Quimi

So, even though I'm theoretically in the middle of a month-long novel-finishing marathon (Camp NaNo, I love you, I swear I'm not leaving you), I signed up for the Cotton Candy Bingo, because A: I have through the end of the year, B: WD kept tweeting about it and making it sound all exciting, 3: it can be anything, any fandom or original fic or poetry or art or baking a freaking cake, and F: the world needs more happy things.

So, here's my bingo card:



Since I am theoretically prioritizing The Novel for a while (the rest of the month and/or until it's finished), don't know when I'll actually get started on these. (Also not sure what I'll do if some of them wind up being *ahem*, because I fail at compartmentalizing my internet life, which makes the thought of posting explicit stuff for more than a few people to see feel REALLY AWKWARD. But I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. >.>;;;; )

And here we go! Not going to update here every day, but I figured I should at least record the beginning:

Day 1 (yesterday):

Total WC: 1729
Plot Progress: Finished Ch. 1, barely started 2 (Vester's intro)
Greatest Hurdle: I want to say it was the eight hours I spent working/distracted by noisy teens and watching the same angsty drama movie twice, but really it was the yellow notebook that got me. This is a purple story, I can't write a purple story in a yellow notebook!
Unexpected Twist: Brain suddenly decided that Paori is not an orphan, but the illegitimate son of the high priest and the main human antagonist. Which is a better explanation for why said priest takes so much interest in him than some, but... seriously, brain?
Favorite/Random Line: "With his senses of vision and gravity once more working together, he tentatively turned his head to one side."

Ugh, feel so weird today. Just wanna sleep. Or read. Or both, if that's possible. =.= But I can't quit so close to the end!

So. Characters. Even the MCs could use a little more fleshing out, and as for the rest of them... *sigh* So here I go. Gonna try and answer the questions for today's challenge specifically (the one about where they do and don't fit in seems especially interesting), but don't be surprised when I tangent off the deep end.

Paori: Born in a cave. No, really. Parents ran away moved to Beacon Town to start a new life as miners or something. Not sure of their names yet, but I think they died in an accident (or "accident") a few years back. Paori's an only child, and was taken in by the local temple, which he'd been considering joining anyway. He did feel he'd belong there forever, but events are going to change that, alas. He's fairly comfortable in caves, but I think by the end of the book his belonging will not be a place so much as a person and/or calling. >.> Shh, don't tell. Also, I get the feeling he's not naturally patient. So he'll probably wind up often doing things on his own rather than trying to explain what needs doing to others.... *mwahahas* Oh, and he's 20, and the three most influential people... one or both of his parents, and one or more of the priests who taught him: the head priest Paloma, and the priest that taught him to read/basic lightworks.

Vester: Born in the northern forests, very close to the mountains. 17, and his most influential people are his parents (killed just before the start of the story, very tragic and angsty) and the shaman-like person (aunt? uncle?) who taught him to whistle. Since he's travelled nearly all his life, he's most at home on the road, though the northern lake where his people live are a nice "home base" for short periods of time. Not claustrophobic, but gets antsy with a roof over his head for too long.

Sylver: Born on the coast, just outside a fishing town. (These brothers were not very convenient in coming into the world, I wonder how their parents managed. And what they were thinking.) Vester's parental info applies to him, of course, though I think he was more attached to a different relative at the lake— one who told a lot of interesting stories. His wanderlust is a little less Vester's "gotta keep moving" and more a desire to explore new places. Especially comfortable in the caves where he can squeeze into unlikely crevices that others can't reach. 8.

Flynn: Born in the eastern swamps or whatever I make that area. Really didn't fit in with the way of life there, and the way people tried to utterly ignore the powers of light and sound, even when they clashed accidentally and screwed things up, so he came to the ruined city to learn more about what happened and why, and how it can be fixed. Also a grandparent really instilled in him a passion for history (as well as passing on the ancient writing, which most people don't bother with). A handful of other people came with him, including his wife (second influential person) and their two little ones who were born there, and he's really come into his own as leader/archaeologist. Third influential person was the parent that tried to stop him from wasting his life on the dead past, and thus led him to leave in rebellion.

