Quick Post

Yay, I have laptop! We don't have wireless set up in our house yet, but I am getting alot of writing done in the meantime. :D

Also, I am posting this link http://stiryourtea.blogspot.com/2012/02/contest-and-winning-and-free-books.html to Tahereh Mafi's book contest (which I totally want to win, so I can have Shatter Me).

2011 Reading Roundup

Writing Status: Procrastinating.

I read a ton of books in 2011. Since our public library reopened, I've been trying to catch up.

My favorites, offhand, were:

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks
I love smart characters. This story looks a little incredulous at first, but it was real and heartfelt. Definitely a fave.

The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy by Clare Dunkle
Now one of my all-time favorite book series. I even got the first one for Christmas.

Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
I have a huge crush on Artemis, I'll admit.

Airman by Eoin Colfer
I am naming my first son Conor Broekhart.

Maximum Ride series by James Patterson
I finally got around to reading these. They were awesome, kickbutt, and funny.

The Thief Lord and Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
These definitely go on my all-time favorites list.

Gods of Manhattan by Scott Meebus
I'm a history and a fantasy buff. This married the two perfectly.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
I want this book. I really do. The characters are great, and the writing is just as good.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Because who didn't love it?

Wings by Aprilynne Pike
I liked this because it combined science and fantasy beautifully.

Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott
I read the back of this book like a cheater, but still wanted to read the whole thing through. That is a good book, imo.

Simon Bloom, Gravity Keeper by Michael Reisman
Lots of Douglas Adams references. What more could you want?


Honorable Mentions:

Need by Carrie Jones
I'm waiting to see whether Zara ends up with Astley to deliver judgement on this series.

The Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter
She's an awesome writer and I stalk her agent, Kristen Nelson.

The Maze Runner by James Dashnell
I loved it for four-fifths of the book, but I couldn't get into the way he ended it. It just didn't make sense to me. Should've been a stand-alone. No Scorch, please.

Across the Universe by Beth Nevis
This book was too much of a psych-out for the favorites list, but I can't wait to read the sequel.

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
It made me smile.

Wolven by Di Toft
ditto.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, etc., by Rick Riordan
I liked the books a lot better than the movie.

Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans
I got this for Christmas and I've read four times already. I think it's on its way to being a favorite.

Also, I developed a taste for graphic novels of all things (I know, the horror). I blame Ultimate Spider-man and the Artemis Fowl graphic novels. And all the superhero movies that came out last year. (We bought three of them.) And this is nowhere near all the books I read, but I didn't want the list getting too long.

Revision Pains Etc

I have been revising Dark Falcon for the past week or so. I'm overwhelmed now. I really, really want to finish this revision by the end of the month. That was going pretty well, but the past couple days have been gunk. Maybe it's allergies... but my head just won't work. Not the best time to edit, you know?

I'm optimistic about Dark Falcon, but I need a beta reader. Trouble is, I'm not actually sure how to get my manuscript off my internet-less Windows 98 and onto this one (a Vista).

I've also been writing a short story I've tentatively entitled "The Goblin Queen". It's my own take on goblins, Faye, and Otherworld, so that's always fun.

My interest in Twitter has been revived as I now have more opportunities to sneak on.

I'm not really big on writing scripts, but I may collab with my brother again for ScriptFrenzy. He gets to mess with the formatting that way.

My 18th birthday is coming up (yay!) This may sound weird, but I want to head out to the zoo and practice my photography for the occasion.

:D SD

P.S. I have discovered I am a geek: This summer's superhero movie lineup has me freaking out. ...And Cowboys & Aliens.

Finished Draft Woes and Longhand Binges

So I finished Dark Falcon with I think it was 73K. Have read through it a couple times since November. There are a few issues. It needs expansion in some places, and a lot of (rather difficult) research in others. Somewhat overwhelming amount of supporting characters. Can't think of any major revisions to the story though, and it's been bugging me whether or not that's a good thing. I spent so much time planning the story out in September and October, that I may have actually gotten it right in November.

Of course, I hope this isn't the wrong intuition.

