R.F. Gammon Author

THE RISING AUTHOR TAG//in which I steal a tag from my friends because I need a post

by R.F. Gammon - January 28, 2019

So apparently I'm a hardcore tag thief now. Whoops.

I have a giant list of ideas for things to blog about, but I don't really feel like writing about any of them at the moment. They're all big deep things that will require a bit more time than I have available (I'm writing this late Sunday night planing to put it up Monday morning...hee hee), and I just wrote a really deep post last week, so...for right now let's all enjoy a little tag (because it has genuinely been FOREVER since I've done a tag. Whoa. This is not okay.)

I stole this tag from Lila Kims (if you want, go check out her post HERE; her writing is always amazing).

Rising Author Tag

1. What is the weirdest thing someone has ever said to you about your writing?

Oh, sheesh. I don't even know.

All I can say is, get you a best friend who will scream at you when you tell her the plot of your fourth book, calls your male lead "Fishy," and apparently finds one of your villains super hot. That was a pretty weird revelation xD

2. What is the worst thing you ever wrote?

I want to say my story "An Odd Emotion," which was a romance novel I wrote at the tender age of about 11, but I think it would be topped by a tie between these two stories:

1. "Giraffe School," a story also by 11-year-old me about a giraffe who was afraid of heights and had to learn to overcome that fear by watching tons of Star Wars (with a (R) or (TM) after every usage of the name) and by kicking a lion in the head

2. "With this Sword," the earliest incarnation of "The King's Daughter" that was literally just a blatant ripoff of the Wingfeather Saga, featuring long-lost royalty, a crazy guy who turned out to be family, a hidden world in the nearby forest, a factory full of innocent slaves, and a break-everyone-out-of-the-fortress scene.

Yeah, I've written some pretty bad things in my day. Good thing those days are long behind me. *laughs* *chokes*

3. What is the most awkward scene you've ever written?

Too many! *cringes just thinking about half the scenes in most of my writing*

I know I wrote one scene where my male and female lead had the whole "only one blanket and so we have to sleep huddled together" thing, and that was pretty awkward.

Also, in earlier versions of the Pentegreens, there was this relationship between two characters...actually, most of the "cut relationships" between characters were super awkward and need to get THROWN IN THE GARBAGE. But especially the one with my assassin chick and a spoiler character. And that's all I'll say about that.

4. On a scale from 1 to 10, how often do you end up writing more than 3 chapters of the stories you start?

Ummm....probably a 7? If I'm committed enough to a story that I actually start it, I'm usually going to get a little further in. If I quit, too, it usually happens further in than just 3 chapters. Unfortunately.

5. What is the hardest thing for you to write?

Torture scenes (and ugh, there's a lot of them in my current series.)

Any scene that involves my non-canon ship being together and not doing anything, erm, romantic

Parts of Pentegreens Book 3 that involve unrequited love where I want to just scream at both characters to STOP BEING IDIOTS ALREADY

Scenes in Watched where there's lots of politics and/or family drama

Action scenes

...everything apparently?

6. When you look back at your early writing pieces, what's one thing you can see you've improved in?

Plotting. And not as in outlining, but as in coming up with an actual plot. Realizing that I'm a character-driven author has really helped with this.

7. How do you name characters?

If there's a specific nationality I'm looking for, I'll look it up on BabyNames or something similar. But most of the time, the names just come to me. Coming up with names for my Venarian characters, an ethnicity in Pentegreens, is especially hard, because a rule of the language is that every male in their society has to have an "sh" somewhere in his name, and the girls' names, preferably, all start and end with "A". So that makes my life more difficult for sure.

8. If you had to pick one genre to write in forever, what would it be?

*coughs* Imma cheat and say speculative.

Fantasy, dystopia, (not sci-fi because that's not my jam, but ya know), alternate history...all that stuff. I have a couple of ideas for contemporaries, but I don't think I'll ever get around to writing them. Give me alllll the lovely spec-fic.

9. Which of your characters do you feel most guilty about?

*coughs so hard she literally chokes* Ummm.....

My sons really should not make the decisions they make. That's about all I'll say.

But...fine. Derek and Rish need to choose their life trajectories more carefully, and nothing that happened to Mel and her little brother Win is their fault. So...the four of them, especially.

10. Which of your characters deserves everything you've given them?

The good, the bad, or both?

I mean, if we're talking good...it would have to be Lucas. Man, I love that car thief/spy/dyslexic heart-throb with a vengeance.

But in terms of bad...

*rips everything out of my villain's hands and throws him in a corner* I want you to THINK about what you've done to my poor babies!

Fine. Miss Anna Woods deserves everything she's got, both good and bad. She hasn't had the easiest life, but she's not the nicest person, either. And she gets a good balance of both good and bad out of it.

I'm not tagging anybody, but if you'd like this tag, feel free to steal it!

Which of your characters do you feel most guilty about the things you do to them? Should I ever share some of my old cringey writing? (I feel like that's a bad idea.) Do you feel like writing tags are sort of dead at the moment? Because that makes me sad (even if I don't have time for them most of the time.) Chat with me!

18 comments

Free Indeed

by R.F. Gammon - January 21, 2019

I'm not sure how long they were looking at me and thinking about how much they wanted to be somewhere else.

How many months before the axe fell passed where every smile they turned on me was painted on? How many times did someone say, "Oh, today's not going to work, I suppose we'll have to come up with a different day," and then hang up the phone and breathe a sigh of relief? Was there ever malice? Was there heartbreak? Did it hurt them to drive away that day; did they have any idea how much they were hurting me?

Did they feel keen relief? At this point in time do they still feel that relief? Do they feel guilt? Do they feel nothing at all?

