I Need to Write More

I suck at consistently writing. I think through the whole summer that I mayhaps wrote half a chapter. That half a chapter felt really good once I had written it, but as a whole, I suck. I blame the summer. I used to love summer because no school, but now it sucks. I don't like warm weather.

Despite not writing, I have been thinking a lot, and thinking is an important part of the writing process (its just also important to go past that part.) I've created a new folder in my flash drive called Ideas because of all the thinking I've been doing. I have three files in it now. One is a sentence that would be fun to open on, one is an entire series that I wish to write someday, and the other is something that I thought up whilst reading the third Fablehaven book. The two story ideas both include dragons. Theres a shocker. One has a man who was a dragon, cursed to take human form (but that's a spoiler), and the other has an Ambassador to the Dragons who is some kid of a yet unknown age.

Hopefully, these ideas and all my thinking will lead to a huge writing burst when the weather stops trying to melt my brain at all times. I'm currently in my sister's house, which is very south, and I would be unable to write this if not for her glorious AC. I might maybe get some writing done whilst I am here. That would be fun times.

Edit: After I finished the above and hit submit I realized that I hadn't written an idea down yet. So there are now four files in my idea folder. Something about guilds and mages or something.

Books Read in 2010: Howl's Moving Castle (!!)

So I was at my friends house and I discovered that he just casually happened to have a copy of the book Howl's Moving Castle. WHAT!!!??? I was made to wonder if he had ever truly been my friend at all, having that book and never telling me about it, when he told me that his sister was borrowing it from one of her friends. He also said that her sister was soon going to give it back to her friend. I didn't have to say much, I just stared hungrily at the book, when he went to ask his sister if he could read it before she gave it back. She said yes and he handed me the book and I sped off on my bike cackling like a madman (that last part might have been all in my head).

Needless to say, I was on a deadline and couldn't read this book as well as the six other books I'm reading simultaneously, so I ate it all in a few days time and only just finished. So on with the show then.

Howl's Moving Castle

I was afraid that after reading this book I would no longer be able to watch the movie. This always happens after I read a book. The movies that are based off of them try their very best to get as much of the book in as accurately as possible and they always fail (in my opinion). Not so with Howl's Moving Castle.

The movie basically takes most of the characters, and a few of the plot points (Sophie becoming a hag for one) and creates an entirely new story. At first this wasn't very apparent, and so I kept expecting things to happen because I've watched that movie so many times. I soon realized my error and found that I was reading a very different story than the movie portrayed. At first this was somewhat annoying, but then I was excited, because I hate spoilers anyway and now I didn't really have any.

A bit more on the differences between the book and movie. In the movie, the setting is very Steam Punk, the book is more pure fantasy (but with a surprise in the middle that got me excited). In the movie, the Suliman is an old woman, but in the book, he's a dude. They have the same role though (Royal Magician). In the movie, Howl's Apprentice's name is Markl. In the book is Micheal. I found this interesting. I think it is because Micheal transliterated to Markl when the book was translated to Japanese. Perhaps.

Okay, enough of that, more on the book. The glorious, glorious book. In the land Ingary, being born the eldest of three is considered a great misfortune. It is said that the eldest of three will fail at finding their fortune. Sophie has taken this to be a fact of her life, and so she never even tries. She pretty much runs her Father's hat shop, and never tries to do anything for herself, while her two younger sisters sneakily chase their dreams. Sophie is compelled to seek her fortune when the Witch of the Waste shows up and curses her to become an old woman. Sophie doesn't wish for her family to see her as an old woman and so she leaves and ends up and the back door of the dreaded Wizard Howl who lives in an enchanted moving castle. Lots of magic and adventure and tantrums ensue.

This is one of those books where after I finished it, I had to run and tell (rant to) someone about it. The only problem was that it was midnight when I finished. So I came here to tell the internet. Oh my goodness I loved this book. You have to read it carefully, elsewise you might miss key details. It seemed to me as I read it that most little details are important, and they were. You may have to go back and find a certain paragraph or two and reread it to fully understand something that just happened. I was okay with this, and I found the book was worth it.

Guess what? There are two more! There are two more books about Howl and perhaps his castle. They are called Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways. I fully intend to seek them out and devour them. The fact that I don't just have them at the ready is making me furious! I shall have to visit the library tomorrow...er- today, since its past midnight now.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven
The Third Sign
Throne of Jade
The Lighting Thief
Howl's Moving Castle

If those next two books are at the library, you can expect them to be added the the list shortly.

