Well, I have caught a lovely spring cold, mostly likely because of the alternating warm and freezing weather that has maintained the majority of this "winter". Mostly just a runny nose and some congestion, but you'll never know what it could develop into. Plenty of cold medicine in my future, I'm sure.
Other than the echinacea tea (Yes I know that it doesn't work. I mostly drink it because of the placebo effect, and I sort of like the taste when I'm sick.) I am happy to have finished the second of my rough drafts for submission. While the first was set on another planet (Terraforming being in the background if you didn't read the excerpt) I focused mainly on a futuristic earth. I tried to make it mostly about characters and their interactions, rotating around a robotic child in a house of orphans. Lots of dialogue and flashbacks, but I think it'll take some more polish before it really starts to shine. (Actually just got the edit of this while writing this, I think that I am very happy with where the story may go. A lovely thank you to my fairy god-editor for her unending promptness.)
After a long weekend home, it's starting to look like a promising week of work. Pączki for breakfast, and cold medicine for every other meal seem to work out for me (My eternal love of the food holidays of the Catholic faith (Fat Tuesday!)) But we are entering into Lent, in which I will become a vegetarian for one day a week and give up something (that I have not decided upon). The absolute monstrosities of the semi-religiously observant life.
Anyway, looks like some more pretend studying with nerf swords and editing drafts. I'm going to introduce the biography of one of the characters I'm cutting. Why? Because honestly, it's always the lost characters that fascinate me when I read books: what didn't make it into the final cut, and why?
Anywho, transmission over captain!
The character that I has been cut out of one of my current stories is named Nod, and this is her story:
'Dorothy was born to lovely parents in uptown. They cared for her and gave her art lessons, until the stock on their business went south due to some shady dealings and they lost the mortgage on their house. Moving into the downtown region below the glamourous upper city, they eked out a meager existence providing cleaning services and basic repair work. This degraded lifestyle was cut short by a territorial dispute between two gangs, the Eastenders and the Yellow Stripes. The shootings amongst the abandoned buildings led stray bullets into their living quarters, where her Father was killed outright and Mother was left barely surviving.
It was at this point that Dorothy ran away from home. She lived alone for two months until she was picked up by a ragtag group of orphans led by the charismatic Cameron. Known as Nod, she became an accopmlished graffiti artist, often laying gang marks into opposing territories to divert attention from their group. A sharp critic of the 5th street gang, another band of children, she often would paint their mark with flowers and pink paint to insult them.
When she was sixteen she escaped from the downtown and made her way into the glimmering city above, where she left a trail of wet paint and gang parodies. Adopted by an aging painter, she slowly readapted to the museum scene and worked with a variety of other media. She often used her art to advocate for gang dismemberment and robot rights. A reoccurring motif in her later artwork is that of a child-like robot, but it's origins are unknown'
This kids, is how a "short" excerpt becomes longer than a normal blog post. Nod is a character that just doesn't play a large role in the story, which has too many characters as it is. With the restructuring of the cast, some lesser characters must be let go to strengthen the other characters. I'm sad to see her not make the final cut, but that's what needs to happen at this stage.
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