Let's skip the pleasantries
Progress on Paranormal Accounts is slow, but steady.
I would say I'm 33% of the way through the first draft of the first segment, part, chapter... It's gonna be smaller than I envisioned, and we'll only see the beginnings of story arcs. When it does come out, I'm gonna really want feedback, so you'd better be ready to tell me how awesome I am and what you liked about it!
It's a lot of fun to write. I've been able to alternate writing with a mysterious tone, planning out puzzling things to happen, and just letting loose with the poetry, trying to make something *evocative*.
I have some story elements planned out, but narrative is the hardest part... Ugh! I've never thought this hard about themes and making things matter before. Believe it or not, I never loved creative writing assignments in school. (Or any writing assignment, really.) One of my biggest hurdles is constantly grappling with "less is more". I tend to overinflate my word count really quickly if I'm not careful! It's just how I talk, but we can strive for better. I'm also a stronger editor than I am a writer, so I edit what I write almost faster than I can write it. This isn't good - almost everywhere I see writing advice, people say it's important to just finish a draft all the way through before you start editing. Get it done messy, then you can clean it up. It's totally antithetical to how I work! Everything I do needs to be perfect off the jump, or I shouldn't do it! No, that's healthy, don't overthink it. Overthinking things is *my* job, lol.
All quiet on the website front
I've been thinking about visual improvements to the overall website, but haven't made much progress. It's not perfect, but I like how it looks. Something I know I want, though, is some cool logos! I can already envision one for Paranormal Accounts, but I'm not gonna make a logo for a project I'm not close to finishing. Having one for the main website would be cool, but I still don't know what to call my website! Anybody have good ideas?
As for additional content... nope, no new ideas since last week. That's OK, though. I've been busy, and like I was trying to say in the last blog, I don't want to force myself to come up with ideas. Maybe later on, I'll be more experienced, disciplined, and I'll be more ready to create for the sake of creating, but I'm no artist yet.
Anything else?
In other news, I've been fiddling around with some music. A concept that captured my attention recently - there's this band who got permission to record an album in this massive tunnel with the craziest reverb you've ever heard, but all the music was this passive, atmospheric drivel. Super boring. Here's a sample of what *I* would do if I had a giant cavernous space to record music:
Gonna turn this into a full track later on, just wait for it. It's really... discordant right now, but you kind of have to roll with that, I think. You really have to add things with a light touch, and because the reverb and tempo aren't aligned, it creates a lot of really weird effects. Like, there's a kick between the snare hits, but placing it on different beats has completely counterintuitive effects on the rhythm, because you have to think about WHEN in the beat the sound echoes back the most, as that echo becomes part of the rhythm. Then add on top trying to make melodies sound good both while they're happening and then for ages afterwards... It's just a little mindmelting.
I haven't been practicing piano as much as I'd like to lately. I need to get back into it, or I won't improve. Tip of the day: Wanting to be good at something and thinking about that thing a lot doesn't make you good at that thing. You're welcome, haha!
I've been in fairly good spirits lately! That doesn't bode well for my poetry. I only seem to write negative lyrics, and I'm terrible at writing positive songs. I think that means I should try to find more positive things to express, or more ways to express positive things... or maybe just focus on what I've got going on already.
Okay, that's everything! End of blog!
Well, that's that! You need anything, you know where to find me! Okay, bye bye!
...
Oh, you're still here? ...Wanna read an excerpt from one of the Paranormal Accounts stories? Sure you do! Here:
The first sign was like a buzz, or a rumble - so quiet, I didn't notice it over my own footsteps at first. Then, it grew stronger, and I thought it was maybe a semi or a street cleaner going a couple blocks over. Then, I started looking around - it sounded like it coulda been right next to me, but I couldn't see any trucks. Then it kept getting louder. I covered my ears. At this point the rumbling was starting to make me queasy. Lights in houses were turning on. It kept getting worse, until just before the quake knocked me down, a wave of pressure blew over me. My ears popped. I looked up and saw -
For just a second, it filled the sky.
Maybe I was in the eye of the storm, or maybe I was so shocked I forgot about the world shaking around me. I don't know. But I won't forget that quiet moment as long as I live.
The actual shape of the thing was hard to make out. You could only tell where it was when it blocked out the stars, and there weren't many stars out to begin with. In the middle of it (I think it was the middle), pale blue softly glowing lines traced out from a pool of light, like when a little kid draws the sun. There was a little bit of wonder in how it looked, I think. Like it didn't *have* to look so beautiful, but somebody somewhere decided it should. They were right.
Then, time started moving again, again I noticed the rumbling, now growing softer as it disappeared over the treetops. When it passed it left nothing behind, except awe, and barking dogs.
Is it good? Do you like it? I hope you like it! The full story has queer undertones - would you have noticed if I didn't tell you? I can't stop writing things with some kind of queer perspective to them. It's the weirdest thing. Somebody help me.
Okay, goodbye for real this time!