Fiddler on the Hill

When I was 13, I took up guitar, with my first instrument being a crappy red Fender. I picked it up quickly, taking lessons once a week from a rowdy yet friendly evangelist (who totally didn't mind me being an agnostic). I even had a band in high school, though we played less music than we did sit around and talk. I eventually got a really nice Jackson, with mother-of-pearl inlay on the frets and a beautiful purple and green paint job. As time went by, I was able to teach myself and became pretty good, able to play more complicated riffs and guitar solos.

And yesterday, I sold that guitar to a pawn shop for $150 so I could buy a violin.

Admittedly, I haven't played guitar in a few years now. Looking around, almost everyone knows how to play to some degree. In actuality, guitar is one of the easiest instruments to learn. You don't even really need a teacher; it's an instrument you can teach yourself from the get-go and master in a few years. You can play a halfway decent sounding song with a few chords. You don't even need to know how to read sheet music in order to play it (I don't, I just read tablature).

Secretly, while I was playing guitar, I pined to learn the fiddle. Sounds completely retarded, but the reason behind this was because of a video game. While playing Civilization: Call to Power, one of my favorite songs that was featured in the soundtrack was Celtic Winter, which about halfway through has a violin.

Then, I discovered Flogging Molly, which introduced me to more classical forms of Irish music. Ever since then, I've been wanting to play the fiddle, but never really got around to it. However, I'm a pretty spontaneous person, and tend to do things randomly and without warning. So yesterday, I sold my guitar, bought a cheap beginner's fiddle on Amazon, and looked up violin lessons.

Let me tell you, they are not cheap. WVU was offering a 16-week course for $600. Since I do not poop golden coins, this was not an option. However, my school has a Community Music Program that is also a 16-week course, but is $120. All things considered, not really that bad. They also will teach you any type of music that you want, instead of barring you only inside of classical. I'd like to learn classical, but my primary interests are Irish folk fiddle and bluegrass.

My fiddle should arrive tomorrow or Saturday, then I can begin my journey of making the sound of dying cats coming out of my violin for a few years!

I'm cured!

Sorry I haven't been updating often. Between these awful migraines and worrying about my new condition, things have been a bit crazy, but I think everything should be back on track soon.

Today, I finally got over my post-spinal tap headaches. If you've ever had a lumbar puncture, I'm sure you know what these are like. If not, count yourself lucky. When you have a spinal tap, they drain a little bit of spinal fluid to check for certain things... in my case, to relieve the excess pressure around my brain and to check said pressure. When they do that, the fluid leaks a little bit, causing your brain to float down, which in turn makes the membrane scrape across the bottom of your skull when you're sitting up. You're completely fine while lying flat, but when sitting up that fluid shifts down again.

Imagine the worst migraine (or headache, if you don't get migraines) you've ever had. Multiple that by ten. Then imagine Genghis Khan just lopped a two-handed axe through your skull. After that, imagine that all of Manchester United is lining up to take turns to kick you full force in the head while the Khan's axe is still embedded in your brain. That's what post-spinal tap headaches feel like.

Other than that, though, the medicine and relief from the spinal tap has done a world of good for my pseudotumor. My eyesight has improved dramatically, I have yet to get a headache (other than the spinal tap headaches), and I haven't had any anger fits or depressive slumps. Also, the medicine I was prescribed causes weight loss. Can't argue with that.

Anyway. Enough about my feeble human body. Here's some nerdy stuff.

Invicibility star. I crocheted him one dead night at work.

A boo. The picture makes him look terrible... he's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with him.

Also, class starts next week. My official last semester. It's scary. Terrifying, in fact. Terrifying in the prospect that I have to start looking for a graphics job in a place where no graphics jobs exist. I hope I'm not doomed to wait tables forever.

The end is neigh.

The end to my first book, that is! I'm slowly approaching the end of the first book of my three-part tale. After this, it's tons of editing and then trading it to publishing companies and agents for a few pounds of rejection letters.

