R.M. Archer's Blog, page 48

Character Interview: Nya Hook

Nya is the main character of my short story Lost Girl, available now by itself on Kindle or in the Short Story Collection Vol. 1 which is available on Kindle or in print. She’s a pirate captain who’s deeply attached to her crew but doesn’t tolerate any stupidity. She loathes Peter Pan with a seething passion, seeing as she’s Captain Hook’s granddaughter, and she’s stubborn. Enjoy her interview. :)

Nya: *steps into the room and takes a seat across from the interviewer, brown hair brushing the tops of her shoulders* Hello.

Interviewer: Hello. How are you?

Nya: I’m well. How are you?

Interviewer: Doing well myself. Shall we get started?

Nya: *nods*

Interviewer: What is your name?

Nya: Nya Thomas Hook.

Interviewer: Where did your middle name come from?

Nya: Yes, it’s a boy’s name. It was my grandfather’s middle name, and he asked that it be passed down to me.

Interviewer: That’s interesting. Was there any specific reason he wanted you to have it or did he just want his name passed on?

Nya: *shrugs* He thought I’d be a good captain someday. It was almost like a good luck charm. But I like it; my grandfather and I were very close before he died.

Interviewer: How long ago was that?

Nya: Five years ago.

Interviewer: How old were you at the time?

Nya: Eleven.

Interviewer: So I suppose people do grow up in Neverland after all?

Nya: Not exactly. There’s an island off the coast, where my grandfather made his lair, that is touched by time. I spent the first twelve years of my life there and then took over for my father as captain of my grandfather’s ship so that he and my mother could be “normal.”

Interviewer: You were captain at twelve years old?

Nya: This is Neverland. It’s not unusual for kids to do anything. The crew knew me well, I knew them, I knew the ship from sailing with my grandfather all the time, so it didn’t take me long to get used to being the captain. My grandfather had trained me to a degree. And Smee helped me keep the crew in line as I was starting out.

Interviewer: The same Smee who was with your grandfather?

Nya: No, his son Tyre.

Interviewer: Interesting. Um… *glances briefly at question sheet, then back up at her* Do you have any siblings?

Nya: *shakes head*

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite food?

Nya: Crab.

Interviewer: Favorite color?

Nya: *gestures to her red coat, which matches the large hat on her head* Red.

Interviewer: Favorite animal?

Nya: Dolphins.

Interviewer: Do you have any hobbies?

Nya: Playing cards and singing.

Interviewer: Which of these is most important to you: Kindness, intelligence, or bravery?

Nya: Bravery.

Interviewer: And honesty or selflessness?

Nya: Honesty.

Interviewer: What’s something you can never leave the ship without?

Nya: My sword. *taps the hilt of the rapier at her side*

Interviewer: And that’s it. *smiles* Thank you for your time.

Nya: *nods* It’s been a pleasure. *stands and shakes his hand before leaving*

Camp NaNo Prep: The Idea

NaNoWriMo’s next session is just a month away. For those of you who don’t know, Camp NaNoWriMo is a version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in which you’re put in a virtual cabin with other writers (assuming you sign up on the official site) and you get to set your own goal. Your goal can be measured in words, hours, minutes, lines, or pages. It’s more laid-back than the regular November session (in which the goal is a set 50,000 words, though obviously you don’t have to stay tied to that if you don’t want to) and you have the opportunity to hang out with a small group of like-minded writers for the whole month of July. (I’m considering putting together a cabin starting with those of you who follow my blog. Would anyone be interested in that?)

Anyway, over the next month my Tuesday writing posts will be crash-courses in prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo, and today’s post is about choosing your idea. I already wrote about this topic back in April for the Alphabet Blogging Challenge in my post “Potential Energy,” so I’m going to sum up that post (you can click through and read the original post afterward) and then throw in some bonus stuff about organization.

As a writer you’ve likely collected inspiration from everywhere and thus probably have a lot of story ideas. You probably have a folder bursting with unfinished stories and half-starts and you’re probably hit with overwhelm like a ton of bricks any time you even think about writing them all in a lifetime. Some of them have probably already been voted into the “DNF” folder where they will remain, gathering dust, until you die and some historian stumbles upon your folder once computers are a bygone technology. (Totally kidding.) So then how do you pick one story to focus on for a whole month? Well the first option is to just not. You could decide up front that you’re going to tackle two (or more) projects at the same time during July. Or you could be a rule-follower and pick one.

