T Writes

No Internet = Productivity.

2011-06-27T05:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't had internet for a while now, which kind of contributed heavily to my surly mood. I don't think I'm a, well, sort of, addict - but yes, running multiple fansites - and ones as huge as LunaFans.net and Hunger-Games.net, it's really tough to forego the web.

I recently conducted a contest for LunaFans.net, a sponsored one where the winner got a Luna Lovegood attire complete with the wand and spectrespecs and all. It was pretty cool to put a smile on someone's face.

Well, anyways. I did spend some time on the writings. I outlined the current WIP with characters and ending. I'm kind of unsure about one aspect of the ending. I could reverse it as the project progresses.

I really want to complete this trilogy, because it draws on every core issue that bothers me: wars, single-parent problems, inner conflicts and choosing duty over love.

I've begun writing, almost 5k words are complete, and I'm really looking forward to where my MC takes me!

What Really Went On

2011-06-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

In the year that I had all disapparated, there was lots going on. My first query, my first partial request and my first rejection.

It happened over a span of three months. Three thrilling months. Even though it ultimately got rejected because hello - it was a NaNoWriMo, edited only, like, five times. I did the obvious - the obvious that I had promised not to do.

I queried immediately. My query, even if I do say so myself, was near perfection. I had found the perfect selling point of my book, and the perfect summary.

But then I scrambled to edit the manuscript and found tremendous grammatical errors. It made me angry with myself. What was I doing?

I put it away. I wasn't disappointed, and I say that with complete honesty - I was just annoyed at myself. I blew my opportunity.

But that all gone, I sat down to revise my story. With the same plot, I completely ripped apart the first three chapters and the main Hero. With that, I know I have a long way to go.

In the meanwhile, I started work on a lot of projects and then some things in my personal life fell apart which caused a lot of friction and I stopped writing.

Over the past few months, I picked myself together again and I restarted work on the edits, I'm loving the new personality of my MC. But like I said, there's a lot of work.

I now have three other projects going on. I'm probably going to finish one of them before I return to the edits of Fray. That way I'll have fresher perspective.

I don't know whether my approach is right or not, but I do know I have many plots I want to work on right now, and so I will.

Books to Movies: Romeo and Juliet & Wicked Lovely!

2011-06-04T03:11:00.000-07:00

[Pretends never disappeared and resumes blogging just like that. Yeah]

So, this just broke. Maybe yesterday. I don't know - but I just heard that Ed Westwick, who most of us know as THE Chuck Bass will be playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet! This is so exciting!

I can't wait to see who Romeo is!

The actor has already made waves on The CW series "Gossip Girl" and we'll get a chance to see him on the big screen in Clint Eastwood's Hoover biopic, and now Ed Westwick landed himself another film role. Variety reports the actor is set to play Tybalt in a new adaptation of Romeo and Juliet from Italian director Carlo Carlei which already has True Grit star Hailee Steinfeld as the titular female lead in the tragic romance. For those who haven't dealt with the Shakespeare play in school, or seen any of the various film versions, Tybalt is Lady Capulet's nephew and the arch rival of Romeo, which does not bode well for him.

Books into movies is so expected these days, it's like it's the parameter for the success of books. Especially YA novels.

In other books-to-movies news, Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely has also been taken up to be turned into movies. I haven't read the books because faeries are just not my thing, though I've heard so much of them. Very excited for the movies, though.

Paranormalcy and Girl Power!

2010-03-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

Even if I do say so myself, I should be up for the Laziest blogger Award, and totally win it hands down!

It has been way too long since I even logged on here - except of course, heading everyday to Kiersten White's hilarious and yet very informative posts.

Kiersten reminds me, her debut novel Paranormalcy can now be pre-ordered at Amazon. Or have I mentioned that before? Either way, you know I'm really excited for Paranormalcy cause I'm already in love with the way Kiersten weaves words!

