Japan : 江の島

En français
Last Sunday we went to 江の島, the island of the dragon. It's an island in the Tokyo bay. It took us one hour and a half to get there. We first went to eat something before actually walking to the Island taking the bridge. We then walk up to the temple and decided to do a tour of the island. It's not very big so you can easily do it in few hours. There are some temples to see with interesting statues. We went to the bell of the loving dragon and ringed it together (killing our ears).

The story said that :
"The villagers of Fujisawa were plagued for a period of a thousand-some years by a destructive, five-headed dragon that had its lair in a nearby lake. Aware of their suffering, on May 31, 552 A.D., the goddess Benzaiten caused the island of Enoshima to arise from the bottom of the bay to serve as her abode. She then descended onto the island amidst a series of spectacular terrestrial and aerial phenomena. The dragon fell in love with the beautiful goddess and asked her to be his consort. Benzaiten, who was widely known for her persuasive eloquence, rejected the dragon's proposal and made it understand that it had been doing wrong by plaguing the villagers. Ashamed, the dragon promised to cease its wrong-doing. It then faced south (devotedly facing the island where Benzaiten lived) and changed into a hill. To this day, the hill is known as Dragon's-Mouth Hill (Japanese: tatsu-no-kuchi yama 龍の口山)"(from here)

It is also said that the Dragon and the godess finally get married and people are now sealing their love at the bell of the loving Dragon. That's why we can see a lots of padlocks there.

We then went back along the beach and decided to stay swimming for a bit. There were a lot of people. The water was really warm and salty, that was a great bathe.
Travel table of content

I won JulNoWriMo, New challenge : AugNoWriMo, "Demon and fairy"

En français

So yesterday was the 31st of July and I won JulNoWriMo. I had about 4000 words to write on the last day. That's the first time that I have been so much behind on a writing challenge (except script frenzy). That's probably due to outdoors activities for sure but also to the fact that this story is getting crazy. I'm amazing myself at the things happening in it. Of course I had planed it. Of course I know the end already, but there always are things that are being created while writing. When I start writing I know most of the main events but linking them can be very creative and spontaneous.
I hope you will like the way things are going now.

Also today is the first of August and I'm starting a new challenge. The new writing contest is called AugNoWriMo. You are able to be choose your words goal and to you can work on an already started project. I decided to work on "Demon and fairy" and I'm hoping to finish it with 40000 words more.

Here is the last part of "Demon and Fairy" counting for JulNoWriMo.
All Novels Draft 




New ticker for AugNoWriMo

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About learning : If you don't get it now...

En français

... you'll get it later.
So this morning I was in the shower, that's kind of impressive what I start thinking about when I am in there.
Anyway, so I suddenly realized something about a book that I read more than 5 or 6 years ago, about writing. Because as you all know at the moment I'm writing like a manic due to JulNoWriMo. That book's title is "Die unendliche Geschichte" or in English, "The Neverending Story".
In this story, a boy named Bastien is going to a magical world through a book but he has to create stories in this world. The only thing is that he doesn't know that each time he is creating a new story he is giving a part of himself.
I always felt like I was giving a part of myself while writing, every single one of my characters have a part of my personality or something I am interested in in them. What I discovered this morning was that you actually need to finish the story to be able to have it go out of you, just like Bastien needs to finish all the stories to be able to leave the world. I didn't understand why he had to do that, that was always something that puzzled me.

Well the real realization here is not about that really, it's about the fact that your brain is processing information from a while back. I read that book years ago but I didn't have the experience I have now as a writer back then, so stuff like that was still obscure and difficult to get. The good point is that I didn't forget, or my brain stored all that information and decided to actually process it when it had all the pieces of the puzzle.
Isn't it magical?

I means that whatever you have to learn if you can't understand all the parts right now, they will come later when you have more datas. Of course you want to know things now and to be able to use them now but there are always hided things that you can't get without time for you brain to process all the information.
Repetition can probably accelerate the process, if I had read the book several times and more deeply and if I had look at some parts of it and analyzed them in details, maybe I would have understood everything. But was it worth it to put that amount of efforts? Did I need that knowledge back then? Probably not.
Let your brain do the work for you, give it datas and let it compile them, that is the best way to have a strong knowledge of what you know.

