Will you READ it already?!

This past week in my life has been almost a literal whirlwind. In short, I was dropped from the nursing program at school and that sent me on a quest to find a new career goal between runs to the business office, professors, financial aid, and fighting off waves of sadness. Currently, I’m thinking education and I’m stuck between English for secondary ed or elementary ed. I’m trying to convince myself I don’t need to decide at this second, but that’s hard.

When my teachers first told me they needed to dismiss me, one thing they brought up is that I mentioned to someone I like writing. Obviously, I love writing.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t write the blog. However, I kinda dismissed that suggestion because a) my school doesn’t have the creative writing program I would like and b) it’s too competitive a field for a career and c) I’m too nice of a person.

All fine and good. I move on.

Then I discussed  my mermaid paper with my professor, Dr. D.  In spite of his doubts on my topic, he likes it. It has actually rather impressed him and Dr. D has, once again, mentioned publishing. I’m kinda like, “Okay, whatever. That might be cool.” I’m still staring at the chapter three section and trying to figure what to write exactly. Or even outline!

Moving on to announcing my dismissal on facebook and telling my nursing partners. (Obviously, some are shocked, because as someone put it,  I dominated the tests.) Someone in all of this asked me if I’m going to change my major to writing.

After that, I posted Just Trust Me with the hopes that people would read it. I got one person liking it and two people at least clicked on it. But no comments otherwise. Nothing.

Then I go back for this final nursing thing about administer withdrawal to protect my GPA and such. Blahblahblah. Anyway, I just mentioned to my teachers that I was writing a paper comparing mermaid folklore across the world. They asked me how I came upon this idea and I explained that I wrote the story for the writing contest at my school (no clue how I placed yet) and I decided to write it as a novel. I wanted to do some research about it first though. They thought it was awesome.

Then the provost of my school (less than 800 students) has never met me before. No big deal. But she recongized me AND she made comments about how I have really made a difference in the TRiO writing center and that Dr. D  has said that I write really well.

I only write for the student newspaper at school and to be honest, I’m not pleased with how my articles are coming out. I really wish I had someone to help me just iron out the little things and let me brainstorm with them. But I keep hearing about how good of a writer I am, or if I’m going to go into writing, but you know what?

But no one has read my fiction!

I think I write good fiction. I have come a long way in the eight years that I’ve been writing. And while some of my stories may not be up to the standards I would like, and I am a little on the slow side when it comes to editing, I really like the stories I have.

I even randomly started reading the ending of one of my stories that I haven’t touched in over a year because I randomly thought of it.

Everyone else knows that I write fiction too. Almost  everyone understands that this is a passion of mine.

But no one reads it!

For once, just once, I want someone who has read what i have written in fiction to tell me that I’m a good writer, or ask me if I am going to look into writing, or something like that, I don’t want these people who don’t even know I wrote a novel to be suggesting I write as a career. Because for all they know, my writing stinks!

*end rant*

As it is, because I mentioned that I want my mermaid story to become an novel, I have now promised my nursing department a signed copy of it when it is published. I suppose it should be if, but I prefer to be optimistic.

one idea, many stories

So, on Sunday I wrote about my love story plot that I’d love to write. Much to my dismay, I’ve been toying with this idea ever since Sunday. I had an almost breakthrough that made me consider actually writing it, in spite of my swearing off of love stories. The idea is that I should just set it in a sci-fi setting, which I need practice writing in anyway,

Now, I have two ideas.

Just so you know the background: Arranged married goes wrong when the guy, who was rumored to be the guy, because he’s handsome, athletic and nice, has been in a very bad accident and is in some sense deformed, although it is not completely obvious. Girl is unaware of this initially, although would eventually find out as much.

So now, my two plots. Plot one from that is basically that idea. Guy was hurt, guy is slowly getting better so the girl doesn’t know. Girl finds out, freaks out and decides that she can’t marry him no matter what and blahblahblah. Well, as it turns out the other girl who has been caring for him since the accident has secretly fallen in love with him and somehow he finds out and he loves her and tada! Doesn’t end happy for the first girl but it ends happy for everyone else. (If I wrote this, it would be in the maid’s POV, just because anything else would be too difficult, and the other girl not as much fun.)

Story two: Guy’s a soldier; he got hurt; he comes home. Parents say while you’re covering, now is a great time for you to get married. And forget about all that silly soldier stuff anyway. It’s not like that was good for you.  Girl shows up, and it’s okay, although no one tells her what happened. (oooh, maybe he didn’t tell his family how badly hurt he was.) Problem is guy doesn’t want to marry girl because guy wants to still be a soldier and do good things like that. Girl doesn’t want to marry guy because by some twisted fate thing, girl has fallen in love with guy’s brother over the past year that they have been sending letters. Obviously, neither of them know the other’s dilemma, but if either of them decide not to get married, then it is worse than if they were found with a bunch of illegal drugs in their possession. Eventually, they find out everything and the guy breaks it off and runs off to be a soldier again, girl marries guy’s brother, and everyone is happy.