While I work out this small conundrum, I have been writing another story (August 16th) longhand. It's made great progress, but I'm still sorting through any multitude of options for the story. (I always hated Choose Your Own Adventure stories. There would be pages I just could never find. Not that this story is one. Just feels that way.) Spent all of the last three days working on it.

Have to say, because I'm writing in time-coded sections, writing longhand has been easier for August 16th. I did once have this crazy idea about making it anchronological, a whim since abandoned.

Hope everyone is having a great 2011, and does anyone else find some stories just flow better in longhand?

:D

Researching for Nanowrimo

How tall would a wall have to be to break Humpty-Dumpty?

It's not easy. You've got to sit down an think about all the vague exploits and hijinks that will happen, character details that you often forget to pay attention to, and all the while, you're sure that there's something that you haven't remembered.

Wikipedia's always a good place to start, but it's not a story-solver. After that, there's the Reference Desk on the Nano forums. People are more than willing to share their wisdom. Only problem is pretty much every other person on Nanowrimo is asking questions too. At that point, you might try wading through the different forum posts, which very often does turn up useful information.

Of course, if you've some VERY specific inquiries to make, you have to take on the Google beast or the labyrinth of your library. This is not for the faint of heart. In 2008, I was writing about a woman who had sustained a severe traumatic brain injury. I wanted to know what her chances of recovery were from different specific scenarios. It wasn't easy. A lot of the information I needed was locked away on websites that required $800+ dollars a year for access to their articles. So I spent the first half of October piecing together the information for myself using diagrams of brains and TBI patient resource sites.

You can make an inquiry with a specialist, or perhaps someone on Nano, but usually you're in a hurry. Come November, you realize what it was you really needed to research back in October. You're falling behind on word count, and no one's answering your Reference Desk post. None of scientific/medical lingo really makes any sense to your literary mind anyway.

In the end, you might even find you wind up leaving this information out all together. Your story might no longer make sense, but that's what revision's for, right?

Of course, when you do get the information you need, it can put your story together or break it to pieces. But even then, it's hard to be completely sure your story is believable.

It must have been a writer deluged in this sort of exhaustive research who first said: "Write what you know."

Not that, I think, anyone ever takes this advice for more than five minutes together.

Nano!

So Nanowrimo's around the corner again. I've been doing quite a bit of planning. I now have my own (albeit Jurassic) computer to work on. Yay! There's a tiny snare this year. That's that we're moving. I'm keeping myself convinced that it's no big deal (Denial is a powerful thing). My sister's even signed up to do it with me this year. That's kind of cool. She's writing a mystery-suspense, think.

I'm writing urban fantasy-- but it's superheroes! I've decided to call it Dark Falcon.

I've a synopsis posted here http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/209666

And here's a better view of my book cover

(kind of an awesome winged ninja) :D

So for the next few weeks I'll be haunting my Twitter and Nano forums.

How's everyone else doing this pre-Nano season?

Write a Book, then Write It Again... And Again.

You have a story idea. Maybe something inspires, maybe you had this amazing dream. Maybe you just love a particular concept and have built upon it.

What are you going to do with it?

There are plenty of options. A screenplay, a comic book or strip, poetry, your alter ego, a novel. Maybe even inspiration for a painting. Still, most people do nothing.

Assuming you're a writer too, you went the fiction route (and probably the alter ego).

I believe I first attempted to write a book when I was seven or eight years old. My story wasn't bad in the premise. It reflected my own life, books I'd read, and recent news events.

Unfortunately my effort was abandoned for one major reason: I had no clue how to write. I believed that all paragraphs had to be exactly 4-6 sentences long. And I'd never heard of margins or the fact you could leave off dialogue tags.

When I discovered how to format, maybe a year or two later, my stories finally escaped being mere doodles on notebook paper and became words. (Notebook paper remains my favorite media.)

I won't pretend to have been a prodigy. My first efforts were probably much like everyone's. You should know the problems.

As I wrote my ideas began to develop and became better. They would change so quickly that often I would just have to start the story over. (They were innately long. I still struggle to write short stories. Or just finish a work at all.)

