Words and Music

First: the concert report. The Distant Worlds II Final Fantasy concert tour came to San Francisco, T and I went, and it was excellent. I've heard many of the Final Fantasy orchestral arrangements, but it's definitely a different experience seeing them live, surrounded by fans, with artfully-chosen clips from the games playing on a big screen. Highlights included "Vama della Flamenco" (a song I love so much that I replayed the Zidane-Blank swordfight at least a dozen times just so I could keep hearing it), the chocobo theme medley, and the "One-Winged Angel" audience sing-along, led from the stage by none other than Nobuo Uematsu himself.

A few cosplayers in the audience, although not many -- I saw a Yuna, a Cloud, a Terra, a White Mage, a dude in Moogle hat. Someone in line behind me for the ladies room mentioned seeing someone dressed as Quistis, which I am sorry to have missed. Probably the best costumes I saw were Zidane and Garnet dressed for the prom: Zidane with his tail peeking out from a suit that was about a size too big for him, Garnet with the hair and the crown and a poofy pink dress, a corsage tied to her wrist. Very cute; I wish I could have gotten a picture.

Anyway, it was a highly enjoyable experience, and if you are at all a fan of the series and/or the music, I really recommend going if you get the chance.

Okay, writing meme time.

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

I used to write fragments of stories when I was young, but I never got very far. In my head, yes; in my head I would plot and compose epic novels. But I didn't get in the habit of setting them down much, and by the time I got to college I had given writing up completely. I didn't come back to creative writing in any form until 2004, which was the year I spent mostly unemployed. One of my main leisure activities during that time? Playing, and replaying, Final Fantasy games. It was in the process of replaying FFX-2 that I was bitten by a plot bunny. And it bit me hard. So hard that the only way to get it to leave me alone was to start writing the scene that kept playing in my head: a conversation between Paine and Nooj, in which she forces him to confront the demons of his past. That scene was the seed that eventually grew into "Chasing My Past".

( Probably there's no need to cut for spoilers for a five-year-old fic, but I'm going to do it anyway. )

I think my favorite thing is that I settled into Paine's voice on the first try. She is, without a doubt, the first character I felt comfortable writing. The first character I really wanted to write, so much so that I was compelled to finally sit down and follow through on finishing a story for the first time in fifteen years. Other fandoms and other threads within Spira have claimed my writing attention lately, but I know there will always be more stories to tell about Paine.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions

Let's all go to the movies

We saw Inception this morning. Wow, that was good. I kind of don't want to say anything more, because to do so would require massive spoilers, and I know that I, personally, am glad to have seen it unspoiled. Just go see it, and then come back here so we can talk about it. Deal?

30 Days of Writing: Whippersnappers

5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?

The oldest character I write on a regular basis is almost certainly Auron, at 35ish in canon. Basch is around the same age, but I've only ever written him as a supporting character. The oldest character I have ever written as the protagonist of their own story is probably Maechen.

Youngest point-of-view character would have to be Paine and Nooj's young son in a story I wrote with kunstarniki. Jarl was an interesting sort of joint creation: kunstarniki wrote a ficbit about Paine giving birth to Nooj's child, I was inspired to write a short featuring him as a youngster, and then she asked permission to use him in yet another story. Her story ended on a cliffhanger that I couldn't possibly have left alone; we decided to write the sequel together, and that grew into "Promises", which was our final collaboration. I enjoyed writing Jarl, a lot -- writing a character who was believable as a seven-year-old boy while working in bits of both of his parents without making him a clone of either was a fun challenge.

My "oldest" character in terms of when I first wrote about them is Paine, as mentioned in my answer to the last question. As for newest? That honor, I will have to bestow on a pile of characters in the current WIP that I'm not really talking about yet. Writing a crossover between two fandoms that are entirely new to me requires working with a whole new cast, a process that is both exhilarating and terrifying, and I don't yet know what will come of it.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions