Sunday, June 30, 2013

OH FRABJOUS DAY!

Callooh! Callay!

If you know what's that from, then yay for you!!

Anyway, why am I happy? 

That's a good question. Three... no... Four reasons: 

  1. It's storming (though the flooding is sad, but still... rain! Love!)
  2. Friends (as in, literal friends, not the TV show)
  3. NaNo starts soon!!
  4. Annnd.... Alex is (ish) back!!

For those of you who are "I just joined in the past 10 months" people or "I just met you, Emma, in the past 10 months" persons, Alexandra Stormrider over at The Divination Diaries was my first friend on blogger. 

Yet, she just took a 10 month hiatus, and now she hopes to be back more often. 

You guys should totally go and check out her blog using that link thing I have up there :) 

On another note, her sudden reappearance reminded me just reminded me how much I appreciate online friends. Who can I mention? Alia Lotuspetal, you guys remember her? She was amazing. Kestrel Shadowthistle was one of the best bloggers I've ever known. Sierra Winterbreeze is... I would say gone, but her writing influenced so many. Amber Rosepetal is a faithful person too! Heather Raven was also awesome. 

Unfortunately, all of those people have left. 

But on the bright side, more have come. 

Sophia Emeraldblossom? Destiny Soultamer / Des? Cass Lifeblossom? Honestly, I need to start finding more of the new blogs. Who is new to me? Stormgem's Quest. Aaron's Adventures. Savvy Swashbucklers. All of you are equally amazing as the people who have left :D

I recently discovered this blog called Wizard Graveyard, where you can go and say "I miss you" to lost friends. Well, I'm going to submit a post for all of the lost bloggers.

~Emma

Friday, June 28, 2013

Something Just Totally New

While I was sitting at my laptop this rainy Friday, slowly leveling up my Worgen on WoW, I came up to the brilliant idea of posting a certain piece of work here to see what you guys think.

Now that piece of work happens to be the composed, novel-format of a roleplay I started on Figment called Briar Valley.

I wasn't really sure what I was expecting when I started it, but it has grown into something massive that I decided to record.

Now, the RP is a crazy spin off of 'Alice in Wonderland', with the base similarities, but a bunch of added ones, and also some twisted concepts.

For example, in this world, there is a force (I guess you can call it that), called the MIST - but more on that later.

Basically what I decided was that I'm going to post the chapter by chapter completion of the novel (or, as far as you can get calling it an actual novel.)

It'd really difficult organize it as such because, for those of you who have or who are currently RPing, posts for different characters happen sporadically, and even in the middle of different conversations. So in truth, doing this task is quite difficult.

I think I'm working on a chapter seven right now, however the RP itself is WAAYYY past what I'm recording right now.

However, I've posted the novel on Figment, but I'm thinking of also posting it here to get some more feedback, such as how to make it more official sounding (such as: cutting out a character and rewriting parts because that character posted twice and then left *sad face*).

I'll post the beginning of chapter one right here now, and if you guys like it, I'll make a page with some explanations, post the rest of chapter one, then, hopefully, post the rest of the chapters as well.

I guess I should tell you why I'm doing this. Well, here it goes...

I'm hoping that once this RP is finished, or if it ends prematurely I'll finish writing the novel, I'll edit, maybe even rewrite, the ENTIRE novel to make it official  then get it published under the names of everyone who contributed from the RP.

Crazy, right?

Anyhow, for now, I'd say, check out the over, read the beginning, and please please tell me what you think.

I should also mention there is a bit or swearing (I can't tell you exactly where), but nothing horrendously rated R or anything. Mostly just random exclamations when a character gets angry at something (but I don't think I had to explain that).
OH, I should also, um... er... say that there are a couple, rather, gruesome scenes involving Dr. Stine (as you will come to know). Not so much along the lines of fighting, but for "scientific discovery." Emphasis on the quotation marks.
However, I personally think it's hilarious, but I'll wait to see what you guys have to say.