Also, I made these:

Other pictures here. They're orange slice earmuffs to go with the citrus scarf. Once again I'm tempted to keep them for myself, but then again I'm broke and trying my damnedest to sell stuff. Still nothing sold. If I can't sell anything on my Etsy shop, I'm going to try selling stuff at a small event we have at the university every March called The Women of Art Expo. Last year a famous tattoo artist of this region was selling her tattooed rubber duckies and made bank (I bought one, too).

I also may start doing Warhammer tabletop. Sean and I were desperately trying to find a hobby to do together, as I'm getting burnt out on video games, so we decided Warhammer was sufficiently nerdy enough.

More cranes.

Well, here's the last of my painted cranes. I know it doesn't look it, but it took me forever to paint these damn things, as well as fold them since they're kind of unwieldly. Now I just have to get fishing line and string them up. The first two pictures are my second "new Japan," while the last four are my two "old Japan" cranes.

(This one's my favorite!)

First painted crane.

As you may know, for my final project in my Water Media class, I'm working on origami cranes that represent old Japan (geisha, tea houses, daimyo, samurai, Shinto, etc) and new Japan (video games, anime, new media, weird fashions, etc). Here's my first crane, "new Japan."

Every visible part is painted, so you would have to look all over the crane to see all of the paintings, even inside some partially visible flaps. The whole crane is not painted, though; I've made a template planning out which parts will be seen and therefore painted and which parts are completely hidden.

One down, three to go.

Can't stop making stuff up.

As you know I'm roughly halfway done with the novel I'm currently working on, but already my brain wants me to write other things. I had a dream last night that was too awesome not to include in other stories, but definitely doesn't have a place in Citadel. I blame watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Damn this awesomely insane show. I don't even like mecha. I barely even like anime.

Most of my stories are begun by dreams. Usually this is a bad and cliche thing, but I'll roll with it. Citadel was started when I had a dream about an enormous black building that was so high, it reached the clouds. A few months ago, my subconscious decided it wanted to torture me with another storyline and gave it to me in dream form as well. It's a double-edged sword, much like Spiderman's powers.

This is my gift... AND MY CUUUUUUURSE!!

The dream I had a few months ago went like this: There was a girl who lived in an enormous city on the water's edge in the jungle, which was somewhat futuristic and somewhat steampunk. I wish I could describe it better with fewer words, because it was awesome. She had a collar around her neck that she had since she could remember. Her friend helped her remove it, and she transformed into a crane. All hell broke lose, because her kind, those who could shapeshift, had been controlled by the government. The dream ended when she began to plan a revolution.

I wanted to finish my first story, so I wrote it down along with half of a beginning chapter and put it away. Then, last night, my subconscious told me "Fuck that noise" and gave me more. This time it was about an enormous zeppelin that could go into space. Once again I blame watching Tengen Toppa right before bed for the space thing, but the rest of it could be appropriate. Hell, maybe space will be included. Sci-fi isn't my forte, but it's pretty cool, right?

So now, when I'm so close to being finished with my first novel, I'm itching to write the second. It sucks, because I'm churning with ideas for the new story and I feel like I couldn't write my first one now even if I tried. My brain is just too stuck on steampunk and race-class revolutions and magic in sci-fi.

I also blame this sadly underrated movie. DAMN YOU ATLANTIS.

I'm wondering what I should do tonight. Thursday is my Write Like a Fiend night, so I'm torn between working on Citadel and working on the new one. If I work on Citadel, I would be that much closer to finishing it but it wouldn't be nearly as good for the mindset I'm in now. If I work on the new one, it would be pretty damn good by my standards but it'll feel like I'm putting off what I've worked so hard on. Writing is awesome and sucks at the same time.

Orc: A Vignette

This originally began as an inside joke between Sean and me. Poor Argh.


Me am Argh. Argh am orc. Argh have beautiful wife, Urgh, and one... three... seven... two! Two orclings. Argh am businessorc. Me am work for big-wig boss in fancy office, but Argh only have puny cubicle. Boss not respect Argh. Boss says Argh am scary and needs to stop destroying weak co-workers. Boss will one day bow to Argh. But for now, Argh be peon.

