llixa-linys

[llixa-linys]

reblog and make a wish! this was removed from tumbrl due to “violating one or more of Tumblr’s Community Guidelines”, but since my wish came true the first time, I’m putting it back. :)

[llixa-linys]

Update

I have a beginning! Woo!

It's taken me a damn long time but by god it has been done! Still have a ways to go on the first chapter but i'm making some headway now!

The problem, I realized, was the fact that I was searching for moments outside of the primary story to begin with. However, once I considered that all that information could be filled in as the story progresses I had an idea. Why not start exactly where the action starts? Why not start with The Vision? The Vision is what propels the story forward and before hand is simple stuff that leads up to the visions occurence.

I considered you, the readers, as well. Why bog down the first few pages, and impressions, with information not pertinent or necessary to begin and understand the story? It simply makes sense to begin with the catalyst.

And so... a beginning has been found and it is coming together finally.

I'll be posting The Vision in the next few days/week to give everyone an idea of what i've got and to get some impressions.

Hope all your holidays have been amazing and hope your coming new years are just as great or better!

Cheers.

[llixa-linys]

Update

What's this? And update? Who would have thought!

Well first I must say that I am sorry for my sudden lack of posts and such. The amount which I have been able to write has diminished substantially thanks to school but I intend to get back on the horse full speed... soon hopefully.

Before I let you all know where I am i'll let you know what I have coming up with school, and a bit of what i've been dealing with the last few weeks. I have started the rehearsal process of the second year plays which we have a month and a week to produce. We also have remembrance day ceremonies coming up that we're learning music for, a concert a day after remembrance day (at 7:30 in the morning T_T) and we are in the rehearsal process of a ball we're producing as a fundraiser. I also have to work on restoration monologues and papers for that monologue and for the film class, and for the connections class. School from 9 to 11.

Ok! Now that i'm done ranting and such i'll let you know where I am. I've been writing bits and pieces of the novel when I can or when the moment hits me and I have written the ending, partly because I want to see if, after i've written the rest of it, the ending has had to change at all. I feel like that would be an interesting experiment. Still struggling with the beginning. I've gone through many many possibilities as to which beginning works best, but I have yet to find anything that sticks. By beginning I mean the first chapter, while I have yet to get through it, I usually reach five or so pages before going back and thinking that it doesn't quite feel right.

I'm giving thought to posting the first few pages or so of one of my coming beginnings (which there are, hopefully, few of). We'll see though. :-)

So here's my question for you all: What do you do to find the beginning of your stories? Do they come naturally? Or is there a process you go through?

[llixa-linys]

Update

What is that? An update?

You bet. :D

So been taking my sweet ass time getting things done, this whole moving thing is not really easy to work around creating a story/world. I am managing however, just somewhat slowly...

Anyways. I wanted to tell everyone that i've put the characters down and have decided to start a bit of writing. At least a bit off the top, and as for the characters.. well i'm letting them take me where they will from what I know, however I will be constantly changing/updating their list of traits and experiences and such as the story continues. I may even realize that I haven't done enough of one step and decide to return to one. Either way, at least i'll have a starting point.

About that writing, I used to be a guy that wrote a lot. Now not so much due to life after high school, college, becoming an adult (but sort of not really) and all that jazz. So this is also to sort of get me back into the swing of things. Find the writer in me again because I know he`s still down there with his quill and silly glasses.

Yet here I am. Staring at the first page and considering, "How am I starting this?"

I have a firm belief that the beginning is extremely important, right from the first sentence. Just like the final sentence of a novel is the last moment that will either leave you putting the book down with a sense of fulfillment or a sense of being let down. The first sentence, to me, is important as well like I said. Perhaps it doesn't hold the weight of the finale, but it still means quite a lot to readers. So what do I do?

I stare at my screen, not expecting it to write itself but hoping to get at least something on the blank screen. Nothing. I tried a few sentences but none of them felt right. So I turned to books from my bookshelf!

From said bookshelf I pulled John Fowlels "The Magus", Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four", William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist", Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", and Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle." I read the first paragraph, and in some cases first few pages, of each book trying to gather wisdom. While I do not intend to completely emulate another authors style, i'm hoping to get a picture of what others imagine when they are beginning their stories.

