Incorrect Quotes

I was inspired recently by one of my friends to find incorrect quotes using ScatterPatter’s generator (Warning: some of the quotes in the generator have language– I’ve changed any of the language for this blog post)

These aren’t from my book or anything. They’re just funny quotes that I thought fit my characters. (or didn’t fit and I still found funny)

Flame: English is a difficult language. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
Em: You need to stop.

Nathaniel: WHAT’S YOUR TYPE
Flinn: Anything, honestly, but feisty brunettes especially
Nathaniel, desperately, as Flinn bleeds out: YOUR BLOOD TYPE
Flinn: Oh! B positive.
Nathaniel: DON’T TRY TO CHEER ME UP JUST TELL ME YOUR BLOOD TYPE
Flinn:

Vera: Where’s Em, Choi, and Flinn?
Michael: They’re playing hide and seek.
Vera: Where?
Michael: I don’t think you get how this game works.

Nina: Rules are made to be broken.
Em: They were made to be followed. Nothing is made to be broken.
Flinn: Uh, piñatas.
Choi: Glow sticks.
Michael: Karate boards.
Nathaniel: Spaghetti when you have a small pot.
Nina: Rules.
Em:

Em: In light of what you did for me, you can hug me for four to five seconds.
Choi: FORTY FIVE SECONDS?!?
Em: No! Four to five seconds!
Choi: Too late!!!

Nina: Nothing in life is free.
Flinn: Love is free!
Choi: Adventure is free.
Em: Knowledge is free.
Justyn: Everything is free if you take it without paying.

Flinn: You can de-escalate any situation by simply saying, ‘Are we about to kiss?’
Flinn: Doesn’t work for getting out of speeding tickets, by the way.

Em: Dumbest scar stories, go!
Nina: I burned my tongue once drinking tea.
Flame: I dropped a hair dryer on my leg once and burned it.
Flinn: I have a piece of graphite in my leg for accidentally stabbing myself with a pencil in the first grade.
Chio: I was taking a cup of noodles out of the microwave and spilled it on my hand and I got a really bad burn.
Michael:
Michael: I have emotional scars.

Choi: Posts a super low-quality image to the group chat
Em: If I had a dollar for every pixel in this image, I’d have 15 cents
Choi: If I had a dollar for every ounce of rage I felt in my body after I read this text, I would have enough money to buy a cannon to fire at you
Michael: Actually I did the math, Em would have $225, not $0.15.
Em: Fam I’m right here….
Vera: If I had a dollar I would buy a can of soda 🙂
Choi: while you’re there could you buy me an apply juice please?
Vera: Sorry I only have a dollar
Choi: 😦
Michael: Hey I just realized my friend is right, Em would have $22,500 because it’s a dollar for every pixel, not a cent
Vera: If I had $22,500 I would buy a can of soda and an apply juice
Michael: You can buy anything you want with $22,500
Rani: Yeah and they want soda and apply juice
Michael: Apply juice to what
Nina: Directly to the forehead
Em: Great chat everyone

Em: Can I be frank with you guys?
Nina: Sure, but I don’t see how changing your name is gonna help.
Flame: Can I still be Flame?
Vera: Shh, let Frank speak.

Okay, that’s all for today. 🙂 I’ll have a legit post sometime soon. Meanwhile, you can get updates by signing up for my newsletter.

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Happy Birthday To Em Gades!

Being a character would be a miserable life, methinks. You’re constantly having the worst of the worst happen to you, your own author is trying to break you as much as possible, and your best friends are dying all around you. (Or you’re dying, as being a side character increases those chances by 31.29838%.) However, the lovely thing about being a character is that you can be sixteen two years ago, seventeen last year, and sixteen again this year because your author is going back and editing– all while being only two years old, because your name wasn’t written on paper until two years ago.

All that to say– Em Renee Gades turns… 18? Maybe? Two?

And as celebration, I ask you to enjoy these lovely pictures from her Pinterest Board.

Liebster Award!