A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it. (Dune, Frank Herbert)

Demon and fairy part 5

So here is a new part of "Demon and fairy". I'm a bit behind on my words count but not too much I should be at 37,097 words by midnight tonight and so far I'm at 32833. Nothing unsurmountable really. Especially when you know that I finally find the solution to the thing that was getting on my nerves for days (weeks?) at work. That will help me relax and be able to concentrate fully on my writing during the week-end.
I still love this story even though Seti doesn't want to do what I want him too. That happens sometimes with character. He is maybe tired of having me on his back all the time. That's what I get for having a reincarnation of a god of Chaos as main character I suppose.
Well I brought some more demons in the story, you already know Sahel from Demon Soul and Evalynn who appears in there very briefly but I have a new one. He is a bit...hum... how could I say... well you will see by yourself.
Here is the story.
All Novels Draft

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Japan : 富士山

En français

Last Friday night we went to 富士山 to climb it. The goal was to climb it during the night to be able to reach the top before the sunrise.

We were divided in 2 groups and some people in the second group reached the top before some people of the first group, including me, that was really impressive. I think I had some kind of mountain sickness at least that's what one of my friend told me.

At first I was climbing with the leading group, we were going up really fast but that was fine. Then suddenly I couldn't breath anymore, like if my chest was oppressed by something big. I don't know, so I had to take more frequent breaks and I finally decided to tell the people climbing without me not to wait for me. I was always caught up by people I knew who I would let go to climb on my own.

I think that went people are just around trying to help me and asking me if I need something it is way easier for me to give up than if I am on my own with no other choice than climbing. I really liked them being nice, just maybe I'm kind of a solitary warrior anyway. Also being alone was allowing me to walk at my own broken and disturbing rhythm.

So at the end every body made it to the top. The last 400 meters were hell. We had to partially climb like monkeys. I think we were lucky that despite the cold it was still sunny, we saw rain only at the very beginning. I can't imagine what it would have been like in the rain. But as a result we had sunburns. I didn't expect needing sun cream, next time I'll know I suppose.

We climbed down on the Saturday morning, the going down was hopefully faster. I can say that we were all sleeping in the bus back.
Some people say they wouldn't do it again but I think I would if I have the opportunity. Extreme sport once in a while clean your body and mind.

 
Travel table of content

Demon Soul proof copy

Few days ago I received Demon Soulproof copy to review. I'm so proud to have my first novel's book between my hands. It took me a lot of times and efforts to write it, I basically have been working on it since last September when my friend first told me about NaNoWriMo. I started to gather my ideas about this story and to make some researches about demons, angels and magics. Then I started to write it on the first of November. No cheating ! It took me less than 20 days to reach my word count of 50000 words to win NaNoWriMo as I needed to finish soon to go on holiday, I wrote generally more than 2500 words a day. I finished to write the novel in December winning NaNoFiMo at the same time with more than 40000 more words. Since I have been working on other novels and on the editing of this one. Even though editing  can be really fastidious at time compare to the inertia of writing I still knew it was necessary and Demon Soulhas been reviewed five times (one by my fiancé) since the first draft accessible on line had been written. And I promise it is a lot better and detailed.
Now I will review this proof copy to make sure to have something as good as possible for my beloved readers and it will be available on amazon and eStore as soon as it possibly can.
Thank you for waiting with me and bearing with my perfectionism.  

Demon and fairy part 4

Finally here is a consequent part of  "Demon and fairy" for you to read.
I think that writing this novel is a lot different than writing Demon Soul or Attic Mirror, I am just following Seti all the time giving few space to other characters and still developing them mostly according to their relation to Seti. I'm also using a lot of flashback, that give an other dimension to the story.  It is a really different vision of writing and I thing I have still a lot to explore in this matter. I'm getting more attached to Seti than to other characters ever before, probably because I'm spending so much time with him, I want to write all the time.
For the moment I'm writing a part that wasn't really planed but I will reach the planed part again really soon and I know that one is going to make me cry. Just thinking about it already did.

So far 21356 words, I'm right on track.
All Novels Draft

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