Rolling the Dice

***ROLLING THE DICE***

Last night I had quite the wonderful conversation with one of the CEO’s of Hollow Hills, Aurora Styles. Round three of editing is rapidly approaching for Emilio and the Scratching Post, so the two of us agreed it would be a good time to talk about character profiles. I’m bold enough to admit that creating characters is something that I struggle with. Sometimes my characters are relatable and three-dimensional, other times they’re either despicable as hell (despite being heroes) or bland and boring. Aurora has been writing a long time and has character creation down to a science. That’s because she treats her TV and movie viewings as “study time”. She pinpoints flaws and traits in the TV characters she likes to watch and (either subconsciously or consciously) adds them to her own characters.

Unfortunately, I don’t put that much time and effort into my own character creation. I should. I know now I should. But up until this point, I’d been doing something I like to call “rolling the dice”. It’s actually called pantsing, which is the opposite of plotting. Everybody’s a hybrid of the two when it comes to writing, but for me personally, I would be a plotter for the events happening in the story and a pantser for character creation. My characters would be listed in my pre-writes as a name, a race, and an occupation. The main character of Beautiful Monster was listed as Windham Xavier, Elf Mercenary. His rapist was listed as Shelly Atwood, Human Seductress. With this incredibly limited information at my disposal, I would rely heavily on subconscious influences to flesh out these characters, much to their detriment.

Aurora said it best when she told me that the fiction we consume has the heaviest influence on our writing, whether subconsciously or consciously. This could not have been truer for Beautiful Monster, to use that example again. My biggest influences as a young writer included WWE, Pulp Fiction, Tales From the Hood, The Shield, Pink Floyd the Wall, and pretty much anything where the dialogue is snarky and vulgar. Well, those subconscious thoughts leaked into my characterizations of Windham and Shelly. They swore like no tomorrow. They got angry at little things, not unlike a WWE wrestler. The lengths that they would go to in being vulgar had no limits. The result? Having to completely rewrite the first draft from scratch. Windham and Shelly were hardly the only ones to act this way. Torger? You’re damn right. Tarja? Hell yeah. Orpheus Rinehart? Absolutely. There was no distinction between these characters’ dialogue. If I had quoted text with no names next to them, you’d never know who they were.

My critique sessions with Marie Krepps (the other CEO of Hollow Hills) led to a complete overhaul of my characters while my conversation with Aurora enforced and confirmed everything I should have learned. To use Beautiful Monster as an example again, Windham is soft-spoken and quiet-voiced even during moments of anger. Shelly is a lot more tempting and classy than she was in the first draft. Christian and Kody Savage don’t have any dialogue at all; they’re just a couple of drooling zombie rednecks.

For Emilio and the Scratching Post, the same thing is true: a complete overhaul of characters’ personalities. While I can’t divulge major plot points due to my confidentiality agreement with Hollow Hills, I am willing to give you some appetizers. In the first draft, Sweet Pea (Emilio’s master) was a little brat who disrespected her elders and got away with everything. Now, the newly christened Marigold is a lot more fearful of the villains in her life and that’s something she wants desperately to overcome. Antonia, Marigold’s grandmother, started off as a bland and boring screamer. Now, she’s still a villain, but her eerily calm demeanor makes her more believable. She’s creepy during her coldest moments and a joy to be around when she needs to lie to the public. In Antonia’s case, I stole her characterization from Abel, Trevor Noah’s abusive stepfather in his memoir “Born a Crime”. Yikes!

Of course, Emilio and the Scratching Post (which has the funny as hell acronym EatSP) has only entered round three of editing. There will be more changes. There will be more rounds. The macro and micro aspects will be fine-tuned. This will all be done before June 1^st, when Hollow Hills’s deadline for submissions comes to fruition. June 1^st is also two days before my 34^th birthday. Being a part of Hollow Hills’s anthologies will be the ultimate birthday gift for me. But before I can get to that milestone, I’ve got a lot of work to do…but not tonight. Tomorrow? Maybe. The next day? Could be. But not tonight. I’m physically drained after going for a long walk in the springtime heat. I need to be alert and alive if I’m going to make these macro edits to my manuscript. Until then, I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain! Or in this case, the scratching post to Uncle Thud’s catnip garden! There’s another thing that needs changing: Uncle Thud’s characterization. We’ll cross that bridge when a new day rises. For now, it’s about taking it easy.

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

In between edits of EatSP, I’ve been writing chapters of Beautiful Monster and I’m currently on chapter twenty, where Queen Llewellyn Xavier is scheduled to make her first appearance in my story. The economic hardships have not been kind to her village. Her crops are covered in blight, her citizens are disappearing left and right, and she still hasn’t negotiated a trade deal with King Lars Stonewall. She’s ready to throw in the towel after so many failures…until a familiar face returns to her village with a traumatizing story to tell…

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Summertime and the living’s easy. And Bradley’s on the microphone with Ras MG. All the people in the dance will agree that we’re well qualified to represent the LBC. Me and Louie run to the party. Dance to the rhythm, it gets harder. Me and my girl, we’ve got this relationship. I love her so bad, but she treats me like shit. On lockdown like a penitentiary. She spreads her loving all over, but when she gets home, there’s none left for me. Oh, take this veil from off my eyes. My burning sun will someday rise. So what am I going to be doing for a while? Said I’m going to play with myself. Show them how we come off the shelf. So what? Evil. I’ve come to tell you that she’s evil. Most definitely. Evil. Ornery, scandalous, and evil. Most definitely. The tension is getting hotter. I’d like to hold her head underwater.”