At some point a year or so ago I said I didn’t do tags. I insisted that I wanted to keep this site “strictly professional,” because I thought it would attract publishers and agents. And then I started looking around at other people’s author sites and I realized something:

Being professional doesn’t mean being boring.

So throw away all that I said about being professionally boring. From here on out, I am going to be professionally enthusiastic, professionally entertaining, and professionally being somewhat unprofessional.

That said, I have been tagged by the lovely Grace, for the Liebster Award. I did this tag on my other blog a few years ago, but I’m really excited to get to do it again. And thus, the rules:

The Rules

Give a thanks to the blogger who has nominated you (thank you, Grace!)

Answer the eleven questions he/she has asked

Nominate eleven more bloggers for the award

Make sure that they know you have nominated them

Ask your eleven nominated bloggers eleven questions

The Questions:

When did you first start your blog?

I first started this blog on July 16, 2019. Reading over that first post is really interesting, because, while I still agree with a lot of what I said, my writing style has changed so much. I’m really blessed to have grown since I penned that post.

What’s something you want to blog about but haven’t yet? Why?

What it’s like to be published. 😉 And I haven’t blogged about it yet because… well, I haven’t been published. Thus, I’m doing the second-best thing, blogging about what it’s like to pursue publishing.

What’s your dream job?

Hm… it’s really hard. Let me think about this for a minute… I’d have to say… a novel writer. 😛 Or perhaps a missionary.

Name a movie you want to watch but haven’t yet. Why?

Let’s see. I want to watch the new Black Widow movie, but it obviously hasn’t come out yet. I’d like to watch the Indiana Jones movies. I’d like to watch the new Emma. I’d like to watch Ender’s Game. I haven’t watched most of them yet because I don’t have the time/money to rent them.

What’s your favorite topic to debate about? (Assuming you like to debate…better for you if you don’t.)

Whether women are biblically allowed to be pastors, and predestination. (Here’s a really good article about the later category)

Who has been your biggest supporter in life?

My parents. They drive me crazy sometimes, but they also support me so much. Mom’s super creative and encourages me to pursue my dreams and interests (She’s an ENFP if you’re wondering) and Dad helps me in the more practical side of pursuing my dreams and reminds me that sometimes I have to start from the bottom and climb to the top.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

Colorado.

What’s something you don’t like, even though most people do? (It could be a book, TV show, song, anything!)

That one popular girl at school. (Kidding. 😉 ) I don’t like big group events. It’s something my sisters (and the rest of the family and my entire youth group) don’t understand, but I can’t stand loud, “fun” environments. They stress me out so much and I often go home dead-exhausted and sick. I also hate loud noises/music. Oh, and mainstream Christian music, for the most part.

What makes you stop and think? (Roses? Poems? Big words?)

The mountains. The mountains are pretty much my favorite place in the entire world. In the mountains, you really start to understand how small you are and how big God is. The colors are more vivid and the air is fresher.

When you were younger, what did you want to be when you “grew up”?

An artist. Nothing has changed too much.

If you could make up a question to ask yourself as the final one in this list, what would it be? (For example, “Why was Grace too lazy to create a legitimate question?” By the way, I’ve an answer to that. It’s not laziness; it’s ingenuity.)

It would probably be: What is a controversial topic you would like to write about? Or perhaps “What is something you are scared to write?”

My questions:

1. What is the hardest part about writing for you?
2. How much sleep do you get on average?
3. What is your favorite quote? Why?
4. What’s your MBTI, Ennegram, and Hogwarts House?
5. What is something that can make you laugh ever time you read it?
6. What’s the weirdest dream you’ve had?
7. What is your sense of humor? (Share with us something you find funny)
8. What is something you do that you get annoyed with yourself about?
9. Fight or flight? Why?
10. Would you rather remain locked in a cozy room with good snacks and a computer for the rest of your life or be at a party with tons of people and loud music and good food and a notebook and pencil for the rest of your life?
11. What is your greatest fear?

And to tag some humans:

Key Word

Jane Austin’s Lightsaber

Well, Go Read

Angela Watts

Sixty-Something Trees

An Ordinary Pen

Smudged Thoughts

The Stories Are True (Yes, I know she’s already been tagged by someone else. But I am curious at her answers to these questions)

Myths, Magic, and Madness

The Red-Hooded Writer

And I’m not going to do an 11 because I’m rebellious like that.

