Of numbers

Sometimes when I have a dream, I wake up knowing that I have to find a way to make it into a story. Such was the case with Wings, with the novel I wrote this year for Nano, and for the dream I had last night. Sometimes it's a small scene that spawns an entire concept, and sometimes it's a long series of scenes that play out like a movie, and I have to find a way to not only connect them in a logical way, but mold the rest of a story around them. Some things get ditched and altered, and some remain remarkably close to the way they originally appeared in my mind.

It's kind of hard to explain everything that happened in my dream. A lot of it is disconnected, or draws on real life pop culture, but over all it did follow a central main character. I can say for sure that he was a young boy, not necessarily intelligent, but gifted with a strange sight. Everywhere he looked, he could see numbers, for many years seeming as though they were completely random. But with time he learned to connect them, to understand them, and to use them. In fact, there was a couple of lines I remember him saying, the first of which being "The numbers are your desires."

It takes place in a world of magic, though until this boy learns how to utilize these numbers, he is incapable of any meaningful magic. Everyone around him begins to learn how to control the elements, how to fly, how to fight, and he is stuck being plagued by these numbers.

But the numbers, once understood, allow him magic beyond the capabilities of any others. With understanding, he can see the literal fabric of reality, and using the numbers as code, rewrite it in anyway he sees fit. Of course, being the main character, he is fortunate enough to be a pacifist, and to want only to use this power to make the world a better and kinder place. However, he soon finds that he is not the only one who can see the numbers, and that the ability to see and manipulate them can even be taught to others.

This then prompts him, as the main person capable of using this power, to open a new school of magic, which he deems the Guardians. He wishes for them to a neutral party, not to take any sides in combat, but instead serve to enhance the world by pulling the best creations from past and future, studying them, learning not only how to create them, but to improve them as well. Again, when speaking of the purpose of the Guardians, a line that I remember him saying: "A house isn't a home if your neighbors can't knock and say hello."

Now, a lot of this is weird, and very cheesy. Personally, I don't have much of a problem with cheese, but I can also see where someone like this character could make the story less interesting. It's certainly something that I would have to play around with, to see what kind of world I want to create and how to go about it. But I really enjoy the idea. It's almost like a coming of age story for the boy, as he discovers the depth of his powers and how he can use them, and more importantly what he wants to use them for. To witness him stand at the crossroads between the possibilities, and decide where he wants to go and what he wants to do. To me, that is the mark of a good character.

Of death

I had a dream a couple nights ago that really inspired me - as happens from time to time - that I've been thinking about a lot. I really want to make it into a full on story, but I'm gonna have to give it some time for me to figure out how exactly I want to go about doing that. Yesterday's blog post was actually my first attempt at doing that, and while I don't think it worked very well, it is helping me figure out how exactly I want to go about it. I'm debating about whether or not I want to use this idea for my Nano story this year, so if you see a lot of posts in the coming few days that seem to follow a singular story idea, that would be why.

Unlike Wings, which I used for last year's Nano and also came from a dream, this dream actually had a lot of substance to it. To put it shortly, the concept is that when you die, you enter a nightmare-esque game that only a select few amount of people are actually able to escape from, and in escaping enable the ability to really play and win the game. While the rest of the world forgets that they have died when they escape the game, they have not, and are intensely aware of the fact that they do not belong in the world. Every night when they go back to sleep, they return to the game, and the only way to escape the nightmare and actually be able to have a second chance at life is to win the game, rather than escape it. However, in order to win, they have to find a partner who is also one of these select few and, using the masks that they obtain by entering the game for the first time, enter each other's games and beat them for the other person simultaneously. Each person's game is based on their deepest fears, their personal histories, and their weakest moments.

If it sounds like there's no clear explanation of why the game exists, what its punishments are, and what exactly makes people want to escape or win... Well yeah, that's a good question. I'm not entirely sure. That's something that I need to play around with and figure out. In fact, the real goal may not be to be given a second chance at life, but to actually be allowed to continue on into the afterlife. The game may make their continued "life" a living hell. I'm not entirely sure.

