Fantasma
I don't think there's one subject more interesting to me than ancient Rome. There are some that are near to or just as interesting, but nothing really surpasses the Great Roman Empire to me. It's really a shame that I haven't travelled there yet, but perhaps it's for the best since if I went now (well, if I could go now), I'm not sure I would want to come back.
I'm still slowly working on Part IV of my Sci-Fi/Fantasy book, The Given: Reunion. I've made some headway lately, and I've done so by focusing on my Italian-Romanian psychologist, Cecelia Barladeanu, who I have a major crush on. (Yes, I get crushes on my characters sometimes--that's what makes me a fiction writer).
Anyway, this lady was born and raised in Rome. She is uber-smart, speakes several languages, and is a secular Roman Catholic of growing devoutness (this is set in the future), so I'm having a good time learning all sorts of new things from a greater knowledge of the Italian language to the Bible's Old Testament. Just this week I learned exactly why Adelaide was called the Holy Roman Empress (because she was the first to really try to introduce Christain values into the empire)...and that David is derived from the Hebrew word pronouced daw-veed, which means beloved...which, was such a wicked awesome discovery for me because it suits the needs of my story perfectly. Gosh, I love how that happens!
My characters are extremely important to me, especially their names and especially their first name; I work for days on their backstory and piecing together their lives. I don't think of them as real people, per se, but more like ghosts who have a story to tell through me. The desire to discover these characters is so strong that, sometimes, it feels as though it's not so much a desire, but a divine command from some unseen force that controls me. Am I just a passionate writer or a pious puppet? Unknown, but the answer doesn't really matter to me because, either way, it brings joy and purpose to my life.
In the case of Barladeanu, I started with an idea of brilliant and independent European female, who was beautiful without really having to try, and knew it, but didn't flaunt it or use it to her advantage in her professional life; her personal life was different story and she wasn't the type to be a wall-flower.
I never write "weak" women because I hate reading them, but I needed a female who was a bit more physically delicate and traditionally womanly, since we can't all be ass-kickers. I wanted her to have a hidden talent, so after some googling I came upon this couple who had named their baby daughter Cecelia, after the patron saint of music. My ghost tapped me on the shoulder, and I knew that I had it; and thus Dr. Barladeanu became Cecelia--and even Cecí to friends.
Once I had her first name everything started to fall into place; before I knew it she was a fully developed and rather compelling character--really fasinating to me, hence my crush. (Yes, I know--I made her, I write her...how can she be fascinating? My answer: she just is...perhaps I'm a naraccist with split personalities, but that's just how I feel and I don't give a damn how odd it sounds.)
Anyway, the reason why I' m writing about this is that after a whole week of working on her section's POV, after a cigarette at work yesterday, I had a total and complete epiphany! I realized I was doing it all wrong, and that I should start from where I planned to finish. That helps me show you who a character is rather than tell you. Sometimes that means I have to throw out 50 pages of material (like I did yesterday), but it's never a waste because even though you, the reader, don't know what I wrote, I know it and am thus more comfortable with the character.
It's a strange process sometimes, but it's enjoyable and I no longer get frustrated with tossing out such large amounts of material because the crucial aspects always get worked in somewhere. It makes for a faster moving story and I like fast moving stories, especially toward the end--no one wants to pause for character development in Part IV of a four part book. Every scene must move the story along, and that's one of the few rules I stick ardently to--otherwise it's just fluff or the writer entertaining herself, which I have been known to do from time to time.
Besides, when I'm a famous author living in Chicago, I can always publish an unabridged version. ;)
¿Dónde está mi muchacha bonita? Translation: Call me back, please. I miss you more than Bill Clinton.
Ghost
By Emily Sailers (Indigo Girls)
There's a letter on the desktop that i dug out of a drawer the last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war and i start to feel a fever from the warm air through the screen you come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams and the mississippi's mighty but it starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down and i guess that's how you started like a pinprick to my heart but at this point you rush right through me and i start to drown and there's not enough room in this world for my pain signals cross and love gets lost and time passed makes it plain of all my demon spirits i need you the most i'm in love with your ghost i'm in love with your ghost dark and dangerous like a secret that gets whispered in a hush (don't tell a soul) when i wake the things i dreamt about you last night make me blush (don't tell a soul) when you kiss me like a lover then you sting me like a viper i go follow to the river play your memory like the piper and i feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me but i'd walk into the fingers of your fire willingly and dance the edge of sanity i've never been this close in love with your ghost ooooh: unknowing captor you'll never know how much you pierce my spirit but i can't touch you can you hear it a cry to be free or i'm forever under lock and key as you pass through me now i see your face before me i would launch a thousand ships to bring your heart back to my island as the sand beneath me slips as i burn up in your presence and i know now how it feels to be weakened like Achilles with you always at my heels and my bitter pill to swallow is the silence that i keep that poisons me i can't swim free the river is too deep though i'm baptized by your touch i am no worse at most in love with your ghost
I'm still slowly working on Part IV of my Sci-Fi/Fantasy book, The Given: Reunion. I've made some headway lately, and I've done so by focusing on my Italian-Romanian psychologist, Cecelia Barladeanu, who I have a major crush on. (Yes, I get crushes on my characters sometimes--that's what makes me a fiction writer).
