Your Move

Once upon a time there was this little girl who lived in Kansas, but in a tornado she was whisked away from her home. When she landed she found herself in a funky little place called Oz...I am not that girl nor is my story anything like hers. Mine is the story of a stationary young girl whose only travels were ever in her mind until one day they escaped and dragged her away on a quest like none she'd ever known. And she was not sure if she'd ever return home.

*Disclaimer*

The following post may sound like a cliched Hollywood film in which some blond haired girl leaves her small town in the hopes of finding fortune and fame. However, my hair is not blond, my dream is neither to act nor sing, and bartending is not on my itinerary so I'm thinking I may just succeed without the customary song and dance required of these movies. As I would dread it very much if my part were to be portrayed by either Christina Aguilera or Julianne Hough.

             Onward!

This past year has been pretty big for me. I moved to from my not so small town to the Home of theVagabonds, Dreamers, Hipsters, Creepers and Starving artists. And then there are those seemingly talentless people seeking to make millions off the before mentioned groups. I feel like I just entered the circus and I'm trying to come up with the perfect one act to steal the audiences attention. 

I'm just a wondering storyteller with a head full of ideas and a heart full of dreams and I'm Making It Up As I go.

Sometimes I wonder, will I make it, will my name be known or will I remain anonymous, just another Xoxo? That still remains to be told, that chapter is yet to unfold but if there is one thing that is certain...It's that I've run out of words for this poem! 

So here's to, roads and where they take you and here's hoping where it leads to is where you're meant to go. 

Xoxo

Secerts kept are wasted.

(*Disclaimer: I've never actually seen this movie so bear with me.)

Two guys are fighting in this futuristic world, where swords are made of lasers and they're fighting to the death because one is really evil and the other is good. This happens. The evil dude is wearing a black suit with a funky black respirator type helmet. Some stuff happens and the good guys is all like "you killed my dad!" to the evil dude (major paraphrasing here). The evil guy replies. "No, I am your father...you know what forget it."

Twist are not secrets, secrets are wasted on stories because if you keep the secret then what was the point of having it in the first place? The world of the story is only constructed out of they idea's portrayed so if you have an idea do tell or else nothing is gained.

Now you can have twists in a story, which are like secrets but not really. The difference between a secret and a twist is that a secret is something nobody knows. Whereas a twist is a plausible end, road less traveled that people ignore until they can't ignore it any longer. i.e. a twist is always there, your job is to make it so people never think about it until you want them to.

The reaction to a twist should be:
"Oh! how did that happen?" and then as they look back on all the events leading up to the twist.
"OMG why didn't I see this coming?"

Whereas if you tell someone a secret, their reaction will be:
"I'll take your word for it."
As there is nothing to look back on to support this new information because it was a secret.

Twists answer a question that may have been raised or fill a gap. For example your main character never had father and the villain had a son. Now people are not going to generally put two and two together to equal four when the two's are so terribly different (rivals). But if they were so inclined as wonder about the coincidence the evidence is there. Twists are not without basis, they are something people would've never guessed but they are not with out basis.

How this helps
Xoxo

That's My Story & I'm Sticking To It

Dear Readers,

How have you been?

Having disappeared from the blog world (for two weeks, I believe) and I felt like giving you all a nice little update as to what I was doing during that time.
Firstly I finished/didn't finish the NaNoWriMo challenge. By finished, I mean I met my goal. I wrote 100 pages of my story but unfortunately I didn't reach the end of my story or the word count for NaNoWriMo :( However, I didn't have the time to write anymore than I managed because towards the end of November my homework started to get intense!

I plan on finishing the story but not this year. I need to set it aside and forget about it a bit and then read it from beginning to end. While I was writing the story there was a lot of stuff I wasn't too crazy about. Plus the story was never supposed to be longer than 100 or so pages.

I also discovered a great way to overcome my writing weakness. My weakness is procrastination and I can spend ages, I mean ages finishing a story but during NaNoWriMo it only took me 30 days to get 100 pages. Now I'm trying this technique with another story. So far it's working really well but I just need to schedule in some breaks between writing or else I'll get pretty bored/give up :D
So that's what's up with my life right now, anything exciting happening with you?
Xoxo

Wait for it...

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had no time to do anything...so she couldn't do anything. The End.


I happen to be feeling very much like that same little girl. I have time to do things but not the things I want to do. This post is catching me smack dab in the middle of finals week and I have so much homework to do I was unable to write a post of this week.


But never fear after finals are over we'll be back on track. I'll tell you all about my little NaNo Adventure, school and yet more writing tips and my latest writing projects.

Hopefully your week has been more peaceful than mine
Xoxo

Black Friday

Twas the day after Thanksgiving and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. For they had all stuffed their faces so much with home cooked turkey and mashed potatoes that none could wake from their food coma.

In a room to the left (or right depending on which why you were walking down the hall) was a young girls room. Normally around this time you'd hear about the failed adventure of that imaginative young soul but seeing as she is in a food coma and cannot come to the computer they're be none of that.

