Wip Novel Part 3.2 !

Drawing a fluffy kitten with an allergy to rodents... it was fun looking at pics and vids of tons of sneezing kittens to try to figure out how to draw the face, haha. Hoping it looks OK, but since I inked the lines already I guess I won't be changing them again unless I edit later digitally. (Sketched with a mechanical pencil then inked with a Pitt artist pen, XS) I kinda goofed the little rodent front paw, should've sketched it out more carefully before inking lines. Maybe I'll be editing that later on... probably...

I feel like a cat

when the first thing I think about when I wake up is what am I going to eat...

and the second thing I think about is when is the next time I am going to sleep.

Migraines.

Suck.

That is all.

cute cat being cute

Writing is Life

If writing is life to you, then you have a right to identify as a writer.

New Year's Declaration: I am a writer. I know this because I need to write, I am not ok when I can't write, or am otherwise prevented from writing. It doesn't matter whether anyone else likes my writing, but I do want to share it in case someone might like my stories. Likewise I don't care whether anyone says I can't call myself a writer if I haven't yet achieved official publication status or monetary compensation for my writing. Visual artists can call themselves artists because they create art, regardless of whether they have achieved a status of supporting themselves at it professionally. I believe in the same for writers. If you write and really care about your writing, then you are a writer if you want to be and believe you are, if writing is a part of you, in your soul.

New Year's Resolution: I resolve to no longer apologize to anyone for doing what I have to do in order to be able to keep writing, and commit to writing. If I don't keep in touch with people as much as they want, if I don't take care of my health as much as people think I should, if there is any other thing that I have to do or not do in order to keep writing, that is for me to decide, and no one else. It doesn't matter if people don't understand why I do the things I do; if it helps me to keep writing, then it is necessary for me, even at the expense of other things. I will not accept guilt based on anyone else wishing I were different. I have to be who I am.

Besides, there's not much else I can reasonably do anymore anyway. I have to write.

Writing is Life.

A Couple of Notes

In The Crossing (current WIP novel) I hesitate to refer to the camp of travelers as refugees or exiles, since although they left their home in order to escape war and being threatened (also raided, plundered, etc) by local armed forces and mercenary types... they weren't specifically evicted or told to leave, nor forced out because of their culture, race, beliefs, or any other such sort of thing. Not... directly.

It was more like, they wanted to remain peacefully neutral and not join the fighting, and being in small unfortified villages and hamlets in the countryside, they simply were easy targets for people who wanted to pick up supplies in quick raids... because of where they lived, and not because of who they were (except for their choice to be neutral). The survivors of the raids found these conditions intolerable, and decided to pack up and leave instead of moving to join any of the (sort of) neighboring fortified burgs that were at war with each other. This doesn't quite fit with a lot of what I read about current common definitions of 'refugees' and I don't wish to confuse people nor in any way minimize the plight of people in the real world on planet Earth who have become refugees or exiles because of their religion/beliefs, culture, ethnicity, or other sorts of differences. I also hesitate to refer to them as 'nomads' because although they have taken up a nomadic sort of existence, it is more of a temporary thing (they hope) like pilgrims or pioneers traveling out of necessity while they seek out a new home to settle in, and not an inherited, cultural way of life like I think the word 'nomad' usually denotes. Likewise, I don't want to refer to them as 'travelers' because it seems in some parts of Europe, that word (in English) specifically is used (perhaps as slang) to refer to the Romani people and their cultural way of life, which is also not what is going on in The Crossing. Sometimes in hash tags I am putting 'traveling people' because I am not sure what else to refer to their current nomadic sort of way of life as, since although they might accurately be referred to as a type of pioneers (in Bennuma) that term could also be confused with a specific time period and the geographic area of North America... and similar issues with the term 'pilgrims' exist, in addition to that term typically also designating having religious reasons for traveling, or 'making a pilgrimage'.

Perhaps eventually I might figure out what would be a term to use that I'd consider ideal, or at least acceptable. For now, it's something of a muddle to me.

Also note: regretfully, I cannot currently be sure to post updates to the Crossing WIP novel @bennuma-crossing according to a regular schedule (as also, the informational, sometimes-containing-short-stories, worldbuilding sort of background blog @legends-of-bennuma) but I am trying to do so without huge gaps in time between posts. After section 1.7 of The Crossing, I plan to get into what I currently consider to be chapter 2... the novel being more or less a first draft, someday after the thing is completed perhaps the novel will be divided differently chapter-wise, I don't know yet... admittedly I sometimes get in a muddle over where to make chapter divisions.

