If you know what Dexter Is...

Yup. I was looking for some quick feedback. My main question is does this actually look like Dexter? I have been staring at his face for three hours (Creepy, I know) so to me it does. Since taking this photo, which does no justice to the real thing (Or at least not to me), I have darkened the shadows beneath the chin and darkened the hair. 

This is for a friend who is Graduating soon and whose birthday recently passed. I feel really bad because I can't make it to his graduation party. He is a big fan of the T.V. show Dexter, so I drew a Dexter for him. Plus it was great practice for my self portrait that I am doing in Art Class. (Art class really does help!)

You can also view on my deviantart. 

Thanks so much!

~Snowie


*Edit/Update* I have decided that no, it does not really look like Dexter. At least not right now. Thanks to my art class for being truthful! I've got three hours of my time already put into this baby. It will turn out good! Dexter, meet my eraser.

Before Eraser

After Eraser
Eyes and Ears Redrawn, Hair Tamed,
Nose Lengthened
Nose and Lips still need work.
Highlights and Shadows Needed
Eraser and Blending tool wanted.

With Highlights
The new mouth makes him look funny.
More Hair.
It's getting there. Sort of.

Breakups, Makeups, and Anniversaries

A Cactus Patch... At Night... Sort of.
By smackbabe on Deviant

April 26th, 2012 marked the First Anniversary of finishing the first draft of the Night Stalker. Can I get a what, what?! Okay... Maybe not. And, since I cannot remember when I actually started writing the Night Stalker, I am also calling April 26th the day I started writing TNS. So, April 26th is both a First Anniversary and an Eighth Anniversary for me. Since April 26th, 2012, I have rewritten the Night Stalker once and I am working on my Third Draft. I think that the Third Draft might be the one! In this year, I have learned that there is no one way to revise 400 pages of awesomeness, that revising is a messy and complicated process, and that revising is like trying to find your way through a cactus patch... In the dark... Without a flashlight. 

This whole thing has gotten me thinking about breakups and makeups.

My Plot Board
The Whole Plot for the Night Stalker Laid
Out On Pretty Notecards

Eight years ago, roughly, I sat down and wrote the first fifty pages of the Night Stalker. Everything was going great until I hit page fifty. Things started falling apart and all of the excitement from starting out vanished. The Night Stalker and I happily broke up. I respectfully put the Night Stalker behind me in a dusty drawer for five years. In May of 2009, if I remember correctly, I went searching through my thirty plus notebooks of old, unfinished stories, just looking for something to work on. Something that might be salvageable. What I found was the Night Stalker. And, TNS was brilliant. The Night Stalker and I made up and started racing for The End. Over the next two years (Minus two NaNoWriMos) I scratched out 408 more pages of glorious crap. This crap ended with: "Yes," Hamilton watched the flames leap below in the courtyard, hungry for more. The charred skull of his father smiled at him. Hamilton smiled, "Yes... We'll kill them all." THE END 4/26/11 Oh, the drama.

You see? Sometimes breaking up and making up can be a good thing. Sometimes, writers have to put things away for a while, or in other words, break up with their work. In the time that the writer and the work are separated, both mature a little, the brilliance comes back, and the passion and excitement start to return. New ideas sneak forward and a stronger story that demands to be written rises out of the depths of imagination.

There is a piece of advise from Gail Carson Levine that she puts into her book Writing Magic. Levine gives the advise to keep everything you ever write for at least fifteen years. Once fifteen years passes, you have the choice to throw out that writing or to keep it. Following this advise keeps potentially amazing writing from being thrown out and lost forever.

“A novel rough draft is like bread dough; you need to beat the crap out of it for it to rise.” -Chris Baty


~Snowfire

Write What You Have Never Known

Write what you know, learn what you don't know. Or, write what you have never known. In other words, write whatever you want. The easiest way to describe an action, emotion, feeling, personality, or place is to experience it for yourself. If one character brushes their teeth, go brush your own teeth. Describe putting the toothpaste on the toothbrush, what they are thinking about as they are brushing their teeth. Writing about a character who hates the world is easier when you remember a time when you wished everyone annoying would drop dead. Think about how you felt, acted, reacted, your thoughts and feelings. Or, if you are writing about New York, New York, take a week vacation there. Meet the people, see the city, let the setting create the mood. You can learn about New York from any source, but nothing will help you imagine the place better then actually going. What if the characters and settings are made up? Then find a place somewhere close to that place. If your fantasy is set in a dense forest on another planet, make plans to spend an afternoon in the forest. Think about what your characters would do in a situation as you go though out the day. Put yourself in their shoes and walk around for a bit.

