I have absolutely nothing to post about except for the joke somebody told me today. It's a fantastic one; I actually laughed out loud. And since it was just that great, I think I should share it with you guys. Oh...and I'll share my favorite riddle as well, because it's pretty funny too.
"At the site of a recent boat wreck, one lone survivor sat with his back against a tree, chewing on a bone. As he tossed the bone onto a huge pile of bones, he noticed a rescue team had arrived.
'Thank God,' he cried out in relief. 'I am saved!'
The rescue team did not move, as they were in shock, seeing the pile of human bones beside the lone survivor. Obviously, he had eaten his comrades. The survivor saw the horror on their faces and hung his own head in shame.
'You can't judge me for this,' he insisted. 'I had to survive. Is it so wrong to want to live?'
The leader of the rescue team stepped forward, shaking his head in disbelief. 'I won't judge you for doing what was necessary to survive, but my God man, your boat only wrecked yesterday!'"
Haha I cracked up when my friend sent me it (we were IMing). I really hope you all like it, because I think it's the greatest. Oh, and...sorry if the idea of cannibalism offends you. The jokes I like are all pretty morbid I suppose. So anyway - where's the riddle!
"The one who makes it never uses it, but the one who uses it doesn't know that he's using it. What is it?"
Do you know? It took me only a few seconds to guess what it was when I was originally asked. Give me your answer in the comments! Because I really want to know how many of you will be able to figure it out.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Kamie: So it's been awhile....
Life has been overly hectic for me lately, and for that I am sorry. Right now it's midnight thirty, and I am currently residing in Denton, Texas getting ready to tour a college on Wednesday. It has been a fun road trip that I've had the pleasure of taking with my dad. It's definitely been entertaining, but I can't wait to go back home. I've had a lot to do this summer, some heart wrenching, some predictable, some average every day stuff too though. Right now I've been focused on the book East of Eden which I'm forcing myself to like, which is working because I like it.... does that make sense? I'm not sure it's been a long day. Anyhoo, I'm rereading it and the Sparknotes again to make sure I feel good about it, which I'm pretty sure I do, but it's a good thing to be safe rather than sorry. This upcoming year I will be locking myself practically in my room going completely into school study mode. Sure I'll have some fun but that can wait. My best friend who's like my sister is moving away, Chelsea, she's going off to college in New York, and although I'm very happy and proud of her I shall miss her very much so. Sorry if she hasn't been on she's been dealing with a lot also right now to get ready for college. I get to tour UNT on Wednesday and am overly excited for that! I've vaguely been home lately. Recently Chelsea and I have been hopping houses, and now I went on this trip, then they're going to take me to the beach if I get back in time right when I get back, then I have registration for my Senior year of high school on the Tuesday when I get back from the beach, I am then going to a convention Friday, Saturday, come back home Sunday get up and be ready to go to Link Crew training at nine am for two days, then Thursday be at the school by seven thirty and get ready for Freshman orientation, I need to feel confident with my book by Monday after that on the first day of school and be ready for a test from Mr. Perry on the book. Oh and I think my cousin Anthony will be coming up for a week not including how everything's going to... I'll just stop rambling now... this has been my busiest summer yet. This isn't even the whole of it all. I'm planning for NaNo, I want to work on my book with Cori, I'm hopefully going to work on my book with Chelsea, I'm planning my Harmonious Endeavours and am working on my own new idea... so writing's been busy. I broke up with my boyfriend for a multiple of reasons, and now he's pissing me off, pardon my language... sigh... I think this is enough for now...
-Kamiella Maze
-Kamiella Maze
Cori: I'm writing again
I haven't been writing at all lately, believe it or not. My muse kind of shriveled up and died after the day I wrote about 10,000 words for Caged and finished the book...lol. But the other day I brought out a sort of old book I was working on - Skin Deep. My gay romance novel (heh).
So now, instead of writing about an insane demon named Altrius, I'm writing about a dying boy who loves another boy and kisses him every once and a while. Yay.
Oh, and because I love writing about demons...Ciaran (the dying boy) is also a demon. He eats souls. He's also a complete weirdo.
So, uh...yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing lately. Also, I'm putting Skin Deep on the website FictionPress, to share with people. It doesn't have any reviews so far...but people keep viewing it. A couple of them have read both of the chapters that I have up right now. And yet...no reviews. It's kind of depressing; I need to find out what's wrong with the two chapters so I can fix them and get some actual reviews. I don't know...maybe I should rewrite the entire thing. We'll see.
So now, instead of writing about an insane demon named Altrius, I'm writing about a dying boy who loves another boy and kisses him every once and a while. Yay.
Oh, and because I love writing about demons...Ciaran (the dying boy) is also a demon. He eats souls. He's also a complete weirdo.
So, uh...yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing lately. Also, I'm putting Skin Deep on the website FictionPress, to share with people. It doesn't have any reviews so far...but people keep viewing it. A couple of them have read both of the chapters that I have up right now. And yet...no reviews. It's kind of depressing; I need to find out what's wrong with the two chapters so I can fix them and get some actual reviews. I don't know...maybe I should rewrite the entire thing. We'll see.
Yes...I am alive.
I have been EXTREMELY busy lately and I honestly don't have time to post anything right now, but I just wanted to get on and post SOMETHING to let you all know that I am still in existence. I'll fill you in on what I've been doing lately later, hopefully later today. This will be the shortest thing I have ever posted on here, but I just knew that I needed to put something--anything--up. I'll be back on when I have some more time.
-Iridian
-Iridian
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Cori: I'm sixteen!
It's been three hours since my birthday, July 27th, was over...but I'm going to post about it anyway. It feels strange to know that if I want to I can drive...my grandpa is going to teach me. He teaches all the Tufts kids; he'll take us to a graveyard and have us learn there, because we won't be hurting anyone and there's never anyone there anyway. It's the perfect place to learn. So I'll be getting lessons from him soon, which I'm looking forward to.
I didn't get any presents, because my mom wasn't home for my birthday (she's in Chicago, seeing a concert) and I guess she wants to be there or something...I'm not really sure...but that's okay with me. I got to go to the new Batman movie with my friend Kelli. The bad guy had a really sexy voice so I mainly focused on that...and the lisp that Bruce has when he's using that fake, rough voice. Seriously, the guy has a terrible lisp. And the bad thing is that I start imitating it whenever I listen to it for too long haha!
Okay, well it's three in the morning so I'm going to cut this short. Goodnight!
I didn't get any presents, because my mom wasn't home for my birthday (she's in Chicago, seeing a concert) and I guess she wants to be there or something...I'm not really sure...but that's okay with me. I got to go to the new Batman movie with my friend Kelli. The bad guy had a really sexy voice so I mainly focused on that...and the lisp that Bruce has when he's using that fake, rough voice. Seriously, the guy has a terrible lisp. And the bad thing is that I start imitating it whenever I listen to it for too long haha!
Okay, well it's three in the morning so I'm going to cut this short. Goodnight!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Kas: New story.
So, because Heather and i have been so busy lately, we haven't worked on Silver since the beginning of the summer. And because her camp doesn't end for a few more weeks, I've decided I want to start something new.
I don't really know what this new story will be, yet. I know I'm leaning more towards dystopian, though, since Silver has thoroughly fulfilled my horseback riding, sword yielding,arrow shooting, tunic wearing needs.
I'm going to go through my old hard drive and look at all my older stories. Maybe one of them is wort re-thinking? We'll see, i guess.
Also, fun fact, I move into my dorm room 3 weeks from tomorrow. Which is terrifying.
I'll post again later if I figure out this new story thing.
-K
I don't really know what this new story will be, yet. I know I'm leaning more towards dystopian, though, since Silver has thoroughly fulfilled my horseback riding, sword yielding,arrow shooting, tunic wearing needs.
I'm going to go through my old hard drive and look at all my older stories. Maybe one of them is wort re-thinking? We'll see, i guess.
Also, fun fact, I move into my dorm room 3 weeks from tomorrow. Which is terrifying.
I'll post again later if I figure out this new story thing.
-K
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Cori: It was meant to be.
So I was taking Mary Sue tests (I think they're fun), when I read the instructions at the top for the first time ever and saw a link to different generators. I love generators, because they come up with the craziest stuff, so I clicked on the link. It brought me to a huuuuuuuuge list of generators (some are actually extremely useful), and I found a Victorian/Steampunk outfit generator...heh heh heh.
In case you don't know, the Victorian age is my favorite time, and I love Steampunk. It was like I was destined to use that generator. So I clicked on it and it brought me to a new screen where I could click away as much as I wanted; it brought up a new outfit every time, including accessories and colors. Pure gold, baby. Here's a few examples:
You are wearing a high-collar top, a pair of loose trousers, and a pair of embroidered shoes, over which you are wearing a medium-length jacket. Your accessories include a scarf and a top hat. The whole ensemble is coordinated in light purple and white.
You are wearing an embroidered blouse, a pair of trousers, and a pair of shoes. Your accessories include a pair of goggles and a feathered hat. The whole ensemble is coordinated in red and dark blue.
When I clicked the button for about the millionth time, an interesting and extremely familiar outfit came up...
You are wearing a high-collar top, a pair of trousers, and a pair knee-high boots, over which you are wearing a long coat. Your accessories include a belt and a wide-brimmed hat. The whole ensemble is coordinated in black and red.
That is the exact outfit that Altrius wears (though the hat comes in much later, and actually saves his life). Here was my reaction when I realized exactly what had just happened:
Me: "HOLY SHIT!"
Mom: *opens the door cautiously* "Are you okay? Are you watching a gory movie or something?"
Me: "Heh, no. Everything is fine." *discreetly exits out of one of the many tabs*
Altrius's outfit was obviously meant to be.
Okay, so I mentioned that Altrius's hat saves his life. This is because the voice in his head takes over his body right as he's about to assassinate someone, and forces him to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. It doesn't go exactly as planned...here's what happens:
It was the moment of hesitation, the fraction of a second where the finger struggled against the trigger. The moment it all broke down to―the question of whether you could shoot or not before the opportunity slipped away. Altrius Dial was a monster and a murderer, and he'd not yet let an opportunity escape him.
His finger froze on the trigger.
Against his will, his arm rose away from where it had been aimed at King Tranton's head, to his own. The barrel of his pistol dug into his ear. As Altrius struggled with whatever had taken away his free will, a nonexistent hand covered his own and something pressed insistently against the trigger of his gun.
You forgot about just one little thing, the voice hissed in his ear. It was next to him, lying on its stomach and gazing at him with malevolent golden eyes. Me.
Slowly, the voice pressed the trigger.
“What's going on?” Mirabelle barked through the headset. “Why haven't you shot him yet? He's leaving, dammit! Shoot!”
The loud, echoing bang seemed to stop time. Altrius's head snapped to the side, and pain blossomed before everything seemed to go dark. His body was flung to the side like a discarded doll. Then, cautiously, he opened his eyes: he was alive. The voice was screaming its fury―the cause of his pain was a mere headache.
A few feet away lay Cecila's gift, which had saved his life. His hat had a smoking hole in the side of it.
In case you don't know, the Victorian age is my favorite time, and I love Steampunk. It was like I was destined to use that generator. So I clicked on it and it brought me to a new screen where I could click away as much as I wanted; it brought up a new outfit every time, including accessories and colors. Pure gold, baby. Here's a few examples:
You are wearing a high-collar top, a pair of loose trousers, and a pair of embroidered shoes, over which you are wearing a medium-length jacket. Your accessories include a scarf and a top hat. The whole ensemble is coordinated in light purple and white.
You are wearing an embroidered blouse, a pair of trousers, and a pair of shoes. Your accessories include a pair of goggles and a feathered hat. The whole ensemble is coordinated in red and dark blue.
When I clicked the button for about the millionth time, an interesting and extremely familiar outfit came up...
You are wearing a high-collar top, a pair of trousers, and a pair knee-high boots, over which you are wearing a long coat. Your accessories include a belt and a wide-brimmed hat. The whole ensemble is coordinated in black and red.
That is the exact outfit that Altrius wears (though the hat comes in much later, and actually saves his life). Here was my reaction when I realized exactly what had just happened:
Me: "HOLY SHIT!"
Mom: *opens the door cautiously* "Are you okay? Are you watching a gory movie or something?"
Me: "Heh, no. Everything is fine." *discreetly exits out of one of the many tabs*
Altrius's outfit was obviously meant to be.
Okay, so I mentioned that Altrius's hat saves his life. This is because the voice in his head takes over his body right as he's about to assassinate someone, and forces him to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. It doesn't go exactly as planned...here's what happens:
It was the moment of hesitation, the fraction of a second where the finger struggled against the trigger. The moment it all broke down to―the question of whether you could shoot or not before the opportunity slipped away. Altrius Dial was a monster and a murderer, and he'd not yet let an opportunity escape him.
His finger froze on the trigger.
Against his will, his arm rose away from where it had been aimed at King Tranton's head, to his own. The barrel of his pistol dug into his ear. As Altrius struggled with whatever had taken away his free will, a nonexistent hand covered his own and something pressed insistently against the trigger of his gun.
You forgot about just one little thing, the voice hissed in his ear. It was next to him, lying on its stomach and gazing at him with malevolent golden eyes. Me.
Slowly, the voice pressed the trigger.
“What's going on?” Mirabelle barked through the headset. “Why haven't you shot him yet? He's leaving, dammit! Shoot!”
The loud, echoing bang seemed to stop time. Altrius's head snapped to the side, and pain blossomed before everything seemed to go dark. His body was flung to the side like a discarded doll. Then, cautiously, he opened his eyes: he was alive. The voice was screaming its fury―the cause of his pain was a mere headache.
A few feet away lay Cecila's gift, which had saved his life. His hat had a smoking hole in the side of it.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Cori: Sequel to Caged
I've been thinking about the sequel a lot lately. Wondering how to begin it, thinking of new ways to torture Altrius, dreaming up major plot points...I have a few plot points already that I want to put in, so that's at least partly finished.
The title of Caged is going to be either Between the Lines or Frayed. Maybe later on I'll come up with another name, but for now those are the top two candidates. What do you guys think?
Oh, I almost forgot to mention haha...my birthday is in six days. I'll be sixteen. My mom is letting me have three friends over; we're going to go to a sushi bar and then they're going to spend the night. I just hope they can all come.
I really don't have much else to say, so I'm going to go ahead and cut this short. Keep posting, okay? Nobody's been posting lately, or commenting on other posts or anything.
EDIT: Do you like the new quote? Haha Dumbledore is awesome.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention haha...my birthday is in six days. I'll be sixteen. My mom is letting me have three friends over; we're going to go to a sushi bar and then they're going to spend the night. I just hope they can all come.
I really don't have much else to say, so I'm going to go ahead and cut this short. Keep posting, okay? Nobody's been posting lately, or commenting on other posts or anything.
EDIT: Do you like the new quote? Haha Dumbledore is awesome.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Kas: Camp Crimson
Sorry I've been M.I.A lately, the wedding was this weekend. It went really well. I did have a small mental breakdown during it though, haha.
Anyways, I got my roommate assignment for college. Her name is Kassandra, and I'm really hoping she doesn't go by Kas cause that could get really confusing. Haha. We've been emailing back and forth and she seems nice enough. I can't really see us becoming best friends, but you never know.
This weekend I have Camp Crimson. Which is a weekend retreat where you stay on campus and they have parties and social events so that we can make a few friends before we move into the dorms in August. I'm super excited. So, you won;t be hearing from me until Saturday night, unless I manage to get online sometime.
