End of the Semester News

I've only got a couple days of school left. In fact, classes are pretty much over. I've just got 2 exams to study for and one paper to write. That's pretty good considering some people have at least five tests left before they're out of here. In the downtime, I'm working on some projects including Riff and sorting through my new laptop. Oh yes, the 50gig Dell that's been putting along for the last two years finally had to be euphanized. I'm not so sure I like Vista. I can't find the search function and randomly, bits of files and sometimes entire folders seem to be missing. I don't know what's going on. But it has a printer that comes with a scanner, so more drawings to come. Oh yeah, and apparently I have pnemonia. Good times.

1. Riff

Still crammed into chapter two, not entirely finished with chapter one because I haven't started writing the fifth storyline yet, starting to dribble over into chapter three. I'm not so sure writing something this out of order is safe, especially since I don't really know what's going on. Oh, I have an outline, but it changes with every sentence I write, so in that sense, it's more of an anti-outline because it's the one solid plotline that I know WILL NOT resemble the actual book.

My characters are getting into much more trouble than they were supposed to. That's the good thing about letting an idea simmer a few months before pounding it out. More wicked ideas forms. A lot of those times it happens spontaniously, but often it comes to be when I'm in bed trying to fall asleep (of course the one time when there is no pen and paper in reach).

I don't think I've mentioned how much of an epiphany I've had on this book. It's always bothered me that I don't really know why I'm writing this book. They tell you you must have a point -- a theme, a moral, a metaphor, SOMETHING -- at least in adult fiction. I won't get into that debate now, but the thing is, sometimes you can be writing something with a point (all the things mentioned above) and not realize it, but the sooner you do, the sooner you can start to incorporate those motifs in the rest of the writing. Well I'm two chapters in and I finally realized what this book is ABOUT. I always knew the plotline, but not what was underneath. I know now that it is about identity and what it means to be human. It's also a little bit of metawriting.

This helped me when I had to reshape Matthew a little bit. Writers group said he didn't have enough flaw in the first chapter, none really. I think that was the point, to make him seem completely confident in his element and throw him in hot water later. But I do understand a reader needs to relate to a character. So I shaped his flaws around the context of humanity -- being human as opposed to being angelic or demonic. Just wait. You'll see.

2. Flat 48 Book

I've got 10 chapters written. I turned them into my INS prof for a grade. I'll use this as a nice draft. There are still many stories to tell, but this is a nice 27 page taste of the adventure.

3. Filming

Not false hope this time. A mockumentary is in the works. But more on that later.

4. Writing Conference

I do want to mention the Fantasy Matters Writing Conference in Minneapolis. A handful of published authors came and spoke about writing and publishing. Jack Zipes and Neil Gaiman came to speak about why fantasy does matter. I went to a debate (er, I mean discussion...) on Stardust, a pannel on publishing, and a reading by an author. Neil was really cool because he prepared a speech but then found out that he was expected to read something, which he thought was neat, so he read us the beginning to The Graveyard Book, which isn't finished yet, but sounds fantastic. He did happily summarize the speech he had planned to give, answered questions, and signed autographs. It was nice he was there at this time because Beowulf opened that weekend, so he must have been exhausted from going to premiers in both American and the UK. I did see Beowulf in 3D at the imax, and it was intense. In other news, Minneapolis is cold, has confusing roads, and hides away its bookshops. That is all.

me and Neil Gaiman

November updates

1. Riff

Riff is up to over 13,000 words, somewhere in the middle of chapter two and still going strong. I'm actually having to force myself to set it aside so that I can concentrate on school work, which is a good sign. I had to retool some of the characters, but things are looking good.

2. Flat 48 Book

I promised to have 12 chapters done by December 3rd, but I'm not so sure that's going to happen. The ones I have finished look pretty good, I think. These are the chpaters I have so far:

Journey of the Mind (Jaime's plane flight)
Passageway (the Arcade)
The Biggest Dump (Michael Andrews concert)
[untitled, possibly "local food local music"] (Darren Hayes concert)
part of an Ireland chapter
A Library Survival Guide
Regression (mandarine oranges)

I made a drawing for the cover of my draft that I want to turn into my INS class, but I'll need a scanner so I can colorize it. I'll post it when it's done.

