My Little Pony Princesses Cadance and Celestia! I love their hair. I could definitely see a Doctor Hooves, I mean, Doctor Who crossover with MLP. 😉
I am helping to organize a new craft fair that is happening March 21, 2015. It is called CON Creative Ottawa Nerds. You can say that you’re going to the event here, and you can like our Facebook page here. Éric wrote about it here.
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
I was talking to the Weditor last night and we started comparing how and when we cut things out of a story. Let me say right now, I hate cutting. I never know what, how much, or when to cut.
One thing I do know really well is when to cut an entire story. I’ve started and decided not to continue several times. This usually ends with a more enjoyable and better written story.
Last year I wrote, The Cosmic Cuckoos. I love the idea and the concept for the story. It has very interesting possibilities. I really want to find out what happened to the main character’s friend.
Below is my first attempt, I moved the story forward several years and traumatised the character. I had her look for her friend. I’ve come to realize this will lead towards a mystery thriller type story and lead to her friend already having her mind wiped. That doesn’t fit well with the original and I’d rather explore what happens to both characters.
For all those reasons the below story will be scrapped. Does it mean it sucks or just that it’s not what I want to write? You be the judge.
* * *
“And the little green one probed my favourite cow Bessie,” the man drawled with no hint of humour. He wore a straw hat and farmer’s overalls. From where she was sitting Abby could see something shiny lining the hat. She assumed it was foil. The man was delusional like all the others.
She stood up to leave the small conference on “Unexplained Events and Unreal Facts.” It had been a long shot that anyone would be able to help her, but she still felt the sting of disappointment.
The next speaker stood up at the front of the old hall and started to speak in a soft melodious voice. “I’ve seen them the amber eyed husks.” Abby rolled her eyes and pushed the outside door open. Its loud creak stopped the speaker. “And where do you think you’re going? Bored already?”
A familiar anger washed over her. After everything she’d been through, she didn’t need some self-righteous jerk making her feel guilty. “Yes, I am. I won’t find any answers here.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little funny for you to be judging us, Abigail Westboro?” The man standing at the front of the room smiled a vicious smile. He had dark hair and was dressed like a discount Indiana Jones.
The crowed mumbled, some laughed, and some smart ass yelled, “The butcher of Baker County thinks we’re nuts?” and the whole crowed burst into laughter.
“Go to hell,” she yelled.
The man laughed as she ran out of the building and headed to her car. She hadn’t been called The Butcher for almost six years. Not since she was put on trial for killing her best friend Helen Montgomery.
Her friend had been taken by aliens but no one believed her. When they found her blood in the woods next to Abby’s unconscious body the case had been open and shut. She was only sixteen at the time and no one believed her. She told them about the woman who had taken her friend but the only thing it had gotten her was four years in an asylum. She was released after the doctors had said she was sane and non-violent.
She was on several forms of medication and couldn’t leave the province. In the asylum she’d managed to finish her high school and her first year of a physics degree. When she got out, she enrolled in a journalism class. She needed to find out what had happened to Helen.
At first people recognized her but she started dying her naturally red hair a silvery blond and cut it short. Her hairdresser said it looked stunning with her bronze skin and light-grey eyes. Fewer people recognized her after that and just in case she’d changed her last name to Smith.
When she had stormed out of the building, the hot July sun had hit her hard and she was blinded until she got into her car. Once inside she’d cried until someone knocked on her window. It was the jerk that had called her out.
He made a gesture with his hand asking if she’d roll down her window. When she did he said, “I’m sorry about that. I was a little harsh.”
“In case I didn’t say if with enough intensity, go to hell.” She started to roll up her window.
“Have you heard of the Plan for Chaos?” He yelled and she stopped moving the window up.
“The John Wyndham book that was so bad that he didn’t want it published?”
“Yes. Let me buy you lunch and we’ll talk about it?”
Most men saw something in her that made them run when they looked into her eyes, she stared this one down and he only blinked. How could he have embarrassed her and then ask her out?
“Whatever, get in.” She scowled.
* * *
Keep your eyes on the skies,
Eric
I don’t see the Doctor anywhere? Are there cherubs in the shadows? Hurry!!
I am helping to organize a new craft fair that is happening March 21, 2015. It is called CON Creative Ottawa Nerds. You can say that you’re going to the event here, and you can like our Facebook page here. Éric wrote about it here.
In my continuing mission to read the first in every series I haven’t read yet but I own. I read Blood Relations.
Full disclosure I have known the author for nearly 2 years and I’d consider her a friend. She is also one of the head people at Renaissance Press, to whom I may have submitted a book.
None of this really matters cause I’d be completely honest either way, or if it was really really bad I might pretend I didn’t read it. Yeah I can be a coward.
Below is my review. For more information on how and why I review books read my posts Part 1 and Part 2.
Characters
The main character is involved in organized crime and has some serious “daddy” issues but is incredibly likeable. His likeability probably stems from the fact that throughout the book he is trying to help people.
The secondary characters are well fleshed out even if we don’t fully know their motivations.
There is a lot of vice from the innocuous like drinking cola, to heavy drug use. The main character is a chain smoker and even though it’s important to the character development, I’m not a fan.
I also find that the style and the fact that the main character is both young and not great with other’s emotions that we don’t get as much of a depth of knowledge about the other characters.
