Once again I've woken up at a stupidly late hour. I tried to fix my sleep schedule today and I went longer without going to sleep than I have been the last few days but unfortanutely the battle was lost and I fell asleep too early and now I'm going to be awake all night once again. sigh...
Well, Stephen King once said, “When you are consumed with thoughts, write. When you are uninspired, read.”
I am consumed with thoughts tonight, so I'm going to write.
Okay so I recently binged the Disney Fairies movies (read some of the books too), Tangled the Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Sofia the First, and Elena of Avalor. And what I got out of those was a reminder of how despite being a boy, I was always drawn to these family friendly magical princessy sort of stories.
I wasn't always willing to admit it to myself and certainly not to others, but something about these settings just clicks with me in the right way.
I think it has something to do with some Jungian philosophies about how our subconscious minds yearn to embrace the opposite gender sides of our psyches. A topic I'm not educated enough on to really talk about, so I'm gonna move on.
Anyways, to cut to the chase I've been inspired by these stories to write my own, Gal the Ghost Princess. My idea with this story is to make it a free web series that I share the full creative process on, not holding back spoilers or anything (you can choose to ignore spoilers if you want).
My reason for this is I feel the most creatively motivated when I can share everything I'm working on. Unfortunately this means I can't also publish Gal, not unless I do a full rewrite of the web series edition which I might eventually do. But it'll be much more freeing for me as a writer and I won't have to feel so isolated and constrained by worrying about holding back on sharing anything because of spoilers and making content I want to publish free (outside of sharing with critiquers of course).
I'm hoping by doing it this way, a few things will happen. One, that I grow an audience of people who are interested in my work. I enjoy my own company and I love writing for myself but I'm on this earth to share and express myself, and frankly it pains me that I don't have a larger audience invested in my work but there's a whole laundry list of reasons for why that's the case, most of which are out of my control and not worth agonizing over and yet I still do. I feel like I'm screaming into the void with most of what I put out there. Frankly, I doubt anyone will ever read this post. I'll get a couple likes on my YouTube community post that's probably just people pushing the like button for the sake of it but nobody really engages with my content, not most of it anyway, I have had a few good performing videos.
But anyway now that the venting is out of the way let's talk about Gal the Ghost Princess.
These crude drawings you see here are my very first attempts at drawing the titular character of my family-friendly web series.
I'm super happy with the personality I was able to get out of the bottom two drawings. Not so happy with the outfit. I tried to make her look steampunky and regal without being too fancy, as that's her character, but she just looks like a maid crossed with a flight attendant. I think somewhere between the bottom two drawings is the sweet spot for this design.
As the title implies, Gal dies eventually. But right now I'm trying to get her living form down before I try adding glowy bits to her and make her float to turn her into a ghost.
I'll go ahead and share what I've written down so far, and I'll be back with you after to talk about my thought process on writing this story:
A young princess burst out of her room beaming. She ran through the freshly cleaned floral-scented royal halls, away from distressed handmaidens and towards the wide stairs leading down to the foyer.
“Your highness! Your hair! We haven't even touched it, darlin’,” one of the handmaidens cried.
Princess Gal turned around and jogged backwards, her shoes tapping with excitement over the echoey floors.
“It's fine!” Gal said. A curly strand of dark blue hair fell over her eye, she tucked it behind her ear. “Get your pretty selves ready for the ceremony, I'll see you there!”
The handmaidens shook their heads and smiled wryly as the princess turned and made for the stairs.
Down in the foyer, King Lawrence and the steward Joshua rushed out the door together, the king signing documents from a huge stack the steward carried.
“Daddy!” Princess Gal said, before sitting over the railing of the stairs and sliding down fast.
Without looking, the king said hurriedly, “Gal, where are your brothers and sisters? We're running late as it is.”
Gal grabbed the post at the bottom of the rail and used her momentum to shoot across the foyer towards the exit. She noticed a document had fallen to the ground behind the steward. She picked it up and shoved it into the stack the steward carried.
“They're probably worried about looking good, as usual.” Gal sprinted ahead towards the many carriages awaiting in the royal courtyard. “Come on, you two! I don't wanna miss the music.”
