Words

This is a poem I wrote a few days before New Year's, entitled "Words." Enjoy!

For daily prayer
I slowly kneel
Is someone there?
What should I feel?
Confused and lost,
Bent and beaten,
Always double-crossed
Tears to sweeten
Sweeten the glass
Broke 'round my feet --
Pictures of past
Gathered by me
Can I confide?
Must I reveal
Things I must hide?
Are these thoughts real?
My heart says so
And I can't doubt.
I think below
I am without
The words I need
They're lost among
My doubt and greed
To form a song
I cannot sing
For to speak
Means losing all things,
Letting damage wreak
With what is long done,
To touch the glass
And make it one,
Admit the past
Into my mind
Search for words
I'll never find
My sealed mouth burns
For want of freedom
To let it go
And build a kingdom
Is death
and woe
People would come
And see the glass
They won't welcome
A secret past
I cannot change
I've locked away
My true range
I've locked away
Thoughts and truth
I'm locked away
For all my youth
Until the day
I dare to tell
Secrets that cause
My tears to swell
And all that was
Will no longer be
And then at last
They'll see me.

Kirah

Finishing

“Finishing a book is bittersweet. You spend days getting to know the characters. Learning their nuances, their faults, their loves, their lives. They become your friends, acquaintances, enemies. And after the story ends, you miss them. You look for them in your own life, wonder where they’ve gone, you forget that they aren’t real. You fall in love with the hero and dream of him at night. The strange girl becomes your best friend. Their heartaches become your heartaches. You laugh when they laugh. And cry when they die. Eventually you realise they aren’t a part of your world, you were just briefly visiting theirs.” ~Whimsical Enlightenment

Yes, it's a long quote, but I finished NaNoWriMo. That kind of achievement deserves a long quote.

50,000 words in 30 days. I finished last night at 9:54 PM after writing 5,755 words. The book is horrible. It's rushed, cluttered, hasty, and all my characters sound exactly the same in most of the parts. But you know what? I finished. I can go back and rewrite it if I desire. The journey in a novel is really, truly, yours. A reader will experience, but they didn't write it. They didn't know that there was a scene between Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, but you removed it because your FMC refused to do it right. Or you changed the tense in an entire novel because it didn't flow right here. There's no telling what a novel will bring you.

Finishing one is one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.

Kirah

In a Manner of Speaking . . .

“When someone says, “One last thing,” it never is. Unless they die right after speaking. Make sure that they do. 
Check their pulse to be certain." -Jarod Kinz

First: found my writing binder again on Monday. Proceeded to give the first three chapters away on Thursday, with no backup or hard copy. Silly, silly me.

So, I have this habit of reading books and then looking up the reviews on my Kindle and spending several hours reading them. I'll often either be agreeing with all the bad comments and saying, "They're right! Why did I ever spend eight dollars on this?" or scanning all the bad comments and saying, "Wow. How'd they get that?"

One of the complaints I see is about dialect. Usually it's not about how awful it is, though I know that there are some out there that say its too stiff and feels like you're trying to fit a beam into a blender. But I see things about how "modern" the dialect is, complaining that it doesn't fit with the era it's placed in. And yes, it does happen. It probably happens a lot. First, dialect changes with time, place, and person. But some words just weren't used in the past. Just as how "rad" and "groovy" are considered very odd and out of place now and "mates" and "bloke" is associated with Europe, every word matters.

First: look over your writing. Look for the obvious ones like "guys" and "whatever." But then consider: do you have modern day sayings hidden in there? I found one in the first line of a completely medieval story: "still as a statue." Sayings are a lot harder to find than you would think; they like to slip in and cling to the words of the story. But sometimes its fun to make up your own proverbs and such. I've made up several, and it satisfies me to be able to put something small and original in my work. I spend time thinking about it and writing it down, but I don't do overkill. Sayings are common in our lives, whether you notice it or not. And, as an aspiring author, you have to notice everything.

Have a good weekend!

