I cheated a bit on my Thursday to-do list and got a little carried away with brainstorming and character sketches.  I gave myself a limit of 45 minutes; I ended up working for 2.5 hours, but oh man, I just couldn’t help myself.

As I’ve mentioned before, Path to the Peacock Throne has been in a bit of a muddled spot — I encountered a rather tricksy patch during a really pivotal scene that is necessary for revealing a number of truths and moving the action forward, and I haven’t quite known what to do with it.  To top it off, Liandre, my main character, hasn’t been cooperating at all.  Upon rereading the first few chapters, I’ve found her rather flat and two-dimensional, prone to such cliched actions like crying in every scene (seriously, I think it occurs in roughly 4 or 5 scenes in a row), and altogether cardboard-like and frustrating.

I’m perhaps being a bit too hard on her (and on myself), but the bottom line is that I’m going to have to do some serious overhauling… but only once this first draft is finished. Until then, I’m moving forward, though with the intent of digging deeper into Liandre’s personality, character, and motivations.

I stumbled upon the Emotion Thesaurus over at The Bookshelf Muse, and reading through the different lists of attitudes and emotions has given me much food for thought.  There is hope for salvaging Liandre from the wreckage of cliches and Mary Sue-ness. 😀

With that, the stats for Thursday:

  • General Brainstorming, Path to the Peacock Throne: 838 words
  • Character Sketches, PPT: 925 words
  • Drabbly Scenes, PPT: 411 words
The downside?  Nothing done on the thesis, with the exception of a few hastily scrawled words before my afternoon nap.  Meh, not something to be proud of, but I suppose ‘tomorrow is always another day.’  I am therefore banning all creative pursuits for Friday, at least until I get some academic stuff done.  It’s all about incentives, right?