Never bring three men to a Michael’s craft store if they’re
ANYTHING like my friends! They were like kids the whole time. :D
Thursday was spent working on the rest of the Christmas
gifts since Hubby was home the whole time. Friday was a long work day for both
of us, and then there was more Christmas gift making. Saturday was the same as
Friday. This evening I forewent sleeping while Hubby was at work so I could
FINALLY get back to his gift. I honestly don’t know if it will be done in time.
Then, when I wasn’t crocheting I was looking up crochet
patterns…. I have about 70 queued up for me to do!
However, poor Omnibladestrike has been so patient with me that I made
sure to read his story while I was at work. I finally finished and sent him my
edits this week – roughly a month after he posted the chapter on DeviantArt.
You guys should check it out. Yes, there are some rough patches that I pointed
out to him, but his revision is so much better than his past attempts. I think
he’s finally finding his voice and rhythm with his writing. The biggest issue I
still have is that the main character Mekonraiba doesn’t seem to have a consistent
voice. I don’t know if he has Mekon’s voice in his head. It takes some time to
build that though. That is, unless you’re Delaroux or DarkAngel1326, and then you have the characters
yelling in your head.
Speaking of which, I wonder how her story is coming along…
now that she’s going to have a bit more free time I wonder if she’ll start backup on Of Blood and Honor…
Anyway, back to me.
Yes, I didn’t continue with my story. I didn’t even continue
with the music video I’m working on with ChibiSunnie. At this point I think I won’t
be getting anywhere near either of those projects until next month or even
February; depending on how a major issue in my life pans out.
However, I did get a lovely letter from my uncle the other
day.
When Hubby and I went to the extended family Thanksgiving
gathering last month my uncle came up to me to ask about my writing progress.
He had been following my NaNo-themed Facebook status updates and was genuinely
curious on both my story and my writing in general. We talked about both my
NaNo story and my Hey Arnold fanfictions. He seemed greatly excited for me and
expressed interest in reading my works.
He then proudly proclaimed that he was a published author. A
running LinkedIn group he is a member of wanted to write a collaborative book
about the hobby. Since my uncle had already written some articles for
Helium.com, he rewrote the articles as a coherent chapter about motivation and
submitted it to the group. They loved his work and included the chapter in the
completed book. You can purchase the book as both a paperback and an ebook viaAmazon.com.
How does this all relate to that letter I received this
week? Well, when I got home from the Thanksgiving vacation I made sure to send
him an email that had links to my Fanfiction profile and my NaNo story
specifically. I then told him that I’d love to read his chapter as well. It’s
quite exciting to have a published author in the family.
My uncle did one better. He sent me a copy of the book along
with the aforementioned letter. He hadn’t read my Hey Arnold stories, but he
did read my NaNo story and had the following to say about it:
UNCLE: “Well, I finally got to read your story and it is
good – very good! I hope you get a chance to finish it sometime soon. I’m
looking forward to the completed story….The writing is very fluid, detailed,
and kept my interest. And I don’t consider myself a fantasy, sci-fi, or comic
book guy. I really see very few flaws in this ‘rough draft,’ so I would say you
have a very promising future in writing. Good luck with this story and the
other projects you were working on.”
Thank you so much for the encouragement, Uncle! It may be a
while before I get back to Connor and Natalie, but I will continue their story.
Actually, I was thinking of putting “The Race For Destiny” on hold until I finish fully
realizing Amara’s world and then place Connor and Natalie there. It will make
the story a little less “Fable” and a little more “D&D” which is sort of a neutral
zone when it comes to “fanfic” versus “original fantasy”. We’ll see how the
story develops over the years.
Chibi also sent me a review/beta-edit of my story thus far.
Unfortunately, I took NaNo’s “Don’t edit, just write” a little too much to
heart. Apparently there was a huge block of text that I completely duplicated
in one of the later chapters and I didn’t even notice. I don’t even know how I
managed to do that! So I actually wrote 300 words less than I thought I did!
Dang it!
She also pointed out a few other things that I’ll have to go
back and tweak once I actually have the time to go back and edit. I do want to
comment on a re-occurring statement that Chibi made. Paraphrasing it was “I had
to chuckle at the cheesiness of…” I know! I know! There are some super cheesy
moments in this story, but most of those cheesy names/moments are actually the
scenes/names I completely swiped from the game Fable. “Chamber of Fate” is the
actual name of the room where the hero graduates from the Heroes Guild as well
as the room where the final boss battle takes place. Some of the cheesiness of
Connor’s reaction to the Chamber of Fate relates heavily on the fact that it’s
supposed to be a central location of major events in his life. Further in to
the story that would be better explained, but if the reader is chuckling prior to
these reveals perhaps I need to re-work how Connor acts… :P
Well, unless that Mayan Apocalypse turns out to be true, I’ll
catch everyone next week! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment