Victory!!!

For the last few months, I've had some major writers block in some of my stories. I felt as if they were missing something really important. They all had a good amount of magic in them, and some politics, but I just realized a third thing very important in making these fictional worlds.

Over the last few days, I've been reading Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson. It's very good, and it showed me that third thing I was missing. In these worlds I'd created, there was no religion! There was a god or two, of course, but I was thinking of them in more mythological ways, less as beings worshiped by the people in my worlds. Also, these gods belonged to the same sort of religion. Everyone believed in them. Reading Elantris though, I realized the illogic in that. Everyone isn't going to believe in the same thing! Being Jewish, I can't believe I didn't notice that before. In real life, I see how my religion differs from others all the time, but I never thought to include it in my writing. Adding these religions can help stem tons of new story lines, and much more to write. Thank you, Brandon Sanderson!!!

Sick

I'm sick with the Swine flu, H1N1. It sucks. I'm missing so much school, and I'm dreading going back. I'm gonna be swamped with work when I get back on Monday. I was already still catching up on work.

On the other hand, I'm very excited for NaNoWriMo, which starts very soon!!! Sadly, I have no clue what to write about. All this sick time should give me time to think about it.

Work, work, and, uh, more work

Whew.... I've had so much homework this weekend. I missed most of last week, and had to make up all of the work this weekend. The flu has been going around Mercer Island, and my family caught it. My mom's boyfriend gave it to my mom, who gave it to Jordan, who gave it to Ezra and I. Luckily for me, most of the school was sick too. Over 200 kids were out on Tuesday and Wednesday!!! Even a lot of the teachers were sick.

Well, I just finished (sorta) my massive load of homework. I had 4 math assignments (I only finished 1. My math teacher is very lax on all of that, and said I had a while to do it all,) 2 science assignments, 4 history assignments, 3 language arts assignments, and a spanish assignment. What a load! And even worse, the trimester ends at the end of the week, so I need to make sure everything is in by then! I've also got a huge test on Friday on To Kill a Mockingbird. I'll write about To Kill a Mockingbird once I've watched the movie. I finished the book a while ago, but I havn't seen the whole movie yet.

Sorry I havn't posted in a while. It's not that I've been busy, but I havn't had anything to write about. I havn't seen a movie in ages. No new books to talk about, other than To Kill a Mockingbird. Hmm.... Oh! I do have a book to talk about soon. I read The Underneath by Kathi Appelt a few weeks ago, and participated in an author chat on this chat website. I'll talk about that one soon, too. Hmm... I havn't gotten much work done on The Necromancer Apprentice. Yeah, nothing new has really happened. I'm seeing two Shakespeare plays soon, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest. I tried reading The Merchant of Venice, but I gave up pretty quickly. It took me 10 minutes to even vaguely get the first page. And these are small pages.

Well, that's all really. I'll post soon. Oh, and to Bettina (and Jacoby. You havn't really talked 'bout them) good luck on the SATs!

New Background

My new background here is to represent my story, The Necromancer Apprentice.

The Necromancer Apprentice

Everyone else (aka. Bettina and Jacoby) have been talking about their stories, so why not talk about mine.

My story is about a 14 year old necromancer named Polsvend, who lives with his twin brother and the cruel old man who claims to have rescued them from their evil parents when they were babies. The old man is a master at necromancy, and teaches them both. Steensvend, Polsvend's brother, is adept at necromancy and idolizes the old man for his skills and for rescuing them. Polsvend, however, is a mediocre necromancer, having only successfully raised someone from the dead once, it ending in a miserable failure after the skeleton went berserk and tried to kill them all. They are both maltreated, although Polsvend more so, and Polsvend completely distrusts the old man. However, when Polsvend's suspiscions are confirmed with his brother's murder, Polsvend must go on a journey to find the truth about his family and avenge his brother. This adventure may mean more to the world than Polsvend knows, though. And it's already unlikely chances. How is an inexperienced necromancer supposed to fight an alliance of master's alone?

Oops. I sorta slipped from explaining the book to making it into a synopsis sorta thing. I started writing the story around last September. I just wrote the prologue to get my idea down. Then, I based the whole story off of that. I've been adding to it ever since.

I got the names from a few different things. One of them I named after one of my friends. A bunch were based off of the Dutch language. Some were just words that I morphed, like Literati and Senkor, two countries in the story.

I've had so many plot changes: My original plan was to have the Prologue take place in the past, and the real story having entirly different characters. It then changed to possibly being in the future. And then, it became  what it is today, being the present.

I have a lot more to explain, but this is enough for now.

Writing Day #2

My writing day yesterday went rather well. I had to spend the morning, until around 1:30 doing homework, and after that I wrote almost nonstop. I finished with about 1000 more words than when I started. Nothing else really to report on it.

