"...It was prob’ly just the way he started leaning at me away from the lamp, but his face was totally darker now. "You leave me no choice.”
“Should I worry?”
“You should be worried. Now you’ll have no chance to work on your already failing grades.”
I did this sort of gasp, clutching my shirt and everything like I was stabbed. “Oh! Woe is me! I wont’ be able to work on my grades! Oh, ‘tis a fate worse than death!” The principal actually stood up then, and I kinda’ sat back. You know, he’d never done that before, ever. “Hey, you should be glad I’m really learning something in drama class.”..."
I've finally drafted Chapter 1 of this book. The reason it's such a 'finally' is because I plotted the thing out towards the end of summer last year. Summer's almost back around! Just goes to show how little I get done during the school year. All the same, I did a major revision of The Federation Wars, all three books, so maybe things aren't as slow as they seem.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Moving Forward
Last summer, I'd planned to start on a whole new book, and make some real progress over the summer. I'm just now starting it. But at least I have good reasons.
What I did instead is, over the last year, revise the whole Federation Wars trilogy. It even has a new name-AWOL Soul trilogy. The new title gets mixed results from people I show it to, but it's more of an attention-grabber than the last one.
A lot of changes were in the second two books. A whole swath was cut out of book 2 and replaced to give it more tension, and I changed a few characters in bk3- a pair of commanders were demoted to lieutenants and squished together into one character. I really feel like the new guy has much more emotional weight, so, good.
But I'm finally done. When I first set out to write these books, waaay back when I was something like eleven, I found it incredible that I'd finally found the commitment and skills to write my own story at all. Now, at the end of it all, things have changed. I'm proud of 'em, but I'm done with them now. If they're good enough to sell, they'll most likely sell as they are.
So what now? I wrote a short story with a quirky idea, and found it so bad it was only good to- as my good freind Twain put it- "tar and pitch". Once I learn from it what I can, the file's getting deleted and the paper recycled. You know, to save the planet. So I get to start on my book! I've already mentioned it once or twice-as soon as I finish a chapter, I'll post a couple paragraphs up here so everybody can see. This new main character is a lot different from Rand Morgan. Rand's mature and serious and driven by empathy. The kid at the heart of my new project is-at least first off-a disrespectful, lower-class, snarky thing of a twelve-year old. But I'm young enough to remember what middle school is like, and any twelve-year old readers should have no trouble understanding his life.
What I did instead is, over the last year, revise the whole Federation Wars trilogy. It even has a new name-AWOL Soul trilogy. The new title gets mixed results from people I show it to, but it's more of an attention-grabber than the last one.
A lot of changes were in the second two books. A whole swath was cut out of book 2 and replaced to give it more tension, and I changed a few characters in bk3- a pair of commanders were demoted to lieutenants and squished together into one character. I really feel like the new guy has much more emotional weight, so, good.
But I'm finally done. When I first set out to write these books, waaay back when I was something like eleven, I found it incredible that I'd finally found the commitment and skills to write my own story at all. Now, at the end of it all, things have changed. I'm proud of 'em, but I'm done with them now. If they're good enough to sell, they'll most likely sell as they are.
So what now? I wrote a short story with a quirky idea, and found it so bad it was only good to- as my good freind Twain put it- "tar and pitch". Once I learn from it what I can, the file's getting deleted and the paper recycled. You know, to save the planet. So I get to start on my book! I've already mentioned it once or twice-as soon as I finish a chapter, I'll post a couple paragraphs up here so everybody can see. This new main character is a lot different from Rand Morgan. Rand's mature and serious and driven by empathy. The kid at the heart of my new project is-at least first off-a disrespectful, lower-class, snarky thing of a twelve-year old. But I'm young enough to remember what middle school is like, and any twelve-year old readers should have no trouble understanding his life.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Update
Well, the press said no after a few week's consideration. But I do have good news! Before Christmas, I won first place in a writing contest at my high school. The prize, which I was just paid earlier today, was $15. I nailed the money up on my wall! It's not a lot, but it's the first money I've ever earned off of writing.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Yayness
It looks like I got my first nibble! There's a small press that's sent me two or three e-mails already, none of them rejections! I'm still in consideration. Meanwhile, I'm working like crazy on the book I sent them (previously Star Escaper, as I've posted before, but I have by now changed it to Light Escaper), adding every little bit I can think of to get readers to care about the characters. It's stressful already, but gratifying. I'd a thousand times rather write than bother with all this buisness, but I don't mind.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Some Writing
I decided I ought to put a little bit of my writing up here on this blog, so I chose this: these are some description notes I took while on a walk on a trail.
