My Obsession With the Insane

As you may know, I seem to write a lot of crazy. And by "a lot" I obviously mean every other character...The list seems to include at least one character per chapter that's a little bit off their rocker. And, though it might not be obvious at first, you'll quickly see exactly what I mean.

 Let's think... who are some of my special crazies?...
Elicith, Ero, Ve, Fes, Constantine, Drystan, Cassandra, Caps, Alasier, Maggie, Asper, and even Krys and Cadence are all various levels of mentally unstable.

So why? you may ask. Do you want the simple answer or the complicated one? Because the simple one is that aether affects the mind. A human mind can only handle so much aether at a time, overusing it, overdoing it, can cause a sort of psychosis, split personality disorder, or even drain your life.

You want complex?

Let's take the Dureri from my novella Adrianna. Obviously there's something unnatural about them, their actions seem to be outside the realm of normal human behavior. And yeah, sure, you can write that off as it being a simple matter of them not exactly being mortal in the strictest sense. But there's more to it. You can only torture people for so long without going just a little bit mad. Drystan is the best example of this.

In the first novella, Adrianna, the character of Drystan is explored a little. He's described as obsessive, clingy, and impulsive. He's described as hating who and what he is. At first glance this is brushed off with an explanation that may seem a little too easy: he views the body as sacred and doesn't like seeing anyone hurting - let alone doing the hurting himself. If you haven't read the book yet, please do so. Just keep in mind that this description of him isn't a cop out, I'm just holding out on you. ;)

Later in the series Drystan's psychosis deepens as he becomes more obsessed with Adrianna and goes down a... questionable path.  I try to make it a little unclear as to why this is (after all, I have to keep challenging your mind, don't I?), however I will say this, being Dureri isn't all that it seems. Sure there's the glamor and the immortality and the inability to feel pain, but there's a little bit of a side affect that most Dureri don't even notice: split personality disorder. (This is explored in Adrianna, so if you have questions, go read the novella.)

The mind doesn't have the capability to deal with the whole new set of input, heightened senses, all the goodies of being Dureri. So, the mind creates a divergent personality that can cope with the entirely new life. Over time the two personality sets merge - usually as the trauma of being changed lessens - sometimes this creates a super genius like Renee, Gilgamesh or Nereida. And sometimes you get a messed up jumble of a person like in the cases of Cassandra and Drystan.

For other cases, you're just going to have to read through the stories, aren't you. ;)

The Question that is Adrianna

So, I've had some questions arise as to when I would write a squeal to my novella, Adrianna.So, here are my plans: I have a series of 5 more novellas lined up. By the time they're all done I'm going to reprint them into two full books. I'm still working out the details of the story... which is a really fancy way of saying that I've hit a block of where the first chapter of the next book will go.

However! I can tell you that the next two novellas are titles Dawn and The Hidden War. If these give you any idea about what the topic of these stories are... well then you're a step ahead of me. I only have the vaguest of ideas on what to put in these novellas. This is mostly because I know exactly what's going into the 4th novella and I have no idea how to get there! As you may be able to conceive, this is more than a little frustrating for me, and explains my hiatus on the Pocketful of Pain series...

That said, I can leave you with some pictures of actors that inspired the PoP crew.

Cassandra

Gilgamesh

Nereida

Renee

Adrianna

Drystan

And introducing...!

Anandi

If you haven't read Pocketful of Pain: Adrianna yet, you can snag a copy at Chapter One.

The Busy Week of Busy-ness!

As some of you may have noticed, I didn't blog on Monday or Wednesday. What some of you may not have noticed (and I mean, really, how could you notice unless you've been spying on me?! *gasp*) that I've been editing a lot of Hard Bank Left lately! I've come to several realizations, not the least of which being who the bad guys are/bad guy motivation. (I refer you to this last Friday's blog.)

I've also been thinking a lot about Krys's family relations, and her discontentment at home and I realized - though I really have no idea how - that Krys is the middle child of three. This has put a number of plot twists in my head that I really can't wait to share with you... but you're going to have to wait until the middle of Tailslide to hear about them! Muahahahaha! xD But seriously, it's killing me not telling you right now!

