I just need you noooooow.

(I've taken to using random song lyrics as the titles of my blog posts.)

I've got a lot to write about right now. So let's start with my inkpop reappearance.
I decided that it's not healthy for me to have a completely unedited draft up. What if it becomes popular? What if people actually do read it, and they find all the flaws? What do I do then? It would be so embarrassing. So I've gotten rid of the Author's Note warning about its uneditedness, and read through it a few times. I kicked out quite a few unnecessary scenes, giving it a rough sweep, so it'll be at least bearable. Until I can get to the really rough editing, I mean.
I even added a prologue, and made the title longer. So if anybody happens to stumble upon this blog post, I'd like to know what you think of my prologue I wrote. Just click the link on my toolbar thingy above that says Read My Summer Project. I think I'm going to have to make it so it can be a stand-alone, and then write book two separately for NANOWRIMO (which is such an important thing, it deserves an entire blog post on its own, which is coming.)
Autumn itself is, at this moment, only 51k long. I think that's a decent length for my only book that I would dare put up on the internet. I managed to read through the whole thing in one night last night, and though there are still some things in it I ought to work out, I think it's readable. I mean, I'm not published yet or anything.
I've gotten a few good reviews on it, so thanks to everybody who took their time to read it. And once again, if you have a few seconds to look at the prologue, please do.

Now, onto the issue of publication.
I have a copy of The Writer's Market 2010 that I want to put some use to before it's outdated. I'm satisfied with The Shadow as it is---the first part, in any case. And it turns out, I think I might be able to wrap it up at the midpoint, making it 50k or so long as well. Now don't get me wrong, I really don't want to do this. It took me so much effort to get to the 100-beloved-k that I reached during this rewrite. But I think that's kind of long for a debut novel, isn't it? And if I divided it up, it would mean I have two books written for the same series. I still don't want to cut it up. Without many people to read it and give me opinions on this dilemma, I'm stuck.
But I want to use my Writer's Market. So I'm going to get opinions somewhere, and get this issue resolved. Maybe I'll find an adult who's willing to read it. Isn't it funny that not a single adult has read any of my novels yet? And I've been writing all my life? I imagine I'd get some valuable feedback then, and it'd also be a good balance. It's a YA novel, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't get adults to read it.
I'm going to send out at least two query letters for an agent before the year ends, just to see what happens, and so that my favorite Christmas present last year wasn't just collecting dust on my bookshelf all year. So I'll see how I work this out. As you guys have probably figured out, I'm dead serious about publication. It's not a maybe in the distant future I'll think about publishing---no.
I'm going to start pursuing my career NOW, I'm tired of waiting, and so is Garret. I've reached the point where I can't rewrite The Shadow anymore. I just can't. I can chop it a little, sure, if it comes to that. Maybe I can add or rewrite a few scenes. But this is the version I'm keeping.
And no, I'm not doing this too soon. Better now than never. We never know what might happen tomorrow. I feel I'm being called to get started now. And with supportive friends and family, I see no reason why I can't try. Especially once I have enough feedback to make this novel the masterpiece I know it will be.

I'm going to write a short story in verse. That's where all my poetry inspiration was coming from. I have a few rough drafts in a notebook, I have absolutely no idea where they came from, but I'll put them up soon so you can read them. In perfect order. *daydreams* And no---I'm still not pretending to be a poet.

Now, with this happy update, I'm off to continue work. (Writing...) And school and stuff. Oh, how's school going, you ask? Well, I'm getting good grades right now. So I'm not paying too little attention to my studies. No worries. :)

It's the time it takes to blo-ow o-ow o-ow o-ow away.

I'm back in Inkpop!! Soon I'll have a link to my stuff on, like, the sidebar or something. I put up the book thing I wrote over the summer, since there isn't much else I can do with it. I think I'll be writing book two of that series for NaNoWriMo. It's gonna be better than book one, plot-wise, and I don't have to worry about the speed typing messing it up---the summer project, Autumn, was a product of speed-typing anyway. So there won't really be a difference. They'll both be too fast paced and have awful grammar and I don't know why I really put it up except to give you guys something to read. I guess it was to prove I really am a writer. :) So if you want to read it, have fun!! And don't bother with con-crit, really. I know most of it will be really badly written.

I'm finding Inkpop to be more addictive than Facebook. Which is a big surprise, isn't it? Facebook is really addictive to begin with. Oh well, what can one do about it. *shrugs*

My brother helped me draw a picture based on The Shadow! You won't be able to see it very well since the pic is too blurry. Maybe I'll scan it later so you can see better. But you can tell it's really foggy, and you can especially see the little gazelle he drew, hiding in a shadowy forest. I like it a lot, and will be framing it sometime soon. My bro's awesome.

Also, I want to try to do something similar with oil pastels. I like how he helped me envision the black fog that destroyed everything. It's like...smoke after an eruption, or explosion. Hard to explain. But you'll see after I scan it. Haha.

My favorite subject in school so far remains being History. The others I haven't quite grasped yet, especially the science ones. Oceanography is okay, though. It's pretty fun, but still, it will never be my favorite subject.

That's about all I can think of blogging about at the moment. :)

Poem #1.