I write basically everything from mysteries to fantasy to romance to poems about socks. No, I have never been in a mystery, murder, or investigation, but the lack of experience will not stop me from writing about it. A big part of rewriting is research, surprisingly. One goal for most writers is to make the readers believe that, yes, this story is true and everything in it is possible. To do that, at least some aspects have to be realistic. No, a regular man cannot jump from building to building and shoot webs from his wrists. But, if you have him be bitten by a spider and given superpowers, then anything is possible and believable. Fiction is about writing the unordinary and extraordinary and making it seem like it could happen to anyone. It is about letting readers, for just a moment, feel like anything is possible. Words can leave us tangled in magic and hoping for something better. They can break us down and make us question the big questions. And when words come together to from sentences and sentences form paragraphs, paragraphs form chapters, and chapters form a story, then anything is possible. The reader's mind is yours to take away and meddle with until they read the last word. As a writer, you have the power to implant new ideas, make people really question right and wrong and how society works. A few words can change a nation. Such as "I have a dream..." "Four-score and seven years ago..." or "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley ,of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." even "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind".

Words have power. Choose them wisely. 

Don't be afraid to write what you will never know. 

~Snowie 

Figment

Figment. Have I told you about Figment? Even if I have, I feel like I need to post something.

Figment is a writing website run by... Well, I'm not sure what company runs it, but they are out there. Anyways, Figment is a writing website for people of the human race to go post and read stories. Inkpop (Another Writing Website) was swallowed by this monster of a site and the opinion of which site is the best varies vastly. My friend actually told me about Figment, so I checked it out, thought it was nice, and got an account. Not long after that was the swallowing of Inkpop. So naturally, I was thrilled about only having one site to keep track of.

This is how Figment works. You sign up and you post things you write. People can heart, comment, critique, and "React" to your work. The more hearts, comments, ect. that you receive, the more popular your story gets. There are also amazing contests going on all of the time where you can win some pretty neat prizes. The Forums are always busy, and there are multiple groups of people to join.

So, check Figment out. You never know, you might like it.

Best of Writing,

~Snowie

P.S. Here's a link to my page. Enjoy!

Writing Plots and Subplots

???

Writing plots, subplots, suspense, problems, and a majority of other things are just some of the things that I have trouble with. Every writer goes through that time where they discover that they really aren't that good, despite what they think, were told, or use to think. Some writers can get though this slowed learning curve and eventually become great writers. Others put down their pens and never pick them up again. That story is for a whole other post.

I think I've gone through a learning curve where I realized that, no, I am not better than anyone else and if I want to be better, I have to work for it. I figured that I had to start somewhere and that somewhere is plots and subplots. Plots and subplots are perhaps, at least to me, the most complicated thing about novels. There can be anywhere from one plot to one plot and an infinity of subplots. For me, keeping track of all those layers is a hard task and finding a way to make sure they all are ended or resolved by the end of the book is nearly impossible.

So I did some research. And I found one thing to help me.

The ABC Tracker

The ABC tracker by C.S. Lakin is really easy and helps make things much less complicated. 'A' is the main plot, the over-arcing plot. Usually the main plot, or Plot A, is the protagonist's main goal. In Harry Plotter, the main plot was Harry and Voldemort battling to the death. Most of the time, a story with just plot A is really boring. You don't just want to see Harry battle Voldemort. You want to live through all of the adventure and tension it takes to get to that battle. Plot B is the first subplot. Plot B should strengthen A and make Plot A interesting. This subplot is the second most important subplot in your story. A Plot B of Harry Potter could be Harry finding and destroying the Horcruxes.  From there is goes on in order of letter C, D, E...Z, AA, AB, AC, and into infinity.

Links 
Plot Outlines By Darcy Pattison
Fiction Factor
The Bookshelf Muse- Where I got the idea from C.S. Lakin. I tried the ABC Tracker and I liked it, so I wanted to blog about it.

~Snowfire

When Living is not Living: A Short Story by Me

When Living is not Living

By Snowie

“As soon as there is life there is danger.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The robot’s green eyes stared right at her, no, not right at her, right through her. Kassie stared straight back, saying nothing, thinking nothing. They had been like this for hours. Kassie had barely noticed. She had forgotten why she was staring at her father like this. How long had Kassie been standing there? The robot’s eyes flashed in a sort of automatic blink. Kassie blinked back. A ping came from the robot’s speaker. Kassie’s father turned around and rolled down the hall. He disappeared around the corner.