But I love the idea. I love the concept of being trapped in a game after death, and needing to work together with a partner, putting your entire existence in their hands, even if they are originally a complete stranger. And when I put it like that, it sounds incredibly like one of my favorite games, The World Ends With You. Which, in a way, I suppose it is kind of inspired by, though how that got into my dreams I have no idea. Though I have a feeling the plot and the pushing forces will be massively different. I don't intend for their to be monsters for them to fight, or actual figures that are in control of the games. I intend the games to be the "villain" so to speak.

I'm excited to have a real story I want to be working on again, though. And what good timing for it.

Of String

When I was a kid, I spent a lot more of my time in my own head then I did in the real world. I remember sometimes saying that I had five real friends and a hundred imaginary ones. I would have conversations with people in my head constantly - which is not something that has changed, mind you - and I would tell them about the things that were happening in my life, and I would listen to them telling me about theirs, and we would play games together. They would come and go out of my head like friends and family walking through the front doors of my house. It wasn't very awesome that I felt alone in those days, but when I did, I had this idea that in my chest there was a string of threads, and they would extend out to the people I was connected to, and the special people to me had strings made of gold that could not be severed.

This isn't really something that I do anymore, but it is something that I reflect back on from time to time. Not in such a way that I miss it, but I think about how I can use that today. Specifically, of course, for writing stories. My idea wasn't that certain strings were gold from the get go, because you obviously wouldn't know if they were a life long, important friend when you first met them, but that over time they would coat themselves in gold to show how important they had become. And I also knew exactly which strings went to which people, though how exactly I would have kept track of them I do not know.

And I feel like that would be what could make for an interesting story. The concept of being able to see these strings tying people to oneself, but not knowing which strings went to which person, and having to witness them connecting to people and being coated in gold while not necessarily near them. Certainly, ninety-nine percent of the time it would be obvious when a string is being made and connected, or when it is being coated in gold. But to see a string forming when you are alone, or being coated in gold, and having no idea who or why. And then, later, to see a person you have never met before connected to you for no apparent reason.

It could almost be a mystery novel. Perhaps if one string broke and was replaced with another while you were at home, or if an unbreakable golden string suddenly snapped clean in half with no evident explanation. What happened? And to who? Why?

Of course, the hardest part to explain would be why those strings exist, and why they are visibly, presumably to only the main character. Are they corporeal? And if so, are they only corporeal to him? One would think so, or else people would randomly be tripping and running over invisible strings.

I really don't know what to do with the idea, but it's a fun one to tease. But I somewhat doubt I'll ever go anywhere with it.

Of light and dark

I've talked before about the first story I wrote, Power of the Balls, which was a horrendous pile of crap and everything that I hate in writing to this day. And I wrote a few other stories after that, though I concede that I do not remember them nearly as well - probably because I did not make it as far in those stories as I did with Balls. However, when I was starting in boy scouts, around the seventh grade, I had an idea for what I would try to make into my first book series. It was to be a four book series, with each of the first three based on a character born in light, darkness, and twilight, and a fourth book that brought the three together.

Theoretically, it was a sound idea, if a bit cliche. And I got through the first two stories, though to call them books would have been a bold faced lie. They were separated into chapters, sure, but I imagine that two chapters at the time would have easily fit into one of these blog posts, and I can barely get a story told half the time with the word count that I have set for myself. I did not have the mind for details and descriptions that I do know, which is pretty sad considering how terrible I am at that now. Then there was the fact that the stories themselves just weren't that interesting. The light story, I remember, barely made sense, and was creepily hinting at rape in order to create darkness. Darkness on the other hand was merely bland - a soldier born into evil becomes good because of a girl and sacrifices himself, blah, blah, blah...

Unlike Power of the Balls, however, these stories are still accessible. Easily, in fact. At the time, deviantArt was becoming popular, especially among kids my age, and I posted my stories there freely. My account still exists to this day, and I have never removed anything from it. What I wrote there is bad - really, really bad - but I feel like they should remain as a testament to where I came from and the progress that I have made. Though I do not know that I could ever stand to read them. I can not stress enough how bad they were. I think that I would physically cringe if I were to read them now. Lord only knows how I'll feel about them in ten years.