Inkspell

The last time I read Inkspell, I never actually finished. Over winter break though, I finally finished reading it, and it was terrific!!! I loved it, especially the world the Cornelie Funke has created. Although in the book, it was Fenoglio who made it. And Fenoglio is not happy about it. Everything is going wrong: Cosimo the Fair is dead; the Laughing Prince has lately been known as the Prince of Sighs; and the Adderhead is practically in control of the land. However, when Dustfinger, Farid, Meggie and Gwin appear in Inkworld, things my start to get better. Or maybe they won't. Mortola and Basta are out for revenge toward Mo, and when he is shot in the Inkworld, Resa must keep him alive until Meggie can help with her magical voice. I absolutely loved it.

I think that the best part was probably the Spelt Mill. Meggie, Farid, and Dustfinger went to a Mill in Argenta, the realm of the Adderhead, and they are ambushed by Basta. What I loved was that Farid saves the day, attacking Basta and the Slasher, his minion, with fire.

Right now, I am reading Inkdeath, book 3. It is great so far! I can't wait to see how it ends. The end of Inkspell really made me want to read more. By the way, tomorrow is my full day of writing! I'll post on it tomorrow morning.

Full Day of Writing: Day 1: Part 2

I don't have that much to say about my first full day of writing. I goofed off a little. I watched TV. It was pretty much a lazy Sunday, except that I got some work done. I wrote about 600 more words, and did a few minor revisions. I also thought up some more ideas and plotlines. It was fun though. Maybe I'll schedule a few more!

Full Day of Writing: Day 1: Part 1

Well, I'm all set to write all day long. The only things that will probably stop my writing today is breakfast, lunch, dinner, and whatever my brothers will need while I'm babysitting them. (Hopefully they'll still be in a good mood after Sunday School at the synagogue.) I slept in a good long time, which is great. (Last night was a good night to watch Saturday Night Live.) So, now I can get to writing. (Wow. Short post.) I may post later in the day, not including night, to say how it's going.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year, everyone!!! It's finally 2009, and I'm confident that it will be a good year! (As long as we don't move.) First of all, later this year will be the start of high school! I can't wait to see how it's gonna be. Also, I hope to have finished my book by the end of the year. If many people could write a 50000 word novel in a month, I'm sure I can finish my rough draft with a years work. Only 44000 more words to go... to reach 50000. There are also some reading goals I want to meet. I want to have read some Shakespeare, for one. I'll figure out others later though. One Shakespeare is enough for me... for now anyways. My dad and I are going to see The Tempest in May, so I need to read that by then.

Lot's to do in so little time. A year is shorter than it feels.

Movies: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Marley & Me

In my opinion, all were terrific!!!

The Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, were both amazing, with terrific acting and awesome special effects. I personally liked Batman Begins better. It chronicled the beginning of Batman, and his fight against, and training with, the League of Shadows. The League of Shadows was a group that destroyed a city when it became to corrupt and terrible... and everyone in it. Their next target was Bruce Wayne, Batman's, home: Gotham City. It was completely run by criminals, and at their head was Carmine Falconie. Batman could have easily killed all the criminals, but was completely against killing. However, he might have to break this rule to fight the Scarecrow, the runner of an insane asylum who takes criminals and drives them insane with a hallucinogen which makes them see their worst fear. Even worse, the Scarecrow isn't Batman's biggest problem when he discovers a plot to drive all of Gotham insane. Sorry if I told too much. Got a little carried away there. Either way, it was insanely cool (literally!) I liked it more than the sequel, The Dark Night. Batman Begins had great acting, especially by the two villains, played by Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy (he was a little wierd.)

It seems that the villains are always played best. Both The Joker and... the other villain were played amazingly, by Heath Ledger, and... another person. I don't want to spoil the identity of the other villain, but I'll say his villain name: Two-Face. Both were beyond creepy. In The Dark Night, Batman is continuing his fight against crime with Liutenant Gordan and the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent. Their newest enemy is, of course, The Joker. His two biggest lines in the movie are, in my opinion, "Why so serious?" as he says before slicing a permanent smile into someone's face, and, the line Jacoby mentioned once, "Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push." Heath Ledger had his great, and last, proformance.

