Two Pictures are Worth 7,000 Words. So Far.

Look! Another blog post! But, this one is different! You came here expecting all writing and complaining about assignments and um, well, whatever else it is that I write about. I can't really remember what off the top of my head - but that's not the point! Hah! You're getting pictures instead! Here. Have a picture.

 

And while you're at it, have another picture.

 

Yes, so, as you may have noticed, they're not completely random pictures. Amongst my assignmenting, movies and TV shows and to-ing and fro-ing of the student life, I decided to draw some pictures. Namely of some of the characters from Soulless. Which is currently at around 7,000 words. So yes. Maybe this post is about my writing. But in pictures!

So, in the first one on the left, we have Rook Llewellyn. One third of the protagonist party, soul-wraith, man-of-few-words and a heart of gold. He looked less wolfish originally. Still not sure if I like it. Note the patched coat, and completely covered appendages. This is important for soul-wraiths. Their power, or curse as some prefer to call it, cannot be controlled. They will absorb the life force from anything they touch, so they must prevent themselves from accidentally touching things, lest they accidentally absorb more than they expect and get a nasty new characteristic.

On the right is Evie Wray. Another third of the protagonist party, stubborn, pretty, and now also a soul-wraith. Unfortunately. If you noticed in the snippet of the story I posted back whenever it was, Rook accidentally transferred the disease when he pulled her out of the burning building. She is not as animal-ly as Rook yet. She is only a 'young' soul-wraith, as in she has not absorbed much life magic yet to change her features drastically. The magic she has absorbed was Rook's, that's why she looks wolfy too. And yes, she has a beardy thing. I was just trying to illustrate that her face and her pointy little ears are furry now. You can't see it, but she has a little bunny sort of tail. Rook's is longer because he's older/more tainted.

Second picture is some different versions of Rook's face. One version is more human, the other more wolfy. I don't know if I like either at the moment. The human is a little too human and the wolf is much too wolfy. I need a face somewhere in between.

So, my reader minions, what say you of my scribbles?

Wearing: PJs.

Eating: Had crispy MnMs, Starburst fruit chews and a cup of frozen Coke at the cinemas. Saw Judge Dredd in 3D. Was trippy.

Listening to: Nil.

Feeling: I can taste freedom. One more assignment then I've finished this year of Uni.

Na*No*WriMo

So. As a writer, reading this writer-ly blog, you have probably heard of NaNoWriMo, or, for those who are less in the writerer-ly group; the National Novel Writing Month. The aim of the game is to write a 50,000-word (or longer) novel, between November 1 and November 30. One month to do as much furious keyboard pounding and coffee drinking as possible. NaNoWriMo aims to encourage more people to write by setting this goal. You can go to their website and sign up and update your little word counter on your profile. 

Lots of people participate in the event annually, but I don't think I will. For one, I don't like the idea of having such a deadline imposed on me. Sure I'd be thrilled to write 50,000 words in a month, but I don't think I'd feel too good by the end of it. I like my stories to ruminate, to mellow in my head. Wine is better with age and I think my stories grow stronger if they ferment. Also, how much of this competition is showing off how fast you can do it? I bet there are several hundred people always keeping an eye on the fastest counter and trying to beat it. And the work they produce doing it? Well, it's going to be absolute tosh, isn't it? Quality over quantity I say. 

Look at me sounding all posh and righteous. 'Tis only my humble opinion good sirs and fine ladies. Go and participate if you think you'd like that kind of challenge or whether you think it'd be instrumental in helping your writer-ly butt get moving. Also, one of the rules is you have to start from scratch on November first. I've already done 7,000 words on Soulless, so it kind of excludes me anyways. Oh woe is me!

Eating: Nothing. Otherwise it would taste weird. I just brushed my teefs.

Wearing: PJs.

Listening to: Game of Thrones theme song. Delicious!

Feeling: Slightly better. I have been working on my assignments.

Death by Block

As y'all might have remembered (read this post and this one if you don't remember, for details on my costume and how it went) I recently attended an awesome Cosplay event here in Townsville. I now present to you, the epicness that is SoMAG Style!

