Coherent Much?

It’s 5:55 a.m. at the start of this entry and I’ve been awake for a little over an hour… guh. I feel tired and I have tried a few times to go back to sleep but I just keep tossing and turning. Meh…

So I entered my short story Somewhere Between Life and Death (can be read here) into a contest earlier this summer on RomanceJunkies. I really don’t consider the story to be a ‘romance’ but one of the authors running the contest convinced me I should enter. Well it of course failed. The main thing is that it was a contest where the readers decide the best story each week out of three submissions. Then after 18 or so weeks, those top 18 submissions get another round of voting by the readers with the top 3 going to an editor at TOR Publishing who then picks the grand prize. I really didn’t think I’d do well in this contest cause it’s a deep short story going up against steamy romance stories (my least favorite genre) in which the winners are picked by people who actually like steamy romance stories. I’m glad it didn’t win because that at least means I can submit it to One Story once submissions are open again on September 1st.

Anyways, Saturday went well with Kayla meeting the family. I didn’t realize all five of my siblings were gonna be there so she got to meet Dalene and Danetta, as well as Donnie and Dorthy (remember, she’d already met Darrin). It went pretty good, though since it was a dinner she didn’t really get to know them very well, she still seemed to enjoy it and like them. Sunday her and I went and saw the musical play 1776, which if you’ve never seen or heard of you should stop reading, hop in the car, and find the nearest movie rental place and pick up a copy of the theatrical version. After the play, Kay and I had a nice date back and my place.

I seem to be doing a lot of computer work lately, both at work and on my friend’s computers. I have nowhere near the prowess my roommate does in these matters but when it comes to just installing programs or trouble shooting some problems I’m adequate enough. I recently finished working on Charity’s computer and next Monday will be moving memory sticks from Chelsea’s old laptop to her new one.

Tom has found the time to do a couple of sketches for the webcomic. I don’t remember if I said this before but I am writing ‘what I know’ so the main cast of characters will revolve around my friends and I. The first story the comic will run centers on only four characters – Tom, Kayla, Pat and I. If the webcomic goes well I hope to expand and add in more of my friends. Anyways the two sketches that follow are concept sketches that Tom drew of himself and Kayla. They’re both pretty good.





Still suffering from a mad case of writers block. There’s one project right now that I seem to be able to do some sparse writing on here and there but that’s actually a present for someone so there’s a good chance that none of you will ever get to see it. Luckily I have a good book to occupy myself with right now, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, so hopefully once I’m finished with it I’ll be my usual writing self (I didn’t write much over the summer except for my polishing of Somewhere Between Life and Death).

Also I rearranged my room again and I really like the new layout. The desk is in a position now that has allowed me to sit and look out my window. While I’ve been typing this I’ve watched the deep black sky of night smolder and burn with shades of pink and orange as the sunrise set the clouds on fire before leaving behind the light grayish blue ash that is the early morning sky.

That’s all for now… good night… or good morning… blah…

A Little Bit Late...

K, so I am a little bit late updating this week. Where to begin…

Well it looks like my blog will be spread out between GaiaOnline, Facebook, and DevianArt. All three of those will be short blurbs linking back here to the main entry on Blogger. Also, all my stories and poems will be posted on both DeviantArt and Fiction Press. When the webcomic starts it’ll probably go up on DeviantArt, though I need to find out if Tom wants it on just his account or if we’ll host it on both our accounts… I’m pretty sure he has one too.

Speaking of the webcomic, I’ve done a lot of brainstorming lately. I think I have a fairly decent plot worked out for now though it still requires some fine tunning in areas. I will tell you that it’s mainly gonna be fantasy with a bit of sci-fi thrown in. It’ll have both funny and serious moments like any good story. Tom hasn’t had much time to draw any concepts yet but he did manage to get a pretty decent sketch of one of the characters done the other night –



I won’t tell you why there are two different versions. This is the first art work done for the comic and it shows promise. I look forward to seeing the finished results once Tom has had more time to do more sketches and refine his work.

Kayla moved back on Sunday, we went to Wasabi with Brit then Kay and I watched some Justice League. This weekend will be fun too, I talked to my sister Dorothy about bringing Kayla down to meet some of the family on Saturday but they are going to be busy most of the day, but apparently my oldest brother Donnie and his wife Sherry are coming down to Joplin Saturday night. Dorothy said it would be fine if I brought Kayla to supper with them in Joplin. That’ll just leave two other siblings to meet – Danetta and Janet (Dalenne), Kay’s already met Darrin. Also we’re going to Joplin Little Theatre on Sunday afternoon to see the musical play 1776 which for those of you who don’t know is an awesome play!

One last week left of summer and personally I am ready for it to be over. I’ve wanted classes to start back up since the middle of last month. It’ll be nice having everyone back in town and to meet some new people this semester.

Charity, Chelsea, and Nicole made a surprise visit by the apartment while Bussman and I were chillin. They stayed for a while and we had a pretty good time just talking and being our hyper selves.

Well that’s all for now. Other than brainstorming on Tom and I’s webcomic I’ve had some writers block lately. Once I get passed that I have some older poems I would like to work on and an idea for a children’s story/fairy tale I’d like to write. But I promise I’ll have some more writings up here soon!

Back to Regular Updates...

Well now that the semester is getting ready to start, I am going to go back to updating this once a week - specifically on Tuesday/Wednesday. I will also have a nice new little treat in store for the blog but more on that later.

K, so I posted “Somewhere Between Life and Death” earlier this summer. I spent about a month after that polishing it and weeding it until I had a really nice and clean copy. At the beginning of July, I submitted it to the RomanceJunkies Story Contest after being pointed that way by an Editor and Author I had been talking to. The contest is run by RomanceJunkies, but their readers are the people who decide who goes on. Currently they are no longer accepting submissions. Every week they post three of the submissions and the readers vote on the favorite. Once all the stories have been voted on they will take the winners from each week and post them up at once for another round of voting. The top three from that will go on to an Editor at TOR Publishing who will decide the Grand Prize winner. The Grand Prize is a netbook, which would be interesting. Other than that, I have heard a few things here and there that maybe the winner might get published too. Who knows?

The Summer had it’s Up and Downs but for once I am happy it’s over and that classes will be starting soon. Mainly though I am looking forward to having Kayla back as well as all my close friends. I am still constantly trying to talk Pat into dropping everything in Monett and coming back here but as always he is waiting till it’s a sure thing. Dubya and Hev have a possibility of coming down this way if one of the businesses here higher him. Lizzard is off doing who knows what. All in all though I am mainly looking forward to most of my friends coming back, especially Kayla.

Originally the plan was I would go down and get Kayla this weekend and help her move her stuff back here. Though it looks like the plan now is that she and Brit are going to bring as much as they can next Sunday and then sometime next week Kayla and I will go get the rest. I’m just ecstatic to have her back.

Looks like Charity is having the same computer issues I had awhile back, so when she gets back I am gonna head over and help her with that. Also Chelsea and I are planning to start working out and exercising regularly this semester in the new Gym like center they have constructed. I’m thinking about having a look at it next week (I think it opens up on Monday).

Also and this is the treat I mentioned earlier. Soon this blog will start hosting my first Webcomic. It will be written by me and drawn by my friend Tom, so we’ll see how that goes. It’ll take awhile before it shows up. I only have a louse idea on what it’s to be about and I don’t know how often Tom will be able to draw on it. Still though, it’s exciting!

Anyways that’s all for now! Laters!

Somewhere Between Life and Death

Bleh, work was work as usual. I spent most of the time reading Dragon Ball Z; I have seen the anime but it’s kind of fun reading the manga of it.

Anyways, like I promised earlier here is a link to my completed short story "Somewhere Between Life and Death.

Enjoy!

Back on Track

Ok, haven't posted anything for awhile but I've adjusted the way I do a few things so hopefully that will keep me on the ball and keep this thing updated!

The semester ended just a little under a month ago and I was actually happy with my grades. I got a C in British Literature II; I could have probably gotten a better grade if I had actually read the books assigned (Pride and Prejudice, To the Lighthouse, and Atonement) but I just could not stay interested in them. Luckily all the in class and poetry reading assignments helped me pull the grade up to something I could be ok with.

General Psychology was another C, which is fine by me. For me Psych is right down there with Math. I understand we need both and people need to learn those subjects but I dislike them both with a passion. This is another class I could have done better in - I got B’s on all the test but I didn’t do all the homework (on account that it being my least favorite class this semester I skipped it a few… no a lot of times.)