To be honest, I don't remember a lot of the thought process behind the stories. I know that the story with the light main character was to be darker, and that the story with the dark character was to be lighter. I don't remember what the twilight character was going to be put through, and I have no idea how I was supposed to bring the stories together. I probably didn't know at the time either. If given the chance, I don't know that I would ever try to rewrite these stories. Today, I don't find the ideas that I had very interesting. I feel as though I was just writing what a 12 year old would think was cool. Probably because I was 12.

Of angels and kitsune

I've written the "Angels and Kitsune" opening bit a couple of times now, and it's an idea I go back to fairly regularly in my head - which, as it often times is, is because I love the character in it. But before I go into that, it's worth noting that this isn't a straight original idea that I've had. I mean, there's no such thing as originality in writing, but that's beside the point. This was an rp that I had written with one of my best friends, and while I'm sure that if I reread it today I would hate the way it's written, I have always loved some of the ideas behind it, and particularly the character that I controlled - who, of the two options, was the angel.

I know it's an incredibly cliche writing technique, but my angel, Erasmus, suffered heavily from amnesia. And when I say heavily, I mean heavily. I mean, he didn't understand how doors worked. There was literally a scene where he was given a key to a door, and he looked at it, went to the door, and just pushed the key against it and couldn't figure out how it worked. I loved that. He was one of the most clueless, inept characters I have ever written, at least when it comes to how the world works, and it was some of the most fun I have had writing.

And the things that he could do - strictly fighting - was tied to his background, and in such a way that I felt made sense. Eventually it would be revealed that Erasmus was one of the leading generals in heaven's army, and that through unforeseen circumstances, he was banished from heaven and sent to Earth to attempt to redeem himself. I felt that while his mind might not be able to remember things, that didn't mean that his muscles wouldn't, and so fighting would be able to come naturally to him, even if he didn't fully understand why. Meanwhile, things like the door still don't apply, because that wasn't something that he ever had to do or deal with while he was in heaven. It made sense for him to act the way that he did as more of his character was revealed.

I'm sure that it wasn't executed as well as I remember it being. And there are some things that, while I loved and thought were hilarious at the time, I would probably cut out if I were to go back an edit it. One in particular off the top of my head is a scene where he fights a bear. I mean, there was a purpose to it, and with his skill level as a general in heaven's army, the fact that he could do so makes sense. But perhaps the thrill that he experienced in doing so, or his desire to fight a bear, were misplaced and unconstituted.

Some day I hope I can fully return to that story, or at least that character. I wouldn't want to step on the toes of the person who wrote the part of the kitsune, though I concede that it would be hard to tell a story using Erasmus without his kitsune friend, given how tightly interwoven the two are in my head. But we'll see. One day.

Of Balls

I've talked about it briefly a couple of times, but as I was considering a prompt a friend of mine gave me today for writing, I started realizing how grossly similar it was to a story I wrote a very long time - my first story, titled "The Power of the Balls." I mention that title every time I talk about it, because good lord, even at ten years old I knew it was an innuendo, and I stuck with it anyway. No one's going to read a story about the power of balls, past me. Not in any serious capacity.

I was obsessed with this story for a couple of years. It was my story. I had made it, and it was unlike anything that I had made before. It had a certain level of depth that I had never been able to achieve before, and I could share it with my friends and get them into it, after they laughed relentlessly at me for my dumb ass title. I played make believe games within the universe of my story, and my friends and I would go and fight giant imaginary monsters of all the different elements so that we could get their power balls (because I had never heard of an orb before apparently, which doesn't sound that much better, but is still better). And some of my friends would get mad at me for really stupid crap that really shouldn't have outraged them as much as it did, especially because it wan't even an original thing I was making and they ignored everything about what it was - but that's a different story.

I very distinctly remember what the document I wrote it on looked like. Not the story. But the document. My font was way too big, way too fancy, and way too green. I don't know why I made those decisions - probably because I was ten - but it was vomit inducing. And worse than that, the major conflicts of the story that I prided myself so much on - the large number of monsters and power balls that were threatening the world - were hardly conflicts at all. Multiple of them were defeated per page, and that was with how massive I made the text. In fact, I think multiple monsters were defeated per sentence, and that was before any of the main characters even had power balls to, you know, gain power.