Yep, that's what I titled it. See, the other day I got this weird urge to write a poem. I got out a big huge journal which I loved so much, I wanted to save it until I could use it for something special. I guess that something special was meant to be poetry, because for the past three days, I've been drafting what seems to be some kind of epic. But the result of part one was very different from what I started out with. I'm thinking this is either going to be a novel written entirely in Mariella Hunt's bad poetry, or it'll be a NaNoWriMo novel where each chapter is started off with a poem describing what happened in the chapter. Either way is awesome to me. :) Here's the poem:


My gigantic poetry notebook. Notice the butterfly at the top
of each page. I looove butterflies.

The sun pooled in somewhere behind.

The memory played out in his mind.

He saw her come right through that door.

He knew he'd heard of her before.

He knew the dream was more than just

a vision that would soon be dust.

He knew those words had not been light;

he knew that girl was pale with fright.

He also knew it was his job

to save her from the hungry mob.

Oh, how he wished he could get close

enough to meet this tattered rose.

Oh, how he wished he could get close

enough to meet his tattered rose.

Remember 9/11. We lost too many people that day.

I remember 9/11.


I remember seeing those images on the television. And I was too young then to understand the magnitude of everything. But now I see the images of the towers burning and think...there were people in there. While the planes crashed into them. While they collapsed. People that, hours before, still saw entire lives ahead of them. Hours before, they were at home, preparing for just another day at work.


I think of the people in the airplanes and am overwhelmed with sorrow at how they met such an end. They boarded the planes never suspecting it would be the last thing they would ever do. I think of them trapped in there, knowing they will not make it back out alive. Thinking that they never got to say good-bye.


I think of the families who lost people they loved, families who were shattered, families that will never be the same again. They lost mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, friends. And I think of them watching those towers collapse. Seeing the people they love perish on a television screen, wishing they could have reached in and pulled them out.


I think of the courageous firefighters and other people who came to try and help. The ones who also fell.


Then I think of us. We who lived to see such a thing. We are left with a feeling of awe and sadness. Awe because these people are heroes. Sadness because they never should have met such an end in the first place.


That day should not be taken lightly. That day should not be forgotten. Not here, not anywhere in the world. We lost three thousand souls. Pause a moment, to let that number sink in.


Three thousand people who left home, expecting just another day of work. Expecting to come home to their families. But they never did.

Now, when I see those images on the television, I cry.

Remember 9/11.

Excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer at Ground Zero:

"God of understanding,

overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,

we seek your light and guidance

as we confront such terrible events.

Grant that those whose lives were spared

may live so that the lives lost here

may not have been lost in vain.

Comfort and console us,

strengthen us in hope,

and give us the wisdom and courage

to work tirelessly for a world

where true peace and love reign

among nations and in the hearts of all."

Adopt a word. You know you want to.

The word I adopted is 'hymnicide.'
It means to kill a hymn through alteration.
You adopt a word, too.
It's important.
http://savethewords.org/

Yay for bookcases!

Thanks to this little bookcase, my desk looks a lot tidier. (To me.)

The desk. Maybe you would see the difference better if you knew all the shuffling around with books I did... :)

The bookcase. There's two rows on each shelf.

School's started. And writing becomes a bigger challenge than ever.

Because I don't have as much time for it, of course. Which means I have to divide time. After I get two subjects done, I can write a bit. Two more subjects, write a bit more. And if I get the urge for writing in between, I have to do it in this teeny notebook I bought for the exact purpose of not writing too much between subjects.

My teeny notebook, whose purpose is to let me write
between schedule, but not take too much time
doing it. Also---smaller notebook, to me, means better
quality words. I've done it before. It works. :)

But at night I still get a lot of stuff done. I've been using Q10 since school started, and I finished chapter thirty on it. I didn't think I got as much done on the actual Q10 screen, but when I pasted it on the document, that was fifteen pages, double-spaced. And since I took more than a day to write those fifty pages, having to save time and write carefully, perhaps this chapter will be better than the first twenty-nine. Here's hoping. I'm about 3/4 through, and can smell the end coming up.

Let's see how quickly I can get this written, with school and all.

If I get my homework done each day, and do it well, I reward myself with something. It can be candy or writing. Because writing can be a reward, even if I do it all day. :P Last night, my prize was a bonbon.

Bonbon. <3

It was good.

This morning, I got another dream for a story. I won't give much detail about it, but I will say that it's the exact same thing that happened with Autumn, my summer project. I got a dream about a new, interesting plot to write...and, just like with Autumn, a voice whispered a character name into my ear as I woke up.
For Autumn, the character name was Olivia.
For this story, the character name was Tyson.
Part of me goes YAY! THIS STORY IS GOING TO BE SOOO AMAZING I CAN'T WAIT TO WRITE IT.
Part of me goes Uh-oh. More characters to go after me. One of them is named Tyson and (according to the dream) he's a tricky liar. So how will I defend myself?

For NaNoWriMo, I'm making a plan. It's going to be a time to share attention with stories. So, this year, I am doing 100k again.
50k is for a new novel dedicated to NaNoWriMo alone.
50k is to continue/complete other novels I've begun in the past year, so they're not just hanging around anymore.
This is going to take a lot of chocolate and hot tea. And Q10, and really good music to listen to.

Bring it!

I'll spend October making my plan. Then it's time for battle. >.>

Hope all is well with you and school. :)