Just popping in to say...

...that After the Twelfth Night has been reviewed! My lovely friend Miss Jack has reviewed it over on her reviewing blog which you can find HERE. Thanks for the review, Jack!

This is a very fitting time for a review because After the Twelfth Night has been out exactly one year! Woohoo!! Last year, on this date, November One, I published my first book!

If I were some put-together author I would have a big blog party; I thought about it, but this year it was just too much. Next year I have high hopes.

Still, I didn't want to do nothing so... until Sunday, November 9, After the Twelfth Night will be 40% off!
I feel like a used car salesman: "Just click the link to take advantage of our BIG BIG savings." To be read in a deep voice, very quickly: "Offernotvalidifyouareunderfifteenoroverfifteenandahalfbuthaveyourparentscallandwe'llgiveyouafreeejectrseatotallyfreeonlywecan'tshipoutsideofNewYorkorPortlandsoyouhavetocomeheretotakeadvantageofthisspecialofferwhichendstwominutesafterthiscommercialdoes."

Also, I would like to give away a signed copy of After the Twelfth Night. You can enter by commenting one of your "favorite book(s) and why" below. Even if you already have a copy of the book, feel free to enter! If you win, you can send your book to me, I will sign it, and send it back to you with your postage money included. A winner will be chosen on Wednesday, November 5.

Meantime, don't forget to check out After the Twelfth Night's trailer!

And tell your friends!
"OffervalidonlyuntilNovember9."

Live long and prosper!

An After the Twelfth Night related update... among other things.

I know that I said the eBook version of After the Twelfth Night would be out by the end of January... but I'm not so sure of that now. Life's been busy and I have other priorities. I'm just now starting to look at Lulu.com's eBook guide and it's looking like a lot more work than I anticipated or have time for at the present.
Never fear!
Eventually the eBook version - and the Amazon version - will be out. I'm just not sure when that will be. I need to sit down with my dad some Saturday and figure it all out (ironically, at least the next two Saturdays, we're both busy with various activities).


Until then, you can always check out the paperback version on Lulu.com. The first three pages of the story (plus the table of contents and boring stuff like that) are available for preview to whet your curiosity.


On this blog, you can expect (also in the undefined future) to see book reviews on all the literature books I've fallen behind on reviewing (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Faerie Queene Book 1, King Lear... and by the time I get caught up, Paradise Lost and Pride and Prejudice too, probably!) and also a review-ish sort of thing on the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Other than that... what would you like me to blog about? Since After the Twelfth Night is out, I could stop being so secretive and introduce you to some of the characters, settings, or thought-processes behind it all. Or I could read the first chapter aloud... or share some first-draft to polished-draft changes... or show you the step-by-step of the new cover... or show you a character sketch I did of Antonio waaay back before I even started writing the book (he looks nothing like the picture anymore)...
Or I could blog about something totally different. Dolls? Books? Things that matter? My new secret project?
I'm trying to be less secretive about my writing this year. Not sure how that's going to turn out... At any rate, I'll tell you two things about my secret project:
1. Even though it's fantasy-esque, I'm doing research on various mythical/fantastical races. Currently open in my browser is the Wikipedia page for "elf."
2. Characters keep popping up and I have no clue where they came from. Characters I thought were just guards are becoming more important... and a character who I thought was more important is stepping back into the shadows (well, he is sort of a hermit). And a character I thought was nice is actually grumpy.


EDIT: I forgot to add something... I'm trying to get better at answering people's comments in the comments box. I haven't done too much of that in the past, but am starting now.


The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. (Phil. 4:23)

After the Twelfth Night avaliable now...

...from an online bookstore near you!

Eep! I'm a (self)published author!
Here's After the Twelfth Night's page on Lulu.com:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/ag-werff/after-the-twelfth-night/paperback/product-21279474.html

 



Antonio was a pirate, and now he's in jail for that long ago sea fight with the Duke. His friend, Sebastian, was supposed to bail him out of jail, but Sebastian has been kidnapped! Antonio promises Sebastian's wife that he will find her missing husband, but first he must get out of jail...

Four years of my life and it's finally finished! Huzzah! Huzzah!

So what's the next step? Well, in a few weeks, my book should be available on Amazon as well as Lulu.com. Also, sometime before Christmas I hope to have eBook versions available for eReaders (Nook... whatever the other one is. xD iPads and such. Apple products.)
Until then, I shall bask in the loveliness of a finished project, and start NaNoWriMo.

Huzzah!

Live long and prosper!

Come Along, Pond.

Even though I've stayed at home all day, I still wanted to dress up as someone for Halloween. So I chose an easy costume, that doesn't even look like a costume!
Today I was dressed as Amy Pond from Doctor Who. I kind of mitchmatched two of her more popular outfits... Jean skirt, with a plaid long-sleeved top, and leggings.

