The happiness EXPLODES

Guess what!?
MY EDITOR IS DONE!!!!
AHHH!
Yes I am happy. Very happy. I got the email this morning at 7:00 but I was like "meh, it's YouTube or something else that I don't care about" (Okay, I do care about YouTube, but not when I'm waiting for an email, you know?) but at 7:21 I got bored and looked at it and I saw the email I have been WAITING for.
Right now, I love my editor. ;) she made my day, and since it was 7 when she sent it, my whole day is looking really good. Thank you Danyelle. You are awesome.
I know I haven't sounded overly happy with her in past posts, but I think most of that was my own anxiousness and worries screaming out. I've felt like a horse trapped in a stall for weeks, just pacing and waiting for my owner to come out and play with me (yes, Amy Miller, that is for you ;D) Danyelle (my editor) is awesome. She's been so nice about everything, even my probably really annoying emails. A lot has been happening in her life for the past two months, so don't blame her or get angry at her for taking so long. I'm happy right now, so yeah.
I'm also kind of nervous.
What kind of mistakes did I make while writing? I'm currently reading Twisted to my dad (yes, he's a fan, my whole family is, thankfully, even my seven-year-old sister, more on her later) and I'm catching a LOT of mistakes that make me cringe. I wonder what my characters would say if they could read what I wrote from their POVs and whether or not they'd laugh about the mistakes. Aster probably would.
Here's a few of my mistakes.
1. I have a nasty habit of putting the same word in a paragraph twice! It's so annoying! For example, I put steep into a paragraph twice during an action scene, completely tossed off the drama of Aster running from Chikego (Chikego is a wraith, he's like...I don't know, like the ringwraiths in the Lego version of Lord of the Rings. Really stupid and kind of brainless. If you YouTube clips from the game, you'll see what I mean. They made the Nazgul look really dimwitted. =D)
2. I spell lose as loose.
3. I have the characters repeat like the same thing over only in different words.
Yeah, those are the ones I really noticed, but whatever right? It's all in the drafting process, and I can happily say, I am officially in editing. That's just a step off from publishing and then all of you can understand my craziness!
Or at least part of it.
On Friday I staying up until 3 watching The Fellowship of the Ring, I was mainly watching it for the Nazgul, just to watch the way that they move. That fascinates me for some reason. I was also sewing some improvements onto a shirt, so it was like watching the movie! and then ow! my finger! I missed some of the best parts because of my sewing. I noticed that the Nazgul's horses made a lot noise, and grunts, and because I'm into Parelli (he's a horse trainer, a REALLY good one) I couldn't help but notice the way that the Nazgul rode their horses and the bits that they used.
I'm such a nerd. I'm probably the only person alive who looked for that kind of thing.
The bits, um...they looked like a snaffle, a full cheek snaffle, that's good. They're a mild kind of bit meaning that the Nazgul were mostly in control of their horses, horse and rider respecting each other enough to listen. What I didn't appreciate was how the Witch-king (he's the wraith that leaps in front of Frodo on the trail as they're running for the ferry) was yanking on his horse's mouth to turn him. You don't need to do that, some simple leg cues is better for the horse, it's why the poor things mouth was hanging open as his rider sawed on his lips. That's probably why the horses made so much noise, ow! my stupid rider is yanking my face off! Stop it! Please!
I know. I'm a nerd, and I'm proud of that nerdiness. =D

Okay, THIS is what I'm talking about from Lord of the Rings, if you watch closely you'll see the Witch-king yanking hard on the horse's mouth to turn him in front of Frodo.  Provided this is the right clip.

