Marching Band, Procrastination, and The Like.

Hey! I actually have time to blog today, since my after-school stuff was all cancelled. And even though I have a bunch of history homework I should be getting to, that could be put off a little longer.

So, update on CS: The Formation... nothing much going on there. I'm still editing, and I'm about to completely demolish this part in a Lillian chapter and rewrite it, considering it made no sense.  This big event of re-writing should take place sometime today or later this week.

Memorial Day weekend is coming up! This means catching  up on homework, writing, and, of course, the Memorial Day parade! Which means marching band!
So, I have marching band rehearsals all this week, and today we marched in the rain for the last five minutes or so. My drum was a big puddle by the time we got back inside.
Do any of you guys (readers, existent or not) have any good marching band stories? Or whatever kind of music you do? Leave a comment -- something a bit rare to me.


If you haven't already read it, please sacrifice three minutes of your time for my contest-winning piece, Particles of Dust: http://www.inkpop.com/projects/107442/particles-of-dust/

I'm thinking of doing book reviews! HOpefully sometime this summer. My first one will be for You Wish by Mandy Hubbard.

Currently:
Writing: Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editing
Listening to: ALL CAPS
Reading: The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein (still)
Procrastinating on: English and History homework
Waiting for: summer (and the new Nancy Drew computer game, because I'm a nerd)

Stuffs.

Here I am once again to blog. It's been a hectic week  and is about to get even more crazy tomorrow. Awesome.
Well, anyway, I just thought I'd post something about my short story which is now up on inkpop. It won the NCTE Promising Young Writer's Writing Competition for my state. (Gosh, that's a mouthful.) Soooooo, here are the pitches and the like (or summaries, or whatever):

Particles of Dust

I've decided not to care anymore. You're just particles of dust.

Your feet stepping on mine, your eyes like daggers, your hands pushing me down in the hall.
These are the things I hate. These are the things you do not stop doing. These are the things that I cry about each night.
Your words. Your crueler words. Your even crueler words.
These are the things I hate most.
 
http://www.inkpop.com/projects/107442/particles-of-dust/

So, who wants to sacrifice three minutes of their time to read it? Any takers?
Seriously, it won a contest. How bad can it be?

Oh, I finally found the right picture I was going to use for that Maddie intro, but totally couldn't find it before, so here it is now... yeah, how exciting is that?
(Answer: not very.)
I am doing some extreme editing on CS: The Formation. Although the last time I even looked at my book must have been sometime last week or something.  I just realized all these stupid plot holes, for example:
In the first Violet chapter, she walks to school, clearly stating she does not get a bus.
In chapter eight, Griffin's second chapter, Violet magically appears on her bus.
Genius.
So I was going to have Violet say something like, "Yeah, I don't usually ride the bus, but I hitched a ride..." but realizing that sounded extremely stupid, I am now going to edit the first chapter so she does take the bus, as that first Griffin-Violet meeting on the bus is pretty important, as it gives Violet a feel for who Griffin is. This later makes her feel less awkward to run on stage during the convention, as she knew Lillian from their locker row, and then would have known Griffin from the bus.
So... um.

Currently:
Writing: Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editinggggg
Listening to (obsessively on repeat): Satellite by Lelia Broussard and Daylight by Matt & Kim
Looking forward to: SUMMER.

Character Intro: Maddie

I've decided it's time for another character intro. Which means more fishing around my computer for where I stored these things.

Ever since Maddie was six, her fingers have danced across the keys of her piano and the strings of her violin, forced upon her by her mother. When her parents get a divorce and her father leaves, her mother tries everything she can to hold Maddie down.
Now all Maddie wants to do is escape her mother's clasp. Sooner than she thought she would, she gets some help. Marc, a boy from her bus, comes up with the ultimate plan to rebel, and she goes through with it. But of course, nothing goes as planned, except for one thing...
The bass. She loves playing, but she knows her mother will never approve. She meets three girls at a music festival, and they instantly click, forming a band, giving them a sense of security in their hectic lives.
But Maddie can't keep her mom in the dark forever. She'll have to know eventually. How can Maddie keep this secret?