-Sublime singing “Doin’ Time”-

Hollow Hills Presents: Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim

***HOLLOW HILLS PRESENTS: TALES OF THE SIBLINGS NOT-SO-GRIM***

Every year the fine folks at Hollow Hills Publishing put out a new anthology and 2019 is no different. Last year it was Still Standing, a collection of short stories with an anti-bullying theme. The story I submitted to that one was Savage Beatings, a prequel to a novel I’m currently rewriting called Beautiful Monster. Copies of Still Standing are still available (why wouldn’t they be?) and all proceeds will be donated to the Crisis Text Line. What are you waiting for? Wait, I know. You’re waiting for me to start talking about what Hollow Hills is doing in 2019. Of course, silly me!

Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim, unlike Still Standing, will be lighthearted in nature. Comedy and romance are welcome, but they’re not required. This will also be a collection of stories with a PG rating, so there’ll be no excessive swearing, erotica, or ultra-violence. As you can probably guess from the title, each story will be a fairytale of some kind, though it doesn’t have to be a parody of an existing Grim Brothers Fairytale. It can be completely original or a parody of something else.

Of course, anytime Hollow Hills puts out a collection of short stories, I’ll want to throw my name in the hat. Yeah, I’m normally known for stories with excessive ass-beatings and over-the-top craziness and anger. But just for this anthology, I’ll temper myself as I write “Emilio and the Scratching Post”. It’s a clear parody of Jack and the Beanstalk except instead of a beanstalk it’s a gigantic scratching post and instead of a boy named Jack it’ll be my elderly kitty Emilio. Immortalizing my pets through my stories and poems is kind of what I do. I’m sure old man Emilio would love his own story. Right, cuddle bear?

Stories submitted to this anthology must be between 8,000 and 13,000 words long. In order to meet my minimum requirements, Emilio and the Scratching Post will be five chapters long and every chapter will be at least 1,600 words long, which is one hundred more than I normally do. Easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy! It’s even easier considering Hollow Hills will start accepting submissions between April 1^st and June 1^st. I’d love to get my story done before the first due date, but I’ve got a lot of time between now and then. Like I said, it’ll be a piece of cake. Or in the case of Emilio, a piece of pizza pie!

I’m announcing this new project for a couple of reasons. One, I need something to snap my five day streak of mental sluggishness. I already drew a picture of a novel character named Animal, so this blog entry was naturally the next step. The other reason is because all of my other creative projects will take a back seat to this one. Beautiful Monster, Incelbordination, and any WSS contest entries I write will have to wait for Emilio to climb the magical scratching post to the giant’s fortress in the clouds. I don’t mind putting those other projects on hold, because having a singular focus is better for me than having a cluttered workload.

Speaking of chaotic workloads, tomorrow night I’m headed to Seattle to see Within Temptation perform at the Showbox SoDo. If the Soulfly concert before it was anything to go by, then my sore legs, feet, and back will come back to haunt me the next day and I’ll want to continue the five day streak of laziness. Actually, this concert shouldn’t be anywhere near as tiring because it probably won’t go past midnight and there are only two opening behinds before Within Temptation. Maybe if I’m lucky I can write the first chapter of Emilio and the Scratching Post before I go to the show. I’ve done that before. I wrote chapter fifteen of Silent Warrior before going to a Starset concert back in February of last year, so why not?

The deal with this anthology is the same as the last one: I can’t post my chapters online since Hollow Hills forbids it. That’s something I can live with. They’re a business and they need to make money, so why should anybody have their books for free? Speaking of profits, this new anthology won’t be for charity, but you should buy it when it comes out anyways, because you’re awesome like that. Right? If you’re wondering why I’m not posting as often as I do, it’s because my attention is fully devoted to this new project. Plus, there’s that whole mental sluggishness thing I was talking about earlier. Wish me luck! I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Sunday morning I’m waking up. Can’t even focus on my coffee cup. Don’t even know whose bed I’m in. Where do I start? Where do I begin?”

-“Where Do I Begin?” by The Chemical Brothers-

***POST-SCRIPT***

The next time I post a blog entry, it’ll be about my favorite time of the year: the release of the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic awards from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter! They came out yesterday and boy, were there some whoppers. One big winner and six runner-ups. Not as many as I anticipated, but still, these are pretty god awful. Get your barf bags ready! It’s going to get ugly! Hehehe…heh…heh….I’m on an island.