Creating a One-Sentence Summary of Your Story

I'm back on res at my university, at long last! This week is ressie o-week, next week is the university o-week, and then the week after that is when our classes finally start. As you can imagine, I am very busy socialising and catching up with returner-ressies and meeting/befriending/trying to mother the new ressies, so I haven't had much time to think of blog posts, much less write them... so here's one I prepared earlier! 

I am sure I am not alone in the world of writers in saying, although I am thrilled when people are interested in my writing, I kind of hate it when someone asks me what my stories are about. Thinking of a quick one-sentence summary for your story on the spot is sometimes really hard, especially if you're still in the writing, editing, and redrafting stages. I am among those who do not think of summaries until it's time to start querying. In my head, of course I know what my story is about! But putting that into a coherent one-sentence synopsis for a curious friend, especially on the spot, is really hard. I'm not even sure I could do it once I have started querying.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend about university. He is a bio-med student and so we were asking each other a lot of questions about each other's subjects. Of course, mine led to revealing that I write novels in my spare time. He asked me how many novels I'd written and I told him I'd written three. Then, the dreaded question: "What are the stories about?" 

I floundered for a moment when I first read the question and might have cursed at my smartphone a few times. Then I realised that because this wasn't a face to face conversation, I didn't have to panic and rush to give him an answer. I took a few minutes and thought about it, and surprisingly enough came out with a quick little one-sentence summary for each of my three novels. They weren't perfect explanations, but I was pretty proud of them. 

'EVERGREEN': In a fantasy world where the magical trees that provide life are suddenly failing, a prophecy names the three children of the emperor as the saviours. 

'KATHERINE': A girl starting at a new high school makes two new friends who help her through much family drama. 

'WALLS': In an alternative world, a refugee girl meets the son of the rebel group leader responsible for uprooting her family. 

They aren't perfect little summaries by any means, but if I can memorise them for future reference, I think they would be sufficient answers for curious friends asking what the stories I've written are about. 

What are your stories about? Feel free to leave a little one-line summary in the comments if you can think of one, I'd love to read them! 

- Bonnee. 

2014 Goals for Reading and Writing

I thought I'd give my blog a break from reviewing things for this post, although I have a couple of books to tell you about. Instead, I though I'd give a short post about what I am looking forward to this year.

Last year, I set my reading goal through the Goodreads Reading Challenge for 24 books, because I don't believe I read nearly enough. I only managed to get 17 books finished last year and I was a little upset with myself. I've set my goal this year for 24 books again, and so far I've read two. I'm going to put a little more effort into it this year, because admittedly I was lazy in 2014. This year so far I have read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Quirky Tails by Paul Jennings, and I've started reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, which I hope to finish by tomorrow. Next on my list is A Clash of Kings the second book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. I'm sure I'll have to read a few books for university, which I am also looking forward to.

Speaking of university, I am looking forward to all of my subjects. I am discontinuing Journalism as my minor study and picking up Children's Literature instead, which I think I'll be much better suited for. In Trimester 1, my subjects are Fiction Writing, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Literature for Children and Young Adults. In Trimester 2, I will be studying Editing and the Author, Power Politics and Texts for Young People, Philosophy Art Film, and Ethics in Global Society. It's scary to think that I'm already a third of the way through my undergraduate course and I'll only have one third to go after this year! I will also be working at the university's library this year, which I will happily count as industry experience. The Deakin Writers Club's magazine Wordly is continuing to grow and I am will be submitting as many pieces for consideration as possible as well as taking any other writerly opportunities the university offers, including submitting to the annual Verandah journal.

And of course, I will be continuing to write my novels and edit them. Between KATHERINE and WALLS, I hope to spend a lot of time editing during the university trimesters and then participate in NaNoWriMo again come November.

This post got longer than I wanted it to, so I'll shut up now.

What are your writerly goals for 2014? 
- Bonnee.

Writer's Update / Writing Craft: Memory and Incident

On the left are the two original stories
that I should be giving more attention to,
while on the right are two fanfiction I wasted
precious time on this week.

