Archive for the ‘Asher’s Magic’ Category

Straightforwardness

Monday, November 5th, 2012

Main characters in my finished and published stories, ranked in order of straightforwardness, starting with the most straightforward and ending with the least:

Rafe Dirisio — (Lone)
Paul Graham — (Paul’s Dream)
Joe Wilson — (A Picture’s Worth)
Kian Somers — (Paul’s Dream)
Zakai — (Paul’s Dream)
Joel Beckett — (Want Me)
Keith Taylor — (Chasing Winter)
Ace Donovan — (One Good Hand/One Good Year)
Riley Jameson — (One Shot)
Walker Cain — (Want Me)
Nick Carlyle — (One Shot)
Spade Hart — (One Good Hand/One Good Year)
Seth Anderson — (Lone)
Draven Donnor — (Just Perfect)
Mason Ripley — (A Picture’s Worth)
Asher Croft — (Paul’s Dream)
Jesse Winter — (Chasing Winter)
Dorian Burns — (Lone)
Cody West — (Just Perfect)

You might be thinking, “What?! How is Jesse so far down on the list, and how is WALKER square in the middle??” If you are thinking that, what follows is what passes for logic on my end:

First, this list only gauges straightforwardness, and does not take badassitude into account. Though, really, when you think about it, Jesse is plenty badass. Whenever Keith–who is gigantic and endowed with freaky super strength–steps out of line, Jesse never hesitates to knock him right back into it.

Second, the ranking is value-neutral. So whatever nefarious schemes a character might have going on (I’m looking at you, Draven), they don’t count for anything in this list.

Last, straightforwardness does not mean trustworthy. So, while Spade is arguably the most trustworthy character on the list, he waits till damned-near the end of the first book to tell Ace what he is, which Ace doesn’t take well. At all.

But anyway.

Jesse is in the bottom three because through most of Chasing Winter what he says and what he’s thinking are totally out of sync. For example:

“You always told me that willpower could accomplish anything.”

If I had known he’d remember every damned thing I said, I would have tried harder to stay away from such trite clichés. “Yes, I did say that.”

Or–

Keith grinned. “I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?” He left the couch and searched out his briefs. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

I grabbed the top of the couch with my right arm and pulled myself up to watch him dress. Now that he wasn’t touching me, I felt…oh, God, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. “Thank you.”

And he’s like that through most of the book. So now he’s on the bottom of a totally arbitrary, written-by-the-whim-of-the-author list on straightforwardness.

Jesse was fairly easy to place. If you’ve read Just Perfect, then you know why Cody ranks rock-bottom. No brainer. Same with Rafe and Paul. Rafe wears his heart on his sleeve and is always sure everyone around him knows where he stands. Paul’s heart is frozen solid for a while, but even then everything he does has a reason and he has no qualms about explaining those reasons to you.

Walker wasn’t so easy. Sure, he locks Joel to him in a horrifying spiral of magic that pretty much ruins both their lives, but remember–nefariousness has no weight on this list. He’s also a liar by nature, which would naturally rank him lower. But he doesn’t fuck around when it comes to his obsession with Joel. Never deviates. Never lets Joel forget that he’s never going to deviate. So, yeah, horrifying. But hey, straightforward.

You’re probably safer if you just don’t believe in anything Dorian does or says. Ever. I know it sort of worked out in Lone, but dude. Trust me on that one.

Riley was also hard to place. One Shot’s told from Nick’s point of view, and he’s royally freaked out through most of that story, so it’s hard to gauge how much of Riley’s actions are warped by that filter.

Seth was a pain in the ass. He’s got that crazy Ravager-magic-want-it-now-so-will-HAVE-IT-NOW thing going on. And first instinct is to rank him higher because even in human form he’s all “Look at my massive brown puppy eyes don’t you want to pet my hair?” But Seth doesn’t even know himself, so by default that cripples his ability to be straightforward with Rafe.

So that’s my logic, such as it is. I think it’s pretty easy to see why I put the others in their places on the list.

My question: Do you agree with me? Disagree? Where would you rank these guys, and why?


Interesting fact: I was not aware that “straightforwardness” was a legit word until I typed it up for the first time and didn’t get the red spell-fail squigglies. Prior to that I’d assumed I had made it up. “Squigglies,” however, is apparently fake, which feels wrong to me. >.>

Goals: I haz them.

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

I didn’t write a New Year’s resolution post because I didn’t feel like I’d achieved much in 2010/2011. I sorta figured I was hella lucky to have a novella out in 2012 and shouldn’t push that luck. Plus I go through this thing periodically where I feel like I suck.

Then an old friend sent me a card. Inside, she had cut and pasted (as in actually cut and pasted, with paper and scissors and—I assume—paste) a dozen little quotes and images that reminded her of me. It made me laugh. It totally made me feel like I didn’t suck.

So I got back to writing, and my short little bonus fic turned into another novella. Sold novella to publisher. Rocked out to The Offspring in my living room. Realized it was only January and that this could get interesting.

Below are a list of my goals for 2012. I’m going to do my best to achieve them. I’m not going to beat myself up over it if I don’t. I’m also going to be flexible and open to change.

I think it’s going to be a good year.

  • Updates to the website
    • I didn’t put up any additions to Best of Rowan’s Ramblings for 2011, and there were some pretty good ones. (Check: 2-16-11)
    • I’m thinking of doing a bit of a redesign to the overall look and navigation to the site. For a while there I never had more than three published books out at a time, but I’m up to seven now so I think it’s fair to say that the trend is good and over. My book list is starting to look a little unruly.
    • I’d also like to make the place more mobile friendly. As is, it doesn’t look too bad on phones because the original design took into account smaller laptop/monitor screens, but a mobile option could make things cleaner and easier to navigate on a phone.
  • Updates to Stories
    • This is the year I finish The Jascian’s Toy. I can feel it.
    • Write One Good Verse, which will bring the One Good series to three. I do like that number. Plus I’ve been working on it forever and I’m really digging the world right now.
    • Maybe Touching Fire: Asher’s Magic. Asher Croft is so very hot and his story should be a lot of fun.
    • If things go well with Drayner series, #1: Just Perfect, maybe I’ll get the green light on #2: Just Wait, the rough of which is already done.
    • Get Want Me into e-book format. XD
  • Conventions
    • DragonCon, if any. I ditch it for something else this year there’s a certain group of friends who will probably murder me in my sleep.
  • Blogging
    • I’m going to try and get into a regular schedule. Maybe {gasp} write a few posts ahead of time, so I can have them set to upload automatically. Most likely Thursdays. Of course, all bets are off if I’m on a roll with the story section above.
    • Post parts 2 and 3 of my 2011 YaoiCon wrap-up before YaoiCon 2012. *headdesk*

I think that’s the plan. There’s some tweaks I want to make to my own attitude, which brings us to one of the quotes my friend sent me:

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
–Marilyn Monroe

There was a time when I wrote fearlessly, when—no matter how crazy the idea—I would take what came to me and run with it. Didn’t matter whether it was thirty-five foot giant alien teenagers kidnapping humans to be their toys, or hell-bent roommates sucking the life out of the objects of their desire. They were the stories inside me, and I had every confidence I could tell them.

That’s the big goal. The one I’m going to work hardest on. I want to write madly, brilliantly, ridiculously. I want to be the person in that carefully crafted card.

And I want to have a blast doing it.