[Friday Writing] The Knock

[Every Friday, I'll be finding a writing prompt and writing whatever comes to mind.  It won't always be a gem of a story or it might be a poem, but this is to get my writing juices going.  This week's prompt comes from 105 Author Blog Prompts.  Today's writing comes from #2 under the Creative Writing Prompts.  Please enjoy.]

"A knock on the door in the middle of the night is never a good sign" is something that her mother said.  That was never more true than when Rebecca woke up to a loud knocking on her door.  No, not a knocking, a pounding.  She threw on a robe and slipped her feet into slippers before going to see what the hell was happening.  She turned on a few lights along the way, grabbing one of her house phones as she did so.  Looking through the peephole, she saw that it was her brother Michael.  With a sigh, she opened the door and let him in.  "What the hell are you doing?  Are you drunk again?  Do you know it's three in the bloody morning?!"

"Yeah, I just, I had no place to go," he said.  His hands were shaking and she could see that his shirt was covered in blood.  His face took a few hits as well, with one of his eyes swelling shut and bruising.

"Is that your blood?" she asked, in a low and shocked voice.

"Yes.  No.  I don't know!"  He tore off the shirt and threw it on the floor.  "Look, I went to the bar with Matt, kay?  We had a few, he went off with a girl, and next thing I know, I'm awake in a back alley with blood down my shirt!  And it was only me in the alley!"

She bit her lower lip and thought.  Matt was a childhood friend of theirs and it was a weekly tradition to get drunk together.  She never thought that they drank into blacking out, but ignorance is bliss sometimes.  "Then we need to call Matt."  She started to dial his cell phone number, hoping he hadn't changed it in the last few years.

"He wasn't there!"

"This is the only thing I know to try," she said.  "Go put ice on your eye."

He sighed and marched off to the kitchen, opening and closing her cabinets and fridge like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

"Oh please pick up," she quietly prayed in the phone and smiled as it picked up.  "Matt?"

"Actually, ma'am, I'm Officer Donovan of the Chicago Police.  The owner of this phone is in surgery at the moment."

She blinked.  "What?"

"From what we've been able to figure out, he was in a bar fight with someone.  That someone beat him up like he was going to kill him."

She froze, not even breathing, as she looked to where her brother was in the kitchen.  Her eyes moved to the torn shirt, stained with blood, and she heard the officer trying to get her attention.  "Could you send someone over to my apartment?" she asked and gave her address.  "My brother showed up all bloody and I know he was drinking tonight with Matthew Clarke.  That's the name of who owns the cell phone."

"Ma'am, we'll send someone right over.  I want you to stay on the phone with me, if you can," he said.

"Yeah," she said and looked over at her brother coming back into the room.  "Find the ice okay?"

"Despite your organizational skills?  Yeah," he said before flopping down on the couch.  "Did you get a hold of Matt?"

She nodded.  "He's just taking his sweet time getting back on the phone since he's got manners about not taking a piss with me listening in."

"That was one time and you keep on bringing it up."

She was about to say something when there was a sharp rap at the door.  "Ma'am, that's going to be my partner and another two with him in case.  It's okay to answer the door."

"What the hell?" her brother asked.

"Probably Sarah.  She's nearly overdue and would have come knocking for me to stay with her kid until her mom got here."  She went over and opened the door, standing back as the three policeman rushed in and quickly cuffed her brother.  She moved away as her brother started to swear and try to get to her, calling her a bitch for calling the cops and how mom would never forgive her.  She was shaking at the end and was grateful when one of the officers led her over to a table to sit.  "There's a blood stained shirt," she said quietly.  "He didn't have any memory of what he did, but, he could have - I just - "

"You did the right thing," the officer said soothingly.  "We're going to take the shirt as evidence, as well as the bag he used.  Do you have someplace to stay for a bit?"

