How April's Camp NaNoWriMo is Going for Me (Part 2)

Click here to read Part 1. 

Greetings Adventurers, 

This is the final part of the series about my adventures in Camp NaNoWriMo for April 2023. Next year, I may do something similar if I am working on a project that I've already talked a lot about. But in terms of posts relating to Camp NaNoWriMo, you can look forward to hearing about the project I am working on in July, sometime soon. 

My Writing 

On April 14th I got to my word count goal! The story is far from finished and I still have a lot of work I need to do in terms of writing it. But it feels good to have a better version of it written than my first attempt at the third draft. It still needs a lot of editing and rewriting, but I am getting closer

     in terms of publishing. 

 However...I am going to have one of my standalone books be my debut novel, since this novel lands on a cliffhanger and is a part of a series.

 In the meantime, I finally rewrote the summary. The original summary I had written was from 2018, so it was outdated. Here is the new summary:

“Arisias” is the only thing Horatio remembers after waking up from a coma. He doesn’t remember who he is or what happened to him before the accident. 

At the same time in Dragons' Province, two detectives are working on solving the case of the murdered royalty. It’s unclear who the killer or killers are, for a different person is always seen leaving the scene of the crime. Will they be able to find out who or what is behind it all, before it is too late?

(Two pages from my writing notebook from 2016) 

I feel the story is becoming clearer and clearer, though it is very different from the first draft. I found the first page of the notebook I had written about the characters, when I first created them. They were so different then. And it's interesting to see how it evolved. I don't know what younger me would have thought of the story as it is now, but the fact that I've been able to work on it for so long and have not given up is an accomplishment. 

I do, however, have a to-do list of things for the story from writing this. I figured out some world-building elements, which I will now need to decide how to fit in. And I need to redesign one character's clothes--while I may end up using them somewhere else in a different project, they now seem out of place in this story. They were inspired by 18th century clothes, and most of the other characters' clothes are inspired by Ancient Greek and Irish culture. 

However, I am not going to completely forget about the clothes: they will be reused somewhere else. I have done this before with other story elements. For example, Ophelia's former boyfriend, Austen, ended up getting a project of his own, which I hope to explore sometime. And a character who changed appearance wise, but is still in the story, had their appearance used by another character in a different story.  (Admittedly if someone heard this out of context, a person using another person's face would sound incredibly weird.) 

(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_De_Morgan#/media/File:Cassandra1.jpeg)

In the writing group I am in, there was a fun exercise to "post artwork that reminds you of your project." It reminded me how much of my project-- character wise was inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art. Besides being inspired by Tauriel from The Hobbit (movies), Arisias took some inspiration from a painting when I first created her. And more recently, there are paintings that remind me of her, one of which is posted above. 

(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Waterhouse#/media/File:Waterhouse,_JW_-_The_Sorceress_(1913).jpg)

I even found some paintings that remind me of Ophelia, in particular this one by John William Waterhouse. 

The writing challenge I mentioned in the previous post has helped a lot with understanding my characters more. I not only figured out the relationship between Karleon and Salissah, but I also figured out the inner workings of other relationships that they have with other characters-- which is great. 

What I've Been Reading and Watching 

While in the past I have read fantasy and murder mystery books to get into the mood to write, now I am mostly reading classics. I'm currently rereading Jane Eyre. It's fun to delve back into it since it has been a year since I read it. (The last time I read it was for a book club.) It's nice to read about the characters again, and I also am appreciating the descriptions in the book, upon rereading it. I particularly enjoy the gothic elements spread throughout, with the red room, and Jane thinking she sees a figure in the mirror.

I've also been reading Middlemarch and watching the BBC adaptation. I love George Eliot's writing style, and it makes me want to read more books of hers. I will have more to say about it on a later date. 

And I've been loving watching the Sleepy Hollow tv series. I started watching it recently and am on the second season.

(Fan art I did of Abbie). 

 I love Abbie's and Ichabod's friendship. While the main story is nothing like Irving's story, they sprinkle elements of the original story back into it. 

I also love the aesthetic of the title sequence. 

So, from reading Jane Eyre and watching Sleepy Hollow I may have gotten ideas for my gothic novels. 

Anyway, that's the end of my posts about April 2023's Camp NaNoWriMo. I am looking forward to July's. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How has been April been? Have you been reading or watching anything good recently? 

