Hello 2014 – Goodbye Procrastination

Greetings to you all. This is just an official Welcome to 2014 post with a quick update of what’s happening on my blog, with me and just life in general.

Currently Running

First, if you haven’t noticed already, I’m working on a series called Villainous Villainy where I explore villains and the various facets they come in, their motives for being who they are and what generally drives them. I cover these in a series of short stories that I try to keep at at least 1000 words.

Pokemon Fan Fic

I’ve added more to the Pokemon Fan Fic with a second part of the fan fic The Chase. If you’ve been checking back and it hasn’t been updated, that’s because December was practically non-existent when it came to writing but you can expect a bit more now and in the coming months.

Junk Yard Angel

A continuous work in progress. I actually haven’t touched this story since I failed NaNoWriMo. I think I wrote a bit for two days afterwards but in the end I stopped. This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing, I’m just taking a break as I focus on other things that are taking quite a bit of time now.

Auburn

Auburn is almost done! That’s right, the tale of our unfortunate hooded fellow, the red haired lady our grey haired security guard and the antagonist Mr Sinister is drawing to a conclusion and as it stands it will have a February conclusion. We also planning some cool stuff relating to Auburn and my fellow writer Tyron Armstrong might branch off on a Auburn spin-off. Exciting stuff.

2014

So last year was quite a productive year of writing and this year seems to be continuing along in the same trend. I’m still going strong writing for Gamecca and Gladget as well as a side personal project that is consuming hours. There is much to look forward to this year and I hope you tag along and enjoy the journey with me.

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Sketching it out

It’s not that I haven’t been writing, it’s just that drawing has been my focus recently, trying to visualize my characters from my Walking by Faith post : Walking By Faith. Here are the sketches

Faith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aaron

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been trying to capture the personality of my characters in these sketches and so you will see that the drawings aren’t complete. The focus is more on the facial features or recognizable features like the hint of the straw hat Faith wears or the look of anger/sadness/despondence on Aaron’s face.

Please do keep visiting the site as I work on finishing my stories and novels. Thanks!

Walking By Faith

Where do we go, nobody knows. We go wherever the wind blows.
~Faith – the spirited Adventurer ~

Faith hoisted the large, heavy backpack higher up on her shoulders, placing it in a more comfortable position on her back. She gripped the backpack’s dark straps firmly; they came across the front of her mud stained blouse, the blouse no longer a sunny yellow in colour but fading into a shade of yellow and brown. Her large straw hat hid her from the scorching heat, and the flow of long, light brown hair coming from it covered her ears, framing her demure face and reaching her shoulders. She looked ahead, her clear hazel eyes sparkling with excitement as she gazed across the empty, ridged landscape of the desert; there was a large tower ahead. It stood erect, rising from a sand dune that covered the bottom quarter of the immense structure. There was an eagerness within her. It seemed to bubble right through her as a large grin spread across her face and she began to rise up to her toes and drop back down to her heels in an energetic rhythm. She glanced down at her partner and snorted softly.Unlike her, young Aaron sat crossed legged on the coarse ground; despondent. His short golden brown hair lay matted to his head from sweat. The heat had taken every ounce of his energy, regardless of the short swim he had taken, at the oasis Faith had managed to direct them to. The mud had helped cool them off too but the prospect of traversing the sandy terrain with mud baking on their skin did not appeal to him at all, even if that would have cooled him down. He gazed up at the tower in the distance, shielding his light brown eyes from the sun so he could look at it without going blind. He sighed dejectedly; that was the last thing he wanted to do.

The travelers, completely unrelated, had been making their way across the desert for a week and a half now, each with their own personal goal. Faith sought adventure, yes, she lived with almost eccentric motivation that had led her to many different parts of the world. Yet this journey had become spiritual more than adventurous as she trekked through aesthetic landscapes varying from mountains and valleys to forests and jungles. Each region she traversed filled her with awe and wonder, a deep longing as well as a desire to know not only about its creation but also about its creator. Aaron on the other hand was an orphan, abandoned as a young boy by his parents claiming they were not ready for a child; he was pulling them down. He’d met his parents again later on and they had rejected him again. In his sadness and anger at his parents and a deeper bitterness for his unfair life, he lost all will and purpose to live. At the apex of the apartment building where his orphanage was located, he’d found himself on the edge of the building and gazing glazed eyed at the inevitable below him. Had Faith not appeared at that moment, Aaron would not have been alive this day. He found a new desire at that moment, a desire to figure out his purpose and know more about this ultimate Being that Faith spoke of so reverently yet so mysteriously about. Who indeed was the creator of those marvelous places Faith had traveled to? Where was He now? What purpose did He have for him? This journey had to have answers, just had to.

