Walk On - A Poem

The thunder rolls

Up in the black ghosts
Of clouds that died.
Silver threads of lightning
Tear the sky.
The angels cry,
Causing the rain to fall.
I'm nothing but
A lonely wanderer
Hopeless and helpless
But free.
I walk along the edge of night,
Chasing dreams around
The rim of the sky.
The wind is cold.
The shadows deep.
It means nothing to me.
Once it struck fear into me...
But now, no longer.
Restlessly pace through the wilds.
Sleep beneath the willows.
I cannot return to
The place from whence I came.
Not at all, for it is impossible.
If I return
Those memories and words
Will shatter my heart
And break my spirit
Once again.
Awake in the gray dawn,
And walk on, walk on.
I find myself on the beach
Moving through the ashen sand.
And I hear the piercing calls
From the distant shore.
I dread those banshee cries
More than anything I have ever known.
Stumble onwards, always wandering.
Trying to escape
That enemy which I cannot name.
Stagger, fall, cut hand on sharp stone.
Crimson stains the pale sand.
I stare blankly.
Stand up.
And walk on, walk on.
No rest.
If I rest, that enemy will catch me.
Walk on.
Walk on.

Of Solarii, Worldbuilding, and Procrastination

(I think that may just be the lamest (or most creative) title I've ever come up with...)
Anyway, I haven't been doing much actual writing lately. I have been doing a lot of planning though (and a lot of procrastinating, unfortunately).

For those of you who are wondering, Of Whispers and Wanderings is still in the editing stages. What with my starting college classes, I haven't had a lot of time to work on it.

However, I haven't completely pushed Of Whispers and Wanderings to the sidelines. I've been planning things out for it. I have an idea for a few new short stories to add to it, so I'm going to start working on those, hopefully today sometime.

I've also been working on other things for this short fiction collection--cover information, acknowledgments, and other details CreateSpace insists on knowing before they do anything at all with the project you want to self-publish.

Anyway, I've also begun planning for two different projects. If I didn't have my hands full before, I certainly do now.

The first project is my fantasy trilogy. I'm sure some of you have heard of it - I've mentioned it several times. I've written three or four drafts of the first book, but was never truly serious about it until now.
Well, I've (finally) started working on planning out the trilogy again. I'm sorting out the important details and plot points so that I hopefully won't write more than two or three more drafts of the first novel.

I have a title sorted out for the trilogy already: The Songs of Old trilogy. I had a title for each of the three books a while ago, but a few changes I made to the plot turned it all around. So now I have to come up with new titles. Oh well; it's no big deal. I think actually writing the books is more important at the moment.

I haven't only been making changes to the plot; I've also been discovering information and details of Solarii.

See, I pushed Solarii to the back of my mind a couple of months ago. Actually... I pushed pretty much all of my writing to the back of my mind. I was dealing with a lot of stuff and starting college, so I decided I didn't want to write.

I didn't notice anything at first, but after a month, I realized - I was really missing my writing. Even if I didn't write anything constructive, at least I was writing; using my imagination and exploring possibilities.

So I decided that this year, I would plan out my fantasy trilogy and write the first draft of the first book.

Lately, my mom has been doing a lot of yardwork. This is the perfect time for me to puzzle out things about Solarii. So whenever she tells me to come outside and help with the yardwork, I turn on my CD player and start thinking about Solarii. Nothing in particular; just the world itself. I let my mind wander and see where it takes me.

An aspect that I've been pondering a lot lately is the cultures of the races in Solarii. You know, the kinds of laws they have, their traditions, and things like that.

Now, this is where my next idea for a project comes in (if you recall, earlier I mentioned having begun planning for two new projects).

During a point in time when I was extremely bored, I was commenting to myself about how I should worldbuild on Solarii more often. At the same time, I was also berating myself for not working on short stories. I need to write a few short stories from a female's point of view, because - though completely unintentional - almost all of my short stories (and longer works, for that matter) feature a male as the main character.

Well, this matter of the worldbuilding and the short stories clashed, and I had an idea: why not write a bunch of short myths, fables, and other such things from different cultures in my Solarii? If I did that, not only would I be writing short fiction like I need to, but I will also be learning more about the culture and history of the cultures of Solarii - which is a form of worldbuilding.

