Spinwork Blog

First and foremost, I’ve updated the synopsis of Lanternfly a bit and lengthened it. You can find that here.

There hasn’t been much to do lately–nothing, that is, besides the usual latte faire and school. Besides that, I’ve done little in the way of Lanternfly editing. My current plan is to round out the year (no finals–yay), take a week off to head back to New York and see my family and some old high school friends. That takes me to May 11th or so. That’s when I’ll be kicking into the second draft.

Otherwise, I’ve been pouring through old pictures on my hard drive. Like, old, OLD shit. I put them together in a facebook album. Many won’t make any sense unless you know me, but for the sake of humor, you can check it out here.

I also looked at some pictures of the places I used to write–the first being my  room. I also got a few pictures of some particularly nostalgic times, or milestones in my progress as a writer. That I actually have pictures of this stuff is pretty neat, so I’m gonna share.

The image to your left is what my table used to look like when I was conceptualizing the original Hellion, then called Aura, back in 2005. If you can actually manage to read any of what’s there, I highly suggest you don’t, or consider burning out your eyeballs. This was back when the series leaned more towards high fantasy. My work is the stuff facing the camera. The stuff facing the other way is the concept work of my friend Allaya, who would join me and we’d work on our stuff at the same time. It was monumentally fun, since she’d always drag a book full of Tolkienic history and stuff like that along with her. Jeez, it’s really funny to remember all of that…

The store itself was also fairly important to me. This is how it looked in 2007 right after I got my iPhone. If you go around past the black trash can toward the right, you’ll arrive at the table, and the bar where I wrote the last 25% or so of the original story. When I got back from college and most of the original staff was gone, it was pretty depressing. Also, finding it this empty these days is nearly impossible.

It’s really weird how nostalgic you can get about places you used to write. I’ve always found writing in cafes to be pretty integral to my process since I started. Gah, I really miss that place…

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion Aura, old cafe, old Hellion, pictures

I didn’t want to say it before in fear of jynxing myself to a gruesome death, but looks like things are finally hitting their stride with Lanternfly. And by hitting stride, I mean 18 pages since Sunday, a chapter and a third, and a few realizations about characters and themes. On top of having a lot to tackle between work and school, I’m pretty proud of that figure. I’ll stop breakdancing in joy now.

You know, I’d always been fairly proud of my weekly output, but after this project, I don’t think I’m ever going to take my daily/weekly goals as seriously as I have been ever again, unless I’m either terminal or on some kind of epic deadline. While the stuff I’m pumping out feels pretty decent, there’s a part of me that hates this feeling of flying by the seat of my pants. Whats good about now is that I’m actually actively working on things in spare minutes. I somehow managed 250 words between my breaks at work, which aside from probably conjuring really awkward mental images of some manically laughing dude in a Starbucks apron hunched over a Macbook, really shows I’m back to my late-2005, early-2006 interest levels in my writing.

For the last three odd years, those are the days I’m most nostalgic about. I mean, who doesn’t like to remember the days of being so prolific that their Spanish teacher used to shit on them for writing a fight scene in class? Where every free period was spent in the library kicking out edits? Jeez, I remember when final projects rolled around, the librarian, who was my advisor, had to take my manuscript away so I’d actually do the work. Back in 2007 during my whole “FUCK LIFE CANNOT WRITE” thing, I always looked back on that as my golden time.

Ah, those were the days. Good to see em’ again. ^_^

I think one of the best parts of what I’m writing now is the ideas and material from the old Hellion that have crept in. Like, OLD, OLD, 2004-2005 style stuff. For those unfamiliar with the history, Aura was the title of the first book in the Hellion story and had many of the same characters (Lionel, Danielle, Kit, Beuran, among others) as Lanternfly does. In fact, I think about 90% of the major characters from the original make an appearance in the books at some point–not that anyone will know when they read. Only two people ever read substantial portions of the original (and have since been killed). I suppose it’ll just be a nice in-joke to share with their–um… souls.

Eee. Excited writer! ^_^

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009 2005, 2006, 2007, Lanternfly, old Hellion