April A to Z Characters: A

A is for Arpex.

Arpex visits us from the novels Trust and Chain of Gray. For a long time, Arpex was simply known as "the blue creature". After he was upgraded from the creepy creature that threatens the MC in a single scene to a full out Council Member hidden under robes that threatens to eat the MC and does eat his ex-girlfriend and then goes on to play a big role in the sequel, the creature got his own name. Or name for his alien self, really. All Arpex share the same name.

Arpex is described as a tall, blue-shelled biped with small frontal appendages ending in claws. It's feet are sharp, being covered with the same (unfortunately...depending on which side your on) bullet-proof covering as the rest of it. It has no visiable head and speaks the common language only through a speaker box attached to its upper body. It prefers its own language of clicks and hisses, but few seem to understand his threats this way. It has large wings, or jaws depending on if it's eating or flying, that spring from its back which are used to engulf its prey. These wings are edged in sharp talons and secrete a disgusting ooze of digestive acids. Or hey, maybe they're really appealing acids if you happen to also be Arpex.

Likes: Eating soft-skinned things, unflattering bright yellow light, the idea of turning the MC's homeworld into nesting grounds.

Dislikes: A messy plate, slaves that forget their place, brain-dead food.

April A to Z Characters

April is nearly here and that means it's almost time for the A to Z parade through my characters. I'm pleased to announce that I managed to pull 26 characters with names from A to Z from works both published and languishing on my hard drive without having to resort to a single discarded character.

Okay, that's not exaclty true, one was previously a Victim of the Knife, but he was placed back into a story long before this challenge was issued.

The entries will be short, but will hopefully give you insight to some of the stories that I've been working on and/or have published. They come from short stories and novels. Some are main characters, others are supporting characters or have small roles but I did try to stick with the bigger players when I could.

Things I discovered when pulling these posts together:

• I like characters with M and J names. There was a lot of competition on those two days.

• I was surprised to learn that I'd used every letter as the starting point for name over the course of the years. I guess only having two that I keep repeating isn't so bad given the amount of variation.

• I really hate not reading things not in manuscript format. Some of my earlier novels haven't yet made into the correct format. My eyes, they blur and burn.

• After skimming through Swan Queen, the novel I'm currently rewriting my way through, I'm reminded of how much I've missed those characters, and yet, how much time and effort that novel is going to need to make it work.

If you haven't signed up for the April A to Z Challenge yet, there's still time.

Victims of the Knife: Blue goes to camp

Blue arranges his tentacles on the DVD player that shares my writing space. Turns out that while it takes up a lot of space, it also makes a nice seat for my resident alien. He stares at me expectantly.

"What?"

"I've been waiting for you to call me up here."

"For? Look, it's early. Not only do I not do mornings, I don't do people...or aliens...until around noon. And by "do" I mean-"

He holds up a tentacle to which is strapped a wide, silver bracelet. "I believe translator conveyed the correct meaning."

"Good. I'm not much for humor this early either. So?"

"Your April Camp NaNo project. I hear I'm going in?"

"You are?"

He looks around and leans closer. "No need for secrets. It's just you and me. Everyone else is still sound asleep."

"Lucky them."

"Into the Blue. That's your title. That would be me. I'm Blue."

"If I told you it was just a phrase regarding space travel, would you believe me?"

He consults his translator and lowers what would be his eyebrows if he were more humanoid. "I'm Blue. You're writing about me. I'm going in."

"I admit, I wasn't aware of this. That you were going in, I mean." I hold up a hand to halt his reiteration. "I know that you're Blue."

"Seems only logical."

"Who are you, Spock?"

"No, I'm Blue."

"Right." I sigh. "Well, you did eat my Barthromains so I suppose it would be best if I got you out of here before you dine on anyone else."

"I would greatly appreciate it."

"If you'll leave your adverbs with Nekar when you pack your things, I'll see what I can do."

Getting Crafty: Book Page People

While in the midst of my book page fun, I had some rolled bits left over. This led to pondering what to do with them, because as crafty people know, you don't just throw extra stuff away. You might use it for something (rather like my discarded characters), so you either find something to do with it right away or you set it aside for later in what can become a huge pile of stuff if you aren't speedy enough with ideas.

Out of this need a speedy idea, so my craft mountain doesn't grow any further out of control, came the idea for book page people. Yes, as with most things, these little guys and gals will end up in my NaNo give away pile. But that's a whole different pile and it goes entirely away once a year...at least for a few weeks until it starts building again.

