Character Development...

The Diera (Dee-air-rah) Files..

I've been working on a fantasy character, Diera, for over four years now... she's been a hard nut to crack, but like with most complicated characters, I've often found sketching her works.

When you have a drawing of a character, you can imagine better how their face would change with emotion: does thier face contort or squinch-up when they're angry? would they narrow their eyes or raise an eyebrow to convey suspicion? Are they an honest person, or do they wear a mask??!

I know they say "don't judge a book by it's cover" but it's scary just how much more of your character's personality you can flesh out by simply considering their profile....

Unfortunately, I have long lost my origional (first EVER) sketch of Diera from 3 years ago, in which she is 14 years old... In this origional drawing, Diera had brown-tinted skin, green eyes, and long hair.

Compare this discription to a drawing of her from the start of this year when, in a flash of inspiration, I saw her picking apples with her childhood friend Ayomi. I took this profile of Diera as a child, and composed this sketch, in which she is 9:

(sometimes I like to imagine Ayomi sitting under the tree quietly sketching this, while Diera darted around after the fruit-birds)

Her eyes are still green, at this point in the development of her character, but it was from this image I moved away from the solemn, serious Diera with the darker skin, pointed chin and a narrow face to a more wild, adventure-seeking character; in this version, she has a much wider face and higher forehead, which was a gigantic step on the way to the Diera I work with today.

Below is my most recent Diera sketch, which unlike the previous ones is set DURING the major events of the story (at 17 years of age), rather than before:

I drew alot of this from the previous chlid-drawing, trying to find what definition her face would gain over 7-and-a-half years, and came up with a stronger jaw and brow-ridge, for the determination she has gained over those years.

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In homage to her mother (whose identity i will keep as my big secret!) she now has fiery golden eyes:

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At first I thought her eyes might change with the onset of puberty, but then decided that was a silly notion, and that for her to be born with the golden eyes of an eagle would mark her as the wild, spirited creature she would always be... and what better basis for a prophecy (or doom!) than a child with eyes like that?!

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This is the Diera I currently work with. A full, true character... nowadays I greet her like an old friend- though the miles she has to run, I'm afraid, are only beggining!

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All for now then,

This is little miss scribble, signing off!

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Satirical, Lyrical, Dilemma Debateable...

...I wish you'd share with me the rhythm,
that shocking prose held so tightly in your fist...

This post will be the normal ramblings, occasionally interrupted by bits of lyric from a song I'm not sure I'm writing. it's easier to write them down, this way I get feedback (occasionally), and because then I can analyse all the

...cadences of speech,
I liked you, you didn't chatter like the rest...

I tend to get too caught up in the melody, or finding chords or baselines and such, when I'm writing a song, I love words, second nature as they are, and it really bugs me when I end up sacrificing the poetry for the rhythm because I wasn't paying enough

...attention to detail,
you held me back, made me watch,
and I saw that to all the rest the bigger picture was lost...

So I get to the point where I just lay aside the trusty guitar to do some serious poetry, a dilemma in itself because eventually, (you guessed 'er chester!) you have to go running back to the guitar to check the syllables in this line or that line, it can be really

...frustration,
a truth you never spared;
a lie breaks something, a truth makes something,
that's what made you more beautiful than all the rest....

...but I liked you,
even though you told them all where they could stick it,
you taught me how to think
for myself,
and nobody else but you could've tripped all the tricks and...

Yes, it's confusing and a little weird, but hey, whatever works I suppose.. each to their own and all that jazz.
May you all find your literary niche in whatever peculiar, kooky way works for you.
(Oh, and Madeline and the Giant Ferret of Love was an epic fail, by the way... fun though, and that's what counts!)

If you all promise to be good, if these lyrics go anywhere I'll post the proper song at a later date, (perhaps even a recording, depending on what we're doing in VET Music this term and whether I'll have access to the equiptment or not)

Free Hugs For Every-One!
smiles, Leah Mae :)

Eating Nouns, Shitting Adjectives.

In keeping with it's peculiar trend of messing with my sleeping patterns, Inspiration struck at goddess-knows-what AM, and as a result I'm currently in the middle of a short story entitled "Madeline & the Giant Ferret of Love", it will most likely be too long to post, as it's a good page-and-a-half already, and while has all the earmarks of a short story, I can't for the life of me think of an ending.
Picture this:
You fall asleep under your desk and awake to find your apartment has morphed into a cave of sorts, after you've suitably calmed down from the resulting freak-out, you are greeted by a giant ferret with messy fur the colour of "a newborn dipped in onion-soup".
It introduces itself as "the Giant Ferret of Love" and proceeds to mistake your name for "Mad-Ellen"

.....So what now? I was coasting on inspiration and hit a brick wall... WHAMM!

