SkrivarSara - Tales from an Aspiring Writer

Hello!

Now I've created the new categories. Here they are with an explanation and comments if needed:

Current Story: Dragon's Tail - A story set in a pseudo-India country about a boy and a dragon he takes care of. One of the stories that currently holds my attention - I have a tendency to leave a story unfinished, but hopefully, it won't be the case of Dragon's Tail, as it is a good story.

Current Story: SIFAD - Save it for another day, that means. It is a story, I don't know how long it will be, about two young men in a middle of a magical war. For both CS's I will either put updates under one of the categories, if I have been working on them separately, or under Updates!!! if I have worked on both for some time.

Love Stories - Sometimes I gets a whim and write about love. Don't ask me why, but when I updates the progress on one of them I'll put them under this category.

My BIG Project - AKA The Age of the Philosophers, a fantasy tale in another world I'm working on. It is big because I'm creating a whole world, with religions, cultures and languages (one is under the first stages of development, others I have an idea about). Will probably take some years to finish the project.

Other Projects - For example my Fog story. Can get a whim and work on it from time to time but it is more or less sleeping right now. Other projects falls under this category, if they are new or sleeping the living death or something.

Poetry - Won't probably publish poetry often, though.

Read This Book - For when I publish a review.

Read This Story - For when I publish one of my stories. Read and comment them, please, and tell me what you think is good or bad.
 
Updates!!! -  For when I uppdate the progress of more than one thing, or when I put up new things.

Various Stories - Stand alone short stories that doesn't have their own category when I put updates on or publish them on my blog.

That's my rules. I may change some of the categories as I seem fit.

Now for an update on Save it for another day: Wrote around one and a half page yesterday, but it didn't happen too much. I got the thought that I have to incorporate a lot of elements I haven't there: background of the war, general background of the institutions and traditions of the world (difficult as I just have gone ahead this time and just started with the story, not any of the character profiles or other pre-studying), also a greater sense of urgency (right now everyone is going around crying) and sense of scale of the battle between the Light and Dark side.

Well good thing is that I'm in the beginning - at page ten. I have focused mostly on dialogue and not much narrative, and it tends to get long-winded. On the other hand, much important information can be conveyed in dialogue, but the problem is to make that realistic. For what reasong is the Lord Mage telling Rebastian that the Order may have revoltionary plans, for example? And how much information should be given, and how? I think I have to incorporate more narrative. In Dragon's Tail, Kriath, the protagonist, have internal thinking, but neither Rebastian nor Alonais have.

I'll finish this scene and then think about how to follow up. Maybe it's best to write the whole story straight and then go back and change. That's my usual way, but I seldom comes that far;P.

Well, have to go. Personal stuff may make me update less frequently than wished for, but I'll try what I can.

Sara 

Hellooooooooooooooo!!!

Anyone missed me? Been a while.

Well, as the headline suggests there's going to be some changes with my blogging. First and foremost, I'll be writing in English. The reason? I feel more comfortable with that.

Secondly, I won't write about personal things. This is no diary. If I want to write everything that happens every day to me, I'll buy a paper one. Instead, I'll write about my chosen field, writing. There will be stories done by me, poems maybe, and reviews of books and so on. Probably also fun things I read about on Internet, or hear IRL, related to writing or general life. Therefore, I'll have some new categories, because the two of them related to my field is so general that they are useless. After this post I'll change them, I have an idea to the names.

Thirdly, to celebrate the change in contents I have a change in layout. When I know how to do it, the layout may be more personalised in the future. 

Well, that was that. My first rewiew is the book Changes, the twelfth book of The Dresden Files, just because it has the same name as  my headline. I swear, though, that it struck me while writing that the names were the same, it wasn't intentional. So, here we go:

Changes by Jim Butcher

Well, well, well. It is something of a trademark of Jim Butcher to write awesome, fast-paced stories with Rule of Cool, witty dialogue and surprising twists combined. Changes takes that to eleven. The book has an unknown daugther, family secrets, holy knights and swords, arch-angels, gods, a couple of flavours of vampires, ancient blood rites, fairy queens and godmothers, mighty wizards, betrayal, love, friendship, and the first and foremost wizard of all, Harry Dresden.

Harry's life is completely changed when his ex-girlfriend comes and tells him a revengeful vampire countess had kidnapped their daughter, a girl that Harry had no idea existed. The book then takes Harry and the reader to a travel throught the streets of Chicago, the tunnels under Edinburgh, Nevernever and, finaly, Chichén Itzá, where the big battle is fought between Harry and his eight comrades on one side and the whole Red Court on the other. Harry's home and car had been destroyed in the journey and his inner struggle takes him to limits he previously had refused to cross but now did, to save his daughter. 

It is an awesome book, with Butcher's usual standard of surprise and suspense. The story is full of magic and exciting places, and has themes as loyalty, love and right and wrong which it presents without pomp and fuss. It is fast-paced, but written in first POV, so Harry's thoughts, feelings and explanations of what's happening takes up rather long paragraphs. He is funny though, even if the explanations often takes form of info-dump, that is none-the-less woven masterfully into the story. The characters stands on their own merits and are rather believeable. The ending is somewhat unexpected and left with a cliff hanger, which never happened before. The next book is rumoured to be titled Ghost Story or simply Dead, which gives an idea of Harry's state of being.

Harry's inner journey is fascinating and deep, as he go out of his limits to save a daughter he never met but nevertheless loves as soon as he hears about her. Almost all of his actions stemmed from that fact, and of the fact that he cares about the people around him. That far I give him credit for. That some of his acts are amoral and doubtful is another thing, and the fact he knows they are is aggravating. He commits deed that only a full redemption quest can redeem - which I hope he takes upon him in later books. The acts are understandable, but despiseable, and sets up for more trouble in the future for an already troubled protagonist. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable read about him.

The other characters are well fleshed out and you feel you know them when you read. Murphy is one of my absolute favorite characters, but sadly, neither Michael nor Will was there. Molly, Harry's apprentice, was enjoyable and at least Sanya was there and became more fleshed out in character. Hopefully, with Sanya's dark past, will he be a help for Harry in the future. Other cool characters was met, for example the asagod Odin, who helped Harry. As mysterious characters go though, I missed the Gatekeeper, but the glimpse of the Merlin made me like him more, even though the protagonists doesn't like him. It is something about the classic wizard guy that I like. 

Overall, I give this story 4.9 out of five. No comments about it.

Now I may go writing on one of my current projects, Save it for another day, a story I hope to publish here one day - or IRL if that is good. Next story up is After Goodbye I guess, when I fixed the overall structure a bit. Don't know how long that will take though.

Hope you all have a good midsummer!!

Bye,
Sara

PS. I have a working relationship with a spider in my room, which seems to be afraid of me though. But so long it kills all the disgusting silver fishes and other yucky things in my room and doesn't go into my bed or my slippers, I won't kill it. DS.