Depression

Just to make this clear, this post is not about me. I don't have depression or anything. This post is actually about my new novel. I have recently watch Silver Linings, and I have to say, I loved it. A lot. The whole anger issue and bipolar illness and depression . . . it fascinated me. Stuff like that always has. And for some absurd and probably wrong reason, it gave me inspiration.

Lately, I've been lazy with my writing, I have to admit. I felt like my main character was boring, and just like my other one, which annoyed me to no end, and every time I sat down to write I just couldn't get the words onto the blank document. But, suddenly, I realised that I'd played it too safe with my characters. They don't have real problems. Ha, their anger was nothing compared to Pat's in Silver Linings. And characters like Tiffany and Pat stay with you for a long time.

So that's why I have decided to give my main character depression and anger issues. Yeah, she'll be crazy, and scare people away, but it's interesting to me, so I don't give a damn about what other people think! Haha, I'm just kidding.

My new character is going to have a temper, and she is not one I'm going to forget any time soon. And I like that.

F*ck You Over and Somewhere In Neverland

So it's that time of week again! I kind of forgot to do this last week (what a terrible excuse, I know) but oh well, I'll make it up today with TWO new songs.

The first of the two is F*ck You Over by The Summer Set.

I had never heard of this band until a week or two ago, when they followed me on Twitter. They had a tick next to their name so I decided to check them out, and boy am I glad I did! I wanted to show the official music video but it wouldn't let me, so you have the lyrics instead. There's just something I like about the high voice and catchy song. Definitely a new favourite band.

iTunes link to single: F**k U Over
YouTube link to their channel: TheSummerSetVEVO
Twitter link to their band account: @the_summer_set

The second song is Somewhere In Neverland by All Time Low.

I have loved All Time Low for years, and I guess it's safe to say that the album Dirty Work was not one of their best. Thankfully, though, they really brought themselves back together with their new album Don't Panic and this is just one of many songs that reminded me of their old sound. I love the whole Peter Pan reference, and as usual the singing is amazing. This band is and forever will be my all time favourite band (pun not intended :P).

iTunes link to album: Don't Panic
YouTube link to their channel: AllTimeLowVEVO
Twitter link to their band account: @AllTimeLow

New Name, New Schedule

As you've most probably seen, I have changed the name of my blog. With the new year and all, it just seemed appropriate. And, with the new name, comes a new schedule. The first addition is Music Tuesdays. I have wanted to do this Music Tuesdays thing for a while, and now is a great time to do it!

The first song I have chosen is Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men.

If you haven't heard this song before, I highly suggest you listen to it, or watch the video at least. It's a strange video, but I like it. I like that it's so imaginative and just weird. I like weird.

iTunes link to album: My Head Is An Animal

YouTube link to their channel: OfMonstersAndMenVEVO

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

 

See that book above? Yeah? Well, if you see it anywhere in book stores, I recomend you read it. My mum bought it a couple months ago when she read in her magazine that it was amazing. She started to read it, but couldn't get into it so she gave it to me. How nice of her.

 

Anyway, when I first started reading it, I was not impressed. I was confused, and the writing was different to what I was used to. But I really, really wanted to know the end, so I carried on reading, and am I glad I did! It wasn't really a story about a circus, it's about a game. Well, it's all about a circus, but the story revolves around a game. Oh, it's so hard to explain without giving anything away!

 

All I can say, is that I wish I was a magician, and that I lived in a circus that only played at night.

 

Five stars!

Novel Endings

Last night, at about half midnight, I finished Rapture by Lauren Kate, and like every book in her Fallen series, I loved it. The characters were absolutely wonderful and relatable, the writing was immaculate and hooked me in, and of course, the love story couldn't have been better. But, I found myself disappointed with the end. Don't read on if you haven't read Rapture, by the way: *SPOILER ALERT* The ending, I found, was what had me disappointed. It had nothing to do with the any of my favourite characters dying (Gabbe!) or that another of my favourite characters seemed to disappear (Cam...) or even that I actually felt pity for the baddie (Lucifer). It was because after all Luce and Daniel went through, all the memories Luce had to go through and watch all over again and remember, they still managed to lose their memories and be put on Earth as mortals.

Okay, yeah, it was refreshing to have a new and totally not predictable ending, but I felt that it made the series pointless. What was the point of going through all of that if they weren't going to remember it anyway? What was the point in Gabbe and Molly dying if all that Luce and Daniel did was forget everything?

I guess you could say the ending didn't satisfy me, but whatever. There's another book to read now about Shelby and Miles, Roland, Arriane and Luce and Daniel again, so my 'un-satisfaction' would probably be gone by then. Still, it was a pretty pointless ending to an otherwise perfect series.

Then after coming to that solution, this morning after reminiscing about it, I thought about all the other novels I'd read, and their endings. Some of them were amazing, and I felt like they fit the series or book perfectly, like The Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead. Yeah, it left a few questions about the future - What will happen to Adrian and his broken heart? Will Lissa succeed being the Queen? And what of Rose and Demetri? Is their relationship going to last? - but for some reason I felt like it ended the series wonderfully. I somehow knew that that was the end of Rose and Demetri's story. 

