Greetings, everyone! Yes, I know what you're thinking: Faith, you already did a post for Brooke's blog tour. But here's the thing: She got the thing up in ONE DAY and there were still a couple of places that needed filling. So I hopped in and took two, because she's AMAZING and she deserves to have the BEST blog tour.

Last week I did a spotlight and review post (you can read that HERE). But this week, I have an interview!

LES QUESTIONNES

Faith: What was the hardest thing about writing How We Rise?

Brooke: I think finding my voice was probably the most difficult thing. Finding who I was and what I had to say about whatever I'm writing about. But once you find your voice no one can take it away.


Faith: What was the BEST thing about publishing How We Rise?

Brooke: Realizing that this was, in fact, the story I was meant to write. Finding my purpose and bringing to life has been the best thing. But beyond that, I've met some amazing people in this journey that support and love me. I even met my best friend through this. Her name's R.F Gammon, don't know if you know her 😏😏😏😏


Faith: -_- okaaaaaay thank you I love you so much *sobs* <3 <3 Which character is your favorite of your own? (We all know it's Peter, but I need it from YOUR mouth).

Brooke: You know me so well. It's Peter.


Faith: Of course I know that ;) Now for some slightly random questions: Top 3 Fictional Ships?

Brooke:  Oooh okay Hawk+ Icarus from The Blood Race, Tessa+ Weston from 100 Days of Sunlight, and Alina + Mal from Shadow and bone.


Faith: I SUPPORT ALL OF THESE *sobs* Top 3 ships from your own books?

Brooke:  Ooh well... Some of these may or may not be canon but Raegan+Peter, Evie + Milo from my wip Broken Memories, and I'm going to have to go with... River + Audra from my wip The Storm.


Faith: *whispers* EVIE AND MILO ARE DA BOMB (and my favorite) okay so just for fun: Top 3 ships from MY books

Brooke: EASY BECAUSE YOUR BOOKS ARE FIRE 🔥 Drex and Dulci, Lissa and Tarek, and Greg and Ella 😏😏😏😏😏

Faith: love seeing exactly ZERO Pentegreens contenders on that list, and Daverby wants to point out that he's mad at being slighted, but...overall fairly solid and I support these choices xD


Brooke: Thank you so much, Faith, for having me on your blog. You're amazing and I love you. Let me take a second to tell you, Faith's readers, just how much this girl has supported me. When I decided this book was going to come out sooner and I had just three days to plan a blog tour, she simply said to give her two of the days and she'd post when I needed her to. Seriously this girl gave me the encouragement I needed to get this blog tour going. 💕💕💕😭😭😭

Okay so like....I'mma cry? I love Brooke so much, and I truly want to urge ALL of you to support her and read her book. It's just so beyond incredible, especially the characters, and I want her to succeed immensely on this blog tour and beyond. So go buy a copy of the book and check out her blog and send her some encouragement! She's going to go far, I know it. <3

Hey folks!!! Today was supposed to be a post about high school, but I decided to save that for after graduataion itself (haha) so today we're doing a Random post: The Music Tag (WHICH I WAS TAGGED FOR THANKS)

I was tagged by Nicole Dust and I will probably not tag anyone else so be prepared to steal this tag, wouldja?

THE RULES:
Write ten songs that come on shuffle (no skipping).
Write your favorite lyric from each song.
Tag some people.

I'm just doing my current "on repeat" playlist, because most of the songs on my "saved library" on Spotify are from 5 years ago when all I listened to was Hans Zimmer and Kristian Stanfill (help). Without further ado:

1. Coldest Water by Walking on Cars

2. Paradise by Coldplay

3. Just One Yesterday by Fall Out Boy

4. Hi-Lo by Evanescence

5. Lover. Fighter. by SVRCINA

6. Things We Lost in the Fire by Bastille

7. Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince by Taylor Swift

8. Atlas by Coldplay

9. Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey

10. Fourth Of July by Fall Out Boy

It is with the UTMOST pleasure that I bring you, today: THE BLOG TOUR FOR MY DEAR FRIEND BROOKE'S BOOK!!!!!