I got a B in World Music, it was an easy class and most of the time I just sat in the back and worked on stuff for my other classes or worked on one of my stories.

I got an A in Career and Life Planning, which was interesting because I was the only person in that class. I would have thought they would cancel it if only one person enrolled but I guess I was wrong.

Finally, I got an A in Writing and Research in English, the prerequisite class for English Majors. I was ecstatic when I saw the grade and it made me want to find the two English teachers that failed me in English 101 and 102 and rub it in their faces.

At this point I have completed all the basic requirement classes we have to take on campus so the next four semester will be nothing but English classes geared towards my Bachelor of Arts in English – Creative Writing. Oh and I have to take four Spanish classes… bleh, no offence to Spanish speakers… I am just not good at learning other languages; I can barely speak English… bleh!

Well once the semester was over, I took Kayla up to St. Louis. The next day she started her trip to London. It sucks with her up there cause the time difference, though several time I have waken up really early in the morning to try and catch her when she’s on but since she’s been busy I usually end up going back to bed after a few hours of waiting lol

She comes back next Tuesday but sadly, I probably will not get to see her until July 1st when I go camping with her, her mom, her step-dad, and her younger siblings. But at least she’ll be back in the same time zone which should make chatting and such easier.

Thus far summer has been kind of boring, though the late night WoW sessions with my room mate Steve and our guild have been fun, though the guild did recently kind of break apart and a few of us decided to re-roll Alliance on the Spinebreaker server. I will still be on Laughing Skull sometimes on my Horde character, just not nearly as much. Otherwise in real life I’ve had a couple of friends over now and then to break up the really boring days. Next weekend will be fun cause one of my best friends is coming up and hang out for a few days. Speaking of best friends, I got to see Dubya and Heavens baby and she’s adorable! Poor girl is going to be such a nerd by the time her fathers done with her.

Well that’s all for now cause I really have to go shower and get ready for work. When I get back tonight I will make another post and it will include my new finished short story “Somewhere Between Life and Death” which I had been calling The Valentines Day Story but that was just a working title till it was finished and I had to come up with a real name.

Well have a good day!

Finally Finished

Well the website is finally finished. It took forever, mainly cause of my busy lifestyle and just plain forgetfulness but it's done now and just needs to be regularly updated by all those who work on it.

As I stated beforehand I will be posting all my original writings on here. Some of them will be posted directly in the blog while others you'll have to follow a link to get to. Those will be what I consider my better works and are posted on FictionPress, unfortunately being a new member of FictionPress means I have to wait a couple of days before I can start submitting entries to their website. So for now I'll explain a little about myself.

I'm 22 years old and am currently attending university, majoring in English with emphasis on Creative Writing. I also work at a Public Library part time, which can be crazy at times but I love the job. Once I have my bachelors I plan to obtain an MLS (Masters of Library Sciences) but ultimately I want to become a novelist, but if that doesn't work out I would still be happy as a Librarian.

In my spare time I enjoy playing video games (WoW, Little Big Planet, and Resident Evil 5 right now), reading manga (Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, Liar Game, Fairy Tail, Claymore, and FullMetal Alchemist), and just being a typical nerd.

As of right now my girlfriend, Kay, is working on directing a one act play she wrote for her directing class. The story is pretty good but unfortunately I have to work on the days it will be preformed next month. Also, it takes a lot of work so that, on top of the fact she has to earn extra money for her trip abroad this summer, means that we probably won't get to spend a lot of time together till things slow down some in April. Luckily we have a class together on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays so even if I only get to see her the minimum number of times that's still three times a week.

I love my friends and wouldn't change anything about them. We're all weird, energetic, and loud people so there really isn't a dull moment around them (unless we're all plagued with deadly homework). Eventually it will become clear how weird we are as post stories about our 'adventures' from time to time.

Well it's 2 a.m. so I really need to be going to bed. I have to get up in five or six hours for class.

Later

The first of many..

So this is something me and my friends have been working on for awhile. We are gonna make a website and each host a blog on it. Then we'll each have our own stuff that we are in charge of, for instance I am going to post my own original writings on here like poetry and short stories I have written. Well I still have a lot of stuff I have to do so i will write more later.