I Need YOUR QUESTIONS About my Novel...Again

I just finished the first draft of Becoming the Body Thief. It is a novel I was working on during this year's Camp NaNoWriMo. Last year I did a Q&A for The Mystery of the Body Thief, which you can read here and here. I thought I would do a similar post for Becoming the Body Thief, because I don't want to just give a simple description of the project and what I am going to do next. So, a Q&A with questions from you, the readers, is also going to be included in the post. 

      Here is a synopsis, which will also be included in the Q&A post, and may be helpful for coming up with questions: 

This takes place after the events of The Mystery of the Body Thief. 

After Arisias is framed for a crime that she did not commit, she finds herself having to work amongst criminals. In order to bring the one who wronged her to justice, that is "The Body Thief," Arisias finds she will have to blend into her new surroundings by acting like a criminal. In doing so, she has to enlist the help of two thieves and a con-artist. But as all of this is happening, Arisias fears that she will become the very thing she is pretending to be. Will she become a criminal like The Body Thief? 

Here are two posts I made during Camp NaNoWriMo that involved Becoming the Body thief: part 1 and part 2. And lastly, here is the page with profiles of the characters from the entire book series (Becoming the Body Thief is the second book). I have not yet created the profiles for all of the new characters, but most of the characters who are included on that page also appear in the second book-- even if they don't directly talk to Arisias in it. 

Regarding the questions: feel free to get creative with your questions. (But please avoid asking questions that have spoilers in them such as "who or what is the Body Thief?"). If you're feeling stuck, here are some example questions to get inspired by-- 

• Has your story surprised you in anyway while you wrote it? 
• What are the new characters (the thieves and the con-artist) like?  
• What is it like to be a criminal in your Fantasy world?  

• What was the inspiration for your novel?             

You can either ask the questions you have about it down in the comments down below, or ask it in this Google form (I will be mentioning who left the questions hence the name and blog part of the form, but if you would like to be Anonymous, you can just enter "Anonymous" and entering your blog is optional (since not everyone has one)):

-Quinley 

Character Interview With D.I. Time and Shadow (A Collaboration with Hailey Marshall Writes)

Greetings Travelers, 

 Hailey Marshall Writes and I, decided to do a collaboration, that features our characters D.I. Time and Shadow, interviewing each other. You can check out Hailey's part here where Detective Inspector Time interrogates interviews Shadow. Here is my part, where Shadow interviews D.I. Time: 

In doing this I learned a lot about my character, D.I. Time, that I hadn't known before, and it was really fun. Thank you, Hailey, for collaborating with me. One thing I noticed, is that D.I. Time does not like being the one who is being questioned (in this case interviewed), which I realize is why he felt so awkward in answering questions. When he was interviewing Shadow he behaved like he usually does. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Did you relate to any of D.I. Time's answers? Have you ever been interviewed? 

-Quinley 

Miscellaneous Drawings #4

Previous parts: #1, #2 and #3

Greetings Travelers! 

I thought it was time to do another drawing post, so here it is: 

This drawing was actually inspired by a prompt that my writing group on NaNoWriMo posted-- which was a guest prompt by Alien Romance. The prompt involved frogs, so, I ended up deciding to draw Ophelia helping a frog get back to its pond. Since Ophelia is a priestess to the Earth elemental goddess, it seemed in character for her to do that. 

A drawing of Oceana my siren character-- I really like how her hair turned out. 

I really wanted to capture her personality in the drawing, and I think I managed to. 

I was kind of frustrated that Tinker Bell's wing was healed at the end of The Secret of the Wings. 

So I redesigned her as if she never had her wing healed and was much closer in character to another fairy, Rani. 

Austen is a character who used to be part of The Mystery of the Body Thief. He used to be Ophelia's boyfriend interestingly enough. However, I'd figured I'd redraw him (since I drew him a while ago) and reuse him but in a different story. 