Heather, sorry I wasn't online last weekend. I probably won't get to talk to you this weekend either. But, if you've finished your edit, just email it to me and this week i'll combine our notes and split it into chapters, and then next week we can start on the actual editing. :)
Oh1 and I got an Iphone, which I'm super excited about. It took forever to convince my dad to get them, since we don't get great service at our house. So, I'll take some pictures this weekend and post them when I get back.
-K
Anyways, I got my roommate assignment for college. Her name is Kassandra, and I'm really hoping she doesn't go by Kas cause that could get really confusing. Haha. We've been emailing back and forth and she seems nice enough. I can't really see us becoming best friends, but you never know.
This weekend I have Camp Crimson. Which is a weekend retreat where you stay on campus and they have parties and social events so that we can make a few friends before we move into the dorms in August. I'm super excited. So, you won;t be hearing from me until Saturday night, unless I manage to get online sometime.
Heather, sorry I wasn't online last weekend. I probably won't get to talk to you this weekend either. But, if you've finished your edit, just email it to me and this week i'll combine our notes and split it into chapters, and then next week we can start on the actual editing. :)
Oh1 and I got an Iphone, which I'm super excited about. It took forever to convince my dad to get them, since we don't get great service at our house. So, I'll take some pictures this weekend and post them when I get back.
-K
Monday, July 16, 2012
Cori is covered in freckles.
So for twelve days I was in Indiana with my grandma. I got back home, got to sleep in my fur-less bed for a single night, and then I was shipped off to my grandma and grandpa's house in Cincinnati for three days. They have wi-fi, but for whatever reason it doesn't work on my laptop. I wouldn't have been able to get on anyway; I wasn't near my laptop the entire time.
On the first day in Cincinnati, I went to the King's Island amusement park and rode a bunch of rides. I also ate cotton candy (my dentist would kill me if he knew). We watched the fireworks and then went home. The very next day, we decided to go to the water park part of KI, and I spent four hours swimming in the wave pool.
I love swimming. The only problem is that I'm not very good at it, seeing as I can't even do a simple breaststroke or keep my head above the water for more than a few minutes at a time. So, going into the deep end of the wave pool was not a good idea; I nearly drowned a few times. I'm still trying to cough up all the water I accidentally swallowed haha.
I'm naturally a redhead, so it's either burn or freckle for me. I put on a huge amount of sunscreen and now I have freckles all over my shoulders, face, and legs. For some reason I don't get them on my arms. I also got a shade darker, which is like a deep tan for me, and I hate it - I love being pale. But that's okay. I'll just stay inside for a few days and my skin will go back to ghostly white. Then I'll go outside and start the process all over again!
Also! My mom has decided that I have to grow out my hair. For some reason she likes it better long, even though it turns really lank and dead that way and looks a lot better when it's short. So, since I have to grow it out, I'm going to save up my money. Then I'm going to go to downtown Lebanon with my friend Emily and get a haircut. Mommy dearest wants it long, but that ain't going to happen.
It kind of pisses me off, because I got my hair cut just a few months ago. In the back it was a few centimeters below my ears and now it's down to my shoulders. My bangs were cut to my eyebrows but now they're past my nose. My hair grows waaaay too fast.
Another thing that kind of annoys me is that boys have never, EVER shown any interest in me unless they're extremely desperate. I wore a bikini yesterday at KI and suddenly tons of guys were staring at me. And this is right after I've decided that I really hate the male side of the species. When my grandma told my dad about all the stares I was getting, he looked kind of worried. It's kind of funny because he never minded before. But as soon as I start hating men, he's freaked out about me getting a boyfriend. It really makes no sense at all.
Well, I'm going to go walk around my house and scout for loose change. I really want that haircut. Bye!
On the first day in Cincinnati, I went to the King's Island amusement park and rode a bunch of rides. I also ate cotton candy (my dentist would kill me if he knew). We watched the fireworks and then went home. The very next day, we decided to go to the water park part of KI, and I spent four hours swimming in the wave pool.
I love swimming. The only problem is that I'm not very good at it, seeing as I can't even do a simple breaststroke or keep my head above the water for more than a few minutes at a time. So, going into the deep end of the wave pool was not a good idea; I nearly drowned a few times. I'm still trying to cough up all the water I accidentally swallowed haha.
I'm naturally a redhead, so it's either burn or freckle for me. I put on a huge amount of sunscreen and now I have freckles all over my shoulders, face, and legs. For some reason I don't get them on my arms. I also got a shade darker, which is like a deep tan for me, and I hate it - I love being pale. But that's okay. I'll just stay inside for a few days and my skin will go back to ghostly white. Then I'll go outside and start the process all over again!
Also! My mom has decided that I have to grow out my hair. For some reason she likes it better long, even though it turns really lank and dead that way and looks a lot better when it's short. So, since I have to grow it out, I'm going to save up my money. Then I'm going to go to downtown Lebanon with my friend Emily and get a haircut. Mommy dearest wants it long, but that ain't going to happen.
It kind of pisses me off, because I got my hair cut just a few months ago. In the back it was a few centimeters below my ears and now it's down to my shoulders. My bangs were cut to my eyebrows but now they're past my nose. My hair grows waaaay too fast.
Another thing that kind of annoys me is that boys have never, EVER shown any interest in me unless they're extremely desperate. I wore a bikini yesterday at KI and suddenly tons of guys were staring at me. And this is right after I've decided that I really hate the male side of the species. When my grandma told my dad about all the stares I was getting, he looked kind of worried. It's kind of funny because he never minded before. But as soon as I start hating men, he's freaked out about me getting a boyfriend. It really makes no sense at all.
Well, I'm going to go walk around my house and scout for loose change. I really want that haircut. Bye!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Heather: Long Time No See!
I miss you all.
And I meant to post last week, but I think I just totally forgot / slept in and ran out of time because I was late for work.
The reason for my lack of posting? I live at my work, literally, and I don't have wifi. :( But I decided that this week I might just jack someone elses on my phone to go on here any way, because I missed you all so much!
So, I'm the relief counsellor at an overnight summer camp, meaning I do everyone else's jobs when they're off. It also means I get to know all of the kids, instead of just those in my cabin. I love it, to be honest. That camp is such a great place, and it's just awesome. Supremely awesome.
The people I work with are hilarious, and I really like all of them. Which is good, considering that we live together.
The camp itself actually runs on donations, and is for kids without a lot of money, or that come from bad homes. A lot of the campers (though certainly not all) have the camp recommended to them by the Children's Aid Society.
It's definitely been pretty crazy.
Also, as proof to my clumsy-ness, last week I feel down the stairs, twisted my ankle, cut open both my legs, discovered I was allergic to bug-bites (okay, so clumsy has nothing to do with this one), fell off a roof in the middle of the night (yes, a roof), had two very swollen knees and a swollen ankle (reference above), and a sharp constant ache in my back from landing on cement stairs.
And you know what?
Last week freaking rocked.
This job, to be honest, is, while often difficult, absolutely wonderful. I'm having the time of my life, and learning a lot about life while I'm at it.
I'm sorry about not posting! But when I'm off, I come home, sleep, shop for camp, sleep, head back to camp. I've slept 20 hours since coming home yesterday, and I'm still exhausted.
Oh, and Kas, you weren't on this weekend! But no worries, I saw the wedding pictures, hope it was awesome! I miss you, LLBF. ;)
Talk to you all soon, okay? I promise.
Also, Rachel, that rocks! I hope it works out for you!
-H
P.S. Where have you all gone, and why is Rachel the only one posting? She's new! Come on guys, help her out!
And I meant to post last week, but I think I just totally forgot / slept in and ran out of time because I was late for work.
The reason for my lack of posting? I live at my work, literally, and I don't have wifi. :( But I decided that this week I might just jack someone elses on my phone to go on here any way, because I missed you all so much!
So, I'm the relief counsellor at an overnight summer camp, meaning I do everyone else's jobs when they're off. It also means I get to know all of the kids, instead of just those in my cabin. I love it, to be honest. That camp is such a great place, and it's just awesome. Supremely awesome.
The people I work with are hilarious, and I really like all of them. Which is good, considering that we live together.
The camp itself actually runs on donations, and is for kids without a lot of money, or that come from bad homes. A lot of the campers (though certainly not all) have the camp recommended to them by the Children's Aid Society.
It's definitely been pretty crazy.
Also, as proof to my clumsy-ness, last week I feel down the stairs, twisted my ankle, cut open both my legs, discovered I was allergic to bug-bites (okay, so clumsy has nothing to do with this one), fell off a roof in the middle of the night (yes, a roof), had two very swollen knees and a swollen ankle (reference above), and a sharp constant ache in my back from landing on cement stairs.
And you know what?
Last week freaking rocked.
This job, to be honest, is, while often difficult, absolutely wonderful. I'm having the time of my life, and learning a lot about life while I'm at it.
I'm sorry about not posting! But when I'm off, I come home, sleep, shop for camp, sleep, head back to camp. I've slept 20 hours since coming home yesterday, and I'm still exhausted.
Oh, and Kas, you weren't on this weekend! But no worries, I saw the wedding pictures, hope it was awesome! I miss you, LLBF. ;)
Talk to you all soon, okay? I promise.
Also, Rachel, that rocks! I hope it works out for you!
-H
P.S. Where have you all gone, and why is Rachel the only one posting? She's new! Come on guys, help her out!
Friday, July 13, 2012
Rachel: Good news, everyone!
Okay, that unintentionally sounded like a line from Futurama, if any of you also watch very stupid cartoons...but I actually have some good news. Surprisingly, it is not about my book, so you don't have to roll your eyes and stop reading.
I go and see a psychotherapist/neurologist guy every week for my epilepsy, and usually I just get a treatment thing and go on my way and still have seizures anyway. But yesterday I went for my treatment and my doctor told me that there is a neck-alignment person who might be able to help my seizures--and maybe get away get rid of them for good. He said that maybe my problem is that there is cerebral fluid pooling in my brain and a neck alignment could fix that. I have an appointment coming up soon, so wish me luck, everyone. This could completely change my life. Not only may I get to drive now, but I might actually be alive for the first time ever. My life is sort of like one long dream that I can't seem to wake up from even though I know I'm dreaming. I know that I do not perceive the world correctly but I can't seem to make myself experience it how I know it is. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, this could "wake me up", if you get what I'm saying. I don't want to get my hopes up too high because it's very possible that the problem is just my brain, but now I have a shred of hope and a part of my wants to hold on to that.
Anyway, that's pretty much my good news. I don't really have anything else to post about except that tomorrow morning is the last day I have to do farm work...at least for now. In its way, that is also good news. If anything more interesting comes up, I'll be sure to post it since nothing--or maybe LOTS of stuff--is happening with everyone else.
-Iridian
I go and see a psychotherapist/neurologist guy every week for my epilepsy, and usually I just get a treatment thing and go on my way and still have seizures anyway. But yesterday I went for my treatment and my doctor told me that there is a neck-alignment person who might be able to help my seizures--and maybe get away get rid of them for good. He said that maybe my problem is that there is cerebral fluid pooling in my brain and a neck alignment could fix that. I have an appointment coming up soon, so wish me luck, everyone. This could completely change my life. Not only may I get to drive now, but I might actually be alive for the first time ever. My life is sort of like one long dream that I can't seem to wake up from even though I know I'm dreaming. I know that I do not perceive the world correctly but I can't seem to make myself experience it how I know it is. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, this could "wake me up", if you get what I'm saying. I don't want to get my hopes up too high because it's very possible that the problem is just my brain, but now I have a shred of hope and a part of my wants to hold on to that.
Anyway, that's pretty much my good news. I don't really have anything else to post about except that tomorrow morning is the last day I have to do farm work...at least for now. In its way, that is also good news. If anything more interesting comes up, I'll be sure to post it since nothing--or maybe LOTS of stuff--is happening with everyone else.
-Iridian
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Rachel: Just posting.
I decided that I didn't want to torture you all with another long post about my book, so I thought it would just post about regular old things like a normal person.
I had the WORST day at the farm/house/place thing this morning. I have no idea what I was paying for, but the universe felt like punching me in the face. A goat got out, I ran out of turkey food, the watering system went haywire...it was incredibly lame, but I got through it, so I win. It takes more than that to defeat Rachel Molina. Let that be a lesson to you, world.
Let's see, what else has been happening...well, this is not exactly an eloquent or even very interesting tale, but I journeyed to see a dermatologist on Monday. For those of you who haven't seen what I look like other than that picture that picture that Jamie put up a long time ago, I have some kind of intense acne, so we decided to do something about it. Usually when I see a dermatologist they just talk to me and give me some meds that don't really help, but this time it was CRAZY. The doctor just looked at me and immediately told me what they were going to do. I thought that they meant I would have stuff done in a different appointment, but about two seconds later they made me get a chemical peel and gave me shots. In my face. In my acne. I know this is not a cute story, but I have to rant about it to somebody because it was AWFUL. Apparently some of my acne is cystic, and they made me get injections directly into the cysts!!! I know this is disgusting so I'll stop talking about it, but UGH my life is so weird.
On a less gross note, I finally started my summer reading for school. We have to read East of Eden, and you know what? It's actually quite good so far. I usually am not a Steinbeck fan, but I really like this book...for now. There's still plenty of time for Steinbeck to change my mind for me, but like I said: so far, so good. I don't know if you've begun reading it yet, Jamie, but I would recommend you do. Not only because it's pretty thick, but because you might like it, too! Oh, and sorry I never responded to your text; my phone was dead until around nine o'clock last night, and I just had to go to bed :(
Well...as it turns out I really have nothing to post about when I'm not posting about my book. It just occurred to me that I could post about my other book that I am working on, but I'll only do that if you all say you're cool with me having another thing to talk endlessly about.
Speaking of things that I talk endlessly about, I think I'll get to planning out my characters' lives in Death List again. I get to start on Leala now, which I'm pleased about; she's like my only female main character. I know that's weird, but I just feel more comfortable writing from a male perspective most of the time. There's a reason for that, but that's a conversation for another time because you will all call me a madwoman :) Anyway, I may or may not post again later. Hopefully there will be some activity besides me, since I'm sure your lives are all much more interesting than mine.
-Iridian
I had the WORST day at the farm/house/place thing this morning. I have no idea what I was paying for, but the universe felt like punching me in the face. A goat got out, I ran out of turkey food, the watering system went haywire...it was incredibly lame, but I got through it, so I win. It takes more than that to defeat Rachel Molina. Let that be a lesson to you, world.
Let's see, what else has been happening...well, this is not exactly an eloquent or even very interesting tale, but I journeyed to see a dermatologist on Monday. For those of you who haven't seen what I look like other than that picture that picture that Jamie put up a long time ago, I have some kind of intense acne, so we decided to do something about it. Usually when I see a dermatologist they just talk to me and give me some meds that don't really help, but this time it was CRAZY. The doctor just looked at me and immediately told me what they were going to do. I thought that they meant I would have stuff done in a different appointment, but about two seconds later they made me get a chemical peel and gave me shots. In my face. In my acne. I know this is not a cute story, but I have to rant about it to somebody because it was AWFUL. Apparently some of my acne is cystic, and they made me get injections directly into the cysts!!! I know this is disgusting so I'll stop talking about it, but UGH my life is so weird.
