Rebellious Writing discussion

Talk about your current WIP! Tell us about your dashing hero or the boy lost amidst the darkness, where we're at in the writing process, and just overall fangirl together.

Currently I'm not working on any major WIPs-- I'm busy working on a writing portfolio which I'm really excited sharing!

I have two. :)
-The Flame Will Fade--dystopian novel. The main character is abused and neglected because he was born with wings; he escapes and is rescued by a haven for mutants, but not everyone there is good.
-[I don't really have a title]--Christian realistic short story. Two sisters, one of whom believes their mother is dead. The other thinks she's alive. (This one also involves child abuse, but to a lesser extent).

One of mine is a Christian dystopian that involves the beginning of persecution in America. The one I'm tossing around in my head right now is a middle grade about a little Japanese girl during WWII who gets put into an internment camp in the Midwest.

So how far into your various WIPs are each of you, respectively?

I've written about 11K words in The Flame Will Fade, and only 900 in Green Gardens.

R.S. wrote: "I've written about 11K words in The Flame Will Fade, and only 900 in Green Gardens."

Not bad. How long do you think the finished manuscripts will end up?

I'm aiming for about 75,000 on the former, and 40,000 on the latter.

R.S. wrote: "I'm aiming for about 75,000 on the former, and 40,000 on the latter."

Those are good managable word-count goals. My first novel was about 75k, too.

My current WIP is a Welsh retelling of Snow White - I'm in the process of rewriting it. I'm aiming for novella length - 15K words.

I'm working on a novel right now called Of Broken Things and Paint Splatterings, it's coming along slowly and I need new motivations and personalities for my characters now, but the genre right now is Christian and general fiction YA.

Now that "Cloaked" is almost published, I've been itching to start something new, so just this week, I started work on "Dancing and Doughnuts," a retelling of the fairy tale "Twelve Dancing Princesses" set in the Old West. I've got a whole page written already, hee!

My current WIP is a Snow White retelling set in Regency-era Scotland. It's titled Because of Midnight Poison, and my goal is to finish it up by the end of the season. :)

Neither of my works are going well. :( I had to stop writing The Flame Will Fade in order to focus on Green Gardens, which is a school assignment...but I've lost all motivation to work on that one.

"The Mystery Solvers" series (this mystery series is the one my best friend and I are working on and it's very squeaky clean). Inspired by 'The Avengers ' 2012 movie.

"The Pinksters" series (by me) I had to keep rewriting the books, because just didn't feel real enough, so I end up looking through my book of dreams to get me motivated to write.

It was inspired by 'The Avengers' 2012 movie and the 'Thor' 2011-2017 movies, but mainly 'Thor 2: The Dark World' 2013 movie inspired me.

All Squeaky Clean!

My WIP is a fairy tale retelling called "Dusted Red" that combines and twists the stories of Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel, and Peter Pan. The first draft was approx. 100k words, but I'm in the process of re-writing it and it is VERY different from the first draft.

However, it's kind of on the back burner right now because I'm working on a story for the Rooglewood Press contest. I don't work on Dusted Red as much as I itch to because of that, which makes me kinda sad, but my Snow White story for the contest is important to me, and it has a deadline, so it gets most of the attention :)

PinkLoki, "The Avengers" is one of my top 10 fave movies of all time, and Thor is my favorite Avenger, so you've got me interested!

@Ivie: I'm from Idaho! That story sounds very interesting!
@Rachel: Loki's my Avenger. I know, he was a villain, but he did well in the Dark World movie.

@PinkLoki -- that's fine with me! You can have Loki, I can have Thor, and it's all good. I'm reeeeeeally intrigued about Ragnarok and how they're going to deal with each other in it.

Rachel wrote: "@PinkLoki -- that's fine with me! You can have Loki, I can have Thor, and it's all good. I'm reeeeeeally intrigued about Ragnarok and how they're going to deal with each other in it."

I've watched the trailers so many times that I'm adding the new villains into my Marvel RPs. They're getting very intense!

Ivie wrote: "Lila Red wrote: "My WIP is a fairy tale retelling called "Dusted Red" that combines and twists the stories of Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel, and Peter Pan. The first draft was appr..."