Marley & Me seems like the complete opposite of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. It was also great! Even though it was sad. I'm not a very realistic person. I want to become a bestselling author, although that isn't very realistic. I read mostly fantasy, and unless I'm suddenly in an alternate universe (which also isn't very realistic) those aren't realistic. See? Either way, I don't usually like these kinds of movies. It was hilarious, sad, and heart-warming. Owen Wilson was great in it, but there were a lot of other good actors. Like the many Marley's. The dog, Marley, was played by so many different dogs, because throughout the movie, Marley got older and older. The movie is about John Grogan's life with his new wife, his new job as a columnist, and most of all, his new dog. Marley seemed so sweet at the beginning, at the dog pound, and the couple was even more encouraged to get him with the nickname the owner gave him, clearance puppy, but things started going downhill with the line, "How are you still eating?" as Marley rolled around on the floor, licking up all of the spilled food. Now they knew why he was on sale. As it turned out, worst dog ever. Or so they thought. The movie was much better than I made it sound, considering I went on and on. I loved it, and the end was enough to make me cry. Terrific.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

This month is National Novel Writing Month! I found out about it yesterday and decided that this would be a good chance to get to work on a story I'm writing. If you go to the website, you can sign up for the NaNoWriMo challenge. The goal for the month on the site is to have written a 50,000 word novel by November 30. My goal, however, is 10,000 words by the end of the month. Right now, I've got a good start. I'm at 2,856 words. I think I'll be able to reach my goal, especially considering I started yesterday. I'd already had about 1000 words of it done before November, but I've gotten almost 2000 words in the past two days, so I think I can make it. If you want to find out more about my story, go to My Page on the site

FARWORLD WRITING CONTEST

I just finished reading my ARC of Farworld: Water Keep last night and it was phenomenal. I cannot wait for book 2. Sadly, I'll have to.

Either way, now that I've finished, I'll post the rules of my contest for someone to win a copy of Farword from J Scott Savage. Starting today, I'll be having a Writing Contest. Since Farworld is a fantasy book and because I love reading fantasy, to enter, you must write a short description of any fantastical creature. It can either be one that already exists (that doesn't mean that you can copy the description out of the book that the creature's in) or it can be one that you make up (I prefer those. Much more original.) The paragraph that I like the best wins a copy of Farworld. To send me a paragraph, email it to me at briantillinger at cs dot com. (Sorry, just piece that together.) You can send me the paragraph any time between today, June 7th, and some time in early July (I'll post the exact date soon.) You get that long because I'll be at camp for most of that time. In the email, you must also include your name and your blog URL. Also, it would be helpful if you would post a comment saying that you sent the paragraph.

Also, sadly there are rules about where the ARC can be sent. It can only be sent to adresses in the US or Canada. (Those aren't my rules. Scott said that they couldn't be sent to anywhere other than the US or Canada.) Luckily, J Scott Savage also said that he would hold a contest sometime for people in other countries to win one. Well, those are all of the rules. Good Luck!

Memoirs of a Huguenot Family by James Fontaine

My Culture Project at school is going great!

I am doing my project on my great x 11 grandfather, James Fontaine. He had an amazing life and cool family history. His great great grandfather was a member of the royal court in France in the early 1500s but was assassinated after he became a protestant and resigned his position on the court. James had trouble with the French because of this and fought French Pirates to defend his home in Ireland. If you want to read what really happened with him, his book is on the web. Click Here to go to it. Some of the parts are boring, but some are really unbelievable.

I am writing a 5+ page fictional story about him, focusing on the two pirate attacks he faced. Right now, I am outlining it. The outline is due this Friday, May 2nd. I'm actually pretty confident about this project. (Okay... I'm still worried about the speech part.) This isn't one of those boring school papers. This is an exciting story about something that really happened to my own ancestor. (Okay, that sounds a lot more fun when you say it that way.) I am about halfway through the outline already and I started it today! I have a feeling that I'll do fairly well. Wish me luck!

Ranger's Apprentice: The Battle for Skandia

I have just started reading Ranger's A.... whatever, I'm just going to say the second part from now on... The Battle for Skandia. So far, I'm on page 109, and the main characters have escaped from some enemies, been captured by new enemies, almost escaped, saved by old friends, discovered a plot to take over at least 4 other countries, and have found that the enemy has already secretly moved their entire army into Skandia, one of the countries they plan to conquer. I can't wait to see what happens in the next 294 pages. By the way, in Australia, this book is actually titled "Oakleaf Bearers" instead of The Battle for Skandia. Cool huh. This is such a great series... even though it is such a mouthful. Well, I have to get ready. Writing 1 WASL today. Wish me luck!

WASL Testing

Here in WA, at school, our standardized testing is called the WASL. It stands for Washington Assessment of Student Learning. I am getting kinda stressed out. I am confident in almost all of my subjects except for Writing. Ironic, huh. The kid who reads almost 24/7 and is thinking about being a writer when he grows up is not very sure of himself in writing. Usually, when it comes to school writing, I stink. However, when it comes to writing for fun, I'm actually OK. Why can't they just make school writing seem fun? Wish me luck on the testing. It starts next week.