Rosewater and Wine, a novel spawned from a... certain tv show recommendation.... Urban fantasy isn't something that I ever really thought I'd be writing, let alone a boarding school novel about a black mage and a demon. I actually have a whole lot of mixes for this novel, but this is the first time i've actually made one that had purpose. So, enjoy :)

music: Seth Lakeman - Blood Red Sky | Powered by Last.fm tags: indie, mix, novelling, rosewater and wine

This has been sitting on my computer for a while, so I decided to polish it up and send it out. I collect a lot of steampunk/swing/cabaret/darkwave music and this is what I feel is the best of the lot. With some of the bands, the music itself isn't Steampunk, but their aesthetic is, so I feel like they deserved to be included. (That mostly goes for the darkwave/cabaret artists). 

mood: accomplished music: Emilie Autumn - 4 o'Clock | Powered by Last.fm tags: cabaret, dark cabaret, darkwave, electroswing, mix, steampunk, swing, tribal

 LJ, I have abandoned you again. I feel truly terrible, why would I do that? Well, i suppose it is because you are not bookmarked. Silly me, i can be so mindless at times. I shall fix that right this moment.
Basically I am all AWASH WITH FEELINGS right now. You all know that to keep up on my book reading adventures you can follow my blog: http://aworldofmakebelieve.blogspot.com 
Only moments ago I finished Sarah Rees Brennan's FANTASTIC Demon's Lexicon trilogy. If you have never read them then I don't know what you are doing with your life but it is not what you should be doing. In short, read them. You will not regret it. Unless you don't like demons... But how anyone could NOT like demons is frankly quite beyond me. Ok, I take that back, I know a lot of people that don't understand my love for demons... if you go to a small private christian university like i do you would also know these kinds of people. I love these people but they can be such a drag. 
I digress, this update will be to update you on the never ending circus that this summer has become. Were you aware that a summer spent mostly at home on the internet could become a circus? Because it definitely can. I think I am quite proof of that. 
This past week, starting on Saturday, my parents and my younger brother went on vacation in the mountains. Yes, I know what you're thinking, 'wait. you DIDN'T go?' well, no I didn't. But, it was by my own choice and for my own very good reasons. Because I'm not going to look at this week with regret that I did not go, because already in this week I've rewritten a chapter that I have been having difficulty with for weeks, I've read an entire book and have nearly completed a second. I've had ridiculous twitter conversations with friends i haven't spoken to in some time. I've realised more and more that all I want to do in life is write books and i just really want to get this rewrite finished. I've watched Monty Python's The Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the former for the first time and the latter for the thousandth.) I realised that sleeping in a house by yourself is one of the creepiest things you could ever do. That i can, in fact, cook if i really put my mind into it. That i could live by myself but i would rather not because i spend the night hallucinating that an axe murderer is at the foot of my bed. That i am totally happy single and that i feel silly for that realisation to take so long. I also, in this week that is only half over, realised that books are my life and if i let myself stop reading during school like i did last year, i might actually die. 

mood: ecstatic music: The Romanovs - Fever Pitch | Powered by Last.fm tags: beyond all redemption, the demon's covenant, the demon's lexicon, the demon's surrender, the girl, the girl's book, the many writerly adventures, the things i realised in the middle of t

 oh, guess who has forsaken basically every website except for facebook, tumblr, and occasionally last.fm due to the unneeded stress that is piled upon a college student? Oh, yeah... that would be me.
Really, the stress is phenomenal... especially in these last few weeks of my freshman year. I have a paper due in philosophy and sociology next week. More papers due in philosophy next week as well as a paper in World History... 
I may just curl up in a ball and cry for the next three weeks... i think that that would be a more appropriate reaction, personally. 
Unfortunately, the stress has meant that I really have not posted on here, and i am so dreadfully behind on reviews for my blog. 
On the bright side, the life aspect of my life has been beautiful lately, with many late night trips to coffee shops, spending hours playing WoW while both yelling at my screen and singing Kamelot in the company of friends. (Ah, true friends will just laugh at you when you begin yelling at your computer screen...), entire chapters of my book written in the beautiful atmosphere of the local coffee shop (which i desperately need to return to, i think i'm addicted. It's like some sort of drug.) and of course... lots of school work.
Which I don't really mind, i actually really enjoy school. I'm one of those types that would go to grad school, not because it would help my career in any way, but just because i enjoy school a great deal. 
Of course... three of us realised yesterday that out of our chosen fields (Youth pastor, pastor, and fantasy writer) none of them required a college degree.
...
Oh well...
It's good for me... or something... 
And you did read correctly, i did get an entire chapter finished lately. Which is beautiful as I have such a difficult time writing here at school. Too many distractions, none of the write atmosphere anywhere I go, it's just not conducive. The amount of writing I'll get done this summer will definitely be ridiculous. 
Anyway, as i ramble here, i have a test on friday to study for and a quiz tomorrow to study for and all those many papers to write...

location: United States, Ohio, Canton mood: energetic music: Amaranthe - Amaranthine | Powered by Last.fm tags: life, the girl, the life of a college kid