MY REVIEW

I have nothing to say

Nothing to encourage

There is a void within me

One that screams "I DON'T UNDERSTAND"

So many questions that will never be answered

Losses

Grief

Unknowns

Loneliness

Longing for something I will never see again

Staring at past me and laughing at her idealism

Reminding myself that once I dreamed of my last summer at home being a big deal,

That my graduation was going to involve FOOD and SPEAKING and FRIENDS

That I was going to go places

And prepare for college like thousands of others before

That the friendships I made in high school would last forever

And I fight it

And I fight it

And hope feels so hard to find

And I sink to my knees

And remember

Because even though it's not the way I hoped it would be

Even if things aren't perfect

Even if graduation will be in my living room over Zoom

Even if my entire life is Zoom now

Even if I can't go to college in the fall

Even if...

I can thank Him

I can praise

because His ways are not my ways

And he loves me

He will hold me fast


Thank you Jesus
Even when you see us just as we are
fragile and frail and so far 
from who we're meant to be 
so thank you Jesus
even when the pieces
are woven and spun
Dreams shatter and scatter like the wind
Thank you Even Then
~Even Then, Nichole Nordeman

Welcome back, everyone! Anyone else's mind blown that I'm already on the fourth post of this series? It's been infinite and yet SO FAST (at least for me). I think time is fake and we're all just hallucinating at this point.

Today's love langugage is ACTS OF SERVICE! Aka the one that is possibly THE hardest thing to write into a novel. Everyone loves kissing scenes, dialogue is easy enough to incorporate, and it isn't that hard to put in some gift giving...but acts of service? Really?

This post will probably be more of a ramble than most of these have been (but let's be honest, when do I NOT ramble?) There's a lot to unpack on this topic, so without further ado, I'm jumping right in!

One thing to keep in mind is that perhaps acts of service is more than doing the dishes or taking out the trash. An example that comes to mind is the recurring theme in the Lord of the Rings of characters carrying each other. Aragorn and Boromir carry Frodo and the other Hobbits on their backs when the snow is too deep for them to wade through. Legolas and Aragorn take turns allowing Gimli to ride on their horses with them. And of course, in the big climax, we see Sam carry Frodo on his back in that iconic moment of "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you." That is possibly one of the most beautiful moments in cinematic history--and I would absolutely classify it as an act of service.

From this we see that this love language lends itself to all sorts of relationships. Nearly every example that comes to mind is a friendship, family relationship, or a begrudging, building relationship. However, with a little digging, it's not too hard to find some romantic examples as far. I'm keeping this mostly to big, popular books/movies, so y'all won't feel spoiled--although of course I'll mention the title of the book at the beginning of the paragraph, and feel free to skip the example if you haven't read it.

My treatise here is this: The main way Acts of Service manifests itself in books is through love showing itself as an action.


In Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, Katniss leaves the safe cave where she and Peeta are hiding and risks everything to go to a dangerous fight where she hopes she can acquire some medicine for his horrible wounds.

In Doctor Who's Family of Blood arc, Martha allows herself to be degraded and fall down the societal ladder all the way to the bottom, be rejected by the man she loves, and endure the risk of dying in order to keep the Doctor safe.

In Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, there's a moment where the female lead throws herself out into what comes down to a war zone and ends up getting thrown in her room with no food for days--all to scream of coming danger to the male lead.

Sometimes it's not quite to the level of possible death. In the Mitford Series (the final book of which I am currently reading), there's a young couple who are trying to work together to create a life that they can both love. They talk together. Do the chores for each other. Put the kids to bed for each other. In the nitty-gritty of day-to-day life, they are there for each other, and they love one another. Their actions prove that louder than their words. The woman is terrified of being left behind, and her husband has a habit of running late. She's terrified every time he's late, and he ends up speeding to get to home in time, only to be caught by the police--an example of actions maybe going too far or taking a turn you didn't expect.

