The Empress' Blog

"The" Novel: Finished. In the process of editing. I tore it apart chapter by chapter so that I could edit it properly, so I don't know THE word count.

"Jack"
Current word count: 6,044 || Goal: This can be my summer project, but my current work-in-progress has me busy.

"Coveland"
Chapters: 25 || Also on a hiatus, maybe for good... I could make it a summer project to finish this one, too, though.

"The Add-On Story"
Current count: 5,000 || Seems to be on a hiatus.

The Shadow: Finished, 109,998 words; still in the process of editing.

Current Work-in-Progress:
The Hunter, sequel to The Shadow: 53,044 words.

• Jan. 20, 2009 - Obama's First 100 Days, Our First 100 Prayers

Details can be found at: http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=31635 (You don't need to be Catholic to pray with us! Please keep reading this blog post.)

Starting January 20 (sorry for the late notice! I just found out today) Catholics across the country are going to be praying the Rosary, over the course of the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency. This is so that we can sacrifice a bit of our time, every day for those 100 days, for these intentions:

"1) That God would give President Obama the grace of conversion concerning the inalienable right to life of unborn babies; specifically, that he will see, embrace, and defend the unborn child’s God given right to life, and will use the office of President to restore the full protection of law to the unborn from conception till birth;

2) That God would thwart the evil acts promised by Obama during the election concerning the unborn. (I.e., signing the Freedom of Choice Act, undoing certain past pro-life executive orders);

3) That God would grant great courage to our Priests, Bishops, and all Christian leaders to publicly resist Obama’s stated agenda, and defend the right to life of the unborn;

4) That God would inspire (where needed) righteous men and women to run for political office in 2010 against pro-abortion politicians from both parties; bold candidates who will defend and protect the right to life of children in legislation;

5) That God would call thousands of new, prayerful, and peaceful (yet bold!) “warriors” into this life and death struggle. " (Quote article from Catholic.org, link above)

I realized that this was also a great opportunity to get all Christian families involved in a cause that consists mostly of prayer -- a simple act, yet the most powerful of them all. If all of our voices can be joined to end this madness, across the country and around the world, for 100 days, that would be wonderful.

My request is that all of my friends on HomeschoolBlogger (and, of course, outside of HSB too) join us in prayer from January 20 to April 29. There will be a group of Catholics praying the Rosary outside of the White House for those 100 days, but since many of us cannot make it, we are welcome to send our prayers to God from our own homes. I repeat: This is by no means for Catholics only. Any Christian who believes in a baby's right to be born can join us in prayer for these 100 days. The battle for justice was not lost with this presidential election, and if we can all raise our voices in unison for this, a miracle will happen!

If you would like to join me in fighting for the rights of our future brothers and sisters, let me know in a blog post (this is optional.) Also, we would appreciate it if you would recruit friends and family to pray with us too. We need as many voices as we can get!

All Christians are a family, and this is a wonderful time for our family to gather together for a cause -- whether we don't know each other face-to-face, or if we have never even heard of each other in our lives, our voices can be joined and we will be a family! So join me and everyone else participating in this. It's time to take action together!

Also, if you read this post late, remember that it is never too late to add your voice!

Thank you for reading!

~Mariella

Leave Me a Request! :: Send to a Friend!

• Jan. 21, 2009 - Untitled Comment

Request Left By PoeticMaiden

Oh Mari, this is a wonderful idea for us to all be doing this! Sign me up!

~Cherise

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• Jan. 22, 2009 - Untitled Comment

Request Left By NaNoWriMoGroup

Hey Mari!

Katie told me about the 30k challenge, and I posted about it on the NaNoWriMo blog! Do visit the blog and read it!

(Oh wow, I actually left you a real request! O.O)

~Cherise

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• Feb. 5, 2009 - Now, haven't you missed my gigantium comments?

Request Left By Altariel

Now, firstly I have to say that you need to update your blog. I know I haven't set the best example... in fact, I know I'm being utterly hypocritical. But, still, you need to update.

And not one of these boring nothing much updates, either. We want to hear all about you and your life and what you're writing and what you're doing this year and what or who is driving you insane at the moment and all that sort of fascinating stuff.

Please?

*kneels humbly at the empress' chair and pleads with Francie eyes*

Secondly, that is absolutely awful about your bunny. Especially since we were never actually formally introduced, and now I have lost my chance forever. Unless, of course, he was an especially spiritually awakened bunny and I see him in the life beyond... um, yes. Ok, I won't go there.

