Step One

On Sunday, I'm making what's always been in my head a reality. I officially begin to market my book. T-Shirts have piled into boxes neatly, 50 copies of my book sit in wait, boxes of ceramics work are packed and ready to go. Two ladders sit outside ready to be turned into "bookshelves". Sheets of wood are currently covering the dining room table with traced outlines of wings to be cut tomorrow. My business cards are sitting for the first time to be used in a professional atmosphere.

It's kind of surreal.

I have absolutely no idea what's going to come of Sunday. In a way, I'm trying not to get too excited about it, simply because I might get my hopes up. Honestly though, I'm not expecting anything astounding to happen. I anticipate a few books getting sold, maybe a T-shirt or two. But I'm not expecting awards or prizes or even for lots of books to go flying. I'm doing this mostly for PR. To get my name out there and my book on someone's mouth.

So I'll do my darndest to make the most of this Sunday. I'm a little bummed that I'm missing church, but I just have to have faith that this will be worth it. My pastor helped me out tonight in getting a canopy for me to use, and he was excited for me. I guess I'm just lucky to have the support I do. After all, my house is currently filled with my siblings (minus one - bummer too!), and they're here to show their support and offer their encouragement.

My parents have been super helpful in every aspect of this whole endeavor. Saying "I'm blessed" only marginally covers how truly lucky I am to have the people I do in my life. I only hope everyone else has the same kind of support I get on a daily basis. Because I know at any moment, I can text my friends or family members and know that they'll respond with words of encouragement and a prayer on their hearts.

That kind of thing isn't something to take lightly. I try to remember that as often as possible.

May all your writing (and reading), adventures be happy :)

Currently Writing: Nothing at present. After this week, I'm hoping to have more time for Unity's rewrite!
Currently Reading: Finally getting around to finishing The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "Starvation" by Thomas Bergersen

PS - Sometime next week (or possibly the week after), I'll be unrolling a website for End Game. It's a wonderfully exhilarating experience!

Waiting...

The other day I wished an unofficial cousin a happy birthday. She wound up replying that she was excited about my book. I then replied that I was excited to see where it was God was going to take it. Then I sat back and thought about things.

I've been waiting my whole life to see where God will take this story.

That might be a gross exaggeration.

Regardless, I've been waiting a long time to see where it is God will take the story I've written. At first, when I hit submit on CreateSpace's website and nearly was pinching my eyes shut in terror, I was more scared than anything. But as the days have passed and as I've grown accustomed to my coworkers and friends asking how things are going and many people telling me how proud they are of me, I'm not so scared anymore. It's hovering somewhere out there, but I choose not to acknowledge it.

Now, I'm simply excited. I have no clue where this is headed. I don't know to what end this all will bring me. Only that I've done it. Only that I have faith that this will somehow be a doorway for my future. And if it turns out that this is actually a brick wall, well, then we'll start over. Try something different.

Life is a grand adventure. If we allow it to be.

I'm currently bombarding my room with noise and book-related stuff (poems my friend wrote, artwork, Nanowrimo awards, etc.). Every now and then, I really like when I'm the only person in the house. Later tonight I'm gonna try my hand at drawing concept art again. I'm on a kick with that.

Eventually I need to get back to reading The Once and Future King. August will eventually arrive and as I've mentioned before, I don't feel like just glossing over my next book.

Happy writing everyone!

Currently Editing: Genesis (via physical copy! It'll be a fun copy when I'm done with it.)
Currently Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Currently Listening to: "God's Not Dead (Like a Lion)" by Newsboys

P.S. - There's now a Kindle edition of book 1! Link is on the right for those who want to read digitally.

Rewards

So who wants to get me The Sims 3 plus Pets as a graduation present so I have something to do while I'm in Buffalo for a week waiting for a wedding? Please?

I keep telling myself that I won't ask for (or buy with the few dollars I have), The Sims 3 until I finish my fifth book. Mostly because it'll be a way to reward myself in a small way and then I won't feel bad playing it for hours and hours a day, rather than writing. That game sucks up so much of my life it isn't funny.

So tomorrow marks the beginning of the last week of my college career. There's that pesky Monday the 30th hanging out as the last day, but I count this as my last official week. I'm not going to want to do anything on Monday except be done. My finals will be fairly painless aside from a math one lurking in the distance, so that means that next week will be my packing and fun week while Senior week will be my frantic packing and freaking out week as I try to make sure I have everything of mine that needs to go home and everything that needs to go with me to Buffalo.

And then I'll sit around for a week, waiting for the 19th when one of my friends gets married.