Yes, Peter Pan toooooo!! I'm SO EXCITED, and I'm glad you are as well! I also have on-going plans for a sequel, which I'm super super excited about. XD

Currently I'm writing a sci-fi/superhero type thing involving fandom references, sci-fi, too much coffee, and inter-dimensional trans-time travel. I'd explain it better, but I'm still not entirely sure where it's headed... xD

I actually have a couple WIPs. I'm working on the My Time in Amar series. Which is a YA fantasy/portal story about four teenagers from earth who become entrapped in a fantasy world known locally as (you guessed it!) Amar. This story is clean with only a little violence and some use of minor expletives like 'freaking' 'freak' and 'crud'.

My second story is League of Thieves and it is the story of a group of eight street urchins, mercenaries, assassins, thieves, and all manners of miscreants who are fighting each other to be the first to find a legendary treasure... until they awaken an ancient evil bent on destroying the world. It's a YA fantasy, and it's mostly clean. There's a little more violence in this one, but other than that it's clean. I made up all their swear words.

I've started a short story about 2 girls who go to live on an island. It's mysterious, adventurous and fun. It's written from the older girl's perspective. What I need is a title! Any ideas at all would be gladly received. I'm finished it in April on CampNaNo, so would love a title to put on my 'writing project'. Thanks, y'all!

YAY!! That's wonderful, Shine!!!

Shine ! You write books based on you're dreams !!? Thats wonderful...a lot of mine and the one I'm currently working on is based on a dream ! 😀❤️

Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many ways, and as someone who has never been homeschooled or has not much experience with anyone who has been, I'm hoping to get some first hand help about what is stereotypical/misunderstood about homeschooling as I wrap up the story.

Any thoughts? I'd love to know what you all think. Thank you in advance.

Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many ways, and as someo..."

Hey, your story looks interesting. I've been homeschooled my entire life so... what do you want to know?

Nicki wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many way..."

I just don't want her to be 'stereotypical' - I expect other characters to make jokes about her being homeschooled, as if she has no social skills, or maybe they expect her to dress differently than she does (like she's Amish or something). She is going to have plans to go to college to study cosmology and work for NASA, and just doesn't have time for the way the other students at the competition judge her. She's over that.

I'm not sure how old you are - but when you were in high school, what were some annoying assumptions other people, especially teenagers, made about you as a homeschooler? What are you tired of hearing or seeing about homeschoolers?

Cecily wrote: "Nicki wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the sto..."

I can answer this one, too. :P People will sometimes ask "do you really know anything?" I had friends who assumed I wouldn't be able to go to college because I was homeschooled, and also figured I wouldn't have to take standardized tests (I don't have to do EOGs or anything like that, but I took the ACT just last week, and have to take some tests always.) The biggest stereotype clothing-wise, at least from my experience, was that people assume you will wear pajamas ALL DAY and have all of your school done in five minutes. If you're a student like this girl in your story sounds like she is, you do school all day, every day, even over the weekends, and it might even be harder than public school curriculums.

I know this is a lot of info--sorry :/ But I hope it's helpful! ;)

Cecily wrote: "Nicki wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the sto..."

I'm a senior, so technically I'm still in school. Hmm... let's see...

Well, there's definitely the assumption of having no social skills and having very few friends, and while the latter is true for me because I don't have as many opportunities to make friends, that doesn't mean that I don't have social skills. It just makes it so I appreciate the friends that I do have.

The clothes one is a definite problem. Just because I'm homeschooled doesn't mean that I wear jumpers or dresses. I like jeans!

My teacher isn't always technically my parents. In fact, my mom doesn't even really teach me anymore, and hasn't since eighth grade (apart from grading my homework). We follow curriculums already done by people, we read the lesson they tell us to read then we read their notes and do whatever written work they have assigned in the notes. And my math and science were online.

Um, lots of people always ask me things having to do with breaks. They don't realize like if I go to the dentist in the middle of the day, that I still have to catch up on all my school work. It's not like I miss that class for the day, I just have to find a different time to do it (so when my orthodontist asks if I want him to take a long time so I don't have to go back to school I always reply "No!")

And then there are the minor ones, like how I do school in my PJ's when I actually don't. Homeschoolers don't have to do their school in their PJ's.

Faith/Florid Sword wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Nicki wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is impor..."

Thank you very much - every detail is helpful. I appreciate it.

Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many ways, and as someo..."

I have been homeschooled for the majority of my life (and still currently :), so I would be happy to answer questions. :))

The biggest stereotype is DOING SCHOOL IN PJ'S, lol. Also, it's really annoying when people ask you questions like "Soo, do you do school?" (yes, I've had this one before lol). Some people don't really understand that we do the same amount of work, just at home. :))
Also, like Faith said, questions regarding college and standardized tests. :))

Allison wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many way..."

