Tag: link

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Thinking on Madrigar

Run Dark Alley
Madrigar’s Chappi Stall
Drangee Purple with Milk

I’m glad I thought to come back to this. I wish I’d thought to do so 45 minutes ago. I’ll punt and see what I can talk about.

I’ve written this scene a couple times, and in different places. None of them ever accomplishes what I set out to reveal. I’m wanting to detail the sights, sounds, smells, and life of a flea market. Color here. Noise there. A smell from over there. Each time I’ve attempted to set such a scene I end up navigating through the eyes of some character, but that character selfishly starts storying up my description. I don’t mind at the time.

I think my most basic trouble is that I expect to discover the market as I write through the stalls and vendors like I discover a real market. I figure I can make up the details of who sells what and where as I go—maybe I can—but then I give my descriptive POV a name and a life. That character sees the same place differently then I do. If they are a scared orphan they fear the vendors will catch them stealing apples or bunches of rough sweet naggi. If they are a veteran stallman they have no fear and no curiosity instead they wonder how their sales will do today of if Krilla will finally pull down that stupid sign of hers. I don’t mind at the time.

Maybe I just need to mechanically map the place out. Give each of the stalls a product to sell and a name and a proprietor to hawk it. Then I can dolly through the place on a neutral camera. Focusing my scope as I roll past fish mongers, craftspeople, dressmakers, and jewelers.

288 words on day 545

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It’s Sacerdotalicious

This morning went oddly and I find myself writing later than I’d planned.

Plotting rather.

A friend has challenged me to a writing duel. I think it’s mostly self-serving on his part, but since it gets me writing to a deadline I’m happy to oblige. C, if you want to avoid spoilers then you should stop reading now.

I’ve served up three inspirational tidbits (http://www.evernote.com/pub/palisade14/notes): the word ‘sacerdotal’, a picture of a woman’s legs exhibiting dermatography, and another picture of a cluster of floating docks and pontoons clinging to the side of a heap of jungle in the middle of an Asian river somewhere near the coast. He wanted reality, but I’ve made it challenging not to drift into the fantastic to incorporate all three.

Sacerdotal: of or relating to priests or a priesthood : priestly. The secondary definition includes the intimation that priests are required intermediaries for speaking to the Divine. So far I’ve poised this element in my thoughts as mildly ominous. These priests may arrive with plans to spirit my MC away or barter with her family to take her away. I’d like to at least consider some more positive role for this element, but I’ve not come up with one that doesn’t seem lame. Plus I need conflict.

Dermatography: skin writing. Turns out this is a physical aliment rather than a mental one; I was surprised to learn this. I suspect this is partly why I’ve latched on to the priests as nefarious since this one became neutral. I’m thinking my MC will discover she suffers from dermatography. That she will live in a community small enough that no one has ever experienced or seen it. Or if they have, they haven’t shared such experience. Thus far I think she’ll find the dermatography interesting and something to conceal but not something to be terribly worried about until the priest arrive. Or something else sours her complacence. I’d like to make this magic, but I’m tempted to challenge myself not to–partly because I can’t figure out how it would work and partly to make things harder (maybe).

Islands in the stream: I’ve written to this inspirational photo before though I can’t find where that ended up. Or maybe I haven’t yet. Either way it didn’t stand out. I like pictures like this because they smack me in the face with their foreign, but backhand me with their reality. A small city of cargo containers and pontoons clinging to the steep sides of a hill in a river is just too crazy not to compel writing something. Even something bad. I’ve only considered this as my setting, but I could set it up as a destination or a goal of some kind. Maybe the MC lives inland and needs to get to this river-place for some reason. This bit worries me the most so I’m going to do a maquette for it tomorrow or later today extra.

494 words on day 494

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Digital Phlegm

Day 464

When I first started stacking up girl progeny like a squirrel packing acorns away for a rainy day I tried to read feminist writings on the web. Not classical writings or vetted writings or even popular writings, just the random rants of bloggers who happened to be women and happend to be upset about something. I say ‘something’ not because I can’t recall what it was they were upset about, but because I was never sure inthe first place. They all seemed angry and eventually I stopped reading their anger.

I’d been looking for idea on how to raise my kids more gender neutral. To give them a person’s perspective of the world rather than a gender’s. I’m sure I didn’t look hard enough because I didn’t find what I was looking for until yesterday. Kinda.

In two instances related only by temporal proximity I did a bit of thinking. The first was a status update I made on Facebook: “Thanks to Kathryn Bigelow none of my children will ever be the first woman to win Best Director”. The other was a pair of articles about DC Comics’ character Wonder Woman and the bio of the author of each (http://www.digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=1272).

So the first bit is tongue in cheek in a way designed to make others think. Most went for the straight up interpretation that I am just commenting on the hoard of girls I’ve got headed out into the great wide world here in the next several years. That’s fine. I, however, thought down the path of why-are-we-still-having-to-make-these-distinctions and how-long-will-it-be-before-we-don’t-?. That and I hadn’t ever spent much time considering that one of my daughters would be a lead creator. Anyhow, thinking.

The second instance got me thinking less about how Wonder Woman is a man’s tough princess, a madonna-whore, and more about author CherylLynn’s bio. I haven’t a clue what a “warrior woman” is or how one would go about being a “bad-ass mamajama”. I don’t know what it means to be either of those things because I’m not entirely certain what it means to be a warrior or a bad-ass. I’m not an aggressor. I’m not taking life by the balls and making it what I want—never have. This isn’t a plea, just an observation. It’s the thing (lack of thing) that makes understanding my friend’s desire to ride his bike for 100s of miles in a week difficult.

My personality aside, I can see why someone would want to plunge into icy water first, dance without inhibition, or generally suck the marrow of life from the bones of the world (metaphorically of course) and I want some of that for my children.