“Come now, enough rest let’s go!” Faith exclaimed as she grabbed the younger boy’s arms and pulled him up to his feet. Aaron grunted his disapproval but let himself be pulled up to his feet.
“Are we seriously going to climb that?” Aaron asked, unable and unwilling to alter his despondent tone of voice.

“Of course! This tower will challenge you beyond anything you have ever faced!” Faith exclaimed, falling back into her excited rocking, “In fact, there is a historical record of a young man, a little older than me, who not only climbed the tower but leapt from its top!” Aaron had a moment to remember his once strong desire to jump from his own high tower; so much had changed since then that the idea disturbed him.

“Not only did he jump, but he landed safely on a bale of hay at the bottom…he called it…the Leap of Faith. Exhilarating!” Faith’s face seemed to glow under her straw hat, her lips unable to contain the large grin that filled her face. Aaron, however, was skeptical…and fearful. It was as though Faith had saved him from one jump only to propel him towards another only this time…he was not looking forward to it. Not at all.

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I hope you enjoyed the little excerpt from one of my short stories called Walking by Faith, playing around with that theme of walking by faith by having a character named Faith. The basis of this story is the idea of self discovery and also how God reveals himself in nature. Within the course of the story itself you will see that outworking of revelation through the eyes of energetic, optimistic Faith and the skeptical, despairing Aaron.

As always, please feel free to leave a comment, message etc. Thank you for taking the time to read and visit my blog. May you have a blessed week!

The Challenge! – Update

Hey all, as mentioned in my last blog, I was to post an update of my progress regarding the Intel, W Hotel, Vice short film story competition this week (yesterday). However, while I was perusing their competition details to see if there was any specific criteria I would have to follow, I was greeted by this following statement…and yes it was in All Caps as you see it

” THE COMPETITION IS OPEN TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF AUSTRALIA, CANADA, MAINLAND CHINA, FRANCE, HONG KONG, GERMANY, MEXICO, SINGAPORE, THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND THE UNITED STATES WHO ARE AT LEAST EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER (OR THE APPLICABLE AGE OF MAJORITY IN HIS/HER JURISDICTION OF RESIDENCE, BUT IN ANY EVENT NO YOUNGER THAN EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS OF AGE) ON THE DATE OF ENTRY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. “

As a legal resident of South Africa, my entry would be null and void and therefore there is no point in entering the competition. Nonetheless, this does not necessarily prevent me from writing the would be story out anyway and posting it here on my blog as a personal work. Sure there would be excitement waiting anxiously for results to return and spending nights up on roof tops gazing out at the starry sky while the mind envisions a production set with props and actors and actresses reciting words that you wrote, dressed in attire that you prescribed, making real what was on paper….

Anyway to all those who were supporting me on this endeavour, I appreciate your support greatly and therefore will finish the challenge, post it here and then you can be the judges.

The Challenge!

The Challenge

One of the  great things about knowing other writers, is that when they find something interesting, they send it along to inspire and challenge you. So I want to use this opening paragraph to thank you, Dani, from Of Readers and Writers – http://scribbable.blogspot.com/ – for introducing me to this community of writers, that is NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month  http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/dashboard – without you, I may have stumbled late…maybe never…across this website and not become aware of this very interesting challenge they have.

I received an e-mail from the aforementioned website NaNoWriMo, with tantalizing details regarding a writers competition with a fantastic outcome for the winner. The details are:

[ They’ve (Intel, W Hotels, and Vice) also invited Wrimos (those who are part of the NaNoWriMo community) to submit up to ten pages of a script or story by August 30 in a short film series and competition entitled “Four Stories”.  The four winning stories will be filmed by the esteemed Roman Coppola. The contest poses the kind of challenge only Wrimos can tackle with their spirited imaginations: each story has to be set in a W Hotel and feature an Ultrabook computer as a key character. ]

 Progress

Today is the 15th and therefore I have fifteen days to write a ten page story that involves a W Hotel as well as feature an Intel Ultrabook computer as a key character and all I have to say is “Bring it on!” My mind has been abuzz so of course I have already started writing and the story is progressing in a direction that I did not anticipate. The possibilities are just endless! Whooo so excited!

