My Query Letter for DoE 1

The world as you see it is the most limited thing you will ever know, and that is the main idea behind my story.

Dawn of Emotions a Young Adult Fantasy story based around Crea Nightish as she looks into the past that leads up to the death of the one person Crea’s mother loved as a daughter before Crea’s birth. The story starts off with Crea disrespecting Dawn’s story at school, showing that the girl knew nothing about what had actually happened to make Dawn so important, so Crea’s mother gets some help from an oracle so that Crea can view what happened to Dawn as it happened in the past, much do Crea’s disdain.

Crea goes to the oracle’s home each day after school and follows Dawn in the last year of the little girl’s life, but while all that is going on, the rest of Crea’s life starts to get hectic. Her best friend is forced from school, because she’s not human, which in turn makes the girl start to hate Crea. On top of that, a new girl comes to Crea’s school who turns out to be of the same race as Dawn. Crea and Azalea, the new girl, start to become friends while Crea deals with Dawn’s past and a world that is starting to fall apart.

Dawn of emotions deals with topics such as racism, understanding oneself in a way that isn’t selfish, and the importance of insight through difficult times.

The Hunger Games!

So, if anybody knows anything about me, they know that I have a passion for The Hunger Games. Now, this started before I knew about the movie or even before I had read the book. I didn’t know of the books were good or if they were another Twilight. Before I looked into the series, I thought The Hunger Games was about an eating contest. I wasn’t really into Young Adult books when I first heard about it, so I didn’t care. My mistake. That is, until one of my stories was put into the mix.

If I could find the original email, I’d put it up here, but I’ll have to make due with explaining the entire scenario. I had spent over two years on Dawn of Emotions, and I was looking for input from other writers. I wanted a fresh set of eyes to look over what I had written so far. The reply I got was better than I could have imagined. She told me that I needed to work on a lot, but it was still an enjoyable read.

How does that relate to The Hunger Games? Near the end of her critique, she mentioned that my main character had a similar personality to Katniss from The Hunger Games. She suggested that I read The Hunger Games to get some perspective on my character. From that, I’ve not only gained insight on my character, but I’ve also found a book series that I adore.

Other than Crea having a personality that is similar to Katniss, Dawn of Emotions is nothing like The Hunger Games. DoE has more of a focus on self-evaluation than anything else, although, like any of my Edge stories, it has a focus on racial diversity as well as a few other elements that tend to make it stick out among other fantasy worlds.

Anyway, The Hunger Games, for those out there who don’t understand why it’s looked so highly upon, isn’t just the story of a girl who gives up her free life so that her sister doesn’t have to subject herself to the torment of walking right into her own death. It’s also about political strife, slavery, and so much more. The movie was good, but it left out a lot of the symbolism that makes the book such a joy to read. There’s still a lot to see, so if you’re a fan of the book, you can still enjoy the movie, but if you’ve seen the movie, I really suggest reading the books. I have about 100 pages left in the third book, so I’m off for now. Not sure when I’ll be back, but I had to get my voice out there. Take care everyone, and don’t forget to be awesome.

It’s Been A While

Sorry about my complete absence from here. I’ve been really bad about my social networking lately. Please forgive me.  If you want some of my updates, come to my vlog I update there twice a week, and there are two others on there that update with me. Kari and Lisa are wonderful, and they add a bit of variety to the vlog, which is wonderful.

I’ve been working on two stories lately. I’ll give you a hint of what they’re about.

Kiss and Tell

A soft kiss. I mean a real kiss, not the fake kisses you share just because you think you might have some soft of feeling for someone, be it lust or romantic aspiration. I’m talking about an honest to God kiss that makes you feel complete. That and only that is what I will accept.

I thought back to all those times I saw my parents kiss. It was a routine for them, but I could still see how much each kiss meant to them. It was as if their entire beings were held together by that simple moment of physical contact.

I’ve never had that. I’ve also never had the other kind of kiss. I was very picky on who I was going to kiss first, and that had resulted in either me turning down girls, or girls turning me down.

