Hey guys,
I wanted to post this weeks Friday Ten. Which may or may not make it to ten… So, here we go:
1. So this will be my Halloween post. So every year at work we do themes among the departments and whoever wins then gets to have a pizza party or some such thing. My department did pirates. Which was fine, I participated. I dressed up. But our decorations were really tacky, sad to say. I wish we went through the time and planning to get it as narrowed down to being awesome because it could have been. Another department did a Zombieland theme and it rocked. I may or may not have a picture of me. And I will not be showing it.
2. So a few weeks ago I started Weight Watchers. I suck at it because I fail at exercise. I try to watch my food intake and stay within my points but really I don’t think I am at a point in my life that I can really commit myself to it. There are other things I want to focus on.
3. In the world of writing I have Aislynn’s story pretty much plotted from start to finish. Which is an accomplishment for me because I am terrible at plotting. Which brings me to…
4. So I have set up my own goal for NaNo. I want to see if I can finish Aislynn’s story in November. I am shooting for over 50K — in honesty probably closer to 100K — but I think if I set the goal I just might be able to finish it. Which is a pretty difficult thing since I still am going to be working full time, but hopefully I’ll be able to cut some time out for myself and really push myself into getting words down.
5. So I’m not sure I really said anything about the conference I am planning to go to. It’s the Pike’s Peak Writer’s Conference. It’s April 20-22, but there is also an add on day on the 19th. I want to go all four days. I’m excited and I haunt their website, waiting for the day they put out the brochure so I can see what exactly the workshops will be and who the speakers will be. You guy may think I’m crazy planning for a conference without knowing their schedule but I looked at their past years line ups and don’t see anything wrong with the workshops they offer or they speakers they bring in. Plus it’s their 20th anniversary, so I think it should be exciting.
6. Our girls are going to be getting here around the 14th — which is sucky in the sense they miss Halloween down here which I was looking forward to but awesome it will be so soon. They are going to be here for a few months as the first part of this newer arrangement we have come to with their mother. They are being home schooled now so we get a lot more leeway with the visitation (in the sense that we do not have to base it on the school holidays). It’s going to be a new experience and hopefully one that will work well for all of us.
7. Other life things. We’ve decided to move. Which is more of a big deal then it sounds. When we moved into our current apartment we were very happy and it worked pretty well for us. We decided we wanted to stay here until we could afford to get a house. But that changed for a few reasons. First and foremost, the girls are getting older and we need a little more space, especially since the plan is to have them down with us more often because of the home schooling. Second off is that things have not been perfect here (but not nearly as bad as our first place). Things have slowly started to get worse in regards to the appliances. The dryer takes 2-3 cycles before it actually gets close enough to be considered dry. The dish washer takes almost as many cycles to clear dishes because its a dish washer circa 1990s and the water shooting up just from the bottom does not clean the top rack of dishes. It gets to the point where I hand wash them and pretty much put them in for them to get completely cleaned. So basically things suck. The new place we are looking at is bigger, about the same rate and since the washer and dryer and appliances are ALL included instead of some being rented I think they would be more up on the getting things fixed.
8. So my cat. Again. Is seriously pickier than a three year old. You have to get just the exact thing she wants at the time to feed her. We have switched her to primarily wet food (with a supplement of dry food if she gets hungry). We use Aristocats brand because she has always liked it when we gave wet food as a treat versus a meal. Well, I found another brand that was a little easier on the pocketbook for bigger servings. She refuses to even touch it. So apparently it was harder on my pocket book then intended. This cat drives me crazy even though I love her dearly.
9. My husband is amazing and so very supportive and I just want to leave him a message here telling him how wonderful he is.
10. So, I live in Denver. We are known for the snow. I hate snow. We got snow on Tuesday, its still sitting around because it is so cold. My husband makes fun of me because I was wanting it to be colder and I always turn around and wish it would be warmer in winter. But honestly the fall and winter are my favorite time of the year because of my favorite holidays and my birthday and just everything is fun and wonderful.
Anyways, that’s my Friday 10 for this week. Hope to entertain you some more soon!
Cara Mia Amore
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Friday Ten
So, I want to try and start a trend for myself. Post tens things that happened during the week as a recap. We'll start today! Woo hoo!
1. First things first, I want to wish everyone a happy Second Rapture. I was watching the already snarky comments show up on Twitter this morning and it always makes me giggle. First the one in May, and now this one. I survived the one in May, and plan to survive this one. Just means we get an after party tomorrow.
2. I apparently went a little crazy last night. If you follow my Twitter you may have seen it. Basically what happened was I was reading through other people's blogs that I follow. I noticed a trend. People use Blogger and rarely Wordpress. Am I doing it wrong? Well, of course I freak out at stupid things so asked Twitter for their response. My wonderful SIL The Auto Momma (go follow her fun blog!) suggested Blogger. But I dunno yet. So in the midst of my crazy I decided to set up a Blogger one that will mirror my Wordpress one. Now I have two blogs to maintain when I have issues with just one. See: Crazy.
3. So, for the writer's conference preparation I decided that, like a lot of others suggested, to get simple business cards made with my name, contact information and social media names. (This may be a reason I didn't just decide on one blog -- the business cards have the Wordpress blog). They arrived the other day and it gave me a little thrill to see my name on a card that I will hopefully be handing out to people that I network with at the blog. Other writers, possibly agents, editors, whomever. I want to start networking and that will be my biggest first step to getting my name out there.
4. As for the writing thing. I decided that I am basically going to toss what I had written before and start over. Well, kind of. I have been doing a lot of plotting and I am changing things up, I think Aislynn is happy with the changes because her voice seems to be flowing better when I sit down and write.
5. Plotting is hard. I have always been the classic "Pantser" and never really plotted anything. Just wrote what came to me. I decided that since I was basically stuck on Aislynn to try and plot it out. To divide the chapters so they were shorter (basically one or two scenes for the chapters instead of a bunch) so that it flowed better. Haven't done the complete plot outline but I have a good start and I pretty much know where it is going to end up.
6. Research. Again, hard. I'm not a good researcher, and if I want to keep accurate in my writing I know that I need to become a good researcher. It always bursts my bubble when I see writers talk about how excited they are to research. Then it lifts me back up when I see the ones that aren't. I know I'm not alone and knowing that makes it easier. I need to get on to it.
7. Life. I know this is a writing blog, but sometimes life butts itself into the conversation. I love my life. I love my husband, our kids, and I sometimes like my day job (even though it takes away from my writing time). The Hubs and I decided about a month ago that we are going to try and move out of our current place to a new one. I'm excited. It's bigger and not much more out of the pocket -- I'll like having the extra space and the extra bedroom so the girls can at least be a little more separate. Life is good, I'm a happy gal.
8. Family. I have the most amazing family. So encouraging and helpful on this journey that I am trying to commit myself to. I just want to say thanks to you all for all you do and help me with, though I know that some of you don't read this and some of you do, I hope I tell you guys "Thanks" enough.
9. The Neurotic Cat. So, Isis. Our wonderful cat that talks to us and acts more like a dog then an actual cat. She's crazy. From her fear of the outdoors and strangers, to her disinterest in her food (I can not count the amount of times I have had to change the brand of food she eats because she stops liking it -- similar to a toddlers attitude toward food -- maybe she's a kid and not an animal at all), to her hyper bolting and knocking over things, and her obsession with cardboard (boxes, paper towel rolls, etc) and plastic. I love her dearly but I cannot tell you how much I sometimes want to put her in a box and see if she'll eat herself out of it.
10. Hmm. Not sure what I have to say for ten. I think I'll just end with a have a good weekend!
Cara Mia Amore
1. First things first, I want to wish everyone a happy Second Rapture. I was watching the already snarky comments show up on Twitter this morning and it always makes me giggle. First the one in May, and now this one. I survived the one in May, and plan to survive this one. Just means we get an after party tomorrow.
2. I apparently went a little crazy last night. If you follow my Twitter you may have seen it. Basically what happened was I was reading through other people's blogs that I follow. I noticed a trend. People use Blogger and rarely Wordpress. Am I doing it wrong? Well, of course I freak out at stupid things so asked Twitter for their response. My wonderful SIL The Auto Momma (go follow her fun blog!) suggested Blogger. But I dunno yet. So in the midst of my crazy I decided to set up a Blogger one that will mirror my Wordpress one. Now I have two blogs to maintain when I have issues with just one. See: Crazy.
3. So, for the writer's conference preparation I decided that, like a lot of others suggested, to get simple business cards made with my name, contact information and social media names. (This may be a reason I didn't just decide on one blog -- the business cards have the Wordpress blog). They arrived the other day and it gave me a little thrill to see my name on a card that I will hopefully be handing out to people that I network with at the blog. Other writers, possibly agents, editors, whomever. I want to start networking and that will be my biggest first step to getting my name out there.
4. As for the writing thing. I decided that I am basically going to toss what I had written before and start over. Well, kind of. I have been doing a lot of plotting and I am changing things up, I think Aislynn is happy with the changes because her voice seems to be flowing better when I sit down and write.
5. Plotting is hard. I have always been the classic "Pantser" and never really plotted anything. Just wrote what came to me. I decided that since I was basically stuck on Aislynn to try and plot it out. To divide the chapters so they were shorter (basically one or two scenes for the chapters instead of a bunch) so that it flowed better. Haven't done the complete plot outline but I have a good start and I pretty much know where it is going to end up.
6. Research. Again, hard. I'm not a good researcher, and if I want to keep accurate in my writing I know that I need to become a good researcher. It always bursts my bubble when I see writers talk about how excited they are to research. Then it lifts me back up when I see the ones that aren't. I know I'm not alone and knowing that makes it easier. I need to get on to it.
7. Life. I know this is a writing blog, but sometimes life butts itself into the conversation. I love my life. I love my husband, our kids, and I sometimes like my day job (even though it takes away from my writing time). The Hubs and I decided about a month ago that we are going to try and move out of our current place to a new one. I'm excited. It's bigger and not much more out of the pocket -- I'll like having the extra space and the extra bedroom so the girls can at least be a little more separate. Life is good, I'm a happy gal.
8. Family. I have the most amazing family. So encouraging and helpful on this journey that I am trying to commit myself to. I just want to say thanks to you all for all you do and help me with, though I know that some of you don't read this and some of you do, I hope I tell you guys "Thanks" enough.
9. The Neurotic Cat. So, Isis. Our wonderful cat that talks to us and acts more like a dog then an actual cat. She's crazy. From her fear of the outdoors and strangers, to her disinterest in her food (I can not count the amount of times I have had to change the brand of food she eats because she stops liking it -- similar to a toddlers attitude toward food -- maybe she's a kid and not an animal at all), to her hyper bolting and knocking over things, and her obsession with cardboard (boxes, paper towel rolls, etc) and plastic. I love her dearly but I cannot tell you how much I sometimes want to put her in a box and see if she'll eat herself out of it.