Don't you hate it when one day you have a great idea for a story, but you just can't seem to get it out sounding the way you want it and it takes you a whole day with lots of interruption to write a measly couple of thousand words? And then the next day you come up with a not-as-great idea, but still okay, and you manage to pump out almost 6000 words in little more than four uninterrupted hours... Yeah, that happened to me. To put the cherry on top of my disappointment, they were both only fanfictions. Why couldn't it have been some good original work instead?! In other writerly news, no progress has been made to the revisions of KATHERINE in over a month now, I haven't touched my W.I.P WALLS in even longer and I am two books behind on my Goodreads challenges of 24 books read in the year. How are all your goals and revisions and W.I.Ps going?

I'm just about up-to-date as far as sharing my lecture-notes with you all goes. This is what we covered in Writing Craft, week 3:

Memory and Incident

Readings for this week were The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (pages 288-314), The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (pages 13-26) and The Sea by John Banville (pages 3-17).

How do we incorporate isolated examples of observation into what we write? This leads on from the previous lesson about observation and accuracy. The thing is, once something is no longer before us, it is a memory. A common problem with writing about something after-the-fact is that we might write about it too generally.

But imagination is possible because we have a wealth of memories to draw upon and to transform. Just because we are writing from a memory, does not mean we have to be 100% true to that memory. Unless we are being asked to write an autobiography, a memory can be nothing more than the seed of something much, much bigger. Telling a story is a creative process and this is also true when the story we are telling is a memory. Like a game of Chinese whispers: you see something happen and you tell somebody about it later. To make the story seem worth telling, you might unintentionally talk it up or exaggerate, or maybe you really do think it was more story-worthy than what it really was. Either way, say your audience decides to tell somebody else; they're going to tell it differently, using their own interpretation of the event, which might not be 100% accurate to the story you told them, but it is what they remember and it is what comes out through the creative process of retelling a story.

So how do we use memories when we write? We discussed three different ways in our lecture:

1. Using our memories as part of the writer's craft, to add a certain detail to our story: our protagonist is wearing the same sweater as the girl we saw getting off the tram earlier the same day, because that sweater really caught your eye and you remember it and you want your character to have it too.

2. Writers can draw on memory in a broader way, using episodes, settings, atmospheres and situations that can be reworked into our writing. You saw the girl with the sweater trying not to drop her bags while she extracted her mobile phone from her pocket and you decided to get your protagonist to have a similar moment walking home with the groceries.

3. The most direct way of using memory in our writing is to use a memory as a 'performance' in the text, as in when the protagonist retells an event that happened in their childhood.

My second assignment for Writing Craft is using memory as the seed for a fictional story. I've already written a first-draft of this and my tutorial group workshopped it (everyone has to workshop one of their assignments in a tutorial). I'm glad to say I received a lot of positive feedback and my tutor was happy with the way the group as a whole handled the workshop setting.

Have you used memory in one of these ways when writing a story? 

- Bonnee.

O-Week on Residence/Writer's Update

So for those of you who didn't know, I moved in to my room on campus at my university on Sunday, and I am seriously thrilled to be a Deakin student right now. I'm sharing a house with nine other people from a range of different courses and origins, including a girl from Britain and an exchange student from Sweden. Majority of the people in my unit are girls and I have had people in my room till 11:30 for the past two nights, just socializing rather than hitting the clubs; as much as some of us like drinking, I'm not the only one who would rather do it in a relaxed environment at home. Fun fact about Australia: legal drinking age is eighteen.

As well as meeting a lot of new people, there are a few other ressies here who I already knew from high school. On top of that, I've met quite a few people who will be studying Professional and Creative Writing with me. I've also already taken the opportunity to join the Deakin Writer's club, who publish a small newspaper/newsletter containing member's written works on a ... I'm not sure if it's a weekly or monthly basis, but you get what I mean :)

In other news, I've done a huge redraft of the first five chapters of KATHERINE, which I'm really happy about. I feel like everything already sounds much better now that I'm not trying to avoid a maximum word-count of 20,000. In hindsight, the story was too complicated to be kept to the novella competitions required length. I've shot the word-count up to nearly 28,000 again (after re-adding the deleted scenes) and it's still rising. I feel much better about this project now.

