Blog

Updates updates updates~

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:08:00 -0500

So, on the 7th, assuming this host accepts paypal, SacredOrderOfTheMagi will be getting a makeover and heading over to it's own domain name aside from freewebs.com.

Also, ther ehave been no submittions to the contest thus far. It's not much unexpected btu still unfortunate that not even my friends, those of whom (or he whom) I'd expect to post has not.

Aside from this, my youtube account OneWriterWriting has just been updated with my second writers update, head on over and check it out. http://tinyurl.com/samsvote

The World Reborn, minus the "Re"!

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:06:00 -0500

Hey hey how is everybody?

So in regards to NaNoWriMo - I won. Que applause~. But that happened in November and it's only a few days 'til Christmas so you're a bit late on the applause.

I did a fake sequel to Bane of Thunder, or in other words a parody of Cannon of Thunder - which is to be the sequel to Bane of Thunder.

It's a wonderful story that you won't read on this page as that'd void my first publication. However, I am looking into the art of WorldBuilding as typically I've just made it up from a few scattered pre established notions combined with random and present whims. However, I don't much like this as all of the novels exist in the same world at different time I'm finding it increacingly difficult to continue to string them together without an actual system of existance.

So in accordance with that I'll be undertaking a SERIOUS project of World Building coming this summer when I'm free of scholarly endeavours. Right now, there exist 3-4 nations in my world. Three mainland nations that have been established and one island nation. I know enough of the present and past existance of thee three mainland nations to build them myself. Indeed, I could build the entirety of the island nation myself and I probably will. However, i decided to spice things up a bit by allowing you some fun.

What I propose is a contest to see who can create the best PREMISE for the fourth nation. Each person may create as many ideas as they would like but only one submittion may win. I will choose the best from all entries and extrapolate and incorporate into my world building in the summer.

It should be noted that once submitted you give up all authorly claim to the possession of the submittion. Else it'd be plaguarism if I were to use it.

How to submit:

In order to submit your premise for the fourth nation please go to the forums section of the website found at http://www.freewebs.com/sacredorderofthemagi/apps/forums/ and go to the "Fourth Nation" board in the "World Building" section. There, create a new topic titled in the following format: "FNC - (Your Name) - (Title of your submition)"

Your Name - In this section can put your real name or a fictious name. However, if you are not using your real name I urge you to use the name of the account you'll be using on the forums so that I can better coordinate whose entries are whose.

Title of your Submition - In this section you merly title your submition. This is mainly designed for those who would submit multiple ideas. If you are only submitting one you can leave it blank but an idea might be title it as you would title the nation. The possibilities are endless. You could even name it a number simply to keep track of which entries are which under your name.

It should also be noted that in order to post on the forums and thereby to enter into the contest you must first register for the forums. To do this, the easiest way is to precede as normal until prompted to log in at which point you may click to register and follow the on screen prompts to complete the setup.

The rest is entirely up to you but I offer one final guideline:

Have fun!

There will be a few scattered rules as well as the few points I've established in regards to the fourth nation to be posted in time. But don't be afraid to start, nothing (including what I've writting in regards to the nation) has been set in stone.

Peace Out! :D Good luck! See you this summer!

YO yo yo

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:46:00 -0500

Word up!

Everybody was kung fu fighting!

Those cats were fast as lightning!

In fact it was a little bit frightening!

But they fought with expert timing!

Woah! Huh!

YAH!

^_^ Hiya everyone!

It's november again!

That means it's time for NaNoWriMo! (www.nanowrimo.org) but actually, it's almost over.

I finished last year on the ninth. That's right 50K in 9 days, with a 2 day break! :P But now it's the 21st and I only have 10K. That's because I lost a lot of myself in this month, one year ago. So I'm not really myself. But throughout the months since hten I've been regaining my former self, bit by bit. I say regaining, not becomming because I will never be that person.

These pieces of who I was, I call motifs. I have no idea what they are, or why they are important to me. But they are things that my subconscious picked up on from the years 1991 to 2008. They're who I defined myself as, and when I find them, they remind me of who I was.

A lot of them are found in media.

For instance: the songs "Count on me" by Default; "It's not my time" by 3 doors down; "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen; and many - many more.

But I just found one, another song, right now I'm listening to it.

If you can guess it in your first guess before reading the next line and without receiving any clues or help, and provide proof of course of this, I will sign over every instance of property I own at this moment!

DUN DUN DUN!