But then do you pick the ancient story idea that’s been yanking at you for years, begging to be finished, or you pick the brand new, shiny idea that you just got yesterday that’s also begging you to write it?

If the old story has been tugging on you for years then it’s probably a pretty good idea and you should probably at least give it a chance. In addition to being persistent, the older story idea has been culminating in your mind for a lot longer and is probably further developed than a lot of the other things you might write. So if you have an old story idea that you’d like to write, it’s probably best to go with that, particularly as there’s less prep time for a NaNoWriMo event than a story you can write entirely in your own time.

If you’re picking between two newer story ideas (or two older, for that matter) figure out which one is taking up more of your time. Which are you consistently thinking about and brainstorming (whether intentionally or not)? Which has more pieces that just grip you and won’t let you go? Pick that one. You can come back to the younger idea once it’s had a little more time to develop naturally.

Or, of course, you could continue a story you’ve already been working on, as is my plan (I’ll be working on continuing The Shadow Raven) or you can edit something you’ve already written (like I did in April with The Heart of the Baenor).

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If you’re writing a novel for Camp NaNoWriMo, there’s a lot to keep track of. (There’s a lot to keep track of anytime you’re writing a novel, but it’s harder to keep track of the faster you’re working.) You have characters (sometimes a lot of them), sometimes an outline, sometimes a whole new world, and any one of those things can be difficult to entirely keep track of consistently. So how do you organize it? I use this thing:

This is my story binder (if you click that link you’ll go to a post all about it) and it’s where I keep all the pertinent character and world information for my trilogy. (Yes, the entire trilogy. The thing is stuffed.) Most of what’s in here is character information (since the world isn’t a huge part of the story and the timeline is kept on my computer. More on that later.), and I currently have 20 character profiles in there, only eight of which are completed. I really need 51 (and that number will probably continue to rise as it consistently has…). These things get massive. BUT they’re the best for keeping info all in one place, and since it’s a paper notebook you can open it up and flip to whatever spot you need while you keep your story open and don’t have to worry about shuffling windows and tabs and whatever else on your computer. I have extensive character sheets for each of my characters (you can get the template I use by signing up to my email list; it’s in the resource library), but you could just have full profiles for your primary characters to start out and then as minor characters pop up you could add a simple sheet with their physical attributes and a page of notes, for instance, and then put together their full profile later. I believe in the importance of deeply knowing all of your characters, primary or not, but for the first draft you don’t need to know every detail of every side character’s life. You can figure it out between drafts and work it in in a second draft or whatever.

For word tracking I generally stick to the official NaNo site word count tracker during events (on either the main site or the Camp site, depending on the month), but I also keep track with myWriteClub when I remember, I keep track of daily word count in my bullet journal, and sometimes I put a tracker in my bullet journal. (Lately I’ve also been keeping track of word count in an Excel spreadsheet for the Go Teen Writers 100-for-100 Challenge, but that’s not a normal thing.)

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry about the poor quality on some of those. But that’s basically the various ways I keep track.

To keep track of time in my novels (which is very important with this trilogy since there’s so much overlap) I use an Excel worksheet (simply because I can insert rows easily). Here’s what my spreadsheet looks like (spoilers redacted):

Off-screen is color-coded peach (I’ve since made all of the peach match…), important things are marked in red (the blank red spaces are where an event was only specifically important to a couple characters (across the top; characters are color-coded by story) but is important to others as well. Scenes might be color-coded for a story because they included characters from book B but the scene was written in book A or whatever. And then I write over on the right what chapter of each book something happened in. I based the general idea off of the POV tracker from Ink and Quills’ story binder printouts (which are awesome, by the way), and then moved it to Excel so that I could easily insert events in between things that I’d already written down without erasing and copying and shifting a book’s worth of events. And then there are other pages for really brief character profiles if I need to quick-reference them and setting descriptions, as well as a couple others that I use very rarely. (I inserted the Ink and Quills POV tracker into the Go Teen Writers story spreadsheet template, which you can find at their respective sites.)

