Here there be writers…

Update 5/25/17:
Hello! I’m Carrissa, and I originally started this blog for a college publishing class to promote a book of short stories we were writing (which can be found here; The Oddities of Room 34). However, since I decided to re-write my first book this summer I will be posting comments and updates relating to that for the next few months (as long as I remember to post). I hope you enjoy reading my posts! Feel free to leave comments or ask questions, I’ll be happy to answer them when I find them!

Advertisements

Editing; Holding on and Letting Go

One of the hardest things for me as a writer has always been editing. I don’t just mean moving commas about, but big edits, like changing parts of the plotline itself, or the names of beloved characters. Those kinds of edits tear at my heart and soul.

Ultimately though, I have to ask if changing something in my book that hurts right now will help in the long run. Is what I need to change good for the story?

Name Games

So, in the course of re-writing my book for the third and final time (please God let it be the final time) I have been prompted to change some of my character names by my professor, who is assisting me in the rewriting process. Some of these I had planned to change all along…. and just never decided on a good replacement name. Others I had never thought of and, to be honest, don’t fully agree with. Regardless, however, here are some ways that I pick character names, to give you your own ideas if you happen to be writing a story, or just for amusement if you’re not a writer.

Write, right? Right.

Hello again! I am back from London (it was glorious, so was Oxford, and the tube might just be the niftiest transportation ever invented) and hard at work doing summer things and re-writing my first book. And, as promised, I am upkeeping my blog! For now, anyway…..

My first book is called, “The Tale of Mozart the Meerkitten”. It chronicles the adventures of four young kittens living in their war-torn forest home.

To London and Beyond

Well, here I am, trapped in the midst of end of college semester madness and slowly losing my mind- not for the first time in my life.
It is times like these that I look to the good that is ahead of me. At the moment that good is my trip to London that starts in ten days. It will be a glorious adventure, and after some planning it will also include Oxford, which was the college of my two favorite writers of all time; C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Other literary sites I plan to visit include Baker Street (both the actual street and the street that is home to the door portrayed in the TV show Sherlock) and probably some sites used in the Harry Potter movies.

Google Translate Writes

Alright, so, here’s the deal. On Youtube there’s a video series I like called “Google Translate sings”, where a very musically talented young woman named Malinda Kathleen Reese puts songs through multiple google translates and then sings the results. These are hilarious, and always get me to laugh, so as I try to promote the book my class has written I decided to do this with a part of my story.

That’s right, I translated a chunk of my story from English into Spanish, German, Russian, Romanian, Swahili and Polish, then back into English, and I will now post it for your entertainment. To find out what the story is actually saying, you will have to read my short story, “Howls of Defiance” in our book, The Oddities of Room 34. And, even if you don’t, I hope you get a good laugh out of this, because I certainly did!

The Oddities

Well, if you haven’t already heard, the deed is done. Let a shout of jubilation be heard throughout the land, for our book, The Oddities of Room 34 is published. It exists on Amazon in all its strange and phantasmagorical glory.

The purpose of this blog has been fulfilled.

*curtain falls*

…..Or has it?

*curtain shoots into the air accompanied by Phantom of the Opera music*

That time a character stole my book

Alright, so time for a rather amusing story that is a normal experience for many writers.

I was cheerfully going along, writing my fourth book. I knew where I wanted it to go and what I wanted to happen next and everything was going just fine. Until Caspian decided to get involved, that is.

The Magic of Writing

I am sure that many people could tell you why news writers, philosophical writers, historical writers, and plenty of other such occupations are important. And they are important, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about now. I’m going to try and explain why fiction authors are important, as a person who is both an avid reader and an aspiring author.

The Evolution of a Story

“What brings a wolf to the eagle eyries?” a female voice squawked.
“I am a warrior in training,” said Khain, lifting his head. “And I am trying to complete my Testing. I have no quarrel with the eagles.”