-Quinley 

My Art from The February Faces Challenge (2023) | Part Three

Click here to read part 1 and part 2. 

Here is the final part of The February Faces Challenge. It was a fun challenge and I am glad I did it. I think I will do it again next year, since it helped me draw more of my characters. 

  Here is the official (optional) prompt list: 

Day #19 Eyewear, Ocean Guy adjusting his glasses.

Day #20 Cheeky, I didn't do cheeky in the traditional sense. I instead drew Matilda from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass feeling embarrassed. And I drew attention attention to the blush in her cheeks.  

Day #21 Thoughtful, I decided to draw Marigold. She's a character from The Mystery of the Body Thief my fantasy/murder mystery, and I decided to give her an outfit redesign. 

Day #22 bald, I drew Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation as he was the first character that came to mind with the prompt bald. 

If anyone is wondering, I haven't seen the new show Picard. I am disappointed in what I've heard of it. It appears to have gone dark and grim, when instead I feel as if it should be optimistic like Star Trek usually is. In my opinion, they should have gone in the direction that the Leverage reunion show did, which was to have a light-hearted (and similar) take on the characters coming back together. Otherwise, it feels like Star Trek discounts Picard's character arc, that was brought on in particular by Q in "Tapestry." 

Day #23 on the telly, I decided to draw a news show, that would appear in the world of my super hero characters, airing a story of about a villain covering the city in slime. 

Day #24 hat/headwear, this is a drawing my character when she became the Mother the Elements. I picture this to be when she was younger and had found her purpose as a goddess. This is a drawing of the moment when she is about to put her circlet on her head. 

Day #25 old, I drew Elvin the Silver, a wizard Dungeons & Dragons character of mine. 

He was inspired by Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. 

Day #26 Silly Face, This is another Dungeons & Dragons character of mine, Jinx. I figured this would be a face he would make if he saw something insane happen in one of the campaigns. 

(Which does happen most of the time, whether he does it or another player's character does).

Day #27 self portrait, because I didn't feel like drawing myself (I did though enter in a self portrait contest last year, so I am not entirely against drawing myself), I felt like drawing one of my characters holding a self portrait of themselves. So, I drew Gaia, a Tiefling, holding a portrait of herself that I drew in 2020. Combining new art with old art. 

Day #28 sleeping, I drew Kira for this one. On her bed is her phone which is playing an audiobook, and the portal to fairyland is open.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? Have you played Dungeons and Dragons? 

-Quinley 

How April's Camp NaNoWriMo is Going for Me (Part 1)

Since I have talked about the story I am writing for April's camp multiple times, I think I will talk about my writing process in this post. If you want an (up-to-date) post about the details of my novel, The Mystery of the Body Thief, you can check it out here. 

This Camp NaNoWriMo I am focusing on the third draft of my novel, The Mystery of the Body Thief. I had initially planned to write the second book, Becoming the Body Thief's second draft. But I realized I did not plot out the second draft's plot, which could cause me to fall into one of the pit-falls of the first draft--having the characters aimlessly wandering. (I usually plot out my stories, but in that case I made the mistake in forgetting to plot and improvised it most of the way.)

My plan instead then is to work on Becoming the Body Thief during NaNoWriMo in November, so as to give me time to re-plot it and create connections between episodes. And in July, I will be working on The Haunted Sketchbook.

My Writing- 

There are two storylines going on at the same time, which I ignored in my first and second write through of the story. This time around, I am giving the characters equal attention. There is a mystery in both of the plots, and I need to give clues to the reader in both of these without revealing too much. So, I am using detective shows I've seen with plots like that for inspiration. 

 Since the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo was yesterday, here are some things I've been thinking about while writing this draft. My goal for this camp is to write 20,000 words worth of rewrites for this story, and so far I've written 3,218 words. 

I have been looking at Greek and Irish castles as models for the castle that Arisias lives in. Greek and Irish culture were the inspirations for my elves in general, and their religion. I don't want it to look fully Irish or fully Greek but a hybrid. I don't want someone to react to it like "oh, the elves are Irish" or "oh, the elves are Greek" but instead for there to be a mixture of both cultures, so that it becomes its own thing. This is a challenge, but it's going to be a fun one. 

(Fiáina the goddess of nature in festive clothes). 

