Pixileanin

[Pixileanin]

... this post is under construction.  Please stand by ...

[Guest Tanda]

Rabbits, tea and coffee...a curse breaker...?

[Stella Blue]

Hi Pix! I see your first post is under construction, haha, but that doesn't deter me from jumping in here with a bunch of questions! For the 2018-19 House Cup opener.

 

1. So, I've just noticed that you have 42 stories on your page! That is so many - congratulations! Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?

2. Do you have a particular one you're most proud of?

3. What do you think makes a great protagonist?

4. I read the first few chaptwrs of Rabbit Heart ages ago and was really struck by how impressively you created a tone of mystery and unease. What advice would you have for other writers on how to write mystery?

5. Are there characters/themes/genres you haven't written but would like to? Or any that you will absolutely never write?

6. If you were hired to design new currency for the wizarding world, what would you call it and what would it have on it?

7. What animal would you be if you were an Animagus?

8. What do you like to read outside of fanfiction?

 

Enjoy

Edited September 15, 2018 by Stella Blue

[grumpy cat]

hello there pix! i'm here for the house cup opener

1. first of all - i've read a bunch of your stories, and was really impressed by how you manage to write a lot of different characters! how do you, well, get into their mindset, so to speak? i mean, for example, cornelius fudge in 'tell me minister, what is the truth' was a wonderful study of his character and very in character, even if i first thought he'd react in a different way - you made me believe in 'your fudge'.

2. you wrote a story in the POV of a lamp post! where did you get the inspiration for that story? how did you manage to write a lamp post (an object) as a person?

3. do you have a favourite era you like to write about? (and why?)

4. what's your favourite genre to write?

5. which character from the HP series do you find the most interesting? to read or to write about? is there a character you'd like to write about but haven't already?

[Pixileanin]

@Stella Blue  Hey there!  I guess you made this thing "official" and all.  Look, questions!!

 

1. So, I've just noticed that you have 42 stories on your page! That is so many - congratulations! Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?

Uh, yeah.  About that... I had a bunch of one-shots from another site from a while ago, and I thought, "Hey, if I posted these individually, I could give some of the other authors a run for their money for most stories posted," and well, that's what happened.  Haha.    There was this House Cup activity, with the theme "games", and I wrote a bunch for it.  There you go. 

2. Do you have a particular one you're most proud of?

I think my Sirius Black one-shot is the one that was the hardest to write, and also has a cool flow, so for a while, I liked that one the best.  But it changes with my mood.  

3. What do you think makes a great protagonist?

Ah, well.  Protagonists.  They have to have problems, and they have to be interesting.  Also, a combination of uniqueness with something that connects them to humanity in general.  You know when you're developing a character, you want them to be  an individual, but you also need them to be REAL, someone that readers can relate to on a personal level... something that makes people care.  Yeah?

4. I read the first few chaptwrs of Rabbit Heart ages ago and was really struck by how impressively you created a tone of mystery and unease. What advice would you have for other writers on how to write mystery?

I love writing Mystery!  It's like a puzzle that I can put together in my head.  Mystery is one of those genres that actually benefits from pre-planning, and improves greatly with revision.  That fits in with my non-linear writing process, where I think through the plot, and it gets bigger and out of control, and then I have to rein it in and have it make sense.  But yeah, definitely, it's like a big puzzle.  You have to know what it's going to look like before you start.  And most of the time, you're not sure how you're going to get there until you have all the pieces in front of you.  Sometimes, a few pieces fall under the couch, or get eaten by the dog, and you have to start over.  That's okay, because I'm a chronic re-writer. 

5. Are there characters/themes/genres you haven't written but would like to? Or any that you will absolutely never write?

I don't know if there's something I'd "never" write.  I always said I'd never write a Dramione, but then I added vampires, and voila!  So... I really can't answer that.  I definitely prefer characters who are loyal, but then I would write stories about betrayal and not stories about cheating on dedicated long-term relationships.  I guess I don't know where the line is until I'm standing toe-to-toe with it.

