Some Good News.

Well, I have been admitted into Graduate School at the University of Oklahoma. I will be pursuing a Masters in Library Science and Information Studies. My focus will be Middle Grade and Young Adult Literature.

I'm excited, scared. Right now, I just want to graduate. LOL.

I'm having fun creating my posts for the A-Z Challenge! I hope you guys enjoy them, one will even include a short story! :D

I was supposed to update you on my progress toward my goals...

Well, in respect to the goals I created, I think I'm doing pretty good! lol. March is almost over, and I have most of them complete...except for the edits of Cutlass. That was a high goal for my 19 hour/20-24 hour work schedule...but hey! I've printed off the first 60 pages, have two CPs, wrote a query letter and have finished my Cove and Sara story, all while finishing my homework! :D

Anniversary and Update!

First, today is my 2-year anniversary with Aladdin! :)

He's a sweetheart! :) We went to Dave and Busters to celebrate on Sunday and played games. It was super fun!

And now:

AWARD CATCHING UP TIME!!

Okay, I have been given two beautiful awards! I have the following people to thank:

Valerie Lawson
Carrie Bastyr
A.E. Martin
Elise Fallson
Honey
Yelena C

 I am SO thankful you guys thought of me! I love them and I'm heading to my awards page to place each of your names there! :)

You all can go HERE to see my post about these two lovely awards! :)

I also was tagged in the Lucky 7 Meme by Jack Flacco and Jaybird!

Again, thank you guys SO much for thinking of me! I appreciate this so much! If you'd like to see my post for The Lucky 7 Meme, you can go HERE to see it! 

I hope I found everyone's names who gave me these wonderful awards and tagged me. If not, let me know! I'll post again! :) 

Now, go check out these blogs! They are amazing and so are the people! 

QUERY QUERY QUERY

Ugh. You all know I have had a rough time with my queries. They are evil. SOOOOO evil. I have never had such a hard time writing anything in my entire life. And for all the pain we put into that query...it's probably gonna get rejected a million and one times. So...I decided to let everyone see my query evolution. Because I've had some awful ones, but I mean...I wasn't born a pro--obviously, and I also wrote queries before I decided searching google might be helpful...and before I could find examples online...and before I had a blog. So yeah. These are preeeettttyyyy bad. But I learned! My most recent is query #4. I'll tell you about it when you get through all these. (ahaha. you don't reallly have to read all of them, you can just read number 4 if you want).

Query #1:

Set in a time of swashbuckling mysticism, this novel is a tale of love, betrayal, and friendship. Cutlass (156,356 words) Yeah...crazy word count, huh? will appeal to young adults with a taste for adventure, suspense, and romance. Elves, dwarves, magic, and the classics of action and romance provide a new spin on pirates and their rough and tumble world. 

Barren Reed is a pirate who is haunted by a ghastly past. Though his former transgressions are not as noble as his current crime, he is still being hunted. Recently he has been accused of stealing the heart of the Half-Elf Kiera Lee the daughter of a Senator-turned-madman named Lord Christopher Lee. Though Kiera keeps Barren from indulging in his past sins, she cannot keep him from everything. Barren begins his search for his father’s stolen treasure map without any knowledge of what the treasure is. His quest unlocks a past that has been erased from his memory and a dreadful curse that could wipe out the entire Elvish race, including his wife, and the only way to save them is by sacrificing his own life.

Query #2

I have completed a 152,587 word young adult fantasy novel entitled Cutlass, and I hope you might consider it for publication.

The last place Barren should be is in Maris (a port town with a government notoriously against pirates) the noose around his neck only solidifies that fact. As Barren awaits death at the hands of his brother, William Reed, the last thing on his mind is the afterlife. At this moment, Barren’s only concern is the map he doesn’t have, a map to his father’s lost treasure. This treasure, however, is not what Barren expects. It is not gold or silver, jewels or pearls but a terrible weapon of dark magic forged in an attempt to kill Barren's father. Years after his father's death, the device still lives and kills. Barren must find it and destroy it in order to save his wife and the entire Elvish race it is killing. But destroying a device of dark magic only proves to be more difficult for Barren, especially when a curse of death comes over any who succeed in destroying the device.

Query #3

Barren Reed, a pirate and notorious enemy of the government, never thought searching The Orient for his father's treasure could kill him.

For Barren, it isn’t greed that motivates his search for the treasure, but his nightmares, which seem to be telling him something vicious lies in place of Jess’s so-called “treasure”. His fears are confirmed when he discovers the treasure is cursed and may kill, not only his wife and closest friend, but his entire Elvish race. Barren must destroy the treasure before everyone dies, but there is one problem—the device cannot be destroyed without killing its assailant. Barren must make a choice—cease to exist himself, or watch his world waste away.