On a less gross note, I finally started my summer reading for school. We have to read East of Eden, and you know what? It's actually quite good so far. I usually am not a Steinbeck fan, but I really like this book...for now. There's still plenty of time for Steinbeck to change my mind for me, but like I said: so far, so good. I don't know if you've begun reading it yet, Jamie, but I would recommend you do. Not only because it's pretty thick, but because you might like it, too! Oh, and sorry I never responded to your text; my phone was dead until around nine o'clock last night, and I just had to go to bed :(
Well...as it turns out I really have nothing to post about when I'm not posting about my book. It just occurred to me that I could post about my other book that I am working on, but I'll only do that if you all say you're cool with me having another thing to talk endlessly about.
Speaking of things that I talk endlessly about, I think I'll get to planning out my characters' lives in Death List again. I get to start on Leala now, which I'm pleased about; she's like my only female main character. I know that's weird, but I just feel more comfortable writing from a male perspective most of the time. There's a reason for that, but that's a conversation for another time because you will all call me a madwoman :) Anyway, I may or may not post again later. Hopefully there will be some activity besides me, since I'm sure your lives are all much more interesting than mine.
-Iridian
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Rachel: Freedom Williams
So I told you all about what goes on with ZeCat last night, and, whether you like it or not, I'm doing the same thing with Freedom! HA! Sorry that I keep posting long, confusing things about my characters, but I am personally having kind of a blast with it, so unfortunately I must continue. Also, now that I've started doing this it only makes sense to continue because all of my plots fit together to make the book. Basically Death List is like one big puzzle, and it would be rude of me not to give you all the pieces...or at least that's how I'm going to rationalize my excessive posting :p Anyway, you are now about to read all about Freedom's journey. Like ZeCat's thing, this is kind of a bare-bones outline of what generally happens, meaning that there are events that will flesh this thing out that I haven't quite figured out yet or am just not including because they aren't important right now. So, without further ado, I'm going to jump into it!
*Where he starts out: In a crappy apartment building near the middle of Paradise City. He lives here by himself. Ziv lives in the same building, though neither of them are aware that they live near each other.
*Where he ends up: A rebel camp that is approximately 230-240 miles inland from where he ends up after escaping Almost Heaven.
*How he gets there: So Freedom is introduced to the reader when he is in his apartment giving himself surgery on his hand. He's a pretty shady person in this early stage, but he's not a bad person. He has no interest in getting involved with criminal activity that could hurt anybody but himself, but he has a seed of rebelliousness that will really blossom later on. He is a good actor (by which I mean he's a good liar) and kind of cocky sometimes. More than anything, however, he is technology-obsessed, kind of naive, and afraid of death. This fear is death is VERY pivotal to the development of his character because it motivates a lot of his decisions.
Anyway, Freedom's story really starts when he is mugged by Wolfe on his way to meet Ziv at the Station Five monorail station to purchase a special lubricant for the machinery in his hand. Wolfe wants Freedom's money, but Freedom is so desperate to hold on to it that Wolfe ends up stabbing him and Freedom is taken to the hospital. Really quickly, just to remind you, this mugging was witnessed by ZeCat, right? Anyway, Freedom is easily healed and sent home just hours after his incident, but he hasn't learned anything from it about his lifestyle; he's already planning to pick up the lubricant later. He comes home to discover a notice on his door from the Department of Gallagherite Affairs that instructs him to go to the restaurant, The Violet, at six o'clock that evening. Even though he's nervous (with good reason), Freedom goes...only to discover that officials from the Department are waiting for him with bad news. As it turns out, when he went to the hospital after being stabbed, the doctors discovered his very illegal technological implants. The officials at The Violet inform him that his Date has been moved, that he is guilty of a number of crimes, and that he is going to be taken to Almost Heaven immediately because he has proven to be such a danger to society. Freedom is escorted from the building by Roth (a main character of mine who is a police officer) and another policeman, but he decides to give escape a try and breaks away in a panic. This fear (told you it was an important force for him) fuels him to kidnap Vine off the street and to hide out in what turns out to be an abandoned life house. This is a huge turning point for Freedom. It's nothing but downhill for him from here for a while.
After he gets over the adrenaline rush from the kidnapping and from outrunning the police, Freedom starts to feel guilty and worthless. Or not worthless, exactly, but he thinks he's scum and a completely horrible person. He is still terribly afraid of dying, but he isn't sure he deserves to live after he's proved that he is such a monster--a serious moral dilemma. This dilemma comes to an end, however, by the next day when Vine come around and a shred of hope reveals itself. I don't think that I've mentioned this, but Vine is the son of some very influential city officials. In fact, the Fairfaxes are officials for the Department of Criminal Acts and Conducts, which is the reason that Freedom seized the opportunity to kidnap Vine in the first place. Anyway, once Freedom and Vine get to talking, Freedom tries to get Vine to force his parents to change his Date back to when it was before. What actually happens, however, is that Freedom and Vine sort of befriend each other and Freedom opts to let Vine go. Vine says that he's willing to talk to his parents to see if they can catch Freedom a break, but he never has the chance; the police barge into the abandoned life house, whisk Vine away, and arrest Freedom, who is taken to jail...and through in the cell across the wall from Wolfe. Freedom ends up recognizing Wolfe as the person who mugged him and convinces himself that everything he is now going through is Wolfe's fault. Wolfe is taken away and Freedom is left behind to stew in his cell for a few days before the police come for him. He is informed that he is going to be sent to a place known as the Cornelius Gallagher Center for the Technologically Abusive to have his implants removed, which happens to all tech-heads. What's different about what happens to Freedom, though, is that he won't go on to Almost Heaven afterwards. He's so fused with his wires and steel and whatnot that they won't be able to remove everything without killing him...so he's going to die in that hospital instead of Almost Heaven. Needless to say, this horrifies Freedom. Not only is he going to die, he's going to be forced to have all of his precious technology removed, which he loves more than almost anything.
In something of a daze, Freedom is taken to the hospital, which turns out to be located just beyond the city wall. This is a big deal, because NO ONE gets out of Paradise City unless they're about to die. Consequently, Freedom has never been beyond this wall before, and it sort of blows his mind. Anyway, there turns out to be a little town-ish thing beyond the wall where people are essentially prepared to be killed. Freedom is dropped off at the CGCTA and is given a room on the third floor of the hospital, which is the highest security floor in the hospital. He meets a doctor, Dr.Walden, who tells him that testing on Freedom will begin soon so they can essentially decide how they're going to take him apart. Very soon after being admitted, Freedom runs into Vine and Ziv (why they're there will be addressed once their plots are typed out up here.) After they all get reacquainted with one another, Ziv and Vine leave Freedom's room, but Freedom is determined that this is not the last he will see of them. He has already started to take a turn for the worst at this point; his escape from the hospital is starting to take priority in his mind over everything else. He believes that now that he has "friends" on the inside (Ziv and Vine are working there, not being detained there) that he has a much better chance of getting out of the hospital alive. While he undergoes the standard tests he has to go through and gets used to the routines of the hospital, he is forever plotting and planning. He realizes that the easiest place in the hospital to escape from would be the huge sitting area in the entryway (this hospital is very unusual.) He starts spending a lot of time there once he is allowed to be outside his room, observing the guards' and doctors' routines. After consulting Vine and Ziv, he learns that the guards in the watch towers surrounding the perimeter of the hospital switch shifts every six hours and that (after his own observations) there is a short period when there are no guards in the towers at all...though this doesn't provide him with any immediate help. He meets with one of the head doctors in charge of the hospital and is granted permission to go outside for a half an hour every afternoon with the lower security patients, but he has to be in a straight jacket. Unfortunately, the guards are all in the towers when the patients are outside, so that doesn't help at first either. What's ore, the doors to the hospital itself are locked and will not open unless a doctor or hospital employee opens them so it's not like Freedom can just make a mad dash for it. No, he is forced to be more sophisticated with his planning. He wants to escape during the night time so that he will have the cover of darkness on his side and so that the men in the guard towers will be more tired and all-around-less wary of escape. He will have to go through the front doors, since those are the only exists from the building. He learns through Ziv and Vine that there is a shift of doctors that comes in at eight o'clock pm and a shift that goes home at the same time. Dr. Walden is in the shift that is leaving. All Freedom would need to do would be to get Dr. Walden in his room for some reason, incapacitate him, steal his uniform and clothing to make him look like a doctor, and use Walden's thumb (still attached to his body) to open up the door to his room. Just so you all know, all of the doors in the hospital are programmed to recognize the thumb prints of the staff and they can only be opened that way. A lot of the apartments and houses in Paradise City are programmed the same way. So, yeah.
After he completes the part of the plan that I just typed about, Freedom figures that from there all he would have to do would be to walk briskly down the hall and out the building and not let anyone get too good a look at his face. The only thing he needs Vine and Ziv to do is to open the doors at the front of the building. Long story short (but not that short, obviously) Freedom's plan would work...sort of. There would be complications, but I won't get in to them. Just know that he gets away and that Ziv and Vine end up coming with him. Freedom ends up going straight to Dr. Walden's apartment (the doctors' residences are, like, directly next to the hospital, so they're easy to find.) Here he stocks up on provisions before getting out of there, leaving Ziv and Vine behind. He then starts plotting a way to get back into Paradise City, which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what he should be doing. At this point in the story, Freedom has made a complete 180 from where he was before in terms of character. The reason he wants to go back into the city is so that he can murder the highest official in the entire place: Cadmus Buck-Edwards. He has somehow convinced himself that if Cadmus is dead, then everything will go back to the way it is supposed to be, which obviously makes no sense. He has become a completely different person. In the beginning he would never have done anything to hurt anyone on purpose, and now he is risking his life (he was terrified of death, remember) to kill someone. So obviously there is some major inner turmoil here.
Anyway, Freedom has a very easy time sneaking back into the city; the cops only check the vehicles that are going out, not coming in. He boards a truck filled with the remains of old buildings and is shipped back into the confines of the city wall. The first thing that he does is go back to his old apartment to see if he's still "allowed" there. He discovers that the city hasn't gotten around to getting rid of all of his things and reprogramming the door yet, so he decides to stay there for as long as he can while he plots Cadmus's murder. He finds that Cadmus lives near the Fairfaxes and calls his old "connection" to get a gun. Then, once there's nothing left for him to plan out, he goes in for the kill. This isn't all easy sailing for him, though, in terms of the moral implications of his actions. He experiences plenty of misgivings, mostly when he's trying to sleep, but by the time he gets up every morning he is still as certain as every that he wants to kill Cadmus. Eventually the day comes and Freedom goes to the Buck-Edwards residence. He makes it in and has every opportunity to kill Cadmus...but he can't. Not because he isn't a killer (which he's not) but because one of Cadmus's servants sees what is happening and calls the police, who come and take Freedom away...again. This time they don't screw around with putting him in the CGCTA; they send him straight to Almost Heaven. On the way there he meets Price, who, in a very short time, puts him back on the track to finding himself again.
Once he's in the death camp that is Almost Heaven, he gets assigned to work in the basement of the hospital, or maybe just to clean the hallways or something. At any rate he uses his position to help with the rebellion that Price sets into motion. He becomes dedicated to the movement as sort of a way of self-healing, but not in a creepy religious way or anything like that. His determination to escape Almost Heaven and to help the people around him escape is the force that helps him to reach out to others and to become stronger as a person. The way that he goes off to kill Cadmus was an act that demonstrated his determination and guts, yes, but the way that he ultimately escapes Almost Heaven is a testament to this same determination and new bravery and inner goodness that finally becomes more prominent in his character. There's some other in-depth character stuff that's going on at this time, but I'll spare you guys the details and move forward.
Finally, the day to make the great escape would come and everything would be set into place and perfectly on track...except for the fact that ZeCat and Wolfe are scheduled to die that day. Freedom would be informed that ZeCat and Wolfe are in trouble by Leala, who accompanies him to the Road to Heaven Building. Bryony-Rose is there as well, and the three of them make it into the building and manage to locate where their friends are being killed. Obviously they make it in time to save ZeCat, but not Wolfe. Wolfe's death will leave some sort of impression on Freedom, but I haven't planned that out yet. Freedom, Leala, Bryony-Rose, and ZeCat will flee will ultimately make it away from Almost Heaven. The story from here was already described in ZeCat's account of things because Freedom is with him from this point forward, or at least until they reach the rebel camp. The people of this rebel camp are determined to free the people of Paradise City, and, after having had a taste of what it feels like to liberate a lot of people, Freedom decides that that sounds pretty good to him. When everyone else decides that they want to move on and travel to Xenophon, Freedom stays behind to fight for he good of mankind, which he now feels like he was destined to do from the very beginning. And that's where Freedom's story ends. The reader doesn't really know what happens to him from this point onward, but things look hopeful for him. At last he is no longer on the run, literally or metaphorically, and he has overcome all of his fears. After all he has been through, he ends his journey a better man. So I guess that's all I have to say about Freedom.
Thanks for reading through all of this, guys, if you made it to the end!
-Iridian
*Where he starts out: In a crappy apartment building near the middle of Paradise City. He lives here by himself. Ziv lives in the same building, though neither of them are aware that they live near each other.
*Where he ends up: A rebel camp that is approximately 230-240 miles inland from where he ends up after escaping Almost Heaven.
*How he gets there: So Freedom is introduced to the reader when he is in his apartment giving himself surgery on his hand. He's a pretty shady person in this early stage, but he's not a bad person. He has no interest in getting involved with criminal activity that could hurt anybody but himself, but he has a seed of rebelliousness that will really blossom later on. He is a good actor (by which I mean he's a good liar) and kind of cocky sometimes. More than anything, however, he is technology-obsessed, kind of naive, and afraid of death. This fear is death is VERY pivotal to the development of his character because it motivates a lot of his decisions.
Anyway, Freedom's story really starts when he is mugged by Wolfe on his way to meet Ziv at the Station Five monorail station to purchase a special lubricant for the machinery in his hand. Wolfe wants Freedom's money, but Freedom is so desperate to hold on to it that Wolfe ends up stabbing him and Freedom is taken to the hospital. Really quickly, just to remind you, this mugging was witnessed by ZeCat, right? Anyway, Freedom is easily healed and sent home just hours after his incident, but he hasn't learned anything from it about his lifestyle; he's already planning to pick up the lubricant later. He comes home to discover a notice on his door from the Department of Gallagherite Affairs that instructs him to go to the restaurant, The Violet, at six o'clock that evening. Even though he's nervous (with good reason), Freedom goes...only to discover that officials from the Department are waiting for him with bad news. As it turns out, when he went to the hospital after being stabbed, the doctors discovered his very illegal technological implants. The officials at The Violet inform him that his Date has been moved, that he is guilty of a number of crimes, and that he is going to be taken to Almost Heaven immediately because he has proven to be such a danger to society. Freedom is escorted from the building by Roth (a main character of mine who is a police officer) and another policeman, but he decides to give escape a try and breaks away in a panic. This fear (told you it was an important force for him) fuels him to kidnap Vine off the street and to hide out in what turns out to be an abandoned life house. This is a huge turning point for Freedom. It's nothing but downhill for him from here for a while.
