Bre Faucheux's Blog, page 52

Authors I Want to Meet | T5W

Today’s “Top 5 Wednesday” is going to be a blog post. I didn’t get the chance to film it this week as I have been fighting a sinus infection. So here it is. The top 5 authors I would love to meet.

5.) Edgar Allan Poe. I have the feeling that this guy is going to be on a lot of people’s lists. He was dark. He came from a place of a lot of pain and loss. Yet he managed to take that energy and turn it into several creative masterpieces. I would love to know what made this man tick. What invigorated him and helped him when things seemed impossible.

4.) William Shakespeare. For the mere purpose of knowing if he spoke the way he wrote. That might seen strange, but I’m just curious. Okay, so that isn’t the only reason. There are several. I was the nerd in high school who voluntarily took Shakespeare as an elective course. He was not required reading. Yet I wanted to know more about his work. He managed to take old stories and weave them into something new. Many people are not aware that plays such as Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet were not originally his. He reworked those stories into something new that audiences of his day and age could understand and relate to. I find that inspiring. I want to know how he managed to do that.

3.) J.K Rowling. Another one that must be on many people’s lists. Because her story is inspiring. She literally came from nothing. She was broke. Living on the dole. And alone with a small baby. Yet she created something magical. I am fascinated by authors who can learn to ignore their often dark surroundings and create something incredible from a place of darkness. How did she do that? I want to have this conversation with her.

4.) George Orwell. This man opened my eyes to how the world really is. Rather than how so many people wish it was. I learned to look at politics, government and the motivations behind people’s agendas in a new way through his books such as 1984 and Animal Farm. They taught so much. And I didn’t even realize it until years later. One day I would like to go back and reread his work to see if I can get even more out of it than I did when I first read them.

5.) Morgan Rhodes. Yeah, I went there again. Because I love her. I love her stories. I love her in interviews. I love that he created a world that I could escape to and one that entranced my imagination. Going through her books really taught me some tips on writing and how to develop characters on a different level. One that I was completely unfamiliar with. She is very daring in her writing and somewhat fearless. I love that.

Okay. That’s all for now. Off to start writing for the day.

Rude to be Kind

Today’s blog pot entry is going to be a bit angry. A bit of a rant. So be prepared for it.

Earlier today, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at creating my own cover images. I have no talent for it and I was hoping that they would not look too amateur. I went onto a website that offers royalty free images for a small price. Found the perfect one, and paid a little money for it. Once the money had been transferred, I was sent a link to download the image. The link was faulty. It said that I had not paid for the image.

No problem. Just contact customer support, right? That’s what I did. I emailed them. Let them know about the problem. I got an automated response saying that I should check the order form on the website for a new link. I went there. Same problem. I emailed them a second time to tell them it still wasn’t working. And what did I get? ANOTHER automated response. Telling me that they link was resent. I tried it. It didn’t work.

Okay. I was getting angry by this point. What kind of customer support is it when the responses are all automated. And I take it that the site thought the problem was resolved because they sent me an email. I decided to send a rather intense email back saying PLEASE just send me the image via email. Because this is getting ridiculous and I needed the image for a deadline (a self-imposed one, but still). i don’t understand what the big problem is with just emailing me the darn image.

Anyway, I got a very angry email back (this time with the image) saying that I didn’t have to use their website if I didn’t want to. And this time, it was actually written by someone and was not an automated response.

The bottom line is, I had to be rude in order to get any kind of HUMAN response back from the site. I had to put words in upper case and tell these people that this problem needs to be resolved in order for them to do anything. And their response made it appear as though I was the one with the problem and that I needed to chill.

Sorry! Poor broke former student here can’t afford to be shelling out money for people who don’t give customers the time of day! My time is precious and I lost a few hours messing with this when I could have been writing.

This is an ongoing trend that I am noticing about the world. I have to be rude in order to get any kind of response or a reply for my problems or concerns. And it’s not just with customer support. It’s at restaurants. It’s at the gym. It’s in the drive through for morning coffee. Everywhere! And I don’t like being rude. I don’t like making people go out of their way to help me. I don’t even like bothered waiters to ask for a knife in a restaurant. I feel like I am imposing. I hate having to be rude. But it often seems like that is the only option. And after I get a response (often finally), the other person responds as though I am totally out of line and there was no problem to begin with.