I've been also working on a holiday related to the goddess, Fiáina. I only have one holiday figured out for that world, and that is the Festival of Magic. I want to make another one. It's not simply there to show world-building; rather, it has a purpose to the plot as a whole (that I can't reveal because of spoilers). So, I want to pay attention to what rituals would happen during that festival and what mythological importance it has to the goddess. And, I should add, this song by Spiral Dance was an inspiration to me for the holiday: 

Spiral Dance's music in general has reminded me of my fantasy world, so it is neat that it inspired a holiday for my world as well. 

I have been continuing to improve the descriptions of my elves.(I mentioned last time that I was working on this.)  I've been avoiding mentioning that they have pointy ears. While it may eventually be mentioned off hand, the part of my elves that is important is not that they have pointy ears, but instead that they are deeply connected to nature--even if their duties do not lie in the protection of or caring of nature. So far, it has been going well, but like the writing I have done with description for my other stories, I am going to make several revisions before I get a perfect draft. 

This year, I am also doing a writing prompt challenge, which involves getting to know your characters better. The characters I am doing it for are: Karleon (The God of Mischief), Salissah (The Goddess of the Moon), and Ophelia. 

Responding to the prompts has been helpful in understanding the characters more and also allowed me to get into Ophelia's backstory. I felt as if I had not thought a lot about it, which is strange, because I feel I should have given it more attention, since she has been alive for so long (being an elf). What I've found out about her backstory has added nuance to her character in the current story, and how her past affected her, since in hundreds of years a lot can happen. And if some humans aren't comfortable with events that happened in their past, elves are likely to have some past regrets too.

I am also exploring Karleon's and Salissah's friendship. When I first made them, I thought they'd be enemies, but they ended up becoming friends. (Karleon is not on good terms with Fiáina; however, when around their devotees, they act more as colleagues even if they're not on good terms.) In regards to Salissah's and Karleon's friendship, I guess they became friends because wit (what Karleon has) and wisdom (what Salissah has) work well together. 

While I am not currently writing  All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again, I am working on the characters and the world.  I've been doing a ton of research for it, but I've been thinking about two characters: Veraly and Seth. The story has many main characters (as opposed to only one), so, it is going to be a good challenge to plot out the series. The world itself is still in its early stages in terms of world-building (unlike Arisias's world). I have an idea about what I want to do with it, but I have not figured out everything yet.  

(Moodboard for Veraly. Images from Wiki commons, Pixabay, and Pexels.  The template I used to make this mood-board was made by Ayzrules). 

As for the characters, Veraly is a performer and Phoenix's (adoptive) sister. She has water magic and enjoys performing arts of different kinds. I've been thinking about what creative things she does and how those creative things affect how she views the world. 

And Seth is a shapeshifter spy. He's also incredibly religious, and the reason why he is doing that is due to that world's religion. An object important to their religion was stolen, and he has to find it. 

And I want to figure out how he feels about being a spy given that he is religious: how he handles it, whether there is guilt from it, and things like that.

Both these characters I am trying to develop more, so hopefully I will learn more about them too, along with their world. Even though I am not writing their story at the moment, I thought I would share. 

Playlist for The Mystery of the Body Thief 

And also since I shared the playlist I made last year's camp, here is the playlist for the novel I am currently working on. 

  Fun (Non-Writing Related) things- 

 * In March, I went to an online S.J. Tucker concert: it was so fun. And as a songwriter myself, it was fun to find out that she too was inspired by books in writing her music. Since the concert was collaboration with a library,  there were a ton of book recommendations that came with the songs she sang. 

I've previously never found a way to go to concerts for the singers I love (since they are either in a different country or don't do concerts at all), so finding out about this was so fun and I am glad I went. It was a fun way to celebrate spring equinox. She ended up playing "Rabbit's Song," which was a song that served as an inspiration for Karleon's myths in the myth collection and was one of my favorites of hers. And I was introduced to some new (and unreleased) songs that I had never heard before. 

One of these was "Kashkash," which was inspired by a book, In the Cities of Coin and Spice. 

*

(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_You_Like_It#/media/File:Rosalind_-_Robert_Walker_Macbeth.jpg)

 I attended and participated in a dramatic reading of As You Like It and read some parts in it (Rosalind, Celia, Orlando, and a few others). I had not read or seen the play in a long time, so that was fun. It was fun to perform with a group again and to play different roles. It makes me want to try to get Rosalind or Orlando as a part in a full production of As You Like It sometime. 

And that's the end of part one!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How was your March? Are you doing Camp NaNoWriMo or another fun activity this April? 