Last of all, I randomly thought I'd write a piece of flash fiction. I had the line 'the night is for hunting' stuck in my head. This is the title of the 6th book in John Marsden's Tomorrow series (I'm only up to the 4th book, I think.) So I used the title as a prompt.

The night was for hunting. We wandered through the shadows, our eyes peeled. Mira had her crossbow loaded and at the ready, waiting for Arthur to point out a stray animal; an unfortunate creature that would live no more than a few seconds longer. I lingered at the back of the trio, ensuring that we would not become the hunted. The forests were alive with the howls of wolves whenever the moon was visible. We could kill them if we saw them in time. But if we couldn’t…

“There,” Arthur whispered. Mira aimed and fired. A creature met its end. 

Your turn! Write a piece of flash-fiction, no more than 150 words (mine was exactly 100) based on the prompt 'the night is for hunting'. You may use the prompt in the piece and change the tense to suit yourself. Leave your little creations in the comments below. I'll put them in the next blog post and everyone can vote for their favourite. You cannot vote for your own. The winner gets the choice of: a guest post on my blog; a guest post from me on their blog; an interview (interrogation) which can go on either or both blogs; or to send the first page of their WIP in for a critique on my blog.  So get writing!

How are you all?

- Bonnee.

Writing: Internal Thoughts

At the moment, I am editing my manuscript for KATHERINE with the intention of sending it into a competition some time in March, and/or to an agent later in the year. As I'm reading through, I've found myself adding a lot of description where I felt the flow was poor, and rewording a lot in other places. 

One thing I've found myself recalling is the show don't tell advise. I've noticed a lot of instances where I've simply told how the main character is feeling instead of showing it. One of the ways I'm correcting this is by turning the sentence from the narrator's point of view, into a piece of internal thought from the character's point of view. For example: 

She didn’t want to make friends, but at that point, she felt that it would have been wrong to push him away. 

Has now become:

I can’t be your friend, she thought. But I can’t push you away now. It would be wrong. 

But my worry is that I'm going to delve into my character's thoughts too often. I haven't gotten to the point where she's having an all-out internal monologue; I'm avoiding anything THAT full-on. So my question is, what do all of you out there think of using internal thought when writing?

Being somebody who, so far, as written mostly in past tense and third person, the use of internal thought gives me a chance to slip into the characters 'there and now' feelings. I personally think it can be useful if done properly, but what do you think?

- Bonnee.

The Text Prize Competition

Some of you might remember that I posted way back in November about the 2013 Text Prize.

This competition is open to residence of Australia and New Zealand of all ages, both published and unpublished. Submissions open as of the 4th of March (my first day at university!) and submissions close on 3rd April, 2013. Please follow the above link for more information on the competition, including the entry form.

Do you have a Children's or Young Adult manuscript of over 20,000 words that you'd like to enter for a chance to win a $10,000 contract with Text Publishing?

I will be submitting my manuscript for 'KATHERINE' after re-adding the scenes I took out for the Novella Writing Competition in December to get it back over that 20,000 word mark, and giving it another proof read.

Today, I printed off a copy of the first draft of 'KATHERINE' (with the deleted scenes included) to give to the woman who was my English teacher for most of high school. I have my fingers crossed that I will receive some helpful feedback from her at some point, and that putting the manuscript into the Text Prize competition with the deleted scenes re-added is a little more successful than last attempt. I firmly believe that the story is better with those extra scenes and events.

Thanks for stopping by, and what are you doing with your manuscripts and W.I.P.s right now? 

- Bonnee.

Reading and Writing Goals, 2013

I know it's over a month since everyone was supposed to set their New Years resolutions, but I was wondering who out there had a goal they wanted to reach this year in the department of reading and/or writing?