In addition, more so for the blog's purposes i'll probably be changing the layout pretty soon here, because while I love the current one it is a bit less user friendly and interactive as I would like. I will have to find a better time to do that though, but just a heads up in case the theme suddenly changes.

[llixa-linys]

The etymology of Linys [Part 2]

Since there has been a distressing lack of updates to give I have decided that I would give a bit more insight to the language of Linys. This one won't be quite as large as the last one because as opposed to going into the roots of words i'm going to explain how the people of Linys talk, at least in the English equivalent.

It's rather simple, but not easy to get used to (even I stumble over it sometimes and catch myself writing how I would normally). Essentially long vowels are created with two of the same vowel, and short vowels are created by only one. There! Pretty easy, at least till you have to write it out. Bear in mind that various grammatical uses in our language are not present in theirs. Take the following sentence:

"The triis ar blouiing in the wind." (The writing of an upper class person, explained quickly at the bottom of this section).

It sort of looks like a child's writing, however in Linys this is the simplest form to write said sentence (in our letters). Notice the dip-thong is a short 'o' and a 'u' (which is an exception to the rules, a single 'u' can create a short and long sound). One can consider this language to be a very literal one when it is written out due to the fact that they only use the vowels the create the desired sound, however that may be. Simple, but not easy to write without having to think about it.

I want to say that the reason i do this and not keep it like our methods of writing is for two primary reasons. One, their world is not ours and their history is different from ours other than particular events that mirror ours (but i'll get into that another time), which would naturally effect their etymology and writing and way of speaking just as ours did us. Secondly, sounded out with this, in mind, gives a bit of flavor, or an accent, if you will, to their speech. Subtle as it is not on every word, but enough that it is there even when it is not (hope that makes at least a bit of sense). Also, look back at the character names and pronounce them now, i'm going to be changing them now that you've got them (I didn't want it to be confusing and for you all to misread their names for the first time!).

As for those double and triple consonants... those are not a whole lot different. Take for instance the word Llixa. Instead of a single 'L' sound you say the word with two distinct 'l' sounds. Almost like saying "La-lixa" without the 'a.' As for the triple consonants like the ones found in "Lllima." In these cases you pronounce the first 'L' followed by ANY vowel (it changes between people, like how some say milk and others say melk, or begged and bagged) then the next two the same way you would in the word Llixa.

Triple vowels are used for certain dip-thongs that require them, in particular words such as Liiinotra (the Goddess of Knowledge). The use of their equivalent to our written 'y' is considered holy so one could write it as Lyinotra, but due to the minor stigma attached to the letter a double 'i' or 'e' is used to replace it every time. However, if the vowel that comes after the doubles is one that as a double creates the desired sound of the doubles the vowels used must be the same (another confusing one). Ex. Liiinotra as opposed to Leeinotra (that is how you pronounce it, long 'e' and short 'i', but never how it is written). Although in the lower classes a double 'e' is used as opposed to a double 'i', class does not effect this particular rule of the writing.

Another thing to note is that within this language the letter Z does not exist, the letter used to create the sound is 'X."

An exception vowel other than 'u' is 'y.' It is not used often unless being used to reference a God/Goddess, or a planet (Llixa) but it can create both a long "e' sound and a short "i." Such is the case with Linys.

_________________________________________________

Well, that was... not easy to explain at all and I really hope I didn't completely lose you all! Please let me know if I did, I'm probably going to be editing this at some point to try and make it make sense, or I may rewrite it and re-post it entirely if need be, or i'll create a follow up to it explaining in greater detail and a bit more. We'll see.

So here's a question: If you were reading the novel right now would you rather all the characters dialogue be written in the form of writing above to impose their accents onto it, or ours to make it easier and faster to read?

[llixa-linys]

Character Names!

