I’m Back! ~A Report~

Hello everyone! Remember how I said I was going to write up posts for last week and have them set to post while I was on vacation? Ha. That didn’t happen, obviously…but I’m here now and ready to give you an update on how things have been going for me, writing-wise.

So last week I went on a cruise through the Caribbean which was amazing! The ocean was so beautiful–look how pretty the water is:

While on said cruise, I didn’t exactly do much writing. Did I finish my weekly writing goal? Ha again. Nope. But I did have a whole lot of new ideas for both my writing and for my blog while I was gone.

Firstly, a long time ago I told you about some plot bunnies I had, and one of them was a Little Mermaid fracture where she traded in her beauty instead of her voice to become human and walk on land? Well, that plot bunny came back with a vengeance. And so…what else could I do, especially since I was next to the ocean? I did a little bit of work on the plot bunny, including some character sketches of my MC (who still doesn’t have a name).

Isn’t she just so beautiful?

Here’s another quick sketch of her looking off towards land:

Her tail looks really weird in that one…I wasn’t sure how to draw it, but hey, it looks better than my first attempt at drawing a mermaid (which I will not be showing you).

And then I did a little bit of worldbuilding because that’s my favorite, and I decided that the race of mermen were not peaceful, and actually warred against themselves a lot. The greatest of warriors are raised up higher than all the others, and the MC is pretty darn good at fighting. So there’s this picture too:

I’ll admit I didn’t exactly convey the seriousness and gravity of that merman dying in the corner…because really I just wanted an excuse to use pretty colors and draw the ocean. So it’s a happy picture of the MC killing someone. Yay.

Anyhow, that’s mainly the extent of my work on that plot bunny. Aside from that, some other things I thought about while on vacation:

For one thing, blindness. One of my uncles (who I’d never really met before) on the cruise was blind, and it really got me thinking about the little things that a blind person would have to think about. (It was especially interesting since in my first draft of Enhanced, Meryn was blind, and though she’s not now, she might become blind sometime in the series.)

My uncle sat next to my family at dinner, and one of the first interesting things that I noticed was that my aunt told him what each person had ordered for dinner. As I thought more about it I realized how frustrating it would be not to see something as simple as that. Having sight I never really took note of that, but it helped me realize how much I love to see details and little things like that. So it gave me a bit of a greater perspective on that, though I still can’t comprehend how hard it would be.

This also spurred on the idea of doing another “In My Characters’ Shoes” thingy (I did one a little while ago on Leaving Home), but this time on blindness. I’d wear a blindfold for one day or something…the one thing is I’m not sure how my family would react to that. I think they might laugh at me…but the insight is worth it, right?

I also want to do a Characters’ Shoes thingy on princess-y things or something, like embroidery, since you always hear in books about how hard it is to embroider/how much they don’t like it. (Actually, I have embroidered before, but it’s been a really long time and I’d like to try again.) I’m not sure what other princess-y things that I should do for it though…if you have any suggestions please tell me so I can do lots of fun princess stuff.

Oh, and I want one about swordfighting and other medieval stuff. (I thought it might be fun to try to clean something with whatever kind of soap they used in medieval times and see how hard it was.)

As far as other insights, spending time in the ocean was cool. I got to go swimming snorkeling and pet stingrays and go parasailing, all of which were awesome. The water is so pretty and so blue. In the shallower parts it’s aqua and turquoise and semi-green, and when you get farther out it’s this deep, rich blue. It’s just beautiful.

And under the water is even more beautiful. There’s all these fish, and this pretty green grass growing from the ocean floor, and by the coral reefs there are gorgeous plants and tons of fish in different sizes and colors. It really is a whole new world down there.

I don’t know if there’s anything else other than that that I wanted to talk about… Basically I didn’t do a whole lot on the writing I was supposed to be doing, but I did get a lot of inspiration and ideas and it was just awesome.

Hopefully next post I’ll actually have something other than random updates for you (as fun as these are). And maybe I’ll actually do some of those blog tags I need to finish…*nervous laughter*

---

How was your week? Have you ever been to the ocean? I thought it was amazing and I definitely recommend it (although saltwater in your eyes is not a fun experience, so don’t do that). Did you find any of my insights insightful to you? Ooh, do you have any ideas for what I should do for an “In My Characters’ Shoes” post (be it ideas for the princess one or a totally different one)? How is your writing going? Do you have any new ideas? Tell me all about it!

