Nanowrimo

I've heard of Nanowrimo, I've contemplated Nanowrimo, but I've never taken the plunge and done it; well I think it's time!  For those of you unfamiliar with this it is national novel writing month.  The challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month of November on a novel that you've never written on before.  You approach the task with an idea and an outline and start writing the story from scratch.

I however feel that writing a new story is not going to be beneficial for me, I have about 5 stories started already, so I'm going to bend the rules a little bit and challenge myself to type 50,000 words in November on my stories.  I really would like to get my dragon story done so I'm hoping the 50,000 words will help finish out that story. I would also like to get a short 2,000 word story that has been rolling around in my brain down on paper as well.  I figure there are 30 days in November so if I get around 1600-1700 words in a day I'll hit my goal.  I really hope I can hit the mark, I really hope that November proves easy enough to give me some quality one on one time with the laptop,  I really hope I don't lose steam!  Oh boy I hope!!

Teenage Embarassment

Two years ago as a 2nd year teacher I remember watching a young man in the back of my class start to doze while reading a book.  At first he tried to fight it, doing the the bob and weave move with his head, then eventually he fell asleep.  It wasn't long until his slumped body leaned too far over the side of the desk and WHAM!!!  The desk and student were upended on the floor.  I know I was supposed to be the rational adult in that situation but I laughed, and I laughed hysterically. Was it nice?  No.  I probably should have attempted to try and hold it in but I just couldn't help it.  I know it embarrassed the poor kid to death!

We've all seen it happen, we've all had them happen.  I think one of the best things about being an adult is having the ability to look back on those awkward teenage years and laugh at all the embarrassing things that happened to us.  Tonight as I was going through the files on my laptop I re-discovered a book that I had started a few years ago that reflects on some of my most embarrassing teenage moments.  I decided to make it a 1st person fiction piece told from the perspective of a 15-16 year old high school.  Keep in mind not all of them are autobiographical moments, some I have borrowed, and some I've embellished but I giggled a little at some of these memories.  So without further ado:

  That day should have been the first indicator that the rest of my life would be miserable but my parents didn’t give me any kind of warning about it so I stumbled on through life just thinking that bad fortune was bound to be my curse! 

                In the first grade I remember that curse really kicking into high gear.  Our school was holding a square dancing tournament (yeah that’s the type of town I lived in!) and they were pairing all the kids off with partners.  I sat in that classroom and anxiously waited to find out who my partner would be, I had said my prayers the night before and asked a higher being, any higher being, to please, please, please let me be paired with Jake Jones.  You see Jake Jones was the cutest, most amazing, tall dark and handsome first grader there ever was.  I had tried to get Jake’s attention many times before, one time I wore a dinosaur shirt to school just because I knew he liked dinosaurs, but none of my feeble attempts had worked to secure his heart so here was my chance!  I just needed the fates to give me this one wish and I knew that Jake would be mine!  Well Mrs. Baunt called my name and I stepped forward ready to hold the hand of my one true love, but instead of calling Jake’s name she called Cody Partridge.  Ewwww!!  I knew somewhere, somehow the fates were laughing at me because now I was paired with Cocoa Bird (as I liked to call him).  Needless to say we didn’t win the competition and I was forever scarred from that experience.

                Second grade and third grade proved to be just as challenging but when I hit fourth grade the darkness descended and it got worse!  I was stuck in a class with Cody Partridge (again!! Can you believe it?) and the teacher made me sit in front of Cody in class which was horrible in itself but it got much, much worse.  One day after lunch we were sitting in class doing our silent reading time, I had just picked up the newest “Mystery Sisters” book from the library and was voraciously reading the pages.  The class was dead silent when it happened…  Out of nowhere this giant bottom explosion happened!  I should have expected it to happen because lunch that day had been chili but I hadn’t expected it to come from me!!!  Oh my gosh!  How mortifying is that?  I tried to play it off looking around at the other kids pretending to sniff out (metaphorically not physically) the culprit but then Cocoa Bird had to speak up.  “I think Allison did that!!!”  It was all over at that point, my face got beet red and everyone knew the big bang had happened in my chair. 

