A Book Review of A Time to Speak by Nadine Brandes

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What happens when you live longer than you wanted to?

Parvin Blackwater wanted to die, but now she's being called to be a leader. The only problem is, no one wants to follow.

The Council uses Jude's Clock-matching invention to force "new-and-improved" Clocks on the public. Those who can't afford one are packed into boxcars like cattle and used for the Council's purposes.

Parvin and Hawke find themselves on a cargo ship of Radicals headed out to sea. What will the Council do to them? And why are people suddenly dying before their Clocks have zeroed-out?

Monthly Summary: September 2016

I've dubbed this month Survival September, because it's mostly been a whole lot of work, a lot of stress, and not enough writing. Work pretty much ate my life. Believe it or not I had September scheduled as a month to relax originally, but it's been the opposite. I'm glad it's over. 

Interview with Rouyn (Starbloods) 2

Me: 

Hey, everyone! It's the time for this month's interview and today's character is my male main character from my high fantasy series Starbloods. If you want to check out a little about him before we start, you can take a look at his bio. My thanks to everyone who submitted questions. *turns in interview to Rouyn* Good afternoon, Rouyn.

Rouyn: 

*sitting with one ankle on his knee, has a British accent* Good afternoon. I haven't had an interview in some time.

How I Do Betas: Tips on Efficiently Testing Your Book on Willing Test Subjects

Welcome to Aperture Laboratories Tori's Beta Lab. Betas are essential to polishing your work to publishing worthy. Your eyes alone won't cut it. Using the following method I've managed to efficiently gather helpful feedback from my test subjects betas to help improve my novels. I've had many trials and errors, but here are the positive results of my testings. At the end we'll have cake. Who doesn't like cake?

Writing Lessons from Movies: 9

Earlier this year during a trip to Target, I got bored waiting on my other shopping mates and decided to peruse the movie section of the store. There I found this movie called 9. I read the synopsis and it sounded interesting, so a few weeks later I decided to watch it. This is a post- apocalyptic film released 9/09/2009 about a group of animated dolls, which are some of the last living beings in a world destroyed by war. They battle against the Machine to find a way to revive humanity. 

It's a very strange movie to say the least. I had to watch it twice to fully grasp it. It's also a PG-13 animated movie, which is uncommon in the Western world, and probably why the movie didn't do very well here. However, this movie is so unusual and it had many writing aspects I believe we can glean from.

Warning: Major spoilers from this film.

The Bookshelf Tour Tag & the Totally Should've Book Tag

Time to get to more of the many tags that tend to pile up. Don't get me wrong. I love that you tag me. It just takes me a while to get to them all. Both of these are from Liz @ Out of Coffee Out of Mind. One is her original tag and the other is another one that's been circling around. Without further ado let's get to them!