3. Drawings

I have been doodling (mostly in my history notebook). I've got a pretty good Hot Fuzz drawing I did for fun one day. I also starting thinking about the Burbank with a Baedeker comic series again. I retooled the look of Milo, but Burbank and Lenore still look the same. Now I just need a script. And a style.

And I made this last summer. I forgot to post it earlier. It's for Bowling Shoes and Murder. It's the result of being bored at work (that plotter takes forever!).



4. Videos

Have I posted my London vids that are on U-Tube? They're available on my webiste (which just got a new hoopy logo). Otherwise, here you go...

Please note on the Holloway Road satire, I didn't catch the funniest part until just a couple weeks ago, even though I've seen it a million times. I was always watching the convict and never the lady cop. So much for my observation skills.









5. Film

Okay, that inspired false hope. I pulled my video camera out of the closet and turned it on for the first time in a year, and both batteries were completely dead. They just drained on their own without being plugged in. But I charged them in time to tape a Sean McConnell concert, which was an awesome show.

6. Editing

In defiance of doing anything productive, I attempted to create some Two Guys A Girl And A Pizza Place montages until I got bored.

7. Masks

My paper mache masks got some time in real life scaring small children for Halloween. Check it out: LINK

8. Photos

Here are some random pictures I've been taking...

English Kickball

Nelson Lake

The Maytals Band

There are others, but MyPhotoAlbums.com is being really slow. It's probably because my pictures are too big...or there are too many of them.


PS. It's my birthday this month and I get to go see Neil Gaiman! So excited.

Wirehouse

This idea just popped into my head. It's not really a book or a production company or a CD or anything that I know of...but it could be. Actually, googling it, it seems to be some crappy website as well as a band name. Isn't everything?

Oh, and I updated my website to make it more professional looking, which had been the intent last time...but you know, things happen.

www.simple-assault.com

All sorts of things

1. Yes, it's possible to make animation with the rotascope texture, however, it's not easier.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4bw0E7zoZs

2. Been working on RIFF. Writer's group took a peek at a couple entries and so far the feedback has been positive as well as helpful.

3. My flatmates and I are writing a book about our travels. I've never written a non-fiction before but was inspired by Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams. (Inspired by Douglas Adams? That's never happened to me before! *smirk*) Jenny suggested we publish through Createspace.com. We also have to figure out what tense and point of view we want it to be in (let alone style.

4. I'm finishing up on my London videos. The documentary is done, as is Spring Break. I need to render some others (ie Islington, Ireland, karaoke). All I have left to edit is some misc. London things like Dungeon, parks, etc.

5. I've read a lot of Discworld books this summer and have drawn lots of sketches that occur to me from them, including a large 24x24 City Watch one. I'm working on an even bigger Librarian one. I also want to do a large Doctor Who as well, but don't have time (I've only got one week before returning to school).


City Watch by ~J-Leigh on deviantART

6. I've made more masks, the most recent ones being a Time Tracker with a watch in his eye and an Igor made of painted cloth. I have to pick one of my 13 masks for Halloween. I might make a new one with air holes.

link: http://www.freewebs.com/jleighnelson/masks2.htm


--Jaime

Texture

I got distracted again. Not completely. I worked for three hours on my documentary this morning until my brain went funny. I'm now trying to enhance my digital art skills. I've made some characters from Bowling Shoes and Murder with texture. I'm curious to know if it's possible to make a good-looking animation out of this sort of picture.

see more here: http://simpleassault.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album59&page=2

I also made this digital picture. Despite popular opinion that it might be a goose or dinosaur, it is, in fact, a guitar made of flesh.