I honestly can't write any more about it, because there wasn't anything more to it. It was a garbage story, with garbage pacing, and garbage ideas. I seem to recall the characters falling into some kind of hellscape where the monsters were from while trying to protect the world from them. What about the ones already in their own world? How did they get there? How were they going to get back? All excellent questions. None of which were answered. And I think that pretty much explains the whole problem.

Of wings

The novel I wrote back in November - and that I have unfortunately not spent nearly enough time working on sense then - was based on a post I made about a year ago titled Wings, which was based on a dream I had probably about seven years ago. I can't fully describe why that dream has stuck with me for so long - it was about me being a princess, jumping out of a window, and turning into a bird. But the moment I woke up the following morning, I knew that I had to turn it into a book, and it's crossed my mind several times since then, though I've never quite known where to go with it.

Unfortunately, that's still somewhat true. I've definitely made more progress with it, seeing as I was able to pump out fifty thousand words of a story for it, but there are still a lot of questions that I haven't answered yet. I've established a world of magic - though magically which has been largely forgotten - but I still have yet to decide how that magic is really controlled. My main character is largely unaware of this magic, even though she is a wielder of it, and therefore spends most of the story just trying to learn. But the problem with learning is that, eventually, there needs to be an answer. And I haven't found one that I'm happy with yet.

I want this magic to be something that isn't easy to figure out the first time. Simply focusing on wanting to be a bird isn't enough. I don't want it to be so simple as that. I want there to be a need to focus on an emotion, though I'm not sure I want that to be all there is to it. I don't want it to be as cliche as believing in your abilities or in your friends, though as a placeholder that is what I put near where I stopped writing. Which is my problem with trying to move forward. I want to come up with this answer.

My little bird went through a lot of trauma surrounding gaining her powers, and I want there to be an overcoming of that involved in her learning. She lost nearly everything that she had, her friends, her family, her home. And multiple times, she nearly lost her life, and not only to the enemy which pursues her. She has been deeply emotionally scarred (which, on another note, is something that I need to work on. I don't feel like that's properly explored. But that's more of something to go through in editing.)

This is the main problem I've been facing since I stopped writing in November. I know other things that I want to have happen in this story, and more or less where it will end up. But I'm not the kind of person to keep writing past a missing scene. I know some people can write out of order, but I've tried to do that, and it just messes me up. I really want to know how magic works in this world. How it is controlled. And perhaps it is different for each person, depending on what it is that they can do. So how does one fly? How does one compress their body, make it light, and become a bird that fits in their hand? And how does one make it not cliche? Because good lord, it could not be more so as it is now.

Of swords

I have a fascination with swords, I don't know if anyone's noticed. Making them, fighting with them, caring for them, and breaking them. If it's got anything to do with swords, I'm totally into it. So it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that most of my characters use swords in one capacity or another, and that the character I want to talk about today is heavily focused around them.

To be honest, I don't know much about this character's personality or background. I haven't yet decided what kind of world they live in, or why they can do what they do, or even really what they're going to use their abilities for. But what I do know is that they are exceedingly proficient at fighting with swords. You can put any kind of sword in their hands, tell them to fight with it in any kind of way, and they'll be able to do it, and probably better than most other people can. But that's not really the strength that defines them.

Rather, it's their arsenal. They don't carry weapons around with them. They're not armed unless they are actually in a fight. Similar to a video game character, they have an entire inventory of weapons at their disposal, which are always readily available to them. They can pull these swords out from the ether, appearing and disappearing from thin air, always ready to fight in any style with any sword, able to respond to the situation at hand. Of course, if he's caught by a blow while transitioning between swords, he'd be screwed. He can't simply change one into another. The first would have to be completely rescinded into his inventory before he can pull out the next.

Which then raises the question of just how long it takes to change weapons. Is it something he can only do tactically, making space in the fight tog vie himself time to switch out? Or does it take only a moment or two, so that a quick and well placed strike is the only thing that would be able to pierce his defense? And then you begin to question the use of two swords at once. After all, if he can fight in all styles, one would assume that he could fight while dual wielding - double the weapons equals double the power, after all.

