Changing Direction...

I decided to put aside the novel I wanted to initially write because it is apart of a complicated and complex series that will take a lot of planning and research and things of that nature for a novel that is a bit more simple and less fantastic but still, in my opinion, dramatic and life-touching, if you will. I believe Apple, the novel in which I was speaking of, is a great debut novel.

I have been writing Apple on and off for about two years and now I am nearly finished, where as if I had decided to stick with my other creation it would have probably been four years from now that I would have finished. Apple is very close to my heart and I will feel the most accomplished once I have written the last word.

♥ Kimokeo :)

Today... I write

My gosh... It's been what? Two months? May be longer. I'm not sure. Either way, it's been fat too long.

I've been mentally and emotionally stomped. Not just in my writing, but in life altogether. Then I realized! I'm going about this all the wrong way. I've been waiting for something to happen, for cogs to begin to churn, for a fire to burn, for a light to go off. BUT! Nothing will ever happen that (as these last couple of months have shown). So I am firing up this steam boat on my own and creating my own personal fuel. If I believe in any ability I have been born with... I believe in my ability to tell a story.

And... I shall tell it.

I had completely my first chapter a while. I believe that is a good start, but it may change, which is what I had always expected it to do as I define the plot and zoom in my characters. But always starting from somewhere.

So today, is a huge day for research, getting my characters and settings together, and starting on the second chapter. So it is very likely there will be another entry posted tonight :)

I came across a letter I had written over a year ago and I thought I'd share it here:

Dear J. K. Rowling,

My name is Kimokeo Layton and I have read your books since I have been a young child attending middle school. When I was very young I hated to read and I hated literature. Although I wrote poetry at the time, I had never thought about writing prose. Fiction was something that only existed behind television screens and horror stories that were spoken over camp fires or bowls of candy for Halloween. 

My brother had a collection of your books scattered about the floor around his bed, he never read them, just simply felt the need to keep them because he liked the movies. I remember getting my hair combed by my mother, and as she parted and greased the scalp between each chunk of hair Fox Family (which is now ABC Family) premiered the first ever Harry Potter movie and I was mesmerized, but it didn’t last too long because my mother was sitting there and she simply would not watch anything that had anything to do with wizards, wands, and most certainly not magic.

It only took those five minutes of that timeless movie for me to pick up one of those three books lazily strewn upon my brother’s bedroom floor; and after that book I picked up another, and then another until finally I had read the last sentence of the final and seventh book and I knew this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be among this elite group of people who had possessed the ability to spawn a stream of words out of a desert of empty nothingness and these words would somehow jump into the lives of its readers. And I wanted that, I craved it, and you inspired that hunger within me because, for me, you created that world for me to live in, that void of infinite creativity that can spiral into a pool of genius. 

At this moment, I think that when I am dead and gone and the weeds have grown over my tombstone I want to be remembered most for my art. To me that’s my legacy, my history, the one thing I could pass down from generation to generation and feel like I have contributed something. Through you I have realized my greatest goal in life, and through myself I wish to achieve it. And someday along the path of achieving this, I would like to sit down with you, possibly have a cup of tea, hopefully by then you would have read one of my publication and tell me that you were glad that you had inspired me in such a way.

Sincerely yours, 

Kimokeo Layton

♥ Kimokeo :)

Blockage

I always find the hardest part about writing novels and things of that nature is being attentive enough to actually sit down and write it. Here I am, Just about eight pages into chapter one and running into walls and blockades. Hopefully, this doesn't last too long :(

♥ Kimokeo :)

Prologue...

I guess making a playlist does help. Lol :P

I rewrote my Prologue to the lovely sounds of “Oh, Maker” by Janelle Monae. That song really speaks to the Prologue and I’m glad it was playing while I was trying to piece it together.

In the beginning, my Prologue was much longer and gave too much away and I was not happy with that. I didn’t want my Prologue to be overly verbose, so I am very happy with my 464 words :)

I love to start a story off with a little mystery. It’s kind of like you step into it through a void and gradually the void gets filled.

♥ Kimokeo :)

Playlist

My brother, who is also writing a novel, felt that it would help to create a playlist that ties into our stories (kind of like a soundtrack). Stephenie Meyer did the same while writing her Twilight series. So whether or not it actually helps, I don’t know, but it doesn’t hurt. It actually was kind of fun picking out songs that I felt spoke the story of my novel. YAY! Lol.

Playlist:

1. “In For the Kill (Skream’s Lets Get Ravey Remix) by La Roux

2. “Joga” by Bjork

3. “Oh, Maker” by Janelle Monae

4. “Do You Want the Truth Or Something Beautiful?” by Paloma Faith

5. “Baba” by Alanis Morissette

6. “Unwanted” by Avril Lavigne

7. “Pagan Poetry” by Bjork

8. “Offer” by Alanis Morissette

9. “Can’t Not” by Alanis Morissette

10. “I’m With You” by Avril Lavigne

11. “Fix You” by Coldplay

12. “Look No Further” by Dido

13. “It’s a Bitch To Grow Up” by Alanis Morissette

14. “Wait It Out” by Imogen Heap

15. “Water’s Edge” by Cyndi Lauper

16. “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay

17. “Complete Me” by Frankmusik

18. “Becoming” by Jewel

♥ Kimokeo :)

A Month In...

I have decided to create a long to chronicle the process of writing the first novel of my 4 book series (and possibly all 4) until I get published so… YAY ME! Lol.

I started putting together ideas and beginning plot development about a month ago when I had decided that I wanted to write a “coming of age”/”boarding school-esque” series (mostly I just wanted to write a book that was similar to going to boarding school because I had also wanted to go to boarding in my childhood and never the chance. They just have the cutest uniforms LOL).

So far I have gotten most of the plot and background stories and a couple of characterizations done. I have mapped out settings and named important places and named every book and created title reference to the plot and so on and so further.

In plot development, basically what I do is first get a bunch of index cards and jot a lot of random ideas onto them. Then I put them in the order I feel they should go in. And in all the empty places I fill in how you get from point A to point B… and Later all the way to Z.

I find it easiest for when you are coming up with character personalities, you should come up with the birthday and time of birth that will suit your character best, and read his/her “Personal Portrait” on astro.com. Every time I do that they almost always have my character’s personality exactly how I want it :)

♥ Kimokeo :)