Monthly Wanderings: June 2019

June had its ups and downs, but it had a lot of great highlights!

Language of Worlds May-June 2019 Edition!

I'm actually doing a Language of Worlds on time! Yays! If you'd like to join you can hop over onto Liv's blog. Today, I'll be focusing on Bethia from my Red Hood series. She's a Red Hood, so she has the ability to copy the powers of a werewolf, but she's also Locked which means she can't turn off this ability so she's slowly going crazy. O_O

How I Write and Got Into Writing Articles AND Get Paid for It

If you've followed me for a while then you probably know I've written articles for a few magazines and webzines. I mention it on my social media and my monthly wandering posts. I'm not an expert article writer ... person since I don't make a living off of it but I do get a few hundred bucks a year for doing it. If I had more time I could probably get into it more and maybe I will in the future but for now it's a nice little profit. For an aspiring writer every penny counts and I'll be honest, it's really validating to get paid for your writing. It's like "Yay! Hours of working my butt off are actually paying off." XD 

I've written for Splickety Magazine (Now Havok), Area of Effect (Now Mythos and Ink), and I'm currently a monthly contributor for Think Christian. I got my first piece published in a magazine in 2016 and I've been writing essays and short stories since. Though essays are my specialty. Since becoming a monthly contributor at Area of Effect in summer 2016 I've probably brought in over 1,500 bucks. 

A Book Review of Daybreak by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

Buy from Amazon!

When the shotgun-blasted body of a goose hunter is discovered, the police believe they have a list of suspects who may have wanted the victim dead, from his young wife to the caretaker of his property. But then a second body, another hunter, is found with a similar fatal wound. And then a third. As the pattern emerges—all goose hunters, all shot at the break of dawn—Reykjavik policemen Gunnar and Birkir face the terrifying possibility that a serial killer is stalking the idyllic Icelandic countryside.

Gunnar and Birkir set a trap for the one they call “the Gander,” but it quickly becomes a wild goose chase as the murderer plays some tricks of his own. With the clock running out and the discovery of another body all but guaranteed, the cops must determine if there is a thread connecting the victims or if the killings are all part of a twisted game.

Genre: Adult Mystery
Publisher: Amazon Crossing (May 7, 2013)
Page Count: 224 pages

I received this book as a freebie in my grab bag when I attended the Iceland Writers Retreat in April and I was super excited to read my first book by an Icelandic author. But uh... well ... it wasn't my favorite.

How Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Does Fan Fiction Right

I've never been that crazy about fan fiction. Mostly it's wrapped up in retconning points in the plot that people didn't like or shipping two characters that didn't sail in the show/movie/video game. I had a friend who did fanfic of How to Train Your Dragon which included changing all of the characters' names (Like Hiccup to Sven) and I'm like ... why? Which is one reason why I haven't played Shadow of Mordor until last month--the other reason was I didn't have a PS4, but that's beside the point. I could have watched the YouTube gameplay if I really wanted to.

I'm a big fan of Tolkien's works and I did not want to play a game where the canon was shredded and things were retconned. But one of my best friends who watched her husband play it convinced me that it was good, so I bought it last month on sale at GameStop and ... I loved it. Hence the focus of the post. Not much of a plot twist. But I played this game and thought it would totally get Tolkien's approval and should be a model for anyone who wants to write good quality fan fiction that hardcore fans of the source material will really enjoy. 

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor centers around Tallion, a Gondorian ranger, who was killed along with his family in a blood ritual by the Hand of Sauron. But he wakes up alive in Mordor, sharing his body with the spirit of the elf Celebrimbor whose family was killed like Tallion's. Using the wraith-like powers granted to Tallion by Celebrimbor the two seek to thwart Sauron in any way they can and exact revenge on the Black Hand.

Warning: Some spoilers unless you read the Silmarillion then you know most of them already.

Interview with Maeja and Fannar (Silver Hood)!

Me:

Hey! Thanks, everyone, for the great questions! *turns in Tonight Show desk to face Maeja and Fannar who are sitting next to each other on a couch*

Maeja: 
Hello! *^ ^*

Fannar:
*being cranky and arms crossed*

Maeja:
*nudges him with her elbow* Fannar ...

Fannar:
*mumbles* Hello.

Me:
Are you two ready to get started?

Maeja:
Yes!

Writing Lessons from Movies: A Bug's Life

A Bug's Life takes place in summer, so what better time to talk about this Pixar classic? This is the first Pixar movie I saw in the theaters, so it has so many memories attached to it. To this day it's one of my favorite Pixar movies of all time. 

If for some reason you haven't seen this movie, it's about a colony of ants oppressed by a gang of grasshoppers. Every year the ants gather food for the grasshoppers to "earn their protection." After an ant named Flick accidentally destroys all of the food, he leaves to find bigger bugs to rid the colony of the grasshoppers. 

Warning: Some spoilers in points 4 and 5.

Questions for Maeja and Fannar (Silver Hood)!

On popular request, I'm doing another dual interview! And this is with the two other main halfura from Silver Hood. Meet Maeja (May-yuh) and Fannar! 

She looks like this but with the below blue hair.

Maeja is an eighteen-year-old halfura and Aska's younger sister. The two of them were adopted by Nzelt, Lord of Isriki, at a young age and have been trained to use their matter-manipulating abilities ever since. Though Maeja knows well how to defend herself, she prefers socializing at the rare parties she's allowed to attend and drawing.

When she isn't training or in lessons, she helps Nzelt with sketches. She's drawn many plants, animals, anatomical diagrams, blueprints, and invention plans. Photography has been invented in their world, but it hasn't advanced enough to allow the detail that Maeja can replicate in her drawings. 

Since Nzelt is a very wanted man by their enemy country of Silfurlund, Maeja has to constantly move from place to place with her fellow halfura wards, not allowing Maeja to ever make lasting friends outside of her sister and her three other adopted siblings. Though she tries to stay cheerful that one day, they won't have to be on the move anymore, she wishes more than anything that she could make her own friends and be a normal girl and maybe even find love. 

Fannar is eleven-years-old and has only been Nzelt's ward for two years, so his difficult and treacherous life on the capital city streets is fresh on his mind. Because he is halfura he was abandoned as a baby, but fortunately, saved by an orphanage. When the orphanage was burned down in a fire from a Silfurndian military attack when he was five, he was forced to live on the streets and steal to survive. The few friends he had that managed to escape from the fire with him he lost to the cold Isriki winters. His talent in using his matter-manipulating abilities to break into houses and squat in them kept him alive.

Nzelt since found him squatting in a lavish hotel he stayed in and adopted him, but Fannar has not been able to recover from the horrors he witnessed. He's constantly angry and course and seeks vengeance on the humans who destroyed the orphanage that rendered him homeless and allowed his friends to freeze to death.

I had to search for a ridiculous amount of time to find this picture CAUSE DISNEY'S FROZEN HAS INFILTRATED EVERY SEARCH! I finally got it on Pinterest from "frozen to death hand." Good Lord.

Leave your questions in the comments or in the form if you'd wish to remain anonymous or if you're having trouble with the comments. They will answer them next Tuesday! Thank you!