In order to make sure I reach this goal, I am making this Public announcement that I will write and finish the story and also I will post another update next week on the 22nd working towards a finished draft at the least. I will also post a copy of the final work here on my blog so that you can read it and let me know what you think.

As I write this, I have to remember that my glory should be the last reason for doing this challenge and that God should most definitely be first. One of my favourite Proverbs comes to mind:

Proverbs 16:9 – The mind of a man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.

May He indeed direct my steps in the right direction.

One for the Kids!

Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed.

2 Timothy 2:15 – Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

This is the verse that echoes through the church building Friday evenings, by a loud chorus of high-pitched individuals, ready for a great evening of fun and learning. Working with kids is such a blessing and I am indeed grateful to the Lord for having brought me to this ministry. At such a young and teachable age, kids are able to listen and take in what is being taught to them with a child like faith…don’t we sometimes wish we had that kind of faith: taking the truth at face value.

This blog post however is not about how teachable kids are or having a childlike faith, but rather on writing for kids as a means of reaching them without necessarily preaching to them. Writing stories for kids, stories that would contain biblical values, principles, truths, verses maybe even characters that the kids can embrace and relate to, all of whom would point to Christ and His work on the cross. Of course I would not want to minimize Christ nor His works, nor would I want to dumb down the gospel for the sake of my stories. However, I do want to reach the kids on a level that they can understand and grasp the crux of the stories, gaining some knowledge about the bible, about Christ, about the Holy Spirit and about God.

I found a great post  on writing biblical stories for children and its on par with what I am trying to achieve. It was written by Rose Ross Zediker who is a Christian author. The post below belongs to her and you can read the full article here: http://www.writing-world.com/children/bible.shtml

Biblical Retelling

A Biblical retelling must stay true to the Bible verse. Don’t add characters or character names if they aren’t in the Bible story. Choose a point of view and stick with it. Most Biblical retellings are in third person, but some can be told in first person.

Rephrasing the dialogue of a Bible verse can get tricky. The language must be kid friendly yet not change the meaning of what the character says. Keeping your target age group in mind, find and replace the difficult words in the text with simpler words. Look for words children may be familiar with but don’t really understand. Sin is a simple word yet children may not really grasp its meaning, try to define those types of words by inserting an explanation of the word.

Enrich your story with the addition of emotions, actions and setting details. A few simple words like water jars and robes transport the children into the Biblical life style and holds their attention.

The first paragraph of The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25 NIV) says:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

A retelling in the first person viewpoint of the expert in the law could begin:

Finally! I had a chance to test Jesus by asking a question. I knew the laws. I stood with my shoulders back and head held high. I looked into Jesus eyes. “Teacher,” I asked “what must I do now so someday I can live in Heaven?”

A third person viewpoint may be retold like this:

A smart man who knew the law wanted to test Jesus. The man smoothed his robes as he stood. He raised his eyebrows in question. “Teacher,” he asked, “what do I need to do now so I can live in Heaven when I die?”

In both retellings, actions were added to show the man’s confidence in his own knowledge. This makes the story more interesting for the child but doesn’t change the meaning of any of the original verse.

Contemporary Retelling

A contemporary retelling is a modern story with a beginning, middle and end. The theme of the contemporary Bible story retelling must reflect the lesson of the Bible verse. Apply the verse’s message to a real life situation. This real life situation must be believable so the child can apply the lesson to their daily lives. You can’t tag on the moral of the Bible verse at the end of the story. The lesson has to unfold during the story and the readers need to care about the characters and situation.

The following is a synopsis of a contemporary retelling of Luke 10:25:

A young girl and her mother wait at the bus stop. The young girl notices the people around her. She sees an old man in worn clothes and thick glasses approach the bench. The man politely asks a businessman for the time. The businessman frowns at the old man and refuses to tell him the time. The young girl can’t figure out why the businessman is being so mean to the old man. Two teen-age boys walk past the bus stop. Again, the old man politely asks for the time. One young boy looks at his watch but the other pulls him along, telling him not to talk to bums. The old man worries that he’s missed his bus. The old man looks sad and the young girl knows that Jesus would want her to help. She asks her mother if she can tell him the time. Her mother says yes and the young girl shows kindness to the old man by telling him the time so he doesn’t miss his bus.

