Broadening My Horizons
Hey Dad, look it's the quote you branded into my head. XD But that is what this is about. Broadening my horizons in the writing world. I've been doing this for years, but a few new things stand out lately.
First, I'll start by saying things that helped before were my talks with Mom about Sherrilyn Kenyon. I look up to J.K. Rowling, James Patterson, and Sherrilyn Kenyon even though I don't read their work much. They are authors I look up to because of all the time and dedication they put into their work, their fans, and their social media presence. Another thing that helps me constantly is talking to my husband, Richard, and our brother, Eric about their stories, ideas, opinions on the stuff we watch and read. Full Sail University helped a lot. A special shout out to James, Lana, Chad, Rebecca, and Sonia for always helping out. Even though I'm just a novelist, and Full Sail really helped me create new things about my written worlds, see things from new prospective,and meet other great writers. At the beginning of this year I started having Accountabillibuddies (writer friends who support and help you achieve your goals). JJ and Ash helped me a lot. JJ made me read parts of my story that I was embarrassed about to her, and Ash helped me find one of my passions. Writing to help others know they are not alone in unfortunate situations.
So, I just finished reading Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. It's one of the books my grandma got me for my birthday. I finished all the books she bought me already. (Thanks to Elvin for getting me back into reading.) In the back of this edition of the book there is a conversation between the author and the director and the star of the film. They were talking about how proud they are of how the work came out, how emotional it made them, and so on and so forth. And it made me think of a conversation I had back in 2012 and a recent conversation I had with Michelle, one of my Accountabilibuddies. Back in 2012 when I published/was publishing Drag Me to Hell one of the people I was working with at Authorhouse said they saw my book as a movie and they could help me pitch it to Hollywood. I wanted to look into it, and part of looking into it would be learning about the movie industry through Full Sail. I politely turned them down because I knew I needed more in depth information before I looked into it. I didn't attend Full Sail until October 2014. By then it was barely a thought in my mind. In 2015, I had similar call about my book Head Hunters. But I already had decided I'd like my books to stay books. I even got a call this year about marketing Head Hunters more, but without a follow-up email from them I forgot. The thing is when reading the Simon vs. conversation, in the back of my head, I was reminded how it took James Patterson over ten years to put out the Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment movie. And as much as I was annoyed that I had to wait so long as a teen the movie came out perfectly. Both James Patterson and fans were happy. In the conversation I was reading it looked to be the same for Becky, Greg (director), and Nick (star). They loved how it came out with everyone's hard work. So Michelle reopened my mind to the movie idea. I should keep my options open, right? And another Accountabillibuddy, Garin wrote a screenplay, and film students from Full Sail made it a reality. Maybe I should learn more on the subject. Two other "bonus features" in the Simon vs. book were pics of the cast while they were rolling and part of the script. The script showed more to the family than the book which was really cool. I even looked up the cast of the movie to get a better picture of a character. ^-^ I'm glad it worked because between some books and their movies the characters looks and personalities can help a lot.
I've worked at StrideStar (a gaming company) since February of this year. I'm a writer and editor with them. On the first project we worked on we were partway through the script when I was hired on. The game after that our boss, Tony wanted us to have more creative freedom in the next game, so we're making the story, the characters, and everything from scratch. It's a lot of fun and a lot different than the last game. I got stuck on naming characters and writing character bios. Tony and everyone on the team helped me get the courage to name a character and write a bio for someone else. I feel like I'm getting the hang of it now. I still freeze up everyone once in a while, but it's getting easier. ^-^ Working on the character bios helped me create bios for the newer short story characters as well as see how the characters help fuel the story. Sometimes when we're talking about some things I'm working on. It makes me think of working on some of my short stories, mostly Escort/Recon, a short story about a first generation black ops (possibly not the right word but we'll find out later) sort of team keeping people safe from the Head Hunters. Next we're working on the GDD that reminds me of a more detailed story bible.
