Cheesecake Fiction

Day 8 of the Writing Marathon.

Have you ever been to the Cheesecake Factory in Chicago? Well I have and it's crazy. Big-butt (as in: that's what'll end up having) slices, massive amounts of other food, all for equally massive prices. If you love to eat, that would be your place. I'm not sure it if the decor is the same in every Cheesecake Factory, but I found at least the atmosphere to be inspirational. Pictures speak more than words so let me show you what I mean:

Inspiration

Pretty organic feel to it, no? That was kind of where I was going for with the tree-houses inside my fairy tale city FabelInsel. Simon, Maya, Alix, Karl and Sesame (the monkey) are now inside the city and staying at the Sleeping Beauty Inn, where they are staying, while the jury is still out with a verdict what to do with them.  They're going to spend some time (of the book) in this city so I needed a lot of reference materials to properly describe a magical  forest dwelling. 

I got my inspiration from other places too. The Maldives resort Nancy, Alex and I stayed at in the end of 2007 gave me the idea for the lighting of the city as well as the Great Library (which I might have to axe for Book 1, seeing that it's getting to big).

Firefly Lights

Glow Worm Lights

The Great Library

Security Globes at the Gate

Chapter 9: Emotional Resolution

Inspiration is all around us and it's up to us to use it and reuse it and... you get the picture. Today I finished Chapter 9: Sleeping Anger; a riff on Sleeping Beauty. It was a tough long chapter to write, because it was all new and gathered a bunch of emotional moments together in a more concentrated burst of character conflict. This sets the tone for the next few chapters when something similar occurs. For now, Simon is no longer shell-shocked by the Aelemental world around him, but actively bonding with Alix, while Maya watches all of this from the shadows. Karl happily and clumsily adds comic relief to the foursome.

I'll be back tomorrow. Zwaai-zwaai!