Updates and NaNoWriMo and Cannibals

I've discovered a correlation between movies that come out in the month of October and what I decide to write for my NaNoWriMo project.

Mama was scheduled to come out out last October, and that year for NaNo I wrote Enculturation, which followed Janie Brooks, a rehabilitated feral child and her little pack.

We Are What We Are came out this past month, and I quickly became wildly obsessed (just ask my exasperated roommates).

So of course I had to incorporate cannibalism in my NaNo, and since I'm in an Evolution of Warfare class this semester with all the NROTC kids, I just sort of tossed cannibals and marines into the blender and added a dash of post-apocalypse-but-all-the-adults-are-dead and ran with it.  It has the potential to become a hot mess, but right now we're going steady.

In other news, I ran another pass of the cover art and manuscript past the Dog Ear Publishing and even though Dog Ear stopped sending me confirmation emails, they are probably working on it and will suddenly surprise me with the revisions soon.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

Publishing and New Stories

It's official!  We've set up an account at Dog Ear Press, and all I have to do is to send in my files.  I'm currently stressing over how to write about myself.  You'd think I'd be good at that, after college applications, but it's hard for me.  After the files are sent, the next step will be me reviewing the interior in about 12 weeks.  It's going to be a long road, but I hope it will be 100% worth it.

The sequel is panning out fantastically; after extreme cuts in December (post NaNo), I'm back up to 50k words as of last weekend, and things are heating up.  However, the stories of Oxlerran have been ignored a little in favor of three other possible novels.  The premises, in order of how much they interest me, are 1700s pirates, feral wolf children, and Greek warriors.

Whatever will happen with them will hopefully be posted on the blog, although I seem to forget this blog in favor of just writing the stories and then posting every other fifth month.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

P.S. Did you hear that the Office of Letter and Light is retiring the Script Frenzy activity?  I was terrible at screenwriting, but I always wrote a novel during that month.

Another Shipment

I recently recieved another box of Ordinary Enough in the mail.  Three book this time, and boy are they as close to perfect as I've ever seen.

The size is perfect.

(5x8)

The spacing is perfect.

(I finally realized that spacing should be single spaced.  Not double.  Not 1.5.  Single.)

The cover is beautiful.

(My crazy artist friend will be drawing the final cover, which is already underway.)

And I had it printed on cream paper, which is easier on the eyes.

I'll be attending a class in August on getting published, and after that I hope to start sending this baby out into the world.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

Updates

I've been trying and trying to get my act together, and you know, this is a lot of writing for one book.

Said stack does not include the other three printed versions of the novel (which are with my mom's friend, my art teacher, and the cover art designer currently) but it does include the second edition of the work in book form, two spiral notebooks filled with stuff, and the entire manuscript printed out.  That binder has hinges.  Hinges.  I did not know that they made binders with hinges.  Also included in the picture is a lovely view of my carpet.

My summer project is to really get the ball rolling with Susie to find a home for this novel in the publishing world.  After that's on its way to being settled, I'll be pounding out the next book.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

P.S. Also, Lenny now has his own twitter.  he's @OfficialLenaic

Spring Cleaning

During the month of March, I read Utopia by Thomas More and wrote a lengthy essay on it as well as creating an oddly juvenile poster.  I also read Shakespeare's The Life of Henry V and wrote an essay on that as well.  I also finally watched It's a Wonderful Life, read some Tolstoy, and finished my essay on Jean Anouilh's Antigone.

Well, actually I finished that essay last night.

In other news, I opened up one of those old boxes in the basement and found, to my delight, the entire history of my life from birth to about fourth grade.  This is where things get scary.  Apparently, from about first to third grade, I was the class's resident math whiz.  

I think if nine year old me could see seventeen year old me, she would be ashamed of the math skills I now possess.  However, in that box, I did find about a dozen or so odd books that I'd written as a child, which consist of flowers named Stephanie and Horses in the snow and also about my unadulterated joy at finally seeing what trees looked like after getting glasses.

Script Frenzy is up and running, and I have about fifty pages on that, so I'm powering through in anticipation of a busy second half of April.  I'm working on the third installment of Naomi's series, so I skipped an entire book.  We'll see how that goes.

