What's in a Name?

There are our given names such as John Smith or Susan L. West. There are nicknames (mine at work was “Westside”). There are our twitter account names (@Sorica2001). Then there are names that we learn not to like such as “Coward” for Prag, “Traitor” for Lore, “Dark” for Dorthor, and “Cheater” for Praxel. These names all reflect on the world who we are and what our personalities will be. And we can either go with the flow like I did with “Westside” or Lore did with “Traitor”, or you can let it bother you each time you hear it like Prag does with “coward”.

I remember my name. It was “Cutie Girl”. And it wasn’t because I was cute, but because they all thought I had a contagious disease called Cuties (which doesn’t exist). I know it’s childish, but it followed me all the way through elementary school. They also called me the “Wicked Witch of the West”, which turned out to be partially true because I was a Wiccan for a good part of my life, but I never did anything evil or dabbled in the Dark Arts. It says it right there in the Wiccan Reed, “An ye harm none, doest what ye wilt.” One time, when I was in middle school, I tried damn hard to ignore all of the bullies that I was actually accused of being deaf.

stats:

music: When Doves Cry by Prince

mood: a little tired

chapters: don't ask

Questions of the week:

1. What were some of the names you were called when you were younger?

2. Have you accepted them or do they still haunt you?

3. Did any names have any meaning beyond the obvious?

Knots, ellipses, and notes: Three things that are driving me crazy.

When I write, sometimes I find it hard to write strait through. Which is why between some paragraphs I put double ellipses. And I always rely on notes. Between the notes and my literature & every two consecutive notes I place a single ellipse. Of course, the biggest problem with this method comes when you have to fill in the ellipses  and the double ellipses. Yep you guessed it. You need to fill in the gap between two ideas that might have been placed minutes apart. Which is where I get to knots. They can carry on a story for pages without end. They can be resolved easily with a "let's change the subject" or a change of the paragraph before or the paragraph after. Or they can be impossible to sort out. In which case you can delete either all or part of it and start over.

Now I am in no way advocating that this method is right for everyone. You may find it easier to write strait through. But you might want to try it if your a little scatter-brained like me. Or you could try your own method. As long as you write for at least 15 minutes a day, you'll do good.

stats:
Music: the Otherside by Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Mood: ;-)
Chapters: still working out the ellipses in 11 and trying to avoid the knots

I'm Baaack! Back in the saddle again!

Yes, I'm back after a long hiatus. And here is a first, I'm also writing a post without the crutch of my word processor. So why such reckless abandon? Well, first off my butt isn't so sporadic anymore. And secondly I got someone who I can trust to read what I've got so far and give me an honest opinion on it.

So who is this person? He's an old friend who just so happened to find me on myspace and on twitter on the same day I predicted an old friend would. He took me to go see The Village and IRobot, to listen at a Dave Matthew's Band concert, to eat at a japanese style restaurant called Osaka, and to dance at my prom. His name is Chris Daly. And although I haven't seen him for a few years, I was still enthusiastic when I handed over part of my manuscript to him.

stats:
mood: elated
chapters: 11 (with a few ellipses)
music: Black horse and a cherry tree

It'll take a miracle

I finally finished chapter 10 with no ellipses and no knots. And now I'm trying to get chapter 11 done by this Monday, May 16. There's nothing particularly special about that date except that it's two days from when I promised myself I would be finished with a third of my promo animation. And I've already completed that. But now I've got another problem. My right arm has been cramping up in the evening. And my right arm is my primary writing arm. I am not ambidextrous. So the process of writing this chapter is going to be slow. It's going to take a miracle to get this chapter done in time.


Stats
Mood: content
Chapters completed: 10
Promo Progress: Finished 1-12 on storyboard
Music currently: Your Decision by Alice in Chains

Not about pets

I realize that this post will be my 4 x 7th post. And on my 7th day I usually blog about my pets. Well today I've decided not to do that because I've decided to try something new.

I'm trying to start a new chapter in my book. Yet I'm not completely finished with my last chapter. I still have ellipses not to mention that I have one heck of a knot. I really can't wait to get the first draft of chapter 10 done.

But here are a list of issues I have 1. I think chapter 10's too long already and it pains me to make it even longer. 2. My muse frequently take vacations and I can't finish the story without him. 3. My mother is constantly interrupting me with reminders to eat and sleep and to take a bath at inconvenient times like when I'm getting the groove of writing. And finally 4. My butt prevents me from getting near the computer and writing. Whenever I go to my computer when nobody's home my colon goes into hypersensitive mode and produces poop. TMI I know, but it is a constant problem.

