Suvudu Writing Contest

Upon denying some random person's friend request on Facebook, I see an Ad for a writing contest on the side of the page.
I, normally, don't click on these things. I just read them and move on. But the words "writing contest" hit me hard and I figured I'd send in my Vampire story since it's been a while since I actually queried it out.
The contest's qualifications are that the manuscript has to be between 50,000 and 150,000 words. I checked my story: 130,000 words or about around there. I punched the air and sent it off.
I don't know what's gonna happen, but I feel good about this. Good about the story, and good about sending it off. Which is a turn from how I was before: Withdrawn and terrified of sending it off for fear of rejection.
Well I've faced my fair share of rejection and now I'm ready for anything. :)
This is the site:
http://suvudu.suvudu.com/
The prize is a thorough edit by an in house editor and consideration for publication. (Big for any writer, right?)

They announce the winner March 18th.
Yet I refuse to linger around the site, itself.
I've sent my book off, that's all I can do. Now I play the "forget about it until the winners are announced game." :)
Haha play it with me?
I have to work on The Immortal's Guide anywho.

How are all of you?

Sheron Parris

I Went to Hogwarts!

And I bought a bundle (literally) in robes, wands, scarves, wallets, and a Quaffle ball for my little brother.
(Satisified sigh)

Me in Hogsmeade after just buying my Slytherin robes, scarf -- I'm holding Snape's wand. (Which is beautiful, might I add!)

Slytherin crest on the Slytherin robes. The material was BEAUTIFUL. Worth the $100. (YES, the robes were $100.) And there's even a wand pocket inside a flap on the robes. JUST found that out like a few days ago. HA.

Me and one of my biffles at the park. Had a blast. :)

Quaffle. With the Hogwarts Crest on it. XD

Hogwarts Castle. XD

Severus Snape's Wand. <3

Dawww! I love this boy! <3 I was talking to him while I took the shot, like an idiot. XD We were at Friday's. Mmm I miss him so much. =[

BRANDON! AHH! Haha I don't know where I was looking when this shot was taken but geeze, that boy right there is my world. One of the best people I could ever know. XD

Lemme just say that the trip to Florida was fantastic, my friends were the best, I was surrounded by love, calmness, and I could breath easily for the first time in...literally ever. This trip opened my eyes to the exact anxiety and stress New York harbors like a bad plague. We New Yorkers are known for being "rude" and "stressed" but I did not realize how those very catalysts sprang into action into our very air! Down in Florida, there was no "rush rush rush" mentality, everything was much calmer, and people actually breathed (or rather, smoked), but all the same, I love it, and I'm seriously considering transfering colleges because I absolutely hate where I am right now (in terms of life). Another thing I was forced to come to terms with.

I'm depressed. Being up here, I just thought my lack of desire to get out of bed was...I don't know...laziness? Turns out, no, I'm seriously depressed. I used to think I was depressed back in my Middle School days, and I'd gotten over it as I got older. Apparently not. Apparently, not wanting to leave your house or do anything isn't...normal. Who knew?

The only way I could have seen this, is, of course, if I left the state that was causing the problem. I can't express how horrible I feel up here compared to down there. (Sigh)

That, and I haven't written a thing since I got back. (Ducks and hides from booing and hissing.) I know, I know, just...there's that lethargy again. I don't want to do anything.

I believe I'm subconsciously waiting for my new laptop (that's coming this Wednesday), and I'm particularly bummed because my house was robbed while I was on vacation down there.

Yes, I know. I thought my mom was lying too when I got the phone call (for in the 19 years I've lived here, we were NEVER robbed -- until I go away.) And guess what was stolen? My Playstation 3 and my bookbag. All of the contents dumped out onto the driveway. My mother and I gathered that this person or persons needed the bookbag to store the Playstation 3. Needless to say, they got both and took off.

