Sessions/Studio Time Babble

[sb]

muzegoddess, thank you. thank YOU SO MUCH. and not just about Rob, but you've got a reservation...

[sb]

We are putting together another band, and part of our process involves both bios and creating mosaics for the characters. We do this for all our major characters. It's not easy (the mosaics can be really hard), but we find it really helps to get to know them.

Example:

Rob's Mosaic

1. First Name - Rob
2. Hometown - Georgetown
3. Favorite Food - Crab feast
4. Favorite Color - Dirty White
5. Favorite Weather - Snow
6. Favorite Drink - Absolut Vodka
7. Dream Vacation - Ice Hotel in Sweden
8. Favorite Dessert - Blueberries
9. Profession - Musician
10. One of the things I love most in the world - Lady in the wind
11. One Word That Describes Me - Organized
12. Something Else About Me - Keep Your Distance

[sb]

Sure you can! You go into Flickr and find the pics you want and save them as favorites. That is the really really hard part, finding photos that give you what you want. Then you go into BigHugeLabs.com and select mosaic. You can tell it to pull the shots you saved as your favorites into the mosaic. You can control the number of columns and rows, the background color, etc. Then you just save it to your pc.

[sb]

For contrast, here is Jimmy Breaux's mosaic

[laura]

I love these mosaics too! And yes, the picture part is the hardest, because I tried to do it once and gave up very quickly, lol! I love them all!

[Stacy]

Dec 5, 2010 17:56:55 GMT -5 @sb said:

For contrast, here is Jimmy Breaux's mosaic

No wonder he's my favorite.

[sb]

Stacy: figures he would be!

Laura: it is extremely hard to find photos that work. And we like to try to make the mosaic look good too, so that means finding photos that sort of go together. On a cold rainy day when I don't feel like doing anything else, it's an interesting project though.

Not sure I got it right for
Rayne, but I tried.

[somuchsong]

Oh, yes, I meant to find a place to say it on your blog but I forgot to by the time I was caught up! But I love the mosaics. Even looking at them and just appreciating them visually is great but it's even better to learn a little something more about the characters too.

[sb]

Carla, thank you so much!

[celebkiriedhel]

Wow what a fantastic idea - and I love how the mosaic adds an extra dimension to the preferences too. I'm going to have to borrow this idea!

[sb]

Kiri, if I've given anything back to the people here, I'm pleased. The questions could use some work...I get tired of the dessert menu.

[sb]

As a few of you know who read or have taken a look at our work, it is really long. Gayl and I have been writing this series for almost 4 years now. We've broken it into new 'parts' three times, partly driven by changes in blog format (we had to do it) and partly because we found a natural break in the storyline that would allow us to do that. Gayl started with Dark December, moved into The Other Side of the Stage, and then into Sessions. Along the way we have written several sidestories (Rising Above, Passages and Chameleon), all of which depend on the characters and plot in the 'main' story but can sort of be read by themselves.

Sessions as 'Sessions' is now really long. I don't know whether to attempt to start a new 'piece' or leave it alone. If there was a natural break, it was a couple of chapters back when Cooper's second marriage fell apart. We are introducing a new band so maybe that's an excuse. Do we need to come up with a break? What's the best way to manage a long series like this that has no natural 'generation' or 'round' breaks?

[thelunarfox]

I think the new band is a good excuse for a proper break in the story, but other than that, I just don't know. You two are unique with such a long running serial-type story, and I can't think of anyone else right now that I can point to and show what they've done.

Laura and LH is pretty close. She does seasons with themes. I did something similar for my Sims 2 blog where the seasons were actual seasons. I know that probably doesn't help you though. Maybe if you thought of each story piece as a different song or chord in a song? Then we can say the new band is a new song and have that sort of be the beginning theme (just meaning of the opening piece here, not necessarily something you have to continue).

Hmm, does that make any sense? There's just a lot of variety and cross overs themes to songs. They're different lengths, sometimes they end abruptly and other times they end softly. So maybe you should try thinking of Sessions differently.


Or perhaps it's still too early for me to be making comments?

[sb]

Thanks Lunar. Coming up with a song as a theme sort of boggles my mind, what there is left of it, but maybe Gayl could come up with something. She is definitely the more musical of the two of us. I have seen one other really long series but she just named them numbers and seemed to cut it off at random when she got five in each section or something, which makes as much sense as anything else.

Might just cut it off with the new band. We don't have hundreds of readers after all, and I doubt anybody is going to question why we did it like that. Thank you and get some coffee!!

[thelunarfox]

lol, I was just thinking about coffee. I don't drink it and really can't stand the stuff. But it always looks so cool.

And I think your readers understand. Are you wanting to make the new break maybe with the idea of making it easier for any new readers, or is it more an organization thing?

ETA: Maybe the coffee thing is the mug. I've had hot cocoa out of a mug in the morning and I felt pretty cool. Yeah, maybe I'll do that.

[sb]

I don't know whether it's because it just looks too long to me or if I really think it will make it easier to read. Probably not the latter. Why would it? It LOOKS easier to read that way, but it isn't. It's still long.

The hot cocoa...I've been so sleepy lately I've been mixing it with coffee.

[thelunarfox]

Now coffee and chocolate go together pretty good! I could see myself making a small pot of coffee just to add it into my cocoa. I can also see the look Jay would probably give me. It'd be so worth it.

Breaks do make it look easier to read. They are helpful. Like the way chapters in novels are.

[sb]

I get strange looks too, even stranger when I dump the marshmellows in there....

You're right. They do make it both look easier to read and somehow actually easier to read. I'm going to look at the long list and see if we can figure out some way to break it up.

Thank you!

[laura]

I would encourage the break, and yes, it does feel like a natural place for one.

And you're not just imagining things, it really will make the story easier to read - it's a psychology thing. When a reader comes to a physical page even, if there's a large block of text with no white space, no chapter breaks, no section breaks, it's too daunting, and they close the book. Readers need breathing room. And there's also a feeling of accomplishment for having read to the end of a piece of something - or at least that's how I feel when I'm digging through longer works, lol!

As far as my breaks, I just chop them up wherever they feel natural. Sometimes a season is only 3 months long - sometimes it's 9 months long. It all depends on how much story has to be covered in there. Your rules can be whatever you want, and whatever best suits your story.

Are you going to be renaming the series as well? Or will it still be called Sessions?

[sb]

Laura, I agree with you. I don't know why it works because it doesn't seem to make logical sense, but it does.

I love the idea of seasons but don't think it would work for us. Coming up with even a group of five or ten would help though.

I'll run all this through Gayl. It's her decision as much as mine. I hate giving up the title Sessions and don't believe it is really necessary, plus we already have like 6 or 7 different blogs if you go back to the beginning and count all of them. It's difficult to manage, and I don't think would help.

Thank you!