Well, it's because I have a new, super-secret blog which I am posting on every other day. Sorry, 'rinos.
You will, however, be getting my lovely company for the entirety of July, so there.
Charlie out!
Saturday 22 June 2013
Friday 14 June 2013
Noah Shaw is in the YA Crush Tourney!
At this very moment, Noah Shaw, everyone's favourite fitty from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin, is going up against Augustus Waters in the YA Crush Tourney. He could be losing at this very moment (I don't know, however, because this post is pre-written). We can't let that happen. It is time, 'rinos, for me to call in your loyalty. It is time for us to cast our votes at the YA Sisterhood blog.
No? Not impressed? Fine. I shall resort to bribery. Noah's advocate, Sara the Page Sage, is holding a giveaway at 5pm EST, aka 10 o'clock in England. All you have to do is vote for Noah (duh) and answer a trivia question correctly using the hashtag #VoteNoahShaw, for your chance to win a Noah Shaw bookmark.
Vote, minions, vote! Charlie out!
 |
| Who can honestly resist a guy who swims with his clothes on? |
No? Not impressed? Fine. I shall resort to bribery. Noah's advocate, Sara the Page Sage, is holding a giveaway at 5pm EST, aka 10 o'clock in England. All you have to do is vote for Noah (duh) and answer a trivia question correctly using the hashtag #VoteNoahShaw, for your chance to win a Noah Shaw bookmark.
Vote, minions, vote! Charlie out!
Thursday 13 June 2013
June TCWT Blog Chain!
Yes, it's here again! And this is what we are posting about this week:
“How have both the people in your life and your own personal experiences impacted your writing? Do you ever base characters off of people you know?”
I am going to answer the second question first, because I have the shortest answer for it: no. I don't really base characters on people I know because I am absolutely rubbish at knowing people (for those of you who have read or seen An Inspector Calls, the answer to your question is no, you creep). I can never ever guess people's motives for anything, so basing a character off a real-life person's personality would be like writing a big question mark on their face. And it turns out that you can't do that. I do, however, give the occassional character the name of a person I know, though I always find that slightly cringe-worthy because it is like trying to force that question mark on there.
I prefer to emulate characters that I read about or see on TV. For example, I once wrote in a character profile, 'like Michael off Eastenders', because at the time Michael made about as much sense as actual real-life people, but in a fictional way. Of course, Michael later became a dumbed-down version of his former self, but my character just got even more complicated.
Question numero uno. Okay. This is a big one. My personal experiences are basically my writing, they have such a large impact. Sure, I've never been chased down by the fairy Mafia or travelled through time, but the motivations behind all those things stem from the experiences I've had, which can be anything from watching Doctor Who for the first time to finding out that the world isn't as equal as it likes to pretend it is (yes, that is what brought on the fairy Mafia). Just having a short conversation with the right person can spark a whole new world into being.
Which brings us nicely onto people and how they impact on my writing. People are the only reason why I can write (if you don't include sweets and fame). You see, I had this thing, called a teacher, and this teacher thing taught me how to write letters and spell and stuff...
I'm joking. I taught myself how to do all that. But honestly, school was helpful in getting me to write. In Year Five, we had an hour of story writing a week. An hour. At school. Seperate of Literacy (English) lessons. It was like a child writer's Nirvana or something, and it was helpful -- I found out how not to write boy characters (apparently boys aren't all whiny and cry-y [I'm still working on not writing my boy MCs like that {while my feminist side shouts, 'no! they are as wimpy as anyone}]) and that I use exclamation marks too much -- can you believe that?!!!!!!!!!!!
My parents have also had a giant impact on what I write because they've always encouraged me to write, even though they hardly ever see any of the fruits of their labour. They've bought me enough gel pens (and, more recently, super-fine-line felt tips) to open up my own WHSmiths -- and don't even get me started on the Jacqueline Wilson notebooks that I absolutely coveted as a pre-teen.