Carting Around a Dragon-poem

Without a doubt these are very heavy creatures

But for those who have no wings

From birth or from a fight with another dragon

Or for those who are just plain lazy

To terrorize the kingdom anymore

Or to eat any of the farmer’s cows or sheep

Somebody must cart these fire starters around.

But how does one do this?

Their butts are too big for a wheelchair

Or a wheelbarrow or a car or SUV.

However, I suppose you could stick it

Onto a really big semi-truck with a flatbed.

But then again if the creature gets angry

With the truck driver for some reason

It could deflate the tires with his sharp talons

And cause an enormous traffic accident.

So it’s only for short distances that this is done.

What about carrying it for long distances?

Like if the Dragon has a family out-of-state

And it feels like visiting them for x-mas?

Well, in that case they are flown over

By the underside of an airplane.

Dragons are no longer allowed to fly on top

Anymore because they like to eat the birds

And they can stir the plane around to catch them.

Nowadays they are flying from cables

Which is kind of embarrassing for a Dragon.

They used to put them in air balloons

Until they started blowing them up in fire

And falling to the ground with a loud thump

It wasn’t until 1980 with the Kansas Incident

That ended up making the state flat

And the FAA decide that flying them by balloons

Was no longer a viable option.

They do not like to be carted around anyways.

Stats on my book writing

I really enjoy writing. But there are some problems that have been occurring lately with writing my first book. The first one is lack of reference material. Seriously I can't find one thing on one-on-one dragon fights let alone how dragon boxing matches are supposed to happen. The good news is that I have a lot of room in which to bullshit. The bad news is that there are no established guidelines. So I'm sort of the first to write about dragon boxing. If I were to guess I would say it would be a combination of kangaroo and human boxing. The second is the inability to fill the holes. There are gaps in my chapter 10. Normally this wouldn't be a problem except that my non-hole parts already have more than 4500 words in this one chapter. And I'm not even done with the bulk of this chapter yet. So in the end I'm going to have one really long chapter. My third problem is knots. Knots are places in the story that either force the story to go on longer or screw the story up completely. First you have to find them. And sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not. When you do find them you can either delete and go around them or you can try to comb them out. Either way it's a big pain in the ass.

Mood: tired
Music: none
chapter:10.5 out of 21

Amelia and Prag

This entry is my first blogfest I have ever participated in. I already had most of the following written down already, but I didn’t finish it until now. Note on the following scene: It occurs in a much later chapter than the one I’m working on now. Amelia is a dragon whose gift/power is form-shifting (which is similar to shape-shifting only you get a limited number of shapes). At an early age she decided her other form would be human. So in this scene, both her and Prag are dragons in human form and they are currently dancing. Enjoy! :

Amelia peered over Prag’s right shoulder and started laughing.

“What is so funny?” he asked.

“You’ve grown a tail.”

Prag looked at his behind and saw that his dragon tail had returned. Not only that but the chair he was sitting was stuck in the middle of the tail. He laughed right along with her. “So I have,” he said. “Do you want me to get rid of it?”

“No,” Amelia replied in a kind and loving manner. “It’s a imperfection I can handle.” Then she pulled him close around the waist toward her and she rapidly pressed his lips onto hers.

Being that this was Prag’s first kiss made it very confusing at first. Dragons are not known to be physically intimate. So Prag’s first reaction was surprise and shock. And for a split second he thought about attacking. But then Prag instinctively closed his eyes and started to relax and enjoy the sensation. Slowly discovering that he was mimicking the same actions she was making. He noticed that her lipstick had the delicious aroma and taste of cherries. At one point she gabbed his hair and he proceeded to do the same. To him each strand of her hair felt as slick as satin and as soft as silk. Her kiss was soft and warm as her lips caressed his. He wished she would never stop.

But she did stop. And as Amelia pulled away from him, she noticed that his eyes were shut and a tear was crawling down on one side of his face.  “Was this your first kiss?” she asked.

Prag nodded with his eyes still shut.

Amelia felt angry with herself “That was all my fault,” she cried. “It’s a sin not to ask you first and it’s especially a sin just to outright kiss you like that.”