6. If you were hired to design new currency for the wizarding world, what would you call it and what would it have on it?

The Giblet.  It would look like dog food, and everyone would confuse it with owl treats.  It'd make life more interesting.

7. What animal would you be if you were an Animagus?

An owl.  And I'd eat all the Giblets I could find.  Rich owl.  Yeah.  Bring on the owl pellet excavation!

8. What do you like to read outside of fanfiction?

I love sci-fi, with the emphasis on the 'fi'.  I love fantasy.  I love reading sci-fi/fantasy.  I also have started reading thriller/mysteries.  And semi-dark fiction.  Not too dark, but not too light.  I also like a bit of romance from time to time, but I prefer the romance to be a sub-genre to the actual plot.  I'm not interested in wandering through someone's love life for an entire novel unless there's something else to keep me interested.  

 

Thanks for the great questions!  

[Guest Tanda]

Hi, just stopped by to drop my work for Inktober 2018, Day 6 featuring your story, The Madness of Magic, chapter 2.

 

questions:

1 What made you be interested in writing the battle between British Empire and America?

 

2 Tell me your opinion about the native Americans and black people at that time.

 

3 Any thoughts about the battle?

 

4 What type of the dragon was used in your story? (sorry, mine is needed to be drawn better...）

 

5 Have you ever visited Boston？

 

 

[Pixileanin]

@starbuck:  HEY!  I'm finally getting around to answering your fun questions.  Thanks for stopping in.  (blows away construction dust)

Lessee....

1. first of all - i've read a bunch of your stories, and was really impressed by how you manage to write a lot of different characters! how do you, well, get into their mindset, so to speak? i mean, for example, cornelius fudge in 'tell me minister, what is the truth' was a wonderful study of his character and very in character, even if i first thought he'd react in a different way - you made me believe in 'your fudge'.

I um... well, I think about what the most unlikely event could be that would happen to the character, something to juxtapose them against what they ordinarily do or how they act, and then sit back and watch them flounder.  Except for Fudge.  That was pretty much straight up, and I don't do 'straight up' too often.  So that story was more putting me in the hot seat of using the character in a traditional manner.  

 

2. you wrote a story in the POV of a lamp post! where did you get the inspiration for that story? how did you manage to write a lamp post (an object) as a person?

Ah, that story was written for a ffnet challenge with certain prompts.  The judges were, err... how shall I say... I was losing my respect for them, I guess, based on the comments I was getting from my stories and the comments that my teammates were getting as well.  So I decided, instead of conforming my stories to what they wanted to read (which, if you're a writer, WHY??) I started pushing boundaries.  Like character... what constitutes character?  Needs, wants and fears.  And then I used my favorite location, Diagon Alley, which was the place prompt.  And then I tried to pick something that sees a lot, but perhaps doesn't get noticed.  Because that's always fun.  After that, I just needed something to happen.

 

3. do you have a favourite era you like to write about? (and why?)

Nah, no favorite era.  Places, yes.  Eras, not really.

 

4. what's your favourite genre to write?

I LOVE mystery.  Mostly because I can write my stories out of order and put them together like a puzzle... which is mostly how mysteries get all their hints and accusations buried so readers don't scream AH-HA at the first page.

 

5. which character from the HP series do you find the most interesting? to read or to write about? is there a character you'd like to write about but haven't already?

Sybill.  I hate spelling her last name.  She had a minor part in my novel, Until We Close Our Eyes For Good (M), and I always thought she was batty as all get out.  I'd love to go back and live in that battiness some more, and build her up and see where she takes me.  Also, because not many people spend time on her, she's a fanfic open slate.  I love exploring characters that fanfic readers have no expectations for.  

 

Thanks for making my Writing Journal have more words on it!  I should really spend more time here... hmm...

[Pixileanin]

KENNY!!!

