Wewriwa 03/31/2013

Happy Easter, everyone. It's that time again. Welcome to this week's Sunday Snippet, 8 more sentences from my Novel-in-progress, Eternity's Price. Before I post my snippet, I am going to be borrowing an idea from another fellow Wewriwa-er. I like to listen to music to set the mood for whatever I'm writing. It's extremely helpful. Well, a few weeks ago, Karen Y. Bynum started doing something I thought was cool and adding a link to a video for one of the songs on the playlist she used to write her book, and it gave me an idea. I was supposed to start this last week, but forgot to. Whenever I post a snippet from a scene that I used a particular song to get me in the right mood I'll post a link to a video of that song. Actually, this week's snippet didn't have a song, so I'm going to correct my mistake and post the song that went with last week's snippet.

Introducing: The Athenaeum

Elijah opened this club when he moved to Sangue Collina. It's a traditional British gentleman's club modeled after the kind of clubs he had been a member of over the centuries.It is a members only club, with two different sections. The first room is a normal club, with a bar and a stage for live entertainment, and most weekends there are singers or other such performers. A door to the left of the entrance takes you to the VIP Lounge, which is vampire only. The lighting in that area is brighter than in the first room, and there is another bar where they can order something a bit "stronger" than alcohol. Obviously, the night time bouncer and all of the staff in the VIP Lounge are also vampires. 

Schedules and I do not seem to mix

So... I'm sure that those of you who are regulars have noticed that I have not been keeping to my self-imposed schedule lately. In fact, the only posts I've been making sure of posting when I'm supposed to have been Sunday's Snippets. In addition to Friday's character bios tending to be done on Saturdays - I just now noticed that I never posted Monday's post at all. So, here's part of my problem:

Wewrwa 03/24/2013

Welcome back, everyone. Time for my weekly snippet of Eternity's Price for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Last week, we saw Eli's reaction to a story on the news, followed by him getting a phone call from someone named Jane. Today's snippet is from about half an hour later. We're still in Eli's viewpoint, but we start with Jane talking. Eli has just asked her when Esther was killed, and we start with her response.

Introducing: Jane

Full name: Dr. Jane Beaumont

Age: 72

Apparent Age: 28

Height: 5'2"  Weight: 125

Family: Scholasiticus

Writer's Block is the Devil

Okay, that may be a bit harsh. But I have this one scene that is driving me insane. Trying to deal with a viewpoint character that is basically numb is NOT my idea of a good time. I wrote a whopping 297 words on it, yesterday. Mind you, I have already written scenes that come after this scene, including people mentioning things that happened in this scene. So, I have some ideas. But trying to get into Eli's head when ELI isn't in Eli's head is a new one for me. I have a lovely song that I'm listening to on repeat that is helping me get into the right mood for it. But, the mood isn't the problem. Eli not being all there is the problem. To give you an idea of how long I've been putting this scene off - I started a thread in Scrib asking for advice a couple months ago. Then, I moved on. But, I NEED to go back. For starters, this is the scene that next Sunday's snippet is supposed to come from. Granted, I do have something I can use for that, but that is not the point. The point is that this scene is rather pivotal. It's past time that I bit the bullet and wrote the darn thing.

In other news, I have decided that if anyone ever looked at my search history on this computer, I would probably be arrested. I'm not sure what the charge would be, maybe I wouldn't actually be arrested, maybe I would just be locked in a padded cell. Writers really do research the oddest things. For the most part, mine have been pretty tame. Well... except for the searches on how to store blood, and whether someone could own a blood bank. And last night's searches for signs of exsanguination... Sigh... I spent at least an hour wandering the internet trying to find out what someone that was killed by a vampire would look like. It led to some great lines, but can you just imagine the reaction someone would have to looking at my search history?

What about you? How do you deal with writer's block? And what's the weirdest thing you've ever had to research?

And that is my semi-coherent ramble for the day. Come back Friday to meet Jane.

Live life to the fullest

Happy Monday, everyone. Hope you had a good weekend. Welcome to Positive Thinking Monday - my little way of helping to start the week off on a good note. Today's quote is about living life to the fullest, a kind of fun topic, actually.

"To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing - here is perfection of character." - Marcus Aurelius

Wewriwa 03/17/2013

Welcome to my weekly snippet of Eternity's Price. Today's snippet is the next night after last week's. Eli arrives home from a council meeting that ran shorter than expected and plans on simply enjoying a rare evening free by sitting and watching the news. Unfortunately, the top story of the evening is pretty much directed at him. This week's 8 sentences are his reaction  to it.