 

(Sorry it's sideways... I can't fix it!)

You can see my new haircut too! On Saturday I got my long hair chopped off shorter than it's ever been!
Before:

After:

(Yes, I did turn into Geordi LaForge for this blog post.)

 

 

Anyway... I've been busy editing and formatting and doing After the Twelfth Nightish things today. If all goes well, I will self-publish tomorrow! I'm not sure whether that will be in the morning or evening... or even if it will happen at all. So far, we're on schedule, but you never know what will happen.

 

NANOWIRIMO! It starts TOMORROW! I can't decide if I'm excited or nervous. I am excited about Saturday when I'll hopefully be able to a regional event nearby! AKA, go write with a bunch of other NaNoers.

So what is my NaNo project?

The second book in my spy series. The plot for this one is that Daniel and Varina must go undercover and uncover a diabolical plot to destroy the government (though, personally, I think the government is doing a pretty good job of destroying themselves. They don't need anyone else... But hey, maybe in Daniel and Varina's alternate universe, America is headed in a better direction? You never know!)

More on it later... Tomorrow, or Saturday... or some other time during November.

 

Live long and prosper!



Two reviews in one post.

I've read two YAish books in the past two weeks and I thought I'd do reviews on them! Enjoy.

Title: City of Ember

Author: Jeanne DePrau.

Synopsis: Those who are left of the world's civilization live underground, in the failing City of Ember. They know nothing of the outside world and know only that more and more blackouts are happening around the city, that the food is running out, and that trouble will inevitably fall.
Lina and Doon are students at the school, and they receive their assignments - their jobs for the rest of their lives. Lina is happy to be a messenger, running all day long. Doon is happy to work in the pipeworks, near the generator. He thinks he can fix Ember's problems.
The two discover a set of instructions... could it possibly lead out of the city? Could it possibly save Ember, and solve all it's problems?

My rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

What I didn't like/things you should know: I can't really remember anything specific... I'm sure there were one or two little things, but I really can't remember.

Things I liked: This is a really good book. The plot is really cool, and I really liked the characters. Doon and Lina were well done. Even baby Poppy was portrayed as a little baby would have been!
The author created an amazing underground world. The people didn't know what the sky looked like, or the sun, or grass. They didn't know about animals. Their underground world functioned on it's own, and it was really cool. The world building was magnificent. The writing style was really cool too.
I don't know why I couldn't get through this before... It's a wonderful book.

Would I recommend this book? Yes!


Title: The Clockwork Three

Author: Matthew J. Kirby

Synopsis: Giuseppe is a street musician with a cruel owner who beats him and demands all his money. All Giuseppe wants is to go back to Italy, to his brother and sister. When he finds a green violin that earns him more money than he could have ever dreamed of, Giuseppe thinks he might have found a way to pay the fare home...
Hannah is a maid at the Hotel, and she is assigned to be the personal maid of a strange woman and her Russian golem for the duration of their stay in the city. Hannah finds out about a treasure and becomes is desperate to find it to save her family from being thrown out of their house, and to pay for medicine for her sick father...
Frederick is an apprentice clockmaker with big dreams and a past that haunts him. He must work past his painful upbringing and learn to trust others...
These three children meet each other seemingly by chance, but each holds the key to the other's problems.

My rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

What I didn't like/things you should know: There are some fight scenes... mostly having to do with Stephano, Giuseppe's ward, who is a very cruel man.
Also, the woman Hannah works for is said to commune with spirits and read palms and such. She does this in two or three scenes.
I wish that the author had told us which city the children live in, and what year it was. Since places in the city - like streets and parks and rivers - had names, I felt that it was kind of incomplete that the city itself didn't have a name.
Another petty thing like that... I wish that the author had told us how old Hannah's sisters were. Were they babies, toddlers, or eight-year-olds? I couldn't tell.
And a final petty thing... There were some really odd descriptions that made the book feel like it had been translated from a different language.

Things I liked/my general thoughts: Oooohh this is a good book! It has mystery and action and a hint of Steampunk. I thought all the pieces of the story fit together wonderfully.
The characters really became my friends. My favorite was probably Giuseppe... Because he's Italian, a musician, and I LOVE the name Giuseppe. I'm stealing it for a character in my NaNo novel.
I really liked Yakov, the Russian bodyguard/golem of Madame Pomeroy, too.

