O is for Obadiah/ Oh no!

Obadiah is was my antagonist for my one story. It's a problem, because every story needs some sort of antagonist (or else where's the tension coming from?) Yes, well, Obadiah is just annoying enough to stop being an antagonist and flips around to be a stinking protagonist. Gah! I don't know what he was thinking, but it was hardly considerate.

Thus I have had to create an antagonist. I think I came up with the solution, but it's still a little wobbly in my head right now. I think I still need to know Obadiah a little bit better, and in order to get to know him better I wrote this little bit from his perspective. It's not particularly good because Obadiah thinks in such boring terms. He's so darn rational, which I was not expecting from him at all. Stupid characters acting out on their own.

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Yeah. I was going to have a post all about Obadiah, but after Wednesday, this post has changed to Oh nO!

This is what me car is supposed to look like:

The car on the left, the car on the left

Yes, yes, I know it's a bad picture. I know I have better pics somewhere, but I do not have the time, nor the energy, to find them right now.

This is what my car looks like now:

It's kerkrunchled

For all of you who are unaware, this is a stop sign:

See? It's bright and red and shiny?

This is a yield sign:

Also red and shiny, but a different shape

The lady in front of me (who found it necessary to go ten miles under the speed limit on the highway) stopped at the yield sign, when there was no traffic in the way. I wasn't expecting that. I wanted to pull out and drive harmlessly away. She wanted to stop. She stopped. I was forced to stop. My car is totaled.

I sat on the side of the road, looking up at the clear blue sky, avoiding the sight of the green goo oozing out of my car (radiator is dead, dead, dead), trying to parse verbs in my head because... Whoops! I had a final in a couple of hours. Fortunately I left early, so I wasn't late. (That would've been fun.) And I did get to meet a nice tow truck driver.

So finals are over. I have no car. I'm starting a new job that's far away from my house (so my parents can't really drop me off) and I'm going on vacation next week. Life will definitely be interesting.

In other news, the end of my contest came, so tomorrow (probably) I will post up the winners!! :D

And now, for a few moments of silence for the death of my Nissan Maxima.

This is Not a Letter of the Alphabet

Two of my finals got moved up, making this week of finals even worse than I thought it would be. Hence the lack of posts. Figured I'd let you know that I'll be disappearing until the end of the month.

Now imagine a can of Campbell's Mushroom Soup. ;)

N is for Names

I totally got the idea for this post from Cheri. Everyone needs to have names for the characters. If you have been able to write a story without the character's names I will... Oh. Wait. Okay, so I DID write a short story and the characters did not have names, but that doesn't count. The point is most of the time people in stories have got to have names.

There can be very many reasons behind the names of my peeps, and each individual story tends to have a theme behind the reason for me choosing the names. Did that make sense? Good.

In Blackburn's Prisoner and Thanet's Curse I chose names based on their meaning, and their origin. This was the first time I have ever done this (writing high fantasy I tend to make up names instead.) It was fantastic! I came across some of my favorite names, like:

Cynferth: Welsh, meaning Beautiful Chief. Wait? Really?? Snap. I thought it meant something else. Oh well. It's still a really cool name.

Cenweard: English, meaning Wise Guardian. I LOVE this name. Sadly, I could never name my child this because he would be made fun of so bad.

Nadra: Swahili, meaning Special. This fits her perfectly. I was trying to find a name that started with 'N' that had its origins in Africanishness. And it needed to be short and I wanted it to mean something like 'unusual' so I was very excited.

Then in Haunbrinth everyone is named after real-life people. Not much to tell there. And yes, I did get permission from everyone. Especially the one girl Steph, because she turned out to be a mad angry person with issues.

Cinnamon and Calamus: or Why You Shouldn't Trust Spakes I have peeps divided in two. First there are spakes, who are named after people in the Bible.

Obadiah: Hebrew, God's worker

Solomon: Hebrew, Peace

Micaiah : Hebrew, who is like God?

Sweet! I didn't know what they meant before, I just picked them 'cause they're Bible names. That's pretty cool. Everyone else has weird names that come from I don't know where. Some are middle names of the people they're based on, and some people are named things like Scotch, or Emdy, or Jacqueline, just because that's who they are.

Oy. I need to stop having so many stories that are just floating around.

Oh! My sis told me about these! They are magical.

So what about you? Is there any specific reason you pick out names for your characters, or do they just come to you? Oh, and what was the weirdest name you ever used for one of your characters?

M is for Mouse

I MISSED A DAY!!!! Augh.... The shame. *hangs head*

Stupid school.