But, seriously, you should write an obituary. And show some photos of him in life and death. And we can all lay virtual flowers on his virtual grave and it will be very solemn and tearful and meaningful. We could even light some virtual candles in his honour.

Now. The Host! Let us rant! *sighs happily*

I never really thought that I would count myself among the ranks of Meyer fans but, gosh, it was so GOOD! It was the kind of book I love and the perfect balance of everything - lots of action but not too fast paced, a bit of romance but not as the main plot, angst but not self-pity, balanced characters who weren't always right or wrong, lengthy but gripping. And in the end it left you a lot to think about, and had deeper ideas in there that made it all mean something. And not only that, she managed to give it a satisfying, 'happy' ending and still have it bittersweet and haunting and stick in your mind. I was in awe over that one...

The characters were very good. That was something I liked about Twilight - although I didn't much like Edward or Bella a lot of the secondary characters were really brilliant, and she certainly has a talent for creating really, really cool backstories. And that skill has worked all through this story to, in all the lives and vivid personalities woven all through it.

Vivid. That's what it is. It's such a vivid story.

I completely get what you mean about it being more realistic. It's not so much that the mythical creatures in it are more or less possible than in Twilight, I think. But the whole setting and focus of wars and prejudice and people going into hiding and killing people because of what rather than who they are... well, it's something that has happened before in our world.

Besides, I personally think it's more about human nature and prejudice, anyway, and the aliens are just a fantastic way to bring that in without getting all historical and complicated. It's so rich in symbolism and humanness and real stuff...

*sighs happily again*

I liked that there weren't really any villains. They were all just people - well, beings, anyway - and they all did things wrong and hurt other people but in the end it was mostly because of ignorance and prejudice and often, even, to save the lives of those they loved. It wasn't just stupid, pig-headed evilness. And in the end you had to say that none of them were 'monsters' and there was no one you could point the finger at and blame. They were all just humans. Mostly all, anyway. *grin* I think that was part of the realism too, because in life there isn't really blanketly good guys and bad guys. There's always a story behind it, and a reason, and it goes on and on all the way back in every human's lives and one can't ever solve the problems of the universe and find the perfect solution to all our wrongs ourselves, because that's what God is for. Someone who can see right into people's souls and judge them while seeing the whole picture, not the narrow little views we have. I think that was part of the 'moral' too.

See what I mean? Any book that can get me this poetic and philosophical has got to rate among my favorites.

It was so incredibly inspiring, too... it's one of the few books I want to pick up and read over again just after I've finished it. And it's a very long book, so that's quite something.

It was really long, and by about two thirds through I was wondering how she was going to fill the rest of the book... but I found it very gripping all the way through anyway. It wasn't just basically meaningless stuff that she could have cut, it was real plot building character building stuff all the way through.

I loved it. I really loved it.

There. Is that praise enough for you? I freely acknowledge that Stephenie is fantastic and she can write a good plot and that it is not only well-written but really meaningful, too. In short, I am your fellow fan. It's official.

And I never would have read it if it weren't for you. You have opened my eyes to untasted joys, and I am forever in your debt. *is happy and melodramatic*

It is also really late and I was up almost all night last night reading it, so I shall cut this off before I bore you so much you tire of the whole story yourself. Not that, I'm sure, that could ever happen. *grin*

As a parting note, knowing the speed at which your ideas and fingers and words all meld as one entity and flow like a brilliant, unstoppable torrent onto your pages, I am shocked and incredulous that you haven't finished the whole 30,000 words already. Are you getting slack in your old age?

I expect to hear that you have been devoted and studious, and will be heartily disappointed in you if I find that you are wandering unproductively in circles. That is an activity reserved for us pathetic mortal strugglers, not Brilliant Empresses.

Write on, oh wielder of the mightiest of pens...

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• Feb. 10, 2009 - Untitled Comment

Request Left By Altariel

Ok, this wasn't actually a comment, it was meant to be an email. But thanks to the aforesaid and aforerantedover dial-up internet, it won't send and I'm having to post it here.

So I am still going to read your delightfully delicious looking blog post at my leisure and write you a proper comment, ok?

---

Firstly, I have to say, although you probably already know it – that this book has got to be a lot harder to write than Shadow. I thought Cherise was a fantastically complex character to have to work with, but Beth definitely takes the cake so far, and with Stephen as well… well, I don’t envy you your job with this lot.