I'll tell you what I feel: I feel freedom.

~~~

Even driving into the parking lot of a hospital, looking up at those bright windows and the dark doors, triggers it. The fear. The memory of waking up in a bed crying for Thai spring rolls, sending frantic texts to a friend in a drug-induced panic, sitting in a wheelchair as my dad pushed it down the street as we went to get food.

Hearing a doctor say the c-word in relation to me. Having my entire life thrown into disarray.

Then learning that what I had was not cancer, but something else. The relief, followed by the terror of the unknown.

Last week, a doctor gave me the all-clear for six months. The surgery is past; the shame is gone. The fear lingers occasionally, but I no longer feel the same terror.

I feel freedom.

~~~

What were they thinking when they looked at me? Them and their white sneakers, their laughter as they bent low over phones, discussing things of which they had no idea. Things that I did know, that made my blood boil.

Sometimes I found myself wondering: Was I the problem? Was it really me who could never find the answers, who messed up the experiments, who was clueless about the class material? It was them, my brain hissed. They were the ones who set me to crying in the bathroom.

Perhaps it was all of our faults. Perhaps I trapped myself in that darkness, putting myself on the edges by refusing to compromise. Perhaps they were the ones who did not reach out to the girl who had no idea how to socialize.

Either way, leaving was one of the best things I could have done.

