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

                                                              Greetings Travelers, 

On December 4th, I finished the second draft of Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. I'm happy about that, since that means I can move onto the third draft. And I have a lot of plans for the third draft.

In comparison to the first draft, the second draft was much longer. I felt as if I knew the characters better. Hopefully I can carry that forward into the 3rd draft. 

                                                                               Synopsis 

Genre: Gothic horror | Historical fiction 

      Matilda 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.

What's Next For Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass? 

My plan, given that the writing style seemed somewhat modern, is to try to make it sound more like a 19th century novel. This seems important, because both the narrators are from that time period. 

The novels I'm using as an inspiration for the style are Jane Eyre and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the second draft the characters sometimes (accidentally) use modern words, which I didn't realize until much later. I want the reader to feel as if they are reading a book from the past that someone happened to uncover, rather than a book by someone attempting to write about the past. 

I did write about the journey to the haunted castle in the second draft, but I feel I didn't write as much about it as I could. In the third draft, I will likely take inspiration from the characters' journeys through the country side in Dracula and Jane Eyre, since the landscape in my novel, is very important in representing how the characters are feeling. 

The characters, Matilda and Felix, have changed a lot since the first draft. And I feel like I have a better understanding of them as characters, than I did in the first draft. However, outside of my novel this does mean I will have to update their profile pages on my blog. They are rather outdated and don't really reflect their characters as they are now. 

(Image from wiki commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Beattie_Eugene_Rochas_seance.jpg)

Another thing I am going to do is research the Spiritualist Movement, because Matilda is a part of it. It is important to how she views certain situations, so I want to make sure I get some of those details right. 

There are also stylistic choices I made in Felix's telling, that I wish to keep in the new draft, but want to make sure make sense to the reader as they read. Those choices show his state of mind, and that he may be unreliable. So, I am going to try and figure out how to do that better in the third draft. 

These are my plans for the third draft ahead. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's your favorite 19th century novel? Do you like to write or read historical fiction? 

-Quinley

Miscellaneous Drawings #6

Previous parts: #1, #2 #3, #4 and #5

 Happy beginning of December, everyone. 

I thought I would start December off by sharing some old and new art. 

I did a redraw and slight redesign of an old goddess I came up with, who I am now going to use in Arisias's world. Fiáina is the goddess of nature and defender of nature, she fights against poachers.

She also lost her right arm in battle, and wears a prosthetic arm, that she carved out of wood. 

 The elves protect nature for the most part, and hunting is frowned upon.

Here is the original drawing that I reworked above. 

A portrait of Ophelia, I really like how it turned out. 

This was an attempt at drawing Fevvers from Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. I like how her face turned out, but I feel that her wings don't look like bird's wings. 

This is a character I haven't really introduced yet, named Kira. She is a realm traveler from the real-world to fantasy worlds. I may have her exploring some of my characters' worlds in the future. 

I just got back into Death in Paradise, and decided to draw one of my favorite characters from it, Camille. 

And lastly, I drew the Greek Goddess, Athena. It was fun to draw her again. It's been a while since I drew her. 

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Which drawing is your favorite? Do you have any plans for December? 

-Quinley 

My Art from Inktober 2022 (Part Two)

Click here to read part one. 

Hello everyone, 

It's now time for part two of my Inktober series, so let's begin. 

The Official prompt list for Inktober: 

Day #11 Eagle. I used this as another way for myself to practice drawing birds, since I've really wanted to get back into the habit of drawing them. 

Day #12 Forget. I drew Oceana again, I had drawn her before last year for Inktober as well. The reason I associated her with the idea of forgetting, was because I wrote a song (which I will post later) that she sang called "Forget." Here is a sneak peek for it: 

Smell the salty perfume of the ocean, 

Forget your long-lasting devotion, 

To the place you called “home,” 

For to the ocean you are to roam. 

Day #13 Kind. I took this to mean "one of a kind." So I decided to draw this character I came up with a while ago, who is a unicorn-girl in her unicorn form. She can switch back and forth between being a unicorn and a human. Here's the post where I first created her.  

Day #14 Empty. Mediating came to mind, since the leader of the mediation I'm doing often talks about emptiness when it comes to meditation. 

Day #15 Armadillo. I decided to take this literally and draw an Armadillo. 

Day #16 Fowl. Similar to the one above, I drew a Guinea Fowl.

Day #17, Salty. My thought process for this one was that the sea was salty, therefore it would relate to pirates. In the end I drew Long John Silver from Treasure Island. 

Day #18 Scrape. I didn't really interpret the prompt as written. Instead, I drew a handkerchief-- a scrap (instead of scrape) of fabric. 

Day #19 Ponytail. I decided to draw Elm. This one is a mixture of ink and watercolor. 