It was super cool how all the characters were friends... There was no romance/love triangles. That was nice. It was just some kids being friends. They all helped each other and cared for one another.
There were great secondary characters too... such as Alice, and Walter (I wish I knew what happened to him), and Pullman, and Mr. Branch. I really liked Mr. Branch. And Reverend Grey.
The author really seemed to know his city and his setting (despite the lack of a city-name). He had characters running down familiar roads and giving each other directions. Plus, there was a super cool chase scene on a roof (reminded me of Mary Poppins).

(I apologize for all the Sherlock pictures.)

The world-building (city-building?) was really great, as was the character development. At times, the plot did seem a little thin... and the solutions seemed a little too easy for all the trouble the characters went through earlier in the book, but I think that's true of real life. And, actually, I do that quite a bit in my own writing. My characters go through tons of horrible stuff, and then the answer is right in front of their face the whole time.
It was super cool to see the different class structures in the novel... You had Madame Pomeroy, who was very rich and mystical. There was also Mr. Twine, the rich hotel owner. Then you had Giuseppe, who was starved and beaten on almost a daily basis. There was Frederick, who wasn't super rich, but he was well-fed, taken care of, and doing what he loved - building clocks.
Ah, the clockwork... Clockwork had a big part to play in this book. Frederick is trying to build himself a clockwork man, but he can't figure out the head... until he comes across - but you'll have to read the book to find out. It's pretty cool.

Would I recommend this book? Yes! I think that Miss Jack would really really like this book. I highly recommend this to her.


Guess what arrived the other day? The trial copy of my book! Eeep! It's so exciting! I was so worried that something might be wrong (like the cover being blurry) but thank goodness everything looks amazing! All the insanity and craziness and anger and stress that editing brought on is made up for in holding the book in my hands.
My dad took a video of it for my mom, who was out of town when it arrived. You can watch it to, if you like. (I editing out parts that showed my mailing address... and also the awkward silence parts. Ignore Rosey's whining in the background. Hee hee. Music is by The Beatles... Paperback Writer...)

Live long and prosper!

Deleted scenes from the trailer.

Initially the After the Twelfth Night trailer had three extra scenes in it that I cut because they weren't needed and didn't flow with the rest of the video.
The first scene is actually a scene from Twelfth Night, that shows how Antonio was arrested and put in jail.
The second is of Antony helping Antonio up from the ground after the "lucky explosion."
The third is of Antonio promising Olivia to "go find her missing husband."

The song is Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles, which I do not own. Well, I own the CD it came on... but I don't own the actual song.
I thought it fit nicely, because these scenes, as a result of being cut out, are now lonely...?

Live long and prosper!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Too late, Vala. I've already gone crazy.

Hee hee hee... mwahaha... hahaha...

MY MOM AND I FINISHED THE FIRST ROUND OF EDITING! AHAHAHAHAHA! YES!

And now we have to start on the second round.

AKA, we'll go back through the entire book fixing things... and then I'll upload it to Lulu and send off for a trial copy. Then we'll go through that and change things... then we'll go back through it AGAIN. And then it will be ready.
Hopefully we can get all that done in the next 28 days.

Live long and prosper!

After the Twelfth Night book trailer and cover reveal! (Thus the panic beings)

Hi everyone! I have been looking forwards to this day for the past week! It's October 1, so that means I get to show you After the Twelfth Night's trailer and cover!

So first a little bit of history, because I'm evil and want to prolong the waiting... Personally, I think book trailers are kind of odd, because it's a book, not a movie. And I wasn't going to do one. But then I thought 'hey, dolls!' and the trailer was born. I have more to talk about, but I'm going to save that for another post (or several) on how I made the trailer.
Now a note on the new cover... I had an old cover. Most of you have probably seen it. But I wasn't happy with it. It wasn't a POW cover. It was a someone-threw-that-together cover (which is pretty much what I did way back when). So I asked my dad if he could draw me a new cover and he said yes! (He's the best dad in the world, by the way.) That's where the new cover comes from. Perhaps I'll talk more about that in a later post too...

Now, the trailer!

The new cover:

Thank you SO much, Daddy, for investing the time to make this for me! And for putting up my incessant questioning whether you were going to work on it. It means the world to me.

As you can see, I have chosen the name A.G. Werff to publish under...

And now that these two big loads have been lifted (the trailer and cover) I can start panicking. Editing is far from being over with, plus I have yet to plan my NaNoWriMo novel! AH! Only 31 days! Until NaNo and publishing!

 Live long and prosper!

A post about a whole bunch of random stuff.