It's time, I feel, to reveal my character names to you all. At one point I attempted to change them but they just wound up coming back to these, so I took it as another sign of my story directing me and kept them the same. Here they are:

Loiid Solomn

Soula Solomn

Liir Wondus

Fasha Sol

Balard Loumanus

(Edited: After the posting of my second etymology explanation I changed the names to how they would be written out within the world of Linys. Below are the names written how we know them:

Lloyd Solomon

Sola Solomon

Lyre Wandus

Phasha Sol

Ballard Lomanos

[llixa-linys]

The Evolution of Linys

Heads up before you begin! This is a long post...

Before I get to the intended purpose of this post I want to give a bit of an update since its been a while since I have given one.

I've been slightly slowed down by work and preparing for college but i'm still doing what I can when I can, or at least trying to. Someone quit at work so I went from part time hours to full time hours in a day which has really set me back. However, i'm managing to get a better handle on the characters with these character sheets i'm doing. I can't say I have any done for sure as i'm constantly adding new aspects to each character when something strikes me as "them." I'm getting close, I swear. In addition to the character sheets i've also been doing some planning in my head of specific events, since I already have the major events planned out through the character synopses the writing with go pretty smoothly one I have the smaller moments in place (or so I hope).

Anyways, on to what the title of this post implies. The Evolution of Linys! Essentially i'll be telling you about how this whole story got started, what it was like before now, and how it became what it is now. So here we go:

About seven years ago (not an exaggeration) I played a game that really touched my creative self and I loved it so much I thought: What would happen if this became a novel? So at first Canopy of Leaves was going to be a sort of adaptation of the game Tales of Symphonia. At first it retained some major elements of the original story, with some additions. It was a story about a group of people, one cursed (in a way that has not changed), on a mission to save the entire bloody world. It would happen that said cursed boy was the one person keeping the world alive, imagine that.

Along the way I intended them to meet up with a woman from another world (*cough* Tales of Symphonia), from our world to be precise. And her connection to our world would enable them to travel to it and through some unplanned course of events that involved evil twins and a circus (i'm not kidding) save our world too. Please remember that this was the mind of a fourteen year old boy with illusions of grandeur.

Well, I wrote about fourteen pages of the story having my very rough outline and... sort of forgot about it. I had just entered high school so I was a bit overwhelmed with the changes in my life to deal with writing a novel.

So a few years later I wound up finding it again buried in my computer files. I had always known it was there because the actual story had never left my head. Seeing it again my older self really enjoyed the general idea of it and this is where it sort of took a turn away from adaptation and more towards original idea. I scrapped said human, retained the protagonists and antagonists including a teacher character (another throwback to ToS), evil twins (who had a purpose this time around), and the inclusion of a sister to the main character. The story experienced some changes but I never got around to writing them because, in a way, I felt it wasn't ready to be written. I felt like it was incomplete.

Then came the third stage to it's evolution, when I became very aware of a character I had created in elementary school. I had always intended at some point to write a story involving said character but somehow she was slowly weaved into the world of Wyt (the name of the planet at the time, pronounced 'Veet'). It happened so gradually that I was actually surprised when I realized that her own story had meshed into the world so easily. Then came the realization that a second story would involve a second book, which is the first moment I decided "Lets make a two part series."

Then came some interesting overhauls to the story... some of which I can not explain because of major spoilers to Canopy of Leaves. One that I can however is the narrowing down of characters till I had the five characters I have now, and some story changes that would end up making the second novel a sequel that fit into the world without looking like it was just sort of tossed in.

This... is where it gets somewhat complicated in my brain... I let the two stories sit for a while because once again I got the sense that it wasn't ready to be written. I took some time away from the story and managed to develop, who I think is, my greatest character (power wise without a doubt). Said character, I think it would be interesting to mention, has in some way appeared in every single one of my stories since his creation (which happened during gym class in grade eleven). It was also around this time that I decided to write another novel, completely separate from Linys. I wrote the first three pages and read them back to myself.

As I did a flash of information of J.K.Rowling proportions came into my head. Suddenly, in a matter of seconds, I had a curse for my cursed man, a purpose for my second stories existence, a curse for my second stories characters, several new ideas for other stories within the (what then became) multiple book series, and most of all an overall and all encompassing story within every separate story.

