keireland

I've been busy with stuff- mostly RL but I've finally found the time to update my website. I've been kinda negligent about that last few weeks, though I did update last week too. Both updates are artwork (of a sort).

so go check em out and tell me what you think ^_^
And keep in mind I've only spent a few hours working with the 3D program, so I'm pretty proud of how Blockhead looks so far.

http://natanfleetshow.com/

Oops.
I've gone 3 weeks without posting anything (I think)... But I've kind of been busy. Like... getting a job type of busy. YAY ^_^

Hopefully I'll be able to get back on the task of writing soon. Once work settles into a normal routine.

I've at least been drawing stuff lately. Sort of lately. I'll have to get them scanned in and posted. Even if they're works in progress, it's better than nothing.

My life has just gone topsy-turvy again - which made me miss posting an update of substance on www.natanfleetshow.com, but I personally thing Job > Webpage update.

I will attempt to have a post ready for monday, but I can't promice how good it will be. I'm kinda bouncing off the walls with excitement right now - lucky I can concentrate on writing this!

I've updated my website for the week.
Chapter 2 - the official(ish) version of Symbol of Hope has been posted.
Still needs some editing, but the plot is acceptable to me. For now. I guess.

Dad told me I need to go to karate on Tuesday to meet this author that is a friend of his friend. I'm mildly annoyed at this.
Now, I appreciate the attempt to be helpful, but there's a little problem with this whole thing.

1) The author is unlikely to be fantasy/sci-fi, and thus their information really won't be that useful anyway. Selling a nonfic book is quite a bit different from selling a fantasy book.

2) I'll be walking a very fine line of being enthusiastic about my work and being rude to this author. Especially if this author IS a fiction writer (by some magical chance). This will be stressful, and given my mood for the last 2 weeks... eh...
2a) If they are a fiction author, I can't sell them one of my books unless they ask for it, because otherwise, I'm being pushy not to a customer, but a fellow author. This isn't a message I want to send.
2b) I cannot expect them to actually READ my book because they're probably a busy person. Expecting them to read it is also technically expecting them to critique it and honestly, I really don't care for a critique since I know the book could have been better, but I am not capable nor willing to go back and work on it more. I refuse to. If I do I might either get so frustrated and give up writing, or I might get stuck working on that ONE bloody book for the rest of my life trying to make it perfect when it will never be and I should move on.
2c) Finally I cannot EVER expect them to pass on my book to their agent - and that one's the real kicker. My father, or his friend, might ask the author that tho, and I'm going to have to either make it clear to the author that I didn't ask them to do it, or make it clear to Dad and his friend that they can't ask that of this person. Asking or expecting such a thing is more than a little rude.

3) I highly doubt the author is a fiction author. I also suspect that this author hasn't been published, since I wasn't even told who he/she is. Or even their gender for that matter.

I posted my website update yesterday evening, actually.
It's the ACTUAL first chapter of Symbol of Hope. (well, excep there will likely be another edit or two on it before it goes into print form, but you can preview it now!)

Anyway! Find it Here!

Go vote for this girl. She deserves a break.

http://www.bodybyvictoria.com/#/Gallery/880

I was asked to create a costume for someone in 3 weeks.
Didn't go quite as planned, but also wasn't quite as difficult as it could have been. I think it turned out real nice.

The customer was certainly happy with it ^_^

yay. payment!

been working on Symbol of Hope too...
it's taking forever to get anything done on it, due to how much stuff I've got written for it - all the various versions I wrote and decided I didn't like. Rewrites of things.... forgetting I'd already written this or that scene and ....
yeah. it's a mess.

Thankfully, ywriter has assisted me in getting things sorted out. I rather like the program, now that I've started to really use it. It's got a lot of cool featuers.

I have updated my website with a random little thing I thought of - kind of a teaser for Symbol of Hope.

www.natanfleetshow.com

Posted the deleted chapter 2 of Symbol of Hope.
In which the Natan Personality Replacement Program goes out for a little jaunt.

I'm still kinda sad that I had to cut him, but he just wasn't working as hard as he should for how much space he was taking up. I guess this is just the way it goes when writing for a living rather than writing for fun.

In other news: I've been trying to write at Symbol of Hope. I'm still nowhere near to completing it. It looks like my tenative goal for getting a book finished once a year is not going to be easy. I'll still try for it, though.

Oh Amazon.
you make me lol.

"As an Amazon.com customer in Alabama, you might like to know about a limited-time offer on Southern Living magazine."

I have posted an update to my website.
This would be the deleted version of ch1 of Symbol of Hope.

http://www.natanfleetshow.com

I feel like nearly everyone around me is more interested in talking to the people that are NOT there than the people who are.

c'mon.
I'm a writer. It takes a lot of effort to get away from the computer and stop writing, or even stop thinking about writing in order to spend actual time with people, but they just want to talk on the phone. like I'm not there. Or turn up the music really loud so that I'd have to yell to be heard over it.

Should I just stop bothering trying to talk to them?

