Constant Vigilance!

Remember back when I told you about going to see Miss Saigon in Raleigh? One of the things--aside from all the mostly-nekkid chicks grinding in front of me--that made me love the show was that it reminded me just how much I missed being on the stage. From my senior year in high school on through the end of my college career, I had been fairly active in pulling off live productions on the stage. Whether it was plays, musicals, one-acts or doing improv work--or even the time spent doing student-run television shows--I've had an active career in the dramatic arts.

And, now that I'm out of it, I miss it.

So, I've found a way to get past this: reading to my children.

Shortly after the Miss Saigon viewing, I started reading The Tale of Despereaux to my kids. The good thing about Despereaux (the book, not the movie--the movie is an abortion of the story) is that most of the characters (since it's written for kids) are achetypes. So, it was pretty easy to get into character by varying my voices. And once I started getting into character, well, then I felt like that piece of me that void in my life that had formed since I left the stage had been partially filled.

And, honestly, it was fun. The voices were easy to create: Miggory Sow had a heavy, gravelly, cockney accent; Roscuro had a slimy, evil, plotting voice dripping with vile and revenge; Despereaux had a soft English accent; Despereaux's brother had a bit heavier English accent; Despereaux's father had an even heavier English accent; Despereaux's mother had an over-the-top dramatic French accent. And so on.

Well, we finished Despereaux months ago, and, well, I've had to find other ways to work this stage-presence-cum-narrator persona. For some reason, the same Thomas the Tank Engine books over and over again don't work quite as well, though my son has decided to begin with the Magic Treehouse Books. Again, the characters are largely the same, and therefore don't really offer much of a creative outlet.

Fortunately, my daughter is having me read her the Harry Potter books.

Since most of you are familiar, I won't have to rehash the wide variety and depth of characters here. A lot of the characters are easier to do than others: Hagrid's part is written for him; McGonagall's voice is slightly lilting with her words clipped; and Snape I try to do my best Alan Rickman because, seriously, it's Alan Fucking Rickman.

So, we're currently working our way through Goblet of Fire, and last night we got through the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. In case you've forgotten, this is where Mad-Eye Moody shows the class the Unforgivable Curses and how to prepare for them. The best preparation for the Unforgivable Curses? CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Now, when I do Moody's voice, I give him a gravelly sort of voice, lower and rougher than my normal reading voice. It's not quite Christian Bale doing Batman, but it does convey a bit of the crotchety old man that is Mad-Eye Moody.

So, last night, I'm going along, reading away and my daughter is flipping through an American Girl magazine looking at the pictures. She's listening, but she doesn't know what to expect. When we get to the proper place, I fire off a loud, booming "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I thought she would jump out of her skin! It was so entertaining to have her jump, catch her breath, and then stare at me with those big, blue eyes that convey the question "What the fuck was that?" oh so well.

We continue reading, and she lets her guard down and goes back to flipping through her magazine (she's a multi-tasker, that one). We come to it again. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I roar. Again, the same satisfying jump, the same satisfying "What the fuck was that?" stare.

Finally, we come to a break, and I close up the book and she's like, "Is there going to be much more of that, with Moody shouting and all?" she asks as I'm tucking her in.

"There might be," I said, bending down to kiss her pure, sweet, angelic forehead. "You know what the best way to prepare for the yelling is, though, right?" I ask her.

"What?" she says, her face the very picture of angelic charm.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I roar once more.

I thought sure she was going to wet herself the third time.

Parenting skillz: I has 'em.

A Life Invented

I'm a fairly creative guy. I hate to blow my own horn (which is how my cousin Walter broke his neck), but I'm all about cooking shit up like bacon...just in an imaginary way. For instance, this here slice o'Blogosphere Heaven was originally just a way for me to talk about the joys and pains of writing a book (joys = finishing shit up, pains = rejection letters).

Since I deal in fiction, I make up people all the time. I make up names, genders, descriptions...you get the idea. Everything that would make an otherwise imaginary figment into an actual, breathing entity.

However, I haven't always done this shit in my literary worlds. No, no. See, I once made up a completely imaginary girlfriend.

Now, now, before you all go away calling me a "Loser" and trying to hide the word underneath a cough, let me tell you the circumstances. I'm sure you'll be far more entertained. Looking back, I know I'm far more entertained.

