Mystic Wings

Okay, so I'm writing this blog about the sequel to my Escaflowne fanfic "Dragon's Moon". The sequel is called "Mystic Wings".

"Dragon's Moon" turned out to be more popular than I could have possibly fathomed. I've seen a few more popular fics, but not many. The response is even making me feel like I could actually write something good ... eventually. I still think I need some work, so I'm still working on fanfiction. Wait for me original fiction. Wait for me. *dramatic sigh*

Back when the story was still called "The Darkened Wave" (see my blog entitled "Dragon's Moon" if you want to know more about what I'm talking about with that), I intended to write another book. I wrote about three chapters and hadn't even come up with a title for it, before I abandoned the project. I think I was getting married or something. No wait ... it's coming back now ... I was fighting brutally with my chick roommates, and losing terribly. So, needless to say my creative juices weren't exactly flowing.

This time around when I started working on a sequel for the story, I didn't even look at my old stacks. I remember kinda what I started, and frankly, I remember pottering around in circles and having no plot. But there were so many things left undone at the end of the first book that I felt I had to continue, even though no one had read it at that point. So, this time I sat around and stewed in my own juices (note the ikky word I had to use twice - ew!) for months trying to figure out where I could take the story from where I finished it. At last I completed a 39 page story board for the sequel and after much diliberation decided to call it "Mystic Wings". But just as a little pop-up if you're interested, I nearly went with "Missing Wings". It was a close call and a very difficult choice.

I'm actually really impressed with what I was able to come up with. I'm just wondering if the story be a major flop or a major success. It can really only go one way or the other. Granted people read stories for different reasons and to one person one aspect of the plot is really important and a different aspect is interesting to a different person. Anyway, my audience might be reading for a myriad of reasons. It's difficult to say if it's the mystery, the action, or the romance that's keeping their interest alive. I feel like I fill the bill answering to each of those requirements with my new story, but I'll be devestatingly honest and say that if they're in it for the romance - they'll probably be disappointed, unless they can open their minds to a different interpretation of romance. As a teenager I probably wouldn't have appreciated a story like this, because when I was a teenager I just wanted everyone to get together, kiss, and live happily ever after. As an adult I hate the concept of 'happily ever after'. Quite frankly, it pisses me off. It's also because I have come to realize through my own experience that kissing is not the epitome of romance. And I'm aiming for the top. Nothing but the most heightened form of romantic tension will satisfy me for this story. I want it all, and even if no one reads, I'm gonna get it. And one more thing before I cap off this rampage, if anyone thinks I'm gonna go lemon - they've got another thing coming. Romance isn't skank either.

Okay, now that I've shouted my wildly unpopular views to the moon. I'll finish off by saying that I think "Mystic Wings" is going to be awesome. And I am going to have a F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S time writing it - so there.

The Birthday of Blue Butterflies

I think this blog has sorta declined in quality of late, which is really too bad, but I guess it proves that I have a lot of junk rolling around in my little head. Too much junk to always come up with gold to write about in here. We'll just pretend that I save it all for my 'real' writing projects (as if I have any).

So, it was my birthday this week and I received as presents two blue butterflies from two different people. It's nice to know that my family know me well enough to know exactly what I want. Both of them are enchanting.

Lately, my life has been going through a metamorphosis, if you will (try to think of my butterfly analogy if you can - not necessarily about parenthood, but regarding adulthood - I'll expound on it as I go). I've felt that I have been an adult since I was about 15, and could handle everything. I thought that once you could make decisions for yourself without asking your parents, you were basically there. And being an adult isn't about making good decisions either. I think being an adult is about having the will to make choices, whether bad or good, and being prepared to take the consequences for them. But lately, I'm realizing that my concept of adulthood is flawed.

I think that I'm not exactly wrong with my theory about choices, but that that's not really the essence of adulthood, but rather the first step. Imagine you're a little larva (a child) and you're spinning your tiny cacoon around you to protect you from everything until you're ready to break free and fly away from its safety to launch yourself into the world. You fly away a strong, lovely, capable little winged creature (a baby adult) into the big shiny world. So, departing hence, you come across the troubles that everyone will have: employment, parenthood, car ownership, home ownership, the problem of feeding your young, and on and on. Of course real butterflies don't have these problems, they die after like ... what? A year?

I think as we gain experience on how to handle more problems and more complex problems, we free more of our little butterflies, until we're a whole herd of little happy winged creatures. We perfect our current skills to make room for new ones, until we know all our minions (skills) by name and can move forward with strength and ease. Granted, it's probably not a very good analogy after all, but I'm sitting here thinking of all the excess responsiblities I've taken on since setting sail as a chipper 18 year old, and there are a lot of them. There are so many I'm starting to get tired ... and I just had my quarter life crisis, so now how am I gonna cope?

I figure I'm due for another butterfly unleashing.

