Weekly Update
So, I did not get much writing done; I have been watching Sherlock and playing chess against computer bots. When I play real people, I get tense and lightheaded, so I don’t do it often, and it’s true online as well as in person, though in person is definitely much more stressful.
Anyway, that is actually rather relevant because I made a revelation this morning. You may know that I have had a world idea for some time involving what I call the Rookery. It’s a play on the word “rook” which has several meanings: the bird, the chess piece, monks, thieves… Anyway, I thought: what if there was a religious organization with multiple deities/practices that were kind of all connected, and one of them is the Rookery, which, in addition to serving the Goddess of Darkness, also functions as a secret organization of spies, assassins, and thieves? And they leave a rook chess piece when they are recruiting, but other chess pieces when they have committed a “crime” (but because they are sanctioned by the state, it’s not exactly a crime, though also not exactly legal either — in a kind of grey area).
But that is just a setting. I didn’t have a story for it, so it has just been sitting there, waiting for the right moment.
I don’t know if this is the right moment, but I do know that I finally have a character for this setting. I’ve always been drawn to unlikable, intelligent types. For a long time, my two favorite fictional characters have been Madame Defarge from Tale of Two Cities and Severus Snape from Harry Potter. We can now add Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock to that — I haven’t read the real Doyle fiction, nor have I seen any other actual interpretations, so I don’t know whether I would have the same reaction to actual Sherlock Holmes, but that is rather moot. I have a type of character I love, but have never written.
And that, my friends, needs to change. And they would fit perfectly in The Rookery world. I think I know what I am doing for NaNo this year!
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