Characters

As all writers of fiction know, whether they're amateurs or professionals, it's vital that each character be given an individual voice. I like to mold my characters in such a way and give them such vibrant personalities that they practically leap off the page to greet the reader. Some examples from my own work: 

Marie Cynthia Guinevere Rosanna - The Peasant Princess - Sheesh, what a long name. Well, being a princess seems to demand it. Marie has what is referred to in the writing world as "rebellious princess syndrome" - she doesn't behave or do anything the way a princess is supposed to. She duels (as in swords) with her elder brother, practices archery almost daily, is fond of falconry, can't sew a stitch to save her life, dances like she has two left feet, and fails to see the point in excessive finery, the ability to balance any and all object(s) on her head, and constantly thinking of suitors. She's a bit impulsive and defiant, but she is also kind and trustworthy...and a bit hot-headed. Don't make her angry - she won't think too much about giving anybody a black eye.

Coralie "Cora" Parker - Shape-shifter Series - Cora is...well, she's Cora. She walks into things and injures herself on a daily basis (once she walked right into a mailbox. The mailbox was fine; she had to go to the Emergency Room). She's also sarcastic, willing to punch any guy who makes googly eyes at her, tomboyish, not quite sure what's so great  about designer label clothing, and is evidently a human magnet for shape-shifters. She has no difficulty speaking her mind and is perfectly willing to smack someone with a baseball bat...as long as it is a deserving punishment.

Saamiya Siddiqui - True or False? - Saamiya is still recuperating from the loss of her father in a car accident when she was eight years old. She's twenty-two now, and tries to mask all the hurt she feels by being sarcastic, harsh, and, often, hateful. It's a gradual process, but she starts to drop the mask and become a little more warm-hearted, a little less sarcastic, and in general a more fun person. She doesn't do it alone though - the three members of Jal the band are notably responsible for her reformation (and it is a reformation rather than a transformation).

Ten Things I Hate About Me - Randa Abdel-Fatta

I've been reading this book since yesterday, and it makes me want to go to school, stop in the hallway, and bang my head repeatedly against a row of lockers. What's the issue? The book is about a girl, sophomore in high school, who is a Lebanese-Muslim who is hiding her cultural identity from her classmates in Sydney. Yes, as in Australia. So every other page the girl complains about her father's unrelenting rules - "He refuses to let me go to the formal! My life is over!" Big whoop. I'm not going to the junior prom - I didn't even bother asking my mom about it. Mixing of genders, probably some close dancing, people trying to sneak in drugs and alcohol. Not for me. Again, in the book, "Don't you trust me? Why don't you trust me? You don't appreciate me!" Right. My mom trusts me, no doubt about that. She doesn't trust the people around me. And, quite honestly, when hormones, evil thoughts, and booze (even the possibility of it) are brought into the equation, neither do I. And then there's bellydancing and Muslims drinking alcohol and dating. Yes, that's sooo Islamic. Please, please, note the sarcasm there.  But what bothers me the most in this book is the fact that this girl just sits there listening to her "friends" trash-talking her heritage and does absolutely nothing about that. She says her father shouldn't care about what other people think - why can't she take her own advice? I'm a Pakistani Muslim, and believe me when I say I'm proud of it. What have I got to be ashamed of? I go to school like everyone else, I abhor violence, and I have my own personal hobbies and interests. Oh no, but what about the Taliban? Yes, the Taliban has everything to do with me just because I'm of Pakistani origin. Not. 9/11? So many lives lost, and in the so-called name of religion. Let me say this: accusing all Muslims of being terrorists is like blaming the entire town for something a criminal  - a single person - who lives there did. Blame an entire group of people with a religious affiliation in common for what a couple of crazies who got their hands on weapons did. Make any sense? Not in the least. Believe me, we Muslims are just as abhorred by it as anyone else, probably even more since it says right in the Qur'an that there is nothing more precious than human life and killing one person is sin enough to equal killing the whole of mankind (and conversely saving one life is equal to saving the whole of mankind - so let's save more people). So how did that message get mixed up? Either some people didn't read that line - maybe not even the whole Qur'an - or somehow managed to completely misread it.

Sea of Benevolence

The plot, in the beginning of Sea of Benevolence, revolves around the protagonist, Coralie "Cora" Parker, trying to figure out how to get Kyle Grimalkin to admit that he might have feelings for her. Sounds like every other YA novel, right? Close, but not quite. Kyle's a shape-shifter, and if that didn't make things complicated enough, he's had major commitment issues ever since his family abandoned him when he was eight years old. So he doesn't exactly believe in love. That's a problem. 

One thing I can say, I have to work hard to keep Cora from becoming like those girls at school who are constantly drooling over Edward Cullen - I'm not a big fan of obsession of fictional characters. Or of any person, come to think of it. At least now I kind of understand the obsession (due to my fixation with Jal the band), but at least I know the guys in the band actually exist, unlike a certain golden-eyed vampire... Plus, if I'm obsessed with anything, it's the music, not the guys' eyes or their hair or whatever it is that makes girls obsessed with EC. 

Spring Break!

