Announcing My April 2022 Project: Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass

I have started rewriting and editing Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass for April's Camp NaNoWriMo. Since I do not plan to repeat myself, because not a lot of the story has drastically changed (partly because it didn't take me so long to finish the first draft), I will not be including the characters' bios again.  So if you wish to learn more about the characters, I recommend checking out this post or looking at this page. 

Let's begin:                                                    

                                                     Synopsis- 

Genre: Gothic Horror | Historical Fiction 

Maltida Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness. What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen.

                                           How the editing is going so far- 

At the moment, I am rewriting the part of the novel that is told from Felix's perspective, since in the first draft, I did not really focus on his that much. (I focused on Matilda's more.) By focusing on him I have managed to figure out details about him that I did not discover before. 

(image from wikipedia,

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hughes_(artist)#/media/File:Arthur_Hughes_by_Arthur_Hughes.jpg)

I've also been working on figuring out his voice more. I have it somewhat figured out, but I want to get more into the details about him, because like Maltida he is a complex character. 

I am in multiple "cabins" this Camp NaNoWriMo: one that I am running, and one I am just a member of. In one cabin there was a character development question prompt, which I answered for Felix. I discovered elements about him through doing the exercise. For example, some random things I discovered about him were that he wanted to visit France, and that he used to (long ago) tell stories to his sister, Maltida. Felix in the first draft mostly kept to himself, so I am so glad that he is finally speaking to me and revealing his secrets. 

(Image from Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/312859505337819468/)

Other parts of my rewriting work taught me about Matilda. 

I found this painting. It was a catalog cover. It took me a while to find the original painting, but when I did couldn't help but write a scene inspired by it told by Matilda. The castle in my story is surrounded by a forest and trees, and I could imagine Matilda choosing to walk through it and reading there, and having something mysterious or unexplainable happen while she was there. 

I have also started expanding on scenes that didn't get much attention in the first draft. The first draft in a way acted as an outline for the novel. For example, I created a scene (which wasn't really a scene in the first draft since Matilda simply told the audience she stopped at a village), and added in details like what was going on in the village, who the people Maltida met were, and even what the village looked like (the general mood/atmosphere). 

I've also been focusing on keeping the audience questioning whether what the narrators are saying is true or not, because I want the readers to be confused as to what is actually happening and have to decide on one of the many answers provided by Felix and Maltida. My goal is to create something similar to what happened in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, where there are several answers as to where Ichabod Crane went--whether the headless horseman actually kidnapped him or whether he left because Brom "Bones" scared him away. 

So, that has been how Camp NaNoWriMo has been going for me so far.

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If you're doing Camp NaNoWriMo, how is it going for you? What project(s) are you working on? 

-Quinley 

Using Polls to Create Art #6

                Previous parts: #1, #2, #3, #4 , and #5.  

Hello everyone, 

As a reminder, you can still leave questions for or impressions about Annabelle or Phoenix (or both) here. Your ideas will help me create character interviews for my blog's sixth anniversary in March. 

But back to this post, all the drawings are responses to majority votes, unless otherwise stated: 

I made two polls, and the result was Ophelia at a masquerade. It was very fun to draw her mask, 

because I decided to make it bird-like. 

This drawing actually came first, before the picture of Ophelia at the masquerade.

 I like how it turned out, and it was fun to give Annabelle two masks. 

I made a poll about Elm and how I should draw her. The end result was that I should draw in her Middle Earth. I based her dress on Arwen's dress; I think Elm would be an elf if she lived in Middle Earth.  

This drawing was inspired by this painting. I was trying to decide which characters should take the place of the characters in the painting, so I had the pollers vote on it, and Matilda and Felix won. 

I ended up taking inspiration with the poses the characters are in and tried to copy the style of the painting a bit, while still keeping it in my style. 

This is a drawing of Riona's father. I had a poll voting on which character I should redraw from this post, and Riona's father ended up winning, so I decided to redraw it, and I like how it turned out.

Riona herself is warrior who can shape shift back and forth between being a phoenix and a human, but she wasn't originally magical. She was an ordinary human like her father.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? And if your characters lived in any fictional world (other than the one they currently live in) where would they live? 

-Quinley

I Finished the First Draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass!

I finished the first draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass on December 10th!  If you want to find out more about Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass I recommend checking out this post where I talk about the plot, the characters, and stuff like that. In this post I will be talking about what I am going to be doing next with the story. 

                                     Let's begin: 

                                                Synopsis- 

Genre: Gothic Horror | Historical Fiction 

Maltida Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness. What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen.

Excerpts- 

"They say to write thoughts and feelings down, or else they will be lost to time. This, is what happened to me. And what I feel I must do now. 