And now, I feel freedom.

~~~

Our church pews do not burst, but they are filled with people who turn their faces to the sky and raise their voices in praise.

My dreams still haunt me, and yet the true faces of those I once feared to see no longer do.

My heart breaks occasionally, but I stand on my own feet.

Depression does not have the last word. The situations around us do not have the last word. Death and the grave and sin do not have the last word.

"In this world you will have trouble," Jesus said, "but take heart! I have overcome the world."

Not "I will overcome" or "I might overcome. No.

When Jesus said this, he had not yet gone to the cross; it was the night before his arrest, and he stood in the midst of his disciples, comforting them. Sin still held sway over all; the cup of God's wrath hung before Jesus' eyes, and he prayed for it to be taken away from him so that he might not have to drink it.

And at that point:

HE HAD ALREADY OVERCOME.

If, at that time, Jesus had already overcome, how much more now, 2,000 years later in a world where we see his fingerprints everywhere?

If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.

And even when it doesn't feel like it, friend, if you know him, you are free.

It doesn't always feel perfect. Sometimes the darkness presses close, and it's all you can do to stay on your feet. "In this world you will have trouble," Jesus says, and that is a promise.

But then there is the second promise, so much stronger and more powerful, as true as Jesus' victory over death and the grave: "I have overcome the world."

He's won. Let's believe that.

18 comments

Beta Call//If you've ever wanted to read my crazy novel NOW IS YOUR HOUR

by R.F. Gammon - January 11, 2019

38 comments

2019 Goals//THERE'S TOO MANY OF THEM SOMEONE HELP

by R.F. Gammon - January 07, 2019

Greetings, everyone! Now that we have a foot firmly planted in 2019, all over the world (shoutout to my Aussies who got there first and my West Coasters who...didn't), it's time for me to share my Resolutions and Goals for the Year of Our Lord 2019.

And holy heck, there's a lot of them.

1. Keep up with my writing goals

This is the biggest of the goals I have for this year, and my Writing Goals in detail may get their own post at some point here. At the moment, I'll drop a couple of tidbits and a couple of details.

Tidbits:

-There's 14 goals this year (yes, Savannah, I actually counted them xD)

-6 of them are editing.

-7 of them have to do with the Pentegreen Series.

-None of them have to do with the Watched Trilogy.

Details:

-I'm getting to the end of my third draft of The King's Daughter! I'm about to start recruiting betas and looking for an editor! *shrieks forever*

-I finally am giving myself permission to start drafting the book I've mentioned here a couple times, known to you all as the Super Secret Project, but known to me as THE STORY I JUST WANNA WRITE

-My Rooglewood Contest story, once called Ink Storm and now called Sweat and Gold, is going to be edited, fixed up, and SENT INTO THE WORLD in one form or another (again, more on this later, but for now....*hysterical and excited screaming*)

This is a HUGE undertaking, and I'm still going to have to keep up on my school, my outside commitments, my travel, and hopefully another job towards the end of the year. But we're going to do this thing. It's going to be awesome.

2. Reach 500 Instagram followers

I'm not sure why, but my followers list fluctuates wildly like all the time? Like it is constantly swinging between 204 and 215. Never gets higher than that, never gets lower. It's ridiculously annoying, and if people are unfollowing me...I want to know what I'm doing wrong?

But anyway, I'm planning to post at least one time a day on my actual feed this year as one of my goals, and I'm really hoping that putting in that level of effort will get me to the big 500.

(Hint, hint: If you have Instagram and you aren't following me HIT ME UP xD My handle is @rfgammonauthor and I post some fun stuff. Occasionally.)

3. Start a ledger

Because I'm a spendthrift and I want to know where my money is coming from and where it's going?

4. Pray outside a Planned Parenthood/abortion clinic 10 times.

I only did this once this last year, and it was FREEZING COLD and I spent most of the time huddled in the car because I think it was about one degree outside and the windchill was brutal. This year, I'm going to have my license, which means I can drive, which means I can get myself to these places to pray. It's something very tangible I can do towards furthering my life goals of ending abortion.

5. Get my license

I'm getting there! I'm getting driving hours logged and I'm almost to the point where I could call the DMV and schedule an appointment. This is a very attainable goal indeed.

6. Work out 3 times a week.

Self explanatory. I want to be able to run a 5k and I want to be able to pump iron. That's it. xD

7. Make a college decision.

This is super intimidating, and I don't really want to do it in 2019. I'd much rather put it off til 2020. But I have to do applications this summer, and the fact of the matter is: I want to know ahead of time. I want to start reaching out to people at the school where I'm going, making plans, raising funds, working for scholarships, planning my dorms, searching for a roommate. Having a plan and a set decision will do wonders for my peace of mind, so I'm hoping to do that by the end of the year so that I know where I'm going and I can just focus on having a great senior year of high school.

8. Tell my friends how I really feel.

What do I mean by this? Well, I tend to be that kid who just sort of sits there and lets people walk on her when she feels ignored or hurt. I don't speak up about my feelings. This year, I'm hoping to change that. I'm not going to walk on eggshells around my friends--I'm going to be kind and respectful to them, but I want to open up to them as much as I force them to open up to me.

9. Read the Bible in a year

I'm doing the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan, which has me going from four books at a time, and even though I've only done a couple days so far (at the time of writing this post) I really like it. I think this is very attainable.

10. Sing like no one is listening

By this, I mean I want to be less self-conscious. I want to own myself. I want to walk down the street and just be me. I want to dance in the grocery store and not worry about what the old lady behind me is thinking. I want to blog about controversial things and not worry about losing followers. I want to become a confident, not-self-conscious person this year, someone who lives out loud.

11. Break a habit

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I have several little mannerisms and habits I'd REALLY like to get rid of.

12. Tell someone about the Gospel

I am very much a failure at evangelism. I don't do it anywhere near enough, I barely, if ever, breach the subject to my non-Christian friends, and I just don't have the courage to do it. But after being told at my workplace that I was "different" from everyone else, letting my kindness and politeness and the light of Christ within me shine on the people around me, I want to go further. I don't want to be afraid of what people will think--I want to share the Good News.

13. Stay under allotted daily time on phone

I have an app that tracks the number of minutes I spend on my phone a day between the hours of 6am and 9pm. My limit is 90 minutes, and I'm really bad about going over that. My hope is to whip myself back into shape and spend less time on my phone, and hopefully under 90 minutes a day.

14. Discover new music