After that, there's actually not a lot. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. In between, I read mounds of books and drew character art. I never went to a workshop and my only book on writing was my grammar book. Other novels formed my style, etc.

Now, I consider myself born a story-weaver and dreamer, but I only call myself a writer because I've devoted myself to an unknown quantity of fiction. (I've probably passed the Million Words mark).

These past two and a half years, I've learned a lot about maturing my stories from the internet and Nanowrimo. Literary agents, other publishing people, and experienced creative writers have blogs that all have given me advice I desperately needed.

What remains is to create a polished manuscript and eventually find someone willing to publish it.

So how about you? Where have you come from as a writer?

P.S. This is my first attempt at this kind of writing post. Please feel free to give advice on where I have failed.

Thanks to Write a Better Novel for inspiring this post.

In other news...

I'm rather stuffy in my eras and nose right now. It makes me a little cranky. So while everyone else is playing the Wii sports that my grandparents bought us for Christmas, I am writing this to complain about how awful I feel. I did get a fancy fountain pen with several different ink cartridges in it. As well as a fluffy robe that I love. It's a bright blue color, the same shade as its accompanying throw blanket and the leather journal my aunt and uncle bought for me.

Weather keeps doing snow flurries, like it's teasing us. I wish that it would finally get cold enough for it to snow and stick, instead a all this almost-but-not-quite-enough. To switch subjects, I love spiced tea and could drink it all day long (come to think of it, I do). And I like watching The Pretender on Hulu a lot, even though the reality of his situation can get really depressing if I let myself think about it.

In writing news, with the exception of a blip of a mermaid short story idea, I can't think of anything to write. It's the quasi-cold, I think. Maybe I need to watch Narnia or something to get ideas flowing. Also, my wrist is feeling much better after resting. I've been working on a picture to celebrate that.

S.D.

Busted

I did in fact manage to finish Nanowrimo just over 50K (yay me!). Since then however I have been experiencing several issues with my right wrist, namely it's more or less strained/busted. Therefore, I have strict (and, unfortunately, well-founded) instructions from my mother to write or draw, at least with that hand. I'm slightly ambidextrous, but I write so much more slowly with my left hand that it's never more than a page or two a day. Sigh. I did make a photo-manipulation for my other blog inspired by a story I can't really work on right now. And I have such great new ideas! I'm writing those down though. Hopefully, my wrist won't be strained like this come Christmas. I was hoping for some fancy pens and ink. Maybe a journal too :D.

The other night I couldn't sleep at all. Which is pretty miserable, but it turned out for the better. I was wide awake at 6:00 a.m. and able to get up to write. (I have been sleeping past noon, as my dad works nights so I stay up with my mom.)
But anyway, it's nice to be working on The Restored again. Even more nice is to be able to blog something on here.
I have been working on a faerie story longhand, sacrificing my fountain ink pens for a noble cause. I just about thought I'd fallen in love with the blue one LOL.

Question: Do you like it when there's a prologue setting the story's conflict up, or do you prefer when it's explained later?

Space Trilogy & Current Status

I just finished reading the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis. I really enjoyed Out of the Silent Planet, and Perelandra was breath-taking and insightful. That Hideous Strength was hard to read and I felt it was something of a departure from the other books. By itself, it was a complex and interesting yarn. The character Ransom was great. In fact the only thing I didn't like about That Hideous Strength was that I kept waiting for Ransom to show up. And when he did, a lot of time was still spent on N.I.C.E. and Mark (by the way, I keep wanting to say N.I.C.E. like the the town in France, not the adjective).

But I started reading the first two over again. I told my brother he should read Out of the Silent Planet, because Ransom reminded me a little of his own character. I don't know if he will though.


I did write down a couple of story ideas I had been pondering. The first one has been in my mind for over a year. It's about a girl who can shape-shift into a dog, and infiltrates a supervillian's home by posing as a pet. The other is a little more recent. It's about a greyscale world where a few precious things are in color. I haven't gotten much farther than that though because my mom wants me to "rejoin" the world or something. If I hadn't gotten the fine off my library card so I could get books, I might have gone insane by now. Reality is too prosaic for me. I kind of feel like Belle in Beauty & the Beast in that way.

