Tag: backdated

Reading

Book Review: The Fencing Master

Emily

The Fencing MasterThe Fencing Master by Arturo Perez-Reverte

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There are a couple of reasons this isn’t getting one star. The first is the writing. I will admit that there were moments that the writing in this book was beautiful and I have to give the author credit where credit is due. The other is my understanding that a lot of my dissatisfaction with the story has to do with the fact that I am not a Spanish native. It is my understanding that this book was written by a native of Spain and translated (quite well, I might add) into English. So the references to Spanish historical events and people that I didn’t understand and therefore found distracting, are probably common knowledge to many Spanish citizens and added to the story for them rather than detracted.
But then we come to the story itself. I didn’t have a problem with the main character, the fencing master. He was, quite frankly, the only interesting, multilayered character in the whole book. I found the other characters (especially the “femme fatale”) to be one dimensional and unbelievable, when I could keep the characters straight that is. The plot was flat and predictable. (view spoiler) The glimpses into the maestro’s past were far more interesting to me than the action happening in “the present” and honestly THAT’S the book I’d like to read 😛
Overall, this book was a chore to get through, but I powered through it because it was short and occasionally had glimmers of hope in the pretty prose and the main character, but these were well overshadowed by the many problems with the plot and other characters. Take from that, what you will 🙂

View all my reviews

Writing

NaNoWriMo “Now What?” Update!

Emily


  • Week One Progress:  800 words written
  • Week Two Progress:  2000 words written

So, I meant to do an update on my progress at least once a week, but… yeah… apparently my Week One progress was so lousy that I couldn’t actually make myself face up to it 😛  Week Two was better, but certainly not the kind of progress I was hoping to be making this month.  At this rate, 30k words is looking less and less likely (barring a miracle, which is not to say that it can’t happen, only that it is highly improbable).

I still have hopes of putting a wrap on the first draft of Changing History IV: Search For The Entwives by the end of January, which means that I’ll have February freed up to continue my rewrite of Parts One thru Three, and then be able to really focus on learning the ins and outs of script writing in March to prepare for my very first Script Frenzy in April.  Maybe if I keep reciting the plan over and over, it will make it a reality?  Mind over matter?  The power of positive thinking?  Maybe? 😛

I will be attempting to continue to keep everyone posted.  I know there are several of you who are anxiously awaiting the fruits of this particular labor.  So, I say unto you, do not lose heart!  I promise, I’m still working on it!

Writing

January is Officially Here, folks!

Emily


And with it comes unrealistic expectations and goals for the New Year, (followed by inevitable disappointment a few months later :P) and NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” Months!  January and February are the months to commit to editing your NaNo project from the previous year… or to finish your project, if you’re anything like me 😛

So in that spirit, I have committed to finishing the first draft of Changing History: Search for the Entwives in January (I’ve set a goal of 30k words, but I’m hoping it won’t take that many :P) and then finishing my editing of Changing History 1-3 in February.

Here is my Google Calendar I’ve created (using Pacemaker) for word counts and chapter counts in the coming months.

I’m hoping this goes well, and I’ll be able to begin posting the new (and final!) installment of Changing History in June or July.  I know that seems like a long time, but I need to give myself some space from the story before I start editing and I also have some other projects in the works (not to mention I’m trying out Script Frenzy in April, and I’m auditioning for a play this week 😛

Everyone has been so patient with me through this, I cannot tell you how much it means to me.  Hopefully I can make this final installment of the Melomir saga something worth waiting for 🙂

Writing

Guess What I Did!!!

Emily

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That’s right!  50,000 words… and not one story completed.

Well… that just puts a damper on things doesn’t it?

Never fear, I am going to try to finish Search for the Entwives in December!  I will also be resuming my editing of the chapters in the first three parts of the Changing History series.  Not today (it’s my birthday so I’m taking the day off :P), but soon!  And I am just that much closer to completing this series and being able to work on something else!  Like that Hobbit series that I wrote 50K words by accident this summer… or, you know, one of my five or six original novels that I’ve never finished… 😛

But, yay for 50K words in a month!  And sassy trees!  And mushy love stories!  Yay!

Random

Fun Fact!

Emily

So yesterday, the boyfriend and I were watching Good Eats with Alton Brown and we came upon this fun fact:

“In America in the 1930’s and 1940’s spinach was a slang term for nonsense.”

(…)

Do you know what I think?  I think we need to bring this back.  I mean, come on!

  • “Ain’t nobody got time for that spinach!”
  • “This spinach is getting out of control!”
  • “Stop talking spinach!”

And my personal favorite:

  • “That’s a bunch of spinach!”

