10/25/12

Cast of Characters: The Lightcatcher

So I have decided to come up with a cast of characters for The Lightcatcher, since that is what I have been working on lately.

Finley Devens


My main protagonist named Fin is a spunky, skinny girl of fifteen, and I imagine her to look like a slightly younger version of Jessie Buckley.  Especially the hair!  Finley has that hair.  She also has grey eyes, a faintly different smile, a forsaken flyer named Maggie, and a bottle of raspberry pop.

Lark McCarthy


I love me some gingers.  This is Lark, who I imagine to be slightly older with more prominent cheek bones and an indifferent and offhand look about him.  The first encounter he has with Finley involves a battered bicycle, some bruised ribs, and a whole sack of beans spilled in the street.  He is one of the current Sentinels, competing in this year's sentinel trials.

Trig Devens



I tried to find a good picture for Trig, but this is all I could come up with.  He is Fin's seventeen-year-old, fun-loving yet quiet cousin.  He has brown hair and a drawling way of talking.

Sid Brooks


Sid Brooks.  Well, how much should I say about him without spoiling it?  I haven't introduced him yet, and I'm working on fleshing him sometime later in the novel.  However, he is awesome (he told me so himself) and a half-wild solo balloonist.  

Mr. Bagshaw


The old keeper of Davenport library and Fin's good friend who loves wildflowers and takes one cup of Chamomile before bed to ease his aching joints.  Isn't he cute?  

Ash Devens



Ash is slightly younger than this boy, with sandy blond hair.  He likes to tinker with mechanics and all the girls at school think he's adorable.

Bree Devens


A thirteen-year-old version of this girl, Bree loves to read du jour magazines and is hopelessly falling for the grocer's errand boy.

And there you have it––some of the characters from The Lightcatcher.  I haven't had suitable time to elaborate on Lark's group of friends, so I didn't put any character pictures for them.  

But you get the general gist of my people.  Yes, they're my people.  

-Newsie



10/24/12

What I have been doing lately...

Well, it's been a while since I have last posted and I've decided to give y'all an update on what I have been doing.

#1:  I have been writing.  Yes, writing.  And I'm determined to finish my novel THIS NOVEMBER, people!  So if I don't, badger me, pester me, and remind me of all the promises I broke by not completing it.  The novel I'm working on is The Lightcatcher and you can read it on my figment page.

#2:  To tie into above, I have decided to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November because, you know, I need to finish The Lightcatcher.  If you're doing it too, add me as a buddy on the NaNoWriMo website!  A link to my profile is in the sidebar.

#3:  School.  I'm applying for colleges and procrastinating and flailing around in my college biology class.  'Nuff said about that subject.

#4:  Did I mention I'm procrastinating?

#5:  Currently reading A Countess Below Stairs (thank you October Skye for hounding me to read it).

#6:  Sorting through ideas of self-publishing, but y'all already knew that.

#7:  Editing papers.

#8:  Procrastinating.

#9:  Thoroughly engrossed in Lydia Albano's novel Finding You, October Skye's novel Lady of the Lake, and Anande Sjoden's novel The Wreck of the Clarion.  I highly suggest reading them.

#10:  Oh, and I'm also procrastinating.

So there you are.  Now you know what I've been up to.

-Newsie

10/17/12

Self-Publishing

Recently I have been playing around with the idea of self-publishing an e-book (*cringe*).  I don't particularly like e-books, as some of you know, but they are taking over the web and a ton of Indie authors are self-publishing their books instead of going through the long and drawn-out process of sending queries, receiving rejections, contacting agents, negotiating royalty payments, etc., etc., etc...  I have done some research and I believe that self-publishing (as of right now) is probably the only way for me to get my work out there.  

I hope to do it through Barns and Noble's PubIt.com, though I'll look into Amazon.  It's still a germ of an idea in my head, and I don't have a novel finished to publish yet.  But I'm considering publishing a book that is an accumulation of short stories--tentatively titled: "Stars In Your Fingers: a collection of reflections by J.S. Falcon".  

Hey, I can dream big, right? Oh, and for those of you who don't know, I write under the pseudonym Jackie S. Falcon. 

If I do self-publish, all my publicity will be through word-of-mouth and through my Facebook page, blog, and other websites that I have accounts on.  In short, I will be doing all my promoting to get people to buy my work.  It feels like a daunting task, but getting a book in print seems even more so.  I really hope that one day I can have an autographed copy of my own hardback (I will probably sign all my copies because I'm just that vain) sitting there on the shelf.  But that day will probably a long way down the road...