Anyway, so what happened while I was a way:

My sister lost her mouse. She wrote a letter to him here. What she doesn't know is that her mouse did leaves a note for her, but he left it in my room. He is a very confused mouse, so you can't blame him too badly. This is what his note said:

Dear Smoochie-poos of a Rebecca,

I am terribly sorry that I left without warning. I know you must be very worried. I promise you, it was not my fault. After you had fallen asleep for the night the mice from the ceiling came down and attacked me without warning, stealing me away to their dark domain. The Queen of the Racing Mice (that's what they call her) saw me from a hole in a ceiling and demanded her legions to come and claim me as one of their own. I had no choice. Now I am eternally stuck up here, where they continually make fun of me for not having a tail. I know you never cared that I didn't have a tail. It makes me missing you an awful lot. I pray you are moving on, finding new mice in the world, because I do not think it possible for me to be free from the clutches of the Queen of the Racing Mice.

Forever yours and tailess,
Your Mousey-wousey

Awww... What sadness. It also contained this picture:

So cute...

I'm not sure if this is the Queen of the Racing Mice, or one of her minions. Hopefully one day the Tailess Mouse can be freed of his captors and find his way home.

P.S. If you've commented and I have yet to visit your blog it's only because of school, my cars brakes having to be replaced, and my general harriedness. I am so excited that I've gotten so many comments, and people caring about what I have to say. You all deserve a muffin!

L is for Languages

The other day my friend and I were talking about the languages we're creating. (She can already talk and think in hers. How cool is that?? Pretty cool. Pretty much a 5 on the E.o.m.) As we were discussing the problem of grammar, letters, and other stuff my friend made the comment that she cannot understand how I have more than one language that I've created.

I will explain it to you. I am insane.

Insane like a pirate bunny!

So maybe I don't have a slip of paper to prove it, and so what if I've never been psycho-analyzed; I'm still crazy. But if I'm not harmful to anyone (including myself) why should it matter? At least, I'm convinced I'm crazy because in a couple of hours I can structure the basic sentence structure and grammar of a language, then I can spew you out a good hundred vocab words. No, I'm not bragging. Bragging is obnoxious and stupid. I'm explaining how this proves that I'm crazy.

Crazy like a purple bunny.

A purple Alien Bunny! Eep!

It's like a disease. I try not to create new languages, I really do. And then a character will randomly say: "Wycujet anu kevredit?" And I stare at the character in shock, because now I have to figure out if 'Wycujet' is a noun, and whether or not kevredit can feasibly be a verb.

Sometimes, it makes me angry. You see, I'm working on this book with my friend 'Lucretia' (I don't know if I'm allowed to use her real name, so...) and it's set in its own world. She is writing from the perspective of Saoirse, and I am writing from Jadena's perspective. We've gotten into some interesting backstory, but I was convinced there would be no languages, because there was no way I was going to get into Yangorian (still haven't). Right. Until Jedrek and Alcandor started yammering away in the Ancient Dialect of Kruje. Good job. I hate you.

This has happened before. In my story, Pixie Princess, I have the main girl, Izka, living with Dwarves. I naively believed she could live with non-English-speaking creatures and not have to deal with creating a language. Doy. I'm an idiot.

Then there's the stupid world of Earac with Lohs, and the Gragan tongue, and I can't even tell you the rest of them.

Then there's the world of Gorsonian with Labiou, which is related to Traluh which is...

Whoops. Stopping. Sorry. Have I bored your socks off yet?

I still can't find a good sock attack picture.

I think I need to make my own.

Ooh... That gives me ideas. Mwahahaha >:)

It's interesting, because I am not bilingual. The closest I ever came to learning another language was when my mum tried to teach my brother and I Spanish, but she gave up when all we could do was make fun of the word for snake. or maybe it was for dove? I don't remember because I didn't learn much. The best part was the Muzzy movies.

I love Muzzy!!

Basically, this is a post for two reasons: 1) I'm doing the A-Z challenge and running out of ideas because my brain is slowly being drained by a Monstrosity name Skool. 2) I'm curious if anyone else has dabbled with creating their own languages. 3) That's all I can think of right now, because I'm translating a section of Akkadian, studying for my Greek vocab quiz, and writing down vocab for the Ancient Dialect of Kruje (ADK).

I apologize if I've bored you, and I'll probably read back through this later and think "wow, I need a life." But what's the point of having a life of interest and intrigue that leaves one tired and bored? I'd rather have a life of boredom that leaves me interested and intrigued.

K is for Kill, Kill, Kill! and Die! Die! Die

I have realized a recent trend through my current wip's. Violence and death. Yup. Happy, huh? In Thanet's Curse I'm having the issue with my characters killing people without regret or any serious moral "hm, maybe I shouldn't kill this guy?" It's very weird. Especially because I'm not a big fan of murder. But seriously, the one girl, Damaria, kills like it's her hobby, and Nadra has these spikes of anger that are just plain dangerous.

No, Nadra doesn't look like this.

But sometimes I do.

The reason behind this is I get very annoyed at movies/books/sandwhiches that show murder like this:

BadGuy: Go ahead, shoot me!