*headdesk headdesk headdesk*

Okay. Off to kickboxing. I need to hit something.

Rant over.

Violet Blake IV is Complete!

Yay for another book being posted. Well, at least it has been uploaded. It should be available on Amazon within the next 24 hours and everywhere else within the next week.

I have already gone on and on about how hard it was for me to get back onto the track with Violet Blake. I hit a wall with that story months ago and never thought I would finish it. And I haven’t yet. But I have at least the next few books mapped out in my head. I am so excited with where the story went. And I am particularly excited about the new cover.

It cost me a pretty penny. And I am determined now to learn how to make my own covers. Because I can’t afford to buy so many covers. I have Paint Shop Pro X6 (I think is the edition). And I find it really hard to use. Someone mentioned to me that GIMP is great for creating covers, so I might do that. Any suggestions as far as where to find amazing free images and what program I should use for editing covers would be greatly appreciated.

I think that this story is far from over and I can’t wait to get back to working on it. My goal is finish the whole thing maybe by the end of the year. Yes, that long, because I can easily see this being a ten part series. Then by the end of it, I plan to sell the whole thing in a bundle.

So here’s the crazy ambitious goals!

Project TBR!!!

I have decided to participate in Project TBR.

I hope you enjoy!

Gathering Darkness | Book Review

Hope you enjoy!

Violet Blake III is Finished!

:::happy dance:::

:::Champagne Toast:::

:::Cheers!:::

:::Collapses:::

Yeah. That is basically how I feel. Overall at least. Book III in this series has been long coming. I published the second book (first edition) of the series back in May of 2014, I think… and due to personal reasons, the story hit a giant wall and i wasn’t able to work on it. Drama. Personal life. Blockage. More blockage. Sludge. Crap. Exhaustion. Then when I decided to attack the series from a side angle and tell Chloe Winter’s story (to give me more time to work on Violet’s) I was finally able to give it another go.

So, “The Memoria of Chloe Winter’ should be available by tomorrow. It is currently uploading. And I don’t want to hear one damn little word about ANY grammatical errors, because I edited that sucker to within an inch of it’s life. If it has too many and i am told multiple times about this, then I will give it another glance. But for now, I am moving on. To Violet Blake IV to be exact. It is finished in the first draft and needs to be edited. I am also starting on the new Elder Origins books.

First week of 2015, one book down. At least it is the first week for me because I didn’t get started working again until this previous Monday. So in my brain, first week was a success. I wanted to get more than that done and finish editing book III and book IV. Haha! No such chance in hell. I read so slowly and I don’t know what I was thinking whilst believing that I could get 200 pages edited in the span of one week. I must have been tripping. Or I was being overly positive and ambitious. Stronger minds prevailed. Editing takes time. And I often forget that editing is often MUCH more exhausting than writing. Editing weeks are the dredges of my life. And I don’t look forward to editing more next week.

So yay! And…oh, is that a bed? *thud*

December 2014 Wrap Up & January TBR

Here it is! Hope you enjoy!

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I Love Old Graveyards

Today I have a somewhat strange confession to make. And I didn’t realize that this was in fact a truly weird thing until recently.

Anyone who knows me personally or follows me on whatever social media platform of their choice knows that I have a deep passion for history. It started when my dad took my family to London. He was on a business trip and allowed me, my mom, and my brother to tag along. We went sight seeing while he went into data rooms. Poor dad. But anyway. Mom took me to Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Then the Tower of London, the British Museum, Madame Tussauds. The works! Needless to say, this trip forever changed and altered the course of my life. Because I had never been exposed to anything outside my own small world of the 3rd grade. I had no idea that people had lived for long before I was ever born. Other than my parents anyway.

Along with these small ventures around London, I loved seeing all the old graves where these famous people were buried. It was beyond intriguing to me. What were their stories? What did their lives mean to them or to the people around them? What wisdom did they have that I might be able to learn from? And most importantly, is Queen Elizabeth I still wearing one of those enormous jeweled dresses from her portraits inside her gigantic casket? Serious… I wanna know!