So yeah, that’s how I keep organized. Hopefully at least something in there was helpful (or at least interesting).

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Do you know yet what you’re working on for Camp? An old idea or a new idea? Would you like to be in a cabin with me for July?

Snippet Sunday: Unstoppable

Just a little bit of info on the Unstoppables before we start: They can talk telepathically to one another (and only one another), so dialogue in italics is telepathic speech. It’s part of the tech that went into them when they were experimented on, and it was meant to link it to their handlers as well but Grantech didn’t have a chance to finish it before they escaped.

“Any-” I stopped myself. It wouldn’t be wise to speak aloud here. Anything interesting?

Trey shook his head. Not yet.

I joined him looking through the papers and grabbed a manila envelope from beneath a stack of paper. The paper all slid to the floor as the stack’s support was removed. Bold letters in the corner read ADP-2353.

I opened the envelope and pulled out the documents within, setting the envelope back on the table. I flipped through the pages, seeing plans of the Grantech business facility, as well as constant references to test subjects Alpha through Gamma.

The Unstoppables had been named starting with Hectic. I had been Opaque; ironic, considering my power. Who were these earlier test subjects, and why hadn’t I ever heard of them before?

Does anyone know who test subjects Alpha through Gamma were? I asked.

No, Trey said. No one does. We were kept in the dark about them. I asked a couple times who they were, but they silenced those questions.

Of course Trey would have asked. He asks about everything, and studies everything.

Why does it matter? Nyssa asked. They probably died like all the rest.

I don’t think so. I just found a file they’re mentioned in quite a few times.

It’s probably old.

I looked at the date on one of the pages. January 11th, 2422. It was only a couple of months old.

They’re not, I said. I told them the date.

That’s interesting, Trey said. Does it say anything about them? He left whatever papers he was looking at and came to look over my shoulder. My stomach did a quick turn at how close he was.

No. Most of it’s redacted. Their code names are mostly all that’s visible.

Because they don’t matter, Nyssa said. Let’s just get out of here.

That’s entirely backwards, Trey said, in a private link to me. If they weren’t important all their files wouldn’t be redacted. He reached around me and flipped through the pages, his arm brushing against mine. He stopped at the Grantech facility plans and looked them over. Maybe they’re here.

In a business facility? Isn’t that a bit risky?

Who’d think to look for prisoners in a business facility? Besides, why else would these plans be in their file?

I hesitated. So what do we do about it?

We go looking for them.

Farewell to May

We’re already halfway through the year. Yikes! I think that means it’s time for a reevaluation of the year’s goals (which is something like three months overdue), and I’m going to snag the Spring Cleaning Writer Challenge Tag (now that it should be summer) from Melissa at Quill Pen Writer. (And after that will commence the normal updates I include in these things.)

Here are the rules:

1) Link back to the person who tagged you.

2) Share the picture.

3) Answer the questions or even pick and choose which ones you answer.

4) Tag 3 other writers and inform them that you tagged them (via comment/message/email or hey, even carrier-pigeon or smoke signal; I’m not picky).




Dust-Bunnies and Plot-Bunnies: Reorganize your writing goals (or make new ones)

First, my original goals for this year:

Prepare The Dark War Trilogy for publishing. BAHAHAHAHA. This is absolutely not going to happen. I’m nearly 80k into The Last Assassin, about 65k into The Shadow Raven, and The King’s Paladin is basically not even started. I doubt I’ll even have the first drafts done by the end of the year, much less have them edited and pretty much ready to go. I’m way more ambitious than I realize, apparently.

Publish House of Mages. Well I already announced I was scrapping this one back in January or February, so that doesn’t need anything else.

Publish The Heart of the Baenor. First of all, another example of my over-ambition: I intended to publish two books this year. Professional authors do that. Professional authors with editors and cover designers that they go back to. I’m still just a little fledgling without an editor or a cover designer (although I’m in the process of remedying that). While I’d like to still shoot for this goal, I don’t think I’m likely to reach it.