If I make my deadline (which I sincerely hope I do), and finish my fifth book before graduation, then that'll mean that the week I'm in Buffalo I won't have anything pressing to do. At least, I don't think I will. I'm not putting it past myself to suddenly want to tackle the rewrite of my second book or a whole new book entirely in the prequel category of my world.

OH MY GOSH and The Sims 3 plus Pets just dropped to 25 dollars. I need money. Someone, please? Give me a job or pay me to do something? Ugh. This whole process of growing up is hard.

Meanwhile, in the life of me, I've been plugging away at my fifth book and it feels like it's moving along fairly well so far. I'm maybe a third of the way through the book so that's good timing and if I keep up this pace, I'll be able to have it done by graduation. That would be awesome.

In other news, my sister just finished her weekend of performances of The Miracle Worker, in which she played Ann Sullivan, the caretaker and teacher of Hellen Keller. It was a great show and good gracious my sister is a talented actress! It's a shame she doesn't see it herself. She was absolutely mind-blowingly amazing in her performance and had the audience going right along with her. It was really cool to see her be the lead in such a complex show where she has to effectively carry the cast throughout the whole play. She really got into the role and brought it to life, and I think she did Ann Sullivan justice.

Welp, I'm off to keep writing till about 3 am. One day I'll learn to sleep like a normal person.

Happy writing!

Currently Writing: Revelation
Currently Reading: Honestly, nothing. All of my free time is spent in writing. I'm still trudging through Eldest by Christopher Paolini whenever I can pry myself away from my computer.
Currently Listening to: "Unstoppable" by E.S. Posthumus

Prolific

When you look that word up in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, you get this definition: "marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity."

My professor for senior seminar keeps calling me this. I can only assume, as he hasn't read my books yet, that he's referring to my productivity. Based on the definition, I agree. My productivity in writing as of late has been rather shocking. Nothing I can explain, sadly. I wish I could give everyone the secret to crazy writing abundance. I really do. But I don't even know how I reached the place I find myself in.

Today, I was tagged in one of my friend's facebook posts. She's a writing major as well and last I spoke with her, she was doing fairly well with her project for our senior seminar class. Anyway, I got onto facebook, just to see if anything interesting was happening and to keep tabs on my family, and I got a notification about being tagged in a post. When I looked at it, she was saying that she wanted to emulate me and "write a book in 24 hours". She was being sarcastic of course. I couldn't imagine writing a book in 24 hours. I don't think it's possible. I just found it kind of strange that someone wanted to emulate me.

On top of that, I keep forgetting that I'm a strange kind of writer. During our group meeting for the fantasy writers of our class, one of my classmates was mentioning that he wrote 800 words on one day and 1,000 on another. And that was a good week.

Then I'm disappointed in myself when I only write 2,500 words in two hours.

Is it really so strange to just sit and write? I don't agonize. I don't think I can. I'm just so stinking motivated to write out my books, I don't think I can stop myself. My will to write outweighs nearly everything else in my life. I'm actually really bummed that this weekend I won't be able to do any writing. I'm going to Messiah to see my sister perform in "The Miracle Worker", and that's 8 hours out of my weekend gone just in traveling. Not to mention the fact that a majority of my family will be around so I won't get anything done.

I dunno. It just makes me re-evaluate whether I'm doing the right thing or not. Because the people who agonize over their writing come out with much better pieces than I do. My work in the past year has accumulated to a large quantity, yes, but to what quality? The rewriting necessary in the coming years will be enough to probably make me want to rip my teeth out. All because I was so stinking eager to write them without thinking them through properly.

Then again, I know I wouldn't have arrived to the conclusions of necessary changes without having written things out and seen where the characters were going and what they were doing.

*Shrug* I guess in the end, it's all for the best. In the end, God knows what's going on. That's good enough for me.

Currently Writing: Revelation
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Idumea" by The Millikin University Choir
^Yes, I'm listening to that song again. I've had it on repeat for days. I can't get it out of my head. Someone stop me!

The Blessed Life

I'm super thankful for a number of things. And it's not even Thanksgiving.

My friends, family members, and my college. Houghton sometimes irritates the snot out of me, but that's mostly due to the administration. The students and the professors are all phenomenal. I'm bummed that in two weeks I'll be done classes, in three weeks I'll be done finals, and in under a month I'll be graduating. But for the time I'm here, I'm thankful for what I've been able to learn and for those professors that have made an obvious impact in my life.

I just got back from a half hour long chat with my senior seminar professor and we basically just talked about writing after college and what my plans were. Sometimes it's nice to be looked at as a semi-adult and not as a child. When I sat down and told him that I finished editing my novella and added a few chapters to the end, he laughed and I asked why. "It's just...you say 'I added a few chapters' the way most people say 'I added a couple paragraphs'."