Here it goes!

Kung Fu Fighting!

Pretty obvious, I know, but right now I've got no real good stuff. Some hallowe'en junk, but you won't want that. I'm in University living off student loans so yeah - nothin' fancy!

YO YO YO!

Honestly, I have no idea why that song helps define who I was... Maybe it's because it's just fun. Fun life, fun times, fun to move. To enjoy what you're doing.

So yeah, I need a title for my new NaNo novel which I will of course post up here when I'm done. It's a comedy wherein the spirit of intelligence was murdered/captured and so the other spirits had to try to lend their power to humans before they were captured as well. But most if not all were too slow and so were all captured halfway through. This produced MANY half wit powers. For instance, the spirit of movement was giving the power of Telekinesis to an individual and was gradually cycling through all objects, one by one giving the individual the ability to move it. But, they were interrupted after only one, and so the individual can only move one specific teddy bear. Another guy has super strength - when lifting light objects. :P Mind you, all of these powers I made paradoxes. They suck indeed, but they al have very specific times in which they are amazing. For instance, if the super strong guy were to throw light objects - he'd be throwing them with super strength. Someone gave me the idea of like super strength working on a lamp post but whatever.

Anyways, gone to listen to Queen and finish my Folklore assignment so I can BEAT THIS NOVEL OUT OF THE WATER!

WELCOME ME BACK B'YS! I'M COMIN' HOME FULL SPEED! I THINK IF I FINISH NANO THE FINAL MOTIF MIGHT BE ACHIEVED!

So, until then...

Rock on Rockstars!

S. R. WIlkes. the missing leading man.

Nano nano nano

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:26:00 -0400

So, it's October, that means November's coming!

Which means NaNoWriMo! That's right! A 50,000 word novel in 30 days! Sounds great!

Mine's going to be abotu a crack team of super heroes with half assed powers trying to save a retarded world. (The spirit of intelligence was murdered).

So here I am to post a link that no one will ever follow! The link goes to my sponser page! :)

http://www.gifttool.com/athon/MyFundraisingPage?ID=1891&AID=777&PID=106349

Have fun everyone, I'm out!

DA HOUSE

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:39:00 -0400

Raise da roof, actually, don't. Wouldn't want to ruin the house as soon as I move in! :)

So, just moved into my new house that's right beside my Wondrous girl's house, so I get to see her all the time! :) And my mother's coming for a visit tomorrow, so life rawks!

But, I'll be moving my blog to menewsha soon!

Menewsha is an avatar based forum community that's got a nifty section for blogs. So I'll be archiving my entries and sending them there! Hope to see you nonexistant readers there! :)

SARAH

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:18:00 -0400

Is neat! ^_^

Been awhile!

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:19:00 -0400

So, right now it's been a bit since my last post, back in the north. So here are the quick updates.

I'm back, DUH!

Hardly been writing, DUH!

Goin' to school, Yay :) English Major, Psych Minor. Thinkin' about goin' into education but I can't decide if I want to teach post secondary or Highschool! :)

I am happily awaiting November for NaNoWriMo :D

And I've started my new novel, Canon of Thunder.

The problem with the name is that it's got Thunder in the name, so I may change the name of Bane of Thunder.

Besides all this, life is pretty good! Almost been goin' out with my girl for sixth months and everythin's holdin' pretty well together! :D

My writing may be lacking but that's because I don't want to write everything I can and then when November hits find myself without a single word to write during NaNoWriMo!

So anyways, peace out!

Greetings from the north

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:03:00 -0400

Hello world, greetings from Northwest Territories.. For those of you who don't know that and can't use google maps, that's up near the Yukon. This is the end of my summer vacation. (Wonderin' why I haven't blogged yet! xD)

I've come up with some neato ideas, but I'm sitting here at 4:03am trying with all my mental might (which is surprisingly vast this late at night) to mesh these together into Bane of Thunder.

These exhertions, however, have been completely and utterly in vain because somehow I'd forgotten that I'd finished Bane of Thunder. :P

But in all seriousness, I'm pretty crushed by the absence of positive replies for BOTs publishing... That's probably why I'm hung up on the idea of perfecting it.

But as for the new and exciting ideas, they're going where they should be. Rather than running ANOTHER parrallel storyline, I'll be throwing it into the sequel. :)

I was debating changing the name of Bane of Thunder to something like Requiem for a Storm, but I figure Bane of Thunder is almost a classic now, so Requiem for a Storm would be a good name for the sequel.