“You’re right,” Prag replied with his eyes starting to open “That first kiss was a sin. But what innocent a sin is the first only to crave for the second.”

With that she smiled and she quickly engaged in the second kiss.


For more on the First Kiss Blogfest visit http://www.melissaddean.com/2010/03/first-kiss-blogfest.html

Stinkin' Knots

I’ve got a HUGE knot in my story, one that I can’t delete even if I wanted two because it’s critical to the story. It’s a boxing fight scene between Prag and Lore for the title of Prince of the Celtic Realm. The reason why it’s so critical is because Praxel tries to kill Prag. This reestablishes a theme I had in chapter three through six of Praxel being homicidal. But my knot is how do I get them to the ring and secondly I don’t know how to do a fight scene.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ve been spending more time on Illustrator than on Word, Twitter, and Blogger combined. Why? My brother has a school assignment in Video Production that involves stop action. So far he’s got some Google Earth and some crappy looking Flash animation from my mother. I can do much better animation, and I think my woman is far prettier than her woman. And because Illustrator is better at vector graphics than Flash, that’s what I’m using.

Anyway, here's my version of the girl

Go Crazy Day #8

Okay, I’ll admit it, keeping a blog isn’t as horrible as I once thought. I like publishing my pictures and writing out my thoughts for all to see.

I only wish more people would come to look at my blog though. More importantly I wish the people who follow me would all comment. And don't  just comment on my latest post, but look around and comment on some older posts as well. I don’t only want more traffic, but I want opinionated traffic.

Right now I feel lonely on my blog. There I have such a small following it’s not funny and I already put out so many blogs. And the number of people who click on my blog just to find out what I’m talking about is small too. And when I tried to change my tactic to attempt to bring more people in, to date it went to 0. I should probably stick to my guns and stay with dragons, because that’s what people were more interested in. They were also interested in my musings about gifts. I could also do some musings on the future and on the prophecy and on realms. I think the notion of a tourje should be interesting But I guess there no way to please everyone.

Critiques vs. Outright Rejection or Approval

Remember in school what would happen when you got back a paper. Unless you were Mr. or Ms. Perfect, you’d usually have red marks all over the page. Your paper would be bleeding to death. There would be marks on your grammar, spelling errors, capitalization,  and/or punctuation. And you would correct them so the next time you’d get a more perfect grade.

Your word processor follows the same method. Only that under a spelling error a red squiggly line appears and under a grammatical error a green squiggly line appears. But the effect was the same.  You would correct them in order to produce a more perfect document.

A similar situation occurred when I was doing my capstone project in college. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we would go up to the front of the class with the projects we had worked on that week and present them to the class. Then with his famous laser pointer, Mr. Rodrigo de Toledo would point out what we needed to work on to make each project  perfect.

But in the world of publishing, the red pen does not exist. There are only two grades for a book: A and F. There are only the books that are accepted and those that get a rejection slip.

We as human beings do not learn that way. By accepting or rejecting whatever we do, we cannot learn without the input. That’s why one of the worst places to be on Project Runway is at the very bottom. The second worst place is in the middle without any input from the judges. The best place, of course, is at the top, but those people get input from the judges and (if they’re the winner) they get immunity for the next week. Even being at the bottom is better than being at the middle  due to the input, just as long as it is not the very bottom.

If a kid got a paper back with only the letter F on top he would ask, “What did I do wrong?” That’s what a rejection letter is, a gigantic letter F that deserves the question, “What did I do wrong?” Take J. K. Rowling and her “Philosopher’s Stone.” She got tons of rejection letter’s and she would ask the same question. Finally, when it was published  in America she got the answer. The publishers didn’t like the name and they changed it to “The Sorcerer’s Stone”. If that was the only problem they had with the first book, then they should’ve said something.

At the same time a kid who got absolutely no marks on the paper would ask, “Did I get a good grade or have you not graded it yet?” There are some books that are published by famous book writers that don’t have great stories. Books that aren’t graded by the publisher, but are given the stamp of approval just because of who wrote it. Take Sarah Palin’s book. I’m sorry Sarah fans but this is a BAD BOOK. I heard the reviews and I decided I wouldn’t buy this book even if it was free.  Over a thousand pages and only five chapters, a PhD would have trouble looking at that much text. Eyes need to breathe. And if the publisher read the finished product they would agree.

