idiosyncreant | Entries tagged with vigil assistance

I've finally decided this writing avoidance gone over into a ridiculous state of "writers' block".

Which I believe to be a product of pampering yourself and a false idea of "inspiration", so its just kind of depressing on a new front...

I didn't fix that today, though I planned to. Finished the last of the knitting projects that have been official excuses, though. And while I fully plan to cast on a couple more soon, first I'm going to try and make a clean cut of it.

There are some of the usual signs of being close to starting a new novel. While I hate to give up on a project, I would really, really welcome the chance to start something new, and maybe work on the other in the margins...

I can't believe this...

but I seem to be back together with Vigilant! I really thought it was over forever between us.

...I speak tongue-in-cheek, but you can ask several friends who had to talk to me over the past couple of weeks the book and I weren't talking. I was an actual wreck.

***

I have had no luck making certain Korean rappers STOP talking to me. Not that I'm actually hearing voices unless I succumb to YouTube searches. Anyway. This crush will not break up with me...

I know I bring it on myself. This is not a comfort.

***

Most of my best poems are back. I need to work on that...

I've sold a poem to MindFlights Magazine!

Having a bit more trouble filling out their superspecialonlineform contract, but we'll win eventually.

In today's writing landscape, I've realized my characters don't have enough problems. This is an odd thing to realize about your characters that are chained to each other on a high-rise roof, but apparently I can take the tension out of anything. Why am I not surprised?

Finally! Lie To Me (k-drama), finally.

That's the kind of ending note that will have fangirls tearing their hair out, because a week is so long...

Doesn't hurt that it includes one of the most naturally set-up kiss scenes *I* have ever seen in a K-drama, anyway. It was also just a good one, but the beats of it were fantastic.

I suppose that would be the director, not writer. I must say, they're doing good working with what they've got, too.

I'm posting much more about this show at suitdistraction, one riff on how the set-designer is outshining the costumer, and a digression on the hero's trademark fashion statement, with another set-profiling to come...

NGL, that is a fine suit. But look at those DOORS.

***

Tangent on Nursing-the-Sick-Bonding

Once upon a time, I was a wee tyke writing myself running night-time-plays in my head (recent experience tells me it was the sugar keeping me up, now I'm mostly not having any, when I do sleeping is a chore).

Since then I've loved the possibilities presented by injuries and illness to get characters up-close with each other, self-sacrificing. K-Drama overuses it, especially sequences where people are staying up all night to reduce a fever, looking anguished, when really. Really.

oh Boys Before Flowers. You never fail me

(Stellar exceptions: You're Beautiful, where Mi-Nam is clearly delirious and yet is realistically dead set against going in and being found out, a way she wouldn't be unless she WAS feverish. The way she yells at Tae-Kyung. Gah. So good. Also, cliche or not, Kyoko attending Ren all night in Skip-Beat makes *me* feel a little feverish.)

The one in Lie to Me is okay: food poisoning's not as well-worn, having private doctors come and put him on an IV kind of cute, and that push-pull moment of them connecting when he wakes up, and then having to ignore it IS serving it's purpose. But it more made me reflect on this propensity, and how to make it fresh

fabricalchemist will agree with me sometimes getting characters feverish is the only way, and I hope

rhinemouse will back me up when I say there are some tropes you can never get tired of....

I'm afraid Vigil Assistance is going rely primarily on sports-type injuries and psychological trauma to get ANYWHERE.

I'm having a relatively good time, reassembling the opening of Vigil.

For one thing, it's wicked good to just have the thing feeling like it's WORKING.
The first time, there were things I really liked about each character, and each conversation, and a lot of the scenes...but no real chemistry.

And now it seems like that's fixed. I'll finish the redraft of a certain scene and chuckle evilly.

Because everything makes that zinging sound as it goes by.

***

I wanted How To Train Your Dragon Sunday, and it was awesome and adorable, and a piece of art in every way (except maybe plot, which was a solid, working form, no complaints)

but

The SCORE. It is a seriously masterful fusion of Celtic and modern world-style melodies in a symphonic soundtrack. It ranks as one of the few scores that while hearing it made me not only more excited about the story, but really made me want to hear the music itself.

This may seem to be a problem, as far as just underscoring the story without being obtrusive, but I'm a musician of a kind, the same as I am a storyteller, so I notice what's working. Lord of the Rings was one score where sometimes the music was so amazing I thought "I have to know who is doing this". Pride and Prejudice was another.

I'm particularly drawn to notice when they use themes from the actual story (P&P: Regency/Baroque phrasing) to be part of the world-building in the music.

Today's work on Vigil feels more like set-up for starting the revision.
It is necessary stuff, still, and has to be done first, and then I can get to the actual reworking, but...

I go to work tomorrow. It feels a bit like I'm being interrupted to a greater loss than 12 hours, not gonna lie. This is not usually how I feel. Still, today I sent out 3 short stories that have been out of circulation a while, got that started, and even wrote a poem.

So. That's better than nothing!

I think I'm definitely having these problems because I now know much more quickly when I'm doing something the wrong way, pacing-wise. But have not yet started doing it right the first time.
Prolly never will, since I keep writing different kinds of books and it changes...

