Whispers

From in_the_blue:

Leave a comment and I will tell you why I think you are brilliant and I am happy to see you around the internet.

(Yes, I"m looking at you!)

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Gacked from likeadeuce and in_the_blue:

I have 110 works archived at AO3FF.net. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 110 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it.

:goggles at number: And there's a few I haven't got posted over there either. Avengers, Awake stuff. Maybe a Divergent piece. Wow. Just... wow.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Memed from likeadeuce:

• Comment with "I got drunk and bought a ton of flowers"
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions. (If you want. Totally optional.)

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Rabia Gale tagged me for the Next Big Thing meme, wherein I wax eloquent on matters of this big novel I’m supposed to be writing next. I’ve got a few issues with picking a project, something about the fact that I’ve had two of them for a while and have had yet to nail my focus, but I’m going to just pick one and run with it.

1. What is the working title of your next book?

The Rothnen Cycle

I learned something about myself over the course of failing NanoLite: I kept trying to segregate out the different plot threads of City of Glass, of The Rothnen Cycle, and kept failing miserably. I couldn’t find and keep my focus, so I kept not getting anywhere with either of them, despite knowing way more about both stories than a girl ought.

Job hunt put me on the right direction: I’m a detail-oriented of the whole big picture kind of gal and I kept losing the forest for the trees. Thus, the title of the book is technically what I thought was a series title because it gives me back my focus. It’s a rather expanded version of the Vardin story.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

Vardin was born from my fandom tendencies, the exposition of the theories I developed regarding gifts and powers, and this story itself was born from the way I acquire characters, make them my own in the premise of my making, and all the dynamics and tightly interwoven relationships that emerged from playing them out in the Vardin world. The Rothnen Cycle covers not even the tip of my personal storyworld iceberg, but it captures a big picture of a fragile time when the outside world ‘discovers’ Vardin—which has always known about the outside world—, the people involved in that discovery, who cause that discovery, and who are most affected by it. It covers the couples who are bound, whether they know it or not, and yet held apart by the distance between baseline human and gifted human and how those bonds affect Vardin as a whole.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Science Fiction Fantasy. It’s really science fiction, but I’ve never liked to limit myself and I write it in a firmly fantasy style half the time.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I plead the fifth. Seriously. I’ve been ‘acquiring’ characters since I was five years old and now, they are truly mine, but I wouldn’t exactly want to hand out to the world who each character was based on. Though I think only a handful will be obvious to those in the know.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

:blinks: Might I mention that this is cruel and unusual punishment to try to even shoehorn an almost series-length book into a single sentence? Duly mentioned, here goes:

The Queen of Vardin is dying, a team of explorers has ventured upon the land’s hidden shore, and the whole world is about to discover a place where people are divided between the baseline and the gifted, where dragons and mythical creatures are real, and where the balance of power in Vardin can affect the entire world.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-Published

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Still working…

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I wish I knew, but I really don’t.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

See #2. Also, Kirsten of A Scenic Route. She liked a snippet from Storm, the first part of The Rothnen Cycle, and startled me into realizing I had found the Vardin voice.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

To create a one-sentence summary makes the whole story seem so big stakes, big picture, but the truth is that this is a story about individuals making choices, commitments, and sacrifices based on their love for significant others, for their families, for their nation. It’s about a Queen who can either care for her people or marry the man she will always be bound to. It’s about an outsider who learns the terrible secret of Vardin and must choose between the world he’s always known and the one that embraces him as its own. It’s about a girl raised as an outsider but born to Vardin and wishing as hard as she can that she could be both. It’s about the hard choice between forcing the guardians to remain hidden in their own land or allowing them to reveal what they really are—and put the whole world at risk of repeating Vardin’s worst and most terrible mistakes.

Tagged: in_the_blue, lithiumlaughter, pygmymuse, and xenokattz. Fandom perfectly permitted.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

While work is occuring in the backend and hidden corners of the website, it’s not very visible yet (ah! the coding requirements!), so here’s something to chew on while regular posting is down.

From likeadeuce:

So this is a meme that romantical brought in from tumblr, and I’m happy to play the traditional way, which is, “Pick a number and I’ll tell you. . .” but I also kind of want to play it like the Newlywed Game — the Old-Flist Game. So, if you want to ask me a number I’ll answer, but if you want to pick a number/numbers and tell me what you think my answer is/should be, that also sounds like fun.

