#ignore me rambling about the book thief lol

[notelasts]

He’s been around for a very long time. He thinks he’s been around for longer than Emmanuel, though he has no way of knowing for sure. The world is made out of stories. He couldn’t agree more. He thinks of a girl in a basement, of the book that had gotten scooped up and dumped onto a cart. He thinks of how he’d stolen that book, just like that girl had stolen The Gravedigger’s Handbook all those years ago. He still has that book. It will wear a hole in his pocket forever, he thinks. It’s the least he can do for that girl.

He looks over to the birches. He smiles. “Survivors.” He’s always had a soft spot for survivors. In all of his time on earth, he’s never quite stopped to appreciate the resilience of nature. He thinks he should have. It’s fascinating. “I didn’t know that. About the birches. Thank you for telling me.”

open starter

"the world is made out of stories," the angel mused out loud, loving eyes travelling over the landscape, until he'd settled at a point and smiled, elaborating. "take birches, for example. they are pioneer organisms, among the first trees to arrive after a place is struck by a local disaster which has wiped out all other great vegetation. they grow fast, and they grow thin. they only have a couple of years before the heavier types of trees catch up to them, at which point they just shift further towards uninhabited places."

"encountering a young birch forest means you have encountered a place at the very start of a new era of growth. just their presence alone tells you that much. isn't it wonderful? the earth herself tells these stories that make her up. you only have to look and listen carefully enough."

[merigreenleaf]

10 Questions Tag!

Ignore the fact that I'm still more than a month behind with answering these 10 questions tag games lol. For this I was tagged by @rainbow-pages Since I'm so behind, I'm not going to tag anyone in case they've already done it, but if you like these questions, consider yourself tagged by me! ;) 1.) Where did the title(s) of your latest project(s) come from? Originally book 1 (back when it was only one book, not a trilogy) was called "Unexpected Inspiration" based on a conversation I had with @ageekyreader . She said this phrase once and it struck me as the perfect name considering that my MC Adair ends up in such a strange new life with carnival performs that's so different from what he lived before. They are his inspiration, both as an artist and as a person.

When it became more than one book I moved that title over to series title and named book 1 after Adair- his type of magic means he's a Colorweaver (the term for artists with illusion/illustration magic). Book 2 is going to be named after Blythe and Etri's subplot because they become his sentinels, so the book is called Sentinel. I'm a big fan of one word titles. :) (Book 3 is likely going to be Iconoclasm because... well, there's an iconoclasm lol.) 2.) Do you have any rhyme or reason behind your character names? I sorta based the names of my local MCs off Old English origin names just because OE is kind of my thing, but I mostly just picked names that sound like they fit the character. This works extra well because pretty much all my MCs picked their own names, so they have an excuse to sound right. ;) Adair's name seems so floaty and sweet like he is. I picked Blythe's because originally she was disguising herself as a boy and it was kinda unisex but it stuck with her even after I changed this plot- and it goes well into her nickname of Blade without being confusing. Firedrake picked their name because they love dragons. Sol picked his name because he has light/fire magic. Etri... well, Etri just stuck with the name he always had (Etraunjei) but the meaning there (stranger, foreign, weird basically) fits and shows his country is kind of full of jerks to name a kid that lol. 3.) What is your writing routine, if any? I try very hard to work on writing for at least an hour a day. Sometimes this is brainstorming, but I try to move forward with my stories whenever I can. Basically I'll write anything new in my notebook, then type it up later and adjust it a bit to appease my inner editor. Otherwise I don't really have much of a routine. 4.) Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever written? I don't really go weird places, so I have no idea? I usually take my notebooks to the park, but that's about as weird as I get. 5.) Do you prefer to write by hand or type? It used to be that I couldn't write in notebooks but I really wanted to be able to for the convenience, so I kept working at it. Now I have an easier time writing new stuff in notebooks than on the computer. This really does help me move forward because it doesn't feel so final in a notebook, like I can allow it to stink just so I can keep moving forward. My struggle before was my inner editor always wanting to fix things as I wrote it. 6.) Ideally, where would you like to see your writing take you in five years? I would *love* to have this trilogy published within the next five years or so. I don't need popularity, but I would love to have readers who love my stories even if my audience is small. :) 7.) Which character is most fun to write and why? Oh gosh, Firedrake definitely. They're so snarky and sarcastic, they're constantly pulling pranks on everyone else, and all this is constantly backfiring in hilarious ways. 8.) What advice would you give writers just starting out? Write what you love, not what you think other people would love. There will be overlap because what you love will cross over with what other people love, but don't write something just because you think it would be popular. I made the mistake of starting writing thinking I needed to do a certain thing to be a "real" fantasy author and this set me back for a while until I realized that doing things my own way was much more enjoyable and ultimately would lead to better stories. 9.) Do you have any “writing heros”? (This could be published writers or non.) Terry Pratchett was (and will forever be) my writing hero. He always gave me so much hope that you can still be loved as an author even if you're not writing traditional fantasy (humor can be a thing people want to read!) and after he passed away it was kind of like a kick in my rear to focus on my writing because you never know what's going to happen and I want my stories to be out there and not just in my head. 10.) Tell me about your work-in-progress. I've rambled about these books so much! Basically book 1 is about a young artist with magic getting one of his art projects stolen and in trying to get it back, stumbles across a group of carnival performers who were also struck by his thief. They befriend Adair and while they're helping him on his personal search, they end up in trouble and Adair becomes just as entangled in this. It's about found family having your back and friends in unexpected places.

For NaNo I'm moving onto book 2 which continues with these characters and involves them learning how far they trust each other while magic in the city is going awry and they're the only ones who seem to be able to fix it. (Sort of. Maybe. Look, they're trying very hard lol.)