                Fast forward a bit to eight grade, bad things had happened all the other years of school but they all seemed to be on equal footing with the infamous “fourth grade rumbly bumbly incident”.  As a”top dog” at the junior high I knew that this would be my year, I knew I would finally get the man of my dreams, Kree McCallum (Jake Jones was so out of the picture by then!).  Kree was gorgeous, he was tall, he was dark, he was handsome (I know, I know it sounds like Jake but it is a completely different kind of tall dark and handsome!)  We had our Valentine’s Day dance that year and I finally had convinced my mom to let me go.  I picked my cutest outfit, did my hair up, borrowed some of mom’s perfume, and pranced my way into that gymnasium.  There on the other side of the room was Kree.  The first girl’s choice dance I got him on the floor with me, we twirled and waltzed holding each other in an embrace of romance. After the dance was over we went and sat on the bleachers, he offered to get me some punch then walked away.  I was so caught up in our romance I didn’t notice that a sneeze was creeping up on me.  Kree came back with our punch and handed me my glass.  I took a tiny sip and then it happened!!  I sneezed. I sneezed punch all over Kree McCallum’s face but it doesn’t end there, all the contents of my nose emptied out of my nostrils and onto my lip, my punch, my dress, and even my shoes.  Our little romance was quickly killed by “the great booger blowout of eighth grade”.

                This year is my tenth grade year and as you can see I am more than a little nervous about it.  I think the fates know that my time in high school is running short so they’re going to be working overtime to ensure that my life is filled with even more embarrassment before I walk out of these hallowed halls.  Oh boy I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

Another year older

Tomorrow is my birthday, woo hoo right?  I say meh, just another year to mark off the calendar though I'm constantly amazed at how quickly the years pass the older I get.  I decided today that rather than be a little depressed about it I'm going to use it as inspiration, so using age and beauty as a springboard I'm adding onto the story I started of the dark wizard.  Here goes:

Ehbon sprinted from the tavern as quickly as he could leaving the fallen goblin to rot on the floor.  He was grateful for the darkness of night as he could use his black cloak to glide like a shadow from building to building. He heard the screams and rumblings of conversation behind as people yelled out to the authorities to catch the murderer.

He grasped the ruby amulet feeling it pulse with a power beyond his imagination; finally the one thing he desired was in his grasp!  Ehbon slipped into the forest surrounding the town and like a snake slinking through the trees slithered his way to the cave he called home. As he entered he pointed his palm at the embers in the firepit and said "fire".  The wood danced to life with flame and an eerie glow fell on Ehbon's face.  He grabbed the mirror that he had stored on the ledge of his firepit and glanced into it's reflection.  There he saw the horror that had haunted him since his 18th birthday.  His face was covered in scars running not only vertically but also horizontally across his skin, his left eye had turned into a blind milky orb that often emitted puss when he blinked, his nose was harshly crooked leaving him looking like a crow, and his eyebrows had all but fallen out leaving only wisps of hair trailing behind.  He propped the mirror up ensuring he could still see the reflection of his monstrous self.

"I hope this works." he placed the amulet on his neck. "Ageis mevois"  the ruby glowed a deep blood red and flashed one bright pulse.  Ehbon was momentarily blinded as his good eye readjusted to the dark of the cave.  He looked into the mirror, a grin stretching across his face.  Where once was a contorted face now was a handsome youth.

"I have you now Alandra.  You have cursed your last wizard." Ehbon rolled back the stone of his cave and ventured once more into the night.

The Female Cosplay

So before I launch into my rant/post for tonight here is the definition of cosplay for you non-geeks:

(from Wikipedia) short for "costume play", is a performance art in which participants wear costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. 