This morning, Argh drive to work. Suddenly, Argh cut off by puny human in weak mini-van! Argh furious. ARGH AM BERSERKER-RAGING! Me am burst through roof of car, and rip steering wheel from dashboard. Argh run over mini-van! Mini-van crash into ditch, and Argh rip off mini-van's door! Me am drink blood of douchebag who cut Argh off!

Other drivers stop and stare at Argh. Me am hear human yelling to call cops. Argh no like fuzz! Me jump back into Argh car and put roof over Argh head and drive away. Me am hear the baneful cry of human screams. Argh like human screams. Argh have burnt CD of human suffering that me play in car. It am soothe Argh after long week of work.

Argh arrive at work. Boss yell at Argh. Argh am late! Me am sorry, I tell Boss. Boss glare at Argh. Stupid puny Boss. Argh am powerful! Boss no understand. Argh work on sales graphs. It am tedious. Argh am decide to check on mighty Farmville crops.

Boss catches Argh! Says Argh am fired. Me am say Argh have wife and orclings to raise. Boss no care. ARGH AM BERSEKER-RAGING! Me rip computer from wall and throw at Boss. Co-workers try to calm Argh. PUNY CO-WORKERS! ME AM DESTROY HUMANS AND GNAW ON WEAK BONES!

Security escort Argh out. Tells Argh charges will be filed.

Maybe Argh no should work in office.

Mostly Men Online Role-Playing Girls

Ah, MMORPGs. It brings up feelings of dudes in their mom's basement, chugging Mountain Dew and scarfing down Pizza Rolls, as they yell at the screen because their character's body is being camped. It's the gaming genre that sucks you in and spits you out until you're a hollow shell of a human being.

Okay, maybe it's not like that for everyone. I mean, I have my own apartment, I hate Mountain Dew, and I don't get camped because I don't suck. I even have a job and college with a GPA of 3.6, too! And I, for one, love MMORPGs. I've played World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest II, and am currently playing Warhammer Online.

For the non-game types, MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, but it's often joked that it stands for Mostly Men Online Role-Playing Girls. It's true. 85% of female characters in MMOs are guys, yet they still get hit on by lonely straight 20-somethings. Though nowadays more women are playing these games, back in the day it was rare.

I started playing World of Warcraft in 2006 before the expansions came out, when I played a rogue on Alliance. It was my first MMO, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was wielding a spell-caster dagger, wearing stamina cloth, and didn't know what talent points were until level 20. I was awesome. Then I realized how to play and it got fun. The expansion came out and I joined a guild and raided casually and PVPed.

In 2008, when Wrath of the Lich King came out, I got totally for serious. I was playing a shaman healer and was raiding hardcore. It was fun at first, but after two years of that I was sick of healing people and not hitting monsters with a giant sword. Being useful and saving your group? Pfft. I want blood!

I quit WoW for the third time early this year, although this time it was permanent. I left when Blizzard announced that they're going to have everyone use their real name on their forums, and since I had been stalked in-game before, I really didn't want that. I also found out they had made a pact with Facebook that will bring them more money, because the multi-billion-dollar corporation doesn't make enough. Also, Ghostcrawler is their lead dev and also a whiny moron.

Since then and throughout my time in WoW, I've played other MMOs, and it really makes me wonder: Why is World of Warcraft so popular? Is it because it's easy to learn and grasp? Is it because there's always stuff going on with so many subscribers? Who knows. There's better games out there, though.



1. Warhammer Online




(Watch both, the first is cool and the second has an orc-apult)

Warhammer Online, before it came out, was constantly called "The WoW Killer," a conveted title for a game that has the possibility of destroying the MMO Behemoth so other games have a chance at the subscriber base. I played it on release and absolutely loved it, despite its flaws. Warhammer Online made a fatal mistake, however: it was released before it was fully polished. Subscriptions dropped and everyone went back to WoW, myself included.