-Quinley 

My Art from The February Faces Challenge (2023) | Part Two

If you haven't seen it already, here is part one. 

I realize I've been thrown off my usual posting schedule, but that is because I have had a lot of things going on in my life. So, the time that I was absent from both my blogs was dealing with those things. Now that I am back, I should say that I have posts planned that aren't drawing related. I plan to do a book tag, as well as posts related to my novels, songwriting, and acting soon. While I normally would not do two drawing posts in a row, this was one post I had fully written, edited, and planned. So, I felt as if I should post it. 

I will also be responding to comments from previous posts. I loved reading everyone's comments, they truly made my day during such stressful times. And thank you to Anno for the shout out. 💚

But let's get to the post: 

 Here is the official (optional) prompt list: 

Day #10 Your Idol, I drew Dr. Crusher played by Gates McFadden from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gates McFadden was the one who inspired me to be an actor, so I decided I should draw her for this prompt. 

Day #11 Silhouette, I was a little more creative with this prompt. I wanted to draw the Wax Witch from my novel, Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass, but not only a shadow/outline of her. So, I drew her silhouette behind her.

Day #12 Facial Hair, I drew Gimli from Lord of the Rings for practice. I don't usually draw bearded characters so this was fun to draw.

 

Day #13 Furious,  I drew Cheetah Girl from my super hero story for this one. I wanted to make her look as if she was furious. This is different, because I often draw her looking calm or thoughtful. 

Day #14 Freckles, I drew Elm, one of my dryad characters. I decided since Valentine's Day was the day I drew it, that I would give her Valentine's Day accessories. 

Day #15 Delighted, I drew Sebastian for this one. I have not drawn him a lot, so I wanted to draw him looking happy.

Day #16 in profile, I drew Fiáina talking to a dragon. Since dragons used to live in Dragons' Province (where the story takes place), I thought it would make sense for her to talk to one. 

Day #17 poorly, Ferdinand Diggory from The Haunted Sketchbook is feeling his worst here (due to sleep deprivation, nightmares, and ghosts). 

Day #18 Your Current Mood, I best describe this mood as "a million different emotions are going through your head and you're trying to process all of them, while keeping a straight face." So of course, I drew D.I. Elyerin Time experiencing this. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? Are you a fan of Lord of the Rings or Star Trek?

-Quinley 

Denisse Grigory the Shapeshifting Rock-star | The Result of the Survey

 

Today is my blog's seventh anniversary! 

It was fun reading everyone's answers and coming up with a character based on them. It caused me to end up with a character, who is different from my other characters. 

The Video 

Here's the video of the finished character, showing how I ended up coming up with her from your responses. It took me some brainstorming to figure out how your ideas should come together to create a cohesive character, but I like how the end result turned out. 

🎸Find out more about Denisse Grigory🎸

Denisse Griggory is a rock-star touring with her band in an urban fantasy world. She has the ability to shape shift and often shape shifts into a wolf. Besides that, she has nature healing spells that she can play on her guitar. She mainly uses her electric guitar to perform magic, while the shapeshifting was a power she got at birth. Her parents were trying to make her stand out when they had her, so they decided to name her Denice with a double s, instead of a c. (And also she views them as being weird for naming her that, but despite that she has never changed her name and wonders if her parents were obsessed with snakes). 

She wants to be known for her work and for her band to dominate the (music) world. While she isn't religious (instead she is more spiritual), she would like to be enlightened spiritually, as she views her magic and her music as beneficial to her spiritual journey. She lost her parents (they vanished mysteriously), so her immediate goal is to reunite with them. 

Denisse is someone you don't want to cross: while she is a healer for her band mates, she is intimidating to those who aren't. She also has a dark sense of humor, which is well received by her band mates, but not by everyone, and she sometimes worries she will lose a friend over it.

However, the stability of her band-life doesn't last, because one of her bandmates gets murdered-- and it appears that not everything is what it seems, for everyone could be lying. 

(Denisse in wolf form). 

 🎶 Playlist 🎶

While not all the songs in this playlist ended up being the character's theme song, I thought I would compile all the songs that people suggested into a playlist. 

If you don't have a Spotify here is the Youtube version, which you can listen to here. 

Anyway, this was fun! Thank you to everyone who participated in this. It was awesome seeing how the answers came together to create a character. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you like most about Denisse? Also, do you like designing characters? If, so what's your favorite part about character creation/design? 

