http://yafantasyshowdown.weebly.com/index.html
Muchas gracias to Kristin Cashore (amazing author of Graceling and Fire) for posting the link on kristincashore.blogspot.com. You rock!
Now, on to the research-related rambling.
Lately, I’ve hit a stall in my actual writing. Not sure exactly why… I’m in that awkward place stuck between a rough draft I should be editing, a half-done novel I really want to work on but haven’t touched in months (T-T) and various short stories I allowed myself to put out, thus wasting some of my motivation/inspiration/time-ation – and before you say anything, yes I know time-ation isn’t a word. I added the suffix for the sake of symmetry.
I also blame my stall on the fact that I’ve been reading the numerous 30-60 year-old short story anthologies I snagged from my school when they were weeding out all the boring books no one wanted to read. At the time, I figured, “Hey! Free books!” Little did I realize many of them completely ignored all the tips and advice I’ve been reading on writers’ blogs lately.
Not to put down the good old classics – it worked for them! But that was a different era of writing, I think, and all their dead dialogue, info-dumping, and pages of condensed boredom are making it hard for me to get into my own groove. :(
Luckily, I’ve found a way to stay productive during this awkward phase of my work! Among those 30-60 year old books I found some non-fictioney ones that address pretty interesting topics I may or may not use in my own writing.
So I read a book on split personalities, not even skimming at all except for the places that were pure statistics and psychology babble you’d have to be a psychologist in order to even understand! It was interesting, and gave me quite a bit to think about on that topic…
Then I actually managed to start a short piece I need to do for a writer’s group, based on some birdy beings who live in canyons. I tried to do an illustration, and the results of that led me to think about gargoyles… Which led to a possible story inkling. So I looked them up on Wikipedia (forgive my sources XD) and was further interested. Did you know gargoyles are technically in architecture carvings/whatever with waterspouts in them to direct water away from a building so the mortar between the blocks won’t erode? The ‘gargoyles’ that are just for decoration are actually known as ‘grotesques’. :D
Now I’m part of the way through another old book about the Bermuda Triangle…
And I finished watching the third episode of ‘The Colony’, a ‘bold new series’ on the Discovery Channel about an experiment to see if seven strangers could rebuild society after a virus wipes out 90% (or something like that) of the Earth’s population. It’s like hard-core survivor with no prize money at the end and no official ‘challenges’. It’s really interesting, I’ve already learned a lot, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in writing post-apocalyptic fiction. :) I’m gonna tape it to DVD! >.< New episode tonight ~ <3
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/colony/
(After looking for a proper Colony picture on the Discovery channel website): Aw, FAIL! T-T I just realized I'm watching the SECOND season! Where was the first? Me wants to see it! :'(
Oh, and a couple weeks ago I watched a documentary on giant rats… But that’s just for my novel rough draft, so maybe you aren’t interested on that. XD
Usually I’m not very into research/nonfiction, so this is an interesting stage I’m going though. Who said you couldn’t learn something during the summer? ^^ School starts tomorrow for me though, so maybe I’ll go back to writing once I’m already learning more stuff than I want to there. T-T
Still. I’ve been surprised by how interesting research can be, if it’s something you’re interesting in. I’ve been keeping notes on some things (the Colony, especially >.<) and I know I’ll probably be going back to look at them later. :)
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