Oh the joys and pains of the apiring writer!

Teehee, so funny little story... I come onto my blog to make a new post, and for the life of me I couldn't find the "New Post" button. It was seriously NO WHERE to be found, and I was roaming around for like 5 minutes trying to figure this out. Eventually it got pretty frustrating, and I was like GAAAHHHH, WHY IS LIFE CONSPIRING TO MAKE MY CONTINUED EXISTENCE DIFFICULT TODAY!?!?!

Then I thought... OH! Maybe I should actually log on first. Ahah, there's the problem! Ooops. :)

That's what you get when you're unable to fall asleep until 4:30 am the night before... ugh...

Anyways, back to the topic. For those of you who don't know (actually, I think most don't), I like to write stories. Wait, scratch that: I like to come up with stories, but actually writing them is another thing. You see, I've been plagued with writer's block for years now. I think it mostly has to do with the perfectionism I have in story writing (i.e. EVERY sentence must flow PERFECTLY, with the PERFECT adjectives and imagery to hopelessly hypnotize EVERY reader who stumbles across my book!), and then the fact that I don't have as much time or motivation to write as I used to.
Back in the day, I could write whatever I wanted, when I wanted to. In 6th grade, I hand wrote 70 some pages, front and back. It was about a pet coyote named Rio, who wanted to be free. Unfortunately, I don't have the story anymore. I think I may have actually thrown it away. Stupid me. Then in 7th grade, I wrote a story about a stray cat that wanted to be loved again (I had a big obsession with animals back then). This one was typed, but I deleted everything one day, and tried to completely rewrite it. Instead of just being an average stray cat, it was an immortal cat from Ancient Egypt that was looking for its original owner (it was immortal because the Pharaoh's eldest daughter cried tears into a small flesh wound the cat got). That idea, as awesome as it was, didn't work. :(

But since those, I've come up with a ton of stories, but none of them have I actually written. Sometimes I'm able to crank out a small poem, or a little excerpt from a scene in a story I'm thinking about. Though if I do happen to write something awesome, I'll be sure to post it here for constructive criticism from you awesome peoples!

For now, I'll just share four of my recent ideas.

Idea #1: Lost Kingdom. Cliche title, I know, but I'll just leave it be for now. I came up with this story when I was frustrated with the politics of the 2008 election, and the declining sense of morality in society. It then received icing on the cake when I was talking about books with friends, and someone said: "You know, we have The Chronicles of Narnia, which is Christian, and then the Golden Compass, which is atheist... LET'S MAKE A MORMON BOOK!"
And so Lost Kingdom was born. The story takes place in this futuristic, fantasy country. The main character (we'll call him Jason for now, because I forgot his name) lives in the capital, and is the son of one of the most renowned politicians, Odin (no, he's not a god). He's frustrated with his corrupt, neglectful father, and walks a rebellious, delinquent path. One day he does something so shameful that Odin disowns him, for sake of his public reputation, and kicks him out. Jason now walks the streets alone, gets into some series of fights or whatever, and the next thing he knows, he's in the home of some strange old man on the outskirts of town. The old man makes him work around his house in return for his hospitality, which Jason isn't too happy with of course. Then, after a series of events, he stumbles across these ruins in the forest, and finds a small, golden jaguar statue inside. It's magical, so when Jason tries to steal it, it shows him a flashback to a mysterious ancient civilization that lived in the same land before. These flashbacks about this people keep recurring in Jason as he interacts with the jaguar more and more, until he sees their destruction. Then he realizes that what happened to that nation is also happening to his. So now Jason, changed from his rebellious self, needs to save his people from the path they're ignorantly following.
This story would probably be more of a series, because the old man turns out to be a survivor from the old kingdom, and lives on only to protect the jaguar. There are other guardians too, each holding the keys to the secrets about the extinct kingdom that can help Jason save his people. Oh, and Odin is a significant antagonist in this story. So yeah.....