Day #20 Bluff. Given that my D&D character, Jinx is a rogue so obviously a liar, I decided to draw him for this prompt. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? What's your favorite classic novel? 

-Quinley 

Announcing My NaNoWriMo 2022 Novel: The Mystery of the Body Thief

During this year's NaNoWriMo I am working on the 3rd draft of The Mystery of the Body Thief. So, here is some information about my project and my plans ahead for the 3rd draft (and other drafts) in general. 

As a quick update, I'd like you to know that I've updated two pages. I've added a new character for Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass which you can see here. And, I've updated the page for the characters from The Princess Arisias mystery series here. 

                                                                        Synopsis- 

                 Genre: Fantasy | Murder Mystery Series: First book in the Princess Arisias mystery series 

Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Arisias!"

Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Princess Arisias. Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all.

                                             Characters- 

A lot of things have changed about the characters since I last made a post about them, including some of their names, so here are the characters: 

                                                  Horatio- 

Horatio is a servant who works in the castle, and who has amnesia. 

He is still discovering who he is, and wants to know more, 

for he feels very lost and confused.  

                                        Princess Arisias- 

Arisias is a princess, who never woke up from her coma, unlike Horatio. 

Before the coma she worked as a detective part time, while also fulfilling her role as a princess. 

                                                                   Ophelia- 

            Ophelia is a healer and a priestess (to the goddess of the earth and the god of air). 

             She is a quiet, but very kind person. Though she doesn't talk a lot, when she does she always has something thoughtful to say. 

                                                                                         

                                       D.I. Elyerin Time- 

He is called "Elyerin" by those who know him well, and "Detective Inspector Time" when he is working. He is an elvish detective with time related powers from the god of time. D.I. Elyerin Time is currently working on solving the case of murdered royalty. 

Cerawen & Vonivera 

Cerawen and Vonivera are Arisias's ladies-in-waiting. 

Cerawen- is from another kingdom and was sent over to Dragons' Province for undisclosed reasons. 

Vonivera- is a fay, who used to be close to Arisias before the accident. 

Marigold- 

Marigold works for the civil guard and is training to be a detective. She has not gotten there, but she is working towards it. She hopes one day to be a detective like her father. 

My Plans for this NaNoWriMo- 

I decided to take a long break before working on the third draft. When I finished the second draft, I took some time for reading to get into the mode of writing the third draft. One book I found particularly helpful was Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I usually don't find self-help writing books useful, but this was really inspirational for me. 

In fact one piece of advice King gave was to embellish references/imaginary. King referred to his book Carrie, where he used blood related imagery, which he embellished more in later drafts. 

This made me think about the imaginary/references in my own work, that I plan to embellish more this time through. 

Since I wrote my post about finishing the second draft, I've come up with fantastical names for the characters: Cerawen, Vonivera, etc..  At this point only one character still needs a fantasy name, and that is Marigold. She has two names, an elvish name and a human name. Marigold is the name she goes by as a human, but since she lives among elves and was raised by an elf, she also needs an elvish name. 

I'm also rereading  Lord of the Rings for inspiration, and I'm thinking about ways to describe my elves without immediately saying that their ears are pointed. They are pointed, but I don't want to just rely on that imagery to define them as elves. I need to capture that something which makes my elves different than humans, and I want to show that without directly saying that they are elves all the time to my readers. This is something that will take several drafts to figure out how to do, but it is something I've been thinking a lot about recently. 

 My fantasy world has been built much more, since I last wrote about it. 

I'm actually working on a side project, a collection of myths involving the myths of the gods and goddesses of that world.  I realized the stories and the myths are very important to that world. And while I have talked about the myths in blog posts, I want to steadily build a collection of short stories. I should add, I was partially inspired by Bardugo's Lives of Saints, for the Grishaverse series. While hers is much shorter than this is going to be, it definitely served as an inspiration.

 I've found that it helps to understand the world, because the world will effect the characters' actions in ways, whether unconsciously or not. 

So, those are my plans for this NaNoWriMo. I hope NaNoWriMo is going well for everyone else!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Are you doing NaNoWriMo this November? If so, what are you working on? If not, have you re-read any favorite books of yours recently? 

-Quinley 

I Left No Ring With Her | A Performance from Twelfth Night

Greetings Travelers, 

I filmed a Shakespearian soliloquy, this time from Twelfth Night, another one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I've been working on it for a while, and I finally got around to recording it. 

I hope you enjoy it: 

Since I have been exploring this soliloquy for a while, I really thought about Viola's character and what she must be thinking in this situation. Such as, whether the words she is saying are communicated exactly as they are written, or whether Viola has a different perspective on the matter than she is letting on. 

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Do you have a favorite Shakespearian Comedy? Do you have a favorite character or monologue from Twelfth Night? 

