I've been thinking about dreams lately, thanks to Ruth Anna's blog post and Clare's short story in writing critique and I figured I'd share some of the strange dreams I've had. (Like the one where I was babysitting with Jennifer Lopez. That one was weird.)
Okay, so here is my favorite one so far. I'm planning on using this, so please, no one steal the idea. Thanks! :) I'm in a medieval time period with knights and ladies and kings and queens, etc. I'm a princess and I'm in love with a prince. My best friend is a servant, a cook's apprentice to be exact. The king who rules over this kingdom is cruel and for some reason throws my best friend in the dungeon. Like literally throws. She falls through several layers before she lands on the fourth one and watches the sky above disappear as the floors to the previous three levels of the dungeon close up. She's chained and tortured for some odd reason (the dream wouldn't give me that detail). They're trying to force her to touch a mirror. It's nothing fancy, a hand-held tarnished silver mirror, purple and green smoke curling around it's edges. She's crying, laying on the dirt floor, suffering and she gives in and pushes herself up and stretches to touch the blurry reflection of herself. She touches a finger to the edge of the mirror and she passes out from poison coating the edges. Meanwhile, I'm at a banquet, trying to save her by stealing the identities of two princes, one of which I'm in love with. It's almost like a foot-tall snow globe, showing a small town inside. Each person's is different. If you take the identity you can become that person. And then I woke up. Dissatisfying, right? I'm going to discover the strange meanings of some of those details someday and develop this into a full story. Have you had any weird dreams that you'd like to share?
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I'm renaming my story Dawn for the moment. It will probably change soon, but that's better than The Dream, which is what it was formerly.
Good news and bad news. Okay, so I've officially reached the size of an official novel at 40,000 words. Yay! And guess what? Wonder of wonders. I'm stuck again! Again! I'm approaching the romance section of this novel (Yes! I can call it a novel now!) and to be quite frank, I'm kind of scared to write it. Not that it's going to be detailed or anything. Far from that, but I just don't know how romance works. I don't know about you, but I've never been in love before. What does it feel like? Is it just like having a crush, but exaggerated? And the guy falls in love first, so I was planning on doing a scene in the guy's point of view to start to show that. But how do guys fall in love? If I don't even know how girls fall in love, how am I supposed to write it from a guy's perspective? I've read quite a few romance novels. I know how they work. Then why can't I do this? This is my little dilemma/rant/thing. I hope I didn't bore you. :) I was interviewing my character today for an assignment with multi-genre writing. He wasn't in the best of moods. He really didn't want to be interviewed, but he did it because he said that he was going to prove Emma wrong. A couple of days ago, she claimed that an interview with him would be boring, because he has a tendency to refuse to answer my questions. He responded that he would show her that he could talk if he wanted to and that he wasn't always stubborn. So I was stuck with a moody character. He answered maybe eighteen questions before he refused to answer any more. I had this conversation today with my dad: Dad: Hannah, you're kind of scaring me with the schizophrenia thing. How do you hear your characters talking to you? Me: Uh.....I don't know.... They just do? Dad: How? Me: I ask them a question in my head and I hear their answer in their voice in my head. Dad: So, you're not talking to them? Me: Well, yeah, in my head. Dad: I think you may need to be taken to a doctor... Right now, I'm struggling with the dilemma whether to make him think I'm insane and stay true to my characters, or admit that it's really all in my imaginations and ruin my image of a crazy writer. I stick to letting him think I'm insane. He knows that I'm sort of joking...I hope. This post is inspired by Jill Williamson's post, Plotting the Quest Novel: Dora Style. She stated that every story follows a formula, and whether complicated or very much simplified. And whether you think you have an original plot or not, nearly every story has this same formula. In order to see it all the more clearly, it's fun to look at a children's movie, when you're bored and your siblings insist on watching it. I'm starting a challenge. You watch a children's movie, with your siblings...or by yourself, if you want to, and plot out the simplicity and spread the challenge on your blog/Google+/Facebook/etc. So here's mine: It's from the preschool show, Charlie and Lola, from the episode I've Won, No I've Won, No I've Won. Introduction to the characters: The show always starts this way, where Charlie is sitting next to Lola, and he says, "I have this little sister, Lola. She is small and very funny." And every time a new character comes on the scene, he'll identify him/her. "Soren Lorensen is