Idea #2: No title for this one. Also a series. I came up with it a little after the last one, for similar reasons. Except this one's got more blunt LDS themes. It has to do with my taste for things like Narnia, and Golden Compass. The themes and morals behind those stories are definitely Christian and atheistic, but the readers can still take things from them even if they don't agree with those beliefs. I'd also like to publish fun, fantasy candy reads geared towards and LDS audience-- something that can teach, but also be fun to read.
Anyways, the primary inspiration for this story is the Pre-existence. Except the story calls it "the War of the Gods" instead of the Council in Heaven. Some other things were kinda tweaked as well. Figuring out what to change continues to be my problem with this story, however, because I don't want to be be blasphemous for changing too many things, but I don't want it to be dead obvious either. Essentially, though, before the creation of the Earth, the gods counseled with each other as to how to properly handle the spirits waiting for life. Most agreed that, given certain laws and limits, they should be made free, and be allowed to progress and learn as they explored life. But some wanted to use the spirits for power. They wanted to bind them down, and use them as tools to forward their "godliness." These gods were so stubborn in their opinion that they started a war with the gods who wanted to be fair, and the war was so great that even the spirits became involved. Some were deceived, or coerced into fighting for the Evil Ones, but most fought on the side of the Just Ones. Among the good spirits, there were some who were so valiant in their fight that they were almost on par with the gods. Once the war was over, and the Evil Ones defeated, the gods left called these spirits the Ancients. The Evil Ones lost their godhood, and were demoted to Shades, ever bitter about their loss. When the Earth was finally created, the spirits were given their abode, but the Shades were still determined to ruin everything the Just Ones stood for. So to combat this, the gods sent the Ancients to protect the world from these Shades. Their abilities in the pre-mortal realm transferred over to mortality (aka, MAGIC!!!). The order of the Ancients existed on the Earth for thousands of years, until the Shades craftily gained enough power to cause the people to rebel against them, and throw them out. But the Just Ones foresaw this, and ordained four of the most noble of the Ancient spirits to save the world at the end of times, when the Shades would be the most powerful. These four spirits were each born to sister mothers on the exact same day, in the same hour. But because the Shades knew about them, they were hidden and separated from each other. And that's where the story starts. The series is about these four kids' adventures when they, by fate I suppose, meet up again, and each book is from the perspective of one of them.


Idea #3: Yes, this one is another LDS themed book. Writers tend to write about what they're passionate about, and I guess this is my passion. This one is pretty hard to explain though. So I'll try to keep this one short. It's based off of the Tree of Life vision. There are these tribal people called the Eridites. They live in the same general area as a few other tribes, but they are unique in that their practices are radically different from everyone else. In modern times, advanced colonists invaded the area, and all the tribes peacefully assimilated into their culture, except for the Eridites. They reluctantly coexisted with them, but held fervently to their old ways. For this they were hated by everyone, and eventually the Empire found reason to order their extermination. So now the Eridites are scattered, and those left are using their magic to keep hidden (in my mind, the magic is mostly shape shifting into animals, but I'm working on this).
One such Eridite is Vayne (real name Keoni, but I'm not going to explain that). He is alone, and forever running from hunters. He has a high price on his head because before the extermination, he was one of the Eridites on the Eridite diplomatic relations team, but was slowly deceived by enemies, until he, and others on the team, ended up betraying their people. While the rest of the Eridites were being hunted, those on the team were protected for helping the Empire, but Vayne came to himself, and renounced his position. For this, the Empire is fervently looking for him.
Vayne, unwelcome among both Eridites, and Empire loyalists, finds no reason to keep living, except for this: there is an old Eridite legend about what is called the Silver Tree-- the ultimate joy, the eternal sanctuary. It is usually just a metaphorical symbol, but the story says that in the final days, when decay and misery spread itself across the land, the tree will appear on the Earth, and only the most penitent will be able to find it. Vayne, in spite of his sin, can still somehow sense the presence of the Tree, along with many other Eridites. He doesn't initially believe it's real, or that he would even be able to find it, but the tree gives him hope to keep running and looking for truth. So in a desperate attempt to change and be clean again, he sets out to search for the tree, accompanied by a few other Eridites (one of whom is the former princess or something), all of whom are unaware of his betrayal until the end. The path is perilous, as they are being chased by hunters everywhere, but they all persevere.

There's a lot more to this story, but again, I can't really explain it in writing. :/


Idea #4: Okay, last story, I promise. And I also promise that this one isn't LDS themed. I came up with this one recently, and I've made it more simple. It's just for a fun candy read.
I like dragons, okay? In my opinion, they are one of the most intriguing fantasy creatures, with the most flexibility. I was listening to a Nightwish song, started thinking about dragons, and the whole cliche about the princess in the Medieval castle who gets kidnapped by the savage dragon. Well, then I thought: what if the dragon fell in love with the princess?
Probably attempted before, but I went further than that. For one thing, my dragons look regal and pretty, instead of violent and ugly. They can also take on a human form. The story is from the perspective of the dragon, or at least both him and the girl. There is a war between two nations: humans and dragons (why, I'm don't know yet). Cinder, one of the dragon princes, is in charge of the army. Because the humans are beginning to develop more advanced technology, things aren't looking good for the dragons. In a raid, Cinder captures a troop of soldiers escorting the daughter of one of the highest generals in the human army. One thing leads to another, and the two start to get along. Thing is, the more I think about this story, the more I don't want to necessarily make the relationship romantic... that may sound weird, but personally I think the story makes more sense if the relationship is platonic, but characterized by a very deep trust in each other. If there's any romance at all, it's very controlled, and void of all that sensational goo on TV. In other words, this is NOT going to be another Twilight! (I mean really, can you imagine a world with yet another "Bella" falling in love with some mysterious, emo dragon dude? EW!!)


Whew, okay, there are my stories. Soooo, what dooya think? :D