So what would happen if publisher’s would take off those beer goggles and pulled out their red pens. Then the publisher’s would be forced to read the whole thing. An they would be able to determine what is good (A’s), what need’s work (B’s and C’s), what need’s serious work (D’s), and what needs a miracle to reach at least a C- (F’s). They’d also be able to lay out to the author’s “what did you do wrong?” Then they would write the author’s an email or at least give them a phone call. After all it takes months to write a book. It takes only days to read it. And it takes only twenty pages to get hooked on a good one.

My Avatar: Friday

Besides the Avatar, here's another picture of the cat. His name is Friday. We adopted him along with another cat after the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000. You might remember it as the forest fire that evacuated Los Alamos and made a smoke trail that went to Oklahoma. He was found rummaging through the rubble of one of the burnt buildings. It's funny because when they first looked at him they thought he was a girl. “Black short-haired female cat with one white whisker” was her description. It wasn't till we took her to the vet to get her spayed did we discover that she was a he, a very well groomed he (if you catch my drift). It’s a good thing that “Friday” is fairly gender neutral name.

He's a bit of an escape artist. Every once in a while he’ll sneak into the garage and on occasion the garage door will be open. The first thing he does is roll around in the dirt. He used to hide in the boat (when we had a boat), but now who knows where he goes. One time he was gone for two weeks. We put signs up for him. And the morning after the day we put them up, he came strutting through the garage. He always struts when he’s coming in from the garage.

He’s also the only cat I’ve heard of who eats vegetables. He does not like meat not even chicken. He only eats dry cat food. He also likes to eat zucchini, cucumber, squash, and pumpkin. We once convinced him to try a jalapeño…he hasn’t tried a pepper since.  He rips the veggies apart then licks out the liquid. Occasionally these veggies, that my mom grows in her garden, will have fresh teeth marks. He’s one weird cat.

Issues with my Mom

I have to say that my mom and I usually get along pretty well. But recently she's been making up these rules that I can't follow or don't want to follow.

Because of my Ataxia I can be hard to understand. And my voice was taken away from an encounter with thrush. And I have some emotional issues due to several years of abuse from my father and my peers. The result is that I have a quiet whiny voice that is nearly impossible to understand, especially if the word I'm trying to pronounce has a consonant in it.

So what are the new rules? 1. No screaming. I assume this means whenever I'm close to her, but whenever she's far away I have to because she CAN'T HEAR A DAMN THING. 2. Tell me what you want. I'm trying to, but how do you expect me to make sense when I'm crying with ataxia. Don't yell at me or else you'll make it worse. 3. Stop screaming. When I am screaming that's because I'm frustrated. And by saying that makes me more frustrated. One day I'm going to scream at the top of my lungs. How about "calm down" or "relax"or adding a "please" to rule #3. 4. Assume the proper position. Head up. Toes pointed not curled. Put your feet under you. Sit up. Yes, I know from time to time I need reminders. But if you expect me to be able to do the right thing all the time you better get me a freaking exorcist. But please, stop treating me like I'm 2.

Character Description: Praxel

Praxel is the King of the Western Celtic Realm Dragons (but he shortens it to “King of the Celtic Realm”). He is a grand, dark green, and adult male European dragon with ruby-red eyes. He’s also the father to all the chicks in the cave. His two gifts are apathy or the ability to block out emotions and Prophecy (just like Prag has). He’s also a tester, who uses his cunning wit and authoritative undertone to get chicks in trouble with the Renewal Water without reprisal. He also demonstrates homicidal tendencies toward his family. He tries to kill Prag while he’s in the egg. He has chicks executed when they have their first or second drink of water. I created him based on my opinion of my dad.


Comments really Wanted!

Dragon Cave

This is the first setting of my story. This cave only exists in the Celtic Realm so don’t bother looking for it. The cave consists of 6 parts: the large mouth, the main gallery, the bathroom, crystal room, tunnel, and Cemetery Room.

Large mouth is two thirds of a way up on a 200 foot cliff face. It is wide enough for an adult dragon's wingspan and tall enough to incorporate his head. It is also the only entrance/exit to the cave. When it rains they have to coral the water with a dam of sticks and other cavern debris.

