The Warehouse of Broken Things

My sister, Hope, has a boyfriend. His family helped start the town we live in: his great-grandfather farmed and I think bought most of the land around the town, and his grandfather used to work in Hollywood (he collected a bunch of neat stuff, like an outfit worn by Harrison Ford, and the gorilla hand of King Kong. This garners its own post, though, so I won't get into it). After he came back he donated money and made a name for himself. Many of the streets in town are named after them. 

Anyway, Hope's boyfriend is this goofy, nice guy who today showed us inside a few of his family's decrepit buildings and shared with us some ancient knowledge about the history of his family and their relics. 

Sitting in the back of one of their shops, three in all, is a row of antique cars. They are very, very cool. One is a '67 Chevy Impala, the other one is a banana-yellow VW bug convertible, and the last is an old beach cruiser jeep, like the ones you see in the movies where buff, well-oiled gentlemen are leaning against them with surfboards in their hands. 

The Christmas star makes its appearance.

While the cars sit in an old, padlocked garage, the roof of said garage is in disrepair and so birds and dust got to the cars before we did. The air smelled heavily of dust, and it sat in my nostrils, but Hope and I were as excited as little kids on Christmas. Make no mistake, we are not automobile experts. I barely just starting driving a month ago, and before that I knew next to nothing about them. 

I do know that my dream car is a dark silver VW Bug, and Hope's is a jet-black '67 Chevy Impala, which--hey looky there--both suitable counterparts happened to be sitting side-by-side under the same roof. It was insane, the amount of excitement we felt looking at these cars. 

The boyfriend had explained that his dad used to drive the Impala, but had dented it, left it sitting for years on end, and had let his eldest son work on it--a dire mistake to any car.

The Bug was rolled while under the ownership of another person, and they towed it in next to the Jeep, where it has sat for thirty years. I was sad to hear the news; it was a beautiful car, but now it's nearly ruined, the seats cracking, the exterior dented and broken.

After we finished ogling at the cars, we went and looked at his mother's surplus collection of ceramic creations. His mother is very into pottery. She owns two kilns that I have seen so far, and has a whole building stacked with shelves of ceramic molds. Their entire house is filled with these figurines, which range from basic bowls and miniature pots, to inappropriate, anatomically correct frog figurines. One room has these huge painted butterflies and Dumbo molds stuck in it. 

His mother keeps boxes of her surplus stuff out in the garage with the cars. It was so cool. There were a few Kansas ashtrays, a statue of Jiminy Cricket, some little cowboys boots, about twenty gravy bats/flower vases, all seven dwarves, a few unpainted nativity sets, and this huge pig-thing which I was informed took four gallons of clay to produce. 

I ended up taking home a few of her gravy boats/flower vases, with the firm intention to keep spare jewelry and other stuff in them. They don't actually look much like gravy boats, just really low vases, which is good.

There was a lot of other stuff in that shed, nearly everything broken, and I titled it 'The Warehouse of Broken Things'; my sister agreed. Today was a good experience, one that I hopefully will relive. The warehouse was like a gateway to the past, showing me fleeting images of happy people doing what they love and traveling places, of keeping their dreams locked up inside a building so that hopefully they can return to them later on in their lives.

New Writing Projects (ish).

*WARNING: The following content is full of insufferable whining and jerky behavior. I tried to put all the worst parts in the footnotes, but I failed. BE WARNED AND PROCEED WITH CAUTION*

So back in April I wrote a post on this blog about all of the stories that I was currently working on. Only one of those books is currently still on my work list, and so I thought I'd update it a bit, just so you're in the loop. Because I love all of you guys.

But before I begin, I'll just start right off and say that I didn't crop the photos like in the last post, because I post these stories on Figment and I can just crop them there, without the photos becoming pixelated and grainy--if that makes any sense.

The quotes underneath the covers are from the synopses-es found on my Figment page.

1. The Glass Girl

The font used are Bell MT and Sunshine in my Soul.

The world has turned to glass. Everything is smooth, colors pinks and whites and lavenders. Lea collects small people, making terrariums for them back at her house.

This is my Camp NaNo project, and it's the story of a girl (and also a boy) who live in the world after it's all turned to glass. It's set in Topeka, Kansas (with a smattering of Colorado Springs), because I've been to both places and so the setting is natural to me.*

In this novel there are skeletons and magic and tea and the color orange, automatons, miniature people, and also a fair amount of reading. 

I think this book has a lot of potential--more potential, than, say, that awful book I wrote last year that was a dystopian. **

I also think this book is odd, to say the least. It's definitely different (as in, the plain girl does not fall in love with any hot, perfect guys), and so I'm wondering if it will ever be published. I'm not willing to make it any more boring than it already is--it's set in Kansas, land of the flat and dry--and so maybe I'll have to self publish it or something. But I'd rather not do that, and so I'm leaning on the traditional way.

Either way, I want to see this baby in print. Hardcover form, please.

2. Mermaidens

The font used is Bell MT.

Living in the seaside town of Klarine, there is a girl named Charlotte, and she holds a deep secret: she is a mermaid.

Yes, I was working on this book in the last post I made about my current works in progress, except for the fact that the plot has changed so dramatically from the last draft you couldn't recognize the similarities in it (also, the cover changed. Here's a gold star for noticing!). I will now list quite a few things that went wrong while writing the first 8K words of the first draft.