I couldn't rightly explain it, so I tried and I think I failed. I attempted to remind my professor that I had a fairly easy semester and had a lot of free time, which I utilized as often as possible for writing, hence why I was coming out with a "book count" and not a "word count" as my prof said. He then asked me whether or not I was planning to get my fifth book done by graduation. I hesitantly said, "I hope so. My realistic goal is before I turn 24 in June. My 'gosh-I-hope-I-can' goal is by graduation. Then it can be a double celebration!"

A small bit of fear grips me at the prospect of emailing all five books to my prof at the end of the semester (or when book five is done). I've never offered for a professor to read my books, which I think is something that should be done eventually, but it's daunting. To have someone that has spent the past three years looking at my writing, critiquing it, and pushing me forward is almost terrifying. But on one hand I kind of hope it'll act as a prelude to sending my book to publishers. If my prof can read it and enjoy it (which is my sincere hope), then maybe someone else can read it and enjoy it.

Welp, I gotta go off to lunch. Happy writing everyone.

Currently Writing: Revelation
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Down" by Two Steps From Hell

Graduation

"As we go on, we remember, all the things we, did together..."

I really don't like that song. In fact, I don't know anyone who likes that song. But my friend Amy kept singing it as graduation approached last year and now, I find it popping into my head from time to time.

While visiting Corning this weekend with my parents, I attempted to explain to them how I feel about graduation. I'm not necessarily worried about the future because, well, as perfectly cliche as it sounds, God's got it all figured out. He'll land me where I need to be, so long as I keep searching for where that landing site is. So I'm not worried about that. I'm not worried about money or having a job or even whether or not my books get published. That'll all come in their due times.

The thing that bums me out about graduation is that I'll be back home, in Sellersville, away from everyone I've gotten the opportunity to meet and know in my three years at Houghton. I'll be six hours away from a majority of my friends, while a few of them will require plane rides to even appear that short. I like to think that in Heaven, there aren't long trips to see friends, that we're always awarded the opportunity to see one another. At least, that's what I would like.

My friend Kara stopped in for a bit tonight, dropping off my roommate Janelle, before she turned around and drove back to Buffalo. In the process of hanging out with us for an hour, she reminded me why I enjoyed having her as a friend so very much, and why I'll miss seeing her even on a semi-monthly basis. She was excited about my fourth book and clutched it to herself when I handed her the draft. She then began to exclaim about how much she wanted her day off to come so she could read it.

When I'm down or feel like the worst writer ever, she's there to remind me that I have talent (however minimal it may be in my own eyes). She's one of the few people I feel really believes in me and encourages me along the way, and I'm incredibly blessed to have her as a friend.

Yesterday I was texting my friend Dana for the better part of an hour, and I was telling her that I'm worried about disappointing my heavenly father. Even though I really want to pursue publishing soon, I'm terrified about taking that step, solely because somewhere in my brain I ask, "Is this really what God wants me to be doing? What if I'm wrong?". Dana then texted me, "That fear can either help you stay on His path or keep you from fulfilling His true dreams for you. Something that I like to remember is that God is the one who put my truest dreams in my heart to begin with :)"

See? I have friends that push me forward even when my stupid feet get cemented to the ground.

And after May 12...they'll be at minimum, six hours away. Six hours. With gas being over four dollars a gallon, it'll cost me over fifty dollars to fill up my tank. Fifty bucks in one shot. Boom, gone. I'm nearly broke, which means I'm mooching off the love and grace of my parents until I find a job or help my dad with work to earn money.

Growing up is a rotten thing sometimes. I just keep hoping that things will go the way they're supposed to that soon I'll end up where God needs me to be. Wherever that is. So long as I'm doing what He wants, surprisingly enough, I don't care where I am or what I'm doing.

Three years ago I would have punched myself in the face for that comment. Or it would have been sarcastic. Today, I believe it with all my heart.

Currently Editing: Alaster
Currently Writing: Revelation
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: The DragonHeart Soundtrack (really just the main theme)

Looking Back

About a year ago, my brother Josh asked me where the idea for my story came from. Like many of my conversations with Josh, I remember perfectly where we were. We were driving down to Ocean City for Easter and my mom was passed out, as she always is during a car ride. It was late, maybe around midnight, and his car still wouldn't warm up from my sitting there because of the leather seats.

But as he asked me that question, I fell silent and looked out the window, watching the street lamps flash pass like lightning bugs. It took me a few moments to gather my thoughts, and eventually I said, "I think I wanted wings."

He laughed.