*sighs* I was hoping to get to Paloma, and Virue, and maybe even a couple other characters, but. Sleep. It beckons. No, it drags me by the collar. Still, I accomplished a few good things here....

So today's challenge goes back to the day I phoned it in. Terrific. >.< Add in to the fact that I've kind of been pruning ideas that don't really fit as I go, and it means there's not much for me to go through now. Even today, when I decided that having 'demons' that go against the Lady's plan means I should also have some 'angels' that follow her, I decided almost immediately that epic glowing "Fear Not" manifestations were Not Going To Fit. I may even save any mention of 'angels' or 'harmonizers' or whatever I wind up calling them until the sequel that looks more and more inevitable.

Speaking of that sequel, it seems my brain just keeps trying harder and harder to mash this story with the allegorical epic I toyed with some time ago, Children of Legoria. (Yes, I did that on purpose, hush.) At first the mashup seemed really forced, like my brain was just saying, "oh, these both have religious themes, let's put them together!" But now it's starting to feel like they'll actually fit together. And part of me is afraid that if I combine them, I'll wind up just taking the really cool elements (like one-horned horses being the norm while hornless ones are bad luck) and leaving the rest of the characters and plot out to dry; while the other part of me is afraid if I don't combine them, I'll never feel 'ready' to write Legoria on its own. I think it'll wind up happening, especially since I got some interesting twists to my original basic allegorical plot today. It'll just take me a little while to come to terms with it.

I also worked some more on the moons (OMG THE ORBITS BREAK MY BRAIN) and the demons. Making progress, even if I'm going off the beaten path. Or at least the path marked with signs and arrows. I'll get there in the end!

I've still been worldbuilding every day, I just haven't been posting. Mainly because I was too tired. (Seriously, I don't think I would have reached Sunday's epiphanies if I hadn't been half-loopy from lack of sleep.) But I'm in the home stretch, I'm not going to lose momentum now!

Sunday I fudged a bit, because I don't really have a need to change any of my geography as of now (though that may change once I figure out exactly how big the continent is, and how long it would take My Heroes to traverse it). So instead I struck up a conversation with the 'verse's God, and learned some important stuff about the demons and why they're trying to destroy the world etc. and what the Lady is doing about it. I KNOW WHAT THE DEMONS ARE NOW. XD *bounces* AND I'M NOT TELLING YET, IT WILL BE A SURPRISE. *evil laughter* Also, the Lady enjoys being enigmatic, but she's still sweet about it too. ^.^

Monday was slightly less epic, but also more on topic: I got a bit of brainstorming done about the continent's fledgling currency system (quartz beads! Strung in rings, braces, and necklaces... or something like that), and the extended family system that most of the towns and villages have— Beacon Town's the exception, being a boom town with many transplanted people. Also, gold is either more common than silver, or nonexistent— either way, silver's more valuable due to its rarity and use in mystical stuff.

Today was another not-really-necessary revisiting of Mood. Even the bonus exercises: I've already got a big playlist for this story that I've been listening to from the start of the challenge. So I tried having a similar conversation with Virue, my human antagonist, but I didn't get as far with it as my conversation with the Lady. She's just not as forthcoming as a god, I guess.

Okay, there's only about a week left, and I'm not sure what the days are going to cover (looking ahead feels like cheating somehow), but these are the following things I still really need to be figured out (that I know of):

~how exactly the Lady is going to use the MCs to restore the world to its intended state, and what exactly happens if they fail (not to mention how immediately— will the world literally fall apart if they don't get it done by the solstice, or something? Probably not that immediately catastrophic, but there needs to be a deadline of sorts for the MCs, even if just a personal one...)
~what are Virue's merchants planning, and how do the MCs fit in and/or interfere? And what do they do about them?