So, my wee little town sat on the county line, which meant that half of the county went to Huntington County schools, whereas the other half went to Wells County schools. This was very convenient for the creation of an imaginary sweetheart, because, naturally, my girlfriend had to go to a different school. Thusly, she was doomed to spend her days at Norwell Junior/Senior High. She lived on the other side of town, which, conveniently enough, also had a lot of apartments, which provided for a convenient "Oh, I don't know everyone who lives up there."

I guess that I should say that I invented this girl late in the sixth grade and carried her through to part of the seventh grade. This will become important later in the story.

I had to pick a name for her. This was easy. For some reason unknown to me even to this day, I loved the song Sarah by Starship. Couple that with the fact that Sarah was an extremely popular name for girls about my age, and I had a ready-made girlfriend name. Given the amount of people of Germanic heritage in my small town, I went for a somewhat bland German-sounding last name. Thus, was Sarah Klein born.

Of course, I had to describe her to people who would ask, you know, for all those times I would casually slip into conversation that I had a girlfriend. Despite the fact that my tastes trend toward the saucy redheads and the dark-haired beauties, Sarah was blonde. The reason for this was because there were a lot of fucking blonde girls running around town, so sweetie pie Sarah could have been anyone of those. Because my favorite color is green, I gave Sarah green eyes. I also made her somewhat tall, just because.

And thus, a life was born.

Now, I'm sure you're sitting there, delighting in my tale, but wondering why such a suave and debonair motherfucker like myself would need to go out crafting his own Teutonic beauty rather than just roping one in myself. The answer to this puzzlement is simple: I needed her for the sex.

Now, despite the fact that I was on my way to the eighth grade, that I was well on my way to developing a full and unruly set of pubes, that I had already seen a real-live pair of boobs, had already sat through the puberty tapes that they give you in the fifth grade--you know, the one where they separate the boys and girls into separate rooms--AND sat through the puberty tapes where they don't separate on the basis of gender, my parents still had not had the sex talk with me. I emboldened the sex talk because, whenever it was mentioned by my parents, it seemed to echo. You know, as in "someday, I'll give you the sex talk".

The sex talk is a story unto itself and will be told in due time.

Suffice it to say, Sarah Klein was a bit morally unstructured. She didn't start out that way. At first, she was all cute and sweet, but as things went along, she began to be more aggressive. For months, my tactics didn't work, until finally, Sarah's family got a place at The Lake. I've told you about that, what with the girls across the lane wearing their small bikinis all the time and...well, that's a story better suited for another day, too.

So, one night at The Lake, I was talking with my friends up there and talking about how I was going over to Sarah's cottage when her parents went out for their late night boat cruise. We were going to be doing some nasty stuff, Sarah and I, over at her imaginary lake cottage. Oh, the fun we'd have. Dusk began to settle over us, and so my friends and I went our separate ways. I went over to my grandfather's cottage, my cousin--whom, for anonymity's sake, will heretofore be known as "Napoleon"--went to his cottage where my mom and my aunt were pulling a late night sit on the front porch and bitch session, and my friend Tammy went to her cottage.

Apparently, Napoleon went to my mom and aunt and recounted, in gruesome detail, all of the nasty things Sarah and I were planning on doing that night in her cottage. Napoleon had a bad habit of flushing all of the information in his brain out through his mouth in what I like to call "oral diarrhea." Now, bear in mind, I still haven't had the sex talk. About five minutes after we all went our separate ways, here comes Napoleon into my grandfather's cottage, looking for me. I got dragged down to my cousin's cottage and I got read the fucking riot act. You'd think that, since I hadn't had the sex talk yet, there would be no fear of me becoming intimate with my imaginary girlfriend. Apparently, this was not the case.

As I stood there, much like Christ before the Sanhedrin, whilst my mother called poor Sarah a whore over and over again.

Do you like how I just set myself up to be a Messianic figure? Hey, it's my blog, I can do what I want.

My mother asked me why I was afraid to bring Sarah around--because she was a whore? She asked me why I was ashamed to be seen with her--because she was such a whore? She asked me if my father knew that the girl I was dating...was a whore? I think she might have peppered "slut" in there a few times. The memory, despite its mirthful twist, is a little hazy.