While I went out to get my tattoo for my birthday a few weeks ago, Richard and I went to Game Stop. I was looking at all the Pop Vinyls. There was a wall of them. I got two new Pops for my birthday: Ickis and Reptar. I was inspired to draw my characters as Pops. I know one of my classes at Full Sail also made me think of drawing my characters as collectibles. On my birthday, while I was waiting for my brother to come over, I set up the new project. I did research by picking out some of my favorite characters I created. There were thirty-eight. While I was setting up the book I thought of making two different ones for certain characters like my werecreatures, one of my characters who lost a limb, and a few others.I've drawn four so far. Adam helped me think of a color of Keith Shudo's wing color. Richard and Twin picked their colors for their characters. Eric forgot that I based a character off him, and that we talked about it. So drawing him while he was here was fun. I try the basics in my sketchbook then I do the real thing in the project book.
One thing I didn't even think about until now was I was also have been using some Transmedia writing when some of my Head Hunters characters got more vocal when I would scroll Facebook. I made them a page and my first thing was to share character bios. Then some videos, articles, and products would make me think of short story characters from the same universe like the main characters from Escort/Recon and Music Nymphs (both working titles). The most talkative are Daniya, Aria, Skylar, Chels, and most recently Miss Autumn. A few weeks ago I got notifications in the Head Hunters' page that someone like one of the links and shared it. It was then I realized that that even though the page doesn't have a lot of fans it does get views. I was talking to Michelle about it today as well. She knows a lot about social media, and we talked about when the best time of the day to post is and such. I post when I can for the most part, but some posts get more attention based on what the characters have to say.
I have two other Facebook pages: one is my professional author page and a Drag Me to Hell fan page. I use all the pages differently. For my professional page I share the work I'm proud of and more. The Drag Me to Hell page is for news of the book, the sequel I'm still working on, and sometimes things that make me think of that universe.
Today I talked to Sonia from Full Sail about how I've been doing since graduation. I told her about a brief job I've had, working at StrideStar, and what Full Sail still has to offer me. I can't wait to look into that further to see if it can help me with future goals. Maybe I should talk to Richard, Twin, and Kim before getting in over my head.
Hope everyone is having a good day. ^-^
First, I'll start by saying things that helped before were my talks with Mom about Sherrilyn Kenyon. I look up to J.K. Rowling, James Patterson, and Sherrilyn Kenyon even though I don't read their work much. They are authors I look up to because of all the time and dedication they put into their work, their fans, and their social media presence. Another thing that helps me constantly is talking to my husband, Richard, and our brother, Eric about their stories, ideas, opinions on the stuff we watch and read. Full Sail University helped a lot. A special shout out to James, Lana, Chad, Rebecca, and Sonia for always helping out. Even though I'm just a novelist, and Full Sail really helped me create new things about my written worlds, see things from new prospective,and meet other great writers. At the beginning of this year I started having Accountabillibuddies (writer friends who support and help you achieve your goals). JJ and Ash helped me a lot. JJ made me read parts of my story that I was embarrassed about to her, and Ash helped me find one of my passions. Writing to help others know they are not alone in unfortunate situations.
So, I just finished reading Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. It's one of the books my grandma got me for my birthday. I finished all the books she bought me already. (Thanks to Elvin for getting me back into reading.) In the back of this edition of the book there is a conversation between the author and the director and the star of the film. They were talking about how proud they are of how the work came out, how emotional it made them, and so on and so forth. And it made me think of a conversation I had back in 2012 and a recent conversation I had with Michelle, one of my Accountabilibuddies. Back in 2012 when I published/was publishing Drag Me to Hell one of the people I was working with at Authorhouse said they saw my book as a movie and they could help me pitch it to Hollywood. I wanted to look into it, and part of looking into it would be learning about the movie industry through Full Sail. I politely turned them down because I knew I needed more in depth information before I looked into it. I didn't attend Full Sail until October 2014. By then it was barely a thought in my mind. In 2015, I had similar call about my book Head Hunters. But I already had decided I'd like my books to stay books. I even got a call this year about marketing Head Hunters more, but without a follow-up email from them I forgot. The thing is when reading the Simon vs. conversation, in the back of my head, I was reminded how it took James Patterson over ten years to put out the Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment movie. And as much as I was annoyed that I had to wait so long as a teen the movie came out perfectly. Both James Patterson and fans were happy. In the conversation I was reading it looked to be the same for Becky, Greg (director), and Nick (star). They loved how it came out with everyone's hard work. So Michelle reopened my mind to the movie idea. I should keep my options open, right? And another Accountabillibuddy, Garin wrote a screenplay, and film students from Full Sail made it a reality. Maybe I should learn more on the subject. Two other "bonus features" in the Simon vs. book were pics of the cast while they were rolling and part of the script. The script showed more to the family than the book which was really cool. I even looked up the cast of the movie to get a better picture of a character. ^-^ I'm glad it worked because between some books and their movies the characters looks and personalities can help a lot.