What's up with me, though? Things have been slightly on the down side, but hopefully I'm back up.

OH - AND, of course, my query process has finally started. I'm so excited - and nervous. But it's good to be nervous, it does some good to be on your own guard.

I'm not detailing professional stuff here, obviously but I'm pretty chuffed right now.

The only other thing worth mentioning in my mind is how awesome it was that Kathryn Bigelow won Best director for The Hurt Locker, over her ex-husband James Cameron's Avatar. Not that I hate James Cameron - I can't after Titanic, come ON - but I'd like to call this defeat Karma: you should not go around stealing plots from Pocahontas, or refuse to sign autographs for fans and abuse them. Oh well. Whatever.

Girl power FTW!

The Bird Flies At Last

2010-02-11T02:28:00.000-08:00

You know, my day's starting was so dull, I thought nothing could be more pathetic than moving around the city like a zombie, changing metros and then landing at the University.

Not until I had had the sense of putting in my microphones and tuning into some of Lady Gaga's tunes, and opening mobile web did I got the totally explosive news: the title of the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy is out!

I immediately got myself excused from the class (being as polite as a hyperventilating young adult could be) and rushed straight down to the college's study room.

MOCKINGJAY

So uber cool!

Also, the beautiful cover:

Do you realize something? Check out all the three covers below:

With the black cover, we had a story of no hope, desolation, blackness. With the fiery red cover we had the rebellion and extremities against the Capitol. What do we expect out of pale blue calmness?

Secondly, with each book, the mockingjay is getting more and more... alive? Until now on Mockingjay, it's actually flying away!

I've so many theories, I'll practically burst!

If you're a Hunger Games fan, don't forget to check out Hunger Games Network!

Detour #1

2010-02-06T03:45:00.000-08:00

Often, I do take a detour from writing - like any other teen, who's neck deep in the last semester of first year in college and knows this is one term that'll make all the difference in the final grade.

THAT is not the point.

I just was appalled at this news that I came across yesterday morning: Chinese woman seeks “Jessica Alba” makeover to win back lover.

WUT? WUT?!

I am absolutely horrified at the length the woman is ready to go to for reasons unreasonable! I am not qualified to really express disapproval at her state. It is her personal matter, but as a fellow woman, I feel deeply for her.

You don't achieve love by hurting your autonomoy - that way you're forever more dependent on other(s) for love, life and your very existence.

Maybe this seems a completely unnecessary rant on my part, for you'd say, I'm a writer - what I am doing does not include looking good (haha), it involves brains and that's just about what I should be concerned about.

But I want to look good, too. I suppose a woman - every woman - wishes to look good, be it a writer or a model, for example: I think JK Rowling to be very pretty, and I think Tyra Banks to be pretty too.
They're both great women.

I really feel despondent sometimes when I see things like these in the media. But of course, being unhealthy isn't what you're supposed to be happy with, it's about finding the right balance.

Honestly, who defines 'ugly' or 'fat'? Is being either of those things from others' point of views worse than being, say, mean? evil? jealous?

I don't know what else to say, because there's nothing to explain on an idea like this, it just makes me feel more pathetic.

I hope - beyond hope - that young girls address themselves as respectable individuals rather than society dolls.

Exams over and Lilith's Back!

2010-01-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

My exams are finally over, and it really made a difference to my daily schedule.I am back to my writings, and in the process of re-writing Chapter 5.

So, it begins again.

After I'd finished the first draft - 19th November, I got my oh-so-awesome friend - who we'll call O, to read it.

I shouldn't have. She was all praises for it - which is how I knew instantly that I need to work on it, badly. I recieved no critique, except the little "it's rushed". Did help, though.

O is too sweet, for her own good. And mine, in this case.

Anyways, I'm right now pretty happy with the way my latest revision of the query turned out. So, I'm taking a two-day break, in which I'm reading Hunger Games, again :D

Also, if you didn't know, an excerpt from the third book in Kelley Armstrong's The Darkest Powers series, titled The Reckoning can be read online for free!