The most amusing part was that my mother then went on to tell me about how she had seen Sarah sneaking around, hiding behind trees, walking up and down the lanes between cottages, avoiding my mother's steely gaze. This part really amused me. Somehow, this figment of my imagination, cooked up primarily so that I could finally get past this great hurdle in my life known as the sex talk had not only become real, but apparently had suddenly appeared arrayed in purple and scarlet, and drinking from a golden cup full of her abominations and the filthiness of her fornication.

And, despite the fact that I created her, that I owned the copyright on her character, that I had somehow missed the fact that she had become quite corporeal and real, I wasn't getting any. I was pretty fucking cheesed at this.

Eventually, I was grounded for my efforts. I think the time was two weeks. Oh, and as further punishment, I had to break it off with Sarah. Which was too bad because, really, I'm going to guess that she grew up and got totally hot. Or addicted to meth, one of the two.

Oh, and I didn't have the sex talk for another seven months.

A Paucity of Josephs

I've been mulling a post over for a few days, mostly because this is my three-hundredth post on A Crown of Thistles, and as I've trolled the blogosphere, I've found that 300 seems to be a seminal number as it applies to the number of posts. I thought about something funny, I thought about something thoughtful, I thought about something romantic, I thought about something political. At the end of the day, I tossed all those out the window and decided to go with the status quo: egregious use of the word fuck.


And fucking aye, I decided to do a grass-roots movement here on A Crown of Thistles, which I started--long ago--to be a blog that detailed the writing process as I saw it through my eyes--and interpreted it through my fingers. However, what was I to talk about if I was going to do something on writing--an activity which I haven't done recently. Well, one of the things I have been doing recently is going through my character lists, in order to refamiliarize with the various people I've crafted in my little world so that, when I finish playing Rogue Galaxy (check it out, NOT Civ III), I can take the story back up and continue pushing through the third installment.

Now, a little bit about how I chose names for my characters. When I went about choosing the names for my people, I decided that I would delve into British names for most of my characters. One of the things that I've seen in various stories is the use of European names to help create a sense of identity. For instance, northerners are usually depicted as being big, gruff, bearded and Norse. They typically have names like Skoli and Sveld and Hern.




This is not something that I wanted to do. I mean, cigarettes aren't supposed to be invented yet in my world, so how could I possibly have someone with the last name DuBois or Ouvrey? Plus, we don't have rifles. How can Lord DuBois drop his? It's not so much that I didn't want to offend anyone--I mean, Christ, look at the shit I sporadically puke onto a screen and call a "blog"--it's just that I want my characters, my nations, and my world to be unique...or as unique as can be for the genre (there are no filthy Elves here...those fuckers can keep making toys at the North Pole for all I care). So, across all my nations, I created my character's last names with an eye toward the familiar, so I tried to keep my names centered around British names--English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish. I tried not to go too overboard, by hanging an O' in front of everything or a Mac on anything--though I do have a handful of tiny Houses whose name begins with a Mac or Mc that I've tied together as being interrelated and parts of the original inhabitants on the lands my stories center around. But if you look at the big, main Houses in the story--Wilhelms, John, Campbell, Montgomery, Greyskye, Nagel--these are names that you would not find too uncommon or, more importantly, too difficult to pronounce, if you came across them in your everyday life. That was the effect for which I was searching as I set about giving my people their names.

The thing is, with British last names, I felt it was important to have first names that largely matched up. To that end, I've also used first names that have a particularly "British" feel to them. I found this very amusing as I kept ploughing through (heh, British) the seemingly endless list of names of characters. This means that I've got an oversufficiency of Williams, Patricks and Roberts, and various incarnations thereof (Liam, Paedrag...). One thing I noticed, however, was that I had not a single Joseph. None. Zilch. Kaput. Zero.

Now, I realized that Joseph is of a Middle Eastern descent, but it is still a popular name in the British Isles. In fact, I can trace my ancestry back to Joseph Jenks (yeah, I know, terrible name), who came over here from Shropshire and set up shop after his wife died in the Old Country. So, way back down the way, I'm related to a Joseph (at least one), but then, when I think about, I've always been surrounded by Josephs. A few examples:

- First friend in kindergarten: Joey Collins
- Drinking buddy: Joe P.
- Stupid best friend Flanders: Joe
- Stupid best friend Flanders' version of Rod & Todd: Joseph
- Favorite chemist: Joseph Priestly
- College: Saint Joseph's College
- Grad School: University of Notre Dame...which is in St. Joseph's County, IN
- Wife taught at (and a former girlfriend attended): South Bend St. Joseph's High School
- Favorite cartoon growing up: G.I. Joe
- Favorite cartoon in college: Josie (Josephine) and the Pussycats
- Running partner during Freshman gym class: Joe Molholland...who also helped his dad dig up my backyard to install a pool when I was in college.
- Favorite girl from "Facts of Life"...Jo.
So, you can see, I've always had a assload of Joes around me, which is why I find it curious that I haven't named a single character--important, role, back-up or throw-away--"Joseph". This meant, naturally, that I had to start looking for a place to insert the name Joseph. I mean, of the multitude of Williams, Wils, Wills, Willems, and Liams, one of those guys could step aside and, at least for his brief time on camera, could change their name to Joseph, right? However, I liked the names as they were. That's when I suddenly discovered that one character--a main character, no less--had not one and not two but three separate names. Depending on the place in the story, he was Peter or Justin or Ricard. To top that, his name had actually originally been Gregory, but I changed it when I changed his last name and never made the switch in my notes, which is why he had three (or four, depends on how you are counting) names. What better place to take the big magic eraser and wipe clean his old identity and inserting Joseph? None, says this reporter.

So, I introduce to you Joseph Chavonec, the youngest of Nicholas Chavonec's three children, who is knighted after the Battle Beneath Beech Grove and serves as Kenneth Chavonec's heir until Kenneth can knock up his wife Corrine. In case you can't tell, the sex isn't going so well between the last two. So, there, I successfully was able to alleviate this shortcoming as it pertains to my characters and their names and my apparent need to surround myself with a Joe at every corner of my life. Just, uh, don't get too used to him, if you know what I mean.

Also, I jotted down a couple of notes to myself in the margins of my character lists. Should this thing ever get published and should you ever deign to read it, not only will I thank you greatly whilst diving into my piles of coins in my money bin outback, but there just might be a few people that you might recognize. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

Meet the Characters: House John

I know, I'm a day late on this, but I had some back issues last night and so I didn't hang out and blog like I should have. And, based on the reaction to the story of Red Paul, I can tell that everyone is clamoring for more Character Introductions. Who am I to withhold such treats from my ravenous fan-base? I'd be a black-hearted bastard if I did, that's who I would be.

Today, let's meet House John, one of the first sets of characters I developed for The Hundred Kings Saga, and thus one of my favorite clans in all the land of Kallabria.

House John:

House John is the oldest of the Houses of Kallabria and all the known kingdoms. Sailing from the ancient empire of Rengor in antiquity, Arken John [1] first discovered Kallabria by following a red comet in the sky. When he first sighted the shores of what would become the kingdom of Kallabria, the comet seemed to set behind the high, stony walls of the shore. Arken John established his kingdom from the aptly named city of First Landing and named the land Kallabria in honor of his wife, Kallah. Little is known of Kallah, other than she was the daughter of a minor lord of Rengor. Aside from his "heroic" exploits in discovering and founding Kallabria, little is known of the character and background of Arken John, and much of what is known is mired in myth and lore. For instance, nothing is known of why he was on the voyage from Rengor in the first place.

After several generations, House John lost control of his own kingdom, being defeated by Bron Aevan, and the kingdom that was forged by Arken John was reduced to a mere dukedom in the southern-most part of Kallabria. The current Duke of First Landing is Stuart John. Stuart is an older man, but still tall and powerfully built. He casts quite a regal pose with his long, silvery-white mane and close-cropped white goattee. He has a brilliant mind and a sharp wit and is fair and friendly with most all of his sworn men, but he demands excellency from those who serve his house as well as those who are in it. Currently, he is squiring Nathaniel Montgomery's eldest son, Alexander as well as Vincent Giles' only son, Stephen. [2]

The heir to House John is Stuart's grandson, Patrick. Patrick is a young, handsome man with curly brown hair and bright, brown eyes. Like his grandfather, he is tall and solidly-built, though he is not as deft with a sword as Stuart was as a younger man. Patrick has a brother, Jeremy, who is taller than Patrick and just as handsome, with darker hair and more angular features. He is a young knight of some renown, though he is mostly untested in battle and has only been knighted (by Vincent Giles, the Duke of Irvington) two years prior. Jeremy dreams of founding a landed holding near the mountainous western border of First Landing, where he could guard his home against the restless threat of Jesportrock, the neighboring kingdom to the west.