She nodded before breaking down into tears.  She moved back into her mother's house for a bit, where there were arguments about how it was handled as mom took her brother's side, and she refused to go to the trial.  The last she heard, her brother was looking at anywhere from nearly life in prison to just a few years.  It didn't matter; she was moving to a new city where nobody but very close friends had the address.  She didn't need another night wondering if her brother nearly killed a friend.  All she needed was a life away from her crazy family.

Wednesday Post: Where Liz Expands on Her Video Blog Entry

Every Wednesday, I take over the One a Day WriYe video channel on Youtube with the Wednesdays with Liz video blog or vlog for short.  Considering this week's subject on advice for writers, I thought I'd expand a bit with a few more questions here.  My vlog can be found here and you can go further into the channel to see some videos from other WriYers.  The following questions are taken from Pub Hub: Words with Writers.  The questions were randomly chosen by the power of the roll of a d20 (a die with 20 sides) with three taken from the great interview questions and three taken from the crazy ones that nobody ever asks.  They are not in order by number but how the die rolled.  So, let's get started.

17. Do you have a favorite conference to attend?  What is it?
The easiest and best question for me to answer.  Then again, I've only ever really attended one conference but I love it.  That conference is the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.  I've gone for the past three years, two week long sessions and one weekend, but I've always come away like I've learned something new.  I've had wonderful teachers who have encouraged me and I do feel it's one of the reasons why I've really been continuing writing on Mystery of the Dark for as long as I have.  I highly recommend it, even if you go for a weekend, because you will come away feeling like a writer.  I think that's the best thing about a conference, even though I've only been to the one.

12. Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Both.  See, I have these nice multi-page outlines that give me the sense of where I'm going.  It's like a map so I know how to get from point A to point B and so on.  It's nice and gives me a sense of direction so I can keep an eye on the plot.  However, that doesn't mean that I stay on that path.  There are side trips, depending on what I write in any given chapter.  Taking Mystery of the Dark for an example, I've redone the outline for the third draft... five, six times now?  Sometimes a chapter doesn't take the shape of what I have in the outline, so it gets shaken up.  In getting shaken up, plot sometimes changes, even if it's just in a little way, so I have to go back and make sure that I resolve whatever happened.  So, plotter in having a plan, pantser in sometimes not sticking to it.  I believe rolling with the plot punches is what makes a good writer.  Being inflexible is not going to make a novel.

20. What are you working on now?  What's your next project?
Right now, of course, I'm working on book one of Mystery of the Dark.  I feel I will be working on this project forever and ever but that's how it is at the moment.  My next project, which starts on Sunday, is a romance / chick lit story called Desiring an Umbrella.  It follows Amelia through her journey in London as a personal assistant to the public face of a posh company who also happens to be blind.  There's romance and plot twists and all that good stuff thrown in.  I really can't wait to start it because I really love the characters.

Alright, silly questions start now.

13. What secret talents do you have?
Despite being blind, I can drive and park perfectly within the lines on the first try.  I can type without looking down at the keyboard (well, it's out of my field of vision while looking at the screen).  I can remember book plots up to five books, although I want to try with six, and I can leave a book alone for years and remember what was happening when I pick it up to read it.  I also have a nice singing voice.

18. Do you have any scars?  What are they from?
I have a scar on my nose from when I was five and had chicken pox.  This is why they tell you not to scratch when you have it.  Other than that, I don't really have any scars?  Kind of nice that way.

1. Do you write naked?
Nope.  We're just going to leave it at that.

Random Progress Post: Writing Outside of Your Genre

Subtitle: Where Liz rants about writing detective fiction and how she's worried she's doing it wrong.  Well there's more than one subtitle to this but that's what I'm going with for the moment.  On the WriYe website, there's a challenge called genre stretch.  It's very much like what you're thinking, where you get a genre that is possibly outside of your comfort zone and you write in it.  It's related to breaking out of your box, but it's more of a month to month challenge vs a yearly challenge.  It can be anywhere from a short story to novel length.  I'm working on making mine into just being a short story, even though it's being slow going.

