Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Four Books at Once

So the first Bastion book just came out. I'm beyond pleased, but the sequel is nowhere on the way currently because I'm trying to branch out to different genres. I've literally written... like... twelve pages on the sequel? But I've started three other books that I wanted to get out there. Some feedback would be lovely because I don't know which to start on. Of course if it gets no feedback, which it might not because nobody knows about this blog yet, I may just have to trust myself to make a good decision.

So here are the three I'm working on.

Scarlett's- A feel good and motivational story about a girl named Jaime Williams, down on her luck after moving out of her home and struggling to make a living, she finds solace in a restaurant named Scarlett's where she can finally feel part of something and attempt to make something out of herself. She's inspired by the stories of the people she meets there and decides to write a book based on their strengths, loves, despairs and heartaches. There she finds good everyday people struggling with money, direction, loss and sexuality as each person working there has their own tale to tell. But when the people she loves face troubles that threaten to tear the staff apart, she decides to make a difference in their lives and attempt to publish her work. She thinks that if she can become successful herself, then she'll be in a better position to help others. As she draws others into her own projects with her drive and success, they all become enraptured as they each become part of what Jaime has created. What happens on that road to becoming the author she craves to be is nothing short of spectacular.

Twined- A high school escapism fantasy about a girl named Avalin Marsh. On her eleventh birthday, a day that was supposed to be so perfect and filled with happiness, her mother murdered a woman. Avalin was scarred seeing her mother do such a thing. But when the police arrived there was no body, no blood, despite what she and her father saw. Her mother was taken to a mental institution and Avalin and her father lived alone in that townhouse for six more years... and Avalin thought the worst of her life was over. But after she begins to imagine these strange things, such as hallucinations, hearing voices and seeing people's faces change in front of her, she becomes terrified thinking that she's becoming just like her mother. But when a strange young man named Ashur comes to her and tells her of the Twined, mythical beings that survive off of forming pacts with humans, she begins to realize maybe her mother wasn't the insane one to begin with... that maybe everything her mother claimed was real from the start.

Blackout- Davis is sleepwalking through his life. He doesn't remember making the decisions that led to where he is. He figures he's just like every other person trying to get by. He works for the IRS, so he's used to being hated. Despite living such a monotone life, however, he is doing the best he can to look forward to the day ahead. But suddenly things start becoming strange. He begins seeing these same people in the crowd. They look familiar to him but he can't place where he's seen them. He does his best to push them aside despite the fact that he's having blackouts, missing pieces creating holes in his memories. Again he ignores them, paying them no mind. That is until the day he's kidnapped by the very same people he's been seeing and thrown into the back of a van. It turns out nothing is clear when it turns out these abductors may not be his enemies after all, as he finds out later that there are a group of people out there trying to kill him. As twists and turns ensue, it appears that maybe the life that Davis is living isn't reality at all. Because these abductors claim to know him... and they claim he saved their lives.


So that's it so far. I wanted to also do a zombie book, and I'm going to, but I'm going to have to nail down the story completely before I post anything because I want this zombie book to be different. As different as possible, that is. So I hope I can get some thoughts on these projects. Now I'm going to finish eating and turn off The Breakfast Club. Because you just can't turn away from The Breakfast Club.

How it Feels to be a Writer

So the first Bastion is out there on the marketplace. The first book I've ever written. I love the feel of the first book. It's new, it's exciting I think and it sets the series up to get darker as things progress onward. I'm excited for that. But today I gave my copy of my book to a couple people to read. And to my surprise everyone who I gave the book to loved it. People started skimming through it, reading it, saying they wanted to buy copies for their kids for Christmas. I was in shock. I was in complete and utter shock. As one of the people I gave the book to sat in the restaurant I work at and read it while I worked... he couldn't put it down.

That's the most gratifying thing in the world. To see that someone liked the ideas that I put down on paper just triggers an insuperable level of emotions. I mean it's the first book I've ever written. I know it's not perfect. It's not the best thing in the world. But it was the best thing in the world to someone for a few minutes. And I can't thank that person enough.

I set out to do this so that I could bring my ideas to life and so that I could try to help a lot of people. But I didn't expect that seeing my work admired would feel like this. It was humbling and so enjoyable to experience. I just thought I should share it.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

One of my FAVORITE Characters

Now it's no surprise that I'm a huge nerd. That's a given. Love it, I wave the flag and everything. So for me the biggest deal in the world was surprisingly a video game. I was always a big fan of movies, so when I heard of the practically playable movie Mass Effect by BioWare, I really became interested.

