this is a blog
I'll be back on this blog...later...
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
I'm sorry....
Hey guys, I haven't posted in FOREVER, and I'm writing this to say, I'm sorry for not finishing my book, I've realized that it needs a LOT of work. I'm taking a break from it for like, I don't even know how long. I also don't think I'm gonna be posting on this blog anymore. I am going to keep writing but I think I'm gonna start a new blog of just...my life. I don't know. I'll post a link when I make it. I feel like (oh no, I feel a cliche coming on) I'm at a crossroads in my life and I don't know where to go.
See you!
~Brook (that's my name, by the way)
See you!
~Brook (that's my name, by the way)
Saturday, January 5, 2013
So sorry
I am truly sorry for not blogging. Here are the updates from the last couple of months:
You can't wait, can you?
- I have only 2 chapters left to edit before I can begin the publishing process.
- One of the reasons i have not been blogging is because my ancient, crusty laptop which I think at one time was actually used by cave men, died and it took me about a month to get a new one which is a Lenovo (not a mac, as you recall I was a mac person)
- There is no number 4.
- Finish editing.
- Find graphic artist to do cover
- Make cover.
- Final formatting
- Submit to CreateSpace.
- Sell stuff.
- Be awesome.
- Start Sequel!
- Yes, there is a sequel. It is called Realm of Dragons. That is all I can give you.
You can't wait, can you?
Saturday, September 29, 2012
I am in HIGH SCHOOL!!!
To my dear adoring fans:
Apologies for not blogging for the last month or so. This is the result of a popular new trend which I have recently discovered called "high school". It seems like pretty much every teenager has become involved with this trend. I am not exactly sure why it is popular, but somehow, I have become obsessed with it.
One of the popular things that people do in "high school" is something called "homework" which sometimes (again, why is this so popular?) involves sitting at a computer for HOURS and typing away. And I really don't feel like doing more typing than necessary, but unfortunately for my *fans*, this means no blogging.
So, I would like to say NOW that while writing blog posts is FUN, you may not be getting much from me.
Anyways, today's topic is: Epic action scenes.
As many of you know, if you ever had to write a story, nobody wants to read something where people go to a park, play some orderly, organized game such as croquet, and then go home to have a nice cup of tea and wish they had ended up as characters in a more interesting book. No. Of course not. Your story needs some ACTION! You need to keep your readers hanging on every word. Consider these examples:
WRONG: One day, Bob and Jane decided to go to a park. There, they saw some people playing croquet so they decided to play too. Afterwards, they were tired so they went home and had a nice cup of tea while sitting in nice, comfortable chairs.
RIGHT: Bob and Jane were having a nice day at the park. The sun was shining and the birds sang and the little children played happily on the playground. Then, all of a sudden Bob heard a strange noise. "Did you hear that?" he asked Jane.
"Yes. It sounded like a giant toilet," she said. (Although, in real epic scenes, the characters usually don't describe things as sounding like toilets. Especially in fantasy, where most of the time modern toilets haven't been invented yet. I don't even want to KNOW what their toilets sounded like)
The two stood up carefully from their park bench. All of a sudden the world seemed darker and the air seemed colder. Bob and Jane looked at each other fearfully. Then they began to creep towards the sound.
Soon they had arrived at the source of the sound. There, on the ground in front of them, was a smooth gray object, about the size of a person, with three colored dots on the front.
"That's a weird looking water tank," said Bob. (This is usually where the characters will make a 'no duh' statement such as this).
"I know. Maybe we should poke some of those colored dots," said Jane. (A 'no duh' statement is sometimes followed by a statement that makes your character seem to have the intelligence of a turnip. Though this is not necessary) She bent down to poke the red dot, and as soon as she did, a hatch appeared in the top of the capsule. And out popped: a toilet. (And no, in real books, it usually isn't a toilet, it's usually an alien being or an Evil Death Robot From Space).