----------

"Oh DOCTOR!" came the voice from outside the darkroom. It was a rather large house all together - well, large on the scale of comparing houses of Club Alley - mainly because it was part of the Master’s personal mansion-like residence. Marcus Club, also know well as the Master, ruled over the large, wood-and-thatch-and-broken-cobble stone “city” of Club Alley, snuggled between tall, dark trees with an ominous mud road leading in an out, usually a clear sign that you were going the wrong way.
Dr. Emile Stine sprang from his bed and kicked his door open to walk into the main room, rubbing his mussy, dark brown hair as he went and straightening a dark gold vest. Once in his lab, he saw his friend, Berny, pushing a gurney with a man strapped into it.
"Yeeeees?" Emile said, jumping into a chair and rolling it next to Berny to look at the man on the bed. "My God, what has happened to this poor man? His face is hideous!"
"He was born that way sir."
"I'm so sorry, you are a brave soul indeed.” He took a chart from Berny's hand and looked it over. Seeing as it was the Master's handwriting, Emile spoke in his voice:
"Dear Emile, there should be a Dr. in front of that, this is Mr. Jefferson. It is my sad duty to report that he has failed to pay for his zyhdrate fix and his debt is too much to let slip by. So he has sold his body to you in the hopes for scientific discovery.
Best of luck; the Master"
Emile tossed the clipboard away and hopped on top of Jefferson, straddling him over his chest. "Is this true?" The man was gagged so he couldn’t reply. All he managed was a feeble croaking noise. "Sounds like a yes to me!" Emile shouted in delight. “Berny, to the operating room!”
As he was rolled in that direction, he spotted Juva walking briskly down the long hallway, delivering recent results to the Master. She stopped by as Berny and the doctor were just leaving. She looked on with wide and care-to-explain eyes at the duo - Berny being, well, wonderful Berny, and the Doctor sitting on top of a poor man.
Somehow, however, she wasn't surprised. "Care to inform me, gentlemen?" Juva asked, deadpan. She looked over to scrutinize the subject. "Nice face," she mentioned. "Zhydrate debtor?"
Zhydrate was a drug Dr. Stine had invented - an addictive serum that made patients, for a while, exceptionally giddy, strong, and completely partial to ideas. Once it wore off, the patient wanted, needed, more, and would pay for weekly doses. Once they ran out of money, their body was usually sold to the doctor.  
Berny nodded in response.
She mirrored the movement. "Be right there," she called. She didn’t need to watch, but most of the time she found herself morbidly curious. Like many women who could survive in the alley, she found she wasn't squeamish around blood, and could even help sometimes if there were - to put it in the words of the Doctor - 'wonderful difficulties'.
Sometimes she would accidentally look into the eyes of the experimentee and feel a flash of regret, but that was where her cold detachment helped. Besides, their fault for buying the drug. You reap what you sow, and such.
She shook head, about to take back her words. She needed to get the Master's room in order, being his personal secretary of sorts - heaven knows how bad the mess is this time. He liked to slap papers down and leave. However as she made to move on, she was stopped by the doctors voice.
"Oh, it's a terrible thing my dear Juva," Emile said, hopping of Jefferson and putting his arm around her, walking her back into the room as the man was still strapped down. "This poor, unfortunate soul only wished to have help with his painful addiction to surgeries, which also leads to his addiction to Zhydrate."
"That makes little sense. Moreover I don't think I understand how it works."
"Well, it goes something like this!" Emile said as he sat Juva down and jumped to a trolley with a projector on it and started it up. As a picture appeared on the wall, he said, "Special thanks to my partner, the Grave-Robber.” The presentation began to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otdH3SLNx-s (LOL, note from moi, I have no idea what this is, so feel free to completely skip over it, like I did!)
"So Zhydrate comes in a little glass veil,” he said, holding up one; the small clear tube held a bright blue liquid.
"A little glass veil?" Juva asked.
"A little Glass veil!" repeated Berny as Emile took out the injector gun.
"And the little glass veil goes into the gun like a battery."
"HEERM HERRM!" Jefferson tried to cry.
Emile looked to the man. "And the Zhydrate gun goes somewhere against your anatomy," he went on as he pressed the injector against Jefferson's head and pulled the trigger. A shot of the blue liquid seeped into Jefferson's skull and he stopped struggling. "And when the gun goes off, it sparks and he's ready for surgery.” Emile paused, then shouted, “SURGERY!" Berny handed him an automated bonesaw and he revved it's battery.

