Insert Excuse For Why I Haven't Posted

I was at a standstill for how to start the last chapter until I saw this quote, which Corinne riffs off of in the beginning...although to be honest it's more of a Princess Diaries reference than an Eleanor Roosevelt one.

Chapter Six
Yes, chapter 6 was a bit of filler, but I also wanted to dig a little more into Corinne as a character. Her narration tends to hide things like her being a foster child, so I needed her to have a conversation to dig into her past.

Vice 2 Update: About 7,000 usable words, no title ideas in sight.We do have a playlist going though

Bye, Bye Pandora
Can I take a moment for how obsessed I am with Spotify ? While it's radio function isn't as good as Pandora's I love how I can make playlists within it. I'm blogging about this because I've discovered a new section....the browse section !

They have user curated playlists by mood and genre and it's been really helpful for me. So, if I need a song for a coffee shop scene I go to that playlist or if I need a new love romance song I go to that playlist. This feature has been my new crutch, because the playlists were getting skimpy.


Chapter 7
It's been a minute, so I'll do a longer previously...
Corrinne's break up is going less than stellar, so Jonah takes her out to see the city. Before they can start answering questions about Abigail they are interrupted by Matthew--Jonah's piano savant frenemy--who happens to also have access to an archive of school papers that may have the answers to Abigail's life or death. After being interrupted before, Jonah is getting to the archives to get answers no matter what ! 

Chapter7
Playlist
-1-  Pachabel Cannon in D-
- 2- Fireflies by Owl City (VSQ) 
-3- Wake Me Up by Bailey Bailey

I've Been In The Trenches

 What It's Been Like The Trenches

When You See I'm Writing More Excuses for No Posts

 

But I've never been this far ahead in a serial and I guess I'm trying to keep that lead. I really do see myself posting more often, so hold me to it.

Vice 2 Update
So, I don't know if I've mentioned this but I've finally flexed my third person muscles in Vice 2. It's kind of weird because I've never written the Vice/Veritas world from anyone's POV except Alan, but that may or may not be changing. Although I did just write half a third person chapter in first person by mistake...so I have no idea what that means.

Also, Vice has NO playlist. I've pretty much been just listening to Coldplay for it...if that tells you anything.


Chapter 5

Matty
Matty is kind of an interesting character in that he didn't exist in the original version of HMLIS. I had kind of outlined Corinne's friends and then I realized Jonah needed a friend too. Originally, it was going to be neighbor he grew up with who went to community college and was kind of Jonah's opposite, but I couldn't figure out when to introduce him.

Around this time I came across Haben Girma, a blind-deaf Harvard Law School Grad and advocate and I really wanted to do something with a successful blind-deaf character. Matty being a savant came about because, well the stories about savants I came across are just amazing. Although a lot of them aren't really famous. I also like Matty's character because it gave some insight into what Jonah's Dad book was about without me having to write passages from it.

Speaking of the book, his Dad's Pulitzer prize winning book, How My Light is Spent is based on Siddhartha Mukherjee's Pulitzer prize winning The Emperor of Maladies, which is about cancer.

So, you're also probably wondering why he is a British...well, it's because he's pretty much based on Ed Sheerhan. In my head, Matty doesn't look like the kind of person who would be a serious pianist. He's kind of scruffy and unkept.

Side note: This is not the first time I will unimaginatively base a character's looks on a real person.

Chapter Six
Jonah has successfully gotten the key for the archives and he's ready to go find answers, but Abigail insists they go find Corinne...who's been AWOL since she broke up with her boyfriend.
Chapter Six
Playlist

-1- Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeah
-2- Are We Waiting by Green Day (just the first 2:44 before it switches)
-3- Fix You by Coldplay

Ish gets real

You: Hey Shawna, you haven't posted in a long while, how's it going ?

Me:

In the Trenches

You guys I have been in the trenches...with Vice2 (which will get a pretty name at some point).  I'd been messing around with it some, but out of nowhere the voice and story just came to me. It's still super fuzzy, but I got some down. Right now, Vice has 5,000 usable words.

Let me tell you, I've decided Vice2 is going to be grittier and darker than Vice. I mean, ish is going to get real.