-Quinley 

Let's Design a Character Together (Again)!

So, I did a survey back in 2021, to see what people wanted me to do again. One of the responses was a request for me to have the viewers collaborate together in creating a character for me to draw again. I had plans to, but hadn't gotten around to doing this until now. As in the past, I will use the majority vote and various answers from you, the readers, to the questions below to create a character through drawing and art. I will post a video or videos, detailing the creation of said character. You can see the previous character I made from everyone's responses back in 2020 here. 

 The character could end up being anything: a magical dryad, a detective, a magical elf detective, or literally anything you can imagine! It's all up to you, the viewers. This is because the collaboration (your response and/or responses) helps create the description, that I will use as an outline to create a character through my art. 

 This time around I gave more freedom for you, the reader, to not only answer questions, but you can also include things like name, theme song, and personality (if you wish) in your answers. 

Since my blog's anniversary is coming up in March, I thought this would be the perfect thing to do. I love when you, the readers, are involved in with me in creating things. 

So if you'd like to participate, fill out the form (it is anonymous, it won't record your email address or Google account, so you can leave answers to the questions and I can't tell who left it):

-Quinley 

My Art From The February Faces Challenge (2023) | Part One

I found out about a challenge by a Kick in the Creatives that involved drawing portraits throughout the month of February. I decided to do the challenge as a way of drawing my characters, who had not gotten a lot of attention. 

Like my Inktober posts, I will be dividing this up to into parts of 9 drawings per part, with 10 at the end. And for context, for those who don't know my characters well, all the gods (and also Ophelia)  in this post come from The Princess Arisias Mystery Series, which is my fantasy/murder mystery series. As for the non-god/goddess characters I will be saying where they are from. 

Here is the official (optional) prompt list: 

And here are the drawings for the first part: 

 Day #1 Glamorous, I decide to draw Nisis/Nyro. They're the god/goddess of love, beauty and marriage, and can appear as anyone someone loves (romantically or platonically). They can also look similar to a type of person an onlooker is attracted to without looking like a real person they know. Because of this, Nisis/Nyro doesn't have a defined form. So, this isn't exactly as they appear because their appearance will always change depending on who is the onlooker. I always when drawing them drew one side, and never did a split face drawing showcasing both sides (Nisis (the female side) or Nyro (the male side)). So I figured, I should draw that, and I like how it turned out.  

Day #2 Baby, I find babies incredibly hard to draw so I challenged myself with this one. 

Day #3 Hidden Face, Ophelia putting on her cloak for a ritual/healing ceremony. Her cloak doesn't so much "hide" her face, as it is only partially covering her face during rituals. But I thought it matched the prompt of "hidden face." This was also inspired by a Pre-Raphaelite painting of Olivia from Twelfth Night by Edmund Leighton. 

Day #4 Bored, I decided to draw Felix Moore from Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass for this one. He probably went somewhere and is thinking about something, so not exactly bored, but more thoughtful. 

Day #5 Sad, I drew the god of time for this one, since I figured out his design. One side of his face is young and the other is old. In the drawing, I wanted to draw attention to time passing with the depiction of one of the flowers wilting and dying. 

Day #6 Hairstyle, I drew, Salissah (pronounced sil-is-uh), the goddess of the moon, for this. She has hair with stars in it, so I wanted to draw attention to that. 

Day #7 Makeup, I drew Skunk Girl from my super hero story for this. I decided she would use green lip-stick. My backstory behind this image is that Skunk Girl and the other super heroes got brand deals for merchandizing for things such as action figures, makeup, etc. This is done in order to get money from visiting tourists (who travel to see the super heroes), and to pay for the damage that villain and hero fights cause. 

Day #8 Pouting, I drew Tesariel "Tess" Short for this one. She is from the first novel ever I finished the first draft of (Eyes in the Night). I've gotten back into drawing her, so, I decided that I should draw her for this one. 

Day #9 Tongue Out, I drew Karleon, my trickster god of mischief for this one. While most of my characters (whether they be gods, elves, super heroes, or 19th century gentlemen) would not make this facial expression because they feel it would be undignified, Karleon and Skunk Girl are the exceptions.  I already drew Skunk Girl, so, I decided to draw Karleon. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which portrait is your favorite? Are you doing the February Faces Challenge or another challenge this February? 

-Quinley