Back from Abroad

Hello everyone. I am back from England and boy have I been busy!

1. Riff

I've written some more of my next novel, Riff. Not a whole chapter, but bits and pieces that are quite good. I have somewhat of an outline finished, but nothing too specific because I like to be surprised. I'm back with my writers group for the summer, so I hope to get a little feedback.

2. Documentary

I'm making a documentary about studying abroad in London for American students. I'm doing it to get an academic stipend. So far, I've lined up all the audio and added some of the visual as well. Now I've got to pick and choose from my ten hours of video what I want to show.

3. London video

I'm also compiling my London video for personal viewing and to send to my friends I met in London. This will not be going to my school. But when people ask to see some video, I don't want to go digging through almost 20 hours of video, so I'm making a DVD. So far, I've put together a couple sketches including one for Dublin, a satire on Holloway Road, and a little bit of karaoke.

4. Masks

I really wanted to buy some full size masks in Venice, but they were expensive, too big for my suitcase, and would probably break on the return trip. So I've decided to make my own. I have now made eight and a half masks. Check out the website:

http://www.freewebs.com/jleighnelson/masks2.htm

5. Website

Speaking of websites, I completely revamped my webpage. The material is more or less the same, but I gave it a new look. Still not the professional look, but I like it this way.

http://www.simple-assault.com/

6. Scrapbooking

I looked at my C drive and deduced that I had 2,004 pictures from my London (and Spring Break) trip! That's a lot of scrapbooking! No,I'm not going to print all of them. But Shutterfly keeps giving away pictures for free, so I've managed to get about 50 photos for less than eight dollars, which is nice.

7. Drawing

Oh, and I made this picture.

Thanks for tuning in. More to come!

RIFF opening scene

(property of J Leigh)

Draft one

Chapter Ωne


The dead angel lay face down on a ledge of the twelfth story outside a Central London office block. Its violaceous blood pooled around it, staining the marble surface. Smashed remnants of fruit lay about: bits of discarded pineapple, orange peels, peach pits, and an apple core at the base of the angel’s right foot. The other foot dangled off the edge as though the next gust of March wind would topple the body over the side.

The young London investigator stood at the edge surveying the ledges of the buildings around him. The birds had already begun to pick at the fruit scraps including those that had smashed to the pavement twelve stories below. The carnivorous birds hadn’t found the body though. Maybe they didn’t eat angel meat.

The investigator turned his head so that his words could reach the detective clinging to the window pane. “Sure was some party.”

Forty-five year old Detective Harold Truick rubbed the heels of his loafers against the brick of the building to assure himself it was still there. His fingers dug into the concrete lining the large office window. “Pardon?”

The investigator spun around and swaggered around the angel, gesturing to the fruit. “Must have been some party. The gods like fruit, yeah?”

“Maybe if you believe in Mount Olympus.”

The young man dug in his pocket, the tails of his coat flapping in the wind. He pulled out a new pack of cigarettes and attempted to light one, but couldn’t get a spark from his lighter. Giving up, he pulled the cigarette from his lips and used it to point at the body. “Guess this one just had a little too much fun.”

The back of Truick’s brain ached the way it always did when he knew someone was wrong. He clenched his jaw and looked up to the clouds as though expecting an answer from on high, but all he managed was vertigo.

After the divorce, Truick had asked the department to assign him more cases to keep himself occupied, but they had stuck him on the trail of every petty thief and lost cat in London. When he asked the chief for higher profile cases this morning, he had been thrown in a squad car with this investigator who, though green, was not at all shocked to find one of Heaven’s finest bleeding all over one of London’s grungiest. He slowly realized that higher profile meant more responsibility on his part, secret keeping and the like.

Truick, still getting over the initial shock of seeing an angel let alone standing freely 30 meters above the ground, attempted to grasp what the investigator implied. “You figure we should check his blood alcohol level?”

“It’s bleeding wine for chrissake. Don’t need to be a doctor to know it was over the limit.”