In other news! The first two chapters of HBL will be available for public reading in the up and coming magazine Book-it! from Chapter One. I'm so stoked. I've been working with the editor to get an exclusive look to the story, including but not limited to pictures. It's been really fun and I hope you enjoy the effort. If you don't live in Utah and are looking for a copy of my story in the magazine, you can pre-order your copy of the first issue here, subscriptions are available.

Also! super awesome bonus material alert I am holding a competition for best Steam Punk! If you are into cosplay, are an artist, or you have friends who are, this is for you. 

In Hard Bank Left, Target Lost, and Tailslide there are a ton of fight scenes. In these there are characters the have special physic abilities. The winner of this competition will get the opportunity to be written into one of these three stories as either a good guy or a bad guy with one of these abilities. Here is your chance to be immortalized in fiction!

THE COMPETITION:
To enter into this competition, you must submit a picture or drawing of you or one of your original characters/alter-egos to aletheraia@gmail.com no later than August 15th. The winner will be announced the next day in my usual Fan Art Friday post.

SUBMISSION RULES:

• The character must a specific mental ability. For a list of powers, check out my wiki page. This doesn't have to be demonstrated, just let me know in the email.

• The character must demonstrate that they are in the Shadow Cast world by having one or more of the following objects: 
• has objects that glow cyan
• has an elaborately decorated key
• has a mix of steampunk and cyberpunk tech (ie a musket and a flexi)

•  If a bad guy, the character must demonstrate some sort of military insignia
• If a good guy, the character must stand out as being eccentric in some way (ex. they're crazy, have no sense of style, or are a gypsy)
• optional bonus material (please note that bonus material doesn't count toward your actual score, but it sure makes your character fantastic)
• awesome Nerf  - glowey paint gets double bonuses!
• making jeans look steampunky
• dreadlocks
• eye patches
• kickawesome scars
• bizarre eye color
• curly orange hair

As a final note, keep it clean (we have young and/or impressionable audience members). I look forward to seeing what you have in store!

Fan Art Friday

Again, I am a little low on fan art, but at least I'm getting a few more fans. :) *waves hello to the half dozen people paying attention* But, I have my website up and running! So, if you're still looking for the latest webisode of Target Lost to pop up here, you're out of luck, because it's over there now.

Whelp, I suppose it's about time I talk about the Keypers and their keys. I know, you haven't really gotten there in the book. I've only posted two chapters. But! For those of you that have seen the pictures of the really cool keys that I keep posting I still owe you an explanation.

I stumbled across Keyper's Cove about a year ago and was immediately inspired by their array of fantastical keys. This inspiration bloomed into an obsession with underground, grass roots movements society... thing! (Yes, I know that seems a little redundant. I'm getting to it!). Underground because it's society that has taken root among a culture/group/sub-race of humans that most people don't know exist, and grass roots movement because the majority of the culture doesn't even know the society exists. If you have (a) better word(s) to describe what I just said, feel free to offer it.

In my mind, there are many traits of these keys that are unique, which I really won't go into detail about here (a woman has to have her secrets), but the main feature is that each member of this society-thing has their own, one specially made for them and specially attuned to their aether (not to be confused with The Aether).

Here are just some of the keys from Keyper's Cove that I've used as inspiration in The Shadow Cast Chronicles:

 Cadence's key

 Jeldhen's key

Krys's key

Lia's key

Adrianna's key

Casandra's key

Drystan's key

Nereida's key

Renee's key

and finally...

Gabe's key

*waits patiently for the sudden wave of key enthusiasts*

Fan Art Friday

This week came and went pretty fast. But with someone out there stealing your days it's kind of hard not for the week to go by fast. And with the heat and the lack of A/C, it's kind of hard to keep your mind from grogging up - therefore focus is a major issue for me.

Enough with the small talk! Here is the fan art for this week!

art by the amazing Andrea Hatch, she sent it to me with the caption "Some one's ginger has been all up in my business tonight." Oh Drea, you crack me up.

