Feedback Wanted!

I love you.  You're great.  You're a wonderful person.  Really.

Now will you give me the moon?
No?
Will you give me a million bucks?
No?
Well, will you at least give me some feedback?

Ahahahah, I've been doing too much philosophizing recently, and my brain has begun to gush mush, like the sort of thing up there.  Literally.  Last night, I was so distraught with thoughts that I threw my pillow on the ground and slept on the hard floor so the comfortability factor (or lack thereof) could get me to stop thinking and fall asleep.

Bruhhh, so anyway, I was meaning to ask you all if you could read a little bit of something I wrote this morning and tell me if it makes sense.

Overview:
This is part of the chapter where Millis is back to being thirteen years old.  He's in ELI, his assassin school, and it's the night before he's tested to see if he meets all the requisites for becoming an official student.  The backstory is necessary 1.) because I WANT TO WRITE IT and 2.) because this also explains how Millis went from being just a Hunter to a Rager as well.  (In case if you didn't remember from my sketchy outline, a Hunter is someone skilled in tracking like Hyn, and a Rager is someone who is able to enter a berserking mode at the cost of unconsciousness immediately after.)
I really want the feedback because, in part of writing "as a guy", I put in a lot of dialogue since I can't guess what males think,  but I'm afraid the dialogue is too...confusing, as in you can't tell who is speaking.
So please read and tell me if/where I need to clarify.  Gratias tibi mei ago!

~ ~ ~

Back to the Moment
July 30, 3007
10:05 P.M.



   “So...the test is tomorrow.”
   “Hyn, tell me something I don’t know--”
   “You’re scared?”
   “Of course not.”
   Kaes knew Hyn was looking sidelong at him.  The answer had been too quick in escaping, and he added, “Not of the test, no.”
   “Of...”  Hyn glanced at the dark sky.  “Vulcan?”
   A silence hung in the air as Kaes folded his hands behind his head and licked his lips, swallowing silently.
   Hyn laughed.  “I’ll take that silence to mean you are.”
   “Dude, what the--”
   “I’m not.”
   Kaes shouldered his friend in the arm as they walked the cement sidewalks of ELI, and Hyn stumbled off the pathway, laughing again.  “Well, I’m not.”
   “And I’d like to get that on tape for tomorrow.”
   “You can if you want.”
   “I will.”
   Hyn snorted.  “Wuss.”
   “Dude, I never said I was scared of Vulcan.”
   “You never denied it.”
   “Well, I’m not.”
   “Yeah?  Then what’s the long-face for, huh?”
   “What, I can’t be serious the night before we take a test to decide our future?”
   “Dude, if you put it that way--”
   Kaes crossed his arms and stopped his stride.  Hyn paused a few steps ahead and looked back with a quizzical raise of his eyebrows.  When Kaes said nothing, Hyn quieted his jocular voice and asked, “Hey, man, what’s up?”
   “What’s up is that this is real, Hyn.  Like the legit test.”
   “And?”
   Kaes didn’t answer, and Hyn took a step forward, clapping his hand on Kaes’ shoulder.
   “Dude, chill, okay?  It’ll be fine.  They won’t throw anything at us that we won’t know, right?”
   “Yeah...”  Kaes licked his perpetually-dry lips again.  “For you, maybe.”
   Hyn groaned.  “Kaes Rider, we’ve been in this school for the same amount of time with the same amount of practice from the same foster home; what the heck do you think could go wrong?”
   Seeing the sense in Hyn’s statement, Kaes shook himself from his dull moment of nervousness and replied for the sake of arguing, “But we’re not like biologically related though.  So we have different genes.”
   “Different genes?” Hyn saw the change in Kaes and laughed. “That's true.  You just wish you had my DNA.”

