Editing.

(mixing it up this week- doing a writing post today, and a book review on Wednesday)

So, I've decided that I'm going to edit my first and only completed book (as of yet), Worlds Away.

I'm not going to try to edit it. I'm going to do it.

As of right now it as a fantasy novella at 41k words. I'm a severe underwriter, though, so hopefully it will be novel length after I finish. Or it may still be a novella; and that's fine too.

I wrote this was a was barely 12; I finished it when I was 13. I'm almost 16 now and I haven't touched it since I typed it up then. So this will be my 3^rd draft.

I love these characters but I honestly want to burn the book every time I look at it. I'm going to try to not burn it as I edit it, but I can make no promises. I want to get at least ¼ through it before NaNoWriMo. I'll probably be tweeting my feels about it as I go along.

Now to dive into the depths of editing.

E.C.

NaNoWriMo Novel Questions

(Yes, I changed my blog name. I wanted it to be more writing/reading related than fandom related (It feels so weird to say it but I think I'm growing out of being so into fandoms) and I felt like this was better)

Ahem. Let's get to it. I totally stole these questions from Olivia Ann at Weathered Things. Who originally got it from Cait at Paper Fury.

1. What inspired the idea for your novel and how long have you had it?

I have no clue whatsoever honestly. In the beginning, it was a whole different novel entirely. It was placed in medieval times and Rory was named Lunn and he was a faun, Castiel was named Rory and she was a short elf, and there was a prince. The Shadow Queen was still part of the story. Wolves were a main part too. One day I thought, “Hey, I've seen Rory used as a shortening for Aurora before. This would be really cool as a Sleeping Beauty Retelling.” And things led to things and now this is where we are now. I've had the idea as it is now for a couple weeks.

2. Describe what your novel is about!

I actually have a short synopsis for it. You don't understand, I never have synopsises for my books. I legit just can't write them. But NaNo is doing a 30 covers 30 days challenge where they choose an author every day of November and have a professional cover artist make a cover for their book. I wanted to enter this, but you had to have a short synopsis, so I wrote one. (this synopsis was too long so my synopsis for the entry is slightly different)

Castiel James hasn't had an easy life. Her father dying, her mother getting extremely ill, and having to drop out of high school are just small things in her pile of troubles. Caffeine-and working at her favorite coffee shop-pulled her out of the worst of it. Her life is boring by anyone's standards until he comes in.

Rory Rose was cursed by an angry-and slightly evil-fairy when he was a newborn. He didn't know the day, he didn't even know how, but he knew that he was cursed.

Cursed to turn into one of them.

Upon pricking himself in the finger with a name tag, he falls into a conscious coma and every fantasy monster you can think of starts to appear. Can he, in 24 hours-or less, if she gets her way- win against himself and defeat the Shadow Queen, before he faces the death of life as he knows it?

3. What is your book's aesthetic

Smoke. Dripping liquid. Slowly, painfully, dying. Wolves. Shadows. Coffee. Sacrifice.

4. Introduce us to your characters!

Castiel James Pink hair. Heterochromia. Coffee/caffeine in general. Kind of miserable *evil author laughter* LARPs. Tends to ramble.

Rory Rose Cursed by an evil fairy when he was a newborn. Everything about him is super pale (almost white hair, super pale skin, very light blue eyes) He's usually pretty nice. He's the prince of the Shadow Realm.

Anya Vaughn She works at Jimmy's, the same coffee shop that Castiel works at. She has dark brown skin and very curly black hair. She can't take people's orders, only make people's drinks because she gets panic attacks. She's a Christian.

Dude I don't have a name for yet I feel bad but I don't know a lot about this dude. I'm still working on him though. I think he's a foreign exchange student, who worked at Jimmy's as well. That's literally all I know about him and I feel so bad. xD

The Shadow Queen part I She's a little girl. Long black hair, freckles, and blue eyes. Loves wearing flannels. She looks innocent at first but LOL. Not so. She can control/communicate with wolves/Shadow Wolves.

The Shadow Queen part II She's an evil shape-shifting fairy. She likes being a small girl in the Earthen Realm because more people will give her compassion and be more lenient towards her. When she's herself, she's really tall and has long, flowing black hair. She has bones as her crown. Her skin is translucent and you can see her bones.

