It draws ever nearer...

(I can never decide which words to capitalize in my blog titles. So I decided to only capitalize the first one.)

Anyway. As for what is drawing ever nearer...

That would be the publication of my short fiction collection, previously called Of Warriors and Werewolves.
I say previously, because it has had a title change! Thanks to my friend Ophelia (if you haven't followed her blogs yet, you should; I'll be waiting for you when you come back. Followed her? Okay, good), Of Warriors and Werewolves is now known as Of Whispers and Wanderings.

The new title seems to fit it better, so that will probably be the final title.

At the moment, Ophelia and another friend of mine, Jeremiah (I interrupt myself again to say: if you haven't followed his blog, get on over there and do that; seriously, you won't regret it) are test-reading the collection for me (and doing an amazing job, knowing them). While they do that, I'm making evil plans.

...evil plans being better described as trying to figure out formatting, planning how I'll promote it, and working on covers. I know, it's not evil, but hey, I enjoy pretending to be evil.

Formatting is still posing a problem, since I've zero skill in that. Fortunately, I know a lot of wonderful peoples who do have skill with interior formatting, so I'll probably be able to get that set up. Promotion ideas are remaining top-secret, just because I can keep them secret and no one can stop me. XD

As for covers... I had a ton of fun playing with Cover Creator on CreateSpace, and ended up making nine different covers. But I, being indecisive me, now has no idea which one to choose. I'll post them below and see if any of you have an opinion or suggestion. If you do, be sure to let me know in the comments.

(Oh, one more note, when I made these covers, my title was still Of Warriors and Werewolves. However, that has been changed now, so just disregard that when you look at the covers.)

So, without further ado (and because my frazzled brain can come up with nothing else to say), I shall post the covers below. Let me know what you think, my friends. Unless you already have, in which case you don't have to leave a comment if you don't want to. XD

Forget You Forever - A Spoken-Word Poem

This is a spoken-word poem I wrote, regarding a... friend I used to have. Used to, anyway. I rather like it, painful and sad as it is. I'm a rather pessimistic person when it comes to writing poetry, as some of you may know.


~~


You still haunt me, after all these months. Everything reminds me of you; sometimes the silliest things call up memories of a friendship--so amazing it seemed like a fairy tale--that started once upon a time and ended in heartbreak. Every day I see something that makes me think of you. When I see a meerkat on TV, I think of our stories of meerkats flying in airplanes, and I can't help but give a sad smile. When I hear anyone mention Russia, I remember how passionate you were about that country, and something inside me dies a little. Things like robots, or video games like Halo or Black Ops... all of this and more calls up memories of you. Memories of how you said I mattered a lot to you; memories of how you said you would always be there for me, no matter what happened.

I cry each night for you, talking to you even though I know you cannot hear me, for you live thousands of miles away. I stare at the velvet night sky through a haze of tears, and I ask, "Do you think of me? Did you ever care, or was it all a lie?" You cannot answer. Even if I voiced these thoughts to you, you would not answer. It seems to be impossible for you to speak the truth about your feelings. You never trusted me. I don't blame you.

Why can I not forget you? You left me, without an explanation or even a farewell. You left me, but you still live on in my heart, and it's slowly killing me. I want to forget you, take this pain away from me. I do not want to spend my life thinking of you, wondering how you are doing, where you are in life, whether you are thinking of me. It hurts, it hurts. Please, just go away and leave this empty shell of who I used to be. Why? Why can I not forget? Why can I not forget you forever, until the sky falls and the world burns and we finally realize there is no such thing as 'happily ever after'?

Book Review: Never

　
Last night, I finished reading a book called Never, by J. Grace Pennington.

The writing style of the book just blew me away. I mean, I had high expectations for Never to begin with, and I was still pleasantly surprised by what I read. The characters were vivid and three-dimensional, the storyline was exciting, and there were plenty of plot twists along the way to keep you guessing.

I'm not going to give anything away, but the basic plot goes like this—Travis and Ross Hamilton are brothers who work on a ranch that their father left them when he passed away. Travis is bookish, and wants to become a teacher, and Ross supports him in that endeavour.
Everything goes wrong when a murder is committed in town... and all evidence points to Travis as the killer.
He is sentenced to a certain amount of years of labor in the Dead Mines, which is basically a prison, only much worse.

But all is not what it seems in the Mines, or in the small town of Spencervale, for that matter.

I'm not going to tell you anymore, because let's face it—if you haven't read this book yet, you really should. But enough of my excited ranting; I'll give a more organized and neutral review now for those of you who prefer that to my rambling.

The book has pros and cons as well; every book does. I'll give the pros first, because there are more of them.
~~
Pros:
- The characters are vibrant and believable; much more so than most characters in other books that are being published these days. They have strengths and they have weaknesses. They have fears and they have doubts. Just like everybody does.

- The writing style is excellent. There aren't many people who can switch from two different points of view (Ross to Travis, in this particular book) without making a mistake or two. But Miss Pennington did it perfectly. She also did a very good job of switching POVs at cliffhangars, which made me read faster to get to the other character's POV to see what happened to them.

- The ending is unexpected. Now, there is information building up to the climax that should tell you how it's going to end, but it still surprised me all the same.
~~
Okay, now for cons. I only found one or two cons for the book, if I'm going to be completely honest.

Cons:
- There were a few spelling and punctuation mistakes in the book. Not many, but there were some there. Nothing too bad; and probably nothing that normal people would have noticed. I, however, am not normal and nitpick about every little bit of punctuation I come across.
~~
Now, see, what did I tell you? I've been sitting here nigh on ten minutes, and that's the only con I could come up with. I'm not exaggerating either—I'm making the effort to be completely honest in this review, so what I say is what I think.

So, let me see... I don't think there's much more I have to say. This is a book that would have normally taken me only one night to read, except I've been insanely busy lately, so it took me a few weeks.

If you have any questions about the book, let me know and I'll answer them!

God bless, love and peace,

Theodora