"Run!" shouted Bob, for the toilet was obviously not a toilet, but an Evil Death Robot From Space disguised as a toilet, for the handle revealed itself to be a laser gun and when the lid of the toilet opened, it had a row of teeth around the edges.
The teeth snapped and the laser gun fired off random bolts of red energy as Jane and Bob hid behind a tree. "We should be safe here," said Bob, but as soon as he said it, the toilet began to roll, Dalek-style (You don't know what a Dalek is? Oh dear. And you say you have a well-rounded education!), towards them. It fired more lasers, and Bob and Jane ran off towards the playground, screaming at the small children to "RUN FROM THE EVIL DEATH TOILET FROM SPACE!" (to which they respond, "Oohh, a rolley toilet thing! Hey look—AAAHHH MOMMY! It's shooting people!")
"To the car!" said Jane.
"No!" shouted Bob. "It might shoot my new car! It's a Lexus 283937iii Power PlusXL! It cost $642,000,000!"
But then the toilet, chuckling evilly to itself, adjusted the aim of the laser gun and shot directly at Bob's car, hitting it right in the Turbo-RS Mark 23 42-capacitalator engine, and causing it to explode in a shower of $43,000-each paint chips.
"My Lexus 283937iii Power PlusXL!" shouted Bob, and began to cry.
But there was no time, for now the Evil Death Toilet From Space was coming towards them, and it was leveling its gun at Jane and now AAIIIEEE! It's firing and—
See, much better! Now you really want to know how it turned out, don't you? You wanted to know if Jane got blasted by the Evil Death Toilet From Space and if the little children survived, but most of all you were hoping beyond hope that Bob's new Lexus 283937iii Power PlusXL was insured, and if so, whether or not he got a new one.
Well, I'm not going to tell you, because contrary to popular belief, I actually have a life outside of blog posts, and I need to stop.
Although, I have to admit, writing that toilet story was really fun.
Apologies for not blogging for the last month or so. This is the result of a popular new trend which I have recently discovered called "high school". It seems like pretty much every teenager has become involved with this trend. I am not exactly sure why it is popular, but somehow, I have become obsessed with it.
One of the popular things that people do in "high school" is something called "homework" which sometimes (again, why is this so popular?) involves sitting at a computer for HOURS and typing away. And I really don't feel like doing more typing than necessary, but unfortunately for my *fans*, this means no blogging.
So, I would like to say NOW that while writing blog posts is FUN, you may not be getting much from me.
Anyways, today's topic is: Epic action scenes.
As many of you know, if you ever had to write a story, nobody wants to read something where people go to a park, play some orderly, organized game such as croquet, and then go home to have a nice cup of tea and wish they had ended up as characters in a more interesting book. No. Of course not. Your story needs some ACTION! You need to keep your readers hanging on every word. Consider these examples:
WRONG: One day, Bob and Jane decided to go to a park. There, they saw some people playing croquet so they decided to play too. Afterwards, they were tired so they went home and had a nice cup of tea while sitting in nice, comfortable chairs.
RIGHT: Bob and Jane were having a nice day at the park. The sun was shining and the birds sang and the little children played happily on the playground. Then, all of a sudden Bob heard a strange noise. "Did you hear that?" he asked Jane.
"Yes. It sounded like a giant toilet," she said. (Although, in real epic scenes, the characters usually don't describe things as sounding like toilets. Especially in fantasy, where most of the time modern toilets haven't been invented yet. I don't even want to KNOW what their toilets sounded like)
The two stood up carefully from their park bench. All of a sudden the world seemed darker and the air seemed colder. Bob and Jane looked at each other fearfully. Then they began to creep towards the sound.
Soon they had arrived at the source of the sound. There, on the ground in front of them, was a smooth gray object, about the size of a person, with three colored dots on the front.
"That's a weird looking water tank," said Bob. (This is usually where the characters will make a 'no duh' statement such as this).