 

I am the one dressed in black with a block for a head, attacking the other person with a block for a head, with a block. Yay Minecraft!

Shockingly, I have been doing a lot of writing on Soulless. It has quite surprised me, especially since I'm supposed to be working on some very important assignments... But, be that as it may, I was able to bash out a respectable 2000 words on the beast yesterday. While waiting for the next episode of Dragons: Riders of Berk, the new television show based on Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon. I love Toothless! *squee*

I'm not sure if I should post more of the story on this blog. There is the matter of people stealing it. And I don't want to be giving it all away. What do you think, dear reader? Would you like more tidbits from Soulless?

Feeling: Guilty. All of the assignments!

Eating: I'll probably chow on some candy in the not to distant future. Lunch was preposterous.

Wearing: Shorts and green tee with a panther printed on it.

Listening to: Gungnam Style is stuck in my head. And now yours!

P.S.

I have also just surpassed 600 views! Thank you my little reader minions! You give me great ego boosts with every milestone! *throws cookies at audience*

A Smidgen of Soulless

Lookit! I wrote another smidgen of Soulless! This time it's the bit where our two main characters meet for the first time. I use meet in a rather roundabout way here...

Rook cursed and removed his heavy pack. The binding on his tail had come undone – again. The pack fell to the forest floor with a thump and a rattle. Rook reached around behind him, caught up the offending appendage and began carefully unrolling the scraps of rag that were wrapped around it. He then retied them in a neater fashion and hefted the bag back onto his broad shoulders. He despised his tail. He longed for the times when it hadn’t been there. He sighed gruffly and moved on. He had to find somewhere to camp before it got light. And something to eat. He had been existing solely on strips of dried deer for a week now. 

 The clearing was small, but dry. Rook set down his pack and stretched his back. He took a guzzle from the flask hanging from his belt. Some may have quailed at the burning, bitter drink, but Rook was used to it. He set about rooting around in the evening light for some firewood and when that was blazing merrily in the middle of the clearing, he trudged back into the forest. The tall man squatted, closed his burning yellow eyes and scented the air. A rabbit had been this way. He took a few steps forward on all fours like an animal, still sniffing, until the scent was strongest. He rose and sprinted into the twilight. 

The small grey rabbit hung limply from Rook’s hand as he made his way back to camp. It would make a fine meal. He navigated the way back by smell. The scent of wood smoke was very easy to follow on such a still evening. After a few minutes though, he stopped. He sniffed deeply. Something was wrong. The wind picked up now as the sun began to vanish over the treetops, bringing with it a billowing cloud of smoke. This was not coming from his tiny campfire. Rook’s first instinct was to flee. Smoke like this could be an imminent forest fire. But there were none of the usual signs to indicate a wildfire. No fleeing animals or frightened bird calls. 

“You know better than to go and investigate, you idiot,” he said to himself. There were a few more moments of indecision, but finally curiosity won out. Rook turned towards the source and started running again. He wove through the forest, as light on his feet as a doe. The smoke grew strong and acrid in his sensitive nose as he approached the source. He slowed as the forest began to thin. He crept slowly forward now, peering through the dark, spiky needles and smoke. The roar of a fire was audible now. He could hear it devouring matter like a hungry beast and the occasional crack and groan of burning timber. Then above all of this, a thin, piercing scream. Rook’s eyes widened. He rushed from the cover of the trees into a field. Up a small hill, illuminated from behind by a glorious red and gold sunset was a small farmhouse engulfed by writhing yellow flames and black smoke. Rook’s feet carried him towards the blaze. The scream came again, twisted and warped by the hot air billowing from the flames. Gritting his teeth, Rook flung himself up the front steps and through the door. The smouldering timber gave easily under his weight and he immediately felt the fire begin to scorch his face and hands. He looked around, coughing, his eyes watering. The scream came again, this time much weaker. Rook barrelled through the flames towards the flaming staircase and bound up them. Near the top, the burning wood gave way beneath him, leaving him dangling from the top stair. He grunted and cursed, heaving himself up, using claws for traction on the smoking wood. He burst into the first room he saw and glanced around. There, huddled on the floor in the corner in a singed white dress was a girl. Rook dove through the flames and scooped her up. Her head lolled and she was heavy in his arms. He turned to leave the room, only to find the way solid with flames. The house creaked and shuddered around them. A section of the roof fell in and Rook leapt back, narrowly avoiding it. There was no other way out of the room – except the window. Rook struggled towards it. He turned and kicked out as much glass as he could. He looked out and down at the two storey drop and groaned. 