And I have to write an end of the year paper for school. I decided to write about C. S. Lewis. I started working on it today, but my brain kept shutting down on me, unfortunately.

After I write this paper, school will be over for me, thank heaven. I'm still sticking to my goal of finishing The Restored by the end of it, even though I haven't done any work on it for nearly two weeks, compliments of my mother. (Yes, I'm venting. There.)

S.D.

I am NOT Romance Material

I must say I'm angry with my sister. She's twelve years old and has developed a fascination with romance stories. She also prefers to create fictitious adaptions of family members as opposed the original (human) characters.
Can you see where this is going?

Yes, my twelve year old sister is writing a Romance about ME! (As a much-older person, from what I gather, but that only makes it worse)
I might be able to forgive her if she was writing, say, an adventure. Yeah, sure, okay. But I find a romance story very intrusive.

This might have something to do with her obsessive-compulsive need to plan in ways that aren't hers to plan. But I draw the line at inventing a future husband for me. And she plans to do a story for our brother as well.

She's not going to let me read the thing either.

I so knew not to answer her questions about what I liked in a guy or kids' names.

This might be a juvenile rant, but I don't know what else to do. My dad won't do anything. He just said, "It's an okay story" (He's read it).

If only my sister was one of those rational people you could sit down and talk things out with :-(

Letting Go

I was working on a story named "S.T." for now. And I've been working on it for awhile now. This would be my third or fourth draft actually. It's one of the few stories I believe I mostly finished before I moved onto the rewrite or something else. Anyway, I wrote about 11 pages on the computer and this incredible thing happened-- I wanted my mom to read it. And then I ave it to my dad. Drew the line at my brother (he the caricature of the dorky obnoxious teenage boy) though. So it's obvious my story had entered the stage where I was able to share it with the outside world. And my parents really liked it. My dad even said that he knew I had the dedication to be a writer but now he knew I had the talent (*internal teary-eyes*).
Anyway I was glad I let them read it. I had let go of the story, having put what I had into it.
The one downer is now they want me to finish it!

P.S. Also I was not a nervous wreck about it, as i have been before. Could it be I'm more confident? 0_o

The Wait

So I was watching the screensaver, which is set to display photos, and I saw this picture. And then I had a poem

The Wait by S.D.

Across lonely hills I wander
Along darkened seas I slumber
The sound, the noise
Will signal new rejoice
Yet silence ensues
And forevermore continues

Perhaps a bit short, but I rather like it.
S.D.

:)

I watched that TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on recommendation. It was great. Philosophically, I didn't agree with some of the particulars, but totally Understood. It was really nice to be reminded that the story was a collaborative effort. As far as creative genius in itself, I think it's something God created. I don't pretend to understand it. But I do know it's not simple like people try to make it out to be. It's some ineffable thing. It Exists in a way that makes writers and other artists look insane to the plebeians.

I was trying to explain it to my dad with this new material, but he wasn't understanding. Call it a force, a genii, a whatever, I know there's a complexity here. Unfortunately, he wasn't understanding, just inserting the "Moral of the Story."

I know God gave me Creativity. But could it be possible that Creativity is something in itself? Absolutely. Am I ever going to get anyone to understand that? Probably not.

Dare I say its centered in myself without going mad? I think I'll abstain.

Self-Promotion?

I've encountered quite a few writing how-to blogs lately that stress the importance of self-promotion. I know a lot of writers in the past would have killed to have half my chance to put their stuff out there. Unfortunately, a lot of the reason why I write as much as I do is because I'm not very eloquent. Novelling through the voice of my characters has become my way of speaking. The thought of writing a synopsis for my stories terrify me. Pitches are even worse. But going out there and making people want to buy my book? *Runs and hides in terror*

And that's pretty much how I feel.

And it's a feeling I'm apparently going to have to conquer unless I win the million-dollar jackpot and can hire my own promo agent. Unfortuantely, I'm not even 16 yet, so the lottery is out of the question leaving me with only one option: Self-promote.

I'm planning on being finished with Across the Stars by April. That's when I suppose I'll start. I should be done with Title Page by June. Selling two little novels off Amazon doesn't sound easy, exactly, but I'll put on a good attitude. Optimism and all that.

