The Joys of Drafting

If you could call it that... Heheh. For the second time this semester I needed to pump out a short story draft to submit to my Fiction Writing class. Saying it was tough would be the understatement of the century.

I actually started working on a draft for this round of workshops when the first round was still going on. I had the most amazing and inspirational dream that would not leave me alone, so I decided I would write it. Problem was that it's just a bit too long...and epic...and did I mention long? Heheh. So rather than start from the beginning, I decided to write my draft starting at a point just after halfway through the story, when the main character reaches a very important realization that affects the rest of the entire story.

Halfway Point: Darkest Mercy

By: Melissa Marr

Genre: YA, romance, urban fantasy

# of Pages: 327

Current Page: 147

Rating: 5 out of 5

I am terribly sad to see this series come to an end. I've been there since Wicked Lovely was released in 2007, fawning over the beautifully intricate story since the very beginning. There is just something so musical in the way Melissa Marr weaves her tales and plays with her characters. There is a reason she's my favorite author, after all. Heheh.

I would love to do a summary of Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange, Fragile Eternity, and Radiant Shadows in order to give a good idea of the plot leading up to this particular book, but I'm too afraid of giving away spoilers. T__T What I can sum up without throwing spoilers left and right, however, is that the Wicked Lovely series is the story of the courts of fey (Summer, Winter, High, and Dark -- the Shadow Court added in Radiant Shadows) and the struggles that lie between them. By this point in the story, the world of Faerie (in which reside the High and Shadow Courts) has been sealed, leaving the Summer, Winter, and Dark Courts alone to decide how to handle the oncoming war against Bananach, the faery embodiment of War and Chaos, and the many fey she has managed to draw to her from all courts. A large part of the story is also Aislinn's internal battle between her feelings for Seth, her best friend, and Keenan, the Summer King. Ink Exchange and Radiant Shadows are two "sister novels" to the WL series. Some say that they don't need to be read in order to understand the goings-on of the rest of the story, but I disagree. Radiant Shadows is actually my favorite of the novels to date, and a lot of integral plot occurs in there that is necessary to understand the magnitude of what is going to happen/happening in Darkest Mercy.

March Madness

Believe it or not, this is my favorite time of year. It's funny how many double takes and/or dumbfounded looks I get from people when they learn how much I love college basketball. Yes, I realize that my love of anime and Japanese music and such makes me a nerd, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy other things!!  I live for college basketball and seeing my two teams do so well this year has made it even more exciting.

I was born in Syracuse, NY and the Orange have been my father's team since long before then. I was raised on their sports, even though I didn't really know what I was watching until I hit elementary school. The Orange are my go to team. I have shirts, hoodies, stole my dad's old Syracuse blanket, and used to have Otto stickers on my bedroom window. Even though they aren't the best team in the league when it comes to football (they actually won a bowl game this year, though!), they are one of the very best in basketball. They started this season off ranked number one in the nation. Then, unfortunately, Fab Melo was injured and they took a rather ungraceful fall down through the rankings. : ( Even so, they still made it to the semi-finals of the Big East tournament, only to be beat by UConn in overtime. Seeing them go into that overtime was sooooo exciting, considering the last time UConn and Syracuse went into overtime in the Big East tournament (2009), they ended up playing through six overtimes before Syracuse finally won. That year was even more exciting because Syracuse was pitted against my other favorite teams for the Big East championship.

One Life, One Chance...

It's been a while since the last time Bethany's name popped up in my "People You May Know" box on Facebook. We have 21 mutual friends, but we will never have the chance to be friends. At least, not on Facebook.

I can't believe that it's been more than six months since she was killed in that horrible car accident. A beautiful, intelligent nineteen year old life, taken from the world by a garbage truck driver who was too concerned with other things to notice that traffic had been stopped. If he hadn't been reading a text from his wife, would he have noticed the multitude of "Stopped Traffic Ahead" or "Flagger Ahead" signs that lined Highway 60 that morning? And who knows how drastically his mind had been altered by the pain meds and muscle relaxers he'd taken that morning.