Starting Another Book

I finally filled the writing notebook that I carry around with me. The last bit I put in there was the direct aftermath of the battle between Commander and Dural that I mentioned previously. I've wasted little time trying to put notes in the new notebook.

My first notes in the new book are about Vitamin F. Oscar just started reading it and he quickly pointed a few things out. The largest matter was reiterating Lyndsey's comments about how it sounds like the writer is male even though the point of view character is female. He also pointed out the commercial value of having a cute little goth girl running around in firm good standing with Bridgett. This doesn't seem like a major statement, but he said it becuse he perceived some antagonism between the two, which comes from my erratic way of jumping between parts of the story.

The last bit I tossed into the book today was a couple of paragraphs from Mind & Machine where I start to show that Der Former may have more interest in Kathryn than he has in Commander.

Better Now

For the past few days, I've been a bit down because of everything tied to my lack of a love life. I've done what I could to deal with it and get over it, but it just didn't work. I'm not sure why it's ben so hard, but that's the way life goes sometimes.

Anyway, what I did was take that depressed feeling and try to work through it, try to get around it. No dice. I tried to completely separate myself from the feeling. Again, no luck. Navigating around that bit of complication in my life, I looked at it very closely. I didn't mean to, but that's what happened. I realized what it was like to really hurt--really feel like my heart was empty.

I took that idea, the thought that my rotten luck might be tearing my heart to nothing one little piece at a time, and spent a few minutes staring right at it. And that's when I realized that was exactly where I needed to take things with the climax of Mind & Machine.

In that, Commander is supposed to be in a state of extreme anguish, a point where he's lost EVERYTHING. So, Commander bashes his fist on an unbreakable barrier holding the girl he's in love with. He crushes his hand, but gains nothing. Finally, he screams and punches the barrier again and again. He gets nothing out of it. He stops and remarks on how his heart has been slowly torn apart, leaving him empty. And he finally breaks through.

Secret Meanings

A friend once told me that every book has a message built into it, even if the author wasn't consciously aware of it while writing.

I've been picking apart Mind & Machine trying to figure out what part of it I need to work on. I was developing a scene where Commander gets interrogated and blacks out. In his blackouts, he finds Kathryn and she starts questioning his loyalties--he starts his crusade trying to rescue her, after all.

Now, Commander's nuts about Kathryn. He can't do a damn thing about it. All he can do is the traditional suffer in silence. During his quest, he does find a distraction in Sandra Bright. So he becomes torn--does Commander renounce his feelings for Kathryn or does he dodge his promise to find Bright again once the battle is done?

Commander's quest is outwardly a big battle. The real nature of the beast is that he has to fight his inner demons and contemplate the question, "What do you do when you can never tell someone you love them?"

I know I've discussed my intermittent battles with unrequited love in the past. My past history is a big influence on Commander, so I figure I'd put my past misery to work for me.

Views from Mind & Machine

I'm not putting as many images up as I wanted to, partially because I had to fight for so long to get the ones I've gotten on here. First comes the antagonist of Mind & Machine, Der Former. He has a brown cape and gold armor. He also has the distinction with being the only character in the book that can truly fly under their own power.

Next is Sandra Bright. She's got long blonde hair with a pair of braids crossing over the crown of her head. So far, she runs around in a red gown, although, I'm thinking about changing that up a little now that I've come back to writing the character. Bright is a source of information and inspiration to our protagonist, Commander. She may not be the supreme allied commander I thought she was a few weeks back, but Bright is definately the one character who is the most in control of her own powers. She also knows the most about what's going on.

I might try to get the color versions up at some point. Also, I'm going to "try" to get images going of the other characters as well.

Before I forget, I've got to find a name for a demon character. This demon is partially human (as are most in The Golden Hollow), has a gnarled, withered appearance, and rules over his particular group of demons. Any input will be appreciated.

Finally, I just wanted to say that I've gotten to Chapter 7 of the second draft of Vitamin F. I'm also taking advantage of the process to write an extensive synopsis. I'm going to have to do it sooner or later.