----------

Laterz!
~Emma


P.S.
This is also being worked on over at Just Emma Games.

P.P.S.
Please pardon typos from the actual post, I'm rushing this and didn't have time to edit. I'll come back to that later.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

WWHHOOAA Look At That

Basically... I can't get into the July Camp NaNo to root on my friends who're actually doing it unless I make something/a book that I would then feel bad if I didn't finish :/

So, I'm going for a humorous short story that has no title and no plot or characters... yet...

Right now, since I needed a title, it's called Six Days of Rain, but I doubt it's going to stay like that.

So.

I don't really know what this means for the blog, but my summer is as hectic as it is already, and you can clearly see my number of posts per month hasn't exactly increased since the end of the school year. You can, honestly, blame that on the arrival of my cousin, aunt, and uncle from a six hour time difference staying at my grandparents' camp that has no wifi.

Done.

Here's another fair warning, I'm going to miss two whole weeks with two camps. Separate of course, not in a row. With one I might have some limited time to wifi since I'll be in a city, for the second there's actually a ban on electronics, so there's no way I can get on then.

Blah.

In other news, I'll try to keep you updated with NaNo and any other time I actually get on W101 while I continue my battle with Parallels :p

Laterz!
~Emma

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Wizard101 Tournament?

I think I love this.
The concept and the commercial.

No, no, I'm not doing it, but I've been checking up on their website and I'm impressed. Personally, I also see this as a "who has the same name as me?" deal :)

Ok, just kidding (but I did see three Valkoor Spiritblade's - in a row!).

For those of you have read Rising Shadow chapter one, you've read all about my "Seven Schools Party" - which is all but a foreshadowed adaptation of this!! (I love that feeling of unintended premonition) - I talked about how lower leveled wizards have to rely on skill to vanquish enemies while higher levels only have to have power to vanquish enemies.

Now, I'm not say that no skill is required for you level 80's, but be honest, go bask to Dragonspyre of Celestia and fight a monster - do you need much skill? Nope.

Anyway, I have to say that point it proved right here - a level 50 Ice Wizard by the name of Kennet Ironblade is currently in first place.

LEVEL FIFTY.

That's right smack in the middle! That's lower than my level.

Ok, sure, they fight people in their level group, but nonetheless, you would expect more level seventies. You don't see your first level 90 until 19th place, and even before then there pops up a level 29.

Basically, in a nutshell, I'm quite interested in this now.

Laterz!
~Emma


P.S.
The prologue to Chasing Shadows is right below this...... *look down*

Chasing Shadows -- prologue

Prologue
There is a legend. A long lost legend told eons ago by a famous Diviner, Amelia Dustheart. It was not a prophecy or the future of someone, but of an event. Such an event may or may not have occurred, but she came to call it the Rising of the Shadow. Who this event happened around and whom it affected was unknown, only that it went completely unrecorded by history textbooks, and become forgotten memories of the Headmaster’s. Whether or not this event foretold has taken place or has yet to take place will forever be unknown.
†††
A child sighed as he gazed out of a wide window streaked with cold rain. It was a lazy kind of rain that left one wondering where the wind had gone. It thunked against the glass in seemingly never ending buckets. The child twirled a strand of hair between his fingers, pulling it painfully at his scalp. He was deep in thought, yet at first glance it was hard to tell. 
He had to a shadow to chase.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Covers





Ta da!

Sorry about the blurriness of cover 3, I'm working on that. Obviously cover 1 is the same, and I really like the outcome of book 2. I really think cover 3 needs some work, but it's getting there!

Originally covers 2 and 3 had dragons on them, until I realized dragons do not incorporate themselves into all three books - only in book 1 (spoiler! OMG! Oh whatever, you've all read chapter 3... I hope). Plus, the sizing is ALL off :p



Here's a spoiler, book 2 involves a lot of pocket watches.
C:

The image for cover 3 originally inspired a large concept of the idea, so that's why I chose it over this:
Though you have to admit that is pretty epic.

Once cover 3 is settled I'll show you guys.