Science Fiction vs. Fantasy

A year or two (or three) ago, my dad gave me a book called How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card. I didn’t exactly read it, but I did start it, and the entire first chapter was about how a writer needed to choose whether they wanted to write sci-fi or fantasy and then stick with that because publishers weren’t going to let you do both. (At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s about. My memory is a little fuzzy.)

I didn’t really think much about that, because I already knew–I was a fantasy writer. I grew up reading–no, devouring–fantasy books by the hundreds, and my foundation was fully built on them. My reading of fantasy books vs. sci-fi books was at least 100 to 1. So it was fairly obvious that that would be what I would write.

The only thing is, recently all of my ideas have started to lean toward the science fiction side of things. There’s the epic sci-fi, which is several books of sci-fi, first of all, and the last few short stories I’ve written are also sci-fi. Then I keep having novel ideas that are sci-fi, like Alpha Star, which is a sci-fi with intergalactic space travel, where a mother has to save her son who was taken from her.

Pretty much, all of my ideas that used to be fantasy related are now all slowly turning to be science fiction related.

I’m kind of thinking the only reason I want to write sci-fi is because it’s another “fantasy” to me, another place where I can create different worlds (discovered by space travel), different creatures (aliens), and a different “magic system” (technology). It’s certainly not because I know about science and have read hundreds of sci-fi books.

However, I don’t just want to give up fantasy and move to a new genre. I do still have ideas for fantasy novels, and I do still want to be a fantasy writer…partly.

So what do you think? Should I just write in one genre? Do I need to have read as many sci-fi books as I have fantasy to write it successfully? And is it possible for a writer to successful publish in multiple genres, or should they just stick to one?

I think I’m going to keep my options open for now, but I’d love to hear your opinions on the subject.

Reformatting and the Epic Sci-Fi

As you can see (or maybe you can’t, if you’re on the Reader or your email), The Music of Words has undergone a marvelous transformation. Okay, it’s not really that amazing, but I think this design has a more professional and clean-cut feel to it than my previous one.

So, there’s that. And I’m also finally going to tell you about the Epic Sci-Fi! I’ve had this idea for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t gotten around to telling you about it until now. Here’s the story.

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Lana had an idea for a story. (Well, it may have slightly been stolen from some sort of adopt-a-prompt thing where someone actually took it before she could, but she altered it anyway, so that was okay.) And the idea for the story fascinated her so much that she wrote the first scene during her choir class, which was rather difficult, since in choir, one is supposed to be singing, not writing.

She wrote anyway.

It was about a guy named Kai (the name suggested by one of Lana’s friends) and how he had to go through something painful without showing any pain, or else he would die. And yes, there may have been a girl watching him.

When Lana came home from school, she typed up what she’d written, adding in a dying mother, and continued to write. The girl became Taira. Kai stayed Kai, because Lana didn’t have any ideas for a better name.

And, slowly, the story evolved. She wrote in it between NaNoWriMos, scenes here and there, and in just shy of a year, she’d finally finished the 98,000 word draft. Lana loved that story so much that she decided she would come back to revise it.

Throughout the next months, it stayed on her mind. Ideas for its revision started to pop up, as well as ideas for a second book. Though she wrote other things, it was the thing she kept having new ideas for.

And then the idea hit her, just a few weeks before Camp NaNoWriMo was supposed to start and she was supposed to write the second book: this could be an epic sci-fi. (Which was like an epic fantasy, only in a sci-fi setting.)

This idea intrigued Lana, so she started to work on it. More POV characters than just Kai and Taira rose to the surface (there became six total), and new plots were added in. The setting became slightly more developed, and she just ended up loving the idea even more.

Lana never expected to be a sci-fi writer. She always thought that she’d be a writer of fantasy, since that’s what she loved to read, but these books became the ones that she’d always wanted to write. They were awesome, with a plot and characters and a villain and battles and run on sentences (the grammar could be fixed later).