Get started on The Historian. I’m not sure I even want to write this story at all at this point, and this timeline was one in which I had the first drafts of all the Dark War books finished prior to NaNoWriMo, so this one’s on the very, very back burner.

Win all three NaNoWriMo events. One down, two to go.

Write 2k every day. I wish I could say I’d stuck to this one.

Do some Kersir worldbuilding every day. I’d honestly forgotten this was even a goal of mine. I have done some worldbuilding over the past six months, both with Kersir and the Aleruus planets, but certainly not every day.

Start making an income. This isn’t specifically a writing goal, but my intention with this one was always to achieve it through writing means. I’m working on getting a freelance business up and running, so this is still a goal for the year.

New/continuing goals:

Finish The Last Assassin, The Shadow Raven, or both. First drafts, that is. I’m off to a good start with The Shadow Raven with the Go Teen Writers 100-for-100 challenge, but I don’t actually know how long these books are going to be so I don’t know how much I’ll still end up having to write after the challenge ends on August 31st. We’ll see how that goes.

Start making an income. Like I said, I’m working my way toward a freelance editing business, and I’d also like to start selling cheap short stories as ebooks.

Publish The Heart of the Baenor. At the very least with this one I want a second draft completed, ideally a third, and I want the cover and editor locked in. (Which is dependent on starting to make money, because I’m a broke teenager.)

Win all three NaNoWriMo events. I still intend to make this goal. I have yet to win all three in a year. (And I want to start up a new winning streak of the November event since I broke it last year. It was due to vacation, and I wouldn’t have given up vacation, but I was only 10k away.)

Which stage are you at? Expound!

a. Remodeling layouts (planning the story)

b. Painting the walls in colorful hues (writing)

c. Polishing the windows and scrubbing the floors and putting flowers in vases (editing)

d. Blueprints (not to the cleaning or remodeling yet… just drawing up plans for the very beginning inklings of a story)

e. Some combination of those things (cleaning out a closet)

Cleaning out a closet. I’m “painting the walls in colorful hues” with The Shadow Raven and “polishing the windows, etc.” with The Heart of the Baenor.

Treasure from the back of the closet (Share one to three snippets you love!)

From The Shadow Raven:

Lucienne gave {Detren} a look, but Nissa read a twinkle in her eye that said she wasn’t quite as displeased as she let on. Nissa looked the woman over and noted from her crisp black uniform that she held to her military position even when she wasn’t on duty. Which was probably never, Nissa realized. There hadn’t been a war for hundreds of years. After the Ocean War nearly decimated both Roenor and Mandoria, they’d worked hard at not going too far into their disagreements again. She’d paid at least a bit of attention to her history lessons, she realized. Or maybe she’d taken them in through osmosis. She’d certainly fallen asleep on her books enough for that.

 

From The Heart of the Baenor:

Bloggers I tag:

Leila at Wildflowers and Cosmic Tea

Mels at Melody Jackson, Author

Anna at Conscious Dreamers

 

*a loudspeaker crackles to life* We now return to your regular programming. *loudspeaker snaps off*

May’s Writing

I’ve written 24,201 words this month, which isn’t wonderful (there were far too many days when I wrote nothing. XP), but I’m getting back on track with the 100-for-100 Challenge, I finally got back into The Shadow Raven after a three-and-a-half month hiatus, I contacted an artist about doing the cover art for The Dark War Trilogy (including The Heart of the Baenor), I finished the first section of a giant writing resource I’m making (though I’ll likely add to it later on), and I redesigned my newsletter and I made a new newsletter to begin a street team, so I’ve actually gotten more done this month than I’d realized. Most of that happened in the latter half of the month, but it still got done.

May’s Reading

I finally finished things this month! I started The Darkling Child by Terry Brooks back in July and finally finished it this month, and I started The Hobbit back in December 2016 and finally finished it this month. *winces* I also read Rebekah DeVall’s new short story Iron Core and wrote a review. I also read Hope Ann’s The Stealthmaster’s Shadow, which releases today, and wrote a review yesterday. Lastly, I’ve been reading Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, which is wonderful so far.

