Exciting Announcement

Hey Everybody!

So recently I mentioned that I was wanting to publish a story on the blog, and I have come to the decision that in the next week the first chapter (or two) will be coming out. I'm pretty excited to start this series and share it with all of you. Below you'll find information about it! So my intention is for this story to be a bit like a serial, a chapter a week (maybe biweekly, depending on how much I can crank out), for as long as I feel it is reasonable to go on. If it comes out well, I will collect all the chapters and publish them in book format.

The story is about the characters Quillan and Thyra, an immortal and his squire (kind of). Quillan locked himself away from the world for centuries until he came across a young woman with a penchant for words and trouble. Now they're traveling the world. Each chapter will be built upon a word or phrase, and chapters will range anywhere from 1,000 or 15,000 words (I know, I know it's a pretty big range, but sometimes I get carried away). I currently have around thirty words that I would like to use for this story.

This series may include a glance at some of my other characters, across my many novels, although I haven't decided yet.

I'll be back soon with the first chapter in this series!

Taila Out.

Writing #4: Outlines

Today we're talking about outlines, now I'll admit, in school, I hated outlines. I didn't want to write each and every idea, topic, paragraph, etc down in a fancy way for a teacher to look at, mostly because I usually wrote my papers the night before they were do, but that is entirely besides the point. The more I have grown as a writer, the more important outlines have become.

When I first started writing, I didn't use an outline, in fact the first thing I ever wrote was in a blue composition notebook, and I had no rhyme or reason with how the story was going to go. Now that story has evolved, and it's outline is giant, it's planned out four or so books into the series, but it still evolves, characters come and go, plot twists change, and it grows alongside me. A couple of years into writing, I wrote what I called a 'layout', it was a basic overview of how each book went. Basically it was a really long summary, and let me tell you I never updated it (in fact it is still in my notes, and sometimes I pick it up to reference something and become incredibly confused), it was a hot mess, but it worked for me at the time.

Anyone who knows me very well, knows exactly how unorganized I can be. I like to say it's because there's a lot going on in my brain, but the truth is I'm pretty easily side tracked and I have an obsessive mind. When I try to plan, I get so obsessed with planning I don't get anything done, and this is especially true of writing. I have a real problem with outlines and schedules, because I feel as if it stops my flow of creativity, well I used to feel that way, now I'm much more creative and on task.

I recently watched a video on YouTube by Jenna Moreci (if you are a aspiring writer you should check her out), where she talked about how she outlines, it gave me several good ideas, and so I put them into practice, and since I've been able to write thousands of words, and I'm pushing for a December release (hey, don't quote me I'm not making any promises).

I picked up a ton of index cards (so many, I'm drowning in index cards), and began writing characters, events, locations, important information, etc down for each of my stories.You can pick up index card holders to keep your story in, although if your outline is to large for that, you can use rubber bands. Obviously these cards are not meant to be your official outline, I suggest once you feel your index card outline is complete, that you type all of it in a bullet point word document. Although I keep my index cards for quick references.

I know my way will not work for everyone, so please tell me how you do outlines for your stories. Or tell me if this helped you find a new or better way to outline.

Taila Out.

Writing #3

It's been a pretty eventful week, but I thought I would make a post because I'm excited about something. I've made several teasers today for a few different novels, and Friday I'm going to be sharing them. Now I will admit, I am still quite a ways from publishing, I have a late 2017/ early 2018 goal, which maybe a bit too early, since I have so many things going on, but I have high hopes. To see the teasers go to my Facebook or Twitter sometime after Friday.

I've stalled out on writing my biggest project currently, something about the last scene I wrote isn't right, and has been niggling at me for the last couple of weeks, and I've become frustrated with it. I'm considering scraping this chapter and rewriting the whole thing, to see if that will help me move past this block I have going on. Although I have done some work on other projects, I want to have the biggest one finished by August so I can begin major edits. I've been enjoying talking to people about my writing, I'm always a bit nervous to share what write, because to be honest it isn't for everyone, and I understand that, but knowing people are interested and excited to read my stories is such a wonderful feelings. I hope I can live up to the expectations.