...I was sure I had more, but I can't think of any now. *pokes brain*

Today is about making an outline of what plot I have so far, or at least figuring out what big questions I'll likely be answering in said plot.

This is a pretty good exercise for me at this point... I hope. The outline I came up with earlier starts out fairly detailed at the beginning: I have a decent idea of what the MCs do up to a certain point. But then it gets vaguer and takes a very sharp turn into .....STUFF. (No, seriously, I wrote that.) I mean, I know at some point they make their way down to the ruins, meet an archaeologist/historian, learn some big important plot points, but I'm not sure what those points are, or what they do with them after (beyond "SAVE THE WORLD DUH")—

*takes a moment for brain to go off on a tangent about Powerful Being Existing Outside Of Time who falls and repents and thus winds up struggling against itself in various times and places* o.O (I blame Diane Duane, frankly.) Uh. Right. Anyway.

So, my big problem at the moment is more or less connecting the epic strokes of the gods and demons with the actions of the little people on their little continent. What are the demons trying to accomplish, and why? Why does the Lady choose these three boys to work through? What's special about them? (And why am I having so much trouble with the plausibility of gods working through imperfect humans when I fully believe it of my own— OH HAI THERE, OBVIOUSNESS. I need to stop thinking of my God as some Deist figure that just sits back and watches without interacting! Just because it's like the polar opposite of the popular epic fantasy trope of gods literally popping out of everywhere to save the day *coughWebercough* doesn't mean it's better!) Epiphany, woo! \o/

Okay, so remember that the Lady cares about her creation individually and as a whole, and the demons are mainly against the world because they're against her. Though there may be something else strategic in there, too, we shall see.

Half an outline and a major epiphany (not to mention a shiny tangent), I think I'm good for the night!

Spent a good deal of the evening playing with figuring out my new phone, but I'm still trying to get this done, too. *stares at today's challenge until her brain starts working again*

....yeah, like that's going to work. *tries sitting down with a notebook to brainstorm instead*

Okay, that's better. Now I just need the energy to type them up....

Light: considered province of church in WV, and so glassblowers and the like tend to take up holy orders, at least in name. They make small protective amulets for houses and families, of debatable effectiveness (since they can't control noise levels around them), and larger stained glass windows in rooms that have been made as soundproof as possible. WV people tend to trust priests, NF dismisses them, EV distrusts.

Sound: NF teaches soundcraft to promising children, in a way that's a little bit parent/child and a little bit shaman/apprentice

Crystals: can be used by anyone, but are more expensive the farther you get from the mine. Still, the growing popularity means they're rapidly replacing candles and oil lamps in the homes of those who can afford it.

Demons: Demons are real, and many people perceive them as a real threat (though there are as many stories about what demons actually do to victims as there are storytellers), but they are associated more with the Southern Ruins, so people tend to think of them as a distant threat... unless, of course, they've experience with one.

God(s): It's about as varied as, well, Christianity over the centuries, in how people believe in them. I really need to pin it down a bit more. But not tonight. This is about all I can manage.

Today's challenge here.

I wasn't sure how to go about this at first: the first thing I thought of upon reading the phrase "cost of magic" was Anne McCaffrey's psychics, who measured their psy-usage by caloric expenditure; Lackey's Valdemar, with its ley-lines of magical power accessible by only a few; and the good ol' traditional "this spell will cost a year of your life" sort of magic. And none of these really fit for my world. (Also, I'm really tired of magic being treated like a car: just fill up your magical gas tank and go!)

So I whined a bit and grumped a bit, and then I sat down and worked out what my costs/trade-offs are:

Light:
~requires a source of light (usually the sun, but sometimes fire will work), and a... vessel of some sort. Glass, crystal, something to refract and possibly reflect the light a certain way.

Sound:
~requires very pure, precise tones.

I'm not sure if they also require a spiritual purity or specific intention (as opposed to the pattern of light shining through leaves accidentally turning lead into gold or something). I'm leaning towards no, but it'll depend partly on how much of this 'magic' is really an act of nature, or an act of God. Because it's really a combination of the two.