@StarFeather: You made a beautiful thing!  I was stunned!!  Thank you so much, it's wonderful!

Also, thank you for being one of about 6 people who actually read The Madness of Magic (T) Not many people are into historic fics, and crossovers and such.  It was so much fun to team up with Phoenix Potioneer for this story!

And you had questions:

1 What made you be interested in writing the battle between British Empire and America?

It all had to do with the crossover idea.  Phoenix Potioneer and I discussed possible crossover ideas, and when we landed on Hamilton, we knew we had a cool era to work with.  It could have just been in England, but the second chapter needed a dragon (per the prompts, I think) and I thought that dragons would be an interesting addition to the naval battle.

2 Tell me your opinion about the native Americans and black people at that time.

Ah, the native Americans really got the bad side of the deal.  There was so much "we will promise you this" and then "here, you get this little square of dirt to play in while we take over the rest of your world".  It's just heartbreaking to have that as part of the history of our country.  Also the slaves.  The whole idea of "these people are better and more worthy than those people" permeates a lot of our histories, all over the world.  It takes a lot of work to overcome and move past that.  

3 Any thoughts about the battle?

I did a lot of research for that battle scene.  I wanted to make sure that the outcome was historically accurate, and that I wasn't messing up the details.  It was quite a cool thing to come across a battle where the British fleet was all set up to win, and then the surprise visit from another fleet completely turned the tide of the outcome.  King George was known as the 'mad king' for several reasons, so it'd make sense for him to use every advantage.  I bet if he had access to a dragon, he'd use it.  It was also very cool that I found a ship named the HMS Terrible, which was the authentic name of one of the British ships that had sunk in the battle.  I decided that was the perfect ship to bring back to King George as a souvenir.

4 What type of the dragon was used in your story? (sorry, mine is needed to be drawn better...）

I only mentioned it once in the story, because Emily had never seen a dragon before, and she saw it from a distance, but King George knew what it was.  It was a Ukrainian Ironbelly.  I decided that a color-blind dragon would mix up the flags of the French and The English, since they were both the same colors at the time... and well, it really didn't like the noise and the smoke. Your drawing is fantastic!  I've always loved ink!

5 Have you ever visited Boston？

Ah, no.  I've never been to Boston.  The closest I've been was Maryland.  My brother-in-law had a sailboat and took me out on it in the Chesapeake a long time ago, so I've seen the Cape.  But I get seasick on sailing vessels, so we weren't out there for very long.  I doubt I'd have been in good shape for a voyage from Boston to the Cape, sailing in the Atlantic.  The Bay was tough enough for me. 

 

Thanks for reading our story!  We had a lot of fun with it, and I LOVE your drawing!

[Pixileanin]

Status Update:

I'm still picking away at that short story.  I hope to have it completed by the end of November, but my muse isn't too happy with it at the moment.  This morning, I will go and pick at it for about half an hour and see if I can get it back on its feet again.

My OF novel has its first scene!  This is exciting because I have had this idea hanging around for about four years, and it never went anywhere.  I switched up the world for it and won NaNo with it a few years ago, but the plot never crested.  It just ran itself into the ground.  But now, I think I've got a fresh perspective.  The first scene came out pretty good, and blew away several old concepts I've had with the story, giving me new material to work with.  Always exciting, right?

Anyway, back to my document.  

[Guest Rumpelstiltskin]

Heya, Pix! I've been going ham up in your AP lately (and I'm not done) -- so, questions and things! 

I don't know why you're second-guessing yourself while writing OF -- His Name Was Smeed is amazing. You're a strong writer, and you have a knack for writing across various genres. Believe in yourself -- you've totally got this.