Instead in light of the holidays this post will be about something else. Glancing at the title (which is dead giveaway) one might guess we're going to talk about Black Friday. And yes we are. The little girl for one does not understand the concept of Black Friday. Do people intentionally go to a store to fight and be fought over electronics? she wonders, then remembering Confessions of a Shopaholic she decides there must be some rush involved with ripping a Barbie doll out of a bewildered mom's hands.


But whatever the reason, whatever the rush, this little girl does not plan on joining in the fray anytime soon. In fact she doesn't plan on doing anything this Friday. She plans on doing a whole lot of nothing on this glorious day! No Homework. No worries...wait there is that NaNo thing she's working on and has to write!

*Face palm*
She wonders why it is that she does this to her self.

So I guess this is what I'll be doing this weekend. What do you plan on doing this holiday weekend? How was your holiday? What is your take on Black Friday? Have you ever gone to Black Friday? Is it one of those you have to be there to understand type things, like Disco?

Xoxo

Setting up my Setting

Intro to a world that is just like your own--the only exception being, this extremely attractive and skinny young lady-spy can defy the laws of physics and beat up men ten times her size and she feels no emotions. No day she gets shot threw the heart and dies, her boyfriend is very sad and has this monologue about how wonderful she is.

'I know I said this world was just like ours with only one exception but I kind of feel bad for killing of this lovely lady and making her soul mate sad, so this spy can also come back to life at will'. The lady-spy comes back to life. With the bad guys all permanently dead she and her soul mate hope off to a happy ending.

Sound familiar? It should, this concept that only the good guys can regenerate has plague Hollywood for quite sometime now. This notion totally cheapens death and self sacrifice. What is so heroic about giving up yourself to save another when a couple of tears bring you back to life? In itself the concept is annoying but if worked properly it can be surprisingly plausible.

Not that I plan on bringing anyone back from the dead...oh wait that's how the story starts off ^_^
But you know what I mean.

When you're writing a story you see a wonderful world, the world you've created full of infinite possibilities. However, when you're reading a story you're hearing about a world that can only do what the author says it can do. If I tell a story, without mentioning a pink toothbrush then no one will ever know the lady-spy owns a pink toothbrush. It's not part of the setting and also not that important...unless it was the continued use of that pink toothbrush which saved her life.

When you're writing you find yourself very often putting yourself in the spot of the reader. Trying to see it from their eyes. If you're engaging the reader in your story and they are bound by the rules of your world it is only fair that you're bound by the rules too. They are your rules after all, if you don't like them change them but for goodness sakes follow the ones you keep.

This often leads to the trouble of being too blunt about the fact that she can come back to life. 'I don't want the audience to think about that fact until it happens.' It is often the case that if you mention the fact before it is needed people tend to guess the twist or it becomes irrelevant and boring. To solve this, it is best to write down a list of things that, for the readers sanity, must be included. Then the task is to subtly, slip them in at similar or scenes or in a casual conversion. Like so:


Lazy worker: "Hey, Newbie look busy."
Sheepish Intern: "why? whats happening?"
Lazy worker: "Kristen Paulson, that's what! That girl is mean, has a heart of steel. I heard she got shot straight through the heart and stood right up afterwards and walked away."
Sheepish Intern: "No way! your joking!"
Lazy worker: "I wouldn't put it passed her."

So you get the gist. The setting is the most important part of your story so plan and describe it wisely because once you set the rules you too must live by them and you can't break them or else you'll end up with the ending to The Sorcerers Apprentice.
Not attractive.

Xoxo

Muse-ic

You know that saying by Toni Morrison,"If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." Well that has been the case with me. I've gotten these idea's like 'oh that's interesting,' 'that can't end well,' 'I like that!' or 'I wish I could do that'/'that's messed up.' However recently two of my story have been inspired by songs.


I know people who'll tell me that a certain song inspires their life and I'd be like 'okay' but I never really understood what they'd meant until it happened to me. I started a Lily Allen Pandora station which quickly turned into Regina Spektor station, I think I Favorited her too much or something.



Last year is when I got the idea to write a vampire romance, I've never written one before and thought it would be great. I was going to do an adaption of Dracula and it was then I realized how little I actually liked the story of Dracula. So I was going to have to write a story I didn't like, this sounded suspiciously like homework. But after hearing Regina's song 'On the Radio' I was re-inspired to write the vampire story; hence, the sudden return to blogging.

The first few lines to her song are,
"This is how it works It feels a little worse
Than when we drove our hearse
Right through that screaming crowd
While laughing up a storm
Until we were just bone"



Those of you who have read the Plot already are probably understanding why Darius drives a hearse. However, the reason he drives his hearse through a tomb in a dystopian Scotland is explained in these lines:

"We tried to find some worms
To aid in the decay
But none of them were home
Inside their catacomb A million ancient bees
Began to sting our knees
While we were on our knees
Praying that disease
Would leave the ones we love
And never come again"

Before I end up posting her entire song you should check her out on YouTube she is a wonderful singer with a beautiful voice and creative/quirky lyrics.

Xoxo