My sister makes fun of me because I don't notice when I pass her on the road.

I guess that's the difference between her and me. She drives for the sake of driving, thus spends all her attention on minding what cars she sees and who's driving them. I drive just to get from point A to point B and have just enough attention left over from thinking about stories and such to not get into a wreck or get speeding tickets. Which I haven't gotten either of yet and I've been driving for 10 years now.

I have more FANART!
This one is also by Marienixza. She's awesome. ^_^

I've been working at Ghost Talent again. got some inspiration last night, but it's (unfortunately) for a scene fairly far in. I still need to think of a way to get from point A to B.

But anyway...

I finished reading the Ender Quartet.
the last 2 books are nearly awful!

Back when I first started writing fanfics, I used to throw in random bits of Japanese. Words here and there that really didn't add anything to the stories other than "LOOKIE! I know THIS word!" and that's what the last several books of the Ender's series seemed like. It was mildly annoying to have long paragraphs of Portuguese thrown in for apparently no other reason than to annoy readers with stuff they don’t understand and that Card often didn’t bother to translate. It ended up that I simply didn’t understand about one third of the dialogue. WHY? Why bother putting in something like that when you’re going to have to translate it? Why not just have a tag “Miro switched to Portuguese and said blah blah blah”?

At least the language issue didn’t make me put the books down; although the characters and stupidity of the plotline nearly did. By the end I was just reading the books because I wanted to know how it ended rather than because I gave a crap about the characters. I was reading for the sake of “this is what NOT to do”.

What not to do:
There’s a difference between having objectionable characters and having characters that are so static that they annoy the piss out of the reader. Ender’s wife for example. She’s 60 years old and acting like a little kid! If she can’t have things her way, she throws a temper tantrum and locks everyone out of important files so that if SHE isn’t there, NO ONE can get anything done, regardless of the fact that Starways Congress is sending a doomsday device to destroy the world, the virus is mutating and getting past all the human’s defenses against it, the piggies are pissed off and crazy, the humans are going nuts from fear – and SHE wants to throw a juvenile pitty party because Ender isn’t giving her his full attention. And then he DOES give her his full attention – joining a monastery when he doesn’t really believe in god, and when he’s got plenty of other things he could be doing...

And how Card killed Ender off was just AWFUL!
I don’t think it was in character at all. I’m not sure how Ender would have died otherwise, but the way he was forced out of the picture and then killed off was just... not right. Okay, so maybe Card got bored of writing Ender? I dunno, but the solution didn’t seem right at all. He died doing NOTHING and that’s just...wrong.

Honestly, from the end of book 2, I think the whole series could have gone a different direction and been a lot better off.

The plotline itself was a cop-out. The whole OUTSPACE thing - ok, maybe when Card wrote these, the OUTSPACE bit was new and different, but the way he did it would make anyone who ever went into OUTSPACE a God. It solved too many problems too easily. Miro's crippleness, the virus, Ender's inability to get away from his wife because he's too in love with pain and being in pain. And then having everything flow back to Jane the way it did was also too convenient.

It was obvious he stopped writing because he had a neat story to tell and had started taking his reader's suggestions. I've done it before, I know what it looks like (which allows me to avoid it as much as I can). It looks like weird and stupid leftfield solutions to problems that end up too easy and make the characters look like Mary Sues.

One day, in the future, we will no longer have need for snail-mail postage boxes, stamps, and envelopes. All mail will be delivered electronically - except for packages.

and in that day, people will wonder where the heck that strange little symbol for email came from.

The regularly scheduled update for www.NatanFleetShow.com will have to be postponed.
I've got an interview and I'm too freaked about that to write anything.

Chapter 8 of Ghost Talent has been posted.

A chapter in which Rathios Doesn't Like It and Kurt gets tossed on his rear. But at least there's some progress of a sort.

For those who don't know what Said Bookisms are

I suppose I understand that you can't smile or frown a line of dialogue, but the way I read things like:
"I would love to," she smiled.
is that the Smiling happend AFTER the line of dialoge. She said whatever she was going to say, then smiled. Thus combining the dialogue tag with an action so you use less space on something that's not that important but more exciting than just watching this woman say "I would love to" without any kind of additional statement to show whether she was really happy or just monotone.

"I would love to" she said. could be read in so many different ways.
there's:
"I would love to," (gut you, you pig.)
"I would love to," (go on a date with the most dreamy guy in town!)
"I would love to," (not really, but I've got no other choice but to be polite)

But, by writing: "I would love to," she smiled.
It implies that she is actually happy, or at least mildly interested in participating in the proposed action, since she smiled after speaking.

does that make sense to anyone else?

My friend is far too polite.

She said: "The burnt bits give it flavor."

I didn't know what else to do for dinner. I'm no cook. So I frying-panned some salmon and let it simmer with sweet and sour sauce. then wilted some spinach in the juices that remained and threw more spinach on top and green beans. I was hoping the meat would pick up more of the sweet and sour sauce taste though. But Salmon is stubborn like that, I guess.