I have a confession, I'm a geek.  Not just a regular run of the mill- watches a little too much sci-fi geek- but rather a weekly D&D watching, Walking Dead following, sci-fi reading, fantasy writing, Lord of the Rings loving, Star Wars quoting, cosplaying geek.  I live for geeky things!  This obsession with the geek lifestyle started in high school with my love for Star Wars and only progressed from there, well back in 2010-2011 I discovered what is called the 501st Legion (501stlegion.com) it is a charity costuming group that dresses as bad guys from Star Wars and does charity work.  I was SO excited to find something that catered not only to my need to feed the geek but also gave me a chance to serve my fellow man.  I started researching costumes and found the standards you must meet in a costume in order to qualify for membership in the legion is very lengthy and expensive.  Long story short though I did manage to get an Imperial Officer costume made, you know the guys that serve as choking targets for Vader, and got accepted into the legion.  Well fast forward to now.  I have the itch and a major need for a new costume, I got into costume research mode again and found that once again my funding is too short to do armor (i.e. stormtrooper, pilot, Mandalorian, etc...) I started looking at cloth costumes and I must say I'm a tad disappointed.  

Now I know that geeks are generally male but come on guys, can we have a female character who is actually wearing clothes?  This is not just limited to Star Wars costumes either, it spans across all geek genres.  Why is there an ever present need for the female characters to be partially exposed in some fashion?  Not just that but how is a woman supposed to survive in combat when her major organs are exposed?

Original image found here: http://www.gagbay.com/gag/female_rpg_armor-237294/

Plus who wants to fight in an under wire bra?  (Ladies you know I'm right on that one!) Besides I personally would feel very uncomfortable being that exposed in a public place.  My body is my own and I don't think that much of it needs to be shared with the world, giving birth in a hospital with medical staff was intimidating enough. I don't need more bodily scrutiny than that thank you! I know some women are comfortable and okay with it and I don't judge them for that but why can't more female characters be clothed so those of us that want to cosplay can do so in comfort? I say stop the lingerie costumes!  Clothe the women and give them the strength they need to conquer instead of objectifying them, rant over....

Phew, now that I have that out of my system I want to share what I did manage to find that I think will be a good fit for me and my costuming needs.  I present to you Juno Eclipse:

Star Wars character in the games "Force Unleashed".  With some sewing, seam picking, and re-sewing here is the current version of this costume:

I need to fix my dossimeter pockets (the little pen looking things sticking out are called dossimeters), I put the badge on the wrong side (duh!), and I need to get a better tank top for underneath but I want your feedback.  Thoughts?  Ideas? Comments?  Feed the geek!!

P.S. If anyone is interested in funding a set of armor for me my dream costume is Bo Katan:

Something about Mandalorian armor just makes me tingly like a kid on Christmas morning, so if you happen to have a few hundred-ish dollars laying around and want to fund a random project I'd be happy to put it towards a good cause!

Come to the Darkside we have cookies!

I have a good friend who has a writing blog (writenowanyway.blogspot.com check it out!) and her post this week has to do with guilty pleasures.  I absolutely LOVE this idea. We all have those guilty pleasures that we may, or may, not confess to.  There are a few things I would count as a guilty pleasure but perhaps one of my weirdest is my need to cheer for the bad guy.  Really.  When I watch a movie, read a book, or look at a video game I like seeing the hero but a little voice inside me always says, "Poor bad guy, they just wanted to achieve their goals."  it never matters if the goal is the destruction of mankind I still manage to have a little empathy for the bad guy.

I always cheer a little at the end of "Empire Strikes Back" because Vader has a small victory (though I am a little sad the handsome Han Solo is frozen in carbonite). This need to identify with and empathize with the villian causes a conflict of interest when it comes to my own story telling, my hero will usually always win but sometimes I think the bad guy should win; with that mind here is just a piece of fantasy I have written with that idea in mind:

P.S. I borrowed the name Ehbon from a broadcast D&D campaign so I give credit for that name to JP McDaniel creator of Ehbon!