I've worked at StrideStar (a gaming company) since February of this year. I'm a writer and editor with them. On the first project we worked on we were partway through the script when I was hired on. The game after that our boss, Tony wanted us to have more creative freedom in the next game, so we're making the story, the characters, and everything from scratch. It's a lot of fun and a lot different than the last game. I got stuck on naming characters and writing character bios. Tony and everyone on the team helped me get the courage to name a character and write a bio for someone else. I feel like I'm getting the hang of it now. I still freeze up everyone once in a while, but it's getting easier. ^-^ Working on the character bios helped me create bios for the newer short story characters as well as see how the characters help fuel the story. Sometimes when we're talking about some things I'm working on. It makes me think of working on some of my short stories, mostly Escort/Recon, a short story about a first generation black ops (possibly not the right word but we'll find out later) sort of team keeping people safe from the Head Hunters. Next we're working on the GDD that reminds me of a more detailed story bible.
While I went out to get my tattoo for my birthday a few weeks ago, Richard and I went to Game Stop. I was looking at all the Pop Vinyls. There was a wall of them. I got two new Pops for my birthday: Ickis and Reptar. I was inspired to draw my characters as Pops. I know one of my classes at Full Sail also made me think of drawing my characters as collectibles. On my birthday, while I was waiting for my brother to come over, I set up the new project. I did research by picking out some of my favorite characters I created. There were thirty-eight. While I was setting up the book I thought of making two different ones for certain characters like my werecreatures, one of my characters who lost a limb, and a few others.I've drawn four so far. Adam helped me think of a color of Keith Shudo's wing color. Richard and Twin picked their colors for their characters. Eric forgot that I based a character off him, and that we talked about it. So drawing him while he was here was fun. I try the basics in my sketchbook then I do the real thing in the project book.
One thing I didn't even think about until now was I was also have been using some Transmedia writing when some of my Head Hunters characters got more vocal when I would scroll Facebook. I made them a page and my first thing was to share character bios. Then some videos, articles, and products would make me think of short story characters from the same universe like the main characters from Escort/Recon and Music Nymphs (both working titles). The most talkative are Daniya, Aria, Skylar, Chels, and most recently Miss Autumn. A few weeks ago I got notifications in the Head Hunters' page that someone like one of the links and shared it. It was then I realized that that even though the page doesn't have a lot of fans it does get views. I was talking to Michelle about it today as well. She knows a lot about social media, and we talked about when the best time of the day to post is and such. I post when I can for the most part, but some posts get more attention based on what the characters have to say.
I have two other Facebook pages: one is my professional author page and a Drag Me to Hell fan page. I use all the pages differently. For my professional page I share the work I'm proud of and more. The Drag Me to Hell page is for news of the book, the sequel I'm still working on, and sometimes things that make me think of that universe.
Today I talked to Sonia from Full Sail about how I've been doing since graduation. I told her about a brief job I've had, working at StrideStar, and what Full Sail still has to offer me. I can't wait to look into that further to see if it can help me with future goals. Maybe I should talk to Richard, Twin, and Kim before getting in over my head.
Hope everyone is having a good day. ^-^
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