What makes a hero?

I was rereading Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small quartet and thinking about how much I genuinely admire Kel. I was at a talk with Ms. Pierce and heard her explain how Kel deals-- she deals, by dealing, and I thought how amazing that was. Kel has this ability to take all of the crap life throws at her, and manage it without too much hatred, because she has to do it to get what she wants. And that's probably the most admirable thing I've ever heard.

It got me thinking-- what makes Morgana admirable? I love her, but I don't admire her, not the way I admire Kel. At least, not in the first book. In the first, Morgana is defined by her search for acceptance. But at the end, she learns that all that matters is that you believe in yourself. You don't need other people to believe in you, because if you know you can do it, other people will realize you can. And if they never realize it, that's still okay.

I think that in the first book, you see Morgana as she is, flawed, human. And in the next, you see her striving to become what she one day will be-- a hero, not without flaws, but someone who tries, and in that trying, is admirable. Someone who doesn't want to be a spoiled princess, whining and complaining, but wants to be a knight, a girl who can save herself from her own tower, and save every other girl locked in a tower, because if you can believe, anything is possible. If you want it enough.

In Which I Laze

I don't write often in this blog. I have many excuses. I have other outlets and things to do. I have a video game blog that is up and running and fairly current, though I'm fairly certain I haven't posted for a few months-- dry spell, new game-wise, which I just broke the other game by reviewing Evoland. Various other reasons, usually work-related, but which are due more than partially to the fact that I am often exhausted beyond belief.

So I think it's time to get started on June's YA Challenge, timewarping to us from 2011. Similar to the situation two years ago, I've been mostly working on the first case and I'm about a quarter of the way into the second.

My goal this year is 1000 words written, 3000 words edited, or 150 words written in pursuit of getting Morgana Tremaine published. The day after tomorrow, the work officially starts, complete with status bars, etc, so today I'll figure out some of the prework and get my notebooks together. June 1st it begins!

Depicting Bullying and Prejudice in Fantasy YA Fiction

Yesterday, I edited a good 11000 words of Morgana Tremaine. Today, I wrote a good 3000 and now plan to edit 7000, since I've finished her second case and it needs work.

This case did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I knew that it was going to depict bullying somewhat. Morgana's best friend's homework keeps disappearing-- obviously it was going to show bullying in some manner. But I didn't expect the bullying to come mostly from Morgana's magic teacher rather than the person who actually committed the homework-stealing crime. It's tricky, to say the least. Kid-to-kid bullying is one thing; teacher-to-student bullying is another. Goner can stand up to herself perfectly well with one. She's more hesitant about the other.

Not that I mean to whine about what I have, myself, created. But Goner is the only "normal" girl in a city that is decidedly not normal. The only thing that holds together all of the various mythical races that make up her world is the idea that they can unite against people like Goner. "We are an Us; they are the Other." That means that Goner is a girl entirely out of place in the world she lives in who insists on constantly sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. It makes it difficult to write about her without it seeming like everyone is out to get her.

Goner is strong. She can handle herself in most situations. She is also only twelve years old, and "most" situations can't equate all. But neither can she seem passive-- passivity in the main character is one thing that kills a story. Goner doesn't have it in her to be completely passive. But she does have it in her to seem the victim, whether I want her to or not. I have to combat that. I have to make her tread somewhere between an extremely competent young woman and one who just isn't prepared and shouldn't have to be prepared for certain things. Prejudice is difficult. I didn't set out to handle it. I think I'm doing it well enough so far, but it does occasionally get overwhelming.

Morgana Tremaine is half-finished now.

Gawd.

Characters: They Do Not Always Cooperate

I haven't been updating as much on Morgana Tremaine for Dora Goss' YA Challenge, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been working. I hit a small stall before today, mostly because Morgana hasn't quite been "shining" the way that I want her to in the latest section. She isn't as competent as she was in her first case. That being said, I don't want to show a character who's always competent, never fail. The beauty of Morgana-- or at least, what I view as the beauty of Morgana-- is that she's flawed. She isn't good at school, she's horrible at magic; she makes mistakes. She covers it up with sass and quick wit, but she gets quiet sometimes, and that's okay. I also don't want a character who is cowed at the slightest mention of her failings, though, and therein lies the fact that MORE EDITING must occur.

I have to find balance on a tightrope, which is hard. It's difficult to write a twelve-year-old who is so different from the people around her, yet so much the same. Someone who isn't shaped the same, doesn't have the same abilities or the same family situation, who is more capable in less traditional areas. Because it's so hard, I find it infinitely more interesting than writing I've done previously, and I've done far more work on Morgana as a character than I've ever done on anyone. A disgusting amount of world-building-- yes, that I've done. But a character as complex as Morgana? No, never.

However, today, I had a beautiful breakthrough regarding how her latest case should be dealt with. I knew who did it (whodunit!) and how, but I didn't know how Morgana &. co. needed to figure it out. Now I do. I am pleased. Today has been a good day.

Novel is currently at 12,840 words. I'll probably write another 1000-2000 tonight to get close to finishing up Morgana's current case, and then I need to cut about 500+ words or so of a scene I've realized is irrelevant.

I just realized that I'm calling Morgana "Morgana," and that she would kill me (if she lived) for referring to her by her full name.

I love my pain in the neck novel, and I love my pain in the neck main character. :)

Morgana Tremaine, +1020

So far at least, I've written 1020 words of Morgana Tremaine. I did some more work on the magic system as well, figuring out various types, hierarchy, limitations, etc. I think I need to edit some right now. Morgana is very... quiet at the moment; not quite her usual boisterous self, and it's bugging me. Of course, something is bugging her, so it makes sense, but Goner is such a vibrant person normally that when she's quiet it makes me sad. Oh well. Editing will let me know whether it's flowing right, regardless of what I think.

1020 / 1000 words written. 102% done!

0 / 3000 words edited. 0% done!

YA Challenge: 1200 words written and a minor feminist freak out

I managed to get a lot of work on Morgana Tremaine done today. There were 1200 of writing, which is 200 over my daily goal, and I also figured out a lot of tangential world-building stuff, as well as a few outlines and basic ideas. I now know which order her cases need to go in, how they hitch together to build the overall story arc, how big her class size is-- yes, this is important-- and who's in it. Oh, and working out the magic system. Which I always have a love/hate relationship with. It's so hard, yet I find it really interesting.

I also invented an awesome, awesome name for a side character. Can he have his own novel please please please? I kid you not about this awesome name. Sigh.

On chapter fourteen in The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction. It's still pretty awesome, though the writing, at least, makes it seem as if the writer thinks that fantasy is a boy's world. Which hasn't been true for at least thirty years. Also, every time there is an opportunity to have a "victim" character be referred to be a female pronoun, he does it. The feminist in me rages and shakes her fist; the optimist in me says quietly, "Maybe he didn't mean it that way...."; and the pessimist agrees with the feminist and adds, "And the fact that he might not have meant to do it is more frightening. Latent sexism is the worst."

Sigh. Too many classes in feminist theory. I'm starting to feel oppressed all the time. >_<

YA Challenge: Goodies and Events

I'm freshly back from my sister's baby shower, so I was super busy since I last posted getting ready for that. Yesterday-- Saturday-- I managed to edit 2000~ words. I did, however, learn that Word 2007 has the capability of performing the Flesch-Kincaid test for readability and grade level, which I ran on Morgana Tremaine. It puts the reading level at age 12, which is perfect, and at grade 4.5. Flesch-Kincaid apparently has some issues, but it's still rather comforting.

I also received today when I got my weekend mail The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction.

It seems pretty good so far. I'm on chapter five, so not very far in. We'll see a bit later on. The cover really turned me off, but I read an excerpt and the table of contents and all seemed well, so here's hoping. The writer seems to be laboring under the unfortunate, inaccurate assumption that fantasy is still a man's world, so I kind of want to hit him, but he's at least trying to be PC. Trying and failing, but he is trying.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get some work done tonight!

YA Challenge: Day Numero Uno

It's day one of Dora Goss' YA challenge, which means that Morgana Tremaine and I need to get our butts in gear. Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time reworking about half of the first case, but I need to finish up on that and continue on to work on the story. I've been doing the editing in Scrivener for Windows. I'm not sure why, but the block I've had about editing it vanishes if I do it in Scrivener-- maybe just because it looks so different from Word? Scrivener isn't all it's cracked up to be, though-- I accomplish the same thing as Scrivener through a mix of Word and OneNote. I could do it all in OneNote, which is basically the same as Scrivener, and sometimes I do, but I prefer Word. One of the things I do like about Scrivener-- the ability to turn smart quotes into straight quotes with a click of a button. Why smart quotes exist I'll never know. >_<

Okay, enough Scrivener babble! Time to get cracking! I'll be updating throughout the day, just as I do in my LJ when NaNoWriMo's going on. Below is my handy-dandy progress bar for mapping my daily progress. If you'll remember, my goal is 1000 words per day of writing or 3000 of editing. I've set bars for both, so you can see what's the what.

2061 / 1000 words written. 200% done!

2765 / 3000 words edited. 92% done!

YA Challenge

Normally, I post most writing news on my Livejournal. However, since I'm currently working on a Big Bang over on that, I decided that it would probably be better to pace myself and post this here.

Ever since Dora Goss, who I met at Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Workshop in 2009, posted her YA challenge, I had been toying with the idea. I'm currently working on a YA novel (alongside two other projects, gah), so it wouldn't exactly be out my way, and I would like to think that someone is paying attention to my YA aspirations, even if they aren't.

So, here goes: from June 1st to August 31st, I will be working on Morgana Tremaine, a fantastical detective story centering on twelve-year-old Goner Tremaine. Depending on how it all goes, I want to either write at least 1000 words per day or edit 3000 words per day-- I'm a quick editor, but I do it multiple times. My goal is to ideally get the novel-- novella, theoretically, at 30,000~ words-- finished and ready to send out by the end of the summer. My first step is editing what I have written currently to prepare myself for the work come June.

I plan to utilise progress bars. I love progress bars.