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Spinach… not just for the salad bowl.

Random

Write Five Things You Like About Yourself

Emily

Okay, I debated the merits of posting this here.  This is a thing that was sent to me on my tumblr (kind of like a chain letter, but nothing bad happens if you don’t pass it on :P), and after much soul-searching, I’ve decided that I really like what I have to say here and it deserves entry in the blog.  So, here goes, Five Things I Like About Myself:

  1. My eyes- I love the color of my eyes.  They are green, with a ring of dark blue around the iris and they change color depending on what I’m wearing, some days more blue, some days more green.  I have really bad eyesight, so I have to wear contacts or glasses and when I was a kid I got colored contacts that were aquamarine and they were the freaking best!  I miss those 😛
  2. My nose- Yes, okay, another physical trait, but I promise this is the last one.  I really do hate most things about my body, but I love my nose for some strange reason.  I can always look at my face, even on a bad day, and just say “Well, at least I have my father’s nose.”  I know that’s probably a weird thing for a girl to be thankful for, but it’s true 😛
  3. My child-like enthusiasm- I know this is probably something about myself that most people find annoying and/or obnoxious, and I apologize for it constantly, but the truth is I wouldn’t change it for anything.  When I am 90 years old and in the nursing home, I will still be squealing like a gleeful five-year-old every time a squirrel runs anywhere near me.  I will still sit and have very enthusiastic and detailed conversations with other nerds in their 90’s (or anyone who will listen: nurses, visiting children, visiting adults…) about Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Supernatural, the newest crop of Marvel movies, and whatever else has bitten me with the obsessive bug by that time (I’m sure the list will be innumerable).  There is a line in a Yellowcard song that I heard recently:  “They say you don’t grow up, you just grow old.  It’s safe to say I haven’t done both.” (the song is “Here I Am Alive” and it has become my new theme song, btw) and I really hope that I still embody that line until the day that I die. 😀
  4. My strong need to defend those close to me- I have a motto.  I have had this motto since I was in high school and I had a strangely defining moment in my life, when I realized that this one simple phrase could basically sum up my relationship with the world at large.  You can do whatever you want to me… but don’t mess with my peeps.  If you are my friend, I will not tolerate others hurting you, physically, mentally, emotionally.  Even if it’s something that someone has done to me in the past and I just shook it off and said it was no big deal, if you are my friend, and it happens to you, I will not tolerate it.  I will go to the ends of the earth to defend you from whoever or whatever is hurting you.  And I have my father’s wild temper, so to whomever decides to test this motto… God help you, is all I have to say.
  5. My creativity- My brain does not shut off.  Sometimes it can be very annoying.  Especially when I’m lying in bed, at 3 AM, knowing I have to get up and go to work in a few hours, but I cannot get this idea for a song I wrote 5 years ago out of my head.  But that creativity fuels my writing, and writing is something that I have discovered I love to do.  I can’t imagine living in a world that did not contain all these imaginary worlds inside it.  Everywhere I go, these other worlds go with me in my head, and sometimes, when this world starts to suck too bad, I can pull them out and just live in them for a while.  Okay, so I sound like a crazy person, but I am of the belief that all creative genius comes from a place of insanity.  It’s a fine line, but I toe it with pride!

Okay, so I think that covers it.  Feel free to do one of these yourself if you like, and let me know so I can read it!  It may seem difficult, but I discovered that it’s actually quite rewarding, and I’m very glad I gave it a shot!

Writing

This Week, on “Fog Does NaNo”…

Emily

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A Lord Of The Rings fanfiction

Link to original goal post

  • Changing History:  Search for the Entwives (Lord of the Rings)

I’ve only been working on this Lord of the Rings series since the dawn of time (FIFTEEN YEARS, HOLY MOLY!), I’m ready to wrap it up and have a nice, clean conclusion for Melody and Boromir 🙂  This is Priority One, since I’ve been promising this final installment to my readers (and myself) for something close to three years now…

A little bit about this particular story (while trying not to be too spoilery)

Meet Melody Bernston…

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(FC- Bridget Regan “Legend of the Seeker”)

…a young woman who was plucked from our world and dumped into Middle Earth, with a strange ring that gives her the ability to communicate with trees, shrubs, and other plant life.  She is also called Calenhiril.

And of course, if you know LOTR, this man needs no introduction:

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Boromir and Mel have gone through a lot (and I do mean A LOT) together, but despite the fact that pretty much all they want to do is just be left in peace, the Valar have other plans, Yavanna in particular, who brought Mel into this world for a specific purpose that sort of got derailed due to unforeseen circumstances (namely that Mel is something of a hard head and a bit of an LOTR fangirl and just can’t leave well enough alone).