Books first.
I finished seven books this month, although two of them were the same book.... (I read The Great Gatsby twice, as I mentioned before). Three of the books I finished yesterday! The Old Man And The Sea, which I did not particularly care for.... Kailey (and American Girl Doll book. It wasn't all that long. Neither was Old Man and the Sea). Also, A Hero for WondLa, the second book in the WondLa trilogy. I didn't like it as much as the first one. I think it was because of the weird Mother thing in the middle of the Wandering Forest. That was just weird. And Loroc is so creepy! But cool. He makes a cool villain.
Finishing all those books meant that I was only reading two books - and we can't have that! So I started two more. Fever Crumb, by the VERY talented Mr. Philip Reeve. I just finished chapter 5 and I'm really enjoying it! I also started A Year Down Yonder, which is the sequel to A Long Way From Chicago (both by Richard Peck). They are AMAZING books! Super funny... with a trigger-happy grama and illegal cat-fishing and small town charm... go read them.

Now onto writing:
My goal for this month was to edit Part One of After the Twelfth Night.
Done! Yay! I actually finished ten or twelve days ago, so I decided to read through it again, just in case I caught anything else.... and BOY I'm so glad I did. Here's a few of the typos I found....

Pirates are attacking and Matthias says: "Quick! We need a plant!" Instead of 'plan.' I guess a plant could work too... FIGHT THE PIRATE SHIP WITH THE RUMOR WEED! MWAHAHAHAHA. *ahem*
Then, possibly the worst typo EVER! "I'm going to accompany her to Illyria because I don't want her to go alive." Instead of 'alone.'

 

Anyway, Part One is now done for now. I also decided to make the book three parts, instead of two. Because otherwise, Part Two would be TONS longer than Part One. Plus, each part has its own set of characters and its own different location. Now I'm hoping that the parts will be more even in terms of word count/pages.
ALSO I emailed my editors. You know who you are. Some of you have replied... but some of you haven't. I would really like a reply as soon as possible. If you didn't get my email, tell me in a comment and I'll send it again.
Basically I was asking how you like to edit and if you wanted me to send each part separately (so it doesn't look like you have so much work to do :P).
A couple of you said yes, send it in parts. So if the rest of you want me to send it in parts... great! Part One is finished, as I keep on saying; and I wouldn't mind getting it sent off sometime in June, while I'm busy at work with Part Two and Three.

Which brings it to my June writing goals:
Edit Parts Two and Three with my mom and get them sent off to editors by July 14 (when we go camping). This is going to be a bit hard... Because several parts in Part Two need re-writing (aka, just expanding on the idea... showing, not telling the reader). It probably won't be that hard... but I really don't want to do it. I just need to sit down a GET TO IT! But I'm also a bit worried that I won't get Parts Two and Three done by July 14. After all, I took a month to do Part One... Of course, I wasn't editing every day.... procrastination. Heh heh. I also have to change some plot stuff so it corresponds with Part One.
To clear up some trouble: I haven't really made it clear what After the Twelfth Night is. It is basically the continuation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Maybe I'll do a post on that later... But yes, it can be seen as a sequel of sorts with Shakespeare's characters and my own characters mixed together.

In other news... Jack tagged all her followers! It's that elevensies tag again... where you have to do 11 random things about yourself, then answer 11 questions, then make up 11 questions, then tag 11 people.
I'm not going to do it that way.
Instead I'm going to do one fact. I got a new bookshelf today! Which is good because my other one was overflowing:

 

Things were stacked on top of each other, on the floor, and behind each other (which I personally HATE!)
My new bookshelf is much wider and taller (six shelves instead of five!) and nearly fits all my books.....

 



At the top is the Vancouver Sun classics, and some other classics (like The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, some Robert Louis Stevenson, Robin Hood, Pride and Prejudice and Swiss Family Robinson).
Second shelf is Tolkien, then C.S. Lewis, then books I enjoyed when I was younger (and still enjoy!), then my mini E. Nesbit collection, and some more classics (Uncle Tom's Cabin, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby).
Third shelf is mysteries (Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, and the No Place Like Holmes books) then some dystopian-ish stuff (The Alliance and The Freedom Factor by Gerald N. Lund and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury) and then some random stuff (Inkheart, Princess Bride, Watership Down....) then my Steampunk (Miss Jack Lewis Baillot, Behemoth and Goliath, and Larklight which I found at the thrift store the other day!).
Fourth shelf is comics (Tintin, Calvin and Hobbes, and Garfield) then some Christian books (Do Hard Things, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Crater) and finally, my collection of Shakespeare stuff.
Fifth shelf has all my Warriors books in chronological order (yay! I'm happy about that). There's also Varjak Paw on the fifth shelf, which is also a book about cats that live in gangs as opposed to the Warriors who live in the woods.
The last shelf is my American Girl books.
Whew!
My Grama commented once, "Our school librarian once said.. you always have a friend if you have a book. My, you have a lot of friends. And keep getting more!"
Books really are my friends! And if I can continue to get them cheap at the thrift store, I'll continue buying them. =)

Sometime in the near future we're going to move my desk (erm, my thing to stack other things on top of) out my room, and move my other bookshelf back in. I'll have to do some more rearranging then.