Truick knelt down and inched himself away from the side of the building. “You think it was an accident.”

He flicked his cigarette away, irritably. “Of course. Look at the evidence.”

On his hands and knees, Truick reached the angel. “I don’t think that’s wine.”

“All right, so angels bleed magenta. It’s still surrounded by party left-overs.” He glared at the detective. “It fell.”

“Don’t think it was murder?”

The investigator twitched uncomfortably. “Don’t start making up stories, Detective. You’ll get people riled up, make ‘em think the apocalypse is coming.” He strut back to the window and stepped inside the office. “Let’s go so the cleaning crew can clear this mess away.”

Truick gave the angel a last look, a sad admiration for the creature so broken, its arm twisted backward, its skull half crushed from the impact, its wings spattered with sanguine mulberry. He could see in his mind the forensic team trying to crumple those mangled wings into a body bag. He could picture the body on the lab table split from neck to navel, an autonomist hovering above, staring at a lab manual rather than the cadaver he mutilated. And they wouldn’t search for cause of death; Truick knew that. It was all about celestial beings as bio matter, not about their rights.

Truick’s gaze shifted to the fruit littered ledges beyond. “Anyone down below?”

“Course not,” the investigator replied from inside. “Got the whole place roped off in case it happens again. Can you imagine what an apple core would do to your head when impacted at over a hundred kilometers an hour?”

“Yeah,” Truick whispered. “Splat.”

The investigator didn’t have time to stop him.

In desperate attempt to protect the sacredness he saw in this creature, Detective Truick gave the angel a strong shove of his foot, sending the angel into flight for the very last time.

Riff

I’ve got a new story idea! Well, novel, really. It’s five stories combined. Several of these have been bouncing around in my head for a while now, but I just now realized they would melt together to form a really cool book. It’s called RIFF, but the last F on the cover would look like the top line was added later, so it used to be RIFT. It’s a play on words – I’ve heard the technique can be quite effective.

And if you steal my idea, I’ll bite your nose off. Or something equally as painful.

This is what I know so far. There are five separate storylines that weave in and out of each other occasionally. This means seven main characters. I know I know! Jaime, stop writing so many frickin' characters! But they're not all in the same scenes, I promise.

The story is apocalyptic, which is a theme I've been wanting to write about for a while now. Here are the five stories:

1. There is a special guitar riff where if played wrong, will send your soul straight to Hell. But if it's played correctly, your soul will become the envy of every angel and demon, even God and Satan. Janek is a talented musician who takes it upon himself to tattoo the tabs on his body and learn the notes. When he gets the riff right, the world is sent into choas. The keepers of the earth lack in their duties to tend to the balance of the universe and focus their energy on winning Janek's soul.

2. Sara Jayne Preston is a rich girl who is in trouble because her father's enemies will use her as a hostage if they can just get their hands on her. He hires her a guardian to watch over her day and night. What she didn't realize is that her father's enemies aren't regular mortals, nor do they care about her father or his money. They are after Sara Jayne specifically, so when they have the chance, they rip her from this world where her guardian can't protect her. Little do they know the extent of Matthew Lace's loyalty to his word. When he finds Sara Jayne's suicide note, he knows it's been staged, and follows her into Hell to bring her home.

3. Wintry Charlse finds out that she has cancer and only has a year left to live. The day she recieves this news, she meets Leonard. At first it appears to be a friendship built out of his sympathy for her condition, but later she discovers he has been her guardian angel her entire life. Before the year is up, Leonard is reassigned because it is against the rules for angels to fall in love with humans. Leonard breaks the rules to stay with Wintry, but is sent to to Hell for his disobedience. Wintry had been planning to live in Heaven with Leonard after the cancer had gotten the better of her, but now she sees no other choice but to plunge into Hell after her angel lover. But in his circle of Hell, Leonard meets a mortal named Matthew Lace and finds his faithfullness to Wintry challenged.