New friends, old friends, one last quest…

One last question…

Whatever happened to the Entwives?

Link to Changing History on Fanfiction.Net

Link to Changing History on Archive Of Our Own (work in progress, chapters posted as revisions are made to the original story)

Writing

Patrick Rothfuss Is A Precious Treasure And Should Be Protected At All Costs

Emily

Patrick Rothfuss NaNoWriMo Pep Talk 2013

Patrick Rothfuss is a gift to mankind and if you don’t believe me, here are just a few gems from his pep talk in 2013:

  • “So. You’re awesome. You know that, right? We’re all writers here. We’re awesome by definition. Consider yourself cheered.”
  • “Thou shalt write. No. Stop. You don’t need to clean out the fridge right now. Neither dost thou need to sort the recycling. I’m not even kidding. Go and write.”
  • “When I did NaNoWriMo a couple years ago, I moved back and forth between my start-from-scratch project and the third book in my trilogy. Why? Because I had a brilliant idea for a scene in Book Three. Something that I was excited to write.  Why would I ignore that impulse? When you’re enthusiastic, the writing comes quick and easy. And do you think my editor cried any tears that I’d broken that particular rule? Do you think my readers were pissed? No. No they weren’t.  So I say unto you: Follow your enthusiasm.”

These are just a few of my favorites, THIS WHOLE POST IS A TREASURE, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, GOD BLESS YOU PATRICK ROTHFUSS.

Writing

It’s That Time of Year Again…

Emily

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National Novel Writing Month 2014!

This year, my goal is to write 50,000 words of fanfiction… but not all of the same work.  I know, it’s like I’ve lost my mind, but I have a TON of unfinished first drafts that desperately need to be finished, for my own peace of mind if nothing else.  So my goal is to work on these unfinished fanfics, hopefully completing at least two or three of them and getting them off my plate so I can concentrate on other things (like my unfinished original novels that are also piling up rapidly ;P).

For your perusal, here is a list of the stories I intend to work on in November:

  • Changing History:  Search for the Entwives (Lord of the Rings)

I’ve only been working on this Lord of the Rings series since the dawn of time (FIFTEEN YEARS, HOLY MOLY!), I’m ready to wrap it up and have a nice, clean conclusion for Melody and Boromir 🙂  This is Priority One, since I’ve been promising this final installment to my readers (and myself) for something close to three years now…

  • The Washerwoman’s Daughter (BBC’s The Musketeers)

This is a new story, for a new series that a friend of mine and I have only recently (in the last two months or so) started obsessing about.  I’m putting this story on the list because #1- it’s going to be awesome, and #2- I’m writing it for someone I know in real life, which makes it a pretty high priority for me 🙂

  • Double the Baggins, Twice the Took (The Hobbit)

This is a story I have been quietly obsessing about all summer.  It was unintentionally my Camp NaNoWriMo project in July (I’m not joking, this story has so ingrained itself on my brain that I accidentally wrote over 50,000 words before I even knew what I’d done!).  It’s somehow turned itself into a sprawling epic in my head, one that will easily rival Changing History, but I’m hoping that it won’t take me another fifteen years to complete it.  I’m wanting to finish this first part of what I’m sure will become a series before the final Peter Jackson film premieres in theaters.

  • Will We Ever Have Paradise? (Bruce Banner, Worth Living For 2)

Some of you may have read my post regarding this story last weekend.  Yes, it’s actually happening.  No, I don’t know when it’ll be finished.  It’s probably going to be relatively short, but then again, I seem incapable of writing anything that normal people might consider “short” 😛

  • Clarity of Heart (Loki, Thor: The Dark World)

This is another story that’s been rattling around in my brain for a while (basically since I saw The Dark World in theaters so, what?  Last November?  Dang…).  I have a few scenes and a basic plot down, but I’m planning to try to incorporate this into a larger universe of Avengers fics, so I’d like to get this finished before, you know, Avengers 2… or 3…

So, there it is, the five fics I have chosen to work on in November!  If I can just finish two or three I will be so thrilled, I swear to god…  If anyone has encouraging words or would just like to cheer me on, I would be so, so grateful, you have no idea… 😀

I’ll keep everyone apprised of my progress!

*On a marginally related side-note:  I LOVE the Victorian/Steampunk NaNo design this year and I will most likely be spending ungodly amounts of money buying ALL OF THE MERCH, because of REASONS!

I mean, look at this stuff:

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Isn’t it neat?

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Wouldn’t this make my collection complete?

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(See what I did there?  See it? ;P)