Cosmic Troublemaker

Today, I learned that Commander's purpose in life is to destroy destiny and change the nature of fate.

I'm still writing stuff for the Library. Today, I blasted through what will end up being 5 or 6 pages. In those pages, Commander found out his connection to the Golden Hollow--it turned a pair of newly formed twins into a single zygote. All the rules of his world, for the first time, are now meant to be broken.

I also realized that one of the volumes from the Library has been missing for years. Der Former now has said missing volume.

I know a while back, I promised that I would put some illustrations of Der Former up here. I haven't done that yet. Sorry. I have discovered an odd method to making color drawings. I start with a typical line/sketch drawing, like the ones I've posted in the past. Once I finish that, I put another page on top of the finished one and copy the lines using a pencil of the appropriate color. I worked on some pictures of Sandra Bright earlier, so I used a red pencil to copy the lines of her dress, which is red.

Sandra Bright would love to take over my book. Or she'd at least like to dominate as much of it as she possibly can. I've mentioned recently how she's gone from a character in one sequence of one book to being an essential character in this series. I'm going to end up restructuring an entire subplot of the series just to accomidate this character's long-term motivations. Work in progress, as they say.

Next time will be post 200. By the time that happens, I hope to have a few images to show. Bright (and possibly her inspiration) will be part of that. Der Former may come along for the ride. I might just have Commander or Kathryn make an appearance as well.

Library Tales

In the first Commander novel, which I originally wrote from Fall of 1997 to Summer 1998, Commander found himself in Vancouver. While there, he wound up in a musty old bookstore filled with gargantuan books, that when he looked through them, were revealed as a chronicle of his life from start to finish.

I still like that idea. As I was working to change that plot into Mind & Machine, I found myself searching for some way to give these books a greater impact. My first thought was to make where they're kept be a bigger place--multiple levels, thousands of books, very scenic and impressive. Along with that, I knew that this place couldn't be musty and dark, but needed to be clear and bright (more on that in a moment).

I had a sequence prior to Commander's arrival in Vancouver where he briefly traveled with an old man named Albert, who was something of a fortune teller. The two ended up discussing Commander's back history, citing several of the simple reason why Commander became who he was. The sequence was a thin excuse to show off some benign parts of Commander's history, but Albert still holds, to me, a place of importance.

So I decide to put Albert in this library in Mind & Machine. He'd have to take on a different form, one of sage and advisor. But every myth has the old man who serves as sage an advisor. As much as I like Albert, I just couldn't make him fit, at least not alone.

I let the idea of what to do about Albert--or his replacement--sit for a while so I could figure out what this library was going to look like. I'd decided by this point that the books in the library couldn't be seen except by a specific group of people. However, if I wanted it to actually be this big, spacious library that I envisioned, I'd have to actually put it in a library. I started looking around for images of buildings in Vancouver, because I wanted the place to look distinct. I knew once I found a suitable location, I would have to find a reason why there was a library in this place, unless I put it in a public library.

Seriously, I knew an actual library wouldn't work. Libraries are too mundane for what I had in mind, especially when I decided that mine would have to store other things than just books. So I found this lovely building in Vancouver. As soon as I saw this picture, I knew it would be a great locale for the story, especially given the battle that has to take place on top of the library. Then I asked myself, "What is this place?"

It's the Vancouver Public Library. That's what I call serendipity.

With that detail firmly in place, I went back to Albert, and promptly dismissed him. He just wasn't going to fit. If I was still using the musty style from the old version, but I wasn't. I needed someting more distinct and someone still had to show Commander what was going on. Seeing some unique visual influences, I came up with a new character to serve as Commander's liason in the library.

Sandra Bright possesses an ageless beauty, has long dark blonde hair, and wears a very formal red sleeveless gown. She matches the elegance of the real library, but it a sharp contrast to what's going on around her. As I started to write out Bright's character I found her to be a gentle beacon for those fighting against the dark forces hidden away from society. Those aware of her would likely come to her in the hope of being led toward a direction; Bright doesn't point everything out, she helps people discover the truth, if at all possible.

