(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role playing forum. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)
The player scrapbooks forum is literally a place for writers to warm-up, brainstorm, keep little scraps of notes, or just post things to encourage themselves and each other. Each player can feel free to create their own thread - one per account - and use them accordingly.
Pygmy has to be the cutest PC I have ever read. I love the way she does things without thinking or without minding the reaction of others. The way she demanded beer was especially cute, and brash.
Hope to meet you someday.
"I pray I may in my times of grief, remember that suffering is always brief in the hearts of those who wish to live; So sally forth, strong heart, and believe." The Lightning Countess ~ credits to Sorian's blog for the passage.
I'd love to meet you too Marishka! I'm also very glad Pygmy is getting such a warm reception, I've never written someone that was as careless and self-centric as she is. I think with all the nice players and PCs around here, hopefully she'll learn some tact to go along with the fearlessness.
So, I write short stories in my spare time. Don't get many done but it's great as an outlet. I took a creative writing course external to uni and met some really nice people, learned some useful techniques. One was to do writing exercises that emphasised specific skills. I still have the book for the course, the little red writing book, it's good!
Here are some of my old warm ups, one is just observations from a character perspective as they go to work, the other is a series of run on sentences designed to help you work on rhythm and speed.
Warm up 1 It's Monday morning and I'm late for work. My pants have a stain on the knee but I wear them anyway. I haven't done any laundry in a while. I don't like the sound of the machine. Water shouldn't be used that way. I keep thinking that maybe one day, something will get stuck in there and I won't realise until after the spin cycle. I almost forget to feed the cat on my way out. She keeps meowing at me and she's lucky I like her because it's annoying. I grab the golem by the lapels on the way out and drag it to my car. I'd take the bus but it's unreliable and I hate getting stared at.
Warm up 2 It lives in a city that's like other cities and it's dirty and it's lively when the sun goes down and it waits in the city on a street where it's dark because the light just reminds it of the past. So it waits in the dark for the boss to come back because he's always gone late and he used to be early but that's just too hard now, it's just too hard. The golem knows that it used to know more but it doesn't know what and that makes it go quiet. So the golem always waits outside the used computer store because it's something to be fixed and it doesn't know how.
As it says in the album, if I draw people, it's usually because I have affection for them. It's not because I'm any good at drawing. Kavala, you are lovely, would that I could do you justice.
Back from field work, got to love it. The plane I was on had to do a big loop around the quay before landing, so I got to see the harbour bridge, the opera house and Bondi beach from way up above. Had a good time in the field too, it was a bit of a relief to find that I enjoyed being gone for almost a week while doing nothing but driving or running around looking for insects. Admittedly, I didn't do any of the driving because I don't know how to drive manual. It's on my list of things to learn now!
I know this is more of a blog-like post than a scrapbook one but I figured it'd be easier to combine the two. I'll post some photos up later, although they are largely of the forests and grasslands we were sampling from. I know that everyone loves their home the best and in that spirit, I can't think of anywhere more beautiful. In the past week I've seen wallabies, Random Cows, mantids, phasmids, beautiful parrots and bushland that was quietly stunning. Compared to other places, the palette is muted, full of greys and warm reds within the green. It was a pity that a lot of it was overgrown with lantana, which is vibrant and unfortunately a noxious, nuisance of a weed.
If you have ever ditched rubbish on the side of the road or in the bush, please spare a moment's thought for the environment. Then spare another thought for me, standing in the wilderness with a metal detector, swearing every time that elusive datalogger turns out to be a fucking bottle top. I wrote down a list of who founds the most of them and also how many we lost. Out of 21 loggers we only lost about 5 or so to the ages and two of those were out the back of my field trip buddy's parents' place. I had only met the guy once before, so it was pretty lucky we got along well. A motel owner thought we were a couple and offered us the honeymoon suite. I had to remind my field trip buddy to check the room had two beds. Much mild embarrassment was had by all.
I'm very happy to be home. I have to fill up an excel file with field data from another trip before tomorrow though. No rest for the wicked.