Other Stuff

The only other remarkable thing to happen this month was that I applied for a mission trip to Maine and didn’t get to go. I’m still kind of wrestling with God to figure that out, but I’m trying to trust Him.

I’m looking forward to this summer, though, and specifically to camp. Camp was wonderful last year and I can’t wait to go back. ^-^ Plus my best friend and I will be performing The Other Side from The Greatest Showman at the talent show which is going to be SUPER fun. :D

How was your May? Are you looking forward to summer? Have your writing goals changed since the beginning of the year? I’d love to hear your revised goals in the comments. :)

Book Review: The Stealthmaster’s Shadow by Hope Ann

The Stealthmaster’s Shadow is finally here! Hope Ann’s latest novella will be available for Kindle tomorrow for $2.99. The links are down below. She’d love to sell 50 copies tomorrow, so let’s see if we can help her out with that. :)

 

It’s been ten confounded years since the war ended.

Verus, a retired soldier, determines to enforce the peace the victory ought to have brought. His wanderings bring him to the city of Nerva, a sprawling riverside chaos no other Stealthmaster will touch.

Commandeering the task of a former comrade, Verus presents himself to the governor and promises to search out hidden Subverters. The true reason for his actions he keeps to himself. After all, the tyrannical governor will hardly approve of lending aid to those pitted against him, but the Subverters need information. Maybe even weapons.

The wishes of the Subverters themselves are immaterial. They weren’t there during the war. They didn’t see the horrors Tauscher spread.

Verus has.

So has the new ambassador from Zahavia who strides through the great doors of the feasting hall, bringing Verus face to face with nightmares from his past.

As the simple mission dissolves into confusion, Verus struggles to help those he’s plunged into danger, from a serving lad to the infuriating woman he’s taken to calling “Princess.” Fleeing will only make the enemy stronger. But staying…

Staying could doom them all.

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Review

The Stealthmaster’s Shadow is set in the same world as Hope Ann’s three other novellas: Rose of the Oath, Song of the Sword, and Rose of the Night. I personally have yet to read those, but if they’re anything like this one then I look forward to reading them.

For me this novella was an introduction to a deep fantasy world and engaging characters. The world is clearly well thought-out, with well-designed political tensions and an allegorical religious system.

Some of the characters were less engaging than others, as is the case with all stories, but overall I was able to really enjoy them. Verus’ skill and dark sense of humor made him fun to read.

I did think that some of the relationships were a little rushed and we didn’t get to see quite as much basis to them as I might have liked, but some of that may have been due to me not absorbing what I read as well on a computer as on a Kindle or print book. (It’s a really weird and annoying thing about me.)

Hope Ann’s descriptions were excellent, bringing out the key elements of the characters and settings so they were easy to visualize and immersing you in the action. I would have liked a bit more description of Verus, but his personality made him easy to visualize, for me.

Overall this was a lovely book and I definitely recommend it. :)

About the Author

Hope Ann uses chocolate to bribe a wide ring of spies, from the realm leapers of Aslaria to the double agents of Elkbend, for their stories. Based in Indiana, she is the self-published author of the Legends of Light series, personal writing coach, and the Communications Coordinator for Story Embers. You can find out more about her at authorhopeann.com.

Pre-order the book here!

Add it on Goodreads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bookworm Q&A Tag

I was chosen for this tag by Hallie Jenkins back in late March and totally missed it until last Wednesday when I was poking around my Twitter notifications. Oops.

Hallie is awesome and you should definitely go follow her blog. If you need any proof of her awesomeness just read the warning on her “About” page. (I was not bribed to say this with chocolate or books or any other form of compensation. ;) )

Q1: What books do you remember reading that kick-started your bookworm habit?

The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew, back in the very beginning. When I got into fantasy it was with Terry Brooks’ Magic Kingdom of Landover and Shannara books.

Q2: What genre, or genres, would you normally choose? 

Fantasy and dystopian, mainly.

Q3: Do you eat while you read and if yes, what exactly?

Nope. Not usually. There’s too much risk of food getting on the pages. XD

Q4: Are there any scenes from your favorite novels that you remember vividly?