Due to my university course, I'm probably going to write a LOT! The fact that I'm studying writing is definitely a good thing. Coursework aside, I want to finish my current W.I.P, 'WALLS', re-add the scenes I cut from 'KATHERINE' and submit it to agents and/or more competitions. Towards the end of the year, I would also like to get back to 'EVERGREEN: A FALLEN STAR', as I believe I am already closer to having what I need to make it worth reading. But I'm going to let that last won sit until I've finished the year at uni first.

In terms of reading - for recreation, not for studying - I am aiming for at least two books every month. I've already knocked off four, so twenty more to go. Fingers crossed that I well and truly out-read my goal for the year, but here's a look at what I've read and what to read.

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
4. V for Vendetta, the graphic novel Alan Moore and David Lloyd
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Currently reading)
6. The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
7. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
8. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
9. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
10. City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
11. City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
12. City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
13. City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare
14. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
15. The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
16. The Host by Stephanie Meyer
17. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephanie Meyer
18. Darkness, Be My Friend by John Marsden
19. Burning for Revenge by John Marsden
20. The Night is for Hunting by John Marsden
21. The Other Side of Dawn by John Marsden
22. The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
23. Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
24. Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke.

Well, that's my current list, though there's no guarantee I might not swap some of those books around. I need to read and finish a few series this year... And of course, I will be leaving a review for every book I read, both here and on Goodreads!

What's everybody else's reading and writing goals looking like? Please share!

- Bonnee.

Achievement Unlocked: x < 20K

It's 12:30am and I just felt the bittersweet success of reaching my goal. Katherine is now 19,817 words, and I still have one last chapter to edit. But the point is that she is now small enough to be submitted to the 2013 Somerset National Novella Writing Competition.

Saving that last chapter for tomorrow. I think it's time to sleep!

Have you unlocked your achievements this NaNoWriMo?

- Bonnee.

A Surreal Feeling: Finishing 'Katherine'

What did I just do? I just finished writing the first draft of Katherine. It doesn't feel real!

I started writing Katherine in June this year. Five months later and she is 25,707 words long. That's 5,707 words over the limit to put her into the Novella competition, but there is still time to edit. My goal over the next few days is to transform her into something a little more concise. I already have an idea which entire scenes I can backspace, although I'll be saving a copy of the first draft for the expected no-win of this competition, so that I can put her into the Text Prize competition next year and whatever else comes along.

The reality of finishing my second full manuscript hasn't quite hit me yet, but I assure you that I am brimming with excitement right now!

How is everybody else going with their writing or revision goals? NaNoWriMo? Do share! I'd love to have a discussion!

- Bonnee.

All Done!

Thank you to all of you lovely people out there who have been supportive of me while I neglected you to study for my yr 12 exams! I'm happy to announce that IT'S OVER and I sat my last exam today.

To be perfectly honest, I was afraid I was going to be like a few of my friends who finished their last exams last week, and didn't know what to do with themselves because they didn't have to study. But I know EXACTLY what to do with myself.

Dear Katherine, 
I should have finished you WEEKS ago! I am so sorry for neglecting you more than I neglected my blog, my beautiful new creation. But exams are over and I am on my way to write your last few chapters and edit the living (%@! out of you so that you're under 20,000 words and I can put in in that novella competition. I promise I'll give you an awesome ending, and get Mrs Goulding to read you, and I'll print you out and send you away before 5th December.
Lots of love
- Bonnee (your mommy...)

If the rest of you didn't pick up on it, I'm going to write my brains out. I miss it so much! So wish me luck and please let me know how all of your NaNoWriMos are going, or whatever other goal you set for yourself this month with revisions and editing!

- Bonnee.

Australian Literature

So I graduated last week. Classes are finished and school is out! Over the first 19 days of November, I will sit 5 exams which will hopefully give me the score I need to get into my first-preference course at Deakin University next year.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what this summer will hold for me, and I've narrowed it down to four main things: Reading, Writing, Working my ass off and Socializing. Of course, I've already made a big start of that second one, as I told you in my previous post about what my NaNoWriMo endeavours are. But yesterday, I decided to kick-start the reading aspect. It was a toss up with what to read first: The Hunger Games trilogy, or the 7 books of the Tomorrow series. Considering I'd already read the first of the Tomorrow series (three or four years ago, admittedly), I decided to pick up the second book and start reading that.