The novel that was once called KT (based off the names Kai and Taira) became Enhanced, and its sequel, Cryonic. (Remember that post where I told you what I was doing for Camp NaNo? Yeah, that’s the same Cryonic as here.) Lana was totally ready for Camp (note the sarcasm) and she was ready to take on any challenges that her new series, her Epic Sci-Fi, would give her.

-TO BE CONTINUED-

I know, that was a cliffhanger. You can hang on to your cliffs for a little while longer, though, because we don’t know how this story will end yet. We have come to that blank page that is called “the present”.

Camp NaNoWriMo starts in two days. (Or maybe three, I never know how to count these things.) And while I certainly don’t feel ready for it, I am excited for the story to continue and to work on Cryonic. It’s going to be so much fun, and I am definitely going to enjoy myself.

---

You can find summaries of the first two books with the “Epic Sci-Fi” link-y thing at the menu bar at the very top of the page. Enjoy!

Camp NaNoWriMo: Cryonic

Well, guess what email I received in my inbox on Tuesday?

Yep, Camp NaNo is in a month.

I haven’t even been thinking about it recently, let alone started planning for it. I knew that I’m writing the sequel to KT, a novel I finished last October, I just had no idea what the plot should be about. Plus, I wanted to finish the first draft of my Zel novel before April. Yeahhh…I don’t think that’s going to happen. But I’m still going to try, because apparently I like to put myself through lots of stress by pushing necessary goals and deadlines on myself.

Like Camp NaNaNoWriMo.

For those of you who don’t know, Camp NaNoWriMo is like the normal National Novel Writing Month, only it’s not in November, you can choose your word count goal, and you don’t have to write a novel. (I’m thinking of maybe writing a screenplay this July…)

April Camp NaNo was actually where I finished my very first novel, so it has a little bit of a special place in my heart. It also means that this is my anniversary of doing NaNoWriMos for 3 years. This is also going to be my 10th NaNoWriMo experience. So…it’ll be fun.

What’s even more fun, though, is that I had an idea for the actual plot of my novel the day after I got this email. I was researching stuff for history class, and I somehow ended up reading articles on cryonically freezing people.

Here’s the little google search definition for you. I’m wondering if there’s bodies inside those tanks in the picture…

I’d never heard of it before, and it was really fascinating to read about. (If you haven’t heard of it either, the link to the Wikipedia page is here.) And just by reading about it, I decided that I really wanted to write a book with it. The plot bunny specifically that came to me was that the villian-ish person of the novel had been cryonically frozen about a hundred years ago, and science had finally gotten good enough to revive him and bring him back to life.

KT and its sequel are set in a sci-fi setting, and thinking about it, I realized I could use this plot bunny for the sequel I’ll be writing this April. There were actually a lot of ways it could relate to the first book, and I already have a reason for why he would be revived.

Now, his name, personality, and why exactly he’s “evil” are yet to be discovered, but I’m really excited about writing this. I think it’ll be especially interesting to explore how someone would react to waking up a hundred years later (or maybe even more, depending on how long I decide he’s been frozen for), and seeing how the world has changed. And what about the people he knew? They’d all be dead. It would be like falling asleep and waking up to find yourself in a completely alien world.

I’m also excited to explore a lot of the side characters in this second book, because I introduced some interesting ones at the end of the first book, and I really want to see their personalities and how they interact and stuff like that. I think it’ll be lots of fun.

And since I decided I needed a title for the novel while I was creating it on the Camp NaNoWriMo website, I have given it the working title of Cryonic. It’s fairly simple, but I think I like it, at least right now. Maybe I’ll come up with something later, but I like the symbolism this one could reflect. In the story, people’s hearts could be “frozen” and things like that.

So I’m finding myself very excited for this April, and I can’t wait to get back to Kai and Taira and all of my other characters from the first book. It’s going to be lots of fun!

Chasing Plot Bunnies

I think the story gods are out to stop me from writing Zel or something, because they’ve been sending way too many plot bunnies my way this past week. And strangely, half of them are about fractured fairy tales. So. I need to work on my Zel novel, so I figured I’d throw the essence of each plot bunny down here so that I can have it later. And so I can, you know, let the bunnies go. For now.