10. Hmm. Not sure what I have to say for ten. I think I'll just end with a have a good weekend!
Cara Mia Amore
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
So, one day I made a goal...
Alright, so here's my confession on this wonderful, fall Tuesday. I made a goal and started to slack off.
If any of you follow my Twitter or Facebook you would have seen that around the beginning of this month I decided I wanted to save up and try to go to the Pike's Peak Writer's Conference in April of 2012. I put together a savings plan to save a little each month until then until I have the conference fees ready (which I should have soon since registration starts on November 15th!) and of course some extra spending money. I decided to make my first conference an "easy" one. Meaning it's only up in Colorado Springs so that means I will be driving there in the mornings and home at night, so no hotel stays.
One of the other things I wanted to do is plot out and finish writing one of the stories I've been working on. Aislynn's story has been the focus of my spare time for awhile now so I decided to work with her. So I got myself all excited with "I can do its" and "there's plenty of time". And I got some great encouragement from my family and friends when I told them what I wanted to do.
But...
I STARTED TO SLACK OFF.
The first week or so of it worked wonderfully. I sat down and tried to do a bare bones plot outline for my story and got it pretty much squared away. Then I sat down and started to rewrite. From the beginning. Most of you out there probably think I'm crazy, but I needed to make this story get done and the only way for me to do that was to refocus myself on the writing instead of the plotting.
So I picked up a pencil (which I never write with) and started writing. Let's just say I went through at least one eraser that first sit down session trying to get the words to sound right. I was encouraged, I was getting words on the paper. And yes, some were along the same lines as my original ones but I got quite a bit of new product in there as well.
Then I started to write while at work -- on breaks and lunches -- and found that I would get into the flow right as my time would be up and would have to stop in the middle of a good writing spree and would lose my train of thought. Which meant more time of "catch-up" before trying to write again on my next break.
So, it got to the point where I didn't even want to try and write while at work because I got too distracted and really didn't get anything good out of it. Then my strategy changed to just writing before and after work. Well, that also meant that writing was on my mind when I left for work and then I didn't have enough time to destress after a day of work and honestly the work was still suffering.
I really need to restrategize and I hope that this slacking hasn't ruined my plan. I won't let it.
I think I'll focus on NaNoWriMo this year but a little more focused to me instead of how they do it. I will set my goal to 50K new words written during that month. If I do that, that will be a majority of the novel right there. That will give me time to wrap it up and hopefully have some people read it. Then by the beginning of the year I'll be ready to add changes and get into the process of making my manuscript sparkle.
And there you go with my confession of the day!
If any of you follow my Twitter or Facebook you would have seen that around the beginning of this month I decided I wanted to save up and try to go to the Pike's Peak Writer's Conference in April of 2012. I put together a savings plan to save a little each month until then until I have the conference fees ready (which I should have soon since registration starts on November 15th!) and of course some extra spending money. I decided to make my first conference an "easy" one. Meaning it's only up in Colorado Springs so that means I will be driving there in the mornings and home at night, so no hotel stays.
One of the other things I wanted to do is plot out and finish writing one of the stories I've been working on. Aislynn's story has been the focus of my spare time for awhile now so I decided to work with her. So I got myself all excited with "I can do its" and "there's plenty of time". And I got some great encouragement from my family and friends when I told them what I wanted to do.
But...
I STARTED TO SLACK OFF.
The first week or so of it worked wonderfully. I sat down and tried to do a bare bones plot outline for my story and got it pretty much squared away. Then I sat down and started to rewrite. From the beginning. Most of you out there probably think I'm crazy, but I needed to make this story get done and the only way for me to do that was to refocus myself on the writing instead of the plotting.
So I picked up a pencil (which I never write with) and started writing. Let's just say I went through at least one eraser that first sit down session trying to get the words to sound right. I was encouraged, I was getting words on the paper. And yes, some were along the same lines as my original ones but I got quite a bit of new product in there as well.
Then I started to write while at work -- on breaks and lunches -- and found that I would get into the flow right as my time would be up and would have to stop in the middle of a good writing spree and would lose my train of thought. Which meant more time of "catch-up" before trying to write again on my next break.
So, it got to the point where I didn't even want to try and write while at work because I got too distracted and really didn't get anything good out of it. Then my strategy changed to just writing before and after work. Well, that also meant that writing was on my mind when I left for work and then I didn't have enough time to destress after a day of work and honestly the work was still suffering.
I really need to restrategize and I hope that this slacking hasn't ruined my plan. I won't let it.
I think I'll focus on NaNoWriMo this year but a little more focused to me instead of how they do it. I will set my goal to 50K new words written during that month. If I do that, that will be a majority of the novel right there. That will give me time to wrap it up and hopefully have some people read it. Then by the beginning of the year I'll be ready to add changes and get into the process of making my manuscript sparkle.
And there you go with my confession of the day!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
I really should...
... actually start blogging again.
It's been a quiet few months and need to get back to the happy work of blogging and updating those of you who actually do come here to see if I've updated. Because it is kind of cruel of me to have just disappeared without even a mention of a hiatus.
But a hiatus is what I had, I took myself away from blogging -- really from writing at all -- and it was a much needed hiatus. My story was in a rut and my blog was getting to the point (or well past it) where I wasn't coming up with the topics myself but depending on the topics of others and stating my own opinion. When I noticed that I realised that I had to step away, that I had to give myself a break from the creative world to let my mind take a break. Have you ever gotten to that point? Or am I alone in that?
Now that I have take a handful of months to work on other aspects of my life and to let those creative juices build up I hope to become a little more consistent in my writing and blogging. Hopefully I can stick to that.
So to get myself back into the swing of my stories, to hopefully incorporate the ideas that have been building, I've decided to read through and lightly edit what I had already written. I want to familiarise myself with where I had previously been heading with the story and play with it so it will fit better with the new road I want to take it down. It has been fun and tiring to see where it was going, and I hope to make it better.
There was something else that I realised while on this little hiatus of mine: that I have been living in a little, lonely cave. Let me try and explain that in the context of writing: for as long as I can remember I have been always considering writing as a very solitary task. I know those of you out there that are writers are probably laughing your butts off and I am completely embarrassed that I admitting this. But I've been reading other writers' blogs and it was like that light bulb going off:
I don't have to do this alone!
I've been looking at the blogs of other writers for awhile now -- both aspiring and published -- and I really started to see how the dots connected. The people I read about always talked about others in their journey: people who helped them through problems by reading through the work, people who gave opinions on the story in general. They talked about the agents they touched base with while querying their work, and then their relationship with that agent if they get that wonderful letter or call that signs them as a working pair. Then you have editors, publishers and everyone else that join the party. They are never alone.
Yes, writing is a very personal project for the writer, and can usually be very solitary and internal in the first stages -- unless you are writing as a pair or group, in which case I give many kudos since its so hard to meld voices that can be so individual -- but once you have gotten the bones of a story down you really are no longer alone, or shouldn't be. I think that is the biggest step I have tried to make in the last bit of time.
I am very nervous about the judgement of others. I mean it took me until very recently to start sharing my writing with my husband and my family. It felt too personal, too secret, too strange. It was something about myself that made me different from most people in my life (which is kind of a pathetic reason) and I was scared to share. But it was so fulfilling to finally share with them. And to hear from my husband that he wanted to read more was music to my ears. But people who are close to you can be biased (my husband swears he is trying not to be but you never know) and I want to see if I get the same reaction from those who are not that close to me.
So this is when I ask you readers out there for a favour. I want to get out of this cave -- and I already have but this new light is bright -- and join the world around me. The writing world that I have been keeping myself from. But I need recommendations. What are good sites or places to find people to critique your work, what are good sites in general to look at, or blogs, or anything. Are there conferences I should be trying to attend, are there memberships I need to get. Help me if you would! Because I don't want to do this alone any more.
Any help will be much appreciated and I'll love you forever!
It's been a quiet few months and need to get back to the happy work of blogging and updating those of you who actually do come here to see if I've updated. Because it is kind of cruel of me to have just disappeared without even a mention of a hiatus.
But a hiatus is what I had, I took myself away from blogging -- really from writing at all -- and it was a much needed hiatus. My story was in a rut and my blog was getting to the point (or well past it) where I wasn't coming up with the topics myself but depending on the topics of others and stating my own opinion. When I noticed that I realised that I had to step away, that I had to give myself a break from the creative world to let my mind take a break. Have you ever gotten to that point? Or am I alone in that?
Now that I have take a handful of months to work on other aspects of my life and to let those creative juices build up I hope to become a little more consistent in my writing and blogging. Hopefully I can stick to that.
So to get myself back into the swing of my stories, to hopefully incorporate the ideas that have been building, I've decided to read through and lightly edit what I had already written. I want to familiarise myself with where I had previously been heading with the story and play with it so it will fit better with the new road I want to take it down. It has been fun and tiring to see where it was going, and I hope to make it better.
There was something else that I realised while on this little hiatus of mine: that I have been living in a little, lonely cave. Let me try and explain that in the context of writing: for as long as I can remember I have been always considering writing as a very solitary task. I know those of you out there that are writers are probably laughing your butts off and I am completely embarrassed that I admitting this. But I've been reading other writers' blogs and it was like that light bulb going off:
I don't have to do this alone!
I've been looking at the blogs of other writers for awhile now -- both aspiring and published -- and I really started to see how the dots connected. The people I read about always talked about others in their journey: people who helped them through problems by reading through the work, people who gave opinions on the story in general. They talked about the agents they touched base with while querying their work, and then their relationship with that agent if they get that wonderful letter or call that signs them as a working pair. Then you have editors, publishers and everyone else that join the party. They are never alone.
Yes, writing is a very personal project for the writer, and can usually be very solitary and internal in the first stages -- unless you are writing as a pair or group, in which case I give many kudos since its so hard to meld voices that can be so individual -- but once you have gotten the bones of a story down you really are no longer alone, or shouldn't be. I think that is the biggest step I have tried to make in the last bit of time.
I am very nervous about the judgement of others. I mean it took me until very recently to start sharing my writing with my husband and my family. It felt too personal, too secret, too strange. It was something about myself that made me different from most people in my life (which is kind of a pathetic reason) and I was scared to share. But it was so fulfilling to finally share with them. And to hear from my husband that he wanted to read more was music to my ears. But people who are close to you can be biased (my husband swears he is trying not to be but you never know) and I want to see if I get the same reaction from those who are not that close to me.
So this is when I ask you readers out there for a favour. I want to get out of this cave -- and I already have but this new light is bright -- and join the world around me. The writing world that I have been keeping myself from. But I need recommendations. What are good sites or places to find people to critique your work, what are good sites in general to look at, or blogs, or anything. Are there conferences I should be trying to attend, are there memberships I need to get. Help me if you would! Because I don't want to do this alone any more.