Now here's the story. I picked up the game back in like... 2009 from a gamestop because I was buying my brother a present and I had about fifteen bucks left over. Mass Effect came out in like... what, 2007? So I bought it for 14.99 and took it home. Apparently the storyline is your character, Shepard, is a human who is sent to acquire a signal-emitting beacon from a planet that is built by an ancient alien race. You get there and of course things go horribly wrong which sets you up for a massive adventure along with a bunch of alien and human companions racing to fight against an evil race of sentient machines coming to harvest all life from the galaxy. It's a great game. And lucky enough for me as soon as I got it the second one came out. I didn't even know it was out. But my mother came home and surprised us with ME2 due to an upcoming blizzard (she thought we'd be bored) and it indeed snowed its ass off. So I finished the game in four days since I couldn't even go outside. She didn't even know that I liked the series. She just judged the game's awesomeness based on a quick commercial.

Now the first was amazing, the second blows everything out of the water. I loved the second one in every way. Not to mention that many of my favorite actors/actresses like Tricia Helfer (EDI) and the lovely Yvonne Strahovski are both in the game. Anyway I was hooked. The characters were deep and I loved each and every one of them. Garrus is my bro, love Miranda, Samara, Grunt, Jacob, Zaeed and more. Hell Legion was hilarious. Totally blew that stereotype robot pet peeve I had out the window.

But there was one character that I could not live without. And crime against crimes, she wasn't even in the original game! You had to order her after the game came out. But she quickly became my love. My favorite character yet, voiced by the magnificent Kym Hoy, is none other than the stealthy space infiltrator...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4HsvEOlNAo



Kasumi.


Kasumi Goto is a tactical stealth master and expert thief. She can cloak and disappear in the blink of an eye and is a master at all things technical. She is one of Shepard's companions drafted by the shadow organization Cerberus to help him on his Suicide Mission to take down these aliens. Now the story behind her is she has a surgical implant called a gray box. Or grey box, I forgot how to spell it. A weapons smuggler named Hock had killed her partner in order to get his gray box and Kasumi was heartbroken. She petitions for help to get her boyfriend, Keiji's gray box away from Hock. Since Cerberus already wants her help, she strikes a deal. Shepard helps her get the gray box back and then she helps him with his mission.

Now you think a silent and stealthy thief would be quiet, serious, zen, right? Wrong. Kasumi is hilarious. She's light hearted, funny and oh so unpredictable. Truthfully her thrill-seeking lifestyle has given her quite the romantic and "take risks" kind of viewpoint. She's the kind of person whose opinions are so hard to disagree with, mainly because she ends up being right even without saying that someone else is wrong. I was very surprised when this attitude came from her. I really enjoyed this character because it just shows that even someone with such a mysterious backstory can still be so exciting. She has a third dimension added to her character based on how she treats other people. She's kind, but she knows not to get shit on. Her head is in the right place and she's very stabilizing. I wanted to take her everywhere in my game. Hell, I did take her everywhere.

Anyway she's a good inspiration on what a character is about. And it's a good inspiration on what good voice acting can lead to as well, so major props to Kym on a job well done really capturing Kasumi's personality. It's safe to say that my characters all stemmed from Kasumi's inspiration as a whole really. She was a major inspiration for this book. I hope that maybe I can write stories and create characters that are half as good as Ms. Goto...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVWXxSOlPKY&feature=related

Kasumi is indeed an optimist.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Just a Quick Update!

So the book is finally out and about on the market! That's fantastic. Nerve wracking and emotionally jarring, yes, but also very much fantastic. It's really weird to see my picture on the back of a book because this is supposedly not what people had planned for my life. But I love it! And it gives me a massive case of the goose-pimples to see my work online. Granted it has only been live for a couple days and I'm already too nervous to check any of the websites, I know that when I get that first ounce of feedback that I'm going to wig out hardcore.

Check that. Just got a call from the manager. Apparently my book is being sold in England.

England.

ENGLAND.