I'm really bad about getting into a rut with my music, then getting sick of it and not wanting to listen to anything or anyone. My hope is to have at least one new artist or album per month this year. Maybe I can expand my horizons a bit--in 2018 I discovered Lorde and Bastille and my mind got blown right open. xD

In last week's post, I talked about the fact that my one word to sum up 2018 was growth. I grew and changed and challenged myself and was thrown into the arena in so many ways, and it made me a better person.

In 2019, I'm setting a word for myself now, ahead of time.

And that word is:

Risk.

I don't mean risk in terms of doing silly stuff. I'm not going bungee jumping or riding crazy roller coasters or getting a fake ID or anything like that.

My idea of risk is more along the lines of stepping out, out of my comfort zone and into the role Jesus has called me to. I'm ready to make a splash. To stop worrying what the people around me think, and instead to do what I want to do and what I'm called to do. I'm stepping out in faith, and I'm going to make a difference this year. I know it.

So here's the list of my goals for the year! Hopefully this wasn't boring to read xD I'll be posting next week about my writing goals in 2019 in more detail (along with a big announcement that will be coming then as well! ;))

What are your New Year's goals? Are you a resolutions person or not so much? What's your word for 2019? Chat with me in the comments!

32 comments

2018 WRAPPED

by R.F. Gammon - December 31, 2018

Can y'all believe that 2018 is already over? Goodness knows I can't. It's been a wild ride of a year, and while it's been fast, I'm still ready for another year. A LOOOOOT happened this year, and so in this post I'll be wrapping all that up. Next week, once I've got my list of resolutions and goals for 2019 written down, I'll be sharing them, so stay tuned for that post!

For right now, though, let's do

2018: A Wrapup

Music

Here are my top Spotify stats of 2018, according to their Wrapped feature:

According to them, I listened to 109 hours' worth of Fall Out Boy, which both astonishes me and doesn't surprise me in the least. I mean...quality music, y'all. I regret nothing.

In case you're even more curious (because this is the sort of thing I really love to see), here's my Top 100 Songs of 2018 playlist, generously made for me by Spotify:

My favorite NEW artists from this year, some that I'd never really listened to before the grandeur that was 2018, are (in no particular order):
-Zayde Wolf

-Sam Tinnesz

-Lorde

-Bastille

-Coldplay

-Owl City (shoutout to Lila Kims for screaming about him until I finally listened XD)

-Scott Mulvahill

In short, it was an amazing music year and here's to even more music and new artists in 2019!

Books

Here's some stats from Goodreads regarding my reading habits:

-I have read 121 books this year.

-Some of those books were textbooks or from English class.

-A lot of them were ebooks and ARCs!

-My average rating was 3.9 stars.

-I have read 43,757 pages (What the heck)

-My most common rating was four stars (What can I say, I'm good at deciding whether or not I'm going to like a book)

And I actually made a brief little vlog to talk about my favorite books of the year! It's pretty short (around five or six minutes, I think?) and I'm linking to it below ;)

Here's the links to those reviews, too, like I promised:
Book #5
Book #4
Book #3
Book #2
Book #1

Writing

Here it is: my most favorite thing about this year, the thing I can't wait to talk about.

I've always been a writer, always working on stories and weaving little worlds with characters I hope seem real. But I think that 2018 is the year I became an author.

The story of my heart, that I've been working on in one form or another, the one I'm constantly screaming about, the one that I love more than any other, finally fell into place this year. I wrote a story that I'm in love with. I don't mean the storybook kind of love, either-- this is a real marriage, guys. There's good days and bad days. There's days when I want to quit, when I want to throw in the towel, where I get sick of this story. And yet I will not give up on it. I love it.

The Pentegreen series is the saga I have fallen in love with, and it finally exists on my computer, the first two books in fully drafted and partially edited glory, the third book in progress. The fourth one still only exists in my mind, but it's getting closer. And oh, I am in love with it.

That's not the only story that claims my heart, however. I've been assaulted with plot bunnies on all sides for stories this year, and that's made me a very happy little writer indeed. There have been days when I've worried that once the Pentegreens are over, so will be my writing career. But there are other storie now, too. Stories about the Mafia meeting dragons. Alternate histories about World War II and what might have happened had Germany won the war. Dystopian stories set here in America. And one about which I will not be sharing details, as it's still very new, but it's huge and epic and I already love it.

But enough of all that. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and talk about stories to come, but stick with stories that have been written.

This year I wrote:

-First draft of The King's Daughter which came to 120,433 words

-Second draft of The King's Daughter which came to 123, 741 words

-Got said second draft alpha read (!!) by some absolutely AMAZING frens who gave me the best advice and are helping make the in-progress third draft fantastic

-Third draft of The King's Daughter is currently sitting at 46,196 words (I'm hoping to hit 50k by the end of December)

-First draft of The General's Children (Pentegreens book 2) which came to 130,481 words

-Second draft of The General's Children is currently sitting at 17,630 words (I need to write more but I'm too much of a wimp to write the next few scene because it involves badly hurting one of my sweet babies and I hate doing that to him)

-First draft of The Winter's Chill (Pentegreens book 3) is currently sitting at 73,946 words (again, I need to work more on this one, but it's just such a tough story for some reason)

-My NaNoWriMo project this year was Watched, the first in a different trilogy, and it's currently sitting at 50,015 words (eventually I'm going back to it, but for right now it'll probably be a while before that happens)

-I started another story that I will definitely be going back to once I have a bit more of a plan for what I'm doing, a Robin Hood/the Six Swans retellling called Hood's Arrow, currently sitting at 15,169 words

-I edited another draft of my Rooglewood contest submission from last year, Ink Storm (now entitled Sweat and Gold), at 14,249 words. (I'll have some news regarding this little story in next week's post! Stay tuned. ;))

Because I want to have it on record, I added this all up to see how many words I wrote in all this year (this doesn't count all the random little scenes I wrote in seperate documents, the scribbles on sheets of paper, or any of my blog posts or magazine articles for my school, which probably add up to another 20-30k easily).

I wrote 591, 860 words of fiction this year.

This has got to be a personal record for me. I've never accomplished ANYTHING like this, and just looking at these numbers makes me giddy.

And I want you all to remember: WRITING A FEW WORDS IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. Every word you write is a word the world has not seen before. Last year I poured all my energy into a little novella, which I had hopes would be my first forray into the publishing world, and yet I didn't win the contest. I've been writing and writing at this series of mine for YEARS now with no progress. Sometimes it all seems pointless.