And assuming dual wielding is a possibility, what about the use of a shield? Sword and board is a very legitimate and well used fighting style, capable of giving a fighter very well rounded approach to a fight. But would it be one that he would be any good at? After all, his specification is that he's good at using swords. Would the shield make him feel uncomfortable? Off balance? Clunky? It's a very rigid and blocky defense, after all, and could easily affect the fluidity one would require to swing a sword.

There's a lot of back and forths to consider with the character, and they're some that I very much so would like to explore. Would help to have a setting, though.

Of Eyes

If you haven't noticed, characters are probably the part of writing that I excel at - or at the very least, what I am most fond of. So when I tell you that this idea for a story centers around an idea for a character, you shouldn't find it surprising.

I love Alice in Wonderland, though why exactly that is I struggle a bit to explain. There is a lot of insanity and craziness in the story, but it actually follows a set of rules, with a purpose, an expectable outcome, and definable characters and characteristics. It seems impossible to understand the first time, but the more attention you pay, the clearer the events become. My favorite example of which being the Mad Hatter. I won't get into him too much, but suffice to say that he's interesting not because of the questions he asks, but why he asks them. Real world consequences in a world of fantasy - pretty interesting if you ask me.

The hatter is the inspiration behind this character of mine. His perceived insanity - no less real, but defined by a set of laws. Whether or not he was the one who set those rules or another is hard to say, but they are incredibly important to him, if to no one else. But between those rules, how does he act? It's hard to say. In one instance he may think and act in a certain way, but in the next it may be entirely different.

What if there was a pattern? An observable one, one that could be learned, but couldn't be predicted. One that you have only to know and react to, like knowing how to talk to one friend over another.

My hatter has an unknown cause for his insanity, but has eyes that give away his patterns. A man with  multiple personality disorder that changes at the flip of a switch with no discernible reason or consistency between switches. But with each personality, the color of his eyes change, and each personality is directly tied to one of the different colors.

But as an author, this presents a lot of opportunities. Perhaps too many. How many personalities does he have? Just how different are they all? Do the personalities know about each other, and if so, how thoroughly? If not, why? How did this condition occur upon him, and is there anything that can be done about it?

These are the questions I want to answer. The deeper I get into it, the harder it becomes to write. But it also makes it more interesting. I can only hope that I can somehow do it justice.

Of Randomness

When I was younger, for a very short time I played an online trading card game whose name I have long since forgotten. In a similar vein to Magic the Gathering, different cards were based upon varying elements, but it was unique in just how many elements there were. One in particular always struck with me - the element of entropy.

If you're out of the know, and couldn't guess by the title of this post, entropy is the element of randomness - in a sense. It's an actual scientific principal, and it effectively accounts for randomness in variables in mathematical equations. More or less. It's been a while.

I was definitely one of those "lol teh rando" kids, I will freely admit, and there is certainly a lot of that still in my brain. But for whatever reason, the concept of entropy hit me in a very different way - my best guess being because it was the concept of controlling it. Some time later, a friend of mine wanted to write a story with all of her friends as characters, and her better friends being the special main characters. I was fortunate enough to be one of those particular friends.

She asked me to pick an element that I wanted to control. Other friends had chosen theirs first, so more obvious choices were already gone, but I didn't have to think twice. I told her I wanted my character to control entropy. We talked for a long time about what that meant, and what that allowed my character to do, and what the downsides of it were. It wasn't that he could effect chance, so to speak. Rather, he could call upon it.

That character became a favorite of both of us. His power was quick to decide - at the snap of his fingers, a random event occurred. It could happen to him, around him, inside him, or absolutely nowhere near by. It could kill people, bring them back to life, change their appearance or mindset, or turn their head completely around. He couldn't choose what would happen or where or to whom - he just had to pray. It would even be possible to reverse what he had already done, but who knew what kinds of things he would cause in the process.

We all see patterns in nature, created by random chance. So the things that his powers did would follow some sort of pattern. But as soon as he figured out what that pattern was, whether he wanted to or not, the pattern would change.

An incredibly inconvenient power, and yet an incredibly powerful one. One that would lead to a character who was incredibly happy, incredibly funny, but also incredibly sad. All of which would be amplified by his cultural upbringings.