The Crossing - Chapter 2

First section of Chapter 2 now up, over @bennuma-crossing

Sorry to anyone who may actually be reading along, for it taking me so long. I had such a difficult time focusing on this section, but........... Brylin had to show up and be introduced sometime. Perhaps she will amuse some people; in any case, I think that getting her take on some things should be useful since the various characters view each other in different ways.

Nina also makes an appearance... which amuses me more.

A Note:

This blog is something of both background and introduction to the (fictional) (fantasy) world of Bennuma, to contain things such as historical notes, facts, legends, fables, myths, or other sorts of stories or longstanding traditional tales, as told from the point of view of people from the world of Bennuma.

Less of an exhaustive compendium and more like a selection of excerpts pulled from various sources and abridged, translated, or otherwise compiled into what is hopefully a beginner-friendly form.

To begin with, and until otherwise noted, this blog is to be written from the point of view of Hadimer, someone who was in many ways one of the most notable scholars in the later ages of a particularly significant Life of the world of Bennuma, writing during what later would be designated as the time of the IceGem.

Also note, Bennuma is what can be called a Phoenix World, which means that it literally is destroyed and remade from time to time and in between these destructions, each is referred to as a different Life of the world, or WorldLife. Some are very different in many ways, though it is the same world and many things will be the same. Some WorldLives are very similar to each other, having very similar things happen at similar points in the Life of the world. Note that these cannot properly be considered to be parallels, because they aren't happening at the same time in different universes (nor can one expect to find parallel versions of the same people, etc.) but it literally is the same planet re-made, in the same place of the same universe, only at a different point in time. (it's not a sci-fi multiverse parallel worlds thing) (nor can one expect individuals to be re-incarnated into parallel versions of themselves or any other form, from one WorldLife to the next... that's a thing for other worlds, not this one. In the rare instances where anyone might come back to life, it won't be via re-incarnation... and even if it looks like an exception where it might be re-incarnation, it technically isn't... unless it is an exception to the exception and really is, but that would be something that would never happen... unless it might if there were one exception to it, but even then, it might not really be that after all.)

One-question survey

Re: my Bennuma Crossing story

(which btw has a new update, section 2.2 posted (aka chapter 2, second part)

Intro:

Assuming that a fair proportion of followers to this blog are actually followers of The Crossing story ( @bennuma-crossing ) ...and that no one has bothered to follow that blog because they are following this one instead, because I tend to make posts here when I update that story, and random comments or whatever else (including unrelated things) goes in here so that I won't clutter up that blog...

(I could be wrong, but otherwise I have no clue why anyone at all actually follows this blog)

The Question:

Would people reading The Crossing prefer if I post relatively short story sections, in order to attempt to post more frequently? Or, do people prefer to have long sections to read, even if it means they are posted less frequently?

Please reply via comments, choosing one or more of the following multiple choice answers:

"please post more frequently, even if they are short sections"

"please post long sections, even if they are infrequent"

"I choose to write some other kind of comment for some reason"

"What are you even talking about? What is this blog anyway?"

klmklfnvjuiawehbn CSNzvzfzevoivwakpo zlk vcn dv (translation: "I am a cat." )

The Crossing WIP novel

...got the last section of what I currently consider as chapter 1 of The Crossing WIP fantasy novel up now, over in my @bennuma-crossing blog... if you haven't seen it yet, there's sort of an info thing pinned at the top, and then 7 sections (not whole chapters, more like scenes or parts of scenes, depending on how you see it) 1.1 - 1.7 which I am calling "chapter 1"

It's taking place in a fantasy world of my own creation, though currently set in a part of the world where there's almost no magic. (Also, btw, it's relatively early in the history of that world, though there would have been a lot of important historical events that happened previously... think of how on Earth there was such a thing as relatively early in "recorded history" but which was a time period after there had already been a looooooong stretch of time before recorded history in which really quite a lot had happened all over the world... including some of which might have been recorded but subsequently lost)

Reminder: I also have a blog that has more info about the world of Bennuma and history of it and such, @legends-of-bennuma ...I do plan to add more to that at some point of both shorts and general information, but for now plan to put more time into writing chapter 2 of the Crossing, so... no promises about when there will be more of the legends stuff.