It took me a bit over two years to get some things figured out such as the major events of the series, how the series was timed out (meaning when each story happens in relation to the other), and the inclusion of my "greatest character." Canopy of Leaves also went through a few overhauls during that time, but the last one, the one that led me here, gave me that sense of ready that I didn't have before. I finally, after seven years, felt like the novel, and series by that point, was ready to be written. Almost as if the novel was instructing me and not the other way around.

Along with this feeling came the understanding that this was a whole new world. I couldn't simply write about the singular events without having some mythology, cultural influences, linguistic influences, and other various elements to the world. So along with the story being ready, so was the world which went from Wyt to Llixa-Linys.

The only aspects that have remained the same from day one till now are the charters names (which i'm about to post following this), and the curse. In fact, the only aspect of the story now that reminds me of ToS is the male protagonists name, which is the same in both and is also the name of my late Uncle.

If you're at all curious about some of the stuff I said in this, or want further elaboration on some things feel free to ask me, i'd be happy to answer! :-)

[llixa-linys]

crumbledpapers:

Send Me The Moon - Sara Bareilles Sweet sun Send me the moon Empty the skies out Bringing me one step closer to you Send it soon And I will breathe in, breathe out Until you come in and out Of view

Not entirely related to writing or Linys but this woman is a big inspiration to me and I love listening to her music when i'm needing a pick me up. :)

[llixa-linys]

Writing sample (and a quick update)

I have for you all something i'm excited to share. I have finished revamping the character plot and thankfully not too much has changed in the way of everyone's story, it has just become a more personal journey for the character.

Anyways. I wanted to share with you a snippet of unedited writing of mine, describing a brief moment in the story. I'm not at the writing stage quite yet but today I just needed to write, so I quickly wrote a few pages of a moment I had imagined rather clearly from the start. Whether these two paragraphs make it into even the first draft is yet to be known, but as it stands here is a brief descriptive section to let you all see what my writing style is like... as it stands that is (it might change during this process, we'll see!). I use some terms in here that are special to Linys so i'll describe them below, and keep in mind it's unedited (and late), I just wanted to get it to you guys as soon as possible! So I hope you can forgive if there are any terrifying errors. :)

Here you go!:

________________________________________________

    The fingers of the dawn reached across the sky, grasping at the darkness as it squeezed through it’s grip, bleeding colors he had never seen in from the dusk. His home was not like this, his home was green and the sky was rarely seen through the canopy of the trees beneath which he survived. He had roaming eyes that, in the fields, soaked in the strange colors and wild growths of life shooting from the ground in shapes he had never imaged. Breathing in the smell of what he had overheard were Llixa Daayurs, their sweet scent making him sneeze and itch. In the Growths of Kosees Serehee his eyes, from the shelter of the uncontrolled tree tops, only scanned between the calcined bones seared to the roots by the Wars.     In this moment however, looking across the field, past the Daayurs, the dawn was broken by a shape moving to the sway of an unheard rhythm, perhaps carried by the wind. He did not understand why the figures mid-region moved the way it did, but it made him feel strange and he felt a strike of danger to this beings motion. He felt that the sun, behind the black entity, was being broken by a spell, split in half by some tragedy that could kill him.

_____Explanations_____

 Llixa Daayurs: An indigenous flower located in the particular region he is in, they are considered the "Goddesses Flower" because of their beauty and healing  properties.

 Growths of Kosees Serehee: A large forest in which massive civil wars broke out between alchemists and pentamists (people that specialize in pentagram based magic). The wars were effectively stopped by one man, Kosees Serehee, who used a combination of necromancy, pentamism, and alchemy to bring down both sides.

____________________

I'll get to explaining those double vowels soon, I swear. In the meantime...

Any thoughts? Be honest. :-)

(Hoped you all liked what you saw)

[llixa-linys]

bookishtreasures:

Expectation:

Reality:

When trying to write a novel...

[llixa-linys]

Update

Update time!

I started off my character analysis sheets on what is posing to be the most difficult character (more so than the one giving me trouble plot wise). The reason this character is so difficult is because his actions do not directly effect the story until later on, despite a commonality between him and the other four. This commonality can effect how I write the story in one of two ways. I can write his story in full leading up to his encounter with the others, or I can hint at it once he becomes a major player.