My reputation at school had two parts. One was that of the unkissable Andrew. The other was as the kid who only wore video game shirts. Today, I wore an angry birds shirt that I ordered in the mail and paid twenty-six dollars for.

I liked video game shirts. They made me feel like a hipster without having to be a prick, not that I liked the idea of hipsters having to look a certain way or hipsters in general. I did, however, like the feeling of liking something before it was really popular.

It’s like all the people who shoved me around for what I liked suddenly thought that video games were cool. Sadly, they didn’t even like video games that I enjoyed, yet I was seen as cool for wearing all my game related shirts. That lasted about three weeks.

After that, I was Andrew Lefebvre again. My father was born Henry Smith, but when he learned about his French heritage, his name changed to match his bloodline, and I had to explain that every single time I told someone about my last name. Technically, it means the same things, but I’d rather be Smith.

Anyway, back to the kiss. My girlfriend, Chastity, waited for six months hoping for a kiss from me. We had sex at least twenty times, but our lips never once met. She felt cheated, I felt rushed, and we ended about twenty minutes ago

Our relationship started out with just her trying to steal a kiss from me. That’s where the first fifteen sexual encounters came from. It wasn’t anything wonderful. She wasn’t the first to try and use sex to get a kiss out of me.

Then, she decided to get to know me a bit more. I didn’t understand it at first. Nobody cared to enter my world, my realm of thinking. It was just me, what I did, how I thought. I had interruptions like school, sex, and my job, but for the most part it was me.

That was how I lived life. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but it was better than letting others in. That being say, why did I feel so empty now that Lisa was gone? The last two months were an improvement on our relationship. It was turning into a real relationship. She was even starting to get into the games that I hardly played anymore.

Lisa, was becoming a girlfriend that I could enjoy being around. Then… Then she tried to kiss me again. I let out a soft whimper and turned my head. I thought I was ready. I thought it was real, yet I still turned away.

I could tell she was hurt from it. I was no longer an experiment to her. She loved me, but in my heart something was missing.

Lisa was wearing my favorite of her game shirts along with her cat ears and tail. Her tail swished with her hips as she walked away. It took me a minute to realize that that was it, but now I hurt. I didn’t know why I hurt, but I did.

I felt tears slip down my cheeks. Their splashes made me chuckle. It was over. I was starting to fall for her, and then it was over. Why did I turn away? I still didn’t understand it. I thought I wanted to kiss her. I almost went it myself. Was that it? Did I subconsciously want to feel comfortable enough to make the first move?

At twenty-two years old, I thought I’d be able to handle pain on my own. I wasn’t going to run to my parents. That was for sure, but the more I thought on things, the worse I felt. I had to do something to escape this horrible feeling from deep within my heart, or at least it felt like my heart. There was definitely a pain in the middle of my chest, so I had to assume that it was my heart, yet I didn’t know what was truly the source of the pain.

I was thinking too much, so I called my friend, Nathan. He always had an answer for my problem, though they usually had to do with, “Alcohol? Nate, I’m not going to get drunk just to get through this. The last thing I need is to make anymore poor choices.”

Nate laughed at my comment then said that he’d be over soon. I knew he wasn’t going to take long to get there, but I didn’t mind that. I called him with a problem, which was my mistake, but I didn’t want to be rude and shoot his solution down. Jake did have a very good way of solving some of my problems. He’s the one who put together a small group of friends just for me back when we first met freshman year of college. All of those friends had gone their own ways after a few months, but we still chat once a month via video calls.

I looked over to my high school class ring and rolled my eyes. I took so much pride in just the simple pleasure of escaping the institution that is high school. I never really thought about how things were back then anymore. I didn’t like it back then. The whole kissless reputation was even worse, and even a few of the teachers tried to find a way to get someone to kiss me. That’s why I grew to hate mistletoe. Love and romance were not the same thing, yet a leaf was supposed to mean something on both scales.

Almost every other person in the world was a fool, but there were people like Jake, who had horrible ideas that tended to have astonishingly good results. I was starting to hope that tonight was going to be the same.

