Writing update and character art

I've still been working on "In the Cards", the novel I started for NaNoWriMo last November, but I've taken a bit of a break in order to fill out an awesomely detailed questionnaire for each of the characters in order to better understand them so I can finish the second half of my first draft. The questionnaire is awesomely detailed, but also incredibly time-consuming; they each end up being 14 pages long when finished! So far I've finished Raff and Seph, so I now know pretty much everything I could ever want to know about them- and far more than they would ever want anyone to know about themselves- and I've started working on Tavin and Piper. After those are done, I'll be answering it for Clover, Sprout, Beryl (she's my mystery character, so she'll be added to this blog later), and the main baddie (sheesh, he doesn't even have a name yet). I've got a surplus of characters in this story and these are only the main ones! Basically I got to the halfway point in the story where all the main characters meet up- and I realized I didn't know enough about half of them to easily move the story along. In order to get to the end, both them and I need to know what their strengths and weaknesses are because this will come up. The baddie and I aren't planning on playing nice, you know. ;)

So while I was working on figuring out their personalities and filling out answers for the questions (still trying to figure out Seph's "earliest memory", Tavin's "soft spot", and Piper's "darkest secret"- I told you these were detailed!) I realized that it would also help to know what the characters looked like. Here's one of the downsides of writing a blind protagonist: since he doesn't know what anyone looks like, I hadn't really thought of what their appearances would be. What they sounded like, their personalities, their magic, yes, but not their appearances. So when someone in my Facebook writing group (join us here if you're interested) linked to this character generator, this was exactly what I needed and I got to making avatars of a few of the characters I didn't yet have art for.

First up are Seph and Sprout. Seph's the protagonist, my blind Knight of Wands. He's my stoic (albeit somewhat snarky) healer-priest of Eros who ends up getting stuck with a fox as "help" for his quest and becomes (begrudgingly) the leader of this group of misfits. His avatar is pretty close to how I picture him, although a bit older than he should be for this; at the time of "In the Cards", he's in his early 20s. Sprout is only in this story briefly as her events mostly happen off-screen; she's Seph's teenaged apprentice and the enthusiastic but competent Page of Pentacles. (Since "In the Cards" centers around tarot, I'm continuing my tradition of calling characters by their card.)

Here are Piper and Clover. Piper is one of the main characters and my flighty and cheerful Knight of Swords. She's a priestess of Gale (the god of wind, sailors, and the sea), so when she's not caught in bird form, she has some control over the weather and she wields a mean harpoon. (She also has really awesome hair. I'm not quite sure how exactly she got blue hair dye in a medieval world, but somehow she did.) Clover, my halfling, is technically a main character, but as the prophetess she doesn't have a tarot card assigned to her. The way her magic works is that she can't prophecize for herself or influence her own future in any way, but she has a pretty good idea of what's going on with everyone else.

And last up are Tavin and Raff. Tavin's my large but gentle and pacifistic Knight of Pentacles. He's a young shaman who works with the elements, or at least three of the elements. There's a reason he always carries a bottle, jug, or bucket of water on him at all times. This isn't quite how I imagine him, but it was really difficult to make an avatar of a half-orc. Raff (my Knight of Cups) is in this story as a main character, too, but since he spends most of the time wearing Seph's uniform and those sleeves were a pain to figure out twice, I wasn't going to do it a third time. Instead I made an avatar of what he wears when he isn't in uniform (which I've cosplayed).

As you can see at the top of the blog, the new characters have their own avatar links now; I'll be writing up info for their bio pages over the next few weeks. (Kryro's an old character, but he'll get a bio at some point soon, too.) As well as working on the questionnaires and these avatars, I've also been putting together a timeline and a kind of diagram to chart out the characters and their plot. I may share those later. :)

~Meri

Writing and crafting combine!

I'm still slowly making progress on my novel (it would help if the plot would stop changing every five minutes!), but one of the artsy things I've been working on this month is related to writing. I decided that since I hoard charms the way a dragon does treasure, I'd finally use some and make a charm bracelet based on "In the Cards". I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I'll explain why I used each charm below. (Sorry for the watermarks; I try to watermark everything I upload to flickr.)