Heroine: I will (hands shake while holding weapon/gun/zap stick)

BadGuy: No you won't!

Heroine: I can do whatever I want! (Hands BadGuy gun.) And I want to not kill you.

BadGuy: Swell. (shoots Heroine/Hero)

This type of scene tends to get me screaming "Shoot 'em in the leg! Shoot 'em in the leg!" Seriously, their leg can heal and that way they won't continue to train monkeys to steal every can of peanut butter in the galaxy. Thus, my scenes tend to look like this:

BadGal: Go ahead, shoot me!

Hero: Sure (shoots BadGal in leg).

See? Simple, easy... But when it's the five-billionth time Hero/Heroine has given up without a fight... I worry. I do have the excuse of it being in a world of fantasy, where maybe murder isn't looked down upon with the same fervor. But. Um. No. A girl kills her father (by accident) in self-defense and she gets banished for so many years. Yup. People still take it as serious as bananas. And bananas are pretty serious.

Feel the seriousness ooze out at you. Bwoogaly-Bwoogaly!

What about you guys? Have you ever had to deal with death in books? Do you find it easy to kill? Even FUN too kill? I mean, not really kill, because than I would have to have the popo hunt yo face down. (On a side note, fortunately I haven't started basing to-be-killed characters off of real life customers. I haven't lost it too badly.)

He, on the other hand, has lost it

*shudders*

J is for Jacqueline, Jedrek, and Jadena

I have a problem. You see, my current wip is based off of an inside joke my friend and I had. So, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal, I based Scotch off of her, and Scotch's best friend, Jacqueline, was based off of myself. Why? Because Jacqueline was only going to be in one scene, so I figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Notice the words "was going to be." Yes. Jacqueline is in a whole lot more than one scene. In fact, she has made it impossible to NOT write her into the series of books. (Yes, it was turned into a series. How? How?) Yes. She will have her own book.

AHK! Do you know what this makes me feel like? Well, um, like I think I'm a super cool person. Can you imagine what that future interview could sound like:

I am the one with the hat.

INTERVIEWER: So, who inspired you for the character Jacqueline?

VAINAUTHOR: Myself, because I am SO brilliant

INTERVIEWER: Wow, everyone hates you.

This leaves me smacking my head on the table asking "Why? Why? Why?" Until Jacqueline came up and smacked me on the head. She told me to make a list of the four main characters.

Scotch: Loud, outspoken, spazz of a person who is cement-hard faithful to her friends

Emdy: Quick-witted, easy-talking, knife-toting kinda' gal

Jacqueline: Quiet, bird-like, mutters curses in Akkadian, Egyptian, or any other language she can think of.

Amarilla: Tends to space-out, spunky, shouts out random words when provoked

The whole reason for this exercise? (Other than being extremely useful.) I realized that Jacqueline is, well, Jacqueline. She isn't me. While we may have things in common, that's normal. I can find things in common with anybody, whether real or not-quite-real. (Seriously, even if it's the fact that we both dislike the smell of puke, I WILL find something in common with people.) Jacqueline has developed, grown an odd fascination for birds, is way more quiet and trusting than I ever will be, and she is completely her own person now. Maybe her personality did germinate with an idea of my own personality, but she grew way beyond me and became her own person. Sweet muffins! How exciting was that?

Have you ever had your own characters become something you didn't expect them to be? And if you would like I'd love for you to write a sentence describing one of your main characters. Just because I love learning more about you guys :D No, I'm not a stalker, really. I just WRITE about them, honest.

Before I leave you to comment, I wanted to mention another couple of characters that keep surprising me. Jedrek and Jadena. They're both from the book I'm writing with a friend (if you ever get confused with how many books I mention, I apologize. I'm such a spazz I end up writing at least three books at the same time, if not more so it sounds like I'm very productive with my writing when really I'm just a spazz.)

Jadena was supposed to be a girl-who-faints-at-blood kinda' person. Yeah. She's a total warrior chick, and is a little bit afraid of babies. Where did that come from?? No idea. But she is also a little bit insecure, which I also wasn't expecting. I'm enjoying learning more about her.

Then there's Jedrek, who was supposed to be not-at-all complicated, kinda' like a rock. Nice, comfortable, dependable. Rocks are NOT supposed to have complicated pasts, and they are NOT supposed to be able to speak a language that's been supposedly dead for the past fifty-odd years. Oh, and he should not be able to speak this language with the local Geikling. Just doesn't happen. (If you're wondering what a Geikling is, he's kinda' made up, and I'm not even sure what he is yet. He IS arrogant and I love him.)

I think that's one of the reasons why I love writing. It's unpredictable, but if someone does get stabbed and dies I don't have to freak out, because I can just shrink the document and walk away from it.

Walkin' away...