A Matter of World-building

My dear friend and I both recently finished reading a book and had a very thoughtful, stirring, and often unintentionally hilarious discussion about it. To put it lightly, we were both rather disappointed with key aspects of the book, especially since it was by authors we adore, whose previous work we very much enjoyed.

One of the issues we had was with the world-building and in talking about it with my friend and later briefly with Alz (briefly because Alz hasn't read the book yet), I got to thinking about something. In a fantasy, when does a setting that is BASED ON a real culture/society/people/time period/etc. become just that culture/society/etc. but with a fancy foreign name? As in, when your story is set in what appears to be medieval Europe, what makes it in fact NOT medieval Europe? When does Victorian England cease to be Victorian England and become instead something else that only reminds you of that time and place while not actually BEING that time and place?

My friend and I knew before we read the book that the setting - an empire in a fictional world - was to be mainly based off feudal Japan. We were also given indications in the preceding book that this empire was Asian-based (names of places for the empire indicated something of an Asian mixed bag, with locales sounding Chinese and Korean), but we knew very little about it.

This book was supposed to enlighten us about a fictional empire.

This book told us we had walked straight into Japan.

At first, my friend and I were willing to sit back and adjust to the, in a sense, culture shock; maybe we just weren't expecting the empire to be quite so Japanese and hey, it's kind of cool that there's so much detailed cultural practices and stuff in here. However, we realized as we continued reading that while the cultural tidbits and what not were impressive in terms of giving you a sense of this empire and its people, it wasn't anything, well, different. We realized we were in Japan and we couldn't see what made this fictional empire NOT Japan.

Sure, once in a while, a Korean-sounding or Chinese-sounding named character would pop up among the mostly Japanese named ones, and perhaps this was supposed to make us feel like the setting wasn't just Japan but in fact a holistic Asian super-empire, but those names just felt out of place. Because other than the names, everything else about that empire was incredibly Japanese: the social customs, the food, the government, the weaponry (oh yeah, there were katana), the theater, etc. Faced with this, my friend and I were left to wonder if this empire was just based on feudal Japan or if it actually was feudal Japan.

Plus, we both were at least a little irked by the Asian super-empire itself because of what it implies about Asians by tossing the major East Asians together into one big empire, but I'm not going to get more into that since the Asian American Studies Minor in me will probably get waaaaay off topic (and of course, we're sure it was unintentional, though no less bothersome).

So we talked about how a lot of fantasies are based in recognizable Western time periods and cultures (e.g. medieval Europe). We thought maybe we were just so used to such Western settings in fantasy books that we didn't notice it. Maybe lots of fantasies, when read with a specific time and setting in mind, turn out to sound like THAT time and setting and not terribly like an original fantasy place at all. Maybe.

Really though, what often helps to make a fantasy world just "based on" a real place rather than "it IS" the real place is that fantastical element. This book sort of had it, but never expanded upon it enough to give it any weight. It was like "Oh, it's Japan...plus magic...except not because we barely ever talk about it."

So I guess, the question is still what makes a fantasy setting "based on" a real time/place and what makes a fantasy setting just a real time/place dressed up in Fantasy clothes?

Because seriously, it was straight up Japan.

July is Summer-like

That being said, I am a happy camper. Yes, it is hot and I do hate sweltering, but it also means not having to wear jackets, eating icy desserts (which I love), swimming, and general chillaxing (yes, I do use this word in every day speech). After June Gloom, sunny sunny July is long-overdue.

With the return of SoCal sun, our dear friend Luce returned from her year abroad. She is the friend we wrote A Story of Very Questionable Origin for, and we were finally able to put the book in her hands (literally!) last, last Saturday. She was delighted and informed me Tuesday that she had begun reading it.

Tonight, she informed Alz that she had finished the book in which nothing really happens, and I believe the quote was "nothing happening has never been so glorious." I am thrilled; Alz was thrilled; and really, nothing happens in the story except for a very long, very crazy dinner party.

Anyway, perhaps best of all is that she also told Alz that she couldn't tell our writing apart later in the novel (structure in the beginning has something to do with this telling-apart business). Yay! Being able to blend two writing styles seamlessly is, of course, important in the collaborative process. So this was good to hear, especially from Luce since she's been reading our writing since days of yore (or some might call it high school).

I intend to interrogate her ruthlessly tomorrow when I see her for lunch. Perhaps more on her experience and what that means for Alz and me as a dynamic duo at a later date. Maybe after this weekend since I am insanely going to Disneyland in predicted-to-be 100 degree weather and then hosting a birthday party for small children on Sunday. Fantastic!