On a different topic, I have an idea for a blog series that I would like to do. I have this idea for a novel, composed of short stories, based loosely around two characters, and a ton of vocabulary words. I've always been hesitant to post my works in places where they can be stolen, however this particular idea is one I want to share on this type of platform. If you want to see it, please let me know. I'm still thinking about it, and I may need some convincing.

Taila Out.

Movie Review: Wonder Woman

I've had a rough week, but I did get to do one really awesome thing, I went to see Wonder Woman. Now I will admit, I am not a DC fan, I haven't watched any of the other movies currently in the DC Cinematic Universe (I do intend to watch them, and see Justice League), but this movie was great.

I'll be honest, I was afraid that Wonder Woman would be a bust, but my expectations were met, two times over. I've always had a problem that superhero movies so often put the leading female in a romantic relationship, especially ones that don't make sense (see Black Widow and Hulk), or follow bad tropes. Obviously, Wonder Woman, wasn't perfect, but I can't find anything bad to say currently. The Amazons were all bad ass and perfect, the love interest wasn't over exaggerated, the humor was well timed, it was just such a good comic book movie.

I've been a Marvel fan, since Avengers came out in 2012, but I have complained many times that none of the female superheros had their own movies (I know Captain Marvel is coming out in the next couple of years, but the wait is so long). I will always campaign for a standalone Black Widow origins movie. Wonder Woman has given us the female superhero movie we always wanted. I truly hope this is a turning point in the superhero film industry, but we will see.

I would give this movie 4.5/5 stars.

Taila Out.

Writing and Music

A blog post about two of my favorite two things, as the title suggests I'm going to talk about writing and music today. It's a rare occasion to run into me without either the radio blasting or headphones close at hand, so no one will be surprised to find out that when I'm writing more than likely I have some music playing.

I have a pretty wide array of music that I listen to, in fact I love most forms of music (accept for country, and I live in the South, so I'm sure everyone I know is currently clutching their hearts), so when I sit down and make a playlist for my novels, they're pretty eclectic. Most of my novels have at least of few songs that remind me of the characters, plot, etc. For my main project, a lot of the songs on the playlist are nostalgic to the time that I first started writing the story (freshmen year of high school), even though the story has grown up with me, it still holds a big part of my 14 year old self, especially with the music that's important to the story, and that's kind of the point of this blog post, music is very important to the story.

Now I'm sure there are many, many authors who do not have any music involved in their works, but I am not one of those people. For example, I have been writing a succubus story, I won't go into detail, because I like to keep my works mostly quiet, but for this novel, I have a eleven songs on the playlist currently, one of which is Teeth by Lady Gaga. I usually have at least fifteen songs per book, that revolve around the characters, plot, or the relationships. I don't always listen to the playlist for the book, while writing, but when I get into a slump it's nice to listen to things that remind me of the story.

Tell me about how you get inspiration, whether it's for writing or not, we all need inspiration sometimes.

Taila Out.

Writing #2

Sadly, I'm not feeling particularly productive this week. I've only written about 1,000 more words on my book, which is pretty bad, since I was averaging pretty big numbers for a while. Usually I would blame this lack of productiveness on depression or ADHD, but that is not the case right now. I even have the story planned out for the next three or four chapters, I just can't seem to write. I have a new story idea circulating around in my brain, and it gotten a bit of my attention, but even this one hasn't encouraged me to write.

I go through this predicament quite regularly, I believe it is a lack of motivation. I hate to say that, because I'm quite motivated to finish this novel, excited to debut it, but I'm just not feeling it right now. I have looked at other projects, but it seems that I'm going to have buck up or shut up. I had this problem a lot with school, it was never that I didn't want to do it, just that I couldn't bring myself to finish that homework or study of a test. I often find myself with the motivation to do a lot for a short period of time, but my steam starts to run out, and I just stop.

I hate this lack of doing, so I'm going to do some editing, pick a name for my newest protagonist, and see if I can crank out the next thousand words of my story.

Taila Out.