Sialea-lea

I'm playing a Navajo Shaman in a Deadlands game. here's the start of her character background :)

My name means Little Bird in English. So far away from the People, passing as a white woman, my name and my medicine bundle are the only Navajo things I have. I'm dressed like a white woman, carrying the things a travelling white person would carry. There are moments the distance from home floods my heart like an arroyo after the male rains. Just as quickly, though, the despair drains away. I am still one of the People, even when far away. I can still speak to the Spirits, and my Spirit Guide is still with me. White people have driven me from home, but they cannot truly take me away from the People.

CTC29 writing sprint weekend day 1

This is both my writing from today, and the campaign log for a Mutants and Masterminds game I'm in. The words are all mine, but the story is stolen :)

It's 2054. Every hero who had ever tried to help others gathered to fight this threat. Only the four of them survived. They'd faced an army, and won through. Together, they raced to the Time Button - only this could save the world from certain destruction. She'd known these heroes back when they were all young and just starting out. If only they had started out working together, they might have prevented this. Miraculously, they got there, one of them slammed the button. There was a flash of white light...

Zoe jerked awake, confused to be in the bed from her old apartment. Wait, no, this is her apartment. She sat up, turned on the lamp, and took long, deep breaths to clear her head. She was at home, in her very nice not at all old bed, in her own apartment, in 2014. She was 28 years old, although if the dream was to be believed she aged pretty well. She still preferred her current age, thank you very much.

Parts of the dream were already fading. The sense of urgent danger stayed with her, as did the thought that having teamed up with other heroes could have prevented this danger, or stopped it sooner. Maybe this was her subconscious's way of suggesting a direction for her to go? The dream, if it was a dream, felt much more real than her dreams normally felt. What if, in some fashion, this really was some kind of communication from 40 years in the future? Was that really any more impossible than suddenly developing the ability to teleport? The more she thought about it, the more she thought this had to be some kind of real communication. This vision was important. She got out of bed, feeling more like herself than she had in weeks. She had to to put together a superhero team. She even knew who to call to get it started. Her team could be the inspiration for others. Whatever the coming threat turned out to be, she was going to make sure they were ready for it.

There was more to the session, of course. I'll write that part out tomorrow. I rather like this stopping point, and I really do need to get some sleep. Can't wait for tomorrow's writing time!

CTC29 day 10

This is from a role playing session a few weeks back. It's a totally separate continuity from the other fiction I've posted recently. I plan to post more from both storylines evenutally :)

Lizbeth walked right behind Russell down the dim corridor. Their David and Goliath size difference meant she was almost invisible in his shadow. The both stopped when they heard faint footsteps ahead. Lizbeth had dug deep to find out about these tunnels, and even then they'd had to dig to connect to {rich twit's} building. Whoever it was ahead of them wasn't here by chance.

Subvocalizing for the com set they both wore Lizbeth asked, "Should we go back?" A voice well ahead of them in the tunnel answered, "Yes, you should." Apparently happy for someone to punch, Russel signed for Lizbeth to stay put while he went on. Lizbeth strained all her senses, trying to be ready for anything. Russell moved deliberately forward with a fighter's keen sense of everything around him.

Russell had barely registered movement above him before collapsing under his attacker. Lizbeth took a moment to sort out what she'd seen - the man leapt on Russell faster than a normal human could possibly move. She thought about her gun, but only for a moment; even if she hit the bad guy, she'd hurt Russell too. She scooped up a discarded length of pipe, and ran at the fight. They punched each other, but neither seemed to get any leverage. The attacker even tried to bite but Russell pulled away in time.

As soon as she was close enough, Lizbeth swung for Bitey's head. She missed, bouncing the pipe off Russell's arm. Russell landed a punch on the other guy's jaw. He looked at Lizbeth saying, "Ow. Gimme that." Apologizing, Lizbeth handed over the pipe and stepped back out of the way.

"Bitey" was an apt nom du guerre. Once he fell unconscious, they both got a good look at him. He was pale as milk, with long fangs where some of his teeth should have been. Russell tossed aside the pipe, dusted himself off, and he and Lizbeth jogged back to rejoin the rest of the team.

