Writing News

I skipped a week. Sorry about that. I must say I warned you. Scatterbrained author here. ;)

This post isn't going to be long or insightful, more of a news telling sort of thing. I might pop back in another time this week to give you some food for thought and make up for my lack of posting last week, fair enough? I think so.

First off. I self-published my first book. The Don's pursuit. I'm super excited about that. I do plan on selling some copies but haven't gotten around to that yet. I'm still in the admiration stage where I can look at the book cover and stroke it and drool over it for hours, if you're a writer, you'll understand. So, picture anyone?

Here's the cover. :P

AND I finished the first draft of Blue Blades! It's a little over 61k, and 121 single-spaced pages. Here's the synopsis (I realize this is by far not the best one ever written but, here's the just of it.):

Sometimes, a little rebellion is a good thing.

In the year 2050, society is at its peak – or at least if you’re an Upper Class citizen.

Coping with memory loss after a bad fall, Airamae Berkline, a sixteen-year-old Olympic figure skater from NYC, is faced with a difficult decision. She must determine what defines us as people, and who gives us worth. With lives at stake and futures on hold, can Airy make the right decision, or will she live to regret it? As she struggles to let go of the past and look to the road ahead, she learns that she’s never alone, even in her wandering. 

As for other news, I've gotten a new story idea. Yep, exactly what I need with the other three million of 'em floating around in my skull but, hey, I'm excited about it. :P It's for school in the fall actually, I'm completing the curriculum One Year Adventure Novel. So this is to be my OYAN novel. :)

I don't have a synopsis or anything, as I've just started brainstorming and character development, but if you want to see some pictures of the charries and a few scene pics and quotes you can visit my pinterest board. http://pinterest.com/cookiequeentess/heart-of-the-beast/ 

It's going to be a Beauty and the Beast retelling in a sense, it has the same premise. I got inspiration from this poem I wrote a while back:

Beauty and the Beast

Ugly, scarred, bruised and broken

Their staring eyes are words unspoken

The eyes of fire, the face of a beast

Hatred like a caged monster released

You roar like a hungry lion

Your heart has turned to cyan

Words that slice like barb wire

Jab the joyous like a brier

They scoff and point at your marks

You watch as they flit around like larks

Claws and teeth that gnash

Your life has turned to ash

Your eyes connect with a smile

The first you’ve seen in quite a while

Her skin white and smooth like a porcelain cup

Every word from her reminds you not to give up

Laughter that floats on the breeze

With you she’s at ease

She sees through the darkened veil

The wounds from their words that assail

Her touch melts the snow on your heart

When you’re with her it’s like you were never apart

Mammoth paws cradle an innocent dove

Her kiss sweet like honey, so full of love

Now a butterfly you take wing

You sparkle and shine like a king

Her bare feet dance as her hair flies free

A daring girl has found the key

Your heart is no longer locked in a vice

Its boundaries frozen by ice

You walk together hand in hand

Both to discover a strange new land

Her green eyes, radiant as the sun

Your face now elated, you know you have won

The young couple didn’t care

That the people would jeer and stare

Once the beauty and the beast

Now a princess, she will never cease

To love you, her knight in shining armor

A prince, your monster has fled, never to harm her

___________________________________________________________

Anyways, that's it for today. As I said, if I'm feeling particularly reflective, I might pop back in and say a few words later this week, we'll see. ;)  

To Write is to Bleed

This morning I sat down with thoughts to talk about The Hunger Games. Discuss characters or even write a book review. That didn't work out so well as I'm much too excited about Catching Fire coming out in November and talking to a friend about the books last night only heightened my level of fangirling. Every thought is ending in "Oh my goodness....I can't even....aaahhhhh!" So you can see how that post would be relatively short and hard to understand. :P

*cough* So, now that I've got that out of my system, lets move on to more important matters, shall we?

