A.R. Hellbender's Blog, page 2

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is coming up in just one more month!

Like a lot of working authors, I’m a bit of a non-traditionalist when it comes to NaNoWriMo, meaning that I never actually start a brand new book in the hopes of making it at least 50,000 words long by the end of the month.

Instead, what I end up doing is tacking a certain number of words onto one of my works in progress, getting to a certain point in editing one of my works in progress, or writing 50,000 words worth of articles for my work.

This year, I haven’t decided what my goal will be, but it will be to get as far as possible in one of my three works in progress that doesn’t even have a completed first draft yet. My choices are:

The sequel to Her Dark Highness: The Myth, The Magic. (This is the cover art for book 1, not book 2, because book 2 has no cover yet).

The sequel to Unicorn Hunting, Unicorn’s Revenge (Finishing this one is of the utmost importance, since book 1 is actually published).

Conjure Queen, which is a stand-alone and probably my favorite book to work on at the moment.

Which one should I concentrate on? The one closest to being done is Conjure Queen, but that doesn’t mean it’s that much closer to being finished than the other two. They’re all still unfinished first drafts, after all. The other two seem more urgent, seeing as they are both sequels to books that are completed. But it’s NaNoWriMo, the month of getting extremely motivated and writing as much as possible, so it doesn’t matter as much which one(s) I work on.

I’m going on tour!

From October 18-24, I will be going on tour with The Shrike, filling in for their bass player who couldn’t come. I’m really excited, because not only have I been dying to go on tour again, but I really thought for a minute there that the last show I played with She’s Not Dead, which was a bad show to end things with, would be my last one ever. I’m so glad it’s not.

So I get to go on tour and help out a band that I like, and everyone goes home on tour happy.

We’re playing all over California, then Reno, and finally Ashland before heading home, making the tour 6 shows in 7 days. Aside from the days reserved for driving down at the beginning and driving home at the end, there’s only one day during which we don’t have a show. So it’s going to be pretty intense.

The last show that says “TBA” is the one in Ashland. You can find out all of the details you need at their facebook page.

Change of plans, yo.

I was planning on going to the Festival of Literature for Young Adults in October, but I may not make it after all, because I may be on tour instead!

Even though I was looking forward to FLYA, I think helping a band that needs a bass player on short notice and can’t get my boyfriend to do it is more important than selling my book at a 2-day festival that is going on for the first time and may end up being really small.

Not to mention, there will likely be FLYA next year, but I’m not going to get too many chances to go on tour with bands I like. It’s a chance to expand my horizons and see how other bands do things like touring, while making sure that the last show I played that ended up being a huge bummer is not the last one I ever do.

NWFLYA

I have made up my mind to go to the Northwest Festival of Literature for Young Adults. This is the first time this event has been held, so it probably won’t be huge, but I’m pretty excited.

Anyone else wanting to find out more, check it out: http://www.nwflya.com/

Top Ten Tuesday: finished series’ I have yet to finish

This was a hard one, since most of the series’ that are already finished that I have really wanted to read are ones that I have already read, and most of the ones I have been looking forward to reading are ones that are not finished yet.

1- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (I have the first 2 books but have not yet started)

2- Shatter Me (I have read the first one)

3- Shadowhunter Trilogy (have not yet started)

4- Emberverse series (Have read all but the last one)

5- Black Unicorn (I have no idea if this has a series title, but I have read the first one)

6- The Dark Tower series (I have read the first 4)

7- Symphony of Ages (I have read the first 4)

8- Percy Jackson (I have read the first one)

9- The Looking Glass Wars (I have read the first one)

10- Thursday Next (I have read the first one)

Bands are like Dating

Being in a band is like being in a relationship. When you split up, you feel too empty and start looking for another band, but none of the bands that might want you to join seem good enough, because you just compare them all to your last band. And you can’t go to shows anymore, because seeing other bands performing makes you feel bad.

Some of them may be more trouble than they are worth, but then you eventually find one that makes you think “thank the gods I waited for this band to come along.”

My boyfriend tells me I should find people to play music with just for fun, but that sounds too much like random dating, which I never did.

Top 10 Characters that I did not click with

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and Bookish.

Here are my top 10 characters that I did not get along with, in no particular order:

1- Akiva from Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I just didn’t enjoy reading about him. I didn’t dislike him or anything, but some of the decisions he made and the ways he acted just made me go “really, dude?”

2- Gideon from Ruby Red. He’s just really annoying.

3- Kelsey from Tiger’s Curse. (well, really most of the characters from Tiger’s Curse, but especially Kelsey.)