What I have decided, is that I am going to write his story in full, just to be safe. That way it's there and if I don't need it fine, if i do, great. However, i've hit another snag. Because of his background and his position (I assume you all know which of the five i'm referring to by now, based on the paragraph plot outline) the way he reacts to things and deals with certain situations is VASTLY different from any of the other characters. I'm falling into the trap of imposing THEIR behaviors onto him, and I haven't even wrote theirs down yet! So i'm turning back to his character synopsis and revamping, making it more HIM. His was the second last synopsis I did, I think that's where I made my mistake.

I don't really think of it as a mistake though now that i think about it... the character is evolving, and now the story has a chance to as well. So we'll see what things come of this character becoming who he really is.

I'll keep you all posted!

[llixa-linys]

The etymology of Linys [Part 1]

As my story, and this blog, develops I find myself wondering how I will proceed with sharing information. What do I divulge? What do I keep to myself? I know that at some point I will be including excerpts from the text, but that won't come for a little while longer, at least not until my characters have been fleshed out. I will also reveal the primary characters names, but that will also come in a later post (not too much later hopefully).

Right now, however, I feel it is necessary to explain the world in a bit more detail, the etymology of it specifically. I wouldn't consider it anything incredibly special, but I like what it is becoming.

First thing to know is that Llixa-Linys is an alternate world, with some similarities to ours but with it's differences as well. One such difference is the word 'Planet.' Our word comes from the Greek 'Planan' meaning wanderer. In Linys the roots of their words are both linguistic and religious in nature, and many of the words that are not the same as ours have those religious roots.

Take for instance the word Llixa, which in Linys comes from a dead religion of a fallen empire (dead by the time the first novel occurs that is). The word Llixa was originally Lllima Xad (yes, three of the same consonant, i'll explain in another etymology post) which was the name of the goddess Xad that cradled her children and lover (the stars and moon respectively) through the sky. Upon the fall of the civilization those that were left to pass the religion on to new generations did so in an unorganized way causing sub-religions to branch out from the original. This caused many of the deities names and various other facts of this religion to become warped and in some cases to change completely.

Within several generations of the the civilizations fall a general consensus had been reached between the few groups that wanted to create a more stable religious base and potentially rebuilt their lost empire (which I have in mind to write a short story about at some point for this blog). This is close to the time in which the Xa-otra (Linys' equivalent to our astronomy, i'll give a quick explanation of what the roots of this word are at the bottom of the post) was becoming a prominent, non criminal act. It was discovered that Linys was not the only entity within the skies and the newly formed empire's religion took it as a sign that the goddess that birthed the stars had also birthed them, and every other celestial being. Thus she became the primary goddess of the new great empire, and by that point her name has gone from Lllima Xad, to Llixa.

The word used above, Xa-otra, shares it's roots between two deities. The first being Llixa (originally Lllima Xad,) and the second being Lliiinotra (originally Lllima Iinotra) who was the God of knowledge.

In short every planet within Linys' universe is called Llixa. So take for example the closest planet from Linys (their moon) it is called Llixa-Blanwar (subject to change).

______________________________________________________________

I realize after writing this that... it was long. And I apologize to everyone for that, and I think all those that stuck with it long enough to read it all. It means a lot to me. I also realize that there is a hell of a lot more to explain! T-T

There is also a lot more to explain because i've kind of opened up the doors for the history of this world as well which, i'll be honest, still hasn't been incredibly fleshed out... However I know what's going on with the etymology of it for the most part and i'll be posting what I know for sure so I don't end up making changes suddenly and confusing everyone. The next thing i'll be explaining is the way some of these words are pronounced (this triple consonants, and how the double vowels sound as opposed to the single vowels). It's not incredibly complicated but this is long enough! So i'm out!

But first: I added an "ask me" link up on the top left of the page, so if you want to ask me something click on that, or if you want to leave a comment click on that as well. If I ask questions of you you can also respond with the "Ask Me" link, if you can't fit your answer in the restraints of the answer box below. Can't wait to hear from you! :-)

Question: Did this post lose you? Would you have preferred this post be two separate posts (Part 1a and Part 1b)? And most importantly, did it make sense?