4. Detective Harold Truick is called to the scene of a very private crime scene, twelve stories off the ground. Scattered on the ledges of the buildings are smashed fruit reminants: apple cores, orange peels, etc. Among them is the body of a dead angel. Truick takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of this mystery, even if it means going to Heaven and interrogating the other angels in person, even if it means restoring the balance of the universe to sort out the suspicious death of the angel.

5. Enn gets premonitions. She's always considered it luck to know which side of the street to stand on when a car hits a lamppost or a mugger runs past. However, something stranger is happening just under the detection of the rest of the human race. She picks up strange clues and omens from the weather, animals, and vibes of her fellow humans. She suspects the world is coming to an end, and when order is hanged, she comes to grips with her identity as a character and breaks the conventions of a novel, threatening to break right out of the pages.

And that's all you get for now. I definitely have a feeling I'm ripping off things that have been done before, but I swear I think of these references after I've come up with my ideas. So let me just plug a few things real quick. Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries. An episode of Strange Frequency. Dante's Inferno (of The Divine Comedy). And so on.

On a completely unrelated note, I am excited to see Neil Gaiman's new movie STARDUST in August. It has goats in it.

I have no idea what this is

She couldn’t have predicted the toaster oven would make that noise when hitting her boyfriend’s head. It was sort of a metal meets bone explosion with resonance of profanity in the debris. Three years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to foresee herself as the type of girl who threw kitchen appliances at unsuspecting telephone operators, especially ones she’d only known for three weeks, but he’d gone and left the garden door open again, and there was just no excuse for that anymore.

Ever since she’d let him live there, she’d been getting strange animals in the garden. Not just the rabbits that screwed with the tomato plants, but small badgers and mink as well. She’d almost lost a nose when sticking her nose into what she had thought had been a mole hole. This morning, when she saw what looked like a miniature peacock relieving itself on her patio, she grabbed the first shiny metal object within reach.

Her boyfriend had landed on the floor and now lay under the table, cuss words escaping his mouth despite the fact that every other part of his body indicated he was knocked out.

“What do peacocks eat?” she asked. “If it’s marigolds and bluebells, you’re dead, mister.” She grabbed a nearby egg beater and shook it at him.

He rubbed his head and sat up, partially ducking under the table. “Kiwi,” he said.

She lowered her egg beater. “Peacocks can’t eat kiwi. How do they peel it?”

“What?” He crawled out from under the table and picked up the toaster oven. “The bird. The bird is a kiwi. I think I need to go to the hospital.”

“What the hell are we gonna do with a kiwi?”

His muscles tensed and he chucked the toaster oven across the room at her.

She screamed and jumped to the side as the appliance crashed at her feet. She kicked it and stubbed her toe, but wouldn’t admit to it. “Get out of my house and take your bird with you.”

“Not my bird.” He snatched the box of cereal – her cereal – from the kitchen table and stormed out of the room.

She looked down at the dented toaster oven and picked it up, examining it. “Completely unusable,” she concluded, setting it on the counter. She sighed and looked back to the patio door where a kiwi was looking in through the window like a hungry stray kitten.

Her heals clicked on the crappy tile floor as she went to open the patio door. She slid it across the track and the kiwi looked up at her expectantly. “Well?” she asked it. “Come in, then.”

London Living

For my London blog, you can go here:

http://creartwriter3.blogspot.com/

It's a collection of school assignments (the 12 stages of a journey), culture shock stages, observations, stories that happen to me, and what I think about things on my trip. That blog doesn't replace this blog. It's a different subject matter. While that one focuses on my study abroad, this one will continue to update you on my projects.

------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a story outline for the movie I want to shoot partially in London.

(I'm going to use colors instead of names just for now because they're non-gender specific)

1. Red buys a film camera off E-bay or something like it. It's a little old, but a good camera. When it arrives, he sees that there is still film in the camera. In fact, all the pictures have been taken except one. Red decides he is going to take the last picture so he can put new film in it. He takes a picture of his girlfriend, Green.

