Have a Nice Weekend!

In school, I'm taking a Creative Writing class. And if you haven't guessed already, the class is so much fun.

All of the assignments are really creative, and there are a lot of writing exercises that are giving me so many new story ideas! The one problem is that I'm getting so many, and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to write them all :(

Anyway, I'm just over 75% done with my final edits. After that, my mom's going to read it again and depending on what needs to be done, I'll either have my editor take a last look at it (which would probably lead to another "final" round of edits), or skim over it then publish.

I can't believe I'm actually getting this close!

Could it really be only a matter of time before I'm a published author?

Oh and just as a fun fact, I'm learning Chinese this year. Actually, I've been learning it since 6th grade, and I just love it (that doesn't mean I'm any good at speaking it…) Either way, I just wanted to show you my favorite Chinese character.

龍

I think it's the prettiest out of all of them. It's pronounced like: long. But you have to follow the tone up, so you almost say it like a question. The actual pronunciation is: lóng. It means dragon.

(Now can you guess why it's my favorite? :)

周末愉快！

(Zhōumò yúkuài)

or

Have a nice weekend!

--Jess (麥潔思）

Novel Inspiration

STATUS CHECK:


GOAL: 50,000
TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN: 7,532
WORDS REMAINING: 42,468
DAYS REMAINING: 28
MOOD: Partially inspired, and partially tired


Today is day four of NaNoWriMo! I wish I had gotten more work done yesterday but it took me longer than usual to finish my stuff for school.


But, I'm super happy because I got a prize in the campaign! Yep, that's right! I won a nice, big fat 25 page critique from Rachele Alpine over at Freckle Head. The only people I've had look at my story are my best friend and my mom. Other family members have read a little bit, but not all the way through. So, I'm a little nervous!! After my NaNo writing today I'll be attempting to clean up those first 25pgs as fast as possible! (No rush though...)


Anyway, today I thought I'd be like a couple other awesome writers/bloggers I've been inspired by and show you some of the things that inspired me to write my current series/novel. So here I go:

So those are the pictures that inspired me and they might kinda sorta give you a better idea of what it's about (or maybe not...). And finally, for some inspirational music:

This song really just goes for book two, but I've been listening to it over and over in the first part I'm writing. Love this song :)


What random pictures or music got your imagination ticking on your current project?


Have a great weekend everyone! Get lots of writing done!


--Jess


**Sorry guys, apparently the music doesn't work anymore... I think it got removed from youtube.  So yeah. Sorry.

The Early Works!

Today, I am participating in the lovely Julie's Early Works Blogfest! The idea is to talk about the first stories or pieces of writing you ever wrote. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

When I was six years old, I wrote my first story called The Dragon and the Rose. It was about a princess who was very rebellious. One day, she met a prince and they both fell in love. Unfortunately, a dragon didn't like the fact that the prince and princess were in love, so it stole the princess and the prince had to save her. And of course, all ended happily! (I was six, remember so hopefully I've improved since then!)

When I was eight, I decided that I wanted to write an actual novel. I called it, Tale of the Dragon. This story began when all of the dragons in the world were being killed off by people. Only one survived. When the dragon grew up (it was a baby at the beginning of the story) it heard of a place where dragons still existed and lived in peace. So he had to find his way to this other place where more dragons were. (I never finished this one...)

When I was nine I wrote a story about two African sisters who were separated while trying to escape into a different country (or something like that) and they both ended up thinking that the other person didn't survive. At the end they finally found each other and were happy.

And finally, when I was twelve, I wrote a story about a dragon (I know, I was extremely obsessed with dragons!) who got lost from his world. He had the power to create peace wherever he went but when he landed on the Earth and saw the chaos, he decided to hide. For hundreds of years he waited for it to end, but it never did. Finally he emerged from his cave and tried to make peace. But no one would listen. When he was about to give up, he met a little girl who had lost her parents in a war. She wasn't angry, or remorseful though and she gave him hope that someday the world would be at peace.

Voila!

Those are all of the 'long' stories I wrote. And the funny thing is, all but one had something to do with Dragons. The weirdest part is, (I swear this is completely coincidental), the main boy character in my current W.I.P. is nicknamed Dragon. Strange name, I know, but hopefully it works.

I guess I could never really get over my childhood fascination with that mythical creature.

So what were your early works? You can share in the comment box or just go over to the Early Works Blogfest page and join! (On that page it says the day to finish by is October 14th, but that's been extended to the 28th. So no worries!)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!

--Jess