It begins in four hours.

Are you ready?

~ Sophia-Rose

Closer and closer...

NaNo starts in two days! Are you excited? Nervous? Maybe some of both? Since this is my first NaNo, I'm mostly nervous right now, although there's some excitement, too. (This happens to be my just-before-it-starts post, but I'm posting it today since tomorrow will probably be too busy.)

We're probably all doing this for a reason. Whether it's to improve our writing, have fun, or just keep busy, there's an underlying reason for undertaking this crazy task. So, why are you doing NaNo? What (if anything) do you want to accomplish? Here's my list. (Yes, I know most of my posts on here lately have included lists.)

• Learn to stop procrastinating.
• Actually finish something that's somewhat long.
• Try not to use parenthetical remarks anywhere in the novel. (For me, that's really hard!)
• Learn to create more interesting dialogue and give characters unique voices.
• Improve descriptions.
• Learn how to describe things in more detail and write chapters that are more than two pages long. This has already been partly accomplished with the Greatest Treasure, but I'd like to keep working on it.
• Have lots of writing practice!
• Most of all, have fun!

Okay. I just proved to myself that I'm not completely insane. What about you?

~ Sophia-Rose

Story Must-Haves

Hello again. Guess what? I'm not dead. Hooray for that. As NaNo draws ever nearer, most of us are either frantically finishing their plot and character sheets, desperately hoping they can wing their novel in April, or sitting back in their chairs, all done with their planning and relieved that they get a few days of peace before it begins. I'm now among the latter. Hooray for that, too!

To return to the title of the post, there are some things I just can't seem to write a novel without. They are by no means required for a good story, but for me, writing becomes exceedingly boring without some or all of the below. Laugh if you want. I have weird tastes sometimes. For me, a story should preferably have:

• A morbid prophecy. Do I ever love morbid prophecies! Not only is it terribly fun to prophesy doom and destruction for your characters, they're pretty easy to write and help set the tone as well. I'll take a morbid prophecy over a love poem or rhyming legend any day. (However, it isn't possible at the moment to include one of these prophecies in Legends of Light, so I'm settling for the rhyming legend.)
• A funny character. Many of the stories I write have some dark themes and plots to them, and they'd be just plain depressing without this essential element. Everybody loves reading witty dialogue or the hilarious antics of their favorite trickster, and they're also great fun to write!
• A creepy ambush scene. I don't know about you, but I like to write confrontations that will send chills up the reader's back! And nothing says chills like a container of ice cream creepy ambush. Have your characters get shocked by their mortal enemy's sudden appearance. Not only does it give you a great start to an intense fight scene, it acts as the perfect hook so your readers just can't stop reading!
• Two characters who hate each other. This makes the perfect subplot to add several thousand words to your story without having to insert fluff. It's also so much more interesting to have two characters on the same side despise each other than get along perfectly. Bonus points if they still don't like each other by the end. MORE bonus points if they do without a cheesy I-suddenly-like-you scene!
• A magical creature of some sort. Unicorns work fine. Elves are good. Dragons are even better! (This is my own personal preference. Despite being a theurgist at heart, dragons are hands down the best fantasy creatures ever. Sorry, unicorns.)

What are your story "must-haves"?

~ Sophia-Rose

Not burned out yet

So, it's been awhile (sort of) since I've posted. The reality is I probably won't be posting every day until it starts, but I'll be trying to post more often. I haven't been neglecting my writing work over the past few days, though. Oh, no! Here's what I've done just this evening:

• Made a change to a certain scene: it now takes place at midnight rather than dawn.
• Decided that a whole legend would be told in rhyme rather than prose. After all, there's no morbid prophecy in this story.
• Fleshed out the plans for some intense and crucial action scenes.
• Made lots of decisions regarding just how the characters discover their new powers.
• Filled in some gaping holes involving important scenes.
• JUST ABOUT FINISHED MY STORY OUTLINE!

But I'm not done planning. Oh, definitely not. I still need to finish my character sheets. Those are quick, easy, and fun, so they shouldn't pose a problem. But after that I need to write a complete list of all the scenes in my novel. Uh-oh. I guess I can handle it. And I suppose it's worth it. Wouldn't want to leave something out, right?

To be honest, I'm surprised I made it this far without getting burnout, especially considering I've never seriously plotted a novel before. I think it's going quite well. Hopefully I'll be able to power through, dig 50K words out of it, and finish in a month.

~ Sophia-Rose

Legends of Light - Final Cover

Here you go. I think it looks pretty good. I'm now going to add it to the page on here and on the NaNo website.

Oh, and by the way: in case you were curious, S. B. Forrest is my "author" name. That's what I put on my book covers and such.

~ Sophia-Rose

Legends of Light Covers

Hello again! I've decided that for the rest of the month, most of the posts will be about NaNo itself rather than writing.

I made eight potential covers for Legends of Light, and all this afternoon. However, there are really only three different designs, and the rest are slight variants, so altogether they took about two hours to make. I'd like your input on which one you like the best (although stating multiple favorites is helpful, too.) Ready? Here are the covers based on the Dragon Template:

Without background text

With background text

Here are the covers based on the Legend Template:

With background text and sparkles

Without background text, with sparkles

With background text, without sparkles

Without background text or sparkles

And now, the ones with the Simple Template:

Without background text

With background text

So, which one's your favorite?

~ Sophia-Rose

I've been busy...

...and having some trouble thinking of more topics. Any ideas? I'm hoping to have another post ready tonight, but it may not happen. Sorry about this.

~ Sophia-Rose