I also completed another step in my more-euro-chic-than-thou process by eating French Lavender ice cream.  I don't know how to feel about it just yet.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

My Book Has Arrived

TA-DA

There it is, my book.  I printed and ordered five copies from CreateSpace and they arrived in a very big box.  My friend took pictures of me as I opened the package and honestly, I look like a child on Christmas morning.  One book stays home with me, one went to the crazy artist friend, one goes to my eighth grade English teacher, and then two copies I donated to my school library, autographed and all.

Very exciting.

I'll also be talking at my school's Love Your Library Week next Monday.  I'm really nervous, but hopefully it will be very fun.

I'm now working on Xavier's book as much as I can, but he is still being a brat.  I also filled up my novel scrapbook, which was no small feat.  I feel kind of empty without it, but I started another one, so that might make up for its absence.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

The Problem Child

So you know when you baby sit that one kid down the street and they never want to do anything you ask them to do?  And maybe you'll try to ask them to cooperate, but they just look you in the eye and say:

"Why?"

Yeah.  That is Crown Prince Xavier right now.  He won't cooperate with me at all, and I would really love to finish this series.  It's all going very slowly, so I'm just kind of writing a lot of back story about General Lokiju and Count Omar who are really not relevant to what I want to write.

So after I finish Naomi's book completely and send it to Susie, I will try to finish Xavier's book, and then I would like to write the prequel that deals with Emperor Matthias, and then I will hopefully follow that with Lénaïc's book.

It would be lovely to finish a real series.  I'm trying my very best right now.

TTFN

M.K.Wissler

I'm Not so Hot at this Blogging Thing

Happy New Year!

Last time I posted was a month before Halloween.  Plenty has happened; I performed in a play, I won NaNoWriMo, and Crown Prince Xavier is being one of the most difficult characters I've ever written.  Honestly, he's turning out to be quite the troubled child.

I've also developed another idea for a fifth installment in Naomi's series that involves a war, a marriage proposal and a lot of strychnine, but that's still in the planning stages.  I hope to be updating a little bit more often now that I remember this exists, but that will probably not happen.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

It's Banner Thursday!

Woooo!

Ahem

So, here we have a revamped Ordinary Enough banner.  I made about twenty of these, using royals and other historical figures as models for my characters, which seems kind of weird when I say it.

This is the only one that's in black and white and not recolored by an insanely awesome person on deviantArt, so it's the one that gets uploaded.

Yes, that is Anastasia.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler   

Action!

By the way, it's Script Frenzy, people!

Since last year's script is currently being transformed into a novel, I decided to skip that step and am writing 100 pages of Naomi, which is very exciting.  Seriously, this new story is consuming me even more than Alex did, which is really saying something.  I have my dream cast, and my family tree, and my detailed outline, and it is just so much fun.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

P.S. You can find me here.

Banner Thursday?

Yes indeed!

Now, I made three different banners for the new novel, and here is the first one!

It was okay, but I like this one better:

What do you think?

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

Back Again

I'm back from France, and, as was anticipated, nothing happened on this blog.  Lots happened in France, though.  I finally learned how to ski.  Yes, I never learned how to ski when I was younger.

My host family took me to Paris and Versailles and I encountered the mystical, magical incredibly awesome inspiration that hits you in Paris.  Seriously.  It's mythical.  I wrote a little something about it, but I was in a pretty weird mood and ergo there are lots of bad words. 

I liked Paris, but (and don't kill me)  I thought Versailles was prettier.  It was calmer, quieter, and people didn't try to run me over.  I visited the Palace at Versailles and I got mega-inspired.

This new story might very well be the next big obsession for me, mainly because it's just easier to talk about.

For example:  When I wanted to talk about Erika, I told people:

"It's kind of like a mystery novel.  With a teenaged hacker...and a murder.  Well, a couple murders.  Okay, so there's this psycho heiress and this airplane designer..."

And when I wanted to talk about Alex, I told people:

"So it's post apocalyptic, and there's this man who wakes up on a train with a baby and no memories for the past nine years, and he used to work for the government and he fought Lamia, which are kind of like zombies mixed with vampires..."

But with this new one, I just say:

"It's based on the Romanovs."

and people say:

"Oh, alright.  Cool!"

So easy.  In other news, I got Alex published through CreateSpace with a proof copy and I already have people lined up to read it!  Its formatting is all whack like Erika's, but in the other direction.  Erika had huge margins and teeny print while this one has huge print and no margins.  It makes it easier to read, but it looks pretty strange.

TTFN

M.K.Wissler