I heard about the Tomorrow series around the same time I heard about The Hunger Games, but before THG became a big thing in Australia. After talking to some of my international friends, I realize that a lot of you probably have never heard of Tomorrow, When the War Began or the other books in the Tomorrow series, but they are bloody amazing, Australian-written books by a great author, John Marsden. In short, the Tomorrow series is about a group of eight Aussie teenagers who go bush-bashing (camping) one week over their summer break, and return home to find that their town and country has been invaded by an unidentified foreign nation. The series follows this group of teenagers through their fight to avoid being killed or captured while they try to do what little they can to fight the enemy, guerrilla style. I loved Tomorrow, When the War Began, and now almost 150 pages into book two, The Dead of the Night, I'm eager to finish reading the whole series this summer.

But reading this series makes me think about literature written and set in Australia, by Australians. And especially when it focuses on aspects unique to Australia: our cities, wildlife, climate, etc. Some of these things, I hope to incorporate into Katherine, but that isn't the focus. Katherine is focused on issues that are can be experienced all over the world. Then I thought, there's nothing stopping me from writing something that has a bigger focus on Australia as a setting after I finish the things that are already on my to-write list. I am an Australian, living in Australia. There is plenty I could write about and share.

The question is then, what do you guys want to read about if I write about Australia? Do you even want to read about Australia at all? Or do you think I'd be better off making other Australians my target audience?

- Bonnee.

NaNoWriMo

Who's participating in NaNoWriMo this year?

Most likely, I'm down for the count. My exams are during November... sadness. However, there's only five exams and they're over by the 19th. There is certainly nothing stopping me from doing a buttload of writing anyway. My first endeavour is to finish writing Katherine, which is a perfectly achievable goal. Considering the lack of detailed planning I made, I'm severely impressed that the first draft has gone this smoothly so far. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep it under 20,000 words and it will be eligible for a novella competition.

Second on the agenda is my goal to transform a fanfiction I am writing into a full-length original novel. It's not quite finished in it's fanfiction form yet, but there are many things that will be different by the time I'm through with it. So I'm excited.

What are your NaNoWriMo goals?

- Bonnee.

School, University, Writing: Update!

So I figured that, because I pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth for the past little while, I ought to give you a run-down on what's been happening on my end.

It's the last week of term, and then I'll have a two week holiday (in which I am required to attend practice exams at school and commit myself to a lot of private study) and then two more weeks of classes before, boom, it's over. My first exam is on November 1st. So I'm studying up and I'm going to have to read over the texts I'm writing on for my English and Literature exams. But that's okay, I'm happy. It's just scary and stressful, but I know that I can do this.

But then come my applications for university next year. I've been saying I'll do the Bachelor of Professional Communications and Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing and my mum really wants me to do it because it's closer to home than most other things I've been looking at, and my auntie lives close to the campus so I can stay with her (not likely, I'm not staying in a household with two of the most out of control kids to ever exist..). But I've been looking more closely at the other courses I've got on my list, and I want to do Bachelor of Arts (Professional and Creative Writing) more.  Problem? Apparently so, because it's "too far away from home". Well, I like this course more, I can actually major in what I want to major in (editing) and I WANT to move to the city, even if it is away from home. *sigh* Family dramas...

On a more positive note: I've written some more on Katherine. Slow and steady wins the race: I have eight or so chapters with word-counts around the 1000-2000 mark. Study comes before writing at the moment, but I really want to finish it in time to submit to a Novella competition my teacher gave me info about. Hopefully I don't overshoot the 20,000 word limit...

Meanwhile, a fanfiction I've been working on over at my Fanfiction.Net account is going well, and I'm thinking of transforming it into an original (it already basically is, I'm just using the characters to my favourite T.V show instead of making some up).