Man you guys are gonna love Lien! :D And Azeul too! Espescially Azeul actually.

I'd love to tell you guys and gals about it, but, you know, spoilers and all! ;-)

Updates!

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:04:00 -0400

Right, so, time for some updates!

About the publication of Bane of Thunder, I think the rejection tally is up to 4 of 20 now, or something similar. But I've taken some thought to the matter, and bothered to look at my fears.

I've always been kind of worried and on edge about submitting it for publication because I personally belive it to be a great tale, but the beginning does the entirety of the novel no favour.

The major problem here is when submitting for publication, you either send a query, or a query with a sample, which is almost always the beginning of the novel. So I've taken it upon myself to take every fiction book I possess (that's a lot) and read the openings to kind of get a feel for what a published opening is like.

Now, this turned out to be just the opening paragraph, rather than the openings. Better yet, half the time it was the opening sentence and I didn't even read all the books I'd dug up! I opened two.

The first, was a book I am currently reading. The third book in the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks "Beyond the Shadows". (I'll give some detail about it later on). It opened with a scene. It said someone was sitting in a place where earlier had been action. I know I'm being vague but I'm avoiding spoilers.

My analyzes of this was that it presented the reader with something relevant, a substantial piece of information, but nowhere near enough. It was a well known and loved character, it was a moment where no one knew what was about to happen because of predispositions made in the first two books.

I thought it a great start but my one problem was that this was the third book in a trilogy, not the first, or even a standalone novel. As such, it wouldn't do me any good. The readers don't know anything about the book, the world, or the characters so they have no predispositions.

That led me to the second book. "Shadowmoor" an anthology from Wizards of the Coast for a set of Magic The Gathering trading cards. Every set of cards has a novel to accompany it set in the same world as the cards. Shadowmoor was for the Shadowmoor set and I choose it to read at this time because it was an anthology of a fictional fantasy realm similar to mine.

Seeing as opening sentences to stand alone stories can't be spoilers I'll list them for you.

1) "Ode to Mistmeadow Jack" - Scott McGough & Cory J. Herndon

Jack Chierdagh crept through the fog outside the

Kithkin doun of Mistmeadow, moving with the confidence

of one who knew well the ground beneath his feet.

Starts with the character. Starts with action. You wonder, "Who is Jack", "Why is he sneaking", "What's he doing", "What is a Kithkin", "Why is his name so weird"?

2) "Paths" - Denise R. Graham

They were coming.

Who's coming? What's going on? What do they want? Good thing or a bad thing?

There were more but I won't bore you. The point is, these established writers know that to open a book, the first task is to grab the readers attention and they do this by providing them with information, but never enough information to satisfy the reader.

From this, I knew my error, actually it was kind of funny to see my face when I realized this. I suppose it kind of just dropped and a tactical facepalm was certainly to follow due to how obvious the answer had been.

I'll copy and paste a conversation I had at the time.

6/3/2009 | 10:05:50 PM | Sammy

I think I'll start with Beyond the Shadows, go to Shadowmoor, then the Gathering Dark, and maybe the Giver after that.

6/3/2009 | 10:06:45 PM | Sammy

Shadowmoor in an anthology, so it's bound to be good.

6/3/2009 | 10:07:11 PM | Kris

Yeah, I guess so.

6/3/2009 | 10:08:15 PM | Sammy

Ah ****.

6/3/2009 | 10:08:16 PM | Sammy

I'm an idiot.

6/3/2009 | 10:08:22 PM | Kris

Oh?

6/3/2009 |10:09:11 PM | Sammy

I've been writing with intensive thought into cleverly delivering every sentence to keep the readers attention onto each piece of information I give them, I arrange everything so that I can create an entire world and let them have it, just like that. I make it all perfect and easy to understand.

6/3/2009 | 10:09:15 PM | Sammy

sounds good, but I'm an idiot for it.

6/3/2009 | 10:09:21 PM | Sammy

I need to get them THINKING not UNDERSTANDING.

And there you have it, my flaw! I've been making entire worlds from the bottom up, starting with geology to likely civilizations to developement and so on until present day. I had all the information in a nice easy to understand package that I handed to the readers.

Sounds good, lotsa work, but a waste inded! Readers don't want to be told everything like they're in a history class! They want a story, and that means something that keeps them thinking about it. Questions like "How's that work?", "Why did he do that?" or my personal favourite "Wait, what?"

