Marginally Evil Update.

Ok, so maybe the sock monkey isn't all that evil, and the tattoo is just a way for him to stand out in his sock monkey family. But it did inspire an evil craft idea brainstorming session, and so I'm counting the whole endeavor as evil. :) I'm still trying to hammer out the pattern to that Lord of Darkness doll.

Perspective Issues.

One of my favorite books is Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson. It's a fabulous read. The main character is bi-racial (black and Korean by way of Japan(if I recall correctly)). A group of my friends and I were discussing the book when one of my friends said that they had issues with the main character because he was such a "weeabo." Now, to save you a trip to Urban Dictionary, a "weeabo" is someone that is unhealthily obsessed with and woefully misinformed about Japanese culture to the exclusion of their own. It's a term I don't like to use(hence the quotation marks).

But I digress. I thought the interpretation was very strange and it got me to thinking about why they would feel that way. I don't think that the confusion was with the character development; it's pretty straight forward and integral to the story.

Which left it as a reader interpretation issue. That's not a dig. It's just something to think about. Our programming automatically goes to what is familiar to us. Readers immerse themselves into the story, and thus, will take on what the reader knows. That includes race and ethnicity.

Not that that's a bad thing. Unless, of course, it's vitally important that certain characters identify as another box on the census. :)

But then you run the risk of of writing from a perspective about which you have no clue, or accidentally offending an entire segment of the world's population. It's enough to drive you mad.

Evil Arts and Crafts.

I don't know why I've never done it before, or even thought about translating my brand of insanity to the fertile ground of the handicraft community. It took a singularly twisted and awesome project called "Sunbonnet Cthulu" for the concept to take root. I think maybe a Lord of Darkness plush doll is calling to be created. :D Hehe.

Amen?

I've been stuck on the development for an important character. I wasn't missing very much, it was just very important; and I had no idea what it was.

You would think that figuring out the reason someone would keep on living would be easy, right? But all my usual survival standbys didn't work and felt flat. Love felt too cliched. Hate and revenge was against the personality type. Recovering something treasured didn't work. Nothing I could think of fit. Maddening.

I found the linchpin in the weirdest place-a funeral. The priest conducting the ceremony mentioned a specific viewpoint concerning life and death, and everything just clicked into place.

Finding the answer I needed where I found it was odd, to say the least.