Almost more important than that, though, is the awesomeness that my mum found via the Internet. In fact, the two-times awesomeness she found on the Internet: an advert for a local young writers' group and NaNoWriMo YWP. The young writers' group has taught me how to write poetry and how to perform pieces in front of people with a voice that sounds like your character's one, and also that people can be mucho awesome and a source of inspiration for life, writing, the universe and everything. NaNoWriMo YWP taught me that I could write something nearing novel-size, and write the first draft in less than three years. But best of all, the NaNo forum turned up a wealth of bloggers, whose blog posts in turn introduced me to TCWT, and a community that is unbearably cool, my favourite type of weird, and inordinately wise and helpful. Without the Internet community, I wouldn't even know how to edit, that I had to, or even what a query letter is.
Hurray for the Internet community! Speaking of which, there's a few of them here (it's like this was planned or something):
“How have both the people in your life and your own personal experiences impacted your writing? Do you ever base characters off of people you know?”
I am going to answer the second question first, because I have the shortest answer for it: no. I don't really base characters on people I know because I am absolutely rubbish at knowing people (for those of you who have read or seen An Inspector Calls, the answer to your question is no, you creep). I can never ever guess people's motives for anything, so basing a character off a real-life person's personality would be like writing a big question mark on their face. And it turns out that you can't do that. I do, however, give the occassional character the name of a person I know, though I always find that slightly cringe-worthy because it is like trying to force that question mark on there.
I prefer to emulate characters that I read about or see on TV. For example, I once wrote in a character profile, 'like Michael off Eastenders', because at the time Michael made about as much sense as actual real-life people, but in a fictional way. Of course, Michael later became a dumbed-down version of his former self, but my character just got even more complicated.
Question numero uno. Okay. This is a big one. My personal experiences are basically my writing, they have such a large impact. Sure, I've never been chased down by the fairy Mafia or travelled through time, but the motivations behind all those things stem from the experiences I've had, which can be anything from watching Doctor Who for the first time to finding out that the world isn't as equal as it likes to pretend it is (yes, that is what brought on the fairy Mafia). Just having a short conversation with the right person can spark a whole new world into being.
Which brings us nicely onto people and how they impact on my writing. People are the only reason why I can write (if you don't include sweets and fame). You see, I had this thing, called a teacher, and this teacher thing taught me how to write letters and spell and stuff...
I'm joking. I taught myself how to do all that. But honestly, school was helpful in getting me to write. In Year Five, we had an hour of story writing a week. An hour. At school. Seperate of Literacy (English) lessons. It was like a child writer's Nirvana or something, and it was helpful -- I found out how not to write boy characters (apparently boys aren't all whiny and cry-y [I'm still working on not writing my boy MCs like that {while my feminist side shouts, 'no! they are as wimpy as anyone}]) and that I use exclamation marks too much -- can you believe that?!!!!!!!!!!!
My parents have also had a giant impact on what I write because they've always encouraged me to write, even though they hardly ever see any of the fruits of their labour. They've bought me enough gel pens (and, more recently, super-fine-line felt tips) to open up my own WHSmiths -- and don't even get me started on the Jacqueline Wilson notebooks that I absolutely coveted as a pre-teen.
Almost more important than that, though, is the awesomeness that my mum found via the Internet. In fact, the two-times awesomeness she found on the Internet: an advert for a local young writers' group and NaNoWriMo YWP. The young writers' group has taught me how to write poetry and how to perform pieces in front of people with a voice that sounds like your character's one, and also that people can be mucho awesome and a source of inspiration for life, writing, the universe and everything. NaNoWriMo YWP taught me that I could write something nearing novel-size, and write the first draft in less than three years. But best of all, the NaNo forum turned up a wealth of bloggers, whose blog posts in turn introduced me to TCWT, and a community that is unbearably cool, my favourite type of weird, and inordinately wise and helpful. Without the Internet community, I wouldn't even know how to edit, that I had to, or even what a query letter is.
Hurray for the Internet community! Speaking of which, there's a few of them here (it's like this was planned or something):
Participants:
26th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll be announcing the topic for next month’s chain.)
Charlie out!
Tuesday 11 June 2013
Writing: Dramatic Irony
According to Wikipedia and the Oxford English Dictionary, dramatic irony is:
But what's alla that jargon got to do with anything? After all, we're not writing no Greek tragedy, no we ain't.