But then it breaks through like this and you discover that you have characters you absolutely love, stories you can't imagine life without, and a world that makes you wonder how other people survive without their own little fantasy lands in their heads.

Also, I had a looooooot of free time the first half of this year. Most of these words came from the period between January and June. Having a job + junior year of high school didn't leave much time for wordsmithing.

Since y'all are my friends, I thought maybe I'd give you all a chance to read some snippets from this year's work. *hides under a blanket*

Snippets

Opening the door to her bedroom, Esma slipped in and darted into the adjoining dressing room. Shadows danced in the corners of the room, and she shivered and struck a match, lighting the candle that stood atop her immaculate dressing table. An orange glow danced around her. She’d never been afraid of the dark in the past; she supposed that she still wasn’t.

It was only that now she had an idea of what evil might lurk in the shadows, and she had no desire to be caught off guard by it ever again.

~The General's Children

The door to the kitchen flew open. The waitress, her bun flapping behind her head like it needed a few more pins, strode towards him. Will slid backward on the stool. Her hand went up and she pointed to him.

He cringed, preparing for her to yell at him to get out. The roaring in his ears was too loud. Time to get out of here.

He was just preparing to jump up off the bench when what she was actually saying filtered into his ears.

“Good morning, sir! And what can I get you today?”

~Hood's Arrow

“Why did you tie me to a tree?” Derek asked, in as calm a voice as he could manage. A girl this beautiful, this distinctive, this powerful, should not be fighting for Dauthang. He tried not to think of all the good that she could do for their side. He’d have to convince her as she was. She wasn’t going to listen to him if all she saw was someone determined to sway her to their side. No, what she needed was kindness and love and determination.

As long as she didn’t murder him before he could pull it off, he’d be fine.

“You tried to kill me!” she screamed. Now the tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, and she spun away from him quickly. Not quickly enough to hide the shaking in her shoulders or the slump to her stature, usually so straight.

“And then I saved you,” he said, still trying to keep up that calm voice. “I saved your life. I wouldn’t actually have killed you.”

“Really?” She whirled back to him, raised her right palm, and brandished the bandage that she’d tied across it. It was a messy job, and the healer within him cringed at the sight. “Are you sure, Captain?”

“Commander.”

“Whatever. You tried to kill me.”

~The Winter's Chill

As soon as we hear the door upstairs close, Jeannie shoots out of the kitchen, a cookie in either hand. “There’s more where these came from,” she says, holding them high above her head, “and also you know now why I’m fat. Anyways. Let’s talk politics.”

“Must we?” grumbles Bryce.

“Yes,” Jeannie says, shooting him an irritated look. “We need to make sure Lucas understands what’s going on in this new city of his. You came from the Northwest, correct?” He nods and she goes on, “He just needs to understand. The situation out there is just slightly different from here.”

I snort. “You’re telling me.”

“Sit down, Mel. Stop standing there awkwardly and embrace the fact that you and Lucas are friends now. There’s lots of space on the couch.” Jeannie points me to a spot on the couch. I ease myself down on the very corner of it, as far from Lucas as I can sit without making it look like I’m avoiding him. “And I will sit…” She looks around, sees that our mediocre seating options are all taken, and plops herself down on the floor. “I will sit right here! Now then.”

~Watched

Revitalized by this moment of silence and the chance to breathe, Briallen brought her pen down on the page.

She was never sure how it happened. Was a part of her ripped off from herself and sucked into the journal, or was the story somehow lifted out of the journal into her bedroom? Either way, she went spinning into the void, clouds and trees whirling past like she rode one of the rarest breeds of Spinning Dragons, with no indication as to whether she or they were stationary.

Her feet hit the ground.

~Sweat and Gold

Esma turned away and put her hand on her knife to steady herself. Even that simple action recalled the truth of what she was witnessing, and she struggled for breath. They were at war. This city— it was at war. The war had not left a single citizen of her city untouched, and the heat that warmed her core blazed furious to see it.

In that moment, Esma Pentegreen swore an oath:

She would not rest until she saw Dauthang’s attempts to bring her city down destroyed, and peace restored to her people.

~The King's Daughter

Movies

Best new movie of the year award goes to:

via Rotten Tomatoes

Best movie theater experience:

via Rotten Tomatoes

Most tear-jerking movie of the year:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

via Rotten Tomatoes

Movie I'm most eager to see make the Oscars:

via Rotten Tomatoes

Best historical/drama/movie I will watch on repeat for the rest of my life:

via Rotten Tomatoes

Still my favorite movie of all time:

via Rotten Tomatoes

Life

One thing that seems to happen a lot right now is that people are starting to look for that one word that summed up their year, a word to say everything that happened briefly. With a little reflection, I've found mine.

The word to sum up my 2018 is:

growth.

This year I did things I never thought possible, like raising money to go to Washington, D.C., and attend the March for Life, which is still one of my favorite memories of the year. I got my first-ever job, and was able to be a light in my workplace. I pushed through the struggles of, more than ever before, leaving my childhood behind for the sake of becoming an adult.

It's been a tough year in that regard. I haven't enjoyed giving up my Saturday mornings to go to work. I haven't liked the lack of sleep, the huge plate of things to do, or the fact that I get less and less time to myself. But I think it's been worth it.

My piano abilities have grown. My life is fuller, richer, and more full of meaning. I think I've been growing closer to God, and I definitely know what my priorities are now. This has been a year of experimenting, of trying different things and shifting my schedule and having a non-existent schedule. But that's okay. I've been learning. I've been growing. I've been preparing.

And I am ready for what 2019 has for me, and what God will teach me within that year.

(also I discovered I like coffee this year. Apologies to Catherine, Ivie, and the rest of the #CoffeeFree squad. XD)

In Conclusion

It's been quite a year. Not the hardest, not the easiest. Just another year.

But I'm so grateful that God allowed us to have it.

To 2019, friends. *raises glass of ginger ale*

How was your 2018, friends? I know you're all putting up your own posts, and I'll be doing my best to comment on as many of them as I can. But I'd love it if you'd talk to me about your year!

30 comments

Band Highlights: Fall Out Boy

by R.F. Gammon - December 21, 2018

14 comments

Decree Blog Tour

by R.F. Gammon - December 15, 2018

11 comments

APPARENTLY I WON NANO?! (A repeat of Know the Novel, part 1...part 3 coming later xD)

by R.F. Gammon - December 07, 2018

You guys.

I won NaNoWriMo.

Remember in my last post I was all like "Well I'm not even at 15k but that's alright I've made my peace with the fact that I'm not winning"? *cackles evilly*