After he gets over the adrenaline rush from the kidnapping and from outrunning the police, Freedom starts to feel guilty and worthless. Or not worthless, exactly, but he thinks he's scum and a completely horrible person. He is still terribly afraid of dying, but he isn't sure he deserves to live after he's proved that he is such a monster--a serious moral dilemma. This dilemma comes to an end, however, by the next day when Vine come around and a shred of hope reveals itself. I don't think that I've mentioned this, but Vine is the son of some very influential city officials. In fact, the Fairfaxes are officials for the Department of Criminal Acts and Conducts, which is the reason that Freedom seized the opportunity to kidnap Vine in the first place. Anyway, once Freedom and Vine get to talking, Freedom tries to get Vine to force his parents to change his Date back to when it was before. What actually happens, however, is that Freedom and Vine sort of befriend each other and Freedom opts to let Vine go. Vine says that he's willing to talk to his parents to see if they can catch Freedom a break, but he never has the chance; the police barge into the abandoned life house, whisk Vine away, and arrest Freedom, who is taken to jail...and through in the cell across the wall from Wolfe. Freedom ends up recognizing Wolfe as the person who mugged him and convinces himself that everything he is now going through is Wolfe's fault. Wolfe is taken away and Freedom is left behind to stew in his cell for a few days before the police come for him. He is informed that he is going to be sent to a place known as the Cornelius Gallagher Center for the Technologically Abusive to have his implants removed, which happens to all tech-heads. What's different about what happens to Freedom, though, is that he won't go on to Almost Heaven afterwards. He's so fused with his wires and steel and whatnot that they won't be able to remove everything without killing him...so he's going to die in that hospital instead of Almost Heaven. Needless to say, this horrifies Freedom. Not only is he going to die, he's going to be forced to have all of his precious technology removed, which he loves more than almost anything.
In something of a daze, Freedom is taken to the hospital, which turns out to be located just beyond the city wall. This is a big deal, because NO ONE gets out of Paradise City unless they're about to die. Consequently, Freedom has never been beyond this wall before, and it sort of blows his mind. Anyway, there turns out to be a little town-ish thing beyond the wall where people are essentially prepared to be killed. Freedom is dropped off at the CGCTA and is given a room on the third floor of the hospital, which is the highest security floor in the hospital. He meets a doctor, Dr.Walden, who tells him that testing on Freedom will begin soon so they can essentially decide how they're going to take him apart. Very soon after being admitted, Freedom runs into Vine and Ziv (why they're there will be addressed once their plots are typed out up here.) After they all get reacquainted with one another, Ziv and Vine leave Freedom's room, but Freedom is determined that this is not the last he will see of them. He has already started to take a turn for the worst at this point; his escape from the hospital is starting to take priority in his mind over everything else. He believes that now that he has "friends" on the inside (Ziv and Vine are working there, not being detained there) that he has a much better chance of getting out of the hospital alive. While he undergoes the standard tests he has to go through and gets used to the routines of the hospital, he is forever plotting and planning. He realizes that the easiest place in the hospital to escape from would be the huge sitting area in the entryway (this hospital is very unusual.) He starts spending a lot of time there once he is allowed to be outside his room, observing the guards' and doctors' routines. After consulting Vine and Ziv, he learns that the guards in the watch towers surrounding the perimeter of the hospital switch shifts every six hours and that (after his own observations) there is a short period when there are no guards in the towers at all...though this doesn't provide him with any immediate help. He meets with one of the head doctors in charge of the hospital and is granted permission to go outside for a half an hour every afternoon with the lower security patients, but he has to be in a straight jacket. Unfortunately, the guards are all in the towers when the patients are outside, so that doesn't help at first either. What's ore, the doors to the hospital itself are locked and will not open unless a doctor or hospital employee opens them so it's not like Freedom can just make a mad dash for it. No, he is forced to be more sophisticated with his planning. He wants to escape during the night time so that he will have the cover of darkness on his side and so that the men in the guard towers will be more tired and all-around-less wary of escape. He will have to go through the front doors, since those are the only exists from the building. He learns through Ziv and Vine that there is a shift of doctors that comes in at eight o'clock pm and a shift that goes home at the same time. Dr. Walden is in the shift that is leaving. All Freedom would need to do would be to get Dr. Walden in his room for some reason, incapacitate him, steal his uniform and clothing to make him look like a doctor, and use Walden's thumb (still attached to his body) to open up the door to his room. Just so you all know, all of the doors in the hospital are programmed to recognize the thumb prints of the staff and they can only be opened that way. A lot of the apartments and houses in Paradise City are programmed the same way. So, yeah.
After he completes the part of the plan that I just typed about, Freedom figures that from there all he would have to do would be to walk briskly down the hall and out the building and not let anyone get too good a look at his face. The only thing he needs Vine and Ziv to do is to open the doors at the front of the building. Long story short (but not that short, obviously) Freedom's plan would work...sort of. There would be complications, but I won't get in to them. Just know that he gets away and that Ziv and Vine end up coming with him. Freedom ends up going straight to Dr. Walden's apartment (the doctors' residences are, like, directly next to the hospital, so they're easy to find.) Here he stocks up on provisions before getting out of there, leaving Ziv and Vine behind. He then starts plotting a way to get back into Paradise City, which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what he should be doing. At this point in the story, Freedom has made a complete 180 from where he was before in terms of character. The reason he wants to go back into the city is so that he can murder the highest official in the entire place: Cadmus Buck-Edwards. He has somehow convinced himself that if Cadmus is dead, then everything will go back to the way it is supposed to be, which obviously makes no sense. He has become a completely different person. In the beginning he would never have done anything to hurt anyone on purpose, and now he is risking his life (he was terrified of death, remember) to kill someone. So obviously there is some major inner turmoil here.
Anyway, Freedom has a very easy time sneaking back into the city; the cops only check the vehicles that are going out, not coming in. He boards a truck filled with the remains of old buildings and is shipped back into the confines of the city wall. The first thing that he does is go back to his old apartment to see if he's still "allowed" there. He discovers that the city hasn't gotten around to getting rid of all of his things and reprogramming the door yet, so he decides to stay there for as long as he can while he plots Cadmus's murder. He finds that Cadmus lives near the Fairfaxes and calls his old "connection" to get a gun. Then, once there's nothing left for him to plan out, he goes in for the kill. This isn't all easy sailing for him, though, in terms of the moral implications of his actions. He experiences plenty of misgivings, mostly when he's trying to sleep, but by the time he gets up every morning he is still as certain as every that he wants to kill Cadmus. Eventually the day comes and Freedom goes to the Buck-Edwards residence. He makes it in and has every opportunity to kill Cadmus...but he can't. Not because he isn't a killer (which he's not) but because one of Cadmus's servants sees what is happening and calls the police, who come and take Freedom away...again. This time they don't screw around with putting him in the CGCTA; they send him straight to Almost Heaven. On the way there he meets Price, who, in a very short time, puts him back on the track to finding himself again.
Once he's in the death camp that is Almost Heaven, he gets assigned to work in the basement of the hospital, or maybe just to clean the hallways or something. At any rate he uses his position to help with the rebellion that Price sets into motion. He becomes dedicated to the movement as sort of a way of self-healing, but not in a creepy religious way or anything like that. His determination to escape Almost Heaven and to help the people around him escape is the force that helps him to reach out to others and to become stronger as a person. The way that he goes off to kill Cadmus was an act that demonstrated his determination and guts, yes, but the way that he ultimately escapes Almost Heaven is a testament to this same determination and new bravery and inner goodness that finally becomes more prominent in his character. There's some other in-depth character stuff that's going on at this time, but I'll spare you guys the details and move forward.
Finally, the day to make the great escape would come and everything would be set into place and perfectly on track...except for the fact that ZeCat and Wolfe are scheduled to die that day. Freedom would be informed that ZeCat and Wolfe are in trouble by Leala, who accompanies him to the Road to Heaven Building. Bryony-Rose is there as well, and the three of them make it into the building and manage to locate where their friends are being killed. Obviously they make it in time to save ZeCat, but not Wolfe. Wolfe's death will leave some sort of impression on Freedom, but I haven't planned that out yet. Freedom, Leala, Bryony-Rose, and ZeCat will flee will ultimately make it away from Almost Heaven. The story from here was already described in ZeCat's account of things because Freedom is with him from this point forward, or at least until they reach the rebel camp. The people of this rebel camp are determined to free the people of Paradise City, and, after having had a taste of what it feels like to liberate a lot of people, Freedom decides that that sounds pretty good to him. When everyone else decides that they want to move on and travel to Xenophon, Freedom stays behind to fight for he good of mankind, which he now feels like he was destined to do from the very beginning. And that's where Freedom's story ends. The reader doesn't really know what happens to him from this point onward, but things look hopeful for him. At last he is no longer on the run, literally or metaphorically, and he has overcome all of his fears. After all he has been through, he ends his journey a better man. So I guess that's all I have to say about Freedom.
Thanks for reading through all of this, guys, if you made it to the end!
-Iridian
Kamie: Harmonious Endeavours: The Elven Captive
Yay! So yeah I became inspired at like one o'clock in the morning my time and it is now 3:16am, and I decided to make this post before laying down for bed about my new book idea that I've been working on for a few days now, and actually sat down to plot and think on it... at well... one o'clock... nobody said I had good timing... or decent timing. Yeah, anyways. I'm really excited about it! Real quick question for y'all, does anyone have a new photo editing site? I have Adobe Photoshop I can load, but it's not as good at doing book covers like Picnik was... I really miss it. Anyways, I'm digressing. I could give my book a full plot outline like Cori and Rachel have done but I'll save that for later. Speaking of those outlines I love both ideas. I have grown up with both of them now and have fallen in love with each one, I can't believe how much both of them have changed from what they started out as. :) Rachel, I need to hear more about your books, and maybe help you with Ziv, once I get unbusyified, and Cori, we need to RP again and I really want to read Caged... I do love Altrius... maybe I'll make the Clan be rerererereborn yet again later on sometime... I dunno we'll see. :) So pretty much here's what I have down on The Elven Captive. Note that, that is the first book in a series, specifically a quartet (unless decided otherwise).
I'd like to point out that I just came up with this, this is very unedited, subject to change, and may be terribly written due to lack of sleep and oxygen to the brain... enjoy?
Title: Harmonious Endeavours: The Elven Captive ((I don't know why, but I just love the Canadian and British way of spelling Endeavours a lot more than Endeavors... it's actually harder for me to spell it the way I was raised to spell it! ;D!))
Short Pitch: Civil war is hard enough to deal with nevertheless, not knowing what the fighting is truly about.
Long Pitch: Alice Harmony has been raised to be the perfect lady; she knows when to speak and when not to speak, she knows where her place is in society, or at least she thinks she does until her life is thrown into a large civil war outbreak between the fae and the elves. With both parents slaughtered before her eyes, and Alive being her little brother, Devin's only guide, she's forced to take up arms in order to have both her younger brother and herself survive. Of course war is hard enough without befriending an elven captive named Alan Ryder. Now, Alice isn't sure what to believe. After all, why did the war start up in the first place?
So there you have it... I'm not quite sure what I'm typing right now, and I can tell that it's all becoming a blurb of confusion due to all the mistakes I'm having to erase... so yeah I think I should get some sleep, just wanted to introduce y'all to my newest book idea... y' never know... maybe this one will actually be the idea I follow through... let's hope so! :) I'll try and post again tomorrow. Night all....
-Kamiella Maze
I'd like to point out that I just came up with this, this is very unedited, subject to change, and may be terribly written due to lack of sleep and oxygen to the brain... enjoy?
Title: Harmonious Endeavours: The Elven Captive ((I don't know why, but I just love the Canadian and British way of spelling Endeavours a lot more than Endeavors... it's actually harder for me to spell it the way I was raised to spell it! ;D!))
Short Pitch: Civil war is hard enough to deal with nevertheless, not knowing what the fighting is truly about.
Long Pitch: Alice Harmony has been raised to be the perfect lady; she knows when to speak and when not to speak, she knows where her place is in society, or at least she thinks she does until her life is thrown into a large civil war outbreak between the fae and the elves. With both parents slaughtered before her eyes, and Alive being her little brother, Devin's only guide, she's forced to take up arms in order to have both her younger brother and herself survive. Of course war is hard enough without befriending an elven captive named Alan Ryder. Now, Alice isn't sure what to believe. After all, why did the war start up in the first place?
So there you have it... I'm not quite sure what I'm typing right now, and I can tell that it's all becoming a blurb of confusion due to all the mistakes I'm having to erase... so yeah I think I should get some sleep, just wanted to introduce y'all to my newest book idea... y' never know... maybe this one will actually be the idea I follow through... let's hope so! :) I'll try and post again tomorrow. Night all....
-Kamiella Maze
Monday, July 9, 2012
Cori: Really long post, beware!
A few days ago, Rachel made a post about her plot...and I realized that I have never told anyone about the details of my plot. Which is really freaking stupid, since I've been on here for about two years now. So, I'm going to tell you about my plot. It might take a while.
My world, which is ironically named Utopia, is very different from ours. It's not our world, or any form of it. (as in, it's not in the future like Rachel's Death List.) Compared to our world it's futuristic, though I did put in some Victorian age aspects, since that's my favorite time period. My genre is a blend of steampunk, dystopian, and high fantasy.
There are four continents: Akivar, Syria, Jutian, and Ardina de Ra. Akivar is commonly known as the continent that hates demons, because the country Xyren is part of it. Xyren is like the Soviet Union, because it's a totalitarian. The King, Tranton, is the one that makes unfair laws for demons (such as not being allowed to enter public buildings without permission from the king). No one has seen him since the nuclear war.
The continent Syria is made up of countries that are more or less tolerant of demons, except for the country Mirak, which is where Altrius is from. Mirak is somewhat like Romania; they hate demons with a passion and usually execute the demons that are born there unless they flee to another country or continent. The country Trellimein, which symbolizes England, actually likes demons and welcomes them into the city.
Fifty-four years before Caged begins, there's a nuclear war that destroys an entire continent and leaves a small crater in the planet. The continent was called Mandlin, but is now Den Raven. Xyren and Trellimein were the ones who were fighting the most, which is the reason why the capital of Trellimein, Racel, was bombed and destroyed. The bombing of Racel happens in the prologue and features a twenty-year-old Altrius and an eighteen-year-old Khardan. Racel was obliterated, Xyren took over Trellimein, and Racel is eventually rebuilt.
SPOILERS AHEAD! I'm going to highlight them in white, so you don't have to read them if you don't want to. Just highlight them with your mouse, like you're going to use copy-paste, and you'll be able to see the words underneath.
The creator of Utopia, Davu, made the world without any gods. But when a Jutianese man made an artwork called Angel Gate, it came to life and became a portal between worlds. Eventually, four gods came out of the Gate and began ruling over the world like it was their own. The four gods were extremely evil and made fake identities to pose as 'demon gods' so that they could pretend to be good. The only way to destroy them is to destroy Angel Gate, the most powerful thing ever made. Angel Gate also created the prophecy.
Elder Tresting, who has chapter two named after him, is an old man who lives on the continent Akivar, in the neutral country of Driagor. His family has taken care of the prophecy for generations; if his line ends, the prophecy hides itself somewhere in the world and Altrius has to go find it and give it to whoever it revolves around. In other words...if Tresting dies, Altrius is sent on a very long journey to find a stupid prophecy. He doesn't even know what it looks like or what it does--he's just hired to find it. Tresting dies at the end of chapter three and Altrius the mercenary is forced to take a girl from Ardina de Ra (they're cut off from the rest of the world, so she has no idea where to go or what to do. She has no idea what orange juice is *sniff*) with him to Racel, which is where Khardan and Vandralls are.
SPOILERS!
The prophecy is not a thing, but an actual person. Tresting did not die in chapter three, but before the book even began--he was dead from the moment Altrius was born. The prophecy decided to hide inside of Altrius himself: the voice in Altrius's head. He has the power to control Altrius's body and the minds of those around him, like Khardan's (the reason why Khardan can't remember the war), and is completely evil. Tresting appears to be alive, but isn't; the prophecy animates his corpse like a puppet. Though he doesn't know it, and won't for a very long time, Altrius is the one that revolves around the prophecy, along with his brother Zalthar.