Um, quite a few? But they’re scattered all over the place. I guess I’m supposed to pick one, so I suppose the scene in Echoes… Gosh, there are a lot of those that a remember quite well. XD I’m torn between the one where she’s going to lunch in her fancy peach and white outfit and the one where she saves Natan’s bible. But there are so many great scenes!

Q5: Were there any least favorites?

The Maze Runner series by James Dashner (you can read all about why I thought that was poor writing in this post) and The Collective by R.S. Williams (I have a full review of this one). And also Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes (which also has a review).

Q6: So, as you’re a bookworm, what are you reading currently today? (Optional)

The Darkling Child by Terry Brooks. (I’m still reading his Shannara books after almost nine years.)

Q7: How’s it getting along for you? (Optional)

It’s taken me quite a while to get to this point (I slacked off on reading for a long while there. *collective gasp* Blasphemy!) but I’m at the beginning of chapter twenty-five of twenty-seven.

Q8: Have you then got a large bookshelf, or do you plan to?

I have a single tall bookshelf which is filled about 3/5ths of the way with books and then 2/5ths with school stuff, notebooks, and various other paper materials.

Q9: Do you have a liking to indie or traditional books?

I like supporting indie books because I’m an indie author and plan to be for a long while, but I don’t think I especially have a preference. Either can be really good or really bad or mediocre.

Q10: And lastly, do you plan to promote reading in some way, or already are?

I’m going to steal Hallie’s answer to this and say “Writing books for people to read,” but I don’t promote reading otherwise. (You can see all of Hallie’s answers here.) Unless you count pushing my youngest two siblings (of those who can read) to start the Mandie series because I thought they’d enjoy it. It felt really cool to hand-pick something for them. ^-^

 

And I nominate…

Wren at Our Mind Palace

Hannah at Ink Blots and Coffee Stains

Ruby at {The Sky Calls us Home}

Gray Marie at Writing Is Life

Abi at The Left-Handed Typist

Snippet Sunday: Wonderland

After reading Heartless by Marissa Meyer, both Allegra and I wanted to write a story set in Wonderland, so we decided to collaborate one one. (I’ve mentioned this story in a post here on Scribes & Archers – “My Experience With Collaboration” – and also a couple of posts on Our Mind Palace – “Drawing Portfolio” and “Co-Writing and Collaboration.”) The idea is that the main characters of Wonderland are dying, and eight people from the real world are brought in to take their places, but they have to go on a quest to find various relics representing the characters first. Here are the first two sections of the prologue, which introduce my POV character and Allegra’s (in that order). Enjoy. :)

Chess tucked her earbuds into place and turned the volume wheel up to almost blasting. Her amber eyes, almost orange, glanced out the window at the falling rain before she headed out of the apartment, closing the door behind her without bothering to lock it. There was a strange feeling telling her she’d be gone for a while and wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Stepping to the end of the hall she gave the elevator only a passing glance before heading into the stairwell and heading down, her steps echoing through the empty shaft. The music pulsed through her as she shoved open the door at the base of the stairwell. A few more steps brought her out of the apartment building and onto the sidewalk.

She looked up at the sky and let the raindrops fall on her face, closing her eyes. The combination of music and rain calmed her like nothing else could, and she stood there reveling in it for several minutes.

When she looked back at the street, it was entirely empty. No cars, no buses, no trucks. Neon advertisements still flashed on skyscrapers up and down the street, but the only thing on the concrete was rainwater. It glistened and reflected the flashing lights, giving off a familiar, almost otherworldly atmosphere.

Chess looked up and down the street, but there wasn’t a single vehicle in view. There weren’t even people on the sidewalks, except for herself. Oddly enough, Chess wasn’t disturbed by this fact, though she knew she should be. In fact, it put her strangely at peace. She hesitated only a moment before stepping out onto the concrete and straight into the middle of the street.

Spinning around once, rather hesitantly, she extended her arms and let the warm rainwater drop onto her skin. After that she looked around and saw that she was still alone. She grinned, a big Cheshire Cat grin, and spun around several times again. When she’d completed those turns she smiled down at the concrete.

There was a large puddle at her feet, just a few inches from her black combat boots. Her reflection smiled back up at her, her soft face framed by a blue bob of hair, shiny sunglasses perched atop her head.