Thank you very much!

@Cecily, pyjamas are definitely a stereotype I never understood...

And I agree with Faith about the amount of time your character might be putting into her work. My brother is a very self-driven (and sciency) student, and over his last years of high school he spent most of his day (sometimes evenings; always starting before 8am) working on his school and assessments and stuff. He also spent a lot of time doing extra experiments and stuff. There's no way he was spending less time than someone who goes to public school, haha!

Also (wah this comment is getting long ;P) with the social skills thing... there's a group of homeschooling families in my area. This meant interacting with a wide range of people - not like public schoolers, who I believe are encouraged to stick to people in their grade? Interacting with older students (who were the role models of the group) definitely helped with social skills, as well as talking to other people's parents.

Personally, I didn't do many group tests - the kind where you sit in a room full of people all doing the same test and have to be deathly quiet? But in senior high school I definitely did tests, and my brother's now in university doing exams in a huge room full of students. So homeschoolers might or might not - depending on the way they did school, which is usually different for most of us! - have much experience with "standardised testing", but if we're academically minded, we can jump straight into uni (I don't know how that compares to college?) or TAFE without much trouble.

Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many ways, and as someo..."

It's really cool that you're writing someone like that in your novel. As a former homeschooler myself, I love it. Now if only more people would have realistic homeschool main characters.

As for things to avoid and such, I hate it when homeschoolers in books are always from hippie parents and have no knowledge of the "real world". I also don't like it when people think we're lazy. We're actually very hard workers.

I've actually written a whole post about writing homeschool characters on my blog, if you're interested. http://rs-loft.blogspot.com/2017/03/a... I'd also suggest checking out Blimey Cow on YouTube. He has some great and hilarious videos about homeschoolers. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0jI...

Rachel wrote: "Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many way..."

Thank you so much - your blog post is very helpful, and I am checking out the videos as well.

Hey guys 👋
I had the most amazing dream last night .I cannot get it out of my head so I do what I always do in that situation . I write out !
I've pretty much got the basic outline done now .
I'm calling it Venom for now ,until I can give it a more original name .

In my dream I go to an animal exhibition where I meet Alesandro a dashing foreign gentleman . My character develops a major crush on Alesandro . After a few months in his company Alesandro makes her an enticing business proposition . He wants her to infiltrate the house of a Lord who Alesandro deems to be corrupt ,all the while learning his secrets .


I'd love any suggestions for unusual or interesting names for my two unnamed characters ,or any comments or suggestions in general 😊
Thanks for tolerating the rough summary and grammar 😊

Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "Hey guys 👋
I had the most amazing dream last night .I cannot get it out of my head so I do what I always do in that situation . I write out !
I've pretty much got the basic outline done now .
I'm c..."

So cool! I love getting ideas from dreams :P

Sounds like a neat idea you have there. So as for the name of your people, where are they from? Britain?

What genre is this? It sorta sounds like a historical??? *whispers* did I guess correctly?

Cecily wrote: "Hello all - I'm finishing up my second contemporary YA, The Competition, and have a secondary character who is homeschooled. She is important to the story in many ways, and as someo..."
Hi Cecily,
I think one of the biggest misconceptions would be that homeschool students are all needs or smarter than other kids.
One of the things you'll have to decide is why your character is homeschooled .

Homeschoolers myself included often have little free time . I was a homeschool extension student I had a school that corrected my tests and research papers .as a result of this I had to finish every last test essay and page in my books to graduate ! It was really frustrating .
I honestly don't think I've ever seen someone who was homeschooled wearing old lady clothes . Lots of my homeschooled friends are pretty trendy
So I hope that helped 😊

Nicki wrote: "Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "Hey guys 👋
I had the most amazing dream last night .I cannot get it out of my head so I do what I always do in that situation . I write out !
I've pretty much got the basic ..."

I have a feeling they are from britan .
Alesandro maybe of Mexican or Spanish descent ?? Not entirely certain 😂

Genre...weird although this may sound Alesandro wears modern clothing and my character and the Lord both wear historical clothing . It's so weird .
Im going to say that it's set now but people in my universe that is sort of like ours wear whatever the want to in the same year . So if you wanted to wear armour on Monday ,you could still wear jeans and a cold shoulder shirt on Thursday ! 😊

Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "Nicki wrote: "Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "Hey guys 👋
I had the most amazing dream last night .I cannot get it out of my head so I do what I always do in that situation . I write out !
I've pretty much ..."