Anyway, this lady was born and raised in Rome. She is uber-smart, speakes several languages, and is a secular Roman Catholic of growing devoutness (this is set in the future), so I'm having a good time learning all sorts of new things from a greater knowledge of the Italian language to the Bible's Old Testament. Just this week I learned exactly why Adelaide was called the Holy Roman Empress (because she was the first to really try to introduce Christain values into the empire)...and that David is derived from the Hebrew word pronouced daw-veed, which means beloved...which, was such a wicked awesome discovery for me because it suits the needs of my story perfectly. Gosh, I love how that happens!
My characters are extremely important to me, especially their names and especially their first name; I work for days on their backstory and piecing together their lives. I don't think of them as real people, per se, but more like ghosts who have a story to tell through me. The desire to discover these characters is so strong that, sometimes, it feels as though it's not so much a desire, but a divine command from some unseen force that controls me. Am I just a passionate writer or a pious puppet? Unknown, but the answer doesn't really matter to me because, either way, it brings joy and purpose to my life.
In the case of Barladeanu, I started with an idea of brilliant and independent European female, who was beautiful without really having to try, and knew it, but didn't flaunt it or use it to her advantage in her professional life; her personal life was different story and she wasn't the type to be a wall-flower.
I never write "weak" women because I hate reading them, but I needed a female who was a bit more physically delicate and traditionally womanly, since we can't all be ass-kickers. I wanted her to have a hidden talent, so after some googling I came upon this couple who had named their baby daughter Cecelia, after the patron saint of music. My ghost tapped me on the shoulder, and I knew that I had it; and thus Dr. Barladeanu became Cecelia--and even Cecí to friends.
Once I had her first name everything started to fall into place; before I knew it she was a fully developed and rather compelling character--really fasinating to me, hence my crush. (Yes, I know--I made her, I write her...how can she be fascinating? My answer: she just is...perhaps I'm a naraccist with split personalities, but that's just how I feel and I don't give a damn how odd it sounds.)
Anyway, the reason why I' m writing about this is that after a whole week of working on her section's POV, after a cigarette at work yesterday, I had a total and complete epiphany! I realized I was doing it all wrong, and that I should start from where I planned to finish. That helps me show you who a character is rather than tell you. Sometimes that means I have to throw out 50 pages of material (like I did yesterday), but it's never a waste because even though you, the reader, don't know what I wrote, I know it and am thus more comfortable with the character.
It's a strange process sometimes, but it's enjoyable and I no longer get frustrated with tossing out such large amounts of material because the crucial aspects always get worked in somewhere. It makes for a faster moving story and I like fast moving stories, especially toward the end--no one wants to pause for character development in Part IV of a four part book. Every scene must move the story along, and that's one of the few rules I stick ardently to--otherwise it's just fluff or the writer entertaining herself, which I have been known to do from time to time.
Besides, when I'm a famous author living in Chicago, I can always publish an unabridged version. ;)
¿Dónde está mi muchacha bonita? Translation: Call me back, please. I miss you more than Bill Clinton.
Ghost
By Emily Sailers (Indigo Girls)
There's a letter on the desktop that i dug out of a drawer the last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war and i start to feel a fever from the warm air through the screen you come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams and the mississippi's mighty but it starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down and i guess that's how you started like a pinprick to my heart but at this point you rush right through me and i start to drown and there's not enough room in this world for my pain signals cross and love gets lost and time passed makes it plain of all my demon spirits i need you the most i'm in love with your ghost i'm in love with your ghost dark and dangerous like a secret that gets whispered in a hush (don't tell a soul) when i wake the things i dreamt about you last night make me blush (don't tell a soul) when you kiss me like a lover then you sting me like a viper i go follow to the river play your memory like the piper and i feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me but i'd walk into the fingers of your fire willingly and dance the edge of sanity i've never been this close in love with your ghost ooooh: unknowing captor you'll never know how much you pierce my spirit but i can't touch you can you hear it a cry to be free or i'm forever under lock and key as you pass through me now i see your face before me i would launch a thousand ships to bring your heart back to my island as the sand beneath me slips as i burn up in your presence and i know now how it feels to be weakened like Achilles with you always at my heels and my bitter pill to swallow is the silence that i keep that poisons me i can't swim free the river is too deep though i'm baptized by your touch i am no worse at most in love with your ghost
posted by trace at 10:00 AM
2 Comments:
I, too, have an interest in things Roman. I was even in the 'Junior Classical League' in highschool!
Anyhow, somewhere in the mess that I currently call a house, I have that old PBS mini-series 'I, Claudius' which is VERY good and goes into a lot of the history of the early part of Pax Romana. Basically it spans the time between the last part of reign of Augustus through the very early part of the reign of Nero. If you havent seen it already, let me know I will lend it to you.
I am glad to hear that you are writing again. Please reserve a signed first edition for me!!!
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