Feeling joyful and childlike, she stepped into the puddle, and immediately was drawn into it.

Now she was almost frightened. She tried to scramble back before she could sink further, but the puddle had a tight hold on her, and she was drawn down through the concrete. Down, down, down, down, into a drop that seemed to be never-ending. Colors swirled around her like dancing ribbons, until finally after what seemed like a century her feet landed on something firm.

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Hartley peered down over the edge of her spot on top of the lockers.

Any time now.

The school bell rang out and kids flooded the hall. Hartley set her sights on two. A short brown-haired boy, Jacob, and a tall blond one, Ethan, both wearing football team hats.

Just a bit closer.

The two passed under her and stopped at their lockers, right below her perch.

“Gotcha!”

Hartley leapt off the lockers in a somersault, grabbing their horrendous hats of their heads and landing square on her feet behind them.

“I’ve told you boys not to wear such offensive attire in my presence!” She grinned and plopped both hats on her head at odd angles. Her wild black curly hair dyed multiple colors stuck out of every crevice it could find.

“Hattie!” Jacob cried her nickname, seemingly in anguish, though his eyes twinkled with laughter, “Give us our caps back!”

He made a grab for Hartley’s head and she danced away, ducking under Ethan’s outstretched fingers.

“Nope! Maybe I’ll just toss them in the trash!”

“You’d be mad to do that!” Ethan this time, an aggravated tone in his voice.

“As a hatter.” She grinned again, as she danced around Ethan’s hand once more into the flow of traffic. “Speaking of hats, you may or may not see these again. Good bye!”

Hartley melted into the rushing mass of kids going to their respective classes, stopping only once at her locker to store her prizes and grab her sketchbook for painting class. She had discovered a picture last night and wanted to copy it into the picture she had started last week for their study on acrylics.

She hummed mindlessly as she slid down the familiar banister to the lower level. Jumping off in a flawless turn, sending her multicolored skirt twirling against her striped leggings.

Silly silly girl, why don’t you dress like normal?

Hattie could pick out the common whispers condemning her odd fashion choices from the dense group around her. She just hummed louder.

The bell rang again and she slipped into her class. Her painting rested on the easel in the very back corner of the room. “Closest to the paint,” she always thought.

On the canvas was a painting of an elaborate pond, only the outside of the pond was filled in, the pond itself was her masterpiece.

Hattie tugged the printed photo out of the front of the duct taped sketchbook she had set on the table next to her. Bright orange goldfish swam around in a dream-like landscape. Each one looked almost like they were glowing. She smiled. She was planning on painting these glowing otherworldly fish into the pond.

Picking up her paintbrush she dipped the tip into some orange paint. Turning back to her painting she took a step back, blue-green eyes wide. The pond was already painted!

Setting down the brush, Hattie reached for the center of the pond.

“ But how..?”

When her fingers should have made contact with the surface of the paint, her hand sunk into the picture itself. Hattie felt herself being pulled into the painting. She resisted with all her might, but the pull of the other side was too strong.

Before too long she was completely inside, surrounded on all sides with something that reminded her of a kaleidoscope. A few fearful moments later, she landed on her front on something hard.

My Second Newsletter

I got antsy to write a blog post and I realized I haven’t told you about my new newsletter (separate from the one you can sign up for in the sidebar). It’s a street team newsletter, which means that by signing up you get instant updates of my publishing process when there’s a big change and you’re the people I reach out to when a book comes out and I need help promoting it. You’ll have exclusive opportunities to share my books on social media, participate in blog tours, and get advance reader copies of my books for review. Sound cool? You can click this link to sign up.