1. Your world-building in His Name Was Smeed was awesome, especially given the word count restriction. What was involved in the process of building the world outside of the story? If there was any additional world building you wish you could add if you hadn't been stopped by the word count, what sorts of things would you have added in?
2. Smeed's misgivings (most specifically when he "goes too far" with that woman) seem to be solely based on the fact that he struggles to control his vampire urges. In fact, he even has a conflict of moral interest when he's "doing the job" given to him by the Council. In your opinion, is Smeed more morally good or more morally wicked? (My money is on more morally good.)
3. How did you come up with the type of jobs that Burns and Smeed are responsible for doing? It not only reveals a lot about the council but does wonders for revealing some of Smeed's characterization. Do you suppose that Smeed will eventually become hardened to it and be able to stave off those feelings of heroism and guilt? 
4. Are you planning on continuing in this verse in the future?

[facingthenorthwind]

Pix! You may have noticed that I am in love with several things you have written.  So I am here to ask you questions!

1. Who is your favourite character to write? 
2. Lots of your stories expand on the wizarding world in SUPER cool ways. Do you struggle with reconciling some of the enormous plot holes in JKR's worldbuilding? If so, how do you fix them?
3. Your fics are SO varied and creative. Do you get your ideas mostly from challenges/prompts, or from your own incredible brain?

[Pixileanin]

Hello, Writer's Journal.  Long time, huh?  After finishing the first draft of my OF Novel (which will need a major revision before it's ready for beta), I decided to come and revise this thing, which I have sadly neglected for too long.

@Rumpelstiltskin I am so sorry it's taken me MONTHS to get to these lovely questions!  Please accept my overdue answers as a consolation:

1. I'm so glad you loved the Smeed fic!  The character Smeed plays heavily in my FF novel, Rabbit Heart.  He's one of the vampires, obviously, and his partner, Burns is as well.  Those two just jumped right off the screen in that story, and I always thought they had this rich and sordid backstory, so I wanted to explore it in an OF setting.  The timelines don't match up exactly with the FF novel, but I had to let that slide for sake of story.   If wordcount hadn't stopped me, I might have spent more time on Smeed's life before he was Smeed, showing the contrast.  However, that might have pulled the story down, since Smeed's turning was really the 'turning point', and in the end, it didn't matter who he was before that.  So, yeah.  Second-guessing the setup has always been a weakness of mine.  I think I'll leave it be.

2. Ah, the moral stance for Smeed is tricky.  When developing him, it wasn't as much a moral decision as it was a survival decision.  He wants, above all, to survive.  That's his driving force, the thing that fuels him.  He also wants freedom from his affliction.  I dunno.  I see him more concerned with how captive he was to his urges, and then how the mandates of the Council (and Burns' guidance) frees him from that.  He sees the monsters created by his sire, so completely wrapped up in the chains of their basic urges, and he remembers how that felt, and once he realizes that they're too far gone to experience the transformation that he's gone through, he gives them the only freedom they will get, which is ultimate death.  If I gave him a moral stance, I think that would diminish the character that he has become.  He weighs on the scale of survival first, freedom second, and the fledglings in that room came in light on both counts.

3. The short answer, is yes.  Smeed eventually comes to terms with his job.  It's the same job he and Burns are doing in Rabbit Heart: hunting down something that should not have been allowed to exist in the first place.  By the time he shows up in Rabbit Heart (about 70 years in the future-ish, because timeline got wonky), he's very committed to his job.  He's also had a few mistakes under his belt that he's not proud of.  I love the guy.  He's got so much going on, and Burns is both a hilarious and resourceful partner/mentor to him.  Burns is the guy who just embraces the things around him and uses them to his extreme advantage.

4. I would love to write more Burns and Smeed at some point.  If you ever read Rabbit Heart, please let me know what you thought of their first incarnation as characters.  They were so incredibly fun to write! 

[Pixileanin]

@facingthenorthwind Hey there! I am so sorry I basically dropped off the map with this.  But after too long, here are the answers to your wonderful questions!

