Battle Music

Music during battle scenes is often intense, overbearing, and even grating. 

But I like it when the battle music is epic. Something I'd like to listen to on its own. I understand why not all music should sound nice, and I often don't notice it in the context of the movie. But I also enjoy listening to soundtracks, and I skip the songs that are unpleasant to listen to. 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a powerful battle song. Star Wars and Studio Ghibli have some great ones too. 

Plus some video games have awesome battle songs. 

Pokopia

I've been playing Pokopia, which is fun and addictive. It's like a mix between Minecraft and Animal Crossing (at least as far as I've witnessed those games). 

But why is the story so freaking depressing? (Spoilers). Natural disasters are so bad that humans fled the planet? And they put all Pokémon into storage somehow? Why didn't they just do the Mystery Dungeon thing, and have it take place on a different planet? That would make way more sense in the Pokémon timeline. Instead of direct references to places and characters from other games and shows. So you have to think about Misty and Brock leaving Earth on a space ship... Leaving all of their Pokémon behind. 

Fictional Fiction

John Green just posted a video, with a quote that perfectly fits a topic I posted about recently. I've been working on the books that Maya reads in her story.  But it's more complicated than expected, because a couple of those books are historical novels, which also means I have to figure out some history. 

Anyway, here's what John Green said: "I love a book within a book, or a movie within a book. I love fictions that don't exist. They're so much better than fictions that do exist. They can be infinitely great." 

Which is true. If characters are reading a book, they can think it's the greatest thing ever. But we'll never read that book to find any flaws in it ourselves. 

And I've read classic literature that I didn't enjoy at all. 

That being said, some of the ideas I have for Maya's books are things that I may actually write someday. If these are supposed to be great classics in her world, then people would probably object to however I end up writing them. Heh. 

The time that is given to us

A couple weeks ago, I had a dream about Lord of the Rings. It wasn't super elaborate. We were walking through the Mines of Moria, except in the dream it was just a really long tunnel. I was talking to Gandalf as we walked, and he was imparting his words of wisdom. I was thinking how cool it was to talk to him. 

So I watched Lord of the Rings again. There's one scene I always loved. Which, coincidentally enough, is in the Mines of Moria. 

Frodo: I wish none of this had happened. 

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." 

That line just struck home so strongly, with all the dystopian things happening with the government. So I guess my dream was right. Listen to Gandalf. It's a good reminder - do what we can with what we have. 

How did that happen?

Sometimes I'm astounded by where a story scene ends up. Last week, I somehow ended up with the main character butchering a deer. The beast caught a deer, and didn't really have much idea of what to do with it. Maya took care of tigers, so she's gotta know something about butchering meat. Even if she's not particularly skillful about it. So it just kinda happened. (And may get deleted)

I found the scene so bewildering that a ridiculous idea popped into my head. In Moana, she finally got Maui on the boat and is taunting him with the heart. Maui says, "get it away from me!" 

And just because, I wrote Maya holding the deer's heart and the beast is going "get it away from me." He's not freaked out - just kinda grossed out. She just thinks it's funny that a beast is grossed out by blood and stuff. She doesn't know he grew up as a spoiled rich guy. 

Just had a strange thought. I opened up my Beauty and the Beast story to start writing. And realized that even though I spend so long trying to write things that people enjoy. no one else actually cares enough to read them. 

It didn't strike me as a depressing thought when it occurred to me. It does now though. 

I'll try to use it to get into the beast's mindset. 

Continued writing speedbumps

A few days ago, I sat down to write, only to realize I haven't named any of the towns. Which will get confusing for me if I don't fix that. 

And as I mentioned recently, I need to include fictional books. I have some good ideas, but now those books need names. And some of the main book heroes need names. So far, I've come up with 2/3 place names, and none of the others. 

Another unexpected delay came from a character who I'm becoming surprisingly attached to. Since this is a take off Beauty and the Beast, I have another guy as something of an echo to Gaston. But unlike Gaston, Corvin is actually a good guy. I had the random idea that he would quite poetry. Which ended up being really helpful, because Maya is pretty mean to him. Not for any good reason, but mostly because he reminds her of someone else. (It's like how Kiki is irrationally angry at Tombo for much of the movie. Except Maya is an adult so she doesn't have much excuse for her behavior). 

And Corvin does look like one of those handsome jerks. But he's secretly a big nerd, and very kind. When he quotes poetry, Maya is too confused to be mean anymore. Heh. He picks up on that pretty fast, as a way to kind of defuse her. 

Anyway, all of this is to say that if Corvin quotes poetry, I need to find poetry. They're in another world, so I shouldn't really use poetry from our world. Which means I'm stuck with my own poetry. I spent most of an evening skimming through my weird collection of poetry. I needed to find something relevant to their conversation, which wasn't easy. Most of my poems are about nature. It was strange, because I haven't looked at some of those poems in a long time. There were a couple that I had no memory of. If I'd read them in a book, I would have had no idea that I wrote them. Those were the ones that felt the most like professional poetry. At least in my limited education of it.