Laterz!
~Emma

These are in no way official, and I do not own the images, all copyright to image owner - I added text and patterns. 

Thursday, June 20, 2013

So Apparently It's Not All That Simple

Running Parallels I mean.

Currently, I'm working of getting a Window's desktop on my Mac laptop so I can play P101 and a variety of other Window based RPG's since Mac's are stupid and can't handle them (for shaaaame). One way to do this is by downloading a program called Parallels, which allows you run a Window's desktop and your Mac desktop at the same time. Great, right?

However, apparently you need to first have the Window's program on your Mac, and that's where google gets a little hazy. I've searched every possible way to try to find how to get Window's, but it either sends me to Parallels, to Boot Camp, or some vague answer about how to update to the lastest Window's version.

Thank's google.

And though you need Window's to run Parallels, the Parallels website only says "DOWNLOAD NOW =D" and sends you on your way with extremely little information. I was, however, able to search about whether or not you need Window's first to run Parallels - and that, at least, gave me a straight answer:

Yes.

Great.

Now my confusing question is this: Do you actually need Parallels? Because Boot Camp runs Window's, just not with Mac simultaneously. I was told you need to buy a copy of Window's, but Parallels runs with Boot Camp, which, for that, all you need to do is download.

I'm sure this would SO much easier if Parallels, on their front page, or at least the shopping page, states "YOU NEED WINDOW'S FIRST! CLICKY HERE TO GET IT!" and not just double cross you like that -_- I haven't bought it yet, and already all these vague answers are really starting to annoy me.

Basically, the overall point of this post is that it may take a lot longer than I thought to get some form of Window's - man, I was really looking forward to beating on some warfrats soon :( I guess I'll just go back to writing-and-editing land.

Laterz!
~Emma

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Yes, I just wrote a prologue

Okay, I know it's weird and all to have the prologue up after chapters one, two, and three have already been posted - but hey, I felt like it needed one >_< Read it below this post...

I've also gone through and edited SR chapter one again, but it's not like you have to go back and reread the whole thing.

Changes in a nutshell:
  • switched to past tense
  • added paragraph after Suri's dream
  • gave Juliana (ticket lady) her actual name (Tracy)
  • altered a bit of dialogue
Yeah, that's about it.

UPDATE:
Ooh, yeah I finished editing chapter 2 - basically the same changed as above. Yay!

I updated it on the original post, so the link on the fanfic page will remain the same.

On to chapter two now!
~Emma



P.S.
Got 13 books for summer reading :D
Also, thanks Destiny! :D

P.P.S
I'm also working on some tentative, totally unofficial covers for CS and S'sT. I'll put up the rough drafts when I think I've got something solid :)

Shadow Rising -- prologue

Prologue
There is a legend. A long lost legend told eons ago by a famous Diviner, Amelia Dustheart. It was not a prophecy or the future of someone, but of an event. Such an event may or may not have occurred, but she came to call it the Rising of the Shadow. Who this event happened around and whom it affected was unknown, only that it went completely unrecorded by history textbooks, and become forgotten memories of the Headmaster’s. Whether or not this event foretold has taken place or has yet to take place will forever be unknown.
†††
People screamed. Fires consumed buildings. Monsters tore through the streets in blind bloodlust, all driven by the force of chaos. Bodies of water all over the Spiral boiled as the darkness of evil swept over them. Land was torn apart in angry rifts, and into the depths rose leaping flames that burned to even look at. 
And thus there rose the shadow.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Book Update - Black Ivy is having a major change

So, now that schools out and such, I've finally been revisiting my editing process for Black Ivy (BI), and I've come to a huge conclusion:

A series.

Remember when I talked about the upcoming fanfic Maelstrom (M)? Yes, that was planned to be a companion to BI, but it wasn't going to have any major connections. However, due to ignoring math class and writing in my notebook that exact story, I ended up drawing a lot more similarities than I meant to.

When I finished BI, I knew there was going to be a sequel for it, taking place many years later and involving characters from that book. What happened was that M became the middleman of this series.

Whether or not it'll go beyond three books is beyond me, but right now it's a trilogy of sorts.