I don't know which story he should go in, but I am thinking a ghost story of some kind might be fitting for his character. Given that he is in between being dead and alive-- and isn't quite dead, and isn't quite alive.

This is an old D&D character, who I decided to redesign and redraw and may use in a story of some kind. The Character's name is Sarah, and she is a warrior-- Her lower body is paralyzed so she uses a wheelchair, but that does not stop her from fighting, because she is skilled fighter with a bow and arrow. 

And lastly, I have a drawing of Elm. I've been playing around recently with drawing in Photoshop and been getting better at it. This was one of my recent attempts, and I really like how it turned out. 

Also, here's a video I made of my process of drawing her: 

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           Which drawing is your favorite? And have you ever helped a wild animal? 

-Quinley 

The Waves Come Crashing | An Original Song

I decided this song deserved its own post, since it is one of my complete songs that I am really proud of.  I wrote it for a songwriting guild; the prompt for it was to write a song inspired by a painting. So I ended up choosing, this painting  as inspiration for it, it was of a sinking ship so my first thought was a siren song. While writing this song I was very much inspired by "My Jolly Sailor Bold" from Pirates of the Caribbean and "Arms of the Ocean" by Blackbriar. 

In my process of creating the song, I decided that instead of using a background track with instruments, that sound effects of waves and thunder would be better suited for it-- as I wanted to capture the feeling that you're hearing this when you're in the ocean or traveling at sea, like the man and woman in the painting. 

Lyric writing wise, I decided to focus on ocean related imaginary, such as poetic images related to sea foam, the waves, and the ocean itself. Since the song is being sung by a siren in the ocean, it would make sense for her to focus on ocean related imaginary. Also, when writing this song, I eventually had an idea for a character who now appears in my posts regularly: Oceana. She is the one who sings the song. I never really write songs from my perspective-- but instead from a character's perspective. 

So, here is the song:  

This is the lyric video I made for it.   

But if you want to listen to the music alone, here it is:

Phoenix The Poet · The Waves Come Crashing

🎶 Lyrics 🎶

The waves grow stronger, 

You can’t wait much longer, 

The ocean is your home, 

You long to dive into the silver foam, 

And follow my voice, 

You don’t really have a choice, 

For the waves come crashing, 

Upon your boat they come thrashing, 

You can’t help but follow my voice, 

You don’t have a choice, 

Your sail you can barely now hoist. 

The waves grow stronger, 

You can’t wait much longer, 

The ocean is your home, 

You long to dive into the silver foam, 

And follow my voice, 

You don’t really have a choice, 

Tales of sirens are often told,

The truth for you is about to unfold, 

For you will find that beneath the sea, 

Many souls become free. 

The waves grow stronger, 

You can’t wait much longer, 

The ocean is your home, 

You long to dive into the silver foam, 

And follow my voice, 

You don’t really have a choice, 

The kingdom under the sea, 

Of life’s obligations is free, 

Many bodies have sunken down, 

But they didn’t drown, 

They grew scales, 

And now are the creatures in many tales, 

The waves grow stronger, 

You can’t wait much longer, 

The ocean is your home, 

You long to dive into the silver foam, 

And follow my voice, 

You don’t really have a choice, 

Just take a deep breathe, 

And listen as you sink to my voice. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's your favorite lyric from my song? Do you have a favorite siren-inspired song?  

-Quinley 

Using Polls to Create Art #8

                                                    Previous parts: #1, #2, #3, #4 ,#5, #6 and  #7. 

Hello everyone, 

I'm back with another installment of using polls to create art! 

To summarize what this series is about, I post a poll asking what I should draw. People vote, and whichever choice ends up winning, I draw. Unless otherwise stated, every drawing was a majority vote.  Also I should add, some of the drawings this time around are redraws of Pixton comics I made when I was a child (I was about twelve or thirteen I think?) I had voters vote on which of them I should redraw. While the others are the usual drawings you'd see in this series. 

Here's the drawing that came out of the poll in the previous post in the series. 