Zalthar is Davu's son. He's insane, he loves experimenting on both humans and demons, and he hates Altrius with a passion. When Altrius and Vandralls were taken from Nadine, Altrius's abusive mother, they were sent to live with Davu. The reason why Zalthar hates Altrius is because he thinks that he's stolen Davu from him. Davu loves Altrius very much and pays more attention to him than he does his own son. Zalthar is the "main bad guy" in the first three books.
Before the nuclear war, there was something called the Sickness that spread through Mandlin. Millions died, a new breed of demons called the Lost was created, and whoever survived were rendered vampires and were banished to a place called the Tribal Lands, where they would starve from the lack of blood and hopefully die out. Vampires in my world aren't like vampires in, say, Dracula (yay) or Twilight (ew). They're very much alive, they just need to drink blood to survive or else the diseased blood in their bodies attacks their cells and kills them. Altrius caught the Sickness later on when he was in the custody of one of the demon gods and is now a vampire. He only needs blood every once and a while, but it's a major plot point later on.
Another major plot point in Caged is the demon factories. Demons are made naturally, and children show their true race when they turn ten. But in the beginning of Caged it becomes known to Altrius that some people have used chemicals and the old Sickness virus to create chemically made demons that resemble the Lost. They're making the demons because they want to get rid of all the humans, which Altrius disapproves of--even though he hates humans, demons need them to survive. Factories in which to make the demons are built, and Altrius eventually infiltrates one along with Mirabelle. Well, infiltrates is not the right word...they're captured and sent there to die. But they escape and kill a few baddies on the way.
Well, that's it for now...it's mainly what happens in Caged, though some of the spoilers I gave you aren't in the first book. But that doesn't matter; I'll be writing about them later so that's what counts. I hope you enjoyed my super long post!
Rachel: In a posting mood, so what the hell?
I just finished doing some lame math stuff for three hours and I felt like doing something that I actually like doing for a while!
So I was planning out Death List like I seem to always been doing lately, and I finished up with Wolfe. I was thinking that I could start posting my characters' plots up here like I think I mentioned I wanted to do last night, since I could use some feedback. A lot of this probably won't make a lot of sense, but anything that I didn't explain when I gave you all the lowdown on my book I'll explain along the way. I've been doing this in order of when the characters are introduced, so I'm going to start with ZeCat. Sorry that I always blab, like, strictly about my book on here, but this is the only place where I ever get to talk about it so you'll have to be patient and bear with me!
Okay, so I'm going to assume that you remember a little bit about ZeCat from the character descriptions I did and I won't go into great detail explaining his character. Even if you don't remember (honestly I would be really surprised if you DID remember) that post is around this blog somewhere, so it's all good. Anyway, here we go. I hand-wrote this out already, so I'm going to just do this in the same format. Oh, and keep in mind that this is just kind of the bare bones of what goes on; there's lots of events that will flesh this rough plot line out.
*Where he starts out: In family-oriented housing in the Western part of Paradise City. He lives with his mother Alva, and his younger brother, Edwin. His father isn't around because his Date occurred when ZeCat was seven years old, an event that altered him on a fundamental level.
*Where he ends up: Xenophon
*How he gets there: Obviously ZeCat starts out at home with the remains of his family. As a quick refresher, he is neurotic, introverted, and totally friendless. He spends most of his time in his room thinking about his long-dead father and hating the Death List. Oh, and he's also something of a coward and a total loser. In other words, he's not that likable of a protagonist at this point, but that opens up the window for quite a bit of character development. Anyway, one evening when ZeCat's mother is out at a meeting, ZeCat gets the idea to go through her things to find his Date, which he has never been told. This is something that he has considered doing before but has never gone through with due to his cowardice. This time, however, he DOES go through with it and discovers that not only is his Date in just a few weeks, but that it happens to be on his little brother's birthday...which is obviously why his mother has never told him when it is. After learning this (he's very freaked out at this point), ZeCat bolts from his house and runs aimlessly out into the city for a bit. While he's out there, he witnesses a mugging taking place in an alleyway. This is significant because both the guy doing the mugging and the guy being mugged turn out to be main characters (Wolfe and Freedom). Freedom notices ZeCat standing at the mouth of the alleyway and calls out for help, but ZeCat turns away in a stunning act of how wimpy he is. This cowardice will come up between Freedom and ZeCat later when they eventually meet. It will also be a characteristic that he gets rid of as the story goes on, but for now it's a prominent part of who he is.
Anyway, a day or so after witnessing the mugging, ZeCat makes the decision to run away from home to escape his Date. He packs his things, leaves a note, and departs. He ends up living in an alleyway between a pixel building and a monorail station (Station Five, which I only mention because it's a significant location for a lot of the characters), hiding for the police. I may or may not have mentioned this earlier, but the police are a very potent force in Paradise City, and laws are VERY strict. Breaking any rule is met with severe consequences, and avoiding one's Date is the most important rule, second only to never leaving Paradise City. So running away from home to evade death is no little thing; it's something that you can never turn back from. Just to give you a little perspective as to what kind of a thing ZeCat's gotten himself into. Anyway, so he's hiding in an alleyway. He has a very difficult time adjusting to life as a runaway, but he came more prepared than he realizes--he brought a bunch of canned food with him that comes in handy later. He lives in this alley for a little while before he gets himself all worked up over the injustices of the Death List and throws a chunk of the cement at a passing yellow pod. Yellow pods are the vehicles that bring people to Almost Heaven, so whenever someone sees a yellow pod drive by they know that someone is going to die soon...just to clarify about the significance of the yellow pod. Anyway, this act not only exposes some fire and rashness in his personality, but it frees Wolfe, who was on his way to Almost Heaven (obviously). ZeCat ends up following Wolfe back to a life house located below The Violet (a restaurant that ends up being significant to several characters) and begins living down there. He meets Wolfe officially and also meets Bryony-Rose (she's main, but the story is never told through her), who quickly befriends him. She is important to ZeCat's character because she forces him to think outside of his closed-off little world; she's bold and outspoken and basically his complete opposite. Anyway, he lives here for a bit and starts to get used to his new life a little. He begins to learn to stand up for himself and to hold his own, though it is still in a very small way.
After a time (obviously I don't have the time periods all planned out yet), the operator of the life house presents the people living there with the opportunity to go and join a group of people who are breaking a hole in the wall surrounding Paradise City. The chances that they will be caught are extremely high, but there's also a slim chance of escape. Wolfe accepts, and Bryony-Rose does, too after convincing ZeCat to join her. They are taken to the outskirts of the city in the back of a food truck and meet Tyson Moore (another main but not main character), the leader of the hole-diggers. Tyson is a complete maniac, which becomes obvious pretty quickly when he rapidly decides that ZeCat is basically his mortal enemy for absolutely no reason. ZeCat works at digging that hole in/under the city wall anyway for several days. I'm not exactly sure for how long yet, but I shouldn't think for longer than a week. In that amount of time, ZeCat would have grown a little more used to living on the streets and would have started to wise up a little to the way things work in Paradise City. Just as the hole is almost finished, the police will arrive and everyone will be forced to scatter in utter chaos. ZeCat and Bryony-Rose will end up fleeing through the hole together. Wolfe will get through as well, but he'll head off in a different direction. ZeCat and Bryony-Rose find themselves in a little settlement that is located just outside of Paradise City. Long story short, this town is basically just for preparing people to be sent off to Almost Heaven and killed.
While they are in "Almost Almost Heaven", ZeCat and Bryony-Rose will meet Ziv and Vine (two more of my main characters). These four will team up together and begin traveling to this place where Ziv and Vine were informed that they would be safe (all of this will be explained through them). ZeCat will be forced to make friends, which will be a new thing for him. He might be driven a little out of his shell by all this, but we'll see. At any rate he will meet two of my other characters, which is good, since my master plan is to have everyone meet at least once. Anyway, Ziv, Vine, ZeCat, and Bryony-Rose spend a lot of time traveling through the ruins of the old supercity that used to be Paradise City in a generally Eastern direction. Food will be a problem out there, as will water, so ZeCat's canned food will come in handy...but it won't last for long. After maybe...well, probably less than a week of travel, the Paradise City police will have discovered them. This would lead to a fight and a quick escape, of course, that leaves ZeCat with Bryony-Rose again. They spend some time hiding in an abandoned building, they would be stumbled upon by Leala, Zylo, and Price--three more of my characters (Leala and Price are main). Despite the absence of Ziv and Vine, they would continue to head eastward according to the directions that Ziv and Vine had given them. The lack of food starts to wear on everyone, and tensions start to run high. ZeCat is sued to not eating much (he has some weird food issues), but his skinniness is working against him; his body doesn't have much to survive off of. The nights of traveling are long and tiring (they travel at night to avoid being found by the police again) and everyone stats getting irritable until one morning when Price starts talking about Xenophon, introducing the idea of a safe city to everyone. I'll cover Xenophon in a different post, but just know that it's not very well-known and it's rumoured to be a safe place where the Death List doesn't apply. ZeCat won't really buy Price's story and will still want to head to the place that Vine and Ziv are headed, but Bryony-Rose will want to look for Xenophon. Zylo, who is Price's brother and has heard about Xenophon from him a thousand times before, will want to go back to "Almost Almost Heaven" for supplies and won't take no for an answer, so he and Price start to travel back to the city and leave Leala, Bryony-Rose, and ZeCat behind. Leala is also intrigued by the idea of Xenophon, so she and Bryony-Rose embark on their own quest and leave ZeCat by his lonesome. ZeCat will continue to travel and will be on his own for a while, forcing himself to face some of his demons and to get over some of his fears. He will steadily continue to grow weaker as food continues to be scarce, and eventually he will be unable to continue his travels. Things will not look good for him, and they'll get even worse when the police of Paradise City (they are RELENTLESS) find him and bring him back to Almost Almost Heaven for rehabilitation. When he is healthy enough to be killed, he is shipped off to Almost Heaven. Once he gets there, he discovers that the place is not what he was taught to believe it is; it's a death camp, not a luxurious paradise.
Now, most of my characters end up in Almost Heaven at the same time, so ZeCat won't be on his own here. Wolfe, Freedom, Bryony-Rose, Leala, Zylo, and Price end up there, too. I'm not going to get into details about life in the camp, but eventually rebellion starts to brew, largely due to Price's influence. He starts preaching about Xenophon, and a lot of people start think that Xenophon sounds a lot better than dying. ZeCat + co. find themselves in the center of a movement to escape from Almost Heaven. There is an elaborate plan behind all of this, but I haven't quite worked it out yet, so we'll skip forward to the day where it's all supposed to occur. Everything is all set to go, but, of course, there's a huge complication: the people running the camp evidently have ZeCat and Wolfe scheduled to be killed that morning, because they come for them and take them into the dreaded Road to Heaven building. ZeCat is taken to a private room and will go through the standard Almost Heaven procedure...except for the lethal injection. He will be all set to be killed when Freedom, Bryony-Rose, and Leala will barge into the room and narrowly save his life. ZeCat will then accompany them to save Wolfe, but they arrive one second too late and Wolfe dies. There is little time to process this, though, because ZeCat and co. will have to focus on fleeing before they're caught running around the Road to Heaven building. Almost Heaven is on an island, and so the only way to get there is by boat things that I have yet to name and design. ZeCat, Freedom, Leala, and Price will all end up in the same boat thing and will successfully make it away from Almost Heaven. They find land again, a little south of Paradise City, ruins and all. In other words, they're in countryside. This would be the first time that ZeCat would ever have been anywhere without a city setting, which would be a very interesting experience for him. He has to learn a whole new set of survival skills, just like he would have had to do when everyone ditched him back in the ruins of Paradise City...only this time he would succeed. Also, he would have friends this time around. At this point he has learned how to trust himself, how to be brave, and how to move forward rather than stay trapped in the past.
After some time of journeying inland, ZeCat and everyone will come across a rebel camp that is dedicated to liberating Paradise City and will stay there for a while. Long story short, ZeCat travels from there to Xenophon, which turns out to exist after all. The details still need to be worked out, but it's pretty easy from the rebel camp forward; just more traveling. Once ZeCat gets to Xenophon, he is reuinited with his mother, his little brother, and a few more of my main characters. And he lives happily ever after, basically. So, yeah. That's it. It was way longer than I thought it was, so sorry! Also, sorry for references to things in the book that I haven't explained...but oh, well. At least this is out here now.
-Iridian
So I was planning out Death List like I seem to always been doing lately, and I finished up with Wolfe. I was thinking that I could start posting my characters' plots up here like I think I mentioned I wanted to do last night, since I could use some feedback. A lot of this probably won't make a lot of sense, but anything that I didn't explain when I gave you all the lowdown on my book I'll explain along the way. I've been doing this in order of when the characters are introduced, so I'm going to start with ZeCat. Sorry that I always blab, like, strictly about my book on here, but this is the only place where I ever get to talk about it so you'll have to be patient and bear with me!
Okay, so I'm going to assume that you remember a little bit about ZeCat from the character descriptions I did and I won't go into great detail explaining his character. Even if you don't remember (honestly I would be really surprised if you DID remember) that post is around this blog somewhere, so it's all good. Anyway, here we go. I hand-wrote this out already, so I'm going to just do this in the same format. Oh, and keep in mind that this is just kind of the bare bones of what goes on; there's lots of events that will flesh this rough plot line out.
*Where he starts out: In family-oriented housing in the Western part of Paradise City. He lives with his mother Alva, and his younger brother, Edwin. His father isn't around because his Date occurred when ZeCat was seven years old, an event that altered him on a fundamental level.
*Where he ends up: Xenophon
*How he gets there: Obviously ZeCat starts out at home with the remains of his family. As a quick refresher, he is neurotic, introverted, and totally friendless. He spends most of his time in his room thinking about his long-dead father and hating the Death List. Oh, and he's also something of a coward and a total loser. In other words, he's not that likable of a protagonist at this point, but that opens up the window for quite a bit of character development. Anyway, one evening when ZeCat's mother is out at a meeting, ZeCat gets the idea to go through her things to find his Date, which he has never been told. This is something that he has considered doing before but has never gone through with due to his cowardice. This time, however, he DOES go through with it and discovers that not only is his Date in just a few weeks, but that it happens to be on his little brother's birthday...which is obviously why his mother has never told him when it is. After learning this (he's very freaked out at this point), ZeCat bolts from his house and runs aimlessly out into the city for a bit. While he's out there, he witnesses a mugging taking place in an alleyway. This is significant because both the guy doing the mugging and the guy being mugged turn out to be main characters (Wolfe and Freedom). Freedom notices ZeCat standing at the mouth of the alleyway and calls out for help, but ZeCat turns away in a stunning act of how wimpy he is. This cowardice will come up between Freedom and ZeCat later when they eventually meet. It will also be a characteristic that he gets rid of as the story goes on, but for now it's a prominent part of who he is.