Or else any thoughts or emotions I felt during this time will merely be twisted and turned in various ways into a different story of someone else’s imagining, and not of the truth. Which I will tell you now."  

- Chapter one, Matilda tells her side of the story. 

"Perhaps it was my imagination or something else entirely, but I was certain I saw a shadow move across the room and then disappear. I blinked for a moment, as if thinking that would clear my vision and whatever it was that had crossed my path was gone from my vision, but not from my hearing…For I was certain I still heard foot-steps in the distance and, laughter— well to be more specific giggling, like child-like giggling, like whatever had crossed my path had played a prank on me, and was happily giggling in the corner at my reaction." 

- Chapter seventeen, Felix tells his side of the story. 

What's next for Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass? 

This novel is going to be the first one that I publish (or self publish), before I publish The Mystery of the Body Thief. This is because this novel doesn't require a ton of world-building in order to get through to the second or third draft. There is micro-worldbuilding but that is with the castle and areas where the characters are. 

A lot of Gothic books have detailed descriptions of where the characters are, and I am pulling from a theme that has been used for a while which is "the house/place where the characters are staying seems alive."  I also found that an issue with the first draft was the pacing. I mostly outlined what was going to happen, but most of it felt like it went too fast. In the finished product the book it is going to go much slower and be more descriptive. I want to spend more time on details like the appearance of the castle. I also want to focus more on how the castle is crumbling. 

In rewriting there will be some things that will remain the same, and also some issues in terms of plot holes and such that need to be fixed. For example I am going to need to add in an extra character to explain a plot point. One element that I wanted to keep some similarity with was the inspiration for the novel which was...my nightmare. 

Also, an aside. Which isn't exactly related to the book itself, is that I plan to use this blog as my author's site when it gets published. This is partly because there is years worth of content about my characters and stories on my blog, and I would love for readers who discover me through my books, to have something to look at or read involving the characters from my stories. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's your favorite element of Gothic literature? And have you ever written or read a ghost story? 

-Quinley 

My Art From Inktober 2021 (Part Three)

                                       

                                                       Click here to read part one and part two. 

This is sadly my last Inktober post for 2021, but, I will be doing it again next year, so stay tuned.

                                            Once again, here is the prompt list for Inktober 2021: 

                                                 

                                                    And here are the rest of my drawings:

Day #21 Fuzzy- I interpreted this as having a fuzzy memory. So I drew my character, Horatio, from The Mystery of the Body Thief. Horatio has amnesia, so, I decided to go a little abstract with the design of his fuzzy memories. 

Day #22 Open- I interpreted this as being open to the spirit world. I decided to draw Matilda Moore from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass with a silhouette of ghosts behind her. 

Day #23 Leak- I interpreted this as having magic leak out of a magic lamp. 

                                Day #24 Extinct- I decided to draw a dinosaur. It was very fun to draw. 

                          Day #25 Splat- I decided basically to draw a drawing of an abstract painting. 

#26 Connect- The movie The Mitchells Vs. The Machines was originally called Connect. So I decided to draw the dog from the movie (part of the drawing references a joke that shows up in the movie). 

#27 Spark- A drawing of my character, Riona "Fire," she was the first character that came to mind when I thought about the word "Spark." She can turn back and forth from being a human and a phoenix, so I thought the prompt would fit her. 

#28 Crispy- At first I didn't know what to draw for this prompt, so I looked up the definition of Crispy and one of the descriptions of the word was about bacon. So I decided to draw that. 

#29 Patch- I decided to draw a rag doll. 

I think this doll belongs to one of my characters, but I'm not sure which one. 

So, because of that I'd love to hear your suggestions about which character should own this doll in the comments down below. 😉

#30 Slither-  A drawing of the Norse god, Loki, and the world serpent. 

#31 Risk- This is a drawing of the final chase scene between the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In this drawing Ichabod is going to be taking the risk of crossing the bridge to get away from the horseman. 

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Which drawing is your favorite? 

-Quinley 

Using Polls to Create Art #5

                                                    Previous parts: #1, #2, #3, and #4 

Greetings Adventurers! 

Here are some more drawings I made using polls, I had a lot of fun drawing these, unless otherwise stated the drawings in this post came out of majority votes: 

I wanted to draw Marigold because I don't have many drawings of her, so I did a poll. And Marigold with a dragon ended up winning the majority vote. This is my favorite drawing of her, because I feel it really captures her personality. 

Felix pictured at a masquerade. I had a lot of fun making his mask, because I wanted it to hint at something that happened to him in his story. It was also fun to draw Felix in clothes other than his black suit. 

Vallara, a character from the same world as Annabelle (but in a very different part of it) at an archery contest. The last time I drew her was in this post, I felt it was about time to redraw characters from that post, but I was unsure which one so I had the voters vote on who I should redraw and Vallara ended up winning. 