The Carriage Hill Exploration
The boardwalk continues, several feet above the marsh, the zigzag line. It feels like a remnant of a dark shanty town; and all was cleanly wiped away, save this one path. I can feel the ghosts of stilted houses when I stare across the lower cattails into the bare poplar crowns, with one lone white birch, a stark signal in the distance. It marks the hut for councils, in the dream there - of a past that never was, no more faded than those pasts that are no longer.
The older cattails rustle in a wind-gust. Most are dry as papyrus. These have matured from young greenery into perfect instruments, always playing for an absent - or perhaps merely incorporeal - audience. If I look over there, my vision is across the lake, the wide ruffled expanse reminding me that this is a very small marsh indeed. And it is turning unfreindly, as I shiver. The warmth that bred a soup of life here is gone. No more frogs, no more water-spiders, no more tadpoles - the wind sounds so mournful as if because, now that the cattails have just finally, after so long, perfected their song, all the listening ears have cruelly fled. Their conductor is a dead half of a tree, standing out in their midst, of a breed unrecognizable. It leans, and the only three meagre branches point, the way I've come. It is a sign, a traditional "Turn Back", built by that ghostly village whose boardwalk I enjoy, and spotted with white mushroom disks out its side.
But I move on. As I turn a corner - here, perhaps, hosted a barbershop above the water, there a dock for villagers to take their canoes out on the lake, a sound responds to me - the quite distinct sound of something fleeing over bits of dry ground on the marsh, something hidden by fallen branches and briary somethings proffering toxic berries. As I stand, watching my nothing, it sounds once again - and then must be gone, for I hear no more? Could it be? Life, still here? Animate life? Heavans, no. More likely, an alien from outside the marsh, with outlandish elongated ears and a cotten tail. If I wait long enough (and I do) another sound, this time a birdsong from farr off, clearly a lark far too dignified to descend to the marsh, and loud about it, too. As I cast about for the faint, distant chirpings that follow, I notice on one of the trees on the north side of my path has frown right beside the boardwalk. And, of course, the most outlandish thought enters my head. It really wouldn't be a difficulty at all, just to step out, and puit my foot in that low fork there. I could hoist myself into that tree quite easily. And so, having come upon a most certainly bad idea, I must simply do it.
But I am interrupted. A sound like water dropping on a rottne board catches me, and I turn back to see a starling sized woodpecker pecking his way up my sign-conductor-tree. He (or she) spirals up like the lines on a barber pole, then disappears, does it again and finds his hidey-hole nearly up the top. He pokes his head out once or twice, perhaps to see if I will leave, then gets bored with sitting at home and pokes his way up the tree once more.
Finally, I get up in the tree. Barring the slight security of some interloping twigs, I invade the wide fork of the tree. What a nice perch! Almost as nice as the woodpecker's, though a deal lower. I am still inferior to his black-and-whiteness, and he is still poking around his tree. You think he would know it better. Only now do I really notice that the marsh is the perfect spoiler of all clothes, a half-frozen miasma of water and hummus, whose effluvia are unpresent surely only because the cold has stifled them. Oh well, little price to pay for being a part of the scene. I'm no longer some invader on the boardwalk, but a representative of the long lost village of Never-was to the dead republic of the swamp. At least, I am, and proud of it, until I have to get down, set upon the path again, and turn back the way I came, leaving my huts and rope bridges to the imagination of the marsh. Let it do with them as it pleases. From a distance, back up the slope, the whole marsh is nothing but a few trees poking up in front of the lake. The whole expanse of water altogether is nothing but a cold still-life, lonely, distant and undeniably unhaunted. One feels as though they could marsh back down to that boardwalk and claim the whole place for themselves. But I know that the moment my foot creaked upon a board, the true marsh would return, complete with spooky signs, quiet orchestras, and a thoroughly disapproving woodpecker, reigning king and the temporal absence of all other citizens, animal or human.
The Carriage Hill Exploration
The boardwalk continues, several feet above the marsh, the zigzag line. It feels like a remnant of a dark shanty town; and all was cleanly wiped away, save this one path. I can feel the ghosts of stilted houses when I stare across the lower cattails into the bare poplar crowns, with one lone white birch, a stark signal in the distance. It marks the hut for councils, in the dream there - of a past that never was, no more faded than those pasts that are no longer.