Any help will be much appreciated and I'll love you forever!
Cara Mia Amore
So... let's talk updates!
Okay, I disappeared again -- sorry. I had really intended on bloggin more, but kind of got myself distracted. Let's talk about some of those distrations.
First, and foremost, I have been really trying to focus on my writing because I have been kind of ignoring it for the last few months. Honestly, ignoring it was something I needed to do because I was in a rut and really just needed to step away from my stories and get a better look at them. So, now that I am trying to get back into that writing mood I have been editing through what I had already written (after being
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First, and foremost, I have been really trying to focus on my writing because I have been kind of ignoring it for the last few months. Honestly, ignoring it was something I needed to do because I was in a rut and really just needed to step away from my stories and get a better look at them. So, now that I am trying to get back into that writing mood I have been editing through what I had already written (after being
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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
**Peeks Around a Corner**
So, I'm very sorry about the unplanned hiatus for the last few months. Life has been busy and ... well I have a hat-full of excuses, none which matter here, and none of which you guys would care about.
Unfortunately, in regards to actually writing, I have been unproductive. In regards to research, I have found aplenty. In honesty I am in a slump, I don't have any belief in my story right now. Which is sad because I love it and my characters. I want to tell their story, but part of me doesn't know where to take the story. I know where I used to want the stories o go, but I haven't been able to get there.
So, I have been rethinking a lot in regards to plot and where I want to take things. As of right now, things are up in the air. Going to finish typing in the last bit of edits I did on each of the stories and take some major time to think about where I want these stories to go. Going to edit what were my previous outlines, and see what I want to happen.
I need a big room with walls made of white board walls. Do my best planning when I can write and erase.
Anyway, I will try and write a better, longer post soon.
Unfortunately, in regards to actually writing, I have been unproductive. In regards to research, I have found aplenty. In honesty I am in a slump, I don't have any belief in my story right now. Which is sad because I love it and my characters. I want to tell their story, but part of me doesn't know where to take the story. I know where I used to want the stories o go, but I haven't been able to get there.
So, I have been rethinking a lot in regards to plot and where I want to take things. As of right now, things are up in the air. Going to finish typing in the last bit of edits I did on each of the stories and take some major time to think about where I want these stories to go. Going to edit what were my previous outlines, and see what I want to happen.
I need a big room with walls made of white board walls. Do my best planning when I can write and erase.
Anyway, I will try and write a better, longer post soon.
Cara Mia Amore
Friday, March 25, 2011
Review: The Uglies Trilogy **Spoiler Alert**
Description: The Uglies Trilogy (UGLIES, PRETTIES, and SPECIALS) is a trilogy of books by Scott Westerfeld, and is a dystopian young adult series. It takes place in a post apocalyptic Earth in the different civilizations that have formed. They are highly advanced technologically and they refer to those in the past as Rusties (we used metals that rusted, they are focused highly on what we would consider ‘green’ living – nothing wasted and everything is recyclable) and are themselves very focused around making everyone the same.
Basically when the story starts she is considered an ugly. Their world has come to the conclusion that all of the problems are centered on the fact that there are prejudices and differences among people. So and extreme cosmological surgery happens when people turn sixteen and they are turned into someone who looks almost like everyone else. Only minor details are different. There are no races any longer, no differences in looks. The world is divided into twos. The uglies and the pretties. The uglies are those that have not gone through the surgery and the pretties are those that have. It’s to such an extreme that they even divide the two groups and keep them away from each other.
The trilogy starts with UGLIES and is focused on a young girl named Tally Youngblood. She is on the verge of her sixteenth birthday and is excited that soon she will be pretty and will be able to join her older friends in pretty town. What ends up happening is she meets a new friend named Shay and she enjoys the fact that their birthdays are right around each other and they can be best friends forever without having to wait for each other. But something is off about Shay; she is unusually unexcited for the surgery. Shay ends up running away; to somewhere she says that the surgery and being pretty is not important, they can be themselves. Tally stays behind and looks forward to her surgery. On her birthday though, instead she gets taken away and is recruited to find Shay by Special Circumstances (a government agency that deals with trouble makers) and to turn Shay and the people she ran to in to Special Circumstances. So she does it so she can get the chance to be Pretty and winds up in the camp with Shay, and David a boy who has never lived in a city where surgery is required. David and Tally fall in love, and David tells Tally a secret about the surgery. The surgery causes lesions that change a person’s personality. David’s mother, who is a surgeon, thinks she has a cure. But in order to test it she needs a consenting subject. So Tally makes a drastic decision, she decides to become Pretty even though she had changed her mind before.
Book two, PRETTIES, is what happens after Tally turns herself in. She is now pretty and so is Shay. But the bad thing is she doesn’t remember the plan, the liaisons in her head have erased all the memories of her life with David in the wild. She is your standard pretty. Enjoys parties and having fun. While at a party she meets a guy named Zane and starts to fall for him. At that same party she runs into one of her old buddies from the wild who gives her a message. With Zane, awhile later, she follows what it instructs in the letter. When they get to the end they find out that there are two pills left in an envelope for them. But time is running out, Special Circumstances has followed them and they each decide to take one of the pills. Months later, they are starting to feel some basic results from the pills and start acting out. The pills also cause them to do a giant prank that seems to have many repercussions. They decide to escape to the wild again, with a lot of the different pretties. The group runs into trouble and they all get separated, Tally ends up at a “reserve” where there is a very wild group of people (think some Indian tribes nowadays that have not progressed even to the point where we are today – people stuck in the distant past). Eventually Tally gets to the wilds and the group of people she escaped with (including David and his mother) and she finds out that Zane has gotten worse. They also find out that they’ve been tracked by a tracker in Zane’s tooth. Since Zane is too unstable to move, Tally and he stay behind. They get caught, and they are confronted by a cruelly changed Shay saying that Tally is going to be turned into a Special. An agent of Special Circumstances that has been changed to accommodate their new job.
The third book is SPECIALS and takes place after Tally has been changed to her newest form. In this book Tally has new abilities as a Special, and she also has new lesions. But even with these lesions, Tally is beginning to keep her memories and not be completely affected by them. As the story goes on, Shay and Tally once again journey into the wild to try and find David and his group again. We see Tally’s journey to discovering the world again, and herself. She runs into familiar faces and new ones. She discovers how to be herself and be special. She finds new cities that aren’t restricted by the surgery and lesions and she works to try and get her own city that way.
Review: I really like this series, but I was a little disappointed in the end of it. I like the character and how real she seemed to come out as. Tally was both naïve and haunted by her choices. She wanted to just be like everyone else but other people’s choices seemed to take that chance away from her.
The first book of the series was by far my favorite of the three. I liked how it flowed and I like the character development of it all. The second book was good as well but I kept hearing myself say “oh my god why is she doing that?” and that really pulled me away from it. By the third I really struggled to enjoy it. The ending was decent but not what I hope for.
One thing I did enjoy about this was that it was a male author writing as a female point of view. I haven’t really seen much of that. I’ve seen female doing male POV, I’ve seen male doing male POV, but from what I remember I really can’t say I have seen much of any male doing female POV. It was very well written and I didn’t seem to see any real “tainting” from the male perspective of a female life.
Rating: I think I’m going to give this series a 4 out of 5 as an average. Because of the downward spiral I felt with the end of the series and my love for the first one, I’ll only dock it one point right now.
Cara Mia Amore
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Review: Blue Bloods **Spoiler Alert**
Description: BLUE BLOODS is the first book in a paranormal young adult series by Melissa De La Cruz in which she takes a big spin on your standard vampire. Instead of being your “doomed to the night” type people, they are actually every day people with a twist. When they hit a certain age they have to start consuming human (or Red Bloods) blood. They are called Blue blood because their blood is actually blue. They are descendents of the angels cast from heaven. Instead of having immortality in the obvious sense it’s not their body that lives forever but their soul/memories/past lives. As they become blue bloods (which is an inherited possibility) they start to get access to their past lives and memories.
The story itself centers on a young girl named Schuyler Van Alen. She goes to a private school and is an outcast who is only friends with other outcasts. She discovers a blue blood and finds out that there are many different secrets in this society. The story revolves around her learning who she is and discovering that even though they should never be able to be harmed, there is something out there hunting them.
Review: Alright, here’s my problem. I hate pop culture references in books. It really seems to make books less timeless. De La Cruz uses a lot of pop reference, especially in regards to fashion (which is one of the quickest changing things in this world) as well as common fads that are currently around. I got crazily bored reading this book, which is relatively short, because I kept having to skim over these references. I understand that there are plenty of young girls out there whose lives revolve around fashion and pop culture and I understand I am not really a part of what would be her target audience, but I feel that as a writer you shouldn’t just shoot toward one audience because you never know who might pick up your book to read.
Other then that big issue that I had with it, I really did like the concept and the story. The characters are unique and enjoyable, but I didn’t find myself as drawn to them. It was definitely an original twist on a classic idea.
On thing that was unique was how the referred to historical parts of the story, though embellished, interesting period of time to refer back to.
I don’t really have much more to say on the story … it took a significant amount of time to get through it, and I made the mistake of buying the whole series before finding out if I would have liked it. I will go all the way through and review the other books. I hope they are more pleasing to me.
Rating: I will give this book 3 out 5. Was an interesting tale just not a fan of the way it was written and the things referred to in it. I will read the others and we'll see how those go.
Cara Mia Amore
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Review: Caster Chronicles **Spoiler Alert**
Hey everyone out there who reads this, just beware that there are definite spoilers in here. So don't spoil a great read, just go get those books and enjoy them first!
Description: Currently this is a two book young adult paranormal book series, though from what I know there is going to be at least a third, if not a forth. These books are written by a pair of authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
The first book is BEAUTIFUL CREATURES and is told in the male perspective of a boy named Ethan Wate. He has very realistic dreams that not only stay as dreams but follow him to his waking moments. The dreams are always about a girl. Someone he doesn’t know but is inexplicably linked to. As school starts and they go through the year he finds out that a new girl is coming to school. Her name is Lena Duchannes and she is the niece of the town recluse. They meet and Ethan realizes that she is the girl from his dreams. As the story progresses we find out that Lena is what is known as a Caster. She has magical abilities. Not only that, but she is coming up on her sixteenth birthday, in which case she is going to have to choose between being Light and Dark (basically good or evil), but she really doesn’t get to choose, because the choice was taken away from her family in the past when a curse was set on them. The story is the progression towards her birthday and that choice.
The second book BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS takes places relatively soon after the awful happenings from the end of the first book. The story is still told from Ethan’s perspective and we follow his journey through trying to keep Lena with him after her dangerous sixteenth birthday. Lena is pulling away because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. We meet some new characters in this novel and we learn a lot more about the Caster world. We follow Ethan as he tries to rescue Lena from herself and the dangers of some of her family. Old characters return and new characters emerge. Yet more choices are made in this novel that can make or break the relationship between the two main characters.
