Some things I've been working on.

1) Patches and Pals (WT)

Tasia Henley is seven years old, has a brown eye and a hazel eye, but doesn’t have cancer. The doctors were worried about that because of the whole iris thing, especially when she started complaining that it was really hard to see. Turned out that she just needed glasses.

Actually, it’s her twin Shea who has cancer. Yes, that’s why she’s cross-eyed and has red eyes a lot. That’s also why her eye hurts so much so often. Everything makes a horrible kind of sense now. But Shea is really brave and strong, so Tasia keeps telling everybody that it’s going to be just fine. So stop worrying, ‘kay?

They’re going to do something called an enucleation, which is a fancy word that means when Shea wakes up, she’s only going to have one eye. But that’s OK because it means she gets a cool eye patch, so she might as well be a pirate. And pirates are just so cool, right? Right.

“When you get your pirate ship, I can be first mate, right?” Tasia and Shea’s drawings of their pirate adventures litter the hospital bed.

Shea gives Tasia a pointed look. “Duh. You’re my sister. It’s the rules.” She grabs a red crayon and scribbles in the ship.

2) To Carmen, from Waldo

Where in the world could you be?
Oh I wish there was some way you could see
That you don't need to steal the world
When adventure's all you need
So take my hand and disappear with me*

*Yes, this is about Where's Waldo and Carmen Sandiego. They would be an amazing couple. Search your heart. You know it to be true.

3) Blue Court Revolution (WT)

There was something sort of light and blue flickering in the darkness when he returned. "That was kind of rude, Evan. I was trying to tell you something, and you just ran off." The blue, light thing shifted a little.

Evan squinted. "Oh geez, is that you again?" He half expected her to tell him that the universe was in danger, and he was the only one who could save it. "Why are you blue? I thought we were twins."

"You can see me now? Awesome." The Cora-shape shifted in a way that suggested a sort of strange dance. "And I'm not blue. I'm just wearing Blue Court regalia, but you wouldn't remember that."

Killing Your Darlings

Guess I'm bringing this up because there is a small faction of people in class who want to kill off the president. Well, the character, I mean. (As a side note, it's ridiculous what we can get away with saying just because we're writers. Such as, "Let's kill the president!")

I've got this reputation for killing at least one character per story, and I'm not sure where it came from, because that's really not accurate. I mean, I get really attached to my characters! Even the villains, bless their evil hearts. If I'm gonna kill them off, it's gotta mean something.

And then we have stories where it seems like everyone is dying left and right. I'm sure we can all think of a couple examples. *Cough*Deathly Hallows*Cough*Hunger Games*Cough* And it's like, never-ending sorrow. And it can be really, really difficult to see the point in some of these deaths. Not saying that it can't be used effectively, but there's just that little part of you that got really attached and... yeah. You know.

So how do you handle character deaths?

Character Q&A

You know those questionnaires about your characters that kinda float around the internet, and they're supposed to be really fun and give you insight about your character?

Yeah. I've always found them kind of irritating. I don't know if any of you feel that way. But I picked up a very similar exercise from Script Frenzy a couple years ago that helps just as much.

1) Take a Facebook survey. Any Facebook survey.

2) Answer the questions as your main characters.

3) Happiness ensues.

For example:

102) Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?
Tal: *Hand shoots up in the air* You JUMP THEM. Until the writer says, "Nooo, Tal, your boy is a WEIRD boy, a very weird boy who would have a heart attack if you did that." So then you just tease and flirt and hope he gets the hint, but then he's too big of a chicken to admit that he loves you-
Sim: Um.
Tal: -so you keep trying and trying, even though you start doubting yourself, and then when he's taken away-
Sim: *Full on frontal attack*
Tal: ...Oh yeah. That's what you do. 

Emerald and Pyro: *Exchange look*
Emerald: I thought you used it to make a plan to take over the middle school.
Pyro: Thanks for that... using me for your own selfish gain...
Emerald: It was Hydro!
Hydro: And thank you for your feminine wiles. *Smirk* And you too, Emerald!

:D It's a lot of fun.

Tragic heroes and Mary Sues. This is going somewhere great.

Here's your literary term of the day: Aristotle's tragic hero. If you don't know what it is, well, read up. :)

1. The tragic hero is a character of noble stature and has greatness. This should be readily evident in the play. The character must occupy a "high" status position but must ALSO embody nobility and virtue as part of his/her innate character.

