Peter, Peter, Homicidal Cannibal

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And then he ate her, just as well.

A slight remix of a popular nursery rhyme, and you've got the entry-point for a story about a man who kills his wife, stuffs her into a pumpkin, then eats it (maybe as a pie?). The modification of the original was just to make it all more blatantly obvious, as the original would probably have worked just as well. This idea didn't go anywhere though, but thought I might as well share the idea, as was the original plan for this blog ;)

Cassandra - The Second Coming

my rose has withered
it will never bloom again
the soil is dry
time has come to die

Trying hard to write something these days, as usual, but it's still hard. Hoping that christmas will abolish this block, and make me write something new and good again.

Lately, I've been trying to cook up a sequel of sorts to Cassandra, while still thinking about how to actually expand on the original story itself.

I have a few ideas about how a sequel might happen, and I've even started writing some early drafts, yet I'm not completely feeling it yet. Hopefully, it'll come in time. Here are some of my ideas, for now:

- The sequel takes place in an entirely different era than Cassandra (envisioned somewhere between 1400's-1700's), such as medieval Europe, ancient Egypt, 40's Germany, present modern city or somewhere sometime in the future.
It's about a similar deal, where someone has a limited amount of space to write upon, but what he/she writes comes alive and provides a life-companion.
This sort of sequel could take on an entirely different feel than the original, and maybe even evolve in omnious ways. However, it'll most likely follow the tragic path trodden by its predecessor, let's be honest.
This kind of sequel could lead to another sequel (if successful, mind you, unlike the sequels I mention in my Sequel Post), all taking place in different times, having different twists to them.

- A story like the one above, but that connects the events of Cassandra to the new age in some way or other. This I've written part of, but it didn't turn out real well (I'll post it at the bottom here, for all to see)

- A direct Sequel or Prequel to Cassandra, that reveals something previously unknown about the original story, distorting the original view of the story (however, seeing how much I love the original, I doubt this'll happen ;p But it'd be a fun experiment).

my journey's over
I'm standing on the edge
and close my eyes
to this world of lies

my will is broken
it's the end of all my dreams
my soul yearns
for the valley of the queens

The song that the above lines are take from is called 'Valley Of The Queens', by the amazing 'Ayreon'. I highly recommend that everyone listen to Ayreon, you won't regret it for a second. And 'Valley Of The Queens' is a really beautiful song that I just can't stop listening too, so check it out! I'm sure I'll get much of my inspiration from Ayreon in the future (the only problem being that I can't afford to be that ambitious in my projects ;p).

Oh well, for those waiting for it, here's the hastily scribbled thing that might evolve into a story interlacing with Cassandra. I guess it could have the working-title "Catherine".


From the top of the cliff, the view of the world changes. All you see is the violent ocean, the beautiful colors and its beconing sound. For a second, I thought I saw a red dress floating in the water, but in an instant it was swallowed by the sea again. I hear the whisper of a familiar name, spoken by a familiar voice. A tear traces the outline of my face, dripping from my chin, at once stolen by the wind and brought down to the sea.

In my hand, I was holding a book bound in red leather. An old book, it had been one of my only companions for years, as I had searched for the cliff. The cliff was different from what I had imagined, the author of the book had never really described it fully. The house on the edge however, was exactly how I imagined it to be. It was the only house I'd seen for miles, and it was clearly abandoned. The town mention in the book, Mirror Breeze, was long gone. When I passed the former town, only ruins still stood, and even though I searched for days, I couldn't identify the hovel that had once belonged to the old lady in the book. Perhaps it had been for the best.

Searching in records for a ship called Ophelia, gone missing, yielded no results. But I had found the house now, and the cliff.

This is where he jumped, this is where she dissappeared. Maybe then, this is where my Catherine dissappeared too. I threw the leather-bound book off the edge.
"Cassandra" a voice shouted from the sea, as the book was grabbed by the waves.