Lola's imaginary friend. No one notices him, but her." or "This is my best friend, Marv." He always gives a short description of them and their name. Inciting Incident: In this story, it starts out where Charlie and Lola are having a contest of who can stay still the longest. Charlie is telling you while trying not to move his mouth, that Lola is going through stage where she has to win everything. As he says that, Lola throws her hands up and shouts, "I won! I won!" Charlie claims that he never moved, but Lola won't listen. Lola claims that she wins at everything. She can stand on one foot longer than a flamingo. She can run faster than the "speedy, speedy cheetah." She can drink her pink milk faster. End of Act 1. Obstacles and upping the tension: After each "win," Charlie wants more and more and more to win something. So he devises different games that Lola can't possibly win. 1) He's better at the spoon game, he knows, so he challenges Lola to a game of balancing a spoon on their nose. When Lola sees that she's losing, she distracts Charlie and sticks the spoon to her nose with ice cream, while he's not looking. He knows she cheated, but she won't listen, shouting, "I've won! I've won!" 2) So, he proceeds to set up a game of cards. The game rules are that each person puts down cards alternatively and whoever can match their card to their partners first wins. Lola claims that a queen matches with a king (since a queen is married to a king and wears a crown and lives in a castle) and therefore, she's won again! 3) So, Charlie devises a game that she cannot cheat at. Snakes and ladders. Except she does cheat and climbs up the snakes instead of sliding down like she's supposed to...and she wins...again. "You don't have to win at everything, Lola," he tells her. Midpoint and act two climax: Charlie is getting fed up and so, takes Lola to the park, knowing something for sure that she can't win at. Act three: Charlie tells Lola to race him around the park. Once around the tree. Two big swings on the swing. Slide down the slide. And back to the bench. Lola almost refuses, protesting that she's never gone up the big slide, (foreshadowing) but Charlie convinces her by asking her if she wants to win. She gets an illegal head start, but Charlie passes her anyway and is winning. Lola doesn't wait to go around the tree and she can't get the swing to swing, so she forgets that, but Charlie is still winning. Climax and twist: Charlie is winning and he's going down the slide and about to run back to the bench when he hears his little sister calling for help on the top of the slide. She's scared, being up so high and she's calling for her big brother to save her. Charlie has to make a big decision. Race to the bench and win (zooms into the bench dramatically) or save his terrified sister. In the end he climbs up behind Lola and slides down with her, thereby saving her, but determined to win all the same. He ends up winning and gloating over his victory, then remembering what his dad said about giving Lola a chance, because she's so little. Lesson learned: Lola arrives, out of breath and Charlie asks her if she's okay. She exclaims, "That was fun!" Confused, Charlie reminds her that he won. "You don't have to win at everything, Charlie," she reminds him with a smile. Denoument: In the end, Charlie and Lola are in bed, having a contest on who can fall asleep faster. Lola immediately closes her eyes and fake snores. After a second, she whispers. "I've won, Charlie." Things to notice: 1. At the beginning, Charlie always gives a short description of his little sister and what the problem is. 2. He always gives a short description of each new character, so you know who everyone is 3. Each conflict that Charlie has, builds more and more tension until the final climax 4. Charlie has a big decision to make at the end of the story between two equally bad outcomes. (Losing, or leaving his little sister) 5. Charlie reminds you of his goal, every once and a while, by mentioning that he's finally come up with a game to beat her. That was my disection of Charlie and Lola. Its really fun. Try it! And spread the challenge! Liam said something the other day that got me thinking about motivations in stories. I saw that he'd left his Play-Doh clay out on the table, and I reminded him that if he left it out, it would dry out. He looked at it and informed me that he didn't care. Apparently he always tried to make a gingerbread house, I think it was, and it never worked. So, he didn't care if it dried up. It reminded me that in stories everyone should have a motivation, no matter how small the character (four-year-old boy), no matter how small the motivation (seeing the clay dry up in revenge). And not all motivations need to be obvious. Not quite sure where this is going....so I'm going to end this. My point. Everyone has a motivation. Update on my dad (previous post): According to the doctor, the lymph node just looks about .4 cm larger than usual, but other than that, he says that it looks normal. Could be due to a recent cold that has been going around. His blood levels were perfectly fine, though, and normally when there's cancer, the blood levels are weird. So, thank you all for your prayers!
