Ruth Ellen Parlour's Blog, page 10

Friday Snippets – Pearl Dust

Pearl Dust is the title I’ve coined for my Sci-Fi short, not sure if it’s the one I’ll stick with. Here’s another snippet. Be warned, this is first draft so will be rough!

Enjoy!

~*~

A loud clank on the roof tiles made Cara jump and instinctively look to the roof as if she could see through it. A metallic rattling sound became louder as Cara tried to track its source with her ears.

A puff of coal dust exploded in the furnace as a something hit the glass door with a clink. Smoky shot off the carpet and ran out the door. Cara’s breath caught in her throat when she saw a pearl, smoky blue and white, lean casually against the stove’s door, nestled amongst the coal.

Leona stood so fast her needles and knitting fell to the floor. She ran out the door shouting for her brother.

Cara slumped to the floor and crawled towards the coal fire, watching the pearl. The orange light glistened off the layers of colour that warped inside the sphere. Sparks of gold like tiny gems glistened in the reams of pearl white and blue. A white mist began to rise from the pearl and fill the coal oven, seeping out the air vent and lingering into the living room. Cara backed away, pressing her back against the couch as the room filled with mist. It rose upwards in a column and splayed out, forming the shape of a human. Around the mist Cara could see a pulsating white light. It shifted and bounded like waves on a beach, disappearing into the air. The mist settled into a human form where two hollows made the eyes. Its sex was indistinguishable. Cara stood and gazed at the creature as she heard whisperings inside her head. Many voices of no sex blasted her mind and they all whispered.

~*~

Thanks for reading! Comments are always welcome

Friday Snippets – Sci-Fi Short

We return to my sci-fi short for this week’s snippet. This is a first draft so will be rough. Comments are always welcome!

~*~

Cara held a pearl in her hand, it was cold, the surface as smooth as glass. She looked into the depths of swirling colours in the orb. White, cream and grey laced like bands of liquid with tints of mint green and tiny specks of gold. Each orb was slightly different in colour, all of light pastel shades. Cara held it to the light but the sun could not penetrate the depths of the orb.

Molly jumped at her then and caught her off guard. Cara crashed into a stack of shelves that wobbled dangerously.

‘Molly!’ Cara cried. She glanced up in time to see a box fall from the shelf and hit her square in the face. The cardboard split and showered her in a fine powder. As she gasped, the white dust filled her mouth, her nose and her eyes. It tasted dry and powdery and sour. It filled her eye and sprinkled onto her shoulders, floating to the ground like flour. Molly sneezed as the dust filtered into her nose and she stepped away, leaving little white paw prints on the wood floor.

‘Cara?’ the farmer’s voice reached her from the open doorway. She could only see a blurred shape. It was as if frost had clouded her vision. She exhaled sharply through her nose but the powdery scent could not be dispelled. Heat soured through her head and neck, she couldn’t breath. She gasped for air but felt choked on powder as her senses drained from her.

~*~

Thanks for reading!

My Review – Grammar At Work (online course)

Who this will appeal to: People wanting to improve their English grammar; writers.

I decided to take a course in grammar to improve my writing. I found Grammar At Work by The Publishing Training Centre in association with Oxford University Press and I decided to have a go. The course is entirely online and you get a free Oxford Press grammar book through the post. You can take a Grammar assessment quiz before buying to help you decided if the course is for you. The quiz took me a good thirty minutes in which I answered lots of grammar questions. I got more than half of them wrong. The quiz was difficult, but then again, so was the course. You can also take a guided tour of the course to see if you would like it.

The course is split into five modules: Grammar basics, People Places Things Ideas, Actions States and Links, When Where Why How, and, Real Life Sentences. Each of the modules is split into between three and five lessons which focus on aspects of grammar such as: nouns, verbs, tense, time, mood, passive, active, adverbials, sentence structure, and punctuation. Each lesson, depending if you make notes or not, will take between 1 to 2 hours each. Each lesson is split into four parts: Find out, Try it, Check your understanding, and Quiz. The information is in depth and useful and a resource centre is available to dip into for extra study if needed. The exercises are challenging but also help to reinforce what you have been learning.

