I really have fantastic friends.

These pictures were drawn by David Webb. They are so incredibly accurate with my vision of Will and Victoria, I had to share them with you.

Thank you again to David! You are my favourite person!

Beyond annoyed.

So as I was on Twitter earlier I found a link through Nathan Bransford. It was an article about how the Harry Potter movies were better than the books.

The-article-that-should-not-be-named.


I rarely comment on such garbage, but this article annoyed me to no end. Below is my response.

This was obviously a great attempt at trying to generate traffic by inciting Harry Potter fans only days before the final movie is released. Congratulations! You succeeded.  And as much as I wanted to just ignore this article and not comment, it has annoyed me since I first read it, so I am back to add in my two cents.

I am a fan of the movies because I love the books. I overlook the giant plot holes in the movies because as a fan of the series, I know the things that are being missed. The movies are visually stunning and lots of fun to watch, but they can't even begin to compare to the heart that drives the books forward.

This comment "Harry himself remained stuck in the whiny, adolescent act two of his story, storming away from the Order of the Phoenix because he can’t come to terms with being important." made me laugh out loud. Do you remember being a teenager?

At the time of Order of the Phoenix, Harry is 15 years old and he'd just lost his godfather. The man who was best friends with his father. The man who could have helped him escape the horrors of his Aunt's house. With the loss of Sirius, Harry lost yet another connection to his parents who he never had a chance to know. And you thought a normal 15 year old grieving boy would just accept the fact that he is important? That he'd accept the fact that if Sirius weren't protecting him, he never would have been killed? Really? His reaction may not have been right but it was one of the many things that made me adore these stories. She made us feel his pain with that temper tantrum of his, she made us care that much more about him. She made him seem even more real.

And despite what you suggested, he does grow through the stories. By the end, he gives his life willingly in order to defeat Voldemort. It was a selfless and mature reaction, one that he likely wouldn't have done if he'd not gone through the loss of Sirius and the loss of Dumbledore. He gave his life in order to save so many others. Not exactly the reaction of a whiny adolescent, is it?

The movies were wonderful, but they were wonderful because they had a brilliant series as their basis. The books were the heart. They were what captured the hearts and imaginations of millions and the movies cashed in on that.

Edit: My friend, Jessi has a fantastic rebuttal to this article on her blog

I should be sleeping.

But instead, I am busy creating my new world. I am obsessed at the moment. Maps, descriptions, rules and just general tidbits of information are flowing onto the page. My characters are beginning to take shape in my head and the plot (though still just a basic outline) is starting to take form. Right now, it's the world that I am focusing on.

Originally it was going to be Earth, a few hundred years after a nuclear war had completely decimated the planet, but the more I worked on the world, the more I realized that it had to be a new world all together. And once I made that decision, the floodgates opened and I have so many pages of information. Most I will likely never need, but I have this intense need to write it all down in case I do need it some day. I have never done anything of this scale before so I am kind of going overboard, I'm sure.

One thing that I've done that I'm actually quite proud of is that I am actually creating what I refer to as my 'bible' for this world. I have it all sectioned off into different areas - world, characters, plots, etc. And I have everything (even the post it note map I made when this all came to me) tucked in there. What I am hoping is, that as I write this story - which is tentatively being called Hallow City, I will have any info I need right at my fingertips.

Like I said, this is all new to me, so I figure it's better to be over prepared for this story. The best part of it though, is that the world is feeling more and more real to me as I work on this. I can see the cities, the forests, the creatures, everything is coming together that will, hopefully, make it easy to slip into this world once I start working.

Fingers crossed that that is true.

So this is what madness feels like.

I was watching TV the other night, minding my own business, when a commercial came on and I was suddenly inspired. I suddenly had this entire new world forming in my mind. So, in the middle of the night, by the light of the TV I grabbed the closest paper and pen that I could find (a sharpie marker and post it notes) and began to jot down ideas and a very rough map of this new world.

And now I am completely focussed on this new world. I had no plot, no characters, nothing but a badly drawn map and a thousand ideas for this new civilization.

Last night I set to work redrawing the map, and as I was doing that the main character stepped up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. She basically said here I am and here's your plot. (yes I know exactly how crazy this all sounds)

Suddenly I began to realize who my characters were and the plot began to take shape. More notes, maps and character information started filling up the notebook I was sketching in. I now have a dozen pages of information on this new world that was created because of a ridiculous TV commercial.

Though I have to say, I am ridiculously excited by this plot and these characters. I am planning on starting to write some of it today. I have a thousand other things I should be writing but this one has all of my attention at the moment. So I am going with it.

What's the weirdest place you've gotten inspiration from?