Writing

     I've spent the last week or so working quite a bit on my story, Colorless.  It's coming along rather nicely considering I have a nasty habit of starting stories and then getting horrible writer's block and giving up.  I haven't written in a while, and I figured I'd go ahead and take this moment to kind of try to kick start my creative juices (I always thought that phrase sounded a little gross...creative flow, maybe? That sounds a bit better).  Sorry if you don't understand whatever I'm talking about in this post, as I know the story details are in my head and not in yours, Ghost Reader, and so you can't always know what I'm on about.  However, this should be an interesting experiment, and it will hopefully really help me in my moment of writer's block.
     I'm gonna try a free association-type thing and just start writing whatever I think about my current story problem, and hopefully doing this will lead me to some sort of logical conclusion.  So, here't goes.

My current problem is that I need my protagonist, Aleena, to go on a journey/adventure type thing across the entire kingdom in which she lives in order to challenge or in some way confront the evil queen, Ira, for the throne.  She's never left the small mountain town in which she grew up, so this is a rather big deal for her, and something for which she is certainly not at all prepared.  The problem is that I need a REASON for her to feel she can and has to do this.  Even if she doesn't feel like it's possible or that it will work, I need her to feel that there is no choice in the matter.  At the moment, the best reason I can come up with is that Ira has kidnapped her best friend.  However, this seems rather silly to me, and I don't really like the idea all that much.  The one thing I can think of that would definitely be a good enough driving force for Aleena to journey across an entire kingdom with which she is unfamiliar and which is incredibly dangerous is a mother's love.  If Ira kidnapped Aleena's son (I just like the idea of the kidnapped person being male) , then that would definitely be enough for her to go on this incredible journey to do whatever it takes to save her son.
     Problem solved, right?  Wrong.  I want Aleena to be 20 (I don't want her to be a teen, but I also still want her to be close to my age so I'm not writing about something completely different from my own experiences), and I want her to be a bit lonely.  I also don't want her to be married or to have been married and have lost her husband in some way.  So I could just have her have an illegitimate child right?  Well, no, since I don't really approve of that, and Aleena is certainly not that kind of character.  I don't think she's been raped or anything either, that's just too horrible and I don't even want to get into it.  So having a child would be nice, but only if Aleena is somehow asexual and can have a kid by herself...which won't work.
     So she can't have a child.  Then perhaps she could have a little brother?  Her mom could have gotten remarried, and maybe the stepdad even left or died or something, who knows.  OR WAIT!!!  Maybe she could have a twin brother!!!  That would be pretty cool!!!  Then they would have the same dad, so there would be no need to bring someone else into the picture (which I didn't like the idea of since Aleena's mom was completely devoted and in love with her husband...she wouldn't have remarried or anything like that), and then it would give them a special bond that could possibly be the driving force behind her need to save him!!! Also, the powers that Aleena has are passed down through the female line, so she would have them but her brother would not!!!  It could work out so well!!!  Oh I'm so excited now!!!  I think I really like this idea!!!

YAY!!! MY POST WORKED!!!!  I'm really happy about this :).  Since this one worked so well, expect me to try this again whenever I can't find a solution for a particular story problem :).  I'm going to continue with this now because I still have a couple kinks to work out.

So, if Aleena has a twin brother, she can't look like him because she's colorless.  He has to be distinctive in some way that she is not, perhaps even in his clear normality (since she is so obviously not normal).  They need to be completely different and yet very close.  I was going to name him Oliver, but I don't think I want to.  I think he needs a bit less normal name (even though I really like that name).  I'll consider that later, I guess.  Anyways, Ira has to kidnap him in some way.  How?  Why?  Why would she track down Aleena at this point in her life?  Well, perhaps Aleena used a power for the first time and Ira was aware of it and used this to track her down in some way.  But then she can't touch Aleena (who has a special charm from the Sea Dragons to protect her from the queen), and so she takes her brother instead?  Takes a hostage so Aleena has to come to her?  But why would she want Aleena to come to her?  What is so special about the CAPITAL (I haven't named it yet) that Ira needs Aleena there?  If she has a plan for how to kill Aleena/steal her powers, then why does it have to happen in the CAPITAL?  Why can't it happen in Arilia? Perhaps it's something to do with the graves of the sisters?  No, that sounds too HP-like (since Voldemort rose from the "dead" in a graveyard on the site of his father's grave).  Perhaps just the scene of the murder?  That's more plausible.  GOT IT!!!!  Ira need Aleena to come the the CAPITAL because she needs Aleena to kill HERSELF in the same room as Ira killed her sisters!!!  Since Ira is cursed from murdering her sisters, she can't "inherit" Aleena's powers if she dies; however!  If Aleena kills herself, she will be a) dead and b) cursed as well, and doing it in the same room and in the same way (with the same weapon, perhaps) as Ira killed her sisters can be some sort of twisted ritual to somehow give Ira the powers!!!  And Aleena is willing to do this only as long as Ira promises to not harm her brother!!!  This is great!!!  It's not perfect, of course, but it's better than what I had before!!!

This then begs the question: Why does Aleena killing herself in the same room and the same way as Ira murdered the Sisters reverse Ira's curse?  How does this take the bloodstains off her hands?  Perhaps only one person can be cursed at a time?  Hmm...that sounds kind of strange, because what if two of the sisters had killed the rest?  And still, Aleena's suicide would be for the sake of someone else's life, while Ira's murder spree was selfish...so what other factors could play in this situation that would somehow remove the curse from Ira?  Maybe Ira has Aleena kill her instead, but then it turns out not to be her?  It turns out to be some innocent instead or something, staining Aleena somehow?  No, that sounds a bit too involved, and I have no idea how Aleena would win after that.  That sounds like a hopeless situation for her.  Hmmm...this one is more difficult than the problem before.  Why would Aleena's suicide, which would be a sacrifice for her brother's life, lift the curse from Ira?  How do those two things, the sacrificial suicide and the curse lifting, go together?  What links them?  Would the curse move to Aleena after that?  Well, she'd be dead, so I don't know.  Maybe so, since she'd still be killing someone.  But it would be sacrificial, and I feel that the blessing would be able to tell that...it would recognize her act as something selfless and not curse her.  So how could Ira plan to have the curse lifted off her?

I think I'm through for now.  I've drawn a blank that even this random type-thinking is not helping.  Perhaps I should leave that question alone for now and focus on the things I DO have :).

Thanks for reading my thoughts!!

Auf wiedershen!
Victoria

PS: Erik and I are learning German!!  It's fun so far :).  We know several common phrases (like I love you = Ich liebe dich), and so we say them to each other instead of the English :).