Introducing: Seamus

Full Name: Seamus Heffernan

Age: 1027

Apparent Age: 18

Height: 6'1" Weight: 160

Family: Basilius

Fun with Photoshop

Okay, slight disclaimer, I don't use Photoshop, I use Gimp, which is similar to Photoshop, but free. But, "Fun with Gimp" kind of sounded like I was making fun of someone, or something... (Which could be from my sister calling herself a gimp, lately because of messing up her hip.) Anyway. I spent like three days playing with this program trying to make a character siggy for a role-playing game that I'm in, and I'm rather proud of my result so I thought I'd share it with you guys. So, here it is:

The background and text are subject to change, but it's actually the foreground that I'm most proud of, anyway. This actually started out as two different pictures, that I combined (three if you count her pendant). So, to show you why I'm so proud of myself, right now - check this out:

Self-acceptance - Positive Thinking Monday

Welcome to Positive Thinking Monday. For these I'm just randomly opening my Positive Quotations book to a random page and choosing a quote from that page. Today's quote is on self-acceptance - which I admit  is something I need to work on, myself.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Weekend Writing Warriors 03-10-2013

It's that time, again. Time for another 8 sentences from Eternity's Price. This scene is about a week after Catie's arrival. She is in the hotel lobby people watching when Elijah notices her there and comes over to talk to her. Eli was pouting about not having seen her since that first night. When she explained that she didn't want to bother him since he had two businesses and a Family to run, this conversation takes place:

"Well, not only are you my friend, but you are a member of my Family and a guest at my hotel. It's my job to make sure you are settling in okay."

"I guess I've just been being silly, haven't I? This really is a lovely hotel, by the way. And I am not just saying that because it's yours."

"Yes, you have been being silly. That's okay, though. I rather like you that way."

I hope that this little snippet does a decent job of showing something of their relationship. Next week's snippet will be from the scene that starts main plotline. Don't forget to check out the other great writers over at www.wewriwa.com And I am happy to report that I am back on my laptop, so I can once again comment on posts. I may not get to do many today, as my sister is coming over, but I will get to them Monday.

Come back on Monday for "positive thinking Monday."

Introducing: Marcus

Full Name: Marcus Elijah Cornell

Age:  231

Apparent Age: 24

Height: 6'2"  Weight: 170

Family: Basilius

Born in London in 1782. His father was best friends and business partners with Elijah Cavendish, and Marcus was named for him and grew up knowing the truth about him. In 1806 Marcus contracted yellow fever, and Elijah, not wanting to watch the young man he considered to be his nephew die, turned him into a vampire to save him. After spending two centuries travelling throughout Europe, sometimes with Elijah, sometimes on his own, he came to America in 1998. He arrived in Sangue Collina in 2012, once again travelling with Elijah. There he met and fell in love with a young vampire named Ivana Petrovic, though that relationship is often rather tumultous. When Elijah was put in charge of the Basilius Family, Marcus was named his second in command, and he now helps manage the Family.

About the picture: I didn't have an actor in mind for Marcus beforehand. But, this picture, while not exactly how I originally imagined him, just seemed perfect. The actor's name is Henry Cavill. Attribution: "Henry Cavill Shankbone 2009 Vanity Fair" by David Shankbone under license CC BY 3.0

Yes, I admit that my bios seem to be getting shorter and less detailed. While I know nearly everything about Eli and Catie, the others are a bit vaguer in my mind. I hope you guys are still finding them interesting, though.

Sorry for the delay in posting. This weekend was a bit busy. Come back tomorrow for a snippet from Eternity's Price.

Science fiction writers are creepy...

So, I was reading a book last week. An anthology of time travel stories. And I found something both fascinating and a little frightening. There was a story called "Such Interesting Neighbors" by Jack Finney. It's about a couple that travels back in time and the husband is telling their neighbors the story about how they ended up there - though he's telling it as fiction, a kind of "what if" type thing. Well, at one point in the story, he also mentioned some "inventions" he was thinking of trying to get to work. Check this out: "Picture a flashlight with a little dial set in just above the button. There's a lens, but it curves inward, and it's painted black except for a tiny round hole in the center. Press the button and a little beam of light - a special kind of light - no thicker than a pencil lead, shoots out. The beam doesn't spread, either; it stays the same thickness." The neighbor asks what it's for and he replies: "For measuring distances. Turn it on, aim the little dot of light so it hits the end of any distance you want to measure. Then look at the dial, and you can read off the distance from the dot of light to the edge of the lens in feet and fractions of an inch."

Sounds a bit like this bad boy: http://tinyurl.com/avkyvy9 doesn't it? I tried to find out when this thing was invented, but the internet hates me. However I WAS able to find out when the laser was invented - 1960. Which is interesting, because this story was originally published in 1957. Think about that for a second. Here was a guy writing about using something that hadn't even been INVENTED yet to measure distances, and here we are over 50 years later doing just that.