For characters, I give it 4 out of 5
I normally dislike present tense. It’s very hard to do properly and I’ve rarely seen it done well throughout a novel or series. Even the Hunger Games only manages to do it well for 80% of the books.
The author however wields the first person present tense as if they’d being using it their entire life. It’s skillfully done from choice of information to description and word choice. I can’t state and stronger how impressed I am with the author’s skill.
The only issues I had with style were due to the limitations of first person narratives.
I give it 5 out of 5.
The flow of the novel is extremely well balanced. Being someone who takes a week or two to read a book I appreciate the slower character moments between high action scenes. The story was built to ebb and flow without spending too much time world building or dumping information.
The tropes and structure of the book are closer to Horror than Urban-Fantasy. Often times Urban-Fantasy gets bogged down by long infodumps about how the world is really different. While this story borrowed from classic supernatural horror movies and gave small bits in between action.
In the same way that the Horror structure helped the flow of the novel it also detracted from the wonder that comes with Fantasy or Urban-Fantasy. The wonder of realizing that there is a great big world of supernatural. The information about the supernatural world was so sparse that it didn’t feel like the world was that big.
None of this detracted from the engrossing and fun plot.
I give the story 5 out of 5
The characters, the action, and the witty dialogue were all very fun.
Again the smoking and drugs weren’t fun for me. I also felt the fight scenes with the vampires were a little fast. I also feel that the main character’s supernatural abilities didn’t progress at all, he used them a lot but never seemed to improve in control.
I give it 4 out of 5 for fun
Blood Relations is an action packed and emotional ride through a Supernatural, Horror, and film noir style story. It challenges and bends the tropes of all three styles into something completely unique and compelling. The author has a command of style and language which is rare in a first novel.
If you enjoy Horror, Urban-Fantasy, or Supernatural stories, you’re going to want to pick up this book.
Final score is 90%
This statue was really cool because the woman’s face had been worn away by wind. There had also been little reptiles on the corners of the statue, and all that was left were the feet. We debated at length about whether another set of feet belonged to an infant.
I am helping to organize a new craft fair that is happening March 21, 2015. It is called CON Creative Ottawa Nerds. You can say that you’re going to the event here, and you can like our Facebook page here. Éric wrote about it here.
The other day I came up with the idea of collecting my short stories and maybe self-publishing them. My first instinct was that I’d never have enough and I’d have to write more.
After looking through my writing folders I certainly have enough content but I’m not convinced I have enough quality… Yet.
I get a perverse joy out of reading my old stories and pretending someone else wrote them. It’s easy, seeing as even some things on this blog I don’t remember writing. Some of it is good, some of it is terrible, but boy is there a lot of it.
I feel old when I look through the folder and find some of my stories that are just shy of 2 decades old. My early stories could vote. That’s frightening. I didn’t consider myself a writer until I finished my first novel “Cerulean Skies” and even then I never considered writing regularly, but looking back I’ve been writing, in one form or another, for over twenty five years. I remember the first novel I tried to write. I had almost finished it and left it in an envelope. I found it when I moved to Ottawa in 2002, but I had made the terrible mistake of using pencil and it had faded beyond recognition.
I found some Dungeons and Dragons writing that I did for my first big campaign. I remember it being massive in scope. When I looked at it today it was barely 9000 words. Or as most of my author friends would call it, a few days’ work.
I think I’ll stick to stories that were written within the past decade for the collection.
There are several serial stories that I have written that I promised to write more and I seem to have completely forgotten.
If you’re interested in reading them here are the links:
Armstrong 3 (Space ship Science Fiction) – 2009
The Professor (Archeological Action Adventure) – 2009
The Cosmic Cuckoos (Adventure Science Fiction) – 2014
I plan on not only continuing these stories but re-writing and editing them into a coherent total. One of them may even become my next serialized story.
I discovered around Christmas that I’d been collecting Urban-Fantasy/Fantasy series at an alarming rate. At last count, I have over 50 of them and more than 20 that I hadn’t read. No seriously, I have one series where I own the first 8 books and I’ve never read the author before.
In order to pare down my library and make sure I like the books, I’m on a quest to read the first in each series. I’ll be posting short reviews of each of the books unless I really love them or hate them.
Here’s what I’ve read so far this year and my opinions:
A great start and a wonderful read. I look forward to the next one. Rating: 80%
Not a terrible book but very uneven. The author’s metaphors were awkward, the characters were stupid and the style wasn’t consistent. Not planning on reading the rest of the series.
This book had so much potential and angered me so much that it gets the lowest rating I’ve ever given with 40%
Check out my full review this Thursday.
That’s 3 down and 19 more to go.
What’s your favourite fantasy, science fiction, or urban fantasy? Let me know and I may add it to my list.
Awesome cosplay of Hook, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. I didn’t get a picture of Tink’s back, but she had little bloody stubs where her wings had been torn off. Super cool costumes, and really great girls to talk to!
I am helping to organize a new craft fair that is happening March 21, 2015. It is called CON Creative Ottawa Nerds. You can say that you’re going to the event here, and you can like our Facebook page here. Éric wrote about it here.
I suppose I should be saving this picture for Valentine’s Day, but Aphrodite is just too beautiful not to share! BTW, I recognized her out of all the other statues in the room! I was quite proud of myself.
I am helping to organize a new craft fair that is happening March 21, 2015. It is called CON Creative Ottawa Nerds. You can say that you’re going to the event here, and you can like our Facebook page here. Éric wrote about it here.