So that's that. But I'm now faced with another Dillema. I don't know if I should rewrite the beginning (obviously) only, or the entire novel. But I'll probably just skim through and regard each sentence with care. Make sure everything's according to my new foud wisdom.

Besides that, I've started yet ANOTHER NaNoWriMo challenge. Unfortunately I started it before I realized I was going to fix Bane of Thunder so now I have two massive projects on my plate during exam month...

Oh well, WIsh me luck!

Now onto the blurb about the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks!

Amazing. It's simply amazing.

The first book, "The Way of the Shadows" was an amazing roller coaster of drama and dark fantasy focusing on a loveable villain in his quest for (mostly) goodness. It's one of those books that captivate you and forces you to enjoy it. There's no speeding through it, and I don't mean that it's a hard read, I mean by some unseen power of Brent Weeks', you have to read it as it's wrote. That means a second per period and half second per comma.

But on to the negatives.

I found some parts predictable, but not nearly enough to make it worth stating as a negative. My one and only serious problem with the trilogy is that the trilogy gradually gets worse as it goes. It starts great - amazing! And the second book has you expecting it to be just as good, unfortunately it's just a little worse off. It's great and all but I didn't have the same enthusiasm. And then when it ended, my oh my did it leave you wanting the third book!

But that's another problem. It had you wanting the third book, but the third book in my opinion fails to deliver. It's as though it's just a formality to complete a trilogy.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great read, interesting and captivating. You want to know what happens, but it doesn't strike the same enthusiasm as the first book and reminds me of the online role playing game Guild Wars.

I'm an expert at the game, I know almost all there is to know, I've done almost everything there is to do, and yet, it was more fun in the beginning. I find myself wishing I was a new player to rediscover it all, as though it's become kind of mundane.

That's kind of what it's like with the Night Angel Trilogy. But even still if you asked me, I'd recommend it in a second. It's on my top reads list, along with The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. The first book of the Godkiller Trilogy!

Which I can't wait for the second to be released, I'm dying here!

Anyways, I'm procrastinating again. So I'm going to let you go and work on Bane of Thunder! Wish me luck in my endeavours everyone!

Rock on Rockstars!

S. R. Wilkes - The mostly idiotic, yet proclaimed genius. (I disagree)

Thu, 21 May 2009 14:55:00 -0400

Hey all!

Dunno if I mentioned it or not, but Bane of Thunder is done!! I've been sending queries to agents lately and so far, I've gotten two rejections :P Guess I'm not worth the time of the others!

Hah!

So, anyways, this may sound sudden after that last statement, but I've already got my idea for my next novel. I love it. I'll just copy a direct conversation I was having with one of the most wonderful women in the world.

Aziel

Lien

Soryu - Sorey wants a story! - Sorry Sorey

Sorena

illena - Lily

MC: Aziel (Az syllable = mystery (EG; Azaroth, Azoth, Azoch)

Ant: Lien

Soryu - Random Orphan Girl

Lillena - poor woman who helps the orphans

- She's wronged/someone breaks in

- She's always there for the kids, gives what she can; food, blankets, shed for warmth, toys etc

The kids are chased and by instinct go to the only place they find safe; Lillena's house. The resulting trouble by those chasing the kids results in her getting wronged.

Liem does the whole "I don't care, we had to" approach, Aziel feels bad.

Aziel is the nice kid who loves stories and imagination. The typical protagonist - the one people relate to and fall in love with.

Lien is the tough guy, Aziel's best friend, but a tough guy nonetheless; the kind of relationship that Squal and Seipher have.They hate each other but love each other, it's just a little less than hate.

A girl comes into the picture, the two kids are orphans in a port town in southwestern Deldaime. She comes from a boat, the kids are always too poor to get on board so they never know what it's like.

Aziel meets her first and loves the stories she tells, she loves his imagination and energy, they make fast friends. At the same time, she meets Lien without Aziel knowing.

Later on she'll leave, it'll turn out that Lien will have a love intrest, but Aziel will sorta too.

Secretly she wouldn't've come from the boat, she'd be a poor girl who snuck onboard for a new life and is running for some reason I dunno yet

.That's where the rivalry between Aziel and Lien comes from for the rest of the book, they part ways, Aziel tries desparately to cling onto the friendship, Lien feels there's no way to go back to the past, etc

So that's it, and that's all for now. See you all later!