This month's genre stretch is crime fiction.  Crime fiction can be anything from a detective story to legal drama.  Some authors of crime fiction are James Patterson, John Grisham, Mo Hayder, and Agatha Christie to name a few.  If you've ever watched an episode of Law and Order, that's straight up and down crime fiction with the police and lawyers working together.  Another aspect of crime fiction is the movie Usual Suspects where the point of view comes from the criminal who was at the scene of a crime / worked with the suspects of the crime.  I won't say more, other than you should go watch it and bow down to Kevin Spacey's performance.  For older crime fiction movies, Alfred Hitchcock did a lot such as Vertigo, Rear Window, and Dial M for Murder to name some.  He's got a lot.  For myself, I love crime thriller, considering I've devoured three of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club this month (that post is coming this week around Thursday/Friday), and that I will watch Law and Order repeats (has to have Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston in it).

So that's the background of crime fiction.  You cannot throw a stone in our society and not find some type of crime fiction.  Now, you'd think that with all of this in society and how much I love crime fiction, that it would be ever so easy to write it.  Haha, no.  I'm learning that quickly that there is no short cut to writing crime fiction.  Also, no matter how much I've watched, I'm second guessing myself on what I'm writing.  Well, the words itself.  The plot overall is wonderful, if reminding me of L&O, but I'll take what I can get.  Basically, a veterinarian was killed in her clinic and they have to figure out who did the murder.  And, of course, there's the red herring suspects and then the real murderer.  See?  Feels L&O-ery but I'll take what I can get.  I do plan to have it done by the end of the month - four days, four sections, ta-da - and have it up sometime mid-February or start of March so people can read it.

Review: Neither Here or There

Title: Neither Here or There: Travels in Europe

Author: Bill Bryson
Genre(s): Travel
Image from: Goodreads

Rating: 2.5 / 5






When I found this book on my shelves, I was excited.  For one, I do love Bryson's writing as I'm currently reading At Home which is something else I'll review if I ever finish it.  I seem to be slow reading when it comes to non-fiction these days but, like the title says, that's neither here or there (groan here).  This is his fourth published book, third in travel, and I was keen to read it.  For one, I love the idea of Europe and really want to go back there one day.  I've only been to Paris, which is lovely, but there is so much more to Europe than France and Paris.  I've heard Germany is lovely, as is Rome, so I was really liking the idea of reading about places that I really dreamed about going to.

On principle, this is a lovely book about Mr Bryson's travels through the place.  If you know where he is, then you can see them in your mind.  If not, then you're a bit a fish out of water.  However, there were a lot of points where I felt like I was in the bar with him and drinking with him.  That was nice and cozy.  I liked that a lot and felt his pain when he was in Yugoslavia when he was spending so little to have so much.  The social interactions were what made the book sing and I just wished that there had been more of them.  I felt myself cheering at the end when he's at the edge of Europe and decides to go home instead of going onto Asia.

Why I cheered is a bit twofold.  While this book did help with the want to go to see more of Europe, it is also fell down in the same manner.  There were a lot of stereotypes throughout the book, which Mr Bryson relied on heavily throughout the entire book, and made reading less enjoyable.  I was done with the stereotypes by the time he got to Denmark and found myself wishing to be done wanting to speed read the rest by Austria.  Another part where Mr Bryson fell down was actually describing the places.  Sure, we could look them up via Google to see where he went, I didn't want to do that.  I wanted the places he visited to be shown instead of told.  The way that he writes is explaining where he goes but, save for when he visited the Vatican in Rome, I had no sense of space on where he was.  Yes, he talked about all these walks and what were on the walks, but there was nothing to bring me to where he had been.  There was nothing to draw me into the place where he was walking and that annoyed me more than anything.  It's the reason that I was very happy when the book came to a close.

In ending, the premise of the book is wonderful.  If you've been to the places where he has, then you'll probably enjoy the book more than I did.  That is not to say to not read it, but more of a reason why I will probably not be giving this book a re-read next year.  However, as in all interesting experiences and books in life, you should try it at least once.