Please be praying for my dad. He just got the results back from a five-year cancer check-up and they told him that one of his lymph nodes look "questionable." Since he had cancer in his neck, and the lymph node in question is also in his neck, it's a little worrying. We're not sure what that means, or if it means anything at all, or how serious it is, but just please be praying.
Happy belated 16th birthday, Racherd Kemo Maxwell! I've known you basically all my life, but during the past two years we've gotten closer. We've had so much fun over the past decade and a half-ish. Wow! That makes me feel old ;). And you're older than me...hehehe. We've had multiple sleepovers, literally fallen off beds laughing, "did" science together, listened to music, had deep conversations (and some not-so-deep ones), we've created countless inside jokes (Yoga pants! OOH!), we can understand each other's weird minds. You literally bring out the weird in me that I'm not sure I knew was existent before you came along. Are friends supposed to fight? Because we've never had a fight before. We fit each other perfectly. Seriously, we're complete opposites. Even down to the foods we like. You like broccoli. I don't. Etc. I'm so glad to have you as my friend. You're beautiful, funny, amazing and fun. I love you so much! Happy sixteenth birthday and here's to many more!
P.S. You're taking too long to send me the picture of us and that's why this is belated, so I'm just posting this...:) [This is] a time when we really don't see many miraculous things. Maybe we do. Maybe they're all right there around us every day, we just don't know where to look. Sometimes life is about slowing down and noticing all the amazing things that happen around you, but you're just way to busy to notice anything. The way the clouds saunter across the violet sky right before dawn (or right after dusk, if you can't get up early enough to see the sky before dawn). The way the wind whistles a chorus through the trees that you can only hear when you stop and listen. It's not that unusual, when everything is beautiful. It's just another ordinary miracle today. The sky knows when it's time to snow. Don't need to teach a seed to grow. It's just another ordinary miracle today. Even if we see things every day, it's so easy to just breeze over them. Because we're too busy. Too preoccupied to notice all those beautiful things that God placed in this world to give us pleasure. He specifically designed this world to be beautiful. Why? So we could enjoy it. The colors, the sounds, the breezes, the warmth, the frigid cold. Everything was put in place to make our lives beautiful and filled with joy. But if we just ignore them and just take them for granted, it's just like we're rejecting the gift he gave us. Life is like a gift, they say. Wrapped up for you every day...The sun comes out and shines so bright and disappears again at night. It's just another ordinary miracle today. Take time to just enjoy life. Soak in all the beautiful little aspects of this world he designed. Soak in the joy that was meant to occur as a result of slowing down. I blogged about an activity that relates to this and ties this concept in and brings it to a whole new level. Read about it here. All the lyrics quoted here are from Ordinary Miracle by Sarah McLachlan. Okay, so this story almost made me cry and struck me as inspirational and unique at the same time. Danny Oertli's wife, Cyndi, had cancer and she was winning the battle. They thought she was doing okay, and I think it was 18 months later, she had a heart attack, since her heart was weaked from the cancer treatments and she already had a history of heart failure in her family. She died within two days. Now, he was a single father and still struggling with grief. One night, the sun was setting and he was driving home. His daughter saw the beautiful sky and asked him, "Did God let Mommy paint the sky tonight?" As the sunset lights your face, I see God knows how to heal...hearts. So he has Mommy paint the sky with deep ocean blue. She swirls the clouds red to dance just for you. The heavens flame with gold, slowly changing hue. The brilliance of a stage that was made to shine for you. And with each ember flare you watch a hand at play. Tender kisses fall as she paints what words could never say. Oh, and as a totally unrelated post script, that completely wrecks the mood, Emma gave me the idea of doing a blog post in my character's POV. She did it already with her characters, here. So, anyway, I'll probably be doing that when I get the time.
I got weird looks when I used the words 'chagrined' and 'dismayed' in everyday language. (ex. "I told them they couldn't play on the iPads, much to their chagrin" and "You might want to tell them, or they'll be very dismayed.") Why? I'm a writer, okay? And are those so unusual words to use? It's not all that uncommon, right?