It's such a good character, with such a good balance and so many possibilities, and I can't help but want to take it for myself. Which is kind of ironic to say, given that it's literally based on me. Even events in the character's life, as my friend writes it, are based on events in my own life. It would be hard for me to ever write a character in that style without it coming out very similarly to what she would write.

One day, if she ever finishes that tall tale, I would love to not only read it, but write my own expanded story of it. To write fanfiction of myself. How crazy would that be?

Of Second Chances

For all of the shit I talked on Hunter and Sage (though mostly Hunter, seeing as Sage was a character not under my control), they are characters that have stuck with me for well over half of my life at this point. I love Hunter and Sage. I love the way they interact with each other, the way they bounce off of each other, and the way they encouraged each other to grow. Am I suck up for romance? Yeah, of course, and so I love the way they fell for each other over time.

I've thought a few times about rewriting their story, making it from a single perspective as a full novel, rather than the role play it originally was. I'm still good friends with the creator of Sage, and I've talked to her about this before, and she's ok with the thought. Unfortunately, the original role play is not only bad, but broken. Roughly a hundred pages of the story were simply erased from existence by bad web design, and while I have a vague recollection of what happened during that time, it's not enough to go off of.

So another thing that I have thought about is writing a sequel. Hunter's death at the end was vague - rather than being torn apart, or die of old age, or anything like that, his body was turned to stone, and in a world of magic, that is hardly a permanence. The question than is how to approach, and that is something that I have actually explored on this blog. But unfortunately, I have little more than a start to the story - I know the situation I want to place Hunter in, the trouble he has to face, but I don't know what comes after that.

Having Hunter come back in Sage's lifetime simply negates the point of his sacrifice at the end of the original story. Hunter will have to come back long after, in a world where he is little more than a myth, in a world without magic, and worst of all for him, a world without Sage. He'll have to find his place from there - learn what purpose he has to serve, how he can serve it, and how he's going to get by without the love of his life.

But what about after that? What role will he play? What happened to the magic in the world? Why did he come back if there is no magic anymore, and in fact has not been for some time? How will he cope with the loss of Sage? He was a soldier and a wizard - with the use of both of those gone, is there any kind of thing for him to stand against?

These are questions that intrigue me, and that I would absolutely love to learn the answers to. I would love to tell that story, to explore those harsh realities, and to see how Hunter copes with them.

But good lord, I don't even know where to begin.

Of Medieval War

God what an awful title.

Medieval War was the name I gave to a roleplay I did many years ago, and one that I still think back on from time to time. In my defense, I named it before any parts of the story were really established, characters included, but good lord, if I had put a little effort in. Regardless, it was both the first roleplay and the first story that I was able to put "The End" on, which is among a few reasons why it has stuck with me for so long, although in retrospect it was a mess, and incredibly uncreative. But I was like 12. Give me a break. 

The story followed Hunter and Sage - two friends turned eventual lovers - as they attempted to put a stop to an uncoming war between monsters and humans. If that sounds dull, guess what, that's because that's hardly a basis for a story at all. There was really no planned direction for anything going in, and seeing as it was a public roleplay, several people would occassionally intervene. This provided for some strange twists that, in the end, really had nothing to do with anything.

On top of that, as has already been clearly evident, I was not on my A-game in the creativity department. I can not tell you how many things I lifted directly from other sources - namely Kingdom Hearts. And there's nothing wrong with emulating or taking bits and pieces of other stories that inspire you. But these were things I straight lifted and claimed as my own, and I was well aware of it at the time. 

Not only that, but this was a time where my characters needed to win. They needed to be the most powerful, and the most capable. Anything ahort of an almighty god in a human's body with a heart of gold simply wasn't good enough for me. And I thought I was trying to put in moments of weakness, and show that there was more to my character than just a Gary Sue, but what I used were hardly weaknesses at all. There may have been consequences, but they were totally uneven. The closest I came to doing right was that he didn't live to see the end of the story - but he also took out every single monster with him singlehandedly. If that's not saying something about what stupid lengths I would go to, I'm not sure what would. 

But I still enjoyed the characters in that story. I enjoyed seeing them evolve - specifically romantically - and I really enjoyed having a story that felt like it might actually be going somewhere. Although this was well after I had decided I wanted to be a writer, this was the first time I think I really got a taste for writing a full story.