From my inner jacket, I pulled a machine-written manuscript. It was two hundred and fifty pages long, four years worth of fond memories. The title was Catherine, and the end was yet to be written. I smiled, as I stepped off the cliff. The pages of the manuscript flew around me, filling me with a peace I thought I'd never again feel.
"Catherine" I whispered, as I could swear I saw her waving to me from the top of the cliff. Next to her, a girl in a red dress stood, waving to me as well. Then I hit the water.

Cassandra - revised

I wrote some time ago about editing my story Cassandra from early 2007, and I was actually in the process of doing so when I moved, forgetting all about it until I bought a new computer. Here on my new computer, I obviously didn't have the 'editing-cassandra' file, so I started over. With the strange process of re-writing the story paragraph for paragraph, I wrote my new version and posted it on SW as Cassandra (revised).

The first version of Cassandra features one of my own favorite plots, and I've always liked the story. It has also always been my most read and commented story, and it has for a long time been somewhere on the first few pages of top-all time SW popular stories. However, as many commentors said, the story was flawed, the layout was strangely messed up, and some parts of it didn't make sense. Even though I'm not entirely pleased with the new version either, I think it's a definate upgrade, and I hope people will read it, even though they read the first one. In time, I hope to be able to re-write it again, perhaps even in the way I've always wanted, making it a much longer story.

The first Cassandra was the 67 463'th story posted on SW, and Cassandra (revised) is number 348 700! I've posted about 86 stories in between the two versions, and more than two and a half years have passed! In the meantime, the story also grew more than 300 words. Hopefully, the added experience has made the story better, and will make it even better in the future. I still think the story holds up, and is still somewhat original, and I hope it'll stay that way.

Thanks for reading =)

(My next project? Maybe I'll try to revisit some other old stories, perhaps 'The beauty of a witch' or 'Purgatorial Pain')

Trying (hard) to write... as usual

Okey, so the pictures might get more and more irrelevant to the post, but at least this one is funny :p

So yeah, I recently started university... It's fun and all, getting to know a lot of nice new people, learning new stuff... But whoa, it's a dry season for my writing :s

So far I've only been writing academic texts, and even though I've tried several times, I just can't get a real story started. I've got ideas, they come all the time, and sometimes I manage to write down a few lines... Then it goes blank, and I just can't finish... Damnit!

Over at storywrite, I've got a contest going, and I'm gonna have to judge that soon. Hopefully, all the great entries there will help me pick up some inspiration and get my creative juices flowing. I haven't really had the time to read much outside of the curriculum, which is a bummer, seeing as I just bough First Blood, a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories and have already got a number of other books lined up to read. Hopefully though, I'll catch up to the schoolwork, maybe even get ahead, and then get to read something. And after reading, maybe I can get to writing ;)

Anyway, I keep checking out the contests over at storywrite, hopefully something will come up one day that really inspires me and makes me want to enter... It can be easier writing then :) I'm confident that when I get to write something, a full story, it'll be easier to keep on writing :)

Until then, I'll see you around ;)

I await my glorious return!

As some of you may have noticed (or perhaps none, as I believe that's the number of people reading this blog... yes, this is an outlet for me, as is every blog ever written by anyone) I've been away from writing both stories for SW and posts for this blog lately.

My excuses are:
Family holiday
Started university
Moved to another city
Lacked internet until this weekend

But now I'm running out of excuses (fortunately), and I can get back to writing! yey!
So, this post is really just to say: I'll be back, soon!
C ya then ;D

The Poor Sequel

A lot of my stories get a sequel, and a lot of those turn into a trilogy, or are supposed to do so. Those who still have a story to tell after three entries, can become larger pieces of work, though this seldom happens in my world of writing. One thing I find, is that the bloody second part, the first sequel, is often the place where everything goes wrong. Let me tell you about some of my sequels, and intended sequels, and how they turned out compared to the first (and perhaps third) entry.