I’ll not kid you, this course was tricky. I don’t know if it was just me in particular as I’ve always struggled to grasp technical aspects of things, but sometimes it made my brain hurt.

It’s easy to navigate, you can keep track of your progress and there’s a test at the end to see how much you’ve learned. There’s also an online tutor and discussion forum but I didn’t use those features.

Overall I thought the course was useful. I learned a lot, although I think I’m going to have to revise sections for the information to really sink in. I do believe it is worth carrying on the learning outside the course. I bought a grammar workbook from the internet to practise the knowledge I learned. The Grammar at Work course cost £45 and it has given me a deeper understanding of how grammar works. I found it very useful and would recommend this for anyone wanting to improve their grasp of English Grammar.

For more information, Click here.

Friday Snippets – Sci-Fi Short Story

Here’s another snippet from my Sci-Fi short story. This is a first draft so wont be too clean. Enjoy!

~*~

One of the dogs let out a sharp back and Cara looked up to see.

‘Looks like we’ve got a live one here,’ said Jordan, hoisting the heat gun to his shoulder and flipping the safety toggle.

Cara stared at the trees on the top of the hill as a man came running out towards them. Both of the dogs stood to heel by Jordan’s feet, barking and snarling at the running man. His feet brushed through tufts of grass and clumps of thistle as he waved his arms in the air.

‘Hey!’ the man shouted at the top of his voice. Cara watched him, recognising the voice. Is it really him?

‘You can shoot him from that distance Jordan,’ said Leona.

‘Ah, the closer he comes the shorter I have to walk to collect his orb,’ Jordan replied.

‘Wait,’ said Cara, holding her hand towards Jordan before hefting the water carrier into the cart.

‘You know this guy?’ Jordan asked, glancing at her sidelong.

‘Hey!’ the man shouted again, still waving. Cara knew him for certain now; the tall slim frame, black spiked hair and sloping nose. Cara’s heart tightened as her stomach felt as cold as the river. The sound of the dogs made her head hurt.

‘He’s not going to stop,’ said Jordan, his finger gently squeezing the trigger of the heat gun.

‘Cara,’ Leona’s voice reached her, then the concern in her eyes when she said, ‘let it go.’ Cara took a deep breath and sighed.

‘Shoot him.’

~*~

Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated

The Next BIG Thing Blog Hop

Welcome to the NEXT BIG THING Blog Hop.

What is a blog hop? Basically, it’s a way for readers to discover authors new to them.  I hope you’ll find new-to-you authors whose works you enjoy.  On this stop on the blog hop, you’ll find a bit of information on me and one of my books and links to five other authors you can explore!

My gratitude to fellow author, Adrienne deWolfe, for inviting me to participate in this event.  You can click the following links to learn more about Adrienne and her books.

Her Next Big Thing
Her Website
Her books

In this blog hop, my fellow authors and I, in our respective blogs, have answered ten questions about our current book or work-in-progress (giving you a sneak peek).  We’ve also included some behind-the-scenes information about how and why we write what we write–the characters, inspirations, plotting and other choices we make. I hope you enjoy it!

Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts and questions. Here is my Next Big Thing!

1: What is the working title of your book?

At the moment it’s called Gabrielle (since that’s the main character) but it’s not the title I’m going to publish under as I’m worried it will be submerged under a myriad of author’s names. Also because I’m writing another novella on the same thread staring Faith as the main character (and if that became the title I think it would give the wrong impression.) I just need to brain storm some title ideas.

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

I got the idea from a documentary called Fight Club: A History of Violence. It was about women’s bare knuckle fighting in Georgian London. I wanted to tell Gabrielle’s backstory and this fit in really well with the impressions I wanted to set.

3: What genre does your book come under?

The Earth Angel series is fantasy although there’s nothing in the way of fantastical elements in this novella. It’s similar to historical fiction (with a twist).