 

For Jack's 11 questions, she did something different. She did 11 movie quotes. The people tagged have to guess which movie they came from!

Here I go... wish me luck....

1. "Whew! I thought you were dead!"
I have absolutely no clue. I feel like I should know, though. It isn't Star Trek, is it?

 

 2. "Look! I've found a place where you can put things! It's called a cupboard!"

Is this from Merlin? I haven't seen Merlin... but I think I remember once that you put this quote up your blog and said it was from Merlin. Either that or a saw it online as a picture. My guess is Merlin. Or Psych. Those are my two guesses. Psych and Merlin. I feel like the Spanish Inquisition.

 

 

 3. "Helloooo! I can hear you!"

TINTIN!

I don't know if that's right or not... But in the Castafiore Emerald, Captain Haddock (I think), Iago the parrot, AND Castafiore herself says it.

Whenever I see/hear "hellooooo! I can hear you!" Tintin is the one I think of.

 

 4. "If you had killed Watson you would not have left this room alive."

This one is easy. Sherlock Holmes! The Three Garridebs.

 5. "You're saying I look like a toad?" "Yes. Maybe you will be magically turned into a handsome prince. But since magic is banned it probably won't happen."

I don't know this one either... I'm just gonna randomly guess the new Princess/Frog Disney movie... or Enchanted.

 

 6. "I told you, it will keep and keep and keep and keep!"

Nor this one.

 

 7. "Here's your pan, here's your frog."

Tangled? I think it's from Tangled.

 

 8. "Dishonour on you! Dishonour on your cow!"

Another easy one. Mulan!

 

 

 9. "Should we be hysterical?!" "YES!" "NO!" "Maybe!"

This is another one I feel I should know.

 

 10. "Your mother was a computer and your father an encyclopedia!"

And another one! This one wouldn't happen to be from Arthur would it? Fern's Slumber Party? The scene where she "invents" a supercomputer...

 11. "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes."

This sounds superhero-ish. But since the only super hero movie I've ever seen is The Incredibles, I don't know.

 

I'm not tagging anyone.

 

How about you guys? How do you store your books? Nicely on shelves? In boxes? Do you have your own bookshelf? Does it bug you when you have to stack your books one on top of the other on the shelf when there isn't any room left? Does it bug you when you have to put them one in front of the other to make them fit (like, double rows)?

And editors: don't forget to answer my email!

 

 

Three hundreeeeeeddd!!!

It's my 300th blog post!

Watch this video to understand my blog title:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBowr1wKx84

Guess who finished her first edit of Part One of After the Twelfth Night last night? "CONGRATULATE ME MAX!"
=D

 

Now to start on the read through of Part One, fixing what little things I missed....

In honor of this first leap towards publishing, I have decided to reveal one of my secret projects! The big one - the one that I have been talking about (I'm still a tad bit iffy on the other one, that's why I'll wait to reveal it).

Meet the cast of the...

 

So yes. I am in the works of making a book trailer for After the Twelfth Night with my dolls! Personally, I think book trailers are kind of weird... Because, you know, it's a book, not a movie. I wasn't planning on doing one and then I thought WAIT A MINUTE! I could do it with dolls! Then it would be super cool! So that's what I'm doing. Look forwards to the trailer sometime in the summer... August maybe. Or maybe, since the book isn't coming out until November, the trailer will come out in September or October.

And finally, here is Top Tuesdays! Top favorite TV shows (in order, this time).

Live long and prosper!

The one where I talk about my book cover.

I have gleaned from several of my friends that the book cover is one of the hardest parts of publishing. For me, it is extremely easy. Probably because my cover is already done and has been done for two years.
Two years ago, however, I remember having an EXTREMELY hard time with it.
My cover picture is a painting by Ivan Aivazovsky, a Russian painter from the 1800's, known for his seascapes.

I liked this painting because of the ship in the background. I thought it fit After the Twelfth Night very well.

I didn't just want my cover to be the painting, however, so I added a picture of me - as Antonio from a production of Twelfth Night that I was in in 2009 - to the cover (I believe I used Gimp, but I'm not sure).

 

It was too bright, however, so I started experimenting with color.

 

Too light.
Sometime in the process, I experimented with a different Ivan Aivazovsky painting (which has now become the back cover of the book; without my face):

 

Eventually I came up with this cover:

 

But, as most of you know, my computer got wiped somehow last spring, therefore losing that particular cover. Luckily, I had some uploaded onto photobucket, so I still have most of my work. Just not that particular cover. And I can't figure out what I did to make that cover look like it does. I half wonder if the publishing thing I went with last time (to get my four copies) kind of changed the color....
Anyway, I've been kind of poking around with the cover again today, experimenting with different colors.
This is what I came up with:

 

Haha just kidding. That was me being bored. (My mom's comment: "I'm so glad she can keep herself entertained.")