The Main Gallery is next to the mouth and is the first room in the cave. It is Large with more than a 30 foot ceiling and enough space to hold three dozen fully adult dragons. But when Prag is hatched there are seven dragonesses and their nest of eggs and only one male adult dragon, Praxel. By the time Prag is about five years old, the floors are littered with gems from hoards, egg shell remains, firewood, nest material, rocks from the cave, and other various items. The main gallery splits off into three rooms: the bathroom, the Crystal Room, and the tunnel.

The Bathroom is a typical two stall bathroom with holes in the floor. One is for number 1. The other is for number 2. Never mix them or else there will be an explosion.

The Crystal Room has a number of stalagmites and stalactites. The chicks like to play with them in a dragon game called musical stalagmites and stalactites. They use their talons against the side of the crystals in attempt to produce harmonious sounds. Often this simply produces cacophony.

The Tunnel is long, fairly straight and is wide enough to have three adult dragons walk side by side. The tunnel opens up to only one room on the other end: the Cemetery Room.

The Cemetery Room is the room seen in the Adventures of Prag. It is large enough to accommodate five adult dragons and becomes the room where the Guild hides to sleep. At first the Room is booby trapped with boulders and there are four graves with each having a headstone. And on one wall of the room there is a cave carving of a bell.

Please Leave Comments

Book Review 1

This is my review of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I've tried my best to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but their are some:

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book considering some of the negative reviews on Amazon. I found myself unable to put the book down for hours on end. I kept telling myself I’ll stop at this chapter, but then I’ll go one chapter more. The only thing that constantly stopped me was neck fatigue from having to look down at my book. It was definitely a page turner.

So you have to ask yourself why were there so many negative reviews. Some say he was too formulaic and filled his books with extraneous information. And I bet there were some who didn’t like the BS.

Well, I found that extraneous information very enlightening. And I rather like Robert Langdon. I actually cried when he drowned. And I thought the antagonist was good as a bad guy. I really hated the antagonist. As for the other characters in the story I thought they could be real people. As for the BS, you know it would be cool to find out if some of it was real, but it doesn’t have to be the absolute truth. It’s called fiction for one thing. True the story does end up taking you 360º, but so does life sometimes.

Gifts that are both Mental and Physical

This list is rather small so I'm going to spell out each of them.

Luck-Is luck Physical or mental or a combination of both?

Healing-This gift can be done on others or on yourself. You can perform healing of the mind, the heart, the spirit, or the body.

Blocking-A  purely defensive gift. This allows you to block anybody's gift, whether physical or mental. There are some individuals who can block whole cities.

Shielding-Like blocking this gift is purely defensive. You probably know what a physical shield is if you've seen either Star Trek or Star Wars. And you would know what a mental shield is if you've read some of the Twilight series (Bella has a mental shield)

Absorption- This gift allows you to borrow anyone's gift(s) and use it as your own. This gift varies on the number you are allowed to have at one time and the time you are allowed to borrow each gift and there is a trade off. For example you can borrow 1  gift for 1 hour or 4 gifts for five minutes. Also the gift that is being borrowed can be blocked, but absorption can't be blocked.

Inheritance-Similar to absorption. Except you are allowed to keep the gifts of others who have died when they die. There are two conditions to this rule: 1. You must be close to that person in distance and in heart when they die and 2. You cannot kill them intentionally in order to obtain it.

Which of these gifts appeals to you the most? Why? If that gift has a multiple options and you could only choose one, which one would you prefer to have? And why?

Character Description: Dae

Dae is the sister of Prag. She is the second-hatched of Praxel and Jazel (which serves no significant status on her part). She is a red dragon with ruby skin and blue eyes. She plays a pivotal role in Prag’s life prior to  him leaving cave. She’s a bit of a worrywart when it comes to Prag. But she does care about him just as much as he cares about her. She’s highly intelligent, but she doesn’t instigate Prag about it much.  She, unlike her brother, is not as brave and does not like mornings. She receives two gifts: Deduction (a Sherlock Homes gift that allows her to access information fairly quickly in her head) and telepathy.

Scarlet-antics 2

If you have a dog or are thinking about getting a dog, do NOT do what we did. Do NOT give a dog a complex. We do it all the time at our house. We gave one dog the name of an impregnable force of "Storm". And we dressed another one up to look like a puppy devil.

That overweight lady is my mom. This was her idea. And it was a bad one.

Why?

Ever heard of a dog who eats through drywall?

No?

