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Monday, December 24, 2012

Updates

I was going to try an every-other-day update speed, but I'm running out of reasons to keep up this blog, so I think I'll limit updates to announcements (like this) and actual posts once all previous posts have comments.

We'll see if I write anything past this.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Dealing with Lack of Inspiration

I've been trying to keep up my update speeds, and thanks in part to my NaNoWriMo experience, I've been able to push myself to write. I just haven't really been feeling it lately. My main suspect is all the time I have for Christmas Break. I'm not sure why, but I feel like when I have less time for writing, I want to write more.

It really doesn't seem like a big deal otherwise, but I don't really like forcing myself to write. I feel like when I'm bored with it, the writing has to turn out boring, too. I was able to put in a fight scene in the last chapter of Unsurvivable, which I'm apparently good at doing, so it probably wasn't that bad, but still.

Any advice?

New Fiction Idea #4

This might be the first novel I tried to write. "Tried," because the main character was so flat (especially compared to the other characters) I just starting writing scenarios to scare the crap out of him, and needless to say the entire story went totally downhill. It originally came from a dream, and I feel like I might give it another shot someday, so here's a slightly revised outline of it.

Title: Chemists (originally Scientists)

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Protagonists: Jacob and Scarlet, sixteen-year-old boyfriend and girlfriend. Scarlet is very stubborn and determined, and although she can be sweet she usually only shows her soft side to children and Jacob. Jacob is usually quite content, but if he doesn't get what he wants he'll be very uncooperative.

Other Main Characters: Abel, a second-generation genetically enhanced sixteen-year-old. He's very friendly, even tolerating the ridiculously competitive "Rip" (Harold) as his arch-nemesis. He plays guitar, has been in love with Cora for a while, and has always wanted to be a Fire Elementalist.
Cora, a sixteen-year-old girl with very good looks, though she always wears an obscuring black hoodie and doesn't go after boys. She's very smart but acidic towards others.
Jordan, a seventeen-year-old Cyber who hits on Scarlet like nobody's business. The crooked-smile type, he can be quite nice, though he's devoted to the war cause.

Antagonists: The Cybers, a group of particularly technologically advanced rebels going against the world government and kidnapping recruits for their ranks.

Setting: The skies of (probably) Earth in the future. Jacob is onboard a Chemist (those defending the world government) skyship, and Scarlet on a Cyber skyship. The Chemist ship functions as a training ground and school, and the Cyber ship is a training ground and attack unit. Both sides have access to Elementalists, people who after absorbing Celestial Matter gain the ability to control fire, electricity, water, or shadows.

Plot: Jacob and Scarlet are alone in Jacob's house when a Cyber ship comes to kidnap them. They flee, eventually becoming trapped in a building, where the desperate Jacob subconsciously absorbs Celestial Matter and passes out. He wakes to find himself on a Chemist ship—while the Cybers were taking Scarlet, some Chemists came down and saved him. The Chemists immediately enroll Jacob in their classes and training sessions, and he has to deal with all of this and becoming a Fire Elementalist as he tries to use the Chemists to find Scarlet. Scarlet, meanwhile, struggles to find Jacob and resist the Cybers as they prepare her to battle for them. Both realize the sides and the war aren't quite what they thought they were.

Point of View: Third person limited to Jacob, with updates from Scarlet as well.

So, a beloved idea of old undergoing development to be something interesting, hopefully. We'll see if I actually write it.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Voice, Style, and Other Such Things of Uniqueness

I've been told I have a strong voice. Apparently this is a good thing, at least in America. That doesn't mean I have any idea what said voice actually is. Is it just how many times I use "just" in a paragraph? How many times I use compound-complex sentences?

Then there's also style, which seems to be how many times I use dashes and ellipses. What else, though? If it has to do with punctuation, could this be related to sentence structures, too? Would usually using an everybody-kills-each-other plot be in this category?

Basically, I'm trying to improve my writing, and I have been told I have these things but don't understand them enough to improve them. Assistance requested.

Also, should I continue updating this blog daily? I still have a few posts backlogged, so it's definitely possible, but it doesn't seem to be bringing much publicity beyond my usual even with daily updates. I don't really know how the advertisement of these things goes, but apparently I'm not doing it right.

