new week, new month...

Hey! I actually got some work done on Imperfect Hope. Not much, 1k words or so, and some rewriting of a couple of scenes in chapter 2, but it’s work, the first of a long time. I’m sure more will be coming. I did reread everything I’d done so far, noticed a general pattern that a couple of the early scenes were pretty bland, but the last couple I’d been working on before “summer vacation” were, if I may pat myself on the back, pretty on target. I think one reason is that the early sections in question were setting up character and scene, and the latter scenes revolved around some important action, even while it set firmly some aspects of the main characters. I’ll see how it goes from here, see if I can keep up the intensity.

I touched on a bit of Cerryn’s early life in my last posting, and it’s something I’ve been mulling over. In the character sketch I wrote way back last winter, I included the basic details of her early life, how as one of the youngest daughters of a keep holder in the coastal reaches of the confederacy, she faced a probable arranged marriage to cement political alliances, with no real hope of anything approaching today’s standard of happiness. It all changed when she was one of the two children selected that year by the Valnar monastery for training as a questor. I think that stage of her life would actually make a pretty good story in itself, especially after digging around in the dirt to see what makes the grown up Cerryn tick. I’ll see where I fit that in my ferocious writing schedule... ;-)

On the less than happy side, The summer of stress has piled on the physical side-effects. According to Dr. Faini, besides the weight climbing again (despite the weekly personal trainer sessions), my cholesterol is climbing again (though not in the bad area, yet). I’m reminding myself what I need to do, diet wise (“Portion control, man, and put down that loaf of french bread!!!. Oh, and more oatmeal for you...) and exercise wise (once a week doesn’t cut it,) so I”ve asked my trainer to prepare “homework” for me. I’m pretty sure I saw her rubbing her hands together in glee after I asked her...

Writing practice at last?

I wish I understood what it is that motivates me to write. I've felt dead in the water for months now, and all of a sudden, these last couple of weeks, it's alive again. Maybe it was a form of depression, maybe somebody stole my mojo ;-), or perhaps my muse has returned. At any rate, I'm getting back on the ball...


I"ve been digging back into Imperfect hope, working on redepthing (there's a new word) the main characters. Though I'd done a rather detailed character history for both, I felt like there's something missing, hence the 'redepth'. Besides just adding some details, I've decided to spark my interest again with writing some bits and blurbs from their pasts as writing practice. So here goes, a little bit from Cerryn's life, well before she became a questor of Valnor...



Cerryn peeked out from behind the heavy tapestry, trying to remain inconspicuous as she watched the visitor. It wasn't difficult, she and her older brothers and sisters had found dozens of hiding places throughout the keep, and this was one of her favorites. From here, she could listen in on the courtly activities, though most times she understood little of what the grown-ups spoke of. Usually her older siblings would be discovered, either too fidgety or noisy, often they just grew bored and would run off after each other to play or study. Cerryn would keep quiet and listen for much longer than any of them.


From her secret vantage point, the young redheadwas able to listen intently as her mother and father spoke with the stranger. He was short, his hair was cut severly, with a clean shaven face. From where she hid, she could barely hear any of them speaking in their hushed tones, something rarely done withing the great hall. Cerryn knew that her father held an important position within the western confederacy, and that many came to him for advice on all sorts of matters. The great hall was rarely empty of observers, if there was business that needed to be kept quiet, they would meet in the library upstairs. This meeting, and in fact, this visitor seemed different. Both her father and mother seemed unusually deferential. It was especially odd considering the plain attire of the stranger, simple homespun breeches and tunic more fitting to a weary traveler than one meeting with one of the confederacy's councilmen.

"Cerryn, come here and meet the abbot-questor" called her mother. For a moment, she wondered how her mom knew she was there, and for a few seconds, the red haired youngster tried to stay very still behind the tapestry. When Cerryn peeked out again, she saw all three adults were looking her way. She grimaced, wondering if she were in trouble, and stepped out from behind the wall hanging that depicted the hills that overlooked their ancestral lands. Then, she recognized what her mother had called the stranger, abbot-questor. There would be only one reason the abbot-questor would be visiting the keep. Her heart leapt with hope, even as she kept her face calm. Her feet betrayed her excitement though, and the 6 year old almost ran to meet the legendary sword master of the Valnorian questors...

New Stuff

I've rearranged a few items, including bringing the sunset of the day up to the left column, moved the quote of the day to the left, and added a reaction poll for each posting. The reaction poll will give me a snapshot on what I wrote about, and whether I should work more on it. I also added another poll, this one to gauge the interest in what I should write about in the future. Help me build interest.....

I've also added an opportunity to become a follower of my blog. I think this requires you to register with blogspot, though honestly, you can use any alias you want. One advantage is that you can get an email when I've updated the blog, post a picture of you (or your favorite mushroom) and follow other blogs from a dashboard when you log it. I'll be exploring it a bit myself to determine if it'll be useful or merely fluff.

