Well, I've made it to the quarterfinals for this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. This is the third time in a row (but in 2010, I entered a different novel). The manuscript that made it again has gone through some changes based on feedback from friends and last year's contest. I hope the third quarterfinals is the charm. :p I have a feeling it isn't, but I may be able to use parts of my Publisher's Weekly review if it has positive comments--if not, I can use my manuscript from how it basically was last year along with last year's review (either way, if I get desperate, because that sounds silly and brag-ish).

Anyway. I kind of fell off the LJ and DW universe again, but hopefully I'll post more. I'm considering buying a domain name (not for journal stuff; just novel information and such).

How has everyone been? :3

...and I am still without a laptop charger. However, ideas for different novels and other projects have been forming, and this year I plan to complete my "Pernille: A Love Story (A Satire)," my short-story-thing with chapters, Tsirris, and Brownie Points. I have notes, outlines, etc. for them, and I am ready to start on Brownie Points, a children's chapter book. Some of my non-writer friends have also expressed interest in it, and a high school friend had offered to do illustrations. For the time being, I'll have to write on paper.

I plan to update my LiveJournal and DreamWidth more often, and to do some catching up on reading friends' journals.

Since it's a pain to type (as well as copy and paste) on the iPhone, I'm linking to my entry on DreamWidth: http://amanda-sheree.dreamwidth.org/26034.html

On another note, I'm excited for the holidays. I know what Christmas gifts I want to give, and I plan to write like the wind. What are your holiday plans?

My poor, neglected LJ. I'm going to copy-paste my entry from last night on DreamWidth:

I didn't make the deadline for my college's literary magazine; oh, well. Maybe I'll submit something next time.

I still plan on doing my Halloween prompts. I'm envisioning the scene for "Festive levitating gala." I have vague ideas for some of the others as well. I'd love to expand at least a couple beyond flash fiction, partly to work on my short story skills.

It looks like I won't finish this draft of Tsirris by November. So many continuity errors and changes/ updates I've made to the story are conflicting and driving me crazy. It's sloppy, and I want to EDIT, EDIT, EDIT. I still want to tell the story. It just needs so much work.

Other ideas are looking attractive. What to choose, what to choose.

In reading news, I finished reading Dracula. My feelings on it are mixed. For example, the protagonists aren't very distinct (although Van Helsing and Quincey are in dialogue). Also, there are points in the story where they're not quite bright, or are even oblivious (and with so many clues from past experiences!). Overall, I enjoyed it, though.

Next up on my Halloween reading: The Complete Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein. I have yet to get Something Wicked This Way Comes; the local Barnes&Noble didn't have it.

I'm not sure what I'm doing for Halloween yet. I'm hoping to get a cheap-ish costume.

Last week, I took my mid-term. Hopefully I did decently. I've been investing a lot of time in the class and enjoying it for the most part. The evening before the exam, I met up with some classmates at Barnes&Noble after I did my book shopping.

I don't know why, but I have been exhausted physically as well as mentally. My body wants so much sleep, and I don't want that much sleep. Maybe it's related to the changing season? I took out my extra comforter for my bed last week. We've had some scorching days, though! I think it's been in the 100s Fahrenheit. So, the day length--instead of the weather--is probably what's factoring into my exhaustion. It's eating up my ambition as well. Solution: Listen to lots of music and just start writing.

Well, I think I've rambled long enough. I may go to bed before completing my class reading; I've already been reading for it the past several hours.

My poor, poor LiveJournal. I haven't been here for a long time. Things have been kind of crazy. Anyway, for one, I'm taking a British Literature class and loving it. The below has been cross-posted on my DreamWidth:



For brainstorming purposes, I'm posting my five Halloween prompts a few days early. Use or answer them in any way you'd like; whether poems or prose, flash fiction or short stories. Even paintings or drawings or music. The prompt answers don't need to relate strictly to Halloween or autumn, though my prompt answers will probably have an autumn feel to them at the least.

As far as mediums go, mix and match! I may choose four of the five to be flash fictions, with the remaining prompt as a short story. Heck, I might even try a little poetry (I don't know if I'd post the results, though!).