   Kaes woke up the next morning to a pillow at his face.  With a grunt, he grabbed it the second time it came down and used it to pry himself out of bed.  Hyn was holding the other end of the pillow, already in his black test uniform.
   “Dude, what the heck--”
   “It’s Lei; she left a note under the door.  Kaes, she locked our door.”
   “Lei locked our door?  Is this what this is all--”  Kaes cut himself off, turned, and hit his head against the wooden frame of the upper bunk several times.  He whipped around when he felt his point was clear and stared into Hyn’s eyes, looking up a few inches to do so.  “Dude.  Ever think of...um...unlocking it?  Geez, Hyn.  What the--”
   The golden-haired teen across from Kaes cut him off.  “Kaes, she locked it from the outside.  Read the note.”
   Kaes blinked a few times and shouldered past Hyn to the door, ignoring whatever Lei had scrawled in red on a sheet of paper.  Sure enough, the doorknob had been taken out and reinstalled backwards.  He twisted the handle, but it didn’t move more than a few millimeters in either direction.  “Peachy.”
   “Now what?”
   Kaes glanced at a clock hung on the wall of their dormitory room.  Twenty minutes until the test started, and it took at least ten to get to the site.
   “Open the window and knot those bedcovers.  I’m going to get changed.”


   Kaes peered out of the small two-feet-by-two-feet window and felt his stomach lurch.  Hyn’s shoulder pressed up against his own, and Kaes unconsciously tugged on the ends of a spur-of-the-moment rope they had created out of bedsheets.  Despite their sudden strike of resourcefulness, it would only reach to the top of the first floor.  They’d have to jump to the ground from there.
   “Lei’s going to--”
   Kaes elbowed his friend.  “Save it for the test.”  Methodically, he tied the rope to the sturdy bunk and lowered it out of the window.  With a sweeping bow, he looked at Hyn and said, “Ladies first.”
   Hyn bowed in return and leapt up to the windowsill with the words, “Pearls before swine.”
   With that, he ducked out of the window and slid down to where the rope ended, too late in hearing Kaes shout, “You’re not even using that phrase correctly!”
   When Hyn was safely on the ground, Kaes took a deep breath and released it.  He had no head for heights, but it’d be worse to be late to the test.  Gripping the rope with knees and fists, Kaes slowly let himself down until he was dangling twelve feet from the ground.
   Hyn looked up at him and added, “Any day now.”
   “Shut up.”
   Kaes looked down and dropped, falling on all fours.  The landing jarred his bones up to his joints, and he had scraped his hands on the cement pavement, but otherwise, he was still intact and living.
   Hyn gave him a hand up and jerked back when he felt Kaes' warm beads of blood press against his own palm.  “Ouch.  Dude, you okay?”
   Ignoring the slight pain, Kaes nodded and wiped his hands on his dark pants.  “Yeah.  Let’s go.”


Write on!
Clove
P.S. A lot of inspiration for this little section was garnered from this video.  It's a good watch regardless of what you use it for.  ;)

Friend Quotes

Call me sentimental, but I’ve been giving some overthoughts (I told you; I made it an official word, okay?) to my physical relationships recently.  In doing so, I dug up some old friend quotes that I thought were worth sharing for both their depth and eloquence.  So, in order, here are my top five favorite friend quotes:

Number 5:

“I love you.  I know this must come as something of a surprise since all I've ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more.  I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that, I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then.  But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.  Your eyes are like that, did you know?  Well, they are.  How many minutes ago was I?  Twenty?  Had I brought my feelings up to then?  It doesn't matter.  I love you so much more now than twenty minutes ago that there cannot be comparison.  I love you so much more now than when you opened your hovel door, there cannot be comparison.  There is no room in my body for anything but you.  My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection.  My mind begs you to ask it something so it can obey.  Do you want me to follow you for the rest of your days?  I will do that.  Do you want me to crawl?  I will crawl.  I will be quiet for you or sing for you, or if you are hungry let me bring you food, or if you have thirst and nothing will quench it but Arabian wine, I will go to Araby, even though it is across the world, and bring a bottle back for your lunch.  Anything there is that I can do for you, I will do for you.  Anything there is that I cannot do, I will learn to do.  I know I cannot compete with the Countess in skills or wisdom, and I saw the way she looked at you.  And I saw the way you looked at her.  But remember, please, that she is old and has other interests, while I am seventeen and for me there is only you.  Dearest Westley--I've never called you that before, have I?--Westley, Westley, Westley, Westley, Westley,darling Westley, adored Westley, sweet perfect Westley, whisper that I have a chance to win your love.”