Query #4

Barren Reed, a notorious pirate, never thought searching the Orient for his father’s treasure could kill him. Though, the nightmares of pleading voices should have been a clue.

While attending a state dinner at Maris in disguise, Barren Reed tries to find his father’s map, but is captured in the process by his brother, Ambassador William Reed, and his father-in-law, Lord Christopher Lee. Barren is saved from execution at the last minute by Leaf, his ex-first mate. Suspecting the Elf has an alternative motive for the rescue, Barren confronts him and discovers Leaf needs Barren's help in raising an army of Pirates to defeat a curse killing the entire Elvish race.

Barren discovers that his father's long-sought treasure is actually responsible for the Elves' curse, and is the result of a bitter feud between his parents. Not only does the curse affect the Elves in Aurum, but anyone who shares Elvish blood--that includes Leaf and Barren himself. In order to save the Elves, the treasure must be destroyed. Despite treason within his own crew, and William and Christopher’s pursuit of Barren, the pirate will stop at nothing to see this long-time feud end. There is only one problem--if Barren destroys the treasure, the curse will pass to him in its entirety and kill him. Barren must make a choice--cease to exist himself, or watch his world waste away.

Cutlass is a 120,000 work of Adult Fantasy. This is my first novel. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Now, as you can see, I trimmed my word count, and decided I was writing Adult Fantasy. Lol. Query #4 was very tough to write, and I had to have the help of my boyfriend to write it. Why? 

1. He read the books. 

That's really my only reason. I know there might be unanswered questions here...(Well, actually I don't, so if there is, you should tell me, tehe). I felt like, in order to get my point across, I needed to bounce ideas off someone who was right in front of me, and it had to be someone who knew my characters and the story, otherwise, I wouldn't be able to write it. 

Another thing we did was go through "From the Query to the Call" by Elana Johnson and individually answer questions involving 

1. The Hook

2. The Setup

3. The Conflict

4. The Consequence

Believe it or not, this was tedious and I got angry. Can anyone picture me angry? It was awful. BUT I got through it, and I think better off than I was.

What do you guys think?  

Spring Break...work?!

So, I was supposed to update you yesterday on my goals. I can tell you that I'm totally progressing on the Cutlass edits! :D I'm so excited! For once, I feel like everything is smoothly coming together and I like it. haha. As for blogging/going to more blogs..well, that's difficult for me. First, because I'm getting to the busiest part of school which is April--AND I'm doing that whole A-Z posting and each one is dedicated to my characters in some way or another and that's going to be tough, but I'll get through it!

I no longer have free weekends. I work Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Lowes. My position should be "Jack of all Trades" or something more fantasy-like...hmm...I'll get back to you on that one.

I read this book in a day:

http://www.juliekagawa.com/books.html 

These were very good! It was so torturous wanting to read this book an knowing I have to read another for class so that I can write a paper. So, I'm holding off on the second book which looks like this:

Must. Write. Paper.

What these books made me realize once again--I LOVE being transported to another world. You might think I'm bored with real life or something, but when I read, I do not want to be in this world (for very long, anyways, lol). GIVE ME ANOTHER WORLD!

hehe.

Okay, I have lots to do:
Read Waverly
Write a paper over Waverly
Write a poem
2 Response papers


Blah. Glad it's Spring Break! I'm going to back edits for a little while, though.

<3

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

When I found Mark's Bloghop "Got Green?" Bloghop, I was super excited to talk about Ireland because I love it and I missed being there and I CRIED when I left. :'( I cannot wait to go back. I'm going to take you on a tour of what I saw. :)

Here is Ireland from the sky:

It's sideways, I know...lol.

We visited the small town of Adare. 

This is in Killarney.

This was MuckRoss Manner. AMAZING. 

These were all pictures of the gardens at MuckRoss.


I want to live there one day. lol. 

Dingle was one of the most amazing places. All the houses are painted bright  colors because of the mist. 

The Dingle Peninsula was AMAZING. If you look closely you can see a man in this picture. There is actually a sign that says NO SWIMMING. HAHA. I swam in this. It was cold. 

Blarney Keep. I kissed the Blarney Stone. haha. I don't have pictures of that, I was too afraid they were going to drop me down the hole. 

It's hard to see, but that building on top of the hill is The Rock of Cashel. I'm standing in Hore Abbey (these are ruins in a field not but a few feet away). 

I wish I had gotten pictures of the Leprechaun Houses! They look just like the houses they are next too, and are so adorable! 

The shops were close together and everything had a very 'family like' feel...I'm not sure how to explain it. The weather did change every five seconds which I was sort of used to being from Oklahoma, but Ireland's weather isn't as dramatic. haha. Just be prepared for rain! 

There...I feel like that made about 333 words. :D And said a lot with just the pictures. 