Review: I ate these books alive. Literally took two days for both of them to be finished, averaging about a book a day. I loved the fact that this story was told through Ethan, instead of Lena. He is so much the average boy on the verge on manhood, and he ends up being linked to a girl who is no where near average. It’s a fun experience watching him have such … normal reactions. Fear, loves, hatred, loathing, desire – all of those and more were represented through Ethan at one point or another in the story
The writing in these two books was flawless, I would have never guessed it was two separate authors writing. Garcia and Stohl seem to be very in sync with each other which is necessary when doing a dual authorship. I was nervous about these books at first because of the very fact that it has two authors. I’ve had bad experiences with multiple authors for a single story in the past – those experiences involved writing that was no where near seamless in the back and forth. I was pleasantly surprised.
I love all the characters. Even the bad guys. They are so rounded out that it makes you love and hate them all. They are very real and you get very invested in their lives. Ethan and his classic down south attitude makes me laugh, his world is filled with the War Between the States and how it continues to affect those in the Deep South. Lena is naïve and slightly broken by this curse of her family, and because of this she is more and less just like any teen trying to make it through life. Amma, who is a Seer and the house keeper at Ethan’s home, makes you laugh because she is so much a living example of old time manners and chivalry. Macon, who is Lena’s recluse of an uncle, surprises you with his strength, his love and his power. Link, who is Ethan’s best friend, keeps you laughing with his utter joy in the world, despite what is happening around him he can always crack a joke. Ripley, who is Lena’s Dark cousin, is enticing and endearing, even with her evilness. Sarafine drives you made with her selfishness and evil toward her own daughter. Pretty much any of the many rounded characters make you fall in love with them.
The story itself is a unique twist on “witches” or those with magic or supernatural powers. Each person has a type a magic that they are a specialist at, making the magic in this story more along the lines of super powers. Kind of a twist on the Heroes world but WAY better.
Rating: I give each book 5 out of 5. (Apparently I only read books that I think rock … maybe I’m not the best reviewer out there).
Description: Currently this is a two book young adult paranormal book series, though from what I know there is going to be at least a third, if not a forth. These books are written by a pair of authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
The first book is BEAUTIFUL CREATURES and is told in the male perspective of a boy named Ethan Wate. He has very realistic dreams that not only stay as dreams but follow him to his waking moments. The dreams are always about a girl. Someone he doesn’t know but is inexplicably linked to. As school starts and they go through the year he finds out that a new girl is coming to school. Her name is Lena Duchannes and she is the niece of the town recluse. They meet and Ethan realizes that she is the girl from his dreams. As the story progresses we find out that Lena is what is known as a Caster. She has magical abilities. Not only that, but she is coming up on her sixteenth birthday, in which case she is going to have to choose between being Light and Dark (basically good or evil), but she really doesn’t get to choose, because the choice was taken away from her family in the past when a curse was set on them. The story is the progression towards her birthday and that choice.
The second book BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS takes places relatively soon after the awful happenings from the end of the first book. The story is still told from Ethan’s perspective and we follow his journey through trying to keep Lena with him after her dangerous sixteenth birthday. Lena is pulling away because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. We meet some new characters in this novel and we learn a lot more about the Caster world. We follow Ethan as he tries to rescue Lena from herself and the dangers of some of her family. Old characters return and new characters emerge. Yet more choices are made in this novel that can make or break the relationship between the two main characters.
Review: I ate these books alive. Literally took two days for both of them to be finished, averaging about a book a day. I loved the fact that this story was told through Ethan, instead of Lena. He is so much the average boy on the verge on manhood, and he ends up being linked to a girl who is no where near average. It’s a fun experience watching him have such … normal reactions. Fear, loves, hatred, loathing, desire – all of those and more were represented through Ethan at one point or another in the story
The writing in these two books was flawless, I would have never guessed it was two separate authors writing. Garcia and Stohl seem to be very in sync with each other which is necessary when doing a dual authorship. I was nervous about these books at first because of the very fact that it has two authors. I’ve had bad experiences with multiple authors for a single story in the past – those experiences involved writing that was no where near seamless in the back and forth. I was pleasantly surprised.
I love all the characters. Even the bad guys. They are so rounded out that it makes you love and hate them all. They are very real and you get very invested in their lives. Ethan and his classic down south attitude makes me laugh, his world is filled with the War Between the States and how it continues to affect those in the Deep South. Lena is naïve and slightly broken by this curse of her family, and because of this she is more and less just like any teen trying to make it through life. Amma, who is a Seer and the house keeper at Ethan’s home, makes you laugh because she is so much a living example of old time manners and chivalry. Macon, who is Lena’s recluse of an uncle, surprises you with his strength, his love and his power. Link, who is Ethan’s best friend, keeps you laughing with his utter joy in the world, despite what is happening around him he can always crack a joke. Ripley, who is Lena’s Dark cousin, is enticing and endearing, even with her evilness. Sarafine drives you made with her selfishness and evil toward her own daughter. Pretty much any of the many rounded characters make you fall in love with them.
The story itself is a unique twist on “witches” or those with magic or supernatural powers. Each person has a type a magic that they are a specialist at, making the magic in this story more along the lines of super powers. Kind of a twist on the Heroes world but WAY better.
Rating: I give each book 5 out of 5. (Apparently I only read books that I think rock … maybe I’m not the best reviewer out there).
Cara Mia Amore
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Review: Mortal Instruments (thus far...)
Description: The Moral Instruments series consists of, currently three books – CITY OF BONES, CITY OF ASHES AND CITY OF GLASS – but it was announced last year that there will actually be three further books – CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS, CITY OF LOST SOULS AND CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE. They are based around a group of teenagers that have to save the world. Has a bit of a paranormal twist. Characters in the books are what they call Shadowhunters (basically your standard vampire hunters pumped up) and they keep the world at peace by pushing back Downworlders (which are your standard vamps, weres, demons and other badies with magic).
The first book (CITY OF BONES) follows Clary (Clarissa Fray) finding out about herself and who she is. She meets a group of Shadowhunters (Jace Wayland, Alec Lightwood and Isabelle Lightwood) in a club while they are fighting off some demons. She enters their world and must get used to the difference between the world that she knew and the world that was hiding under her nose. Because of the cast of characters she is constantly in conflict between the world of the Mundanes (those who do not know of the Shadowhunters and Downworlders) and that of those who are Shadowhunters. Her best friend is Simon, a regular mortal and his humanity causes a constant conflict for her. The story itself follows Clary on the journey to discover what happened to her mother who has disappeared and find out what role she plays in this world she has been thrown into. The bad guy is Valentine, a man who is anti-Downworlder and is aiming to destroy them all. Including those Shadowhunters that wish to keep downworlders alive as long as they follow the rules. Through the first book, we get introduced to a lot of key characters that will continue through the story.
The second book (CITY OF ASHES) continues shortly after the end of book one. Valentine has escaped with one of the mortal instruments. The Inquisitor has arrived and is questioning Jace’s loyalties. Valentine continues to search for the remaining two mortal instruments to continue his plan in the destruction of the downworlders. Simon is getting sicker and sicker and Clary has discovered he is calling her his girlfriend. We begin to get introduced to other characters that will play big parts. There is a mysterious killer going around killing different downworlders and draining their blood. We find out that Valentine had experimented on children (including his own) and that because of that both Clary and Jace have special abilities. The story ends with a major fight at where Valentine is hiding out, leading to many people to become very hurt and/or dead.
The third installment (CITY OF GLASS) takes place around a week after the events in the second book. Our group of heroes has decided the need to get to Alicante (the city for the Shadowhunters) to continue to stop bad things from happening from Valentine. They take portals made by Magnus (and Clary) and get there. At one point Clary gets sick from ingesting some bad water. This book is a round up of a lot of information that was hidden from us in the first two books. We get a lot more information on Clary and her family and her past. We get the development of different relationships. We get introduced to new characters both bad and good. Its action packed and I don’t want to spoil it so I’ll just say it gets you where you need to go and very well.
According to Clare’s websites and Twitters, the next three books are going to follow the characters that are in the first three books but will follow a different story line since the other was resolved in book three. I’m looking forward to reading the next ones!
Review: I loved these books! Not only does Clare have an ability to pull you into the characters and her world, she has a way of making you have love/hate relationships with all of it.
I love being in Clary’s eyes and seeing her struggle with the realization that her world is not the one she thought it always was. She has to deal with all the hardships in the revelation of who her family is and the lies her life has been centered on for a majority of her life. It’s fun to watch her grow into the person she is destined to become. Her relationships with different characters range from “aww how sweet” to “what the hell is going on” and it’s exciting to see where they go.
Simon, who is human through a majority of the book, is an interesting character to follow. Because of his love for Clary, he is like a puppy dog on her heels, following and helping whenever he can. When he turns into a vampire, his whole life is turned upside down. Watching his relationships with the different characters fluctuate through the book is an interesting one. I really had a love hate relationship with Simon’s character and at times even feel guilty for what he goes through.
Jace is a character you have to love and you have to hate. He is your standard bad boy character that you fall in love with. He acts tough which makes it so much more endearing to see him weak and vulnerable. His tale is a hard one, his story revolves around Valentine, Clary, Lightwoods and the Waylands and it’s a very difficult journey for him. One of discovery and one of power.
Alec is a fun one as well. His is a journey of self discovery. Of learning to be himself. He must live with his decisions to be gay in a world where homosexuality is forbidden or at least look down upon. And Magnus, who is his “boyfriend” must help him learn to deal with and the possible repercussions. I love that Clare put in this story line, though homosexuality in stories for young adult is becoming, slowly, more common it still seems to have a forbidden taint to it and its fun to see how it is written.
Most of the other characters have fun journeys as well, but I think I’ll shorten this up by just saying you should read it! Clare has a wonderful talent of making you love each of the cast of characters and each of them has their own stories to tell. I was excited to here about additional books because I wanted more of it when I had first finished reading CITY OF GLASS. Now I am rereading them in preparation for the next book to come out in April.
Rating: 5 out of 5 for each book!
Cara Mia Amore
Let’s talk about Evolution …
… at least when it comes to my writing.
I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Poetry, short stories, novel length type stories. I can remember why I even started writing one of my stories (one that is long gone in the wasteland of computer malfunction). I was probably around the age of eleven and I had read a book about orphans that were sisters that were separated at birth. One going to a happy family and one going to a bad family – I believe it took place during World War I or possibly World War II but I honestly don’t remember much about it. All that I remember is that I was reading it in fifth or sixth grade, I think, and I had read it all of the way through quickly. The story was good but what I didn’t like was how it ended. So I decided to rewrite the story how I wanted it to be – this could be either considered fanfiction or plagiarism now a days but I didn’t even end up keeping it. I think I probably had maybe 100 pages typed of it. Then I remember that my computer died and it went bye-bye. I remember being devastated but now I just laugh.