I've also made a pretty big decision about Evergreen. I'm putting it on hold for now. No matter what university course I choose, I'm going to improve my writing and editing skills. Evergreen needs a lot of work, and there is a lot I want to change, add and take out. I'd like to get those skills under my belt before I cause any damage. My mind is racing with ideas and I want to make this manuscript the best it can be before I throw it to the sharks at an agency. So wish me luck.

So that's my run-down. What's everyone else been up to lately? I apologize for not reading other people's blogs lately, I'll come back to you all soon. But please do expect an inconsistency in my attention to Blogger until after my exams.

- Bonnee.

Writer's Update: 100%

First of all, I'd like to apologize for being absent from blogspot for the last little while. I'll come and read peoples blogs again soon!

Secondly, I'm proud to announce that I finished reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. While it was really had to get into, I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. I am studying this non-fiction novel for literature. It's the last text we study this year, and I will be doing a close analysis on it and some of William Blake's poetry on the exam. I'll recommend this book. There is a lot of seemingly unnecessary detail, but it's all part of the style and Capote's aim to communicate the facts of the Clutter family and their murderers.

Next, I'd like to brag: Remember how I mentioned that for my literature assessment after studying Haruki Murakami's short stories from the collection after the quake, I had to write a short story mimicking his style? Well, I got my results yesterday. I got 100% and I was over the moon about it. Literally did a bit of a happy dance and almost cried. Ha ha :)

In other news, I wrote another chapter of Katherine, accepted the fact that I need to put Evergreen away until I have more time to concentrate on the edits and started writing a new fanfiction for the first time in like, two years. Any Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic readers out there? The link to my FanFiction.Net profile is in the Find Me tab.

That's all this little author has to share for now. What has everyone else been up to? Promising to come and read everyone else's blog soon!

- Bonnee.

Writer's Update and the Liebster Blog Award

I found a bit of time today and yesterday to just WRITE! At long last... the downsides of being a writer in your final year of high-school. 

Yesterday, I wrote a short story in practice for my literature assessment task next week. This had to be done in the style of Haruki Murakami's stories as seen in his collection after the quake, and revolve around similar themes so that it could become part of the collection. In writing this, I also conceived the idea of a new, bigger writing project which I'm actually really excited about. Moments later, the lovely Mrs Goulding came up to me with entry forms and information about a novella competition for Australian high-school aged kids. Hello opportunity! 

But then I thought about it... the deadline is December 5th and this new idea is nowhere near ready to start baking. Oh wait, I'm already working on something! KATHERINE! So guess who wrote another chapter for Katherine? I did :) And if I can finish it by the deadline and keep it between 10,000 and 20,000 words, it can go into the competition. Wew! 

Be Inspired Bloghop Meme

Thank you to JeffO for getting me into the Be Inspired Bloghop Meme. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to answer these questions according to Evergreen: A Fallen Star, or Katherine, so I've decided to do both. Hope nobody minds, and if one doesn't interest you, ignore it and concentrate on the other! :)

1. What is the name of your book?
Evergreen: A Fallen Star
Katherine

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
Evergreen - I always loved Asian cultures as a child, especially Chinese and Japanese, and I am slightly obsessed with anime. When I was originally writing fanfictions for Avatar: The Last Airbender, I ended up thinking of a completely new character who I made the childhood friend of one of my favourite characters from the series. In my head, I turned him into a character of my own and made them siblings, and then my brain continued working from there.

Katherine - I thought of how different some people live their lives compared to me within their family and saw that some people had it pretty rough at home. I wondered, what would that be like? What would I do if I was put into this situation, or that situation? I took parts of my own life and created some things I haven't experienced in reality, and put them into a character, and put her into a not-so-perfect life.

3. In what genre would you classify your book?
Evergreen - Fantasy, with a lot of adventure and family orientated business about it. For teens to young adults.

Katherine - In all honesty, I'm not completely sure what to classify this as. The story revolves around the issues of family and friendships and there is a touch of romance to it. Again, aimed at teens to young adults.

4. If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?
Evergreen - See, if this became a movie, I'd want it to be animated. I wouldn't have a CLUE who to cast for Chihiro in live-action OR for a voice actor... Zutto, I'd definitely had Dante Basco for a voice actor, but no clue who to choose for live-action. And Sakura... do you think I could shrink Hayley Williams to the size of a 13 yr old?