Review: Never Let Me Go

Picture this.  You're at the library and you're thinking "man, I want a book".  However, you don't know what kind of book you want.  You're not sure if you're into a book that is in your wheel house, like fantasy or sci-fi, or if you want something like a chick lit or romance.  Then you find this book that seems so strange.  There's a picture of people running on a deck and, on the back, just reviews about how good the book is.  How it's his best since Remains of the Day and you have this hazy memory about how it's a movie about something historical and bits of romance.  So you're all "oh, okay, I'll try it.'

And then you get home and you're 50 pages into it when someone asks "so, what's it about?" and you realize you have no idea.  There's a mystery about this book with no summary on the back or inside the first few pages.  All you know is that you have to figure out what Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are learning.  How they're all connected.  What donors, carers, and this school is all about.  You think it might be about cancer patients and how it's about working through cancer.  However, you're proven wrong when you go to wikipedia and it says it's a dystopian science fiction story.  The appeal of the mystery is so strong that you don't want to read more of the article or the mystery will be broken.  So you just go back to the book to try to figure out what the hell is happening.

Here's a picture of the book so you know I'm not putting you on.  Also, after this, I get into spoilers for the book.  So, if you don't want to know any more until after you've read it (or seen the movie), I'd stop reading after you see the pictures.

Alright, everyone got that?  Starting the spoilers in 3...

2...

1...

Okay, spoilers.  The book is divided into three acts that go childhood, teenager/transition into adulthood, and adulthood.  It follows, for the most part, three characters: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy.  They all go a school called Hailsham and the story is told from the memories of Kathy.  She's the main character in the end and the story is told in first person from her.  So we're getting her memories and, for the most part, she seems like a reliable narrator.  She's a carer, which does sound exactly like the title, and she's looking after donors.  Until you get more into the book, it seems like it's about people doing something nice for others which is what we think about when we see the name donor.  Or at least I do because you usually donate a kidney to someone who needs it.  Or you donate blood.  However, this seems to be a lot worse since people donate for what seems like a max of four times before they "complete".

We'll get to what complete means in a moment as I want to go back to the characters.  So, we start out seeing them as children in a school.  The teachers, for the most part, drop hints about what the characters are going to become.  I was kind of dense, as I didn't fully understand what they were really talking about until much later in the book.  There is one teacher, called Miss Lucy, who does try to spell it out for the kids.  However, due to this being child memory from Kathy (and Ruth a bit), it's not a good explanation.  So they have this nice quiet school life where they learn and do art where it gets taken away by Madame for her collection (again, explained later).  Tommy comes in as a child who doesn't / can't hold onto his temper.  Kathy, when she comes Tommy's carer, believes it's because of the fact that, on some level, he knew about what was coming.  So, there's kid problems and things with teachers, and you get the connection for the book title from a cassette tape called Songs After Dark by Judy Bridgewater (fictional artist).  We also have a scene where Kathy is dancing to the song while holding a pillow and Madame, the one in charge of Hailsham, watching her and crying.  When Kathy (along with Tommy) find Madame after Kathy becomes a carer, they have two different views of the scene.  Kathy thought Madame was crying because Madame couldn't have children.  Madame was really crying because she saw it as a young girl trying to hold onto an innocent world where there was little to no innocence in the world (paraphrasing here).  Now, before the end of the first part, Kathy does lose the tape and there's no finding it.  It's important for the next part, I swear.  So, that's childhood, from the memories of Kathy, Ruth, and a bit of Tommy.