Little Princess January brushed past the legs of the king and the steward, causing them to drop all of the papers. Her hair was messy too.
“Gal!” Princess January laughed and ran into her big sister's arms.
Princess Gal scooped her up and twirled her around in the air with the continued momentum she had from the stair slide.
“Let's ride together, Jan,” Gal said. She placed her little sister on the ground and held her hand as they ran toward the nearest carriage straight ahead.
Gal looked back at the king and steward, who were shuffling through the scattered papers in the doorway probably trying to find the ones that weren't already signed. Gal slowed to a halt and slacked her shoulders with a pout.
“Come on, Gal.” Princess January hopped like a frog. “Let's go see the feshtivitities,” she said, still not knowing how to say ‘festivities,’ among many other words.
Gal pulled Jan toward the door. “Daddy needs our help, Jan.”
The sisters sat in the midst of the mess of papers and helped organize them.
“Can't this silly stuff wait a day?” Gal asked, though she knew this stuff was very important. “Why don't the politicians deal with it? Ain't that why we became a democracy in the first place?”
“We still have our responsibilities, sweetheart,” the king said.
“But our responsibilities lie with the ceremony, and making everyone happy,” Gal said.
“And many of these documents make people happy too.”
“They make stuffy old senators happy,” Gal said. “I'm talking about the people, daddy! The ones that really matter.”
“Those stuffy old senators are the people, dear. That's why it's called a democracy.”
“I know all that, daddy, but—”
“Gal! Come here, I got something to show you,” Queen Morgan said from the foyer.
Princess Gal went to her mother. “What is it, mama?”
The queen used her eyes to direct Gal’s attention up to the glistening turquoise spirit crown upon her head. “Don't you think you're forgetting something?”
“Oh, I know mama. My hair's a royal mess. But I—”
“No,” the queen said with a playful yet commanding tone. She removed the spirit crown from her head and lowered it to Gal's face.
Princess Gal gawked at her own reflection in the shiniest and biggest bright-green jewel in the center.
“Oh yeah, that's right…” She gently grabbed the spirit crown and turned around, staring into it. “It's my turn this year.”
“Mhm,” the queen said. “Now go out there and make your country smile.”
A faint rumble of drums echoed in the distance, where the lights of the town glowed into the night sky. That familiar energetic sound of the city's jazz was coming to life.
Gal felt a glimmer in her eyes as she said, “No, mama, they're the ones who's gonna make me happy.”
I hope this is good so far. I literally started properly writing this yesterday. It feels good to finally be out of the stage where I'm just planning and making notes.
I'll explain some things that hopefully made sense to you already, but if not maybe as the story progresses they'll click with the reader.
This story takes place in a constitutional monarchy, meaning the power of the king and queen is limited, and more reserved for ceremonial reasons. That ceremony being the royal family possesses and protects powerful spirit crowns that allow them to open a connection from the living world to the star nation (spirit world, where the dead reside.)
This year, it's Gal's turn to be the female of the family who gets to open the connection. I'm thinking maybe when the crowns make contact with one another, they open the connection.
Whether or not it's two people who join the crowns, or just one I'm unsure. But there's only two crowns. The king and queen allow their children to conduct the ritual.
Said ritual can only be conducted once a year. I'm thinking October, cause y'know, ghosts. It's a sort of Dia De Las Muertos holiday. The whole country gets involved and many travel to the capital city (of which still has no name) for the feshtivitities, as Princess January puts it.
The world has a lowkey steampunk vibe to it, with a blend of fantasy elements such as otherworldy creatures. Think The Legend of Korra, but without the unique traits of the Avatarverse.
I want it to be very Louisiana inspired, of which I still need to do more research into since I've never been there. I want the sound of jazz to be embedded in the DNA of this story, despite only being text. The characters talk with heavy southern accents, which I hope I was able to get across in the dialogue.
If you want to avoid spoilers, I suggest you stop reading here, although I'll save the details for a future post. Keep an eye out on this blog and my socials for when I make the first official chapter post for Gal the Ghost Princess!
Spoiler fearers gone? Okay, good.