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Gabrielle would be tricky as I’d want her to look tough and she’s not all that attractive either, I wouldn’t want some kind of Hollywood model to play her character.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

In the slums of Hypatia, Gabrielle has to settle her brother’s debts by fighting in the women’s bare knuckle boxing pit.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

It will be self-published along with another novella to back up my current book – Earth Angel.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It took less than a month since it’s only 10,000 words long and I was trying to squeeze in 30 mins of writing a day. I’d like to try and lengthen it in the redraft though.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

That’s difficult. I haven’t read a book similar to this one.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to tell Gabrielle’s back story because she’s a character I like and there has been a lot of conflict in her life.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

There’s a lot of conflict and action in this book deriving from the characters, their culture and the hard circumstances they live in.

~*~

Below you will find authors who will be joining me virtually, via blog, next Wednesday. Please be sure to bookmark their sites, and add them to your calendars for updates on their upcoming books!  Happy Writing and Reading!

J. Keller Ford
Clare Davidson
Natasha McNeely
Jenn Lane
C.V Madison

Product Review for Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Graphics Tablet

Product Review for " target="_blank">Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Graphics Tablet 

Product Creator: Wacom

Website: Amazon

Who Would Buy This?

Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, Hobbyists.

Those shopping for: Graphics Tablets, Art equipment for Computers

Product Features:

Two sensors for pen and multi-touch input
Support of multi-touch gestures to scroll, zoom, rotate and more
Pressure-sensitive pen tip and eraser for natural feel
Battery-free and ergonomic pen with two buttons
Paper-like tablet surface with 16:10 aspect ratio
Reversible tablet design for left- or right-handed use
Four customisable ExpressKeys for quick function access
Attached pen holder for convenient storage
Easy USB connection
Interactive tutorial to make the most of Bamboo
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Personal Experience:

Usability

The tablet simply plugs in via USB and the pen is battery free. WACOM provides a CDROM which you have to install and a short instruction booklet telling you how to set up. It doesn’t take long to install the software, and there’s a step by step tutorial which is useful to tell you how to navigate over the tablet which also doubles up as a touch pad.

There are free apps and games that you can download from the Bamboo store including Evernote (but for some reason it wouldn’t let me create an account).

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You can use the pen or your hand to control the cursor on the tablet. Also, the pen has an eraser on the end which is really useful, along with a right click button (although who have to hold the pen so that you don’t press it by accident.)

The tablet feels great to use. The pen movement is smooth and accurate and responds really well to movement and pressure.

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Appearance

The Bamboo tablet looks very sleek and stylish. In black with accents of lime green, the pad has a mix of mat, shine and textured surfaces.

Size

The product dimensions as stated by Amazon are 17.6 x 27.8 x 1.1 cm. However, I wasn’t aware that the actual space on which to draw is only 14.8 x 9.2cm. This would have put me off buying it, had I known, but when I’m using the tablet I have found that I prefer using a smaller pad for convenience and I have to move my hand less. The size means I can sit comfortably. My old graphics tablet was too large which meant I was leaning and creating tension in my shoulder and neck. The Bamboo tablet is just the right size to sit in front of my laptop.

Handwriting

Using the tablet to write is not as smooth as using a pen and paper. Writing faster with flowing movements works better, as if you were writing your signature. The two pictures below compare my hand writing and signature both hand written on paper and hand written on the tablet.

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Painting.  

I bought the tablet mainly for digital painting using Adobe Photoshop CS6 (PC)" target="_blank">Adobe Photoshop CS6. I found that the eraser tool and right click button came in very handy for painting. The tablet responds well to pressure and movement and makes painting so much easier. Here is my latest digital painting created using the Bamboo tablet.

Pros: 

Looks Great
Feels Great
Easy to install and use
Very responsive and accurate

Cons:

Drawing area is a little small

The Bottom Line:

Overall I think the " target="_blank">Bamboo tablet reflects the price I paid, even though I don’t use the applications apart from to play around with when I first got them. The Bamboo tablet is a high quality product that I would recommend for artists and designers.

Value for money?

This tablet cost me £69.99 from Amazon. I bought it before Christmas and I believe the price is subject to variation. Although there are cheaper alternatives I believe in going for quality and this high quality product was great value for money.

What others thought of the Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Graphics Tablet Click Here Read Reviews.

Also available:

Wacom Wireless Accessory Kit" target="_blank">Wacom Wireless Accessory Kit.