Great Forest Spirit

As I've said before, I like to quote things. So, I've been trying to remember some of my favourite anime quotes, and it's not easy. When you read something in the subtitles of an anime, for some reason it doesn't seem as far-fetched or crazy as if you were to hear the exact same line spoken by someone in English. Besides, sometimes the best line is someone just giving a funny look and being like 'WTH'. Anyway, I narrowed it down to three (except one is a manga quote, so you'll have to bear with me). I've also decided to include my No. 4 favourite movie quote for your entertainment ^_~!

"Great Forest Spirit, we give you back your head!"

Princess Mononoke

"Carry the cross on your back and run through the fire ready to die."

Shakugan no Shana

"Okay then, how about we go to lesson three?"

"Eh... What happened to two?

"His fingers say two..."

"In a boxing match, the first impression you give to he opponent is very important. If you can throw you enemies down to he hell of fear with your glare at the start, you've pretty much won 9% of the game!"

"9% ONLY?"

"He's trying to say 90%"

"LIKE THIS" GRRRR!

Gokusen

"You haven't said you wanted that."

"I'm a woman. We never say what we want, but we do reserve the right to get pissed off if we don't get it. That's what makes us so fascinating, and not a little bit scary."

Sliding Doors

Hope y'all enjoyed that.

The Other Half of the Top Ten

Hiya everyone! So, I've already done my anime top five. Well, I'm doing this post on anime's six through ten. Just for kicks and giggles. Once again, probably pretty boring to those who are not anime buffs. And again these are in alphabetical order as my mood seems to dictate what my favourites are.

Fantastic Children

This anime does not seem to be very popular. I can't even find it on animeNfo's top 200, which probably means that it's just not there. Well, it wasn't a very beautiful, as in the drawings were not very pretty. That's not what was good about it. It thought it had a great plot. Actually the plot thrilled me to my finger tips.

It's about six scientists from Olympas (I guess that's the name of their planet). They sent the soul of the kingdom's princess to earth to save her, but the king is furious and insists that they MUST get her back, so they go to earth by putting their own souls into earth's flow. So, they are born and die on earth while searching for the princess. The only thing is that they only have 11 years in which to look each time they are born. If they wait longer than that they'll forget who they really are and be lost in earth's flow. So, all six of them have to commit suicide every 11 years as they search for their missing princess. It's pretty intense.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

This was the first anime series I saw from beginning to end. Due to it's popularity, all 26 episodes were easier to get ahold of than the other series' I'd tried to watch. It's also the only series I've watched in English. I got the idea that watching in Japanese was much more fullfilling right away.

It's a mech one with lots of fighting and a plot so deep and complex that I don't really even want to touch upon it. But it's good, trust me, but I seriously recommend that this is NOT for children.

Rurouni Kenshin

Kenshin is one of the most popular animes of ALL TIME. It has a following like Highlander, or something like that. It has a 95 episode series, two OVAs, and a movie. The first OVA is the gem though, and has had the No. 1 spot on animeNfo for a really long time. It's only been bumped lately by a tie. It's about a swordsman during the Meiji Era who was supposively the master assassin for Choshu. I might have my spelling a little funny (again, way too lazy to look it up).

And there does seem to be something about Kenshin that makes you want to follow him around just to see what he'll do. Anyway, he's one of those characters who is obviously 'THE MAN'.

School Rumble

This one is obviously a parody on the traditional Japanese High School anime. It's so fun! And it's got one of the funnest themes - the love triangle. So, Harima is in love with Tenma, and Tenma is in love with Karasuma. Except nothing ever goes right. It's great.

Scrapped Princess

This is one about a baby who was born with the prophesy attached to her that she was the poison that would destroy the world when she turned 16. So, they drop her off a cliff, and she is forever afterwards referred to as the 'Scrapped Princess'. But the thing is, she's 15 when the story starts, and she's so completely harmless that it seems impossible to anyone who gets to know her that she could destroy the world. Something's definitely not right about that prophesy.

So, there we go. Hope you enjoyed that little bit of pointless fluff ^_^!

Set in Space?

Okay, so here's my post about story settings. This is a MAJOR problem for writers, so it's a good problem for me to tackle in my blog.

Historical Fiction

Have I ever told you guys that I think this is a stupid idea? I mean, it's great if some people want to spend all their time researching an era so they can set their story in it. That's great . . . for some people. Notwithstanding The Dance of the Twelfth Moon, which is really a spoof on a Regency Style Romance, I think that amateur writers who aim to do historical fiction are merely asking for a headache. I think that unless they spend MASSIVE amounts of time researching their setting, it comes off lame, ever so lame, when they actually write the story. There's also the possibility that they will get so hung up on the setting that they'll never actually get their story written. It's just one of the traps that people who WANT to write get caught in.