I just returned to the game last month, and wow, is it ever the most fun MMO I've ever played. You can choose Destruction, the super-evil side composed of Chaos humans that are Ravengod-worshipping Vikings, Dark Elves that are vampires which worship Khaine (the god of hatred. HATRED. That's how hardcore evil they are), and Greenskins, which are orks and goblins that also happen to be soccer hooligans. You can also play Order, which are made up of Order humans that bring up recollections of the Spanish Inquisition, High Elves that are pretty girly, and Dwarves that have ale-powered technology. No, really.

The game is interesting because there are 24 classes, 4 for each race. Each race has an archetype: tank, healer, ranged DPS, and melee DPS. Each class is incredibly unique. For instance, on Destruction I'm currently playing a Disciple of Khaine, which is a healer that goes into the fray and steals life-force from her enemies while she kills them. On Order, I play a White Lion, who wields a two-handed axe and has a faithful white lion as his companion that grows larger as he levels.

The object of the game is Realm versus Realm, commonly called PVP in other games. Both sides fight to control objectives, keeps, fortresses, and even cities. There are also scenarios, or battlegrounds. A lot of people's problem with this game is that it offers little PVE, but what do you really expect from a game that has such an in-depth PVP system? PVP is more fun and more challenging than PVE anyway, in my opinion.

The only problem I see with this game now is lack of players, and since you want as many players as possible since it is a game involving fort and city captures, this can be crappy. However, the Badlands server is vibrant and alive. Join me in killing Order scrum!

4.5/5 Doritos bags





2. Lord of the Rings Online



LotRO is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. The graphics are incredible yet not hard on your computer, and the landscapes are literally breathtaking. Most of the time spent playing was simply looking around, because the game itself was so beautiful and detailed.

As a Lord of the Rings nerd, it was a great thing to be in Middle-Earth. The game was heavily inspired from the movie trilogy, so the Shire felt like you were actually there. Better yet was the Epic questline, where you followed the story from Lord of the Rings and assisted the Fellowship in their quest. You get to meet Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, the hobbits, Arwen, and even Tom Bombadil. The crafting system is interesting and in-depth, the instanced quests are epic as all get-out, and classes are interesting and unique. Plus, minstrels actually play music and get to pick between several different instruments, from lutes to bagpipes.

However, there was a problem with the game that caused me to leave. It gets very boring. I reached level 26 on my ranger, and when I was playing with Sean, I was literally bored to tears. I've never experienced such a thing before. I just started crying because I was so bored.

I think the game's problem is the fact that quests start to get stale around mid-game. They start to become "Kill X wolves for me! Bring me back X pelts!" No one likes that.

However, I will give this game a bonus because it has something I adore that many other MMOs lack: player housing. You can choose between a large expensive house or a cheap small house in human, dwarf, hobbit, or elf neighborhoods. I'm super girly when it comes to this because I love decorating. Plus, it's Lord of the goddamn Rings. You can't go wrong.


4/5 Mountain Dew: Code Red cans



3. Everquest II



Sean used to play old Everquest back in the day, and had me try it. I was killed by the first rat I encountered and kept dying. I hated its interface and vowed never to play it again, and then I tried Everquest II.

Everquest II is not only more user-friendly, but its graphics are great for an older game. There's just so much to do in this game. It's somewhat overwhelming. There's a near endless amount of land to explore, tons of races and classes, lots of cities, sprawling dungeons, and a great crafting system.


It's almost a little too big for beginning players. When I started playing I was completely overwhelmed with all the stuff I could do. I spent most of my time in my player house, arranging my bone furniture and dark tomes to look as evil as possible (I played a necromancer).

It's a great game, but new players should take it slow and try out a few different things before they dive in.

4.5/5 Poopsocks



I haven't played other MMOs (besides these and WoW) enough to review fairly, so I'll now discuss upcoming games that I am peeing myself over.