Crossing My Fingers

Okay, yesterday I got an email from my editor saying that she was about 50 pages away from being done and it would either be today or Monday. I've got my fingers crossed for today. If I have to wait another three days, I think I'll self-combust.
Plus there's the added measure of suspense that I'm going on vacation in a week and my Mom cancelled the mail for that week, so I'd have to wait even longer to get my book back through the mail. I'm chewing my nails (actually I'm not. I cut my nails too short every single time I cut them so there's nothing to chew!) with anxiousness.
I've also realized that I'm exactly 17 and 11 months (well, exactly in two weeks) meaning in a month I'll be 18 and that's a scary thought! I don't know if I'm ready to be grown-up. Part of me wants to stay a little kid forever and the other part cringes and says "okay, let's grow up!"
Though my goal is to have my book published by my birthday. I don't know if it's going to happen, but if it doesn't I'll publish in October. Why October? Well that was my goal LAST year. To have my book published by October 15th 2012. Naturally you can assume it didn't happen. :) I'm glad it didn't, I got major help from an author friend in November so I'm super glad that I missed that goal because the suggestions she gave me really helped!
It's actually really exciting to think that in about two months my book will finally be published! I've been working on this for about three years, so you can imagine my excitement. I've just got to cross my fingers and hope that nothing else goes wrong. I'm still terrified that I'll get it out there and nobody will even LOOK at it. Then it's three years down the drain and I take up knitting. Just kidding, I can't even hold the needles right, sooo, I guess knitting wouldn't happen.
But everyone I know seems to want to read it. My violin teacher (I hope she reads it! I put both her horses into the second book. Gypsy and Cheyenne, just to make her happy. I'm not sure where Cheyenne is, but I think she's going to be Mullin's horse, so she'll get a lot of page time that way. Mullin is one of the wraiths, but don't worry! Unlike the Nazgul, my wraiths actually respect their horses. Well, most of them do anyway...) said she'd read it. And everyone except for a few readers who positively hated my main character and was really vocal about that fact...sorry, still a little bitter about that, it wasn't even constructive criticism. Aster isn't exactly what you'd call society's best, but seriously, did she have to go on and on about how much she didn't like him? Aster is practically me! He's so much like me if we met in real life we'd either be the best of friends or we'd drive each other CRAZY!
Sorry again...I'm not terribly fond of when people mock my characters. They all have little drops of me in them (some have a LOT of drops, others like Apasha the fat dude, only got like a little snippet) so when people mock my characters, it feels like they're mocking me and that hurts my feel goods. Yeah, and then I tend to get even by putting those people into my books. Like those girls I talked about last week getting their free rides to college...yeah, they're in it. And I even call them in Twisted what I've referred to them in real life. A giggling gang of gits.
Not so sure what happens to those girls, but I think the worst of them get a face to face meeting with Amaarzar. So ha!
Anyway. I'm just crossing my fingers hoping that I'll get my book back soon.
Also the weirdest thing just occurred to me. It's nearly been a year since I begged my parents for violin lessons. It's strange. A lot has happened since then, and my proudest achievement right now is that I can vibrato with my pinky!
Yeah, I know, big achievement, but hey, it ain't easy to vibrato!

Awesome music I found. Can't listen to it anywhere but YouTube because the album art is naughty and I'm sorry. I just don't respect that. Anyway, the music is awesome. =D

Not Much to Say

As the title states I don't have much to say, other than I really want my book back from the editor, I'd like the person advertising on my blog without my permission to stop it, and I'm also really bored today. I'd just like to make it clear right here that the advertisements you see on this blog are not ones I approve of, if you see something nasty, I DID NOT APPROVE OF IT. =D
I did finish the second book of Twisted. It ended up being about 733 pages long and I'm not going to brag about it because I'm too tired to even care! By the end I was so sick of writing it that I was copying and pasting like crazy.
I dreamt last night that my editor finished my book and sent it back. I was content waking up until I realized that it was just a stupid dream! It will be a very happy day when I finally get an email from her telling me that she's done. Two months, almost three is an incredibly long time to wait. I'm going CRAZY! All I want right now is my book back. I know some places I need to smooth over, but I don't want to touch it yet until I learn what she has to say.
I also discovered that I have gotten too good at drawing (is that possible?) I used to only be able to draw cartoon like figures of my characters (maybe I'll post a few after Twisted is published, just for laughs) and now I'm able to draw them pretty life-like. I drew two of my wraiths last night and whoa. I was surprised at how good they turned out, definitely not two characters I'd want to bump into! Granted they are a bit more contained than some other wraiths, but still...
Yeah, that's about all I have to say. I want to send an email to my editor saying something like "tell me where my book is, for a I greatly desire to read it!" I'm going CRAZY with all the waiting!