This week has been a week of editing and writing and reading. There's something so beautiful and magical about the written word. It's creating something of nothing, turning those thoughts and ideas into people and places and scenarios.

I love how we can create other worlds with our words. Have you ever read a really good book where you feel as if you know the characters personally, as if their pain is your pain? Have you ever been so in love with a story that you laugh and cry and smile along with the charries?

Sometimes reading a novel is like peeking through a window into the author's heart. As writers we put pieces of ourselves in each of our charries. Just like anything else, we bring our experiences, our hurt, our joy, our worldview into our imaginary worlds, painting a picture so vivid. That's when we can see the brokenness mending before our eyes and the tears turning to jewels on our cheeks. Through the author's pain we learn.

Here's a poem I wrote on this very subject a while ago:

To Write is to Bleed

A knife that stabs

The blade, flesh it grabs

The cutting edge mars the path

To your heart leaving sorrow and wrath

From the wound a flow of blood

Through the agony comes a bud

It blossoms golden from the gash

Its fragrance sweet through the ash

The crimson stream that runs amiss

Blots the page like a soft kiss

The quill of hurt paints a picture

Your eyes hid from others’ stricture

Behind the ink you hide your face

The salty tears from pain in that place

Mix with the red flow coloring the sheet

Speaking of your perilous feat

The blood and the tears drip and dance

Forming words that scream of a chance

To show the world who you really are

That their heartless expressions scar

Finally your heart has healed

The scab has been peeled

Now a book all can read

To write is to bleed

I know this wasn't one of my longer insightful post but I hope it holds you over until next week. ;)

Wise Words and Song Lyrics

On Monday I watched Fellowship of the Ring for the first time with a friend. Since watching it, I've been hearing quotes from that movie everywhere. Seriously, it's creepy. Besides the strange deja vu feeling, I've been pondering one quote in particular. It's a snippet of a conversation between Gandalf and Frodo. Is says:

That last line, spoken by Gandalf the great, is very inspirational, thought provoking, I must say. "We only have to decide what to do with the time given to us." It's true. Each day when we wake up in the morning we have a choice to make. We decide how we are going to spend our time that day, if we're going to choose joy, if we're going to help people. At the end of the day, what do you want to have accomplished?

I set certain goals for myself each day. Finish these school subjects in this amount of time, write said amount of words today, edit this many chapters. Those are the things that I choose to occupy my time with. But when I look at that schedule although it takes up nearly all of my time, I don't see anything lasting in that. Yes, education is important and my writing is important and can be a lasting thing in the long run, but what about the day to day things? We mustn't be too caught up in our lives and our schedules to see the needs around us.

Frodo wishes that the burden he carries, the ring, wasn't placed upon him. He wishes that it could be lifted, that he wouldn't have to endure the frightening trip into Mordor. But don't we all feel like that at some point in our lives? Don't we wish that our burdens could be lifted, that we didn't have to face the fires of Mordor, so to speak?

We are each given things, a mix, good and bad. Someone once told me that "We have to learn to use the whole deck, even the bad cards can be used for good." It's true. Bad things happen to people, we're broken and bruised but the amazing thing about the human heart is it's ability to heal and the even more amazing thing is God power to heal it. If we give our bad cards, our burdens to the Lord, he'll show us how to use them. That's all we're asked, to use what we're given in the time we have.

I  remember hearing something that said "There's beauty in the breakdown." It's when we finally snap, when the pain gets so bad, the burden so heavy that we realize, we weren't meant to carry it alone. God may not take the burden away, because there are lessons yet to be learned, but He will help you carry it and sustain you when you fall apart.Song lyrics are floating through my mind as I type this. "Isn't it beautiful/The way we fall apart/Isn't it wonderful/The way we break our hearts/It's magical and tragical/The way we fall apart." (And yes, I realize I'm kind of going off on a tangent here.) So, here the song I quoted from, for your entertainment purposes:

Hope you enjoyed the read and the song! :)