Felix Moore from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass ended up winning. So I drew him as a merman. 

I had a lot of fun drawing details in the drawing like the suit and tail. 

I also made a video showing my process of drawing it. 

I did a poll where I redrew a painting in my style. The painting that the drawing was based on was this one. I thought it made sense for Ophelia to be using the crystal ball, given that she likes that type of magic. 

I had the voters decide on which of my characters I made in Pixton I should redraw in my style. 

Lieutenant Williams ended up winning. She is a half Klingon half human. 

Here is what she looked like in the Pixton style: 

I wrote the comic she was from years and years ago, and there were a ton of spelling errors in it.

But, I find it nice to revisit old stories and characters-- especially because they can show how different 

my stories are today than they were back then. 

 

Speaking of old stories and characters, I had the voters decide between having me redraw this Pixton comic  and another one.  The second one won, which is Edward's and Willow's wedding. I decided in the redraw not to draw them in the same pose but instead draw them in different poses. In the comic as a whole I would use real photos as the background while the characters would be Pixton characters. 

 Looking back at it now, the backstory of how they fell in love is really not romantic. The comic itself retold the story of The Little Mermaid (leaning towards the Disney version, not so much the Hans Christian Anderson one) but with dryads and wood cutters. And in this version Willow literately caused the shipwreck and then when she saw how handsome (and in pain) Edward was, she changed her mind. She didn't do this for the several wood cutters before 🤔-- 1,712,302 of them to be exact, I'm not joking: that was the number I wrote in the comic, minus 1. 😆

I don't know what child-me was thinking! 😂 Especially since Willow never once tells him that she was the dryad that did that at all. 

This is a drawing of Elm. I had the voters vote on what I should draw her wearing out of several options for outfits. This outfit ended up winning. I really like how the outfit looks. However, I feel her arms are a little too short proportion wise. But other than that I like the drawing. 

This is a character from the same fanfic that I wrote years ago. I had another poll, about which character I should draw in my style, and she won. She is called the EEH (Emergency Engineering Hologram). I was inspired by the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager when creating her. I wondered why there were no holograms for emergencies involving engineering. (That we can see in the show). 

In the (Pixton) comic she is an enemy of the doctor on her ship. They don't have a particularly good relationship. And she was activated when most of the crew on the ship was kidnapped by aliens. So, she plays a similar role that The Doctor in Voyager plays.

This actually turned out to be a drawing that came out of a poll, and I somehow forgot that I had drawn it for that reason. This drawing was actually included in this post, though I combined it with a drawing that didn't come out of a poll. 

Anyway, I had the pollers vote on which character I should draw, and what they should be doing. And Oak doing archery won. 

Now for a new poll: 

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Which drawing is your favorite? And would you like to have a wedding out in the woods? 

Or did you tell any funny stories when you were little? 

-Quinley 

Reintroducing Arisias

I finally have a name for the character that used to be called "Annabelle." 

Since it is such a major change to the character, I decided the best way to introduce the change would be through a video, so people both on my blog and YouTube channel would know about the change. 

Here's the video: 

Also, I have finally updated the character profile page which you can read here. Her new name is Arisias it is pronounced like Er-is-ius or Air-Sy-Ris. Arisias prefers the first pronunciation. It took me a while to come up with the name. I smashed together two names create Arisias which were the names of two figures from Greek mythology: Tiresias and Ariadne. 

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Have you ever renamed one of your original characters? Or if you haven't, do you have a character whose name you really like? 

-Quinley 

Once and Future Fantasies: My First Conference

(The background image is from Pixabay, the drawing I did myself)

                                                       Greetings Adventurers,  

In July, I presented at a conference with the The Centre for the Fantasy and the Fantastic at the University of Glasgow, virtually. I could not attend in person due to the fact that I had a surgery (tonsil surgery if anyone is worried) and also because of other health reasons, but it was a fantastic experience that I wish to share with you, along with my paper and my experience writing it. 