My inner critic is a total meany-head

My inner critic is a total meany-head. That particular part of my psyche tried really, really hard to get me to put off writing until I had an idea or plan that would be worthwhile, since, according to my inner critic, my current plan sucks like the vacuum of space. Even if my inner critic is correct (which is isn't), crap writing is better than no writing at all. You can revise a blank page. My plan is pretty good; my inner critic is factually incorrect.


Gratitude:

~sitting down and writing despite the persistent thought that everything I write is utter crap
~cool morning walkies
~Thrift shops

Voice!

On Saturday afternoons I create stories with a group of friends. Every other week we play a New World of Darkness game. Of the player characters, 3 are Bound and 1 is a Hunter. My character, Brian Jamison, is one of the Bound.

World of Darkness is a table-top role playing game. The Bound are people who, at the moment of their death, make a Bargain with a spirit. The newly dead person comes back to life, as if waking from a near-death experience, and the spirit tags along. The two are Bound together, sharing psychical space. The spirit is called a Geist, and the revived person the Bound.

In this game I play Brian Jamison. His Geist calls herself Mother Medea and resembles every perfect 50's TV housewife. The irony of having that Geist riding in the psyche of a gay teenaged boy has not been lost :) Make no mistake - Brian died. If he had declined the Bargain, his friends and family would have lost him, he never would have gotten that almost certain football scholarship, and he would never have gotten out of his little home town. The World of Darkness does earn it's name.

When I can, I like to have my characters tell their own story. Being a talkative person, I tend to play talkers :) Brian, though, isn't much of a story teller. He wouldn't write about his experiences for himself nor for posterity. But, he would talk to his girlfriend, Jessica. She's more of a BFF than a romantic interest, of course. They get to hang out, his manly rep is bolstered and she doesn't have to fend off suitors. Brian wouldn't keep a journal - but she would. He's her best friend, confidant, and brother-by-another-mother so she would never share his secrets. But it's hard to know really weird shit is happening and not talk about it - so she talks to her diary. Her voice will let me show you who Brian is in her eyes, which are both caring and realistic. She's not blinded by young romance. She knows Brian better than anyone - probably even Brian himself. Even his parents, who do love him, see him through a filter of their own expectations. Jessica sees the Brian who really exists. If I write well, you'll get to see him, too.

Gratitude:

~finally figured out the right voice for writing Brian's story! I'd been stuck on this for ages
~all the screw-ups at the workplace are either resolved, or well on their way to being resolved - work was much more interesting than I prefer today
~fresh cherries
~I didn't fall out of my chair when I turned to find a crane right outside my office window, although I did spit water down my shirt when the crane dropped the pallet of roofing supplies directly over my office.
~My doggie is the bestest!
~planning crochet projects with Kiddo
~taking nature pictures when the whim strikes

Gratitude 20140107, Writing, and a frozen water bottle

~having a box for recycling by my desk at work
~Kiddo's adorable attempts to pick-pocket me*
~fixing today's lunch yesterday
~telephone headsets - at home and at work, I love being able to use my hands while I talk on the phone
~Wake Co recycles a lot of plastics these days
~using pretty sticky notes
~Kiddo showing me how to start playing Clash of Clans (resource management game for iOS)
~I wrote! It's very rough-draft character background, but it still counts as writing :)

It was so cold over night, the water bottle in my car froze solid

*The disturbing part is how quickly his stealth is improving. One of these days I'm going to get to the office and find he's made off with my back-up brain (aka Ipod Touch)

Gratitude 20140104

+} sleeping until I was done with sleep

+} delightful morning walkies

+} 4 for 4 in morning pages

+} clearing space on my work table 

+} accidentally awesome snapshot of the rose drying in my car

+} finishing up characters for a Middle Earth RPG (role playing game)

+} finished the body and started the drawstrings of this dragon egg dice bag!!

+} phoning the recipient of the aforementioned dice bag while working on it, knowing the recipient doesn't know about it :)