1. The meaning behind my URL/LJ name/etc
2. Weakness
3. Why I love my bestfriend
4. Last time I cried and why

The last time I cried was a few days ago. Just a little bit, but noticeable to myself. Sometimes the stress just catches up with you, when you’re feeling too sick and tired to do what you have to do and the bills hit your bank account with or without you and you realize you’re just really, really screwed.

Then I took a deep breath and remembered that God loves me and has a plan, even if I can’t see it yet. I’ve been in worse places than this one. I stopped crying.

5. Piercings I have
6. Favorite Band
7. Biggest turn off(s)
8. Top 5 (insert subject)

Top 5 Poems

Back when I was in the fourth grade, one of those little book catalog circulars went around the class, and I ordered 100 Best-Loved Poems, edited by Philip Smith, for one dollar. A love affair began, with many of my favorites still being from this book.

• “Lucifer in Starlight” by George Meredith
• “The Children’s Hour” by William Wadsworth Longfellow
• “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy
• “Abou Ben Adhem” by Leigh Hunt
• “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by e. e. cummings

Odd selections, these. I have so many I have dog-eared and reread and love and recite and weave into my writings and my fanfiction. I love poetry, but there’s something about these ones. They resonate, especially the first three and, more oddly still, the last. But the fourth, once read, is never forgotten.

And ah, I give away my Christian bent with these. I love them all.

9. Tattoos I want
10. Biggest turn on(s)
11. Age
12. Ideas of a perfect date
13. Life goal(s)
14. Piercings I want
15. Relationship status
16. Favorite movie

Hoosiers was one of my mother’s movies. It was still in the days of VHS and had the blue chucks on the front. I loved that movie. Loved Jimmy. Loved the small town vibe. Loved the details and nuances, even if I didn’t understand half of it at my age (I was really just a kid, after all). Then I got older and started visiting the library and there was Hoosiers on DVD with the new case and I just grabbed it. I checked it out and rechecked it out until I hit my cap, then waited and did it again. I watched it over and over and over while I was writing, on my lunch breaks, whenever I got a chance. I love the dialogue especially in some of those scenes, rich and delightful to a lover of words and dialects. And the basketball… You could cast so much of it in gold.

Other movies in a similar category which bring warmth to my heart (even if they can’t beat out my favorite) are Believe in Me and The Perfect Game.

17. A fact about my life
18. Phobia
19. Middle name
20. anything you want to ask

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comment to this post saying “FIVE!” and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.

Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!

From arliddian: Current Favourite Song

I’m supposed to pick? Hm… I wonder if people who ask such questions listen to much music, but for the sake of experiment, I shall try to narrow down my multitude of favorites to something manageable.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comment to this post saying “FIVE!” and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.

Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!

From arliddian: Worldbuilding

What do we talk about when we talk about worldbuilding? How about we begin with the fact that I am a worldbuilder at heart, that I empathize with Tolkien’s desire to write out stories to express the worldbuilding he had done and further, that the worldbuilding he had done was built around languages. Additionally, I was asked to write this post ages ago, but haven’t, primarily because it’s too big. I couldn’t get my arms around it.

Worldbuilding is writing. No matter what time period you’re in, what setting, what people, your story exists within a world, and the story builds that world within your reader’s mind.
( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

From in_the_blue:

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.
1.) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2.) Italicize those you intend to read.
3.) Underline those you LOVE.
4.) Put an asterisk next to the books you’d rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read.

And my own addition:

5.) Strikethrough those you tried to read and put down.
( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comment to this post saying “FIVE!” and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.

Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!

From arliddian: Siblings

When it comes to family, they are one of the most important things in both my life and my fiction, a fact not everybody may be aware of. Sisters, brothers, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents…

But today, let’s talk about siblings.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

From arliddian:

Comment to this entry and I’ll give you a letter.
List ten things that you love that begin with that letter and then post that list on your journal.
My letter was R.

1. Reading
2. Relaxation
3. Ribbons
4. Rascals that are good at heart
5. Red cabbage
6. Raspberries
7. Riddles
8. Realistic or established romances as part of but not the point of fiction
9. “Ride of the Valykyrie”
10. Roses

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.