Plus, as I had a bit too much free time, I googled up the sources of my story's mythologies and from the nooks and crannies found a photo that looks almost exactly what I imagined *someone* in my story looks like:

PS. NO. THERE. IS. NO. VAMPIRE. STILL.

Catching Fire in Bloodlines

2010-01-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

If you couldn't tell, the title of the last post was sarcastic.

I guess, it got a bit too much, though - because since the very moment of that post, I haven't touched even one of my MS, or any queries, or anything writing related.

I even went flat out on my fansites, I started getting back to work yesterday. I'm just too worked up - becaue it is cold. And, really, annoyingly cold.

On top of that, I have exams. Which will make up, something like, ten percent of my finals. Now, ten percent is a lot in college. And I'm blank there too.

One good thing that happened was that I finally, finally got to finish Catching Fire. Oh boy. Oh boy. What on earth DID that last sentence mean?! Not just the whole no district thing, but Gale.
I can just not wait for the third book to come out!
I'm utterly confused doing their character analysis - you see, once you study English Literature, it kind of becomes a habit to analyse teeny little things in all kinds of books.

Which I think, has been actually helpful in my revision process, I am re-doing sentence structures, and simply backspacing stupid length-increasing-and-just-plain-dumb parts of the book.

Anyhoo - Vampire Diaries is going to be back in NINE days! Yay for Bloodlines! Speaking of which, you gotta check out what Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson have to say about the show!

Anyone can die. I hope they don't go about killing Caroline - or Bonnie now. Eeeep! This is exciting.
Even though, yes, they did sorta just left out what actually went on in the books. Still, Paul Wesley! I'm not complaining!

A Historic Moment

2010-01-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

While I was walking around my house last evening, and I'm not sure I saw any purpose to it, but anyways.
So while I was being randon, like a flash - a one line summary for The Fray came to me! And it really does make sense!

You know, like The Kite Runner is summarized as:
An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.

Yeah, that awesome kinds.

Which is my work done for atleast until today, I'm going back to my polished manuscript - to polish it again.

Because yes, it's not you-write-a-story-send-it-out-get-published-tomorrow world anymore.

Seriously, when was it?

Wicked Awesome is an Understatement!

2010-01-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

Winning books is one thing - winning a chance to get your query/first five pages critiqued is so amazing!!

Usually the contests consist of winning books et al - but I'm absolutely stoked at what Suzette Saxton and Bethany Wiggins have come up with, and I'm happy in posting about such an excellent contest.

I do think this is an excellent chance for all first timers, so don't forget to spread the word. The contest is uber simple anyways, you've just got to get word out to win:

2 Query Critiques*
+

2 First Five Page Critiques*
+

1 Inscribed/Autographed The Dark Divine*

Plus, there are FIVE winners!

Uber awesome? Uber awesome!

I love book give-aways!

2009-12-30T21:58:00.000-08:00

I really love all sorts of give-aways, etc. Even if I don't win [which is most of the time] I still have fun entering the contests and all.
I did win one, though, where I got a copy of Lizzie McGuire - but since I was eleven, then, it made me really happy.

Cutting out Lizzie McGuires, this contest that Mindful Musings is holding gives a chance of winning awesome books like [in order of my preference] City of Bones [Mortal Instruments #1 by Cassandra Clare], The Vampire Academy [by Richelle Mead], and Lament [by Maggie Stiefvater] and so many more.

I'm entering, of course :D

Nothing beats winning books lol

Check out more about the contest here, and enter!

Facebook, and New Project!

2009-12-23T23:31:00.000-08:00

Has anyone realized what Facebook is getting away with? I was really mad when I reviewed my privacy settings - and the introductions Facebook did few days ago.

For example: Allowing friends to use MY personal info for applications THEY use.

That's just blatant violation of privacy, seriously.

