Meeting Selene Liath!

Since I am in my last semester at college, I've been working hard (or hardly working?) on getting some good experience and networking done in the hopes that I might get to graduate and actually have a JOB someday. Recently, I managed to score an internship at a local publishing company here in my hometown and was invited along with them to go to a writer's conference in Chicago! I sat in a basement and sold books all weekend, but I also got some good writing done! See? 

Well, one of my new favorite writers (whose story I happen to be betaing) happens to live in Chicago... so...   

Reena (penname Selene Liath) was nice enough to pick me up at my hotel and we went out for a couple drinks and dinner at Lizzie's, an Irish pub. We sat at our table for close to four hours and chatted (secrets, secrets! I know some!) and I hated to leave, but as I had to wake up at dark o'clock in the morning to catch a flight home, we reluctantly parted ways. 

Everyone should go read and review her story, because she is fantastic, really nice, and a totally awesome person. 

Bemused

A while ago, I wrote a little ficlet which has subsequently become everyone's favorite story, apparently. It is short, funny, and totally bizarre, and it is A Letter to Arwen, Love, the Fellowship. It's not that I don't appreciate everyone reading it, but I sure wish that people would like the stuff I actually put a lot of effort into as much as they like my crazy-funny, word vomit stories. Alas...

Anyway, needing a bit of relief from a long, stressful day, I wrote a short chapter 2 sequel to it. I see it as my duty to perforate my story with Monty Python references, Hobbits falling from the sky, and incessant vanity statements from Legolas. I hope I did not, as they say, beat a dead horse. You are very welcome, fanfiction community.

Go ahead: Give it a read.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6920657/2/A_Letter_to_Arwen_Love_the_Fellowship

The Shift!

So, I finally posted the first chapter of The Shift. I am ready to let it loose into the world, out into the ether, and let it do its thang all by itself... although I'm still waiting for Siobhan's package to arrive with the rest of the story. But at least the first chapter is live!

So what are you waiting for? Go read it!

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7806543/1/

New Story! Glass Flowers

I posted a new story this morning! Hooray!

It's outside of my usual, predictable haunts (read: Lord of the Rings and... well... Lord of the Rings) but it's far from being outside of my realm of comfort! Being an absolute Anglophile and longtime lover of all things Shakespearean, I decided after taking a Shakespeare class a few semesters ago to try my hand at a fanfic inspired by the great Bard.

My favorite comedy being A Midsummer Night's Dream, I went for that, modernizing the setting and characters. It always bothered me that at the end of that crazy, bespelled night, Demetrius is the only one left under the power of the flower's spell. What would happen if he actually woke up from that spell one day? And what if Helena had the power to wake him from the spell? Would she actually do it?

In Athens, GA, Helena begins having nightmares that disrupt her dream life - she begins to remember what had happened in the forest. Should this interest you, feel free to click the link below and read!

Hope you enjoy!

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7782416/1/Glass_Flowers

Let the rewrites BEGIN.

So...

Are you ready for good news?? My dear friend and beta Siobhan said the words, "I'll be mailing you your edits next week." Everybody prepare yourselves, because the editing will be fast, and will probably be furious. As soon as that package arrives I will be ON IT.

I'm ready for them, though. I've had some time and distance since I gave them to her (last July) and since I have worked on the story itself, so I will be focusing hard on getting everything just right. I have some ideas already about what I want to change (in particular, adding in more conflict; I don't know that the story has enough conflict between characters, specifically.) I can think of a few scenes I'd like to write, as well, so I can't wait to get to doing that as soon as possible!

I may get to post the first chapter soon! Hopefully, I'll be posting more regularly on this blog as my account becomes more active.

This story has been almost four years in the making, and I can't wait to share it with everyone!

The Battle Begins

I've had the first two chapters of The Battle written for a while now. Okay, not a LONG while, but the first chapter, the prologue, I initially wrote as a prologue to The Shift, and Chapter 1 is, you will see, the same as Chapter 13 of The Shift, but told from a different point of view. I wrote those two chapters at the same time (like literally two documents splitting my screen and typing each paragraph by paragraph!) so I don't exactly count that as beginning the second story in my mind.

Well, I started properly writing The Battle about a week ago. I haven't got much other than a few scenes during bus and train rides, and it's not quite complete yet, but I thought I would share this moment with you all to celebrate!

I've outlined the story (thanks to a very demanding beta and an afternoon in Starbucks) and while I haven't by any stretch of the imagination finished editing The Shift, I am very excited to finally be moving forward with the story. I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to get this second story right, and so finally beginning to write has already begun to ease my mind!

Looking forward to posting!

Betas!

Bonjour, blogosphere!

At the moment, I am currently studying in Oxford for a few weeks, so the blogging may be a little slower (not that it's ever been particularly fast!) and the posts a little bit more spacey on my part (I am taking two pretty intense English classes here and I hope that I can devote some brain power to other things, like tourism while I'm here!)

But the good news is that my dear beta, Siobhan, now has my entire story in her grubby paws, both in digital and hard copy, so whenever she gives it back to me I can begin posting! I am hoping that I will be able to post on a weekly basis, but Siobhan is the decision-maker on that front, really. So go harass her if you don't hear from me! ;)

See y'all soon, and I hope you do enjoy what I've been working on for the last two and a half years!