It's just unfortunate that that first story was such garbage. Although I suppose that everyone's is. 

Of color

How would someone who has lived their life colorblind react to suddenly facing a world full of color? I would suspect that it would be overwhelming. Such a sensory overload would surely be like a blind man looking directly into a lightbulb for the first time. Like a deaf man listening to heavy metal as the first thing after recovering his ears. It wouldn't just be surprising, but physically painful.

So what if that happened to a colorblind person at seemingly random? If, throughout his life, inexplicably the world was filled with color at a moment's notice, burning his eyes and crippling him momentarily, only to vanish as quickly as it came. What events would bring the color about? Would he grow to long for those moments of brief clarity of the true world, or would he resent them? And would he find some way to understand what it was that was causing the color to return to his eyes in the first place?

In my head, this man and his colorblindness is connected to angels and demons, fighting over custody of the world and its people. Color is given to him when angels and demons are near, who are frequently running from or fighting each other for control of their territories. When the character realizes the relationship between these fighting parties and his colored sight, he begins to hunt them down whenever the color appears, hoping to learn more about what is going on, and prevent them from harming any one else.

The real question, of course, is why he is connected to the angels and demons in the first place. Are they the reason he became colorblind at all? And why does being near them give him the ability back to be able to see color?

The other thing about this story that I would want to explore is the concept of the appearance of the angels and demons themselves. I always wanted to have the two factions appear as one might expect them to, but in reverse. To have demons which are beautiful creatures, delicate in appearance and always glowing, but with deceptively bone crushing strength. To have angels dressed in thick, black armor, hulking muscles and deep voices, but soft hands underneath the gauntlets.

The problem, as with many of my stories that I haven't yet written, is that I don't know what I would do for a story. I really like the world and it's implications, and I want to know more about it. But what exactly is going on outside the world of this one man is unclear to me.

Of immortality

I like the concept of immortality in a story. Not as a way of making a character over powered, or allowing them to live through anything that comes their way without having to make excuses for how they miraculously got by. Rather, I like the idea of a character having to face the consequences of attaining immortality. Sure, it is helpful in the here and now, but immortality is not simply being able to live through a fight. It is being able to live through anything and everything. To have to constantly say goodbye to the world as you know it, and let a new world be ushered in. To watch the ebb and flow of time, and be forced to bend with it, else be left in the dust.

I've wanted to tell the story of an immortal man for some time. A man who was fond of the middle ages, but now lives in the modern world, surrounded by new and evolving technologies, where the magic that once gave him everlasting life is now nothing more than the stuff of myths and legends, and where he has to hide his true identity, else be captured by the government to be experimented on, so as to learn the secrets of his undying nature. A man like that would be dreadfully alone, whether he likes it or not, and it would be difficult to say whether he was a good or bad man.

Would he have participated in history? Would he have served in the wars that passed, or stayed on the sidelines? If he served, would he be a soldier, or a general? Would he try to hold on to his ways, or would he grow weary of repetition and find new things to do? Would he fall in love? Could he? And if he did, would he marry his lover, knowing that one day they would grow old and fade away into the annals of time, while he persisted as though not a day had passed? And if he had once loved, how long would it stain his heart? Would he ever be willing to take another lover for the rest of time?

That, to me, is a fascinating story. But, how would you go about exploring it? My idea is to do it through another person. A young girl who stumbles across this man on accident. Perhaps she is alone in the world, without parents or friends or loved ones, and she latches onto the man who is much older than he appears. And, in a moment of weakness, he agrees to take her in and care for her. He has more than enough money, gathering from the many lives he has lived, and is able to give her good shelter and food. And, with time, they become friends, and he learns to trust her and lets her in on the truth of who he is.

And what becomes of her when she knows this truth? That, at least in one point in history, there was such a thing as magic, and it resulted in a man immune to death. A man who had seen history first hand, who had played a part in it, and still held onto the souvenirs of his life.

I don't want their relationship to be one of love, however. Which is strange for me, because I love to love. Perhaps she would find love elsewhere, and he would help to guide her.