-Quinley 

Miscellaneous Drawings #5

Previous parts: #1, #2 #3, and #4

Greetings Adventurers, 

I thought it was time to do another miscellaneous drawings post! In regards to later posts...I have two Inktober posts planned, as well as a post introducing my novel for this NaNoWriMo, and a post involving Shakespeare coming soon...

But back to this post...since Halloween is near I sprinkled some spooky drawings throughout the post, along with my Fantasy drawings: 

A drawing of Elm, I really like how it turned out.

I thought I would include the sun necklace she wears in the drawing. 

A drawing of Karleon, the god of mischief, from Arisias's world. 

This is a drawing of Galadriel from Rings of Power. I drew this long before the show came out, since I saw a promotional photo for Galadriel and thought her armor was awesome. My main focus in this drawing was the shading, which I think turned out well.  

As for the show, I'm watching it now and am I really enjoying it so far. However, there are bits that bother me (the way the elves act--they're too human for my taste, also don't get me started on their hair).

A drawing of Salissah. I figured out that she is the goddess of the moon, but also the goddess of strategic fighting (fencing, archery, martial arts, etc.), as well as philosophy, much like the Greek goddess, Athena. Whereas the god of the sun is like Ares, and just cares for bloody warfare in general. 

I've recently been drawing illustrations for a story with a dog character, and I decided to make another dog character. The dog doesn't have a name yet or a story, but I plan to come up with one later... 

I figured with Halloween being this close, I couldn't not include a drawing of this eerie door. I drew this a while ago, and I decided to include a figure hidden in shadow on the other side of the door. 

A drawing of Arwen from Lord of the Rings. This was inspired by the scene where Arwen rescues Frodo from the Ring Wraiths. 

**Warning eerie drawing ahead** 

This is a drawing that I created a while ago. I put the warning up in case viewers don't like spooky things, so they can scroll past it. But, my idea for the drawing, was that the woman had her dead fiancée (or husband) return to reunite with her in death. I am thinking of turning it into a short story sometime. 

But this drawing also helped me explore making some of my drawings spookier, which is something I intend to do when I illustrate (and publish) my book Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. 

**The eeriness is over now...** 

Willow the dryad. This is a reimagining of a Pixton character I created. I didn't include it in the post where I introduced her, since it wasn't a majority vote. But I like how it turned out. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? And do you have any favorite animal characters? 

-Quinley 

A Look Into a World #3: How the Power of Prophecy Came To Be (+ P.2 of the Q&A)

So, in this post, I wanted to talk about an aspect of my general process of writing but one that is still related to Becoming the Body Thief and Arisias. So, I decided another installment for A Look Into a World. If you want to read the previous installments, here is #1 and #2.  

A Look Into a World: 

How the Power of Prophecy Came To Be

The Myth

Before Karleon had power over prophecy, the power belonged to the God of Time. The prophecies were very direct and to the point. They did not have any rhyming nor were they hard to decipher. Because of this a lot of prophecies came out sounding like threats rather than prophecies. Since a lot of people were not pleased to find out when and the exact date and time of their death, prophecies became less and less like a thing that people would travel to receive. It seemed prophecy was becoming a dying art. However, Karleon the god of mischief decided that he must steal the power. 

(Karleon catching the god of time in a form of a firefly (he's not a real firefly, so his glow wouldn't be yellow but instead silver)). 

So Karleon insulted the God of Time and challenged him to a shapeshifting contest. They took on different forms of different animals, until the God of Time turned into a firefly and Karleon caught him in that form and extracted the power that way. 

As a result, the temples that housed the God of Time's oracles suddenly became Karleon's temples of prophecy. And devotees to the God of Time were still devotees to him, but they had suddenly become devotees to Karleon as well--and not in the typical way which would happen during The Festival of Magic. 

This caused Karleon to get in trouble with the King and Queen of the gods again. But they were unable to remove the power from Karleon for he threatened that the power would cease to be in use if they removed it. Since he could see the future, they took what he said to be fact (though variations of the myth told by the God of Time's devotees, say it was one of Karleon's lies). 

But, even though they were not able to remove the power, the King and Queen tasked the God of Time with punishing Karleon. So Karleon was temporarily frozen in time. 

The Oracles & Their Powers

                                                            (An elvish oracle in a trance foretelling what is come) 

There are many oracles across the different kingdoms. When an oracle uses their power, they go into a trance. Their eyes glow a bright vibrant blue, and they talk in a voice that sounds unlike their own. 

The prophecies of course are told in rhyme and also are very ambiguous in meaning. In regards to prophecies related to heroes, some people in the world believe in "chosen ones." Others believe that the people mentioned in prophecies relating to quests are just descriptions of people who could fit the criteria, but not an exact person.