I WON ANYWAY.

Granted, I won at 11:58 PM on November 30, two minutes to spare, and then proceeded in my exhausted and desperate state to copy-paste the entire text of my novel not once but twice into the NaNoWriMo website, so that it thought I'd written about 60k words in one day and gave me credit for a 100k novel. Thus all my word counts and lifetime stats are forever ruined. *cries*

But I WON.

I won with 50,015 words, and I'm probably 2/3 of the way through this story? Most of it is trash, it has next to no plot, and it's really depressing to read back through it. I have a fluctuating love-hate relationship with this story, but I won't be going back to it until I've got the Pentegreens Book 1 done. :P (Edits are starting now and I'm in chapter 3 and it's going remarkably well.)

I'm going to be doing Part 3 of Christine's Know the Novel Linkup when it comes out next week, but for right now...well, I never gave you a proper intro to my NaNo WIP Watched, so I figured I'd give that out now. And what better way than to go back to part 1 of that lovely linkup?

Here is a mockup cover for my lovely little novel--the whole running thing hasn't happened YET but believe me when I say that it will. Mwahahahahaha.

Questions

1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?

The weird thing is that the characters of Watched--Mel, Lucas, Bryce, and their familes--all started out as side characters in the Pentegreen series. I might argue that my weird brain had Mel as more of a protagonist than Esma in the original incarnation of that series. *is confused* But one day while walking through Washington DC I started thinking....what if some of my characters ended up here, but in the future?

This is where Watched came from--some of the Pentegreens lifted out of their own story and deposited in dystopian Washington DC.

2. Share a blurb!

Okay, this blurb is atrocious...but here ya go.

A world at war. A nation divided. And a group of people caught in the middle...
America's war with the rest of the world has dragged on for nearly a decade, and soldiers willing to fight grow scarce. After doing away with the draft nearly thirty years ago, it becomes clear that if homeland defense is to be maintained, more people must be sent to the front.
It's a perfect way to both win a war and deal with the Christian problem.
Mel Alltote wants nothing more than to live her life for Jesus and escape the boy at her school who seems hell-bent on torturing her. But when the new edicts put not only her but her family into unthinkable danger, she must make a choice: does she stand for Jesus, or does she run for him?
With the help of Jeannie, her relentlessly optimistic best friend; Bryce, the genius boy torn between his promise of a future and his faith; Opal, Mel's quirky and fierce older sister; and Lucas Burns, the school's resident heartthrob, she may just be able to make it out of here. But the government is closing in.
And soon, it may be too late.

3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?

I love writing the grunginess of the city, the darkness and murkiness and the nightlife. This is the suburbs of DC--they've never been to the downtown/Mall within the story itself, at least not yet--and the kids spend most of their time either at school or out at night, which is a ton of fun. The aesthetic of this story is also neon purple lighting, which is probably going to play a pretty crucial role in the story later on (and needs to be brought out slightly more--this is a first draft that will NEVER see the light of day xD)

4. Tell us about your protagonist.

Shy//reserved//has seen too much//tears//redhead with temper//cries//desperate prayers in the dead of night//weary sleep//no homework//hanging on by a thread//haunted

5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?

The main antagonist of this story is all the people who are out to take the Christians down. The government, the terrorists they're fighting a war against, the people of America who hate them. Everyone anywhere could be a villain for this story, and that knowledge haunts Mel.

But then there's also a kid named Mitch who bullies all the Christians at their school. Bully is a light word. He's a literal monster and makes all of them, especially Mel and her friend Bryce, as miserable as he humanly can. I really, really don't like him.

6. What excites you the most about this novel?

Not writing fantasy for a little while! :/

Seriously, though, as I mentioned in the last post about this book...I'm just so grateful to have had a brief break to really focus on writing something that wasn't Pentegreens! xD They're my sweet precious children and I love them, but I needed a break from them, I really did.

7. Is this going to be a series? Standalone? Something else?

Trilogy, probably. For a while I thought it was going to be a trilogy but then didn't know what I was going to have to do to get it to that point. Then this incarnation of it gave me several huge subplots that I can run with for at least two more books, and that excites me. Finding the actual plot of my stories is super fun and I appreciate it more than I can say.

8. Are you plotting? Pantsing? Plansting?

Pantsing. Hardcore pantsing. I have a couple of ideas about where this story is going, but when I've been writing it I've been sitting down to just vomit words and ideas onto the page. (That was graphic, I'm sorry xD) I need to have some vague ideas of where I'm going but...pantsing is my true love.

Technically, I'm pantsing the Pentegreens too, but that story is basically just transferring the epic in my head to paper. So there's a difference there :P

9. Name a few things that makes this story unique.

-Christian dystopian
-It's pretty dark
-Purple neon lighting!
-Sibling relationships of all sorts
-Friends
-A jock who's also a nerd

10. Share a fun “extra” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

Here's the story playlist:

(language warning on the song "What Would You Do") (also I bet you can't tell which album is the aesthetic of this entire story)

And the Pinterest board: (click to find the rest of the board:)

I hope you enjoyed this post, and learning a little more about my crazy WIP that will probably never see the light of day! How did your NaNo go? Are you amazed that I pulled off the victory I did? (Heaven knows I am.) Chat with me in the comments!

23 comments

Spreading Hope

by R.F. Gammon - November 30, 2018

A couple days ago, I was making muffins in the kitchen, and happened to glance at the back of the box. Under the required instruction was another serving suggestion: "For a delicious treat, add x amount of coconut." My knee-jerk reaction was to laugh at this--aren't muffins already a delicious treat? Someone didn't phrase that right.

But then I stopped, and I looked at it again.

And it hit me: I don't want to be the cynic.

At my workplace, I am hands-down the optimist, which is weird because I'm also a grouchy, angsty, whiny complainer who can grouse just as loudly as anyone else in there. But while my coworkers tend to be all grumpy all the time, I can usually find a bright side to things. At home, though, that attitude vanishes from me, and I'm left with only my cynicism.

Sometimes, I'm okay with that. I like to laugh, and I like to be sarcastic, and I like to be angsty. But there's too much about life that's beautiful to do that too much. God made his world full of beauty and truth and hope.

Our world is full of darkness. Bombs go off, women die in childbirth, wars are fought, kids are stolen off the street, people verbally rip each other to shreds...and that barely scratches the surface of everything that's wrong with Planet Earth. It would be so easy to be cynical, to let the darkness around us overcome us just like everyone else in the world. But we're called to something else.

