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Yay for Kelly!!!
My bosom buddy and lifelong pal is another year older today. Whenever I ask her if she’s happy, she always asks me “Did you smile today?“. 🥰😍💖 Isn’t that sweet? 💖😍🥰
Happy Birthday
I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ ~Steven Wright
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Fortunately, we’ve gotten to the point where we don’t have to worry about birthday presents.
For my birthday, I ordered a bunch of books I wanted from Amazon and thanked Kelly for them. For her birthday, she said I had gotten her the patio umbrella and grill. Who knew? Fortunately, she did. |
| I’m glad that we can be that comfortable with each other and that our needs are so simple.
Some people insist on expensive jewelry or extravagant vacations from their significant others. We’re both fine staying home and enjoying each other’s company. Yay for Kelly!!! |
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Birthday Parallax
2.5D Parallax Effect in Filmora | Filmora Creator Academy
The definition of parallax is the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object. The reason I bring it up is because Kelly’s birthday is two weeks after mine.
So, for two weeks each year, she’s two years younger than me instead of just one. It’s kind of like time travel. I go zipping ahead and she springs up behind like a rubber band contracting in my wake.
I assure you, it’s the only instance of this effect. Most times, I have to catch up with her because she’s so restless and zippy. Particularly when we’re walking Rose.
You wouldn’t think that a 10lb fuzzball could act as a jet engine but I find myself falling farther and farther behind as Rose drags Kelly down the street like a kite.
Technicolor Chaos
We live in a rainbow of chaos. ~Paul Cezanne
What occurs in my imagination doesn’t come through the writing unless I actually describe what I’m seeing in my mind’s eye.
The problem is that it’s so intense in my imagination that I feel that it’s self-evident. I actually need to help convey what it is I’m seeing.
Apparently, this is a common enough problem. If you find yourself in this situation, here are some tips to help you address the problem.
How to Write Stronger Descriptions and Imagery
I recently saw an interesting article about the ideal lengths for books in today’s market. Depending on your personal inclination, you might find yourself to be an underwriter or an overwriter. On the first draft, I tend to be an underwriter. More detail is required but not provided. Here are some resources to help you if you find yourself in a similar dilemma.
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I’ve mentioned before that I am primarily a “pantser”. This has caused problems for me in the past but I’m still having difficulty adapting to the “plotter” approach.
Plotting vs. Pantsing (Writing Community Lingo)
It naturally occurs to me to simply put pencil to paper or fingers to keys and just having at it.
What has worked for me in writing my Holiday Season Serial Romance is being a “plotser”. The genre of these Christmas RomComs is reasonably formulaic. There’s a meet-cute, some turmoil and a happily ever after. All I need to do is add some 🎄 holiday cheer ☃️ and vary the character angles a bit. Boom! Done.
For The Sentinels, it’s a lot more complex. I’ve only recently teased out the series theme.
The overall structure is The Hero’s Journey but rather than applying to a specific character like Harry Potter, the protagonist is The Sentinels as a whole.
The team is comprised of individual heroes with their own personal arcs, but the series actually addresses the entire team from their humble Golden Age-style beginnings through the Silver and Bronze Age-style Chaos War to the destination of the next generation Modern Age-style team.
That’s actually a lot more “plotter”-ing than I typically put in but this is a pretty huge undertaking.
For Tales Of Olde Auringia, I have the advantage of having designed Auringia as a D&D campaign environment.
Despite the rather annoying complaints that fantasy fans are sick of “pretend medieval Germany“, there is the equally annoying complaints that you should “write what you know” (Hi, I’m Anglo-Germanic in ancestry and I really liked Tolkien’s works and decades of derivative works. Get over it, wankers.) and that you should “stay in your lane” (Y’all want something I’m not but you’ll spank the crap out of me for daring to try to write the “other“. Basically, y’all can suck it. Write your own not-pretend-medieval-Germany and you can “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” instead of me. Practice what you preach, wankers!).
Meh! I don’t go for that.
Auringia is not “pretend medieval Germany” but people will assume it is unless I take extraordinary pains to ensure that it can’t be mistaken as such.
To that end, I’ve been researching other cultures based on personal interests I’ve had. I’ve always been fascinated by Samurai-era Japan and Kung Fu movie-era China. I also studied Imperial Palace Martial Arts back in high school, so I also have an interest in Korea. Making an inference there, I heard something in college that the Nippon-go, Hangugeo/Chosŏnmal, Suomi and Magyar languages are linguistically related through the Nostratic Language Family.
Given my personal interest in all the above, I’ve looked into modeling my “pretend medieval Germany” as a “pretend medieval Uralic–Altaic realm” gleefully using some of the juiciest elements of all the above. Even though the linguistic theory has been generally discredited, it’s still an interesting thought exercise and kicking off point for the further development of the Auringian milieu.
In fairness, Auringia is a portmanteau of Thuringia (actually a part of Germany) and the often found prefix Aus- or Os- (meaning East – that you see in Austria {Technically: Österreich – Eastern Realm}, Austrasia, Ostrogoths and so forth). Even so, the minions of Cancel Culture can basically suck it…
For Far-Flung Reaches, I have only the vaguest of notions.
I’m certainly inspired by Star Trek and the Traveller RPG, but I love the brilliant retro space opera adventures of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Rocky Jones.
As a child, I used to play with my dad’s Tom Corbett playset and it provided years of fascinating what ifs even though I never saw an episode. I did have the benefit of some of his Tom Corbett View-Master disks that not only put the characters in color (not seen on TV or in the grayscale figures from the playset) but listed some names and places.
Of course, I was an avid Planet of the Apes fan but it doesn’t really fit into what I want to do with this milieu.
On the other hand, shows like Star Blazers, Robotech, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and The Expanse certainly bring notions and vibes that would fit in this space opera series.
I expect to bounce arbitrarily around among timeframes and locales in this milieu.
I’m not planning on a long contiguous series arc but I’m planning to maintain a consistency that will tie things together across time and space. Chronologically earlier stories will be the history or legend of ones that occur later.
That’s it for today. Plenty more birthday to celebrate and I still have to get tomorrow’s post ready for Christmas in July.