Combining Creativity

Anyone who reads my twitter feed probably knows I also make jewerly in addition to working on my novels. While each of those creative endeavors is it's own thing there are times when they interact with each other. The fantasy novel I'm preparing to revise was started in part thanks to me pondering character ideas while working on a chainmaille bracelet. The magic part came later, though my character pondering provided my first glimpse into this fantasy world.

My main character works with metals, she does chainmaille along with other types of armor. It is her occupation in the start of the novel, which she leaves to discover what else is out there. In addition to this novel I have in mind one or two more to follow my character as she gets involved in more of the conflicts of the land. Where I am right now with the novel is fleshing out the world more, getting to know the different groups of people. Their customs, their histories, what the various groups think of the other groups, and so on.

Getting back to the jewerly aspect of this combined creativity, I was sorting through bits and pieces of things I'd made and found a spiral of wire from awhile back. As I was playing with the spiral I held it up to the back of my hand and thought it would be a neat focal for a bracelet. I looked at it longer and envisioned other spirals from the bracelet and had another thought. This type of bracelet would be something worn by the higher society ladies in the novel series. With clothing and adornments for the different people I'm keeping in mind their occupations. People doing more physical labor aren't going to be all decked out with various pieces of jewerly and their clothing would allow enough movement to do their jobs. They would have simple trinkets while my upper class could have more bangles, and more intricate layers of clothing.

The bracelet I made: (thumbnail linked to Flickr)

Blog series idea: Character Challenges

I've had a lot going on recently, and it's been causing me issues with blogging and online time in general. I figured I would try out something fun for awhile to get back into blogging. I may or may not stick to my previous Sunday schedule. My thought is it may be better to post when I have something to write about instead of trying to fight with the words on a specific day of the week. At least while I'm getting back into the swing of things.

So, one of the things I'd been thinking about offline is human behavior patterns and how they can be applied to fictional characters. After earning my BS in psychology I do tend to mull over behaviors more then other people do. Then I had an idea moment, that it would be fun to have blog posts about a particular behavior along with how it might play out with a fictional character. I'm also hoping that it might help other people reading my blog to ponder over different things, or at the very least be fun to think about how their characters might act in the various situations.

With writing I've never been one to get much out of those character trait lists. I know other people do, they just don't work well with my style of creating characters. I like being able to let my thoughts flow and interact with other character related ideas. It's hard for me to go down a list and figure out each one at a time. If anything I like Holly Lisle's flow chart she has in her create a character book.

That all being said would anyone be interested in playing along with me? Anyone is welcome to add their thoughts about the behavior/situation in the comments and/or how their characters might act. Either way it's something that will be fun for me to write about.

So I Joined Goodreads

Thanks to a blog post by Karen I've decided to sign up over at Goodreads. I've only poked around the site a little so far, but I like what I've seen. It's handy how they have different shelves to add books on, especially the "to read" one. I've been on Librarything for awhile now, which is useful to catalog owned books, so it feels weird adding things on Goodreads that I don't own. I only have so much real shelf space for books at home, and some of my books both loaners and owned are sitting around the house in various locations. (And yes, I do have plans to buy another book case or two sometime soon).

Anyways, I figure I'll spend some time this weekend adding books to various shelves on Goodreads. I'll probably start with the to read shelf so I make sure to have a handy list of books I want to buy or borrow. Though the ones my mom loaned me will probably be read first so I can return them to her. Then at some point I can use my Librarything list to add books to the 'read' shelf on Goodreads.

Further down the line I'm planning on integrating some of the Goodreads widgets onto my website. I have a page for reading, and haven't been sure how to organize it. With the widgets it will be easy enough to quickly display what I'm currently reading along with some of my favorite books. It will be interesting to build virtual book shelves as I enjoy reading many types of books.

So, anyone else on Goodreads? (Or Librarything?)