I'm in a great artistic as well as creative mood, there's a lot of stuff going on to really push me at the moment. I'm sure the watercolour workshop will profit from it, too. Just two more days!
The main reason for my sense of creative giddiness, though, is that my Rhyddion Chronicles have taken a huge step this week.
Most of you know they're my novel project, and most of you also know they haven't progressed very much in the past few years. I'd known the reason for a long time - in fact, a writer friend had told me some eight years ago (long before I was ready to accept it): I had a bunch of great characters, and a bunch of ideas, a general direction, but no story.
I also found I lacked a setting. So the last two years were devoted to developing the setting. I never thought I was capable of two years of world-building. Well, look what Aedan made me do.
But the one lack remained - I didn't really have a story. I had encounters, but they didn't go anywhere.
So this week, I met with a good fried of mine at Starbucks, armed with notes of the characters and a completely open mind as to where I wanted the story to go, and a double chocolate muffin, a king-size coffee, a Bionade and a turkey sandwich later, we had my plot outlined.
If you're ever stuck in a creative process - get someone you know you can bounce ideas off, and who's going to bounce them back with twists you never had, and voilá!
We slaughtered some holy cows in that session, too. But I'd actually been prepared to slaughter a lot more.
So - prepare for some artwork as well as revised chapters over the next months. I plan to really, really push the story now. Writing Heroes fanfic has taught me that I *can* write nearly four hundred pages in two years, even with school, with kids, and with commission work. And this time, I won't be hampered by not knowing where the heck I'm going.
Beware though - the story's going to be tragic, but then, you always knew that... and the double chocolate muffin never stood a chance of changing any of it.
Tutorials
TRADITIONAL
Watercolour Tutorial Part 1: Materials
[link]Watercolour Tutorial Part 2: Painting Basics
[link]Watercolour Tutorial Part 3: Tricks of the Trade
[link]Not a watercolour tutorial
[link]Watercolour steps
[link]Chainmail tutorial
[link] DIGITAL
NEW Photoshop tutorial
[link]OLD Photoshop tutorial
[link]My OLD Watercolour/Photoshop technique
[link]Pimp my sketch! (Parchment technique)
[link]FAQ
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FAQ:
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`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Not there yet, but I think I started in a good direction
It's great to hear someone else made an important breakthrough.
Keep it up!
Looking forward to seeing all of the new stuff!
Glad you're getting things worked out with your stories though. That's always the hardest part is figuring out WHERE you want them to go. Getting them there is a lot easier.
It sounds very familiar. I still have those same problems: lots of (I dare to say) well developed characters, some unclear, half-baked ideas and settings, but no actual plot in which to play with them. It would be so good to also have such professional friend with good advice. Any really quick tips?
I was on the strict Internet diet the whole summer and an now really glad to come back and see all this new artwork from you and such good news! I am eagerly looking forward to where you will take the story.
I couldn't presume to give you any "professional" tips. The funny thing really was that the story-plotting was so easy in the end, and all the things I wanted in the story, ended up in the story, in a way that I wondered why I hadn't thought of this from the start.
A few things that were important for my story-plotting experience:
- Have your bits and pieces handy. I wrote them all down because the friend I plotted with had no idea of characters and story. It might even be helpful to write down each little point on a card by itself, and then rearrange.
- Be prepared to slaughter holy cows. The breakthrough for me really came with one monumental change: In the first drafts, for nine years since I first conceived the story, Aedan was a bastard and was prohibited from inheriting. Even though I knew that actual Welsh medieval laws say that a son is a son, and ALL sons inherit. I built up incredibly complex constructs to explain why this had been the case but wasn't anymore, but as soon as I'd just kissed that idea good-bye, and determined that Rhyddion has the same laws of succession as Wales, everything just fell into place. I never thought that was possible.