Today, my hiatus begins.

Look forward to an important post from me at the end of the month.

Love you all. Have a great rest of August!

First of all: This is a little late in coming, but Madison created this outstanding mock-up cover for my WIP, Watched. 

Isn't this AMAZING? I love it. So much. Thank you, Maddy!

Second of all: Watched is coming along great! I'm almost to 80,000 words (although I've decided to procrastinate and write this blog post instead. There's so much excellent stuff happening in it (conversions! Princess Bride references!) that I almost don't want it to end.

(That was a lie. I'm so ready for it to be over.)

Third of all: This may be the last post you see from me for a while, before I go on my hiatus, although I'd urge you to go over and check out rebelliouswriting.com while I'm away. My article for that is going up soon!

Fourth of all: actual post.

So Abbiee created this tag, and I'm so excited to do it today! I have some truly despicable works in my past, as well as some very amusing stories to go with them. So: let's get to it!
This has also gotten to be really long, so this will be part one of this tag, and I will proceed to do part two in September :)

THE RULES
1. Thank the blogger who tagged you (I'm stealing it from Abbiee. Thanks!)
2. Link to the creator of the tag.
3. Tell at least five of your early writings and something you learned from them.
4. Tag people (because this tag is awesome.)

Here we go!

Number 1: The Tunnel

Things I Learned:

-Don't completely discount your old stuff tho. It will be helpful in future.

Turns out there was a character in this story who had about half a page of screen time. His name was King George. I liked him. I wanted to give him a backstory. And that led to....

Number Two: The Chronicles of Kishville

See? It's still happening, even now. The Narnia ripoff.
Moving on...

This was a massive, sprawling, ten book epic saga that had a different cast of characters for the first five books and then for some reason the same cast for books six-seven. These latter proceeded to have kids who were the heroes of books eight and nine, and then they had kids, who were in charge of book ten. Or maybe there were eleven. I don't remember now.

*finds notebook where kept all these notes for this series* *headdesks for an hour*

Y'all, okay. There were 21 books in this series, originally. Someone help.

Here are some gems of titles from the : Girls, Boys, and Orphans; Green-Red, Jolts of Wind; After Evil (not sure what I thought the plot of that one was going to be); The Fives and the Twos; An Odd Disturbance; and The Pentegreens. Save me. The nine-year-old me thought she was so clever. Argghhhh.

Only two of these books got written, but I'll tell you about those in a minute. For now, I'll just tell you now: once these got broken down into ten books, they were a lot easier to manage. Even I have no idea what I was planning to do with seven trilogies. :P

But once I got it narrowed down to ten books, it was a lot easier to do. So here are the titles of those:

1. Our Domineering Adversary (I was ridiculously proud of that one.)
2. The Peril of Loss
3. Heart of the Storm, which became With this Sword. You'll find more out about that on later.
4. A Reason to Live
5. Just More Time (??)
6. The Fate of the Planets (again, more about that one later) [with sequel An Odd Emotion, which will again be explained later]
7. Children of the Union
8. When Evil Ends
9. Journey of the Soul
10. A New Generation

This notebook I found is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I'm alternately laughing and weeping reading it. Part of me wishes you could see it, and the other part is beyond thankful that you can't.

You'll hear more about the synopses to these books before too long. For now, let's go to the

Things I Learned:

Number three: The Fate of the Planets

Things I Learned:

Actual footage of me trying to write

Number four: With This Sword

This book is one I can actually find, because I somehow wrote it around two years ago? I don't really know how that is possible, but I guess it is. It's a little better than some of these other ones, but at the same time it's still a random string of events, most of which were borrowed from other books (largely Wingfeather Saga. Here's a synopsis:

The Wilson kids, Bernie, Esma, and Laila, are used to the monotony of life in Lugir with their grandfather and uncle. Ever since their parents died, they've had to endure occupation by the evil Manlore's army, who leave them alone for whatever reason. 
But then they find out a disturbing truth: the Wild Man named Jason who roams through the village, talking like he's out of his head and giving the enemy grief-- he's actually King Martin Pentegreen, the displaced ruler of the worlds, and he's their father. (Did NOT see that coming!)
Then a lot of different things happen, like going to the child slavery place again, discovering that their mother is also still alive, learning that their grandpa hates their dad because grandma died in a battle that was the dad's fault, getting kidnapped by a villain who was so bad and one-dimensional that even Faith cringes, and... other stuff. Like meeting this really flat guy named Rishatta. 

You may recognize some of the names in that synopsis. This book was a very early version of one of my current WIPs, The King's Daughter. Esma, Martin, the mother (queen Bernathel), the bad villain (General Burashna), and Rishatta are all prominent characters in the current Pentegreen saga. Hopefully, however, the story has gotten better. Less cliché.

Things I Learned: 

Number five: A Reason to Live

I look at this original draft and wonder if I should have kept going with it.
But in the end, I'm glad I'm not.

Things I learned:

Today's post is deeply personal. It will not feature any gifs or goofy pics. It will not be full of quips, and it may not seem very in character for me.