Kirah

Gone, But Not Lost

"Losing would be painful, but not as painful as knowing there's something you could've done." -Joe Trippi

Ah . . . I lost my writing binder. That equals almost a hundred pages of writing, revising, and maps- gone. Hours upon hours of head-ducked, out-of-reality, feverish work- gone. What do you do? Do you break down and cry, hiding in your room in a refusal to face reality, but unable to refuge? Should you refuse to write ever again, saying that fate as intervened and you're clearly not destined to be a writer? Do you freak out and grab your friends, shouting that its gone and do they have any idea what this means?

Or do you continue to write?

A story is not just words; a story is a part of you. I can still recall certain phrases and entire scenes from my first books in fifth grade. They might make me shudder as I remember my clumsy way and form of getting my point across, but I haven't forgotten.

Never stop writing. You can do this. It doesn't matter what's gone in the physical world- there's another much more appealing reality in your head. Write what's true, write what's false, write the reality and the fiction. It doesn't matter what it is- just write. Who cares if you're crazy? At least your "I'm going to go hide in my room for three hours with my imaginary friends" crazy, and not several other negative types of crazy. Just write.

And write.

Never doubt yourself. If you do doubt yourself, please come over here and let me tell you how amazing you are.

Kirah

Themes

"When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises." -Richard Russo

Themes are literally what defines our books. They are similar to the main idea, but they're not quite as jump-out-and-smack-you-in-the-face, if you know what I mean. It wriggles its way through the pages, making pointed comments and altering the plot ever so slightly to make it fit its own needs.

The theme of Hunger Games is rebellion- the idea of rising up and breaking the rules. My book, Realms, has the main theme of overcoming the past and approaching the future. (I think.)

One of my newer experiments, which I still don't have a name for, has a similar theme, but at a different angle. Its theme is something like what your home is and how it defines you. My two main characters define this well. One is an amnesic thief that can't remember anything from five years earlier, so he doesn't know where he's from or how he got to his current location. The other is from a very traditional country, where family is almost holy to them. He's asked to take on a task that will probably destroy him and his culture forces him to take it on. It makes for some interesting and different internal conflict.

I was once advised to subtly mention the theme within the first few chapters, preferably within the first. Some of my friends do this; I don't. I usually don't even realize the theme until the first few chapters are done. I just barely realized what the theme was for my newest work. But reflecting on it now, I see that the theme is just a part of the story. And that's what it is to me. Sometimes it takes some self-discovery, some thought, some work, some tears to weave your theme into it. But face it- we'd be doing that anyway. So its okay.

What's the theme in your books? How are you going to express it? How do your characters compliment or reject that theme?

Good luck!

Kirah

Angel's Fall

This poem is dedicated to my great-grandma Hazel Johns, who passed away on August 29th. I love you!

Angel's Fall

One
would've thought
That a century
Would prepare to
To die
But I guess
Its hard to let go
If you don't know
Who will catch
You
Twenty years
waiting for the frayed rope
To snap
And join her husband
Ten years
living with nurses
Instead of family
Ready for the snap
Scared for the fall
Frigtened of that moment
Of darkness
Before Light
Yet once the rope breaks
And you fall
I guess it takes a minute
to get angel's
wings.




-Kirah

Special Speaker (Writer?) Rose Winters!

My best friend Rose Winter's agreed to do this post for me. I gave her free reigns, and she decided to say this to the writing audience out there:

"Okay. So. Something I've noticed is that many teen authors skip story building. I know Kirah has talked some about world building and character development. Well, seeing how she hasn't really spent time on story building so I'm going to say it. I have seen some writers who will completely skip this story building step. This is a very important step and you cannot skip it.

So. My personal oppinion is that story building should be your first, mmm, three chapters. You have to build a life for your character. You have to show what time period, what country, the gender of your character, (OBVIOUSLY SUPER IMPORTANT) and your world building needs to happen here.

My deffinition of story building is pretty much deffining your character. Tell your readers who they are reading about. Don't just give a name and time in the story, you need to give a name, description, and everything else you NEED the readers to know. Everything necessary to the character's personality needs to be here before foreshadowing and flashbacks appear. You NEED story building in order for your story to work."

Thank you Rose!

Kirah