I don't really have a good picture for Maddie, unfortunately. :,,,( But these are kind of like her (or the hair at the very least.)
I think the mood of the pictures- the fact that she's alone in the first one, totally alone in the second with a guitar, not a bass, (GRRR) and then running in the third one, like she's trying to run away from all constraints her mother holds on her...
So, a little dramatic, maybe?
And cuz I just HAD to make one of these:

Maddie :) by rainbowwaffles featuring a heart tee

Next up is Lillian, one of my favorites. I'll be posting her intro sometime this week, or more likely, next next weekend, sadly.
Thanks to anybody who actually read this or followed!  

Character Intro: Violet

Hey, again!  I feel an urge to blog some more. Specifically about one of the main characters of my book, Violet.

I wrote up a little bio for her a while ago.. let's see if I can hunt it down on my computer.

The only home Violet has ever known is the House for Poor Souls. There, she keeps the other girls in line when the orphanage owner, Jayne, leaves them repeatedly for her boyfriend's apartment. Although she's constantly fighting with her "sister" Abby, and trying to comfort the younger girls while on the lookout for where the two oldest girls have disappeared to, school sometimes seems worse. She's known as that "goth loner girl" who sits i the back of the room and writes poetry.
So when she finds her first guitar and learns how to play, how can she resist a set of three friends, willing to talk to her, willing to make music with her, willing to just... be her friends?
But when the orphanage takes a turn for the worst and Violet still hasn't told anybody about it, how can she not take the money the band is making, even when it's not hers for the taking?

That's not really what she looks like, but it's the mood of the picture that does it.

Violet :) by rainbowwaffles featuring lace tops

Just something I made to sum up Violet's style. :)

Currently:
Writing:  Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editing TENSES
Reading: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen and The Hobbit for English class.
Procrastinating on: Science homework
Listening to: "Mean" by Taylor Swift
Watching: Tangled
Looking forward to: summer.

Welcome!

Well, it seems like you've had the great (mis)fortune of stumbling upon my wee little blog here. If you haven't read that giant big header at the top of the page, I'm a teen writer.
First order of business: is my blog title correct? Should it be "Teenage Writer" or "teenaged writer" like it is? I think teenaged is an adjective, while teenage is a noun for the age of teens. But maybe I'm wrong. All I know is that it's not going to look too smart if I say I'm a writer and I get that totally wrong. So, please correct me if I'm incorrect.

So, basically, this blog is all about my adventures as a teenaged writer. The social networking, the publishing (or probably in my case, self publishing) writing tips, editing, and so on and so forth. I guess it's time to officially introduce myself. You can call me EJ,  and my one goal in life is to have as much fun as possible.
I am:
A writer, a reader, a nerd, a science olympian, a runner, artistic, a woodshop-aholic, a shopaholic, a chocoholic, crazy, informative, sarcastic-at-times, welcoming, and friendly.
More importantly, I should introduce my novel. It's called Civilized Sabotage: The Formation and is a realistic fiction novel for girls between 11 and 15, approximately. It centers around four eighth graders who find themselves through music and friendship. It's the first in a trilogy. That's a very basic summary.

Want to find out more? Read the pitch here:
http://www.inkpop.com/projects/100908/civilized-sabotage-the-formation/

Want to read the mostly un-edited version? You can read it here:
http://www.inkpop.com/projects/100908/civilized-sabotage-the-formation/
Haha, those are both the same link. XD Just thought I should ease in on that whole "here's my whole book!" moment.

If you could comment there or here about it and give me feedback, it would be greatly appreciated. I know it's not perfect yet, and I'm revising the tenses so please only briefly mention that in your critique (if you ever leave one) because I'm working on it now. :) Thank you.

You can look forward to basically more stuff about my book here on this blog of mine, so... hopefully I have somebody reading this besides myself right now?

Currently:
Writing: Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editing
Reading: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
Procrastinating on: Science homework
Listening to: "Rooftop to the Street" by Tonight Alive
Watching: Avatar: The Last Airbender. What else?
Looking forward to: summer.