1. I have no favorite character to write.  I write a lot of OCs, and my FF characters are a wide and varied group.  I think I lean towards the undervalued characters, or the sides of characters that are under the current, the things that people rarely get to see of them.  I like characters in unexpected situations, or looking at characters in uncharacteristic ways.  I love taking a well-known character and playing the "what if they're really not like that" game, while still retaining their core characteristics.

2. Ah, plotholes in canon don't bother me.  They just give me more room to play. 

3. I love sifting through the challenges sections to see what pops up.  My favorite thing is challenging myself to take a handful of unrelated things and smushing them together.  That's basically how most of my fics develop.  Sometimes it's from prompts.  Sometimes it's a dare.  Sometimes my brain does it while I'm out to lunch.  It's hard to say.

Thanks for appreciating my stories!!

[magemadi]

Hey Pix, thank you so much for entering my Science Fiction Challenge, and huge congratulations on first place! As such, here are some questions as promised for your prize!  

1. What drew you to combine elements of all of the challenges mentioned in your authors note with the overall theme of the Science Fiction Challenge?

2. Hannibal is clearly a major influence for your winning entry, but do you prefer the movie Silence of the Lambs or the TV Show Hannibal's interpretation of Hannibal's character and why?

3. What is next on your to-write list?

4. How often do you play music/piano with your kids, and do you have a favorite song/composer they enjoy listening to?

5. If you could expel ONE character from the HP universe and it would be like they never existed, who would you choose and why?

[inmyownlittlecorner]

I made you a picspam for The Moon Belongs to Leszachka because it's awesome!

[inmyownlittlecorner]

@Pixileanin I know you wrote Until We Close Our Eyes for Good a while ago, but I'm really enjoying it, so I made you this picspam:

 

[Pixileanin]

@la_topolina Oh my goodness, those picspams are AMAZING!!!! I am so excited!!!  Gotta figure out how to get them in my story shell somehow.  Can you do that sort of thing? I am SO graphics-challenged.

[inmyownlittlecorner]

I'm so glad you liked them! You can put them in your story, I'll PM you about it.

[Pixileanin]

Hello, Writer's Journal. Long time.

@magemadi, they say it's never too late, but two years is an awfully long time...

You had questions. I might have err... words that may resemble answers? I dunno, it's been a long minute.

The Science Fiction Challenge was so fun to do! When I first looked at it, I remembered my promise to myself that time travel is so hard to get right, and so easy to screw up, and that I was never going to go there. I also remembered that science fiction as a genre was something that I was extremely shy about, not wanting to mess it up because facts had to be facts, and I was struggling a lot with continuity. Then there were these other challenges that were posted along the same time which were so completely out of my wheelhouse, but also strange and wonderfully compelling... and then I decided to break all my promises and mash everything I was afraid of together into one big ball of "I can't possibly do this justice".  Then I wrote the story.  And unfortunately, I'm doing it again with my current wip. 

What is wrong with me?

Ok, so I confess that I have watched Silence of the Lambs, once, a long long time ago. And I have forgotten so much of it, with the exception of the name of the main character. I have never seen the TV show. I just thought it'd be funny to give the name to a cow. That's basically it.

Next on my to-write list is a long-expired dare to write a Dramoine that I can actually get behind (which, for many reasons, I cannot), and I think the discussion went something like this:

Me: Dramione cannot possible make any sense to me. Unless there are vampires.

Someone Else: Yes. Do that.

Me: uhh...

Two years later, I am still on that thing. Hermione is a vampire. Draco is... well, Draco Malfoy after the war in a not-so-great situation. And I'm including one of my favorite vampire mentors in the story, which is now one of the main reasons I'm still working on it. Also, darkness. Uncomfortable darkness.

I sometimes play piano with my kids. Mostly when someone was working on an audition for something or needed a practice track. During Covid, we made family renditions of the favorite songs of my co-workers and sent them to them to lift their spirits.  That was fun. I can now play that cool Outro of "American Girl" by Tom Petty on the piano, which I never imagined myself doing.  