Curse the cynicism I got from my mother!

And I'm rambling. I can feel it. If you made any sense of the above, could you give some tips if you have any?

Time Management? (plus art)

I have no ability to manage my time whatsoever. I have an attention problem, I suppose. I'd rather be mindlessly doodling than doing my English and scribbling down a new story idea than math.
And lately I'd rather be searching for and manipulating photographs than writing my stories.
I swear that deviantArt is the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. I can't stay off of the place. Especially after one of my photographs became a top pic (in the last three days) for its subcategory thingy. Yeah, it's that picture on the left.

I haven't really been blogging on here lately or commenting much, but like I said, my time management is around zip.

Anyway, if you want to look at my art gallery, it's at the bottom of the page (the little SitBack thing).

*bleep*

Okay, so I know a lot of people don't have these issues, but I do. That is, when my characters start cussing, I am at a loss as to what to do with them. I'm torn between making them clean out their mouths or letting them say what they mean.

As it is, they're only allowed occasional exclamations of h**l, d**n, or sometimes s**t. Which are pretty commonplace words, but my parents consider, butt, shut up, and heck to be bad words. Especially my dad. My mom has been known to let out such (the former) interjections every once and awhile.

I'm not even allowed to say cr@p until I'm 20, so should my older, worldly characters do so? Because when I just go %#@$, it looks like I'm saying something else, like f***, which I'm ardently opposed to. Because using a word that has its meaning is just embarrassing!

So it's a dilemma for me. I might go ahead and just withstand the lectures, etc, and the embarrassment of my siblings peering over my shoulders and harassing me about why I would use such a word, OR let some of the poignancy be lost by removing the. OR leaving the little $%&# and ____ there and let people just have dirty minds.

Thoughts appreciated.

Politics in Writing?

In light of the occasion, I thought I'd discuss politics in writing.

Should we put them in our writing unless it's clearly a political book? Or even at all?
Well, I know I do.
Title Page will hopefully eventually become a controversial look at the practices of the FDA and medical industry.
Across the Stars is more of a look into government corruption. And then, Identity Crisis has a political tone about corporate crime, etc.
In fact, a lot of political messages probably find their way into my stories since I have have such strong, controversial ones (in other words, I thought Ron Paul ROCKED). I should have been a man around 1790 in my views in how government should be. So... It's kind of inevitable, especially since no one's going to discuss them with a hot-headed fifteen year old. Gotta vent somewhere and save my poor family.

About to Embark on Day Two- Completely Random

I am about start writing for Day Two of Nanowrimo.

And last night, I at least begun to find my plot! Still not sure who my antagonist is, but I am beginning to think it has something to do w/ her father. Whether he's alive or dead and an active part remains in the question. But the book on poisons I picked up proved gold. Now I have a hairdresser in on it, hopefully.
Now I need to research the FDA. And MAO antidepressants.

Oh and I love Twitter. I have TwitterFox. It's great. I can stalk everyone with actually needing to open up the webpage. Just the browser.

Today's going to be a Coffee Day. Going on like 5 1/2 hours of sleep from tonight. More like 4 from the night before. just enough to make me slouch and sigh.

Got new wrist braces that are actually good for typing. My other ones were too stiff and my sister made one smell like bad-scented lotion.

Not going to Nano Forums unless I have to. *Yeah, yeah, sure. Only if the site's broken*

Think I can make 5K? I hope so.

My grandparents are coming over though, so I may not getting as much writing time

Also got a mysterious message presumably from my mother that read "NO IM & who is
[EDITED 4 PRIVACY]?"
What?! From the mother that sat there while I first met her. And then said I could IM with Nanoers...????? Maybe it was my dad. But I am sorely disappointed. I found my Word War yesterday most productive *sighs deeply*

And I use the word "sigh" too much. I'm censoring from my writing lest I wind up with a novel where "sigh" is found every three spaces.

Getting upset about contradicting statements now. And this spellcheck on FireFox is bwroke (Misspelling intended). What, do we have it set to recognize German or something?