Mental State of Affairs

Okay; so here we have an actual post about the book/story/world this blog supposedly highlights, and my currect relation to it.

In my little "about me" section to the side, I identify myself as a "slave to the story", this has a double meaning, so I'll go over the first One I came to realize. It's pretty simple: Once I start a story, no matter how much I hate it, or how terrible it is, I feel a strong desire to finish it.

I assume that I get some degree of fufillment from this, as if I have partaken of and completed a section of something through a strenuous task. It's why I wont read Twilight; My wife read the books, and assures me they're horrible, full of eye-gouging cliche`, and also Chick-Flicks(And books) Really aren't what I am interested in. Despite this book having EVERYTHING against it, I know that If i start reading it, I will not be able to stop myself until I have reached the end of the events being portrayed. That is the first part of being a Slave to the Story.

The Second involves my book. Quite simply; I am a slave to it, as if it were a story I was reading. Its Origins lay in a roleplaying branch of good old Starcraft; where I made the first character of the book from a system of Random Character generation where I used two random words. The two words in question were "red" and "sweater", and they gave birth to Saelin La'Mean, who was the archetype for the Current Saelin La'Mina. Continuing; I enjoyed the story and background I gave Miss La'Mean so much, that I began using her as my first persistant character. Eventually, I found buddies who I would bump into often, and we began to perpetuate that story using Starcraft as our Medium.

I left Starcraft for other games eventually, but the seed had already been planted. It wasn't long before the first prototype of the story was made, involving Dinishi, Yosho's older sister. It was scrapped. I was a pretty bad writer when I was young. When I actually learned how to write a paragraph, I started on the story once more, this time featuring Dinishi with a Younger brother; Yosho. It got scrapped too--the story had no drive.

Let's fast forward to some time just before this current model of the Story. I'd like to note that before "Beyond Memories" was what it is, the story itself had no title. This incarnation involved Lexsuncion I'Qwee, Evaine Do'Riallis, her little sister Calli and a guy named Scioh. I wasn't satisfied with this, even as I was writing it. The plot was rushed, and it was more like a "Slice of Life" setting, than an actual book with a conflict.

Then, Lex(The character) Decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands. The ass called a sort of "meeting" in my brain, and through a dream, I literally sat down and had a conversation with the current cast about the direction to book was going in. Lex pretty much told me that their branch of the book was pointless. Dark, scary assassins shouldn't have their backstories explained before they're dark and scary. Through a metacognitive dream, a Character from my story told me to scrap the story he was featured in, and go back to basics where I was comfortable.

It was at this point I had to think to myself: "What was basic?" Saelin was, of course, the first character who popped into my mind. Where was she over the past 6-7 incarnations of the story? Where was ANYTHING that had originally started the story? Somewhere along the way, I got into the habit of betraying my own idea of the world revolving around the story for the sake of originallity. Original to what though? Myself? Damnit I was dumb!

Suddenly, things became very clear as to what the Story was going to do, and for about a year, I could not stop writing. Unfortunately, as progressive as that sounds, High School tries very hard to keep people on track, and generally frown on people drawing concept art and writing of weeks on end in a journal that has nothing to do with the current lesson. That conflict aside, I set up the framework for the current story through 3 different incarnations of the story (Totaling about 11 different attempts to make a story at that point). Fourth time seemed to be the charm, and once I played with that charm, I realized I was no longer writing the book, but the book was writing itself.

Generally, an author feels they are in control, similar unto how a diety would have absolute power over a mortal(mythology aside--just roll with it, please). But this leads us to think about Greek Dieties, and other religions. Why are their paragons of good and righteousness so f***ed up?! Are they not perfect, ultimate beings? Or perhaps, they were just created as a means to explain events in our lives; our story. My book got to the point where I was simply the hand that moved the pencil that put it into physical form.

Currently, that hold isn't so strong, but now its deeper set into the mind. Before, I wouldn't think about the general state of the world, Devidica, while I was chilling with writer's block. Now, when I am not writing about the book, my mind is checking, re-reading and refining everything about the world beyond memories, making sure that the world that the characters live in is as real as possible. I had some say in the book, like names, geography(for the most part) and character relationships, but after the intial groundwork had been completed, it was like putting the Little Fish that was my book into a larger fish tank. It grew larger to acomodate its eviroment.

As the tank grew, so did the fish(Book). The Tank our little fish swam around in eventualy became so big that I could not keep track of all of it, so I had to orgonize my thoughts and ideas into lists and word documents. Soon, that wasn't enough, because the lists were too big to be sensible. That gave birth to the Wikia, and leads up to today.