[llixa-linys]

Canopy of Leaves (paragraph synopsis)

A mirror in the hands of a statue. From within comes a vision of two peoples fates together bound by the images of one another and a mysterious leaf winged man who, within the pictures, kills one of the two. Lloyd, the doomed man, and his comrade must seek this leaf winged being together to stop the imposing death but realize that their path may kill them instead. His sister continues her work only to, by will of the fates, be pulled into the cross hairs of the leaf winged man and her brothers journeys. And a King must find and destroy what he perceives to be a monster in an attempt to solidify his waning rule, an effort that in turn brings his Kingdom and his very life to the brink of destruction as he is caught in the wake of the two men intent on killing one another. The five people, who’s stories are bound by a curse, will not relent till one has vanished, one has cheated fate, one has killed, and two have died.

[llixa-linys]

Update... (finally)

First update in... too long...

Well, I managed to finish up my character plot outlines, took some time, and some rearranging of plot moments, but it got done! My apologies for not updating any sooner. As this is new it still needs a bit of time before it becomes an immediate update sort of thing, and I know that's a terrible excuse but it's true. Twitter is the same way for me... 40 tweets since I started in February.

Aside from this becoming a constantly updated project life has taken it's course as well, as it always seems to when you want to get stuff done. I've managed to nail down a summer job which I am enjoying very much. I've battled tonsillitis just last week and got better really fast so I could have my wisdom teeth out three days ago on Monday. No swelling, plenty of pain, and no memory of what happened other than a video of me tripping out in Shoppers (fun times).

Anyways, as I was saying. Character synopses done. Now onto the real detailed character maps. I want to do this particular step next because it's common and it works. It'll make it that much easier for when I plot of the events and put the characters in them because i'll know how they react and feel towards any given moment/situation they are in. I know plenty of writers do this and I have no doubt that it will help me like it helps them.

Along with this being done I also have a paragraph synopsis for everyone that I made some time ago, luckily I didn't have to change it much since when I made it, but maybe that will change as the process continues. I'll post that next!

And i'll update more often, I swear!

[llixa-linys]

Too early to be doing this...

It's 4:27 in the morning and i'm thinking of going to bed... but I probably won't...

I discovered yesterday that the sleeping disorder I have been fighting with since my early teen years might be Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, i'm extremely happy to finally have an answer as to what i'm dealing with. This might end up working to my advantage however as, from what I have read, a lot of people deal with DSPS by doing night jobs, and a night writer wouldn't be bad. However I can't no matter how badly I want to. One of these days i'm going to have to do a really rough overhaul on my sleep schedule (despite the mighty high relapse rate and how easy it is to reverse the entire process). It must be done for school, and i'm hoping to have a lot of this novel done before it starts in September but if things continue as they have it might take a while.

I have not gotten nearly as far as I wanted to in the last week, while I have been working on the character synopses for all five (and then a few for minor characters) I have encountered a major road block in one of the characters plot that has the whole story in a bit of a jam. The problem is not easy as I have found. How do I get character from A to B and back and forth again four time with a different task each time but every task being it's own little catalyst for the end... And still making it believable... Quite troublesome. And i'm deciding on the best way to proceed. I could either move on and work on other aspects before coming back to it or I can figure it out now and have it done with...

We'll see. We'll see.

[llixa-linys]

Update

Ok. Two and a half of five character plot outlines finished. Finishing the half finished one tonight, and the next two hopefully by Friday, Sunday at the latest.

I have... hit some bumps already with the plots. I need them to work well with one another and fit together within the overall time line as they all need to become one in the end... i'll make it work, it'll just take a bit of figuring out.

[llixa-linys]

First update. Yay!

Ok. First update. A good start! :-)

I figured I should start by giving out the name of my first story. It is subject to change but I have, for the time, settled on Canopy of Leaves. With five primary character and four interlocking plots i’m beginning to work through the character plots, figuring out how the all work in tandem and how they all end and all that jazz. I’m shooting for one to two pages for each plot and hope to be done by the end of this week. We’ll see how that goes.