~Buttercup
~The Princess Bride (novel, not movie)

Number 4:

“Now mark yet again the cruelty of the gods.  There is no escape from them into sleep or madness, for they can pursue you into them with dreams.  Indeed you are then most at their mercy.  The nearest thing we have to a defense against them (but there is no real defense) is to be very wide awake and sober and hard at work, to hear no music, never to look at earth or sky, and (above all) to love no one.”

~C.S. Lewis
~Till We Have Faces

Number 3:

“There's no such thing as a painless lesson...they just don't exist.  Sacrifices are necessary.  You can't gain anything without losing something first.  Although...if you can endure that pain and walk away from it, you will find that you now have a heart strong enough to overcome any obstacle...yeah...a heart made fullmetal.”

~Edward Elric
~Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Number 2:

“This is what we cherish in friendship, and we cherish it so dearly that, in conscience, we feel guilty if we do not return love for love, asking no more of our friends than these expressions of goodwill.  This is why we mourn their death, which shrouds us in sorrow and turns joy into bitterness, so that the heart is drenched in tears and life becomes a living death because a friend is lost.  Blessed are those who love You, oh God, and love their friends in You and their enemies for Your sake.  They alone will never lose those who are dear to them, for they love them in One who is never lost, in God, our God who made heaven and earth and fills them with His presence, because by filling them He made them.  No one can lose You, my God, unless he forsakes You, and if he forsakes You, where is he to go?  If he abandons Your love, his only refuge is Your wrath.  Wherever he turns, he will find Your law to punish him for Your law is the truth and the truth is Yourself.”

~Saint Augustine
~Confessions

Number 1 (feel free to quote with me):

“Men of Gondor and of Rohan!  My brothers!  I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me!  A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day!  An hour of wolves and shattered shields!  When the age of men comes crashing down!
BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!
THIS DAY WE FIGHT!!!
By all that you hold dear, on this good earth, I BID YOU STAND, MEN OF THE WEST!!!”

~Aragorn
~Lord of the Rings

Write on!
Clove

Text from Last Night

I don't run because I'm training or want to stay in peak condition.  I don't run because I'm scared of what's behind me.  I don't run because I want to better my physical appearance.
I run because I like it.

It was misting last night, as dark as any man's heart with full cloud cover.  A cold chill has set into Georgia over the past few days, and despite the fact that it's still mid-August, Kait caught me singing 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer'.  In a way, I always mourn winter, and when I get a satisfactory taste of the icy wind, searing my fingers numb, I get filled with unimaginable energy.

It was late when I got back from baby-sitting, a little before ten when Dad, Josh, and I got onto the streets.

I have no restraint when I run.  The whole way, Josh kept laughing at me for going, then stopping, then going.  It's in him, with his natural mind for teaching, to critique the loss of my exercise, but it's in me, with my natural mind for inspiration and philosophy, to not give a care to that.
If I throw my hands up when I run, it's because I wish I could touch the stars.
If I sprint all out, it's because I feel this static in my head that I want to leave behind.
If I walk, it's because I want to enjoy the night, savor the experience, and let it infuse my essence.

When I run, I forget a lot of what habit I've picked up.  It's just cold.  Cold, palming my cheeks, cold, sliding fingers down my lower back, cold, draining anything within me.
I run because I like it.