Not that this will be a surprise to anyone, but Gal dies very early on in the story.
My outline for the opening is this:
We see the town and the royals celebrating and singing together about the ceremony.
We cut to the off-coast prison (pov switch) where someone helping the villain does something to free the many dangerous prisoners.
The ritual is conducted, the spirits connect to the living world and celebrate with the people. Gal wears one of the spirit crowns for fun.
The convicts attack, and kill many people.
The villain reveals herself, curses the royal family and the whole country. She destroys/steals one of the crowns, but Gal dies while wearing the other crown and the crown magically disappears with her death.
The villain flees (maybe they die?), and now the country must deal with escaped convicts and the shock that they can never see their dead relatives again. And the royal family must cope with Gal's death.
Gal experiences "the land of peace," but is kicked out by a shadow beast because she is “not ready.” She meets her dead relatives and the leaders of the star nation, where she is told about everything that has happened, and they are perplexed about the crown coming with her to the afterlife.
Gal is deeply troubled by dying so soon, and is determined to return the living world to see her family.
Eventually, the story ends her up in a place where she goes to "spirit guide school." A place where the dead help those in the land of the living by being the voice inside their heads, so to speak, in order to bring meaning to the afterlife and to help those in life.
I want this to turn into a sort of anthology where each chapter has Gal assigned to a new person in the living world (sometimes family, sometimes strangers) to help not only them to learn a lesson, but for Gal to learn things as well.
I have some issues to work out with this outline. Firstly, because the villain is an ancient immortal from the days when the royal family settled onto this land centuries ago. The settlers did awful things to the indigenous people and the villain (gender and name unknown to me currently) has some sort of plot they're cooking up for all those hundreds of years to either destroy or steal the spirit crowns (unsure of which yet) to take back the ritual from the royal family who essentially stole a prophecy promised to the indigenous people.
The royal family of today has no ill intent towards those people and their present day descendants. In fact, the country lives in relative harmony with one another and there's no bad blood between the races.
But politicians and bureaucrats who hold a disdain for the indigenous people have manipulated the royal family into thinking everything is fine, when in fact many indigenous people get wrongly convicted for crimes they didn't commit and are imprisoned unjustly.
Pretty heavy stuff for the supposed target audience, right? I've been struggling with that too, but the more I try to think of alternative worldbuilding the more I'm pulled back to THIS specific idea. And besides, a children's story that doesn't deal with heavy topics is nothing worth writing.
Here's an exchange I plan to write into this opening between the king and the villain:
“Is this about what our people did to yours all those centuries ago? Haven’t we since made amends?”
“Nothing can erase what your ancestors did.”
“But you’re the spokesperson for the *currently unnamed indigenous people*”
“Yes, and I’m finally saying how I truly feel.”
The villain is someone who spent many years probably changing aliases while gaining influence in the country in order to prepare for this day where they can finally steal/destroy the spirit crowns to get revenge for their people all those years ago.
What does the conflict between the villain and Gal teach each character? I'm still not sure, but that's an important detail for me to figure out as I go along.
The "indigenous people" I keep mentioning are heavily influenced by the real life Lakota/Sioux people and their beliefs/culture. It's hard finding reliable information on them, so I hope I'm able to represent them well while still creating my own fictional culture. While the villain is one of these people, I don't want their isolated actions to reflect the real life culture at all. It's just one disturbed person who cannot find it within themselves to move on from the past despite all the good that's been done since those atrocities.
Honestly, I'm not going to wait around to have this story completely figured out before I release chapters. I'm just going to pants it for the most part and see where it takes me. I'm tired of being rigid as a writer and only sharing what I feel like is perfect.
Speaking of sharing, if you want some insight into the visuals and sound I have in mind for this story, check out the Spotify playlist and Pinterest board for Gal the Ghost Princess:
For now though, I think I've done enough yapping. Making this post helped me brainstorm some ideas for the story, and it just felt nice to get this all off my chest since I haven't been able to stream because of my fucked up sleep schedule.
If you're at all interested in this story, feel free to leave a comment or feedback below (making an account for this site is super easy) or joining my Discord
Consumed with thoughts