So then that leaves with the question, what is your heroine's hair color? I mean we could have Marianne for dark curly hair, Carolyn for blond hair, Meredith for red hair... and these are just my own classification by hair color, but to me some names sound like they should go with specific hair colors...

And maybe for the Lord, Lord Whittcomb or something equally British XD

Or he could be Italian. I have a character who has Alessandro (with two 's's) as his middle name and he is of Italian decent.

Hmm... so maybe steampunk?

You do have a point .I'll have to think about hair color I think the Lord has brown hair .I'm calling him Lord Whittcombe because of you 😂😂
I'm calling him Alistair Ansley Whittcombe IX.😂😂
I looked up stuffy historical names and I found a whole list 😂
Italian would be perfect for Alessandro 😊
I love steampunk . That's what it is ! Thanks for your help Nicki !
I'll be thinking about my main lady ! 😊
I know what you mean about names you really can't call a red head Raven and a black haired girl Scarlett unless you wanted to be ironic 😁

Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "You do have a point .I'll have to think about hair color I think the Lord has brown hair .I'm calling him Lord Whittcombe because of you 😂😂
I'm calling him Alistair Ansley Whittcombe IX.😂😂
I looke..."

Ooh, I love that name Alistair Ansley Whittcombe :D

Cool, Alessandro and my Italian hero Dante can totally be long lost siblings ;P

Steampunk is always such a fun genre, glad to help!

And yeah, though actually *likes irony* redheaded Raven... I actually kind of like that. *writes it down*

Nicki wrote: "Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "You do have a point .I'll have to think about hair color I think the Lord has brown hair .I'm calling him Lord Whittcombe because of you 😂😂
I'm calling him Alistair Ansley ..."
Aww !!! Let's do it 😂😉I'll have to put a dedication to you and Dante in the front when it gets published 😉
I thought you might appreciate that 😊
I also just found out that the name Belinda ,according to my source ,means pretty snake !!?
I'll be using that for something in Venom 😊

SHINE wrote: "I’m still stuck on naming my un-named characters."

That's always hard. I try a bunch of different methods to try to find the perfect name for my characters.

Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "Nicki wrote: "Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "You do have a point .I'll have to think about hair color I think the Lord has brown hair .I'm calling him Lord Whittcombe because of you 😂😂
I'm calling him Al..."

Aw, and I'll have to mention you and Alessandro in my acknowledgements too :P

Ooh, why hello there pretty snake XD That's an awesome name. Sounds like a redhead or a dark haired person.

Nicki wrote: "Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "Nicki wrote: "Mike (Makayla ) wrote: "You do have a point .I'll have to think about hair color I think the Lord has brown hair .I'm calling him Lord Whittcombe because of yo..."

Lol ! Thanks Nicki <3
Venom is coming along nicely Ive written out a general outline , written the character sketches out for Alessandro and Alistair .
Im still working on Belinda though .
Ive started the begining of Venom which is helping me form my characters better .
Belinda is coming across to me as a poor uiniversity student ,she has dark red hair and brown eyes . Belinda is uncultured , dresses strangely ,and has an addiction to sugar .
The genre has been evolving into gothic ,steampunk ,and romance . :)

Hey, Shine, my writing is doing pretty well. I'm starting a new story that's basically a steampunk, portal fantisy, faerie story, with Irish mythology and it's all VERY EXCITING.

*shoves other projects behind an urn*

So, how are your stories coming along? :)

Hi everyone - if anyone is looking for an ARC or beta reader, I am happy to read. I have a bit of a lull between my September YA release and wrapping up my October series finale, and I love to read non-trad/non-bandwagon/non-OprahsaidIshouldreaditsoIam stories.

And thank you to everyone who gave me advice about homeschoolers - I think Cathy, my homeschooler in The Competition came out pretty well, even if she is a secondary character. She is still important to the story (or else she wouldn't be there, right?)

Cecily wrote: "Hi everyone - if anyone is looking for an ARC or beta reader, I am happy to read. I have a bit of a lull between my September YA release and wrapping up my October series finale, and I love to read..."

Hey, if you would be interested in being a beta for my book A Certain Sort of Madness. I would greatly appreciate that :P

I'm so glad that we could have been some help! I always enjoy seeing Homeschoolers in books, I feel like they aren't represented enough ;P