And I may be past my writer's block that my characters have been erecting for the past month. Dare I hope? Maybe, just maybe, I might be moving on! Okay, the title of this post is a little strange, and don't worry. I didn't kiss anyone. ;) This song, Kiss Me by the Fray (originally by Sixpence None the Richer) is so inspiring me to write the romance section of my book. I'm in a romantic's heaven! This is officially my favorite song. Kiss me beneath the milky twilight. Lead me out on the moonlit floor. Lift your open hand. Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance. Silver moon’s sparkling. So, kiss me. I can't decide which version I like best. Why don't you guys vote? Isn't this song just inspirational for a sweet romance? *Happy sigh from the crazy romantic sap over here* Oh, and here's another one! Haha! I just hit the jackpot today, didn't I? I’ll keep you warm, dancing in a downpour. And I will hold your body slowly turning. I’ll keep you warm, dancing in a downpour. Breathe it in. Prompted by Go Teen Writer's posts on first lines, I looked through all my books and wrote down the first lines, trying to figure out what makes a stellar first line. I found, that while may great books had amazing first lines, it wasn't necessarily essential for creating a great book. For example, the Book of Names by J. Barkley Briggs starts like this. "In short order, the afternoon sky cooled room blue to marbled grey." Not incredibly gripping, right? And yet, it worked, while it didn't immediately pull you into the action. But here's the next couple of sentences. "Strange clouds teased the senses with a fragrance of storm wind and the faint, clean smell of ozone. Invisible energy sparkled like moonlit dew, mostly unseen, but felt. It was damp. A perfect day for magic." See, now that raises questions, whereas the first line didn't. What is strange about the clouds? What kind of magic? Et cetera. So is it essential to be in the first sentence? Or can it be in the first paragraph? Or even the first page? It doesn't even have to be adventure. This line pulls you in, "Ramona Quimby hoped her parents would forget to give her a little talking-to." That's from Ramona, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. It doesn't start with action, or adventure, or anything incredibly exciting. It just raises questions. What did she do to deserve the "talking-to?" So, maybe it just needs to raise questions. "The midsummer moon hung in the cloud-scattered sky like a free-floating, pale, yellow bubble." New Kid in Town by Janette Oak. Now, this one really doesn't raise a question, but many times calm hints at the fact that this perfect world is going to get shattered. I actually haven't read this book, so I don't exactly know what happened... "Cantor straddled the thick tree limb suspended less than three feet over his favorite fishing hole." One Realm Beyond by Donita K. Paul. In this one, a question really isn't raised until page 3. And yet, it's still a good story. It does take a little longer to get into, but...Many writer's believe in setting the scene in the protagonist's ordinary world. So, here's my theory. It's best to pull your reader in within the first paragraph, the first sentence if at all possible. At least raise questions, to keep your reader reading. I've picked up books before where they lost me on the first line. But, it is acceptable and not necessarily wrong to open up when nothing's happening, setting up the character's world. I'd say, though, to keep from losing your reader's attention, you should at least hint at the trouble to come. I know, for me at least, I tend to look through books right after I've read another really, really good book. And to me, everything always seems to be dull and boring in comparison to the previous book. So, if the writer doesn't capture me within the first couple of paragraphs, I give up on it. You want your book to feel worth reading to someone who's skeptical of every single book that passes by them. That's my little opinion. Hope I didn't bore you to death. Here are a couple of my favorite first lines that never made it into the examples. :) I'm the daughter of earth, sown and rooted in the soil of the land of the dead. Does a corpse care how loving hands lay her in the ground's embrace? Tears are salt. "Mardon, I know you don't enjoy being dead." "Hello!" My sweat smells like peanut butter. Fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds. That's how long I have to live. The last thing I wanted to do on my summer break is blow up another school. There are so many ways it could have all turned out differently. I run through the dark woods. And I see her smile. Happy 14th birthday, Emerd! I've never really known a day without you for as long as I can remember. We've had a lot of fun over the past fourteen years. You definitely bring out the weird in me that I wasn't sure was there before. I love your insanity and your humor. You can always...almost...make me laugh. You are a great critique partner and I'm not sure what I'd do without you. I find that we are complete opposites and we click together. Your insanity