I’ve put together a Squidoo lens on fantasy literature. Not a lot there right now, but I’ll be adding to it over time, so check it out if you want to see a few of my recommendations, upcoming reads and other fantasy-related stuff.

I’m about to pass out, but I just wrote around 400 words on Trouvere. I am honestly surprised; I thought I’d put it away for now, but while trying to fall asleep tonight on a Dr. Pepper buzz, I got a vision of platinum blonde hair and a slightly wicked smile as the hero of the tale made his presence known once more. As always, I’m unable to resist him, and so I did some research on the location of the first scene, planned for more tomorrow, and actually got some details hammered out for the difficult opening scene: the capture of a thriving port city in medieval Sicily.

And now, I’m off to Bedfordshire. Finally.

You may have noticed I added some widgety things to the sidebars. I set up feedburner for this blog and added the little “readers” widget (hopefully that’ll increment before too long! ;) ), and a couple of days ago I added a LibraryThing widget, showing some random books from my collection (which still has a ton of stuff to be added). (I also set up an account at ma.gnolia but that’s totally a side-issue.)

Thanks to Hoshichan, I have become obsessed with nifty little gadgets like these. Hopefully, I’ll actually get some writing done again soon! ;)

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette discuss the writer’s alchemical process of turning lead into gold:

“Lead” in this case means input of all kinds: sensory, intellectual, emotional. “Gold” is a story that works. But one of the most interesting kinds of transmutation is the one where the “lead” is itself a story (i.e., somebody else’s gold), and the gold is a new story.

I think they bring up an excellent point. Though I’ve been writing since before I became immersed in Japanese comics or the wizarding world of Harry Potter, both of these have certainly influenced my writing in one way or another. There’s no denying that the opulent styling and ultra-romantic themes of Saitou Chiho (Bronze Angel) have influenced my characterization, especially for male heroes. J.K. Rowling’s work has influenced me more in respect to storytelling: how to introduce an idea subtly, slowly building on it in a way that slips under the reader’s sensors, until the outcome seems inevitable and startling at once. She’s also influenced me in asmuch as her good characters are real humans; they are often plain stupid in the face of all logic, stubborn to the point of being annoying, vengeful until you are screaming at them to just give it up. In otherwords, as irritating as your real best friend, exhasperating as your real boyfriend, blithely ignorant as your real teachers. Heroes all the same.

All of this has influenced my work, and there are countless other influences. This is why I don’t see fanfiction as a waste of time, and think it can be a helpful springboard into original work. If you put in the proper effort and attention you can experiment with new techniques and essentially learn at the knee of an established author in a pressure-free situation. (You not only don’t have to sell it, you can’t sell it.) It’s as good as any apprenticeship. Yes, you should move on eventually. But turning lead into gold requires initial experiments, and I don’t see how fanfiction is a bad introduction into the world of storytelling. So long as you do move on. So long as you eventually try out other new techniques that emulating a single author can’t give you, or those you can only learn from yourself.

In Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig talks about “Walt Disney creativity”, and he doesn’t mean it disparagingly. It’s the kind of creativity that sparked Steamboat Willie, the first sound cartoon, when Walt saw Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill. The kind of creativity that inspired Chretien de Troyes to take all those stories of King Arthur and his Knights he’d heard while growing up and author The Knight of the Cart, in which Lancelot strode out on his very first quest. The kind that inspired Wagner to write his Ring cycle, and in turn, inspired the work of both Tolkien and Lewis. This kind of creativity has been with us for millenia, and will never go away. It’s what artists do naturally: inspire and be inspired.

What I’m reading tonight:

Magical World Builder’s Guide
Rich Staats’ Gaming and World Building Site
A Way With Worlds

While I’ve been moving into our new place and making an attempt at getting settled, I’ve put the novel on the backburner and am spending my time doing some light world-building for Searoyal. I started out working on a language for the still unnamed mountain tribes, and though I’ve got some names that sound reasonably like what I’m going for, once again I find myself biting off more than I can chew.

My intention was to make the language look like Old Norse on the page, with an entirely different grammar and word hoard; what I’ve found is that it’s much harder to learn how to form syllables resembling a real language than it seems at first, and that people who conlang as a hobby must be mad geniuses. I’ve decided I’m not going to let this get in my way; I’m going to do my best with the knowledge I have access to now, make up the information I need as opposed to what I hope for, and let the language grow and become more realistic as I have time.

While I do this, I’m also going to start on the cosmology for Searoyal, an Earth-like planet in a medieval cosmos. I talked to Hoshichan about this earlier and I think it’s going to be a blast creating all new planets, constellations, geography and so forth, with barely more than a nod to how the real universe actually works. Talk about phenomenal God-like power! (Itty-bitty living space, indeed.) Anyway, since this material should not be plot-sensitive, I might even post about it here from time to time.

Sometimes you have to write the one that gives you sugar.
- Elizabeth Bear

Now if only one of mine would give me some. :P

Not like I have time today, but I got an account at LibraryThing. It’s a way for those of us with extensive (or even not-so-extensive) libraries to catalogue our books online, for our own reference or to flaunt them in front of others. Joining was as easy as signing in, and adding books is almost as simple (unless your book is out of print, which is just a little harder.) This is what I was abusing my Book Crossing account to do, but no more! The neat thing is that since my book collection will be split between two locations as of tomorrow, if I add new purchases to my LibraryThing account, there’ll be no worries about accidentally buying doubles or other confusion.

EDIT: If you get an account, post your username in the comments here so I can add you to my watchlist, kay?

Searoyal.com, the domain for my fantasy setting, featuring a very happy “coming soon” page. Yes, I feel optimistic! Why do you ask?

It’s almost a guarantee that when you plan a weekend project to take with you camping or similar, it will go exactly nowhere. My weekend project was language building for my fantasy setting, Searoyal. Did I write down so much as a verb or noun? Nope. Of course not.

But that’s okay. I spent a lot of time looking out at the sea and the stars, hoping and dreaming, and nothing can really be more inspiring than that. I’ve also decided to start working on world-building for Searoyal for my Friday Break project at Dreaming in Ink. (The Friday Break is a concept based on Holly Lisle’s article, The Perfect Busman’s Holiday.) Searoyal is a setting that I love but which needs a lot of development. I have at least four cultures already envisioned to one degree or another, and I have no doubt there will be a few more. I have a little notebook that started out as a generic notebook but ended up being devoted almost entirely to Searoyal and its neighboring lands, and I’ve got maps and other nifty things started up as well. Unfortunately I became so immersed in The Trouvere that Searoyal was all but forgotten. I’m afraid if I don’t work on it again soon it will evaporate into nothing more than an ocean mist.

Other than that, I’m looking through my folders for something to send through the Dreaming in Ink elist and discovering, to my horror, that I’ve got nothing but fanfic finished. Nothing. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself.