Queen Mindi's Castle

Just hit 15,000 words, which is my estimated halfway point. Prince Martin has just been kidnapped, and Leo is about to find out the truth about Saray's family.

Wordcount wise, this NaNo is failtacular. But in quality, I think it's turning out less horrific than my last attempt, simply because I'm not throwing in random pointless scenes to add words. It may possibly be something I can salvage at the end of the month!

Now back to work. I'm going to try to get another 1000 words in before I go to bed... may or may not happen, we'll see.

Since this is a super boring post, here's a teaser to make it less boring. (or more so, haha) Backstory: Leo's at a ball in the Syrenian court. Sir Alley Lake is Saray's father; Jared is her brother.

( Eavesdropping is bad, Leo. )

After a rather bad start involving multiple Halloween parties and Moby-Dick homework, I am NaNo-ing away, wearing a plastic purple bat ring that I got as a Halloween favor this weekend. As of now, it is my NaNo lucky charm.

Since procrastination is, of course, a time-honored NaNo tradition, I am taking precious writing time to tell  you all this, and also to post an excerpt of my first chapter. Warning: will probably not make a whole lot of sense unless you've read "The Queen's Knight," but feel free to read it anyway.

 

( first impressions (suck) )

I just finished The Queen's Knight!



*cheers* *dances*

Wordcount: 42,539. Page count: 112. Chapter count: 15. Final sanity percentage: 65% and decreasing.

On to NaNoWriMo! Ohhhh yes. I feel like I can finish anything right now. Even, possibly, my homework. (well, maybe not.)

True story.

Happened in 10 minutes. Wrote it down in half an hour. Warning: am still not quite sane.

(and still haven't done my Eng456 story or read White-Jacket. Yay for procrastination)

 

( surprise thunderstorm )

Under cut are reviews (and possible spoilers) for:

Silver Phoenix
The Fetch
Curse of the Pharaohs
Swoon


( reviews! )

Back at Western. Has been interesting so far... I keep finding new things to be sarcastic about, or to angst about, or just downright complain about. But I have already mentioned those elsewhere, and besides, they are probably not interesting unless you're as bored as me.

My classes are pretty decent. I'm taking Latin 101, Major Authors: Early Melville, and Special Topics in Fiction Writing: Story, Interrupted. Diagnosis: Latin is crazy but potentially fun, Melville is... eh, well, the teacher seems enthusiastic?, and Ficwriting will be scary.

I hate that all college fiction classes focus on being all literary. I am NOT a literary fiction writer. I just cannot. I write YA fantasy. I make people laugh with stupid fart jokes. Deep, Hidden Meanings are not my style; neither are Dark, Angsty Characters that show the Plight of the Human Race. In fact, it's hard enough for me to write about the real world at all...

But that is one of my angsting topics, and I said I wouldn't mention those.

In other news, this morning a scary-looking plot bunny ambushed me before class and forced me to scribble down some ideas. For some reason, 31,000 words into "The Queen's Knight," this plot bunny thinks I need to add a brand new character... who will change the outcome of the ending, add a bunch of new scenes, and basically screw everything up. Worst of all, it's actually kind of a good idea. But why NOW? Why not 8 chapters ago? Argh! Well, guess that'll be my project for this weekend... after I finish my homework. (Ew. Homework.)

If I can finish "Queen's Knight" in October--and I'm getting close, I think--I might try doing the sequel for NaNoWriMo. It'll be a cheat-tastic NaNo, since I don't have a word count I'm aiming for, I've written this book once before, AND I've already got the first thousand words written; but who cares. I'll just use it as an excuse to make myself write more (and to drink lots of mochas and mope around in the library with my computer when I'm supposed to be doing homework).

Mmkay, I'm going to dinner now, so time to stop rambling. TTFN!

♥ Mindi

While dorm-supplies shopping in Target this afternoon, guess what I found?

This:


 

Being an enormous fan of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I was like, "MUST BUY THIS NOW." So I did. I have yet to read it, but it looks ah-may-zing.

