I decided to go for a short nature walk to clear my head, and I took my faithful companion, my Canon Rebel XSi with me for kicks. Sadly most of the photos were drastically overexposed because I completely forgot to change exposure compensation before I left.
Most of them were completely unsalvagable. No amount of Photoshop will fix them, but I have a couple that turned out really well, that I'll post at the end of the blog (scaled down to fit :-))
While I was out though, one of our neighbors passed by, and rolled to a stop as I was kneeling to get a picture of a washed out gully.
Well, just a super-quick update on the Aria Blade front. I won't lie to you guys, there's a LOT that I still feel needs to be done to improve the story not even counting work on the final chapter of the initial saga, but I'm almost done with the first chapter's revisions.
It doesn't hurt that it really didn't need much work. I've touched up dialogue here and there, and unified narrative, adding and editing as I felt necessary. It's shaping up rather nicely.
I've sent an unpublish request to one of our site admins to have Aria Blade taken down. There are a number of reasons, but MAINLY, Aria Blade was an experiment in writing style that, I feel, utterly flopped.
I may at some point in the future go back and do a complete rewrite and re-post it, but for now, I've asked that it be taken down. So if you want to save your comments, please do so, or PM me and I'll copy them over for you. They won't be deleted; they just won't be visible until/unless I decide to republish at a later date.
So I just finished the rough draft on a Halloween-themed story. Like Becoming Robin this is seated very much in the Sweet / Sentimental category. UnlikeRobin this isn't a novel-going-on-serial :-P
It's an actual, real-live short story, from me, the Queen of babbling endlessly. Can you believe it? ^_^
It's a line from the movie, "Judge Dredd". Hershey's apartment's been trashed, the whole Judicial system's turned upside down, etc. and she thinks Dredd's a part of it. But it was the most appropriate quote I could think of to properly convey how I feel right now
Let me first apologize for the excessive delays. To be completely honest, I've been really depressed for the last couple of weeks now since my birthday, and compounded with being sick it's just slowed my writing to a crawl.
I know what I want to do with Chapter 21 of Robin, it's just finding the motivation to sit down and write or do anything I normally enjoy doing. It's frustrating, to say the least.
I just wanted to leave a little note here that this past week I've been pretty under the weather. It's not anything serious, but it's left me feeling drained, so that's why the big delay so far. Next chapter (or two, maybe) of Robin should be up by Sunday, if not sooner.
Sorry for the delay. I don't like to let my writing go this long normally, but when all your muse says is "Shut up and take some medicine!" it's kind of hard to get anything done. :-D
A few of you might have caught a glimpse of my earlier blog/rant/vent before I pulled it in regards to family issues.
I decided after posting it that it was just too heated and not within the general "friendly" of the site, so I pulled it though I have a hard-copy for myself because just writing it helped me quite a bit. :-)
As requested, I've uploaded the full, unresized concept images for Aria Blade, Raven Wing, Coronal Rose and Volcaness as they appear in-costume in Chapter 19 of Becoming Robin, "Halloween".
Posting this in blog form, but I'll be shortly adding it as an Outline/child page to Chapter 19.
Just wanted to let everyone know the next episode of Becoming Robin is almost ready for primetime. I need to put the finishing touches on the final scenes (the big reveal/party) before the story moves ahead, but it just doesn't feel right.
I feel like the main character in that movie, the name of which escapes me, who sets himself up as the target for a bunch of woodland creatures after threatening to develop on a nature preserve.
If I've overstepped my bounds, then I ask that the admins unpublish this, no questions asked, no hard feelings. I feel like this needs to be stated, though.
I'll keep it simple. All I ever wanted from this community is mutual respect. That's it. You don't have to like what I write, or the style in which I write it. You don't have to comment or read it. But please, please be respectful of each other.
While going through some things, I stumbled across my old Canon Rebel. This old thing brings back a lot of memories. See, when I was a freshman in high school, I decided I wanted to try out photography, so I bought a cheap piece of crap single-reflex SLR camera and took Photojournalism.
