Auroras and Sad Prose

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: i was on committees with the duke of norfolk. and they beheaded me.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: oh no! you achieved too much fame and status? and now people are misrepresenting you? should we strip your lands and title? have you been beheaded?

Ty doesn't so much have subjects as the Scholomance offers self-directed study, which is great for Ty. We do find out some of the things he's interested in school-wise in LKOF and projects he's been working on with Anush etc. I'm pretty sure however that no theses will get written during TWP. And the Scholomance might have to cancel commencement. Which would be tragic if they had a really good guest speaker. I can see Ragnor complaining that he had to call in so many favors to get Gandalf or whatever.

we won so hard omg. are you kidding meeee

you have this breath weapon! (also you're a dragon)

This is such a lovely question.

I don't think my relationship with characters is quite like having children or friends, because those are relationships with real people. Characters are something stranger than that. They're part of the toolkit of telling a story, but they're also repositories for things I've observed, experienced, wondered about, or imagined. They often contain pieces of people I've known, pieces of myself, and pieces that are entirely invented.

Sometimes I think they're a bit like diary entries: snapshots of thoughts and feelings I had at a particular time. Sometimes they're more like the imaginary friends I had as a kid. I traveled constantly when I was young, and I spent a lot of time inventing companions. I knew they weren't real, but I invested enough imagination in them that they became deeply meaningful to me. Characters feel a little like that. I know they are not real but the work put into them makes them important.

My relationship with them is also very different from a reader's relationship. Readers have the wonderful ability to experience a character almost as though they're meeting another person. I don't, because I know how they're built. People often ask me, "How's Ty doing right now?" and my honest answer is that he's not doing anything unless I'm writing him doing it. He's not lonely or waiting for me; he's simply not in motion until the story begins again.