But it is something that's been on my heart for a long time, something that needs to be said. And I want to say it.

Earlier this year, I had to have a (cosmetic, mostly) surgery. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was mildly terrifying and definitely a bit more than any teen should have to go through. The thought that others will have to endure the same or similar situations hurts my heart. The number of moments I endured in the moments when I had no clue what was wrong with me, the breaking down in the doctor's office, the moments when I just wanted my mom to hold me while I cried, the times when I could do nothing more than hold my Bible open in my lap and cry-- all of this is part of me now. And it was excruciating. The aftermath has been rather stop-and-go, with moments where I feel like a new person and moments where someone says something that sends me plummeting back to the depths. But things are getting better.

And I want- no, I need -to share the things that I wish I'd known beforehand, the things that would have made it better. Some of them I knew. Some of them the doctors said, some of them my parents said, but always it would have been better to hear from someone who had been through it before, "It gets better. I promise. You're going to be okay. And you're okay now."

So, here it is. A list of things that I wish someone who'd walked the road had said to me, and that I want to say to you, girl or boy facing surgery, now.

It's okay to cry. A lot. People may look at you, but they are not judging you. 

Your parents have your best interests at heart. They want you to be better.

Even if you have the best doctor in the world, you will most likely be misdiagnosed at least once. 

They will tell you all of the options, from the most unlikely to the one that they suspect. Some of those options will be terrifying. Just because someone uses the word cancer doesn't mean that's what you have. 

Your friends, if they're real, true friends, will care about you. They want to know what you're going through. Talk to them about what's happening. 

If you can trust people, and know that they love you and care about you, don't go telling the whole word what's happening. If someone asks, tell them the bare minimum. Don't scream to the world that you're having surgery. 

Your Bible and prayer are your greatest companion in this time. Do not neglect them just because you're feeling dark.

Do things for you. Things that will make you feel better. Splurge on that movie you want to see. Not because of YOLO or anything like that. Spend time with your family. Go out with your friends, if you're not bedridden. This doesn't have to control your life.

When you have your surgery, you will not be able to eat. This will happen more than once, most likely. It will not be as bad as you think. 

Showing your body to doctors and nurses will always be uncomfortable, but it will get less so as time goes on. You won't want to do it, and it will be embarrassing and make you cry the first couple of times. But then it will grow easier. You might still hate it. But the mortification goes away. 

Your doctors want to help you. Trust them. 

Listen to uplifting music. 

Don't neglect your school work. 

That being said, your friends (the ones you can trust, the ones you're telling everything to) will understand if you just can't get out one day. If you need time to yourself. 

Hold on to hope.

NEVER LET GO OF HOPE.

You matter. And just because you have a medical problem does not make you any less valuable. 

no one thinks you're weird or gross or skipping school on purpose

It's okay to think about things that don't matter. Live your life, honey. Don't let this take over.

You're going to be okay. 

So, I'm so sorry that I've been so late in getting up a post for you guys! I didn't mean to take a mini-hiatus, but...

One word. Math.

Here it is: the special post you were promised:




Lisa, I'm thinking you guessed right yesterday ;) Ladies and gents, give it up for Abigayle Clare Ellison, author of Andora's Folly, which released two days ago!

BUY IT HERE.

So... yeah.

I read Abi's book Martin Hospitality when it came out in March, and she is one talented author. When I found out that Abi was releasing a second book (and honestly, who cares that it's just a novella?) I jumped at the chance to beta read for her.

This book will always hold a special place in my heart as the first book I had a chance to beta read. It's incredibly well-written and contains a great plot in just a couple hundred pages. But y'all don't want to read my backstory on it; you want to hear about the book itself and see the review I wrote! So here you go.

SYNOPSIS

A Pandora's Box retelling

Andora is a beautiful young woman with insatiable curiosity. Raised in splendor, she is spoiled by her privileged life. When a love letter is slid under her door, her life takes a drastically unromantic turn. Nothing makes sense—her arranged marriage, the gifts her parents bestow on her wedding day, or her new husband’s temperament.

As Andora begins to unravel the mysteries around her, she ignites a chain of events that have the power to sabotage her entire village forever. Only her new-found wisdom as a desperate peasant's wife can save her from her folly.

It's so awesome.

Find it on Goodreads.

My Goodreads review reads as follows:

About the Author

And of course, no blog tour would be complete without a hodge-podge of links! Abi is an amazing person, so you should definitely give her some follows at a few of the following platforms:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abitheauthor

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/abitheauthor

Instagram: https://instagram.com/abitheauthor

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/abitheauthor

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/abitheauthor/

Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1a2mB0YvhJkw7Abh5NmLeg

Google +:  https://plus.google.com/117563393823109743999  

Thanks so much to Abi for the chance to beta-read Andora's Folly and to participate in this blog tour! I was so happy to be a part of this. Now to my followers: What are you waiting for? This novella costs something like three dollars. Go on and buy it! Link is at the top (in case you missed it the first time.) And if you've read this book, what did you think of it? Chat with me in the comments!