I do love the summer. Peace out.

Magnum Opus

Krispy and I are beholden unto those who offered their comments and congratulations, for which you've our thanks. Nor shall we neglect requests to gaze upon the wondrous beauty that is our physical book, self-published courtesy of CreateSpace, complete with glossy color cover, black and white interior on white paper, and that CreateSpace-assigned ISBN our dear Krispy is so jazzed about. As if I'm not jazzed about it myself ~♪♫♪. (Also, I'm to blame for not posting this sooner—the physical copy of our book currently resides with me. I'm just a lazy bum when it comes to taking and posting pictures.)

Alas, but at the time of completion, my computer suffered a tragic, inexplicable, and sudden death, and so I lacked the tools with which to create a cover worthy of our masterpiece. (No Photoshop makes for a sad, sad Alz, because it is her number one choice for drawing and photo-editing.) Fortunately, CreateSpace did offer a range of moderately customizable cover templates, and so with a bit of fiddling and fooling and sending images back and forth, Krispy and I were able to put together a more than halfway decent cover.



Krispy's sister is a marvelous photographer and we were able to pillage her collection of holiday-ish photos and abscond with them for our own nefarious uses.



And here's the back, complete with author blurb and portrait (thank goodness I had a suitable image I could dig up that showcased our good sides).



...and a closeup of our ISBN and barcode.



What can I say of CreateSpace's quality? This is the second book I've printed with them and the quality is very, very good. The first book I tried came back with a strange faded stripe that ran the width of the cover as if it the machine had messed up while printing, but since it was a free proof copy just like this one, I can't complain.

Fortunately, A Story of Very Questionable Origin came out beautifully--glossy cover, beautiful colors, looks quite professional. The black and white interiors are printed on white paper (they also have a cream option which allows for more pages becuase of the thinner consistency of the paper, but I chose white for ASoVQO because it looked great on the first book) and the text is clean. Illustrations are also printed clearly.

CreateSpace is also nice because you can order however many you want, with options to either sell privately just to yourself, or to actually list it on Amazon for a fee. I quite like what I've seen so far and would recommend CreateSpace as a great venue if you want something approaching professional quality, for the sheer joy of holding a physical object in your hot little hands, a labor of love, of blood and sweat and tears, is quite gratifying.

June Gloom

It's June! Weirdly enough, it is gloomy and sometimes threatens rain despite it being this time of year. I don't like that it seems like winter when it's supposed to be summer. What's this got to do with writing? Other than it putting a cramp in my mood, nothing really. I'm just popping in for an update and to take care of some belated business.

Firstly, Alz and I finished the Holiday Cookie! Yay! She already went into it a bit in the earlier post below, but it's kind of awesome. No, it's really awesome! Why? Because we have an effing ISBN NUMBER!!! Alz, being the Word Monster that she is, won Nanowrimo last year, and the reward was a coupon for createspace, which does self-publishing projects. Since she didn't want the coupon to go to waste AND because we had written this monster of a cookie for a friend, we thought it'd be cool to actually GIVE IT TO HER TO READ in BOOK form. It arrived in the mail last week, and it's kind of amazing. Mostly, I am psyched we have AN ISBN NUMBER.

Now may also be a good time to say that the title we settled on was "A Story of Very Questionable Origin" because I'm...not that creative and mostly because the story (if it can be called that) takes place in my Story of Questionable Origin storyverse.

Also, we have a back-cover synopsis now too, which I will now provide for those of you who are morbidly curious as to what this "cookie" Alz keeps talking about is.

The House of the Fallen is having a holiday dinner party. Who shall they invite? Why, their friends of course! Lady Lucia intends to throw a soiree to be remembered, and to make it extra memorable the guest list includes Crimson Imperator Banscray, Royal Knight Sincère Vrai, Lady Ciel Vrai, and Scarlet Kestrel Firalaer Firenight Phoenix; at the behest of Lord Lucianus, so too are invited Death herself—Lady Soleil Morana—and her companions Irihi and Vikenti; and Lucia's son Lucifer will, of course, be dragging his dear friend Michael into the familial holiday fray. Cross-dimensional travel presents no obstacle when there is the promise of fine food, fine wine, and even finer company.

Of course, this is the House of the Fallen. And what happens here stays here…

…or does it?

Secondly, the very sweet (despite her curious desire to bottle people) Danyelle at Carpe Mousa and Myth-takes awarded our blog with this very lovely award! She's so nice! I'm still so flattered, I don't know what to do with myself! So yay! Thanks!!! (And excuse me for taking so long to post this up!)



