Writing & Art Update, The Classified Show

Man, TONS has happened in my life, artistically. I have had an unusual amount of time to devote to creating lately, and I’ve packed it in with art.

First, a big update about The Unraveler. It’s ready to go. I’ve edited it and edited it, used feedback from a bunch of people, and I’ve edited it some more. I think it’s time to try to sell it to agents, so wish me luck on that front. I’ve been perfecting my query letter.

Second, I’ve been working on the sequel novel, and it’s going to be incredible. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I’ve designed my novels to have huge payoff. The stuff I’m coming up with is, first and foremost, FUN. That’s the goal of my novel writing: to create novels that have a core rooted in FUN.

Also, I’ve been painting. She’s a character in my novel named Rosalyn, one of my favorites. I’m going to do a blog next month about my painting process, but I’ll share this for now:

Rosalyn Eris of The Unraveler

I also took part in another 24/hour new play festival with PRIME. They have an awesome new website. I was a set designer this time around, and so I helped to create the set that is pictured below. It’s supposed to be an apartment for a conspiracy theorist that has been ransacked by an unknown agency. Evidence is littered through the set. Each of the plays was about a conspiracy of sorts, so the set went with each.

Thanks for reading, catch up with me on twitter.

A post shared by David Oxyborb Aye (@oxyborb) on Apr 29, 2017 at 9:02am PDT

New Look, Inspiration, and a Tribute

As I hope you're able to tell, this website has undergone a few aesthetic changes. Also, the mobile version now more aligns with the browser. I'm trying some new stuff, still playing around with ideas. Yeah, and I added my crows. Blogger made some changes to how their templates work, and so my old look needed revamping pretty badly. I'm probably going to be going through the entire site and cleaning up dusty pages while I'm at it. It's 2017, right? Time for change?

Inspiration is the next thing I want to talk about now, since it's a fresh new year and all. Someone I work with told me I should be doing more, and she's right. I sometimes get down that my ambition to write and publish novels isn't immediately rewarding me. I work at a school for autistic kids, and it's rough on me. I'm constantly bruised up, hurt. I'm dead tired at the end of the day, constantly sick. I believe that I have the creative power to make money writing stories. It's just that editing a novel, for a new writer, is a lot of work. I'm not G.R.R. Martin, but what I've crafted is fairly complex. Anyway, what I'm saying is that I do believe in myself, but it's nice to have someone else say that they too believe in me. I've had that luxury a few times lately, out of nowhere. Another random friend I haven't seen in years messaged me saying that they always thought I'd do something amazing. I need to live up to that expectation. I need to make that my own.

Another thing that happened recently is the death of one of my high school English teachers. I wanted to post what I wrote on Facebook here so that I will remember her when I write. She was very important to my aspirations, you see.

Ms. Bielong inspired me to become a reader. I definitely wouldn't have gotten an English degree if it hadn't been for her. 

I hated English, as a subject. I thought reading was boring. 

Somehow, I ended up in a lit class with Ms. Bielong, and she kept putting astoundingly good book after astoundingly good book in front of me. Logan's Run, Ender's Game, The Giver, Alas Babylon, 1984, and The Good Earth are still some of my all-time favorites, ever, and I was given them all in one Appreciation Of Literature class. I tore through those books. I know I read a few of them in a night. 

I remember that she handed out copies of Pride And Prejudice for homework. I could barely stand to read it. The next day, she collected up all the copies saying something along the lines of, "I couldn't make it to page 5, so I don't expect you to." Then she handed us 1984 instead... which I destroyed. I remember reading in class, having the books she gave me at my feet during choir practice. Man, I might never have read Harry Potter if not for her sparking my interest in reading. I certainly would have never begun writing novels for myself, which is now my biggest passion. I think about her from time to time, when I'm remembering how I got to be where I am. 

So, I'm not just saying this because she passed. She really did have a profound effect on my life. She made me a reader. All that said, I should also mention that I did theatre, and she was a major part of that. I was in the audience for her last play at Belleville West. I've been reading what other classmates have said, and many others feel the same about how much of an influence she was to her students. 

Thank you, Ms. Bielong. I hope you rest well.

More Kudanites and Master-of-None

My last blog post was partially about kudanites. These are creatures of my own invention, which came from inspiring pictures of seahorses I took. After drawing them last month and also editing chapters in which they are in, I felt so inspired to try my hand at sculpting one out of clay.

Here is the result:

It was modeled after these drawings (which I drew).








Here it is from the front and back. Weirdly flat.







The leg/tentacles were fun to do. The paint is mixed with metallic silver.







I tried to make a creature unlike anything I've seen in lit before.






The stand is a mint-container, loaded with rocks.






 

I have always excelled at art. I love painting, sculpting, writing, song composition... etc. But when I decided to become a writer, I knew I'd need to focus to actually master it. I didn't want to be the doer-of-all, master-of-none. So, I quit most of the other types of art I made. When I get the itch, I try to scratch it within the realm of my writing projects. This was that. I needed to sculpt, so I did something for my book.

Climactic Moment/The Payoff

I used to play in garage bands back when I was in high school. There was this guy, a kid who seemed to know everyone in the local scene, and he taught me a valuable lesson about art that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

You need a climax, a moment of extreme payoff, a part of the art that rises above all the rest and makes the whole progression through it slam into one pivotal revelation. 

a Game of Thrones sigil I drew when I was bored one day

I had been writing songs, then. I was the singer in all the bands I’ve been in, and that position usually also made me the songwriter. My friend, Julius, had just taken me into one of his bands. I was adding a slower song to it. Something mellow and unlike anything I had written before.

Julius told me that he liked the song, but that it needed a climactic moment. That, being that the entire song was mellow, the verses and choruses didn’t seem to be building to anything. My tune was good, my guitar riffs were sound, but I wasn’t providing that key moment that would make the listener’s climb to the end of the song worthwhile.

I envisioned the song. I cut the drums and bass out of the beginning. I started it with just my voice and guitar. Harmonizing came on the second verse. Bass came in on the second chorus. A vamp, a musical interlude with different styling, fit in next. Finally, the lead chorus came again, only I added hard-hitting drums and made the instruments fly. Instead of mellow singing, then, I had loud, passionate singing.

It made a decent song into a great song.

I’ve been editing my novel lately, also thinking about other books I’ve read. Payoff is such an integral need in a longer work. When a person reads 300+ pages, they are going to go through sections that are work as well as play. The end must have a climax. It must have payoff. It must have that pivotal revelation.

During this edit, I’ve been thinking about how all the best books have their plots and subplots all unravel into one great climax. The payoff hits and hits and hits, right at the end. I’ve been working on that, and the build up. It’s a challenge to do it right, in a way that weaves all the smaller aspects of the story into a meaningful web. If you look at works like Cloud Atlas (the movie, never read the book) or A Storm of Swords, you peer into the lives of many different characters with different desires, goals, and situations, but they weave together. When the payoff comes at the end, you see that. You understand.

I just want to be that kind of artist. I want my books to have payoff. Just my thoughts today. Hope you’re having a good one!

Follow me @Oxyborb and check out my website at http://www.harrisonaye.com Thanks for reading!