Monday, December 17, 2012

New Fiction Idea #3

This idea was sort of awkward, since it hit me in the middle of singing a hymn. I managed to push it down until the devotional was over, though it still interested me afterward.

Title: Crumbling

Genre: Sci-Fi/Thriller, perhaps?

Protagonist: Emilia, a ghost of undetermined age that was about 16 when she died. She has long, wavy brown hair and is rather tall and thin. She's a sort of hesitant person and can be a coward, but she's capable of really caring for others.

Other Main Character: Joel, a 16-year-old Protestant boy of about half-Latino blood. He's rather fun to be around, though he's usually shy, and he has the ability to see ghosts.

Antagonist: Not sure—probably just time.

Setting: Earth, somewhere in the future during a cumulative apocalypse, including a lethal virus, major storms, and tectonic actions. I haven't yet determined what I want to cause a dead person to be trapped as a ghost, but I'm aiming for something different since I don't want this to be a murder mystery.

Plot: Emilia hadn't taken action to free her soul for years, but when the world starts to crumble, she has no choice but to take action if she wants a fate other than perishing with the earth. The first Seeing human she can find is Joel, who may not be an expert on ghosts but promises to do what he can.

Point of View: Third person, omniscient.

This one's certainly not as fleshed-out as some of my others, but I thought it was worth noting here.

New Manga Idea #1

I felt I should put this in a different category than the fiction ideas, since this is a different medium. While Mayflies was close to becoming a manga, these are the ideas I just can't see only in writing. This did not stem from a fan fiction idea, as it was long before I saw Hetalia.

Title: Man in the Blade

Genre: Shounen

Protagonist: Hora, ambiguously aged teenage boy with messy, short-ish black hair and a very large, brawny frame. He's ridiculously lazy when it comes to anything involving education or thinking, but if it's physical activity, he'll usually put some effort into it. One thing peculiar about him is that though most in this universe have a balance between chi (inward energy) and aura (outward energy, used in spells), his energy is entirely chi.

Other Main Characters: Shia, about the same age as Hora, she has long, black hair in a high ponytail and is rather tall and on the thin side. She is very stoic and not that talkative.
Qin, same age as Hora, he has auburn hair and astounding good looks but is fairly short. He's arrogant, though it's not unfounded, and he and Hora clash like nothing else.
Chiba ("Chibs"), same age as Hora, she has dyed pink hair that's rather short, and she's a midget. Sort of the average teenage girl, she can be shallow but is also a tech genius.
"Cahokia," (Blades cannot remember their real names or most events in their lives before) thirty years old, mid-length blonde hair in a low ponytail and on the scrawny side. He is blatantly cheerful and eccentric and was a literature professor in Brittack before he was a Blade.

Antagonists: Arck, leader of the vigilante group closest to a government in the sparsely populated colonial area where Hora and the others live. He's thirty-three, tall and muscular, and uses an axe-like blade.
"The Gentleman," a long-time friend of Arck and his second-in-command. He always dresses nicely and is excessively polite.
Various other semi-governmental agents are also involved.

Setting: A Western America-like colonial area with about no official government. It has some gang issues, so most who live there carry weapons, most of which are Blades. Blades are the combination of a weapon (there are some specific requirements for this) and a human spirit. Each Blade has a specific magical technique available, but general magic can be used for any weapon. There are also mini-worlds inside each Blade in which the Blade (term also refers to the spirit alone) resides, though the Blade can still see the outside world, and a human the Blade doesn't hate can enter the world for some amount of time.

Plot: Amidst his normal troubles in the colonial area, Hora comes upon information showing corruption in the bounty-hunting vigilante group so serious even he has to take action. The group, of course, tries to stop him and his friends, but in the process he obtains information that his little brother (years earlier found drowned in a creek) may still be alive as a Blade. Hora of course has to find the truth about this.

I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to go on with this. It found its beginning when I still wanted to be a mangaka, and since then I've considered trying to make it into a text-only story, but it's just not working for me. Besides, Cahokia's too adorable to not actually appear in all of his scenes.

If you want any more details, ask. This is a very broad summary.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Making Covers

So, I fancy myself to be of some quality of an artist, but making covers is difficult. Maybe "designing" would be a better word, actually. I still have no idea what to do for Mayflies or Macbay Transportation Services, and while I have a vision for Crumbling it's going to be difficult to draw in a non-anime style.