This is the real cover (which I'm not altogether sure about... is the lettering too dark? Is it too hard to read?):

Enough about that. I've been working on my secret project today. Here are some pictures to muddle with your brains:

 

(Dolls playing Dominion???????!!)

 

(Dolls dressed in interesting costumes?????!!)

 

(RUTHIE WITH GLASSES AND BUNNY SLIPPERS??????? [Anyone who has read the Meet the Dolls page knows that Ruthie is a bit of a fashionista and does NOT - I repeat - does NOT like appearing sloppily dressed] And is that a sword that the doll-in-white-pants is holding?)

 

Live long and prosper!

"I do not cough for my own amusement," replied Kitty fretfully.

My best thinking time is when I'm taking a shower. I don't know why, but my best ideas come when I'm in the shower. As a result, I tend to take 30-45 minute showers because I'm so absorbed in my own thoughts, I wash veeeeerrryy slowly.

This morning I had quite a few "aha!" moments in the shower.

One was another how-Sherlock-survived-the-fall theory. Maybe Kitty, the reporter ("You repel me" girl), had something to do with it! I mean, she had access to Moriarty and Sherlock both. What if Sherlock hired her to spy on Moriarty? That way, he would know Moriarty's plans.
I promise, no more Sherlock theorys... I just can't help it. They started filming season three two days ago. The first episode is called The Empty Hearse which I think is SO hilarious because the book where Sherlock comes back after being "dead" for three years is called The Empty House.

As well as coming up with that theory, I came up with a background and a motive for a character. Perhaps I shall someday elaborate on him because he is quite interesting.

I also did some brainstorming that I have been putting off. I had to figure out a bunch of different ways for people to do stuff. Now I have that figured out and I can go on with the planning of the third novel in my spy series (which I'm writing second because I thought it would be second... but it turns out it fits better as third).
Have I mentioned that I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo next month? You can set your word count goal for anything that you choose (within the peramiters of 10,000 and 999,999 words I think... I don't remember). I'm going to try and do another 50,000 word novel. The third book in my spy series starring Daniel and Varina. More info on that as it comes.

Yesterday I read a little bit in each book that I'm currently reading. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pride and Prejudice, The Princess Bride, and even a few pages of The Two Towers!
My library finally got in a copy of Agatha Christie's first mystery starring the detective Poirot. I'll probably start that soon too..... I can never read just one book at a time.

Tomorrow I'm going to Canada for a few days to play board games and Nintendo with my cousin. It shall be fun. But it also means I'll disappear for a few days, which is fine.

I thought I'd do something special to tide you over until whenever I do my next blog post (please note my sarchasm).
Some snippets from various works of mine! Now, since I'm still quite new to the novel-writing sphere, there won't be too many snippets from different novels.... Mostly just After the Twelfth Night and the first spy novel (which I am dreading opening... because it is so rough. I'm afraid).
Enjoy:

   "I would like to go ashore as soon as possible," said Sebastian. "Seeing that the island is large and we all have families we want to get back to-"
   "I don't!" Dogberry piped up. "I have my family here with me!" He patted Jamie on the shoulder; Matthias was under guard in his room.
   ".....Most of us have families we want to get back to-"
   "I don't! I have my Sebastian right here!" Olivia said. "I'm SO glad I came on this little journey!"
   "As I was saying," Sebastian continued loudly, "most of us have families we want to get back to so the sooner we start searching the ialdn for the treasure, the sooner we can get back to our families."
- After the Twelfth Night Part 2.

   "Those beslubbering fat-kidneyed hugger muggers!"
- After the Twelfth Night Part 2.

   In the background the second voice piped up, "Give me that!" and evidently snatched the phone away. "Who are you and what have you done with my sister?" demanded the younger voice which was totally unlike Caroline's sweet tones. Instead, of sweet and quiet, this girl was loud and fiery.
   "I've done nothing with your sister," Daniel replied.
   "What are you? A creeper? A stalker? A murderer? I could have the police there in five minutes! Or the army! How would you like the army? My sister is in the army! She could probably beat you up and kill you! Although that would probably land her in jail....."
   "I-" Daniel attempted to say.
   Just then Varina emerged from her room down the hall.
   "Marines? No! You don't have to call in the marines!" Daniel was saying when Varina rescued him by taking the phone.
- 3rd Spy book (I admit, I wrote the first chapter back in December.)