"You are the light of the world," Jesus says. "A city on a hill cannot be hidden."

And that's you. That's me. That's all of us who are His. We are the light of the world! We're called to shine our lanterns into the dark. We don't take our candle and put it under a basket--what would be the purpose of that? No, we hold the light up high and let everyone see it.

I strive to take this attitude in my writing and have for years. My books may be very, very dark. They may feature real horror situations within my alternate history and dystopia. The fantasy may contain torture and death. The protagonists mess up and make mistakes that affect everyone around them; my stories are full of real PTSD and depression.

But we are also called to light. And hope.

And so I always want to leave my readers with a sense that no matter how great the darkness, the light will overcome. The darkness of my stories is great--because my hope is that you will see as a result the still greater light. In my Pentegreen series, Esma endures hardship that makes me cry as I write it. But that's why, in the end (*spoiler alert*), she will triumph. I will never write a story with a tragic ending. You might see me kill off half my characters--my protagonist isn't usually immune to this, although I've never killed one of them (at least so far). But there will be victory over the darkness.

That's why I write big, epic, sprawling stories--because the greater the scope, the greater the stakes, and the more hope and victory there is in the end. These are the stories I strive to give the world, and it's the kind of story I want my life to write.

God calls me to be his light. And even though with man it may be impossible for me to show only hope and not succumb to darkness, with God, all things are possible.

I'm going to seek to live a life of hope and light. Will you join me, friends?

35 comments

Black Friday Sale! (This is not an ad lol)

by R.F. Gammon - November 23, 2018

2 comments

Know the Novel Linkup Part 2: Guess What Faith is Writing Now? (Hint: It's NOT Pentegreens)

by R.F. Gammon - November 16, 2018

Hey, people! Today I return to you with Part 2 of the Know the Novel linkup! However, there's a twist on this post: I'm not blogging about the Pentegreens like I said I would be in the last Know the Novel linkup post. *winks* No, this post and even my NaNo novel are not related to Esma, Rishatta, Bernathel, or any of the other Pentegreen characters. I changed my mind last minute about my novel.

Now, I'm writing my Dystopian futuristic Christian novel, Watched.

[all pics in this post are from Pinterest, and all rights to their owners and original creators. I own none of them.]

Since y'all don't know much about Watched, here's a synopsis, and I'll also give you some ideas of the characters. More details will come in the end-of-NaNo post when I tell you ALLLLLL about the main characters and setting from this novel.

Synopsis

A world at war. A nation divided. And a group of people caught in the middle...

America's war with the rest of the world has dragged on for nearly a decade, and soldiers willing to fight grow scarce. After doing away with the draft nearly thirty years ago, it becomes clear that if homeland defense is to be maintained, more people must be sent to the front.

It's a perfect way to both win a war and deal with the Christian problem.

Mel Alltote wants nothing more than to live her life for Jesus and escape the boy at her school who seems hell-bent on torturing her. But when the new edicts put not only her but her family into unthinkable danger, she must make a choice: does she stand for Jesus, or does she run for him?

With the help of Jeannie, her relentlessly optimistic best friend; Bryce, the genius boy torn between his promise of a future and his faith; Opal, Mel's quirky and fierce older sister; and Lucas Burns, the school's resident heartthrob, she may just be able to make it out of here. But the government is closing in.

And soon, it may be too late.

Decent synopsis? Idk. But hopefully it's okay xD Now that this is out of the way, let's move on to the actual questions, brought to you by Christine Smith @Musings of an Elf.

LE QUESTIONNES

1. How's the writing going?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh gosh.
[insert sarcastic hysterical laughing gif here]
Well.

I've been so insanely busy for the entire month of November. At the time I'm writing this, I'm not even at 12k yet. I haven't hit 15k. I've written less than a thousand words per day if you divide it up. So...word count wise I'm doing horribly.

But story wise?

This is a story I love, y'all, and it's really going well. I'm learning my characters in a way I haven't for a while, and it feels amazing to be in our world, writing about a non-Pentegreen cast of characters. Don't get me wrong--I adore Esma, Rishatta, Kariana, Derek, Anna, and all the other crazy kids in the Pentegreen series. And yet...I'm so glad to work with different crazy kids. I needed a break after almost a full year with them.

These characters are the BEST.

2. What's been the most fun aspect of writing this book so far?

Surprisingly enough, it's the romance.

See, I've written plenty of other books with romance in the past. However, in the Pentegreen series, the romance is either on the back burner or so chock-full of spoilers that no one knows how it goes except me and my best friend. :P (and no, you're not going to get spoilers. Sorry-not-sorry.) But in this book, for some reason, the romance has ended up being the main focus, which I wasn't exactly planning but which is still fun. My hero is the first attempt at a "heart throb" character I've ever written, and Mel, my main character, is just such a feisty and irritable character than I can't help loving her. They don't get along very well at the moment, but...they're getting there. They're working on it. *looks up and whistles innocently*

3. Has your novel surprised you in any way?

It's changed so much since the last draft that it's barely recognizable as the same story.

One character that I love and have always loved has been proving himself unnecessary and may end up cut from the final draft unless I can find some better use for him *cries*

I'm barely writing half the words I'd expected to be writing

The characters are taking this plot places I had no clue it was going to go

Overall, yeah. My novel is surprising me like crazy. Everything about it is a surprise.

Go figure.

4. What do you think of your characters at this point? Who's your favorite to write about?

I'm LOVING my characters.

I have a 100% supportive and loving girl-girl friendship going on in this book, where Mel and her best friend Jeannie get along, hang out whenever they can, pray together, watch the news together, and may or may not be involved in covert work together. Don't get me wrong, I try to have girl-girl friendships in all my books, but in the Pentegreen series we'll just say that Esma and Kariana's relationship is...tumultuous, to say the least. xD

Then there's all the sibling relationships. Mel has a little brother named Win and an older sister named Opal, both some of the more distinctive characters I've created if I do say so myself, and they all get along like real siblings and alternate between death threats and crying in each other's arms and I love them all. My precious bbys.

My favorite character? Well. As I mentioned above, it's been nice to write from the POV of someone not named Esma, and Mel is also writing from first-person, present-tense, which I haven't done in decades probably, so that's super fun. But I'm also loving Lucas, because the Hot Boy. xD (And Jeannie's pretty great too. I'm a sucker for Manic Pixie Dream Girls, as well as optimist characters, and Jeannie is both.)

