Changes

I am looking out my window at the rain coming down. The cold droplets are kicking up a cloud of yellow leaves as they are knocked from their precarious perches in the trees that once gave them life. It is a vision of changes.

This week has seen a few changes for me as well. I enrolled in an online art class with one of the living masters: Glenn Vilppu. It is through his Vilppu Academy.

I am looking forward to the class, even if it does not start until January. I have always been creative, and along with writing, art is a way I have enjoyed expressing myself. I hope to not only get a lot of good information from the course, but it will also force me to spend more time drawing.

Ren Faire

We also made it to the KC Ren Fest yesterday. It is the last weekend for this year and so many things had kept us from making it out earlier in the season. As it turned out, this was a fortunate weekend for us to get there. John and Trena of Dwarf Mountain Knives had just finished a sword and I fell in love the moment I saw it.

It is a 15th-century thrusting sword with a fishtail pommel and a Swiss guard. The weight is really nice and the work excellent as always. (I have several blades from John and Trena.) Now I just have to wait for them to sharpen it.

We also picked up some art from artists we had not seen before and a new wool cloak for me. The cloak is one of T’ger’s and it helped keep me warm on the brisk (and very muddy day). I keep wanting to put it on, but the cats will cover it in hair the moment I do.

Aside from the shopping, we stopped by and saw a number of old friends. It was good to catch up with them for a few minutes (it was a busy weekend). We also noticed a lot of things had changed. I guess that is kind of a theme for today’s post.

In all, it was a great day at Faire and I am glad we went yesterday.

Writing

My current WIP has been a bit more of a bear than I had anticipated. The trouble is that while I have a good idea of the overall series story arch and planned where each book should end, I have not outlined each book as much as I normally do. The result is that what I thought would fit into the first book if running longer than I want. This means I am now going back and doing more of what I should have done before I started the writing. I am looking at what parts I need to scale back and change to keep the story within a reasonable word count.

The struggle is me wanting to make sure the motivations and behaviors of the characters align with the amount of time they would have to process, learn, and adjust to things. I have things that must occur in certain places to set up things in the subsequent books, but getting them to occur without being rushed or crowbarred into place is what I am working to avoid. Perhaps the series just needs another book beyond what I had originally envisioned. Time will tell.

And it is time that has been hindering me. With other things going on, I have had less consistent writing time and some of what I wrote is months old. So, to make sure I have the flow I want, I am re-reading the 25 chapters I have finished to make sure the flow and attitude of the characters have remained true. That for me is the most important part of the story: making sure the characters have agency and are true to themselves.

Well, I’ve got The Sounds playing in a loop in the background and I should get back to the reading.