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main | novel | word count | prep work | journal | links Updates 7.27.2004 Okay, so it looks like I'm not going to reach 50k by the end of this month. But cut me some slack--I'm a lot busier this month than I was last November. I've been writing my qualifiers and working on my thesis report. I am going to try to finish the story, though. Let's aim for the end of August, although I make no guarantees that I'll have any free time then either. [ posted by sya on 9:02 PM : ] 7.18.2004 Well, July is almost two-thirds done and I still haven't gotten half-way through yet. I guess this weekend was a bust, but I'm still saying, that's okay. This month is really busy and I'm not real keen on sacrificing sleep. That's the bad thing about not planning things out. It's not that I can't write, it's that I don't know where to go. Ah well, I certainly don't have any ideas for November yet, but once I get one, I'm going to plan like there's no tomorrow. [ posted by sya on 7:10 PM : ] 7.12.2004 I have started filling out the prep work section for Salamander Hill. It's more to keep myself consistent rather than to inform any readers, if there are any. I know I'm quite behind. It's just unfortunate that I get side-tracked very easily. If I get up to 25,000 words by the 15th, it'll be quite the miracle. I've taken time out today to sequester myself in the library--hopefully I'll get something done. [ posted by sya on 2:08 PM : ] 7.6.2004 About the Characters The heroine is Prudence Carrou, who is by trade, a trouver although she can't exactly put that on her business card. A trouver finds things via magical means but magic in Prudence's world can also mean death. Ultra religious fundamentalists called the Authority (or the Others) use their own powers to punish and kill anyone not brainwashed to believe in their god. Prudence isn't my first female character to wield a gun, but she is extremely trigger happy, especially when guys try to make a pass at her. Dash Martin is also a trouver. He is a closet romantic as well. He can't help himself when it comes to rescuing maidens in distress. That's also the reason why he always gets mobbed by women where his reputation is known. His relationship with Prudence is, to say the least, unresolved. As teenagers, they had both trained to become trouvers under Axel Redding and had viewed each other as competition but as they became older, it isn't quite the same. The instigator of the quest to find Salamander Hill is Cassius Ficket, a city man who inadvertently fell under the spell of a society belle who probably doesn't even know he exists. Ficket received a map to Salamander Hill from his eccentric cousin and wants to find the treasure purportedly hidden there to impress the object of his affections. Of course, this is the story that he tells his traveling companions. He might have ulterior motives. The wilderness guide who takes the group into the Dustlands, a.k.a. the end of the world, is William Altner. He's huge and imposing but he's spent most of his life wandering the edges of the Dustlands, finding sun-sands for a living. He's the best chance for the group's survival when they will encounter the Dustlands' hidden dangers. But is he to be trusted? Wilderness guides are also hunted down by the Authority because they use their powers to survive the rigors of the Dustlands, but their allegiances are quite shifty when it comes to other people. [ posted by sya on 8:59 PM : ] 7.5.2004 I'm behind, but I guess that's okay. The start of a story is always a bit slow going. Even more so when you have absolutely no idea where you're going. Last November, I had an idea in the middle of writing The Reflecting Eye. It was a western/horror story with the protagonist a lone outlaw with a scarred past. The outlaw would fight evil monsters out in the desert. I took that setting and stuck different characters into it. So far, it seems a bit light-hearted but I suppose that's fine too--at the moment, I'm not in the mood to write something serious and dark and angsty. I'll post later about the characters themselves. [ posted by sya on 8:26 AM : ] 7.1.2004 On Writing Well, I'm forcing myself to do some creative writing for this month. Mostly due to this. If you're curious, my efforts will be posted here. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going (no outlines, prior character sketches, yadda, yadda, yadda) except that the genre will be a mix of western and fantasy and maybe some horror. Who knows. [ posted by sya on 7:52 PM : ] Copyright © 2001-2004, S. Y. Affolee Powered by Blogger Comments by HaloScan  |