It would be fun to make a contest of this, but participation will probably be low and I'd want a large pool of people to vote on their favorites. Another problem would be deciding among mediums, which would lead to more categories and more prizes, which I can't do right now. Hopefully people will have fun with this, though! Feel free to use prompts more than once, too. Make your answers as concrete or abstract as you'd like.

I made use of an iPhone app called IdeaGen to get combinations that I liked. Here are the prompts:

Scary torture nightclub
Festive levitating gala
Comedic supernatural love-interest
Extraterrestrial freaky orchestra
Secret mid-century painting

I plan to post mine as I complete them. And, go!

Over the past few days, I've been creating characters and developing a new world for them. So many of my works-in-progress were started in 2007, and I suppose my heart and mind have been yearning for something new. (Yes, I still plan entirely to get back to them.) I know I could pursue my other planned Matagot stories right now, and/or Draconic Desires, but I need to rekindle the passion. This new project has been absorbing my mind and creativity.

Granted, I don't have a lot developed yet. I am so afraid that the project will end up dull, derivative, and unproductive. It might be a waste of time--for me and for any potential readers.

I hope I can make it work. If I get it just right, I might have an enjoyable story with likeable characters, if a bit...flamboyant? Loud? I don't want them to be over-the-top; at the same time, I don't want them to be too depressing. The society I have in mind has several dystopian leanings.

For now, I don't want to give any specifics. The idea might be a flop; I guess I'll have to wait and see.

24) Write a scene on a movie set

The Dream Catcher 3000

I fitted the metallic helmet to our Source, Cameron Miles, who lay on the $4,000 bed covered with an insanely expensive goose-down comforter. As our highest-paid and highest-earning Source, she got only the best—and this combination of bed, bedding, time, and lighting yielded the best results with her. Cameron had just fallen asleep, so we could get started.

“And…action!”

I flipped the switch to the Dream Catcher 3000, and the magic began.

The helmet projected an image of a blazing landscape onto our movie screen. Fireballs the size of basketballs rained down from the sky. We could barely take that in before the focus shifted, and the screen zoomed out to show us a massive, erupting volcano.

The view swung east, so quickly that I felt a twinge of nausea. Thousands of people were on foot, climbing and pushing and punching one another in their desperate escape.

“Disaster movie,” I murmured to my companions, not loud enough for Cameron to hear. We were forbidden to do or say anything that might influence the dreams.

“Should net us a pretty good profit,” said Josh, one of the investors of the Dream Catcher.

Then the screen went blank. I held my breath; if this was a flop—an “unfinished” or underdeveloped dream—our director was going to throw another hissy fit. The best thing about the Dream Catcher was that the mind furnished all the necessary special effects. The worst thing was that more often than not, the dreams were worthless. The job required a mountain of patience and time, so we felt our checks were well-earned.

The director inhaled sharply. “Ooooh,” he said, and I could practically see dollar signs in his eyes.

Cameron’s mind was now showing us people glowing—actually glowing—as they ascended heavenward. There was another flash, and we saw cars, trains, houses, all being submerged in freak floods. In another shot, we had a bird’s-eye view of a city that looked like Los Angeles, and its buildings were toppling and then collapsing from an earthquake so terrifying that I felt off-balance myself.

Cameron showed us disaster after disaster after disaster. I felt like screaming and running myself, but I was also strangely exhilarated. Cameron’s dreams often did that for me, and for her millions of fans. This was going to be an apocalyptic movie…and I’m pretty sure I had dollar signs in my own eyes.

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I've been going on early morning and late evening walks about every day for the past few weeks. I usually get out around 5:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. and stroll to and around the park. It's fun to see all these little rabbits dashing across the grass and through the hills; it seems like we see more of them each time. They're brown, but their tails are bright white, and that makes them easier to see sometimes. And, of course, there are always loud birds out in the morning.