Disney Character Blog Tag

If any of you have known me personally for any amount of time, you will know that Disney is something I hold near and dear to my heart. Thus, the most obvious way to celebrate my love of Disney is to make a blog tag– I am a writer, after all.

Rules for the Tag:

1. Link back to the tag’s creator
2. Link back to the person who tagged you
3. Pick 10-12 of your favorite Disney Characters
4. Chose which of your cast of characters (whether from your current or a former WIP) reminds you of those princesses and tell us why.
5. Tag 4-7 other people
6. (Optional) Use the graphic I created for the tag

For my characters, I’m going to use the canon Disney princesses– that is, the ones from the official lineup. Let’s begin!

Snow White– I think Cia is the most similar of all of my characters to Snow. Both are hardworking and somewhat fearful, being aware of what the world has to offer but not wanting to embrace it.

Cinderella– To be honest, Cinderella is my least favorite princess. (Probably because when I was little, the five princesses I was aware of were Belle, Aurora, Cinderella, and the two Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me watch because they showed their bellies. I later found out that it wasn’t the midriff-showing that my parents were opposed to– rather, the blatant parental disobedience portrayed in the films.) Anyways, to me it was always a competition of which princess was the best, and as Aurora wore a pink dress and Belle liked books, Cindy fell to the back. All that to say, one of my favorite characters, Nathaniel, resembles Cinderella the most. They are both loyal and hardworking, caring for everyone. They know when to submit to authority and when to stand against it.

Aurora– As the princess that speaks the least in the very movie named after her, Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty) would have to remind me most of Michael (I have officially decided to keep that name for him, FYI.) Michael is quiet and smart, emotionally driven and passionate, though he keeps most of those feelings inside.

Ariel– Both Vera and Ariel are incredibly curious and want to find out more about worlds that they aren’t allowed into. (Vera even sneaks into an official Alliance event at one point, with that being part of her reason.) Sometimes they’ll go through less than scrupulous means to get what they want, but they are both innovative and eccentric.

Belle– Defiantly Laurel (or Flame, depending on which draft you’ve read.) They’re both bookish, a bit dreamy, and are incredibly kind. I could totally see Laurel falling in love with a beast.

Jasmine– Jasmine is kind but with an incredibly rebellious streak. Personally, I like Jasmine from the live action Aladdin better. Overall, I think Jasmine reminds me the most of Em Gades. They’re both stubborn, and can submit to authority as easily as they can rebel against it.

Pocahontas– I’ve always viewed Pocahontas as a very graceful character. She’s very composed, and can take the lead when she desires. With her personality and intelligence, she would remind me of Angelica Leigh. (A character who comes in later in the Reflections series.)

Mulan– While Mulan’s sense of humor doesn’t match Flinn’s, the risk-taking-for-someone-they-love aspect certainly does. They both also share the longing for adventure as well. And I’m sure that Flinn would be perfectly happy with a small, sassy red dragon sticking around to joke with.

Tiana– Tiana is incredibly hardworking and down to earth. While none of the princesses are cut out in a way to be incredibly sarcastic, Tiana’s ability to actually joke around, coupled with her determination, would make her the most like Nina out of my cast of characters.

Rapunzel– Choi would probably be my most Rapunzel-like character. He’s bubbly and outgoing, and rather naïve about the world and how it works. Like Rapunzel, he’s excited to see what life has to offer him, and he believes everyone is his friend.

And I tag:

Maya

Chelsea

Jenna

Angela R. Watts

Sarah

And you!

Character Profile: Vera Knight

Vera is one of my favorite characters– she’s one who doesn’t get a ton of screen time, but she’s a fun character that I have put lots of thought into.

Full name: Vera Winters Knight

Age: Sixteen

Birthday: June 29

Born in: Third Region of the Alliance

Favourite colour: Purple

Favourite food: Fancy, high-end food that she can get when sneaking into Alliance parties

Likes: Being smart, making things, puns, being alone, breaking the rules, outsmarting people, joking around, being dramatic, saying “anywhosie.”