(Sigh)

But! My mother jumped into action when I returned (on a rather nasty flight, must I add), and she brought me a brand new, 160 gigabyte Playstation 3, and the game that I'd lost (for it was in the old Playstation when it was taken), so ha, in some respects I'm better off than I was before. (My old Playstation 3 was one of the brand new models when it'd FIRST come out and was a measly 40 gigs.)

I disliked, however, the way my father reacted to the news once finally informed over Wendy's.

Now, he'd said before that he would, and I quote, "Break into the house to teach them a lesson." Them, being my mother and my family (they're divorced), because we used to have this thing about never locking doors. We never had a reason to. We all felt insanely secure in our house and welcomed the friends that would walk in whenever they desired. (That's changed since the break-in obviously, every door now has a lock and a doorbell and we've all got keys. It makes me feel like a prisoner in my own home. Another reason I desire to leave: I no longer feel safe.)

But yes, this man smiled once I told him what happened and he then said, "I knew it was only a matter of time. You know this person is gonna come back. You know he is. You all need locks and...."

At which point, I then tuned him out because he went into a tirade about locks and keys and how my mother should get the dollar locks at Home Depot. (gagging gesture) There are points, I will admit, when I hate that that man ever concieved me. What kind of a way is it -- for you to act like you've oneupped your family, no less -- oh, excuse me, EX-family, by being RIGHT about them getting robbed?

Doesn't it seem like you'd be...I don't know...more sympathic? More...RELIEVED that my little brother and my mother (who were both in the house when it happened) weren't...hurt in the process of a measly Playstation 3 being taken? But NO, you decide to go on about how right you were and how -- LIKE I REALLY NEED TO HEAR THIS -- they're going to come back?!

It makes you look terrible, Dad, just TERRIBLE. And newsflash, BECAUSE you even said, those months ago, "I'm going to break into the house to teach them a lesson." AND IT HAPPENED, we can go to the police and tell them we have prime suspect because YOU opened your MOUTH, said those words, and THEN IT HAPPENED.

So you've no right to get all sanctimonious. It makes you look even worse than you already ARE.

Ugh. I'm absolutely disgusted right now.

Need some tea from my Slytherin House cup to soothe my nerves. (sigh)

Ah yes, I'm a Slytherin. ;) And Hogwarts was beautiful. The entire castle was a ride. Worth it. We went on that one twice. Haha. I must go back.

Oh oh oh, my wand is a Birch wand. And it's gorgeous:

X Book Covers

So upon visiting LRenee's blog, I saw all her wonderful work and the book covers to go along with them and I was suddenly inspired to create a book cover for my newest work in progress: X. Now, I posted I believe the first chapter of X up on this blog (Chapter 1 | The Rest of Chapter 1) and I can't remember if I got good feedback or not but it is a novel that has taken on a life of its own.

Summary:
A girl (nameless throughout the whole book), experiences her first kill and is then taken in for questioning by the police. But instead of recieving a life sentence for her crime, she is inducted into a world of killers and it is here, within this organization, that she must find out who she is and what drives her dark desires by answering the ultimate question:
"Why do you kill?"

Here are the book covers I did today:

 

A bit about this one: I think it suits the novel perfectly. It is a YA novel with extreme dark overtones, but it is a YA novel nonetheless and I feel this cover is more...approachable for a YA audience as well as giving us a glimpse of what the book could possibly be about:

A lonely girl cast in strange darkness. 

 

 A bit about this: The second one I did, this cover makes me smile. It's rather in your face about her, I find. The fire in her eyes, the blood trailing down her cheek; indeed, the main character is trapped in darkness and she is both a slave and master to her deadly urges.

 

And last but not least, the underground stairway that immediately caught my attention. I love this one because the organization she has been "inducted" into is, indeed, very underground (literally and actually) and she exists in this place for a long time. Indeed, the title of the book, X, is the name of, not this organization, but the whole system she is now apart of as a whole.

I'm overjoyed honestly, with the results. Tell me which one you like the most, having read the first and/or second chapter of the book?

That'd be fantastic.

Happy Writing.

Sheron Parris 

Ascendance?