Last night, we went on the swings. There was something that sounded big but went unseen through the brush on the hills. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a coyote; the dang things used to come to our back porch, and Adam told me a month ago that one morning a few weeks before, he'd seen a coyote at the bus station. (He'd gone to get doughnuts at like six in the morning.) Speaking of Adam, my little bro who's 6'5" and about to turn 19 years old (!), he's been at our grandparents' for several weeks now. Hopefully he'll come home soon.

I haven't seen the new Harry Potter movie yet, but I'm excited. I might see it tomorrow; I hope I do.

Tonight's episode of Leverage was delicious fodder for the fangirl and 'shipper in me. I saw some fans complaining about it online, but the positive feedback outweighed it by a bit. It wasn't hardcore tense like most of the episodes, but a cute love story once in a while is all right with me (depending on the execution...).

I've recently picked up Mark Twain's autobiography again (volume 1; it's the only volume of three out so far). I'm in about 380 pages of 735 or so, but the few hundred pages at the end seem to be mostly notes and annotations. They might be hard to follow.

I'm looking forward (knock on wood) to this coming fall semester of college. I'm eyeing a few classes and hoping to snag one of them (my counselor and I figured I should start out slow and see how it goes). Eventually, I would love to get my BA in English Literature and Writing, and ultimately to teach English, although I'm not sure yet on the level.

On the writing front, I'm a little stalled. I wrote a few hundred words of Tsirris yesterday after a minor breakthrough, but physically I've been a bit worn out and haven't been keeping up with it.

As evidenced in my previous entry, I want to start studying children's and middle-grade literature soon. I'm not sure yet which category Brownie Points wants to be.

It's tempting to pursue Draconic Desires as well as a few others. I still need to get "Pernille" (my novella for my group's anthology project) to the halfway point; currently, it rests at one-third. The sequel or companion novel for Inevitable Dusk wants to be written, but it'll have to get in line. And there are others...but juggling a couple (with one more formidable in terms of workload and research along with a shorter project) isn't too bad.

Aaand, that should be it for the night. I'm pretty worn out although it's only 11:15 P.M.

I think I'm going to start gathering recommendations for good middle-grade books to read so I can make a general list and hopefully make good use of the library. I'm not ready to start the writing for Brownie Points yet (I only have notes), but I want and need to read and study the classics and others. If I can get this Tsirris draft done, I can turn my main focus to something else or to a couple things.

So... What middle-grade books would you guys recommend? I love and may re-read some of the following (but some of these might be classified as children's literature, not middle-grade):
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Which authors of your childhood (and now) and novels would you most recommend? What are your favorites? What are your least favorites?

Cross-posted here.

23) Prompt: falling

Anca, Apple of My Eye

Petru dropped the baby from the second-story window, but I am the one being put on trial for it. After all, say my accusers, I am Anca’s nanny. I’d been on the clock, so to speak, when the “accident” happened. Never mind that a witness saw Petru, and not just me, up in that window.

In all my 200 years of living in this cursed province, I have lamented the treatment of my kind. Matagots, that is; not strictly chamois spirits like myself, but all Matagots. Even the “revered” bear spirits and the supposedly prized wolf ones are first in line for the chopping-block whenever anything befalls a human. I have heard that other civilizations are much more advanced. Some, I’ve heard, even have special protection programs and written laws giving the Matagots just as many rights as their “masters.”

I may sound bitter, but I’m not completely. Anca—my darling, my dear, the apple of my eye—survived the fall, thank God, when a young woman caught her (although the force of the fall knocked the young lady to the ground, she, like Anca, had no serious injuries). And that is what matters most. What I’m afraid of above all else is that Petru will put little Anca in harm’s way again. Whether it’s by carelessness or malicious intent, if I’m locked away, Anca will be left with Petru. Perhaps the government will furnish the family with a new Matagot and so a new nanny for Anca, but that is little solace.

As I testify on the stand in court, Anca sits in the crowd, sucking her right thumb and then pulling it out of her mouth and clapping whenever I speak. She is dressed in mismatching clothes, and Petru has not combed her yellow hair, which sticks up like the arms of a starfish.

Whenever the prosecutor uses a harsh tone with me, Anca wails. It may not change the outcome of my case, but her inarticulate testimony means the world to me.

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