Anyway, a day or so after witnessing the mugging, ZeCat makes the decision to run away from home to escape his Date. He packs his things, leaves a note, and departs. He ends up living in an alleyway between a pixel building and a monorail station (Station Five, which I only mention because it's a significant location for a lot of the characters), hiding for the police. I may or may not have mentioned this earlier, but the police are a very potent force in Paradise City, and laws are VERY strict. Breaking any rule is met with severe consequences, and avoiding one's Date is the most important rule, second only to never leaving Paradise City. So running away from home to evade death is no little thing; it's something that you can never turn back from. Just to give you a little perspective as to what kind of a thing ZeCat's gotten himself into. Anyway, so he's hiding in an alleyway. He has a very difficult time adjusting to life as a runaway, but he came more prepared than he realizes--he brought a bunch of canned food with him that comes in handy later. He lives in this alley for a little while before he gets himself all worked up over the injustices of the Death List and throws a chunk of the cement at a passing yellow pod. Yellow pods are the vehicles that bring people to Almost Heaven, so whenever someone sees a yellow pod drive by they know that someone is going to die soon...just to clarify about the significance of the yellow pod. Anyway, this act not only exposes some fire and rashness in his personality, but it frees Wolfe, who was on his way to Almost Heaven (obviously). ZeCat ends up following Wolfe back to a life house located below The Violet (a restaurant that ends up being significant to several characters) and begins living down there. He meets Wolfe officially and also meets Bryony-Rose (she's main, but the story is never told through her), who quickly befriends him. She is important to ZeCat's character because she forces him to think outside of his closed-off little world; she's bold and outspoken and basically his complete opposite. Anyway, he lives here for a bit and starts to get used to his new life a little. He begins to learn to stand up for himself and to hold his own, though it is still in a very small way.
After a time (obviously I don't have the time periods all planned out yet), the operator of the life house presents the people living there with the opportunity to go and join a group of people who are breaking a hole in the wall surrounding Paradise City. The chances that they will be caught are extremely high, but there's also a slim chance of escape. Wolfe accepts, and Bryony-Rose does, too after convincing ZeCat to join her. They are taken to the outskirts of the city in the back of a food truck and meet Tyson Moore (another main but not main character), the leader of the hole-diggers. Tyson is a complete maniac, which becomes obvious pretty quickly when he rapidly decides that ZeCat is basically his mortal enemy for absolutely no reason. ZeCat works at digging that hole in/under the city wall anyway for several days. I'm not exactly sure for how long yet, but I shouldn't think for longer than a week. In that amount of time, ZeCat would have grown a little more used to living on the streets and would have started to wise up a little to the way things work in Paradise City. Just as the hole is almost finished, the police will arrive and everyone will be forced to scatter in utter chaos. ZeCat and Bryony-Rose will end up fleeing through the hole together. Wolfe will get through as well, but he'll head off in a different direction. ZeCat and Bryony-Rose find themselves in a little settlement that is located just outside of Paradise City. Long story short, this town is basically just for preparing people to be sent off to Almost Heaven and killed.
While they are in "Almost Almost Heaven", ZeCat and Bryony-Rose will meet Ziv and Vine (two more of my main characters). These four will team up together and begin traveling to this place where Ziv and Vine were informed that they would be safe (all of this will be explained through them). ZeCat will be forced to make friends, which will be a new thing for him. He might be driven a little out of his shell by all this, but we'll see. At any rate he will meet two of my other characters, which is good, since my master plan is to have everyone meet at least once. Anyway, Ziv, Vine, ZeCat, and Bryony-Rose spend a lot of time traveling through the ruins of the old supercity that used to be Paradise City in a generally Eastern direction. Food will be a problem out there, as will water, so ZeCat's canned food will come in handy...but it won't last for long. After maybe...well, probably less than a week of travel, the Paradise City police will have discovered them. This would lead to a fight and a quick escape, of course, that leaves ZeCat with Bryony-Rose again. They spend some time hiding in an abandoned building, they would be stumbled upon by Leala, Zylo, and Price--three more of my characters (Leala and Price are main). Despite the absence of Ziv and Vine, they would continue to head eastward according to the directions that Ziv and Vine had given them. The lack of food starts to wear on everyone, and tensions start to run high. ZeCat is sued to not eating much (he has some weird food issues), but his skinniness is working against him; his body doesn't have much to survive off of. The nights of traveling are long and tiring (they travel at night to avoid being found by the police again) and everyone stats getting irritable until one morning when Price starts talking about Xenophon, introducing the idea of a safe city to everyone. I'll cover Xenophon in a different post, but just know that it's not very well-known and it's rumoured to be a safe place where the Death List doesn't apply. ZeCat won't really buy Price's story and will still want to head to the place that Vine and Ziv are headed, but Bryony-Rose will want to look for Xenophon. Zylo, who is Price's brother and has heard about Xenophon from him a thousand times before, will want to go back to "Almost Almost Heaven" for supplies and won't take no for an answer, so he and Price start to travel back to the city and leave Leala, Bryony-Rose, and ZeCat behind. Leala is also intrigued by the idea of Xenophon, so she and Bryony-Rose embark on their own quest and leave ZeCat by his lonesome. ZeCat will continue to travel and will be on his own for a while, forcing himself to face some of his demons and to get over some of his fears. He will steadily continue to grow weaker as food continues to be scarce, and eventually he will be unable to continue his travels. Things will not look good for him, and they'll get even worse when the police of Paradise City (they are RELENTLESS) find him and bring him back to Almost Almost Heaven for rehabilitation. When he is healthy enough to be killed, he is shipped off to Almost Heaven. Once he gets there, he discovers that the place is not what he was taught to believe it is; it's a death camp, not a luxurious paradise.
Now, most of my characters end up in Almost Heaven at the same time, so ZeCat won't be on his own here. Wolfe, Freedom, Bryony-Rose, Leala, Zylo, and Price end up there, too. I'm not going to get into details about life in the camp, but eventually rebellion starts to brew, largely due to Price's influence. He starts preaching about Xenophon, and a lot of people start think that Xenophon sounds a lot better than dying. ZeCat + co. find themselves in the center of a movement to escape from Almost Heaven. There is an elaborate plan behind all of this, but I haven't quite worked it out yet, so we'll skip forward to the day where it's all supposed to occur. Everything is all set to go, but, of course, there's a huge complication: the people running the camp evidently have ZeCat and Wolfe scheduled to be killed that morning, because they come for them and take them into the dreaded Road to Heaven building. ZeCat is taken to a private room and will go through the standard Almost Heaven procedure...except for the lethal injection. He will be all set to be killed when Freedom, Bryony-Rose, and Leala will barge into the room and narrowly save his life. ZeCat will then accompany them to save Wolfe, but they arrive one second too late and Wolfe dies. There is little time to process this, though, because ZeCat and co. will have to focus on fleeing before they're caught running around the Road to Heaven building. Almost Heaven is on an island, and so the only way to get there is by boat things that I have yet to name and design. ZeCat, Freedom, Leala, and Price will all end up in the same boat thing and will successfully make it away from Almost Heaven. They find land again, a little south of Paradise City, ruins and all. In other words, they're in countryside. This would be the first time that ZeCat would ever have been anywhere without a city setting, which would be a very interesting experience for him. He has to learn a whole new set of survival skills, just like he would have had to do when everyone ditched him back in the ruins of Paradise City...only this time he would succeed. Also, he would have friends this time around. At this point he has learned how to trust himself, how to be brave, and how to move forward rather than stay trapped in the past.
After some time of journeying inland, ZeCat and everyone will come across a rebel camp that is dedicated to liberating Paradise City and will stay there for a while. Long story short, ZeCat travels from there to Xenophon, which turns out to exist after all. The details still need to be worked out, but it's pretty easy from the rebel camp forward; just more traveling. Once ZeCat gets to Xenophon, he is reuinited with his mother, his little brother, and a few more of my main characters. And he lives happily ever after, basically. So, yeah. That's it. It was way longer than I thought it was, so sorry! Also, sorry for references to things in the book that I haven't explained...but oh, well. At least this is out here now.
-Iridian
Ned: Babbalina Buzz
Hi! Ohmygod, I almost forgot to mention this in my last post, I've been writing a lot of short stories long hand, and I've been doing like a lot of screen writing. I think I have a new want for when I grow up now. I'd LOVE to be a screen writer for a tv show, even if its something goofy or something really dramatic, I think it would be SO much fun!
So that being said I started writing my own pilot episode for a tv show. The w.i.p name is 'Camp Zombie' because I'm super lame. Haha. Nah its the only thing I could think of. Remember how I said I wanted to write a zombie apocalypse story? Well I think this is how I'm gonna do it. In script format. Its a lot of fun actually.
Pen names are still being thought up but one I came up with as a joke was 'Babbalina Buzz," haha.
Also I've found I do a lot of good writing when I'm just... writing. Like without limiting myself to one story, or a part I have to finish, so I spend a lot of time just listening to really instense soundtrack music and writing whatever comes up.
I entered a poem I wrote, you might have seen it on my facebook profile, into a school contest and won first place, that was like... insanely cool. I felt so good about myself, bahaha. If you haven't read it I might put it up here later on, if you want.
Also, for my birthday a friend of mine bought me this really cool book called "642 Things To Write About." and its basically full of things like, "You have a time machine, but can only go back in time two days, what would you change," and basically you write a story, or a diary entry, or a poem or whatever about it. Its so much fun!
Hm... what else can I say? Oh! Did I talk about my headaches already? I feel like I might have mentioned it in my last post... so I'm not gonna talk about it here, but if I didn't tell me and I'll talk about it in my next post! XD YAY!
What to say? Well I guess I can say that I'm about to go turn off my internet and lock myself in my room with a word page open, blast some loud inspirational music and just... WRITE.
God I feel good about myself nowadays.
Lots of love!
-NED.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Rachel: This has to be brief, but...
It seems that I keep posting every other day, but I'm trying to get on every day, I swear...I'm just busy doing a lot of nothing, haha. By "nothing" I mean farm work and random violin stuff, but even though it mostly doesn't take all day to do either of those things I find myself having no time to actually do things that I want to do. So that explains my shoddy appearances lately.
I really can't go on and on and on tonight because I have to be getting to bed (it's only 9:15 but I have an early start tomorrow, as always) but I just wanted to post because I CAN and I felt like keeping you guys updated on shtuff. I apologize for that last insanely long post that I put up here, but I'm glad that you all seemed to like it! Seriously, I just read those nice comments you posted and they made my day :) But you'll be sorry that you encouraged me, because now I'll become all confident and talk about my book even more nonstop! *Evil laughter*. Really, though, my intent is not to torture you all; I just love rambling on and on about my own ideas when there is someone actually "listening" to them! You'll be forced to read through more of that informational type of post later on probably because, believe it or not, I left things out so that it wouldn't be too, too much to read. But I'm just glad that you will all have an idea as to what I'm talking about now when I blabber on about something I'm planning out. Speaking of which...
...I have just about finished Wolfe's plot outline. I mentioned that I'm working on Wolfe now, didn't I? Well, if I didn't, I am. He is one of three main characters I have that dies, and I'm writing out his death right now, which is obviously the end of his journey. It's kind of a bummer that he's killed, though, because he's SO CLOSE to making it home free, but he never does. I plan on telling you all of each of my characters' plots, so when I get to posting about Wolfe (he's the third character I've worked on so far) I'll elaborate on his demise in more detail. What's kind of neat about it though is that in that moment when he is about to die he has a life-altering realization and ends up dying feeling enlightened and, for the first time maybe ever, happy. So I like that about his death, even though it makes it even a little sadder in a way; death is the first time in his life that he's felt really alive. The good person in me wants to not kill him and give him a chance to live out the life that he has always wanted to live, but luckily I am mean and will allow him to be killed. I've been planning for him to die since the birth of his character (which seems very evil, but it just happened that way) so I can't possibly switch that around now.
Well, I said that I wouldn't go on and on tonight and I meant it, so I'm going to sign off and get to bed. I'll try to be on tomorrow and will talk your ears off (or type your eyes out?) about ZeCat or something, since he was the first character that I outlined and proved to be more interesting in some ways than I thought he would be. Anyway, good night everybody, and I shall be on soon or die.
-Iridian
I really can't go on and on and on tonight because I have to be getting to bed (it's only 9:15 but I have an early start tomorrow, as always) but I just wanted to post because I CAN and I felt like keeping you guys updated on shtuff. I apologize for that last insanely long post that I put up here, but I'm glad that you all seemed to like it! Seriously, I just read those nice comments you posted and they made my day :) But you'll be sorry that you encouraged me, because now I'll become all confident and talk about my book even more nonstop! *Evil laughter*. Really, though, my intent is not to torture you all; I just love rambling on and on about my own ideas when there is someone actually "listening" to them! You'll be forced to read through more of that informational type of post later on probably because, believe it or not, I left things out so that it wouldn't be too, too much to read. But I'm just glad that you will all have an idea as to what I'm talking about now when I blabber on about something I'm planning out. Speaking of which...
...I have just about finished Wolfe's plot outline. I mentioned that I'm working on Wolfe now, didn't I? Well, if I didn't, I am. He is one of three main characters I have that dies, and I'm writing out his death right now, which is obviously the end of his journey. It's kind of a bummer that he's killed, though, because he's SO CLOSE to making it home free, but he never does. I plan on telling you all of each of my characters' plots, so when I get to posting about Wolfe (he's the third character I've worked on so far) I'll elaborate on his demise in more detail. What's kind of neat about it though is that in that moment when he is about to die he has a life-altering realization and ends up dying feeling enlightened and, for the first time maybe ever, happy. So I like that about his death, even though it makes it even a little sadder in a way; death is the first time in his life that he's felt really alive. The good person in me wants to not kill him and give him a chance to live out the life that he has always wanted to live, but luckily I am mean and will allow him to be killed. I've been planning for him to die since the birth of his character (which seems very evil, but it just happened that way) so I can't possibly switch that around now.
Well, I said that I wouldn't go on and on tonight and I meant it, so I'm going to sign off and get to bed. I'll try to be on tomorrow and will talk your ears off (or type your eyes out?) about ZeCat or something, since he was the first character that I outlined and proved to be more interesting in some ways than I thought he would be. Anyway, good night everybody, and I shall be on soon or die.
-Iridian
Kas: Youtube
So, Jamie was supposed to make a post about this a few weeks ago, but i think she forgot. Haha. So, I'll do it. :)
To recap for the new members, SAAWAKM has a YouTube channel that we started a long time ago but never really used much. We've tried to get it up and going a few times but it always kind of fizzled out.
Anyways, I want to try again. I know Jamie is up for it. And before she disappeared, Heather said she was too. What about everyone else?
Last time we tried to do it, I had a really hard time coming up with themes for each week. So any ideas for that would be very well appreciated as well.
So, if you want do it, leave a comment. If you don't, also leave a comment saying so. Haha. Also, if you have any questions, don;t hesitate to ask!. :)
-K
To recap for the new members, SAAWAKM has a YouTube channel that we started a long time ago but never really used much. We've tried to get it up and going a few times but it always kind of fizzled out.
Anyways, I want to try again. I know Jamie is up for it. And before she disappeared, Heather said she was too. What about everyone else?
Last time we tried to do it, I had a really hard time coming up with themes for each week. So any ideas for that would be very well appreciated as well.
So, if you want do it, leave a comment. If you don't, also leave a comment saying so. Haha. Also, if you have any questions, don;t hesitate to ask!. :)
-K
Friday, July 6, 2012
Kamie: I really think I should post....
So I don't have an extreme reason for not posting, or never being online except for when I play Skyrim, but I do have a normal one... One that I think I'm breaking after my saxophone lesson today. I personally have not had any inspiration, or creativeness in me for about a week or so... it was like it was just sucked out of me... It's not just writing either, it's playing my instruments, watching movies or anime, everything. I just felt the need to practically do nothing, but hang out with my friends... however! On brighter news, I have gotten rid of that disgusting feeling as I came up with a new book idea, was overly excited at my tenor saxophone lesson today, and I have been thinking on Burning Alive, the book I'm working on with Cori, and now... now that it's 11:53pm my time, I wish that Cori was online so that we could work on it, but alas, it cannot be helped! So instead, for the time being I have decided to jump right in on my new book idea and see where my thoughts lead me for a few pages before I really think of plots and everything. The only thing I can say is that my main character's name is Alice Harmony. So yeah, Cori text me sometime, and we'll meet up online. Sorry about recently, but my unwillingness to want to do anything creative has had me avoiding most of the online community for awhile... I feel ashamed, but I'm doing better now. :)
-Kamiella Maze
-Kamiella Maze
Rachel: The moment has come.