At current, The main conflict of the book hasn't even started. I am having difficulties figuring out exactly hoe our hero, Yosho, and his sister come to be close to the So'ere Family, who takes them under their wing (*Giggle* They're all named after birds. "Takes them underwing". Get it? Heh...) After becoming close, what prompts the events that lead to our Anti-Heroine Dinishi to murder and kill thousands of people? After that, there is a two-year (book time) Period that Yosho spends nearly non-existant. We get to delve deeper into Dinishi's mind at this point, and watch her try to destroy the world (Resulting in the aformentioned thousands of people getting killed.) Once that happens and Yosho returns, its pretty smooth sailing as far as writing goes.

Until that point, however, I'm stuck just wandering around the world. Don't get me wrong, though. This ambiant time is amazing. Sitting and just contemplating the mechanics of an alternate world you created is amazingly introspective. You come to realize things about yourself, and by proxy, these reflections of your subconcious that you've dreamed up on paper.

Why is it, that I feel this world needs to be "perfect" within its own contained rule-set? We're gonna look at harry potter for this one. I hate magic. Hate hate hate hate hate HATE Magic from mainstream media. You wiggle your fingers, and something happens. An explanation as to why isn't there. There is no law of conservation of matter and energy. *Wiggle wiggle* something happens. Easy as that. But wait! Lo' and behold, a greater challange has presented itself. Whatever will you do with your limited skill?! *Wiggle wiggle* Ahh! of course! because the stressful situation warrents to use of Dues Ex Machina through the medium of magic. We all know doing something hard becomes really easy, and more productive, when we're stressed and put into a difficult situation, right?

F*** THAT!!!

Why did that character gain a vast reserve of new power? What about emotion, or stress, or the circumstances allowed them to achive a degree of power that previously, was not attainable. What makes this powerful? What is Power? Is It energy? Is it application? What is it built up from? I know for damn sure Harry Potter wasn't using Mercury(Hg) to make the troll-thingy's club float.

So the end of being able to justify my world, to its inhabitants and not nessicarily to others, I had to create a system by which magic "worked". It was applied, there was an exchange, something happened because "....". Fullmetal Alchemist, I beleive, goes into a similar state of affairs concerning the nature of people's powers. There is reasion and science behind it. Some people don't understand that scienece, and some people do. Generally, the people that do are more skilled in their craft.

Will you ever see Yosho sit down and talk to someone about the exchange of energies that took place when he accidently set his arm on fire? No. No one around him is smart enough to tell him that his subconcious was reflected onto one dimention, which reflected onto another, and then reflected back to Devidica. No one actually knows that Yosho's evisionment of creating fire, while he was sitting next to a fireplace and eating, was veering toward using natural bodyheat as its catalyst. Because Yosho Didn't know this, in fact, he couldn't control it properly, and thus, his arm got crispy.

Juhani, sweet and adorable Juhani; Does she know what the flip and Exode is!? No! Who does? I can only think of one character, who isn't actualy even in the book, that has a basic grasp of what they are. Does that mean that the Exode is irrelivant? If is not featured in what we are looking at currently, does it have to exist?

My Answer, and the point I am building up to (finally!) is Yes: Things have to work properly in order to Work. Let us say there is a higher power, we will call God (im actually religious and all, but as to not offend others who may not be, I will refer to this topic in passive voice). God created the world and everything about it, and you know what? I think it works pretty damn well. Sure, we may get pissy about how we don't like particular points, but if everyone lived perfectly, the world would not be consistant. This proves that this God figure built the world according to a design and a plan. This plan doesn't revolve around You, or Me, but itself. If I revolved around me, I would finish my book, and anyone who didn't like it would be forced to doubt existance. However, because this "plan" is based on itself and the perpetuation of itself(rules), That person who doesn't like a particular circumstance can safely blame that circumstance, and not existance itself.

Because Existance itself no longer challenges the well-being of its inhabitants, because God(Or in my case, the author, as we will now refer to them as so as not to get too religious) set up rules to perpetuate Exisance, Existance can to just that, without being dependant on the ideals of the things within that existance. Now; Dinishi can go crazy, and feel wronged for something that really wasn't so wrong, and blame others, and kill thousands of people, and existance won't care, because it doesn't need those thousands of people to approve of it. Existance can keep on going and not have to be personified, but it can simply be. Because Existance can be what it is, I don't have to rethink and check things to make sure everything "makes sense"(Well, I do, but nevermind that). I can trust that this existing entity--this world--can sustain itself.

Later on we'll actually come to find that that world's existance is doomed to collapse after an indefinate amount of time, but there would be spoilers in explain that. We'll just say that before sh** goes down, there is a 0% chance existance can faulter. Afterwords, the Chance for existance to go arwy appears, and thus, it will happen. Maybe not in an imaginable amount of time, but it is bound to happen now that the chance exists.




BAH! WRITING!! Really though, what else can I do when I'm up all night? ("Write the damn book?" "Stfu!! ><") I hope you all(Who all?) enjoyed my rant. I go off on tangents often, but that defines a good rant, or at least thats what I am going to say defines a good rant so I don't look quite as bad in my closing of the Blog's first actual post. Stop Writing lex...Stop....Just....click....Post...(Err, Publish)