Write on!
Clove
Get out of habit.  Quit running because you have to.  Run because you want to.

Don't Overthink It

The red squiggly lines under "overthink" and the fact that my computer just auto corrected "overthink" to be "over think" must mean it's not a real word.  Well, I'm making it one, here and now.  Overthink is an official compound word, along with overthinking and overthoughts.


Anyways.


Hello, everyone.
   I thought today I would discuss the danger of overthinking story plots because overthoughts have grown in their mental appearance rates recently.  My older brother and I are currently co-writing a story--it's loads of fun--and we seem to have a problem, typical of us nerds, to overthink some aspects.
   For maybe three months or so, we've kept each other up till midnight or later, discussing various aspects of our story's plot.  You all would have NO idea how much our current working has changed from what its original seed was...really.  :)
   So CDO (OCD, but with the letters in alphabetical order as they should be) person that I am, I'll be doing two things here in an outline form:

1.) I'll be exhorting you all to co-write a story.
   Josh and I originally, originally, originally decided to do our story because we felt like we weren't spending quite as much hang-time together as we had used to and wanted to find something mature to do that we both liked, something not video games.  :P
   Not only have we grown together socially and spiritually, but as I mentioned, I found that co-authorship is TONS of fun.  I get to pick his brain, and he picks mine.  It's exhilarating to see how he writes a story...and weird at the same time.

(I mean, how can you do a story plot and character development all at once?  It's so much easier to just write the plot and put in character development where it's needed.  *pointed glare*)

2.) *clears throat* I'll be exhorting you all to not overthink your stories.
   Often, we authors can get overwhelmed with the numerous aspects we want to include in our stories, all the drama and epicness and particular dialogue scenes...just because they're "awesome".  For a good plot to emerge, those overthoughts should be written down and forgotten, and when the actual writing comes down, it's not hard to just copy-paste and bam--
   Epic scene.
   Also, in terms of overthinking (stop auto-correcting you darn computer), remember that if you find a loophole, you don't have to change the threads of your story.  You merely have to close the loophole.  Well...like this:
   Josh's and my group needs to get from place A to place B, but there's no reason for them to do that aside from the fact that the plot NEEDS them to.  ;)  So, instead of trashing the idea that the group gets from place A to place B, we merely came up with a legit, back-storied reason for them to go.
   Sounds simple, right?
   You'd be surprised how many times we tried to trash legit stuff because we couldn't find motives.

   In a fiction story, the whole world is yours.  Don't stress about reasons or motives; those things come easily if you add in a small back-plot.  When creating a plot, keep the word "play-doh" in your mind - be moldable, shapable, and when you're done, don't be fickle and doubtful of if you've got a good thing.  You can still cover the cracks with more dough or chip away at old things you don't want.

Keep it simple.  Keep it flexible.  Don't think overthoughts.

Write on!
Clove

Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.

My guess is that most of you all have either read the Hunger Games series or its sainted cousin, the Divergent series.  Both books have gained a good bit of publicity recently, and, as a teenager with insatiable curiosity, I was curious as to why.

So.

Here, in its concluded form, are my 3 Reasons Why Series Like the Hunger Games and Divergent Are So Famous to us teenagers along with 3 writing tips for each reason.



1.) The adrenaline spike.
Both books are written in such a way that the main character is either in the throes of change, in danger, or in some gorgeous guy's arms.  If that happened to me 24/7, I'd be pretty much living it (and in need of healthier adrenal glands).  But, instead of dealing with the heartbreak, mass murder, and pain that accompanies those three things, I'd rather be reading a book of someone ELSE living the life, yeah?
Get the good without the bad.

That to say, if you're wanting to write in this modern-sci-fi-adventure-romance genre, you'll want to keep away from dull moments, too much exposition, and too much description.  Keep the action flowing.  :)

2.) Ummm...lemme see...how do I say this...exactly?  Er...lemme think...uhhhhhhhh...