As a side effect, along the way, I decided Bright was a telekinetic. I also decided that she had far too great a presence to have her appear only once. Soon, I'd decided that Bright and the Library would appear again in no less than two other books I have planned. As I wrote how Bright used her mind and no gesture to perform simple tasks telekinetically, I realized that Bright had become a baseline to examine the setting of The Golden Hollow. Bright niether overplays nor underplays the nature of the world or the powers at work in it. She is alwys clear and decisive in thought. And while many will think she's a villain, they might be surprised to find that she's effectively the supreme allied commander for telepaths around the world.

Setting Up For Round Two

I've been trying to find a few resources on agents, now that I've got an entire draft of Vitamin F finished. Of course, to be able to contact an agent, I'm going to need one other element in place, the synopsis. I already have an outline, but it works more like a road map for me to see what files make up the story; now that a full draft is finished, that file is getting closer and closer to being outdated.

In looking at my road map, I also notice that there's a nice trio of chapters dealing with a Fertility festival that really, really need to be reworked. So, needing something to fix my creative energies upon, I start trying to fix one of those chapters. To be brief, the rituals of Fertility are simple and have a very open way to interpret them.

The bad news came shortly after I finished repairing Chapter 33. I was thinking about putting it into proper format when I accidentally clicked on another editing module that made Word crash on me. So I had to bring the file back up. I could only get a read only copy, and that was the unedited text, which was useless to me. I needed to find what I fixed. Eventually I gave up and called no joy on it. I shut down Word and shut down the computer as well. When I took out my jump drive, I got an error message saying that there was a file still open on the jump drive. One restart later and I was looking at about 90% of the work I'd done today. I quickly saved and went about the rest of the day. I'd barely dodged the worst of a bullet there.

I've also been trying to write a little on Mind & Machine every day. I made something of a road map file for it, but, as I work on it, I've realized I need something a bit more complete. Since it's on a later draft than Vitamin F, I'm going to try to put together a synopsis of it some time in the near future. Right after I get the new details of the Commander mythos straightened out.

Catching Up With Commander

I've neglected my oldest creation for too long. He's restless, mad, and ready to kick someone's ass. He'd really like to beat the hell out of a villain I called The Controller, but he can't find The Controller.

A few weeks back, I was fooling around with a phrase translation website and I decided to type in "the controller" just to see what would come up. That, and Controller sounds a bit too much like Commander. I don't want these characters to get confused with one another. When I changed the phrase to "the shaper" I came up with something that stuck out at me: Der Former. I found it interesting because the group of people that I had working for The Controller at one time called themselves "the Formers."

That's why Commander should be hunting down Der Former.

Of course, I should tell you how I've recently redesigned Der Former without redesigning him at all. His look was always meant to include a brown cape, which he uses to conceal his armor from view. He's got long brown hair and wears a gold mask. "Wears" is the wrong word now. You can't wear something that's bonded to your skin, literally hammered into place. His armor isn't just to provide him a place to store all his super powers now either--it's a containment shell for all his replaced organs. I had the thought that he should find people with powers, see who's the best, then harvest the appropriate organs so he can improve himself, shape himself into a more perfected being.

I've yet to finish a drawing of the (re)design, but once I do, I'll post a copy of it. This guy is going to be the result of some masochistic science experiement, one that's always a work in progress. Der Former's goals as of late have been refined from "general antagonistic manipulation" to a specific goal of seeing that The Three Rituals of Kadium are prevented from happening.

By the way, this story I've been describing is a planned revision of the first novel I ever wrote. At the time, I gave it the title Life is Pain, but that's gotten dried out over time and I want something better. I'm thinking about a new title, Mind and Machine, to describe some of the basic conflicts that continuously occur throughout Commander's journeys.

My plan at the moment is to include the concept of The Three Rituals of Kadium throughout The Golden Hollow until Kadium actually shows up. I've always wanted this character to have a powerful presence. I'll try to give him that by having a group of his followers try to complete one of the rituals in Mind and Machine, one crazed rogue disciple complete a ritual in the second book, and Kadium can burst free in the third book--maybe I should call that one The Third Ritual.