'the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned; the literary device so used, orig. in Greek tragedy'Yes, I have been 'researching', 'rinos.
But what's alla that jargon got to do with anything? After all, we're not writing no Greek tragedy, no we ain't.
Saturday 8 June 2013
My Writing Plan for the summer (and part of the autumn, technically)
By Monday 10th June (this is a draft post, so I don't know when you will be reading this, which is why you get the full date) I will have finished school for the summer, thanks to my GCSEs finishing. Therefore, I have a lot of time on my hands. Therefore, I am planning on getting a lot of stuff done. Here it is.
For the rest of June I will be mainly working on writing blog posts for you, my lovely 'rinos, and editing/revising/rewriting/whatever you want to call it-ing Lantern's Fall. I might also be doing bits and bobs on Nemophilia and the story idea I got when I wrote this for a Write Practice practice, and don't let me forget about entering this competition. I will also be preparing for July.
Because (drumroll please)... in July I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time! Hurray! My goal is set at 50k, though I'm hoping to maybe do more than that (scoff), seeing as I have so much time on my hands. Like in November, you lucky dudes will be getting a look into my writing habits via some round-up posts, although I have not decided yet how often these posts will be. They will be added to the 'NaNoWriMo Journal' page again, so you can see how much awesomer I have become since 9 months ago.
For Camp I will be writing a re-telling of Hamlet. You can find more information on the shiny new 'WiPs' page.
August all depends on how far I get with Lantern and her difficult-to-work story. If I have got it all sorted, then August is pretty goal-less, unfortunately. I will be writing whatever takes my fancy and also going to the summer school weekend run by the Ilkley Literature Festival. Find out more about that here. If Lantern, Annie, Malan, Cathenna and assorted others have refused to cooperate, though, I will be working around the clock, as...
September is NaNoCritMo! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be sending my baby off into the world for the first time and looking after someone else's to boot! I am slightly scared and apprehensive about this, but, as I'm sure you know, the teen writing community are a brilliant lot, so I'm sure it'll be brilliant. *gulp*
And that is my summer. Please feel free to berate me if I don't do any of the things I have written down here.
Writer type out!
For the rest of June I will be mainly working on writing blog posts for you, my lovely 'rinos, and editing/revising/rewriting/whatever you want to call it-ing Lantern's Fall. I might also be doing bits and bobs on Nemophilia and the story idea I got when I wrote this for a Write Practice practice, and don't let me forget about entering this competition. I will also be preparing for July.
Because (drumroll please)... in July I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time! Hurray! My goal is set at 50k, though I'm hoping to maybe do more than that (scoff), seeing as I have so much time on my hands. Like in November, you lucky dudes will be getting a look into my writing habits via some round-up posts, although I have not decided yet how often these posts will be. They will be added to the 'NaNoWriMo Journal' page again, so you can see how much awesomer I have become since 9 months ago.
For Camp I will be writing a re-telling of Hamlet. You can find more information on the shiny new 'WiPs' page.
August all depends on how far I get with Lantern and her difficult-to-work story. If I have got it all sorted, then August is pretty goal-less, unfortunately. I will be writing whatever takes my fancy and also going to the summer school weekend run by the Ilkley Literature Festival. Find out more about that here. If Lantern, Annie, Malan, Cathenna and assorted others have refused to cooperate, though, I will be working around the clock, as...
September is NaNoCritMo! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be sending my baby off into the world for the first time and looking after someone else's to boot! I am slightly scared and apprehensive about this, but, as I'm sure you know, the teen writing community are a brilliant lot, so I'm sure it'll be brilliant. *gulp*
And that is my summer. Please feel free to berate me if I don't do any of the things I have written down here.
Writer type out!
Just a bit of housekeeping, which I apologise for in advance...
...You may have noticed a post entitled 'hey' was posted sometime yesterday. It had a link to some website advertising something or other.
I did not post it.
In fact, I do not know where the fuck it came from.
I'm angry. Can you tell that I'm angry?
If there is one thing I hate about the internet, it is spam. I get an email trying to sell me something or make me click on some link? I delete it. I get a DM on Twitter with a link to something or other, I ignore it. The internet is a horrible place for getting people to buy things they don't really want, or scamming unaware people into ending up with a virus on their computer or money taken out of their pocket, and that pisses me off.