Plot Bunny #1: I’m still not sure what the definition of “suspension” means in Chemistry, but the word, along with a cool picture of a helicopter blowing dust into the air, gave me an idea. It’s a sci-fi screenplay called Suspension, even though I’ve never written a screenplay before, and my sci-fi isn’t very scientific. Pretty much, it’s about this people who have figured out how to suspend time in a certain area. And…that’s about all I know. I tried writing the first scene, and heh. I’m really bad at screenwriting. But it was fun anyway.

Plot Bunny #2: I was thinking about coming up with an RP (roleplay) for the YWP NaNoWriMo site, because…it sounds fun. Anyhow, a plot bunny came to me and named it Bloodstone, and it’s a semi-typical fantasy thing with a party of adventurers and such. After all, it is a roleplay.

Anyway, the premise of the story is that there was once this legendary tale of demon made of fire with soulless black eyes who terrorized the land of Eriilaen, and the best warriors of the time fought it and, along with some magic, managed to trap the demon inside a crimson stone–the bloodstone. Since the demon was still able to speak to people through the stone, it was given to the elves for safekeeping, as they were less likely to become corrupted through it.

But then the bloodstone disappears from the elves’ safekeeping, and the characters are called to go find it. (There’s other stuff too that I won’t put here–I’ve been spending way too much time on this plot bunny, but that might be okay if I actually decide to do the roleplay.)

Plot Bunny #3: I actually had this idea a while ago, but the plot bunny came back to me with a vengeance, and told me to write the story of The Little Mermaid. Only, in this version, the mermaid is given a choice to either keep her voice, or her beauty, and she chooses to keep her voice and give her beauty to the sea witch. I also want to follow the original fairy tale in that she has to marry the guy instead of just kissing him. (However, it will probably still have a happy ending, because I like happy endings.)

I haven’t decided yet, but I’ve been thinking that the mermaid might not really want to fall in love/have already fallen in love, she might just want to explore the human world and see what it’s like. She didn’t want to have to do the whole love thing, but since love is one of the strongest magics in the world, that was the only way she was going to stay human. I don’t know about that though.

This idea interests me a lot, because I want her to fall in love, and someone to fall in love with her, without her having to be pretty. I understand that looks are important sometimes, but when people say things like you have to be attracted physically to one another to fall in love, it kind of bothers me. What happened to stories like Beauty and the Beast? And what is that sort of statement telling to girls nowadays who think they aren’t beautiful (though they likely are)? So, I do want to tell this story at some point. I don’t know when that will be, but sometime, hopefully.

Plot Bunny #4: This one actually came today, while I was doodling in the notebooks. It came originally from an idea I had for the world building of Zel–a rainbird. (Which is not the most creative name and I might come up with something later, but for now I’m just calling it that.) It’s this half bird, half fish/amphibian/something that lives in the water. I haven’t decided if they live underwater, or they just have the ability to go underwater.

Anyway, I’ve had a lot of ideas on the rainbird. It only flies in the rain. Why? I don’t know, but they’re called rainbirds for that reason. They have really long wing and tail feathers, and when they fly, they look like ribbons. And then something about the rain makes them colorful and rainbow-y, whether that’s just magic or something to do with water and rainbows and stuff like that.

I really liked the idea of the rainbirds, and since I haven’t actually included them in my Zel novel yet, and since I probably won’t because there’s a slight drought going on at the moment, I thought I could create another fractured fairy tale with them. Maybe The Swan Princess, or the one where the girl’s seven brothers get turned into birds. Or some other fairy tale that involves the rainbirds much more than my Zel novel would’ve.

Plot Bunny #5: Lastly, one day I just thought of some random words and wrote them down. I don’t really know if that counts as a full plot bunny because the idea is so random that it has nothing to do with plot, so maybe it’s like…a lucky plot bunny rabbit foot? Actually, that sounds weird. Never mind. Here’s the words:

You must complete the circles…eternity spinning together….everything and nothingness all at once.

---

 

Have the plot bunnies been trying to infest any of your lives as well? I’m telling you, they can get to be a real problem…