Sanguine 2:
Back in 2007 I wrote a story called Sanguine. It's about how the wife of the devil and a friend of the devil goes to earth to wreak havoc in order to have a good time. I felt that the story is alright, presenting several interesting gore-scenes, and an all-over okey idea for a action/horror story. The ending basically said that the devil himself would like to come with the two others the next time they were going to earth. This is where the idea of a sequel enters. I started writing this sequel, trying to come up with more gore-filled scenarios where the devil would mess around with humans. However, the devil turned out to be to powerful a being for me to really write about in this way, as the story just turned into a series of scenes where the devil brutally murdered people in less and less inventive ways. Of course, the sequal was scrapped, and is still hidden away somewhere.

Chemical Wedding, Part 2:
This is the second part of a finished trilogy. However, the second part is really just leading to the third, and little actually happens to further the plot, which is the greatest problem of nr.2's in a trilogy. This isn't as good or as well written as part 1 and 3, and it doesn't make as much sense.

The Unholy Trinity, Part 2: The Antichrist:
This is also the second part of a finished trilogy, but is also mostly a filler. And besides, the ending is awful, really =p

The New Mask 2:
I once wrote a horror/slasher/comedy/spoof thing that I called The New Mask. It wasn't very good, and so when I started writing a second part, it was (of course) really awful, and I didn't have to write more than a couple hundred words to realize that I would never finish or post a second part to the story.

Departed - Part Two:
This is the second part of an unfinished series. The third part hasn't been finished, and I don't know if it will be. Really, the first part of this gave closure, and I think people would like the story better if they only read the first part. This second part isn't crappy though, just confusing I think, and it sets the scene for a larger story that might never get written. This one luckily has an ending that can sort of give closure to the whole thing, and therefor doesn't seem like another filler to a third part, and I'm glad.

Buccaneer Sky - Part 2: We Sail The Jolly Roger:
This second part in another unfinished series really didn't feel the same way as the first part, and is definately filler, without really leading to something serious, or anything at all that the reader can expect from the third part. A third part was started, but hasn't been finished yet. I really liked this series, and enjoyed writing it, and I still like the first part a lot, but this second part hasn't got anything to bring to the table, and isn't particularly good. It's a shame, cause I think the series could have turned out alright... Oh well.

Kain, Hunted:
This is the follow up to Kain, Nightunter. It has a few ideas incorporated that I've been working on, and that I wrote about earlier. However, this one also feels incredibly like a filler, as it definately serves the purpose of leading up to the third part. In the third part, I plan to try introducing an overarching villain, as I wrote about in an earlier post here. I don't think this story is bad, but it certainly left out some of what I think made the first part good. Focusing more on action, this part has neglected a lot of detail, like the description of characters that destinguished the first part. This one has a lot of gore, but little of it is fleshed out, and this one also lacks the sexual content and foul language of the first one, resebling some of my early work more than the first part of the series. With the third part, I want to get back to the feel of the first one, and make a good sequel, trying to ignore the crude style of the poor first sequel.

(I'm not the only one doing this. Dracula 2: Ascension. Pirates of the Caribbean 2. The Matrix 2 and 3. AVP2. The new Indiana Jones movie. Ghost Busters 2. Saw 2. Movies are a great example of poor sequels, and I guess the same often rings true for written works)

The Names Are In The Music

A lot of my inspiration come from music, as I am always listening to music when I write. Sometimes I listen to heavy metal, sometimes it's 80's pop, and sometimes it's irish and celtic music. I listen to a lot of different music, and I'm usually able to draw some sort of inspiration from most of it. However, I do find that I also like to draw character names from songs that I like. If I find a characters name in a song, I can often get other inspiration for that character from the same song or the same band. Here's an example of characters I've named after songs, or fund inspiration for in songs:

Mephisto - The main character of my unfinished novel was not named after a song, but after hearing the song 'Mephisto' by Moonspell, I incorporated parts of the song in the character, such as the line 'I am an angel who dresses in red', leading to the idea of him wearing mostly red and black clothes. (The fact that he was a fallen angel however, I established earlier).