The book goes into part two, where the characters (along with others), go to what is called the Cottages.  They meet two major characters there called Chrissy and Rodney, who are a tight knit couple.  The three mains - Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy - are together but also growing apart.  Tommy and Ruth became a couple in the last bit of being at Hailsham and it carried over to the Cottages.  Kathy, on the other hand, has a lot of one night stands and it was refreshing to see a female character do so without any sort of stigma attached.  Well, aside from Ruth, who was only doing it because she broke up with Tommy during that time and didn't want Kathy taking Tommy away.  During this time, the idea of "possibles" come to mind.  The "possibles" are the original version of the characters as you start to understand that they are actually clones.  It was probably given away before this time, but this is when I got hit over the head with it.  Chrissy and Rodney tell Ruth that they've found her "possible" working in a nice office building.  Funny thing is that Ruth had gone on and on about wanting to work in an office building.  So they go to Norfolk and search out the possible, and it seems likely, until Ruth goes off on a tantrum (seriously, that's the way it read / felt) about how they're not from those kind of people.  That they're from the trash of society and it just turns the entire visit sour.  So, while Chrissy, Rodney, and Ruth go off to meet a carer friend of the first two, Kathy and Tommy go off to find Kathy's tape.  They do find it, even thought Tommy wishes he could have found it first, and you get the first instance where Tommy has more feelings for Kathy than Ruth.  Which leads back to the idea of Ruth talking about Kathy's one night stands and her urges for sex being horrible because.. well, Ruth doesn't want to give up Tommy.  It's after the trip to Norfolk that Kathy decides to start her career as a carer.

Which leads into the third part of the book where we're a bit out of memories and more into what's happening in the present.  Ruth has done two donations and it seems to really take a toll on her but it seems normal to Kathy and Tommy.  Since it's never really said what the donations really are, it's kind of strange to think of someone dying from them.  I could see that if it was organs but, until that point, I really thought it was blood or marrow or something on a smaller scale.  However, it seems more like organ donation because of the toll shown on Ruth.  This is shown the best when they go out to see a boat that someone got caught in a marsh.  Nobody knows how, but it's the great attraction for miles around (don't ask, I don't get it either).  So you see Ruth having problems with breathing and Kathy being worried.  Ruth, at the end of the visit to the boat, tells Kathy she's sorry for keeping Tommy and Kathy apart.  Shortly after that, Ruth "completes".  

Quick note, because I said I'd get into this, but I'm not sure I like the word of "complete" being used for death.  For one, it doesn't make sense to me to talk about it this way unless you're making it nice.  For two... well, I just don't like it.  It feels uncomfortable and like you're skirting around the real issue.  That folds into the first issue I have with the word but I'm not the author and he went with it.  It's pretty good, unless you have issues, which I seem to.  Okay, tangent over.

So, after Ruth completes, Kathy goes to be Tommy's carer.  She's more than a carer, which makes me happy because it's a great "finally!" when it happens, but it comes with a price, of course.  That price goes into the last plot point of the novel, where they go to find Madame to try to get a pass for Tommy for his fourth donation.  See, the fourth donation usually meets he'll "complete", and, in a way, neither of them want to let go of what they have (woo, tying back into the title).  They go to meet Madame, thinking that she has this magical way of looking at the art from when they were children to show their souls are comparable to show they're really in love, which is the only way to get around the next donation.  Yeah, it would be a nice and magical ending, but this is dystopian so it won't go that way.  It turns out that the gallery was to show others that the clones have a soul and that they shouldn't just be used for spare parts.  After World War II, they found out how to clone and it turned into a way to cure cancer and other horrible diseases.  Who would really want to give that up, but Madame and the other teachers at the school were trying to show that it should be different.  It didn't go that way and, in the end, the school got shut down due to a scientist trying to make the clones into children that were better than the originals / possibles.  That was so not kosher and, due to this one scientist, the movement to show clones = humans too was shut down.  After that, everything does downhill with Tommy pushing Kathy away and Tommy having his fourth donation and then completing.  The novel ends with Kathy just wondering about what happens next and what will happen to her after she's done with being a carer in 8 months.