Books Read in 2010: Dragon Thiefs

I was supposed to update this a long time ago, as I finished these books a long time ago. I am a champion procrastinator. Anyway!

Throne of Jade

This is a book about dragons! Automatic +1 awesome. Throne of Jade is the Sequel to His Majesty's Dragon and takes place during the Napoleon Wars. England and France are at war because Napoleon is being Napoleon, and instead of just fighting on land and sea, they also fight in the air with dragons! There's another +1 awesome.

The main dragon is called Temeraire and I'm sure that I've never pronounced that correctly. His captain is Laurence who was a ship captain before Temeraire hatched, and was then thrust into the air force. I think Laurence is a pretty cool guy, eh slays Frenchmen and doesn't afraid of anything. (Obscure Internet references FTW!)

The main conflict is that Temeraire is a super rare Chinese dragon and the Chinese want him back. Temeraire doesn't want to go back, and this causes problems.

This book was awesome and had tons of dragons (+1 awesome) and I was speaking in an English accent for weeks after reading it. If you like history and if you like dragons, you should totally read this. NEXT BOOK!

The Lightning Thief

While this doesn't have any dragons, it does have a lot of Greek Mythology. Like, if everything in Greek Mythology was true and what that would mean for today. Basically the main character is a demi-god and for a good part of the story he is trying to find out who is father is. He is eventually given a quest to stop a looming war by finding something that was stolen from Zeus. Hades is the primary suspect and so they head for the underworld and have lots of adventures on the way.

I'm a total nerd, and whilst reading this I had to look up Greek Mythology to better understand who the characters were and what their stories are. This made my inner nerd giddy. Yay for being a nerd!

If you find Greek Mythology interesting, you should totally read this series. Highly recommended.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven
The Third Sign
Throne of Jade
The Lighting Thief

I'll have more to add soon. I'm reading six books at once, so it takes some time to finish them. Hopefully I'll actually add them when I finish instead of waiting for weeks.

Midnight's Knife

So a friend just asked me for a name for a squad and after some non serious suggestions I said Midnight's Knife. She eventually chose something else, but I kind of like the name and now I'll write it down so that I won't forget it.

~.~

It was pitch black out, the moon and stars covered by clouds. The city usually had lamp lights for night's like this, but none were shining on this night. That was a warning, telling the inhabitants of the city not to leave their homes, because terrible things were going to happen. Someone had been marked by Midnight for death, and if someone went out on a night like this, Midnight might mark them as well.

Most people in the city didn't know who Midnight was, they just knew that on terribly dark nights that people who left their homes died. The deaths were always different. They seemed to be random. The people knew, however, that all of the deaths were connected to the nights were impossibly dark.

Roy Falcon, captain of the city guard, perhaps knew the most about what really happened. This was because he had been marked by Midnight, was fated to die by Midnight's Knife. He knew that a group called Midnight's Knife was behind the killings, but the group was notoriously hard to track down. He was one of the only people who knew about them, and it had to stay that way, because when you learn of their existence, you either become marked, or you become a Knife for Midnight.

Captain Falcon's mark was on his back. He had gotten it as a young boy. He had been lucky then, or the Knife pursuing him had just been terribly unskilled. He went out on every night like this, to try and stop Midnight's Knife from killing, hoping to draw them towards him and distracting them from their target, hoping to catch them or die trying. He had caught several of them, but they were always dead by morning, going from a Knife to a Mark.

Roy was patrolling the streets, the only who ever did on nights like this. Someone was going to be murdered this night, and he was going to make sure it wasn't whoever it was that just got marked.

"Roy, Roy, Roy, you are much to predictable," A voice said from above.

Roy recognized that voice. It was a Knife that he had encountered many times before. "If I wasn't, we would never meet up now would we?" Roy said.

"Were you hoping to save some poor innocent soul tonight? Were you hoping to save someone from being marked?" The Knife asked.

"Don't I always?" Roy said.

"You're out of luck Roy, because tonight, you're our target," the Knife said.

"Oh please, do you think that this is the first time I've been the target, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have son," Roy said.

The Knife screamed. "I told you! I'm no longer your son! Midnight is the only parent I have now!"

With that, the Knife, Roy's own son, jumped from his hidden perch toward Roy, knife in hand, with the intent to kill his father and sever the ties he had with him so that Midnight would more fully accept him. Roy had been expecting this of course, he had taught the boy how to fight in the first place after all. Roy sidestepped the boy's knife and punched him hard in the face.

