A Very Sad Update.

So I think it’s well known that I hate killing off characters, but if I think it is needed in the plot, then I do so. For the final draft, I will get around to killing off a certain main character that I refused to kill off in the previous drafts. It just seemed ridiculous to me that they stayed alive, really. I only kept them alive because of how scared I was to kill them. It changes the plot of the second book slightly, but it’s important that it happens. Otherwise, it’s not realistic and the whole point of the story is not as compelling.

I REALLY hate myself for doing this. The fans will probably hate me just as much, but I can live with that.

To end this off nicely, for the final draft, I will finally do what I proudly proclaimed I would do initially. Now, half of the book is from the protagonist’s perspective and the other half is from the antagonist’s perspective.

Basically, what I’m telling you is that there is now no antagonist or protagonist. There are just warring sides. And really, that’s what I should have done all along.

Gabriel, out.

Thoughts for Today

Write the book you want to read.

If there’s something you don’t like in books, make a point not to put it in yours.

If there’s something you think modern books need more, put more of it in yours.

It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t fit a specific genre completely. It doesn’t matter if absolutely nobody else likes it. Just write the thing. Write it for you, because you’ll regret it forever if you don’t.

Write what you want to write and screw what anyone else says.

What a Day

What a day.

I say that, but it has barely even started yet. College is slowly winding down, or rather, winding up. There was a great portion of the semester when I thought I was not going to be able to return. That has changed, and I’ll be returning to be doing a lot of things. Obviously one of the main things is simply finishing the book that I’ve been working on for so long. That’s taking up some portion of my time. Not that I mind it or anything. I think I simply come to enjoy it more as time goes on. It’s become my own work rather than something I’m doing for somebody else. I used to think of it as a way that perhaps, someday, I would get some money or something off of it. But now, life is different. I see everything different. I see the time spent here in college as something I should have taken advantage of far more often.

I think today’s a good example. I could’ve let the fact that I only got three hours of sleep due to rain and a roommate who tends to stay up too late to do homework bother me. I could’ve let arriving to class as late as I did due to a broken alarm clock bother me. I could let the general rush of final exams bother me. But I can also see this from a different perspective. Now I can look at it as having a roommate who simply has a different style of doing things than I do. Now I can look at life and realize that not everybody has a college class to go to. Now I can look at the rush and be thankful that I did everything that I did beforehand, when it wasn’t as hectic.

Obviously, not everything can be looked at with a positive viewpoint. That’s the world we live in, because not everything is positive. I know friends who have it way worse off than I do. Yeah, there’s a few things going on with the family back home that I’m not exactly excited about, but that’s life. That’s college. I can’t be everywhere at once, and I don’t have to be. I’m not omnipotent, I’m not omnipresent, and I’m not omniscient. And I just sort of have to be okay with that. It’s not like I can change the fact that I’m human. I’m probably never going to be able to perfectly balance school work, socializing, and writing. I’ll always wish I did one more than the other. Honestly, I’m getting used to the fact that life is a challenge.

I’m always up for a good challenge.

So I’ll keep doing what I love to do, and we’ll see where that gets me!

Metaphor, Metaphor, Metaphor

So, I was originally going to a video about this, but YouTube is being strange I didn’t feel like working with it anymore. It’s late, I’m tired, so it goes. I’ve come to find while writing that metaphor is going to be a huge part of everything I do. My old English professor would be proud. He basically thinks everything is about metaphor. The book is considered a classic, clearly metaphor was involved. If you really like a thing by Shakespeare, do you know why? Because it has metaphor! I swear he thinks the entire fabric of the universe is based on metaphor. I personally think there’s a lot less metaphor than we give books credit for. I imagine most of the things we think are metaphors weren’t originally meant to be taken that way. I don’t really think those blue drapes have much of anything to do with the emotion of the antagonist. I think that the writer just wanted blue drapes.

Yet, for some reason, I have decided to make metaphor a huge part of the book. So much so, that it influences even the look of the characters. Literally, an entire species’ look is just one giant metaphor. I can give way too much, but I will show you what I showed on Twitter.

The inspiration but not the final look.

But now metaphor has become such a massive piece of the book that I can’t ignore it. While you won’t find characters symbolizing the six senses or emotions, many characters still do represent something. One character even represents the reader, but you may not guess who it is for some time. Maybe I have the problem of too much representation, who knows? But until I find a good reason not to have so much, I’ll keep it.