-fox
(Felix, one of the animal sidekicks and technically a character in his own right)
-playing cards
(tarot cards are an important part of the story and key into the prophecy)
-a bird, boat, and blue bead dangle
(Piper. She's the shapeshifter who wears blue; her occupation has her protecting ships from bad weather, although that doesn't come into play much here)

-feather and orange bead
(Raff. These represent the feather in amber pendant he wears as his holy symbol)
-clover
(For Clover, obviously; she'll get something else to go with it later)
-arrow, heart with red and white beads, violin
(Seph. As a priest of Eros, arrows and hearts are par for the course, and red and white are the colors of his order. He plays the fiddle.)

-tooth and beads
(Tavin. The fang charm represents the natural [bone, stone, wood] weapons he carries (and also the fact that he's an orc. He has fangs, lol). He's a shaman who works with the elements; the four colors represent air, water, earth and fire)
-knight charm
(the tarot cards that represent all but Clover are knights)
-mouse and key
(Bip, Raff's pet mouse; she's good at finding keys)

The clasp is a heart with an arrow, so that's another Seph-related thing. I'll probably be squeezing in more charms as I unlock more plot points. (But please, don't let there be any more characters to unlock! I already have too many of those!) Now I'm itching to make bracelets for my other stories, too!

~Meri

Dear Writer (from Seph)

((Time for another letter from one of my current characters! Try to ignore his ill humor; he's not usually quite this bad, I promise.))

Meri,
I should have known that you wouldn't let me just wash my hands of this mess and return to Zet. Now I'm caught in a prophecy that I shouldn't have been able to hear which doesn't even make much sense in a place I shouldn't be in the first place. I know (or at least think I know) what parts were about me and what parts were the annoying elf, but who are the other three people involved? If you're going to force me to eavesdrop, at least give me more information! Being told "your elf knows more than he lets on" isn't particularly helpful when he won't tell me anything. I am not one of your immoral Messengers, as similar as you seem to think I am; I'm not going to use mind control to get that out of him.

Besides, I think his god was on to something with the assumption that Raff will react angrily if he learns I've been recruited to keep him safe. If I try to ask what's up, he's going to suspect something and go on the offensive again. I'd rather not be punched in the jaw or tackled again, thank you. I know I can immediately heal, but that's not the point. I'm not the elf's keeper, his tamer, or his punching bag, which is what you and certain gods seem to want from me.

Speaking of, know what really gets me? You could have given some sort of warning that I was speaking with a god! A "Hey, Seph, keep your trap shut so you don't spill snark all over the conversation" would have sufficed. And since when can a deity speak to someone who isn't His own? I could understand if you'd had Eros "ask" for my help, but why Hermes? Is one headstrong elf enough to change the way things have always worked? What is really going on here? It's more than just having to keep him safe, particularly since three others apparently have to share our quest (whatever that is), isn't it? Something big is heading towards us. I don't need functioning eyes to be able to see that.

If it wouldn't be too terribly much trouble, perhaps you can give me a hint of what this is before it happens so I can keep my word and not, you know, let the elf get killed and have the wrath of an angry god fall on me. I'd prefer to avoid that type of ire at all costs and I'd rather not lose Raff if that can be prevented, either. (Shut it, Writer. It's just easier to get around when I travel with someone who can see.)

Unrelated to the rest of this, I want to add that I'm not happy with the addition of yet another pet. We don't need a bird. Are you trying to get us kicked out of the inn? I'm still not happy about that lie to get us there, by the way. In fact, I'm not happy about any of this. Gee, is that obvious?

~Your unamused Knight of Wands,
Seph

Dear Characters (Part 4 of ?)

((Hooray! I hit 50k a day early! I still have about half the story to write, but I'm so happy that I "beat" NaNoWriMo my first time around! I'm aiming to finish the story by Christmas and get to at least 75k words. And whoops, I got tropes all over this entry, too.))

Dear Tavin, my missing Knight of Pentacles,
Umm... would you mind telling me where you went? Piper has caught up with the rest, but you don't seem to be anywhere in sight. Please tell me that the bear did not eat you. I knew that giving that particular animal to the elf as a pet was a bad idea...

Dear Piper, my dingbat Knight of Swords,
You need to learn some paranoia lessons from Tav! You get yourself caught in bird shape, then change back right in front of two strange men! (Okay, boys, really, although they are rather strange.) Granted they did just help you, but maybe a little caution would be a good thing? And no, the fox isn't going to eat you! Chill!

