Random Stuff

Okay, I'm gonna be honest right up front.  I got nothing this week.  So I'm going to just ramble about random stuff, and hopefully it will all be art/writing related.  Maybe you'll find it interesting.  Maybe.

That story I'm working on:
I thought it would be cool to write a mystery, because I've never done that before and I've always sort of wanted to.  And then I thought it would be cool to set it in Victorian England, because everybody likes Victorian mysteries, right?

So I've been swinging wildly back and forth between, "This story is going to be cool!  I'm gonna rock the mystery genre, baby!" and "WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!?"  I don't know much about the Victorian era, and I don't know how the British police force works. (Are all detectives plain-clothes detectives?  What rank do you need to be to work on a murder mystery?  Do detectives have secretaries?  Did women even work as secretaries in the Victorian era?)  I've bought a book on the Victorian Era, by the way, which is helpful, and, honestly, pretty interesting and I'm enjoying reading it.  It seems like whenever I learn something new about that time period I experience a mix of pride on their behalf, and horror.  That was the era pain killer started being widely used for surgeries and childbirth and stuff.  Yay!  That's so great!  But they didn't seem to know what exactly made for good medicine, because you could buy over-the-counter opium... for children's ear aches.

And, getting back on the topic of writing, if you know the answer to the mystery, then all the clues seem obvious to you, so how do you know which of the clues you're writing into the story are obvious and which ones aren't?

I just need to keep reminding myself that few people will ever read this story.  I mean, I don't intend to try and get it published.  I'm just doing it for fun and for the challenge.  So if I totally crash and burn, that's okay.  Right?  Right.

On the subject of favorite characters:
I'm just throwing this out here, because I think maybe I'm weird about this.  It's really common for me to have two favorite characters in a story: one that I really enjoyed all through the story, usually someone funny or lovable; and one that elicited the greatest emotional response out of me.  So when I try to figure out who my favorite character is, I can never make up my mind.  Do I pick the one who made me smile all the way through, or do I pick the one who made me cry in the end?  They're both my favorite.  You can do that, right?  Have two favorites?

For example, in "Avatar: The Last Airbender,"  Sokka... (do I really want to admit this?) Sokka and I have the same sense of humor.  (And now that I've started in on Korra, he's the character I miss the most.)  But Zuko, of course, was the one who pulled my heartstrings.  And in "Trigun," Vash is awesome in a plethora of ways, but Wolfwood hasn't so much pulled my heartstrings as gotten all tangled up in them so that he almost can't move without getting an emotional response out of me.

So now you know.  I frequently have two favorites per story.

On the subject of critiquing stories:
I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somewhere along the way, I've gotten into the habit of analyzing the stories that I read and watch.  What did I like?  Why did I feel like that part was well done?  What didn't I like?  Why was that part "wrong?"  How could it have been done better?  I'm sure this has something to do with me writing stories myself.  Sometimes I think it's a good thing, because it will make me a better writer, but sometimes I think I'm being awfully arrogant, telling the professionals what they did wrong and how they should have done it.

It's kind of a two edged-sword, because some things, when you start analyzing and critiquing them, only come out more impressive.  The more you pick them apart, the more you see how well written they are.  (Avatar:TLA, I'm lookin' at you!  You are a heck of a well written story!  I applaud you!)  On the other hand, if I find too many flaws, it'll kill the story.  There's a sad sad tale in my life about how I found too many things I didn't like in the Trigun movie, and now I can't hardly think about it without thinking about all the ways I want to "fix" it.

Completely random:
On Sat. Sept. 15, there's going to be a real-life Pro Bending tournament at Lake Hefner.  Anyone can enter, as a team of three or individually.  Individuals will be divided into teams at the event.  Fire is replaced with nerf balls, earth discs are replaced with frisbees, and water is coming in the form of water balloons.  I'm already signed up to be an earth bender with my sister and a friend.  If anyone's interested, you can find more info, or sign up here: https://www.facebook.com/events/304327766332887/  Or you can just show up.  I'm sure they won't turn you away.

Okay, done rambling.  Peace out!

Redwall Happend This Weekend.

I've found myself doing something unexpected this weekend.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, (mostly in middle school), I was completely in love with a book series titled Redwall.  It has a medieval setting, but the characters are all animals.  Think Disney's "Robin Hood."  During that time, I would get online and do RPG's, in which I would jump on a forum, make up a character, and write stories jointly with others in which each person was responsible for writing what happened to their own character.

One of my fellow RPGers was "Aquamarine," who somehow managed to track me down years later.  We've been facebook friends for a while.  This weekend she invited me to join a "Redwall Party" in which she and several friends were going to do an RPG for nostalgia's sake.  My first reaction was something akin to panic.  "Does she know how long it's been since I've read those!?  I don't remember anything!  Something about mice... and I think there were squirrels and otters there, too... and swords..."

But I accepted.

We're "partying" through Monday night, so I've been spending just about all my time hanging about on this forum.  Somewhere in there, I jokingly said, "I have no idea what's going on here.  I'm just posting when they tell me to."  Only I wasn't entirely joking.  I'm holding my own pretty well, though, I think.  Every time I post, someone says, "Thanks, Sarah!  That was great."  So, either, I'm doing well, or they're just making sure to be really nice to me.

I'm writing an otter family, by the way.  A father, a son, and a daughter.  At the moment, the son has been captured by the bad guys while attempting to rescue his friend, also captured by bad guys.  I'm very amused that, early on, we all heard that the bad guys were planning on making the good guys play a cruel version of tug-of-war in order to win back the prisoners, and everyone immediately starts making big, burly otter characters.  (But my character came first!  Hipster Otter was a big, burly otter before it was cool!)

It's all very nostalgic in a very weird way.

That's all for now.  Peace out!