During the time they are together, Patrick, Jeremy, Alexander and Stephen become fast friends.

Patrick and Jeremy's father was killed in a horsing accident when he was thrown over the neck of his steed. Stuart's son (also named Patrick), was killed instantly when he broke his neck. Patrick and Jeremy's mother, Jessica, died two years later of severe melancholia, leaving Stuart to raise his juvenile grandsons.

Patrick is married to Jillian Tallhart, the daughter of Royce Tallhart, the Duke of neighboring Tellchester. She is slight and blonde, but bold of heart and character. Patrick jokes that her strong nature helps keep him in line. Together, they have an infant son, named Stewart. [3]

House John is symbolized by a comet gules upon a field Or (a red comet upon a yellow field). Their motto is "First to Land, Last to Fall".

[1] Arken John was originally "Prester John", a tip of the cap to Tad Williams' character from Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I even had permission to use the name "Prester John", however, as I developed the character more and more, I decided to give him his own identity, and thus he was converted into "Arken John". The tallest mountain in Kallabria is named "Mount Arken". There is also a holding within the dukedom of First Landing named "Mount Arken".

[2] This becomes very important as the action of the story begins to heat up, so that's why I threw it in.

[3] Stewart's name was originally "Saban", which was a tip of the cap to a character from Final Fantasy III (the American version) named "Sabin". However, when Nick $aban arrived on the college football scene, I changed his name out of disgust.

Meet the Characters: Red Paul

I'm trying a little something different here. We'll see how it goes. I've been a little sports blog heavy lately (but it is the season that I revel in most: college basketball), so this is an attempt--albeit sad--to get back to my roots. Er, something like that.

I'm going to write tonight a little bit about a character I developed a while ago for a story. He, in fact, is one of my favorite creations, but he has to be used in a different story because he just doesn't fit into either of the worlds I've created, whether it's in The Boar War or The Hundred Kings Saga. For a while, I'm going to write a little bit about a few of my characters, mostly for the sheer delight of writing. I'm a graphophile like that.

So, tonight, I'm going to write about Captain Paul Redpoll, more commonly known simply as Red Paul.

Red Paul is a pirate without a ship. He had, at one point, been a captain of some renown, but one day his crew mutinied and cast him adrift in the sea. The reason for the mutiny was unclear, but most rumors revolve around Red Paul being notoriously cheap and not paying his crew members what they were worth after a tour on the seas. Once his crew had cast him into the briny deep with nothing but a spare plank to float upon, the crew turned the ship over to piracy and have since been part of the pirate scourge that commands the southern oceans.

Red Paul was eventually picked up by another merchant vessel and worked on the ship as repayment for his rescue. However, when the ship return to port, he was turned out. Red Paul never left the port, being too proud to work on another ship that he wouldn't captain and too unwilling to leave the life of the sea to turn inland and search for work. Instead, he works odd jobs around the docks, helping to load and unload merchant vessels, telling himself and anyone else who listens that he's saving the money to purchase a new ship and crew so that he can hunt down his old ship and kill the pirates that run her through the waters. Unfortunately, after a long day's work, Red Paul wastes his money in the local taverns and brothels. He's particularly fond of a certain whore named Drea, and she, in her own way, loves him.

Red Paul is a hulking man, with a broad, barrel chest and arms that would better suited on a blacksmith. When he was captaining a ship, his voice boomed like thunder or the sound of wind filling the sails, and his swordsmanship was nearly unmatched by any other man on the open sea or in many of the ports along the southern and eastern parts of the world. The only man who had bested him in a duel was a man named Nicklos Thrush, normally known as "Nik Thrush", who had been his first mate before the mutiny.

Time away from the open sea has diminished his voice and his sword skills, though the drink and the smoke of the taverns are probably more to blame for his downfall rather than not being able to stride upon the pitching decks of his ship. His chest and shoulders are still broad, but his walk is slightly stooped as he has spent more time crouched upon a barstools than walking tall and proud. Also, the color has begun to drain from his great, red beard, which, along with his skills with a sword, helped give him the moniker of "Red" Paul. The name is as much a play on his last name as it is a pronouncement of his deadly ability with a blade or his physical attributes.

So, there you have it. Red Paul fits into a story that I'm currently trying to develop. Yeah, yeah, I know. Publish the others first. Yes. I'll probably focus on more...time appropriate characters in the future.