The one HP character I would expel is... my brain hurts, by the way... Aberforth. I mean, it was cool, finding out some of Albus Dumbledore's bacckstory, but I did not enjoy his relationship with his brother, or the whole sister thing, so if I never knew about that, I would probably enjoy the story more. A little mystery is good for the imagination, I think.

 

Thanks so much for the questions, and also the challenge, and for inspiring me to write something I never thought I could!

 

[Pixileanin]

Hello, Writer's Journal. I think I will use you for my NaNo project. That assumes that I can get an extension on the challenge I'm writing it for. I think I will need until the end of NaNo to throw this story together.

 

[Pixileanin]

 

Quote

 

So hey, the NaNo prep thread said to borrow some plot ideas. I don't follow directions well, so instead, I will make a list of elements that may or may not be included in this story. Also, the challenge I've entered is a Regency Romance Challenge, and I'm not great with romance, or history. Let's go.

Ahem. So according to Google searches, Regency Romances should be FUN.

Search #2 said all of this should also go in the story: glamorous balls, gorgeous dresses, witty banter, appealing heroines, and dashing heroes.

Somewhere else online says that the Regency Period had war, leaps in scientific and industrial progress, poverty, internal political unrest, but most of the genre-matching stories will ignore all of this in lieu of personal and romantic themes.

I also happen to have a bucket list of things I'd like to write about. Let's throw that all together.

 

 

So far, my shortlist includes:

1. FUN

2. witty banter

3. balls

4. appealing and dashing things

5. Ignoring important historical matters

6. intercepting letters

7.  a duel

8. High Tea

9. Avoiding getting oneself written about in the papers 

10. Devilishly conniving aunties 

11. dainty handkerchiefs

12. a literal shroud of mystery

13. a huge argument over Indian vs. British tea customs

14.  trimming nails with a paring knife

15. travelling by coach between London and Bath

16. singing in French

17. a colorblind debutante

18. including historical characters as sidebars to the narrative

19. there is only one coffeehouse in Bath

20. The Umbrella Academy's Number Five, stuck in time. Again.

 

 

 

[Oregonian]

Hi, Pix.  First let me say what a pleasure is is to see your new posts in your Writer's Journal.  I love your list of elements you might put into a Regency Romance, though I don'r know what the last one is.  Out of the loop, I guess.  It looks like you're going for this story with plenty of gusto and expecting a lot of light-hearted fun in writing it.

😁  Vicki

[Pixileanin]

Hi Vicki! Thanks so much for popping in. Obviously, I have no idea how to write a Regency Romance.

I have only read one Jane Austen novel. I think it was called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies".

Does that even count?

[Oregonian]

Maybe it's better not to have read a lot of Regency romances, so that your story won't start sounding derivative of those other stories.  If you just set it in the Regency era and include some of these period-accurate details, but otherwise make it entirely all your own, it will be sparkling and fresh.  I'm sure that a lot of those Regency-era ladies and gentlemen had unique, lively, spicy, spooky (or whatever) secrets in their lives if they ever cared to write their autobiographies.  😁

[Pixileanin]

Nice. I will no longer worry about being unversed in Regency Romance. Instead, I turn my attention to the following questions that came up in today's brainstorming session:

(These are rhetorical, by the way. I'm sure my muse will come up with answers by the by.)

What circumstances would put the male MC at a public séance, where he is noticed by a psychic?

What ways does the MC earn a living in Regency Bath which involve elaborate ruses and double identities?

Under what billing is the Indian heiress advertised by her aunties?

What is the Indian heiress looking for when she dresses as a man to frequent the only coffeehouse in town?

Who is coming to visit the Indian heiress for which she requires a bodyguard?

Who keeps talking to themselves when they are about town and is overheard saying, "No better company to keep than oneself."?

 

And now for the part where I feel like I require some assistance. If anyone is familiar with the Umbrella Academy fandom and would like to pick apart Five's claim that he really does want out of the "save the world" business and would be happy with a normal life, let me know.