Bad Photography Friday

...also known as "Work in Progress Day."

Project the First: 

Missouri informed me a few weeks (months) ago that she felt neglected because I'd never made her a pair of socks. So I bought some yarn (which she picked out)...and it sat in storage for a while as I tried to finish samples and The Socks That Never End.

I finally cast on a week or two ago. Mostly I've been knitting them at work, but then for a little while they were my only project (I know, right?) so they got knit on all the time...sort of. My hands have been a little sore from knitting so many socks lately. They really don't like the smaller needles.

Believe it or not, both of these are done using the same yarn, same colorway, same dyelot. The spacing of the colors, however, looks drastically different.

I'm working to get these off of the needles ASAP. Luckly, she only wanted ankle socks, so they're about halfway done. Which is good, since I've got two other projects on the needles, plus another sample.

Project the Second:

A nook cover. I'm playing around with the construction on this one, and I'm not sure how it will turn out. If it works, there will be a post on it. If it doesn't, I'll just rip it out and rethink it, and there will be a post about it...later.

Honestly, this is the project most likely to go on hiatus in favor of....



Project the Third: 

Nope! Not telling!

All I'll tell you right now is that 1) it's a surprise, 2) This piece is about halfway done and it's part 1 of 2, 3) it's illusion, and 4) there's no profanity or text at all involved in it.

It will go up as a free chart (sorry, no written for this one) sometime this month.

So what are you working on this weekend?

Unplanned

Click to make it bigger.

I dream lo-tech and the Bing; Life in a Typewriter Shop and the post featuring the Remington.

Sweet dreams.

Contest

No, not my contest. Though I am donating one of the prizes.

Missouri is giving away a copy of her new book, The Hanged Man's Ghost, on her blog. Also included in the prize pack is a set of knitting needles and some handspun yarn (made by yours truly).

A quick summary: Detective Fynn Adder's life is quickly sliding out of control. Since the death of his longtime partner, Fynn has been plagued by the ghosts of the dead, and thanks to his drinking habits his job with the Chicago Police Department is hanging by a thread. Now, neck deep in a new investigation, it appears that the latest victim is tied to his partner's death and to make matters worse IA is sniffing around, and Agent Voight is determined to make anything he can stick to Fynn.

With suspense, romance, and even knitting, this book is sure to be a crowd pleaser!

To enter the contest, just visit Missouri's blog for details.

How do you write? Part I, characters

Over on her blog Caps, Lock and Stock the lovely Missouri has been talking about her character development process. I thought this was a good topic, and since I am trying to blog more and am too lazy to come up with my own topics, I thought I'd put my own take on it here. :) If you're a writer, feel free to post your take. I thought this discussion might make a good meme.

In her blog, Missouri states that the last thing she usually comes up with is the physical description of the character, but that's normally where I start.

I'm a visual person, so most of the time I see the character before I being writing them. Once I get their physical image, I can peel back the layers. For example, one character I'm working on right now is named Olivia. She's tall, with long blonde hair that has several small braids in it, and she tends to wear a lot of layered clothing, especially skirts.

Once I get a feel for the character's outfit, I can start peeling back the layers. Why does she wear skirts all of the time, instead of pants? Why so many layers? Why braids? Why are her nails bitten down? What type of jewelry does she wear, and why? Are her hands calloused or smooth? Where did the callouses come from?

As I begin to answer these questions, I start to find out more about the character and the world that she is from. In Olivia's case, each braid in her hair contains a protection spell. Why? Because there are people trying to kill her, of course. Who? Why do they want to kill her?

Each physical trait can be traced back to something in her personality or her past, from the type of shoes she wears to the fabric her skirt is made of. I use these visual, physical clues to tell me about what the character likes to do, what they eat, and where they go. What do they carry in their pockets? Will I find a bus pass or a magic lamp? How did the magic lamp get there? Where did they go to find it?

Once I start to see the character, they usually run around in my head for a few days before I decide if I want to commit them to paper. The characters that make the cut usually have an unusual past, or some quirk in the present. This is usually about the time I decide on a name. Olivia practically named herself, but sometimes it's a little harder. I had a horrible time naming Cassie, who is a Nordic Shaman. Initially, she was supposed to be a psychic--hence the name Cassandra. Then her story took a dramatic left turn I wasn't expecting. This turned out to be a good thing, since without that left turn, she would have been dancing on the fine line between heroine and Mary Sue. On the other hand, Evie was named after one of my favorite movie characters (Rachel Weisz's character in the Mummy movies, though I spelled the name differently). For side characters, I usually start with a letter and an idea of how I want the name to sound (male, starts with an M, 1-2 syllables, Greek in origin: Micha. Female, an old fashioned name with a more modern, girly nickname, starts with a G: Rogena, "Gina").

Evie is the exception to all of this, in that she had a personality before she had anything else. When I began working on her, I was trying to work through a difficult event in my own life, so I created a character similar to myself to see how she would handle it as a way of working through my own problems. Over time however, she took on a life of her own and has evolved a great deal. I'm quite proud of who she's grown up to be, and it's very different from that first uncertain incarnation.

From here, one of the last things that I look at is the character's voice. Once I've seen them, gotten to know them without words, I start to listen. Sometimes, they don't talk much at all, like Evie. She's more introverted and prefers to keep her own counsel, but when she does say or think anything, it's usually sarcastic and self deprecating. Cassie is from a small midwestern town, and therefore speaks very much like the people I saw every day growing up. However, she has a degree in English and tends to use a slightly broader vocabulary, and a mix of proper grammar (such as the proper use of "whom") mixed with a tendency I've noticed around here to leave off words such as "the" and "at". Olivia was raised in a school and spend most of her early years around people much older than her. Most of her spare time is spent reading, and she has taken on a much more formal, old fashioned way of speaking than those around her.

Like their clothing, voices can say a lot about where a person is from, even when the specific location isn't voiced aloud. Next time, I'll talk a little bit about how I do world building (or the lack thereof).