Found, Sort of

Okay, I know, my post on Friday was really depressing. But I was backed into a corner and felt like I (nerdy reference here) was Eowyn getting attacked by the Witch-king and he'd managed to push me against a wall and I had nowhere to run and now way to call for help as he attacked me. And let's face it, I'm no Eowyn, faced up against a wraith and I'd be screaming my brains out, especially if it was one like the Witch-king.
But, if you can tell, my tone is a bit peppier. thankfully my Merry came through and I may not have defeated the Witch-king, but at least I got him out of my face. My characters can be really defensive for me sometimes (or at least, I like to think so, I'm not crazy, trust me =D) and there is no way that they're going to suffer so much only to have me quit! I'd like to pretend that they helped me escape that corner, and the one I find the most annoying is usually the one taking up the most slack and yes I mean the Secret Keeper. He's so stubborn! But when I need him the most, he's always there. My imaginary fight with Tolkien's big bad wraith (ha! as opposed to wolf!) was fended off by my big bad spider.
Sorry, that paragraph hardly made any sense. I'm still on the verge of falling back into that corner and I know that the Witch-king would me more than happy to attack me again. But I'm not quitting. I made it this far, you don't make it almost to your destination and then decide to turn around and go back. No! You keep going! Even if you have to claw through miles of burning lava to get there.
See, I'm such a nerd. Three months ago I wouldn't have even mentioned the Lord of the Rings, now it's like in every sentence. I've seen all the movies, played the Lego video game of it and read all the books within a month and a few weeks. I'm actually reading it again, or at least the first one. =)
Hopefully I won't get backed into that corner again. that was awful! I felt so hopeless. I'm still kind of scared, but I'll go crazy if I spend the whole day worrying about things that I have no control over. Though I decided yesterday that when fifteen people tell me that they loved Twisted I will go get wet for fun. I'm such a cat in that regard, I HATE being wet! I hate it so much I hiss at the idea of swimming, snarl at jumping in a lake, and growl at those who would dare throw a water balloon in my direction.
Okay, I'm more of a wraith. They hate getting wet too. That's why all of the Nine stopped at the ford as Arwen's horse stood in the water. None of them liked the idea of being wet, and I would've been wailing my head off too seeing that wave coming. Oh my gosh! I'm going to get wet! though most of the Nazgul must've been thinking curse the elves! and possibly well, my mother did tell me I needed a shower...
So you can tell why it'd be such a big deal for me to go get wet for fun. I'd even make a video of it. When fifteen people tell that they like my book, I'll do it. When thirty people tell me...yikes. I'll have to think up a real good one for that. =)
Anyway, with my random blabbering, I guess you can tell that I'm better. I'm planning on finishing the second book of Twisted today (BTW it's called Entangled, used to be Entwined, but the third book has a smiliar name and that was just too confusing!) and it's going to be a lot of work to get through, so I should go finish my chapter (57, yow! I have 600 pages! It was a fight to get that many!) But hey, on the upside, this is the last time that I'm ever going to rewrite it fully, after that I'm just going to do a lot of copying and pasting, but I think I'll let it sit for a bit. I've written it about 3 times since Christmas. That's a little much!
Hopefully next time I won't blabber so much, I'm basically writing everything that comes to mind. I apologize for that!