I started this blog because I love reading and I love writing. I love the online writer community. I love wasting my time on Twitter and Facebook and talking to you, my mainly imaginary readership.
I turned my laptop on today and saw that this blog had got a thousand views. I was ecstatic. But, looking on the stats I saw that a couple of people had looked at a post that I hadn't written, which linked to a website that wanted to make me slim, and I was royally pissed off and betrayed, and it made that awesome thousand views bitter. More importantly, it's made me feel unsafe on the internet, something I've never really felt before.
So, if the person who wrote that post is reading this right now, then fuck you. Money isn't the only thing in the world, but if it is more important to you than the written word and a sixteen year old girl's online safety, then wahoo for you. I am changing my Google password and I hope to never be an accidental party to such Capitalist bullshit again.
For anyone reading this post/who read that post which I didn't put up, I apologise for the swearing and negativity, and I'm sorry that there was such an unashamed attempt to scam posted on my blog.
I did not post it.
In fact, I do not know where the fuck it came from.
I'm angry. Can you tell that I'm angry?
If there is one thing I hate about the internet, it is spam. I get an email trying to sell me something or make me click on some link? I delete it. I get a DM on Twitter with a link to something or other, I ignore it. The internet is a horrible place for getting people to buy things they don't really want, or scamming unaware people into ending up with a virus on their computer or money taken out of their pocket, and that pisses me off.
I started this blog because I love reading and I love writing. I love the online writer community. I love wasting my time on Twitter and Facebook and talking to you, my mainly imaginary readership.
I turned my laptop on today and saw that this blog had got a thousand views. I was ecstatic. But, looking on the stats I saw that a couple of people had looked at a post that I hadn't written, which linked to a website that wanted to make me slim, and I was royally pissed off and betrayed, and it made that awesome thousand views bitter. More importantly, it's made me feel unsafe on the internet, something I've never really felt before.
So, if the person who wrote that post is reading this right now, then fuck you. Money isn't the only thing in the world, but if it is more important to you than the written word and a sixteen year old girl's online safety, then wahoo for you. I am changing my Google password and I hope to never be an accidental party to such Capitalist bullshit again.
For anyone reading this post/who read that post which I didn't put up, I apologise for the swearing and negativity, and I'm sorry that there was such an unashamed attempt to scam posted on my blog.
Friday 7 June 2013
Film Review: The Great Gatsby
So I went to see this film at the weekend. About three days after I'd read the book. Yup. I was both almost optimistic and expectant of an absolute horror of a film.
It was actually quite good.
It was actually quite good.
Thursday 6 June 2013
New Things On This Blog Because I've Finally Got A Touch Of Time On My Hands!
It is exactly what it says it is. This is a round-up of new things and things that I will hopefully be adding straight after writing this!
First of all, you may have noticed that the 'My Writing' page has been lost to the time vortex. Well, that's because I have replaced it with WiPs! The work in progress page contains a short explanation of all the novels I am currently writing and what point I have got to with them, and it also contains a list of posts that I hope to put up in the future (mainly so I have no excuse to forget/not bother to do them). Hurray!
Secondly, I am going to add tags to all of my posts so that they are easy to find. Hurray!
Ahem. That's kind of it. Sorry. You might get an 'About Me' page as well, if you're lucky. But other than that, that's your lot of shiny new stuff. You're welcome.
Charlotte out!
First of all, you may have noticed that the 'My Writing' page has been lost to the time vortex. Well, that's because I have replaced it with WiPs! The work in progress page contains a short explanation of all the novels I am currently writing and what point I have got to with them, and it also contains a list of posts that I hope to put up in the future (mainly so I have no excuse to forget/not bother to do them). Hurray!
Secondly, I am going to add tags to all of my posts so that they are easy to find. Hurray!
Ahem. That's kind of it. Sorry. You might get an 'About Me' page as well, if you're lucky. But other than that, that's your lot of shiny new stuff. You're welcome.
Charlotte out!
Review: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yes, I'm back again with a lovely book that I don't really have the credentials to review. Enjoy!
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