Well one day I was in my room when I heard this strange sound. I looked outside my room  and the dog put a huge hole in one of the walls. So I put her outside. Then I took a picture of the damage and sent it to my mom. Don't believe me? Note the carefully placed teethmarks.

BAD DOG

Coming-of-age Ceremony

Thank the water, I have notes already prepared for chapter 10. And they are still in tact.

There are four ceremonies a dragon can have as he/she goes through life. There's the drinking of the water, the coming-of -age ceremony, weddings, and requiem. Chapter 10 deals with the coming of age ceremony, the age in which a chick becomes a dragon (figuratively of course, true dragonhood doesn't begin until the dragon reaches sexual maturity). Here are my notes on chapter 10:

Such an event only occurs on the tenth hatching day (like a birthday except dragons are not born) of the first-hatched. Their whole family awakens the whole brew before midnight on the day prior and they are not allowed to sleep until after midnight on the day after. This 24 hour period window ensures they do not miss the exact moment of their hatching (Dragons do not keep clocks).

First, they have a huge bonfire where they start telling stories in a circle. Some are legends and myth while others are remembrances of the young dragons themselves. And when they’re done telling stories (which could last several hours):

They play music and dance till the sun comes up. Most dragon dancing consists of them walking around in circle, but the dragon cave Praxel picked is large enough to leap on hindquarters and clap their claws together.

Afterward when the sun has risen, the young dragons are allowed to play games (See Dragon Games). They play outdoors and/or indoors, weather permitting.

At noon a human delivers a feast of roast Nile alligator, boneless buffalo wings (duck, chicken, and swan varieties), Kailua pig, de-boned fish of different varieties, and a variety of different meats.

After they’ve spent an hour or two gorging themselves, the females go off into the valley to do wreath-making with whatever wild flower are in season, while the males head in the opposite direction toward the mountains to do some wrestling and boxing (which also consists of having a tail glove).

 A note on the wrestling scene: Prag has just defeated Lore in single-combat boxing. They decided to call it a day when Praxel challenges his son to a wrestling match. Prag refused at first noting the time as an excuse. Praxel ignites Prag’s dragon pride by calling him a coward in front of the others. Peer pressure gets the best of Prag. Praxel is still bigger, stronger, and better trained than his son so he dominates him. Prag was pinned to the ground and he sensed Praxel wanted to bite his head off. Until Jazel came to collect the males and rescued Prag (saved by the bell).

At sunset a priest and a priestess come to the cave to do the official ceremony, which lasts an hour.

And the dragons spend the rest of the evening watching movies on a battery operated HD-TV.

What do you think of the coming-of-age ceremony? How can I add a little flare to it? What stories do you want them to talk about? What songs can they dance to? What movies should they watch?

Stats
Beginning chapter 10 with notes
Deadline set for March 27th
Also working on promo piece symbols
so far got my dragons all done.
music: Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
mood: daunted

Mental gift list

Now don't discard these as simple lists, because in the Celtic Realm nearly everybody has a gift. That's how demons are controlled. Because they don't know ahead of time which power/gift someone has ahead of time, they no longer enter the Celtic Realm because their afraid. Now both humans and dragons have inner demons, which is why the water has rules.

 

Mental: understanding, extravagant imagination (daydreamer), identical memory, discernment, lie detecting, meditative, wisdom, compassion (love and empathy combined), empathy (caring for others), creature detection, proximity detection, power detection, tracking, apathy (lack of emotional attachment), empathic (insight into the emotions of others), osmosis, prophecy, mind reading, Deduction, telepathy, clairvoyance, clairessence, clairaudience, instant sleep, and telepornography.

Now I have no idea what telepornography is, but I laughed myself silly  when it popped into my head so I kept it on the list.

Which of the mental gifts would you want? Which do you already have? And most importantly, what the hell is "telepornography"?

Stats

completed chapter 9

on to chapter 10

mood: Very happy

Will the real Susan West please stand up?

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish me from Sorica. But this blog post is about me in real life.

I'm no longer a very happy person. There was a time when I smiled everyday. But now I find that uncomfortable because now when I smile my mouth twitches. Before when I looked at kids they smiled at me. Now they just give me weird and nasty looks. Why? Because I'm sick. When I was 23, I got UC and my struggle with my butt began. But my biggest problem is with my ataxia (Google it). Now I am in a wheelchair, unemployed. Sad, I know.