Which got me thinking... and internet surfing. And it turns out that there are far too many things that we have today that were first imagined by science fiction writers to count. Everything from tablet computers to cell phones, to the rockets that took us to the moon - all were first seen in sci-fi novels. Just as a small sampling. Turns out there are entire websites dedicated to this stuff.

Which brings up a question. HOW in the world are these things being predicted decades or even CENTURIES before they happen? My personal theories are that either these people are psychic - or someday we really WILL discover time travel (Another sci-fi staple, after all). Oh, I'm sure that the real answer is that scientists grow up reading this stuff and dedicate their lives to figuring out how to make it actually work. The stories are probably actually the catalysts that put these ideas into people's heads to begin with, rather than somehow predicting the future - but I think that my theory is more fun.

What about you? What's your favourite sci-fi creation that actually happened? And your take on HOW they predict this stuff?

And that's my semi-coherent ramble for today. Come back Friday to meet Marcus.

Forgive and forget?

Okay, welcomed to my newest feature. Every Monday (because what better day to do this than on Monday) I'm going to flip through a book of "Positive Quotations" I found while I was sorting my books to pack them up and post one of the quotes and talk about it. Today's quote is on forgiveness, which is rather fitting considering the conversation I'm having at the moment.

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." - Thomas Szasz

I think I'm running into this, right now. There's someone who hurt me a lot, and I'm trying to forgive him - but he's all upset with me because I can't forget, and I'm still trying to learn to trust him again. I'm not going to get into the whole thing, here. Suffice to say that this quote pretty much sums up my entire opinion on the subject. I can forgive - forgetting is a whole different story. And I'm not sure that I SHOULD forget. I don't know that that would really help EITHER of us.


And I think that may be true in any situation. Yes, if the relationship in question means anything to you, you need to forgive. But, I don't know that forgetting is really the best course, most of the time. After all, forgetting just sets you up to have the whole thing happen again, and how does that help anyone?


I admit to not making much sense, today. I promise that I'll try to keep my "positive thinking Monday" posts more...well... positive from now on. But, what do you think about it? Is it really better to forgive and forget? Or is it better to forgive but not forget?


Come back Wednesday for my weekly ramble - where I'll explain why sometimes I think that time travel has to be real...

Weekend Writing Warriors 03/03/2013

It's that time again. Another 8 sentences from Eternity's Price for my Weekend Writing Warriors post. Because I'm going in order, here's another snippet from the same scene I pulled my first one from 2 weeks ago. This one is from right before Catie walks into the room. I just think that Eli is so darn cute here. It's kind of funny. Technically it's 9 sentences, but since one of those sentences is a single word, I hope you guys will grant me a little latitude.

He smelled her before he saw her. Catie. Even after twelve years, even her scent was recognizable. He quickly adjusted his tie and smoothed his hair back, then laughed at himself. Catie had seen him in army fatigues and covered in soot, she would hardly care about his tie not quite being right, or his hair not being perfect. With effort, he attempted to school his expression, glad that he had asked Marcus to handle this one. The door opened and she was there, her dark brown curls framing her perfect face. He gave her a small smile, and then cut her off as she looked about to say something. "Pretend I'm not even here."

Can I just say that I love vampires? I love that he could smell her, and recognize her scent, through a closed door. Next week I'll probably post some dialogue and you can see them actually interacting. Check out all the other great writers over at www.wewriwa.com

This is where I would normally tell you to come back on Wednesday for my weekly ramble, but I'm adding a new feature. Come back tomorrow to check out something I haven't come up with a name for yet. :P

Introducing: Esther

Full name: Esther Rivers

Age:30

Height: 5'6"  Weight: 125

 She doesn't talk about her childhood, very much. She had a younger sister, who died a few years ago. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she moved to Sangue Collina to set up practice. She was hired by Elijah Cavendish to handle some business for him when he arrived. Six months ago, she discovered his true nature, and after some discussion with her he chose to take her under his protection rather than erasing her memory. They ended up becoming lovers. She also handled most of the legal business of most of the vampires in the city due to them being able to be completly honest with her. Two months ago, she met and fell in love with another vampire, a woman named Jane Beaumont who worked in the local morgue. With the help of one other vampire, the two women faked Esther's death, and framed Elijah's Sire for it.


About the picture: Esther is a red-haired bad girl. Who better to use for her than Lindsay Lohan? Attribution: "Lindsay Lohan" by alacoolb under CC BY-ND 2.0 I don't know if I have the owner listed correctly, the site that I found it on had the link to the license, but no mention of who the owner was, so I used the screen name of the owner of the page.

Come back Sunday for another snippet from Eternity's Price