I’ve also given my original newsletter a total makeover, so it includes a snippet of what I’ve been writing, a quick writing tip, and the short update on my writing that it’s always included. If that sounds interesting and you’re not signed up yet, you can do so using the form in the sidebar and you’ll get immediate access to my writing resource library and the first chapters of The Dark War Trilogy. And if you know anyone who would appreciate the resources in the library (a character profile template, a worldbuilding worksheet, a set of worksheets for ranking ideas, and a NaNoWriMo/Camp NaNoWriMo checklist) please share this post and let them know. :)

A big thank you and welcome to anyone who just signed up (or plans to sign up when this post ends), and thank you to those of you already subscribed as well. :)

Character Interview: Torin Outlander

Torin is one of three main characters in The Heart of the Baenor. He’s the least focused-on of those three, but he has a complex backstory and struggle of his own and it’s spotlighted about halfway through the book. He’s a ranger and a dwarf-friend laden with guilt over an accident that happened several years ago. Enjoy his interview. :)

Torin: *takes a seat across from the interviewer, tapping one foot*

Interviewer: Hello. *smiles* How are you?

Torin: Tired.

Interviewer: Mm. I know the feeling. Are you ready to get started?

Torin: *nods*

Interviewer: What is your name?

Torin: Torin Thaine Outlander.

Interviewer: How old are you?

Torin: Thirty-nine.

Interviewer: Do you have any siblings?

Torin: *shakes head*

Interviewer: What’s your job?

Torin: I’m a ranger in the Baenor.

Interviewer: There aren’t many rangers working in the Baenor, are there? Isn’t it the most hazardous place in Kaloris?

Torin: Not if you know it well. Egath-Baen is likely more dangerous.

Interviewer: Rangers are trained in Taur’tahl, right? What made you decide to go to the Baenor?

Torin: *swallows hard, the toe-tapping speeding up* I’d rather not talk about it.

Interviewer: *nods* What is your favorite food?

Torin: I don’t have one.

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite color?

Torin: Blue. Like the sky.

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite book?

Torin: *shakes head*

Interviewer: A favorite animal?

Torin: *shakes head*

Interviewer: Do you have any hobbies?

Torin: I spend my time tracking, hunting, trapping, sometimes mining with the dwarves. I like to keep busy with work.

Interviewer: For any particular reason?

Torin: *shrugs, but his tapping is speeding up again* Again, I’d rather not talk about it.

Interviewer: Which of these is most important to you: Kindness, intelligence, or bravery?

Torin: Kindness.

Interviewer: And honesty or selflessness?

Torin: Selflessness.

Interviewer: What’s something you can’t leave camp without?

Torin: A knife. *the tapping speeds up*

Interviewer: That was the last question. *smiles* Thank you for your time.

Torin: *gets up and leaves*

6 of My Favorite Blogs

I follow a lot of writing blogs. A lot. A few of them I end up following and then either forgetting about or just not liking, but there are quite a few that I follow rather religiously. I will snap up just about anything they write, because I’ve grown to trust them and trust the quality of their writing. And these are the blogs I’ll be sharing today. (My originally list was thirteen, but then I decided to narrow it down to just those that I follow closest.) They’re in no particular order.

1. Well-Storied

Formerly known as She’s Novel, Well-Storied is a blog I’ve followed for a very long time. Kristen is an awesome blogger, and Well-Storied has a podcast if that’s more your thing.

2. Ink Blots and Coffee Stains

I started this one and then got distracted on one of Hannah’s Pinterest boards. (She has awesome Pinterest boards.) Her blog has been super helpful to me on multiple occasions, the main posts that stand out being her worldbuilding series and her most recent post on discipline.

3. Hannah Heath

I’m sure you hear me promote her blog posts way too much in my resource roundups and whatnot, but Hannah is awesome. She’s sarcastic, she’s a huge superhero fan, and she regularly makes pop culture references in her posts. Overall her blog is just super fun to read.

4. Wanderer’s Pen

A big thing on Victoria’s blog is her “So your character is from…” series. She also writes great “Writing lessons from…” posts, and reviews.

5. Quill Pen Writer

Among other things, Melissa writes great worldbuilding posts. She has a whole series of posts that are “Questions to ask when creating…” like “Questions to ask when creating a fantasy religion” or “Questions to ask when creating fictional ethnicities.” They’re all really helpful and thought-provoking.

6. Go Teen Writers

Go Teen Writers has a wide variety of content from three different YA authors: Jill Williamson, Shannon Dittemore, and Stephanie Morrill. They also do an annual 100-for-100 challenge, in which you write 100 words daily for 100 days. This will be my first year participating.