Dear Clover, the card I haven't picked yet,
Have you found your Get Out of Jail Free card yet? It's gotta be there somewhere. You really don't have to give two weeks' notice, you know. Just leave! We all know your boss sucks.

Dear Raff, my animal-loving Knight of Cups (wait, should I be calling you "Zaerin" now?),
Now look what befriending every animal in the world has gotten you: someone who's as talkative and friendly as you are. ... Actually, I'm digging this. You two need to keep talking so that you drive Seph up the wall. I enjoy that as much as you do!

Dear Seph, my defrosting ice Knight of Wands,
You have two friendly companions now. Snark all you want, they're not going away. If you can figure out where I left the orc, you'll find someone quiet to add to your team. I'd look where your elf parked the bear, as it's unlikely that Tav made his way into town and likely also tried to befriend it. He doesn't trust people much, so please keep your sarcasm to a minimum.
(And for the gods' sakes, denial much? You're going to wait until the last possible moment, aren't you? Because distracting the Idiot Hero right before the end is certainly a good idea. *headdesk*)

Dear everyone,
Well, we reached the 50k mark. And you still haven't set off for your quest. In fact, some of you don't even realize you have a quest. What gives? Your gods must be tapping their feet and looking at their watches with impatience. What kind of pawns are you? Sheesh.

~Meri

My characters already have too many personality quirks...

Oh, gods, I got sucked into TV Tropes again thanks to a "Which TV Tropes Fit Your Characters?" thread in the NaNo forums. Let's see what I can come up with for my group of "heroes".

Raff, the fiery and mercurial half-elf Messenger (my Knight of Cups) - Chronic Hero Syndrome, Consulting Mister Puppet, Don't You Dare Pity Me!, Cute Bruiser, Beware the Nice Ones, Friend to All Living Things, The Beastmaster

Seph, the snarky, rather cocky human healer (Knight of Wands) - The Medic (Healing Hands), Jerkass Façade, Deadpan Snarker, Martial Pacifist, Hates Being Touched, Blind Seer (Monochromatic Eyes), Blind Without 'Em, Not So Stoic, Loony Friends Improve Your Personality

And between these two Vitriolic Best Buds. ("Just Friends", I swear?)

Piper, the brilliant but flighty human priestess (Knight of Swords) - Strange Girl, Ditzy Genius, Motor Mouth, Baleful Polymorph, Animorphism, The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body

Tavin, the levelheaded (usually...) and rather reclusive half-orc (Knight of Pentacles) - I Am What I Am, Don't Look at Me, Ugly Cute, Human Pack Mule, Genius Bruiser, Gentle Giant, Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?

And Clover, halfling prophetess who kind of walked into her own cage - Signed Up For the Dental, Dismotivation, Wildcard, Fortune Teller, Screw This, I'm Outta Here, Eleventh Hour Ranger, Spot the Imposter

~Meri

Dear Characters (Part 3 of ?)

((I just passed the 30,000 words mark, so I guess it's time for me to write to my characters again! There isn't anything I feel particularly bad about right now since all seem to be moving along towards the plot, so no yelling at anyone *cough*Seph*cough* this time.))

Dear Tavin, my paranoid Knight of Pentacles,
See, I told you she wouldn't mind! Now please get your jaw off the floor, get over your shock, and head home so I can send you off again.

Dear Piper, my helpful Knight of Swords,
Thank you for being you. He needed to hear that! Now please fly off already so we can move along.

Dear Clover, my whatever card you are,
Yeah, yeah, I know I've been ignoring you. That's intentional; since you're my prophet, I can't write what you see until I know what you see. Please be patient until the bird and the orc catch up. Play a game of Solitaire or something.

Dear Seph, my moody Knight of Wands,
I want to thank you, too. You're finally where I needed you to go! Hooray! Now please get to work on the elf's concussion and I give you permission to tie him to a rock until he lets that shoulder wound heal. I agree: he is a terrible patient.

Dear Raff, my exhausted Knight of Cups,
See, we told you that help was coming. Now please sit still for five minutes so you can stop blacking out! And I'm going to hold you to that promise of a banquet for your mouse; I already promised her fifty different kinds of cheeses.

Oh, and to everyone but Piper:
Can one of you guys please invent sunglasses? Or something? I've never seen so many characters in one place who can sense heat and all of you keep getting blinded by this! Come on, I mean at least two of you have gotten headaches from this so far. Learn, people, learn! If you're nice to Piper, I'm sure she'll let you travel by night so two of you don't end up with migraines again and fall into a pit or something. Sheesh.