This is especially funny after Maggie Stiefvater's recent post about how Krakens are the new Vampires. It looks as if she may be right. o_O

And speaking of books and sea monsters and funny, last night I read "Sea Change" by Aimee Friedman. Guess what the names of the main character and her love interest are?

Miranda and Leo.

What are the odds?

Plus, there was a certain line that made me LOL, when Miranda's mother was telling her to go get tanned or something, and called her "Ms. Alabaster." HAHAHA.

(for those of you not in on the joke, my current story project "The Queen's Knight" is from the POV of a knight called Leo Galaway, who's in love with Queen Miranda Alabaster.)

Anyway, "Sea Change" was really good and the romance was yummy, but I spent most of my reading time having a laugh over the crazy coincidence of character names.

Okay, since all I've posted for the last several weeks is book reviews, how about some Real Life news?

I sent out some queries the other night, and... drumroll please...

I just received my VERY FIRST rejection letter!

Woohoo! I'm insanely proud of myself for getting this far. I finally feel like a real author. :D Now, you may ask, "Mindi, what is wrong with you? Why are you not disappointed?" Well, my friend, this is why: because I am keeping my expectations low. I never expected to get an agent to represent me on the very first try. That happens to, like, nobody. So I'm probably not going to get depressed about rejections until the tenth one or so. Bonus: if I get accepted before then, it'll be twenty times better because I won't be expecting it!

In the meantime, I'm totally swiping Shannon Hale's idea, and laminating all my rejection letters. (she brought out a whole roll of them at a booksigning I went to.) That way, I can have something to gloat about (and/or wallpaper my living room with) when I'm a published author. :D

And now for some storybabble, since that hasn't come up recently:

( warning: this may only make sense if you've read my stories and/or live inside my head. )

In non-writing news: I'm getting my braces off next Monday! FINALLY! I'm stoked. I can eat corn on the cob, Swedish fish, and apples like a normal person for the first time in four years!

Spoilers under cut for:

Vampirates: Black Heart
A Posse of Princesses

( pirates and princesses )

Possible spoilers for:

The Dark Griffin
A Kiss in Time
The Mislaid Magician


( reviews! )

EDIT: Meme! I'm blaming this one on m_stiefvater . Procrastination is contagious, it seems.

CREATE YOUR DEBUT YA COVER

1 – Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click

http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Random Word Generator” or click

http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml
The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” or click

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php
Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.

4 – Use Photoshop,

Picnik, or similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.
5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

My result:



Hmm, it actually looks kind of good. I'd read it.

m_stiefvater is doing another contest, which means... oh yes... I'm advertising her books again.

They're good, though. Really.

Anyway, here's the book trailer for her newest book, BALLAD. I have to say, it looks... rather delicious.

Book reviews!

I had this whole long entry written out that took me an hour to compose, with in-depth summaries and comments on these books. And then when I went to post, my Internet crapped out on me and deleted all of it except the first one.

Since I don't have the energy to rewrite my clever and witty summaries (ha) in addition to the comments, I'm just going to link you to the Amazon listing for them and save myself the summarizing.

Under cut are reviews (and possibly spoilers!) for:

Shadow Kiss
The Demon's Lexicon
Dust of 100 Dogs
Thirteenth Child
The Amaranth Enchantment
Warrior Princess
The Reluctant Heiress

( reviews )

Anyway, just got back from an awesome church convention. Loved it! Can't wait to go back later this week. The only thing that spoiled it for me was having to work. I may have to work during this week too, but I'm trying to get them to let me off. The novelty of having a job has worn off, and now I realize that it was a very, VERY bad idea for me to work at a brand-name clothing store that sells clothes I never even wear. Also, one of my managers kind of hates me and has been really sharp with me, even threatening to fire me on Friday. *sigh* I took it kind of badly, even though I tried to be polite and apologetic at the time.

Oh well. At least now I know that my calling is not working in retail and selling overpriced clothes. And now I have a reason to look forward to going back to university--because when I do, I have a good excuse to quit.