I have always dabbled in poetry, from the moment it was introduced to me through school in elementary school or such, and it always sucked. If you want some examples go and look at the early days of this blood, I spent maybe a month posting a good portion of the bits I had written and saved through the years. That’s really all I have to say about it.
Anyways! On to the next big project of my life. This one has haunted me for my entire life. Around the age of twelve or so I had a dream about a girl who was breaking in to a house. I woke from that dream and I couldn’t stop thinking about what possible reason a girl would be breaking into a house. And well, to put it lightly, I wanted to find out. So I started letting the voices and story in my head push forward. I did the old fashioned thing of scribbling in a spiral notebook with a pencil about this story. The girl’s name was Selene. It was all I could do to get the chatter in my head to quiet down.
If you notice, that’s the name of the character I’m writing about now. Twelve years later. Let’s say that again TWELVE YEARS LATER. It’s truly an obsession. The problem about this obsession is that it follows me everywhere. I write in it constantly but I can’t seem to ever finish the story. I know many of you writers out there would say give it up, but I can’t. It’s been such a vital part of my life. Something I have never been able to tuck away for long. Even with my wedding it was something that was there at the back of my mind even when I didn’t get any true writing down. There have been breaks in the writing, there’s been times when all I can do is depressingly think about it but not get anything down but eventually I start up again.
I think one of the biggest issues with me finishing this story is that it has completely evolved from day one to now. It has gone from one story to two to three different story lines. I have ideas for them all. I know – in general – where I want each of them to go. Now all I need to do is sit down and write them. I wish I didn’t have to work. I need to win the lottery so I can stay home and do nothing but go to school and write. I wish.
But because of the fact that I feel guilty that it has taken me twelve years to write one book, one that isn’t even finished, I want to kind of walk you through the evolution of that story from where it was to where it is now:
I imagine there were a few other transition point through the years, but those are the main ones that actually made a difference. As I talked about in the entry on naming people, one of the big parts that have gone along side my evolution is the changing of names. But everything seems to be falling in to place for me to finally get these done (if only I got the chance to actually write) because I am actually seeing the ending how I want them to be.
I look forward to writing again and seeing where it will go. I wonder if maybe I should think up a new idea. Maybe that would help me finish a story.
I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Poetry, short stories, novel length type stories. I can remember why I even started writing one of my stories (one that is long gone in the wasteland of computer malfunction). I was probably around the age of eleven and I had read a book about orphans that were sisters that were separated at birth. One going to a happy family and one going to a bad family – I believe it took place during World War I or possibly World War II but I honestly don’t remember much about it. All that I remember is that I was reading it in fifth or sixth grade, I think, and I had read it all of the way through quickly. The story was good but what I didn’t like was how it ended. So I decided to rewrite the story how I wanted it to be – this could be either considered fanfiction or plagiarism now a days but I didn’t even end up keeping it. I think I probably had maybe 100 pages typed of it. Then I remember that my computer died and it went bye-bye. I remember being devastated but now I just laugh.
I have always dabbled in poetry, from the moment it was introduced to me through school in elementary school or such, and it always sucked. If you want some examples go and look at the early days of this blood, I spent maybe a month posting a good portion of the bits I had written and saved through the years. That’s really all I have to say about it.
Anyways! On to the next big project of my life. This one has haunted me for my entire life. Around the age of twelve or so I had a dream about a girl who was breaking in to a house. I woke from that dream and I couldn’t stop thinking about what possible reason a girl would be breaking into a house. And well, to put it lightly, I wanted to find out. So I started letting the voices and story in my head push forward. I did the old fashioned thing of scribbling in a spiral notebook with a pencil about this story. The girl’s name was Selene. It was all I could do to get the chatter in my head to quiet down.
If you notice, that’s the name of the character I’m writing about now. Twelve years later. Let’s say that again TWELVE YEARS LATER. It’s truly an obsession. The problem about this obsession is that it follows me everywhere. I write in it constantly but I can’t seem to ever finish the story. I know many of you writers out there would say give it up, but I can’t. It’s been such a vital part of my life. Something I have never been able to tuck away for long. Even with my wedding it was something that was there at the back of my mind even when I didn’t get any true writing down. There have been breaks in the writing, there’s been times when all I can do is depressingly think about it but not get anything down but eventually I start up again.
I think one of the biggest issues with me finishing this story is that it has completely evolved from day one to now. It has gone from one story to two to three different story lines. I have ideas for them all. I know – in general – where I want each of them to go. Now all I need to do is sit down and write them. I wish I didn’t have to work. I need to win the lottery so I can stay home and do nothing but go to school and write. I wish.
But because of the fact that I feel guilty that it has taken me twelve years to write one book, one that isn’t even finished, I want to kind of walk you through the evolution of that story from where it was to where it is now:
- It all starts with a dream. I have to write this story down because the voices from my dream are screaming at me to do so (I swear if I keep talking like this y’all are going to think I’m crazy … maybe that’s the definition of a writer) and so I stay up in the middle of the night and write it in a spiral notebook left over from school. I want to say it was summer time-ish because I don’t remember feeling worried about waking up the next day (and I have always been a crazy person for my sleep). I remember being in this teepee that we had gotten for Christmas and I used it as a clubhouse type thing in my room. I almost filled an entire notebook that first night. When I first started writing I really didn’t know the characters that well. Selene was a girl that looked different (she had stripped hair – orange and black) and she met a boy in the house she broke in to. I wrote about that night she broke in and what happened next. But something seemed to be missing from the story …
- So we get to the next step, I figured out that Selene wasn’t just a regular girl. She had this special ability. One that allowed her to change into a tiger and she wasn’t alone in that fact. Her entire family all had the ability to change into different big cats (tigers, lions, etc.) and they were hiding amongst us lowly humans on Earth. Selene was still a thief, and she still broke into a house and met a boy named Alec. That boy was human. And I finally realized why she was breaking into his house. It was a test. The story got more and more developed (maybe even too much) and I got nearly 200 hundred pages typed up (see what I mean by too much). I also realized that the story line was switching from Selene to another character that took over, Aislynn. I realized we needed to change that.
- The next step was the division of the story. I suddenly found myself with two stories instead of one and realized that that just made things more complicated. So Aislynn got her own stories and Selene got a revamp. This went on for quite time this way. Until I realized that Selene’s story became in some degrees a very long prologue to Aislynn. I didn’t like that. I knew that Selene had her own story to tell and I had lost her voice in the midst of Aislynn.
- The next big change was finally listening to Selene again. I wanted to get her story back on track and in order to do that I needed to pause on Aislynn. So, I struggled with that. But like her story started with a dream, the solution for where to go with it came to me in a dream. And so her story became more involved and more detailed then it ever was. All the characters got revamped. They all got affected by the change of the story – relationships, attitudes, and the world. With this big change in Selene’s story, I really decided that the story could not possibly take place on Earth.
- While this was all changing for Selene, Aislynn was getting a revamping of her story as well. Mostly to fix the bits of “history” of her family that got changed with Selene’s story. As I went through a deep development for Aislynn another voice began to try and get his point across. Noah. And so I got to where I am now.
- I have three separate stories. One for each of these main characters and here is where we’ve gotten to with each of them:
- Selene – This story is now about a magical girl who gets into a bond with a goddess to save her sister. Because of this the goddess tries to constantly torture her and bring her closer and closer to death. She is no longer a thief but she does meet a boy. This boy helps her to overcome the thrall of the goddess – who is his mother – and they fall in love.
- Aislynn – Her story is about what happens to a young parentless girl with too much power. Her blood is so potent that her magic has become something that is outside of the normal bounds of her race. She is a thief. She steals artifacts to control her power. She meets a boy. He is like her but his family has a history with hers that could tear them apart. She is the protector of her race – or should be – along side her best friends and boyfriends. The form a prophesized group called the Elementai. They will have to save their race, and the world, from an impending war. She also meets another boy, but shhh that’s a secret.
- Noah – He is a prophet who has run away from his family. His father did some very bad things like sell his sister. Now he is trying to find her. He ends up meeting a girl and they fall in love. But he has to introduce her to his parents and that causes issues. Haven’t gotten much time to develop his story too far but its bound to be interesting.
I imagine there were a few other transition point through the years, but those are the main ones that actually made a difference. As I talked about in the entry on naming people, one of the big parts that have gone along side my evolution is the changing of names. But everything seems to be falling in to place for me to finally get these done (if only I got the chance to actually write) because I am actually seeing the ending how I want them to be.
I look forward to writing again and seeing where it will go. I wonder if maybe I should think up a new idea. Maybe that would help me finish a story.
Cara Mia Amore
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Review: Hex Hall Series
Description: HEX HALL by Rachel Hawkins is a young adult paranormal book about supernatural characters that are sent to a boarding school for misbehaving. The school itself is called Hecate Hall and is home to fairies, witches/warlocks, weres and other shifters. There is also one vampire (who in this book is not considered on the same level as the other supernatural characters – others descend from angels while vampires are abominations formed from demons – which I would love to here more of the story of how this came to be…) and she lives at the school in more of a ‘scholarship’ role to learn her place in the world. Instead of using the standard ‘supernatural’ terminology Hawkins calls these magical characters Prodigium.
The story itself is about a girl that gets sent to the school after many bad results from spells. Sophie Mercer is fifteen years old and has been a witch for three years. She has been raised by her single mother who is non-gifted and finds out from her that her father had a secret. He was a warlocks and when she hit puberty part of her inheritance would show up in the form of magical abilities. She is sent to Hex Hall once one too many spells go wrong and when she gets there she immediately finds herself in trouble.
Sophie makes friends with the school outcast, falls in love with the wrong man, and has to defend herself against ultimate evil. The story revolves around a series of mysterious deaths that seem to have an obvious person committing them, but is shockingly not who you think it is.
The second book, DEMONGLASS, just came out on March 1st of this year. It continues the story about six months after the end of the first book. Sophie has been waiting for her father to show up so that she can go through the Removal to get her powers taken away since she doesn’t want to hurt anyone like her ancestors have done. Being a demon is something that scares her completely.
When her father finally shows up, he ends up denying her the chance for the Removal, and instead insists that she spend the summer with him in London learning what it means to be a demon and that not everything about it is disaster and destruction. Sophie reluctantly agrees to this but only of Jenna can come, and her father counters that offer with saying that she can come but only if Alexander Callahan (or Cal) can come with.
They travel to London and are taken to a secluded stretch of land that holds an ancient “house” that is gigantic. Sophie, Jenna and Cal are surprised to find out that the manor house is actually harboring the Counsel, the group of people that rule the Prodigium. There are also two other demons in residence – which is a surprise to the threesome when they arrive because they were under the impression that Sophie and her father are the only Demons alive today.