~0~

Okay, I know, you don't have to point out the Captain Falcon thing. Lets just say its kind of late and I had the giggles. This is why I ended it with him punching something. It was hard not to write FALCON PAWNCH!

Well this was fun. I haven't written in far too long thanks to a horrible writer's block that had been chewing relentlessly on my nose, distracting me from writing. I think it finally gave up :D

Books Read in 2010: The Third Sign

So I was wrong, Lightning Thief had more chapters than I thought. I finished the book The Third Sign and will finish another before Lightning Thief. Also, I recently got the second and third Fablehaven books :D

The Third Sign

The author of this book said that he took his inspiration from The Lord of The Rings. This does not mean that he copied it, though, his book is very unique and tells its own story. The book takes place in Klune, a nation that in under constant attack by evil forces, but is protected by the race of Arlics. The Arlics aren't sure that they want to continue protecting Klune though and this causes a lot of tension as the people start to fear that their borders will be left unguarded. This seems to be the least of their problems as an ancient prophecy seems to be coming to pass that could spell the destruction of the world.

I really liked this book. There aren't enough epic fantasies anymore, and this helps fill the gap. I actually enjoyed this book more than LotR, and I can't wait for the next one to come out. I totally recommend this book to all.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven
The Third Sign

Books read in 2010: Demon's Lexicon and Fablehaven

I've decided to keep track of all the books I've read in 2010. Its already march and I've only read two -_- so I'm off to a slow start.

I got a bunch of books for Christmas and have been reading them all simultaneously. I would read one chapter, then switch to the next. This ensures that the books last longer and I don't swallow them whole in one day like I usually do. I like this.

Yesterday (or the day before) I finished The Demon's Lexicon, shortly followed by Fablehaven. I'll talk briefly about each.

The Demon's Lexicon:

Nick and his brother Alan live a life in hiding from evil magicians. Their mother stole a powerful amulet from the magician known as Black Arthur and now all the other magicians in London are after it. Everything is relatively fine until Alan gets a demon's mark that can only be removed by the blood of a magician. Now the hunted must become the hunters.

I think I just summarized the summary :P The story is told from the perspective of Nick, who is a very interesting character. Saying too much about him will give away the ending, but I'll just say that Nick learns a lot about his family as the story progresses. This is a great young adult book, and I recommend it highly.

Fablehaven:

I've made a few posts about this already, but now I can talk more about it since I've finished. :D As much as I don't like to admit it, this book is basically about fairies. Not completely about them, but they do play a big role throughout the book. Kendra and Seth are visiting their grandparents preserve and soon discover that it is a magical preserve that holds all the magical creatures of myth and lore. Like fairies. There are a lot more than fairies though. Many, if not all, of the creatures in the preserve are dangerous if you don't abide by the rules of the place. Since one of the characters is about 12 years old, a lot of rules get broken.

So yes, there are fairies, but there are also trolls and demons and imps and stuff. And the fairies aren't even that bad, especially near the end of the book. There are a few more books in the series and one of the covers has dragons. I wish to read them and get to the dragons and to enjoy all the other things that will happen in between, since the possibilities are limitless. You should totally read this if you already haven't.

I'm almost done with a few more books, so you can expect more posts soon. Next will likely be Lightning Thief.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven

Fantasy Mythology

One of the reasons I like writing fantasy is because I can create a completely new world, and then I can come up with how it was made, how the people in the world believe it was made, and how similar or different those two things are.

I like mythology in general. I mostly realized this because of The Lightning Thief which I am currently reading, which is all about Greek mythology. For Skies of Fire I knew what the people believed in, but I didn't really know what actually happened until recently in my writings when a plot twist surprised me and in order for that twist to make sense, I realized that I needed to know how this world was made, and by who, and a few minor events since then. This was fun. Even if most of it won't make it into the story, I still enjoyed thinking it up. It makes the world I made feel more real to me.

I'm also reading a book called "The Third Sign." In the first couple of chapters, a good deal of the worlds mythology is explained and revealed, and I loved it. It was interesting and unique and I liked learning about the world that I'm exploring through the pages.

Yes, I realize that I'm a nerd.

On a note about Fablehaven: I just read the chapter in it called "Inside the Barn." It was probably the weirdest chapter I've ever read in any book. I was like this while reading it O.o Not to say that its a bad book or that I'm giving up on it, its just weird is all. I'll talk more about it when I finish.