First I just want to quickly announce that the ARCs of Zero (synopsis here – everyone likes space pirates, right?) have been emailed out today. Thank you SO MUCH everyone who has agreed to read my little project and review it. I’m so excited to find out how it reads, if not a little nervous too. Above all, I hope you enjoy!
And, the main news for today: it’s launched, folks! Zero‘s publisher, Dagda Publishing, have today launched their Crowd Funding campaign to raise money to market the book.
And, blimey! I know I’m biased, but the perks are pretty dang awesome. By ordering any of the perks, you will not only be contributing to help a very worthy publisher spread its name and continue to create great opportunites for new writers, you will also be helping make sure that everyone who may enjoy Zero will have a…
Some notes because things have gone askew this week:
Laptop is fixed, but I’m going to finish writing the book on the desktop. Testing out Dropbox with this and the laptop means I work upstairs where it’s a sauna. This is why I wanted to finish the book last week.
Toddler’s ‘Celebration Day’ was today and it was fun. Though he was the only kid that wasn’t going to be brought home after, so we took him home anyway. I’m finally getting to the computer right now.
Heat and stress have left me exhausted, but I don’t want this book project to fall into next week. Mostly because I don’t want to know what else can go fucking wrong.
The post about ‘Super Senses’ that went up today was supposed to be for July 19th. I’ve deleted it on all my social media. I was trying to set it up during the circus and failed to change the month. Oops.
It doesn’t matter where I go. People always find me when I’m working.
Now, Joker and Harley Quinn never got married, but this is something that gets overlooked a lot. In fact, I’m having trouble remembering any husband/wife married couples. There are probably very few that have a stable relationship because most people think of villains as untrustworthy. Marriage vows would be easily broken by these characters. Also, people might stop seeing them as monsters or caricatures of humanity if they loved someone.
Then again, why do we have to take that away from them? Not all villains are loners that see everyone as tools or ants. I hear a lot of people go on about not wanting their villains to be sympathetic or human. Yet, very few of them are true monsters. Magneto has a tragic background and cares about mutant-kind. Some incarnations of Joker do care about Harley Quinn. Darth Vader killed the Emperor to save his son. Let’s face it, people. Many of our greatest villains have some kind of heart, so it’s strange that so few of them are married. Now, I admit this is all personal perspective and people can point out that I’m stretching things. Fair enough. Though it is strange that Chucky might have the most stable marriage out of the all of villainy.
I can’t say that they’ve never been married. Some villains turn evil to resurrect, rescue, or avenge the death of a spouse. That’s all good, but it always leads to that character’s death. They never get their loved one back because of their actions. The lesson is that evil doesn’t pay. Even though a hero doing the same thing might only be the hero because the story follows him.
That’s only when a villain is married to a non-villain too. Why is it that two villains that show they’re in love and marry always turn on each other? It’s typically adultery, one has a change of heart, or one wants to rule the other. I’d really love to see a story with married villains that are in a healthy relationship. They just happen to share evil goals like world domination, raising hell, melting all ice cream in the world, etc. You don’t have to go the betrayal route here, but so many people think it’s shocking. I probably have some stories outlined with this twist too. Not sure what’s so appealing about it since most people see it coming.
So, what do people think of the idea of villains with a healthy marriage? What if they were more stable than the heroes and their relationships? Does being the villain really mean you can’t get that happy ending?
Welcome young lovers to Wedding Palace, the store with all of your magical wedding needs. Is this for a party or quick vows before running away from an evil wizard? I warn you that the fast lane is a little backed up this time of day. Since you want a party and have a holy man picked out, we’ll skip right to fun stuff. Here are your repeat customer cards in case you need them. I’m not saying anything will go wrong, but divorce, dragons, goblins, evil curses, reincarnations, necromancers, zombies, and mother-in-laws happen. I still wish you the best of luck.
The important part is . . . not the cake, sir. My cousin has a bakery that I’ll send you to once you’re done here. First, we’re going to look at the dress for the lovely bride. Are you looking at white or has that train sailed? I ask because we have some dresses that will strangle an impure bride. We call them our a ‘Chastity Line’. I have a shimmering moon pearl dress with an enchanted train, which floats a hair off the ground. It’s a favorite among elves and the sleeves can be removed for warm weather. It does require that you get married at night under a full moon. The dress falls apart if you say ‘I do’ in direct sunlight. Great for a honeymoon trick, but terrible at the altar. What do we have in tuxedos? Every color and very little variation. This isn’t really about him and he knows it, which is why he keeps asking about the cake and open bar.
Music is very important and we have a very versatile group of musicians. We have live ensemble bands, solo bards, gnomish DJ’s, dwarven drum circles, undead bands, and a siren who promises not to eat anyone. Feed her a roasted pig and she’ll be happy. It really doesn’t have to be roasted, but it shows a little work on your part. What kind of solo bards do we have? Our type musician is a guitarist and singer who knows all of the popular and ancient songs. He’s also available for bachelorette parties and his sister is on our list for bachelor parties. She can come with the entertainment package as a dancer too, which is handy for getting people out of their seats. Don’t worry, she knows more than exotic dancing. They’re vampires, so they’ve had a long time to master their trades. I assure you they’ll be well-behaved since they bring their own meals. No, sir, they will not be wanting any of your cake.
There are a lot of small things that we can help with. Favors, guest book, decorations, air chamber to entertain the kids, and . . . do you get along with your in-laws? Yes. That’s good, so you won’t need our ‘I made a wrong turn’ drivers to escort them to the event. Our people are excellent at remaining lost for hours. We can provide a cake topper. Oh, now we have your attention, sir. Did you have anything specific in mind? That’s rather complicated and detailed. We’d need to hire an illusionist for the coiling dragons and fairies would require us using special flowers around the display.
