around chapter
nine, and took down all the chapters I had written a long time ago
until I could publish them chronologically. I was getting serious now.
During this time I also started writing other things: I realized
that if I really did want to publish something that I wrote,
obviously fanfiction was not where I needed to spend all my time. It
was surprisingly hard to create my own world though. Fantasy is my
favorite genre to read and write, but making a working and believable
environment for your story to exist in is exhausting. There are so
many details that you have to either research or completely make up,
and even then you have to research enough to know if what you made up
makes sense. I decided I wanted to create a nomadic race that was
similar to the gypsies, or the Romany. I very quickly realized that
I knew NOTHING about eastern European history, and all the little
ideas I had like putting in bits and pieces of other languages, and
making different customs, down to even naming commonalities and
religious quirks, required hours and hours of research and reading
and by the end I was more confused than enlightened.
At this point in the timeline of
Scepter, we are kind of at a difficult place. Our romantic leads are
separated. Zarabethe is continuing to ignore her growing symptoms,
and Elforen is in a state of denial about what's going on in his
heart. It's gotten a little stagnant, and although there will be
some resolution soon, it's all very angst-ridden. Although I've been
really good at staying in order for awhile, I find I've been
wandering in my mind to happier times, to a point where things are
coming together, where the plot really picks up and MOVES. If I were
reading this story, I'd be getting bored, but plugging along, knowing
that better times are coming. The anticipation of writing those
parts and then giving them to YOU, giving them to my teeny tiny army
of readers, and then sitting back and watching as you gasp and awe
and get excited for what's happening next right along with me, is
incredible. I am SO EXCITED you guys. I've been sailing this ship
for three years, and we're no longer in uncharted territory, we are
smooth sailing now, as fast as I can get my fingers to type it.
There will still be delays. Life
continues on apace, so to say. I have house to keep, kids to raise
and teach, amazing costumes to create, and unlike three years ago, I
have friends and community now that I look forward to interacting
with. Things may slow down and pick up in waves, but I will not
leave you hanging one moment longer than I have to. We will pilot
this course together and land safely on the other shore.
Onward and upward!
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