put your shirt back on

Soooo, I had this thought, last night, and it is now all up in my brainpan.

Somebody (read: not me because I don't finish shit) should rewrite The Phantom of the Opera so that Christine is TOTALLY down with kicking it with the Phantom for the rest of foreverz, because he is a total BAMF and that Raoul kid is okay and all, but PHANTOM. SRSLY.

And see, in my head, this doesn't sound crack-y. AT ALL.

Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

Wizards
Ao
Aliens
Car Soul
Evil bastard story
Final Fantasy Ripoff
Firefly AU Fic OMGWTF
Four Temples
High Fantasy Post
Idek
Mad Jeremy Matthews
messenger
Noel
Poisoner's Journal
Psychics
random bard
Skyrunner
The Legend of the Nullsmith
thefour
Three's a Crowd
Two thieves
Wings For Marie
Wolf
wolves
Yet another werewolf story


Genres span from urban fantasy to modern fiction to epic Firefly fic that I will never write, because I fail.
Some of these are so old, I can't remember when I started working on them. Some I just pounded out over the course of an hour and promptly abandoned.

You know what kind of character I want to write?

I want to write a bad guy. Not just a plot device, I want a main, integral character to be a Bad Guy. No redeeming qualities, no kindness deep in the tortured corner of his soul. He is just cruel and intelligent and calculating and kind of insane, but he's too smart to have tunnel-vision when it comes to his goals.

Like Nolan's Joker, except no facepaint. Someone who will rape, pillage, and plunder because it seemed like the thing to do at the time and he was bored. Pure Chaotic Evil, you guys. I want that. And I want that as a main character, THE main character. His point-of-view.

More Voldemort, less Harry Potter, kids. Evil has to have its day. No, evil needs to have its day.


And all this just before finals, too, go figure.

I has stories. They're in my brain and in my hard drive in about equal measure. I like writing them, and they like to be written.

But clearly ADD has other ideas because I will be god damned if I can finish anything. I need a support group or something, Jesus.

I'm thinking about NaNoWriMo this year, if only because I like pain.

::double facepalm::



Deluna Fest in a few days, though... XD

20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?

XD Dialogue, by far. I effing love to write dialogue because it gives everyone a chance to snark it up and make things that much crazier.

Feelings are boring. Talking about feelings is worse. Talking about everything else is awesome.

God help us?

(I also seem to write like Cory Doctorow and Mario Puzo)

Family reunions. ::shudder::

16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing?

I write them despite myself, I think. I have no real desire to write love everlasting, but as a plot device and a character motivator, there is nothing so powerful as undying devotion of the heart-rending, eye-bleeding kind.
While cynical, I do appreciate the quiet, undemonstrative kind of romance that is kept under wraps until the last moment, tortured and strained and yet still unwavering even as it despairs. That sort of angst is all kinds of tasty-delicious.

And, frankly, I'm not a prude. If I think that sex should happen, I'm game for trying my hand at it. I'm well aware that this is one of my weakest areas (why does sex seem to make every iota characterization go soaring out the window?) but I'm not afeard.


17. Favorite protagonist and why!

Uhhhhhhh, hmm. The first thing that comes to my mind is Cook, but he's more of a side-protagonist (if that makes any sense), and the second thing is Mad Jeremy Matthews, so I'm gonna split the difference and fuck the police.
Cook is the side-kick Beta to my werewolf protagonist Alpha, and is actually a very intelligent, sensitive guy; he just never acts like it. I modeled him after an uncle of mine, who has made an art form out of inactivity. You're fairly sure that they move around in real life, but you have to watch them for a long time to try and catch them at it. Sedate and unflappable.
Mad Jeremy Matthews is just plain fun to write. He's my first real male protagonist, and writing him is like an exercise in Victorian comedy. He's got all the moves and graces down to an art, but underneath all of that, he is still mad as a hatter. His inner monologues crack me up even as I'm writing them.

13. What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?

... I'm not sure there's a name for the cultures that I write, except to call them 'fringe'. I do not like the whole Sex and the City yuppy dynamic of contemporary fiction, and I really don't like normalcy. Normal people suck, and so does their culture.

I'm particularly fond of transient cultures, as I'm sure I've mentioned. I love writing from the perspective of the outsider, looking in. I like dysfunctional cultures, like families-by-choice or wolfpacks. And I definitely have a soft spot for criminal cultures, because the chaotic/neutral mentality is so much fun.

Yeah, comprehensive, this is not. Whatever, five hours of sleep.

11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?

I have a lot of characters that I'll always love, but I've got to say that I love Nazareth Alice the best.
Ever since I saw her name on a road sign, I knew she would be slinky, sexy, powerful, and possibly the most terrifying person you'd ever meet. There is something so fun about writing the seductive, confident ones. They're morally ambiguous, they get the best lines, and they always have a plan.

And while I really don't have characters I do not like to write, I do have characters I do not like. One of them is Amadora Amberdrake, the intelligent and yet completely clueless mother of Winslow (I need to post a synopsis of the stories I'm writing so people can actually understand what I'm talking about. Again.). She's not a bad person and she's not necessarily a bad mother. She just got wrapped up in herself and her other children and missed the boat on keeping Winslow from self-destructing. And instead of trying to fix things, she turned the other way and expected it to repair itself. It does, just not in a way she can understand.


IT MAKES SENSE IN MY HEAD, PROMISE.

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.

Pfffft, oh crap. You asked for it.

My Thought Process

01. Sit around, driving/listening to music/in class/staring into space
That last one happens more often than anything

02. CONCEPT BRAINWAVE!!!!
ex. pyrokinetic vs. the world

03. Ponder said brainwave for originality
Hasn't this been done before?

04. Decide I like the concept and to hell with copyright!
What last Airbender?

05. Visualize character appearance
I was drawing characters long before I was writing them

06. Pair personality to appearance
Dyed hair and giant glasses = Retro punk with geek tendencies

07. Plot an action scene and mentally fill in back story as the action progresses
Deep dark past angst, go!

08. Sketch newly fleshed out character and type up bio in case I ever actually finish the story for future reference
Jesus, it's like an orphanage on my hard drive

Annnnd, done!