"I know. Maybe we should poke some of those colored dots," said Jane. (A 'no duh' statement is sometimes followed by a statement that makes your character seem to have the intelligence of a turnip. Though this is not necessary) She bent down to poke the red dot, and as soon as she did, a hatch appeared in the top of the capsule. And out popped: a toilet. (And no, in real books, it usually isn't a toilet, it's usually an alien being or an Evil Death Robot From Space).
"Run!" shouted Bob, for the toilet was obviously not a toilet, but an Evil Death Robot From Space disguised as a toilet, for the handle revealed itself to be a laser gun and when the lid of the toilet opened, it had a row of teeth around the edges.
The teeth snapped and the laser gun fired off random bolts of red energy as Jane and Bob hid behind a tree. "We should be safe here," said Bob, but as soon as he said it, the toilet began to roll, Dalek-style (You don't know what a Dalek is? Oh dear. And you say you have a well-rounded education!), towards them. It fired more lasers, and Bob and Jane ran off towards the playground, screaming at the small children to "RUN FROM THE EVIL DEATH TOILET FROM SPACE!" (to which they respond, "Oohh, a rolley toilet thing! Hey look—AAAHHH MOMMY! It's shooting people!")
"To the car!" said Jane.
"No!" shouted Bob. "It might shoot my new car! It's a Lexus 283937iii Power PlusXL! It cost $642,000,000!"
But then the toilet, chuckling evilly to itself, adjusted the aim of the laser gun and shot directly at Bob's car, hitting it right in the Turbo-RS Mark 23 42-capacitalator engine, and causing it to explode in a shower of $43,000-each paint chips.
"My Lexus 283937iii Power PlusXL!" shouted Bob, and began to cry.
But there was no time, for now the Evil Death Toilet From Space was coming towards them, and it was leveling its gun at Jane and now AAIIIEEE! It's firing and—
See, much better! Now you really want to know how it turned out, don't you? You wanted to know if Jane got blasted by the Evil Death Toilet From Space and if the little children survived, but most of all you were hoping beyond hope that Bob's new Lexus 283937iii Power PlusXL was insured, and if so, whether or not he got a new one.
Well, I'm not going to tell you, because contrary to popular belief, I actually have a life outside of blog posts, and I need to stop.
Although, I have to admit, writing that toilet story was really fun.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Characters
One of my favorite parts of writing is thinking up interesting characters. But, you can't just say, "Here's my character, Joe! He had blue eyes and brown hair and likes doughnuts!" There's not enough backstory. So I like creating character sheets (link to an example—scroll down to the very bottom) for my characters, even the minor ones (though I don't put much on those). But today, I was looking at other writing blogs, and found a really good character sheet at the blog of writer Gail Gaymer Martin. I thought it was great, though I made a couple of changes for mine, seeing as I'm writing fantasy and one of the categories was "Kind of Car" and they don't exactly have cars in my story. Here's my character worksheet based on Gail's:
CHARACTER NAME
Age: Height: Weight: Eye Color: Skin:
Hair Color/Style:
Paragraph describing character:
Idiosyncrasies and mannerisms:
Pet peeves:
Strengths:
Flaws:
Greatest need or want (long-range goal):
Short range goal:
Greatest secret:
Most powerful dream:
Major life-changing moments:
How does character overcome greatest weakness for happy ending?
How does this character influence decisions of other characters?
What does character learn by end of story?
Parents names and info:
Siblings names and info:
Significant relationships:
Backstory of character (such as religion, education, how they were raised, etc.)
Feel free to copy and paste this form for your own usage.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Sometimes we writers have these days...
Today, I picked up my computer, and stared at the open page of my book, and saw this:
"'Just do SOMETHING!' she yelled, picking up a random flask of potion, and flinging it at Gorthil. It exploded in a purple mushroom cloud when it hit a table and mixed with another potion.
