Here we go!

Welcome back. I've added a new element, at the top left column you should see my ticking time bomb, the countdown. I plan to update it weekly, and I'll be using it as a way of measuring my progress, as well as provide you, dear reader, with a chance to push me and encourage me, and perhaps build some interest in Imperfect Hope. If you think of something you'd like to see or hear about, let me know, one idea I've got is adding the "question of the week". This will require active participation from you. (both of you?). To be honest, I'm hoping you'll ask me questions about either the writing process, plot elements, stuff you'd like to read/hear more about from blurbs, or what my favorite color is. I'm betting that active participation will motivate me to look deeper into what's going on...

So today, I"m going to imagine one of you has asked a question... Any volunteers? anyone? Yes, you in the back with your hand up? can you go to the bathroom? Ummm. Certainly Ray, but I'd hope not here... Any relevent questions? Yes? you in the back with the blond hair and dulcet voice? How did I come up with the title "Imperfect Hope"? Good question.....

The writing fragment I'd posted a couple of days ago came from an idea I'd been nurturing for quite some time. I'd imagined a hero, deeply involved in the battles of light versus dark, normally filled with self confidance and hope (and perhaps a little bit of reality blindness) who one day finds herself being stripped of her support little by little. Eventually, she finds herself alone, seemingly abandoned. Her hope disappears, her spirit is infected with darkness and shadow. When help does arrive, it seems too late, but her companion, himself only recently recovered from his own battles with inner demons, never gives up, and shows her where to find her own forgotten hope. She tries to adopt his attitude, but her own imperfect hope (there it is, the title! Eureka!) keeps standing in the way of her ultimate salvation. Finding the path through the shadows to find that salvation is the gist of the tale.

From that idea, I had to develop a plot that first put her in her dire straits, explained how her companions disappeared one by one, and how eventually hope returns. Those of you who remember the IFGS game, Sha'te Valley, may remember that I built it's plot around a similar theme, the players start out ultra confident, but set back after set back finds them, by the end of the first evening, having little to no hope of succeeding the next day. Here is where the real heroes emerged, for even though they saw nothing but darkness ahead, they forged on, finding a tiny bit of hope within themselves that, with a little nurturing, would eventually blaze into a beacon of success. (or so I imagined the players in the game feeling.) Now, what happens if that spark of hope isn't nurtured. How can the forces of light rekindle it in one of their favored champions.....

Thus, Imperfect Hope. Now to keep my own beacon of hope lit in the quest for completion.....