The Long and Winding Road, though, provided a relatively simple design for me, so I went ahead and tried to make it. So, ta-da.


I also have an alternate version for the original fiction. Same font, though it's all one line at the top, and my name is in white, a bit smaller, beneath it and aligned to the right. The main image is still the same.

So, what do you think? There's a heart since it's romance, and blood since it's still zombie apocalypse. And, of course, a winding road. I'm only partially satisfied with each element, though I think the title font worked out fine, haha.

So, does it make sense to you? Should I redesign it? Give up forever? Abandon my writing dreams for cover designing? Opinions appreciated.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

New Fiction Idea #2

Now this one is actually my main original fiction at this point (scratching Macbay since I'm still world-building). It also came from Hetalia fan fiction, playing with the "Britannia Angel" concept, but I think it's distanced itself adequately.

Title: Mayflies

Genre: Fantasy

Protagonists: Jonathan and Matthew, 19-year-old identical twin Mayflies (humans cursed with wings). Jonathan is slightly more muscular and keeps his curly brown hair short. Matthew is slightly taller and keeps his hair a tiny bit longer. The main way to distinguish them is their wings (as they're not from a genetic basis): Jonathan has brown dappled wings, and Matthew has grey. Jonathan is much louder than Matthew and much more likely to take action for something. Both are outcasts because of their Mayfly status and are rather cynical because of this.

Other Main Character: Julian, 25-year-old bookkeeper/seller with circular glasses and very light blonde hair. He's not very affectionate, but he does allow Jonathan and Matthew to be sheltered in his home because of his peculiar interest in curses.

Antagonist: Knowing The Antagonist would spoil the story for you, so sorry. You could also include most villagers, since they have a tendency to chase out the Mayflies on threat of death.

Setting: Not entirely laid out. Someplace with villages—I haven't for sure established much else. It should be a rather small world, and I think I may make it a kingdom, maybe clockpunk, but I'm really not sure at this point.

Plot: Mayflies, cursed because of one or both parents' wrongdoing, are given wings; however, the problem is that all of them die before they reach eight years. Except Jonathan and Matthew... don't. Though their mother thinks it a miracle brought by her repentance, the villagers are quick to blame the cursed children for anything wrong with the crops or villagers and end up killing their father in a successful attempt to chase them away. Now the twins live going from village to village, mostly surviving through robbery as it's usually their only choice, and looking for someone named Marcus—for one of the angels had told them nothing more than to find him. They finally find a home with Julian, who even has a spell to hide away their wings, but there's a lot more to the man than he lets on. In fact, he may be the key to finding Marcus—and changing the destinies of Mayflies everywhere.

Point of View: First person, alternating chapter-by-chapter between Jonathan and Matthew.

I'm planning to start this in January for the 90-day challenge (though I'll shoot for 800 rather than 1000 words a day, and I won't be as strict as during NaNo since my fan fictions will still need updating). Hopefully it will end up novel-length, though I may have to put in some more introductory fleeing-villages scenes to do that.

What kind of chapter lengths do you prefer? My fan fictions generally have 1500–2500 words per chapter, while my NaNo original fiction had about nine pages per chapter. This is sort of an action story, so I would lean towards shorter chapters, but I'm really not sure. Input appreciated.

Friday, December 14, 2012

The (Long and) Winding Road

Those of you from the Brutal Death Denial Support Group forum already know about this (and have had some sneak previews), but I am currently working on my own zombie apocalypse fiction. I wasn't considering jumping on this bandwagon, but the "zombie restaurant" idea from my community writing club was just too much for me to pass on.

One problem is that I'm writing it as a romance of sorts. I am not a romantic person (even telling-you-this-isn't-a-date-but-still-at-dinner-and-movies-with-a-male dates just make me anxious and ready to run out screaming), and I have a tendency to skip over any tingly-kissy parts of things like Divergent and Clockwork Prince. Needless to say, what I originally write probably won't have any convincing romance beyond giggly fluff, but that's what beta readers are for, no?

Although I've been writing this as Hetalia fan fiction with the plan of posting it on fanfiction.net (which is still my intention), I've actually been editing pretty heavily as I go. Normally I don't do much of this because I can't stand reading my own writing, but I had better get used to it if I'm going to try to get published.