5. How do you prepare to write? (Outline, research, stocking up on chocolate...)

I'm a hardcore pantser so I usually don't prepare in any way except for making coffee. (Coffee is always a must) But for NaNo I wanted to have a vague idea about what I'm doing so I did make a chapter-by-chapter plot and a character description document.

6. What things are you most looking forward to about this novel?

I really love writing characters (and dialogue, just not very good at writing that) so I hope that I can portray my characters well and make them realistic. (Did I mention that this whole novel takes place within 24 hours? So, yeah, that aspect is going to be a bit challenging, but I'm going to try.)

7. List three things about your novel's setting.

1. It is set in Cleveland, Ohio
2. There are two 'realms' in the novel
3. There are lots of wolves? idk man

8. What is your character's goal and who (or what) stands in the way?

Well the main male character is kind of melting/evaporating & he has like a “battle” between two versions of himself in his so that's a bit of a problem... and there's this lady who kinda sends Shadow Wolves after them so yeah that's a problem too..

9. How does your protagonist change by the end of the novel?

I have no clue whatsoever. I did plot this novel, but not, like, character development wise. I just know the events that are happening. I'll let you know at the end of November, lol.

10. What is your book's theme? What do you want the reader to feel when its over?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That is all. Hope you enjoyed my scatter-brained-ness. Are you doing NaNoWriMo? If so, what's your novel about?

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys Review

  One statement before I start: I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. So my review may be a little biased towards the good in the story.

(Disclaimer: Apologies if I spell any names wrong, I listened to it on audiobook)

PROS:

*The Characters. Asdfghjkl all of the characters (excluding for Alfred) grew on me throughout the story. Joana + Florian= OTP. They're absolutely adorable. Emelie's storyline was so incredibly sad. I had so much compassion for her, that poor girl. I have no clue how to spell her daughter's name (I listened to an audiobook) but how sacrificial she was for her was heartbreaking in a good way. I loved the somewhat minor characters Eva (I love how she said sorry after or before every 'offensive' thing), the Shoe Poet, Ingrid, and the orphan boy.

*The Storyline. It makes me sad that the core storyline (not the characters obviously) actually happened. This story really opened my eyes to WWII.

*Alfred?? It's not his character itself that got him a place on the pro-and-con list. It is totally for Ms. Sepetys. The way he saw things, the thoughts he had, the general distaste for most of humanity..She wrote him in a way that made me absolutely sick. I applaud you, Ms. Sepetys.

CONS:

*Alfred?? She made me detest him. His thoughts/though process is, again, absolutely sick. (to the people who haven't read this book yet: 1. GO READ IT NOW PLEASE and 2. He's a Nazi.)

*The Writing. Well, some of the writing. For the most part, I liked it, but some of the sentences seemed a tad awkward.

I know this seems like an extremely short and kind of vague list but I can't put in to words how much I loved it. All I can tell you is please go read this. (There is some slightly gory stuff towards the end, comment if you would like specifics. I did not think that it was too bad though.)

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars.

E.C.

What's Coming Up

Hey! I'm going to quickly explain what's coming up:

Every Monday: Book Review

Every Wednesday: Various book-related, my writing-related, posts

Every Friday: Writer Interview

Hope you will enjoy!

E.C.

My Six Favourite Series

Most of my favorite series are relatively unknown but are absolutely AMAZING. I've wanted to make a post about it for a while and I'm excited to be finally doing it!

(ps One thing before I start: I've decided that I'm going to attempt to make a blog post Monday-Wednesday-Friday, with a review once a week. We'll see how this goes...)

(pss these are in no particular order)

1. Literally all of Wayne Thomas Batson's books because I can't choose just one series of his to recommend to you. He is very easily in my top three favorite authors. Warning: If you read his books, you aren't going to want to read anything else because his writing is absolutely amazing. Here is a list of his series that I own & love:

1. The Berinfell Prophecies trilogy (the first book being Curse of the Spider King). It's about teenage elves that don't know that they're elves and ahhh it's just so good. One of the characters has blue skin and everyone is so amazing and adorable and *happy flails*

2. The Isle trilogy (the first book being Isle of Swords). This series is so good, and it has pirates in it, who are amazing.
3. The Door Within trilogy (first book being the Door Within). This is probably my least favorite series of his, but it's been a while since I read it...and even with it being my least favorite, it's Wayne Thomas Batson so it's still good.
4. The Dark Sea Annals series (the first book being Sword in the Stars). I loooove this series. There are only two books out so far but if I remember correctly there are supposed to be 5-7 books in this series. also, loOK UP THESE COVERS IF THAT ALONE DOESN'T MAKE YOU WANT TO READ THE SERIES I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL (they're even more gorgeous IRL I can't even)

