Lots of updates to fill you in on so I'll go ahead and dive right in.
As a homeschool parent to a special needs 15 yr old son with Austism, ADHD and sleep disorder I have my hands full most of the time and hence why my failure at keeping up with regular blogging and social media posting is beyond dismal the last half or so year. I do have a bunch of blog posts saved as drafts I need to finish.
I do plan to start a second blog for homeschooling and have written lesson 1 on my homeschool course I'm creating. These plans and ideas and bits of effort towards them occurred last year and I haven't done anything with it since.
This year is a big year as my son has started Yr 11 so we're quite serious in getting on with things and trying to get things finished on time for that. This is the overwhelming priority for the foreseeable future.
In my spare time I've tried to get a bit more serious with developing ideas for the Rag Doll world and characters. For enjoyment, fun, stress relief, and my happy place at the moment.
I have created a fashion line for the Elysiam cafe as well as researched some French architecture, bakeries and patisseries, sketched, created lists for the Elysiam vegan maid cafe/bakery/patisserie/tea house; sketched a few maps of Elysiam's riverside street view, a bit of the town street map, created a list of town features, another for town businesses, rough sketch of a topographic map of the town geography. Naturally I thought the next step would be to create some place names but after watching a couple of world-building videos on Youtube I quickly realized that in order to have place names that had some kind of origin and meaning I might need to create a language which was the very thing I had initially ruled out doing because that seemed too hard and time consuming and I wouldn't have known where to start. The topic of creating a language feels fascinating but I just wanted to charge ahead with things I felt I could achieve more quickly. At this point though I was seriously considering changing my mind however. Mind you this was quite some time after hearing my son tell me about his interest to create a more efficient language and reading about conlangs. I had no idea what he was talking about. I created a list of things to name. From my list of map/town features/businesses I started to write some outline notes and back stories. I'm just starting with a town as I felt that was more realistic and achievable than a whole world. The town origins are of an ancient village that happened to be along a trade route and from that the town and its population grew. If I create a language it would be for the descendants of the original village native people. As I was looking for more worldbuilding videos to watch I saw someone mention Brandon Sanderson's writing course which I am currently note taking. I'm up to Lecture 10: Characters Part 2. Before the worldbuilding lecture I had gone to his site and read up all about Sanderson's Laws and created a magic system which I thought I wasn't going to have any magic initially. I'm thinking I'll weave it into the native's mythology, religion and beliefs. I need to do more character creation and development as well as plots whilst trying to keep things on niche, ie, vegan, ethical, eco, sustainable, organic. If I were to create a second language it would be for the mermaids. At the moment the town is called Ragdazagora. Since I think having him help me with creating my language or two will help him learn more about creating languages and hopefully inspire him to actually start creating his own since he is so interested in it and has done his own independent research teaching himself I think I will endeavour to create my first language. I've also been watching some videos with David J. Peterson about creating a language.
During Lecture 7: Short Stories with special guest instructor, Mary Robinette Kowal, I wrote a shortish story which I'll include here.
The bubble burst! Min looked up in fear to see a purple/greenish glow like the arch of a rainbow dispersing above. She felt a shock-wave pass through her entire body from all directions at once. The faint view of trees progressively came into focus as the misty fog which had blanketed them began to evaporate. Rain clouds formed but pushed by the shock-wave moved on quickly. She sighed with relief as the danger of explosion had now since passed.
A feeling of disorientation took over as she realized she no longer recognised her surroundings. Where was the town, the stream with the bend in it by the big rock protruding through the earth carpeted by ferns? "Juliet!" she suddenly exclaimed. Where had Juliet gone? Min stood frozen with indecision about which direction to take and what she should do next. "Run!" Yelled Juliet as she headed toward her from behind. Min turned around and saw not only a terrified Juliet but a shadowy figure crouch down, place a box with a long rod onto the ground and aim something at them. A dart flew right past Min's knee. As she turned back around and started to run Juliet had caught up with her. A thud was heard from up ahead.
As the pair dashed into the trees they were halted in their tracks by a creature laying on the ground with the dart sticking out of it and two women crouched either side of it looking back up at them. "whoa, whoa, it's okay. We're not here to hurt you." said one of the women. While the other stated, "We're not harming it. It won't attack you." The other woman said, "We're just checking its health." Min and Juliet were confused and still frightened. "Would you like to help?" asked one of the women. They were trying to move it onto a stretcher. Min and Juliet stepped in to help. Once it was securely on the stretcher they carried it over to a table surrounded by strange apparatus. "Where are we? We're a bit lost. Is the town nearby?" asked Min with no reply. "We need to get this done as quickly as we can before it wakes up." said one of the women. Min and Juliet watched as the two women worked busily taking and recording measurements, weighing it, checking its heart rate etc. They wanted to be sure that animal would be safe and unharmed so they stuck around and assisted as best as they could whilst hopeful they'd learn the answer soon.
"It's starting to stir." said one of the women. They all helped it back onto the stretcher and began to walk it back to the ground. As they were removing it from the stretcher one of the women started packing up the table and kit. Then the other woman folded up the stretcher. "Is there a town nearby?" Min asked again. "It's going to wake up soon." the woman with the stretcher declared. "We better hurry up then. Can you help us carry the kit back to the hut?" asked the woman with the table as she stretched out her arms with two bags of kit. Min took one of the bags whilst Juliet grabbed the other. They made the trek to the hut along the same direction but then after some time turned right to proceed up hill. The hut stood to the left of them. One woman went up the stairs and unlocked the doors. Then the woman still below passed up the folded table to the woman above, then the stretcher. "You can take the bags up with you." the woman next to them instructed. Juliet went up first and Min next. The woman followed behind them. Min walked over to the other woman standing at the balcony. As she looked out she sew the town below.
It appeared mostly familiar with several strange new additions. "You've been in that bubble for quite some time I'm guessing." the woman next to her suggested as she eyed her clothing up and down. "How do you know about-" Min was interrupted by the woman unzipping a bag and laying some odd garments onto the bed. The other woman had started to set food and drink onto the table out on the balcony. Juliet took a bite of a fruit. "After lunch you can change and head back down into town. You can stay with us if you like while we help you figure out your next move" the woman by the bed offered.
I probably went well over the suggested 250 word count. I also broke the rules about the one or two characters. In order to attempt to do a story on niche, ie, about conservation and discovery writing with no outline, that's how it came to mind. I wouldn't mind changing a few words and have Juliet say one or two other things. This was done during the lecture quickly which is not something I'm used to doing. I usually write lyrics or poetry and I'm not a confident or professional writer but I have fun and get excited about my ideas and am happy learning more about making my writing better.
I wonder if it's okay to start in the middle of a dramatic action scene and not knowing much about any of the characters to care about them or just let things unfold and be revealed as it goes along or would people lose interest because they don't care enough and not hang around continuing to read by the time we get to that point... Maybe I should start with a scene inside the bubble leading up to before it bursts and not just leave it as a back story to flashback to later in the story...
I'd like to write more episode type stories for comics/graphic novels and for the virtual magazine and artworks.
For English he is working on annotating a news article which you can read here https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/climate/global-warming-temperature-range.html
I'll leave you with that for now
