(I Also Write Children's Books!)

Friday, July 22, 2011

So, what AM I writing now?

This blog has been slightly less useful to me than my DA account, because I have been unable to post any of my in-progress roughs. What good is a writer's blog if you don't know anything about what he's writing?

This post is an experiment in fixing that problem!

My current project is a book entitled 'Quite Contrary'. It follows the adventures of a nine year old girl named Mary. As always seems to happen to everyone who gets lost, she has an amazing and magical and unbelievable story to tell. Unfortunately for her, that story is Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately for Little Red Riding Hood, Mary Stuart fell into it.

But you can't get the flavor of a book from descriptions. How about some rough drafts of the chapters so far?

Chapter 1, Mary, A Rat, A Wolf, And An Unfortunate Change Of Clothes
Chapter 2, Here There Be Fairy Tales
Chapter 3, Kickin' It In Fairyland
Chapter 4, Girl Meets Girl Canceled On Account Of Wolf
Chapter 5, Blondes Who Hunt Trolls
Chapter 6, Mary Is Briefly Happy
Chapter 7, Freaky Viking Romance And A Fast Exit

The chapters don't have actual titles, but I felt some way to differentiate them might be nice

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

I Went To Hippyville And All I Got Was This Lousy Inspiration

(Cross posted from my DA account where I post my roughs)

So I disappeared for a bit! A trice. A small amount of time. I was gone about a week because a charming young lady of my acquaintance invited me to attend the Oregon Country Fair with her. I had never heard of it, but a week in said young lady's company is always relaxing and fun. Seriously, she's a great friend.

For those who don't know - and I didn't know - the Oregon Country Fair is an annual gigantic (45k attendance) 3-day hippy street fair out in the middle of the woods of Oregon. If you are a hippy or a member of any hippy-associated subculture, this will blow your mind. And I'm not referring to the drugs, because they actually try really hard to keep booze and drugs out of the fair grounds. Those are mainly to be had in unbelievable amounts in the camp grounds surrounding the fair, and camping is about the only practical way to attend the fair.

I had three immediate problems: I'm not a hippy. If anything, I'm a goth. The hardest mind-altering substance I use is caffeine. I hate camping.

Problem one was kind of funny. I received almost no hostility, but a fair amount of suspicion and constant baffled interrogations about why I was wearing a black suit. Ah, noncomformists. You're so conformist.

Problem two merely accentuated how out of my element I was. It's not like anybody so much as pressured me to take a drink, and I don't care what anybody else is doing as long as they don't give me trouble.

Problem three did kinda spoil the event. No electricity? Cold showers on a freezing morning? Man, do I hate camping!

Despite all of that the fair is bizarre and fascinating, and I'm glad I attended once. I saw all sorts of unusual crafts, like hand-made oil kaleidoscopes by a *real* expert. Those were gorgeous. The spontaneous themed parades were also fantastically cool.

Then I got home, sometime late last week. I'm not really sure when, because a week without technology... meant a week without writing. I went kind of nuts and only resurfaced last night!
On the plus side, I do love Quite Contrary and it's coming along swimmingly. This section was meant to be pretty short, but I've learned that a chapter will be whatever length it needs to be, and can't be predicted. And it let me show off the weirdness of Norse Mythology, one of my favorite genres.

Next time: Mary meets the Rose of Delphi! Someday, I'd like Rose to get her own book.