I love England. Really I do. I do the accent and everything. I can't do it now, mind you I'm sick. But I will eventually. I'll record it. And I'll put it on here. But I have to go to work so I gotta cut this short. Blah. I'll write later. It's not like I have four books waiting to be written or anything. Ah, just teasing. Much love people, have a good day!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Here's an Excerpt From Bastion - Prequel to War

So Rigil gently opened his locker and looked inside. He grinned to himself warmly as he pulled out a shined metal blade. It was a gorgeous make, handcrafted in an era that he knew was far beyond his time. The hilt was jet black and smooth, crafted from a special metal called reave that harnessed mannah freely in battle. Carved with special insignias he didn’t recognize, it was also wrapped in a sturdy gray cloth that kept the weapon from flying out of your hand in the midst of a fight. The blade itself however was more unique with a slight green hue in the coloration. Rigil decided it must have been made from a different metal alloy not found in today’s times, so he guessed it was quite valuable. Despite being a strange looking sword, it never failed him in his training or in any of his duels so far and it was definitely the subject of envy from the other students in his squadron. More than that though, it felt like home. Whenever he had a particularly bad night, he always took his sword out and polished it or something. Made him relax and took the stress away.
“Aye, are you still eye-groping that thing every morning?” Tavis said, trying to be funny in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Rigil smiled a little, “It’s strange. Every time I see this sword I grin. Kind of feels like the rush you get when you come home after a long journey.”
Tavin looked over at him, face dripping with water. “I swear, not all’s right in the head with you.”
“Can’t you take me seriously just once in your life, Tavis?” Rigil sighed, “You’re never serious. Ever.”
“I can be serious when the situation calls for it.” He wiped his face off with an old rag next to the sink. “Like these nightmares you’ve been having. Bad dreams are often-“
Rigil turned around and pointed at Tavis, “No, don’t say it.”
“I’m just saying-“
“Tavis!” Rigil yelled.
“Bad dreams are often the symptom of having succumbed to a curse or hex.” Tavis raised his hands defensively, “That’s all I’m saying.”
“For the love of Skiesfeld I’m not under a curse!” he stood up and grabbed his blade by its hilt, “You ace one Hexial Remedy class and you think you know black magic like the back of your hand.”
Tavis’ face suddenly became quite nervous, “Rigil we’re not even supposed to talk about that…”
“Why not?” Rigil questioned, “We learned enough about it in Diverse Magic sessions.”
“Only enough to know that it should be feared.” Tavis replied.
“That is nowhere near enough information to begin with in my opinion.” Rigil reached down for his under-armor cloth shirt and sat his blade on his bed. “I will not fear something I know so little about. Besides it’s a dead practice. No one has been able to use black magic for hundreds of years.”
Tavis’ head cocked back a little, “That’s plenty fine with me.” He scoffed to himself, “You sound like you’re curious about it.”
“I am curious about it.” Rigil put on his shirt and smoothened out the folds in it. “Not curious on how to use it. Just curious on what it does.” He picked up his blade. Suddenly he whipped it around in his right hand. He brought it around to his left and as his hands passed he grabbed the sword into his left and he arced it in front of him impressively, striking a menacing pose after his swing.
“And how to fight it.” He smiled.
Tavis grinned, “Impressive, I’ll give you that much. But hopefully we will never see black magic used by anyone.” He shrugged, “It can stay dead for all I care.”
And then there was a loud thump. The left half of the wooden bar that suspended his cloth curtains fell to the bed with a muffled noise and broke apart into several pieces. Rigil looked behind himself with an embarrassed shrug.
“My fault…” he admitted.
Tavis laughed, “Well if the source of all dark magic is a curtain rod, then we all have nothing to worry about for Rigil the conqueror is here!”
Rigil leaned against his blade, “You think so?”
The adjacent portion of the curtain rod fell to the ground, also breaking into pieces. The young man grimaced at the less than pleasant sound.
Tavis nodded, “Positive. Now let’s get dressed already.”
Rigil nodded. He knew that today was no ordinary day at the guard’s barracks. Today was the day that he and Tavis found out if they had enough skill, courage and luck to become members of the Endican city guard force, a dream that had fueled Rigil’s passion for quite a long time. All he had to do was pass this final test and then years of training would finally be put to good use. He’d be defending the people of his beloved town and city like he was supposed to. This was, after all, his destiny.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Bastion is Available Now! at www.the bastionbook.com!

Okay just go to http://www.thebastionbook.com/ and you'll have full access to order your copy of Bastion -Prequel To War today!  Just go to the webstore and place your order online.  You have your choice of either Paperback or Hardcover.  The first 50 copies will be autographed by the author.  To order E-Books just go to the Amazon search box at the bottom of the page. Type Bastion into the box and you can order it from Amazon.com The title will be available on Monday November 28th!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Bastion - Prequel To War Is At The Printer!

Well finally Bastion - Prequel To War is at the printer.  We are hoping for a release date of December 19th!
We will keep you posted on the upcoming Book Signing dates, locations and times. If you have any questions you can email us at personaepublications@yahoo.com Keep checking back for new updates and information. Thanks A.L.