Character Biography 1: Tin Star
Welcome to the first in what will hopefully be a medium sized line of original character biographies and details. Below is a picture of the first of these original characters and he is called Tin Star.
Just a little background information before I introduce Tin Star – He and all the other characters that I will introduce reside in Castlefinn City. This is my Gotham/Metropolis/San Angeles all rolled into one. I couldn’t manage to fit any of my crazy characters in any regular city I could think of, so I thought it best to create my own city and populate it with the craziest, weirdest, most evil bastards I could think of.
Without further ado – Tin Star.
His story after the jump.
Dieselpunk Draft 1
So the entire time I’ve had this blog, and there has been a writing category, and I have not posted any writing.
So here it is, the first few paragraphs of my as yet untitled Dieselpunk Novel.
The oil and grease didn’t wash off anymore, his fingertips were permanently blackened. Within a year he’d have black palms and wrists. Another year and he’d have black forearms and feet. It’s impossible to stop the progression and after it makes your hair fall out, it turns the whites of your eyes black.
Most men don’t even bother washing once it reaches the armpits, because it’s pointless. You can’t go back under the dome with the rest of the static folk; City Lords, Bucky followers and the tower residents. Most of them have never even seen a lifelong engineer with thick black skin and terrifying eyes. They didn’t even want to know about you once you stopped looking like them.
He put a hydro-tobacco cigar between his wet black fingertips and walked away from the engine room to one of the skeleton cars to feel the dirty air on his face. He lit his cigar and looked across the dry, crinkled earth. Danny was an engineer now, and he would never be getting off this train.
All right; enough is enough
It’s never going to be perfect, and I’m not going to be properly ready to blog for another few weeks, but nuts to it, let’s get this damn show on the road.
Today I went into town to do something that I always look forward to. Every time it rolls around I’m more than happy to get it done, even if it’s difficult to pay for.
I’m talking of course, about an eye test. I love getting my eyes test, and sleep deprivation not withstanding, I had a blast. I know this all sounds really dorky, but I genuinely enjoy it. I didn’t go to my usual guy, which is kind of annoying because my usual guy has an unusually soothing voice, but I digress…
As is par for the course these days the hardest part was trying to get what I wanted for a price I could afford. With some finagling, a gentle nudge of a 25% discount [supposedly only for the over 60's], and a mid sized thwack from my medical card I was able to get a very nice pair of glasses, with decent lenses for 80 euros. Not bad at all.
They’ll be available for collection on the 18th of this month, so I’ll try and get a picture up around then.
Other than that I paid the rent and got a haircut. The before and after pictures for the haircut I will post somewhere in the next few days if I can manage it.
Tomorrow is the second day of my welding course, and the first day we actually start welding. I’ll try to remember to bring the camera.
I am working on getting character bios for some of the characters of the fictional Irish city: Castlefinn City.
The first [and hopefully more] of these will be posted soon along with an illustration of each character drawn by Frank.
Nonsense to waiting, and enough hanging about. Let’s blog this shit.
Writer Saturday
I’m a writer, I’m supposed to lay in bed until 4pm, get up, scratch myself for an hour then drink and yell at my keyboard.
I got up at 10am. I wrote 3 scenes. I haven’t had a drink in days. And you know what: I’m more productive when I’m on a rough 9-5 schedule. So that’s that myth gone – you can’t escape the grind, no matter how weird your job.
When you’re unemployed Sundays are pretty meaningless
Finished the first act of my TV pilot. Two acts to go. Very excited about it. It’s all about crossed wires between two hitmen and a white collar criminal. There’s 200,000 Euros involved too, so tensions will run high throughout act two and three. Watch this space for fame and money. In the interim if you’d like to send me a little donation, there’s a page set up for paypal donations, over here.
Be kind rewind.
I’ve never seen the movie, but I like the phrase.
Saturday. Just Saturday
Exploring my characters in a sort of lateral way. Having to force dialog instead of relying on voice over and floury explanation to get my point across. I’d never noticed the amount of little characters there are until you make your characters move around outside the pub.
Spending the weekend at Mema’s house. Meatballs!
Writing Thursday
Spent most of the day writing. Transferring formats between a short story and a TV pilot. It’s going quite well. I’ve never actually done anything like this before, and I think it’s going well.
It’s called “Blood, Fire and Spades in Castlefinn City”. If anything comes of it I’ll definitely let youse all know.
Nikki, my industry mentor, suggested that I get Final Draft 7, the industry standard program for writing screenplays, plays and TV shows. It’s fantastic software, and anyone who wants to be a writer and has an extra 200-300 dollars lying about, get your hands on it.
Oh yeah, the picture.
Possible Life Changing Wednesday
So, this is a back posted series of days [updating 27th April] because I’ve been writing and dealing with the events that occurred Tuesday night, after I posted the daily picture. First, today’s picture, then the life changing.
So, on Monday my dad was working around the house of this woman, he’s in telecommunications contracting just so you know, and they got to chatting. She mentioned that she was a First Assistant Director on several popular TV shows in the UK. He then proceeded to talk her ear off for the next hour or so about me, and my media experience. She was very interested, she gave my pa her number to give to me [are you keeping up?] he texted it to me, I left a message on her voicemail, and then settled into bed, ready to try again on wednesday evening, today.
My phone rang, it was her, and we proceeded to talk for around 90 minutes about the industry, what I wanted to do, her work, my work….
She called me “Babe” and said that she could be the first entry in my “little black book”. It was exactly the sort of conversation I envisioned having with someone in the business we call show. A business with no equal apparently.
So I’ve been writing and reading my previous works, editing and refining and picking out my best work. It’s been a busy few days, but it could very easily be very, very worth it.
