Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

At least I've got the alliteration thing down, right?

Anyway, the 23rd is the day for this month's Disability Blog carnival; the submission deadline is the 20th. The theme is "Birthdays, anniversaries, and other days of commemoration."

The announcement of that theme is what inspired me to write If my grief over Mother's Death were a person.

And then, yesterday, the post where the blog entries to the carnival will be posted goes up, with this bit of writers' guidelines from the curator:

Quote:
"...let's give the lie to the fact that we in the disability community live lives of quiet sorrow and tragedy. Let's make it clear that we are a raucous group of people who can party with the best of them."
Unquote.

And suddenly, my memorial poem of grief seems a lot less appropriate (understatement of 2012? quite possibly).

The thing is, I still really want to contribute something. But the truth is, although I celebrate many things, inside my own head... I really have become socially isolated over recent years -- at least in "meat-space," as some people call it. Looking in from the outside, it really does look like my life is lonely and sad -- except for the Art Garden, I haven't actually been to a party with a group of people in almost ten years.

(And after this year, there will be no more Art Gardens). *cries*

But I still do "celebrate" -- just not in a way that you'll see defined in the dictionary. I mean, could naarmamo be considered a "celebration?" How about NaNoWriMo? [see footnote #1]

How about the pro-fun hoedowns? Those were pretty raucous parties, even if they only existed in our collective imaginations [See footnote #2]... And the muses know (even/especially the muses we "invented" for our stories) I've laughed out loud so much during the span of those dance parties, my stomach hurt and I felt dizzy at times -- I don't drink alcohol, but I sometimes wonder if I get just as drunk on laughter itself, as other folk get on booze.

Maybe it would be good for me to write to my strengths, and wax philosophical, like I did in this post from almost nine years ago (?): The True Meaning of the Season (for this wacky Pagan, anyway)

Anyway, I can't make up my mind about this, and I have less then ten days to decide (five would be better, so I could have five for the actual writing / making (if I decide to do art and/or a video along with a written piece)

So... Halp?
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Footnote #1: Speaking of, when I went to the site to grab the url, it reminded me that I haven't come up with a novel idea, yet... I'm actually thinking of recycling a couple of old Script Frenzy! ideas, but I can't decide between them... or if I want to do either or come up with something new... And actually, this is getting too long for a footnote, and should be its own post.

Footnote #2: Hey, fellow past Hoedowners! I'm thinking maybe of trying to gear up for at least one more pro-fun troll gathering for the 2013 Doctor Who Fiftieth... does that appeal to anyone else? (kind of hard to do a hoedown alone)...

It took me 29,100 words to figure out where my Chapter One starts (metaphorically speaking), now I need to figure out Chapter Two.

( Long, rambling, exposition-- as much to clarify my own thinking as to spell things out for readers-- but it might help you know what sort of thing I'm looking for )

My $29K Question: Something is going wrong on the Otherworldly plane, and two of the "regular visitors" to the Otherworldly B&B seek help of my wizard and MC, to come to the Otherworld and help solve the mystery / fix what's breaking / find what's lost (Wizard and MC could 'travel there' via dreams or astral projection, or maybe just a form of self-hypnosis that allows them to see the world from a ghost's or bogle's vantage point).

But What? Why?

Oh, and gripe: You know what's annoying, for fantasy writers like me? Google's spell check does not recognize either the word "Otherworld" or "bogle," so every time I write them, I get red squiggly underlines.

Finally! After nearly Eight Years of writer's block (is that some sort of record?)!

( Author's Notes (with further thoughts added since last time): )

( No title, yet; she's not yet named 'Eloise'-- length: approx. 5,000 words )

Now: bed.

"Oh, the charge? He's being abusive and insulting, and he won't let me get any work done."

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I'm trying to figure out what my Opening Image^ is, and distill the entire nature of reality of the "normal world" before my story takes off, and Things Change Forever (for my protagonist), in the first 10% of my story.

In my head, the metaphor for the Cure Imperative of our culture is his doctors, therapists, and nurses refusing to even acknowledge the reality of his wings, and repeating the mantra that he'll be free when he can walk. But if I start my story in his childhood, I won't have enough room to tell the story of who he becomes as an adult.

There's got to be a way to do it, but all day, my Inner Critic has been "shouting":

*IT WON'T WORK, AND YOU DON'T KNOW A THING ABOUT WRITING, AND YOU HAVE TO START YOUR IDEA ALL OVER, FROM SCRATCH! (And you're lazy, and good-for-nothing, and will die young[ish] and alone)*

I'd like to stab the bastard through the heart with a silver quill pen. I would.

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*sigh*

I guess this is what you get when you're deeply emotionally invested in your story.


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^(I'm using the "Hollywood Plot" outline guide provided by Script Frenzy, even though I've decided on the graphic novel format -- I figure the plot structure is basically the same, since they're both primarily visual media).

A bit of background:

At new year's I made the resolution to write a novella as a Christmas / New Year's gift for my kith and kin. I was planning on taking a year to write it, instead of NaNoWriMo's insane month, because, after four "Successful" Nano's in a row, I wasn't having fun, anymore. I wanted to be able to slow down and actually talk and listen to my characters.

I then, promptly, got writer's block.

Until this week. All of a sudden, I got an idea for a story. And then, character showed up -- a real character, not just an idea for a character. I could see her in my head; I could hear her voice when she spoke. So this week, I've started writing.

All winter long, I've been blocked. Summer comes 'round, and the story does too. It occured to me that writer's block might be the first cousin to depression, specifically to the seasonal depression known as S.A.D.

And the image popped into my head of "Writer's Block" as an ice dam, blocking the flow of creativity, until the sun's warmth melts it.

So that's what I wanted to draw today: To make word art out of that phrase, shaped and colored like an ice dam, blocking a river a river of words.

I still want to make that. But it's complicated to draw. And it will take more than one day. So I'll post it next week. In the meantime, here's the photo of a real ice dam that I'm using for reference and as a color pallette. I use the eyedropper tool in MSPaint to select different colors from the photo to use in my picture. Getting just the just the right shades of blue, gray, and almost-white to make something look icy is almost impossible (for me) to do by guestimate.

Now, I'm going to make some dinner, and watch Kenneth Branagh in Mystery!

[Error: unknown template qotd]In a "Sword & Sorcery"-type world -- that is set in a 20th Century-like time, instead of the usual 15th Century -- a young woman goes on a long journey to solve the mystery of a recurrent vision.