The conference was called Once and Future Fantasies playing on the title of the book, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, which is a retelling of the Arthurian legends. The Conference on the other hand was about the past and future of fantasy. So, here is my experience with the conference: 

                                                      Writing the Paper-

(Image from Wikipedia, 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling#/media/File:John_Bauer_-_The_Princess_and_the_Trolls_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

 I feel like I should mention this part before I talk about my experience with the conference itself. I first heard about Once and Future Fantasies through a request for papers from The Centre. And I decided to submit a proposal to them. Here is my proposal: 

This paper will begin by looking at the theme of the Changeling Child in Celtic fairy tales. It will show the similarities between this theme and present-day dilemmas of parents of disabled children. It will demonstrate that there are parallels between the parents’ appeal to magic in fairy tales and the parents’ appeal to medicine in today’s world. In both contexts, parents call on special powers to “recover” the child that they expected to have. In spite of this, trying to recover the child can cause a disconnect between the parents and the child, because it communicates that they do not love the child as they are, and that the child needs to be “fixed.” As someone who is disabled, I find researching and analyzing this analogy between fairy magic and Western medicine to be interesting. In Folklore, a parent gives birth to a child; the child is not what the parent expected, and it turns out their real child was replaced with a Changeling. The parent tries to return the changeling to the fairies in order to get their real child back: that is, the child they expected. In our modern-day world, a parent gives birth to a child; the child is not what the parent expected, and it turns out the child is disabled. The parent turns to Western medicine to find cures for the disability in order to get their “real” child back: that is, the child they expected. Comparing these two contexts helps to highlight the flaws in medical-centered “cures” for disabilities and in the thinking of parents and doctors about disabled children.

In the months after my proposal got accepted, I worked hard on my paper in order to get it to the point where it could be presentable. This required a lot of research and reading to find the sources I needed to get my points across. Though it was a lot of work, it was very fun because I got to read a lot of books I had not thought I would read before and I learned a lot while doing so. Some of the books I read were: Fairies: A Dangerous History; Disability, Deformity, and Disease in the Grimms' Fairy Tales; and a lot of Irish fairy tales and folk tales, as well as folk tales from other Celtic and European cultures. 

When writing the paper, I talked about my own experiences with my disabilities as well as those of others, so this paper was pretty personal as well as academic. 

I should say, for those looking to write a paper or essay for a conference, that like novel writing you will go through several drafts, and you will do a lot of research before you arrive at an end result you're happy about. (I had to read several books, some of which did not end up getting included in the final paper). I began writing in February, and didn't deliver the paper till July, so I had a lot of time to research and write. 

                             The Paper and My Experience Presenting-

(Image from wiki commons, 

                                https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Z%C3%89LIE_AND_THE_FAIRY_CANDIDE_PRINCE_CH%C3%89RI.jpg)

My paper was pre-recorded, so I spent time editing and recording it before the conference. To me it was really similar to the experiences I've had with recording my acting videos-- though a bit different since I was not in character. I was very happy with the end result. On the day of the conference, I had to wake up very early, but it was worth it. The video for my paper was just posted on The Centre for the Fantasy and the Fantastic's YouTube channel, so you can check it out: 

I also want to give a huge thank you to the Centre for the Fantasy and the Fantastic for allowing to present virtually and making this a wonderful experience. I want to say "thank you" to them, also, for posting the video of my paper on their channel. 💙 This experience has inspired me to want to be a professor, because I won't be doing acting, writing, animating, etc. as a full time job. Having a job as a professor would allow me to continue to do those things professionally-- while still having a "day job" that I like. 

After I presented, the audience asked a lot of wonderful questions about my paper, such as how disability is presented in current Fantasy media-- or even how disability should be discussed and presented in classroom settings, and what resources to use. I am very happy that my paper sparked discussion and questions. And I am so happy that I got to present at Once and Future Fantasies. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Have you been to or presented at a conference? And do you have a favorite folktale involving Changelings or the Fair Folk? 

-Quinley