the snowflake project

After a much too long wait, I give you: Sky-Kicker’s Character Chart!

Let me say this: creating a made-up language is extremely hard. Naming characters is tough enough, nevermind naming everyday objects or concepts in a way that seems remotely convincing. I have new respect for Adam, naming everything in the world. But despite the pain of it, the language of the Eldest (which also happens to be the ancient tongue of the religion of The One God) is taking shape, tiny piece by tiny piece. I don’t expect to have a real working vocabulary ever, but there will be enough words to support several phrases that I’ll need to pull out.

In other news:

I’ve been struggling with time management lately – as evidenced by my long absence from this blog/site. Yesterday, I paid $10 + tax for an iPhone app that tracks all the time I spend on everything (as long as I remember to push the buttons when I start something and when I stop it).

It began with a desire to limit TV watching in order to read more and write more. But as I’m realizing the possibilities, I’m seeing that I’ll gain a much better understanding of how precious time is and really start using it better. Even now, it’s ticking away the minutes I’m spending writing this blog post.

I’m slowly plodding forward in the world building process. I may take a break from it and go into the next Snowflake Method step soon, just to make sure that doesn’t lose any momentum.

In the meantime, I’ve added a description of the Elves in Kos’s world to the Races page. They’re different from standard elves – in fact I’m considering doing away with the word ‘elf’ altogether. Let me know what you think!

I’ve added the first secondary character to the Characters page. I chose to start with Sky-Kicker, Kos’s elvish (elven?) teacher. Elves in Kos’s world are very different from traditional elves. You’ll see how as Sky-Kicker develops. For one thing, they participate fully in nature, rather than seeming only to represent natures most savory aspects. As much as I like Tolkien, his elves are far too detached for my taste.

Sky-Kicker fills the role of “sage” in the Kos’s journey, but he’s not so one-dimensional. He has his own struggles that he’s dealing with, and ultimately must face.

More secondary characters to come soon!