On Dramatis Personae

Hello friends!

I am very excited to have you here and to talk a little bit about my work. For the last several years I have been hard at work on the tentatively-titled Scion of Victory trilogy. It has been a lot of hard work, and it’s not an understatement to say that I have thought about this story and these characters every day for the last four years.

You can read a bit about Scion of Victory and my other works in progress here. But I wanted to take the time to talk about my characters specifically.

Creating characters is no easy feat. Creating realistic, well-rounded characters is even more difficult. I hope I’ve pulled that off, at least with the important characters of Scion of Victory. I’ve also added a quote from the book for each. Without further ado, here we go!

The Narrators

Kita Toddentry: A 24-year-old noble Bursettan with a desire to do more. Kita finds herself far from home at the end of a decade-long war, but she’s convinced the God of Victory will help her to succeed. The youngest of four, Kita has always felt the shadows of her brothers looming over her life and has struggled to shine on her own merit.

“She backed away from Jekk, listening. …she heard nothing beyond the two of them, no sign of danger… It was reckless, she knew. Reckless and stupid. But Kita darted away from her husband and turned that corner before he could stop her…”

Ramint Fluryne: A 38-year-old Taulithian exile who’s given up on her dreams. Ramint has a penchant for helping weary travelers on their way, and her life seems simple until she meets Kita. She was once married, but her wife died more than a decade ago, a loss that still echoes in her life.

“During her first winter in charge of Laud, she had found three travelers frozen to death not thirty minutes outside the village’s border. Had she bothered to seek out those in need of her aid, they might have lived.”

Eva Marisco: A 28-year-old foreigner who has a magic she’s struggling to understand. Eva believes her magic brought her to the realm of Bursett and might pull her home, if only she can learn more about it. Her tight-lipped companion might know more about the magic, but he isn’t keen on revealing his secrets.

“Eva had never liked camping. In what felt like another life, her dad had tried to get her to appreciate sleeping in the great outdoors, taking her and her little sister into the mountains for days at a time… Eva had hated those trips.”

The Supporting Cast

Jekk Dimitrion: A 27-year-old Bursettan noble, and Kita’s husband of seven years. Jekk has made a name for himself as a tactician who advised the king, but is no skilled warrior. He became friends with Kita and her brother Isanto when they were all children.

“Jekk said nothing of her recklessness, her defiance. Kita had seen women struck for such disobedience, but Jekk only sighed. He rarely shouted, and he had never touched her with anything but gentleness…”

Fahvitt Skalann: A 30-year-old ex-soldier who fought for Bursett. When he deserted, he was sentenced to death but slipped away into the mountains, where he met Ramint. The two are close friends, and like her, he believes his life is simple until he meets Kita.

“Fahvitt had been Ramint’s second-in-command for about five years, and she had chosen him in part because he balanced her out. Where she always extended a hand of help to any who crossed her path, Fahvitt was wary of all he met. His life had been difficult in different ways than hers had.”

Gabriel O’Shea: Eva’s travel companion. He doesn’t often speak of his life before he met Eva, about eight years ago, and Eva suspects many reasons behind this. He has his own magic different from Eva’s, but he’s helped her explore hers. 

“Of course, it had crossed Eva’s mind that Gabriel could be lying. He might have slain the hunter and buried him far from their new home. She had known him to do worse, had watched him rip souls from their bodies as easily as plucking a hangnail.”

The God of Victory: Also simply called Victory. A minor Bursettan god who pushes Kita to excel and pursue greatness.

“Victory’s voice was smooth as silk, deep as a lake. Kita wanted to revel in it. They crouched before her, their face filling her vision once more. They pressed a kiss to her forehead, and light filled her.”

Artwork by Renée Beaudoin. Check out her work here.

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What I wrote this week: Draft 4, chapters 11, 12, 13, 17, and 20. 

What I read this week: The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo; They Could Have Named Her Anything by Stephanie Jimenez.

On Covid, Pandemics, and Quarantine

Hello friends!

I didn’t mean for this to be my first blog post, but this is 2021 and here we are.

Last March, my creativity kicked into overdrive when I learned that I would be working remotely and stuck in my cramped apartment for the foreseeable future. I entered 2020 with the goal of writing draft 3 of Scion of Victory by June and the (second attempt of the) first draft of the sequel by December. With the abundance of time I suddenly had on my hands, I managed to finish the third draft by the end of April. 

I’m an introvert, so my social calendar already wasn’t very full—I most missed weekly Dungeons and Dragons and monthly board game nights with friends. I live with my partner, and we get along splendidly, so I wasn’t lonely or irritated. I missed not seeing my parents, but still spoke with them regularly. I was able to put more focus on school and finishing my MFA. I put more energy into maintaining my long-distance friendships. I did yoga four times a week. All-in-all, despite the screwed-up sleeping schedule and questionable hygiene, I was thriving.

But quarantine in Los Angeles didn’t last forever, and eventually I had to go back to work. Forty hours of my week went back to that, along with a lot of my energy. I spent ten months being very careful in public, wearing my mask and sanitizing my hands and maintaining a distance of at least six feet, thank you. It has been exhausting.

And then last week, I got sick for the first time since this all began. I thought it was allergies, but it wasn’t. I got a positive result for Covid-19 on Wednesday, and my partner immediately banished me to the master suite of our house. The first thing I did after settling in was make a to-do list in anticipation of the two weeks I suddenly had at home. (To-do lists help me feel organized and motivated.) Top of the list was creating this website.

The rest of the list hasn’t happened because one thing I didn’t anticipate (perhaps naively) about getting Covid?

I would have the energy for absolutely nothing.

It’s infuriating and boring and maddening. Over the last week, I’ve lost a concerning amount of weight, slept far more than I’m used to, had chills and fever, and picked up a cough that sounds like it belongs to an avid smoker. I’ve written nothing, read less than 200 pages, and had some of the strangest dreams. Perhaps most depressing of all is that my symptoms are comparatively mild and because I’m a relatively healthy young woman in my mid-twenties with no underlying medical conditions, I’ll very likely recover fully.

This blog post is the first thing I’ve written in a week, and I’m coughing constantly and watching comfort movies while I do it. I’ve been sick before—colds, laryngitis, a particularly mean case of strep throat that turned into mononucleosis my freshman year of college—but nothing like this. I’ve been so entirely sapped of willpower and energy, and honestly my brain kind of goop. 

So this gets to be my first official blog post. Be safe out there. Don’t go anywhere you don’t need to. Wear a damn mask. Don’t get sick like me and hate everything.

Anyway, I’m gonna take a page out of my dear writing buddy’s blog book and end each of these with what I wrote this week and what I read.

What I wrote this week: Nothing! 🙂

What I read this week: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.

Hello!

Welcome to my blog! Here I will provide relevant updates regarding my creative endeavors.

Who am I? I’m Belinda, a queer Latinx writer based outside of Los Angeles. I love cats and Disneyland and books. Try the “About” page for more.

What do I write? Of late, my focus has been on an epic fantasy trilogy. I also enjoy writing short stories and plays. I love writing about people like me in circumstances entirely unlike my own.

Why do I write? I’ve loved telling stories for a very long time, and I’ve sought to expand my skills whenever possible. I keep writing because I have stories to tell, and I hope that they’re stories others will want to hear.