I'm also seriously considering converting it into an original fiction once it's done and I do some large-scale editing. I already have some name and personality changes prepared, and I think it might work. I'm not sure that I'll have all of it done by June 30 (which means I would need another NaNoWriMo win if I wanted five free copies printed), but I'm actually a bit hopeful. If I attempt this, I think I'll change the title from The Long and Winding Road to just The Winding Road, since copyright laws are worded awkwardly and I don't think the male protagonist is going to be such a big Beatles fan in the rewrite.

It's quite possible that if I do the rewrite, this will be the first book I try to publish. I'll definitely go for amazon.com publishing, with something cheap (I hear three cents per one thousand words is the best pricing?), unless some strange and wonderful miracle happens. I have no idea what such a miracle would be, but if some of my published professors/friends/husbands-of-people-my-mother-works-with get me in with their publishers or something somehow, that could qualify? Considering I have no original fictions worthy of publishing yet (only one is actually finished, and it's one of the quality I can't reread to edit), I haven't looked too far into this business.

All of this is still a long way off, though, so don't go searching madly through the Amazon store just yet. It's probably going to be another month or two before The Long and Winding Road even makes it to fanfiction.net (I'm planning to start posting chapters once Unsurvivable finishes, and about the same time I get to writing Break Out), so it'll probably be a year before I try to get the original version published.

Any input, advice, or comments in general are appreciated.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

New Fiction Idea #1

I think I'm going to be posting quite a few of these here, both so I can keep track of them and so you can see what kind of stories pop up in my head while I'm trying to work on other ones.

So, last night I was innocently listening to "Pac-Man Fever" on the radio, and somehow this came out of it.

Title: Chasers [could be changed]

Genre: Not completely sure. Seems a bit fantasy-like, since there are powers involved, but input would be appreciated.

Protagonist: "Pink" (real name unknown in-universe), a 20-year-old blonde woman who is generally quite determined (and angered if something gets in the way) and takes some time to warm up to new people.

Other Main Characters: "Red," an 18-year-old young man with curly dirty blonde hair and a rather obnoxious demeanour, he's the nerdy athletic boy of the group.
"Ink," a 22-year-old black/African-American man with a shaved head and quite a few tattoos on his arms, he's good-natured but can have trouble taking things seriously.
Clyde, a 25-year-old redheaded Scotsman who enjoys acting like an idiot but knows much more about the setting than any of the others.

Antagonist: Kevin, a 17-year-old Vietnamese-American who panics easily.
Many other antagonists are involved, but Kevin is the only visitor frequent enough for the protagonists to know his name.

Setting: An abandoned city dreamscape. Consists of many streetlights (without electricity), fire hydrants (without running water), tall buildings (without doors but with plenty of windows), the occasional tree, and asphalt streets, always at right angles (without cars). The sky is always black, but all of the cityscape is somehow well-lit. It is literally a dream world, but Red, Pink, Ink, and Clyde are trapped there whether a dreamer is present or not.

Plot: Red, Pink, and Ink arrive in the dream world on the same day knowing nothing of their identities. Clyde, who appears to have already been there, greets them and introduces them to the situation. All four of them are ghosts, dead to the living world but for some reason trapped here. They will remain trapped here without knowledge of who they are until they can catch a dreamer (by chasing after them, because that's how people tend to react in dreams) and take part of the dreamer's soul/memory. Whoever gets this piece will regain his or her identity, but he or she will still be trapped until all of them have succeeded in taking a piece.

Point of View: Third person, limited to Pink, although a few chapters may feature Kevin in the real world.

I'm still debating whether to make it Pac-Man fan fiction or distance it a bit more and make it original. Leaning towards the original side, though it seems slightly less fun.

Speaking of fan fiction, I am indeed working on Unsurvivable chapter 37. I know what's going to happen, so I'm not too concerned it consists of all of one sentence right now. Despite all of my original fiction ideas, updating these is still my first priority right now, don't you worry.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Introduction

Hello world.

This is Number One Fan of Journey of fan fiction fame (depending on your definition of fame) typing, and this is my new weblog. I've decided I could use more publicity outside of the fan fiction world if I'm ever going to publish an original novel, so this is my attempt at that.

So yes. Tell all of your friends to come read what I churn out here. I'll post updates on the statuses of both original fictions and fan fictions.