Anyhow, yup so I did repeal my "Add to Friends" thing, because there were a lot of people, real life friends included, who could just see this blank page with no link whatsoever to contact me. Guess I got a little too stringent with the security measures. lol

As for my writings, Query is about to get reviewed at EvilEditor.net - I'll post the exact link to it once it gets critiqued (and laughed at, most probably).

Apart from this, I'm starting on a new project, tentatively titled "The Premiere Night" - it's getting crappier in the middle - I can't get my sentence structures right.

But the one thing I've learnt from NaNoWriMo is that you can start editing only if you've got a book to edit - so there I go.

January's the NaNoWriMo's editing month. I hope I get TPM done in these holidays (haha - I know I'm trying to set an insane goal) so I could start editing this soon :D

Merry♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Christmas♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Merry ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Christmas♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Merry ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Christmas

Synopsis Is Heavy Work

2009-12-13T22:16:00.000-08:00

Really, I should be spending a little less time lurking about writers' and agents' blogs and actually work on my stuff.

Not that I'm just feeding on chocolates entire day and being completely useless - no! I just wrote a synposis for the book.

Looks good to me, needs a bit of polishing - sentence structures, I think. It's 1390 words, and 3 pages long in the proper manuscript format - double spaced, Times New Roman, 10 px.

I'm doing little by little, you know? Not hurrying with just one draft - that shall be called impatience, and unprofessionalism.

Although, I have taken constructive critiscism in a much better stride than I gave myself credit for - you know? I'm talking about the comments and messages at InkPop.
The last comment that I totally cherried [InkPopers will understand] told me I had a good foundation for a story, but that I need to re-write some sentences.

Hmm, all right, I'll go over it again - for the tenth or so time?

Restart. Done. Pause. Think.

2009-12-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

It is 2:01 in the morning right now.
I know, I should be sleeping. But I've just finished yet another major editing. I changed the entire prologue - yes I did, and because of that, I had to add another chapter and cut out some totally idiotic pieces that made no sense whatsoever.

Woah.

And I'm done once again. I was just wondering, although everyone says Michelle Wolfson doesn't take paranormal books, she is representing Kiersten White, and the way Kiersten talks about her, she's - and I quote myself (which is asserted by Kiersten) - "practically divine".

It wouldn't hurt to at least send off a query. But then again, I'm not sure if it was her already established relation with KW that made her represent Paranormalcy or would she actually take up more projects in the genre.

Right now, I have a small list of agents who, I think, are all really awesome. I need to do a research on all of them once though.

And I must write a synopsis of at least 2 pages. Right.

I am rather sleepy, I should sleep. Or I'd be able to compete with this woman when it comes to dark circles :|

Scary huh? This pic actually reminds me of one of my characters crying :P

- Wait. I had to re-do the post because I was being rather brilliant and randomly zooming around my mouse, causing my firefox to crash :|
Pip pip!

The process is going to... Pause.

2009-12-06T03:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, exactly what the title says. Maybe Step 1 was done for me, but of course - I know my story's background inside out, how on earth was I going to find any fault with it, except the grammatical mistakes and spelling errors?

Thanks to my friend Sarah, for pointing me out to InkPop, an absolutely wonderful community for writers where you can submit your stories [and no, it won't be copied off because right clicks and cut/paste etc don't work on that page] and let other "Trendsetters" critique your story.

Now, the feedback I've gotten through comments, messages and email all tell me the same thing, that though they like my story [I'm... stunned, tbh] I've rushed into the main revelations.

And, I agree. It's just been three drafts - I guess I can do a couple of more drafts before going straight upto the query stage.

Another thing I'd like to say is, internet and the resources really DO rock!

Step 1 Done

2009-11-29T02:38:00.000-08:00

Right, so from my side, I'm done with the book. I've edited it a LOT of time, I'm not saying it would be perfect in every sense, but what I wanted with it, that's done. Step 1 - check.