...

*FOOOUUUR!!!*  *GAAAAAALE!!!*  *PEEETAAAAAAHH!!!*

*everyone glares at person who yelled 'Peeta'*

...something like that.

Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth both have the capabilities to make their significant others really, really, really...significant.  I honestly can't really comment on my opinion, since most of the time when I'm reading a book where a character's personality/body description is flaunted, I'm reading as a student, picking up sentence structure and words so I can do the same thing with my characters...
Mhm, yeah.
Geeky me.

I STILL HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE, OKAY?  x)

But I can comment on a writing tip, which would be this:
Remember as you write your modern-sci-fi-adventure-romance book that you'll want your significant other to be as alive as possible.  Make him or her a real gentleman/gentlewoman with real weaknesses and real strengths and real social embarrassments, not someone who is seriously overpowered and sexy and...has a tendency to kiss when hot and...sweaty.  (Catch the rhyme?  =^.^=)

3.) Finally and most importantly, books like these give the reader a physical push.
Come on.
Admit it.
Most of us are jaded teens, spending way too much time staring our faces pale in front of a computer screen.  Our lives are too busy and ultimately too boring to learn martial arts, how to shoot a gun, or snare wildlife with tree saplings.  The work is simply too hard, too sweaty, and doesn't have dramatic film music playing in the background.
Also - Daniel Boone died decades ago.
And it doesn't come in an epic montage.
And dangit, it costs money.
So instead, we'll pick up books where SPOILER'S ALERT a girl nearly gets thrown over a chasm to her death, a girl faces Mario fireballs in real life, a girl has to watch her friend get beat up by her enemy without intervention, a girl sings a younger girl to death, a girl climbs a ferris wheel in a game of paintball, and both girls are harassed sexually just to give the notion that they're attractive.  END SPOILER'S ALERT

Again, the good without the bad.

However, a well-done modern-sci-fi-adventure-romance book WILL give a slight physical push to the reader.  The reader WILL find the drive to get up and do some of the awesome things named above.

Or why else do you think archery spiked after the Hunger Games came out?

On the other hand, be careful not to overdo it.  Some people, who have experience with said incidents, will consider your book dark and violent.  SPOILER'S ALERT For example, in Divergent, there's a fight between two girls, and one girl is basically beat up until she's sobbing and bloody.  END SPOILER'S ALERT That struck an ugly chord in me since I've seen stuff like that happen.  It might be exciting for someone else to read, but for me, I'm skimming pages, clenching my jaw and hoping the fight will be over.

Everything is different in life.
And that's why if you write a well-done book where life is sugar-coated and exciting with hot guys and lots of fire and tattoos and drinking and roofs, there will be a lot of attraction.  You're basically selling a cooler life to the reader.

Agree?  Disagree?  The comments box is below.  :)

Write on!
Clove

No one but a die-hard author...

In my opinion, you can make characters two ways:
1.) By pulling them out of thin air in your head
2.) By basing them off of real life people

Because I'm not really good with the alchemy stuff...er...I mean, since I, uh, have a philosopher's stone from my boyfriend and don't...need...basic alchemy...yeah...I practically ALWAYS do my characters by the second method.
This generally includes me...
     a. seriously pondering who I could pick
     b. choosing a person, then maybe realizing said person just isn't quite it after the copious amounts of time I spend
     c. stalking said person, like stalking down to their true hair color, eye color, facial formation, gait, slang, voice, and hobbies, then
     d. morphing said person into my character so that it's juuust right.

True, while no one but a die-hard author would go through this, no one but a die-hard author will achieve the perfection of realistic, well-thought characters.

For a little while, I was uncertain if I should spend so much time on my characters, but Ms. Ellen Potter put it straight to me in one of her emails.  "You have to stalk them.  Like legit stalk them.  Spend time in their shadows, notice who they hang out with, where they go, how they reacts to certain situations."
If you take method two, don't ever freak out about how much time you're spending on a certain character.  I'm 67 pages into my newest story (which I'm thinking about calling The Final Triumvirate or The something Triumvirate), and I'm still working on my characters, fine tuning them, drawing pictures of them, and finding actors who resemble them.