2. Though the tragic hero is pre-eminently great, he/she is not perfect. Otherwise, the rest of us--mere mortals--would be unable to identify with the tragic hero. We should see in him or her someone who is essentially like us, although perhaps elevated to a higher position in society.

3. The hero's downfall, therefore, is partially her/his own fault, the result of free choice, not of accident or villainy or some overriding, malignant fate. In fact, the tragedy is usually triggered by some error of judgment or some character flaw that contributes to the hero's lack of perfection noted above. This error of judgment or character flaw is known as hamartia and is usually translated as "tragic flaw" (although some scholars argue that this is a mistranslation). Often the character's hamartia involves hubris (which is defined as a sort of arrogant pride or over-confidence).

4. The hero's misfortunate is not wholly deserved. The punishment exceeds the crime.

5. The fall is not pure loss. There is some increase in awareness, some gain in self-knowledge, some discovery on the part of the tragic hero..

6. Though it arouses solemn emotion, tragedy does not leave its audience in a state of depression. Aristotle argues that one function of tragedy is to arouse the "unhealthy" emotions of pity and fear and through a catharsis (which comes from watching the tragic hero's terrible fate) cleanse us of those emotions.

This is why the fifth Harry Potter book is my favorite, even though everybody seems to complain that Harry's being a whiny little jerk who thinks he knows better. And I'm like, YES! Harry's being a whiny little jerk who thinks he knows better!

First of all, he was a heavily traumatized fifteen-year-old in the book. Of course he'll act like that. Second of all, it comes back to bite him in the derriere in a major way. He is so sure that he knows what he's doing when it comes to Voldemort and that prophecy, that he basically causes Sirius to get killed. No, it's not completely his fault. But it's partially his fault. If he had, y'know, tried a little harder with Occlumency or called Sirius directly on those mirrors, the battle at the Ministry probably never would have happened.

But then the Ministry workers wouldn't have seen ol' Voldy escaping, and who knows what would have happened in the sixth and seventh books. So yeah. Kind of brilliant how that turned out, actually.

Now... Mary Sues. Some people seem to think that Mary Sues don't have any flaws at all. I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't want to use a certain hated book and movie series (which, believe me, I have a whole laundry list of reasons for despising), so I'm going to resort to what Google says is the worst fanfic of all time.

My Immortal. (Warning: TV Tropes link.) (Now you can really tell I'm a nerd.)

I am so sorry. If you haven't come across this... thing before, I don't encourage you to take it on. It's dangerous to your sanity and you probably will start losing faith in humanity and literacy.

But basically, the main character (Ebony... Enoby? It's anyone's guess) is just this horrible, horrible person. She tortures and murders people, she's self-absorbed, she dresses and acts like she's been around the block a few times, and... ugh, just plain evil. Her (main) boyfriend kills himself twice (*sigh* yeah...) and she doesn't even react. Basically, even though she has nothing BUT flaws, she never makes a mistake that she's held accountable for. And everybody who knows her either wants to be her friend or falls in love with her or is Voldemort. Wait, no. Voldemort falls in love with her, too, I think. I dunno, I can't remember.

You can see what I'm talking about, though, right? Yeah.

So... in other news... I guess the video on 13 Reasons Why isn't working correctly? :/ I'll post it again tomorrow in two parts.

The Life of a Mary Sue

Too busy writing to write a real post (as has been the trend for November), so I give you this. It is quite hilarious and catchy.

Week one.

Blog's been quiet this week. Most of that was because of NaNoWriMo, and also because of homework, of course. Had a paper due on Thursday.

It's been a bit of a struggle, but I've finally got my inner critic to shut up. Also, everybody needs to check out Your Heart, especially the Summer album. The music is just fantastic. In other unrelated asides, I doodled this picture of Rhemy and Oliver today:

Oliver is saying very quickly, "I figured out how to convert Cheetos into ROCKET FUEL! I AM AWESOME!" And Rhemy is thinking, "ADHD or just Evansly?"

Not much I can say about that.

So how's NaNo going for everybody?

NaNoWriMo 2010. It approaches.

Here we have a crappy picture of the main characters, Oliver Evans and Rhemy Starrett. Now. There's a NaNo thread where you can post your characters' PostSecrets, so I made a few of the biggest secrets/driving forces behind my story for this.

Character #1:

Character #2:

Character #3:

This can be a really great way to figure out your characters' motivations and get inside their heads. So I really encourage you to think about what your characters' deepest secrets are. :)

Also, can anyone believe that November is less than a week away? INSANITY.