Help, I'm Lost

I'm not even sure how this happened. Just one day (Wednesday or Tuesday) I was surfing the net and came across something on FaceBook that totally disheartened me. I'm not even sure WHY this affected me the way it did, but for some reason, seeing another author's success turned into my ultimate failure.
I realized that all the odds are against me.
I don't have a publicist.
I don't have a publisher.
I don't have a large audience interested in reading my book, but I'm SUPER grateful for those who are. =D
I'm not popular anywhere.
I'm a debut author.
And a whole list of other things.
I had a hard time writing yesterday, nothing I wanted to come out, would. I gave up and tossed my keyboard under my desk and spent the rest of the day as far away from my computer as I possibly could. And then I got a discouraging email that totally knocked me off my feet, reminding me how not perfect Twisted is.
I think I've lost hope in my books, my plots, and my characters, and worst of all. I think I've lost faith in myself. I don't even want to bother writing, I mean what's the point if I'm just going to mess up? I tried so hard yesterday that I burned out. There's nothing left. I don't want to write Twisted I don't want to write anything at all and it's a miracle that I'm even writing this blog!
But now I feel lost. If I'm not an author, then what am I? An artist? A loser? A no one?
I'm also stuck with the problem of realizing that I'm in 12th grade (nearly) and I have no way to pay for college. So I'm going to watch all those snotty girls that I grew up with in my neighborhood as they go on a free ride to college in the cars their parents bought for them as I stay home ultimately shamed because I don't have any money to go to a stupid college, even a bloody community college!
I'm sorry for whining, but I don't have any hope right now. I feel like I've been locked in a dark closet without a doorknob or hinges on my side and my worst enemy on the other side laughing at my pleads to be let out.
And on top of that I get to add another person to the list of people who like to ignore me. My sister's boyfriend came over yesterday and I was trying to just be myself but let's face, there's only one other person in the world who actually liked me for me. My dad tells me that I give off bad vibes sometimes telling people to go away, but that's only because I'm getting vibes from them and what I was getting from my sister's boyfriend was the general vibe of you're really weird! I'm going to pretend you're not in this room.
I was stunned.
Hurt.
Further broken.
My sister and I have always planned that our boyfriends (my imaginary one, you know, the only boy actually interested in me after Steve) were going to be like best friends with each other and all of us. My sister's would clearly be happier if me and my weirdness weren't in the room.
I gave up.
I'm sorry if I'm depressing you, but inspirational this blog post is NOT. I can't talk about it to anyone because they don't know how to help, and I'd just get a big rant about how much money my parents spent to pay for the edit of a book that is currently never going to see the light of day because I'm sick and tired of fighting. The opposition has become immense and I don't have anyone I can turn to in my corner to help combat it.
So right now I'm a little lost.
Hopeless.
Stuck.
I don't know how to get out.
I'm also stuck wearing a skirt until my laundry gets done and I'm not terribly fond of wearing skirts on any day except for Sunday.
And my overall explanation for the past few days is what happened yesterday. We were eating ice cream and I couldn't get it out of the stupid container, it was one of those big one gallon tub of ice cream that'd been in the freezer so like trying to chip apart a rock. I couldn't get anything out and the spoon I was using bent and my brother told me to go complain somewhere else, so I sat in my room eating my melting ice cream and tried not to cry. It was just everything building up to where I couldn't get ice cream out. Stupid how those dumb things are the breaker moments when the dam comes down. I didn't cry, but I sure felt busted.

Change Since Monday? Not Really

Sorry for my lack of things to write. Not much has happened since Monday, other than me driving to the library by myself for the first time, actually driving ANYWHERE by myself. It was kind of scary not having the extra protection of another person there and I was almost completely positive I wouldn't survive and be able to write this post.
Rest assured I did without much mishap than some lout laying on the horn (by the way, lout means thief, scoundrel...etc.) as I pulled into the middle part of the road (between the two yellow lines, not sure what that parts called) to wait for traffic to clear up. I was reasonably annoyed. Wouldn't it be nice to have a world without people that are addicted to pressing on their horns? I think so, I hate it when people honk at me!
So as far as my editor, nope, not a word.
As far as the second book of Twisted, making slow progress, my goal was to finish by tomorrow. Not so sure that's going to happen now. I got laid up yesterday by being a little brat and avoiding writing because I was pretty well annoyed with everything. My general answer to that is a really long nap, but I think I need a new answer because I'm tired for the rest of the evening until the time I need to go to sleep!
And if any of you remember my goal to finish Suzuki book 1 by May, well, that was pretty dashed. I'm still on the last song and if I could burn it, I would. Gavotte is not a favorite, rest assured.
Oh, want to know a good way to write a hundred pages in a week? Seems impossible right? It isn't! I've done it for the last year! Write a chapter and a half everyday and depending on the length of your chapters, mine tend to be around 8-12 pages long, you'll reach a hundred pages, or around that (hey! 80 is good!) by Saturday. But you have to write everyday, I found it's also a really good way to eliminate writer's block. Having a set goal and stressing about reaching it really squishes out room for rabid worry about not knowing what to write, you'll find something! Anything! Just to avoid admitting to yourself that you didn't reach your daily quota. :)
Granted I messed up on that yesterday, so I'm not the perfect example, I'm just saying that it can be done! It also helps if you listen to music that you really like, gets the mood going.
And if writer's block does creep up I learned at the NANOWRIMO class (National November Writing Month, or something like that) that you either need to give someone a present, or kill someone, or do something entirely different like having a character leap off a cliff, jump into a burning building or come face to face with his worst enemy.
Hopefully that won't happen for my characters, especially the Secret Keeper, his worst enemy being Amaarzar and all. :D
Be safe for the Fourth of July and remember! If you love your doggy, keep him inside, fireworks are fun for us, by terrifying for dogs and cats! Surround them with familiar sounds or you'll have a howling running menace.

