Music Monday: 21st January 2013

This week's song is You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift.

I picked it because the album it's on, Fearless, was my most recent writing music, and I utterly adore this song. Plus the video is totally adorable. Yes? Yes. 

Music Monday: 14th January 2013

This week's song is Fallin' For You by Colbie Calliat.

I picked it because it is pretty much Jenni's love theme for most of Paragon Academy - it fits her feelings for Ted extremely well.

Music Monday: 7th January 2013

Woo! It's the first Music Monday of 2013!

This week's song is If We Ever Meet Again by Timbaland feat. Katy Perry.

I picked it because it inspired my first short story in a music inspired collection, that I'm hoping to do ten of! Simple as that!

Happy New Year 2013!!!

So, we are still here and it is 2013. A year where hopefully totally awesome things will happen and hopefully less awesome things won't happen (two massacres in America? Really? Zero is more than enough when it comes to that sort of thing). This first post of the year is going to be about my writing goals for the next twelve months, but if you want to know about my general goals for 2013, you can find them here. So... here are the goals that I came up with on the last day of 2012, twelve to correspond with the number of months in a year.

1. Finish the first draft of Paragon Academy [coursework] (13th of February)
2. Finish the first draft of Stupid Cupid (31st of March)
3. Do Camp WriMo (April)
4. Submit Paragon Academy [coursework] (8th of May)
5. Finish the second draft of Stupid Cupid (30th of June)
6. Do Camp WriMo (July)
7. Give Paragon Academy to beta readers (August)
8. Edit April Camp WriMo (August)
9. Edit July Camp WriMo (September)
10. Prepare to do NaNoWriMo (October)
11. Do NaNoWriMo (November)
12. Send Stupid Cupid to beta readers (July - December)

I thought that now might also be a good time to tell you guys that between now and Valentine's Day, while Paragon Academy is primarely coursework, I'm going to be doing a little collection of short stories for myself . It will be ten of them and they will all be inspired by and/or based on songs.  It will be ten of them because that's how many songs I like to have in a playlist before I listen to it. Weird, I know, but that's the way I am. I decided to do this after a Twitter friend suggested it and it sounds like it could be a fun challenge, even though I pretty much hated doing them for uni.

And if you're wondering why I'm sort of taking a break from Paragon Academy, it's because it's been making me feel like this:

And this:

And this:

Oh, and this:

So... yeah.

The NEXT Next Big Thing

OK, so this is the first time I have ever done anything like this, so I hope it's okay. I was tagged in Ashley Heckman's post, which you can read here.

Firstly there are some RULES (There always rules with these things, let's face it!). Here they are:

1. FOLLOW THIS FORMAT
2. ANSWER THE TEN QUESTIONS BELOW
3. SPREAD THE FUN AND TAG FIVE MORE AWESOME PEOPLE TO TAKE PART (note: this may or may not happen!)
4. IT'S ALSO NICE TO LINK BACK TO THE PERSON. SHARING FTW.

Right... Here goes.

• What is the title of your WIP/book?

Paragon Academy

I picked it because it's the name of the school that the WIP is set in. It came from a little bit of Googling (Wikipedia FTW!) and some help from my Twitter friends.

•  Where did this idea for the book come from?

Weirdly for me, it came from stalking a random Twitter converstation - the subject of which I can't actually remember right now - and someone mentioned superheroes. Cue lots and lots of ideas bouncing around in my head. Fuelled by music, mostly, as per usual.

• What genre would your book fall under?

Young adult science fiction/fantasy. There are elements of both of those genres in this so that's why I call it that.

• Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I have no specific actors in mind at the moment, but I know three things that are ideal for me: They must be British; they must give off the right vibe for the characters; they must be of a similar age to the characters.

• Will your book be self-published or represented?

When the time comes, I will be querying it to agents.

• How long did it take you to write it?

Well, I wrote the first 50K+ words in November for NaNoWriMo, but I'm still working on it. I'm hoping it will be finished some time in early 2013 at the earliest.

• Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The best thing to do is to scroll up and look at the "Where did this idea come from question".

• What other books in your genre would you compare it to?

To be perfectly honest, the only Young Adult superhero novel I've read is Hero by Perry Moore, which I wouldn't compare Paragon Academy to, because but I would say, and quite honestly, sort of hope that it would appeal to fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, X-Men and the classic superheroes such as Superman and Wonder Woman.

• One sentence synopsis

A group of best friends have to battle to save their school after a series of dangerous and unexpected things happen.

• What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

It's boarding school. It's teenage superheroes. Need I say more?

THE NEXT VICTIM(S)

YA Misfits

ALSO: MERRY CHRISTMAS. :D

Music Monday: 17th December 2012

This week's song is I'll Be There For You by The Rembrandts, better known as the theme tune for the TV show, Friends. I picked it because friendship plays a big part in Paragon Academy's plot and it fits so well, I decided that it would be the opening credit song.

Music Monday: 10th December 2012

So, yay, Music Mondays are back!

This week's song is Live Like You're Dying by Lenka.

I picked it because it's currently Paragon Academy's theme tune. To me, it's about taking each day as it comes and not giving up, which totally fits what happens in the plot and, especially, what happens to my characters' mentalities when it comes to a lot of things. like death, fighting and love. Plus, it's such a pretty song!

NaNoWriMo 2012: Updates.

First: OMG I WON NANO.

I think winning had something to do with the fact that this year, I decided to try and be a bit more social and go to write ins. It's thanks to this that I have discovered that during the day, I write best in coffee shops and out of the house in general.

My NaNo was a YA scifi/fantasy called Paragon Academy, which is about a group of teenage superheroes who discover that bad, very bad things are happening, in their boarding school, and try and figure out what's going on. Oh, and loads of shit happens after that and there's a lot of romantic things going on as well.

I'm also doing this as my university thesis as well!

Even though I hit 50K in November, I still haven't finished the novel. I have to do some things to help me continue and hopefully figure out what the end word count of the first draft should be - I'm hoping that it will be less than 100K - and then I shall continue writing. I'm hoping to be finished by the end of this month, preferably by Christmas, and then I shall start editing it at the end of January or early February.

Music Mondays should be coming back next week.

NaNoWriMo 2012

So I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. X Men + Percy Jackson.

I promise to properly revive this blog in December, but I will try and Music Mondays every month.

Wish me luck!

Announcement!

I am back! This is to announce that I'm doing a few things, but the main one at the moment is Script Frenzy, starting tomorrow. I have to write 100 pages of a script in 30 days. I think I can do this, but we shall see. I shall be turning an old project, Electric Dreamer, into a musical. It seems like a really fun idea, and it should mean there should be really fun options for Music Monday.

I PROMISE TO POST MORE. :D