• The twin sisters were hard to write, even though they've sort of remained in the current draft. But they did seem to hate each other before I scrapped them up. Plus, they were so different from each other. One was shy and cried a lot (my main character) and the other was outgoing, snarky, and downright rude. 
• On the topic of my main character, I'd like to add that she wasn't strong enough to carry the story on her shoulders. She was far too fragile, and in about the fifth chapter, I broke her (there will  now be a future blog post on how you can break your characters). Her name was Leila, if that gives you a hint as to her character.
• Too much happened in too little time. 
• The pacing was terrible. 

And now, a list of things that stayed the same throughout:

• Calvin's name--and, for the most part, his character. Only, he's considered insane by everyone... except he actually isn't.
• Minos, the big black draft horse. 
• Water. There's definitely water, somewhere. 

 

3. The Sheep Watch

The font used is Garamond.

Leonard watches for wolves one night while tending to his sheep. But when he hears a noise in the apple orchard, he follows it and meets the incredible Penny Keaton.

The Sheep Watch is a contest entry for the Defy the Dark contest, and it's about a boy named Leonard who falls asleep while watching his flock of sheep one night, and when he wakes up he meets this girl named Penny, who is intentionally a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (a pretty, young, perfect girl who is put into the story to alter the course of a man's life. See: Margo in Paper Towns and Clarisse in Fahrenheit 451).

It's probably one of the lighter things I've written; the death count tolls in at only one victim! A huge success!***

Plus, it's finished. So I'm not exactly working on it anymore. I figured I'd just announce that it exists or something. 

Footnotes:

* Mom, you may remember that I paid an awful lot of time trying to spot the top of the Capitol building while passing through Topeka on our way to the book signing. I consider this "novel research." I've noticed that there are a lot of trees in that city, though--trees that I sort of forgot about while writing the first 30K words. REVISION TIME.

** And speaking of dystopian... this new book is not one of those. Not. Yes, it is, for the most part a post-apocalyptic novel. But it does not take place in the future, and there aren't any guns or knives or swords in it--and there is also no instance where an incredibly hot boy falls in love with an average, plain girl *cough cough Divergent and Delirium cough cough*.

*** Of course, this sentence has led to a ten-minute long math problem while I deduce how many characters I kill per story, on average. The grand total: 5.3. I had to guesstimate for my novels that I haven't finished yet, but I believe the number is pretty accurate.

The Lawrence Book Signing.

I don't think I've mentioned I was going to do this on the blog yet, but I attended a book signing a few days ago in Lawrence. It was for The Merry Sisters of Fate--aka, Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff. They were releasing a new book called The Curiosities, and it is basically an anthology of short stories. You can check out their work here. 

My mom graciously agreed to drive me six hours to the event, for which I'm very grateful. At the signing there were quite a few girls there, and a few sort of like me--namely, they want to be published authors.

During the question portion of the event I got to ask them a couple of questions (and one of which was on my mind since I finished The Scorpio Races last November), which was awesome. What I liked most about it--aside from the fact that they defaced one of Jackson Pearce's books for me--was the fact that they were normal, and appearance-wise they looked just like authors should look, in my opinion: two or three years behind on fashion trends and odd looking. 

Well, alright, two of them fit that category. Maggie was pretty cool. 

But they were talking about stuff I'd only discussed with some of my internet friends! There were NaNoWriMo people there in the audience and it was awesome. We talked about Writers' Block and query letters and character building and settings and plot and everything. My head's still reeling from it. 

This is me looking sufficiently awkward with her.

I was shaking while in line  for the signing part. I mean, they were real authors. Two of them had made the NYT Bestsellers list. One of them had written some of my favorite books. And I met them.

Definitely worth a six hour drive.

Bits and Pieces: August.

Picture/ Photo Find:

Something I Did:

I actually haven't done anything noteworthy recently. I've been writing a lot (obviously) and I've been 'hanging out' with a friend. Today I went to the next city over from my small town with her and we bought chicken feed.

While there we went to IHOP, where I ate the worst meal of my life. Seriously. If you're ever there, *do not* order the Garden Crepes. You will sincerely regret it. 

I also started reading Fahrenheit 451. It's good so far... but I sort of lost it (or someone stole it. Hmm). One minute it was sitting next to my bed in a stack of other books, and the next it was mysteriously missing. Maybe my brother is reading it. 

A Writer Thing:

I've discovered just how hard it is to move your story forward when all there is to work off of is a few miniature people, some cans of green beans, and a glass world. Also a fully-stocked library, but it would sort of feel like cheating describing each and every novel that passes through one of my character's hands.

Also, I believe I'm actually teaching history, geography, and science lessons in my story. I'm not sure, though. I like to throw in fun facts, but then the fun facts build into something entirely different.

Song I Love:

I'm going to end this post right now because I have to go write 1.6K words. Also, I'm sorry I'm neglecting you. I promise to write at least three more posts this month, if not more.

Rambling.

I wrote something today. I also wrote something yesterday. I think my mom might start to get annoyed by my time on the computer, and not outside or something. 

I was struggling yesterday, and I'm also struggling today. I love my new story idea, but spur-of-the-moment a new character poked his head in and I had to create a backstory for him. What can I say? He was charming. He wore the most unfortunate trench coat, tattered and frayed on the bottom hem. He told me that he was essential to the storyline, and so I vowed to both fix his horrible fashion sense and his broken heart.

I'm a crazy loon, aren't I? Maybe I need to go to public school, so I can start talking to real people. 

... Or maybe I'll just stay home all day and read (also math and other boring things like that). Also write. 

I don't know what I'll do, though. I need to make my mind up by Thursday. Any suggestions? I'd like to hear them!