French The Llama: A Nerdfighterlove Story

Chapter 1 Ashley

Nerdfighters were defined as people who didn’t have bones, blood, or organs. Instead, they were completely made of awesome. That was how John and Hank Green explained the term. I had wasn’t exactly sure what it meant to be made of awesome, but I was always seen as a nerd, so it worked.

I was Ashley. It was a normal name, but I liked it. Names didn’t define who you were. John and Hank didn’t have amazing names, and even Einstein’s first name wasn’t much better. If a man named Albert could be one of the brightest minds in history, then maybe a girl named Ashley, who just so happened to be a made of awesome nerdfighter, could do something great as well, even if she hated math and numbers that weren’t associated with the community that she loved.

I really do like my name. There are plenty of reasons not to like a name. My name for instance means from the ash tree meadow/field but also stands for beautiful valley. A few boys in school found out about that, and they took the meaning on a very perverted path.

Anyway, I was watching an old Vlogbrothers response video. The one that had Maureen Johnson, one of John’s writer friends, put up in regards to John’s last brotherhood 2.0 video. It felt like so long ago that I had first started watching the vlogbrothers, and honestly, I loved all of their old videos.

I found out about John by reading his first collaboration book at a friend’s house. Let It Snow really captured me, though the fact that it was Christmas Eve helped get me really excited to read a holiday book.

After I finished Let It Snow, I started to look into John, Maureen, and Lauren. That first Google search introduced me to John and Hank’s YouTube channel. I started buying everything I could from DFTBA.com. I had plenty of shirts, all of the CDs, I even wore two Ester bracelets, even though I had about ten in my room, waiting for a home.

As time moved on, I decided that I should probably be more involved in nerdfighteria, so I started a fund. I had no clue what I was going to do with it, but it was something, and something was always better than nothing.

I learned that the hard way. My previous boyfriend left me because I was so inactive. In my defense, he was my first, and we were both in middle school, but the point was that I wasn’t doing anything. Our relationship consisted of 1. me giving him a hug when we met up, 2. him telling me about his new invention idea, 3. me pretending to understand what he was talking about, and 4. Mom giving us snacks.

That was it though. I ruined a perfectly good first boyfriend through my inactivity, and although I was a different person, I could never go back to him. He wasn’t even a nerdfighter. He thought that the internet, music, and fiction were all useless. I don’t even remember what I saw in him. I blamed my inaction. When he asked, I didn’t say no. He took it as yes, and I didn’t argue. I just did nothing.

Years later, I was still single, but I knew what to do next time I was asked out. I had a list of things to look for in a guy. First and foremost he had to be a nerdfighter. That was the most important part, and if he had an Ester bracelet, that’d be a big bonus on his part. He’d also have to be into good music. I don’t mean the trendy stuff either. I wanted him to know what real music was, how to let it reach deep into his soul.

I guess I had high standards, but I wasn’t about to let myself be in a relationship that wasn’t worth holding onto. Loneliness was one hell of a tool.

I chuckled at the thought then turned on my computer and got ready to make a vlog. I looked at my outfit, a hot pink tank top and a light red skirt that had white hearts all over it. My eyes scanned over my nearly bare arm. My charm bracelet was over my left Ester bracelet. It had three charms, a llama, a rose, and a butterfly. I loved all of them, and a few of my viewers noticed my bracelet.

My newest vlog was about going back to school after winter break. My teachers were the same, but they felt like being lazy on the first day back. No homework. Yay, I guess.

After an hour, Mom got home, and walked into my room as my video finished uploading. I only had six followers. One was Mom, and two were friends that died in a car accident last year. True nerdfighters that I miss a lot.

Mom came up to check on me, two bags of Chinese takeout in her hands. I chuckled and walked over to take the one on her left. Mom always kept her things in her right hand. It was one of the wonderful things about Mom. She really tried to make up for everything.