Cassandra - The titular character of my short story 'Cassandra' is named after the song by the same name by Theatre of Tragedy. In the song they sing 'She hath no life but the one he for her wrought', which led to the idea that the character had no life, but the one 'he' for her wrote, the whole basis of the story.

Messalina and Nightwing - These two characters from Kain, Nighthunter are both the titles of songs by Inkubus Sukkubus, and alongside the song 'Sanctuary' by the same band, they helped establish several ideas I incorporated into the story.

Characters from Mephisto - In mephisto I had a character named Cassandra, named after the same song that named the short story. I also had a character named Lillith, partially inspired by the song 'heart of lillith' by Inkubus Sukkubus. Another of their songs inspired the character Atrocity from Mephisto, and made me create a backstory based on the song. The character Beltaine was also inspired by one of their songs. A character called Luna/Lisa was named after the song 'Luna' by Moonspell and 'Lisa' by Lita Ford... And yes, in the story it makes sense that she has two names. The idea for this novel was that I'd pay homage to some of my favorite bands and authors by naming characters, locations and such after them or their work, without copying of course, so I mainly stuck to first names. Some characters however, like Azrael, Lucifer and Lucifierra were harder to link to any particular piece of work, but all of them were in turn inspired by pieces of music I was listening to while writing. I could probably make a soundtrack for each character and chapter at the time of writing =)

So yeah, to sum up, I use a lot of music to inspire my writing, and in particular my characters. I've found that Inkubus Sukkubus is a great band to look at when I want a character-name that suits the sort of mythology I'm going for in works like Mephisto and Kain, Nighthunter. And yes, the picture on top is of Inkubus Sukkubus. I thank them for all the inspiration they have given me so far when listening to their albums, and all the inspiration they will continue to give me in the future =D

Kain, Nighthunter

As I was away in holiday this last week, I didn't get any writing done... However, a lot of ideas popped into my head. A surprisingly large amount of these ideas featured or somehow had something to do with the character Kain and the other characters I made for my last story Kain, Nighthunter.

I've walked around with an idea of how to start a new chapter in the story of Kain since I posted the last part. Kain is to have a wife, a fairy, who is tiny (like most faeries) at day, but grows to the size of a human at night. Their house is to be attacked by evil creatures at the start of the next chapter, and Kain then goes to see Messalina and Nightwing in order to find out who sendt the creatures, what they want, and where to find them.

After a long time of thinking about this new chapter, I found myself coming up with backstories for both Kain, Messalina and Nightwing, and I made up a story that I somehow want to feature in the Kain-universe, even hough I'm unsure how. I also made a backstory for some of the creature-types featured in the last and the upcoming part.

The hardest thing to make up, is the main villain. In the last part Cathola was the main bad-guy(/girl), but I wanted her to be stopped fairly easy (as Messalina did, at the end of the story), so that she wouldn't feel too powerful. I have plans to set her actions in a broader perspective though, and I want her to be associated with a bigger bad-guy, that I want to introduce in this part.

I don't know why, but I've always had a problem writing about bad-guys that are persistant in my works. In my longest piece of work to date, my unfinished novel Mephisto, there was never a clear villain. In the start, Mephisto was introduced as the villain, but turned out to be one of the prominent good-guys. Then I introduced a long time foe of Mephisto called Atrocity, but I made Mephisto kill him early on. Then I introduced Beltaine, who kidnapped both Mephisto and other friends of the main-character. Later on, Beltaine converted to the side of the protagonist, and I still lacked an antagonist. I guess the closest I came was the archangel Peter, who tried to set up a war between heaven and hell. This character was never met by the main character however, and only mentioned several times, making a very uninvolved antagonist. In the stories about Kain, I want a more involved antagonist, and I want to make it a good one. Good luck to me =p

Any tips or hints about how to do this? Please leave a comment ;)