This isn’t a raven, but …
… here. Have a persistent crow:
(Via lnhammer)
Tag: raven book
“This is your favorite kind of day / it has no walls / the beauty of the rain / is how it falls”
Dear Rain,
You only get to start falling once.
Please choose your dramatic moment carefully.
Thank you.
Me
P.S. Yes. You may also shift from drizzle to downpour. Once. If you insist.
“This is your life / this is your world / beginning to end”
Dear Protagonist Whose Character Arc Is Shifting in Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways,
You may have noticed the stakes have risen a bit since the last draft.
(waits)
(listens to crickets)
(nice crickets)
So, has it occurred to you this might mean you need a better plan for meeting them?
Me
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dear Ordinary and Very Human Tertiary Characters,
I’m sorry. But I’m going to have to stop referring to you as “the javelinas.”
Because you’re not anymore.
No, truly. You’re not.
Also, your plan? Not any better than Protagonist’s, really.
Me
“This is your life / this is your world / beginning to end”
Dear Protagonist Whose Character Arc Is Shifting in Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways,
You may have noticed the stakes have risen a bit since the last draft.
(waits)
(listens to crickets)
(nice crickets)
So, has it occurred to you this might mean you need a better plan for meeting them?
Me
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dear Ordinary and Very Human Tertiary Characters,
I’m sorry. But I’m going to have to stop referring to you as “the javelinas.”
Because you’re not anymore.
No, truly. You’re not.
Also, your plan? Not any better than Protagonist’s, really.
Me
Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: WordPress Edition.
“I think of you whenever life gets me down / I think of you whenever you’re not around”
Dear Tertiary Character No One But Me and My Early Critiquers Will Ever Know,
Taking you out of this book solves So Many Problems.
It’s awesome.
You … don’t agree?
I … don’t understand.
Me
“You’re so nice and you’re so smart / you’re such a good friend I have to break your heart”
Dear Shapeshifting Secondary Character Who Thinks She Isn’t Very Good At Being Human,
Oh, SSCWTSIVGABH. Part of being human is being bad at it.
You just don’t have enough experience to know that yet, that’s all.
Me
Revision geekery
So revising a book, in a tear-it-apart-and-put-it-together-as-a-new-thing way, is always interesting.
There are things where I’m all, “But no! I loved that thing!” even while seeing how structurally the book is better off without them.
For a very few of those places I come back around to “Wait! I need to keep that after all!” and scramble to pull a thing back in, only in a better way. (But not the javelinas. Never the javelinas.)
And then there are other places, where I find myself saying, “Wait, that thing that actually was a little bit of a stretch in the old draft, even though I didn’t quite realize it and/or admit it to myself? It makes way more sense now.”
As if those things were always part of another, stronger book, and they were just waiting for me to figure it out.
Ravens and zombies
Thanksgiving morning, at the end of the latest session of Zombies Run 5K Training,* I found what may be the big piece I need to make all the little pieces of the current revision fall into place.
I don’t have the how and why of it yet. But it’s … a thing that the rest of the story can begin to shape itself around, and so is making me very happy.
And of course, once thought of, it was an obvious thing, too. 🙂
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*Somewhat to my surprise, the Zombies Run 5K app isn’t just a way to get a watered-down story fix until the regular Zombies Run Season 2 is released, but also what may be the best constructed 5K training program I’ve tried to date, from an actual running perspective. It’s certainly the most interesting.
Writing lesson of the day
Make one little change to a character’s species, and suddenly, spiders take on an entirely different meaning for them.
Insects, too.
Who knew?
“‘Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, ‘art sure no craven. / Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore'”
Dear Poet Who Is Best Remembered for His Work on the Subject of Taciturn Corvids,
Do you actually know any ravens?
Sorry, but I couldn’t help wondering.
Me
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Which is by way of saying I’ve been rereading “The Raven”. Because it’s part of our cultural understanding (or lack thereof) of ravens, too.
Stray thoughts:
Just because a raven got into your chamber doesn’t mean it’s all about you, dude.
Ravens actually aren’t all that stately. But they’re not ungainly fowl, either. It is true they’re unlikely to offer you the least obeisance, though. Or me either.
I want a fic about whoever it is who taught this bird to say “nevermore.” Because ravens actually can learn that sort of thing, no divine messaging required.
Are you feeding this raven? Because, seriously, if it’s still sitting above your chamber door after all these years, someone is. Or maybe it’s mooching off all those uneaten meals the servants have been bringing you while you angst about Lenore?
So let me see if I have this right. Ravens. Totally not creepy. Except for the fact that they totally are!
Which … isn’t wrong. Actually.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dear Fowl Whose Fiery Eyes Burned Into the Poet’s Bosom’s Core,
I promise, I will never look at you and croak “Nevermore” again.
Well, almost never.
Me