   "Please, Sebastian, introduce us to your friends and then sit down!" said the fat man.
   "Of course, Uncle," Sebastian replied. He turned and gestured to Antony. "This is Antony. His father saved me from drowning in a ship wreck."
   "Son of a sailor are you?" Sebastian's uncle asked.
   "Yes, sir. Actually, Father was a pirat....." Jamie elbowed Antony in the ribs and he coughed. "Yes, sir."
- After the Twelfth Night part 2.

   Inside the bustling airport, Daniel and Varina got their tickets and headed to their gate to wait for the plane.
   "Let's stop and get something to eat first, please?" Daniel asked.
   "We just had breakfast! Surely you aren't hungry again?" Varina said.
   Daniel shrugged and pointed to a cafe cozily situated between the Hudson News store and a place to buy luggage.
   "I think everyone has luggage here...." Daniel muttered as they past the luggage store.
   "I hope so!" giggled Varina.
- You Don't Find Them, They Find You.

   "Whoa!" said Antony, spotting the sword in Antonio's raised hand. "Are you planning on killing me?" he joked.
   "No," replied Antonio, scowling. He started to walk away from the boy, hoping to lose him.
   "Where are you going? Can I come?" asked Antony, matching Antonio's stride.
   "I'm going to find a friend. And no, you can't."
- After the Twelfth Night Part 1.

   The passengers grabbed their seat rests to keep from jerking about. The wind and rain played tug of war with the plane, jostling it this way and that.
   "I can't believe it!" Varina yelled.
   "What?" Daniel asked in a panicked voice.
   "We met on a plane and now we're going to die together on one!"
   "No one said anything about dying!" Daniel said in the best reassuring voice he could muster. Suddenly the plane went into a nose dive. Everyone screamed and the last thing Varina remembered before she blacked out was Daniel's hand reaching back and grabbing her's.
- You Don't Find Them, They Find You.

So what did you think? Are you interested? I'm still toying with the idea of publishing.... But people have to be interested in my writing in order for me to publish it. Finishing the books would also help. xD

Live long and prosper! Have a good weekend.

Writing news.

I'm stuck. I haven't even gotten past the prologue, and I'm already stuck with my Defenders of the Realm story. I'm not sure if I like the prologue which I wrote. I might scrap it and re-write it.
I've also been mulling over the fantasy genre - mostly the magic part of the fantasy genre.
That, and the stuckness issue, are forcing me to put Defenders of the Realm to the side for the time being. Hopefully it won't be too long.

On another note... I had the most brilliant idea for a plot. Actually, the core idea came two summers ago. I have been thinking about it on and off for two years and I think I may finally have a good enough plot to start coming up with characters - then I can maybe start writing.

Now I shall talk about After the Twelfth Night.
For those who don't know, I played Antonio in Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night in 2009. I was upset because we never find out what happens to Antonio after the play - does he go to jail or does Sebastian come to his rescue?
In 2011 I decided to write a book about what happened to my beloved character for a novel writing class my friend's mom taught. The subsequent months consisted of much writing, re-writing, editing, and formatting.
Finally, sometime in the early fall, we ordered five copies of my book from Blurb.com (a site which I do not recommend - too difficult to format).

The experience was like no other. I had never written something so long before - I had actually written a novel!
Shortly after I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time - taking my writing to new levels entirely.
During NaNoWriMo 2011 I wrote the sequel to After the Twelfth Night.

I have been working on re-writing and editing The Sequel for about a year, now. The end is nigh... My mom and I are currently going through it fixing discrepancies, spelling and grammar mistakes, making sentences better, and taking out information that doesn't need to be in there.

Now I am debating publishing....
I have already decided to combine the first and second books into one book, separated into Part 1 and Part 2.
This not only eliminates the trouble of having to come up with another title and another cover, it allows me to edit Part/Book 1 and make it better (and maybe longer! It's only about 16,000 words. Either that or 26,000 words... I can't remember since the document was deleted off my computer). I also don't have to go through the trouble of explaining what happens in Book/Part 1 in Book/Part 2.

Back to the publishing thing....
Part 1 isn't long enough to be it's own novel - and truthfully, I don't think it's up to par with other writings out there (which is why I am glad to be editing it some more). Much of it is somewhat fantastical and historically inaccurate (it's set in 1604).
Because I didn't want to publish Book/Part 1, I hadn't planned on publishing Book/Part 2 either.
Now, though, since I am combining them, I am reconsidering.
Part 2 easily takes care of the length problem. The book (both Parts) is still somewhat fantastical and historically inaccurate... But I didn't write it to be a historical novel. It is an adventure. It focuses on the plot and the adventure and the characters. I don't want it to become a historical novel, either. It is meant to be a fun read - it isn't meant to teach about how things used to be.
Besides, who said the worlds in Shakespeare's plays were accurate? I mean, he had fairies in A Midsummer's Night Dream. And wasn't there a giant in The Tempest?