~Meri

Dear Characters (Part 2 of ?)

((After two more days of writing, it's time to write to my characters again! This time they're not getting an apology. Characters, you can all blame Seph; he's starting to get on my nerves. You were supposed to be the easy one to write!))

Dear Raff, my Knight of Cups,
I know you're hurt, woozy, scared, and angry, but please try not to go into one of your berserker rages when you feel someone try to untie you. ...Wait, scratch that. Go into that the next time you're unblindfolded because I want to see you kick some butt. However, the following time, please don't. That's your rescuer and he's already in a bad mood. (Although I want to throw a few punches at him right now...)

Dear Clover, my High Priestess (possibly; I still can't find a good card for you),
You got yourself into this mess, so stop complaining that your sleep is being interrupted by prophetic dreams. You're a prophetess and should be used to it by now.

Dear Piper, my Knight of Swords,
I know you like to talk, but slow down a little. Your new friend is feeling rather overwhelmed.

Dear Tavin, my Knight of Pentacles,
You can trust her. Really. You're not going to like the news that she brings back to you, though, but she'll help you.

Dear Seph, my Knight of Wands,
Arg, can you PLEASE just get where I need you to go? The rest are in place and you're dragging your feet. You have two gods pushing you along, a divine canine sidekick, and soon a mouse with a key. Do you get the hint yet that you're needed as a hero? And please remember to duck; your elf doesn't often miss.

~Meri

Writing to my characters (Part 1 of ?)

((The NaNoWriMo forums are far too distracting! Today I found a thread called "Apologizing to your characters for the horrible things you do to them", which is sort of reverse to the "Dear Writer" that I posted yesterday. After the quirks, fears, and situations I've already thrown at them in the first 10k words, I needed this idea. Here are the two apologies for now.)

Dear Tavin, my sturdy and gentle Knight of Pentacles,
I'm so so sorry that I had to kill your parents off. You had the best family that I've ever written and I know you loved them very much. I know I took them away too soon and now you don't have a clear memory of them anymore. I'm sorry I gave you that intense fear of fire. And I'm sorry I'm about to kill off your foster-father. You know he's old and very sick and doesn't have much time left, so hopefully this won't bother you too much. It will be okay, I promise- you'll be meeting up with others who will also love you for who you are and be able to see past the fact that you're kinda green and have pointy teeth. That bird that's flying overhead? She'll love you most. (And she's not really a bird.)
~Meri, the writer who really does like orcs (I swear!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Raff, my brave and loving Knight of Cups (although a Page of Swords at the moment),
Oh gods, how can I even begin to apologize for the things I'm putting you through? I'm so sorry I got you cornered, hurt, and captured. I'm so sorry that you think your brother-by-oath is dead. I'm so sorry that you lost contact with your god. I'm so sorry that I'm going to have you bound in a prison cell while the crazy mage tries to pull information from your head. I'm so sorry that said crazy mage wants to play with you. I'm so sorry that you're the youngest and I'm putting you through the worst. I'm so sorry that I'm giving you your Greatest Fear, but you'll be okay. Your rescue party will be there soon. Stay strong, my elf-boy.
~Meri, the other elven Cups (and as sadistic as I seem right now, I'm not one of those elves)

Dear Writer (from Raff)

((I found a thread in the NaNo forums where the characters write letter to their authors. I always love this kind of thing, so I'm going to be doing that while I write my next story. Here's the first one; Raff pushed past the others to go first. Surprise.))

(Not so) Dear Meri,
Aren't I supposed t'be your favorite? Ye always say I am! But the other four "heroes" (why are there five of us, anyway? Couldn't ye decide which was main?) got nice and calm introduction chapters but ye change narratives jus' in time for me. Aye, ye start me off okay, giving me a friend t'joke with and my pet mouse, letting me think everything's going t'be peachy, then immediately ye take that away! Now I'm captured and ye still have no idea how t'get the blind guy t'me so I can get rescued! Are ye throwing another random divine fox in? Where do ye keep getting those things, anyway? Hermes' Plot Contrivance Outlet and Fox Exchange?

And another thing. What's with that creepy guy pokin' at me? Ye KNOW I don't like my ears touched! If he does it again, I swear he's gonna lose that hand.