They hit the ground harder than he could have imagined. He rolled several times, becoming separated from the girl in the process. He stopped, sprawled in the dust on his back. He was winded and dizzy, but nothing appeared to be broken. He sat up and cried out. He took back his previous thought. One or more of his ribs was broken. The heat of the fire still seared his flesh. He hauled himself to his feet in a haze of pain, grabbed the girl’s wrists and began dragging her further from the fire. A relatively safe distance away he flopped to the ground with another growl of pain. He sat, trying not to pant, still holding the girl’s wrists as he watched the farmhouse collapse in on itself, spewing gouts of flame and ash into the evening sky. He sighed. He was going to stink like smoke for ages now. Prey would be to smell him coming from the next valley over. One of the girl’s fingers twitched and brushed against the skin of his hand. Rook looked down to see a few small white points of light slither from her smooth white skin onto the back of his hardened, leathery hand. He felt his blood run cold. He snatched his hands away from hers. 

“No.” He scrabbled for the gloves in his pocket. “No, no, please no...” His hands shook as he pulled the gloves from his pocket. In his haste they fell from his grasp. “No, no, no...” He snatched them up again and hurriedly pulled them on. He took the girl’s face in his hands and shook it. “No!” Her pallor had become even paler than before. “NO!” Rook shook her shoulders, willing her to wake and be untainted. He shook her again, oblivious to the sharp pain in his chest now. “NO!” But part of him knew. Deep down, he knew that the damage was already done. He let go of her, his hands shaking. He bowed his head in rage and guilt. He had infected someone else. Something he had sworn never to do. He looked up again, wild desperation in his eyes. 

“Undo it. There must be a way I can undo it.” He ripped the gloves back off and after a second of hesitation, took her hand into his again. Nothing happened for a second, but then the white sparks began flowing slowly from her body to his again. Rook growled and forced his eyes shut. The flow of energy slowed. Rook hunched forward in exertion till his brow was almost touching hers. Slowly and for the first time in the history of Geath, the flow of energy slowed, stopped, and began to run back into the victim of a Soul-Wraith. Faster the sparks rode between the two and Rook roared as he felt the life draining from his body into the girl, spilling over onto the earth. His breathing became shallow, his thoughts distant and he fell back, releasing her hand. The smoke-filled evening sky above him was swallowed by blackness. 

Critiques, comments, spelling and grammar checks welcomed. Also other checks. The money kind. Preferably signed. Pretty please?

Wearing: PJs

Listening to: One Way or Another: Blondie

Eating: Considering more Wizz Fizz.

Feeling: Creative.

Imogen's Daydreams

Im-Jay herself

I have an alter ego. Her name is Imogen and she is the personification of my unconscious mind. I'm not crazy. I don't actually have multiple personalities. But she is convenient. I jokingly blame her for all of the weird stuff that I do. For example, she gives me extremely weird cravings and then even weirder, but sometimes awesome dreams. This is what she made up last night.

Okay. It was as if I was watching a movie. There was a very rich family of Asian decent. They were all highly trained fighters. One day their mansion/house thing was attacked by a horde of barbarians/zombies (I never quite got a good look at them). For some reason, the father orders that no one is to venture outside the walls of the mansion to fight off these beasts.

The daughter however, wants to impress her father, so finding a chink in the estate's defences, goes outside and after a few weeks, manages to defeat the horde. She tells her father, expecting to be praised, but he is furious.

He can't believe she would put herself and her family at risk by not telling him of this weakness in the defences. Plus he was about to arrange a truce with them that would have left him very well off. (I added that bit in after I woke up - it made more sense.)