I have my setting, characters (will probably end up with more later), setting... But I don't have an event... though a visit from a giant ferret could arguably be an event in itself, I can't have my characters sit around twiddling their thumbs and playing monopoly for another two pages.
Drat it, they'll have to get up off their behinds and DO something, we make our characters earn their existance, no doubt about that, but thinking up their list of chores is quite nearly as taxing as doing the chores themselves...

Gah, inspiration is so volatile!
It gobbles down your nouns and verbs, and tommorow you dissapointedly flush the adjectives down with a yellow wash of oxymorons, if you're not careful. too much of good inspiration is turned into tripe by lazy people who can't be bothered putting in the hard yards to make it something.
Thats the answer, in the end. hard work.
Put work into your words, even if they don't flow easily, and the story you get is the story you earned.

It'll be tea with Madeline for me in any case,
Let you know how it turns out, if its an epic fail... well, you'll probably find out anyway,

a-rollin' up the sleeves,
Leah Mae. :)

The Last Hippie

This little poem goes against most of my writing habits, as it is an environmental cry-out: and while I feel strongly on the subject; Poetry should not have to have a message or reason! -doing so quite nearly undermines the purpose of poetry in fact- and it saddens me greatly that this one should need to be.
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The Last Hippie.

He sits, entwined
In the branches of the last tree
Of metropolis.

This is his place
To breathe, a memory of the tranquil,
Shrouded in chaos,

Like a faded
Photograph, alien to the gaudy lights
Of the city.

An apology, he clings
To the ancient boughs, bark rough under
Tired hands.

Branches spread skyward,
As tactile fingers, and all he can taste is
The sorrow.

They two,
Last of a kind, there was never room
For failure.

With a pistol cocked
To his mouth, forgiveness is begged,
Tomorrow, the diggers come.

There will be no last stand.
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© Leah Petts 13.09.2009

Tanith's Escapades- some good reasons why keyboards can't scream.

Once again, Tanith was in one of her moods, one could almost argue Tanith was always in one of her moods- not to her face, of course, but there you go;
Erin now had more confidence than a Diva, thanks to Tom's quick thinking and a screaming match with Shannon that effectivley slammed the gate shut on Tanith's any hope of sitting on the fence- not that there'd been any doubt in her mind over sides anyway.
..This is how things were with Tanith, there were never really any shades of grey.

As for right now,
She rubbed her tired eyes and jabbed at the keyes indifferently, the LCD screen flickered and an instant message popped up:
"Hey Tan, its Tom- havent talked to you in a while: ev'rything ok?"
Tanith scowled at the screen and flicked off the computer without bothering to shut it down. In truth, she wasn't sure why she still wasn't talking to Tomas -after all, he'd saved the day with the whole Erin thing... she just didn't have the guts to admit she was wrong. Apologies never really came easy, especially after you'd ruined something like that with blind pig-headedness.

She sat there for a while, with her cheek against the cold, grainy wood of the desk; dirty fingernails drumming mindlessly, irritatedly.
With a determined growl, Tanith suddnely leaned over to kick the bone-box into life. mechanism whirred and the monitor stirred drowsily.
With decided, almost angry strokes, Tanith wrote:
"Out of Eostrogen, next mood swing: T-minus ten minutes...."
She leaned back in the chair and waited, then
"TANITH? -heck, i didnt expect a reply; what's up?"
Her eyebrows raised in confusion and she tapped out another line, erased it all, and tried again:
"I dunno Tom, I guess I just dont know how to talk to you anymore... are we still ok?"
There was a longer pause this time, Tanith was four seconds from turning off the screen in disgust when Toms reply rippled over the monitor:
"No, not really, this is kind of hard Tan, but I dont think we'll ever be what we were... you saw to that..."
Teeth clenched, she beat her answer into the kerboard with rising desperation,
"I thought you might say that."

There was no reply, and Tanith wanted to yell: "So why'd you bother in the first place, huh?!" but of course, that would be almost as futile as her black moods.
Head in her hands, elbows on the desk, she sang to herself quietly, Oh, this is how it goooes baby, I'll get angry at your words and I'll head hoooooooome.... she trailed off at the part where the girl goes back home and says sorry.
She stared out the window, and like the proud member of Gen. Y she was, relished the misery as it slid smoothly through her veins, all whispering and irridescent.
Sometimes, the truth you get is never the truth you want, even if you did see it coming.

Biting into the sour flesh of her bottom lip; Tanith slowly, grimly crushed her own, hissing, spitting ego with a growing sense of determination and disgust.
Tommorrow. She would apologise tomorrow.

She did not want him back, -it would not have been in her nature to do so-, but she did want his forgiveness. She was not likely to get it, but for once just knowing why she did things was a good enough reason, after all, it was long overdue.

Oh, this is how it goooes babe, 'cos I'll be back before you knooow, before you know....

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