The older cattails rustle in a wind-gust. Most are dry as papyrus. These have matured from young greenery into perfect instruments, always playing for an absent - or perhaps merely incorporeal - audience. If I look over there, my vision is across the lake, the wide ruffled expanse reminding me that this is a very small marsh indeed. And it is turning unfreindly, as I shiver. The warmth that bred a soup of life here is gone. No more frogs, no more water-spiders, no more tadpoles - the wind sounds so mournful as if because, now that the cattails have just finally, after so long, perfected their song, all the listening ears have cruelly fled. Their conductor is a dead half of a tree, standing out in their midst, of a breed unrecognizable. It leans, and the only three meagre branches point, the way I've come. It is a sign, a traditional "Turn Back", built by that ghostly village whose boardwalk I enjoy, and spotted with white mushroom disks out its side.
But I move on. As I turn a corner - here, perhaps, hosted a barbershop above the water, there a dock for villagers to take their canoes out on the lake, a sound responds to me - the quite distinct sound of something fleeing over bits of dry ground on the marsh, something hidden by fallen branches and briary somethings proffering toxic berries. As I stand, watching my nothing, it sounds once again - and then must be gone, for I hear no more? Could it be? Life, still here? Animate life? Heavans, no. More likely, an alien from outside the marsh, with outlandish elongated ears and a cotten tail. If I wait long enough (and I do) another sound, this time a birdsong from farr off, clearly a lark far too dignified to descend to the marsh, and loud about it, too. As I cast about for the faint, distant chirpings that follow, I notice on one of the trees on the north side of my path has frown right beside the boardwalk. And, of course, the most outlandish thought enters my head. It really wouldn't be a difficulty at all, just to step out, and puit my foot in that low fork there. I could hoist myself into that tree quite easily. And so, having come upon a most certainly bad idea, I must simply do it.
But I am interrupted. A sound like water dropping on a rottne board catches me, and I turn back to see a starling sized woodpecker pecking his way up my sign-conductor-tree. He (or she) spirals up like the lines on a barber pole, then disappears, does it again and finds his hidey-hole nearly up the top. He pokes his head out once or twice, perhaps to see if I will leave, then gets bored with sitting at home and pokes his way up the tree once more.
Finally, I get up in the tree. Barring the slight security of some interloping twigs, I invade the wide fork of the tree. What a nice perch! Almost as nice as the woodpecker's, though a deal lower. I am still inferior to his black-and-whiteness, and he is still poking around his tree. You think he would know it better. Only now do I really notice that the marsh is the perfect spoiler of all clothes, a half-frozen miasma of water and hummus, whose effluvia are unpresent surely only because the cold has stifled them. Oh well, little price to pay for being a part of the scene. I'm no longer some invader on the boardwalk, but a representative of the long lost village of Never-was to the dead republic of the swamp. At least, I am, and proud of it, until I have to get down, set upon the path again, and turn back the way I came, leaving my huts and rope bridges to the imagination of the marsh. Let it do with them as it pleases. From a distance, back up the slope, the whole marsh is nothing but a few trees poking up in front of the lake. The whole expanse of water altogether is nothing but a cold still-life, lonely, distant and undeniably unhaunted. One feels as though they could marsh back down to that boardwalk and claim the whole place for themselves. But I know that the moment my foot creaked upon a board, the true marsh would return, complete with spooky signs, quiet orchestras, and a thoroughly disapproving woodpecker, reigning king and the temporal absence of all other citizens, animal or human.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Looong Time
Erg... It's been a while since I posted here. Oh, well. Hard to know if anybody ever reads this thing anyhow, seeing as I haven't found many opportunities to link to here. It's been even harder to write during school than last year! I have a killer religion project that eats up 7-5 every Saturday at least, so I'm getting next to nil done. I did finish outlining my next big project (a stand-alone story about a 12-year old boy who plays too many video games) but I haven't written an actual line yet. Pity. I started a short story, but I haven't finished it yet. And the first quarter's already over! Yikes!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Finito
I've finished editing the third and final book of the Federatin Wars trilogy. It's finally done. So, I've begun planning my next project; I'll probably post more about it later, once I begin writing. I've also sent Star Escaper, not to Ocean View, but to an illustrated book publisher called Celler Door Press.
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