1. Guild Wars 2





I was meh with Guild Wars. It was all right, not great and not terrible. Just... "meh." When I heard about Guild Wars 2, once again, I said "meh." However, the art style piqued my interest. It was so refreshing and beautiful, especially for an MMO, with its painterly style, so I checked into it a bit.

My mind was completely fuckin' blown. Holy shit. If this isn't the MMO to end all MMOs, then the developers are the best liars since Loki.

In this game, you can choose from five interesting races: the hulking and brash Charr, the annoyingly cute Asura with a superiority complex, the Vikingesque Norn, the hippie tree-hugging Sylvari, and humans. This game is interesting for reasons that I can only give coherently in a list:

-You can move, pick up, and affect objects in your environment.
-Different weapons give different skills, depending on class, race, and weapon type
-No grind; you start doing cool stuff at level 1
-Immense, beautiful landscapes and cities
-NPCs that act like actual people and don't just stand around repeating the same scripting conversation for all of time
-You can affect your friends' abilities and spells. For example, an elementalist can lay down a flame wall, while a ranger can shoot through the flames to create fiery arrows.
-Unique and very interesting spells and abilities, that are very real and visceral
-You can choose your personality and build your storyline from there. You can be a smooth-talking swindler, a chilvarous hero, a drunk guy that likes to punch old ladies, or just plain evil.

And the most important point of all:

-What you do will have a complete affect on the environment. An example they give: Centaurs are raiding a town. If you save the town, the town will remain and the villagers will remember you. If you don't, the town is burnt to the ground and everyone in it is either dead or runs away for safety, until the town is moved or rebuilt.

I WANT THIS GAME NOW


2. Tera Online



There isn't much information available about this game yet, but there was one thing in it that was very interesting: real combat. You don't just stand there letting a giant crab-monster hit you. You jump over and under the giant crab-monster, rolling under it to hit its soft belly, or attacking it from behind.

This game also has interesting targetting. Once again, you're not just standing there smacking a cave yeti with your sword. You have to position yourself to hit it. Casters and rangers target it like through a scope. It's really cool and gives a nice challenge.

Two things I hate about it: 1) the adorable dog-racoon things. I HATE THEM. 2) All of the female character armor is beyond slutty. It's a new level of slutty. And the female caster wearing high-heels? HAHAHA. If I'm going to be in the middle of a war, running across the world, the last fucking thing I'm wearing is high heels.

It looks promising, though, so I'll keep my eye out.



Do you play MMORPGs? What are some of your favorites?

Origami cranes.

I fold a lot of origami cranes. I do other origami as well, but nothing to me is more relaxing or second-nature than folding origami cranes. There is a saying that folding one thousand paper cranes will bring you inner harmony as well as grant you a wish. I'm probably pretty close to that number by now.

For my Water Media project, I'm making even more cranes, two very large ones and several small ones that all hang from the ceiling. My inspiration for this project is the city of Kyoto: a former Japanese capital where you can still find tea houses, geisha, Shinto temples, and other interests of old romanticized Japanese among a sprawling and modern city. It's interesting to see so much tradition and antiquity in a city filled with the uniqueness of modern Japan.

One large crane will represent old Japan. The crane will be painted with traditional Japanese watercolor and calligraphy of scenes of life in this era. The other crane will be new Japan, painted with its bright, colorful, and really strange happenings, styles, and media of the country's today. Each crane will have an army of smaller cranes, each representing one thing of each era. I've five so far, so I'd thought I'd share. My camera is terrible and cheap, so I'm sorry for the blur.

Geisha crane, Orizukuko-chan. She is holding an origami teapot in one wing and a teacup in the other. She wears her hair in the typical style of a geisha past her apprenticeship, with decorative chopsticks in her hair.

Hello Kitty crane, Hello Craney. She loves pink and flowers. She loves flowers so much she has one in her hair and some on her wings. KAWAII DESU~~

Kamina crane, Cramina. He wears his trademark glasses and the collar of his cloak (a real cloak would be awfully hard to fly in), with his blue tattoos seen. Quotes include "Don't believe in the crane that believes in Cramina, or the Cramina that believes in you. Have faith in the crane that believes in you." and "Who the hell do you think I SQUAWWWK?!"

