Things I've Written, Entirely Out of Context: Nostalgia Edition (2011-2015)

It's time for another...

Things I've Written, Entirely Out of Context:

Nostalgia Edition

(2011-2015)

This time featuring:

• Bad puns!
• Badass ladies!
• Gratuitous pop culture references and/or literary allusions!
• NaNoWriMo inside jokes!
• Snarky one-liners!
• Snarky narrators!
• And characters being unusually self-aware and pointing out flaws in the narrative! Because they will never pass up an opportunity to make fun of their author.

Also, a significant portion of these excerpts come from a roleplay written with collaborators Len, Katrina, and Rebecca, so be sure to appreciate their contributions!

The Cover Project

Hello, readers! I know it's been a while - have I seriously not posted anything since May? - but I thought I'd show you a different side of my skill set today: namely, graphic design.

With the help of Adobe Photoshop and access to a wealth of Creative Commons licensed images, I've made a few mock-up covers for writing projects of mine. The first two covers are for projects I am no longer working on, but I loved designing them and couldn't leave them out.

So, without further ado, I give you the results of The Cover Project!

THE OMNISCIENCE: Miles to Go and Do Not Go Gentle

I actually stumbled upon this quote on my AP English midyear exam. Thanks, English Department! I love you all, I really do.

I figured it was high time for another Omni excerpt, given that I've shared a disproportionately large amount of them at Runaway Tales. If you're anxious to read more of Omni, just head over here and take your pick of Omni-related stories.

So, without further ado, I present to you...

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

and

Do Not Go Gentle

The Omniscience: Nevermore

Photoshopped by yours truly. I don't own the words, as they belong to Edgar Allan Poe, nor do I own the picture of the raven. 'Tis from  http://csicreativesceneinvestigation.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/sketch__undead_raven_by_michifromkmk-d5n804p.jpg.

Since I shared this with the folks at Runaway Tales on LJ, I figured I would share this with you lovely folks on this blog, too. It is Chapter Six of The Omniscience, written from Lilah's perspective, and was initially inspired by the prompt, "all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream" (a Poe quote), but eventually wound up being more about Poe's The Raven through the very complicated series of events that is the writing process.

Nevermore

The Omniscience: Becca in the Maze

Do you like it? I photoshopped it myself. On the bottom left is Jennifer Lawrence-as-Lilah, my book's main character, and on the upper right is Karen Gillian-as-Becca, the main character of this excerpt.

So, I haven't been writing a lot of new stuff recently, though hopefully that will change as Creative Writing class gets in full gear. Still, I thought you lovely blog-stalkers readers deserved a new morsel of writing, so here's another excerpt from The Omniscience, my currently-being-revised Nanowrimo 2011 novel. More info on the book here.

Longtime blog followers will have already met Lilah, the main protagonist. Now it's time to meet another crucial character--Becca Pond.

Becca in the Maze

Love Letters

From http://tiutiubells.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/tumblr_lnbtk5uiao1qzur8to1_500.jpg, with a background added by me. Image depicts one couple I wasn't able to work into this story: Lady Justice and Lady Liberty. Yes, I ship them. They're an amazing couple.

This was actually written shortly after the repeal of DOMA (hip-hip-hooray!), but I waited to post it so it will be in conjunction with International Femslash Day, an internet-wide celebration of lesbian couples in fanfiction and original fiction. I decided to write a piece with six different couples, half of whom are not my characters and the other half who are. Enjoy!

(Somewhat Obvious) Note: This story contains six lesbian couples. If you aren't okay with that, then don't go on the internet for all of today.

Love Letters

(for international femslash day)

The Omniscience vs. Cleverbot

I'll explain later.

 So, I was lurking about on the internet when I discovered (or rather, rediscovered) a project called Cleverbot, a computer program (even though it insists upon its own humanity) designed to learn from online conversations with humans and apply the knowledge gained there to other conversations, progressively becoming more "human" with each conversation.

And I'm like, "But that's the Omni!" (You all remember that NaNoWriMo novel I'm supposed to be working on.) "It's the Omni, but specified for conversations rather than decisions! What if it was a rudimentary version of the Omni technology? What if the Omni picked up on its signal and engaged it in conversation?"

Cleverbot's lines are totally authentic here. Technically, I only wrote half of this conversation.

OMNISCIENCE TRANSCRIPT:

CLEVERBOT SIGNAL RECEIVED, RESPONDED TO

Wordles

Sorry for not posting regularly as of late. I've been busy having sleep disorders, 504s, and doctor's appointments. But, as a reward for y'all's patience, here's a word cloud (known as a Wordle) made up of the most frequently-used words on this blog. The bigger the word, the more frequently it is used.

Though, poem, met, like, think, shatter, monster, one, and girl seem to be leading.

As an interesting comparison, here are the wordles for drafts one and two (respectively) of my novel, The Omniscience. Note: the second draft isn't exactly finished; it stops a little less than halfway in. I really should get back to that...

Funny, the first draft appears to have less words than the second. *eyebrow raise*

A Beginner's Guide to THE OMNISCIENCE

Image taken from http://www.freevector.com/site_media/preview_images/FreeVector-Futuristic-Machinery.jpg, courtesy of The Internet. It depicts some cool piece of futuristic machinery.

I'm mostly posting this so when I write fanfiction for my own original work on Runaway Tales I can link back here and people will know what I'm talking about. Oh, and also so I can give all my lovely blog readers another taste of my novel-in-progress. Enjoy!

A Beginner's Guide to THE OMNISCIENCE

Excerpts from THE OMNISCIENCE

Picture taken from http://www.hungergameslessons.com/2011/11/hunger-games-movie-trailer-teaching.html, courtesy of The Internet. Image is of the Capitol from the trailer of the upcoming The Hunger Games movie.

November is National Novel-Writing Month, in which writers from all walks of life and from all around the globe take on the self-imposed challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. This year was my first year participating (along with the rest of my Creative Writing class), and I am pleased to report that I succeeded! It was an incredible adventure, and even though the book has not been polished yet, I feel like sharing an excerpt with you all.

The Machine known as the Omniscience, or the Omni for short, was created to calculate a person's every need and choose a path for his or her life that not only ensures maximum happiness for the individual, but for society as well. At the age of eighteen, every citizen is obligated to be tested and analyzed by the Machine for a week. The Omni determines one's occupation, social class, probable income, and even location, and is an essential ingredient for a functioning society. But over the last two years, something has been going wrong with the Machine. Matches have been made that are so far off the mark as to seem ridiculous. Teenagers have disappeared--or worse, been found dead--inside. Others have been psychologically scarred beyond repair, so severely that they can't even function.

It's Lilah Ellerby's eighteenth birthday.