I believe we still have a lot to do, so please follow me to the fitting and yelling rooms. It’s soundproof so if you want to argue over decisions, you can do it in private. Thank you for coming to Wedding Palace.
This week might be rather list heavy now that I look at my topics. Anyway, the first piece of a marriage is getting the characters together and creating a bond. I know this is more the dating and engagement part, but it has a strong influence over the finale. So you really need to consider how the characters start before they take that big step. In this way, you treat them like a real couple instead of figures in your mind. This can really help in bringing more emotion and depth to the romance. You’ll need that because a lot of readers have issues when a romantic plot is used outside of a romance novel.
Childhood Friends– This is a classic and it can take many paths. You can make it clear from the start how this is going to go or have them stumble into it later. A downside is that male/female friendships in fiction are always assumed to lead into a romance, so you won’t surprise everyone. A big positive here is that the future betrothed grow and evolve alongside each other from the beginning. There’s a history that forms a solid foundation for future adventures.
Vision/Destiny Soulmate– Typically a major quest for the main character, they are seeking a specific person. You run into the accusation of removing free will from the characters, which is both true and odd. Technically, a fictional character doesn’t have true free will, but you should make it appear that they make and pay for decisions. So this scenario works of the idea that the searching lover made the decision to find their other half. This doesn’t have the solid bond of history, but it can work with a connection of souls or even a past life twist.
Starting Married– You don’t see this very often and I can only think of ‘The Incredibles’ again. These characters start the story as married and continue through the highs and lows of adventure. Maybe they have a long back story, but the present book has them already through their trials. You get to skip the messy parts of dating and take a more casual take on the relationship. Unfortunately, people may find them boring and they tend to work better as supporting cast.
Fellow Adventurers– Meeting during an adventure, these characters grow close through shared experiences. This has the highest risk of ‘Dead Lover Syndrome’ because both characters are in danger at all times. Many times marriage is used to give them a happy ending, but this could also be how a #3 scenario appears.
Enemies Turned Spouses– This requires the battle to be over something other than hate or even have a third party. The ‘dark lover’ could be manipulated by the main villain and the quest could be to free her/him. Again, this is commonly used to create a happy endgame or force the heroic side of the coin to kill the corrupted one. Fiction authors are really mean to their romantic plot lines.
The Waiting Woman/Man– It isn’t unheard of for the main character to have a spouse who stays behind. This may not be exciting, but it is rather realistic. Soldiers leave loved ones behind when they go to war, so it’s the safe for adventurers who feel they have to travel. They might not appear beyond the beginning, but they are an occasional topic of conversation. You can bring them in as ‘specters’ when the hero is struggling to find strength, so there are ways to give the stay-at-home character some influence.
Appeared Between Books– This isn’t common and it’s a big risk because you hurl a new character into the mix. Basically, have enough time to pass between adventures and one of the established heroes returns with a spouse. They can be a stay-at-home or a fellow adventurer. The positive here is that you can throw a new character into the mix and shake things up. Readers will get the joy of meeting a new friend as long as it’s done correctly. Unfortunately, it can easily come off as stretched since the courting part wasn’t viewed in any way.
So, data recovery is a tough gig and Dell gives me 10 days from Wednesday to get it done. It seems to require weeks, so I might not be able to get this done in the first place even if I could afford it. What does this mean?
I’m not happy.
I cannot get any of those videos of the toddler back.
I have to rewrite the last 2 chapters of my last book.
I’m really not happy.
God knows what else I lost that I haven’t touched in a while. Best man speech? Resumes? Wedding ceremony I made for my wedding?
So, I’m going to decide on what to do today after searching for another data recovery place and get some estimates. Might get another evaluation, but it’s looking like tomorrow will be the rewrite. I don’t know how social and friendly I’ll be while doing this. I was very careful with how I wrote the last two chapters and several parts where spontaneous gold. Those won’t be recovered since I don’t remember them exactly. All I know is that I’m pissed. It’s my data, so I should be given plenty of time to get it back. What’s Dell going to do with a busted hard drive and my data?
I’ve written about relationships in fiction, but I realized that I only touched on the dating and engagement stages. The only time I mentioned marriage was as a story ending for characters. So, this week I want to discuss and play around with the idea of a marriage not ending a character’s journey. Damned if I can think of any good, stable examples outside of comics. Then again, I don’t know if Reed Richards and Susan Storm are still married. I know Cyclops/Jean Grey are out and Spider-Man/Mary Jane’s union was erased by the Devil because somebody thought divorce was a bigger sin. Wait! The Incredibles! There we go.
It really is difficult to have a character carry on after marriage. In our minds, it’s one of the ultimate signs of settling down. You expect kids to show up soon and book-worthy adventures don’t work will in the family dynamic. So, we’re going to skip the kids stage here and maybe leave that for another week. That brings in a lot more responsibility for someone who can’t defend themselves. At least a spouse is an adult and can fight back if they go on a quest for something.
This isn’t even counting the ‘joy’ of fictional weddings. If anyone has paid attention to the Internet over the last few months, you know what the popular opinion on fantasy-genre weddings are. If you don’t then look up ‘Red Wedding’ and see what many of my friends were either crying or cheering about. I guess this has created an idea that marriage and weddings are nothing more than tragedy fodder. A spouse is typically used in a kidnap plot line or their death drives the main character into a darker adventure. As I said, this is a tricky topic.
So, do you think of marriage in fiction? It is always an endgame?
