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The Cluckery

15th June, 2008. 11:34 am. WiP and Stuff

Been busy on my wip, and nano07, the Game. I have up to chapter three edited; although, only chapter one's revision and chapter two are ready to post--which is well, since I don't have enough "points" at OWW to post a third chapter. Chapter three, though, involves a lighthouse. My two mages have went to the coast to help erect one and add magic touches. My model? A recreation of the lighthouse Pharos, as shown in Usborne's Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. (A book I recently found at a yardsale.)

Here's a little dose of information I gleaned about it, complete with my tangents and digressions. The Pharos at Alexandria was one of the Seven Wonders of the World (and I'm not crazy about these new ones, by the way): four hundred feet* of towering white marble. (Mine may be marble, may not, but it most certainly won't be that high.) The picture in Usborne's shows a great fire inside the top, the cupola, that reminds me of the watchfires in the Lord of the Rings movies. I guess I never thought on how the light of the lighthouse worked before now; that's why I love pictures. But, another resource says mirrors were employed as well. Above the cupola stood a twenty-one foot statute of Poseidon, and the light inside the cupola shone to a distance of thirty-eight miles. The book shows it on an island, and other references agree. And although, the site on which the Pharos stood has been covered by sea, interestingly enough, after it fell in the thirteenth century A.D.**, some stones were used to in an Arab fort. (That recycling stuck with me, and I'll have to make something, perhaps a statue or the flame itself be recycled from long ago monument. Or better yet, some trophy taken from the enemy. Oooh....)

* Usborne's says 300ft.
** Usborne's says 14th C., A.D.

(Sources: the above mentioned Usborne's and also Wil Durant's The Life of Greece--part of a fabulous series called The Story of Civilization. The Usborne's book is good too, what with all its pictures from a market place to the inside of a Grecian home, pictures with people in activities, like moments of life captured. Such pictures always inspire stories in me.)

In other news, one of our few black swallowtails hatched. This one we raised from an caterpillar this year, not one that over-wintered. Been so few of them, though. We only had about four so far, of this first batch this year, and haven't seen many more. No pictures, but the one we released had a lot of distinctive yellow: a male. I hope one of the "cocoons" will hatch us a female, at least.

ETA: Since I wrote this up last night (the only way I make time to post anything), another butterfly hatched. A female. And, both chapters are now up.

Make Notes

15th June, 2008. 5:04 pm. Crits (Quick Update)

Received a good crit on my chapter two of The Game. I'm going to experiment with removing chapter two, since it is a depressing mirror to chapter one. Chapter one my main character, Ios, goes from hopefulness to despair. Chapter two goes from despair to hopefulness. And I keep feeling something is wrong with it. Too much downer in the beginning.

The main reasons I am holding back from removing it is the two flashbacks. But I think, as long as I don't make any references to those flashbacks in the other chapters that follow chapter two, then I can get away with "recycling" -- cutting and using those flashbacks later. After all, I plan on a good deal of this novel being flashbacks. Besides, with my new revision to chapter one, I think the info on my character's god is now set up without this chapter.

So, I'll try a fixup of both chapters, so that I can cut one out and see how that works and see if my instincts finally agree.

ETA: I completed the fix up and it works pretty well. He's still not cured of depression, but it's not such a weight anymore dragging him down: he's surviving, which is one half the novel's entire point.

Make Notes

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