But one scene is very vivid in my mind above all others, and that is the last scene. The scene in which she is lying in her death bed, late at night, when all the others have gone to sleep, but her immortal friend sits beside her in her final moments so they can talk about the life they have lived together. And as he watches her pass away, for the first time in his life, he can smile, knowing that her life was happy and full.

Of music

One of the story ideas I've had for years is the concept of a group of students who can control the elements through music, each playing a unique instrument and controlling a unique element. I forget which one of us first spawned the idea, but it comes from a role play that I did with an old friend of mine many moons ago, and many of the scenes that I enjoy the most about this story come directly from that role play, as well as aspects of characters, the main part of which being which instruments control which elements.

The three most consistent characters are the flaming guitarist, the earthy drummer, and the wet violinist. If these sound familiar, it's probably because I've written their scenes a number of times, both on this blog and elsewhere. Only one of them really has a consistent name, though, that being Jake the guitarist, who is a cold and harsh person on the outside, but is gentle and caring on the inside, always looking out for his friends but only acting out on it when he's needed. The drummer is energetic and flirty, but romantic when he gets down into a relationship, and the violinist is shy and afraid to open up.

I love specific scenes with these characters, and truth be told, I'm not sure I'll ever get sick of writing them. Jake being discovered playing his acoustic guitar for the first time. The drummer finding the violinist playing at night and realizing she is more than just another pretty face.

The story has so much potential, and I want to see all of the characters develop desperately. The problem with the story is that I don't know what the conflict is. They all have inner conflicts, of course, but I want something that can push them all together and forward. Something that gives them drive to develop and interact, that gives them something to unite against. But I don't know what that would be.

I considered having a rival band that they face off against in a sort of rock-off, but I'm not sure I like how that plays out. In my head, it's sort of like the musical fights in Scott Pilgrim, but the story isn't quite as jokey as Scott Pilgrim is. It's more like a coming of age story among a group of friends, each growing in their own ways. Though to be honest, I'm not a fan of coming of age stories.

And maybe that's why I have so much trouble writing it as a full story. I don't know how to tell a story in that manner. To connect small stories without having a larger, overarching plot to tie them together, or to end a story without necessarily reaching a climax. I'm just not a fan, and so while I have tons of scenes with these characters I want to write, I just don't know quite how to go about it.

And it would be a shame not to explore those characters in depth.

Of Adventure

The first Nano novel I wrote was entitled Towards Adventure, and was about a former farmer who taught himself to read, learned the stories of great men going on greater adventures, and wanted to do the same for himself. It started off simply enough, a lone man trying to make his way in the wilds, learning the lays of the land. He was a farmer, he'd know enough about food to get by. But as the story went on, I kept getting more ideas, and I didn't have a great sense of how to hold back at the time.

I added character after character, each with a purpose of teaching my hero something about adventure and life. How not to judge a book by it's cover. How to fight. How to expand his mind and body, and to do great things. These people would travel with him, to help him learn something about himself, and hopefully a little bit about themselves as well. But I added too many, and too quickly. Not to mention the format of the story - written as a journal by the main character - made it difficult to directly explore any of these side characters. Everything was limited by the eyes of the hero, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn't working for what I wanted.

As I wrote, I began to realize how I wanted the story to end. Something that would change in the hero. Make him forget about the adventure that he had long ago set forward on. To separate him from his companions, from his ideals, and make him into a different man. But a man who continued to write about what was happening, because he felt a drive and a need to in himself.

The idea was that, in the beginning, every single day would be chronicled. At times, due to illness or injury, days would be missed, but glossed over with enough to detail to keep the reader up to date. But as time went on, and these changes began to take place, large gaps of the story would go missing. And not even just be skipped. I wanted the very pages of the book to be torn out, so as to show the reader that something was missing. I wanted them to feel as confused about what was happening as the characters were.

It would have made a good set up for the sequel I had in mind. For someone to find his journals much later, and to read them, and become curious. Curious enough to go on their own adventure, to find him. To find out what had happened. To see who he had become and what he had done, and to help him find his way back to adventure. And along the way, learn a little bit about themselves. To take the lessons that the old hero had written about, and apply them to his own life.

I still think it's a good idea. But I don't think I was anywhere close to where I needed to be with it the first time.