Both these stories could be written in a well-crafted science fiction society, so I would steer clear of the fantasy stuff I’ve been writing recently. It would actually be even more of a challenge to myself to make a believable reason as to why the society has arranged marriages and what their rules are. (Such as, if we are going to allow arranged marriages, we need to have a rule that there can only be a three year difference between the couple and so forth.)

I would like to write both these stories and I think, especially the first one, might be boring for me by the end. It’s not like Giant’s Wife where it ends with a BANG! Bu the second one might be a good thing to write because the second one I can incorporate into mindskill later on, as one of the characters. It would give background, society and so forth and might make for a much better story for me.

So, maybe I will write it. I’m not allowed to write anything else until I finish editing Dragon Slayers, which I have not done any of yet. Bad Abigail I know. But at least I can plot.

background characters–parents

The common characters that one thinks about when beginning to write are easy. We have friends and siblings and strangers and work partners. However, one character that I suspect to frequently be overlooked are parents. The question is why.

I doubt it’s based on how much your parents play a role in your life, because I have a really good relationship with my mom (not wonderful with my dad)  and I hardly mention moms. In one story I was going to write, (changed my mind) it was actually the dad who she had just lost within the last six months, the mom having been dead for ten years or so.

I actually realized that none of my stories ever have major parent characters involved. in Hope (which I haven’t talked about a lot but that’s my first novel.) her mom died before the story began. In Shad, he was an orphan with unknown parents. (Father figure, yes, but no actual parents). In Kontyo, his father was never actually seen, only mentioned. In Dragon Slayers, parents are dead. In Giant’s Wife, his parents are dead and hers she has seen for three years.

So, apparently, I jut decide to kill characters parents just because.

I actually think it’s because they either aren’t an important part to the story or their death actually moves the story along. In the story that I mentioned earlier, her dad was suspected to be killed by a drunk driver but was actually assassinated. (Really important when she starts working for the guy who had him killed.) In Hope, her mom’s death was actually her fault, which she finds out later. In Giant’s Wife, his family being dead is what caused him the join the army. (Although I did give him a sister.)

Which brings me to the next point. WHy is it that siblings are okay but parents aren’t? With the exception of Shad who we really don’t know where he came from, every single one of my characters had a close relationship with a sibling. Hope always wanted to see her brother Dave again. Kontyo worked closely with Felix. Heddwyn is close with Eva and tells her some things. Dragon Slayers, Colton is practically raising Natlie.

Now this isn’t that surprising.  I get along with most my siblings very well (when they aren’t being thickheaded and spockish). I think that brother/sister relationships can be some of the best in the world.

But why siblings and not parents? What makes parents so invisible? Is it just that I don’t know how to write forty and fifty year olds so I avoid it? But I do, because all I would need to do is write something like how my mom and I interact. Yes, people might not fully believe it, since we act like friends oftentimes, but that is still might be better than nothing.

I do not have an answer to this. I’m also thinking that I haven’t read too many books where the parents play a major role either, which makes me wonder about that as well. Anyone else notice such a problem?

how much do dreams effect what we write?

Friday night I had a dream that pretty much involved someone saying that they would protect me with their life (I didn’t believe him) and then Muslims getting mad across the country and a huge civil war breaking out in America. Actually, it was planned, but whatever it was, we had to flee for our lives because of a war on American soil.

So I began to think about one of the stories I have stored up in my head to write later. The basic idea of the story is a series of conversations between a mother and a daughter. The daughter’s in college and joined some kind of militia. She keeps saying that she will fight for freedom when it comes to it. If she needs to, she will fight. The question of the story though is where do we draw the line about fighting? And will you really fight if it comes to it?

At the end of the story, the country is basically collapse and the mom, who has always been the levelheaded one throughout this whole story, trying to put a check on the daughter’s enthusiasm, is the one who goes home from one of the conversations, takes out her shotgun, and drives to the militia camps that are actively fighting against the tyranny, while the daughter is the one questioning if it is time to fight.

Now, I’ll admit that dream on Friday scared me a little when I woke up. (Now, mind you, in the dream I have to chose between fleeing with my hamsters or my birds (I don’t have birds), so that might have been a bit traumatic. :) ) I honestly don’t know how much I would like to fight in a war. I felt cold and dead and scared at the prospect of having to at least flee and that I had to consider if I am actually willing to fight. But I’m also thinking that I have my next story to write, because I think it might be rather interesting, if I do it correctly. (I should model it slightly after Hilter’s Germany. THat could be very interesting.)

This would not be the first story I wrote in part of a dream. I actually wrote all of Giant’s Wife because of a dream. And if I hadn’t sworn off love stories, I would have written another story based off of a dream about a banished prince and a cursed country. (I apparently dream a lot about love stories.)

Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve written many stories off of my dreams. I found a story recently about someone defending their home against aliens. It actually was along the lines of the story  I mentioned up there, except that I dreamed it years ago.

