To Our Followers

Wow, our amount of followers jumped from four to nine in one night. I'm impressed. Thanks everybody, I just noticed the "Followers" bar on my blog last night (whoops). Anyway, in case you don't know, on this blog you should probably start reading from way back in...what, April? Of last year, because this is (supposed to be) a story, not a series of random events.

The concept art, of course, we just started adding in, and Noria is an awesome artist. In case you're wondering about the names, yes, they are pennames. H.E.You (that's moi, which is overrated in the English language) is derived from my initials, which - yes, for those of you who have trouble making deductions - are H, E, and Y, but no, my last name is not You. "Hey You" just seems like an awesome penname, especially since, again, they do come from my initials. Although I'd prefer the vast majority of you who didn't know who I was not to call me a stalker. :) Noria, on the other hand, is what we've been calling my collaborator/bff for ages, and we spent...what, an hour or so?...in badminton practice making our awesome slams and trying to come up with the best last name for "Noria". "Noria Rose" and "Noria Dove" were obviously cancelled out from the beginning..."Noria Hearth" we considered, as we did "Noria Johannsen" and other last names. But we didn't want something average; we were aiming for something that represented her, like a word from a favorite book, or one made up from something she likes to do, etc. But "Noria Art" is kind of stupid for obvious reasons, and "Noria Crivens" (Noria enjoys the Terry Pratchett books)...well, what can I say? In the end/locker room, we decided on Noria Gray, and there it remains.

The word "Jiaii" came from one of our earliest mutual favorite activities, making random letters on whiteboards by erasing bits of previous words. I don't recall what "Jiaii" actually came from - it was something for football, and I vaguely remember something about "butt"something, but it's a very unfocused memory. Anyhow, we classified "Jia" as "world" and "ai" as spirit, and the rest of the words came from there.

Our actual graphic novel series (only the text, concept art, outlines, and ideas will be posted on this blog), which is about the Hourglass Kingdom and its elemental spirits (you know what, just read the introduction, the very first post, can't miss it) originally came from the fact that Noria is an AMAZING artist, and she was doodling all these intriguing, practically perfect pictures and saying "Well I don't know" whenever I asked her what was happening here or how this bit came to be or who that thing was, which drove me nuts. So she gave me permission to make up explanations, and, well...go look at the second post.

Anyway, this blog is usually not as boring as this long explanation post, and the next step of the pain picture, along with hopefully another Man with the Shard chapter, is coming up when I finish my homework...so, see you all soon!