and my...un-insanity. You're one of my best friends and I have a lot of childhood memories with you and Abby. Like wearing old fashioned petticoats on our heads and making mock wedding ceremonies. Or making igloos in the front yard, back when we lived in the mountains. Or doing Tittlestown. Or trading stickers. Or camping out in the back yard. Or teaching you songs on the piano. Or making movies about being orphans. Or making forts in the backyard with sticks and leaves and bark and whatever else we could find. Running around in just tights and towels, pretending to be Nacho Libre, listening to Larry Boy music. (We thought he was a super hero, okay?:) I love you! And Happy 14th! We don't even have to try. It's always a good time! Ready for home, so won't you take me there. Ready for home, out of this atmosphere. I'm running into your arms. I'm stepping out of the cold. Ready for home. I'm ready for home. This morning, while I was still sleeping in my bed, Jacob Worthey passed away. I don't even want to think of the pain that his family is going through right now. I'm heartbroken, and I didn't even know him. He was only 14, I think. He was an inspiration. Joyful, sweet. I wish I had known him. Please be praying for his family as they try to cope with this. We just prayed for their family and Liam added at the end, "And I pray for Jacob, too." There was this moment when we were all wondering whether we should tell him that Jacob doesn't need prayer any more, because he's completely healed. Cancer-free. Pain free. No more chemo, no radiation, nothing. He doesn't have to swallow huge pills or take any nasty medicines. He's with his creator. This post is on his parent's blog, showing Jacob's view about God: The List I'm a new day rising. I'm a brand new sky to hang the stars upon tonight. I wrote this poem a while ago about a little girl who was lost to cancer. I changed the end a little to apply to this situation. We'll miss you, Jacob. He's gone now. What will I do? Is there any way to cure this wound? Cancer devours life and soul and makes a void where he should go. The house is empty without his laugh. Like a chilling, merciless draft. I lay in the grass among the lights, my heartache bigger than the skies. The stars glow brighter. Can it be? That you are smiling down at me? Up in the skies, the nighttime skies While I sit with fireflies? As I lay down here and cry, I hope you catch stars in the sky The way you did with fireflies. Another post from his parent's blog: The Spectacle and what a story is not... I close my eyes and go back in time. I can see you're smiling. You're so alive. We were so young. We had no fear. We were so young. We had no idea that life was just happening. Here's to your bright eyes, shining like fireflies. These are my souvenirs. The memory of a lifetime. I wouldn't trade it for anything. My souvenirs. I'm honestly trying so hard not to cry right now. I'm going to post this email I just got: We just got off the phone with Marshall and Lorrie Worthey who are on their way to Denver. Jacob has been taken to the ICU with fluid on his lungs and an enlarged heart. The hospital wants them to make an immediate decision whether or not to intubate him. They are saying the leukemia is winning and he is having repeated high fevers. Please pray for wisdom as they have to make this agonizing decision, and for God's supernatural peace. Latest from Marshall Worthey... Jacob is now on a DNR order (do not resuscitate). Best guess is he has 24-48 hours to live. Words fail here. Obviously HUGE prayers are needed for our dear friends and their family. God is still on His throne, and Jacob will be there to see Him soon. I actually have never met Jacob, but I would have liked to. I feel like I know him through emails with his siblings, through blog posts, through stories. I can't even imagine what they must be going through right now. I feel so helpless. What are you supposed to do? I wish there was something. Just keep praying. For Jacob, for his family, his friends. I'm attempting to write a poem in honor of Jacob right now. He's such an inspiration. But I don't even know where to start...I'm at a total loss for words at the moment. |
About Me!Hannah writes to satisfy her imagination. She's written six books so far--five of which need to be rewritten--and is working on a seventh. She ranges through a variety of genres, but favors contemporary YA, fixing broken characters. She wants to use her writing to change people and bring hope. She's currently going to college for Nursing and that takes up most of her writing time. She's a rather stereotypical writer, talking to imaginary friends, eavesdropping on people at the store, secretly being nosy, stashing herself away in her room with a paper and pen and chocolate and her teddy bear. She loves Jesus, the way the morning smells, her family of seven (four siblings), old movies, fairy tales, candles at night and helping people. She writes on another blog at nerdywriter.blogspot.com to hopefully build her chances of publication. My Author Site:Archives
December 2016
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