Coming soon... reviews for:
The Dark Griffin by kjtaylor  (who sent me a free copy--and signed, too! Thanks so much!)
Vampirates: Black Heart by *Justin Somper (oh yes, this is going to be epic. It might even get its own entry.)

I FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE ANTAGONIST LAST NIGHT.

WOOHOO!!

Now am getting to work on the whole publication thing. Just sent off my query to the Query Shark--am kind of scared of the Shark's teeth, but I need to know if my query is good or not before I start sending it to agents. Even if that means getting my ego, I mean query, torn to shreds.

And, no, I did not make my goal of querying before my birthday. But I might get some letters out before the end of the summer... which is close enough.

Do I dare to start working on The Love Interest now? :/

As I am now officially not-a-teenager, I feel the need to say something wise. So here it is:




...anyway, I managed to avoid having a party this year (which is a good thing--I'm not a party person) and instead went shopping with my mom and sisters. I did spend some of my birthday $$ on clothes, but most of it went to Half-Price Books. I just had to rearrange my bookshelf because it's overcrowded again.

True story: I picked up a hardback copy of Princess In Love by Meg Cabot, which is one of my favorite Princess Diaries books (it's the one where Mia and Michael get together), assumed it would be about seven bucks (which was half off the original price), and decided to buy it because I didn't have a copy of the book yet. But when I got to the register, the lady informed me that it was in fact $20--because it was SIGNED! I went ahead and bought it, even though it was way too expensive, because LIKE OMG A BOOK SIGNED BY MY FAVORITE AUTHOR.

And, okay, it's signed to someone named Kendyl, but I crossed out their name and wrote in mine, so it's almost the same. :)

Also, although I'm not finishing my JulNo novel, I might be finishing SOMETHING this month. I just wrote what I hope is the second-to-last chapter of The Antagonist. Now I just have to figure out how to end it. New goal: write some kind of ending before July 31.

Ugh, gotta go to work now. I have the suckiest hours EVER this weekend. 3-8 pm today and 5-10 pm on SATURDAY. Blahhh. Oh well, at least I'm getting paid!

After much deliberation, I have decided: I'm quitting on JulNoWriMo.

Reasons:
1. Writing so fast is making this story turn out bad. And I really, really don't want it to be bad. I think writing it slowly will be a much better option (as it is, I'm probably going to have to delete and replace the last 10,000 words because a lot of them are watery, uninteresting babble written for word count and not for plot).
2. It's taken my focus off of my goal (to start querying before my birthday) and now my birthday's in two days and "The 2008 Guide to Literary Agents" is gathering dust on my desk, unused.
3. I have writer's block so bad it's not even funny.

Final word count: 22,873. Not bad for the fifteen days in which I wrote it... but still a fail.


And speaking of fail, my Microsoft Word grammar check has stopped even pretending it works. I am now told that words like "you're" and "I'm" are incorrect, and instead I should put "you is" and "I is."

Proof (I submitted this to Failblog, haha):


moar funny pictures

Moral of the story? Don't trust Microsoft Word.

...and 4 other things I like.

1. The ABC Family series version of 10 Things I Hate About You (that awesome movie with Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles) is my new favorite thing. Kat is now my hero. (first two episodes available here)

2. Look at this! I thought Disney was too cool for princess movies now. Finally they realized that princesses are like 50 times better than those lame Disney Channel Original Movies.

3. Okay, this trailer is lame and shows nothing, but I'm still ridiculously excited about the movie. Percy Jackson for the win.

4. A friend lent me this book. I read the intro and first story and was like, "um, authors, can I marry you?" and just now I read the second story and realized I am going to have to marry every single author in the book. It's THAT AWESOME.

5. Saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday. I have to admit, I got a bit teary-eyed when Dumbledore died. But the rest of the movie was so funny, with its various romantic subplots and Harry and Ron being awkward teenage boys and Slughorn being himself. But I think the director has something against birds--there were THREE different scenes that I noticed where birds died/exploded/were incinerated, in different contexts. And remembering the bird-eating Whomping Willow from the third movie, I'm thinking this is not a new thing. (Just wait for the next movie, when Hedwig bites it...the director's gonna love that one.) Possible symbolic and/or thematic meanings of random bird deaths in Harry Potter? Discuss!

thing 1: woot! am caught up on JulNoWriMo. am starting to worry that it might be bad because am writing it so quickly... there are a lot of boring unnecessary conversations (one of them was about Twilight haha). oh well. i can edit them out later.

thing 2: harry potter tomorrow. it looks awesome and scary. i love how they started innocent and cute and suddenly get really dark. i get shivers just looking at the trailer. me and friend are going to go see it... can't wait!

thing 3: finished SHIVER. was really really really awesome and amazing. think i will buy a copy for myself when it comes out.

thing 4: first real day at work today. 5 hours on my feet. i am very brain-dead. thus the no caps. being a salesperson is not fun, but i'm getting paid, so it's worth all the pain of fake smiles and false cheeriness. (and at least i had at-work entertainment... my manager was hilariously gay and kept talking about getting burned while fake tanning earlier in the day. lulz. oh and the trash can outside randomly caught fire.)

answer: a package containing an ARC of this:

 

YAY.

Will be reading it tonight or tomorrow so I can send it on soon. Exciting! It looks awesome just from reading the back cover and flipping through the pages.

And as for the obligatory JulNoWriMo update: I am behind. Very behind. Not irredeemably so, but at least two days behind. The reason? I have writer's block. And also, it has been sunny, and I have been sitting outside to try to turn my ghostly pale skin a slightly less brilliant shade of white. I tried to convince Spark to come with, but Spark does not like the outdoors. Thus, no typing.

Then last night I got inspired on the wrong story... and finished a chapter of "The Queen's Knight," but wrote only 900ish words on "Hiding Places." (NEED. BETTER. TITLE.)

But on the bright side, it's turning out well so far. I'm surprised at how, well, cool Alex Jefferson is. I mean, considering he's partially based on my dad. (oooooh, burn.) But seriously, he's just as much a main character as Linzie, which is good because it's what I hoped would happen.

Aaand that is all for now. Off to attempt to write some more...

The Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson. Summary here because I'm too lazy to write one myself.
( mild spoilers and moderate flaming )

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
I haven't quite finished this, but I'm really enjoying it. It's an interesting, intelligent, and insightful twist on spirituality and the meaning of religion. For those of you who don't know, this book is composed of letters from a senior devil to his less experienced nephew, who is trying to ensnare a young Christian man (the "patient") in sin and damn him for eternity. Not exactly light reading, but worth it. I'd recommend this book if you're looking for a more serious read and have an understanding of the history of Christianity and teachings of the Bible. It's no Chronicles of Narnia (which is to say, kids would probably find it dead boring) but if read in the right frame of mind, it's very good.


9007 words of JulNoWriMo. Still behind. I WILL catch up! >:(

I have returned from the mosquito-ridden wilderness of Alaska. No, I was not eaten by a moose, though I did eat part of one. (No, really. I had moose hash and caribou spaghetti. Exotic.) Also, Alaskans make the best salmon dishes EVER.

I got to see two wolves pretty close up; a lot of faraway bears and two really close (but behind a fence in a wildlife preserve); a moose in someone's driveway and some baby moose in the wildlife preserve; three foxes; and I got very intimately acquainted with a lot of mosquitoes, though I will not be missing their company.

So, vacation was cool (Alaska in the summer is actually quite nice... the sun never goes down, it's awesome) but I'm glad to be home.

Also, I've been working on JulNoWriMo... I'm at 5,700 words, a couple days behind, but I wrote about 2000 words on the plane yesterday and plan to write more today. Thankfully, I'm not on the work schedule for this week (apparently the manager forgot I was coming back), so I have some time to recover from vacation.

I have a few other things to share... two of them are reviews, but I'll save those for the next post. The other one is an excerpt from my JulNo novel. My mom read part of this over my shoulder (it happened to be the part about the "surviving eye blinking") and was like, "What are you writing?" which of course made me extremely proud of it. ;)

 

( Nearly two hours after the accident, Aiden Sanders regains consciousness. )