What you'll need to make your own people:
• Heavy book pages
• Light book pages
• Tacky glue
• A thick dowel (or pencil)
• A thin dowel


Using the thin dowel  roll a page of the thin paper. As in my previous book page craft posts , I tore into my dictionary. I'm well into the Cs now. If you're making several people, you may as well roll several pages at once.

Simply set out one page and brush or spread a little glue along the outside edge.  I like to also put a row of glue about half way along the page to help hold the roll tight. Then put your dowel on the unglued edge, wrap the paper over the dowel and roll. Once the whole thing is on the dowel, smooth the edge and pull it off. If it is hard to get off the dowel, just twist it a little until it loosens enough to pull off.


Let the rolls dry an hour if your patient as they will cut easier when not moist with tacky glue. If you're not patient, you will need to straighten the ends of your cut rolls as they will flatten. Not a big deal really, and I'm not patient. However, I did wait to cut them until I'd rolled the body so that does give you a minute or two of drying time.




This is backwards of what I'd intended
to do with my body page as you see
from the two people already done.

Now you'll use your thick (3/8 or so) dowel or pencil and a heavy book page. I cut* my heavy page in half long-wise and doubled it up, lightly gluing the two halves together to make a very strong piece. This will be your body. No, not your body, that would be weird and you'd have to avoid fires forever. This will be the body of your paper person. Roll the page up and this one you'll probably have to hold for a minute or two until the glue sets a little.

 *As I discovered by mistake in the process of making several of these at once, decide what you'd like the body of the person to look like before folding, gluing and rolling that thick page. I really liked the upper bit as blank page (the face) and the lower part covered with words. It seems I reversed my fold part way though and made some of them differently. Oops. They still worked, it just wasn't what I'd intended at the beginning.

Once you have your body and you've decided which part you're calling the face, you can decide how long you'd like the legs and arms to be. Then comes to the cutting of the rolls you first made. Generally, you'll need two arms and two legs per person unless you're making mutants or zombies or people missing parts for whatever other reason. Hey, I don't want to judge your creative whims.

I used little extra bits for feet, but you'll put those on last.

Cover the tops of your legs with glue and shove them into the body until they feel secure. They may have to be flattened a little at the top and that's fine, just don't bend them as you want them sturdy so your person will stand.

No one wants a lazy lay-about paper person. Adjust the leg placement and level the legs until the person has a good chance of standing. You can further adjust the odds of standing when you add the feet.

Then attach the arms. You will have to hold the arms in place for a few seconds to keep them in position. Go ahead and have fun with posing the arms if you'd like. The arms can bend because they're not holding up the body.

Once the body is mostly dry (or two minutes later if your impatient like me), glue on the feet. Adjust the stance as necessary to make your person stand.

Now comes the fun part of adding facial features and hair. I used some long strips of thin pages for the hair. You could cut it short, long, curl it around a pencil tip, etc. Whatever you decide, keep the pieces joined in the middle so you can put glue on one easy to insert piece. Put that piece down inside the top of the head and there you go. You have a little person to inspire you with its wordy body or make funny faces at you while you're writing.

Progress Report

Progress on Swan Queen is slow, but moving forward. Not because the story is bogging me down, but finding time to work on it between shuttling kids and working is interfering with my writing time. However, I have managed to carve out enough hours to get myself into chapter six.

It's funny how writing characters that came to me years ago feel when writing them anew. Swan Queen is told in multiple point of views, which was the experiment when first writing this story as I'd only written single POVs up until that point.

Some of the characters need more work to flesh them out, others feel like slipping into my favorite jeans and going for a walk. Leoric (a young suitor) continues to be a favorite as does Kenric (the antagonist). (Jarvis (captain of the guard) needs personality help. Maribella (AKA The Princess) is getting a major character do-over. She was far too cookie-cutter the first time around. Now she's got moxie!

The biggest goof, or change, depending on how you look at it, is the fact that I began rewriting without realizing that I'd swapped the name of Maribella's country with that of one of her suitors. It didn't even occur to me until chapter three that I'd made the switch. That's the beauty of rewriting from scratch. My subconscious often knows best. I like this much better.

You'll get to meet all these characters and many more in my upcoming April A to Z Blog Challenge, which, holy bovines, has grown to 1085 participants and counting! My characters stand ready to meet you because I'll be (hopefully) deep into writing a sci-fi novella for April Camp NaNo. I love that the word goals are now adjustable for camp so I can legitimately aim for 25k.

Now then, back to working on chapter six and juggling the five submissions I currently have out.