Housekeeping

'sup ✌

If your eyes feel funny at the moment, it's because I changed the theme a little bit. Mostly just adjusted some colours, and also changed the background image. I spent a long time trying to decide on a background image, had a few ideas for cool ones I could make, and then settled on one I'd already dismissed because it was easier than making one of the cool ones. It's a sunset in Portugal through a chain fence. Enjoy the pretentiousness.

Also, mostly the slight colour changes are because I changed them a lot, decided I didn't like them as much, but couldn't change them back to what they had been before, so I kind of had to guess where they were before. Some of them are Wrong. But I still think it looks pretty, if slightly different.
Of course, your eyes might feel funny because you have hayfever, or a migraine, or something. You should probs see a doctor.

In terms of other changes to the website, some super-observant people may have now noticed the Click for Smiles link - feel free to check it out if you need smiles (and you do need smiles, even if you don't think you do). It's still in development, but the idea is just to make a collection of cute animals for those moments when your heart is just a little heavy. I know it's not much, but it's something, and sometimes something is all you need.

Another housekeeping note (that's all this post is actually) - two weeks ago, I passed the halfway point-ish with the second draft of Sylvestus Vol. I! It was actually slightly ahead of schedule, which felt great yet also terrifying; I had written a phenomenal amount in that week, enough that I was worried about burn-out. I didn't want to risk running too hard and completely losing the ability to write (or at least write well) as sometimes happens if you let your momentary enthusiasm burn out your motivation and energy in a short period of time. It's always tempting to let those fire-storms carry you into the ocean, but over the years I've learned to try and manage them more carefully, preventing, or decreasing, the dreaded block that can come afterwards. What I ended up doing was writing some [City Novel], which I said in this post I wouldn't be touching again for a few years - hey, it was fun.
It still feels weird with Sylvestus, because it's reached the point where at any point, I can sit down and write and it's decent. But it's not especially exciting, and I don't feel like what I'm writing is revolutionary. Normally at this point I'd just stop, and write something else for anywhere between a week to three months - I don't really have time to do that, now. So I'm going to keep pushing, as best I can, and hope it starts feeling like amazing quality again sometime soon.
There's still plenty and a half left of the Sylvestus project left to do, and I'm not even at the halfway point since I set the deadline yet - but I figure, if I started writing it in about January 2016, and its publication deadline is December 2017... I am definitely three-quarters there overall. Exciting stuff.

Finally, a little about Wrought Its Ghost, the Dying Ember short story I published here a few weeks ago. It isn't necessarily spoilery, but it does take place after the events of the main novel, so it probably won't make much sense unless you're familiar with the final act of Dying Ember.

I had the idea for something like this a long time ago - pretty much as soon as I knew that someone was going to die (I didn't know who, yet), and how the Prelim would work. The premise was simple: a survivor enters the Prelim in order to see the dead one final time. The chapter or epilogue, whichever it would be, would be set "from the perspective" of the dead person - as they were encoded in the Prelim database.

It didn't fit the tone of the end of the novel, so it couldn't land as an epilogue, and it got cut as a chapter from the end. But I still loved the idea, and wanted to do something with it. In the end, it was Beta who encouraged me to do it; shortly before the final publication of Dying Ember, I was looking for short pieces to write to get me back into the mood of it, having been writing Sylvestus for twelve months by that point. She made a few suggestions, and one of them turned into what would become Wrought Its Ghost. Then I just knew I had to do something else with it; it was too good to sit in my draft box having been seen by only one person, beloved as that person may be.

Actually writing Wrought Its Ghost was more difficult than I had anticipated. I am competent enough with self-taught HTML to be able to alter graphic codes and website skins, but other than that I'm pretty clueless. All I know is there's a lot of > and lines. It did, however, make it interesting to investigate how to go into the workings of the Prelim - the initial idea was that the computer programme would recognise speech, expressions, body language, and actions, and then relay them back to find within its database of the inanimate person how they would respond in speech, expression, body language, and action. Plus, how would it register injuries and how this affected each person? What did it consider to be "dead"? Dany points out that suicide or accidental death resets the programme rather than counting it as a win/lose, so how would the programme determine this?

It all got kinda' complicated, but I answered as many questions as I could and produced something which, if far from a functional programme code, is at least recognisable as the silhouette of one - and, most importantly, is still understandable to a layman. What was more important was that a reader should understand what the heck is going on.

I then had some trouble with what to call it, and looked back to the original poem which inspired the title of Dying Ember: Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. I used to be able to recite the first half of the poem, thereabouts, so when I was looking for a title for the cool new novel I was writing, it was this which I turned to. Similarly, within the novel North is a fan of Edgar Allen Poe, and on several occasions recites parts of it. When he sees the "backstage" of the Prelim, he compares it to the line:

"Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

    Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

    From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

            Nameless here for evermore."

The full poem can be read here (there's also some gorgeous narrated versions on YouTube).

As soon as I looked at that inspirational line again, I knew what it was going to be called.

There's also another short story (again, written in a different way to the normal narrative of the novel) sitting out there, which one day I might publish here. We'll see how it goes! I generally feel that things like this should be done in threes, and to put it simply, I don't have a third one or an idea for one yet. One day, maybe. If I ever do come up with it, y'all'll be the second to know (Beta will be the first. Soz).

And to finish off, enjoy something I found recently which made me laugh, a lot:

Nearly three years ago, I was stuck on what to do for the Fifth Discipline. I knew that it signalled the end of "part one" of the novel, that from here everything shifted gear, but how to mark that change? Suddenly, at 2am and probably with school the next morning, I had The Greatest Idea. Too exhausted to write but terrified I would forget the idea again, I logged onto my computer, created a new draft, and simply wrote, LASER TAG. Thus the legendary Fifth Discipline (and a joke made by Junayd several chapters later) was born

Some writers make complex plot diagrams. Some plan using the "snowflake method", and fill out character sheets, and keep moodboards and envelopes with all their key inspirations in.

I wake up in a cold sweat, write two words down, and then go back to sleep. Just the way things go.