Three years ago, Mom was caught cheating on Dad. I was never told the details, but what I do know is that Dad left. He was going to go on a trip to see his old college buddies. I thought he was going to come back for me. He told me that if he ended things with Mom, he’d do everything he could to keep me.

That never happened. Dad called Mom the day before he was supposed to come back. They had a very long discussion. Mom was taking the right steps. The man she cheated with was out of her life, and she started to focus more on housework when she was home. Dad was really happy with that. I even eavesdropped on them and heard laughter on both sides. My family wasn’t going to be broken up.

Mom and I heard the entire thing. Dad was talking on his blutooth headpiece.on his way home. A drunk driver rammed his giant SUV into Dad’s car. “That guy’s coming pretty fast,” Dad said before he yelled out, “Oh crap!” After that, there was a loud crash. I started crying out for Dad, but the last thing I heard before the connection died was, “Oh shit, man. I think he’s dead. We better get the hell outta here. I don’t need more fucking charges.”

I recognized the voice, and so did Mom. It was the same man she was cheating with on Dad. We spent the next three months proving that he was the one who did it.

Mom took things really hard, but the day he was thrown in prison, Mom changed. Her focus was on me, like she felt as though she was at fault for everything. “If I hadn’t been with that man, your father wouldn’t have had to leave. If I was a faithful wife, you’d still have a dad.”

From that day forth, I decided I was never going to love someone who drank or had large trucks or SUVs. If a man like that came into my life, but he changed everything, I’d give him a chance. I won’t let people like that man into my heart.

I decided that tonight was a good night to talk with Mom about college, so after we ate disgustingly amazing, carb filled dinner of awesome, I told Mom that I wasn’t sure where I was going to go. She instantly grabbed her old college scrapbook.

That was the best part of having a nerdy mother. She didn’t have to remember every little detail about her younger days. She had proof that her life was filled with sex-craved boys wanting her slightly large body.

Most guys just liked my hips. I did too, but that was against the point. It felt very odd for guys to focus on one part of my body. Even the ones who said I had beautiful eyes looked at my hips at least half the time. Stupid liars.

When we were done talking about Mom’s four years of higher education, it was time for bed. I decided that I’d start off at a community college and figure out my other options later. I still had about a year and a half before high school was over.

Life was still good, all things considered. I had a wonderful mother, who loved me, and there were three people I didn’t know following my vlogs on youtube. What more did I need?

Personal Taste

I recently got into a discussion about Twilight and Justin Bieber with someone lately. They accused me of disliking them because both are popular. Now I rarely ever like anything that’s popular. I don’t know why, and there are plenty of exceptions, but that’s the way that I am.

That doesn’t mean that I dislike things that are popular just because they’re popular. Why don’t I like Twilight? It’s a vampire love story. Almost every story out there that involves vampires is romantic. Honestly, I’m tired of seeing them. What makes me really dislike it is how the vampires are portrayed. There was no research done on it at all. Meyer had her dream and just went with that. Another thing that came from dreams or visions? The Mormon church… Oh wait a minute. There’s a connect there that I didn’t realize before. Let’s see… Another thing that came from dreams and visions is all of these end of the world things going on.

There have been studies showing that your dreams are simply your mind putting everything you thought and went through that day together. It doesn’t make sense because it’s so crammed up. That’s why dreams aren’t always good to look into. I digress.

Now as far as Bieber goes, I just don’t like his music. Then again, I’m not his demographic, so I don’t know why people really care whether or not I like him. He doesn’t affect me, and I understand the meaning behind true love, so his songs don’t come across as sweet or cute to me.

What are some popular things that I am into? For starters there’s Green Day, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Hunger Games, John Green, Interview With The Vampire, Narnia, and that’s just the start of it. I’m not a real hipster. I love indie things, but I also enjoy it when things that I like get popular. It means that more people can enjoy it, and those who are involved can make even more of what I enjoy.

With that being said, go out and preorder John Green’s book, The Fault In Our Stars and preorder the audiobook as well. Totally worth it!