As for HMLIS, I think I may have shot myself in the foot by outlining because it's giving me so much trouble. I just can't stick to the outline and the chapters have gotten out of whack, but I'm excited for where it's going. It's fun to write characters who actually make jokes that aren't dark humor. Not being able to finish this has been hard for me  because I know exactly how it ends.

I really didn't want to post until I was further along, but I think I needed this to force me into gear.

Research

I mentioned in my last post I had to do more research for this serial than any of the other ones (except, maybe Ivy Boys). For Vice I really do a lot of rule of cool and handwaving but because this is based in the real world I'd like to be as accurate as I can. Also, sometimes figuring out how things are IRL it's easier than making stuff up. So, I've looked through my Googles and these are the things I've looked up

- Weirdest College Mascots (I wanted an injoke for Eastham to have a lame mascot, but couldn't think of one)

- Average record for triathalon ( I had to find a time to give Ethan in Chapter 3)

- Long Starbucks order

- I wanted Corinne to have international students for roomates, so I needed to find countries where  international students typically came from, then I had to find names for them.

A few other things, but they are spoilery, so moving on (TM) !

Chapter 5
Chapter 5 link
Brief Recap: Eastham College freshman Jonah and Corinne are the only ones who can see Abigail, a girl who died and has no memory, but desperatley wants her identity. Corinne suggests they look in old school papers for Abigail's identity and Jonah knows just the person to give them access. But before they can do anything Corrine's boyfriend, Phillip is arrested for stealing his estranged father's  credit card  and after she takes him home they break up,

-Playlist-
HMLIS Playlist

-1- Dream a Little Dream by Yiruma
-2- Lego House by Boyce Avenue
-3- Say by Vitamin Piano Quartet

Character Picspirtation Time !

(Well, these are the most idealized versions of our narrators)

So, most of these characters really didn't have a lot of specific picspirations, but these are pretty darn close.

Jonah Morrow, 19

Louis Tomlinson has been the Soul inspiration ever since I found a picture of his eyes on We Heart It and used it in a chapter. At the time he still had that bowl cut thing and his look didn't exactly match the character. He  fits Jonah a bit more (well, he's lost a lot of weight, so not so much now) but, in my head Jonah pulls of the facial hair less successfully.

Corrine, 19

She also has a port wine stain on her face and neck..something like this

 I happened across a photo of Kayla Scoldero and her character on Skins, Effy looks SO CLOSE to how I picture Corrine (minus the leather jacket and eye makeup) ecspecially in this photo. I also think Corrine has a little bit of Kstew's attitude (minus the cheating)

Abigail

Zendaya was one of the first picspirations I had. I think her in the yellow is exactly how Jonah first saw her, but the photo in the blue is the expression she has on her face in general. Also those curls !


The Morrow Family

Aris Morrow, 52

Mrs. Morrow, 48

(Is it bad I still don't know her first name ?)

Ethan Morrow, 21

Oh, and there's TWO of him !

Corinne's Group

Phillip, 19

1999 Heath Ledger!

Phillip's Mom (Jillian), 37

Sevin Cademir, 18

Okay, I think that's it. Let's get to the next chapter !

Chapter 4
I'd like to say I hit a wall, but honestly I've just been letting myself get distracted by research to actually get words in, so I'm not as ahead as I'd like to be. Posting this now may put me behind in posting, but we will see what this week brings. I also predict a double chapter post at some point.

Corrine and Jonah meet to question Abigail, but she is just as clueless as they are. Will the answer lie in looking through The Eastham Record ?

Chapter Four Link
Playlist Link

-1- Made For This by Train
-2- Take on Me by The A-Ha (This is from a point when I was going to set the story in the 90s)
-3-Fast Car by Tracy Chapman
-4- Shot at The Night by The Killers

Blessed Souls Redux

 

HMLIS Origins
So, I usually wait until the end of a serial to do this, but I wanted  to explain a bit how HMLIS came to be.

Ever since I decided I was going to kill all the characters in BH and reincarnate them as humans with no memory of being angels and new lives I had one scene in my head. It was of a girl (Rin) and her boyfriend (Dark) using a stolen credit card to buy persciption drugs and then getting high in his mom (the Demon Queen) house. And then there was going to be an art student (Soul)...I just had no idea what they were going to do, but somehow they were going to go back to being who they were. I have an outline(ish) for this...it was called Blessed Souls. This is literally all the outline looked like for a year except with 2 scenes (that I may still use) lined out:



A coming of age story about a girl on the cusp of discovering what her life is going to be about. She has to make decesions for the first time in her life including who she lets into her life.