2. A variety of vignettes of characters all over the world. In each of the separate stories, the character gets his or her picture taken at least once. The pictures either have a dramatic impact on their lives or are of an important event in their lives. For example, a bank robber gets his/her pic taken and recognized by police, a model gets discovered by this photograph he/she was in, a daredevil is blinded by the flash and dies, someone sees a picture of their long lost cousin, etc. But the point is that we actually SEE the person getting their picture taken.

3. Purple and Violet are best friends and going in different places on vacation. They exchange vacation photos online. Strangely, the same lady is in the background of one of each of their pictures. The viewer may recognize her as Green from earlier in the movie.

4. Conspiracies begin. Multiple people around the world have a picture of the same girl in the background of their picture, always the same shot, always in the same position on the picture. One starts to look it up on line, finds that other people have found the same thing, etc. But how can this be? The photos were taken all around the same time all over the world. Ah, but not just around the same time. Look at the date stamp. The EXACT same time. Weird.

5. Blue is one of the conspiracy people online trying to figure this out. Someone finds out who this girl is. Blue lives in the same town as her and goes to see her. First, he prints off copies of all the pictures people have sent him with her in it. Blue arrives on Green's doorstep. He shows her the pictures. She has no idea what's going on because she's never been to any of those places. Blue asks her what special thing happened at that time. Nothing, she says. But she remembers her boyfriend took a picture of her with that old camera he bought off the internet. Blue asks where the boyfriend is now. She says he died...the same night the picture was taken. She asks if this has anything to do with his death. Blue doesn't think so, but asks to see the photo he took. She knows it hasn't been developed yet. Red, her boyfriend had loaded the camera with new film, but left the undeveloped roll on the counter. Together, Blue and Green go down to the store to have it developed. They wait around an hour and then pay for the photos. They open them. The first picture shows the picture Red took of green. It's the same expression that was in all the other photos. Blue lays the other photos out on the counter (or wherever they are). They are the same pictures that all those people took that we saw in the vignettes, the same pictures that Blue has with him right now that he printed off the internet. Again, Green asks if this could have anything to do with Red's death. Blue says No, but then asks to see the camera. They go back to her place and talk about it. Blue examines the camera. At some point it gets passed to Green. Blue pontificates a bit, leaning his head back, hand over his eyes. Green innocently points the camera at him (he had told her that the camera had nothing to do with Red's death). Blue sees her and leans toward the camera and yells No! Click.

(Not sure I'm happy with the ending, but something to that effect. We'll need a title. I wanted to call it Shutter, but apparently there's already a movie about ghosts in photos called Shutter. Dang it.)

Bowling Shoes Prologue Cartoon Finished

Forgot to post this earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14csN8plu9Y

SPACED

I was drawing and watching Spaced at the same time and suddenly I decided I would draw some Spaced characters. Not the best picture ever, but they pretty much resemble the actors.

Bowling Shoes Drawings

I've been writing more and more of the Bowling Shoes prequel, but I've also been drawing pictures from both Gyre books (see below).

Also, I finished the prologue I was working on for cartoon animation. You can see it on my myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/thereto

I want to work with shadows a bit more, but don't know how to make it very subtle when I'm posterizing it. I guess it would have to be after the filter, but that's a lot of extra work. Eh.

Gyre Prequel

Doing my cartoon of Bowling Shoes and Murder has inspired me to write a second Gyre novel, but this one will be a prequel to Bowling Shoes and Murder. The reason for this is that it's more fun to work backwards. Indeed, Bowling Shoes and Murder was written backwards! No joke. So now I'll take the outcome (the novel) and try to write how these things came to be. It's like being a detective. You have to use clues from the story already written, even things that seem insignificant, to figure out what happened before all this occured. Over the course of THREE DAYS, I've written 15,000 words. Not bad if I do say so myself. I'm taking a little break now as I figure out the gist of a new character I'm just about to introduce.

Still need a title.