Grace Writing

    Melissa Gravitis @ Quill Pen Writer has tagged me in The Dual Character Inquisition Tag! I'm so excited to participate. Thanks for tagging me, Melissa!    I've decided to use Wolfe and Clio, my characters from Forsaken , as I've already told you a lot about Endings and his brothers. Here's a quick, rough blurb:    Wolfe isn't a very good person, but he's on the right side in the raging civil war, and that's all that matters to him. Struggling with PTSD and drug and alcohol addictions, he forces himself to endure and keep fighting - whether fighting is what's best for him or not. All that matters is defeating Claudius and saving the people that Wolfe refuses to admit he cares about. Clio, Wolfe's best and closest friend since childhood, is desperate to convince him that not only is he worth saving, he CAN be saved, by the One and Only person that matters. Unfortunately, she hasn't yet realized that in trying to push Wolfe c...

   And on to the treasure! - The Christy Miller Series, Book One: Summer Promise -      Author: Robin Jones Gunn    Back Cover Description: As fourteen-year-old Christy leaves her family's Wisconsin farm to spend her summer at her wealthy aunt and uncle's beach home in Newport, California, she realizes this could be the best summer of her life. Her aunt is bending over backward to see that Christy's every wish is granted, the popular beach crowd is talking to her, and she catches the attention of a cute surfer named Todd.    But the summer doesn't turn out as Christy hoped. Suddenly, she is faced with choices she's never had to make before, and the safe world that she's always known comes crashing down around her. Through it all, Christy struggles to keep her promise to her parents to not do anything she'll regret. But will she stop at nothing to get Todd, to be accepted, and to force her summer to give her everything it promis...

   What's it like being a teenage writer, you ask? (Or, maybe you didn't ask, but I'm going to continue anyway . . .)    I'd like to say that it's filled with adventure and excitement at every turn, but in reality it's just sitting at a computer and helping other  people (who are apparently "not real") go on adventures and face excitement. Let's start with a basic overview, shall we?    1. Wake up at around eleven, groggy because I stayed up until 3 AM last night    2. Lay in bed scrolling through Facebook for twenty minutes    3. Finally convince myself to get some breakfast    4. Eat said breakfast    5. Read. A lot. Like, probably for two-five hours. Maybe longer.    6. Realize that I should be writing    7. Get distracted by television for thirty minutes while eating lunch    8. Convince self to go write    9. Get sidetracked by...

   Today is something a bit different. It's more like a list and a mini-description of fantasy novels that I've loved over the years and what I loved about them. Looking for new fantasy books to read? Well, these are all parts of series - all of them pretty long series that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Let's get started! - The Secrets of Droon, Book One: The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet - Author: Tony Abbott Back Cover Description: Underneath the steps leading down the Eric's basement is a hidden storage space. It's dusty and old - nothing special at all. But when Eric, Julie and Neal all huddle inside the gray room together, something unbelievable happens. A rainbow-colored staircase appears. And as the kids take their very first step down into the mysterious land of Droon, they know that only magic and adventure awaits them!    Flying cities, hidden palaces, and magical ocean storms - Droon is full of secrets. And for Eric, Julie and Neal,...

   I recently did a post asking what I should write about and, though I didn't get a bunch of feedback, I did get some. One of the suggestions was hearing about books I liked and read recently and "If I Run"   by Terri Blackstock was one of them. In fact, I loved it so much, I finished it in a day. All (roughly) 300 pages.  I began reading it when I woke up, and finished it just in time for me to get to bed at a reasonable time of night.  Needless to say, it caught my attention.     If I Run  is about a woman named Casey Cox, who's wrongfully accused of murder, and Dylan Roberts, who's hired to find her when she runs from the police.    I started reading this book as research for writing a novel of mine. Some of the characters suffer from PTSD, and one of the characters in my novel Forsaken  suffers from the same thing. I wanted to see how other authors handled writing it, what sorts of things to look out for, and how to write ...

      The world seems much nicer at first glance than it does when you look deeper into it.    It looks like a fairy tale when you first see it. It feels welcoming and loving when you're a child, and then the older you get the more you recognize the evil that inhabits it.    When I visited Thailand on our vision trip, I saw that evil for the first time in my life. I was around eleven.    I remember walking into the Buddhist temple, having left my shoes outside as they were not allowed to be worn indoors. I walked quietly over the cold marble floor through the dark room and lowered myself to the ground, looking around me in awe. I came as a tourist, but others came to worship.    What did they worship?    A green statue. The Emerald Buddha, it's called. All around me Thai people bowed low to the floor as medieval peasants would in front of a king, their hands palm-down on the floor in front of them in wor...