He stared across the counter at the barkeep.  The goblin poured and handled the ale with a precision that attested to his many years serving as barkeep, the stilts attached to his legs seemed less like wooden boards and more like an artificial extension of the goblin's legs.  Ehbon sipped his ale watching carefully each move the goblin made, the stilts obviously were used as a tool to help the keep reach and serve his customers at the much taller human sized bar.  Human's notoriously were better tippers than the goblins so it only made sense that this seemingly innocent creature work for higher tips even if that meant creating wooden bodily extensions.

Ehbon pulled the arms of his black cloak down over his hands trying to hide the shaking that had started to become evident in his wrists; he knew what his task would be and he quivered in anticipation.  Though the goblin appeared to be harmless Ehbon knew the power he harnessed and desperately wanted to grab it but patience was the key to this delicate mission.  Ehbon chugged the last of his ale and reached into his pouch retrieving a gold piece.  He set the money carefully on the counter making sure not to make any noise or draw attention to the coin keeping his palm over the coin he pulled his cloak down over his face careful to conceal his face from any onlookers.  He quietly muttered a prayer to his God Bhaal and then in hushed tones cast a spell on the coin.

He got up and walked over to the fire leaning on the mantle and watching the bar carefully, it was only a matter of time now.  The goblin shelled out a few more drinks and ran back and forth from the kitchen serving those meal orders.  Finally the goblin noticed the gold sitting on his counter, he ambled over and picked up the piece placing it in his pocket.  Moments passed and Ehbon began to wonder if the spell failed, he knew something should have happened by now but the goblin was still ambling about.

A piercing scream broke through the noise of the tavern as the goblin grasped his hand. "It burns!! Help me please!!"  he flapped his hand madly in the air as if he were trying to shake out a fire that only he could see.  He stumbled around the counter still attached to the stilts running for the water barrel placed near the fireplace in order to catch the rain from the leaky roof.  He shoved his hand into the barrel and as soon as the skin hit the water it started to produce boils.  The goblin threw his hand from the water falling backwards onto the floor.  His face swelled with boils as they quickly began overtaking every inch of skin, "Help."  his cry gurgled as the boils swelled his mouth shut.  Ehbon walked over to the goblin knowing he had to be quick as many in the bar were now watching the spectacle, he leaned over the goblin looking him square in the eye and whispered "it's mine now" he reached under the goblin's neck and ripped the ruby amulet from the goblin's neck concealing it under the sleeves of his cloak. The goblin gasped his last breath and as he died Ehbon saw in the goblin's eyes that he knew who had killed him and why.

Why the world of a story is so much better than real life.

I've often wondered what it is about story worlds that create such a huge appeal for me and as I have reflected on that question here are some things I've come up with, so without further ado top 10 reasons why the world of a story is so much better than real life:

10.  Life is always exciting!  You're riding on horseback or jetting through space constantly going on great adventures!  Real life, not so much.

9.  Stories can be so unpredictable and that's a good thing!  Life gets so ho-hum sometimes and to venture into a place where everything around every corner is a surprise makes reality seems so much more boring.

8.  If a main character has children they're generally pretty well behaved.  Seriously where do people get these little angels?  My daughter is an angel but her nick name is "tornado" because there is always a path of destruction anywhere she goes.  Though I'd take my "tornado" over perfect baby any day! Perfect sleeper?  Yes that baby I'd take!

7.  Transportation in books is so much cooler than my car.  Want to ride a Griffon?  How about a unicorn?  Perhaps a dragon?  Yes please!

6.  Some characters get superpowers/magic.  How I wish I could magic my house clean and my grading done with the wave of a wand.  Having the power of mind control would be pretty cool too, I'm not going to lie I'd probably abuse that power!

5.  There is almost always a happily ever after.  Life has happy moments, it may even have a happy ending, but I rarely see happily ever after it's usually just happy moment and here's the rest of the story. Hope that didn't sound too cynical...