Also, I blogged a bit on characterization in costume, as relevant to Jang Geun-Suk's character in You're Beautiful. It's going to be a topic in several parts, he is just too much fun to screen-cap...

THAT HAIR
WHY
I MUST KNOW

ahahaha. This show is even better in retrospect. And I *reeeally* liked it the first time round...

Ugh.

I think I dreamed that I got a note back from an editor asking me to stop sending them so much poetry until I really got a handle on my writing.

I say "I think" because I don't have clear memories of that dream, but I woke up with this impression it had happened, but then once I thought about it consciously realized that wasn't true. Checked back over my most recent e-mails to be sure.

Great, psyche. Just what I need, a little more negativity of feeling about submitting stuff!

#

On the other hand!

I've been thinking it over, and I'm pretty sure most of the stuff I've written for Vigilants (superhero PAs in an alt. history New England) just needs to be moved around. I'm pretty excited about putting it all together, actually. I need to type up the rest of what I wrote and print it out so the rewrite will be easier to cross-reference.

It didn't have the right chick-flick layout, is what it comes down to. Or the right urban fantasy pacing--boils down to the same thing for this one, because that's the core structures I'm trying to meld for it.

This is going to be much more exciting, once I've fixed it!

I think I just figured out what's had me at a brain-coma over my latest novel. And it's a classic: started the novel three (or five) chapters too soon.

Weep with me, on the count of three now...

Okay, but more seriously, this is the sort of realization only to be handled by thinking "it will make some excellent bonus features!"

As ridic as that may seem it is one madness or a much sadder one. The opening of that book I'm not actually writing is BEAUTIFUL. As many scenes as can be will be salvaged, and it may turn out that it's not as bad as I think.

(I do tend to go in for a big hack-and-slash and find more subtle ways of shifting things into place.)

The fact remains. Aughhh.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

New York - W 59th Street by darksaif

I'm really close to the edge of tears these days. The world is so colorful right now and my projects are going well, but when I hear about something sad it's ready to spring out from under a thin veneer of moss and stone.

I don't know exactly what I'm feeling about Japan's disaster, but it's pretty obvious I'm grieving.

There are some kinds of pain or anxiety that make it impossible to do anything creative, but this is one of those where being busy and getting a lot done is better than sitting here, hands tied.

Stockholm Central Station by MazStudios

Jackson and Hyde are finally figuring out how they're going to talk, and soon I'm going to get to where we see what Mohawk City is like, since it isn't really New York, and hopefully I'll figure out more plot than just the high-drama points I need to get to.

This book is supposed to have some hard-hitting Mean Stuff, but so far it's pretty every-day.

At least I'll know if this Mononoke yarn is any good sooner than that...

I joked after finishing Letters to My Nemesis that I was going to have a deuce of a time with my next projects, because that one had felt so...competent.
Like I'd finally got a hold on what I was trying to do.

This only lasts so long before I reach to do something better and getting there is another fingernails-and-teeth fight with inertia.

xx 00 by scarabuss

Sure enough, every time I put this book down for the weekend I come back to it on Monday with something I need to go back and edit.
I had this happen with Backlash Girls, too, and so I feel a bit bad that Vigil is the book that's in my hands for this particular fight.

Backlash Girls has a lot of flaws. Like, I'm scared to go back and look at it, kind of flaws.

Maybe Vigil Assistance will hold up despite this, though. That would be nice. The saddest thing for me as a writer is looking over the graveyard of old manuscripts that will never be worth anything, and then the half-way house of the ones you're not quite sure can be saved...

Friendship. by *Be-at

You just have to go on writing believing that this book and these characters are beautiful and the best and WORTH IT, though.

If I hadn't had faith in those books I wrote when I was sixteen, I wouldn't still be doing this. And I don't know what I'd be trying to be happy doing if I wasn't writing books...

So I've been getting more spam comments lately. It seems like marking comments spam when I delete them may be connected to me also getting comments like wicked freaking late?

So, you know. Sometimes I wait days to come up with the perfect comment, but lately it wasn't me, it was my comment notification.

station to station by -rainman

I'm having a hard time getting a bead on my heroine in Vigil, Jackson. Part of this is that she's *really* withholding. So in the text, it's a pretty distant 3rd POV, even though it's anchored with her except for scenes from the hero's.

It feels a little foggy in my head. I keep trying stuff to bring it a little closer, but I'm worried I started too soon. I didn't map out enough of the world's look. Didn't get a strong enough idea of the story's vocab.

But there's a point where you just have to start writing and hope you sort it out as you go. Because of my own frustration with Jackson's silence, I keep writing toward her self-revelation moments. I'm co-ordinating that a lot more. It's about time to introduce the main conflict, though. :snort:

Grisha by jivotnoe

I actually know much more about where Hyden's at, which is rare. And maybe why I've felt compelled to include small parts from his eyes. He's not talking about his past, but he's not thinking about it much, either. It affects the way he's acting, and he's aware of it.

No, with him, I haven't quite found the rhythm of his speech yet. It's based off of certain people, and that's too confining right now--because I haven't really made it his yet.