But the good news is that right now my UC is under control. And I can still use my computer to type, use illustrator to draw, and use flash to animate. Also all of the images I've posted so far are original Sorica's (Thats my alterego.)

What I've been working on

Pets and Imaginary friends

 I didn’t have much forethought on preparing a blog entry. Then I had an epiphany: What if dragons kept pets. My dragons are social creatures, even though their societies consist of one male dominating and procreating with several females in a cavern. Anyway, I ought to keep to my original topic that was pets. I imagine them keeping small pets that were generally mute such as squirrels, rats, and lizards. And if they do allow such creatures that sing they’d have to be pretty harmonious, like birds. The dragons would casually interact with such creatures and provide natural protection. However, their pets have to supply themselves with their own sustenance (dragons have a reputation to maintain).

stats:

Music: Michael Jackson

Words done today: 307

Paragraphs completed today: 3

Chapters completed so far: 8.8

Accidents: 1

Character Description: Prag

Prag is the major protagonist in this story.  He is renown as the first-hatched of Praxel. He is a typical European dragon with wings and the ability to speak and to breath fire.  He scales are various shades of green with a dark green metallic skin underneath and perfect ruby red eyes. His personality is that of an extremely brave, of normal intelligence (for a dragon), well-liked, and somewhat naïve (in the beginning) chick who grows into a dragon and becomes King of the Celtic Realm. He also loves morning. Finally, he receives an unprecedented number of 3 gifts from the Renewal Water: Prophecy, absorption, and inheritance.

On a scale from 1-10, how much do you like this character? In what ways are you alike?

Scarlet-antics Part 1

In late September of 2008 we bought a golden retriever puppy

Cute isn't she. Her name is Scarlet.

 Some of her antics involve chewing behavior. She's chewed up her toys, a favorite slipper sock of mine, and several towels. See that dog bed above. Well look at this one:

Our dog is also fond of literature. She particularly likes college text books on quality control.

BAD DOG!

Renewal Water and the Rules

In Haven City there exists the Temple of Peace. and inside the Temple of Peace exists the Renewal Water a.k.a. The Fountain of Youth. The Water has a divine intelligence (hense the saying “By the Water” instead of “Oh my God”). The Order of Priests and Priestesses of the Temple of Peace or the Order are in charge of initiating, keeping the Temple clean, meditating/praying to the water, and commuticating the Water’s demands to the public. And those demands come in the form of rule. Obey the rules for just one year and you can keep the gift and live. Disobey and you will die.

1. No man, animal, or statue is a god and therefore should not be worshipped as one. They can represent, speak for, or be controlled by gods but they themselves are not gods. Anything that can die, decay, or be destroyed through the natural passage of time is not a divine spirit.
2. Don’t do evil acts: intentional harm of others or self without the reason of self-defense.
3. Every right-minded Individual having an opinion should be given a chance to peacefully express an opinion. Any attempt to stop a chance is to be considered an evil and should be defended against.
4. Don’t be doing stupid things. Think before you act & use your own damn common sense. If you know something may go wrong and someone might be hurt if it is done than don’t do it.

Dragon vs. Dragon fighting

I want to start by discussing how difficult it was to decide on a topic for today's blog. I had three in mind: this one, the rules of the Renewal Water, or I could continue talking about gifts. If you have a preference on which one you want me to discuss next you can fill out my comments below or you can tweet me @Sorica2001.


Now awhile ago on twitter, I made the argument that even before humans that dragons fought one another. I made such an argument because at the end of Book One of the Celtic Realm Prophecies I have Prag and Praxel duking it out.


When I was researching the topic of dragon on dragon fights, I was surprised at how little information was out there. There are no videos on youtube (except on a fight between a T-rex and a dragoness protecting her chick, Thanks Discovery Channel) and no movies that I can think of except maybe the end of Dragonheart II and very few pictures or articles. Fortunately, I have a very good imagination. And this lack of resources means I'm free to bullshit. And who knows, maybe my book will establish a new craze on dragon to dragon fighting.


However, I do want to establish certain parameters. Like the weapons of a typical european dragon include: Fire breath, spikes along the spine, talons, whipping tail, teeth, and horns on head. Their weak spots include: Eyes, under belly, wing flaps, and the soft skin under their scales. Their defenses include: flying away, bluffing, sounding an alarm, blocking attacks with forearms, and hoarding gems and putting them underneath the stomach scales. Finally Prag's reason for fighting Praxel: Praxel threatens the lives of his beloved Amelia and their eggs. Praxel's reason for fighting Prag: ? Because he likes being a bully, I don't know


How do you think the smackdown should happen?