There were maybe ten of us interested in the class that year so we were all incredibly close by the end of it (You try spending six to ten hours a week in a darkroom with someone and NOT learn their deepest darkest secrets after awhile *grin*)
I imagine it just comes with the territory to a certain degree, but for as long as I can remember I've not just loved, but been captivated and fascinated with dolls.
I never cared much for baby dolls, but 'little people' of all sorts, especially porcelain figurines and lifelike dolls, are some of my favorites.
What an amazing journey this has been for me both as an author and, I feel, as a human being, not so much from writing my Robin stories but from my connection with the community here.
I've been thinking for awhile now about what it is I want to do with Robin's tale. I read somewhere recently (I STRONGLY suspect someone's signature right here at BCTS actually :-D) that the sign of a great story is when you dread writing the final chapter.
Just a quick note for anyone that's interested, I've finally sat down and done some uniformity tweaks to my Organizer pages.
I haven't decided if I'm going to do anything with my Author page yet, but Book One now has a proper title, and all three have a proper, brief synopsis attached.
Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to doing this. I really, honestly did not expect my Robin chapters to become so popular especially as the first serious writing I've done in years, not counting the odd fanfic here and there.
Two hours ago I tried to go to bed, but resulted in my just laying awake and thinking. I have so many plot threads going around in my head right now, and to add to that complexity, Aria Blade's sub-story just became a TG story in and of itself in the darker reaches of my warped imagination too.
So, it occured to me a few seconds ago that one of my greatest concerns Re: my gaming hobby is a concern of my fictional character, Robin Smith's, in Becoming Robin...
I had originally written this as a comment to chapter six, Love is in the Air, but I kind of got on a roll and wrote more than I felt comfortable placing in my own story comments section, SO! I'm posting this here, and I'll probably child page it under Chapter Six for organization's sake. Thank you everyone, for your continued support. It really does mean a lot to me :-D
Hey everyone. Sorry I haven't posted a blog entry in awhile, but since returning from Hot Springs, there hasn't been anything drastically different enough to be blog-worthy. Basically it all ties into the second big trip I'll be taking this summer, which is why I'm posting this :-)
A little while ago someone sent me a link to trusted therapists who are not only experienced with, but actually WANT to deal gender issues. I can not for the life of me FIND that link. I'm about to resort to sorting through every comment on Becoming Robin as well as my blogs in order to find that blasted link once I finish watching Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Thanks Melanie! ;-)).
"All you need is love", I've heard. Not quite, at least for me. I learned tonight the value of having one true friend: just one, who's there to remind you you're not alone, and to anchor you in reality.
I think I'm going to be sick. I mean, literally, physically want to run to the bathroom ill right now.
While doing some research for my next writing project in Robin's life, I stumbled across an article on transgender student athletes in Connecticut. The responses almost brought me to tears, thinking that human beings could be so cruel toward CHILDREN in their comments!
I warn you, this is NOT for the faint at heart, like myself, but you have to be one sick, callous son of a bitch to write this kind of bile.
As I sit staring at my screen, I wonder if I've taken too much, too fast with Robin's life.
The 'problem' is that Robin has lived in role all of a week to a week and a half, but she's taken to being Robin so absolutely naturally because of the loving support of her friends and family. She's been allowed to be who she always was inside, and she wants to take that a step further as quickly as possible.
I haven't posted a serious, personal blog in awhile for pouring all my energy into working on Becoming Robin
Spoiler warning: If you haven't read chapter 13 yet I'm going to be touching on plot elements ahead. Feel free to skip to "[The Main Point]" section if you just want the point of my posting this minus spoilers :-D
I found this story particularly interesting because I was literally JUST thinking last night about how I enjoy country music and bluegrass, but never really got into it because of the generally ultra-conservative attitude of its fanbase.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