Boy, this book has every opportunity to be a disaster. And it's not even that marketable...

Winter has returned to Oklahoma, as if we needed a reminder it's still February. Pity.

I am happily scribbling away, and knitting away, too, to try and justify this new bizarre taste for Korean idol reality TV. (Don't ask.)

Yesterday I bought a great little book at the library book sale called The Nanny Handbook, the 2003 edition but with some much more outdated ideas. This is actually a resource for Vigil, which is officially working titled: The Nanny Rules of Vigil Assistance because rather than being sidekicks for the superheroes, they're more like PAs. And being PAs to semi-celebrity law enforcer superhumans is...a lot like being a nanny.
I'm hoping that the book will help me come up with the comic strips Jackson is going to be creating, but it's great entertainment on its own.

snippet: Jackson's First Day At Work

The man who threw open the door was the classic white posterboy for college extracurriculars or trendy jeans, except old enough to have laugh lines. The dark blonde of his hair, and lighter, scraggly half-beard brought out his jaw line and dark eyes. These eyes seemed to flinch when he saw her, but his smile right after that was warm enough. Maybe it had been the sunlight.

“Hi, I'm Jackson Marino, with Vigil Assistance—”

“You're even almost on time—I just blew up the microwave. Do you know how to work a gas range?”

He stood still, as if she wouldn't be welcome to enter if she said no.

“I've operated a couple,” she said carefully.

“Great, come on in.” He led to the kitchen. He wasn't very tall, she realized—when he'd been barring the door he had been disproportionately intimidating. “To be honest, this morning I had no idea what they thought you could do for me. I do all the cleaning for Karel anyway, he's just the living alarm clock. Don't take this the wrong way, but I am out of diapers several years now. You know what they say about acting high and mighty, though. Of course the microwave was going to blow.”

KPop Mini-Feature of the day: A Live Performance with a neat show idea for mostly non-dancing ballad crooners, 2 AM

Hyden, the "Vigilant" (superhero) MC of my new book needs a tattoo.

Of course, being me, though I'm not sure what I want it to be, I have a VERY complex set of criteria. It has to be odd and non-serious, on the lines of RDJ's Chiller font shoulderpiece:

or my uncle's chosen Muppet:

If you were so self-ironic that when you got your first tattoo you got something that almost mocked the idea of getting a tattoo...what would you get?

Strangely, being sick has led to me spending quite a bit of time regretting stupid enthusiasms of recent LJ posts.

This is a pretty classic manifestation of not feeling quite myself.

Still thinking a lot about "Vigilants". This whole superheroes thing is becoming practically annual...
I have to decided if I'm going to write this opening I'm formulating in my journal, or in the notebook to become the manuscript. Big Decisions...

"Already Harry knew her story was unsharable, though she had started it with the vague idea that she might write it wonderfully well and have it published some day, but once begun the story had twisted and changed. Suddenly her true life was lived in the moments when the tip of her pen met the white paper."

The Tricksters - Margaret Mahy

One of the things that makes Margaret Mahy so wonderful is that life-long wisdom she brings to remembering being a child...

I spent yesterday puzzling out a new heroine's passion.
It usually doesn't take long to know what someone does, what their art is, because that is part of the character for me. But something about Jackson was hiding--I knew she was an artist, that she's gone into a more business-like major because she doesn't feel that art is viable.

In a scene coloring itself into my head, she was hiding something. Just her pictures seemed a little obvious. That she's wanted to be a dancer? The other lead asks her, "Why do you hide everything you're passionate about?"

Everything? How many things is she hiding? I asked myself.

Rather randomly, just looking around while not thinking about this, it occurred to me that if she wanted to make comics, that would be a thing she might consider silly, but was an outlet of her talent for drawing. If she really wanted to tell stories, but felt that wasn't her strength.

And now I get to wonder about what it means to the story to have this rather heavy character-question posed.

Why do you hide everything you're passionate about?

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June 2022

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state of the writer
like you needed to know
Sale: Admittance
(no subject)
Post-Make-Up Gushings - Vigil Assistance
not really a profound one, anyway
subconscious: So I notice you've been keyed up about your poetry lately...
lamentations: Vigilant edition
(no subject)
Weekend Wars with Vigil Assistance...
(no subject)
snippet, K-Pop video, and a note from my [rather cush] trench
tattoo ideas for the quirky and ironic
(no subject)
it's a deep secret and a wild sharing...

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Page generated Jul. 29th, 2025 05:59 am

Ever Bethany

do we make it out alive?

Entries tagged with vigil assistance

state of the writer

like you needed to know

Sale: Admittance

(no subject)

Post-Make-Up Gushings - Vigil Assistance

not really a profound one, anyway

subconscious: So I notice you've been keyed up about your poetry lately...

lamentations: Vigilant edition

(no subject)

Weekend Wars with Vigil Assistance...

(no subject)

snippet, K-Pop video, and a note from my [rather cush] trench

tattoo ideas for the quirky and ironic

(no subject)

it's a deep secret and a wild sharing...

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June 2022

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