Generic mecha crane, Crundam Wing. This picture is simply awful since I used metallic paper and my camera sucks, but Crundam Wing is covered in wiring. It is the combination of five smaller cranes that come together as a team, proving that only friendship and teamwork will defeat the evil aliens/Cranezilla/other mecha cranes that hate Japan.

Cranichu, the Pikachu crane. Despite the crane's love of water, Cranichu is coursing with electricity, which is a bummer for other fauna in the waters nearby. Cranichu's best friends are Bulbacrane, Charcraneder, Craquirtle, and his trainer, Crash.

If you have a crane you'd like to see in this project, let me know. The only restrictions are the crane must have a Japanese background, either old Japan or modern Japan. Arigatou to ja mata ne!

Brittany and Sean: Master pasteriers

A few weeks ago Sean and I bought a Halloween house kit. I made one last year and while it was no where near as pretty as it was on the box, it was decent. It's more or less a chocolate cookie house that comes with icing mix, grape bats, gumdrops, green balls, and a confectionary ghost. Look at the box art: these guys must've worked on it for 10 hours to make it so perfect and cute!

Today we decided to build the house. We carefully mixed the icing and began topping off the roof. However, the icing was too thin and it ran, much to our dismay. I tried to make a door, Sean placing the green balls around it, but it melted and ran down the side. We were sad.

Finally, Sean said "fuck it" and started pouring icing randomly all over it. The house was bleeding orange and purple. Joining him, I took a handful of bats and threw them on the house, the grape candies fusing into the evil haunted mashion.

It turned out that destroying the house was way more fun than perfectly building it, which is nervewracking and you start to notice your hands are awfully shaky when you're trying to perfectly align little green candies on the sharp roof. Here are the fruits of our labor.

This is the front of the house. Notice the melted door that still remains from when we began. Dead bats that have flown into the house are now fused with it, becoming one. A ghost in the left window pukes sweet orange bile as the house itself bleeds from the souls of its lost victims.

More dead bats have become entrapped in the house's gooey web of deceit, slowly being digested by the evil leviathan. A row of gumdrop tombstones line the yard, a warning to any adventurers or teenagers with a great dane to stay away.




The back is splattered with ectoplasm. Obviously, many great ghost wars have been fought here. Sadly, it is an endless battle, an eternal hell in which they may never leave. They wish to see their wives once again, leaving the horrors of war behind... too bad they don't realize they're already dead. A pair of gumdrop boobs is also here.

A rumble is heard from the misty distance, far from the eyes of the undead denizens that call this place their waking nightmare. In the distance, a towering goliath approaches, cookie trees crumbling in its wake, stirring flocks of Peep crows to scatter into the churning black sky. A great growl rips from its maw, lined with sharp teeth.

The ghosts cry out in dread as the creature lowers its head, and, with a great wail, sinks its jaws into the deathly prison of their home.

The gheists try to flee, but they're trapped in their eternal torment. Teeth gnash at them, and they stab at the monster in vain with their licorice spears and Pocky swords, but to no avail. The monster eats his fill and, as quickly as he came, vanishes into the black forests of the night.

The ghosts gather around their bleeding, melting, oozing mess of a home. Though they hate it for its role as their warden, their eyes fill with ghostly tears. Their haunting wails ring out over the marshmallow hills: the place for which they have fought, suffered, and died for eternally hangs in crumbling ruins, cracks of cookies falling from the rafters through to the yardside below. They are still trapped. They will continue to battle endlessly, forever... but for what?

So yeah, it was fun. And messy. And ugly. But delicious.

Fantasy: Nerds like it and so should you.

As a few of you who have been reading this know, I've been working on a novel for the past few months. Writing a complete fantasy novel is #2 on the list of things to do before I die (#1 being a tour of Ireland). I want to do a lot of things before I kick the bucket, so it's pretty far up there.