Speaking of fluff, (nice segue, even if fluff has nothing to do with the rest of this note). Art raised some more questions about my timeline for Imperfect Hope, compared to the Brandis and the companions of Elorna era. I sat down and started charting out "THE BIG PICTURE", a time line from the earliest K'tath history, to beyond the time of IH. No year spacing yet, I'm just putting things into a perspective. I'm doing this so I can better understand how much the past (in my many notes about D'oril) can and should influence the stories. I'm rather excited by the ideas that have popped in my puny brain these last few days as a result of those questions...

One final note, my statcounter gadget tells of an average of 10 visits a day to Tales from Doril, about half are regular visitors. I know who a couple of you are, you've left comments, and I'm really curious who else is visiting, and why. Please leave a comment, introduce yourself (an alias will suffice if you prefer) and feel free to join in. Off topic comments are welcome (for now, but if it gets offensive, I'll edit/delete as I see fit), if there's enough commentary, I'll start a weekly "Open Commentary" thread for discussions. Help make this place fascinating...

More to come...
Clear skies,
Jim

Brandis and Merlissa

First of all, mundania... It's Over... Now, maybe we can start to heal and get along???

Writing is coming back. Maybe it's because winter is coming, and D'oril is in the north...

I think everyone who has been reading my blog knows Brandis, in one form or another. I've been doing some writing practice, and one way I"m stretching my brain before getting back to Imperfect hope is to Remember, Rewrite, and Revise stuff I'd done in the past. Character histories are something I have always practiced. That dredged up a bunch of memories, some of which involved how Brandis' character history has evolved over the years.

In the beginning, (gah, I actually used it. Somebody shoot me) his history was pretty simplistic. Something on the order of "He's from the north, and all of his people were killed in a horrible attack". Later on, I added more details, explaining why he came south, what happened, who the k'tath were, and who the bad guys (anyone remember the "Black Axe Dwarves", the original B.A.D. guys???)

Later, as I started working on writing the first games that took place in D'oril, I amended the simple to a bit more complex, "Brandis thinks he's the last of his kind, but in truth, he came south because of Elorna's need". Suddenly, Brandis was no longer a refugee, rather he's now an emissary, though he doesn't know it yet, due to some machination of the goddess that he's not privy to.

Then there was Merlissa. About this time, I was reading a lot of MZB (Marion ZImmer Bradley), which often contained an edge of romance novels. When one of the D'oril games ran, my game aides added a bit of content intended for Brandis' history, (with my permission, albeit unknowing of the details) that smacked of the classic MZB romance. Merlissa, a tentative non-player character, later to become a PC) was wondering where Brandis was, pissed that he'd disappeared, leaving no word, and no clue from Elorna, except a sense of "He's alive, I know it, I'd feel it if he were gone". In the process of feeding information to the players of the mini-game, I was playing Brandis as an NPC, who'd returned to D'oril for some unremembered reason, and had fallen into the wrong hands. The end of the minigame provided the reunion, a classic high tension moment of complicated emotions for the NPC's.

After that, I revised and reworked Brandis history many times, usually adding more detail, occasionally changing something to fit the growing D'oril universe more smoothly. I never revisited the Merlissa story line, in part because the once NPC became a PC, and it wasn't in my rights to rework that part of the storyline. I considered "cloning" the character for my own purposes, but chose instead to stay away from the issue. Instead, I wrote him off in another direction, he faced another exile from D'oril. This one was explained by a short story I wrote about how Elorna intervened directly in a Shadowlord Plot, saving him from the hands of Beauty and the Empire, but in doing so forcing her to pull her hero from D'oril because she'd upset the balance.

Brandis became the center of several short stories, all incomplete writing practices that revolved around his adventures in many other lands outside the IFGS. He played in many IFGS games as well, his character darkening as he spent more and more time away from home. The crux came after a series of very dark mini's that he played in, most of them with Cerredwyn on his team. In them, Brandis and Cerredwyn became close friends, in some ways a substitute for Merlissa, but one that didn't touch on the intimate side of that relationship. Instead, his soul became exhausted by the constant war, this gave me the excuse to withdraw from playing him for several years (actually due to the pressures of being an Air Traffic Controller). In my writings, he found some spirit healing from a k'tath healer sent to help him, though he was still unable to return home.

I wrote about other topics for a while, and played Brandis in a few other games at Ray Michel's request, playing him still as an exile, becoming somewhat of a tragic figure. His mood deepened the more he spent away from home, while I sought through writing a way to finish his story that began as a character history. At one point, I outlined a series of D'oril games that could do just that, but FAA time pressures never allowed me to go beyond that stage.

I've recently gone back to the history, considering what I might do with the saga. Since I'm writing Imperfect Hope in the D"oril universe, Brandis can and should be a part of that, but I've going to place him in a different time frame from IH, probably a few dozen years earlier. The lands of the Seven Tribes, in which the IFGS games take place, have changed to the Confederation, at least in the present. Brandis' saga would detail the re-contact between the k'tath and the people of the south. But what ever happened to him. Did he ever get home? Did Merlissa ever find him again? Should I drop hints about the past, little easter eggs that, should someday I get published, fans (yeah, right) would argue over the meaning of online and at cons.

In the meantime, I"m going to keep practicing. Brandis' history is, at last count, some 40 pages of story and scenerio and random notes, maybe my next project will organize that. More to come later.....

Clear skies,
Jim