Well, I just finished doing a chunk of math (I got an A on my test! :D) and now I have decided that it is time to unwind and finally talk about Death List in detail. Be prepared to be talked TO DEATH, but if you're even remotely interested in what the heck my book is even about read on. I'll try to make it as clear as possible, even though I'm fairly certain that some of this only makes sense inside my how head. So here we go.
First of all, as I'm sure I've already stated, Death List takes place in the future. I originally had the year as 2262, but as I've sort of developed my understanding of my own idea it has become apparent to me that the story takes place farther in the future than that. I see it being almost a thousand years in the future from now, which is something that is kind of hard for me to work with because I personally don't believe that mankind has another thousand years left...but whatever. It's in the future. Moving on.
As time progressed and mankind did as well, problems started to increase.I've written a prologue for this book that sort of details the ups and downs of man up until when the book actually starts, but I don't know that I like it so I'll leave it out and just tell you that overpopulation became mankind's number-one issue. Cities had grown to cover expanses that were sometimes as large as states, and, once they had grown out of space to spread outwards, they had spread upwards. The end product of this was an endless sea of skyscrapers so tall that they blocked out the smog-blackened sky as far as the eye could see. Cars and things of that nature were outlawed so that streets could be demolished to make more room for buildings in which people could live, so these "supercities" were absolutely PACKED. As a result of their massive populations, supercities were filthy and filled with disease and despite the multitude of buildings, there was still a massive homeless population. There was not enough food and water to go around, so people were starving to death left and right...but there was nowhere to put them. Electricity could no longer support the huge population, so humans were reduced to living in squalor and darkness. Basically the human race had overpopulated itself into certain extinction. And it probably would have gone extinct (we'll assume) if it hadn't been for one man's idea.
Cornelius Gallagher was the inventor of a phenomenon known as the Death List. The concept of the List was simple, and it works like this:
1. When someone is born, the Date of their birth is entered into a supercomputer operated by a particular city. A number of other things are recorded as well. In fact, here's an example:
To the caretaker(s) of Ezekiel Cato Everton:
Congratulations on your newborn son/daughter. Please keep record of the following information concerning your child, as it is possible that it may be necessary for future identification purposes. All of the figures below may be subject to change depending on your child’s predetermined lifespan:
Weight: 7 lbs, 6 oz
Hair: None
Hair color: N/A
Eye color: Blue/green
Skin: White
Race: Caucasian
Distinctive Markings: None.
First of all, as I'm sure I've already stated, Death List takes place in the future. I originally had the year as 2262, but as I've sort of developed my understanding of my own idea it has become apparent to me that the story takes place farther in the future than that. I see it being almost a thousand years in the future from now, which is something that is kind of hard for me to work with because I personally don't believe that mankind has another thousand years left...but whatever. It's in the future. Moving on.
As time progressed and mankind did as well, problems started to increase.I've written a prologue for this book that sort of details the ups and downs of man up until when the book actually starts, but I don't know that I like it so I'll leave it out and just tell you that overpopulation became mankind's number-one issue. Cities had grown to cover expanses that were sometimes as large as states, and, once they had grown out of space to spread outwards, they had spread upwards. The end product of this was an endless sea of skyscrapers so tall that they blocked out the smog-blackened sky as far as the eye could see. Cars and things of that nature were outlawed so that streets could be demolished to make more room for buildings in which people could live, so these "supercities" were absolutely PACKED. As a result of their massive populations, supercities were filthy and filled with disease and despite the multitude of buildings, there was still a massive homeless population. There was not enough food and water to go around, so people were starving to death left and right...but there was nowhere to put them. Electricity could no longer support the huge population, so humans were reduced to living in squalor and darkness. Basically the human race had overpopulated itself into certain extinction. And it probably would have gone extinct (we'll assume) if it hadn't been for one man's idea.
Cornelius Gallagher was the inventor of a phenomenon known as the Death List. The concept of the List was simple, and it works like this:
1. When someone is born, the Date of their birth is entered into a supercomputer operated by a particular city. A number of other things are recorded as well. In fact, here's an example:
To the caretaker(s) of Ezekiel Cato Everton:
Congratulations on your newborn son/daughter. Please keep record of the following information concerning your child, as it is possible that it may be necessary for future identification purposes. All of the figures below may be subject to change depending on your child’s predetermined lifespan:
Weight: 7 lbs, 6 oz
Hair: None
Hair color: N/A
Eye color: Blue/green
Skin: White
Race: Caucasian
Distinctive Markings: None.
2. After this is recorded, the Date that the individual this person will die is chosen. This is how the Death List provides a solution to overpopulation; people aren't really allowed to live. Dates are random (or they're supposed to be) with the exception that they can't come sooner than two weeks after a person is born. A very small number of individuals are allowed to live their lives out until they die naturally (The Golden Few, they are called) but these people are extremely rare. Anyway, here's an the other half of the letter above with the Date information included:
The following is the date of Ezekiel Cato Everton’s expiration. This date is chosen by random and is not affected by race, family or personal affiliations, financial situations, physical or mental conditions, or any other factor.
Date of Death: August 4th, 2262
The caretakers of Ezekiel Cato Everton are expected to respect this date and behave accordingly. Any attempts by Ezekiel Cato Everton to avoid carrying out his/her duty to the world will be met with consequences of a severe nature. Any attempts by caretakers or other persons of a close relation to assist Ezekiel Cato Everton in an attempt to avoid doing his/her duty to the world will be reprimanded accordingly. Once again, congratulations on your newborn child.
Sincerely,
The Department of Gallagherite Affairs in association with The Department of Newborns and Listings
So that's what that looks like. Obviously, all of this is pretty simple, if kind of macabre. Gallagher spent the rest of his life working to get the Death List ratified. Long story short, it didn't come easily, but eventually it was instated in China, Japan, America, and a few other countries. Others disagreed with the policies and refused to have the List put into place. The book takes place in the U.S., so what I describe from this point forward is strictly from America's point of view. I have no idea what the other Death-List-ruled countries did, but this is what happened in my homeland.
Because Europe was pretty anti-Death List and refused to ratify it, lots of Americans were fleeing the country so that they didn't have to live by the Death List's laws. To deal with the problem, the U.S. government made all travel beyond the country illegal and impossible to do, which was the beginning of the corruption that started to take place. There were a lot of riots and nasty rebellions and whatnot, but eventually everyone settled into the Death List and it became a part of life. The population shrunk successfully and life began to improve dramatically. Long story short AGAIN, mankind was saved and was on the mend. Now we skip forward to "present-day" U.S., or specifically Paradise City.
Paradise City is where all of my characters originate from. The thing about cities in this new world is that they are like their own separate worlds within a world. They are cut off from one another and, as a result, have developed completely unique cultures and customs. They are SO cut off, in fact, that they don't even know about the existence of cities--or anything else--beyond their own city. This is largely due to what the government has done. In order to keep people under control, it has severely limited the information that is available to the public. Ugh...okay, I'm kind of spiraling into something else here. Let me try to organize this better so that I don't get lost in my own thoughts......okay. So now that you know what lead up to the Death List (roughly) and what it is (roughly), here is the deal with life in Paradise City.
Life in Paradise City:
Paradise City is a walled-in metropolis that is constructed from the remains of the supercity it used to be. People commute around the city by foot, by pod, or by monorail. "Pods" are basically oval-shaped little cars that are big enough for two people, and are used because streets were never built back into the city and everyone has to travel on extra-wide sidewalks. Most of the buildings in the city are skyscrapers, but there are also a handful of single-story buildings, which are mostly restaurants or other businesses. There are also "pixel buildings", which are essentially skyscrapers that are like giant televisions and are used for advertising. A section of the western portion of the city is composed of new family-oriented housing, and none of that is skyscrapers. It's pretty new.
Life in Paradise City is centered mostly around the Death List. This is more due to the fact that it's impossible to forget about the day you are scheduled to die than anything else. Yellow pods are the transportation that the government sends to pick up people whose Dates are near, and whenever one is seen driving along the sidewalk it evokes fear/a sobering melancholy-ness in those who see it. There is school in the city, but only up through high school; once one turns eighteen, the government assigns them a job more or less at random unless they have an obvious skill. Education doesn't really consist of anything except constant brainwashing to teach children to respect and revere the Death List and all it entails, which is often referred to as "one's duty to the world." So education is substandard, which is exactly what the government wants, and here's why.
The government fears that, if the public is allowed to have knowledge and information and ideas, then everyone will start to rebel against the Death List. The best way to keep people controlled is to control their input of info and to keep strict rules, they figure. In order to do this, the government manipulates every aspect of Paradisian life, more so than any Paradisians know. The internet still exists, but there is a government sector and a public sector. The government sector is a mystery to everyone, but it is rumoured to contain endless information. The public sector is mostly the current social network, Greenlight, and a lot of really limited/watered-down information. People can access the public sector of the internet through the only legal personal technological device, the Celph. Celphs are basically little tablets that are composed from the only legal technology left (most advanced technology was destroyed after a period known as the Techno Age). These Celphs are one of the only things that are actually futuristic in this futuristic world because the government tweaked the way that cities evolved as they shrank. Many of the things in Paradise City, from clothing styles to the way family life is structured, is a lot like it is today because the government wanted its subjects to remain in a "safe time," and it was determined that the early 2000's were simple enough to keep the possibility of successful rebellion at a minimum but advanced enough for people to live in a comfortable environment. In this way Paradisians are like goldfish in a bowl; their world is dictated by what the people outside of it decide, but they aren't any the wiser about it. I could go on about the government corruption because there is still more to say, but you get the idea. There is, however, one major aspect of corruption that is important for you all to know. The population of the United States is under 50,000 people, so the Death List is no longer necessary AT ALL, but the government doesn't want people to know that because it fears losing control; hence the walls around Paradise City. Oh, and one more thing, and this is a big one. Big enough for a new paragraph.
In addition to having a problem with control, the government has also developed an obsession with perfection. All of the power it has has gone to its head, and it has started to use that power to work to create a perfect human being. It goes about doing this by having entire departments dedicated to sifting through information sent in by hospitals when babies are born. This information is more in-depth than just hair colour and race. A lot of it has to do with the way the newborn's brain is wired, what their genetics are, and how "good" they are likely to be physically or mentally based on early information. If the people in the Department of Newborns and Listings doesn't see anything of interest in someone, then their Date is assigned at random. But if they DO see something that they would like to study or use in their mission to create a perfect race, then the person becomes one of the Golden Few. I don't have this entire process fully planned out yet, but at least you know that this creepy thing is going on.
Okay, so that's the basics with my book when it comes to general information. Now we come to the actual story line. Because it is so complicated, I won't go into too much detail about it and will just be kind of general with it so that you at least have an idea as to what occurs in the duration of the book.
What the hell goes on:
As you all know, the story is told from a bunch of different people, so there's a lot of different plots. But there is one consistency among all of my characters, and that is that they all end of escaping from Paradise City and journeying out into the world. Some of them have more success than others in surviving outside of the city, but this is really all I can tell you without getting into too much detail. Just know that everyone goes on an epic journey of self-discovery and whatnot. I plan to tell you what happens with everyone (sorry, haha) but this post has been long and confusing enough, so I think I'll wrap it up for now. Sorry that a lot of this doesn't really make a whole lot of sense and is kind of rambling, but if you have any questions I'll be happy to clarify if you're not sure what I was talking about. Now I'll stop torturing you all and stop typing.
-Iridian
Nat: Helping Ned, and asking for help :P
Hi ladies!
Sorry I haven't made a post in a while, but I'm back. :)
NED! It was so great to hear from you, I feel like you've been gone FOREVER. It's awesome to have you back. Here, I have a few name suggestions for you, if you still need some:
-Vivienne (means "Lady of the Lake," could be shortened to Viv)
-Cordelia (means "of the sea")
-Morgana (dweller of the sea)
-Meredith (protector of the sea)
-Adrienne (or pretty much any variation of it)
-Genevieve (white wave)
-Nerissa (from the sea)
-Kai or Kailani (of the sea)
-Caspian (nickname Cass?)
-Hudson
More names: http://hasani.net.phtemp.com/water.html
I don't know if these were at all what you were thinking, but I tried. ;)
I didn't celebrate July 4th because I'm not American, haha, but July 1st was Canada Day and I went and saw fireworks then. :)
I got a new laptop. It's a MacBook Air and I love it a lot! It's awesome for writing, too, and staying organized.
Speaking of writing - I realized that I haven't really told you guys about what I've been writing for a super long time. I've been bouncing back and forth between ideas for quite a while, but my I am really loving my newest one.
It's basically like the last memoir of a girl who has cancer. It kind of tells the story of her life, through a series of diary entries, quotes, and letters to people that have made some kind of an impact on her life.
I have 11 of the 12 letters outlined, but I don't know what to do for one of the letters, and I wanted to ask you guys if you had any ideas. So here's a question for you:
If you were writing letters to people, telling them things you wished you'd got the chance to tell them before, who would you write to/what would you say? If you feel comfortable telling me, that would be awesome. Also if at all possible, think outside of the box on this one, think of people OTHER THAN your parents, siblings, and best friends. But I would appreciate any help you guys could give me on this. :D
Talk to you all soon,
Nat
Sorry I haven't made a post in a while, but I'm back. :)
NED! It was so great to hear from you, I feel like you've been gone FOREVER. It's awesome to have you back. Here, I have a few name suggestions for you, if you still need some:
-Vivienne (means "Lady of the Lake," could be shortened to Viv)
-Cordelia (means "of the sea")
-Morgana (dweller of the sea)
-Meredith (protector of the sea)
-Adrienne (or pretty much any variation of it)
-Genevieve (white wave)
-Nerissa (from the sea)
-Kai or Kailani (of the sea)
-Caspian (nickname Cass?)
-Hudson
More names: http://hasani.net.phtemp.com/water.html
I don't know if these were at all what you were thinking, but I tried. ;)
I didn't celebrate July 4th because I'm not American, haha, but July 1st was Canada Day and I went and saw fireworks then. :)
I got a new laptop. It's a MacBook Air and I love it a lot! It's awesome for writing, too, and staying organized.
Speaking of writing - I realized that I haven't really told you guys about what I've been writing for a super long time. I've been bouncing back and forth between ideas for quite a while, but my I am really loving my newest one.
It's basically like the last memoir of a girl who has cancer. It kind of tells the story of her life, through a series of diary entries, quotes, and letters to people that have made some kind of an impact on her life.
I have 11 of the 12 letters outlined, but I don't know what to do for one of the letters, and I wanted to ask you guys if you had any ideas. So here's a question for you:
If you were writing letters to people, telling them things you wished you'd got the chance to tell them before, who would you write to/what would you say? If you feel comfortable telling me, that would be awesome. Also if at all possible, think outside of the box on this one, think of people OTHER THAN your parents, siblings, and best friends. But I would appreciate any help you guys could give me on this. :D
Talk to you all soon,
Nat
Rachel: Moving Forward
So I've been planning out Death List, as you all know, and I have just finished Freedom's plot. This is good, but it also makes me a little sad because Freedom is one of my favourite characters. Mapping out every aspect of his life was fun...until I got to the end, haha! He doesn't die or anything, but that doesn't mean that I'll miss him any less once he actually gets to the end of his journey and whatnot. I'm so silly. I get really attached to my characters, especially when I get such a good grasp on them. But anyway, I'm finished with Freedom and am moving on to Wolfe.