Kassie stood in the the hallway waiting for the nothing that would never come. Or possibly, the nothing was already there. Maybe the nothing was all Kassie’s life was. Maybe everything that ever existed was nothing at all. Everything that ever mattered to her (Which was nothing of much importance) was blanketed in nothing.

She moved her foot forward one inch, two inches, three, down. Kassie stared at her heavy feet as they shuffled. For some reason unbeknownst to her, it seemed like they were not her feet. Somehow the feet seemed to have detached themselves from her feet and found another person to carry around. She took another step and watched as the padded floor rose around her white shoes. Another step. Her hand touched the padded wall. Kassie looked up at the fake sunlight pouring from the fake windows. For a second she wondered what actual sunlight felt like. She froze. Why had she thought that? Sunlight was dangerous, the government said so. She could be thrown in jail for at least a month for just thinking about sunlight. Kassie held her breath. She waited for alarms to sound. None went off. Within seconds, the thought was forgotten and Kassie was left wondering what she was doing standing in the middle of the hallway.

Her mother came around the curved corner carrying the portable IV in her padded robot hands. Her usual monotone voice came on. “Time for lunch, Kassie.”

Kassie’s feet moved again and she was walking out of the hall and into the dinning area. She sat on the white padded floor and took the padded white IV from her mom. Kassie lifted her white shirt a couple of inches revealing pale white skin that had healed around a closed tube. Kassie took the tube from the IV and locked it into the tube that disappeared inside her. Kassie touched the start button lightly. A clear fluid filled the tubes and vanished inside of her. Three minutes later lunch was done. Kassie relaxed a bit. She had heard that lunch, breakfast, and dinner were the most dangerous parts of the day. Mom had told her that the government was working on making IVs safer. Kassie carefully unhooked the IV and stood. The robot bent over and picked up the IV. Kassie watched. Something shiny and pointed stuck out of the robot’s back.

“Mom, can you stop?” Kassie moved closer and the robot froze. It was an odd object. She had never seen anything like it in real life. Maybe she had seen something like it in the dangerous listings. What was it called again? ...Metal. That’s it. Metal. Kassie reached out and hesitated. This was wrong. She should not touch it. She should call the police and turn Mom in. Mom was dangerous. It would be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it? Kassie looked down at her mom. But, it was her mom. Would Dad notice if Mom left? Kassie looked at the metal sticking out of her mom’s back. She stared and turned her head to watch the fake light reflect off of the tip. The thing was so beautiful. Kassie’s hand shook as she moved closer. Her fingertips were inches away from the tip. Touching it once could not do any harm, could it? Even closer still. Perhaps everyone was wrong. How could something so beautiful be so dangerous?

Kassie poked the metal. She screamed.

Mom jerked up as Kassie snatched her hand back. Alarms blared through the house. Doors locked and the light flared. Kassie stared at her finger. It was throbbing slightly. A dot of red sat on the tip of her finger. She stared at the droplet and watched it fall to the ground. The padded floor soaked up the red and it spread through the fibers. Another droplet formed on her fingers. For a moment she stared at the droplet. Kassie hesitated then touched her finger to her lips. She licked the red dot. Something funny happened to her mouth. Her spit seemed to change and be different. She spit on the ground trying to make the funny spit go away. Mom stared at her. Her blue robot eyes blinked simultaneously.

The padded door swung open. Three men and a woman walked in wearing helmets and thick suits. The three men walked straight over to Mom and opened the control panel. One of the men punched in a code. Mom followed them out the door. Kassie looked away from Mom and the men. The woman was standing by her, waiting with a large medical kit. Kassie held out her finger for the woman. The woman bent over and opened her medical kit. She took Kassie’s finger and wiped away the red. The wipe dissolved in the woman’s hand. The woman brushed the remains away and the floor cleaned up for her. Kassie watched silently as the woman took out a lighted wand. The woman pressed the wand against Kassie’s finger. When the wand was removed, there was nothing to prove that the red had leaked from Kassie’s body.

