Bits and Pieces

The last couple of weeks have been pretty quiet for me. I have not done much writing--mainly a couple of short items for my class. My last one was rather silly--we had to create two character profiles, one for us (or at least mostly based on us), and write a scene involving the two of them--just a scene, not an entire piece, focusing on characterization. We are supposed to be writing a longer item--a short story or chapter--for our final assignment, and I'm not intending to use myself in any way in my story. So I took the assignment and decided to make my other character a cat. More of a shapeshifter, really. I left out the shapeshifting bits, but the whole thing was a conversation between the two of us during a cooking class, and she left all kinds of clues (her ex-husband's name is Tom...having triplets runs in the family...silly stuff that hopefully didn't sound too silly...).

I don't think it turned out half bad. Unfinished, yes. There wasn't really a conflict or anything in the piece. We talked about them all outloud during class, and most of the commentary on mine were about where else the writing was going with these two characters, which totally made sense. They weren't going anywhere, and it reflected that. But hey, I was in a cooking class with a cat lady...I don't know where it could have gone without getting a lot goofier.

This week, we're examining setting and I'm supposed to visit somewhere new, and write a scene including my observations on it. I'm not entirely sure where I'll have time to go outside of our normal routine, so I may have to cheat on that one. We'll see.

For our longer piece, I'm attempting to re-write my intro for my novel-in-progress. I'm not thrilled with what I have, though the plot line is essentially staying the same. Basically, just shifting points of view in some places, and doing much-needed editing. I'm hoping that it will be cohesive enough to stand on its own. Basically, the main characters meet at a Renn Faire, and both are actors in the faire, though it's not supposed to be obvious to the reader until the end that it's all a farce. Almost by accident, I think my setup falls in so nicely with several themes running throughout the entire story--about appearances, figuring out who they are, being truthful to themselves and each other, etc.