#writers rants

[catt-nuevenor]

Indulge me and geek out a second here if you would.

How interesting is that!

Germanic language symmetry/parallels strike again!

I know this is a nerdy thing to get excited about, but hey, I'm a nerd, this is my jam.

Also, sorry for butchering the Latin and Ancient Greek, I only briefly studied Classics, it was almost a decade ago, and it was very much in a state of protest.

[catt-nuevenor]

Treów-fugol

Bit of academic hilarity (in an incredibly nerdy sense) for you all.

While pouring through many a dictionary of Old English looking for the word for a mountain forest (which is Firgen by the by), I came across:

treów-fugol

Being the curious research madwoman that I am, I decided to more closely examine this word and its meaning.

Historical ramblings and word weirdness below:

You see Treów means tree, and it's a word I come across quite frequently when coming up with names for forests. Lazy as that might seem, you only need to look at places like Sherwood forest to see that humans are not particularly imaginative creatures when it comes to naming things.

Sherwood = Woods belonging to the Shire

So, as I say, I'm familiar with Treów. Fugol though, especially as a conjunctive attachment with tree was an unfamiliar term. My paper copy dictionary translated it as bird or fowl.

Put together the term should mean Tree bird, or perhaps woodland bird for the less literal translation.

Imagine my surprise when instead I find that in my digital dictionary it's translated as:

...

From tree-bird to tree-haunting bird?

Got some ghostly chickens about scaring woodsmen, do you?

I chased down the translation source to the Codex exoniensis. page 146 line 9.

Take a minute to drink in that unhelpful font, isn't it glorious.

Anyway, want to know what the in book translation of that line is?

Me thinks either the original digital dictionary is being a bit liberal with the word 'haunting', making it out in the modern context as you would in the statement 'that is one of his haunts', OR some academic somewhere slipped the haunting bit in while bored and/or somewhat sleep-deprived and is waiting to see when/if somebody notices.

There's your bit of academic weirdness for the day! As you were folks!

[catt-nuevenor]

Switching Tracks

To all my fellow authors out there, do you find it difficult to switch between emotional elements in your stories?

Between the knife-twisting, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking moments of devastation, and the sweet as sugar, sun-warmed, pulse-fluttering, squee-inducing romance?

If you too struggle, have you found ways to cope? How do you manage that tonal dissidence when writing? How do you change tracks, so to speak?

Any hints, tips, and general advice would be most appreciated.

Pain and frustration sharing for those who haven't found ways to cope is also 100% valid.

[catt-nuevenor]

Well, I hope you're all getting excited for Monday!

I'm working on Chapter 2 Part 3 again today, near enough up to the point that I'd previously got to before the rewrite began last year. It's proving itself to be a beast of a section...

I'm up to the first of the inter-character interactions, where (if you're playing with the romances available) the Main Character can take the first step on what I'm currently calling the 'Destructive Route'. And to be frank, I hate writing relationship drama.

Well, the kind that stems from a lack of transparent open communication anyway. Perhaps it's part of my autism kicking in, but I don't really get the appeal of angst like this. I'm much of the frame of mind that healthy relationships are open and honest, and that if you're not feeling the appeal of a prospective relationship, the best thing to do is to end things sooner rather than later. Break up conversations, or the ones in which you are turning someone down after a couple of dates, suck. No ifs, no buts, at least in my experience. Doesn't mean it's okay to let the thing carry on just to avoid it, though.

None of this is to say that I'm planning to cut preplanned content from the story, and I'm not trying to push my own likes and dislikes on any of you, nor my morals.

Just need to vent a bit, is all.

My true comfort zone with writing is in a weird place between horror and fluff. It's both soft and spiky!

[catt-nuevenor]

Working on part 2 of Chapter 2 and just had a rather glorious little moment.

Mild to Moderate Spoilers for Chapter 2 Part 2 below:

So, I'm working on a scene where Aveza and Osmund first show up (they've previously appeared in the reacts if the names sound familiar, and their farm is mentioned in the prologue and chapter 1). They're both out at Skey's farm, and I needed them to be running a delivery into town, so I say to myself a farmer's probably going to be doing quite a lot of bussiness with the baker, right?

If you all remember that Excel document I put up a preview of months ago, the one with all the characters who lived in the town, their professions, genders, names, relationships, etc. Well I was pretty certain I'd put a baker in there somewhere, so I check and lo and behold I have two bakers. Rufus Ludham, and Joyce Eke.

Now some of you may come across Joyce in your playthroughs as she is the aunt of Sybil and Samuel, who play with the Child when A and the Main Character walk the children home after cobtide. And you'll likely run into more of the Ludhams as well in later parts of the story as they're quite heavily involved in the Scrivener's profession.

And on and on and on the web of relationships goes!

And that is the glorious thing! Through one little act of logic I have all these interpersonal little stories just waiting to be told, and it genuinely feels like peeling back the layers on a real little town!

...

I'm getting excited about spreadsheets again, aren't I? 😅

[catt-nuevenor]

Quick note to my fellow IF authors who use ChoiceScript to write their stories. If you use params in your subroutines, like this:

The param in question will NOT function correctly if it contains any capital letters.

I swear I just spent the last 10 minutes in the 'why won't it work?!' cycle only to realise that I had a param of P_vs_R rather than p_vs_r.

Save yourselves the headache and stick to those rules of no capital letters in variables, even if currently everything works just fine, you don't know when a tiny little bug will end up disrupting everything...

[catt-nuevenor]

Sometimes, after what can feel like a very long week, one has the need to unwind a bit. Relax, take a bit of frustration out on a task you've been meaning to do but haven't got around to yet.

So, I'm going to be beating seven bells out of some egg whites and making meringues this afternoon.

Hope everyone's Fridays are going well. And if they're not, try and focus on a small pleasure you can indulge it later, be it kitchen based campaigns of questionable cooking, or something equally as cathartic.