WACOM ACK-404021 CARRY CASE BAMBOO FOR CTL470K-CTH470K AND CTH470S - ( Carry Cases)" target="_blank">Wacom Carry Case

Friday Snippets – Short Sci-Fi Story

One night this week I had a dream and when I woke up I thought, that would make an awesome sci-fi short story! And so I started writing it this week and this is the opening. Be warned this is a first draft and still rough. Enjoy!

*WARNING* Adult material (cuss word)

~*~

The fibreglass body of the heat gun nestled in the crook of Cara’s elbow, pointing towards the ground. Her finger brushed over the safety toggle.

‘Let me in!’ The face of Cara’s childhood friend stared at her through the chain link fence. It was exactly how she remembered it: stained with a heavy coat of acne; gold rimmed spectacles and a mess of brown hair; every detail was the same even to how the girl’s lip curled over her teeth and the stubby, dirt filled nails.

‘Get lost or I’ll shoot,’ said Cara. Her childhood friend pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and rattled the fence again.

‘You can’t shoot! You have to let me in; it’s dangerous out here! Please,’ the friend begged, her voice rising in pitch as a wobble of terror crept in.

Cara aimed the heat gun at her childhood friend and flipped the safety switch.

‘You have ten seconds to fuck off or I’ll melt your face,’ she said.

‘What are you doing? You can’t shoot me. Please Cara, I’ll do anything. Just let me in!’ The use of Cara’s name made her stomach tighten as red heat rose into her neck, cheeks and ears.

‘Ten…nine…eight…’ she lifted the gun into the crook of her shoulder and spied down the sight, her spare hand on the forestock to hold is steady. Her childhood friend sank a little on her knees and began rattling the fence like a rabbit dog, the chains clinking to the rhythm of her fear.

‘Please!’ a shriek tore at the girl’s throat in a wild plea as tears rolled down her face.

‘Seven… six…. five…’ Cara tried to count louder to drown out the sound of her friend’s plea, but nothing ever could… it was useless. She took a deep breath and tried to calm the quivering of her knees and the cold wave that crashed through her stomach.

‘Four… three…’ The gun hummed as it charged, the muzzle glowing orange, the last colour many people see.

‘Two…one…’

‘Cara!’ The friend screamed once more as Cara squeezed the trigger. The beam of heat erupted from the gun and sailed past the head of her friend, scouring the chains of the fence and eventually fading as the blast missed its target, and for the lack of another one, dissipated into the cool morning air.

‘You have to let me in now!’ the friend was on her knees crying freely now as Cara lowered the gun and engaged the safety switch. There was no way she could shoot the creature that wore her dead friend’s face. It was just too real.

~*~

Thanks for reading! Any comments would be great

My Review – Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass

Genre: YA high fantasy

Who this will appeal to: Young adults, teens or adults wanting an easy read. Fantasy lovers with a taste for strong female characters.

It was the book cover that caught my eye in the YA section. I’d seen it featured on Amazon’s pages and the blurb enticed me. I was promised that it was ‘Hotter than the Hunger Games,’ and so it became my Christmas book and I read it in less than a week.

“Meet Celaena Sardothien. Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness. In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught. Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament – fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?”

Characters

I can comfortably believe that an eighteen year old girl can be an assassin, but the world’s greatest? I have to admit that I spent the first half of the novel wishing the main character was more likable. She’s stunningly beautiful, cunningly witty, men fall madly in love with her and she loves books. Also, she can kill five highly trained and armed guards while she’s wearing shackles and has spent a year in a death camp. I did find her annoying and I can’t conceive that she can easily knock out a man three times her size in two movements. I don’t want to read about someone who is perfect, but about someone who is flawed and progresses through the novel. I felt there was no need to worry whether she’d die or not because of how awesomely skilled she is, which the characters often reminded us of. The reader knew from the start that she would win the tournament so why worry about her?

There is a love triangle in the story which I find tedious, although it’s probably popular for young adult readers. Her choice is between a dashing young prince and a dashing young Captain of the Guard and she didn’t go for the man I was rooting for although the writer’s keen grasp of emotions pulled on my heart strings throughout the novel. I have to admit, I did hope that she would instead have a relationship with the Princess (which would have been far more interesting than the man she chose.) The Princesses’ plight and concern for her people brought a tear to my eye and I found her struggle, and her cause, very touching.