4- Diana from Tipping the Velvet. She’s just crazy. I don’t know why her friends even like her.

5- Marona, from The Land of Painted Caves. But we’re probably not supposed to like her.

6- Nesta and Elain from A Court of Thorns and Roses. They’re ungrateful little girls. And they’re in their 20s or something.

7- Cassandra from I Capture the Castle. She’s actually not that bad for most of the book, but by the end I was so sick of her.

8- Elaine from Cat’s Eye. Who gives their kids simple sensible names just so they don’t end up like Cordelia?

9- Hassanein from The Beginning and the End. Grow the hell up, dude.

10- Richard from the Sword of Truth series. I could seriously write an essay on how much I dislike him.

My thoughts on the Xena reboot

http://epicstream.com/news/NBC-Confirms-Xena-Warrior-Princess-Reboot-in-Development

Yes, they are apparently making a new Xena. It’s still in the early planning stages, though. And to be honest, I’m not too excited. That’s just my opinion, though, and obviously some people might be into it, and I can hardly blame them for making a reboot. After all, Xena is a hugely popular thing, even now. And who the hell am I to say that they shouldn’t remake Xena: Warrior Princess?

But I’m not going to get too excited about it, and here’s why.

1- Part of the charm of the show is how dated it is. Xena is the kind of show you don’t get anymore, with all of its campy humor and throwing a fish into the sky and all kinds of weird shit. And its lack of a series arc, at least until the later seasons, is something that really added to it instead of taking away from it. And even when we did get a series arc, it was really downplayed. That’s something that just isn’t done in tv shows these days. There is always a series arc now. I’m not saying that a series arc is a bad thing by any means (it is, in fact, a very good thing), but I’m just saying that part of what made Xena the show it was is how dated it is, and it will certainly not get those same qualities when made today.

2- Xena is the kind of character we don’t get anymore, and I kind of doubt that she would be the same in a reboot. She wasn’t all glamorous the way that everyone on most shows are now. Her hair was never immaculate, and she wasn’t just some skinny chick in an armor bikini (Callisto was, though, but she was also a maniac). Xena was a hardcore badass, but at the same time had a good soul, was a good daughter to her mother and a caring parent to her children. The kind of protagonist that is a role model to the people watching. And to top it all off, you don’t not buy that she’s a warrior. I mean, Lucy Lawless is a beautiful woman and everything, but she wasn’t so perfect on the show that it ruins the reality. She actually looked like someone who has been fighting and sleeping in the woods and not taking baths in between. And I’m willing to bet that it won’t be quite the same in a reboot, simply because of how tv shows are done these days.

3- Lucy Lawless. It just can’t be done without her. And I don’t just think that because I had a huge crush on her for years and that the show was practically made with lesbians in mind, but because I seriously can’t picture anyone but her as Xena. She didn’t just dress up, say the lines and act the part. She WAS the part. Her face expressions, her tone of voice, her mannerisms, and all sorts of things contributed to how well she portrayed Xena. She also played like 5 or 6 different characters on the show, let’s not forget.

So that’s just my 2¢. I’m certainly not expecting everyone to agree by any means, but these are my reasons for not being too thrilled at the prospect of a Xena: Warrior Princess reboot.

Beat the Heat readathon masterpost

I’m trying not to let this blog turn into a “this is my announcement/contest/etc post for a readathon” thing, but the Beat the Heat readathon next week needs a signup post that I keep updating my progress on, and it may as well be this one.

I have done a readathon every week of August, so I wanted to keep the momentum going and do Beat the Heat next week. I have read 14 books this month already (and I usually read no more than 10 per month) so my goal is 20. I’m reading book #15 for the rest of Bout of Books this week.

Here are the books that I am for sure planning to read next week during Beat the Heat:

This pile is definitely not all I’m going to read next week, but merely the books that I for sure am planning to read. I may as well finish both of the trilogies I started this month, after all.

Beat the Heat readathon

I’m trying not to let this blog turn into a “this is my announcement/contest/etc post for a readathon” thing, but the Beat the Heat readathon next week needs a signup post that I keep updating my progress on, and it may as well be this one. 

I have done a readathon every week of August, so I wanted to keep the momentum going and do Beat the Heat next week. I have read 14 books this month already (and I usually read no more than 10 per month) so my goal is 20. I’m reading book #15 for the rest of Bout of Books this week. 

Here are the books that I am for sure planning to read next week during Beat the Heat:

  

This pile is definitely not all I’m going to read next week, but merely the books that I for sure am planning to read. I may as well finish both of the trilogies I started this month, after all.