Dislikes: Too many people, being forced to do something, oppressive rulers, blood.

Vera is a sweet, brilliant, and somewhat chaotic child. She’s an ISTP 7w6, and loves creating things. Throughout the Reflections’ events, she sneaks in her own weapons, creates weapons out of things she finds, and just does whatever she finds interesting in the moment. She’s likable and everyone gets along well with her.

Opening/Closing Lines

“I’m Vera, but you can call me V. You excited about the ball tonight?”

“I’ll be fine.”

[everything else is under rewrite.]

Aesthetics

Happy Birthday to a Character!

Your favorite crazy author is back, y’all. (Okay I’m probably not your favorite. I’m not even my favorite. My favorite crazy author is probably Nadine Brandes. She’s amazing and writes fabulous books.)

Anyways, all that to say, one of my characters, a character who has gone through so many name changes I’m not even sure which one he’s going by at this point, is having a birthday today! So happy birthday Jackson/Mitchel/Michael Leviathan! (I’m like 35% sure I forgot one of his aliases but, y’know, it’s okay.) Unfortunately, because he only lives inside my head and on the paper, he doesn’t actually age. Also he’s born about 900 years from now, give or take, so his great-great-grandmother probably hasn’t even come into this world yet. All that to say, happy birthday to a beloved character who some of my lovely beta readers have abnormal amounts of fondness to. (TBH, he’s not in my top 3 favorites. But he’s still great. :P)

And as a birthday celebration, I shall present some of his aesthetics from his Pinterest board. (I take no credit for any of this stuff. Everything is from the wonderful creators who made it.)

Also, yes, I did forget my favorite two characters’ birthdays (Flinn’s being August 29 and Nina’s being October 17.)

And yes, you didn’t ask for any of those aesthetic photos but, y’know, it’s a party and what says party better than trauma and PTSD aesthetics for a mostly innocent character?

Music

I interrupt the regularly scheduled post for music. Because wouldn’t we all rather listening to music than reading E’s rants about writing?

Okay, so the formatting is a little wonky, because apparently this theme isn’t perfect for adding Spotify playlists, but here we are anyways. I’ll explain the songs a bit after the music. (Possible language warning for some of the songs.)
Oh, one thing. I’m pretty terrible at song congruence, so these songs don’t fit in a wonderful melodious pattern. It has more to do with the lyrics/meanings and how that fits with the character than with the playlist itself. I apologize in advance to the people who hate listening to badly ordered playlists.

The first song is “The Hanging Tree/Come Little Children.” This song very much reminded me of the Reflections–both because the series of events in the book have been compared to the Hunger Games (Fun fact: I haven’t actually read The Hunger Games), but also because “Come Little Children” is such a haunting melody that starts out seeming really pretty but gets creepier as you listen to the words.

2-13 are characters in the series. I’m not going to tell you who is who because [SPOILERS], but I will let you know that the songs are based off the order that the characters are introduced. (By name– So Nathaniel’s song isn’t in the list until he’s introduced as “Nathaniel” and Em can stop mentally calling him “The Silent Boy.”)

“The Parting Glass” is just a beautiful song, and with the amount of goodbyes that have to be said through the series, the song fits.

“Battlefield” is a song that fits well for the Manumission– the rebel organization that some characters get tangled up in throughout the series. It’s also fitting for The Rebellion, the final book of the trilogy.

“Start a War” honestly works for nearly anyone in the series at any point in time.

And that’s all I have, folks. Again, sorry for the wonky formatting– both of the post and the order of the music.

Do you have playlists for your characters? How do you find songs that fit them well?

Writing Wednesday: Readers

This week’s post is going to be a touch shorter because I’ve been busy with school and trying to motivate myself to write the second draft of The Recalling.

How do I create a story that people want to read?

– Zee

By writing it.

All joking aside– don’t write to be read. Write because you love your story. Write because your characters have something they want to say. Feel free to–no, certainly do– focus on character building and archetypes and all of that fancy stuff. But at the core, your story should be something that you want to write– and something you’d love to pick up and read as well.