For the remaining hour of the trip I tried to explain myself. I remember, vaguely, that sometime during middle school I began to concoct this idea of being a superhero. What was that like? Then I thought about what I would want as a super power. Everyone wants to do something extraordinary, I think. Even though fancy mind powers would be awesome, I always wanted to fly. See, I was that kid that whenever a gust of wind would hit me, I would begin to pretend like I was soaring away with it.

Let me surge through the clouds, race an eagle, feel the spray of the ocean as I glide across it. These were (and still are), things I yearn for in a way that can't ever be fulfilled. At least not while on Earth. Our human bodies have far too many frailties as it is. Having wings would only complicate things.

But regardless, I wanted them. I knew I wanted them. End of story. Period.

Then as I talked more about where my ideas stemmed from, I realized I drew a lot of inspiration off of my old Saturday morning cartoons. Pokemon and Digimon chiefly among them. Kids going off having adventures? Yes please! Digimon especially. Because Pokemon was pretty much self-explanatory. Kid wants to train monsters to fight and be awesome. 'K. Got it.

Digimon however held a deeper story. The kids had to save the world. Kids had to save the world. That idea fascinated me. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a vital role in the occurance of something legendary. I wanted to be part of an epic story people told and retold a million times over. But I was a kid from the suburbs of Philly. The worst that ever happened was occasionally people tried to jump off the bridge across my street and only broke their legs 'cause it wasn't tall enough.

I delved into stories of grandeur. Of sweeping landscapes and rich storytelling. I wanted to be there, and my imagination would let me. So I built on story after story. If I had known about fanfiction back then, I probably would have written up a storm just to get my own spin on something out of my head. But I didn't, so I didn't start writing till middle school.

I remember that my first attempt at writing a book was awful. Absolutely pitiful. I was fourteen, but it was just...no. There's nothing about it except that it was atrocious. At the time, I wanted to tell a story. I had these images in my head that didn't make much sense. I had a few random characters that, back then, were cardboard. And if I just took everything I ever thought was cool from stories or TV shows or movies into it, then it would be awesome.

And it was. For about fifteen seconds. Then I hated it.

But it was a start. I think, whether I realized it or not, I opened my mind to something that unleashed floodgates in my imagination. The fact that I could, if I wanted, write a story that I would love to read. I knew I would love it. And the older I got, the more I doodled. I thought if I could just become good at drawing, maybe then I could draw what I saw in my head.

The problem was, I wasn't getting good at drawing. I was becoming mediocre at it at best. I couldn't draw people, and they were vital to the scenes I saw in my brain. So that meant the whole drawing excuse was out the door. I couldn't write and I couldn't draw. That left movies. Maybe I could get someone to listen to me and I could then get my idea turned into a movie.

Well that was just foolishness.

So out the window that horrible idea went. I threw everything I had even remotely come up with regarding the story I had into a folder on my computer and I pretended like it wasn't there. I actually used to pretend like I wasn't trying to write a story. I acted as though if I didn't write in my journal about it or didn't talk to anyone about it, then it wasn't happening. And since I couldn't, at the time, get any of my family members to read it, I assumed it was crap and got it in my head that only smart, old people wrote books.

I met neither of those qualifications, so I pretended to not want to write books, meanwhile I had this idea growing in my head. The older I got, the more the story progressed. I knew, even when I was young, that it was going to be a series. I just used to think it was a lot dumber back then. Really, it was absurdity wrapped into stupidity flambeed over ignorance.

I doodled more, hoping that something might come to me. Around eleventh grade I began to mold the story more, trying to make sense of it. I knew I wanted to be important. I wanted to be special. And seeing as I was an ordinary, boring teacher's pet of a student, I knew that was never going to happen. So I made up a story in which I could be whatever I wanted.

At the time I just named the character something silly and pretended I was that person. The stories never got off page two, but I was trying. At least I was coming up with something slightly better. Slightly better than what I had come up with when I was in middle school. Somehow though, my middle school attempt reaching forty pages was looking a whole lot better, simply because it had gotten farther. But each time I tried to reread it, I was bored the whole time.

I knew that if I didn't like the story and couldn't get into it, then there wasn't a purpose.

Then God's grace landed me in a Creative Writing class that changed everything. I wrote a twenty page kick start to my first book. It was awful and whenever I go back and reread it, I realize it was my life, but how I thought it should have been. It wasn't until much later that I realized that no matter how much I wanted to live this life, it wasn't mine. I was writing someone else's adventure, and she wasn't me. She's my alter ego instead, everything I wish I could be and am glad I'm not at the same time.

Now, through all that crap, we land on the morning when I start writing the fifth book.

Funny how God changes our plans, huh?

Currently Editing: Alaster

Currently Writing: Revelation

Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini

Currently Listening to: "Homecoming" by Thomas Bergersen