Corrine- Living in a group home which she sneaks out of to see her boyfriend. She is a high school senior who has no idea who she is outside of the guy she is seeing. She can’t see beyond the moment and is often trapped in depression and is looking for something beautiful in life.

Soul - A musical students who has drive and feels an amount of guilt and is fascianted by Rin’s freedmon,


Dark - Bad influence who clings to Corrine and her existence. He needs her.

 But then I took a break from Serial-ing and when I came back, that BH world wasn't in me anymore. Even worse...I had NO RECOLLECTION of writing it, so how could I even begin a sequel. Still deep down I wanted to write the girl who would be Corrine. As you all know, I pushed it back and rebooted Vice, but  I eventually got back when I saw something that I will talk more about later.

I Did A Thing
So,I guess one thing I learned from doing  HMLIS while doing Vice is that I like working in two different worlds and having another serial to work on as a "break". So, when I was getting particularly fustrated about a part of HMLIS, I started working some on Vice 2.

I'm mostly just writing scratch scenes and story vomit, but so far it's 1,000 words.

Hmm, I suppose this will beg some UL questions...I haven't written anything, but it will probably end up being a novella - length thing. The only thing I really have done is the title and plot.

Chapter 3
Previously...Boy Meets Girl. Other Girl Meets Boy. Boy Tells Other Girl That Girl is Dead. 
Chapter 3

Playlist
So, that music thing where they talk about the song that is playing is going to happen a couple more times.

- 1- It's Time by Imagine Dragons (Of course they make an appearance)
- 2- Give Me Love by Ed Sheerhan (He had to have been on someone's Top 40 bingo)
 -3- Spirited Away by Joe Hishani (More violins!)

Here We Go...Again

 
How My Light is Spent
So, I think many of you have figured out that the story within this story (Aris Morrow's book, How My Light is Spent) is a line from a poem by John Milton, a16th century  blind poet. I could look for some greater theme between the poem and this serial, but guys researching poetry is hard.  You have to read it multiple times to get all the meaning and it just gets complicated. I just needed a line from a blind writer and this sounded nice so...title !

But, honestly, I wouldn't look too much into the title...it was really just fulfilling my wish of using a piece of poetry as a title ala Of Mice and Men and Catcher in The Rye.

HMLIS POV 2

Another thing you may want to keep in mind (and something I'm just now realizing) the narrators are somewhat unreliable.

Oh, right. Okay, you all are going to notice A THING with a name. And it's not the Phillip name I had in the sample (who is btw no way related to LiLe.)

Chapter 2
It's a girl !

Chapter 2
Playlist

-1-Mr. Brightside by The Killers (They are going to make a few appearances... because of reasons. I used them for the ending of Vice too which is why I said it was an appropriate transition)

-2- Somebody Told Me by The Killers (see ? They make another apperance)

-3- It's My Life by Tim Myers (From the trailer)

-4- Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard (So..The Frames version is a cover, this is the original...it's from an Irish indie romantic-drama film)

Here We Go...

**Life Update**
So, things have been changing, I've decided to write with my married name, but I think we can all just roll with it!

How My Light is Spent
I'm not even going to play any games. It's time to let you all in on a little something called How My Life is Spent. I haven't been working on this too long, I wrote the first words on October 2013, but this idea has been simmering for longer. I'm about six chapters ahead of this and have an outlin-ish thing, so knowing so much ahead of time is a new experience for me.

I do want to explain one misconception that you all gleaned from the snippets that I kind of lead you on about. I never let you in on the gender of the other narrator;this serial does have two narrators and one is male and the other is female. This chapter is the male POV and the next is the female.  I'm excited to be finally be working on something new, so here we go.

Chapter 1
Playlist
Whose ready for Top 40 Bingo ?

-1- Ho Hey by The Lumineers
-2- Don't Stop Believin' by Vitamin String Quartet
-3- Home by Phillip Phillips
-4- Skinny Love by Birdy (Although this is a total Parisobel song to me now, I had it before Lux)