Just a brief update on this post.

 They had a selection of poetry, and a few of those lines I remembered too. I guess it's certain images that stuck with me when I forgot everything else.

Trusting the Facts

When I'm reading or watching something, I have trouble believing their information about history, biology, culture, etc, unless it links up with what I already know. Even this can be dangerous, because just because they get some facts right doesn't mean they get everything right. Plenty of books and films don't bother to be accurate, and some just make up stuff. It's not only novels. Even some documentaries make me suspicious. A lot of facts get updated over time, and things people used to believe are now known to be wrong. Plus are so many common misconceptions, even in otherwise good books. But documentaries usually seem more trustworthy (unless you have something like an oil company making a documentary about how great fossil fuels are).

 But every now and then I discover that a novel I read is really accurate! That's always nice to know. 

Speaking of facts, three banded armadillos have furry bellies!

What Stories Tell Us

Patrick Rothfuss (potentially the author my favorite book) recently posted a Youtube video. I was surprised when he started talking about a couple cartoons I love.

Starting at 34:14 and ending at 51:25

After that it's shenanigans, so be prepared.

When he mentioned Steven Universe, I got very excited. He said "this show will help people in ways that they'll never realize." Because Steven doesn't beat people. He talks with them and makes peace with them. 

He also mentioned She-Ra (I love that he loves Bow)

(He also said he wasn't able to finish Undertale because it started too slow XD I guess I can't argue with that. I was very slow to fall madly in love with the game)

This was all very fun, but it was in a larger context about what stories tell us. He thinks about this a lot, since he's a story teller and  also has kids. He posted another video about how he literally rewrote the end of a children's' book because the message was so messed up.

And he's right! So many shows and stories have really awful characters or messages. For example, cop shows where the main cop tortures a confession out of someone, and that's okay. And even something like the King Arthur legends. Arthur catches his wife and his best friend together, and because of that he ends up destroying his entire kingdom. Instead of actually trying to find a solution with these two people he loved.

As I was watching this, I realized that this was why I hated almost everything we read in high school. Nearly all of the books had really awful characters, or messages. Like Lord of the Flies? Good God, I loathed that book. High school kids are getting flooded with novels that have terrible role models. I've met people who said that some of those books really set them off. How is it affecting teenagers?

Draykia Royalty

I keep wondering what the palaces will look like in Arith's story. His country, Draykia, is based off of North America. The architecture needs to reflect that. But there weren't too many big buildings built by American Indians. Not all of them lived in portable tipis, of course. 

There were lodges such, which could get pretty big. But the only things coming close to a palace might be some of the southern cliff buildings.

It's hard to base cities and royal families off of cultures that didn't have big cities or royal families. I'll need to do a lot more research.

An Actor's Take on Character Development

I recently started watching the audio commentary on a few of my movies. I love seeing how things are made, and commentary stories can be pretty funny. 

I just watched the commentary on an old Disney movie with my Dad (one he loves) called The Apple Dumpling Gang. It's like a cowboy movie/comedy. Dusty is the leading lady, and her actress was giving part of the commentary.

(Dusty's in the middle, holding the little girl)

Now, I haven't watched too many audio commentaries, but they're usually about the movie making process, or stories about what happened. But Dusty was explaining all the character motivations and background for her character. It was cool hearing about character development  from the actor that played her! I don't usually hear it from that perspective.

It's not Easy Being Sustainable

Someone I know is working on a project about sustainability. She needed to conduct some surveys, so I volunteered. She asked what I do to be sustainable. As I was trying to explain, I started realizing how wildly inconvenient it is to be sustainable. Our society is so messed up that people need to put a huge amount of time, effort, and money to choose sustainable options. 

People that don't earn as much money can't afford eco-friendly products (because in our world, you can work a lot more than someone else and get paid a lot less).

The example I gave her was something as simple as a shower scrubber. I used to use those cheap plastic mesh things you can get for $1.50 at a discount store. But they can't be washed, or recycled. Plastic causes so many problems for the environment, so I started looking for compostable shower scrubbers. I could only find ones that were hand-made - no stores I check sell them. I tried a couple different types from Etsy, and neither of them worked as well as the stupid plastic ones. I thought I'd try making one myself, so I started trying to find out what fabric is the most sustainable. Cotton is NOT sustainable. Everything is made out of cotton, but it has caused some massive damage to a lot of ecosystems. Next I looked at bamboo. It may be sustainable to grow, but it's apparently processed with a lot of chemicals when it's made into  fabric. It looks like hemp is the most sustainable fabric. But the only piece of hemp fabric I could find that fit my project was a little strip of hand-made fabric from another country. I can probably make 2 scrubbers out of it, but it will still cost 5 times more, not including my time to make it. 

So that's my sage of the stupid shower scrubbers. I finally made one, and now I have to try it out. 

 Reusable bags were easier to figure out. (Here's a good video about reusable bags) Find a t-shirt that's not worth wearing anymore. Cut out the collar and sleeves and sew (or tie) the bottom shut. And you have a grocery bag with no extra waste!

 

Public transit is the worst though. We're forced to have cars because public transit is useless for traveling to most places. And traffic is only getting worse and worse.

It may be wildly inconvenient. but we need to do everything we can to choose sustainable options. The more we demand it, the more accessible it will become. And we have to force the government and bis businesses to follow.

I think I'm good at making myself look stupid. I babble like an idiot if I'm really excited or nervous. 

Luckily I can use that trait for characters. Heheh.

For some reason whenever I picture myself doing something, I see it from the outside. It's like I'm watching myself instead of experiencing it from the inside. I have to make an effort to imagine something in the first person.

Is that common?

Tangled Mess

Heheh. Arith's story is quite the mess. It started out good! Then things stalled, for several reasons. I didn't help by switching back and forth between writing projects, so I'd totally forget what I was doing. 

But also one chunk of the story is just like something read this summer. I'm afraid to let Arith's story get accidentally influenced by it. 

And I really need to research a bunch of stuff. I've done almost no research yet, so I keep hesitating and skipping forward. That means a lot of the story is still undeveloped, which makes it hard to see how things would progress naturally.

The story randomly cuts scenes because I'll realize something doesn't work and abandon it mid-way through. Then I jump straight into a replacement scene.And some characters randomly switch names or genders.

I just need to get back into the groove of it. When I sit down for a good chunk of time, I can start to write my way out of it. I'm confusing myself too much trying to balance all these excuses. Rough drafts are meant to suck. I can fix all this later. For now, this rough draft will just help me figure out the basics of what happens.

Time to untangle!

 Last night I finally had to develop some of Arith's family. I pulled something out of the air that seemed like it would fit their characters and their culture. And then I realized that this is actually great, because it will give Arith an interesting perspective on some of the stuff that's to happen! Yaay for weird coincidences.

9 banded armadillo