Because this is the thing about acts of service: They come with a sacrifice. The one doing the action is giving up something else. Maybe it's five minutes of time to vaccuum the rug before company comes. Maybe it's peace of mind as they watch the kids for the evening. Maybe it's risking life or limb to save the other. Maybe, just maybe, it's life itself.

To state the most significant example of this in any of my books would be massive, massive spoilers, but let me just say: both The King's Daughter and Holding Up the Sky have a moment with an action that becomes the ultimate sacrifice. The person doing it doesn't die in either case--but there's a question mark put on their life that they cannot escape now.

Actions should always come with a consequence. That makes the love language even deeper.

And it allows you a way to get into your characters' heads even deeper and see just how far they're willing to go for the one they love.

This is a tough topic compared to a lot of the love languages--but it's possible. You got this. So go out there and put some sacrifice and some love through actions in your books. I promise, they will be the better for it.

CAMP NANOWRIMO WAS A MESS THIS TIME AND I AM OKAY WITH THAT.

Ahem. That was probably a violent start to a not-so-violent post *shrugs awkwardly* Anyway...April was a deadening, horrible month mostly (except for my birthday, that was pretty great) so a lot of Camp NaNoWriMo got pushed to the back burner for me. I spent waaaaaaay too much of my month on drawing and not enough on writing, but at least creating was happening xD

I ended up dancing from one WIP to another. My stats include: These are not final, because I didn't want to wait until the end of the month to write this and I didn't really care if I "won" or not this time...

-A Havok short story
-Another short story for an anthology
-A few chapters of my novel Watched
-The first third (ish?) of Pentegreens book 4
-A little bit of a new story called Therapy Session (which I'm not saying anything about rn)
-Some of a short story for two side characters in Pentegreens

I set a goal of 80,000 words for Camp, thinking I'd just be editing Pentegreens 4 the whole time, but that's not what worked out. See, April was a really emotionally heavy month for me. As I kept writing the edits of book 4, getting into my villain's psyche and my protagonist's despair, I felt my writing spiraling, getting darker and darker and veering into levels that made it so I hardly recognized my own story. And at that point...I had to stop. I was able to make it a few more chapters in after that point, but I'm realizing that I very much need to slow down.

I've always liked to write books fast, especially my Pentegreens books, but I'm starting to think that it burns me out too fast to do that and it might be wiser to slow down. I wrote Holding Up the Sky over a three month period, and while it killed me to go that slow, I think I got a better quality book. AND it didn't run me raw--always a plus.

Anyway, that was a lot of backstory you didn't necessarily need xD The important thing is: I did not finish Pentegreens 4 this month. I know Clare is disappointed about that--sorry, Clare. I'm working on it. xD But hopefully there will be more before too long.

ALL THIS TO SAY! I've got some snippets!

“Hi,” I say after a moment, because I realize I haven’t actually greeted him.
He smirks. He’s usually more talkative than this, but I guess talking to me will do that to you. My mom always called him flamboyant, like the Mad Hatter. I never thought that was the right word to describe him when I was younger—I always thought he just had personality.
I look at him now and take in, for the first time, the bright red tie he’s wearing over his T-shirt. The T-shirt is a black band shirt for some metal-looking group.
Yeah, maybe flamboyant is a good description after all. I sigh.
“Hi,” he says after a moment. His voice has deepened since we were kids, and even though I’ve heard it since then, it still comes as a shock every time I hear it. “I hope you’re ready to talk. I’m very interested to hear this story.”
I glare at him. “Pushy much?”
“I could be pushier. Would you prefer that?”
“If you got any pushier, you’d be my mom.”
He laughs out loud. “Oh, I just remembered why I loved spending time with you so much when we were younger,” he says.
“Why? Because I’m such a riot to talk to?”
“You’re so grouchy! I love it!” He scratches his nose and then gives me a suddenly serious look. “But truly, Ella… I want to help you.”