I find it difficult to say just what exactly is going on with me. I'm changing, that much I'm aware of. Personality-wise and mentally. I just don't know what the outcome will be.

I haven't posted in a while, this I know, and this I apologize for. Things have been happening.

I'm the Short Story Author for my college's newspaper as of last Tuesday. Isn't it great? I have about a week I think to decide what story I want to put up. I have two in mind but both are maddeningly grotesque and bloody. One more so than the other. Hm. I'll see.

Either way, I'm terribly happy about the opportunity.

And of course, I leave for Florida on Saturday, the 12th. I can't wait to get down there and have fun with my friends. Much needed.

I'm in the college library, just got out of class, and I've a hankering for chips.

-_- I also desire to write some more of "X."

I daresay, I must start carrying around a USB stick/flash drive once again.
Convienent, and also, for we writers, necessary is it not?

Sheron Parris

Great Night's Sleep

So I finally -- after not really sleeping all week -- had a great night's sleep last night. My friend Paul came over and I showed him The Rocky Horror Picture Show (to my immediate horror, I was SHOCKED to learn he had never seen it before), and then we watched Alice in Wonderland (2010) before he went home. Once he left, I immediately went to bed as the week at college had rendered me absolutely exhausted.

However, I woke up at ten o'clock, absolutely well rested and able to get on with life. There was just one question -- what would I do? It was true I had textbooks to read, work to complete...etc. But I found I'd rather learn from the teacher than read from a textbook (which is odd because I love to read). Yes, not even the interesting textbook of Psychology could interest me in the words beyond the "interesting" cover page. (Image above)

Yet alas, I am shifting through the tomes of work (namely Geography right now) and I'm rather bleh about the whole thing. I don't know what's wrong with me. Either it be just laziness or general lack of care. Something's changed in me -- hmmmm.

Either way, last night I tried to write some of my book. I fleshed out a key point in the story -- or what I thought was a key point in my story, but alas, now I'm considering changing it completely. Why are we writers such fickle, perfectionists?

I know I am not the only one.

Your work...your child, as it were, must be honed and perfected, before anyone's eyes can lay upon it (beside the obvious critic or fellow writer friend), and then it must be edited, edited, and edited again until you are absolutely exhausted with its words.

Or simply...you're one of those that writes with ease, doesn't fret over anything, and just sits there, content with the finished project?

However you write, is it not the best part about writing -- the actual writing? -- the forming of the words, the story? And even though it may be filled with grammatical errors and just general ridiculousness, you can't help but go back to it -- always and try to figure out how the story goes (for I do not know -- I figure that out when I sit down to write). But perhaps, it would do me good, no, to perhaps write out an outline for this story? (For whoever said that a sequel was easier to write than its predecessor?)

My tea's gone cold. -_-

I must procrastinate elsewhere. Ta-ta for now my lovely friends.

-Sheron Parris

Everything New

I've started college recently. Have to say it's rather fun, but it's only been the first week, I won't hold out that it can get worse as the semester continues. However, all of my focus is on a trip to Florida I am taking in February for a week. I'm going to spend the week with a very old friend and we're celebrating his birthday. A trip to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure...and all the madness inbetween. I can't wait to see him again. It's going to be a wonderful reunion.

Now, for the writing. Honestly, I haven't been writing much -- nothing came out right, and if it did, I found I couldn't continue writing it. I've found that when things in my life aren't straightened out, any sort of creative communication I wish to express gets tangled and caught up and I am unable to express myself. Negative energy, eh?

Regardless, I'm still writing, even currently (just set aside time to type up this blog post), and I've gone way back to the beginning of the sequel, to pan everything out, flesh out the story, introduce new characters, express characters and their motives, and just general start the ball rolling in a way that would get me -- and anyone else -- to want to keep reading it.

I'm absolutely exhausted so I'm going to finish typing up these scene and head to bed. Oh, and yes, I've changed the layout of my site. What do you think?

-Sheron Parris