But...yeah...I'm starting to get this...uh...feeling...that I should just hurry up and choose someone for Jaug and Hyn (both males).  In the past twenty-four hours, I've had four people come up to me and ask, "Why do you have a picture of ___?" with ____ being a real life person that they know.  x)  Love the psychotic life of an author.

Write on!
Clove
P.S. Yeah, yeah, I know you all are DYING to figure out who I'm casting, aren't you?  I'll give you this, since these two are set in stone:
Millis is casted off of Cesc Fabregas, a Spanish soccer/football player for FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team.

Of course, there is that slight problem that Cesc is about eight years older than Millis, but I think it still works, don't you?  =^.^=

Then Pleibea is casted off of Johanna Braddy, who *scream gasp* played Princess Yue in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Puh-lease.
I personally know Johanna better as Jenny Matrix, the kick-butt varsity captain from Video Game High School.  She does a little more of this type of stuff, both in VGHS and in my story:

 But still can be friendly, social, and...human.

Like em?  Don't?  Got better suggestions?  Comment box's below!  :)

Writing, writing, writing, then--

BAM!

It hits you in the face like a Homeric simile.

Writer's block.

I'm currently working on three projects, and that's the three projects aside from the countless daily memoirs, speeches, blogs, journal entries, and description paragraphs that I do for fun.  Last week, I was doing pretty well; I ironed out about 20 pages in a week, which isn't that bad at all.

Then today...

I sat down in front of the computer, pulled up all three of my projects, and stared at them...and stared...and stared...
And lost the stare-eye contest.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hit the dreaded, terrifying, paralyzing writer's block.

Which brought about a good question: how do you get out of writer's block?

1.) Ask yourself what your main characters want next.  What drives a story is your main character's desire.  (The Hunger Games is a good example; Katniss wants to survive with her family and friends.  That is the thing that drives the story.)
Most of the time, when I hit writer's block, I have simply lost my character's passion, and when I've found it again, I'm back on track.

2.) If you found your character's heart-desire and are still stuck, then envision the next scene in your head like a mental movie.  Let your mind do all the work and just sit back and watch on the big screen of your mind while listening to some Henry-Gregson Williams soundtrack.
Don't even think about writing anything at this point.  No matter how clever the dialogue, how well you can see your character's faces, or how clearly you've obtained the mood, let the scene play itself out in you head until you have a good page or two to write.

3.) If you did 1 and 2 and are still stuck, chances are your brain is tired.
Go on a walk.
And don't think about anything.  Eh-nee-theeng, got it?  Just walk for five to ten minutes outside.  I've done this at noon in summer in Georgia and in rain during winter.  (Both times I took an umbrella.)  If you're thinking of nothing, chances are you won't be thinking of how uncomfortable it is.  Chances are your brain is subconsciously working on a break-through; it just needs a little more time before the big success.
(On the other hand, if you're a nature-person like me, the feeling of sun rays beating down on your sweaty back and the feeling of cold rain pattering on your face are two exhilarating things.  Great for the inspiration to get out of writer's block.)

4.) If those don't work, put your work aside (as in, don't even open the document) and forget about it.  Don't stress, don't think about it, don't stare at it in desperation.
Like I said, your brain is subconsciously drilling away at a handful of diamonds; let it do its thing in peace.

That being said, I need to take my advice and get back to my own writing...

Write on!
Clove
P.S. I guess I just haven't watched enough action movies because I'm stuck on suggestion 2, trying to envision a fight scene...
Literally, y'all, I'm five or less pages from being down with one of my projects, and I got writer's block NOW?  Hehehe, wish me luck.  o.o  x)