In future years, I always traveled to grave yards. Old ones. Screw the news ones, because those are just depressing. Old ones, not so much. Because in my mind, everyone who was being mourned is gone along with their mourners, so it’s okay to walk around and be fascinated. Forgive me if that sounds twisted, but that’s how I work it out in my mind.

When I went to New England with a friend, I MADE her stop at the old church yard grave sites. You know, the ones with headstones dating all the way back to the 1600s. Then when I went back to London, I did the same. Visiting every old grave site I could find (but ironically not the one closest to where I lived. Never made it to that one. Everyone said it was huge and you could get lost easily, and I didn’t want to go alone…and oddly enough no one would venture inside it with me. Can’t imagine why…)

When I went to Paris, I had to see Cemetery Monmartre. If only to see Edgar Degas’s grave and pay my respects. Love that man’s work. Then when I was in Edinburgh, I just HAD to walk through Greyfriar’s more than once. Or even twice. Not because many of the names within that site J.K. Rowling used to Harry Potter (although that was immensely cool), but because it was one of the creepiest and therefore coolest grave yards I had ever beheld. Then we went into the Underground Vaults which truly scared the crap out of me.

Let me remind you that I am the person who flat out refuses to watch horror movies. I don’t have a thing for terror, blood, or gore. It comes from a writer’s perspective. The people. Their stories. Their lives. And a little bit of paranormal activity mixed in because it is ME we are talking about here. And I love the paranormal.

I recently saw on an episode of “The Haunting Of” with psychic Kim Russo that a guy went to an old Civil War grave site and a spirit followed him back to his hotel room. She thought it was incredibly creepy that this guy liked to watch through grave yards. And that was the moment when I realized that walking through graveyards was a weird thing to do. And that might be why my friends never seem to want to come along with me. I might be messing with the unknown. But then again, I firmly believe that the “unknown” so to speak brought it on itself because it has messed with me a few times over the years.

Tell me I am not the only one! Oh old grave yard lovers out there! Grave yards to me hold a mysticism that cannot be touched by anything else in this world. They hold stories, names that refuse to yet be forgotten, and potentially spirits. Although I don’t believe they hold the spirits of those who lie within them. Graveyards are for the living. Why would the dead mess around them? I would think that they have better things to do with their time than walk around old grave markers. Which is another reason why I can justify my walking around them. BUT NEVER AT NIGHT MIND YOU! Because that’s just crazy. ;-)

Top 14 Books of 2014

Here are my top 14 books of 2014. I hope you enjoy!

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December | Writing Log

TOTAL: 56,246

And I did that in the span of three weeks. Lost a week and a half due to holidays and my trip to Denver to see some college girl friends for New Years.

Now now, before anyone gets on my case about writing too much and that my work can’t possibly be good if I am writing that much, I will instantly refer you to my recently ‘Champagne Thursday’ where I discuss my philosophy on quantity vs quality in the writing world. I do not believe that slow and steady wins the race. I never have. And I never will. Especially with what I am trying to accomplish. So any complaints about the quantity of writing will quickly be referred to the video.

Moving on.

Last month was all about getting a couple more books on Violet Blake out there. I finished two new novellas on it, about 1000 pages each. A little over 25,000 words a piece. I am finally happy with both of them. I am going to edit them this week and hopefully have them both out by the end of the week. I have one more cover to buy and I will just about be there.

This month after I finish editing will be all about ‘The Elder Origins.’ I was shocked, SHOCKED, to find that Elder Origins is starting to sell well and gets fairly descent reviews on Amazon. So I am going to have it be my focus this month and try to get two if not more books done on it. If I need more time I will extend that into March. Although ideally I would like March to focus on another series I write under a different pen name. And then April will be all about getting my high fantasy finished. At least the first draft of it. So yes, that is the plan. We’ll see how I progress.

Oh, also… I want to try writing at least one blog post a day. Or five a week if things get too hectic. They won’t always be topic oriented. Some might very well be rants. Others will be about random things that have nothing to do with writing but more on my views on certain things. Life. The World. And the fact that I am not particularly peacy about certain things. But I hope that’s okay.

I saw a post on Instagram a while ago that said “2014 was Practice, 2015 is Game On.” And that is totally and completely how I feel.

GAME ON! The energy of this New Year feels like it is spiraling toward me without control or a stop in sight. And I am going to embrace it with open arms.