Now, this is a well written book.  If you don't look for certain clues, then you really don't know what's going to happen in the end.  Even after the ending, you don't know what's going to happen but you can guess.  I usually hate books like this (see the This is Where I Leave You review from November 2014) because I want definite endings.  However, I did like the fact that you didn't know what truly happened in the end.  I think the most common guess is that Kathy, like the others, turns from carer into donor.  I have a different guess.  I'm thinking that her possible doesn't get sick and she just spends out the rest of her days as at a center.  Or perhaps she does small donations but nothing that makes her complete so early.  I like the idea of a long life for her.  The movie, from what I'm reading on the Wikipedia page, goes in a different direction.  I doubt I'll see the movie, unless I happen to come across it somehow on cable, but I might go looking for it.

So, that's the book based on the cover.  Who knew that thinking that it was going to be this romance book turn into something completely different?  I think it might be something about like calling to like, due to the fact that one of my genres is sci-fi/fantasy and dystopian isn't all that bad either.  I might try this picking only on the cover thing again sometime and see if the same thing happens.  If I do, don't worry, I'll report back.  

The 2015 Reading Challenge: The List (aka the Master Post)

So, along with the rest of the WriYers Read Too community, we're doing a challenge to read books that fit a category on a list.  Here is the list from PopSugar but I remember first finding it on Facebook and I started sharing it with others.  Or Tatra/Ana found it first and she started sharing it and then I shared it to others.  Either way, we found it on Facebook and decided to take the challenge and bring anybody else who wanted to read it along with us.  Feel free to join in, readers, and send me the link to your list in the comment section.  I'm going to share mine - it's not complete, so feel free to recommend books too - and you might see books that I've mentioned before.  Or, if you follow me on Goodreads, you'll see I've read them before.  I don't mind re-reads and there's nothing in the challenge against them, so I put them in.

The re-reads that are on here - Prayer for Owen Meany, the Elfquest books, Dragonsinger - are there because there's a comfort to reading them.  It's like speaking to an old friend after not speaking to them in a long time.  Or a nice cup of hot tea on the darkest day of winter or ice tea on the hottest day of summer.  I like comfort and going back to things I've done before.  I think we all do on some level, but I'm getting off track.

Below is the list of my books that I'm reading.  I'll link to the reviews as I do them / do them later in the month if I happen to read a bunch of them, as in the case of the ones with numbers in the title, but that'll be on the rare side.  Bold means that the category is done.  Books that are striked out are ones that could not be finished for some reason or another.  They'll still get reviews and, who knows, I might finish them, but for the most part, they're DNF (Did Not Finish).

So, the list.

2015 Reading Challenge

• A book with more than 500 pages: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; The Stand by Stephen King
• A classic romance: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen; Little Women by Louise May Alcott
• A book that became a movie: If I Stay by Gayle Forman; The Maze Runner by James Dashner; Paper Towns by John Green;
• A book published this year: I Was Here by Gayle Forman; Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins;
• A book with a number in the title: 1st to Die by James Patterson; 2nd Chance by James Patterson and Andrew Gross; 3rd Degree by James Patterson and Andrew Gross; 4th of July by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
• A book written by someone under 30: Looking for Alaska by John Green
• A book with nonhuman characters: The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien; The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
• A funny book: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett
• A book by a female author: A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott;
• A mystery or thriller: Birdman by Mo Hayder
• A book with a one word title: Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
• A book of short stories: Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
• A book set in a different country: Neither Here or There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson;
• A nonfiction book: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
• A popular author’s first book: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice; Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts; The Thomas Berryman Number by James Patterson; Odds On by MIchael Crichton as John Lange;
• A book by an author you love that you haven’t read yet: Cider House Rules by John Irving; The Shinning by Stephen King; Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman;
• A book a friend recommended:
• A Pulitzer Prize-winning book: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• A book based on a true story: Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill;
• A book at the bottom of your to-read list: The Stand by Stephen King
• A book your mom loves:
• A book that scares you:
• A book more than 100 years old: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
• A book based entirely on its cover: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy;
• A memoir: Wild by Cheryl Strayed; Blind Courage by Bill Irwin;
• A book you can finish in a day: Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
• A book with antonyms in the title: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
• A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit: In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
• A book that came out the year you were born: Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
• A book with bad reviews:
• A trilogy: Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• A book from your childhood: Fire and Flight by Wendi and Richard Pini
• A book with a love triangle:
• A book set in the future:
• A book set in high school:
• A book with a color in the title: The Green Mile by Stephen King; The Thin Red Line by James Joyce;
• A book that made you cry: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving;
• A book with magic
• A graphic novel: Kings of the Broken Wheel by Wendi and Richard Pini
• A book by an author you’ve never read before:
• A book you own but have never read:
• A book that takes place in your hometown: Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
• A book that was originally written in another language: Beowulf by Seamus Heaney
• A book set during Christmas: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie
• A book written by an author with your same initials: Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth Samet
• A play: Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• A banned book: Looking for Alaska by John Green
• A book based on or turned into a tv show: The Black Echo by Michael Connelly (Bosch - Amazon Prime); A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin (Game of Thrones - HBO)
• A book you started but never finished: Magic’s Price by Mercedes Lackey