Fantasy

Whenever my husband reads, he chooses to read fantasy, and when he gets excited about the plot he wants to tell me all about it. Well, I sit and listen patiently until he's finished (I'd like to think this is what I do, but normally, I'm afraid I cut him off after he's done the synopsis for chapter three), and then I respond with one of the following:

• It's just like Lord of the Rings
• It's just like Harry Potter

If you ever wanted to see a guy become completely pissed off in zero seconds, this is a good way. And I shouldn't do it, but I can't help it. Everything he reads does sound like Lord of the Rings. Not that a fantasy setting can't be pulled off properly. I think it's just that once someone has free reign over their setting, they sorta forget to be creative with their plot.

Science Fiction

I sorta favour Sci-Fi. I actually think that the most powerful genre is a combination between Fantasy and Science Fiction. The problem with this one is 'Techno Babble'. It's about as relative to the plot as the setting because it describes the situation. Let me do an example.

• Contemporary Setting "We're trapped. The snow is just too deep!"
• Sci-Fi Setting "We're trapped. The hyper drive just stalled!"

See what I mean? I've been trying to teach myself to spew techno babble like a pro for years and I'm still no-where near the level I need to be. I should probably read more published Star Trek fanfic (notice how I didn't say Star Wars? Yeah, I'm jaded). But then I'd just learn their techno babble. Like that's gonna help me! Sheesh!

Contemporary

*yawn* How boring! Regardless of how boring some authors think this is -- and I know some authors think this. I personally LOVE a setting I can wrap my head around with little effort. I love the extra brain space this setting gives me for thinking about dialogue, the character relationships, the mystery, the plot, and everything else. It may seem boring, since it doesn't require the same craft as the other settings I mentioned, but I think it provides for a lot more fun. But that's not to say that there aren't a lot of challenges associated with writing in a contemporary setting. There are. Basically, I think it comes down to how well you know the world you live in.

Specific Setting

One of my on-line writing buddies once told me that she chose a specific setting for her story because she hated it when people had their stories take place in cities that had no name. I thought this was an interesting gripe. Especially, when I've read a few books that take place in my province and how ABSOLUTELY WEIRD I found them ... and coincidentally totally unconvincing. Anyway, I think this is okay. Well, you could just have it take place in Salem (is that how you spell that?), you know, the non-descript city that all the soap opera's take place in. Yeah, something like that.

Okay, now I'm finished my rampage. And I'm totally out of juice ^_~ as my rpg playing brothers would say.

Sometimes ... It's a little like that

I probably shouldn't be writing in this when I don't exactly have a planned subject. I'll probably just get myself into trouble, but since I don't drink or do many unscheduled things, breaking from the norm and writing just because I feel like it, is a little wild. Or so I'd like to think.

So, tonight I'm on my own. This NEVER happens. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to deal with my empty apartment when it's time to go to bed. Am I going to jump at every little sound? Or am I tough enough to simply go to sleep without all that fuss? I don't really scare easily. I walk at night through my neighbourhood without hesitation (if my mother and grandmother knew, they'd spazz, so please don't tell ^_~). Well, my neighbourhood is kinda scary. I live across the street from a half-way house, and down the block there's an Aboriginal Rehabilitation Centre, and a soup kitchen a block away. And yeah, crazy drunks wander around sometimes, and someone was stabbed in my building right after I moved in, and last week someone was stabbed two blocks away. I'm probably being stupid not to be concerned, but I can't help it. I don't get involved in the drama that goes on around here - mostly to do with drugs. These things that happen are not just random acts of violence, they happen because people get themselves into trouble. And to label the entire area as 'demolition derby worthy' would be going a tad too far. Leveling the place is hardly a plausable solution.

For instance, I live in a building that is made up of one-bedroom suites. Do you know how many kids live here with their parents? LOTS! Like there's room! Most of the people who live in this area live here because of their poverty, not because they're drug addicts or criminals. Being poor is hardly a crime.

So, why do I CHOOSE to live in a place like this? Well, I am naturally obtuse and unconventional to the point of stupidity. I'm just not the kind of person who feels compelled to do things because of someone else's standards. Not that I'm not hurt when people think I'm crazy and tell me to my face what they think of me. I actually have suffered quite acutely at the discovery that I am just not like other people. I'm getting better at not caring all the time. Besides, quirky people are SO much more fun.

So yeah, I don't feel like moving onto a quiet suburban street is going to fullful my every desire to fit in. In fact, I think that when I actually get to that point in my life, it's only going to heighten the distinction between myself and everyone around me. I'm really the kind of broad who would turn her front yard into a vegetable garden just because I didn't own a mower, didn't have a place to store the said mower, and simply wanted to see if it would piss off the committee in charge of the planned community. All that and ... I like vegetables.

*yawn* Right now I feel way too wasted to dig up a garden, so I should probably stop spewing this highway to hell while I'm ahead.

People just want to live convenient lives, and if we all live similar lives then we make it easier for each other. Strength in numbers, ne? Ya know, plug money into the economy, give a reason for someone to have a job, have a business, help people support their families, give people safety and security, let people die respectably, and then go around the circle again. That's the American way! . . . but I'm not an American. I really shouldn't let my mind rot like this, but I just think there's got to be a better way . . .

Ah ... I've been listening to too much Alphaville.