5. If you were transported into your novel and became any one of the characters, which one do you think you’d be? Would you take any different actions than they have?

I'd probably become Mel, because she's the fearful and uncertain one who has to contend right up front with the darkness out to get her. I try to make her faith struggles and her life reflect struggles I've had in mine.

Even so, she's more fearless than I am. So...I'd probably be way more paranoid even then my poor sweet Mel.

6. Give us the first sentence or paragraph and then 2 (or 3!) more favorite snippets!

Here is my first line:

For some, running late might be an inconvenience, little more. Some people are allergic to running late, not wanting to offend people. Others are more lenient and show up late to everything— work, school, family meals, dates, and everything else. I’m not one of those people, and I’m also not merely allergic to running late.
No, for me running late could be deadly.

And let's see if I can find a couple more snippets (I'll be posting a wrap-up post before too long featuring all the snippets, but I'll try and find a couple others now ;))

“Excuse me, babe, is this seat taken?”
I don’t look up. It’s a guy’s voice, one I don’t recognize. He’s probably not talking to me anyway— no guy in their right mind would call me “babe.”
“Hey.” A finger taps my shoulder. “The seat next to you. Is. It. Taken.”
I lift my head up slowly, swiping at my red and swollen eyes as I look. I blink several times, glance away, and look back, just to make sure I’m not dreaming.
It’s a new boy.

And this one:

Fifty years ago they said there would soon be flying cars, vehicles that could lift you up into the air and fly you around with just the touch of a button. Like airplanes, but owned privately. Only they never invented them. The Third World War and the Depression of 2035 took care of that. Any money America had went in the toilet, and we had to declare bankruptcy as a nation. Not even private companies had enough to live off of, and the corporations that exist now are completely different than the old ones.

Except for KFC. Dad says KFC will never die.

7. Have you come across any problem areas?

The world-building, probably: There's been a lot of development as I go along, and that makes it difficult for me to determine exactly how my story will go. There's also the fact that I'm pantsing this book. It's been a while since I've straight-out pantsed a novel (yes, I have some idea of where I'm going and what I'm doing, but I haven't done it in a while). And yeah, that feels good...but it's also somewhat stressful xD

8. What’s been your biggest victory with writing this novel at this point?

The fact that I've gotten through the first 15k of a totally pantsed novel! The fact that I've written 15k at all! I'm so proud that, even with my insane schedule, I've pulled this off. It's been incredible. :D

9. Be honest, have you killed any characters off yet?

No, actually! Not yet, that is. Not even any side characters. I tend to save that for the end, when it happens, and then kill everyone in a line. *shifty side eyes* This doesn't happen multiple times in the Pentegreen series, definitely not...

10. Take us on a tour of a what a normal writing day for this particular novel has looked like. Where do you write? What time of day? Alone or with others? Is a lot of coffee (or some other drink) consumed? Do you light candles? Play music? Get distracted by social media (cough, cough)? Tell all!

There is no normal writing day. Everything is death and decay and writing frantically at 10:30 at night after work and trying to multitask writing, homework, and watching Doctor Who. I'm doing my best, y'all. I blast my Spotify as loud as I can, sit at my desk, and bang out as many words as I can before I simply can't stay awake anymore. Usually that's about 1,000 words. I know--I'm pathetic xD

So that's that! I hope you enjoyed this little look at my current WIP, as welll as the glimpse at what NaNoWriMo looks like for me this year xD How's your NaNo going? Are you more successful word-wise than me? Talk to me in the comments!

27 comments

Rising Author Tag

1. What is the weirdest thing someone has ever said to you about your writing?

2. What is the worst thing you ever wrote?

3. What is the most awkward scene you've ever written?

4. On a scale from 1 to 10, how often do you end up writing more than 3 chapters of the stories you start?

5. What is the hardest thing for you to write?

6. When you look back at your early writing pieces, what's one thing you can see you've improved in?

7. How do you name characters?

8. If you had to pick one genre to write in forever, what would it be?

9. Which of your characters do you feel most guilty about?

10. Which of your characters deserves everything you've given them?

A Synopsis

A Few Caveats

1. Keep up with my writing goals

2. Reach 500 Instagram followers

3. Start a ledger

4. Pray outside a Planned Parenthood/abortion clinic 10 times.

5. Get my license

6. Work out 3 times a week.

7. Make a college decision.

8. Tell my friends how I really feel.

9. Read the Bible in a year

10. Sing like no one is listening

11. Break a habit

12. Tell someone about the Gospel

13. Stay under allotted daily time on phone

14. Discover new music

Risk.

2018: A Wrapup

Music

Books

Writing

I wrote 591, 860 words of fiction this year.

Snippets

Movies

Life

The word to sum up my 2018 is:

growth.

In Conclusion

FALL OUT BOY!

The Songs

Centuries

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)

Bishops Knife Trick

Sugar, We're Goin' Down

Just One Yesterday

Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)

I Don't Care

Jet Pack Blues

The Kids Aren't Alright

Fourth of July

Honorable Mentions

Review

Giveaway

2. Share a blurb!

3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?

4. Tell us about your protagonist.

5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?

6. What excites you the most about this novel?

7. Is this going to be a series? Standalone? Something else?

8. Are you plotting? Pantsing? Plansting?

9. Name a few things that makes this story unique.

10. Share a fun “extra” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

Synopsis

LE QUESTIONNES

1. How's the writing going?

2. What's been the most fun aspect of writing this book so far?

3. Has your novel surprised you in any way?

4. What do you think of your characters at this point? Who's your favorite to write about?

5. If you were transported into your novel and became any one of the characters, which one do you think you’d be? Would you take any different actions than they have?

6. Give us the first sentence or paragraph and then 2 (or 3!) more favorite snippets!

7. Have you come across any problem areas?

8. What’s been your biggest victory with writing this novel at this point?

9. Be honest, have you killed any characters off yet?

10. Take us on a tour of a what a normal writing day for this particular novel has looked like. Where do you write? What time of day? Alone or with others? Is a lot of coffee (or some other drink) consumed? Do you light candles? Play music? Get distracted by social media (*cough, cough*)? Tell all!

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10. Take us on a tour of a what a normal writing day for this particular novel has looked like. Where do you write? What time of day? Alone or with others? Is a lot of coffee (or some other drink) consumed? Do you light candles? Play music? Get distracted by social media (cough, cough)? Tell all!