Poetry

I'm going to try something out, don't know how long it'll continue, but I'll try to keep it up.  Some background first.

Around 2005/2006, I took some creative writing classes and found that I really liked poetry.  I like poetry enough to consider becoming a full time poet instead of writing novels.  However, novels won out but I love the way that poetry makes us feel.  There's music in the words of poetry, considering that is our music in the end, and I like writing it.  With that short background, every Tuesday (until I forget) is going to be Poetry Corner or Poet Tuesday or something catchy.  I'll come up with an official title later.  For now, have some poetry.


Winter
At the start, it is just
A whisper against bare trees
Their skeleton arms reaching up
To skies of purple light.
It is easy to sleep then
With the whisper lulling again
Windows, kissing them softly.
As it passes, the light dies until
A long night with a long vigil
The fires burning bright while
The faithful dance in celebration.
It is harder to sleep then
Whispers turning into screaming rattles
Where every small bump turns into nightmares.
And it passes with
A new day, each colder than the one before.
The cold breaks
The south wind blows
It is easier to sleep again
With new buds popping out of snow
With the promise of rebirth
At the start, it is just.

[WriYe Blogging Circle] Hello 2015: There Can Be Only One

Hello everyone!  I'm back, after a few days of getting into the feel of 2015, and decided to kick off with doing the WriYe Blogging Circle.  It will become known as the WBC when I'm feeling too lazy to type that all out.  For those who are new, this is a once a month blogging prompt about a certain topic.  For example, this month is about the one goal for the year and then asking a few questions about it.  What I do is usually list the questions and then have my answers follow them.  It's a simple format and I might change it up or I might not.  Either way, it's a fun once a month prompt that I like to answer.

Goals: What is your one main goal for this year?  Call it your writing resolution - not two, not five - your main and only one.  Why is it your only goal?

Well, I do have a lot, but the one big main goal is to publish this year.  I've got a novel on it's third draft, called Mystery of the Dark, about dhampirs and vampires and all those good supernatural stuffs.  I'm hoping to find a small press instead of a big one, mostly because I feel that a smaller press would be better for me, but we'll see where the chips fall.  Either way, I've got to get 3.0 done to get to 3.5 to get to 4.0.  Draft four goes out to the readers to see if people like it enough and to make sure that I'm hit all the narrative points.  Don't have plot holes and the like.  It's going to be fun in the end.

Bonus: Make a mantra to tell yourself all year when you feel as if you can't reach this goal.  Share it with us!

You mean aside from "Let It Go"?  I think the mantra is more "Yes We Can" or "I Can Do It".  The "Yes We Can" coming from the year that I started winning NaNoWriMo (2008) along with all the other craziness going on.  The craziness being working as a volunteer in the field on a Presidential campaign, getting sick right after, but being able to write 50,000 words in such a short time after.  That was the year that I truly, in my mind, became a writer.  Therefore, "Yes We Can" doesn't sound half bad.


That's it for now.  There might be something coming up this week but we'll see.  It's still early in the year, so I'm going to try to keep on blogging as much as I can, so watch this space.