Plot

The plot kept me hooked, although the tournament was not as gripping or prominent in the plot as I was expecting. There was plenty to keep me entertained as a mystery developed where competitors were being brutally murdered under mysterious circumstances. It was obvious from the beginning who the bad guy was, although I was half expecting to be surprised with a different revelation (which I wasn’t.) The various sub-plots which entangled the lives of the characters made the story more rich and interesting. Although I wasn’t worried whether the MC would pull through, I wanted to know what would happen while rooting for my man of choice.

Overall the story was intriguing and I grew to like Celaena a little more through the book as she became less irksome. It was a very modern novel, in terms of style and writing and will appeal greatly to a younger audience. I’m assuming it will become a trilogy and although I won’t be rushing to get my hands on the next book, I will be interested in how things turn out, and I’ll probably get my hands on a copy eventually. And I don’t believe it was ‘Hotter than the Hunger Games,’ at all. I’d probably give it 3 stars.

Throne of Glass" target="_blank">Throne of Glass Amazon UK Paperback

Throne of Glass" target="_blank">Throne of Glass Amazon UK Kindle

Throne of Glass" target="_blank">Throne of Glass Amazon US Hardback

Throne of Glass Amazon US Kindle

Friday Writing Game

I haven’t done any new writing lately for a Friday Snippet so I thought I would share this writing game with you and encourage you to join in and share. I devised this game sat in a noisy hostel in Berlin with my friend Caroline, where we would read a random line from our book and try to continue the story.

The Rules:

Go grab a book. Any book. It doesn’t even have to be fiction.
Flip to a random page and pull out a line at random; it doesn’t even have to be a full sentence.
Write it down and for 15 mins, continue the story!
Feel free to post your writing in the comments section and feel free to comment on other people’s or share the game on your own blog.
Remember to have fun with this, it’s not a serious piece of writing so just get the juices flowing!

Here’s mine:

The book I used was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.

‘Ahhhh-ha-ha-ha!’ he cried, finally holding out his hands…’ as the stick insect crawled with steady turns of its legs, its body shifting back and forth as it held to his fingers. The boy kept is at arm’s length as if the creature would leap onto his face and gouge out his eyes which were wide with both delight and fear .

‘It tickles!’ He cried, scrunching his face in disgust. A wide smile cracked my face as I scooped the insect off his palm. Thankfully none of the children had reacted badly to the insects this time. Last week a screaming child had knocked over the cage of cockroaches and stamped on two of them before a teacher pulled him away.

I glanced at my colleague as a young girl tentatively reached into the tarantula cage and stroked the fury back of the grey creature with her fingers, wincing all the while.

‘Here you go!’ I said, peeling away a green creepy crawly sticker that said ‘I stroked a stick insect’ and placed it upon the boy’s chest.

‘Thanks!’ He cried before moving onto the tarantula cage.

Two more boys came up to me pointing at the cage of insects, trying to distinguish, between the privet leaves, what were insects and what were sticks. It was the children’s reactions I loved to see: the joy of seeing, and touching something completely different, especially as the teachers watched warily from the side-lines and steered clear of all the plastic cages.

Thanks for reading and I’ll look forward to reading your snippets!

2013 Inspirations

I though it would be nice to share some of the things that have inspired me in 2012 that I want to remember going into 2013, not so much inspirations for writing, but for life. I hope you enjoy them!

“The things that matter most of all

are often close at hand —

A touch, a hug, a gentle look

that says, “I understand.”

The smile that inspires us,

the words that let us know

The way our hearts are leading

is the way that we should go —

These right-before-us, simple things

may seem to be so small,

But they’re what life is made of,

and they matter most of all.”

Good Times Jar Project…. http://homesteadsurvival.blogspot.com/

Start on January 1st with an empty jar. Throughout the year write the good things that happened to you on little pieces of paper. On December 31st, open the jar and read all the amazing things that happened to you that year.