Physical gift list

The difference between gifts and powers is that powers include the energy it needs to use that gift. Gifts are special abilities given by the Renewal Water in exchange for the person (or dragon) following a set of rules. The following gifts are physical. Some mental influence is involved but the manipulation is that of the physical world external of the person using it.

Physical: levitation, flight with and without wings, hormone control, enhanced senses (smell, taste, touch etc.), shielding, freezing, pheromone control, superb love making, oceanic communication, bullet dodging/ricochet/deflecting, temperature control, weather witch, phase shifting (both increasing and decreasing density), time freezing, stretchiness, enlargement and shrinkage (size control), increased speed, invisibility (both permanent and temporary), color creating, fire starting, shape shifting, form shifting space travel, metal magnetism, dimension travel, optical laser, conjurer, photonic cloning, holographic projection, time travel, and time control (like remote controlled time).

Which gift would you prefer to have? You can either pick one from the list above or you can choose one of your own. Why you would like to have that physical gift?

Dragon Sex

I was looking up my on my journal for something to put on my blog when I found this funny gem:

It occurred to me a while ago that in this first episode of the trilogy the protagonist and his love interest must procreate. The conclusion of this discussion will not be revealed in the book, but I do believe it is a relevant concern. But how exactly is this accomplished in dragons? Do they have intercourse or do the males fertilize the eggs externally? My guess it’s like gator sex, everyone assumes they’re having sex by their position, but nobody wants to jump into the water to check. Same thing with dragons, they moan and grunt, but nobody wants to look for fear of being burnt. So people can hear the commotion a distance away, but nobody is curious enough to investigate which avenue they take. Just as well I suppose. Young male dragons experience nervousness their first time. 


How do you think dragons reproduce? Would you want to know?

On the Superbowl

On the Superbowl last night (don’t worry, I won’t get into specifics), I will concede that my dragon friend was closer than me on the score. He predicted 35 to 14 Saints and I predicted 45 to 17 Saints. He turned out to be 1 point off the total score vs. my total, which was 14 points off. However we both choose the Saints to win. And all of the “experts” were hoping the Saints would win, but were calling for the colts. Next time, listen to the dragon.

Of the commercials, there was one Doritos and one Budweiser that I liked. The Doritos commercial I liked was that first one where that one guy was in the coffin full of chips. Then the coffin falls off the altar and the guy and chips o flying down the stairs. And another guy jumps into the aisle and shouts, “It’s a miracle!” Yeah, that made me laugh. And there was something heart touchingly precious about one of the beer commercials, the one with the colt and the calf running side by side with a fence between them. Then three years later, the colt is now a carriage-pulling Clydesdale and the calf is now a bull with really long horns. So the bull rams the fence and friends are now unseparatable. Isn’t that a sweet story? And no men where embarrassed during the making of either commercial.

Defending Bella

This is my first Blog, so don't hurt me. Over the past week or so I wrote the following in my Diary in response to a twitter conversation called #genderinya::

Damnit, I’m sick of people picking on Bella. She’s more mature than she seems and she makes grown up decisions. For example, in Twilight first she makes the decision to lead the tracker away from Charlie (no one else makes this call). Then she sacrifices herself in order to save her mother. Now in New Moon she makes a lot of reckless decisions, but nothing to the extreme of Edward. Edward makes the selfish move to kill himself, while she’s trying to survive. And when she learns of this, she runs through a crowd to try to save him. Then at the Volturri trial by admitting to her desire to join she saves Edward, Alice, and herself. Then there’s Eclipse, which admittedly I am going to have to read again, where she cuts her hand in order to distract Victoria and her friend long enough for Seth and Edward to kill them. Finally in Breaking Dawn, she marries Edward. And she has a hybrid baby with him at her own risk. And then when the Volturri come to kill the child, she chooses to fight and protect the child.

If there is anything Bella’s guilty of it is of being human. She’s flawed yes, but not weak in character. As far as her attachment with Edward goes, she’s just under a spell. They are both under each other’s spells. That doesn’t make them immature. Admit it, there have been times where you have been under someone else’s spell. Did that make you less mature?