4.  Time in a book can pass as quickly or as slowly as you want.  Read it all in four hours or over the course of four months life doesn't let you savor those moments quite like that.

3. There is no need to eat or sleep!  How awesome is that?  How much time would I save by not having to do all those things in real life?

2.  The characters are so cool.  I just relate so much better to fictional characters than some people in real life.

1.  I can explore, fight, fly, etc... without the real risk of exploring, fighting, or flying! :)  It's such an amazing way to be in reality without being in reality!  I LOVE Books!

Teenage Romance

One of the unique advantages of being a high school teacher is being able to watch my prospective reading audience in their day to day lives.  I get to see their interactions, thought processes, sense of humor, and romantic relationships.  Now I am a true believer in love and romance.  I think that everyone has the chance to meet and fall in love with someone but I also believe that this usually happens when people are much older.  I CANNOT stand teenage relationships and the dialogue that usually goes along with them, generally the relationships look something like this:

Day 1: "Oh my gosh John and I are totally dating!!! I really like him."
Day 2: "Sooooooo, we totally kissed last night. (insert details about the kiss)"
Day 3: "We are SO in love!  I just love him so much!"
Day 4: "I love him so much and we're going to be together forever."
Day 5: "We were alone last night and well I just love him so much."
Day 6: "We are so in love."
Day 7: "We broke up!" *insert mindless blubbering here*

Teenage relationships can teach a kid many things but ultimately I feel they are a waste of time.  They are usually only ever about one of two things, finding someone to do things with or sex.  I don't think that there is ever a deeper connection than lust in these types of relationships.  Call me cynical but I just don't ever see the outcome of these as positive.  In 99.9% of the cases I have seen they break up (cue alligator tears and drama) or the girl gets pregnant (babies having babies) neither outcome is a happy one.

Herein lies my struggle, like I said before I am elbow to elbow with YA as a teacher, I know what they want and I know it needs to be incorporated into my writing and guess what they want?  Teenage romance, I am literally making my vomit face just to express how I feel about it.  I hate those relationships, I hate how shallow and meaningless they are, I hate seeing the negative outcomes, and most of all I hate seeing the unrealistic expectations that come about from reading YA books with teenage romance in them.  I know I need to give my audience what they want but I HATE what they want, it makes me think too much of the nausea inducing popular novels of late, I'm thinking specifically of a vomitty vampire series.  I'm thankful that my current novel doesn't have a romance so I don't have to deal with it but my next sci-fi series will have romance and I just can't get over my utter disdain for teenage love.  I have to learn to block my reality, school, from my writing and create romances that are both believable but not sickening.  I have to learn to be true to myself but also give my audience what they want, I just don't know how to do that.  So here's my question to you dear readers, I need some time to think and process how to proceed with a healthy YA relationship in a book.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Help me not feel so cynical about this!

Violence: How much is too much?

As I continue in my writing journey traveling towards a pivotal point in the story I realize I'm going to have to write a scene of fighting/violence.  The question arises in my mind for a YA novel how much violence is too much?  Where does one draw the line?  Let me just preface this by saying I'm a conservative person, I come from a conservative background, but I wonder if by minimizing the amount of violence shown it will minimize the story itself.  I'm no stranger to violence, my current guilty pleasure is "The Walking Dead" which is riddled with zombie brains and dismembered body parts, so though I've seen it I still don't see it as an absolute necessity.  In fact, on more than one occasion while watching "Walking Dead" I've said to my husband "That was a little much."  It is hard as a writer to know where to draw the line.  In my story the main character HAS to engage in battle, bloodshed, and treachery in order to grow and accomplish the things I need her to, however I wonder can I make it interesting without making it a gore fest?  What is considered gore and what is considered necessary?  Do I let her, and the reader, hear the snapping of bone?  The warmth of spilled blood? The ultimate grief that comes from the realization that she has taken a life.  What do you think?