Finally, it's here! Although I feel like I need a whole month, not just a week. Still, that's what summer is for. 

Okay, let's see what's on the agenda...

Sea of Benevolence revisions, okay.

New short story, working on it.

Somehow contact Jal the band, hmm...

Oh, and college essays. Nice. 

Got a lot of work to do now, so I'll come back to this later. 

Ciao!

A Week Away Now...

One week away from Spring Break - yes!!! I have good reasons to be excited: more time to write (like editing Sea of Benevolence), more time to sleep in, and more time to...study for SATs and SAT subject tests. How exciting. On the plus side, one of the two subject tests I'm taking is Literature, something I really love. The other is World History, which is pretty interesting too. I just have to make 100 flash cards, probably.

As usual, I'm excited on the JAL front: merchandise is finally available: a cap, band T-shirt, signed posters (yeah right, my parents are going to actually let me get one of those), signed folders (if I got one, I'd never use it because my folders tend to rip - if they're paper- or snap - if they're plastic), and a signed mug. That, I might actually be allowed to get. If not, I'll have to wait another eight months till my birthday before my parents let me make my own decisions) And of course, I can't let anyone else use it because it might break like the last mug I got - and nobody bothered to tell me it broke. 

And...finally, back to writing. I know I haven't blogged in a while - my fault, I'll admit it - but I've been doing a lot of writing, mostly revisions to The Peasant Princess. For once in my life, I'm actually satisfied with my own writing (I'm a perfectionist, I get it from my Dad, unfortunately), thanks to Lyuba Velcheva, assistant to Alyssa Henkin at Trident Media Group. Constructive criticism is always welcome, although it takes me a couple of minutes to absorb it in. 

Writing, Writing, Writing...

    Whoa, those are some huge pics. Not that I'm complaining - the bigger the better, in my opinion! Finally, I've finished the first draft of True or False?  Ahead of time, by the way, which is good. I've already done some edits and just have to finish them, also of course I also have to somehow contact the band and obtain permission before they sue me for copyright violation. Infringement of personal right to live or something like that, probably. I don't blame them.

 I also finished the first draft of Sea of Benevolence, but I feel a need to add onto it because it's significantly shorter than its two prequels. So I intend to do as much as I can with that until the summer, when I'll resume work on the sequel and last of the series, Secret Danger (whose working title I intend to change to Hidden Danger). Besides, I've only written about four and a quarter pages for it so far. Might as well wait a little longer...

 And after that I'll hopefully be able to work on a novel for my senior year research project, probably that vampire novel. I can research different myths and legends, how vampires have changed over the years, look into vampires of different nationalities, and I also intend to analyze four vampire novels, two older and two contemporary and find similarities and differences before I start my own. And just to get this over with, no, I do not believe in vampires, not in the least. I think they'd be interesting to write about (as long as I don't make them perfect, because perfect=boring for me personally). And yes, the vampire in the book is going to be a carnivore, and his name is not Edward Cullen; it's Fletcher Munroe (no, he's not related to President James Munroe - the guy responsible for the Munroe Doctrine). And he's not pale, mostly because I personally am not attracted to pallid people and partially because I've done some research and in the past people used to believe that a corpse had turned into a vampire when it looked healthier than it had in life (meaning, less pale and with healthier color). He's also not a mind-reader or anything special like that - he's just particularly skilled at archery due to centuries of practice, hence the name Fletcher.

 And again after that, I plan to work on another novel I've wanted to work on for quite some time: Heavensent. It's not a religious novel, although it will deal with the ideas of Heaven vs. Hell and Angels vs. Devilfolk. It will require extensive research (like in the Qur'an, Bible, and Torah - just the sections considering angels, devils, heaven, and hell), but it's something I want to do on my own time, as the subject is very special to me. Mostly because it was inspired by a Jal song. I don't think that's a copyright issue - it's just basically one line that happened to inspire an entire plot. If I hadn't mentioned that it was inspired by a song, it's likely no one would know. Although if you know me really well, you might be able to guess.

 Yes, I know, I plan out when I'm going to do each novel. I have to, that way I know what I'm working on now and what I'm working on later, and all my ideas get done. So far I'm set through college. There are other ideas I have, of course, but I feel like those are for more of an adult audience and it would help to grow up a little bit and gain some experience. In terms of YA, well, I am a Young Adult. There's my experience right there. 

Watch What You Say...

I doubt that this is just something I do. Your brain thinks one thing, your mouth says another. The only problem is that I seem to do this kind of thing more than most people. Take today for example. My cat, Picard, got into my mother's room, so she tells me to get him out so he won't shed hair all over her stuff. So I open my mouth to call Picard, and I end up shutting my mouth halfway through Farhan's name, which my mother notices. I know how that happened - before going up to see Mom I'd been working on True or False?, specifically a chapter in Farhan's POV. I could have just as easily ended up calling my cat Goher or Shazi, but of course that's not the most reassuring thing to tell my mother, who now thinks I'm crazily obsessed.

On another note, I'm doing my best to finish the first draft of True or False? by the end of this week. Let's hope I can do it...