5 Things I Like About Villains!

We all have them--Villains! You can kinda love them, but hate comes pretty easily. They can range from the a good villain type: 

Gur - He tries really hard to be an evil scientist, but it really is against his nature. And he just can't resist those cute little girls he adopted! He can be categorized as the "Villain turned good." 









There are those who start out good, but become traitors: 

Davy Jones is a good example. His original job was to ferry lost souls to the World's End. The elusive nature of his love caused him to turn bitter and well...now he looks like this. 

Perhaps you were thinking of Anakin Skywalker --arguably the most famous good guy-turned villain.












There are villains who are pretty evil, but lack...something: 

Many times, you don't really think they should be a villain. They offer comic relief. Kronk here isn't all that intelligent, and he usually ends up helping the good guys because everything he does ends up hindering the real Villains plans (in this case, Yzma). 














Then there are just some really bad guys: 

This dude made me cringe when he drove a pencil through some poor guys hand. Then shoved his face on it. 
Yep. These people have no concern for anyone or life in general. There's usually some reason for it--sometimes someone's family has suffered. Sometimes, they lost a job, or were made fools of somehow. Either way, they're pretty evil! 












So...why do we like them? 


Well, 
1. What kind of story are you going to have without some bad guys? 


You gotta make your good guy's life tough, otherwise you have no story! So, have as many bad guys as you want, have variations! The more, the merrier! Make it tougher by not having a squeaky clean MC/Good guy--because really, who wants a PURELY good MC? 


2. Sometimes, your Villains are the most interesting characters to write. 


The reason? Well, they're complicated. You don't really have to explain why your good guy is good (though just how good can sometimes be a point of tension/questioning), but you really have to explain why you bad guy is bad. Everyone wants to know exactly how they got that way, because there has to be a reason, right? 


3. Villains make things interesting 


Not only do Villains make it tough for the bad guys, but they sure are resourceful! They are also very creative. Give props to the writers if you want too--but sometimes I'm not sure how my characters come up with the things they do! Especially the Villains. 


4. Well, if you're a good person, it's pretty cool to put yourself into a Villains shoes. 


I often wonder how in the world these character are in my head. Some, I love, they are the Gur's--others I hate...they're the Jokers. 


5. They wear all sorts of masks. 


Sometimes, you can spot you villain from miles away--they have the capes, the black clothes. Heck, they even look evil! Other times, the villains take you by surprise. The whole time they're just "la-tee-da" and then the next...BAM! They're evil and you didn't expect it because they didn't look like it, and they didn't act like that! 


All in all, Villains add fun even if what they do is pretty mean or just downright awful! 


Hope you enjoyed this post! I enjoyed writing it! :)

Tell me what your favorite type of Villain is, what characteristics do they have that make them particularly evil? Or not so evil? 

My Goals for March!

Okay, I have a few things to go over first:

First, I made it to the second round in the Campaign Challenge!!! Very unexpected! I am so excited I can't stand it! LOL. I think Rachael Harris is brilliant for beginning the Campaign Building. In particular, this was a very tough challenge. Here's my story if you'd like to go take a look (if you haven't already!).

Secondly, I bought my graduation robes yesterday!! ahaha.

Yay! Now...I just have to sit through a 3 hour Commencement and a 2 and half hour Convocation.

Thirdly, if you didn't get a chance, please check out my interview on OpenBeast! I've been invited to give interviews as well, and I'm very excited about that! :D Look out peeps, I'm gonna be asking for interviews!

OpenBeast Interview: Ashley Nixon

Now, here were my list of goals:

• Come up with something cool for my "Blog Anniversary"!

• Edit my short story for Cove and Sara

• At least finish editing half of Flintlock (this will be about 200-250 pages)

• Finish all school work and related Graduation/Graduate things  (I know it wasn't related to writing...really...but kinda. LOL. 

• Visit more blogs and plan more posts

Okay, one down! lol. 

Now, I'm writing in red...lol. I'm going to change this goal BECAUSE I had a setback after I posted my query and decided to rethink Cutlass (once again). So, this goals is now: Finish Cutlass edits. And there's no limit on the edits because I need to finish it...and before April because that's when I am busiest! 

The other day, we had a wonderful Bloghop that was all about your novel: the movie. So, I've been doing Cutlass: The Movie forever! I posted only one cast member. If you'd like to see my whole cast, you can go HERE for photos and HERE for some character information. 

Don't forget!! 

This is hosted by Mark Koopmans and it's a chance to talk about what St. Patrick's Day means to you! Here are some things from Mark's blog he gave as examples:

 I'd LOVE to hear your Irish stories. 
What are your traditions on Paddy's Day?
What do you cook?
What are your favorite memories, or future plans to visit the Emerald Isle?

Enter!! It'll be fun! :D