I would be self-publishing. I would probably use Lulu.com since I've heard good things about it from various sources.
If I finish editing both Parts before June, however, I might consider using the Createspace code from NaNoWriMo (given to the winners). I heard it's pretty hard to figure out, though.
Also, I heard somewhere that as well as sending you five free copies, it publishes your work on Amazon for all to see? I have no clue if that is true or not. If someone out there knows, please tell me!

Anyway, there are all my authorly plans out in the open.

Would you like to read the prologue of Defenders of the Realm even though it isn't very good? Should I self-publish? What about the possible historical inaccuracies (I know so little about Shakespeare's time, I don't even know if there are any huge inaccuracies)? Also, would you like to hear more about After the Twelfth Night? Perhaps meet some of the characters?
Answer away! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Live long and prosper!

The one where "struggled" became "shruggled."

It is official. After the Twelfth Night and its Untitled Sequel are going to be one book. The first book will be "part 1" and the second book will be "part 2" because it is much easier. Plus, that  means I can edit Part/Book one and make it better. It also means that I don't have to think of another title and cover!
My mom and I have been editing Part/Book 2 and I have busily typing it into the computer.... Only I think I need a break.
So far Jamie has sat down and tried to ear (instead of eat) and poor Verges shruggled to hold Dogberry's weight up.
Know what else I found out? "Two men" is basically the word "woman" except with a "T" at the beginning. I found that out trying to read my hand-edited version of the book. I'm staring at it going, "As they caught up with the fwomen they slowed their pace to remain at a distance. But that makes NO sense! They're following Dogberry and Verges! Not women! What in the world is a fwoman anyway? MOM! Can you read this--- wait a minute.... TWO MEN! That's what it is! HAHA!"
Must... push.... forward....

Also, it has been 84 years since Tintin was first written into existance! Happy Birthday Tintin!!

 

(My cake, from my last birthday.)

On a parting note... I know how Sherlock survived the fall!

Before hitting the ground, Sherlock fell into a portal which led to Narnia. He fell out of the sky and landed in some badly placed dragon treasure... which turned him into a fire breathing beasty (just like Eustace!).
Sherlock the Dragon then wandered - quite by accident - into another portal which led to Middle Earth.
Poor Sherlock then used his massive intellect to reason that if he became a dragon by touching treasure, he should touch MORE treasure to become his regular self again. Sherlock the Dragon wandered into the nearest treasure hoard his dragon nose detected and scared some Dwarves in the process.
Long story short, Sherlock touched the treasure and found himself still a dragon! He also found out that he was too big to fit back OUT the door! (Which is the reason no one saw him a long time.)
After sleeping for hundreds of years, Sherlock woke to find that the walls had crumbled around him and he could escape!
Unknown to him, though, the Dwarves had harbored a grudge and had come to reclaim their home. They took a very familiar looking burglar with them too....

Sherlock the Dragon was then shot unceremoniously from the sky by Bard the Bowman.
Curiously, the only thing that went through the mind of the Dragon as he fell was, "Oh no, not again." Many have speculated that if we knew exactly WHY Sherlock the Dragon had thought that, we should know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
Since the villagers from Laketown never went near the carcass of Sherlock the Dragon, they did not see him regenerate into his original form... Sherlock Holmes!
Sadly, Sherlock was a bit jumbled from his regeneration and took to calling himself "John Harrison."

He was then beamed up to the Enterprise where he wreaked havoc all the way back to London Town where they dropped him off (and where he saved Mickey Smith's daughter).
After figuring out he wasn't actually John Harrison, Sherlock returned to 221b Baker Street and walked in with a calm, "Well that was tedious."
Whereupon, John fainted.


~A few hours later~
I finished typing in the edited Chapter 2 without much more trouble (unless you call procrastination trouble).

Then, after dinner, I started writing Defenders of the Realm.
I'm listening to the Song of the Lonely Mountain (from The Hobbit) which is really adding to the mood. I may have even felt my heart flutter a bit.
By tomorrow I should have the prologue written and then I shall share it on here in all its unedited glory (to be fair, though, I spend a considerable ammount of time perfecting my prologues for some ood reason. And since this Defenders of the Realm book will be a side project, it will most likely not need as much editing as my NaNoWriMo spit-out-the-50K novels).
Before I go back to writing, I would like to share the first sentence. First sentences are very important, because they need to draw the reader in. I'm not so sure about my first sentence.... What do you guys think?

Doors were locked up tight on the night of the new moon and the people of Monarch City slept soundly.