I did like how ye had me fight like a cornered cat t'keep my brother safe, but ye knew I wouldn't have a chance once ye realized those weird elves were bigger'n me. Let me at 'em one more time and maybe I'll forgive ye for letting me be caught. Maybe.

~Your spitfire Knight of Cups,
Raff

Working on a new story (and cover art!)

Wow, it's been a long time without an update here, huh? I have been working on writing, though! During a crazy few months (psst: I'm a married elf-girl now!), I've been jotting down ideas for my story. October was spent teaching myself tarot and doing research on things from seabirds to blindness (although in hindsight, I also needed to learn about horses, wagons, and boats too).

And November? Time for NaNoWriMo! I decided to try National Novel Writing Month for the first time ever and as of early on day 5, I'm at almost 7k words and am finally hitting some Plot. This is my longest writing challenge yet since Hidden Magic and The Acoylte's Map got me around 22k and 23k respectively over the course of about three months; now I'm trying for 50k in one month. Fingers crossed I can do that!

Since I'm an artist and need to always be making things with my hands (seriously, it's like some sort of a curse of constant activity), I decided that I wanted to make objects that are important to the characters in my story. This week I made the first: a green tarot bag like the one Clover, my halfling prophetess, carries. I finally figured out a title this week, too (yay! I stink at titles; previous stories had been "Meren's Story" and "Raff's Story" until they were finished and I bummed names off family and friends) so now that I had that and a tarot set similar to Clover's, I made a cover for my story yesterday:

Tarot plays an important roll so that was what I decided on for the cover. I may make a new one later, once I make the objects owned by all the protagonists, and have those with the tarot cards. (And there's a reason for the picked cards being a set of Knights; that wasn't picked arbitrarily!)

Here's a better view of the pouch. I'm so glad I had this shamrock fabric in my art supplies stash since it works great for someone named "Clover"!

This story is going to need a lot of editing once it's done (I've never written without obsessive amounts of editing at the same time before, but those are the rules!), but eventually I'll share it here. :)

~Meri

A look inside my writing process

After months of mostly ignoring my writing muse (technically that's Cyn, but he kind of shares that duty with the rest), I've finally had a chance to really start working on my next big story and boy do I have grand ideas for this one! And timelines. Oh goodness, do I have timelines. This post is going to be a sneak peek of what exactly goes on in my writing notebook while I'm in the "planning" stage of a story.

First up is timelines. Lots of timelines. I think I spent two hours with a calculator just trying to fill in this much and if you know me, you know math is my nemesis. You can click if you want to see the pictures bigger.

Here's a closeup of that top line:

Eventually the big/world events will go on the bottom, personal ones on that top line, mixture in the middle.

Also notes. Pages and pages of notes. In the case of this story, designing and refining five priesthoods and/or deities, as well as the normal plot and character development:

In this picture you can see me organizing Hermes' priesthood above ideas for this story, starting to develop Tavin (everyone, say "hi" to one of the new guys!), and designing from scratch the priesthood of Eros.

And then there are maps... which I haven't perfected enough to share yet. So trust me on this one, I guess!

You may be looking at the notes going "Who the heck are these characters?". It's probably best not to ask, but assuming anyone is reading this and got this far, here's a peek at the four newbies who get to share the spotlight with Raff in this one:
~From far, far north on the northern continent, I'm bringing in Piper, avian priestess of Gale (god of the winds and sailors), who has spent the past few years protecting ships traveling from island to island and coast to coast.
~The next furthest traveler is Seph, a blind priest from an island nation to the north-east; he's the other of the old (Greek-themed) pantheon, being a follower of Eros. He's not as blind as one might think, though; despite that blindfold he wears to cover his odd eyes, he sees what's really there...
~Unsure of where he came from originally, being a foundling raised by a human hermit, the silent one of this group is Tavin, a half-orc. He's not a priest, per se, but that hermit did teach him the ways of the shaman- unfortunately what he didn't learn was how to really interact with people.
~Tying everyone together is Clover, halfling prophetess from the south. Not a gypsy, I swear. All those bells and coins are her magic symbols (or so she says...) and that isn't a Deck of Many Things that she carries- that's her tarot deck, allowing her to see what the future may bring. (When it works.)

I'm thinking I may write something short to move Seph over to where he needs to be, so likely the next writing I post will be only about him- and one of my Messengers who doesn't have her own story yet. If I can get him where he needs to go, this'll be my next story update. :)

~Meri