The woman smiled and put her equipment away. “Now go lay in bed. By morning you will have forgotten everything terrible that has happened today.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates

A Writer's Life Through Her Words: A To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is considered one of the great American novels right next to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This novel by Harper Lee is about a girl named Scout who is six years old at the beginning of the story. Scout, Jem, her brother; and Scout’s father, a lawyer named Atticus, live in the small town of Maycomb in Maycomb County, Alabama. Harper tells the story of how Jem broke his arms through the eye and words of Scout Finch: “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”(Page 1) The main event in this novel, besides Jem breaking his arm, is the trial of Tom Robinson, an African American accused of raping Mayella Ewell. All writers show more of their life than the writers realize. Many events, names, personalities, and characters are drawn from Harper Lee’s own life. 

As an adult, Harper studied law like her father. Her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, served in the Alabama legislature between 1927 and 1939. Amasa Lee was supposedly a segregationist until civil rights protests caught Amasa’s attention and sympathies. Harper Lee used all three of her mother’s names, Frances, Cunningham, and Finch, for characters in To Kill A Mockingbird. Finch is Scout’s last name, Francis is the name of one of Scout’s relatives, and Cunningham was the last name of a semi-important family in the book: “Hey, Mr. Cunningham.” (Page 153) In To Kill A Mockingbird Scout’s friend, Dill, was based off Truman Capote, a good friend throughout Harper Lee’s life. In the novel, Scout could read and write before Scout even went to school, and Scout read every night with Atticus. In real life, Harper was an avid reader and spent a great deal of time helping Truman Capote write his own novel. One of the main characters named Arthur “Boo” Radley was closely based off a man from Lee’s hometown of Monroeville. This man’s name was Alfred Boulware. According to townsfolk, Alfred and his two friends, Baggett and Sawyer, broke into the Hudson Store to steal cigarettes. Although, another town story claims the three boys shot out the store’s windows with a sling shot. Alfred, Baggett, and Sawyer were sentenced to attend reform school, but Alfred’s father would not let Alfred go. Instead, Alfred was to stay at home for the rest of his life. He was not allowed to leave the house without a family member to accompany him. The townspeople of Monroeville say that Alfred’s friends would often come over and sneak Alfred out of the house. “Arthur Radley just stays in the house, that’s all... Wouldn’t you stay in the house if you didn’t want to come out?” (Page 44)

Just like many of the character’s are tied to Harper Lee’s life, Maycomb is tied to Monroeville, Harper’s hometown. Both towns have a courthouse in the center of town where  similar court cases, like Alfred and Boo’s cases, were held. Both Maycomb and Monroeville are small, rural towns: “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop . . . somehow it was hotter then . . .” (Page 5) Monroeville has grown quite a bit since the 1930s and if Maycomb was a real town, the town might have also grown. Both towns are county seats and are named after the county the towns are located in. Some writers, like Harper Lee, alter events from their own lives and place these altered events in the stories the writers write, for example the Alfred Boulware trial. Some of the general public believe that the Scottsboro Trials, may have created the idea of Tom Robinson’s trial for the rape of Mayella Ewell. These trials first took place in March of 1931 when Harper was six. In the Scottsboro Trials, nine African American teenager where accused of violence and rape. On the freight train, a fight erupted and the African Americans threw all but one of the caucasians off the train. Some of the men who where thrown off the train went to the nearest station in Stevenson to report “an assault by a gang of blacks”. The train was stopped and armed men rounded up every African American teenage boy that the men could find. These arrested boys came to be known as the Scottsboro Boys. Victoria Price and Ruby Bates claimed that twelve African American boys with knives and guns had raped them. Price accused six of the nine arrested boys. Just like a group of men came to hang Tom Robinson, a group of several hundred men gathered around the Scottsboro Jail hoping to hang the Scottsboro Boys. Neither group succeeded: “That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human... (m)aybe we need a police force of children...” (page 157) The first of many trials was held twelve days after the Scottsboro boys had been arrested. The case made its way to the Supreme Court where the convictions were overturned. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus, who was defending Tom Robinson, wanted to appeal the case until the case went to the Supreme Court in the North. Tom’s trial did not stand a chance in the prejudicial South. The trial was never appealed as Tom Robinson died soon after his first trial.

Finally, although Harper Lee has long time said that To Kill A Mockingbird was not based on Harper’s own life, many events, names, characters, and settings are drawn from Lee’s life. Harper Lee did admit that her father was the model for Atticus Finch.  To Kill A Mockingbird has other examples of similarities between the Harper Lee’s life and the novel, such as the Walter Lett trial from 1933. Today there is a movie for To Kill A Mockingbird where many of the examples from this essay can be found. Over all, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a complex piece of literature formed from events and people who greatly affected Lee’s childhood. 

“If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”