I joined AgentQuery.com's social networking website, and you can find my profile here. Feel free to add me. I also found Kaleb Nation's profile on it :D - Kaleb's the Twilight Guy.
I think it's an amazing platform for writers to stay in touch with what's going on in the publishing industry on a smaller basis.

My query letter is more or less ready too, I'm going to put it away for a day, and then tomorrow when I return from college, I'll go through it again.

In the meantime, I'm going to watch the Vampire Diaries, toodles!

Agents, Queries - What?!

2009-11-26T05:28:00.000-08:00

I just saved my manuscript as a PDF file, all official looking, haha. It's some consolation, since my hopes and dreams are about to be tested in the real world as I finally prepare my final manuscript, parts of which will be sent out to agents.

I added a small epilogue-ish ending, though, leaving an opening for the series. I realized two nights previously that the book had gone too much into the romance, and that wasn't the main point.
I'm tapping into a somewhat new dimension of mythology - some of it is entirely imagined by me, and some borrowed by the Balkans. So, I had to hint on it in the first book.

I'm working on a query letter as well, which I think is fairly all right, and I hope at least the letter isn't rejected outright.

Maybe I should once try and submit it at Query Shark. It might be critiqued, might not.

For now, I'll go back and read through patiently once again - I've read it so many times, it's positively driving me mad - and I know my characters inside out now.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Winner

2009-11-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

I'm officially a winner at NaNoWriMo 2009! :D

Personal accompalishments can make you feel so good! Well, now I begin the proper revision about a hundred times - fun, fun :P

Editing Process Begins

2009-11-22T03:35:00.000-08:00

Things are going quite well with the book. I'm done with editing its grammar in three parts. Although, of couse, everytime I go over it - I find something that had earlier by some miracle, escaped my notice.

I now perfectly understand why agents and editors can be so frightening - the writers do need to make sure their pieces are perfect before demanding publishing.

I'm far, far, far away from that event, right now as I sit here typing away.

But I'm working towards it, definitely. Right now, apart from going over my story randomly, which has helped me realize where there are plot loopholes, or other errors - I'm also steadily gathering information about YA agents.

The internet can be an amazing platform. I've always known that, since I'm a part of many major fandoms - Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Inheritance Cycle, Twilight Saga, Wings, Hunger Games Series, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and so many more.
The publicity the internet can garner is amazing and astonishing.

Take for example, the case of Savannah Outen - she is a celebrity now. And why exactly is she a celebrity? Well, she is a YouTube sensation - she became famous after posting her songs over at her YouTube profile!

That's just one teeny example.

Anyways, I have to go back and begin the second set of editing processes, right now I'm starting to edit the paragraphs, putting them around and seeing if it makes the story more lucid in anyway.

Later!

Back again!

2009-11-19T21:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm back here at Blogger after using it before twice, then heading to wordpress, then opening a personal blog - and great, I again have a blogger.

Well, I'm just that indecisive.

I've been contemplating getting this blog ever since I joined NaNoWriMo and have worked like crazy to finish the novel in thirty days. I have finished it as a matter of fact. Check out my profile on NaNoWriMo here.

And now that I have begun editing it, something my friend Sarah said to me has struck me: do I want it published?

As I last wrote at my fansite-blog, I don't know.

But I would definitely love to delve into the whirlwind of publishing industry. I'm comparitively very young, so I have years to try it out.

Blogger, in this way, appealed me yet again, because there are tonnes of blogs that I follow - just via RSS feeds and all, with a blog of my own I can use the google follow thing, and it's definitey worth it.

That's about it, the introductory post, ya know?

BTW, who am I?

You may know me from:
- LunaFans.net (owner)
- CarlisleAndEsme.net (owner)
- RobertPattinson.org (co-webmiss)
- VampireDiariesWeb.com (co-webmiss)
- WingsFans.org (co-webmiss)

Yup, that's me. Busy fansite worker bee :D