An unusual sentiment, granted, but I have to admit that it's true. Some people get their best ideas when they're in the shower, I tend to get miraculous epiphanies during swim practice.
These epiphanies usually are, in reality, dreadful plot points that usually require killing characters that I know people love... but today's epiphany was definitely a solution to the ever troubling conundrum that I had found myself with a certain shadowcaster...
If you ever read The Demon's Lexicon or The Demon's Covenant (of which i have recently been a bit obsessed with. No big deal.) you'll encounter Nick. Nick is rather emotionless and sarcastic and just not very nice, but he's one of the main characters and i guarantee that by the second book you will love him.
Now, where I'm going with this... I've never (before Nick) encountered a character that reminded me so much of my character Torin. Like, it was rather eerie... And I don't mind that much, I'm resigned to the fact that there's no such thing as an original plot anymore.
But really, it made me happy to know that people can connect with a character like this.... because in all honesty i wasn't sure. I knew that I loved using that type of character, but because I had never seen it done before, I wasn't sure if it was something that will really work. Apparently, though, it does. In all honesty, to describe Torin using other characters I would say he's like a mixture of Nick, Jace from The Mortal Instruments trilogy, and Valek from the Study trilogy..... Only evil.... to an extent...
Anyway, to explain the solution to my conundrum or to leave you hanging... this is the question...
Only a handful of people have read my book in its entirety. No one has read the second one, the one I'm working on now. Which is bizarre because I'm used to having people giving me at least a little feedback while i'm writing. I used to put each chapter online as i wrote them, until i became more and more uncomfortable with the idea of having my work online. It was one thing when i was just writing it for fun. It's become another thing entirely when i realised that this book is actually potentially going to get published one day. I pulled it offline last year soon after i finished writing Beyond All Redemption. A Place for Shadows has never been online... Which is probably best because already i've noticed that APfS is better than BAR....
Anyway, I think i did a good job of dancing around the original intent for posting. I honestly can ramble about my writing for a long time. I think i need to, simply because it gets me through blocks.
And because this is how my brain works, i just jump about from one topic to another as i think of it. I really need someone to go through BAR and pick out all the stupid little grammar errors that I indefinitely made... I was talking to my friend Josh about the fact that the second half of the book is a grammatical mess but he assured me that it worked. I dunno, I was aware of the mess i was making as i was writing it, but it just couldn't have been written in a way that was 'correct.' It had to be choppy, i had to have sentence long paragraphs, i had to start sentences with 'and' and 'but...' there were a lot of things that are technically incorrect that i had to do to get my point across. Anyway though, i need someone that i know to go through and read it over with a more discerning eye than someone i know who reads it just to read it.
I may or may not have been looking up agents for the past few months. Even though i technically would rather get the second book farther along, i still think that maybe it's a good time to start poking around.
All right, I'm off to write, or attempt to. I'm a dry part in the plot so it'll take me a bit to feel like i'm not pulling out my hair...

mood: cheerful music: Panic! At the Disco - The Ballad of Mona Lisa | Powered by Last.fm tags: a place for shadows, beyond all redemption, in which i fangirl a bit, me, my book, my life, plot troubles, publishing process, the demon's covenant, the demon's lexicon, the girl, the girl's book, the many writerly adventures

So, I have a tumblr, I have a book review blog, and I have any other kind of social networking site available to mankind. However I have absolutely nowhere to talk about my own life as well as the process of writing these darned books I'm working on.
And thus! I turn to livejournal.
I suppose this is where, in due turn, I would properly introduce myself so that readers of any kind know what on earth they are getting into, and as much as i would enjoy doing so... actually that's a lie. I quite dislike having to sum myself up in a few choice words. I find it to be an incredibly difficult task that amounts to absolutely nothing. Because it's not like anyone ever remembers what it is I've said about myself in this one lonely post... as well as because this is the first post on this blog, it will soon by forever lost and archived and gone for good to a place where few will ever reach it.
So, maybe about my book instead? For I would much rather ramble on about something I've devoted a vast amount of time and effort into, than ramble on about myself. Because one would be far more interested to read about an epic fantasy, than read about a freshman English major. (Though, I don't know, perhaps some would rather have the English major story. Though I have to warn you, it really isn't that exciting)
Though as I come to think about it, I'm rather rubbish at describing my book in a few short sentences. That's probably why i wrote it in the first place...
So, I'll cut you a deal. You'll find out, through process of my ranting, raving, excitement, and fangirling what happens in my books.
I can give you some hints though:
The main character is a nineteen year old wizard named Artanna. She's a bit melodramatic, a little emotional, rather bitter, and has what we all like to refer to as a very dark past.
There's magic, betrayal, shadowmages, Night elves, vampires, a rather attractive villain, and the occasional demon possession. 
I hope that makes it sound interesting... and not (God forbid) cliche.
I'm only a poor freshman English major. A wee college student with just one finished book and another that is driving her crazy. Someday soon though I'm going to make that drastic attempt to get the first book in what I think will be a quartet published. Then the fun begins.
Maybe one day you can find Artanna's sorry tale at your bookstore. Until then the majority of it resides in my head and is slowly driving me mad. The faster i get it onto paper, the more of my sanity I retain.
I won't only talk about my book, though. You'll be hearing a great deal about my very bizarre life as it happens through.
Until next time I suppose.

location: The Lang & Lit Department mood: satisfied music: Thistles and Weeds by Mumford & Sons tags: my book, my life, my writing, myself, oh dear, the girl