This modern retelling synopsis is true to the Bible verse. Two sets of people won’t tell the elderly gentleman the time. However, an unlikely source, a young girl shows this stranger kindness. The theme of the Bible verse is shown in the last action of the contemporary story, the young girl helps the elderly man by telling him the time.

Copyright © 2007 Rose Ross Zediker

The Episodic versus the Novella

The short story or the novel; which is better? The answer, is one that I have struggled to answer for a few years now and actually the process and progress of this has been rather interesting. Let me allow you a snippet of myself, my life and my writing from over the years.

My younger self:

When I realized that I loved to write, I did what any amateur 14 year old author did (though I started writing at an earlier age). I wrote pages and pages and pages and pages of stories, just going with the flow, writing ideas as they came; just flying. At this point, I could not understand the point for short stories except for magazine articles that could not publish entire novels. I mean, how can you write about a single event when all the events leading to and following  make that single event even more meaningful. Was the full story irrelevant? Could a single episode, in a voluminous collection of episodes, capture the essence of the entire story? I did not think so. Where was the character development? Where was the story development? How could you get to the height of the story without first laying the foundation that will lead to that climax? I did not think it was worthwhile to capture a mere episode. What this led to was, me, an exam pad (sometimes a notebook) and a pen (or pencil) and a mind full of unexplored adventures, waiting to be discovered. I spent days, nights, Maths/English/Science/Biology classes, rides to and from school just writing and writing and writing all kinds of stories and ideas. It was fantastic to be able to just write all day but there was one downfall to this; I never finished even one of these stories. Too many ideas all flowing but as soon as inspiration ebbed, writing stopped and that draft was placed in a folder, with all the other unfinished writings. It became apparent that writing a novel…was hard work.

My older (current) self:

Although my days of writing page after page after page have gone by somewhat (occasionally I like to indulge in nonsensical scribblings to get the clutter out of my brain), I do miss those days when I just ran with an idea and went as far as I could. The biggest change to all that was the introduction of actual planning to my writing. By planning I do not mean I have an idea as to where I want my story to go, but a skeletal structure that guides me to the final result. This includes character bios, motives, events, chain of events etc so that once I start writing I always have a distinct goal. With short stories, however, the distinct goal becomes the final story and all events either leading up to that final event or events after, can be summarized to a single sentence or be completely irrelevant; its all about the here and now.

As to the answer of the question posed at the beginning of this post, it is a simple one: Neither is better than the other. It took those formative years as a young novelist to my current days as a short storiest (yes I just made that up…I have writers prerogative hehe) to figure out that, in the end its about what you are writing, what is the purpose/motive or inspiration behind it and how can it be best captured for an intended audience and specific purpose. Would a short story bring your point across in a more effective way than a novel or would the building of characters and story lines woven into a novel  achieve the desired goal? That would be up to the author. Right now I am enjoying the short, straight to the point stories that have a focal point that does not require long winded dialogue and a multitude of characters. No J.R.R Tolkien trilogies here folks.

With two short stories under the belt and a couple of “novels” creeping along steadily I would like to end this off with some encouragement for fellow authors. No matter how much you enjoy writing, it still becomes work, but work that brings much satisfaction. This is especially true when you write the last sentence of your short story or novel and are satisfied with the way it ended. Your thought/idea has, you are sure, been explored, dissected and concluded in the way you wanted it to, all your characters have reached their designated end whether its happily ever after or not and your storyline is complete. Yes at that end you look back and you say, “Praise the Lord for having guided me and given me the strength to continue on in this even in times when I was doubtful. Indeed it is by His strength that I have reached this far. By His grace He has given me this ability/gift of writing and all glory goes to Him not me.” Give credit to God for His kindness, grace and love. Ascribe greatness to our God the rock! Continue writing to the glory of God!

May His grace be poured out on us and may we live as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to Him as our acts of worship. Until the next post, may you have a blessed time!