As the story progresses, more secrets are revealed, both about Sophie and her family, about Archer and his being part of the Eye, about Nick and Daisy (the resident demons) and about Sophie’s powers.
Review: I loved this book. I literally read it in four hours, and that included a break in the reading so I could cook dinner for the family and eat. Hawkins has a wonderful way of drawing you in to the characters and making you hope for the best even when the worst is happening.
Her characters were very realistic, even with their super powers and abilities. The supernatural element is subtly and easily put into the novel. It’s not over powering to the point that you go “blah, blah, magic, blah blah change” and skim over all the magical aspects of the piece. It was well played in the story and even when it played important roles, or back story needed to be told and explained, it was easily put in. We learned as Sophie learned. Because she was just as much of a novice as we are.
I love the mystery of it, though I had guessed a few things a long the line. But even guessing the basis of some of the conclusion there were a lot of parts that added into it, making the guess more complicated and detailed then I would have imagined. Hawkins is very good at the twists and turns!
The second book, that has just recently come out was definitely one that has supported all I have said so far about the writing of Hawkins. It is amazing and fun and you still have to love all of the characters. Even when those characters are bad. A love triangle ends up showing up in this second book between Archer, Sophie and Cal, and it was amazing how much that Hawkins made me go back and forth between both of them (but I think I’m going to be team Cal – Archer is just too much of a cocky boy for my tastes!) and we get to get more into how Jenna lives and her love life. I’m always a fan of authors who take that still daring step to add homosexuality into their books, and it makes me love the fact that the characters are so very real.
Rating: I imagine from the gushing review you all know what this review is. I give both books 5 stars. Mostly because its hard to do otherwise when I can sit here and say that each book only took me three hours to read each and I couldn’t put them down!
Cara Mia Amore
Naming my characters and my world
I know that I touched base on this when it was day three in the month long series but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the so I wanted to go into more details about it.
Like I had mentioned, naming for me is a difficult process. I actually spend a lot of time thinking about it (sometimes stressing about it) and do a lot of research. Names don’t just pop in to my head – or if they do it’s a very rare occasion. Not only that, but I change the names a lot. I’ll find one that fits, at least in my head, but as I am writing something may happen where the character changes and the name no longer so I have to go and find another one.
Let’s just say it’s a pain in the ass.
I am a fan of using name finders and baby naming sites. Especially when they have user friendly search features that allow you to search in different ways (example: by a word, by a gender, by country, by anything under the moon) and give you lists of different names to choose from. One of my favorites is Behind the Name. I think I have used that site since the beginning of my writing for ideas into names, granted I have used others as well but those have been intermittently when I can’t find what I need on BTN because it’s always my first stop with name issues.
Alright, so character names are hard for me. We get that now. What I have come to discover that is much harder is naming different things in the geography – countries, cities, landmarks, rivers, etc. are all a lot harder to work with. I mean when you use BTN, it is really hard to use a person’s name as a country. Or at least I think its silly looking. And another thing that bugs me is name generators. They always come up with weird names that, in my head, would never pass as a real name for a place. So what I have learned to do recently is make up my own. I know, I know I said that was a hard process for me. What I have been doing isn’t a hundred percent imagination, mostly what I do will grab a few names from random searches and combine them in ways that don’t normally come together. It makes for some weird names that I either keep or trash.
The one big reason I change character names is because who I am writing doesn’t fit the name that they have. Names have a connotation behind them. They leave a picture in your head. Think about someone named Bambi. I know when I read that name I think ‘stripper’ or a very blonde idiot. Granted, in life there are most likely Bambi’s that don’t strip and aren’t idiot but saying and seeing that name leaves a picture in my head. And in the heads of most people I know.
Let’s take my character Micah. And I have told his progression before in one of the thirty day entries but I want to dig deeper. A little background on my world: there are humans with no magic and there are shifters with the ability to change into certain animals. The humans do not know about the shifters. So, knowing that, when I started writing Selene’s story her love interest was human. So, I picked a random name for him: Alec. He was naïve, young, and slightly frightened by who Selene was (when he finds out). I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like himself. I didn’t want Selene to be with someone so weak-willed. So, we did a revamping of his character.
Alec became Leo. He was still human but more strong-willed. He was very vocal in his parts. Instead of being completely unaware of the world around him, his family was initiated into the magical world and had planned on initiating him as well (though when he gets forced into it he had yet to find out about it). He stayed as Leo for quite some time. I like him as Leo, I mean his name just bled strength and courage. Which he ended up needing a lot of initially, the world he was thrown into was scary and harsh to him.
What ended up happening next was that Aislynn came along. She was never going to have a very big part of the story, other then being the child of Selene and Leo. But she had a bigger voice then I ever would have imagined. When I decided to give her her own separate, individual story I realized that her father being human hindered who I was watching Aislynn become. So to make sense of Aislynn’s story, Leo became Savitar.
Savitar didn’t stay Savitar for long. Mostly because I realized that I had taken his name from a character that has similar type of abilities from another book that I had been reading at the time. Since I didn’t want him to be a carbon copy of someone else’s creation, I realized I needed to revamp his name again and he became Micah. He is no longer human and more so a demi-god. Because of this, Aislynn’s character now makes sense.
So, as you can see, the transition from one name to another has a point in my head. The connotations behind that name represent what they are on the paper for me. Many things bring a character to life, one of those is the name itself, especially since you don’t get to actually see the character.
Now when we get to name of places, things get a little trickier. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a habit of mashing them all together in different ways. Lets take a look of a few of them as an example:
So, as you can see, the developments of the names I come up with really go through silly processes. Especially with names of places in my world – makes me wonder how others do it. People are just way too creative for their own good when it comes to names!
Like I had mentioned, naming for me is a difficult process. I actually spend a lot of time thinking about it (sometimes stressing about it) and do a lot of research. Names don’t just pop in to my head – or if they do it’s a very rare occasion. Not only that, but I change the names a lot. I’ll find one that fits, at least in my head, but as I am writing something may happen where the character changes and the name no longer so I have to go and find another one.
Let’s just say it’s a pain in the ass.
I am a fan of using name finders and baby naming sites. Especially when they have user friendly search features that allow you to search in different ways (example: by a word, by a gender, by country, by anything under the moon) and give you lists of different names to choose from. One of my favorites is Behind the Name. I think I have used that site since the beginning of my writing for ideas into names, granted I have used others as well but those have been intermittently when I can’t find what I need on BTN because it’s always my first stop with name issues.
Alright, so character names are hard for me. We get that now. What I have come to discover that is much harder is naming different things in the geography – countries, cities, landmarks, rivers, etc. are all a lot harder to work with. I mean when you use BTN, it is really hard to use a person’s name as a country. Or at least I think its silly looking. And another thing that bugs me is name generators. They always come up with weird names that, in my head, would never pass as a real name for a place. So what I have learned to do recently is make up my own. I know, I know I said that was a hard process for me. What I have been doing isn’t a hundred percent imagination, mostly what I do will grab a few names from random searches and combine them in ways that don’t normally come together. It makes for some weird names that I either keep or trash.
The one big reason I change character names is because who I am writing doesn’t fit the name that they have. Names have a connotation behind them. They leave a picture in your head. Think about someone named Bambi. I know when I read that name I think ‘stripper’ or a very blonde idiot. Granted, in life there are most likely Bambi’s that don’t strip and aren’t idiot but saying and seeing that name leaves a picture in my head. And in the heads of most people I know.
Let’s take my character Micah. And I have told his progression before in one of the thirty day entries but I want to dig deeper. A little background on my world: there are humans with no magic and there are shifters with the ability to change into certain animals. The humans do not know about the shifters. So, knowing that, when I started writing Selene’s story her love interest was human. So, I picked a random name for him: Alec. He was naïve, young, and slightly frightened by who Selene was (when he finds out). I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like himself. I didn’t want Selene to be with someone so weak-willed. So, we did a revamping of his character.
Alec became Leo. He was still human but more strong-willed. He was very vocal in his parts. Instead of being completely unaware of the world around him, his family was initiated into the magical world and had planned on initiating him as well (though when he gets forced into it he had yet to find out about it). He stayed as Leo for quite some time. I like him as Leo, I mean his name just bled strength and courage. Which he ended up needing a lot of initially, the world he was thrown into was scary and harsh to him.
What ended up happening next was that Aislynn came along. She was never going to have a very big part of the story, other then being the child of Selene and Leo. But she had a bigger voice then I ever would have imagined. When I decided to give her her own separate, individual story I realized that her father being human hindered who I was watching Aislynn become. So to make sense of Aislynn’s story, Leo became Savitar.
Savitar didn’t stay Savitar for long. Mostly because I realized that I had taken his name from a character that has similar type of abilities from another book that I had been reading at the time. Since I didn’t want him to be a carbon copy of someone else’s creation, I realized I needed to revamp his name again and he became Micah. He is no longer human and more so a demi-god. Because of this, Aislynn’s character now makes sense.
So, as you can see, the transition from one name to another has a point in my head. The connotations behind that name represent what they are on the paper for me. Many things bring a character to life, one of those is the name itself, especially since you don’t get to actually see the character.
Now when we get to name of places, things get a little trickier. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a habit of mashing them all together in different ways. Lets take a look of a few of them as an example:
- Torrest Reyenne – This was one name that I didn’t come up with myself. I was actually trying to think up names and my husband gave me this random name. And so I stuck with it because I really couldn’t think of anything any different/better that worked for my writing. This is the name of the world in general. It may end up changing, or it may not. I haven’t come up with anything that works better in my mind, so as of now it’ll stay.
- Calypto – Now this name is the world of the gods. This one was a pretty random as well. I was trying to write a short story on the creation of my world and the gods part in that and since they do not reside in/on Torrest Reyenne, I realized I needed a name for the world the gods lived in. This one just … popped in my head. Something that I didn’t even really have to think of. I liked and so I kept it.
- Hycintha – This is the name of the country where the Cats mainly reside. This was a sort of melding/mixing up of words. I had found the word Hyacinth (which is a type of flower) and removed and changed some letters around. Basically removed the A and put it at the end instead of near the beginning. And so I came up with Hycintha.
- Lolia – This name came about by come across the name Layla (which has a meaning of night – and since this is the home of the bad guys I think it fit) and me just playing with letters (you can see that it’s really no where near Layla anymore…). In which case I came up with Lolia which became the home of the Dallions.
- Aeria – This is going to be the home of some shifters that change primarily to avian creatures (bird people). The way I came by this name is pretty simple. Aerie by definition is the home of birds – specifically birds of prey – and so I figured taking that to start with was a good place, then changed the ‘E’ at the end to a ‘A’ gave it a familiar yet different connotation.