About to Pull a Frosty the Snowman and Melt

It's almost nine in the morning where I am and it's roughly 82 degrees Fahrenheit in Utah. It's been over one hundred degrees for the past week and I'm sure everything is going to melt. I don't really mind the heat, I actually kind of like it when I'm in the shade and not getting fried by the sun (turns out when you're a redhead you burn easier, both with a temper and from the sun, go figure) yesterday while I was in church the power went out and it was quite the interesting meeting. We came home and the power was STILL out because of the killer heat.
Yes, it's quite hot here, but I refused to be quenched by heat! No actually this is like a cool day in another part of my story (yes, I instantly go to my story, author habit, sorry :D) called the Golgi Desert, and yes for those of you who know your biology, a Golgi apparatus is something in a cell, but biology nearly killed me last school year, so I decided to take something out of it, plus it sounds cool. Say it, "Golgi Desert" it just rolls right off your tongue!
The Golgi Desert is right next to the Four Kingdoms, bordering two of the kingdoms. It's split into two separate halves and you're going to love this, it's so original! The Upper Golgi Desert and the Lower Golgi Desert. Ruled by different sultans under a peace treaty, the Upper and Lower Golgi Deserts rarely interact with each other, mainly because the Upper part wants nothing to do with the Terrors of the Lower.
Sorry this isn't making much sense, bear with me. :)
Yeah since it's a desert it can get REALLY hot there, (like some of the men, Prince Shegya, meow) and I'm cool with the heat in Utah because I pretend I'm in the Golgi Desert, and yes I pretend a lot. It's how I get ideas for my stories, and survive situations that aren't so pleasant.
And for those of you keeping up with what I've written about my story on this blog, the Golgi Desert is where Amaarzar exists (can't say lives, because he's undead and that would totally insult him!) I'm not saying where he exists, because there's some element of surprise in Twisted that would be ruined if I did. Night time in the Lower Golgi Desert is a realm of Terror.
And anyway, those of you who saw my earlier blog post before I deleted some of it may be wondering. Turns out, I was totally wrong to assume about my sister. I have a problem with tunnel vision sometimes, it's just my claws coming out, desperate to protect myself, and I was building with stress on Friday and it kind of exploded all over the place.
But it's all okay now, my sister and I talked on Friday night and watched Flight 29 Down until one, and whined about boys, so obviously, everything is cool. :) I had not right to write what I did, but seriously, I felt like I had no other outlet to seethe through, so I apologize for turning into a ranting beastie.
I'm also a little fried out with my editor. I'm desperate to have my book back and every time I turn my iPod on and there's no emails, I sink just a little bit lower. But on the upside I'm almost done with the second book of Twisted, granted, it sucks, but I think I've smoothed out some of the problems and finally gave Allie Taylor a role to play while giving Aster and the Secret Keeper a break from running around all over the place.  I plan on finishing it on the 4th of July, because seriously I've been working on it since May and I'm a little burned out.
Also, I love the person who invented Copy and Paste. I used my old chapters in the new version because they're good enough, seriously. Just a bit of tweaking here, smoothing there, and they're good to go, makes my life easier, because sometimes the only thing I DON'T want to write is action! Action scenes can be among the hardest to orchestrate because so much is happening, but at least I'm learning that it can be just plain cheesy until I know what's happening. So yeah.
Hopefully I won't melt this week, the temperature is looking pretty much the same as last week, the lowest one we have being 100 degrees, what a cold drift! I'm thinking that I want to move to Maine, I watch the temperatures there for another story of mine (the Best Thing, kind of a modern twist off the prequel in Twisted) and 70 degrees Fahrenheit is looking really tempting right now. I hope wherever you are, you don't melt, :) summer months, not a wraith's favorite time of the year. Too much sun!