Unfortunately, that's the only fan art I've had this week. I really should work on expanding my fan base.  lol But, I figure I might as well keep you entertained with some art that has inspired me over the last two years.

 Art by ~aninael

 art by ~steaming_north

crafted by  harlequinromantique 

crafted by  ~OneWeeb

art by adlovett

crafted by darzeth

 photographed by agonyinecstasy

 photographed by ~unknownandinsane29

crafted by harlequinromantique

And, for good measure, a picture of my paper mache airship - tis hanging in my kitchen. (it's not done... no gondola...)

What happened to Wednesday????

Last week it was Thursday, this week it's Wednesday. What is going on with my chronomiter? I mean, I know I did stuff yesterday, but the fact that it was Wednesday never crossed my mind... Actually, I though yesterday was Tuesday, so maybe it was Tuesday that I lost... Well, whatever it is, someone is stealing random days of the week and it's beginning to ware on me!

That said, I'm working on getting out next webisode out. Jarreth is being a pain in the butt... again. Seriously, you should have seen him a year ago. The kid had the attention span of an upside down sparrow surrounded by shiny things. At least he's mellowed out a bit. But getting back in the grove of writing him is taking a bit of doing. Wish me luck with reigning him in!

Belated FAF... I have timing issues

So, it seems that my chronomiter is really off because I swear yesterday was Thursday. But, now that I look back on the week, I seem to have skipped right over Thursday. My theory? Aliens. Yup, I was totally abducted. They must have sent down a replacement so my absence wouldn't be noticed while they did experiments on my genius brain! That's it, tinfoil hats from here on out.

But seriously, I really don't remember Thursday and all I can seriously think is that line immortalized by Martin Freeman (as Arthur Dent) in the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "It must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays." Well, let me tell you Arthur Dent, neither could I. Thursdays are the bane of my existence... which may be why I always miss meetings that are scheduled for Thursdays. Hopefully this will not affect my gardening. (One of my friends is lending me her garden on Thursdays - hence the dilemma).

That said! It's Fan Art Friday... a day late... again... <.<  >.>  But, seeing as how I have no NEW fan art, I'm going to have to use some of my old fan art. These are from some of my very supportive friends Chisaki and Andrea Hatch. Hope you enjoy their unique styles as much as I do.

And, for those of you looking for a little inspiration from yours truly, here are some of the newer things I've been working on featuring the WindSong crew. I know, not the best, but I'm only just getting the hang of using my tablet for artsy stuff.

 This little beauty I decided to do right before I also decided that Tailslide would be way more awesome than HBL.

And making this certainly was fun:

It was a test for seeing if I wanted to animate. The answer it: OHMYFREAKINGGOSHYESANIMATINGISSOMUCHFUN! I may do some clips for your entertainment at a later date.

You can find a lot more fun and inspirational stuff at my tumblr, which I'm trying to switch over here, but there's just so much awesomeness that it's hard to keep track of! The improtant stuff I'll put on my website... if I EVER get that up and running.

And that's a wrap! See you on Monday!... if I don't get abducted by aliens again. *shiver*

The Epiphony

So, I was having lightning strike my brain sometime this morning whilst on the toilet. This seems to happen quite a lot, thoughts happening to me while I’m in the bathroom. I know, you can probably understand having good ideas in the shower, after all, some people sing in the shower, others talk to themselves. But, there is nothing funnier that washing your face, lathering up all the soap and all that good jazz and then all of a sudden SPLASH! The water strikes your face and a brilliant idea is born! My genius, however, seems only to work while I was take my morning dump.

As I said before, this seems to happen quite often. It’s like my brain starts spinning as soon as the pressure is on. So, while most people are playing bored games, reading the morning news on their phones, or just plain thinking, “why won’t this darn thing just vacate the premises” (but with certainly more colorful internal monologue) my crazy messed up mind was busy thinking, “how the heck to I write chapter 10 or Pocketful of Pain if I didn’t end in a cliffhanger.” This instant, of course, was when lightning struck my brain. And yes, it hurt.