- Abyssinian – This is the main city of the Cat population. It is where a lot of the story takes place. Came initially from finding the word abyss (which most know means vast and profound space) and finding this name in the “similar” terms area on dictionary.com. The name Abyssinian is actually the former name of Ethiopia and I like it so I decided to use it as the name of the city for the Cats.
So, as you can see, the developments of the names I come up with really go through silly processes. Especially with names of places in my world – makes me wonder how others do it. People are just way too creative for their own good when it comes to names!
Cara Mia Amore
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Check in ...
So I just wanted to say that I didn't disappear, I know I haven't updated with anything since the end of that daily string of posts for a month. I haven't been meaning to ignore you my lovely readers!
So, I usually write all of my blog posts while I am at my breaks/lunch at work. And then transfer them here through my email. Well, I've been trying to access my email from at home and fail to the extreme. Will not load. So that is why the lack of posts because I know that I have them written but I don't want to waste them and want to get it over. I'm getting to the point of just emailing it outside of my work account so I can get some posts out. I'll try to do that within the next few days, but I wanted to check in with you guys and let you know that I'm not dead!
So, I usually write all of my blog posts while I am at my breaks/lunch at work. And then transfer them here through my email. Well, I've been trying to access my email from at home and fail to the extreme. Will not load. So that is why the lack of posts because I know that I have them written but I don't want to waste them and want to get it over. I'm getting to the point of just emailing it outside of my work account so I can get some posts out. I'll try to do that within the next few days, but I wanted to check in with you guys and let you know that I'm not dead!
Cara Mia Amore
Monday, February 21, 2011
Day Thirty
Day thirty: Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about his/her characters!
Well, I really don’t have anyone to tag with this one … so instead what I am going to do with my time now that these daily entries have been rounded up. I have a few projects planned that I want to share before I start them.
First of I want to start getting some world building nailed down pat. So for a little while I was looking at different writing websites out there for something similar to this 30 days project. Didn’t really find anything specifically for that but I ran across some world building questions on a blog for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It was an entry from 2009 with a bunch of different questions to consider when world building. Around 350 or so questions that are divided into different categories (climate, geography, magic, people, etc.). So, I want to use those questions and start some kind of daily/weekly/whatever-ly set up where I go through those. There are quite a few of them, so I know if I do daily they will get done faster, but weekly will keep me busy as well. I think it’s all going to depend on whether I want to do one of the questions at a time or more. I haven’t decided but that’s my next big blogging project.
Second, I have been reading a significant amount of books. I want to do some basic reviewing of those books just for my benefit. Might change up the format of how I’ve been doing it but I want to get them done.
Third … well I have a few other things planned, but most of those are more a long the lines of single entries on topics that got sparked while answering these daily ones here.
I don’t know how many of you out there are reading this. Mostly I think I am talking to myself, but if I’m not, is there anything that you would like to see from me? Any questions for me? I’m now an open book and want to answer what you ask!
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen
Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Day Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Day Twenty-Eight
Day Twenty-Nine
Well, I really don’t have anyone to tag with this one … so instead what I am going to do with my time now that these daily entries have been rounded up. I have a few projects planned that I want to share before I start them.
First of I want to start getting some world building nailed down pat. So for a little while I was looking at different writing websites out there for something similar to this 30 days project. Didn’t really find anything specifically for that but I ran across some world building questions on a blog for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It was an entry from 2009 with a bunch of different questions to consider when world building. Around 350 or so questions that are divided into different categories (climate, geography, magic, people, etc.). So, I want to use those questions and start some kind of daily/weekly/whatever-ly set up where I go through those. There are quite a few of them, so I know if I do daily they will get done faster, but weekly will keep me busy as well. I think it’s all going to depend on whether I want to do one of the questions at a time or more. I haven’t decided but that’s my next big blogging project.
Second, I have been reading a significant amount of books. I want to do some basic reviewing of those books just for my benefit. Might change up the format of how I’ve been doing it but I want to get them done.
Third … well I have a few other things planned, but most of those are more a long the lines of single entries on topics that got sparked while answering these daily ones here.
I don’t know how many of you out there are reading this. Mostly I think I am talking to myself, but if I’m not, is there anything that you would like to see from me? Any questions for me? I’m now an open book and want to answer what you ask!
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen
Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Day Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Day Twenty-Eight
Day Twenty-Nine
Cara Mia Amore
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Day Twenty-Nine
Day twenty-nine: How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL (in real life) that reminds you of your characters or your story?
I think my writing is something that is always on my mind, whether consciously or subconsciously. It really doesn’t take much for me to get into the mindset of writing because it is something that is constantly right there on my mind and is easy to pull forward. Most of the time at least. I have mix feelings about that fact though, I mean its nice being able to pull all of it forward when I need it and to start writing, but it is slightly inconvenient if I get a sudden urge and need to write and I am no where that I can do that. That’s why I always have a pad of paper with me whenever I go anywhere; there is also one beside my bed and at work. No cute, small purses for me because I always shop with the fact that I’ll have a standard, letter-sized notepad that I have to fit into the bag in mind. I’m just crazy that way.
As for when it comes to different things in life reminding me of my writing and the characters and stories they belong in yeah some things do remind me of it all. One day that pops in to my head is when I went to the zoo with my step-daughters and we saw the big cats, tigers to be specific, and I got to watch how they lived in the “wild” (granted not really the wild, but my characters in tiger form aren’t wild either), I got to see them interact. Some of the best unintentional research ever!
Other then that, little things will show up but a lot of my characters and my story are in my head. The world is unlike ours in many ways and it’s a lot more difficult to see the world as they see it – at least in relation to viewing our own.
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen
Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Day Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Day Twenty-Eight
I think my writing is something that is always on my mind, whether consciously or subconsciously. It really doesn’t take much for me to get into the mindset of writing because it is something that is constantly right there on my mind and is easy to pull forward. Most of the time at least. I have mix feelings about that fact though, I mean its nice being able to pull all of it forward when I need it and to start writing, but it is slightly inconvenient if I get a sudden urge and need to write and I am no where that I can do that. That’s why I always have a pad of paper with me whenever I go anywhere; there is also one beside my bed and at work. No cute, small purses for me because I always shop with the fact that I’ll have a standard, letter-sized notepad that I have to fit into the bag in mind. I’m just crazy that way.
As for when it comes to different things in life reminding me of my writing and the characters and stories they belong in yeah some things do remind me of it all. One day that pops in to my head is when I went to the zoo with my step-daughters and we saw the big cats, tigers to be specific, and I got to watch how they lived in the “wild” (granted not really the wild, but my characters in tiger form aren’t wild either), I got to see them interact. Some of the best unintentional research ever!
Other then that, little things will show up but a lot of my characters and my story are in my head. The world is unlike ours in many ways and it’s a lot more difficult to see the world as they see it – at least in relation to viewing our own.
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen
Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Day Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Day Twenty-Eight
Cara Mia Amore
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Day Twenty-Eight
Day twenty-eight: Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there’s nothing major to speak of tell us a few smaller ones.
Not really. I mean my characters have their flaws but nothing that would truly be classified as a disability (whether it’s mental or not). Some of my characters have interesting psychological things happening to them, but in their world it’s not really classified as anything more then weird magic. But we can go ahead and talk about some “flaws” my characters have that could be misconstrued as disabilities in our world.
Noah – His magic allows him to do a few things that would probably get him committed to a facility if this was our world but just makes him strong in his. He is a prophet, not only does he get visions but he gets ones that are prophecy for his people and is potentially life/world changing. He gets different visions of different forks off those prophecies. It’s interesting for me to write, and unfun for him to live. Another one of his gifts is he can see people in their different forms. Example: say he runs into a room of people and some are human and some are not – those that are human would just look like themselves but those who are not, say a Cat, would shimmer back and forth between his or her human shape and their animal shape.
Selene – She hears voices. Granted, the voice she hears is that of a very angry goddess that can use her voice to kill, but she still hears her in her head where no one else can. But like I said, this is how magic works in their world, to be talked to by a goddess would not cause anyone to blink an eye in their world. To hear voices in our world would have someone either institutionalized and/or medicated.
Aislynn – Her life is lived with a second personality in her head. Usually when a character in my books are shape shifters the form they take is one in the same with themselves. They are physically aware of the difference but mentally they are the same and are aware of the actions they do in either form. Aislynn, because of her heritage, is mentally separate from her tiger form. Though she is mentally aware when she is in the form of her tiger she doesn’t necessarily have control but she is aware. It is like she is two people in one body.
So, as you can see a lot of my characters have signs of what would be considered mental disabilities/illnesses, but in their world these are just signs of what would be considered strong magic.
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen
Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Day Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Not really. I mean my characters have their flaws but nothing that would truly be classified as a disability (whether it’s mental or not). Some of my characters have interesting psychological things happening to them, but in their world it’s not really classified as anything more then weird magic. But we can go ahead and talk about some “flaws” my characters have that could be misconstrued as disabilities in our world.
Noah – His magic allows him to do a few things that would probably get him committed to a facility if this was our world but just makes him strong in his. He is a prophet, not only does he get visions but he gets ones that are prophecy for his people and is potentially life/world changing. He gets different visions of different forks off those prophecies. It’s interesting for me to write, and unfun for him to live. Another one of his gifts is he can see people in their different forms. Example: say he runs into a room of people and some are human and some are not – those that are human would just look like themselves but those who are not, say a Cat, would shimmer back and forth between his or her human shape and their animal shape.
Selene – She hears voices. Granted, the voice she hears is that of a very angry goddess that can use her voice to kill, but she still hears her in her head where no one else can. But like I said, this is how magic works in their world, to be talked to by a goddess would not cause anyone to blink an eye in their world. To hear voices in our world would have someone either institutionalized and/or medicated.
Aislynn – Her life is lived with a second personality in her head. Usually when a character in my books are shape shifters the form they take is one in the same with themselves. They are physically aware of the difference but mentally they are the same and are aware of the actions they do in either form. Aislynn, because of her heritage, is mentally separate from her tiger form. Though she is mentally aware when she is in the form of her tiger she doesn’t necessarily have control but she is aware. It is like she is two people in one body.
So, as you can see a lot of my characters have signs of what would be considered mental disabilities/illnesses, but in their world these are just signs of what would be considered strong magic.
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Day Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Cara Mia Amore
Friday, February 18, 2011
Day Twenty-Seven
Day twenty-seven: Along similar lines (as yesterday), do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters?
When it comes to description and my characters, I am currently a little slack on describing them. I see them in my head when I’m writing, but I’ve had some difficulty in getting the descriptions out in the writing. Been working on that. One of the goals I have is to nail down, in writing, exactly how I see my characters and that’s been fun to do.
But when it comes to certain descriptions that I find import in the story – say if a character gets hurt and gets a scar that might play a role – I am usually good at describing that. An example would be Aislynn, in one of the chapters of her story a major turn of events is when she gets her dreams “hijacked” by a Dallion priest and that priest plans on scarring her using the standard that is used for his people. Basically carving symbols in a person’s body, and he uses this to try and punish and hurt her. When she wakes up she ends up covered in these symbols and blood and they are left on her forever. It’s a fun scene that I think I used description well in.