As such, the "energy cost" of this magic is roughly equivalent to that of painting a picture, or composing and singing a song. It's the cost of creation, and only intent and skill can tell whether that cost buys the desired result.

However, there are a couple of ....indirect? costs that prevent this magic from being utterly ubiquitous (whee, big words and alliteration. >.> ) One is that it's really hard to get either type of magic right. Not only is precision in either one key, but they jostle each other out of sync all the time— which is why the crystals are so important, they act like shock absorbers! (GUYS YOU HAVE JUST WITNESSED THE BIRTH OF AN EPIPHANY. XD )

Another trade-off, or turn-off, is that there is a stigma attached to one or more of them, depending where you are (westerners are suspicious of Northern whistling, and consider lightworks to be the province of the church, and so on. So that seriously cuts down on the number of casual dabblers.

*is out of brain and energy and time, but doesn't care* EPIPHANY, I SAY.

*yawns* Busy weekend. Fortunately today's challenge was pretty simple: just a matter of how the education system works in my world. Which, since I already knew that most of the people just trained to take after their parents, or sometimes another relative or acquaintance, may be the first time this challenge really has only taken 15 minutes— most of that spent on tangential information about the church, which does teach a few people to read histories and keep records.

However, I also went ahead and brainstormed with my sister (huzzah for familial sounding boards!) about what exactly was divided in the cataclysm I've been calling the Division. And I had some fairly epic breakthroughs. Whiiiiiiich I am not going to share with you just yet, muahahaha. XD

...Okay, okay, I'll give you a couple of scraps:

~In some places, the Division may also be called the Dischordance. *checks dictionary* Or Discordance. >.>

~Vester can whistle to call fire.

*mwahahahas herself to sleep*

Today's challenge is all about the "speculative element", as the challenge generically puts it. ~Magic~ :D

I already know that I'm writing fantasy, and I have a few magical elements that are definitely in the story: the crystals, and whistling. Yes, whistling. Basically, magic — or holy powers or whatever— break down into light and sound. The crystals are the most obvious way for humans to harness the mystical powers of light, but not the only way. And while only certain people can pull off the whistling magic, there's a lot of superstition and religious dislike of it— temples generally go for singing and chants and orisons.

What if time!

~What if people tried to use something else to refract light mystically? Other items can be used: glass, ice, even water, fire instead of sunlight, but the results are often.... unpredictable. Natural selection has taken care of many who liked to experiment, and currently most people tend to stick with what works; which is why most of the crystals are used solely for light and heat.

~What if people tried to combine sound and light magic? ....Yeah, that's so going into the book. ^.^ It is less random than, say, water/light magic, but also incredibly complex. If you don't know exactly what you're doing... well, you better hope a god is watching over you.

~What if the Ancient Culture had a much firmer grip on these magics? OMG YES ANCIENT TOMES FTW. *cough* Yes, yes, they did. Very high level of mystical technology OMG CRYSTALPUNK. XD *coughahem* Anyway. But it follows then that the Division/Cataclysm that destroyed the culture was more than a mere earthquake: it would have had to disrupt the magic itself, or kill most of the mages/mystics.... or else it was caused by the mystics, which has led to a deep distrust of it, that's only beginning to ease up? *ooooooooooooohs*

~What can the magic actually do? ..........What are you doing here without an if? Bah, you don't count! Shoo! >.>;;;; ...........Okay, okay. Um. Well, the crystals are basically concerned with absorbing and emitting stuff... whistling can "call" things, even things that aren't normally called... I suppose it could banish stuff, too. It may have started as a way to banish (and/or control?) demons, actually. Light can also protect from demons; its effects are often very insubstantial, which many people think means symbolic or fake. Not the same thing at all.

~What are these demons, anyway? Hey, didn't you hear what I said to the other question? Come back when you've found yourself an if! >.>;;