Matilda with a ghost (girl). I feel the voters were a lot more nicer to Felix than they were to Matilda, but I know she would enjoy meeting a ghost, so I doubt she would complain. 😊

A drawing of Ophelia and Horatio. I decided to do a drawing inspired by Howl's Moving Castle, and had the pollers vote on which two characters would take the places of Howl and Sophie, Horatio and Ophelia ended up winning. 

This wasn't a majority vote, someone had an idea of a crossover, and thought it would be fun if I drew the scene from Howl's Moving Castle but with Ophelia and Gletta. Though Gletta and Ophelia live in completely different worlds, the idea of them ever meeting each other seemed fun to me, so I had to draw it. 

My idea for what happened and how they met was that Ophelia used her magic (given to her by gods) to rescue Gletta from being nearly killed in a battle. Gletta is just a bit upset that she was pulled out of the battle when she thought she was going to defeat whoever was trying to kill her. (Hence the reason she is so annoyed at Ophelia). 

I also find it interesting that Ophelia takes the place of Howl in both drawings. She isn't like him in terms of personality, but in abilities she is. After all Howl is a wizard and Ophelia has magic, and could be considered a sorceress. (The only thing she doesn't have is a moving castle. 😉) 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? And which would you rather meet a ghost or a dragon?

-Quinley 

Using Polls to Create Art #3

                                         Click here to read the first and the second posts in the series. 

While I don't normally post two drawing posts in a row, I wanted to share some more drawings connected to my last post. My body has been physically hurting recently, so it hurts to draw. Because of that I felt like I should post some of the drawings I did before my surgery. 

In other news for this blog, I have a world-building post (for the Look Into the World series), which I am working on, and which I will post once I finish adjusting some parts of it and adding in some illustrations (after I feel better). Also, before my surgery, I entered in a world-building contest on World Anvil . You can read my entry here. 

And now, since the updates are done, on to the post: 

I decided it would be fun to practice drawing in different styles, and the drawing style the voters wanted me to do was The Cursed Princess Club (which is a webcomic). 

I ended up drawing Oak in that style, and I really like how she turned out in the end. 

This is a drawing I did of the air god. The voters wanted me to draw him in his temple.
I really liked how it turned out in the end. 

This was not a majority vote, but I thought it would be fun to draw Elm in the drawing style of the Cursed Princess Club as well. 

The drawing above was also a majority vote. Voters asked for a drawing of Matilda in the style of Steven Universe.  I decided to take it a step further, though, and ended up drawing Matilda in all different types of drawing styles, just to see what she'd look like. 

And finally, the drawing of Felix in the style of Tim Burton was kind of a majority vote (I say "kind of", because there wasn't really a winning vote on the poll). And  I just thought the drawing Matilda would be fun to do, even if it wasn't a majority vote. 

I really like how they both turned out in the end. 

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Which drawing is your favorite? What would your characters be like if they were in a Tim Burton movie? 

-Quinley 

Announcing My April 2021 Project: Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass.

Hello Adventurers, 

 For this Camp NaNoWriMo I am going to be writing my novel, Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. And this is my goal for it: 

At the moment I only know one narrator's telling of the story (that being Matilda), but in the future I know I will know more about Felix's. As for what I am going to do in July, I have plans to do my other project: The Mystery of the Body Thief, and work mostly on editing it and writing the second draft. 

As for my inspiration for  Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass, it came from a very detailed nightmare I had about wax dolls, which I decided would be a perfect starting point for a novel. And from there I just built on from it...

                                           Synopsis 

Genre: Gothic Horror | Historical Fiction Series: it's a stand alone. 

Maltida Moore was found dead at the castle, her brother, Felix, is missing. No trace of him was found except an eyeless wax doll made in his likeness.  What happened at the castle is unknown, but it is as if something evil is lurking within it...something evil is causing these terrible events to happen. 

                                   The Narrators 

There is a third narrator, but they only narrate a small portion of the story. And instead of including all the characters (some of which may or may not even exist), I thought I'd show who is going to be telling the story to you, and who may not always be reliable in their telling of their story to you: 

Matilda Moore 

Matilda, is a rather quiet person. She tends to sit and read books, and does not enjoy social situations all that much. She would much prefer reading books, than talking to other ladies of high class. 

                                                       Felix Moore 

Felix is a very social person, and thrives in social interactions. He also dreams (silently) of being a romantic hero, and also has a hobby he spends some of his time doing: hunting. 

                      The Soundtrack 

You can also listen to it here 

Here are some songs that I will listen to when I am writing, and I have listened to them lot when I have been plotting the story. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What is your favorite Gothic Horror or ghost story? What are you writing for April's Camp NaNoWriMo? 

-Quinley