Oh also, HAPPY (June) BIRTHDAY to the cyber-twins Merc and David! And that's all for now!

Cookie Completion

Let this post stand as a testament to determination, literacy, contrivances, plot devices, randomness, creampuffs, and above all else, unmitigated genius—for last night, on the 27th of May of the year 2009, Krispy and I completed our first long term collaboration.

The Christmas Cookie is complete. It is baked. It is fragrant and delicious. There are further cosmetic plans for it currently underway, but the text itself stands alone as a monumental effort some six months in the making.

Final word count is ~105,000 words. It can be done. 80,000 is average novel length. We can do it. We did it. We are amazing. Yes, I am stroking our egos madly, but mostly I am impressed that we pulled so much off in such a short time span.

Collaboration works! It really, really does. I think that I'd been attempting to write this solo, it would have petered off any number of times, and gone in fits and starts, and eventually it would have trailed off while I moved on to something else and only came back a year later to work on another couple of pages before prancing off again. But the creative madness that ensued in playing page ping-pong with someone else served as sufficient motivational force to keep us writing on a regular basis, I think.

This is probably the most writing I've ever gotten out of Krispy on such a consistently regular day-to-day basis. Thank you, Krispy, and congratulations. KEEP IT UP. ♥♥♥

Character Chats

So recently through the wonders of the internet (Twitter-hopping in this case), I made the acquaintance of the lovely Danyelle (aka Windsong) at Carpe Mousa. A few weeks ago, she started a fun exercise titled Character Chats, in which a prompt is posted for characters to respond to.

I tried one out this last week and my entry was one of the ones chosen to my surprise and delight! :) The prompt was about Obligations and Duty. So if you're interested in meeting one of my favorite angels or just joining in on the fun, pop on over to this Character Chat post at Carpe Mousa and check out the other entry from Yunaleska - about a princess who must make hard choices - while you're at it.

Slow-Baking

So our Holiday Cookie has been slow-baking in Krispy's oven for a while now. Amazingly enough, we managed an amazing three-four months of cookie-ing back and forth nearly everyday! This unprecedented streak of sheer genius produced a whopping 155 pages of dinnertime story—97,603 words so far. That's nearly 2x as much as Nanowrimo demands! To our dearly beloved friend to whom this cookie is dedicated: You shall be amazed when you read your severely belated Christmas present in its entirety.

Alas, but we have slowed down during April. Krispy has Real Life and I am supposed to be doing Real Life things too, soon. The ball is in her park though and though progress has been slow, it is being made. (Plus she's been working on other exciting writing! Which she has yet to share with me, be it added. *cough cough*) I think we both needed a break—breatherspace!—time to reflect and recuperate and rejuvenate, and at any rate, I think our cookie needs only a bit more time in the oven before it's ready to come out and cool while sending out delicious wafts of sweetness.

And—

Damn if Krispy hasn't posted just as I was writing this post! And more or less on the same topic. With some of the same terms and wording! Clearly we're on the same sort of wavelength.

Well, having read Krispy's post now, most of my random maunderings are redundant as she's already stated them so delightfully well down below. GO, KRISPY, GO!

I shall just add in my two cents. In my writing program, professors have encouraged me to take a break from writing for a while—told me to sit back and not write anything at all for a couple of weeks, except perhaps in a journal. They said it might help give me perspective and time to get re-energized and re-enthused about the material. They said that I just need to power over and through that (writers') block and then I would see the shining light at the end of the clear path beyond.

What I did not tell them was that I was not writing furiously every free hour of everyday like they seem to think I was doing—I work spastically, either in little fits and starts and drabbles, or enormous quantities of unexpected text all at once. (Cookie, mind you, is an exception for some reason. I think the energy of collaboration and the momentum cookie had gained over the weeks helped a lot. A lot.) Probably I should practice writing in a more regular manner, but, well, years of attempting to do so have only gotten me this far so far. Probably I just need more discipline.

At any rate, being in this so-magical writing program, I've learned several things:

1.) Nobody has the same process of writing.

2.) What works for one person might not work for another.

2a.) This includes everything from plotting a novel to actually writing to environment to, well, everything.

3.) Nevertheless, it's a good idea to try all suggestions to see if they work for you.

4.) But if they don't work, then they don't work. Don't force it.

5.) And don't let people force you into it either. This includes professors.

6.) This black sesame-flavored soymilk drink they sell down at the café in little cartons is actually pretty good.

Now seeing as Krispy is being so diligent as to post, bask in free time, and write, I can't let myself not compare to her and damn straight that's a double negative! I'm going to make good on what free time I've got right now and write too!