However I wanted to connect it more, so I added a hidden concept to all three. It involved some major editing to the ending of BI, but in the end I think it worked out :)

Another major change is also the titles. No long are the first two books called Black Ivy and Maelstrom, but they are now known as Shadow Rising (SR) and Chasing Shadows (CS - it takes place 4 years after SR). I don't know what your opinion of the new titles are, but the titles are now much more relavent to the underlining plot of each book. (The third book is called Shadow's Trial (S'sT - takes place 21 years after CS), by the way.)

The series, you may as well know, is called The High Bane Chronicles. The name is more or less fully explained in book 2, introduced in book 1, and hit with multiple cinder blocks, a grand piano, and set ablaze in book 3.

So I hope to get the ending of BI-now-SR up soon, now with school out and such :D

There will likely be a fourth book after, knowing how my mind works and all. I just can't hold in the inspiration XD

And I was on W101 this evening, so I didn't break my promise. Okay, maybe by a day, but I was sick and had to make up exams, so technically TODAY was my last day of school. Anyhoo, I checked out some of the new updates and such, then quested on my alt Elizabeth Jadewraith.

But I also discovered something else super awesome:
There's this program called Parallels that allows you to run Windows on a Mac - which means I could play P101.
^_^
So hopefully within this week that'll be downloaded and I'll have some adventures from Silver Emma - once again far too behind everyone else as per usual (I swear, that'll never ever change).

From the land of inspiration,
Laterz!
~Emma

Thursday, June 13, 2013

CONTEST OVER

Yup, it's June 13.

BUT...

Well... can you guess?

Boo people, boo!

So, due to a serious LACK of entries, the whole thing was a bit of a... well... disaster :(

Maybe I'll try again for something else. I don't know. Was it too hard? Too boring? Not enough details? Well, the first place prize was going to be a bundle of your choosing, but then the whole thing went down the drain so...

Until next time!
~Emma

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Well, in all honesty I've got to admit I'm quite bored.

WOAH. HANG ON. HALT THAT THOUGHT PROCESS.

I'm in no way, shape, or form bored with anything pertaining to W101. Got it? Good. Moving on.

I mean I'm bored with school. But no worries for me: seven more exams and I'm done :D

I've been writing a lot lately, and I think I'm going to be extending my series (non-W101 related). In fact, I assign songs to my books based on how they've either inspired me or relate to the theme of the novel. For example, my finished-editing-in-progress-failed-NaNo-novel, A Broken Web (it was A Glass Web, but I changed it), song is Demons by Imagine Dragons.

I actually got the idea after listening over and over to Radioactive (also Imagine Dragons), and from that I bore a whole new sequel called A Withered Web (which is technically book five if you're going chronologically). 

And then today I realized that each book so far in the series is paired - i.e. the characters have two novels of adventures before it moves on the to next set. For a long time, book 5 was going to be all by itself... until I made a map of epicocity.


Okay, given it needs some editing to make it more official looking, I'm saving up for this software called Campaign Cartographer 3. Right now, that's a... er... stolen picture from google images. Hey, I did erase a bunch of islands and make it all green and blue... BTW, the weird, straight line in the Shiftyng Sands territory... that's suppose to be like that :)

Anyway, see in the bottom left? Yeah, The Rotten Lands of War - aka, the setting of book 6!! ^_^ I inspire myself in the weirdest of ways.

I have a hand drawn map for settings of books 1 and 2. I also need to handdraw the settings of books 3 and 4, because those have a very specific land layout.

Book 5 was special because it had no land layout yet. So... now it does!

I'll be back on Monday, but with game updates.

Laterz!
~Emma

Thursday, June 6, 2013

*Pops out from behind vase*

Announcement!!

So... I suppose I can keep the contest going :) End date will still be June 13th. I hope there'll be more than two people entering, haha.

Laterz!
~Emma

*swings up into tree, quickly consumed by shadows*

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Activate Ninja Stealth Mode

I am here.

But I am not.

While school winds down and I fight procrastination and die under story ideas and the wonderful smell of candels, I promise, promise, I will be on W101 the day school gets out (June 17th). I will be on at midnight if I must, but I will do it.

Until then,
~Emma