And that was how the idea of writing a collection of events, myths, etc. from the five races of Solarii (men, Elves, Dwarves, Faeries, and Lycans [oh, did I say? I may be changing the name of the Lycans to something else; more on that sometime soon]) came about. So I hope to work on that throughout this year and the next, and hopefully have a good collection done by May of next year.

So, that's another project I have. Let me think how many I have now - I want to write the first draft of the first book in my fantasy trilogy... write that pirate novella... self-publish Of Whispers and Wanderings... and write this collection of Solarii's mythology.

Yeah, I've got my hands full for the next year and a half. I think it's time for me to stop procrastinating and actually work on this stuff.

And that's what's been going on with me lately, writing-wise.

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

What I've Been Writing Lately...

　
I haven't been doing much writing lately. Life has swallowed most of my energy and motivation; I don't feel much like reading a good book, much less writing something other than the occassional blog post, poems, and journal entries.

I have, however, been doing just a little bit of writing. I'm in the process of finishing up a collection of short fiction—drabbles, poems, songs, and the popular short stories. I have about seventy pages worth at the moment, and I probably won't get much more than that. I have to finish about three more stories, a drabble or two, and a few poems. The whole book most likely won't exceed one hundred pages.

I know, that's not much. But like I said before, I have pretty much zero energy right now. High school and preparing for college are taking their toll. So, one hundred pages worth of short fiction is, in all likelihood, all you'll get for the rest of the year.

The title of this short fiction collection is, at the moment, Of Warriors and Werewolves. I know a few people who might shy away from the word 'werewolf'; let me tell you ahead of time that none of my stories focus completely on werewolves. The one story that mentions them doesn't describe them. My point is, werewolves do not play a very big part in the collection—wolves, however, do.

If you want more stories about werewolves (or any other sort of stories), you'd better tell me in the comments right off. By March 1st, I am not going to be writing any more short fiction, at least not for this collection.

However, I do have some news that may excite you (or it may horrify you; you never know). A while back—2011 to be exact—I self-published a pirate novel called Sangre: The Phantom's Lair. I don't recommend buying it now, actually. I'm going to be honest, despite the fact I might lose money: my writing style has improved a lot since then, and I didn't do so well with Sangre. From what my friends say, the storyline is mostly original and the characters are interesting, but the overall writing style of the novel just isn't up to par.

Anyway, back on topic. I originally planned to write a series of these pirate novels (yes, Sangre was about pirates). I'm not sure how many books I planned on writing; I wanted to do one from each character's point of view, but that would mean coming up with and writing seven books—something I don't think I could do, at least not in the near future.

Wow, I keep rambling, don't I? Okay, okay, I'll cut to the chase. I am going to take up my pen and return to the Caribbean with the crew of the Ocean Raider. Yep, you heard right (cue the grins of excitement and/or the horrified gasps).

I'm not entirely sure what that story will be. I have two plot ideas already vaguely planned out; one of them involves Atlantis, and the other involves Ireland. I think I'm leaning more towards the one set in Ireland, for several reasons—one, I'm learning a lot about Ireland at the moment. Two, Scott O'Brien would be the main character; crazy Scotty was always my favorite character to write about during Sangre.

Now, like I said before, there is absolutely no need to buy Sangre before this upcoming novel. One, I want to save you from the writing style of that first attempt. Two, it's not terribly important to the plot of the second novel. Any information from Sangre that's vital to the next book, I'll add in a prologue.

All right, so, I'll sum this post up in a nutshell. I'm going to be self-publishing a collection of short fiction in a month or two (if you want me to write a specific type/genre, be sure to let me know before March 1st!). By next year, I should have a pirate novel self-published as well, at the very least.

So, that's what's been up with my writing. How have my writer friends been holding up? Any good news? Bad news?

God bless,

Theodora

Poisoned

Here's a poem for you all.




Poisoned
All those storybook lives
From when I was a little girl
Those 'once upon a time's
And those 'happily ever after's
Don't mean a thing
Now that I've grown up to be
Not so little anymore
'Cause as you get older
You realize that 'happily ever after' fails
And that you've been
Poisoned by these fairy tales
A kingdom's walls will someday fall
And evil often triumphs over good
Your dreams may never come true
No matter how much wishing on stars you do
And looming castles will someday crumble
Not every peasant girl becomes a lovely princess
Not every street boy becomes a valiant knight
Sometimes 'happily ever after' ends with death
And not all dragons can be beaten.