So, he banishes his daughter to be a bell ringer in the bell tower. She can't believe she has been treated like this, so begins to rebel, throwing off all of the rules and traditions that the family had forced upon her.

The family fights back, but she has grown so strong from fighting the horde that she manages to knock her father out. He mother steps up. Secretly, she is a better fighter than her husband. The pair duke it out, realising that they are evenly matched.

So the mother decides to play dirty. She grabs her son and uses him as a shield. The daughter is unwilling to hurt her little brother, so the mother is able to take her out.

The parents (once the father wakes up) drag the girl to the ocean and dump her in the water. They tell her to swim for the nearby island, for she has been banished from the family. At this point I realised she looked a lot like my cousin Nicole.

Do you get weird dreams? If so, what's the weirdest?

Eating: Had braised steak for lunch.

Listening to: Actually watching an episode of Grimm. It's not bad.

Wearing: Bright red shorts and grey singlet.

Feeling: Nonchalant.

My Safe Word Is Apples...

So... recently I found another TV show to binge on, and in the process procrastinate on writing and university assignments. This show is the funny and fantastic, crime-comedy, Castle. I had heard about it, seen the ads for earlier seasons on television, and dismissed them as just another show I didn't really want to watch. But I was bored and IMDB told me that I might like it. So I downloaded the pilot, and couldn't stop watching. The crime bit is good, but the characters were what kept me sucked into this insane little Castle cyclone. I sat there dying to see more and riding every emotion like a supercharged roller coaster. I have officially become part of another fandom. I'm already planning custom fan apparel...

In other news, I have a veritable tonne of assignments. Which I just don't want to do. I know I only have three weeks to do them in, but... I just can't get off my butt. The same goes with writing. I know I have stories stashed in my head, I just can't be bothered to wade through the fluff, old barbies and lolcat pictures also stored in my brain/attic.

Cosplay was absolutely epic. We had so much fun. So many people turned up! I secretly think this was because of me and my awesomely designed advertisement posters... There was a trivia quiz, a drawing competition, a baking contest, an anime dubbing competition and a maple syrup chugging race. The syrup contest ended a bit badly. One of the contestants (a well known sore loser), after losing over some technicalities, decided to pour some of his syrup over the head of the member of the committee who was running the event, in the process nearly ruining his $180 Deadpool costume. he was also a nuisance at the previous Cosplay. This member has since been banned from future events.

I am looking forward to the Cosplay Gala we are holding in a few weeks. It's a more formal version of the Cosplay, held at a venue with alcohol. I'm going dressed as the Slenderman. *Evil grin*

I got an art project back today. Several weeks ago, we were given the task to interpret 'utopia' using space, meaning sculpture or other three-dimensional media. I made a small doll with rotatable body parts, reasoning that a utopia was where someone could be whoever they wanted to be (thus the ability to choose different sides of the doll). I also had a piece on the side which was pretty much just for fun. This was a clay sculpture as well, and an almost perfect cube. I don't know how long I spent smoothing and polishing the sides of that thing. Everybody was really impressed with how cubular I managed to make a piece of rough brown clay.

My cubey-cube.

I completed a week of work experience at a graphic design agency in Townsville city a few weeks back. It was for assessment for a subject, but it was still a lot of fun. The team at TBD Communication and Design Townsville was very helpful and enthusiastic. I was able to work on a lot of my own projects, which included improving my portfolio majorly, designing a logo for my own personal use and then actually doing some work for a client of theirs. I got to dress up in all the business clothes my Mum insisted on buying when she heard I had to do some work experience and I had to get up really early and catch the bus into the city. Even so, it was lots of fun. Except for the last day. I woke up with a full blown flu. It brought a friend too - a massive headache. I remember feeling like I was going to faint on the bus trip home.

Feeling: a whole lot better now.

Listening to: Nothing. Though I have Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas stuck in my head.

Eating: Had a tonne of McDonald's after anime club tonight.

Wearing: PJs.

Word of the day: Three actually. MUSHNUT SQUAPPLE RISOTTO. Something I read on another blog post tonight lol.