Anyway, thought I'd update y'all.  And if you have any advice, please shout it out!  I appreciate anything I can learn about the publishing/self-publishing process.  

Oh, before I forget to tell y'all, I just got a Twitter account  (Yes, I'm slowly upgrading my internet social skills.  You should be proud.)  Follow me @JFalconWriter

Cheers.

-Newsie

10/15/12

Cast of Characters: Flyboy

So...I have a lot of difficulty coming up with pictures that match the character's description of them in my mind, but I've done my best.

Jacey Drake:

Jacey looks a mix between these two models once she cuts her hair, with her facial features more akin to the girl on the left, though her hair color is more coppery.  She has a dusting of freckles and a certain grittiness about her that comes from being pushed around at the Conservatory.

Kit Morgan:
  
Kit's appearance is a little between Alex Pettyfer in this photo and the model in the right photo.  He has a bit of a rumpled appearance sometimes, and is always pushing the rules slightly to accommodate his humor.  He has light green eyes.  

Sayler Collins:
  
I imagine Sayler as sort of a Clemence Poesy, with longer, thicker, and lighter blond hair, and more prominent cheek bones.  She is also very tall, with a cool outward demeanor and grey eyes.

Tristan West: 
 Tristan is like a younger, more bubbly and less pretty version of Katy Melua.  

Captain Halfman:


Voila.  I don't know who he is, but he's a younger version of Halfman.  Age him up a little and give him salt and pepper hair.  

Devon Parker:


Sep Woods:

Looks somewhat like the tribute from District 4.  

So these are just some character pictures for various characters (some haven't been introduced yet) that I have found.  I hope to be posting more of Flyboy on figment soon!

-Newsie


10/12/12

Featured Writer: Ibelin

It is time for another featured writer post!

Ibelin is a fellow writer on figment (yes, I love figment) who has several novels and books in progress.  I love her writing style and her attention to detail.  It is really amazing.  I was introduced to her writing [I forget exactly how] sometime last year, and I got engrossed in one of her earlier novels--The Dragon's Oath.  Recently, I have been drawn into The Chaos I Am, which is totally epic, by the way.  I have also discovered her newest addition, Magic is a Boy, which so far is really good!  

So, needless to say, I decided to feature her!  I had a really fun time coming up with questions and reading the answers, so I hope y'all enjoy as well.


Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Well, I’m eighteen years old, a writer, a musician, and a Christian. I used to be homeschooled, but I just started college this fall. (I’m majoring in International Studies, and it is the best thing ever.) I love chocolate milk, presidential debates, singing, defensive realism, snow, and medieval history.

What inspired you to start writing?

It’s kind of a long story, and it all originated with Barbies, actually. You see, one Christmas long ago I received Barbies and my brother received G.I. Joes, so, naturally, we combined them. This was my first experience with worldbuilding, as we created a convoluted backstory for our toys. G.I. Joes and Barbies were cast as queens, kings, slaves, magicians, traitors, apprentices, and diplomats, among other things. (The plots we made up were nutty, and didn’t even make much sense to seven-year-old me, but it was fun!) Eventually, though, I wanted to explore more scenarios than we could with our limited supply of characters and props, so the natural next step was to write these stories down. When I did, I discovered that with pen and paper (or Microsoft Word), my options were endless and there were absolutely no constraints on imagination. I started writing then, and haven’t stopped yet.

Can you describe a little of the Chaos I Am? 

It’s a fantasy/medieval story about a boy, Seyf kal’Amman, who is fighting a civil war against his sister -- the very first Queen of Cylvani in a long line of kings. Having escaped his sister’s attempt on his life, Seyf has no choice but to challenge her for the throne he never wanted in the first place. Unfortunately, he is outmatched by his sister’s army and, what’s more, everybody else in the kingdom seems to want a piece of Seyf, the would-be-king: anti-female factions, factions that would love to control a young puppet king, and even criminal cartels. To be at peace with himself and at peace in his country, Seyf must figure out who to trust, or choose to trust no one and blaze a path of his own.

What is best thing you’ve ever written/writing?

Man. That’s a hard one. I think it has to be one of two. First, “Not Forgotten” (a story about a boy kidnapped as a toddler, and involving pirates, spies, and murder), which is on Figment but needs a new first chapter that I haven’t gotten around to writing yet. Second, I’m ashamed to say, the best thing I’ve ever written might just be some of my Lord of the Rings fanfiction. That stuff was actually pretty epic, but I’ll never do anything with it because, you know, it’s fanfiction.

