Reworking My Blog

Over the next few days I will be reworking my blog image. I'm reading Kristen Lamb's book  We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and discovering the importance of Branding. So, I plan to have a new look that fits my brand. That is of course if she doesn't talk me into switching to Wordpress.

Be patient, my small band of followers. I will be back with more interesting content.

Review: THE FOREVER GIRL by Rebecca Hamilton

This is a book by my good friend Rebecca Hamilton a.k.a. @inkmuse on Twitter. (Though we became friends after I read this.) She's a great person.

Premise: Sophia Parsons is a young women in  who has to deal with diversity because she is a Wiccan. Not only that, but she also has a constant static in her head that drives her to distraction. To try and stop this static Sophia does a ritual. However, all it does is release the skeletons in the family closet and introduce her to the supernatural world hidden beneath the mortal one.

The Good:
Wicca: A book with  Wiccans. There need to be more of these!

Style: Rebecca seamlessly combines Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance with Literary elements into a new genre called Paranormal Fantasy. Well, at least I felt there were Lit qualities, but I don't read a whole lot of Literary Fiction.

Worldbuilding: Rebecca brilliantly twisted the myths of already existing creatures and created her own critters that have me intrigued. I love the use the five elements in relation to creatures. Her world pulled me in to the point I regretted having to leave when the book ended.

Characters: I loved Sophia. She was intelligent and strong willed. Even though she had a lot to be afraid of, she didn't give in to her fear. Also she had this humorous voice that wasn't over the top. Lately, in a lot Urban Fantasy books I am seeing a trend with a overly snarky first person voice. Sophia did not have this. She was funny but it didn't saturate the story. Also, I was drawn into Sophia and her emotions. The supporting characters are well rounded and multidimensional. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Bad: I only have one small nitpick. There are points in the story I felt could have been elaborated, but for the pacing and length's sake, I can understand why they weren't.

Overall: I loved this book. For a while I have been struggling to find books in Urban Fantasy that have kept me interested. I have stopped reading  several novels from the major publishing houses because I felt they were bland and overdone. The Forever Girl kept me hooked until the very end.

Check out The Forever Girl at Rebecca's page here.

Wicca

Lately, I've noticed a few books that have the Main character practicing Wicca. This makes me feel warm inside. Often, Wicca is still misinterpreted as evil, however it is one of the most peaceful religions I know of. This would be because of the Wiccan Rede. The last eight words state "An it harm none, Do as ye will."

I know that this is seen on almost any site or any book that talks about Wicca. That is because it is one of the two principles that Wiccans adhere to. One of the things I love about this religion is it can be tailored to your own belief. The are many traditions out there. You practice what feels right to you as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, yourself included. That is pretty much what the Rede means.

The second principle the "Three-Fold Law of Return" is basically cause and effect. What you do, either good or bad, will return to you at three times the potency.

I really hope that to see more of Wicca in novels. It doesn't deserve all the misinterpretation it gets.

Back in the Saddle

Ok, so I took a hiatus away from blogging. I am happy to say I finished the first draft of my novel in November. So, yay! Then I have spent the last month and a half tearing my book apart to see the good, the bad, and the meh.

Mostly, I need to work on the characters, especially my MC. I worried that she would me a Mary Sue (See this for a definition), so I constantly has her beat up. The opposite ended up happening. She became incompetent, waffling, and just annoying. By the end of the book she was so injured it was ridiculous. So now I am rewriting her how she should be. Competent, smart, and strong. If others think she is a Mary Sue, then they are welcome to their opinion.

I know we are supposed to write for the readers, but we should also keep in mind that our own personal opinion of our work is important.

Realization

So, I've think I figured out why I have been in a slump lately. The scene I was trying to write was not coming out. I did write something else to help my creativity flow, but still I was stuck I did some thinking on the scene I was trying to write and realized it was pointless to my story. Anything crucial in the scene could be added to the next one. So, sometimes my block is my intuition telling me something is wrong. Though I'll admit, sometimes it's just laziness and getting distracted by other things.

Gaming Humor

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I am a HUGE role-player. I love the character development and stories. Hmm, yeah I think I remember mentioning this before. Anyway, I have found a funny list, with true points to my life on it, such as numbers five through eight. Seven and eight are reasons I fail on the Mary Sue Test.


Anyway, for any gamers here's the list. It's a little log, but funny.

This Planet Earth

So after reading Visions of Magic I've thought about world building. This is pretty important in story telling. Though background and world building may never be fully introduced into the story, it is good to work out how your fantasy elements fit in the world. Research is needed to see how the world works. For instance if the government is involved, then you would need to know how the government works.

World building has always come easy for me. I love to lay back and imagine the little things that happen in back story. I get excited when I figure out how vampires came into being. I love reading mythology and incorporating it in my reality's creation. This is one of my favorite part of writing.

What is your thoughts on world building. Do you love it or hate it?