2. The Dreamtreaders trilogy (first book being Dreamtreaders). The first book is my least favorite but it definitely gets better as it goes along. And the world building and characters are <3333333

2. the Merlin Spiral trilogy (the first book being Merlin's Blade) by Robert Treskillard. This. Series. Man. It's a retelling of Merlin and they are absolutely amazing and he's working on a companion series and I am SO. EXCITED. (99% sure this blog post is just me flailing about my favorite series)
3. the Out of Time trilogy (the first book being A Time to Die) by Nadine Brandes. I received the last book in the series on Friday night and finished it early Saturday. THIS. SERIES. I highly recommend this series, the storyline is so cool and the characters <3. ('specially Jude. I LOVE JUDE) And the covers. GORGEOUS.
4. The Maze Runner series (first book being the Maze Runner) by James Dashner. Okay so technically the first book is the Kill Order but you need to read the original trilogy first sO YOU CAN BE CONFUSED LIKE EVERYONE WAS BEFORE WE HAD THE PREQUELS. With these books, you either are a crazy fan (like yours truly) or you don't like them at all. I'm not going to judge you either way. But yes I love these books. Read themmmm.
5. The SWIPE series (first book being SWIPE) by Evan Angler. These books are SOOO. AMAZING. The writing is a bit more middle-grade but the story itself is more young adult if that makes sense. I perceived it as a take on the Rapture/right before it. But I love this series, there was supposed to be a fifth book but I think for some reason it's not being published. *cries for eternity*

6. The Blood of Kings trilogy (first book being By Darkness Hid) by Jill Williamson. This series is set in medieval times and it is soo good. It involves a form of telepathy and ahhhh. The books are quite big go read it now). And the characters are my precious children.

Make sure you comment and tell me whether you've read any of these series, or plan to, and tell me YOUR favorite series!

E.C.

A (mostly) Spoiler-Free Review of A Time to Rise by Nadine Brandes.

So I received ATTR in the mail on Friday evening. (Two weeks before its release date, but who's complaining? Definitely not me.) I finished half of it before I had to give in to sleep (sigh) because of a particularly bad headache. But I finished it Saturday, less than 24 hours after I started it. #noshame

So I'm going to write a little review! I've never written an actual review before, so this is going to be...interesting.

PROS:

*Jude flashback(ish) scenes. (For those of you that don't know, Jude is pretty much my favourite book character ever). Those scenes made me so happy but sad at the same time. (I may have gotten teary eyed..)

*Solomon. I'll be honest with you, I despised him in ATTS. I think * SPOILERS * Jude's death was too fresh on my mind * END SPOILERS *, and I may have (accidentally) imagined Sol looking like a ugly Westley (from the Princess Bride). But I like him much better now, and don't imagine him like an ugly Westley. :)

*Russia. I have this really weird obsession with Russia. I don't know much about it (yet) but it intrigues me. (Mostly because in one of the novels I'm writing is set in Russia, and the main character is Russian) Yeah, I don't fully get it either. But anyways. That part of the book made me happy.

*The Ending. The ending was happy. I am so not used to happy endings in books, so this was a nice surprise. And the last line made me so happy (those who have read it know what I'm talking about).

*Skelley Chase. I love how his storyline ended SO MUCH. That is all.

*The Cover. Again, I'll be honest with you, I wasn't to crazy about it when it was first revealed. But it is so much prettier in person.

CONS:

*Parvin (kind of). I felt like she was kind of wimpy in this book. After all she's been through, I guess I'd imagine her more...brave, maybe. I'm not sure how to word it, and it may be just me feeling that way. But anyways, yeah.

*Solomon. (yes, he was on the pros list too. Shhhh.) As I said I definitely grew to like him more, but he seemed way too perfect. I mean, I get that he loves Parvin and wants to save the world and all, he just seems too flawless. Again, that may be just me.

*Erfinder Hawke. He annoyed me to no end and the way he treated Sol made me sad.

Overall, I really liked this book. It was a great end to an amazing trilogy. 4.5/5 stars.

You can buy the first book in the series here.

E.C.