Another Matter of Description: Main Characters
Some time ago, I had been wondering about my lack of desire to describe one-time characters, but after having recently spotted a discussion on the NaNoWriMo forums, I came to realize that, all that simply, I don’t describe characters much, even the main ones, and especially when it cannot come in a natural way (when I write in the first person, among other things, unless one walks in front of a mirror or has a really striking feature that comes as important in a given situation, I very much doubt any of us would mention their brown hair or blue eyes in passing).No matter how I want to consider it, I’m always torn regarding how and when I should describe my characters. In first or even limited third person, it doesn’t come to me as natural that a character would immediately describe or notice how the others look like, unless she finds herself close to them (in terms of distance, not of relationships), has nothing better to do, has the time to observe them, or is hit, as said above, by a specific feature. I try to reason the way I’d do it myself: I don’t meet someone average and think “he has blue eyes, she has red hair”. This is what makes it awkward for me, in a way—it’s easy, in theory, to describe a person, but to make it in a natural way is much trickier. We pay attention to what isn’t ordinary. How many of us would really be able to tell the color of their friends’ eyes? We don’t exactly waste time scrutinizing their physical aspect, even on a first encounter. Our minds register appearances, but not in a conscious way (at least, not in my case, unless I’m of these people who don’t pay attention to the facial features, but to the persona herself?).Read More
This could almost be a story in itself. No, it’s not about writing, but it’s one of these events in life that make you happy that you took action on the day they happened. One month ago, while walking to the mailbox to retrieve the day’s mail, I noticed a pack of huge flies gathered around some tiny thing wriggling on the ground. At first I thought it was a half-dead mouse, but looking closer, it turned out to be a kitten, a very young one—one day old at the most, and I somehow doubt it, she probably couldn’t have spent a whole night outside already. She was still wet from birth fluids, and pretty much trying to get away from the flies around her.
One of my long-lasting crushes lie with KAJIURA Yuki. It’s been four years I first stumbled upon her compositions, which at the time was the Noir OST, and since then, not only did I fell in love with her style, but I sticked to it through other, different soundtracks. Whether it is for Noir, .hack//sign, Madlax or Boogiepop, I always find several pieces on each album that really trigger my inspiration. My favorite ones definitely are on Noir (Canta Per Me, Ode to Power, Salva Nos, as well as Intoccabile‘s theme, that I can’t find anywhere, only in the series) and .hack//sign (In The Land of Twilight, A Stray Child, Limits, Aura and its “evil”, creepy counterpart). Some of the themes for Madlax are also pretty interesting. I’ve already put a few of Kajiura’s compositions in the radioblog here a few weeks ago, and I’m pondering making a “special Kajiura” playlist someday, if only to give a full-fledged preview of her music. When I prepare my list for NaNoWriMo, I’ll no doubt include some as well.In general, anyway, OSTs will often be a good source of inspiration and writing music for me; moreover, when the music doesn’t have any lyrics, I can focus better, so it never harms to have a stack of pieces without words lying around.
Since yesterday, I’ve been testing