I'm not quite sure how this happened. These kind of things tend to freak me out. But when I was going through my notes on story ideas, I discovered that I have four ideas for really freaky magical diseases.
Whyyy TT^TT
Some of them are freaked-out versions of real-world parasites. So I blame biology.
That being said, I have no idea how I'll end up using these in stories. I'm kinda afraid to figure that out.
A while ago, I wrote a blog post about how movies often kill off some of the coolest characters. I still think it's weird that really good characters often get killed, to the point where viewers start to expect it. Like a weird underlying message that good people don't last?
But I think the reason story-tellers do this is far more simple. If they make you fall in love with a character, it hurts like hell when that character dies.
Though even characters that are jerks can make you cry if the scene is done well.
I mean, I kill off one of my favorite characters, so I have no right to talk. It kinda had to be done. So if I have to do it, I also want the reader to feel the way the other characters do.
I wish I knew how many drafts I've done of Evva's story. I only save them when it occurs to me. I've gone a couple years without saving a draft, according to my computer. I have six saved, mostly for reference (though originally I'd save drafts so I'd know how many revisions I did). Though I may not ever look at the older versions again.
But what counts as a draft, really? For example, I just went all through the story adding in several cultural details. Does that count as a draft? Or is it not a draft until I read through the whole thing and smooth in all those new details?
Ah well. It doesn't really matter. But you'll hear some authors say they go through a few drafts per book, and others will have closer to 100 drafts. I'm interested to see where I fall on that spectrum. Certainly not 100.
4th of July meerkat.
I needed a term to describe a specific type of spirit. Before I started a proper brainstorm, I stopped myself and went to my "magic guidebook." I scanned through and found I had a term for it already! Yay for keeping notes on my own magic system @_@
Aldabra tortoises
