Friday, June 26, 2015

Inspirations: Redwall

    You might recall I mentioned a while back that the fantasy elements stemmed not only from the Legend of Zelda, but also from Brain Jaqcues' Redwall. Close to when Ocarina of Time came out for the Nintendo 64, Redwall was airing on TV. I actually recall the first adventures being riding on a horse like Epona with bombs to find a cave to fight a giant snake to claim a sword. In fact, for a long time, those two were linked as I called my castle Bluewall. Eventually, the elements from Brian Jacques' stories faded away though I might revisit the ideas.
    While my introduction to his stories was Redwall, the only book I had read was Martin the Warrior, corresponding to when it was on TV. So recently, I decided to pick up the original book and see what lessons I can learn from it. It is quite interesting to see the alternating style of a long chapter then short chapter. What I was more hoping for though was tips about describing the essentials for the blind reader. There are some uses of sound, but they aren't as profound as I thought they were going to be. Either way, it will probably be a good experience and beneficial to my next novel due to similarities in the environment. So while you wait for my novel, I can recommend that you pick up one of his books.

Happy Reading,
J. D. Nyle

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Casting Call: Searching for Artists

    I guess "Casting Call" may not be the correct phrase. However, I am in search for an artist who may be able to help illustrate various ideas I have in my mind. Something I have learned over the years is that the imagination focuses on one aspect at a time when coming up with a description. This means I can conjure up many cool things, but when you put them together, they are hideous, kind of like that one Digimon that took various parts from other Digimon.
    This of course also relates to the creation process in general. Long ago, I took whatever I thought was cool and tried to connect it. This led to things like YuGiOh style battles happening alongside Beyblade. If that sounds like I couldn't work, it didn't. Nonetheless, it is still the process of creating something you can call your own. This is because your imagination can only work with what it has seen. What eventually happens is that you mix and match so many things, you eventually come up with something unique that also works. In my case in general, that happened to be the current form of Neostriker.