Katherine - No idea. They'd definitely all be Australian actors though, seeing as the book will actually be set in Australia.

5. Give us a one-sentence synopsis of your book.
Evergreen - The children of the Imperial Family embark on a life-changing mission to save the life-source of their world; the Evergreen trees, which keep the Middle Kingdom safe.

Katherine - An angry teenage girl learns the importance of friendship despite knowing she will always have to say goodbye as her family constantly relocates to start over.

6. Is your book already published?
I wish, goldfish!!!

7. How long did it take you to write your book?
Evergreen - First draft completed within 7 or 8 months of starting. Three years down the track and I'm still editing.

Katherine - Incomplete, so I can't tell you. I wrote nearly four chapters in two weeks when I first started though.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours?
I never say "people who read this book will like mine" because I don't believe it will necessarily be true. But I would compare Evergreen to... well, I'd compare parts of it to The Chronicles of Narnia and certain themes to similar themes in Harry Potter (though I can only dream of being the next J.K Rowling...).

As for Katherine, I think I'd compare it to The Story of Tom Brennan by J.C Burke. I haven't developed the ideas enough to tell you any more than that for certain.

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?
Evergreen - To be honest, I couldn't tell you to be exact. Cornelia Funke enthralled me and I fell in love with the idea of writing fantasy, although I wouldn't compare my book to any of hers that I've read.

Katherine - I can tell you honestly that I was inspired to actually go ahead and start writing it after I read Love-Shy by Lili Wilkinson a few months ago. I hadn't had a chance to read inside the relatively normal life of a relatively normal Australian teenage girl before receiving a copy of this book. And as I said above, J.C Burke's story was a big boost for me too.

10. Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book. 
Evergreen - There are some interesting twists along the way to saving the world, but I don't think I can explain this without giving too much away. There are witches, wolves and some interesting 'people' and a whole new world for the Imperial Children to explore, somewhere out there.

Katherine - Some of my characters have a thing for making raspberry and white chocolate muffins. Because I felt like making raspberry and white chocolate muffins when I started writing. So there.

Now I have to tag five people to participate in the Be Inspired Bloghop Meme:
Giora
Fiona
Mark Koopmans
Peggy Shumway
Rick

To Write, or Not to Write?

That is the question. I may have recently watched an episode of Dr Who where The Doctor and Martha go back to when Shakespeare was alive. Good episode :)

ANYWAY! I will finish editing 'Evergreen'. I have the last seven chapters to go. And my little proofreader, Shaun, has already read over the thirty I've already done. I promise I'll get it done, and write up queries and start sending them out to agents...

But I may have started writing a new story. Yes. I definitely started writing a new story. Thursday two weeks ago. I'm such a terrible person, putting 'Evergreen'  aside again. But I had an idea, and I needed to get it down on paper, so I though I'd start writing... and I did, and now I'm probably about half-way through the fourth chapter. We'll refer to this new project as 'Katherine', though I'm not satisfied with the title being the name of the protagonist. I'll let you know if/when I think of something better.

Aside from the three and a half chapters I have written for 'Katherine' I've also written a synopsis (my way of planning, at least for now), and I may have started a character profile thing which I probably won't complete. This isn't going to be as complicated as 'Evergreen' was. Much to Shaun's disappointment, 'Katherine' is just a straight out YA: no fantasy. I don't know if I'd class it any more specifically than YA. There's a girl with some relatively normal teenager issues, and some issues that are a little less common. A lot of family and friendship orientated stuff, maybe a splash of romance, among other things. That's about all I can say for now without giving away too much.

But just for you guys, here's my opening sentence. Tell me what you think after reading it. Feel free to give suggestions and whatnot. Thank you in advance.

Katherine gazed out of the passenger window as the car rolled into the driveway of the new house; the seventh new house she’d moved to since she’d started high-school three years ago.

 Anyone else want to share the first line of their WiP while we're here?

- Bonnee.