It’s the whole tone of angstiness, for one thing. Even with Garrett it wasn’t total angst and depressingness, since there was also the joy of being free of the curse and getting to know Cherise and the general happiness in just being alive he was carrying around with him. But for Beth there is nothing much left to live for, and for Steven the one thing he had lived and worked and committed crime and ruined his life for might have been a lie, and he knows it. You don’t get much more depressing than that.

And this is just how the book starts. I don’t know what you have planned for the rest of it, but it sounds likely to just get worse! And that’s going to be awful hard to write while keeping the whole story still balanced and flowing.

Then there’s the backstory and history of the MCs. I doubt any of your readers have come close to being shadowed, but at least most of them would be able to relate a little to Cherise in her tiny town with her boring life and family and friends and future, even if they’d never actually experienced the same situation themselves. Whereas Beth and Stephen’s heads have been seriously messed with, and Beth’s life growing up… well, not even the experiences of gang kids would come close. Which makes it way harder for you to keep it real and relatable.

One thing that I think would help with that, though, is to see more of Beth’s memories. She’s thought about Garrett and Cherise and other generic horrible things, but we never really hear any other stories from her life. I think it would really help us to understand her and her ‘low self-esteem’ and hopelessness if we could hear how she had lived and what she had done and the people she had been around. After all, she was working for HER for years and years and met many of HER servants and did a lot of dirty deeds, right?

When that is what she’s grown up with, it makes sense that all through her travels around the city she should be comparing it to HER fortresses and the people she meets to those she’s known and the stories she’s heard to her own situation. And by doing that she doesn’t actually have to angst as much over her situation since the readers understand what she’s been through and angst with her. Does that make sense?

Caleb's offer is interesting... and it makes me suspicious. It sounds like it might be the kind of thing that Beth knew under Maeve - suspicious and dodgy and something most people regret. I thought Beth would have been more suspicious of it, coming from Maeve as she did and knowing and hearing of gang work as she would have, and wondered or even asked if it was the same sort of work. Whether that would make her want to avoid it completely or whether she would be drawn to it as something familiar, though... I'm not sure. I guess it would depend on how desperate she became, right?

Stephen... I like him. I like him a lot. He’s so very nice and sweet and good. Which makes me even madder when Beth scorns him like she does! *glares at her*

It does seems weird, though, that he wants to help her so much when she's so uncooperative and rude to him. I mean, what's his motive? Is he trying to do a good deed to make him feel better about his part in Maeve's plots? Does he want something from her? Is he doing it because he (save us) likes her? Although that sounds rather unlikely considering how awful she's been... but he has been through a lot. Maybe his head is messed too. Or does he just want company, and someone who understands him and what he's going through? His scene, where he just wants to help her and understand her... I don't know, it just doesn't seem to fit. He's too GOOD. And we know he isn't that good, since he was prepared to work for Maeve, even if it was just to save his sister. Although... well, I don't know, I'm confusing myself. But I just think he needs at least one more selfish motive, even if mostly he just simply wants to help a fellow sufferer. It makes him more real.

And, strangely enough, more likable too, I think. I don't know what it is in our twisted, warped minds - well, mine, anyway; I guess I can't speak for the rest of the world - but selfish characters are just so likable. Unless they're petty and selfish. That's awful. But someone who is friendly and likable yet also selfish and a little thoughtless... well, people are like that themselves. It makes characters really real.

Actually, don't listen to me. I'm being a very bad influence on you, trying to turn your good, sweet characters into selfish, mercenary, egotistic little brats. Or something. But it's naughty, anyway. Forget I said that...

*is sheepish*

Um. Yes.

Completely unrelated comment - I have just figured out that I say I'm sheepish a lot, which is amusing since NZ is the sheep kingdom of the world. And I'm surrounded by sheep, so I'm taking on their habits. Not that I've ever actually seen a sheep look sheepish. Um... sorry, a bit of randomness there...

Anyway. Beth is really irritating me at the moment, especially with the whole 'Must not talk to Stephen, because I don't deserve to have friends' thing. As if that means Stephen doesn't deserve her to be halfway decent to him...

*resists the urge to shove Beth in the pond*

However, there is hope! I remember feeling exactly the same strong irritation in regards to Cherise at the beginning of her story. In fact, I seem to remember even the same urges to dunk her once or twice.

*blinks and wonders if she is getting a little too predictable*

Anyway, by the end of the story I really loved her, so there is definitely hope for Beth. I only wish she would stop being so silent. She's as bad as Cherise. In fact, she's worse. She's as bad as Garret as a Shadow, and she doesn't have the excuse of being a shadow.