'Come back, you insolent fools!' the mage yelled behind them. Quinna and Kellan kept running, knocking over tables and causing"
and realized that I had no idea what to write after "knocking over tables and causing". I stared at it for about five minutes before realizing that I had a severe, possibly life-threatening (at least for Quinna and Kellan), form of writers block. The only symptom which is worse is typing random letters:
"Quinna and Kellan kept running, knocking over tables and causing erjiefhhvg,adcv nkj;DSJjkdhuja;;SDJH FAdjfkff"
That means PUT DOWN THE COMPUTER RIGHT NOW AND GO DO SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE ANY THINKING. I luckily was not experiencing this, but it was almost that bad. Which could only mean one thing: Time for a blog post!
...
Uh oh. This is bad. I am experiencing blog writers block.
The first thing that comes to mind is that there are 17 days left of summer break, after which I shall go back to school. This is alarming for several reasons. 1). I am going in to high school. Anyone can understand why that's alarming (I think). 2). I will be bogged down by homework, which will leave less time for writing and blogging. Which means that after August 9th, all my fans (Yes, of course I have fans!) will be very sad, because there will be a lot less to read.
My goal is to do 1 chapter a day until then. That will be 17 chapters. Remember, I'm rewriting, so I am not actually writing a whole new chapter every day, although, that could happen, since I'm adding a bunch to the story.
Well, I sincerely hoped this would be longer, but it looks like this is all I can think of. Who KNOWS what would happen if I tried to finish that chapter. Hey, I was kept awake last night by thunder that sounded like a thousand boulders raining from the sky and landing on Half Dome, and lightning every 2-3 seconds. I'm TIRED. Not to mention that the day before yesterday, I ran 2 miles in 100 degree heat. Then I stayed up until eleven watching cooking shows with my friend.
"'Just do SOMETHING!' she yelled, picking up a random flask of potion, and flinging it at Gorthil. It exploded in a purple mushroom cloud when it hit a table and mixed with another potion.
'Come back, you insolent fools!' the mage yelled behind them. Quinna and Kellan kept running, knocking over tables and causing"
and realized that I had no idea what to write after "knocking over tables and causing". I stared at it for about five minutes before realizing that I had a severe, possibly life-threatening (at least for Quinna and Kellan), form of writers block. The only symptom which is worse is typing random letters:
"Quinna and Kellan kept running, knocking over tables and causing erjiefhhvg,adcv nkj;DSJjkdhuja;;SDJH FAdjfkff"
That means PUT DOWN THE COMPUTER RIGHT NOW AND GO DO SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE ANY THINKING. I luckily was not experiencing this, but it was almost that bad. Which could only mean one thing: Time for a blog post!
...
Uh oh. This is bad. I am experiencing blog writers block.
The first thing that comes to mind is that there are 17 days left of summer break, after which I shall go back to school. This is alarming for several reasons. 1). I am going in to high school. Anyone can understand why that's alarming (I think). 2). I will be bogged down by homework, which will leave less time for writing and blogging. Which means that after August 9th, all my fans (Yes, of course I have fans!) will be very sad, because there will be a lot less to read.
My goal is to do 1 chapter a day until then. That will be 17 chapters. Remember, I'm rewriting, so I am not actually writing a whole new chapter every day, although, that could happen, since I'm adding a bunch to the story.
Well, I sincerely hoped this would be longer, but it looks like this is all I can think of. Who KNOWS what would happen if I tried to finish that chapter. Hey, I was kept awake last night by thunder that sounded like a thousand boulders raining from the sky and landing on Half Dome, and lightning every 2-3 seconds. I'm TIRED. Not to mention that the day before yesterday, I ran 2 miles in 100 degree heat. Then I stayed up until eleven watching cooking shows with my friend.
Monday, July 16, 2012
It's official
Hi there! It's official—Dark Blue Star will be out 2013. And it has an Official Teaser! In case you're wondering, I am not doing traditional publishing. I am publishing through CreateSpace—a print-on-demand publishing service by Amazon. It's going to be harder to get public, though, but with the help of my loyal fans (ha ha!) I'm sure I will be well known.
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