So I’m wondering how true it is that our subconscious will work on stories while we’re asleep. It only seems to work well for me when I’ve slept for a long time, until 10 or 11 or so in the morning. But some of the ideas are quite interesting but oftentimes I can’t seem to remember enough of the details to write a story off of it. So perhaps it is better just to let them go.

Still, I do like the idea behind Giant’s Wife, even if it needs help. And the one that I mentioned previously isn’t as much of an idea for a story as much as a reinforcement for the story I already thought of. I must admit, however, that I do seem to get the best plotting in when I’m in that half awake, half asleep kind of phase, if I can remember any of it. So I suppose the question does come back to: how much does our dreams effect what we write?

giant’s wife formatting

I was going to try to make all of the little subpages invisible, so that way it is easier to skim my pages. However, that rather did not work unfortunately. If anyone does know how to make pages invisible without making them private, I would very much like to know.

I was, however, able to make one improvement. All pages now have a little “next” link on the bottom of the page, so there isn’t any mixing up the next one in the story. So if someone wanted to, they could just follow the whole story by clicking next each time. So, enjoy.

a new story

So, tell me this. I wrote Giant’s Wife last semester and I posted it here each day for about a month actually. (I didn’t expect it to last that long.) Now, it’s over and I’m trying to decide if I want to actually post something else, or if I just want to leave it be.

On one hand, I’d like to have something to post every day. On the other hand, I only really have Shad and Shad, first of all, would take several months to post.  And I did plan on posting Shad when I first started this blog. Shad gives a lot better picture of what I can write and I’d like to be able to have some people read it. But in all honestly, I don’t really think that much of anyone read the whole Giant’s Wife.

So probably, except for the shorter stories I’m writing now, I’ll probably not post that. (Unless, of course, wordpress is misrepresenting my stats and I have a whole lot more people reading this than I except and you all say that you want to read it. But I highly doubt that will happen.)

giant’s wife, 1/17

I was suppose to schedule this to post earlier and I forgot. Oh well. HEre is the final entry in Giant’s Wife.

******

Heddwyn pressed himself against the shed’s wall and closed his eyes. Beyond the wall was his town. He heard the screams of terror and the people begging, people who he recognized just by the sound of their voice, and then the begs cut short. He smelled the burnt flesh and hair and the smell of sweat. He heard the soldiers shouting, though he did not know what they said.  Still, he knew they enjoyed the slaughter…..

(more)

giant’s wife, 1/15

I actually forgot to post this today, until I looked at my stats. This scene is also why I am not ever having a pregnant character again until I do my OB rotation next semester.

*****

The contractions stopped late in the afternoon and for a few, brief hours, it seemed as if the baby decided to wait. The doctor, however, confined her to bed, since it was too early for her to be having it….

(more)

giant’s wife, 11/14

Only fate could have caused Heddwyn to intercept the spy’s report when he did. Not only was it any spy’s report, but from a man who trusted that Heddwyn knew what he was doing. After reading it, he had to change his plans and he moved towards immediate attacking of Kartigon. Although he regretted that he did not have Major Pauldor to bring up the flank, he could not wait….

(More)

short stories

I recently updated a bunch of pages on the side bar to your right, but never mentioned anything about them. Giant’s Wife is all stored there, along with many of my other more recent short stories. I suppose most of this will just be a directory but it’ll also have summaries of the stories if you would care to read them.

We’ll start with the top. Obviously, about the writer is a little bit of background information about me, Abigail. Has a picture too if you’re curious. :)

Darkness Swallows was originally called Kontyo for those who have read back entries. As the eldest son of the minister of interplanetary affairs, Kontyo never saw much of a need to behave. He knew that he would inherit his father’s title and continue living in luxury all of his life. That changes when an accident happens and he decides to leave for the sweeper ships instead of facing at least a year in prison, only to discover that some mistakes can’t just be undone.

Flashes of Imagination: At fourteen years old, with only writing for six months, my brother brings me a poster for a writing contest at the library. Everyone urges me to enter, only, why would I want to show the part of myself to someone? This is a true story based off of, obviously, the first time I entered a writing contest in 2003 or so.

Pay the Writer: Not a story. I’m just asking for you to sign up to a place to help me earn amazon giftcards if you really like my writing.

The Giant’s Wife: I will just refer you to the front page. I have the summery posted there. That story is significantly longer than many of the other ones, which is why there is five parts to it. I’ve been posting one a day since December 17th and I’ll be done by Sunday I think. After that, I’ll be adding the index differently so the story will collapse.

Turning Crow Calls into Beauty: Lowri hates being the daughter of a rich merchant, she hates growing up and she hates having to learn to be a lady. But more than anything, she hates that stupid, ugly harp that her mother is convinced she can play and would rather do anything except practice.

What to Write: How does one find that magical inspiration that makes someone want to write? Who knows. Sometimes, it just happens.

That’s everything for now. Make sure you look in the side bar ever so often for more stories, because I will be adding them. I don’t think I’ll be adding Shad right now, if at all, although I like it a lot. (It’s also 85,000 words.)