It turned out all right for my questions, anyway, since the lovely Richelle Mead ended up doing a spin-off series about Sydney (one of my favourite characters) and Adrian (my favourite character of all time) and Jill and Eddie, so everything turned out all right in the end. 

Some endings made me thirsty for more. For example, The Host by Stephanie Meyer. If you've read this novel, then you'll probably know exactly what I mean. I wanted to read more after I read the last word, I wanted to know what happened after Wanderer got given her new body. Whether her love life continued with Ian. And what of Burns? The ending just made me crave for a sequel, and yet none has come. Maybe in the future. Although, the book is being turned into a film, for all you Host lovers.

Rapture wasn't the only ending that disappointed me, however. I found that, personally, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins wasn't that good. Actually, I was disappointed with that series. After the first book, the series kind of went downhill. But, anyway, the ending disappointed me because of the slow ending, I guess. However, I had hated that Finnick was dead, and that had probably clouded my opinion of the ending. That was the first time I actually hated the author for killing off a character. I mean, I was fine with Prim, maybe a little sad, but Finnick? That was just... ugh. Not right.

Anyway, the ending - I keep getting side-tracked - was too... complete? for my tastes. It's hard to explain. Basically, I thought that the ending could have been better. I didn't like the whole ending with Peeta and their kids. I think that Katniss was too sad, too robotic near the end. Well, I suppose I would if I had gone through all of what she'd been through, but she'd got what she'd wanted in the end: Peeta. Freedom. She should have been happier, even if she lost people along the way.

So, that's the end of my rant about endings. What about you guys? Is there any endings you hated, or particularly liked? Which endings, if you're an author, would you change in your own books, and why?

Oh Dear God, Why Did I Let Them Move In?

So, yesterday, I finally let my wall down and let my main characters (MCs) move into my head.  Together. All of them. In my brain. Basically, what happened after that, is that two of my main characters from different novels of mine (Alaska and Lucy) seemed to have an intense dislike for each other straight away, and seemed to argue all the time.

To be honest, I don't really mind it. I learnt lots of stuff about their personalities that I didn't know before, but then my other MCs started getting annoyed with it. So, to keep all of my other MCs happy, I got Alaska and Lucy twitter, so they could carry on their argument online and not annoy the others by it.

It sounds crazy, but I've got another really cool Twitter/Blogger friend (http://cupsandmuses.blogspot.co.uk/ or https://twitter.com/#!/mariellacecilia) to join in too, and her character Julian (https://twitter.com/#!/JulianTheMuse) who is so adorable, and, as Alaska called him, really, really awesome. 

So yeah. That's why I have my character's have twitter accounts on the side there...

My Final Decision

I know why I'm finding it so hard to write Becoming Sky. It's got nothing to do with the fact that my characters aren't talking to me - although that was a huge problem yesterday - it's to do with the fact that I'm finding it a chore to write it. 

So I looked at loads of author's blog posts and read them religiously today, practically all day, when admittedly I should have been writing. And then I read one of Maggie Stiefvater's blogs, and it changed everything I had thought of Becoming Sky.

In the blog, Maggie talks about one of her new novels: The Scorpio Races, and how it was one of those books that she wrote because she had wanted to read it when she was younger. And then she talked of how hard she worked on it - it was a work in progress for many years. And then I thought, well, would I be prepared to write for that long, edit it until I think it's perfect, and then be prepared to send it to publishers, just knowing people are going to love it? 

And I had no answer to that straight away.

So I copied the html, and then pasted it onto a word page, ready for me to rethink that question. And then I go to another blog post, by Rachel Aaron, which made me hate Becoming Sky all of a sudden. I mean, she talked about wasting precious writing time on novels that might not make it, or ones that you're not interested in anymore.

And the fact of the matter is, I'm not interested in Becoming Sky. I was, but then that changed, once I started getting more and more muddled into the world of Pelesivia.

As I read more and more of the post, I realised my planning and information on it, was all totally wrong. I didn't spend very much at all on planning, and half of the stuff I have written has bored me. Nearly all of it, and that's not good, because if the writer finds it boring, you can almost guarantee the reader finds it boring.

And so, I think I've made a good decision, by putting Becoming Sky in my Work On Later folder, ready for when I've planned it right, and when I really do want to write it. And then I can revise all the loop holes and hooks that didn't work, and maybe make it into the novel I imagined it to be all those months ago, when I thought of it in the shower. 

So, I hear you wondering, what am I writing for NaNoWriMo? Well, I have no idea is your answer. I think I need to plan very carefully the novel I'm thinking of writing, and maybe get enough time to actually write something for NaNo. Maybe.

I have no idea why I have told you my deepest thoughts on Becoming Sky, but I felt I had to get it out, and this was the first thing that springed to mind.

The websites that made me question everything I had thought about Becoming Sky:

http://maggiestiefvater.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/writing-book-i-always-meant-to.html

http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/how-i-plot-novel-in-5-steps.html