When I was in high school, I spent the time during my history class writing a story. It was ridiculous and pretty terrible, focusing on my three best friends as the main characters and involving some silly quest. I still have it stuffed in my closet somewhere. After that, I decided I wanted to actually try a real novel. You know, one with a real plot and characters and a story that doesn't suck too bad. Unfortunately, I had an extremely short attention span. I'd write the first two chapters, get bored, and trash it.

It's amazing that the thing college has taught me the most (besides the fact that no one really knows as much as they and myself think we do) is patience. Over a period of a couple of months, I have a good plot, complex characters, a better command of writing narrative, and the realization of how people actually talk. I'm up to Chapter 8, nearly Chapter 9, and still going strong. I'm sure the story is pretty terrible, but I want to at least say I wrote a full-length novel.

Being an enormous fantasy nerd, this is the genre I've always been settled on. Also, being one who reads more fantasy (and tons of other books) than is healthy, I've come up with a few qualms with the fantasy genre.


Firstly, most fantasy is set in a Celtic, Norse, or medieval European inspired setting. It's what we like and are comfortable with. Tolkien based his books off of Norse mythology, and since he is the grandfather of fantasy, many followed. I like books set in this type of world, don't get me wrong. But what about other cultures? The world has such vibrant, beautiful, and rich mythologies, yet it's somewhat rare for those to inspire fantasy books. What about sub-Sahara Africa? The Aztecs and Mayans? The Japanese Shinto or the Mongolians, the Soloman Islanders, the Saudi Arabians, or the tribes and people around the Caspian and Baltic seas?

This is awesome.

Because of this, my main character is from a desert land, a mingle of Arabia, pre-colonial America, Mongolia, and the Pacific islands. She is a shaman apprentice, one who can control the faucets of nature and dive into the spiritual realm.


Second, a lot of fantasy uses the same rules as Tolkien or Dungeons and Dragons for different creatures and races. Elves are aloof and eternally wise, dwarves are grumpy and love drinking, humans are a young jack-of-all-trades race. Orcs, drow, and the like are evil, with extremely few exceptions.

When I played Dragon Age, it was a breath of fresh air to have elves that were not all-knowing and superior, but with a dying culture that was seen as inferior to humans. Dwarves still loved drinking, but they were backstabbing politicians that divided their people into castes. I've read a couple of other novels where the author bends the rules, but they're hard to find.

The way I'm trying to go about it is make races more realistic. The antagonist land is not evil, just loyal to their dying king. No one realm or race is evil, just individuals who choose to be. Humans are varied by culture, none really good nor bad. Light elves and drow live begrudgely in the same land, and dwarves are tied to the earth, choosing to live along side it instead of mining its ore and making flasks and battleaxes. Not to say that dwarves who drink lots of ale and swing weapons around aren't awesome, because they are. Everyone likes Vikings, except the rest of medieval Europe.


Third, I like character-driven story over plot-driven story. I think most people do, in fact. If something completely ordinary happens in a character-driven book, you'll still care because you feel attached to the protagonist. If something insane and surreal happens in a plot-driven book, you wouldn't give a damn because you don't care for any of the characters too much. Plot is necessary to a good story, but I feel that characters are more important. I've read a ton of fantasies with unlikeable, boring characters that had a great story, but I couldn't enjoy it because I felt no attachment to anyone there.

I have to say I've spent more time developing the characters than writing the damn book. I know their pasts, dreams, personalities, secrets, strengths, weaknesses, etc. I've done character studies, written up background stories, and created extensive profiles for each.


In conclusion, I'm a nerd. My novel is probably really bad, but it's fun. Something to pass the time while I can't sleep for my 24th hour and am hallucinating gnomes crawling into my vacuum cleaner.

Crafty bastards.

So tell me, what would you like to see in a story? Doesn't have to be fantasy. Any cliches you're sick of seeing that you might enjoy seeing a insomniac write about?