I don’t know about my newest story, “Magic Is A Boy”, though. If can do it right, it has a good chance of becoming my best work.

Who is your biggest literary inspiration?

Bahaha. This one isn’t nearly as hard as the previous one; I have to say Megan Whalen Turner. My adoration of her “Queen’s Thief” series is at a that’s-probably-not-very-normal level. Everything MWT writes has a twist at the end and you rarely see it before it happens, even though all the clues were there all along. All her characters are so well-developed, the dialog is so back-and-forth snappy, and everything you need to know is shown, not told, at a level of sophistication I’ve never seen from any other writer. In short: SHE IS AMAZING.

Any writing quirks?

Well, not really, except for my getting-rid-of-writer’s-block rituals. First, I try writing on a notepad with a gel-ink pen, because something about the combination of real paper and effusions of liquid ink is much more stimulating to the imagination than the computer. If that fails, I watch a movie or an episode of a TV show that I’ve never seen before; putting brand-new storylines into my brain seems to help with getting new material out.

What’s on your reading bookshelf at the moment?

“Insurgent”, “Pure”, “The Scorpio Races”, Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, and the second Brotherband Chronicles book. Even though I probably won’t get to them until summer, because school. It just never ends.

Which book of yours has evolved most from its original storyline?

Definitely “The Dragon’s Oath”. It started as two different stories, actually - one with a sort of apocalyptic dragon-centered plot, and one involving a girl escaping her past. Neither seemed to be going anywhere, so I lopped half of the second one off, changed the setting, and then fused it into the first one. It’s working pretty nicely so far and I’m almost to the point where the two main characters meet each other, but it’s safe to say the story is very different from the way it started.

You are allowed to interview three authors: who are they?

Megan Whalen Turner, obviously! (”How do you develop your characters’ distinctive voices, and let the reader get to know their personalities so well without ever saying stuff like, ‘Gen is a thief and a trickster’?”)

Orson Scott Card. (”What the heck were you thinking when you wrote ‘Ender’s Shadow’? Do you have any idea how stupid it makes Ender seem, when he’s a genius and has uncanny instincts about everything, except he just can’t see who Bean really is?”)

James A. Owen. (”Where do you get your inspiration? What do you read to get your ideas? *looks over shoulder* Can I read it?”)

What is some of the best literary advice you’ve ever received?

Well, when I was about twelve, I wrote to Christopher Paolini. It was your standard I-love-your-books-and-I-want-to-be-a-writer-one-day fan letter, although probably more stupid than most. (Even today, when I think of it, I cringe.) Anyway, he sent me back a standard drafted-to-answer-fan-mail-from-young-writers letter, and on it he said that the best way to become a good writer is to read. Read all the books! *insert memeface here* But seriously, that was some of the best advice I’ve ever received, despite the uninspiring source it came from. Almost everything I’ve ever learned as a writer has come from reading authors from Dickens to Megan Whalen Turner to John Flanagan, and studying their good and bad traits.

You choose to become a fictional character for a day: who is it?

WILL TREATY. I’ve always wanted to be Will. Having his skills, riding Tug, being Halt’s apprentice, and having “the fascination of learning and perfecting new skills and the intrigue of always being at the heart of events.” There’s no contest.

And finally, you’re working on a new novel (Magic is a Boy), could you highlight a few points of that?

Ah, yes. “Magic Is A Boy” is set in a world where magical skill is respected and valued... but only if you’re female. Roman is a boy who has to deal with the social stigma that comes with having a magical father, not to mention a magical father who committed suicide. He knows that surviving and providing for his mother, as hard as it is now, will become nigh unto impossible if anyone finds out that Roman himself has magic. But sometimes, magic seems like the only way.  

So there it is!  An interview with fellow writer Ibelin.  
You can check out her figment page here: Ibelin
You can also visit her entertaining blog here: Me + Loki

-The Newsie

10/11/12

Wasting Time

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away

Sittin' on the dock of the bay, wasting time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the Frisco bay

I've had nothing to live for
And look like nothing gonna come my way

So I'm just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay wasting time

Look like nothing gonna change
Everything still remains the same

I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same

Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone

Two-thousand miles I roam
Just to make this dock my home

Now I'm just gonna sit at the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away

Sittin' on the dock of a bay, wasting time...

(Love that song.)

-Newsie