Saturday, December 15, 2007

Works in Progress

I've been working on creating and outlining basic plots for several new stories. I've done some writing of the actual drafts as well, but mostly just written down the details of the world and what not so that I might pick up any of the stories at any time. You can consider each title a working title. Here is a synopsis for each:

"Bowling with Aliens"
Reena hates the bungles, short bowling-ball shaped aliens who have alleviated many of Earth's social ills in return for human labor.
Progress: Draft begun: 2,900 words

"Reborn"
Eten and his wife Itonia fight through a difficult pregnancy to give birth to a child who holds the secret for escaping a pervasive symbiote that perverts the meaning of life and death.

"Shadowmen"
Cherel thinks she's going crazy when she meets a humanoid life form that sneaks into her house at night looking for "ripples" in space-time.

"Duress"
A lone traveler in the desert falls prey to the Travelers who seek to pass on their obsession with a certain well-guarded apple tree in the hopes of getting rid of their own desire.

"The Messenger's Plight"
Chemaux finds herself pursued when she agrees to carry a letter for a stranger in return for desperately needed aid. An illustration related to this story can be found here.

"Standing Out"
A small, bird-like creature breaks open the simple lives of a hidden steppes village when its pursuers trip the intruder alerts.

I also wrote several comic scripts for a comic based on "The Lost Sheep Trilogy". I figured that the original had such a bad, redundant plot that it would do better as a sci-fi parody. Also, the characters are fun to joke around with.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

50-card Pickup

We are currently fine-tuning the rules for the game and creating templates for the proto-type cards. Although we had to extend the art contest for the game due to Vicki's surgery and to receiving fewer entries than we had hoped, we are using the submissions that we do have to create the proto-type cards, and I have drawn a few filler images for some of the missing cards.

I have created several clay models for the candles but have not made any molds yet.

I have also been drawing concept art for Vicki's game that she is co-developing, Lights of Myndell.

Also, the webcomic that I write for and Nuri draws, Seeing in Stereo, has been released. And for our ArtistAlley podcast, we're doing several episodes on selling at cons.

Lastly, Vicki created a redirect page from my old site. <3

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

StellarCon Sparks Something

After attending a small sci-fi and fantasy writing convention called StellarCon, I'm extra-excited about school ending soon, and hope to work on some of my short stories over the summer. I have a new short story planned, sci-fi, which is a bit unusual for me, but for the most part I hope to work on editing short stories that I have already written. Some only need minor editing, rather than conceptional and consistency changes, so I will probably be working on the stories that are closer to a final draft.

StellarCon was wonderful. Small conventions are great, but this is the first time that I've never been to a convention that had such a focus on writing. I actually attended a panel on world building that was hosted by four published authors, one of which wrote the Dresden Files which now I will have to add to my reading list.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Card Game


You may have noticed the Card Game mentioned in 3D art, which hitherto has sat without a link or any substantiating evidence as to its upcoming existence. The basis for game play-- the rules, that is-- have been more or less worked out and tested using prototype cards. My sister and a friend of mine are joining in on this project, and together we are holding that above art contest on GaiaOnline.com Click the above link to visit the thread in the forum. We plan to use the entries to create at least some actual cards, filling in with prototypes where necessary, and to have all this available for test play at Animazement, where we have bought an artist alley table.

Expect more information about Convention Madness to materialize on the Waking Dreams website as the date for the convention approaches!

PS. I still plan to do the art work for some of the cards, but there are too many for me to do all by myself and this contest was Nuri's awesome idea

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Card Game

You may have noticed that under "3D Art" there is a promised card game that you can not click on nor learn any thing about. This is a project that my sister Vicki and I have been developing for a while, and that I was finally able to start working on. I'll be doing the art for it and she'll be doing all the magical computer stuff, such as scanning it in and making it look presentable. I'll probably end up doing the majority of the writing and asking her advice on it.

Over the weekend, I designed thirty cards and started the final art work on two (water color). Once I have six of the pieces ready, two for each sort of card, then we will see what magic Vicki and I can do for the writing and other things so that we will have examples to put up while we are working on the rest of it.

Look Away Looks Back

The perfect time to finish a story is the day before school starts! I have finished the first draft of Look Away at 7,141 words. It's my policy not to "look back" on a story until the newness of it has faded. So I won't be trying to edit it between classes just yet. Should I post excerpts of some of my stories? Should I post an excerpt of this one, or is it too short for that?

For now I have added the description to the prose page with the others. It is much easier to write the blurb for the story while it is all fresh in my mind!

I have also added a description for The Catechumen:
Elise is determined to find her husband and get them both to safety after they are separated by a past that she had thought long-dead. Her journey calls on all her powers of magic, mind, body, and spirit as she fights against stiff religiosity on the one hand and moral recklessness on the other.
Would this story be a good candidate for an excerpt?