Speaking of which, I imagine Beth to be the type who would actually enjoy being a shadow. Isn't that awfully ironic?

Chapter 4 onward:

You’re absolutely right, you know. I like Beth much more now she’s working and busy and happier. I like her much more now she’s being nice to Stephen, too, and the story is generally picking up quite well,

Having read it over I don’t really think there’s all that much in the way of continuity or smoothness. Her sudden attitude change toward Stephen is sorta a little strange, but it makes a lot of sense, too, and I do really, really like their interaction in these chapters. Mostly I guess it’s the fact that I disliked her in the first few chapters and then my attitude toward her changed, rather than Beth herself changing particularly.

I think your main problem at the moment is that your readers are going to start the story disliking Beth and not understanding her. Maybe if the story started with Beth and Stephen leaving HER forts or something… some part of her previous life, anyway, that was very rough and hard and gives us an idea of what she’s recovering from. It would give us more background and sympathy for her, and sort of set the backdrop for the whole story, if you know what I mean.

I like Jade. I like the fact that even though it injures her pride to have a ‘tramp’ off the streets as a coworker, in the end she doesn’t do the spiteful things she could have to make Beth’s life a misery. When she realizes Beth is going to work she swallows her pride and makes the effort to be nice. I like the fact that it comes after Beth gets cleaned up nicely, too, because it strikes me that Jade is the sort of person to not look much deeper than outward appearances. It’s very real and kinda cute, too, that she thinks of Beth as a tramp until she looks nice, and then treats her like a real person. She isn’t spiteful to Beth as a tramp, she just brushes her off as inferior.

I mean, looking at it from a distance it seems rather petty and shallow, but in actual fact it’s how most people look at each other, and it’s just… real. I like it a lot. It’s obvious that they both thought she would be the lazy sort of tramp who would take advantage of their employer’s generosity, and when they realize she isn’t they’re really nice. It’s sweet.

Poor Stephen. *sniffs a little* If anything is worse than knowing your sister was dead… well, I can’t think of anything more awful that Maeve could have done to him. Anything at all. Even forcing him to watch her be roasted alive or… something wouldn’t be as bad as this. Or… well, I think you get the idea. Maeve is the most incredibly brilliantly awful being... *shivers*

But Stephen is so awesome, anyway. Especially in the last chapter. I love how the situation between him and Beth is sorta switched. I really really like it. Every chapter seems to be getting better!

A couple of things, though. As usual. *grin* I don’t think any review would feel complete without my couple of things.

Firstly - or lastly because it actually came last, only it's the last thing I read which makes it the first on my mind - coming from a dangerous situation like she did where she grew up surrounded by rough and dangerous guys and probably had her life in danger from them more times than one, her reaction to Caleb and his warning seems a bit strange. I don't know, I just figure if there was one thing she would have learnt to read in people in her sort of life it'd be real fear, and I don't think she'd just... brush it off like that. Of course, she might do it on purpose because she doesn't want to believe that the fear and danger of her old life are returning in her new safe haven... or something like that. But thinking that he must just be deranged somehow just doesn't sound very her. Especially since she strikes me as the type of person who would rather put other people's strange behaviour down to some fault on her own part than weirdness on theirs.

And secondly, the whole shop thing. All the trouble they go to for her, running after her and offering her a place to stay and paying her for her work even when she knows absolutely nothing about sewing… well, it’s amazingly nice of them. The difference between the work of professional dressmakers as opposed to n00bs, though, are mostly that the professionals are way faster, their stitches are generally tidier and smaller, and they are generally more experienced and make less mistakes. So it doesn’t really make much sense for her to being paid the same amount as the other girls when they probably work twice as fast and produce better work. Beth does work hard, and she will probably improve pretty quickly, but I don’t think she’d reach their level in even a month. After all, in most societies upper class girls have been raised doing needlework. It’s very nice of him to do that for her, but he has to keep his business efficient and cost effective too.

Um… yes. I think that’s all.

In short, this is a horribly difficult book, but you’re doing wonderfully well, and it’s getting better every chapter. Write on, Empress!

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About the Empress

Someone's gotta achieve world domination. I'm just gonna go ahead and do it. My first step is to get my book published. Here I'll keep track of the steps there. Yup. Come on in. There's cookies. =) By the way... yes, I am Christian.