 But it does all come down to a belief in fate, and what power it has over actions in the world. 

The Relationship between the Devotees 

  Nisis/Nyro's and Karleon's devotees are on somewhat good terms. (The gods aren't exactly enemies, and despite their disagreements, they have teamed up more than once). On the other hand, the God of Time's devotees and Karleon's are not friendly. 

This is because some of the devotees, think that the power should have been left with the God of Time, as prophecy foretells the future and is related to time itself. They are also upset that they could have received the ability but the god of mischief, Karleon stole it from them. 

It is not unusual that arguments--even heated debates--would happen between them. The devotees to the God of Time would like the power back, whereas the devotees of Karleon think it is rightfully theirs. 

                  Part two of the Q&A For Becoming the Body Thief 

Now, we're back with part 2! If you wish to read part 1, you can so here. Many of the questions that were submitted related to the 2nd book in my Fantasy murder mystery book series, Becoming the Body Thief, and there were other questions relating to the world in general.                                      

Questions from Diane at Always Crave Cute :

I'm wondering how far Arisias will go with her ruse. Will she hold back just enough to not commit an actual crime?

Without spoiling anything, Arisias does admit she has had a lot of regrets from having to do things because of her alias in the 2nd book. She actually said that in this post (note, that I called her "Annabelle" then, so the post is a bit outdated in terms of names but not content), in response to the question "what is the hardest thing you've ever done?" So, I will just say-- she has a lot of regrets. 

                          Will she change the behavior of the real criminals?

                     You shall see, Arisias may be able to, or she may not. It all depends...

                 Does she use costumes, disguises, to hide her true identity and intent?

(Arisias in disguise) 

         The criminals Arisias works with, have no idea they're helping Princess Arisias. So, yes. She's in disguise, and she is using an alias, so no one actually knows it is her. However, that is not to say that someone won't discover that she isn't who she says she is. 😉

                                                  Question from Anonymous:  

                           Will Arisias find friends among the criminals?

 She will have to be allies with them, even if not close friends. Because if she is enemies toward them that will not help her get to where she needs to go. 

         Will she turn these in to the police when she sees the crimes they commit?

This is one time, where she cannot turn criminals in to the civil guard (police) because, she herself has become a wanted criminal. So, by doing that, she would risk being arrested just for the sake of arresting a criminal. At this point, she is at the same level of the criminals so cannot do much to go against them-- unless, she wants to end up arrested, too. 

                                               Questions from Fleming: 

What made you decide to change the character’s name to Arisias, especially after living with Annabelle for so long? 

(Still from the video where I announce Arisias's name change). 

When I named this character "Annabelle" back in 2016, the name fit her character at the time. However, when she was developer further, it stopped fitting her. So, it felt appropriate to call her "Arisias" as was drafting it now. 

Also, I realized the name "Annabelle" sounds very strange when there are other characters with names like Cerawen and Vonivera. And also since she is the main character, it felt weird that the other characters had fantastical names, but she did not. 

In the first book, Horatio only knows the character's name, rather than her as a person when he first wakes up. I thought "Arisias" as a name held more mystery than "Annabelle."

 The name Arisias also seemed closer to who she was, and as for the background in creating the name I talk about it in this post here. 

 Also, are there any characteristics of the fairies, elves or dwarfs that you feel are completely original to this world?

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_mythology#/media/File:Riders_of_th_Sidhe_(big).jpg)

I wouldn't say anything is completely original. I am taking a lot of elements of my story from mythology from thousands and thousands of years ago (Greek, Norse, Irish, etc.), along with inspirations from some more modern fantasy stories. But, I would say they're different in some ways from other elves, dwarves, and fairies I have seen in the media. 

For my fairies I actually took some elements from Irish mythology. Because of that they're more trickster like, not someone you want to anger, nor someone you can completely trust which is why they have a bad relationship with the humans. They have the ability to make themselves "invisible" (go to  another dimension), and realm-travel. Both elves and fairies came from another realm, but fairies have the ability to actually magically get themselves there if they want to, whereas for an elf it would be harder. 

The elves are more trustworthy. They have been there for thousands and thousands of years. They are able to detect gods from within a crowd more than a mere mortal (human) could. And elves believe themselves to be made in the likeness of the very gods they worship-- which is why they're so ethereal and live longer than humans. 

Dwarves I'm still working on. At the moment, only two have shown up (the two criminals that Arisias has to work with). So their culture, beliefs, and society are things I'm still working on building as a whole. But, I will say that not all dwarves are miners. There are some who are, but while wealth is important to the culture (particularly jewels and gold), not all dwarves are miners.  

....And that's the end of the Q&A. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions. They were fun to answer. 😁

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What would you (or your character) do if you could tell the future? What's your favorite Fantasy creature? 

-Quinley