Here's the deal about Wolfe. Unlike Freedom, he does die, which means that I have to fit all of his character development into a shorter period. It's not shorter by much, but he still has less time than ALMOST everyone else (another of my main characters dies sooner). What makes that difficult is because by nature Wolfe's character is sort of resistant to character development, so this is going to be kind of hard. The main thing that he needs to come around to realizing is that not everyone in the world hates him and that he doesn't have to hate everyone in the world. Just a refresher, Wolfe is my pick-pocket character and is easily the most dangerous of all of my characters; early on in the book he even stabs one of my other main characters. So what I need him to do is come to terms with his anger and get over it. I think I want this to happen right before he dies so that even after all he's gone through he can die happy. I know that a lot of this probably doesn't make a lot of sense to everyone since I STILL haven't told you all exactly what my book is about, but I'll get on that, I swear. Soon. Just not right now. I'm trying to enjoy my last moments before I have to go and do some math.
Anyway, that's pretty much what's going on with me right now. I'm going to plan out Wolfe's life and I'll keep you all updated on that. And I'm going to tell you everything there is to know about Death List as soon as I get a decent chunk of time in which to type it all out. So...stay tuned.
-Iridian
Here's the deal about Wolfe. Unlike Freedom, he does die, which means that I have to fit all of his character development into a shorter period. It's not shorter by much, but he still has less time than ALMOST everyone else (another of my main characters dies sooner). What makes that difficult is because by nature Wolfe's character is sort of resistant to character development, so this is going to be kind of hard. The main thing that he needs to come around to realizing is that not everyone in the world hates him and that he doesn't have to hate everyone in the world. Just a refresher, Wolfe is my pick-pocket character and is easily the most dangerous of all of my characters; early on in the book he even stabs one of my other main characters. So what I need him to do is come to terms with his anger and get over it. I think I want this to happen right before he dies so that even after all he's gone through he can die happy. I know that a lot of this probably doesn't make a lot of sense to everyone since I STILL haven't told you all exactly what my book is about, but I'll get on that, I swear. Soon. Just not right now. I'm trying to enjoy my last moments before I have to go and do some math.
Anyway, that's pretty much what's going on with me right now. I'm going to plan out Wolfe's life and I'll keep you all updated on that. And I'm going to tell you everything there is to know about Death List as soon as I get a decent chunk of time in which to type it all out. So...stay tuned.
-Iridian
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Kas: Yo, Heather, Where are you!?
Like, seriously I haven't heard from you in over a week. Get your ass back online, woman!
So, I've been working out a lot lately, and I've realized how much better i sleep because of it. Which is awesome, because i usually sleep terribly. My legs hurt super bad though. :(
My sister's wedding is in 9 days, which is crazy. i'm so ready for this damn wedding to be over. But, I've ranted about it enough in the past so i won't say anything else...
I went and saw Magic Mike today... And it was ah-may-zing. Like, best movie ever. Mostly because of Channing Tatum... but also because of abs and jawlines and Alex Pettyfer.
Well, I hope you all had a great fourth, you know, if you celebrate it that is. :)
And now I'm going to go spam Shmeather's FB.
-K
So, I've been working out a lot lately, and I've realized how much better i sleep because of it. Which is awesome, because i usually sleep terribly. My legs hurt super bad though. :(
My sister's wedding is in 9 days, which is crazy. i'm so ready for this damn wedding to be over. But, I've ranted about it enough in the past so i won't say anything else...
I went and saw Magic Mike today... And it was ah-may-zing. Like, best movie ever. Mostly because of Channing Tatum... but also because of abs and jawlines and Alex Pettyfer.
Well, I hope you all had a great fourth, you know, if you celebrate it that is. :)
And now I'm going to go spam Shmeather's FB.
-K
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Rachel: Happy Fourth of July, American SAAWAKM-ers
It is the fourth of July, obviously, and I did some serious thinking about the holiday, and you know what I realized? The Fourth is my favourite holiday. Not because I like fireworks or eating myself to death, but because it is the only holiday in which we actually celebrate a concrete, legitimate thing. So for this I will actually wish you all a happy Fourth, which in previous years I might have just ignored altogether.
Today the mini-orchestra (I ranted about the horrors of that in that post that didn't show up) and the adult orchestra that I am a part of gave our wondrous performance. Just to refresh you all, I played the violin and the trombone in this thing, running back and forth like a crazy person between the two. But it went well, I think. The audience was super into it, which was nice. It was a good turnout for an outdoor concert, so...twas fun. Afterwards my dad took me to our friends' house and we had a nice little barbecue before I had to go and take care of those good old farm critters. I am not watching fireworks tonight; I am far too exhausted and would MUCH rather go to sleep than stare at the sky and wish I was sleeping. Even though this is my favourite holiday......hm......apparently I suck. Oh, well. Speaking of bed, I had better get going. I'm very tired, and my mother is nagging me to go to bed. She is also very tired, but right now she is blaming me for keeping her from seeing fireworks even though she already told me earlier this evening that she hadn't been planning on going...grr. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that I posted something today. I'll make sure I put something more "productive" up here tomorrow at some point.
-Iridian
Today the mini-orchestra (I ranted about the horrors of that in that post that didn't show up) and the adult orchestra that I am a part of gave our wondrous performance. Just to refresh you all, I played the violin and the trombone in this thing, running back and forth like a crazy person between the two. But it went well, I think. The audience was super into it, which was nice. It was a good turnout for an outdoor concert, so...twas fun. Afterwards my dad took me to our friends' house and we had a nice little barbecue before I had to go and take care of those good old farm critters. I am not watching fireworks tonight; I am far too exhausted and would MUCH rather go to sleep than stare at the sky and wish I was sleeping. Even though this is my favourite holiday......hm......apparently I suck. Oh, well. Speaking of bed, I had better get going. I'm very tired, and my mother is nagging me to go to bed. She is also very tired, but right now she is blaming me for keeping her from seeing fireworks even though she already told me earlier this evening that she hadn't been planning on going...grr. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that I posted something today. I'll make sure I put something more "productive" up here tomorrow at some point.
-Iridian
Cori: The "baby" of SAAWAKM.
To be honest, I hadn't known until now if Ned was younger or older than me. But since she's now sixteen, and it'll be a few days until I can say the same...it seems like I'm the youngest one on here. In other words, I am the "baby" of SAAWAKM.
The very idea of that gives me a weird feeling. I was unable to go to preschool when I was suppose to, because 1) I was too small (I couldn't reach my light switch at the age of five), 2) I was too attached to my mother, and 3) I would scream, cry, bite, kick, and scratch when anyone other than my mom would touch me.
So I was held back before I began school. For years, I've been so used to being a year older than most of my classmates, so it feels almost wrong to be the youngest one on here.
But I can get used to it. After all...the "baby" can do no wrong. Heh heh heh...
Anyway! I'm writing a scene in the sequel to Caged right now, and it's coming along great. I can't wait until it's finished; maybe I'll share it on OSAAWAKMS. We'll see. =D!
What are you guys writing lately? Any new books? (Besides you, Ned, since I read your last post lol. The cover of your new book is awesome.)
I'm going to go ahead and cut this post short. The Glicks (an awesome Amish family) are here and I want to talk to Emma, a girl who's around my age. She's really funny. Bye!
EDIT: HAPPY FORTH OF JULY!
The very idea of that gives me a weird feeling. I was unable to go to preschool when I was suppose to, because 1) I was too small (I couldn't reach my light switch at the age of five), 2) I was too attached to my mother, and 3) I would scream, cry, bite, kick, and scratch when anyone other than my mom would touch me.
So I was held back before I began school. For years, I've been so used to being a year older than most of my classmates, so it feels almost wrong to be the youngest one on here.
But I can get used to it. After all...the "baby" can do no wrong. Heh heh heh...
Anyway! I'm writing a scene in the sequel to Caged right now, and it's coming along great. I can't wait until it's finished; maybe I'll share it on OSAAWAKMS. We'll see. =D!
What are you guys writing lately? Any new books? (Besides you, Ned, since I read your last post lol. The cover of your new book is awesome.)
I'm going to go ahead and cut this post short. The Glicks (an awesome Amish family) are here and I want to talk to Emma, a girl who's around my age. She's really funny. Bye!
EDIT: HAPPY FORTH OF JULY!
Ned: Lots of Catching Up
Hello hello pretty people, long time no talk, and I'm really sorry about that. I mean, I wanted to be on here and missed you so much! For anyone who doesn't know, my email went a little screwy and then I couldn't log in! It was quite disastrous.
Anyhoot, I'm back now, and boy do I have a lot to tell you!
So I guess I should start with this, thank you everyone who wished me a happy birthday via facebook! That was so sweet of you, it made me feel loved! Haha, I'm sixteen now, which is just great, what's better then getting old right? Well... other then everything and anything else. Yeah... I'm sort of terrified of aging, haha.
I'm halfway done highschool now, and thats pretty cool... I guess... OH! Because I'm in an arts school for grade nine and ten we have to take nine credits, and I've done that. Basically how its done is like half of my lunch is cut off and they put a short class there that I go to everyday instead of once every two days. Now, however not only do I get a full lunch but because Latin wasn't available when I wanted it I get two spares next year and I'm calling them "Sit down and write Let's Just Pretend for an hour and a half" and the other will be "Sit down and write the other book you're working on for an hour and a half." Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I'm actually pretty excited. I'll have a lot more free time.
Hm... what else... my Dad had a kid... that was interesting. He got married in October to this younger woman lady named Elaine who I guess is now my step mum. She had Henry my baby brother in May. He's adorable but I'm not really sure how I feel about him yet... I also have a step sister who I love. Her name is Rosalind, or Rozy. She's super sweet and has the cutest giggle!
Right, so I started writing Lets Just Pretend over the winter holidays this year and I really love it. I think I've given you gals the synopsis and stuff so I won't bore you with that, but I will say that I'm still working on it and its coming along well. Unfortunately I had one of those "shit I just had a great idea!" moments so I'm also working on that, the new idea is titled Neptune's Gardens and I'll give you more when I have more, lol.
One thing I would like to ask you though is for your help. My character, the main one in Neptune's Gardens is nameless and I'm on the second chapter! I can't think of anything that just... like the name. So I absolutely need suggestions. I think I want it to be a longer, fancier name with a shorter nickname that she goes by. Maybe something that has to do with water or the ocean? I don't know... like I said, I'm lost. So that would be awesome, other then that enjoy this marvelous cover I made yesterday.
Uhm... so I'm not really sure how to end this post other then by saying I'm stoked to be back! I missed you all so much!
Lots of Love,
-Ned.
EDIT. I have one more thing I want to tell you, haha.
So I think I want to put Neptune's Gardens up online, probably on Figment but I wanna put it under a name I haven't used yet... I don't know why, I just think it might be fun. I'm gonna try and think one up and then maybe I'll tell you who I am hahaha. I just realized I change names more often then most people do... unless they're identity thieves slash scam artists... if that wasn't illegal it might be a fun career to get into... Right, well it is illegal and you can change your name just as many times being an author... haha.
Bye again!
-Ned.
Anyhoot, I'm back now, and boy do I have a lot to tell you!
So I guess I should start with this, thank you everyone who wished me a happy birthday via facebook! That was so sweet of you, it made me feel loved! Haha, I'm sixteen now, which is just great, what's better then getting old right? Well... other then everything and anything else. Yeah... I'm sort of terrified of aging, haha.
I'm halfway done highschool now, and thats pretty cool... I guess... OH! Because I'm in an arts school for grade nine and ten we have to take nine credits, and I've done that. Basically how its done is like half of my lunch is cut off and they put a short class there that I go to everyday instead of once every two days. Now, however not only do I get a full lunch but because Latin wasn't available when I wanted it I get two spares next year and I'm calling them "Sit down and write Let's Just Pretend for an hour and a half" and the other will be "Sit down and write the other book you're working on for an hour and a half." Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I'm actually pretty excited. I'll have a lot more free time.
Hm... what else... my Dad had a kid... that was interesting. He got married in October to this younger woman lady named Elaine who I guess is now my step mum. She had Henry my baby brother in May. He's adorable but I'm not really sure how I feel about him yet... I also have a step sister who I love. Her name is Rosalind, or Rozy. She's super sweet and has the cutest giggle!
Right, so I started writing Lets Just Pretend over the winter holidays this year and I really love it. I think I've given you gals the synopsis and stuff so I won't bore you with that, but I will say that I'm still working on it and its coming along well. Unfortunately I had one of those "shit I just had a great idea!" moments so I'm also working on that, the new idea is titled Neptune's Gardens and I'll give you more when I have more, lol.
One thing I would like to ask you though is for your help. My character, the main one in Neptune's Gardens is nameless and I'm on the second chapter! I can't think of anything that just... like the name. So I absolutely need suggestions. I think I want it to be a longer, fancier name with a shorter nickname that she goes by. Maybe something that has to do with water or the ocean? I don't know... like I said, I'm lost. So that would be awesome, other then that enjoy this marvelous cover I made yesterday.
Uhm... so I'm not really sure how to end this post other then by saying I'm stoked to be back! I missed you all so much!
Lots of Love,
-Ned.
EDIT. I have one more thing I want to tell you, haha.
So I think I want to put Neptune's Gardens up online, probably on Figment but I wanna put it under a name I haven't used yet... I don't know why, I just think it might be fun. I'm gonna try and think one up and then maybe I'll tell you who I am hahaha. I just realized I change names more often then most people do... unless they're identity thieves slash scam artists... if that wasn't illegal it might be a fun career to get into... Right, well it is illegal and you can change your name just as many times being an author... haha.
Bye again!
-Ned.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Ned: OHMYGOODNESS.
I finally got my account to work!
*jumps around the room, flailing*
Right... so I'm going to be making a post again really soon but I just thought I'd make you all smile with my reappearance.
Oh, and also I have a lot of catching up to do...
Wish me luck!
-Ned.
*jumps around the room, flailing*
Right... so I'm going to be making a post again really soon but I just thought I'd make you all smile with my reappearance.
Oh, and also I have a lot of catching up to do...
Wish me luck!
-Ned.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Cori: Ewww, cow poop.
My grandma has cows, and they smell like an open sewer. She also has three dogs: Maddy (Madison), Angus, and Jake. They're all adorable and sweet (well, Maddy is kind of a brat, but that's okay. I forgive her for biting my nose), and I love them very much. Even when they wake me up at six in the morning to give me a lick-bath.
This is going to be a short post, since it's nearly two in the morning and I haven't slept much lately. I haven't been inspired at all, but I've been writing so much today that it's not even funny. I'm surprised at myself actually; I wrote about four scenes for the sequel of Caged.
So that's all that's been happening, really. Oh...and my Amish friends made mint tea today. They also let me pet a baby chick. Thank you, adorable little Amish twins. =D
I'm going to bed haha. Later!
This is going to be a short post, since it's nearly two in the morning and I haven't slept much lately. I haven't been inspired at all, but I've been writing so much today that it's not even funny. I'm surprised at myself actually; I wrote about four scenes for the sequel of Caged.
So that's all that's been happening, really. Oh...and my Amish friends made mint tea today. They also let me pet a baby chick. Thank you, adorable little Amish twins. =D
I'm going to bed haha. Later!
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