Along that same line I have the Dallions. Part of their culture is to be marked and/or tattooed as they go through life. Different symbols that represent different stages of their life and they begin to receive them from birth until death. These are similar to marks that are forced on Aislynn all at once in the scene above but the Dallion’s marks become colored in unlike regular scars and take on a bluish tint.
I have a lot of fun describing abnormalities and I am attempting to broaden those descriptions to other aspects of the story as well.
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Day Twenty-Six
When it comes to description and my characters, I am currently a little slack on describing them. I see them in my head when I’m writing, but I’ve had some difficulty in getting the descriptions out in the writing. Been working on that. One of the goals I have is to nail down, in writing, exactly how I see my characters and that’s been fun to do.
But when it comes to certain descriptions that I find import in the story – say if a character gets hurt and gets a scar that might play a role – I am usually good at describing that. An example would be Aislynn, in one of the chapters of her story a major turn of events is when she gets her dreams “hijacked” by a Dallion priest and that priest plans on scarring her using the standard that is used for his people. Basically carving symbols in a person’s body, and he uses this to try and punish and hurt her. When she wakes up she ends up covered in these symbols and blood and they are left on her forever. It’s a fun scene that I think I used description well in.
Along that same line I have the Dallions. Part of their culture is to be marked and/or tattooed as they go through life. Different symbols that represent different stages of their life and they begin to receive them from birth until death. These are similar to marks that are forced on Aislynn all at once in the scene above but the Dallion’s marks become colored in unlike regular scars and take on a bluish tint.
I have a lot of fun describing abnormalities and I am attempting to broaden those descriptions to other aspects of the story as well.
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
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Day Eight
Day Nine
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Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Day Twenty-Six
Cara Mia Amore
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Day Twenty-Six
Day twenty-six: Let’s talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OC (original characters) and post your favorite picture!
I may have touched base on this once or twice in different places, but I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about it here. I could not draw to save my life. Well, no that’s wrong. I can draw maybe one or two things. And not very well. I can draw a very simple flower (you know the one you learn in kindergarten where you take a circle and then add half circles for petals – that’s the one I can draw), a heart, sometimes I can draw a shape that looks like an eye but other then that I’m really a failure. Even my stick figures kind of suck which is a slightly depressing thought.
So, in answer to this question, no I do not draw. And really I have never asked anyone to try and draw my characters. Never really thought about it in any extreme. Maybe one day when I’m really famous someone will draw me fan art! (Psh … if I ever get to the point of really famous I hope if I ever felt the need to get my characters drawn I’d ask one of the few people I know to draw them. But fan art would be an interesting concept.)
So, since I can’t draw, I’m going to tell you a story about art. When I was in … middle school I think, I decided I was going to take an art class. Mostly because my two best friends actually had a wonderful artistic talent and I wanted to take a class with them. Hah, that was ridiculous. I found out I was not very bad at certain things like basic shapes. I was actually reasonably good at one of the projects they did where you took a current image (like some picture taken from online) and they you plotted it out and either enlarged it or shrank it. I think I was only good at it because the concept and work of the job was already done, I just copied it and did what I needed to do. I was also reasonably good at the calligraphy part of the class, but that’s mostly because my mom used to do it for fun and I had dabbled in trying it myself before.
But really, the point of this story is that I took an art class and realized that I was decent at mimicry of others’ work but when it came to coming up with my own idea I complete failed. A little back story before I move on: about this time of my life my friends and I were also fans of an anime called Sailor Moon. I imagine there are some of you out in the internet world that have heard of it (or at least have reasonable research skills to pull up Google, Wikipedia, or some other such tool to look it up) and each of us had our favorite characters. My favorite was Saturn, I also was addicted to purple. So taking that back story a little further, our final project was to come up with our out image involving something we like. Of course my friends and I chose to do something with the characters from Sailor Moon. Well let’s just say the picture sucks. I decided to do a picture of Sailor Moon herself in her usual getup. I think I even still have the picture. It was complete disproportioned, she had a razor-edge pointy chin (if she was real she would cut right through ya!), there was know depth to the picture at all.
So I hope you enjoyed my confession on my lack of art skills and I’ll talk to y’all tomorrow!
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Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
I may have touched base on this once or twice in different places, but I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about it here. I could not draw to save my life. Well, no that’s wrong. I can draw maybe one or two things. And not very well. I can draw a very simple flower (you know the one you learn in kindergarten where you take a circle and then add half circles for petals – that’s the one I can draw), a heart, sometimes I can draw a shape that looks like an eye but other then that I’m really a failure. Even my stick figures kind of suck which is a slightly depressing thought.
So, in answer to this question, no I do not draw. And really I have never asked anyone to try and draw my characters. Never really thought about it in any extreme. Maybe one day when I’m really famous someone will draw me fan art! (Psh … if I ever get to the point of really famous I hope if I ever felt the need to get my characters drawn I’d ask one of the few people I know to draw them. But fan art would be an interesting concept.)
So, since I can’t draw, I’m going to tell you a story about art. When I was in … middle school I think, I decided I was going to take an art class. Mostly because my two best friends actually had a wonderful artistic talent and I wanted to take a class with them. Hah, that was ridiculous. I found out I was not very bad at certain things like basic shapes. I was actually reasonably good at one of the projects they did where you took a current image (like some picture taken from online) and they you plotted it out and either enlarged it or shrank it. I think I was only good at it because the concept and work of the job was already done, I just copied it and did what I needed to do. I was also reasonably good at the calligraphy part of the class, but that’s mostly because my mom used to do it for fun and I had dabbled in trying it myself before.
But really, the point of this story is that I took an art class and realized that I was decent at mimicry of others’ work but when it came to coming up with my own idea I complete failed. A little back story before I move on: about this time of my life my friends and I were also fans of an anime called Sailor Moon. I imagine there are some of you out in the internet world that have heard of it (or at least have reasonable research skills to pull up Google, Wikipedia, or some other such tool to look it up) and each of us had our favorite characters. My favorite was Saturn, I also was addicted to purple. So taking that back story a little further, our final project was to come up with our out image involving something we like. Of course my friends and I chose to do something with the characters from Sailor Moon. Well let’s just say the picture sucks. I decided to do a picture of Sailor Moon herself in her usual getup. I think I even still have the picture. It was complete disproportioned, she had a razor-edge pointy chin (if she was real she would cut right through ya!), there was know depth to the picture at all.
So I hope you enjoyed my confession on my lack of art skills and I’ll talk to y’all tomorrow!
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
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Day Eight
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Day Seventeen
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Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Day Twenty-Four
Day Twenty-Five
Cara Mia Amore
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Day Twenty-Five
Day twenty-five: Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
As of right now, none of my characters have “pets”. I don’t find it to be an important aspect of my story, at least as of yet.
When you take my story, I think you would consider it in most circles to be paranormal or urban fantasy. A lot of my characters are focused on a race of people that physically change their form into a different creature. Mostly, cats like tigers, lions, etc and to bring domesticated animals into the picture kind of seems weird. One aspect that I’ve been thinking about incorporating into the story is the idea of familiars. Animals that are used to emphasize powers in my people but I don’t know if that is going to come to pass or not.
Even if I do decide to bring in that idea to the story, the animals themselves are not going to be pets per se, more like characters unto themselves and so I plan to develop them as much as the character they are there to support. But, like I said, I’m literally on the fence about this idea. Some days I really like the idea and other days I really feel like it is one of the stupidest things I have thought up as of yet. Not only stupid but cliché.
So, as an answer in short: Pets, no. Familiars … er, maybe.
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As of right now, none of my characters have “pets”. I don’t find it to be an important aspect of my story, at least as of yet.
When you take my story, I think you would consider it in most circles to be paranormal or urban fantasy. A lot of my characters are focused on a race of people that physically change their form into a different creature. Mostly, cats like tigers, lions, etc and to bring domesticated animals into the picture kind of seems weird. One aspect that I’ve been thinking about incorporating into the story is the idea of familiars. Animals that are used to emphasize powers in my people but I don’t know if that is going to come to pass or not.
Even if I do decide to bring in that idea to the story, the animals themselves are not going to be pets per se, more like characters unto themselves and so I plan to develop them as much as the character they are there to support. But, like I said, I’m literally on the fence about this idea. Some days I really like the idea and other days I really feel like it is one of the stupidest things I have thought up as of yet. Not only stupid but cliché.
So, as an answer in short: Pets, no. Familiars … er, maybe.
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Cara Mia Amore
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Day Twenty-Four
Day twenty-four: How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most interesting way you’ve killed someone?
Simple answer: YES!
I like to kill my characters because I’m morbid like that. Granted, I don’t do it just because I can, but death plays a big role in my writing. There are many characters that I kill, including some big time main characters. I like to think that a lot of the deaths have a point to them. A certain growing moment for some of the different characters in the stories.
I’ve also brought people back from the dead. Most of the time because, in rewrites, I’ve realized that the death of a certain character doesn’t give the right lesson that it initially had. So, I bring a character back to life and they get to play a further role. Sometimes I kill them again, different context and a different lesson learned to the people who survive the death. It’s an amusing occupation to be a god of a world.
One big thing that I want to point out is that the world that my characters currently live in is terrorized by a war. Two countries are fighting for dominance of the land and the people. Like with every war, death is a common ailment. Families get torn apart, children loose parents, and some parents loose children. War is a destructive topic to focus around and even though the war is not always constantly a part of scenes, its still a part of the character’s lives and so death is something that goes with the plot.
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Simple answer: YES!
I like to kill my characters because I’m morbid like that. Granted, I don’t do it just because I can, but death plays a big role in my writing. There are many characters that I kill, including some big time main characters. I like to think that a lot of the deaths have a point to them. A certain growing moment for some of the different characters in the stories.
I’ve also brought people back from the dead. Most of the time because, in rewrites, I’ve realized that the death of a certain character doesn’t give the right lesson that it initially had. So, I bring a character back to life and they get to play a further role. Sometimes I kill them again, different context and a different lesson learned to the people who survive the death. It’s an amusing occupation to be a god of a world.
One big thing that I want to point out is that the world that my characters currently live in is terrorized by a war. Two countries are fighting for dominance of the land and the people. Like with every war, death is a common ailment. Families get torn apart, children loose parents, and some parents loose children. War is a destructive topic to focus around and even though the war is not always constantly a part of scenes, its still a part of the character’s lives and so death is something that goes with the plot.
Past Entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen
Day Sixteen
Day Seventeen
Day Eighteen
Day Nineteen
Day Twenty
Day Twenty-One
Day Twenty-Two
Day Twenty-Three
Cara Mia Amore
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