Now, if you’re actually talking about writing the story, I’d start with figuring out the biggest motive of the four-six main-est (is that a word?) characters, and their biggest fears. (The Enneagram can help with that.) Then take the goal for the main characters and make it as challenging as possible for them to reach their goal. Throw in a few sprinkles of change of perspective and a couple of plot twists, and there you have a story! So easy, huh? 😉

Character Profile: Flinn Waters

Flinn seems to be a favourite of many of my beta readers, so I decided to go ahead and create a character profile for him.

Full name: Flinn Benjamin Waters

Age: Seventeen

Birthday: August 29

Born in: Second Region of the Alliance

Favourite colour: Yellow

Favourite food: Most any Hispanic food, sodas

Likes: Talking, people, history, Em, flirting, exploring, coming up with crazy ideas, having a purpose

Dislikes: Being alone, the dark, people being sad, the rules

Flinn is a crazy, flirty, but altogether sweet character. He and Em get along really well (*winks*) and he would do anything to help her. Actually, he’d probably do anything to help anyone if it’s for their immediant good. Flinn is an ENFP and 3w4.

Opening/Closing Lines

“So, Em.”

“Em. . .”

[everything else is under rewrite.]

So apparently he says her name a lot? I didn’t realize this before.

 

Aesthetics

I realized the other day that Michael, Nina, Em, and Justyn are the only characters I have multiple aesthetics for. If anyone ever made their own aesthetics, I’d be happy to add them to these posts. As for now, though, I’ll just share the collage I made this morning. 🙂

 

Voted Most Likely Character Tag

Yes, I said I wouldn’t do tags. I meant non-writing-related tags. I found this tag and I thought it was shiny so I stole it. 😛 I have no regrets.

I shall use characters from The Reflections. I’m also not following any of the rules besides tagging the person who you stole the tag from who tagged you. 

Let’s begin.

Most likely to be a poet

Flame. No doubt about it. I’m 90% sure she already writes poems. She’s an INFP, and if that doesn’t practically demand that she write poems, I don’t know what does.

Most likely to dance in the rain

I could go with Flame again. Moni probably would, too. Vera would– I don’t know if she’d dance. She’d probably do something weird that could be considered dancing.

Most likely to look good in a kilt

Flinn. He’d probably wear one, actually. Choi would wear one but he wouldn’t look good in it.

Most likely to get punched in the face

Well, I have characters who actually do get punched in the face. So that would be Justyn, Michael, and Nathaniel. Only Justyn got himself into a fight. Michael and Nathaniel were forced to fight each other or they would die. (Welcome to the Reflections, folks)

Most likely to drop everything and become a sheep-herder

Um… Moni or Vera, probably. Maybe Ria.

Most likely to be found in the library

Most of them, actually. I have very few characters who are utterly anti-bookish.

Most likely to sleep through an earthquake

Probably Michael. Em might, too. She almost sleeps through the screams of a murdered person. Vera does sleep through the screams, I believe, so maybe she’d manage an earthquake, too.

Most likely to steal food from other people’s plates

Vera, Flinn, Choi, Nina, Moni (She actually does it at one point with permission) Em. Lots of food-thieves.

Most likely to cheat on a test

Justyn. He comes in more in the second book, but totally him. Or Nina might, too. Vera— okay fine, most of my characters would. 

Most likely to say “Oops” after setting something on fire

Vera. No doubt, Vera. Maybe Flinn or Choi, though.

Most likely to open an orphanage

Flame or Moni. Both are sweet, Flame would totally want to protect innocent children.

Most likely to run off with the circus

Also Vera. Or Flinn. Both are kinda crazy and a bit rash and would totally go do that. 

Most likely to survive the zombie apocalypse

Maybe Nathaniel. Maybe Flinn. Vera is very resourceful and– yeah I think she’d survive.

Most likely to fake their own death

Nina. There’s no doubt about it. She would.

Most likely to die and haunt their friends

Probably Choi. He would love to be annoying to his friends.