This stroke of clever thinking was actually a culmination of a number of things, but the main bulk of it came from an internal monologue I was having on my Friday drive down to Provo where I was going to look for a book store location for my usual ego (who is decidedly not Scottish), Erika Bates. You’ll find that I do this a lot, have internal monologues. My husband says that this is most of the reason why I’m a good writer. See, while he’s busy thinking, ‘Oh that’s a pretty house,’ or ‘I hate the quality of this road,’ my mind is busy thinking, ‘Isn’t it odd that that beautiful house is right next to that old Mexican Fish Restaurant. I’d never want to live there because my days would be like: “She walked upstairs, dropping her book bag at the foot of her rusted out bed frame. The floorboards groaned in complaint as she plopped down on the ancient mattress. It had been another long school day, exceptionally long, the kind of long where one doesn’t want to come home to the smell of overcooked, over-spiced fish from the Mexican restaurant next door. In fact, what she really wanted was just a little piece, a little quiet, and distinctly not-the-smell-of-fish. Yes, that’s what she wanted.” And so on.’ I really could go on like that for some time and often do, but I won’t bore you, seeing as how you’re probably wondering - at this point - what all of this has to do with having an apostr-epiphony whilst sitting upon the crapper. Don’t worry, I’m getting to it.

ANYWHO! I was having one of these internal monologues whilst driving to Provo from our little crummy apartment in Orem on the first of February when a sudden feeling overwhelmed me. The day felt surprisingly new. My monologue went a little something like this: “Today feels strangely new. Like the kind of new one feels on the first day of spring, or the first day of school, or the first time you go on a road trip by yourself, or the first time you kiss a boy, or like on the day before your wedding.” Again, I could go on for some time and it really did, but that’s the basis of it.

It was this internal monologue that came to mind this morning during my little toilet episode. And, just as that last little bit of inconvenience was being wiped from my embarrassingly large, white behind, this monologue went a little something like this: “It all feels new, like the first day of spring, like the day before your wedding, or the day I was sent off on a train to Paris to train with the…………..

“Wait a minute… I’ve never been on a train to Paris… That wasn’t my monologue. WHAT THE HECK IS ADRIANNA DOING IN MY HEAD??!”

It was then that the largest, and perhaps the most frustrating thing for most of my readers (not to name names but, Drea Hatch), struck me like that brilliant bolt of lightning.

It took me till this evening when I was in the car with my husband giving him a lecture not unlike this rant I’m currently on, side comments and everything. Actually, it was probably more irritating for him to listen to than it is for you to read simply based on the fact that when my monologue is spoken aloud it is often auto-corrected with incorrect dates, improper words and, more often than not, nonexistent words I made up just for the heck of it. Given this, one must infer that my husband is one of the most patient men in the world and that he will probably be better suited to teaching my little boy about patience than I will ever be… seeing as how the majority of the time when I’m rambling like a mad woman making up nonsense words and auto-correcting my incorrect dates like some sort of emotionally troubled computer program, I prefer not to be interrupted. This little fact, me not liking to be interrupted, is all the more infuriating when one realizes just how ADD my husband is and just how often he interrupts me to point out the most unusual things that usually get me going on an entirely different rant. It’s usually several minutes later (hours to a man with ADD) that I realize I’m off topic and must come back to the original rant at which time my husband has completely forgotten exactly what it is I was talking about in the first place. Do you see my predicament?

I was on one of these rants this afternoon, going off on exactly everything I’ve just elaborated on in a great deal more detail and with a worse vocabulary when the thought occurred to me again, this time in the form of a well-placed insight from my husband. The thought was this: “Well, if you ended the chapter like it was final, why don’t you just start the next chapter like it’s the next book?”

And so! I am left with one singularly logical thing. The Pocketful of Pain series will be published in 6 novelas, reading much like a mini-series plays out on TV. So, as soon as I finish editing the last 9 chapters of Pocketful of Pain, it will be available for print and purchase.

Enjoy!