College

So I just went to my first online college course. It seems to be very wonderful. The concept is based mainly around discussions done throughout the week. This is focused more on learning than teaching, and it’s pretty ingenious. It’s basically like facebook or twitter just with no text limits.

I’m getting my BA is English, which actually allows me more options than just a writer, though hopefully, that’s where I end up. Maybe I’ll be lucky and get something out before I’ve gotten my degree. I’m going to be working on all that I can while I’m taking this step. Also, for anyone who reads this, please give me video ideas for my vlog. I want to make something worth watching, since my life is kinda boring to just talk about.

Anyway, I’ve gotta get back to reading. Talk to you later.

Settling Down or Settling Out?

I’ve had complications with my girlfriend lately. Nothing really break-up worthy, just kinda stressful. I don’t just love her. Love isn’t good enough to explain the deepness of how I truly feel.

Our problem? Location. We live far apart, she has a stressful job, her mother micromanages her life, and there’s so much more that goes along with it that I really don’t want to talk about.

There are a few options for us. We could wait until I move up there and hope that things go well. The problem with that option is that I’d be taking a huge risk. I couldn’t move in with her, because her mother hates me now. My girlfriend wants to move to the larger cities near where she lives which means I’m going to have to save up, move, live out of my car, and hope that I get a job before I run out of money. I’m more than willing to do this, but honestly, it’s the biggest risk I’ll ever have to take.

Another option is that if my parents move to Europe for two years, she moves down here and we use that time to save up for when my parents move back. No big risk for either of us, and the money we’d be saving would be a great asset in the future.

The final option, given to me by parents, was for me to move out, get my own place, invite her down to just stay and show her all that I have. It’s still a risk to me since I’ll most likely be in a contract with the apartment I choose to live in. If she still says no, I’m screwed.

In all honesty, I don’t know what to do anymore, and the fact that the more I think on things, the worse I feel. She doesn’t want to move to this state at all, yet for her to be able to just get on her feet, moving here is her best bet. If she doesn’t change her mind though, I’m moving up there. I really don’t care about the risks. I just want to hold her again. TT^TT

Dawn of Emotions Part 1 is ready for editing.

I have made an important choice. DoE is going to split into two parts. The first part is ready for editing. If I get really stressed out, you all know why.

I made this choice because the story has two major parts to it, and I wanted each part to be looked at on its own so that readers can enjoy it without feeling as though they’ve been overwhelmed. Part two will begin two months later, because at the end of part one, Crea, the main character, decides to stop telling the story. It became too much for her to handle, so she just stopped.

I have plenty of editing to do on this story, but I hope to have it finished by April 21st.  I really think I can actually do this. It’s only the most insane job choice in the world. Better crazy than boring. ^__^

Ideas?

I’m trying to think of new ideas, and I’m coming up with nothing. I want to work with my new mentor, and she suggested that I dropped my current work to start something new so we’d be able to work on something fresh. I had one idea, but I don’t think I’m ready for something like that. Any ideas? I’m just looking for YA elements. I’ll work the YA elements into my fantasy world. That’s not very hard, but I just need some ideas to work with.

While I Wait For Pizza

So my job’s been taking up a lot of my time. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to work on my book, but I’m doing as much as I can when I have the time. I’ve said countless times that I’m going to finally kill a major character for weeks now. It’s the longest part in the story so far as well as the hardest to write, and that was just the day before his death. I finally made it to the actual day, and  it’s moving along nicely. The only problem is, I don’t want him to die.

Anyway,  I’m simply waiting on pizza. I had a long day at work, but tomorrow is my first payday. I plan on preordering the new Zelda game, eating out with my younger brother, and starting to get a few things bought for Christmas.  Also, my comic updated the other day.  http://windsofchange.smackjeeves.com/comics/1354617/in-a-world-without-umbrellas/

Oddly Enough

Even though I’m going through depression, I do have points of true bliss. I just wanted to tell everyone who looks to this blog post that good times do come. Depression is a horrible thing, but keep pushing. My own depression is getting easier and easier to deal with.